History Main / MyGrandsonMyself

* Lazarus Long mentions doing this in Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''TimeEnoughForLove''. Since he effectively doesn't age, he uses makeup to make himself slowly look older over time. After he's been in an area for long enough, he comes back without the makeup as his "son."

* In [[WesternAnimation/ChrisColorado]], [[spoiler:Herb Forsythe III, pretending to be the son of Herb Foresythe II, son of Herb Foresythe I, always head of a political party]]. Bonus point for being slow aging and not immortal, and retiring from social life each time, so that everyone forgot his face and he still doesn't look exactly the same.

* ''FullMetalAlchemist'': Pride, aka [[spoiler:Selim Bradley]], does a variation in that he's pretended to be [[spoiler:the adopted son of an important government official ever since the founding of Amestris.]] What better way to innocuously keep tabs on what the government is doing?

* Played with in ''SundayInTheParkWithGeorge'': although late 20th-century artist George is actually a different person from late 19th-century artist Georges Seurat, the MindScrew-y final scene has him effectively turn into the famous painter, as he reconciles with his estranged mistress, Dot ([[IncestIsRelative who is actually his great-grandmother]]) from beyond the grave.

* In Georgia (the Eurasian one, not the North American one) men would pretend to be their fathers in order to dodge being drafted into the Russian army in the bad old days.

* ''Neo Angelique'' has [[spoiler:[[MeaningfulName Nyx]]]], who reveals to an old friend that he is in fact in old friend instead of the grandson of his friend.

* Vandal Savage in TheDCU.
* Lex Luthor, dying from radiation poisoning ('cause it turned out kryptonite was just like any other radioactive substance to humans), faked his death by plane crash then had his brain transferred to a clone body, introducing himself to the world as his own son. After the reveal (which involved clone degeneration and him levelling Metropolis), he pulled a KarmaHoudini by selling his soul for a cure and then blaming everything on an [[FromACertainPointOfView insane clone that faked his death and took his place]].

* Also inverted in the DC/Marvel ''All Access'' crossover series. That old drifter who started helping Axel with his powers? Not so much.

* John in ''Man From Earth'' claims that he has passed himself off as his own son multiple times.

* The main character in ''Saturn's Race'' by Larry Niven's and Steven Barnes undergoes a top secret rejuvenation process, and ends up assuming the identity of a grandson.
* Short-term variant: In ''Bloodlist'', Jack Fleming rises as a vampire looking a decade younger than his real age, so poses as his own near-identical younger brother while pursuing the gangsters who murdered him.

* In ''{{Dracula 2000}}'', Dr. Abraham Van Helsing uses Dracula's blood to keep himself immortal, in order to continue research on how to kill the vampire king for good. In the modern day, he passes himself as his grandson, "Matthew Van Helsing".

* In the third book of ''ThePendragonAdventure'', Bobby claims to be his own grandson when [[spoiler:he meets the surviving gangster from First Earth, who returns his Traveler ring]].

*** The original movie has what could be the page quote: "So what we're dealing with here is a guy who's been around since at least the year 1585, pretending to cark it every once in a while, then leaving all his money to some kid who's been a corpse for decades and taking their identity."

* A minor but long-lived villain in HPLovecraft's ''The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'', a sorcerer named Simon, writes a letter to the main villain, explaining a ChekhovsGun detail (Simon's disappearance) that's dropped fairly early on: "In this Community a Man may not live too long, and you knowe my Plan by which I came back as my Son."

* The title character of ''{{Supreme}}'', [[ClarkKenting aka Ethan Crane]], due to his powers, ages very slowly, and, despite being born in 1920, looks to be in his mid-to-late thirties. When he met the universe's now elderly {{Expy}} of Lana Lang [[spoiler: inhabited by the spirit of the LexLuthor {{Expy}}]], in the late 90's, she briefly recognises him as her old friend Ethan Crane, but then assumes he must be Ethan Crane's son since Ethan couldn't possibly look the same as he did decades ago. For the rest of the series he goes by the name "Ethan Crane Jr.", [[ThrowItIn posing as his own son]]. It's helped by the fact that Supreme, and therefore "Ethan Crane Sr." disappeared into space in the late 60's, and only returned over twenty years later.

* The title character of ''{{Supreme}}'', due to his powers, ages very slowly, and, despite being born in 1920, looks to be in his mid-to-late thirties. When he met the universe's now elderly {{Expy}} of Lana Lang [[spoiler: inhabited by the spirit of the LexLuthor {{Expy}}]], in the late 90's, she briefly recognises him as her old friend Ethan Crane, but then assumes he must be Ethan Crane's son since Ethan couldn't possibly look the same as he did decades ago. For the rest of the series he goes by the name "Ethan Crane Jr.", [[ThrowItIn posing as his own son]]. It's helped by the fact that Supreme, and therefore "Ethan Crane Sr." disappeared into space in the late 60's, and only returned over twenty years later.

* The title character of "{{Supreme}}", due to his powers, ages very slowly, and, despite being born in 1920, looks to be in his mid-to-late thirties. When he met the universe's now elderly {{Expy}} of Lana Lang [[spoiler: inhabited by the spirit of the LexLuthor {{Expy}}]], in the late 90's, she briefly recognises him as her old friend Ethan Crane, but then assumes he must be Ethan Crane's son since Ethan couldn't possibly look the same as he did decades ago. For the rest of the series he goes by the name "Ethan Crane Jr.", [[ThrowItIn posing as his own son]]. It's helped by the fact that Supreme, and therefore "Ethan Crane Sr." disappeared into space in the late 60's, and only returned over twenty years later.

* The title character of "{{Supreme}}", due to his powers, ages very slowly, and, despite being born in 1920, looks to be in his mid-to-late thirties. When he met the universe's {{Expy}} of Lana Lang [[spoiler: inhabited by the spirit of the LexLuthor {{Expy}}]], in the late 90's, she briefly recognises him as her old friend Ethan Crane, but then assumes he must be Ethan Crane's son since Ethan couldn't possibly look the same as he did decades ago. For the rest of the series he goes by the name "Ethan Crane Jr.", [[ThrowItIn posing as his own son]]. It's helped by the fact that Supreme, and therefore "Ethan Crane Sr." disappeared into space in the late 60's, and only returned over twenty years later.

* The title character of "{{Supreme}}", due to his powers, ages very slowly, and, despite being born in 1920, looks to be in his mid-to-late thirties. When he met the universe's {{Expy}} of Lana Lang [[spoiler: inhabited by the spirit of the LexLuthor {{Expy}}]], in the late 90's, she briefly recognises him as her old friend Ethan Crane, but then assumes he must be Ethan Crane's son since Ethan couldn't possibly look the same as he did decades ago. For the rest of the series he goes by the name "Ethan Crane Jr.", [[ThrowItIn posing as his own son]]. It's helped by the fact that Supreme, and therefore "Ethan Crane Sr." disappeared into space in the late 60's.

* [[spoiler:The all-mighty High Priest Dios]] in the ''{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Pyramids'' is an interesting case of this: not only has he been [[spoiler: the high priest and chief adviser to the pharaohs of Djelibeybi for over seven thousand years by abusing a pyramid's age-reversing effects]], he has ''[[StableTimeLoop always]]'' been that way (or at least for untold tens of thousands of years) as a result of [[spoiler:being brought back to the moment of Djelibeybi's founding [[LaserGuidedAmnesia with all of his religious knowledge but no memory of his past, leading him to repeat the experience over and over]]]]. As far as we know, he never actually ''pretends'' to be his own descendant - people just assume.

* Inverted in Jasper Fforde's ''[[ThursdayNext The Eyre Affair]].'' Thursday meets a member of the Chronoguard, the time-traveling police, who introduces himself as the grandfather of an ex-boyfriend of hers. However, after the man dies, Thursday learns that the man actually ''was'' her ex-boyfriend, who due to an accident in the timestream had been aged over sixty years. Not bearing that Thursday should meet him like that, he took on a false identity.

* In ''TheElderScrolls: Oblivion'', [[spoiler:Springheel Jak]] does this as [[spoiler:Earl Jakben of Imbel]].

--> -- ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', "Enemies"

* The Trill ambassador in ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' poses as his own son to avoid letting the Federation know that the Trill are a race of {{Puppeteer Parasite}}s.

* Hob Gadling/Sir Robert Gadling/Bobby Gadling in ''TheSandman'' mentions he has done this several times.

-> '''Willow''': Wow! Like father like son.
-> '''Oz''': How 'bout exact same guy like exact same guy.

You're immortal, or just extremely long lived, and you want to stay in one place for a long time without people noticing that you don't age. So what do you do? You reintroduce yourself as your own son, then grandson, etc. This handily gets around the problem of having to explain how you could have served in WWII and still only be 25 years old.

* Many of the Destines from ''ComicBook/ClanDestine'' have done this. In the first volume, Kay has to establish her new [[BodySurf host body]] as the daughter of the same name as her old one- somewhat complicated by the fact that she hadn't planned on the switch and therefore never mentioned having a daughter. The sequel miniseries establishes that Walter has also been repeatedly posing as his own son (under the same name), and a villain discovers that the family has a suspicious pattern of births and deaths in out of the way locales with conveniently poor documentation.

* [[spoiler:The all-mighty High Priest Dios]] in the ''{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Pyramids'' is an interesting case of this: not only has he been [[spoiler: the high priest and chief adviser to the pharaohs of Djelibeybi for over seven thousand years by abusing a pyramid's age-reversing effects]], he has ''[[StableTimeLoop always]]'' been that way (or at least for untold tens of thousands of years) as a result of [[spoiler:being brought back to the moment of Djelibeybi's founding [[LaserGuidedAmnesia with all of his religious knowledge but no memory of his past, leading him to repeat the experience over and over]]]]. As far as we know, he never actually ''pretends'' to be his own descendant - people just assume.

* Lazarus Long mentions doing this in RobertAHeinlein's ''TimeEnoughForLove''. Since he effectively doesn't age, he uses makeup to make himself slowly look older over time. After he's been in an area for long enough, he comes back without the makeup as his "son."

* Stefan and Damon Salvatore of ''{{The Vampire Diaries}}'' pretend to be descendants of "the original Salvatore brothers" from Mystic Falls' founding families. However, when Elena discovers that both Stefan Salvatores are identical, she realizes the truth.

* ''{{GURPS}}'' 4e has this among Baron Janos Telkozep, an iconic vampire character.

* In ''TheElderScrolls: Oblivion'', [[spoiler:Springheel Jak]] does this as [[spoiler:Earl Jakben of Imbel]].

* Suberted in ''{{Baccano}}!'' -- as part of the original 1711 contract, all immortals are rendered incapable of establishing long-term false identities, which means all of them will eventually have to give that awkward explanation as to why their passport claims they're six or seven times older than they look.

* In the ''{{Charmed}}'' episode "Saving Private Leo," Leo Wyatt poses as his own grandson to attend a 60th-anniversary reunion of WorldWarII veterans.

* The Trill ambassador in ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' poses as his own son to avoid letting the Federation know that the Trill are a race of PuppeteerParasites.