Prince and Pauper/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Character A and Character B, from wildly different backgrounds, swap roles.

  • Straight: People believe that working-class cafe waitress Wanda is wealthy socialite Haley and that Haley is Wanda.
  • Exaggerated: Haley and Wanda do a perfect job of pretending to be each other, even knowing things they cannot possibly know.
  • Justified: Haley and Wanda are Separated at Birth, clones, one's a doppelganger...
  • Subverted: Wanda has a large scar that distinguishes herself from Haley.
  • Double Subverted: Haley gives herself the same scar.
  • Parodied: Wanda and Haley look wildly different but no one seems to notice.
  • Deconstructed: Wanda has no idea how to act like Haley and is identified as an impostor quickly.
  • Reconstructed: So Haley teaches Wanda how to act like her.
  • Zig Zagged: The two switch places constantly as people try to tell them apart.
  • Averted: Wanda and Haley never consider pretending to be one another.
  • Enforced: "Our plot puts the main character in two places at once, let's give him a twin or something."
  • Lampshaded: "Should I even care which one you are?"
  • Invoked: "Hey Wanda, there is something we can do, Mark Twain wrote this one book..."
  • Exploited: Haley is getting married in London while Wanda (as Haley) is attending a stockholder's meeting in Paris.
  • Defied: Wanda and Haley intentionally distinguish themselves so they can't be misidentified.
  • Discussed: "You just know those two are going to try swapping places."
  • Conversed: "I'd love to see things from your point of view. Why don't we swap?"

Quit pretending you're someone you're not and go back to Prince and Pauper.

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