Out of Character Alert: Difference between revisions

 

Compare with [[Not Himself]], contrast with [[Something Only They Would Say]] (in which a character is identified by a characteristic) and [[Bluff the Impostor]].

 

* In an early '70s TV commercial for the short-lived Cap'n Crunch variant ''Vanilly Crunch'', the good captain's ship is approached by Wilma the Whale, the mascot for that cereal. After the captain does a description of the cereal, he shoots a cannon at the whale! Turns out that pirate Jean [[La Foote]] (the "bad guy" in these ads) had disguised his now-sinking vessel as Wilma. Cap'n Crunch knew it because he described Vanilly Crunch and the whale didn't smile.

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* This trope is a key plot point in the ''[[Weiss Kreuz]]'' OAV ''Verbrechen ~ Strafe''. During a mission briefing, when asked if she's well, Weiss's [[The Handler|handler]] Manx replies that she's having trouble with her allergy to black lilies. Much later, when Weiss finish springing their trap on the villain who was holding Manx hostage, they reveal that "[[Flower Motifs|black lily]]" is a codeword indicating "lies," and that Manx's comment had alerted them to the fact that the orders given in that mission briefing were fraudulent.

* In the Chuunin exams arc of ''[[Naruto]]'', Sasuke proposes using a password in case of enemy ninjas using doppelgangers to imitate one of them (again), and makes up a long poem as the passphrase. A few scenes later, Naruto excuses himself to pee, and when he returns he is quizzed for the passphrase, and successfully gives it. Of course, Sasuke knows that the real Naruto would not have remembered such a long passphrase, and that he was being spied on when he made it.

* In ''[[Eyeshield 21]]'', at the start of the second half of the Devil Bats' game with the Shinryuji Nagas, Hiruma says their chances of winning are almost 0%, and that the team shouldn't do anything drastic as to harm their future careers. {{spoiler|Turns out it was all an act; everybody knows Hiruma would never tell them to give up unless the odds were exactly zero, so everyone (and we do mean ''everyone'') silently went for an onside kick as to not let the enemy know they were changing plans.}}

* In ''[[One Piece]]'', Vivi begins to suspect that there's something wrong with Usopp when he tells her to abandon the injured Carue, referring to him as "that bird." The real Usopp not only knows Carue's name, but is fairly close to Carue. In fact, it was Mr. 2 (Bon Clay) impersonating him in order to trick her.

* At one point in ''[[Dragon Ball]] GT'', Goku knew immediately that a mind-controlled Vegeta is [[Not Himself]] because he was calling him "Goku". The real Vegeta always made a point of referring to Goku by his ''Saiyan'' name, Kakarot.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* [[Batgirl|Barbara Gordon]] and [[Blue Beetle|Ted Kord]] [http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/868616.html know each other well.] A robot impersonates his voice, yet "Babs, fortunately, is no fool, and knows Ted far too well to fall for that shit."

 

 

== [[Film]] ==

{{quote|'''The Terminator:''' ''[to John]'' What's the dog's name?

'''John:''' Max.

'''The Terminator:''' ''[hangs up the phone]'' Your foster parents are dead. }}

** It happens again when the T-1000 takes Sarah Connor's form and asks for help, something the real Sarah had previously berated her son for doing. The other Sarah instead tells John to get out of the way, something the T-1000 would not be inclined to tell his target.

{{quote|''Mal and Inara have a polite, awkward conversation by videophone, with Inara inviting Mal to visit her. Discussion with the rest of the crew ensues.''

'''Zoe''': So. Trap?

'''Mal''', ''matter-of-factly'': Trap. }}

** The DVD release includes an amusing alternate take where Mal instead screams that last ''"TRAP!"'' at the top of his lungs.

* In ''[[Die Hard]] With a Vengeance'', a bunch of German mercenaries impersonate cops. Although the leader speaks English with a flawless American accent, he slips up on a few word choices, such as calling an elevator a "lift" and saying that it's raining "dogs and cats," instead of the usual "cats and dogs. When McClane recognizes that one of them is wearing a friend's badge, and mentions the lottery to figure out if anyone on the elevator is real. None of the fake cops know last night's numbers, though in the beginning it's established that every NYPD cop plays the lottery with their badge number.

* Since we don't have a "Something They Would Never Do"-Trope: One of the ''[[Dirty Harry]]'' films had Harry walk into a café that was being robbed. Everyone inside was forced to act naturally while "The Cop" made his order, but the waitress managed to warn Harry by pouring about five tea-spoons of sugar in his coffee after ten years of "His Usual" being No Sugar, No Milk.

* Inverted in ''[[Single White Female]]'': Allie has just realized the extent of her roommate Hedy's depravity and psychosis when she realizes that she's murdered her boyfriend. Desperate to get out of the apartment without arousing Hedy's suspicion, Allie hurriedly claims that her upstairs neighbor Graham had called her and invited her to hang out with him. Unfortunately, unknown to Allie, Hedy bludgeoned Graham to death the previous night (but as it turns out he was merely unconscious) and knows Allie's lying.

* In [[Inglourious Basterds]] one of the team's plans gets upset by this when, trying to pass for German soldiers and ordering drinks, they use the American gesture for the number three instead of the German version. The real German soldiers notice this and promptly try to eliminate the imposters.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'' presents a written variant in the third book. The trio's Grammar Nazi auntie leaves them what looked like a suicide note, but was filled with mistakes, leading them to deduce that it was written under duress and contained some hidden message. Which it did: the letters involved in the misspelled and malformed words spelled out where she was actually hiding.

* In the ''[[Jack Reacher]]'' novel "Tripwire", his girl-friend has been captured and been ordered to lure him into a trap. She calls him up and opens the conversation with "Hi, Jack". The point is that the main character is *always* called Reacher, by everyone including his mother when he was very young, and no one ever uses his first name. The coincidence of "Hi, Jack" and "hijack" only makes it more convincing that this is indeed a trap.

* In ''Fearless'', there's one arc where Gaia is being forced to humiliate Ed Fargo. He asks her "You're enjoying this aren't you?" and Gaia answers, "Yes, I like torturing you. Almost as much as I like Lox." This is actually more of a coded message, as Gaia hates Lox and is trying to tell Ed she is being forced to do this. However, she would never say she likes Lox, so it works.

* In the second ''Lady Grace'' mystery, Lady Sarah is abducted by a sea captain, and alerts Grace/ anyone who can help with a message passed by a commoner that she sends her love to " Lady Jane, my dearest friend". the two young women hate each other with passion, and so Grace and Masu are off to the rescue in a trice.

* In ''[[Wayside School]] Gets A Little Stranger'', the students' voices are stolen by [[Evil Teacher|evil substitute teacher]] [[Voice Changeling|Mr. Gorf]]; when the lunch lady asks how the class is doing from outside the door, Mr. Gorf tries to trick her by using the voices of the students to say that everything is okay. The lunch lady figures out something is wrong, though, when the voice of the meanest student in the class says "Have a nice day!"

* One old spy story had a member of the French Resistance of [[World War II]] giving out the duress code while they were under duress and having their [[What an Idiot!|British contact in England tell them they made a mistake]], "That's the duress code, you need to remember not to use that." Needless to say, [[It Got Worse|things went downhill from there]].

* In the [[Tom Clancy]]/Larry Bond novel ''Red Storm Rising'', Air Force weatherman Mike Edwards, stranded on occupied Iceland and radioing NATO everything he sees, is given a Duress Code. Played with in that he nearly says it by mistake. (If captured and made to phone in phony reports, he is supposed to preface the message with "Beagle Calling Doghouse, things are going great.)

* In ''[[The Dresden Files]]: Blood Rites'', after the two of them are captured by the [[Big Bad]], Lord Raith, Murphy calls Harry "Mister Dresden." Raith dismisses it without a second thought, but Harry immediately picks up on it as her playing up being helpless, as it went against both the [[Vitriolic Best Buds|nature]] of their friendship and her feminist personality.

* In ''[[World War Z]]'' the Chinese doctor who encountered one of the first victims of the zombie plague had a friend working in the government. This friend was an eternal pessimist; no matter the situation, he'd always assume it was going to get worse. When the doctor tells his friend about the victim over the phone the friend says, "Don't worry. Everything's going to be all right." That's when the doctor knew that things were really bad.

* John Birmingham's ''Axis Of Time'': A [[Time Travel|temporally-displaced]] multinational fleet from 2021 and the US Pacific Fleet of 1941 have just engaged in battle by accident, and are trying to sort out the situation. One of the 1941 sailors volunteers to go over to the future fleet, and arranges a duress signal with his superiors by suggesting "My sainted mother taught me never to swear, so if anything is wrong, I could slip in a fucking profanity, sir."

* In ''[[Ender's Game]]'', Ender gets a message that really ''was'' written by his sister Val, but he figures out that something is off about it. He correctly guesses that the military told her to write it and told her that Ender wouldn't receive it unless she wrote what they wanted her to.

** More to the point, Valentine adds so many personal in-jokes and idiosyncracies that Ender can't help but assume that she was told to write the letter in such a way that it was stupidly obvious that it was her.

* In the LionBoy series, the main character knows his parents are in trouble because their letter to him is written the way an adult talks to a child, while his parents always talk to him like he was older. He and his parents use this in all their communications throughout the series.

* In one ''[[Maximum Ride]]'' book, a clone of Max tries to take her place. The kids realize something is up when she offers to cook (as Max is a [[Lethal Chef]] and leaves the cooking to Iggy), and when she expresses surprise that Iggy would know his way around considering that he's blind. Of course, Angel can read minds, too, which the clone has no clue of, so ''she'' knew right away.

 

* Played twice in the first six hours of ''[[24]]'': Kim said "I love you" over the phone to her mother Teri after being kidnapped, and Teri said the same to Jack under similar circumstances. (Amusingly, Teri catches on immediately, while her counter-terrorism-trained husband [[Genre Blindness|doesn't notice]].)

* Used quite a bit on ''[[Knight Rider]]'', usually to indicate something very wrong with KITT. In the episode "Killer KITT", KITT snapping at Michael was an indication that his programming was being messed with.

** One episode of the new series had a hilarious variation when Mike is impersonating a member of a group [[The Caper|out to steal from a Vegas casino]]. The leader figures out something is wrong because Mike is too ''competent''.

* The ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of". A robotic double is made of Kirk, with the robot having a duplicate of his mind as well. Kirk foils the plan during the procedure by mentally focusing on a racist insult toward Spock, something he would never normally say but which is consequently implanted into the double.

** There's another one in "Whom the Gods Destroy," when the villain tries to bluff his way out of failing a Trust Password test by telling Scotty that he was just testing to make sure that he wouldn't let anyone beam up without the password. Given how long Kirk and Scotty have known one another, and how much they trust one another, Scotty immediately figures out that the "just testing you" story is bogus.

* On ''[[Angel]]'', Lorne appears to have pursued a career in show business and is only seen during brief telephone calls every few episodes, and each time, he asks how Fluffy is doing. The main characters are convinced that his success is just going to his head and that he is constantly snubbing them, but when they finally come to his rescue, he says, "Fluffy. Fluffy the dog. The dog you don't have. The universally recognized code for I'm being held prisoner. Send help!"

** Hilariously played off when they got the call originally.

** Martha Jones figures out that her parents are speaking under duress when her mother tells her that her father is in the same room without so much as a raised voice.

*** Subverted in the same scene when Martha asks her father to just answer "yes" or "no" if there's someone else there. Unfortunately, the someone else can hear both sides of the conversation.

** Also done earlier in "New Earth", when Cassandra pulls a [[Grand Theft Me]] on Rose. He doesn't initially suspect anything, even when Rose suddenly kisses him and starts speaking a little strange. However, when they find out that {{spoiler|the hospital is making clones and infecting them with diseases}} and Rose doesn't react with horror, the Doctor knows something's wrong.

*** In this instance the Doctor starts to get suspicious just after she kisses him, when she leads them both into the secret intensive care unit by using technical knowledge he knows she doesn't have. Suspicions are confirmed when Rose doesn't care about {{spoiler|the dying patients.}}

* On ''[[Psych]]'', Lassiter gets a text message from "Shawn" and follows it right into the trap the killer set. When Lassiter gets there, a captive Shawn says, "I can't believe you thought that text was actually from me. It lacked all nuance, was lacking my signature mocking tone, and was totally devoid of emoticons."

* ''[[Andromeda]]'' had Dylan Hunt blinking a code with his eyes when he was kidnapped, his ship computer was programmed to detect it.

* An episode of ''[[Tales from the Crypt]]'' had the bad guy threatening the protagonist with his wife's gun, which she normally keeps in her purse for self defence. With the husband taken hostage using the gun, he attempts to lure the wife in by telling her that the husband is threatening to commit suicide with the same gun he's holding. Unfortunately for the bad guy, both husband and wife know that {{spoiler|the wife [[It Works Better with Bullets|doesn't keep any bullets]] in the gun.}}

* In a first-season episode of ''[[Jericho]]'', Johnston uses this technique to flush out a group of desperate con-artists posing as Marines, by mixing Marine and Army mottos to see if they'd recognize the wrong ones.

'''Pilot''': Enjoying each other's company. Preparing a meal for... everyone but Rygel. He's... not hungry. }}

** After hanging up Crichton says "something's wrong".

** In an earlier episode, Hotch was uncharacteristically frustrated with Reid's earlier difficulty in the shooting range after they had both been captured. He eventually convinced the UNSUB to let him kick Reid before they both died, which gave Reid a chance to grab the gun in his ankle holster. Later Reid said he'd figured out the plan at the very beginning, making the drawn-out scene unnecessary.

** In the DVD commentary for "Revelations," the writers mused on this swap and eventually agreed that Reid and Hotch have "a very effective spite-based communication."

** in a previous episode, a 12 year old boy was being held hostage, and used the proof of life video his captors took to try to alert everyone to his location. " Don't forget to feed Ace," he says, only his family doesn't have any pets. Ace turns out to be a place, a subway station where lines A, C and E all run. Thanks to Castles quick thinking and the victim of the week's invention, the kid is rescued.

* In a chilling episode of ''[[Rescue 911]]'', a woman is told by a rapist to call in sick to her workplace. She promptly dials a male friend and tells him, "I can't come in to work today," thus alerting the friend that she's in trouble and he needs to stop by PRONTO. A few seconds later, she does the same thing again with 911, and the dispatcher immediately works out that there's something wrong and sends the police.

* On an episode of ''[[Baywatch]]'', as Stephanie gets into her truck, she's confronted by an escaped convict, who orders her to drive off the beach. During the drive, Mitch radios Stephanie to tell her to return to headquarters. The criminal orders Stephanie to tell Mitch that she has found a lost child and is driving him around to find his parents. Stephanie complies, knowing that the criminal has just [[Hoist by His Own Petard|hoisted himself by his own petard]]. Ironically, in his efforts to avoid detection, ''he's'' the one who has told her to say [[Something They Would Never Say|something she would never say]]. The lifeguards NEVER drive lost children around to find their parents. Policy dictates that they bring the children to headquarters. Sure enough, Mitch realizes Stephanie's in trouble and sends the police to find her.

* Rather terrifyingly [[Inverted]] in an episode of ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]''. The setup is that [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing|Morgana]] has convinced [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|King Uther]] that his son Arthur has been enchanted by Guinevere. Convinced that Arthur is under a spell Uther orders Guinevere to be burnt at the stake, at which point a panicking Arthur tells his father that he'd be willing to renounce his claim on the throne if only Guinevere is spared. Unfortunately, Uther takes this as "final proof" that Arthur is under a spell, claiming that it's something that he would never say. Except of course, he ''does''.

* ''[[Super Robot Wars]]: Original Generation'' subverts this. When a main character's girlfriend disappears and later reappears, the character remarks that it's not her, because "even she wouldn't be silly at a time like this". When they break the mind control, she acts just like she did when she was mind-controlled. Another character mutters "Would never act like this in this situation, huh?".

* In ''[[Marvel Ultimate Alliance]]'', [[Doctor Doom]]'s henchmen get "Dum Dum" Dugan to come to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Omega Base by relaying a [[Distress Call]]. However, [[Nick Fury]] figures out it is a trap when Dugan (purposefully) lists Bruce Banner as being a scientist researching the Super Soldier Serum when he is in fact assigned to the Gamma Bomb project.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* In ''[[Questionable Content]]'', Faye and her [[Crazy Prepared]] mother have worked out a code phrase for when Faye was being held against her will.

{{quote|'''Faye''': No mother, the peaches are '''definitely not ripe'''.}}

{{quote|'''Belkar''': Let's stop the violence.

'''Side Character''': See? Even your other party member agrees which means-

'''Celia and Haley''': (together) [[Oh Crap|RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!]] }}

** [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0723.html Later], Tarquin figures out that Elan is not [[Evil Twin|Nale]] partly because Elan [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0722.html surrendered] to save a teammate, which Nale would never do.

'''Malack''': Now that you mention it, I did find that odd. }}

* Played with in ''[[Terror Island]]''. In [http://terrorisland.net/strips/184.html this strip], the protagonists recognize that their friend Jame is possessed by a demon, when he says "SOUNDS LIKE SOMEBODY HAS BEEN EATING SOUR GRAPES." But when the demon is banished from Jame, [http://www.terrorisland.net/strips/185.html he says exactly the same thing], and Sid proclaims "That's our Jame!" Unless it's because demons simply [[Painting the Fourth Wall|talk with different]] [[Speech Bubbles]]...

* In [[Girl Genius|Othar Trygvassen]]'s ('''''[[Gentleman Adventurer]]''''') [[Character Blog|twitter]]:

{{quote|"That letter is a fraud! Othar Tryggvassen may do things that lesser men find objectionable or slightly illegal, but I never apologize!"}}

* In ''[[Exiern]]'' Neils tries to drop hints [http://www.exiern.com/?p=1340 here] that he has been be-spelled and is no longer fully in control of his own actions by calling Crown Princess Peonie the "Second In Line To The Throne" instead of the first. It seems like no one notices at the time though. Peonie had to have it spelled out to her after the inevitable kidnapping, but her father was just going along with it 'til he could get his other assets in play.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* In the [[Whateley Universe]] story "Test Tube Babies", team superboy Lancer is fighting a power mimic/shapeshifter who now looks like Lancer. One of them yells at a teammate with an anti-brick weapon to 'shoot both of us'. The teammate blasts that one senseless. Not only is the teammate [[Genre Savvy]], but they have communicators they would really use instead.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* In ''[[The Spectacular Spider-Man]]'' {{spoiler|Norman Osborn does not apologize.}} The Chameleon would though.

* On an episode of ''[[Men in Black (animation)|Men in Black]]'', J instantly realized that an alien was impersonating K, because K would never had laughed at any of his jokes.

** Which is sort of ironic, because usually, [[The Speechless|Jericho doesn't either]].

* In the opening movie of the ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]'' cartoon, Rex clues Anakin and Ahsoka into the fact that the surviving members of the group of clones they'd been captured by saying "Anakin, we've held the droids. What is your position?" This clues them in because all clones address Jedi by either "General" for Knights or "Commander" for Padawans, never by name.

* Averted on ''[[Family Guy]]''. Lois is being held at gunpoint by Diane Simmons, and she tries to signal to Peter that something by calling him "Pete" (something she never does), while Peter does question it, he quickly ignores it and leaves so he can listen to music in the car.

{{quote|'''Frylock''': The real Shake thinks the blood drive is a pyramid scheme.}}

* Subverted in ''[[American Dad]]''. Francine is threatening Stan with a gun for trying to ditch her at her high school reunion with his CIA body double, Bill. One of them gives a heartfelt speech about how he was selfishly putting her down while trying to make up for his past inadequacies. Francine determines that the real Stan would never say something so sincere and shoots the opposite {{spoiler|who, [[Accent Relapse|reverting to his Southern accent]], turns out to be Bill the double, after all. Stan [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|really was apologizing]]}}.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* Some biometric fingerprint scanners have a "panic" feature: One of the user's fingers is designated as the "panic finger": In normal conditions the user does ''not'' press it against the scanner to be verified; if they do, it still grants access but also trips a silent alarm.

* As mentioned in ''[[Bravo Two Zero]]'', people in the military, particularly special forces who may be likely to be captured, will often agree on a sign that they are being forced to do something under duress. In this book, one of the captured soldiers is forced to make a video message stating that all's well. He is given a cigarette to add to the illusion. His signal that all's not well is to hold the cigarette differently than he usually would.

* When captured during [[The Vietnam War]], then-aviator Jeremiah Denton communicated to the American audience during a televised interview by blinking in Morse code, spelling out the word "torture".

* One urban legend describes a prisoner of war forced to write a letter to his family saying that he is being treated well. In the letter is a cryptic sentence: "Please give little Jimmie the stamp for his collection." The family doesn't know anyone named Jimmie, so they realize that it must be a clue. They steam the stamp off the envelope, and on the other side is written the truth of the prisoner's condition: "They've cut off my [hands/legs/tongue]."

** Not to mention that letters sent by POW don't have stamps, at least not before they've entered Red Cross' hands.

* Some businesses have, as a standard response to someone making threats, a protocol for calling 911. The employee tells the person they will have a supervisor paged, pick up the phone, dial 911, and then hang up. When 911 calls back, they respond as if talking to a supervisor with simple "yes" and "no" answers.

* If the pilot of an aircraft sets their transponder code to 7500 or says 'squawk 7500' over the radio and then does not respond, air traffic control will assume the aircraft is being or has been hijacked. There are also other, confidential, measures taken. In fact, great emphasis is placed on the part of radio training where pilots are instructed how to avoid ''accidentally'' flipping their transponder to 7500 while switching codes.

* It's very obvious when someone else is doing something on another person's Facebook, or MSN.

** There was a meme for a while of hacking, say, Bobby's facebook and making his status "hi my name is Bobby" as a signature.

 

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