History Main / MasqueradingAsTheUnseen

See also TheRealRemingtonSteele, which can overlap with this trope if someone tries to hijack what is believed to be an entirely made-up identity, and ConfrontingYourImposter, where someone pulling this trick may fail by having the bad luck to run into the person he's impersonating (likely without even knowing it). Supertrope to DressingAsTheEnemy when this is done with FacelessGoons.

-->-- '''Granny Weatherwax''', ''Discworld/{{Maskerade}}''

* In ''Discworld/{{Maskerade}}'', the Opera Ghost, a mysterious masked patron of the Ankh-Morpork opera house, apparently turns nasty and starts attacking people. Granny Weatherwax realizes the truth, and has a few choice words to say about people assuming that every masked man in evening dress who's been sighted in the opera house is the same man.

* In the fifth part of ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure,'' the boss of the Passione mob, Diavolo, is heavily paranoid about ''anyone'' knowing even the slightest bit of personal information about him. In the side story, ''LightNovel/PurpleHazeFeedback'', we learn that following Diavolo's defeat Giorno Giovanna has essentially assumed his identity, behaving as if he's been the boss all along with no one the wiser.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'': In the episode "Bird of Prey," Alfred dresses as Batman and drives off in the Batmobile when Bruce and the Batman need to be seen in the same place. He shows up just in time, too, as a reporter has just voiced her suspicions to Bruce. Later when Bruce talks to Alfred still in the costume, he points out he put it on backwards. [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Alfred claims he was in a hurry.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman:''
** In the episode "Bird of Prey," Alfred dresses as Batman and drives off in the Batmobile when Bruce and the Batman need to be seen in the same place. He shows up just in time, too, as a reporter has just voiced her suspicions to Bruce.
** Later when Bruce talks to Alfred still in the costume, he points out he put it on backwards. [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Alfred claims he was in a hurry.]]

** Later in the series we get Tobi, a masked member of Akatsuki who uses ObfuscatingStupidity to come off as a ditz. When he later drops the act, he makes the claim that he is Madara Uchiha, an infamous shinobi who was a contemporary of the First Hokage. Despite the fact Madara is supposed to be dead, Tobi's able to back up his claim enough that nobody can completely rule out that it's him. However, we later learn that "Madara" is really [[spoiler:''Obito'' Uchiha]], and was using Madara's infamy to further his own goals.

* Gold in ''Manga/PokemonSpecial'' does this when he wears a replica of [[BigBad Guile Hideout]]'s armor in an attempt to trick Guile's pokémon into listening to him instead of the real Guile.

** In "Operation: Cold Feet", Kit is flummoxed by reports of the Red Panda's being out fighting crime when she knows perfectly well where the Red Panda has been. The Panda himself is surprisingly unconcerned until he sees a similar report about the Flying Squirrel. There episode reveals that the Red Panda has been having how network of agents posing as him to keep up the Red Panda's presence while he and Kit are away in their honeymoon. He ''hadn't'' prepared a fake Flying Squirrel, however. That turns out to be their KidFromTheFuture, the Red Squirrel, acting in her own initiative.

** In the Chuunin Exam arc the Kazekgage, leader of the Hidden Sand Village, is only ever seen from behind a curtain or wearing a mask over his face. His subordinates find nothing odd about this behavior, implying it's normal for him. It's also because of this that Orochimaru is able to kill and later disguise himself as the Kazekage during his attack on the Leaf Village during the Exam.

* In the fifth part of ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure,'' the boss of the Passione mob, Diavolo, is heavily paranoid about ''anyone'' knowing even the slightest bit of personal information about him. In the side story, ''Purple Haze Feedback'', we learn that following Diavolo's defeat Giorno Giovanna has essentially assumed his identity, behaving as if he's been the boss all along with no one the wiser.

** Terryman tried to do this in the Seven Devil Choujin arc, posing as Kinnikuman, whose face is always masked. He's busted because the ImposterForgotOneDetail (that Kinnikuman is right handed)

** A similar case occurs with [[spoiler: [[CainAndAbel Ayato adopting Touka]]'s identity as "Rabbit", TakingTheHeat for her in the process]].

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* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'', a bandit and his gang impersonate Prince Chrom and his Shepherds in order to take control of an island far away from Chrom's country, since the people there likely don't know what the real Chrom looks like. This doesn't explain, however, why Cynthia, the KidFromTheFuture of one of the women in Chrom's army, would also be completely fooled, even if Chrom is ''her father''.

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* In the ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "[[Recap/SupermanTheAnimatedSeriesS3E2KnightTime Knight Time]]", Superman pretends to be Batman when he visits Gotham and finds out Batman is missing and teams up with Robin (who's in on it) to find him. It helps that Superman has a similar build to Batman and can [[VoiceChangeling impersonate Batman's voice]].

** In the episode "Bird of Prey", Alfred dresses as Batman and drives off in the Batmobile when Bruce and the Batman need to be seen in the same place. He shows up just in time, too, as a reporter has just voiced her suspicions to Bruce.
** Later when Bruce talks to Alfred still in the costume, he points out he put it on backwards. [[CrowningMomentOfFunny Alfred claims he was in a hurry.]]

* [[https://www.wired.com/2016/05/craig-wright-ends-attempt-prove-created-bitcoin-im-sorry/ Craig Wright]] pretended to be "Satoshi Nakamoto", the mysterious unknown author of Bitcoin. However, his ruse fell through when he refused to provide cryptographic proof that the real Satoshi Nakamoto would be able to provide.

* ''Series/StargateSG-1''

** Many LegacyCharacter villains trade on the reputation of their predecessors, most notably the various Hobgoblins (which is part of the in-universe explanation for the confusion as to who the original Hobgoblin actually was) and the second and third Mysterios. Roderick Kingsley, the original Hobgoblin, eventually monetised this, hiring out villain identities to criminals who wanted an instant rep.

* The first ''Literature/SpellsSwordsAndStealth'' book, ''[=NPCs=],'' opens with four people playing a tabletop RPG and proving TooDumbToLive through the introductory tavern. Within the game's world, the titular [=NPCs=] fear what will happen when the adventurers don't show up for their summons with the Mad King. When they see that the royal missive identifies the adventures by class rather than by name, they realize the king has never actually interacted with any of them and decide to take up the quest in their place to protect their home from the king's potential wrath.

* ''Literature/{{NPCs}}'' opens with four people playing a tabletop RPG and proving TooDumbToLive through the introductory tavern. Within the game's world, the titular [=NPCs=] fear what will happen when the adventurers don't show up for their summons with the Mad King. When they see that the royal missive identifies the adventures by class rather than by name, they realize the king has never actually interacted with any of them and decide to take up the quest in their place to protect their home from the king's potential wrath.

* Early in ''Manga/DeathNote'', L is highly secretive, speaking to the police only through audio and through his servant Watari. This fact is used against Light Yagami by having a man claim to be L to trick Light into murdering him, exposing his general location to L.

* ''Manga/TokyoGhoul'' sees this happen more than once, due to the habit of Ghouls adopting a CoolMask to protect their real identities.
** A decade prior to the series, [[spoiler: Yoshimura used their near-identical [[InstantArmor kagune]] to impersonate his daughter and throw people off her trail. He continues the ruse into the final chapters of the series, when he is hunted down and defeated by Investigators......and the ''real'' [[BigBad Owl]] shows up to finish off his attackers]].

* ''Film/TheManWithTheGoldenGun''. M tells Film/JamesBond that no one knows what Scaramanga looks like. Later Bond assumes that when Hai Fat hired Scaramanga they never met. He decides to meet Hai Fat while posing as Scaramanga. It turns out Hai Fat ''had'' met Scaramanga and knew Bond was an imposter.

* Beckett does this is the ''Series/{{Castle}}'' episode "In the Belly of the Beast". She is recruited to infiltrate a drug ring by posing as a low level courier the drug lord has never met. However, it turns out the woman is actually an assassin, not a courier. As the drug ring don't know what she looks like, the impersonation still works but becomes a lot more complicated.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'' episode "Bird of Prey", Alfred dresses as Batman and drives off in the Batmobile when Bruce and the Batman need to be seen in the same place. He shows up just in time, too, as a reporter has just voiced her suspicions to Bruce.