History Main / OldBeggarTest

* In ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'', the title image and quote are from here: A prince is asked for shelter from the winter snows by a beggar woman, who's actually an enchantress [[SecretTestOfCharacter testing his kindness.]] The prince refuses, even after she warns him "not to be deceived by appearances," and she curses him to be a beast until he learns how to love and grow out of his selfishness.

* In ''Film/{{Cinderella 2015}}'', the Fairy Godmother first appears to Ella as an old beggar woman, she doesn't reveal her true self until after Ella has shown her kindness by getting her a drink even while she was miserable from not being allowed to go to the ball.

A typical trope of [[OlderThanFeudalism fairy tales and myths]]. Old women, wanderers and wise hooded characters may look like simple peasants, looking for shelter from the (usually) "[[EmpathicEnvironment bad weather conditions]]" or a [[WretchedHive hostile environment]].

In the first two cases, however, these beings in disguise are portrayed as positive characters, whose FatalFlaw is just an unexpected curiosity towards their hosts (GenreSavvy characters may notice that something's fishy, and it's guaranteed they will never break their [[SacredHospitality hospitality oath]]). If their staying is excellent, and their innkeepers were smart enough to avoid an IdiotBall, these beggars will show their true form and thank the hosts for their kindness and selflessness. As reward they'll give as a present an Ancient Artifact, a SuperpowerLottery skill or, rarely, [[StandardHeroReward the hand of one of their children]]. If not, they will unleash the fury of their wrath.

Since this is not a trope concerned with the character itself, but with the event caused by their appearance in the work, it acts as a SubTrope of SecretTestOfCharacter. It differs from GodWasMyCopilot and AngelUnaware for the length of their relationship with their innkeepers: in the aforementioned tropes, god-like disguided characters will spend a significant amount of time with the main characters, whereas beggars examples usually begin and end in a single day. Moreover, villains and WellIntentionedExtremist figures may hide under the cloak of a beggar, averting the positive effects of the other tropes.

* ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'': After Manjoume left Duel Academy in disgust after a second humiliating loss to Misawa, he ended up shipwrecked and near North Academy, Duel Academy's rival school, which was situated in an arctic tundra. He was told by a disheveled man by the door that they wouldn't let anyone in without a full deck of forty cards, and there were cards hidden around the area; he himself had found 39, but was too exhausted to keep looking. Because Manjoume's cards were soaked by sea water and the man refuses to sell his own, Manjoume goes out and finds 40 cards, but when he fears the man might freeze to death, he gives him one so he can go in (fibbing and saying he has 41). When the man goes in, Manjoume wonders what he's going to do ''now''; and suddenly he sees another card, which later becomes essential to winning a duel later in the episode. [[spoiler:He later finds out that this was a SecretTestOfCharacter; the guy was North Academy's chancellor.]]

** Used in one story with Donald Duck. In this story, Donald is a highly respected food critic who goes to restaurants to judge their food and determine if they deserve a star or not. In one restaurant, he first goes as himself, and after being treated like a king by the staff, he remarks that he might award them a fourth star (which would make the restaurant ''extremely'' prestigious), but needs to think about it. He then leaves, and comes back a moment later disguised as a beggar. He attempts to receive the same kind of treatment like a regular customer, but the staff scoffs him, relentlessly mocking him and suggesting that he should eat out of a bowl like a dog. Upon this outrageous treatment, Donald reveals himself and ''removes'' one of the stars, as a punishment for the staff for not treating all of their customers equally. [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]], for Donald was just a food critic, and not a powerful entity.
** Donald is just as likely to do the same mistakes himself, though. In another comic, he works as the head waiter at a prestigious restaurant and is warned that a food critic is going to show up. He quickly identifies the critic as the well-dressed man who keeps fussing over the cutlery, and spoils him massively while disregarding and unknowingly mistreating another, ordinary-looking customer (seating him in the back by the kitchen door, giving him the wrong entrees and drinks, ''stealing his tablecloth'' because it was cleaner than the critic's). Predictably, the mistreated customer turns out to be the critic, and is livid over his horrid treatment... whereas the well-dressed man turns out to be a silver-polish salesman who wants to give Donald a deal on something to clean up their filthy cutlery with.
* PlayedWith in a story from ''ComicBook/ArchieComics''. Archie wants to take Veronica out to a concert but can't afford the tickets. Veronica buys them and then tries various ways for Archie to stumble across them so it seems like he's the one treating her rather than vice versa. At one point she hires a homeless man to ask Archie for the directions to Main Street. Archie tells him, "You're ''on'' Main Street." The homeless man rewards him by giving the two tickets as a present, but Archie sees through the ruse and goes away after yelling at the man, who is then stuck with a quizzical look and two concert tickets.
* A mundane version of this trope occurs in ''ComicBook/TheSimpsons'' comic "To Heir is Homer", when Homer finds a dishevelled-looking old man in his car and invites him to join the family for dinner that evening. The man in question is actually Sam Duff, millionaire owner of the Duff Brewery, and in thanks for the family's kindness he rewards them by adding Homer to his will, bequeathing him [[MajorityShareDictator 51%]] of the shares in the brewery.

* In ''Literature/TheTwelveDancingPrincesses'', the hero generally has to have done some good for the old woman to get the knowledge how to save the princesses.

* There's an Italian fairy tale where UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} and St. Peter are wandering in the countryside as poor travelers. The first house they come to turns them away while the second one welcomes them. They tell the mistress of the house that "Whatever you begin doing tomorrow morning you will do it all through the day." The woman sits down at her spinning wheel and spins enough silk to make her rich, since she doesn't have to stop all day. The first woman who'd rebuffed the saints sees this and decides to welcome them this time and gets the same blessing—-but because she was still selfish and lazy and doubted the words of the blessing, [[PottyFailure she decides to use the latrine first]] and can't leave it all day.

* G.K. Jayaram from ''{{Film/Amal}}'' is apparently a mean-spirited hobo. In reality, he's a rich hotel mogul looking for a right person to inherit his wealth. However, unlike typical example, he ''does'' live as a beggar full-time, purposefully so. So while there is a lot of money and properties tied to his name, he never uses any of it and the hobo "disguise" turns out to be his lifestyle of choice, separated from his riches (which are managed by his business partner anyway).

* In ''Film/TheCobbler'', this trope builds the backstory of how the magical shoe-stitcher device became the cobbler family's heirloom. Max' father recounts the story in the beginning of the movie:

* The first time Luke (and the audience) meets Yoda in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', Yoda looks like an annoying local inhabitant of Dagobah, telling Luke he knows "how to find [this great Jedi Warrior]." If you watched from [[Film/ThePhantomMenace Episode 1]], you wouldn't be surprised by the reveal. Luke desperately wants to meet Yoda as soon as possible, and while he never does anything cruel to "the begger," he does quickly become impatient with him.

* In Creator/OscarWilde's short story "The Star-Child", a child is found in a forest just after a shooting star is seen in the sky. One of the woodcutters who finds the child takes him home and convinces his wife to help raise him along with their own children. The boy is handsome, but grows to be rude and arrogant. His birth mother appears on the scene in the guise of a beggar, and he rejects her. Then he turns ugly and is rejected by his friends, prompting him to go in search of his mother. Along the way, he is enslaved and aids a man with leprosy three times, though each time his master beats him for it. After the third occasion, he magically recovers his good looks and meets the leper and the beggar woman again. It turns out the leper is his father in disguise, just as his mother appeared to be a beggar woman, and both of them the wealthy rulers of a kingdom (and he of course is their son and heir). [[spoiler:[[ShootTheShaggyDogStory But then because of how much turmoil he'd gone through, he winds up dying after only three short years and is succeeded by a ruler who's cruel and evil.]]]]
* In the third ''Literature/TheQueensThief'' book, Gen is told a story of the king who promised the moon goddess to free a slave and [[WillNotTellALie never to lie]] while the moon was out. Years later, after the promise has been forgotten, the king himself is pulling a KingIncognito and is about to lie to cover his identity just as the moon is rising, while an old beggar women stands by watching... [[spoiler:fortunately the slave he freed, now his best friend, belts him with an amphora of wine to shut him up]].
* In the ''Literature/TalesOfTheFiveHundredKingdoms'' series, this is one of the Traditional ways that Godmothers test Questors. The first book, ''The Fairy Godmother'' kicks off the second act by having Godmother Elena test three princes this way in the guise of an old beggar woman. The oldest brother rode past her, and was cursed to wander for a year and a day. The middle brother tried to run Elena down with his horse and was turned into an ass. The youngest brother passed the test by sharing his food with Elena and offering to give her a ride, and was given the clues he needed to successfully complete his quest for the hand of a princess.
* Parodied in ''Literature/WyrdSisters'', where Tomjon's theatre troupe meet some witches disguised as innocent peasant women, and being GenreSavvy know that if you meet a mysterious old woman in the road you have to share your lunch, or help her across the river, or bad fortune will attend you. There aren't any rivers handy, and Granny Weatherwax and Mistress Garlick both turn up their noses at the troupe's humble lunch, but Nanny Ogg shamelessly mooches food, drink, a smoke, and a lift into town.

* In the Brazilian miniseries ''O Auto da Compadecida'', a cloaked beggar crosses the path of several characters, and is always shunned. Turns out he is [[spoiler:the brigand Severino, who was scouting the village for police forces, but also judging whether or not he should have any mercy on the locals.]]
* Referenced in {{Series/Frasier}}, when Niles is having a run of good luck, he says "it's as if that homeless man I gave money to was a genie, granting my every wish". Shortly thereafter, Daphne walks in, [[ItMakesSenseInContext wearing a stripperific wedding dress]], prompting Frasier to ask exactly ''how much'' money he'd given.

* From Myth/NorseMythology, Odin plays straight this trope during his trips on Midgard ("Middle-Earth", the realm of humankind). His usual shape was similar to Gandalf's: a tall, long-bearded man with a RobeAndWizardHat. One of the best ways to recognise him was looking at this [[RedRightHand eyes]]. If [[MarkOfTheSupernatural one of them was missing]], it was certain that was Odin. Averted by Loki and Thor during their staying at Tjalfe and Roskva's home, where they introduced themselves without hiding their godhood. In both cases, the three gods tend to chat a lot with their mortal hosts, and it is quite rare the mortals manage to anger them.

* Popular tales about Polish king Casimir III the Great ascribe him the habit of wandering in beggar's disguise and asking for food. After such a visit he always re-visited said people with his whole court and revealing the results of previous test to public.

* There is a subversion in the life of St. Basil of Moscow (the one in whose honour the famous cathedral in Kremlin was built). One day, St. Basil saw a beggar and hit him. When the people angrily asked what he thought he was doing, St. Basil made a sign of the cross and the beggar vanished. It turned out it was a ''demon'': the point was that people gave him tiny coins, which wouldn’t have made any difference to a real beggar, and walked away with clear conscience, feeling themselves very virtuous and not doing any real good works afterwards.

* In ''VideoGame/DokaponKingdom'' there is a random event that has an old beggar ask for money; there is a chance it's actually the Goddess of Generosity in disguise, and she'll reward a player with an item if they gave her the money, or curse them with a status ailment if they refused.

* During act 2 of ''VideoGame/SlayTheSpire'' you may encounter a poor beggar who asks you for some alms. If you do he reveals himself to be the Cleric giving you a SecretTestOfCharacter and gives you a blessing (letting you remove a card from your deck).
* You can actually invoke this in the ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'' expansion ''Shadows of Undrentide''. You end up inside a rather tragic story book, where a blind beggar asks you to find out what happened to the peasant girl he fell in love with. (Her father sent her to a monastery because he disapproved of their love, but the nuns turned out to be demon worshippers and sacrificed her.) However, after getting out of the story, you can rewrite it; this time through, the beggar is actually a knight in disguise, who successfully saves the girl before she is sacrificed. When she asks why he pretended to be blind, he says he wanted to be sure she loved him and not just his knighthood.
* ''VideoGame/{{Gingiva}}'': At a junction, you find a "derelict bag-man" who "smells "of back alley streets and stale alcohol". Just choosing to interact with him reveals that he in actually a resplendent Buddha. The Buddha tells us that most people just chose to ignore him and the few you don't opt to assault him, stealing from him and breaking his begging bowl among all assorted of indignities. Just by striking a conversation, you proved your meek nature to him and he will reward you with one boon.

* Tobacco companies, being highly restricted in how they can advertise their products, will sometimes tell retailers that they might send an Old Beggar (average looking customer) to their store to buy one of their products, and if the employee at the counter says the right thing when asked ("Yes, BrandX has a new package, but the same great flavour" or the like) they'll get a cash prize.

* Invoked in the ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' episode "Freak City", where Finn and Jake find an old man who asks for help [[GenreSavvy and immediately recognize he's actually magic]]. Unfortunately, the beggar in question is actually a horrible [[TheTrickster trickster]] named Magic Man, who [[BalefulPolymorph turns Finn into a giant foot]] for ''helping''. Finn thinks this was because his intent was a reward rather than helping for the sake of itself, but realizes he's just doing it ForTheEvulz--whereupon Magic Man changes him back for finally "appreciating" [[CardCarryingJerkass what a jerk he is]].

* From Myth/NorseMythology, Odin plays straight this trope during his trips on Midgard ("Middle-Earth", the realm of humankind). His usual shape was similar to Gandalf's: a tall, long-bearded man with a CoolHat and a wide coat. One of the best ways to recognise him was looking at this [[RedRightHand eyes]]. If [[MarkOfTheSupernatural one of them was missing]], it was certain that was Odin. Averted by Loki and Thor during their staying at Tjalfe and Roskva's home, where they introduced themselves without hiding their godhood. In both cases, the three gods tend to chat a lot with their mortal hosts, and it is quite rare the mortals manage to anger them.

* The first time Luke (and the audience) meets Yoda in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', Yoda looks like an annoying local inhabitant of Dagobah, telling Luke he knows "how to find [this great Jedi Warrior]." If you watched from [[Film/ThePhantomMenace Episode 1]], you wouldn't be surprised by the reveal.

** Zeus and Hermes disguised themselves as beggars and went from house to house, with everyone refusing them food and shelter except Philemon and Baucis, who even wanted to kill their guardian goose to properly welcome the gods. To reward the old couple, Zeus destroyed the town but spared their house, turning it into a temple, and when they died[[note]]simultaneously, that being the favor they had requested from the gods so that neither of them would have to live without the other[[/note]], turning both of them into trees.

* The first time Luke (and the audience) meets Yoda in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', Yoda looks like an annoying local inhabitant of Dagobah, telling Luke he knows "how to find [this great Jedi Warrior]." If you watched from episode 1, you wouldn't be surprised later.

* In ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'', the title image and quote is from this movie: A prince is asked for shelter from the winter snows by a beggar woman, who's actually an enchantress [[SecretTestOfCharacter testing him on his kindness.]] The prince refuses, even after she warns him "not to be deceived by appearances," and she curses him to be a beast until he learns how to love and grow out of his selfishness.

* In ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'', a prince is being asked for shelter from the cold by a beggar woman who's actually an enchantress in disguise. The prince refuses, even after she warns him "not to be deceived by appearances", and she curses him to be a beast until he learns how to love and grow out of his selfishness.

* Invoked in the ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' episode "Freak City", where Finn and Jake find an old man who asks for help [[GenreSavvy and immediately recognize he's actually magic]]. Unfortunately, the beggar in question is actually a horrible [[TheTrickster trickster]] named Magic Man, who [[BalefulPolymorph turns Finn into a giant foot]] for ''helping''. Finn thinks this was because his intent was a reward rather than helping for the sake of itself, but realizes he's just doing it ForTheEvulz--whereupon Magic Man changes him back for finally "appreciating" [[CardCarryingVillain what a jerk he is]].

* In ''The Water of Life'', the king's two older sons are rude to the dwarf when he asks what they are doing, and are magically trapped; the youngest is polite, and is told how to get what he's after.

* In ''The Three Little Birds'', two brothers in turn encounter an old woman on their quests and tell her she will have no luck fishing where she is. Their sister follows them and tells her, "May God bless your fishing," and so learns how to complete the quest and save her brothers.

* In ''Where the Mountain Meets the Moon'', a beggar asks the main character to buy him a peach. She does and spends the last of her money on it. He then reveals himself as the king.
* TheUnfavorite hero of ''Literature/TheGoldenGoose'' shares his humble lunch with a hermit, after [[YoungestChildWins his two older brothers]] snubbed the same hermit [[LaserGuidedKarma and suffered nasty wood-cutting accidents]]. Not only does the hermit turn the hero's dry bread and water into cakes and wine as a sign of gratitude, but he tells him where to find the eponymous golden goose.

* There’s an Italian fairy tale where Jesus and St. Peter are wandering in the countryside as poor travelers. The first house they come to turns them away while the second one welcomes them. They tell the mistress of the house that “Whatever you begin doing tomorrow morning you will do it all through the day.” The woman sits down at her spinning wheel and spins enough silk to make her rich, since she doesn’t have to stop all day. The first woman who’d rebuffed the saints sees this and decides to welcome them this time and gets the same blessing—-but because she was still selfish and lazy and doubted the words of the blessing, [[PottyFailure she decides to use the latrine first]] and can’t leave it all day.

Expect the puny mortals to remain clueless about their guests' identity, even if their world or oral tradition tells about the very situation they're stuck in. If TheReveal occurs after visits to several homes, there might be a general reward and punishiment for those who either helped or rejected them.

* In Creator/TheBrothersGrimm tale "[[https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm153.html The Star Money/The Star Talers]]" (German: Die Sterntaler), an unnamed, orphaned girl is poor and homeless; she has only her clothing and a loaf of bread that a kindhearted soul has given her. She is a goodhearted person, however, and so she goes out into the countryside to see what might happen. She gives a hungry man her bread, and to three cold children she gives her cap, her jacket, and her dress. In a forest, she sees a naked child begging for a shift, and since it was dark and she cannot be seen, she gives her own shift away. As she stands with nothing left at all, suddenly stars fall to earth before her, becoming talers, and she finds herself wearing a different shift of the finest linen. The story ends with her being rich.

* In the ''Blood & Wine'' expansion of ''VideoGame/TheWitcher3WildHunt'', after lifting a curse placed on a noble lady, she tells you she was cursed by a beggar after she refused to [[SacredHospitality give him food and shelter]] when he stopped by.

[[folder:FairyTales]]

* ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_Money The Star Money]]'' (German: Die Sterntaler), a fairy tale by Creator/TheBrothersGrimm, is all about this trope. An unnamed, orphaned girl is poor and homeless; she has only her clothing and a loaf of bread that a kindhearted soul has given her. She is a goodhearted person, however, and so she goes out into the countryside to see what might happen. She gives a hungry man her bread, and to three cold children she gives her cap, her jacket, and her dress. In a forest, she sees a naked child begging for a shift, and since it was dark and she cannot be seen, she gives her own shift away. As she stands with nothing left at all, suddenly stars fall to earth before her, becoming talers, and she finds herself wearing a different shift of the finest linen. The story ends with her being rich.

* PlayedWith in a story from ''Franchise/ArchieComics''. Archie wants to take Veronica out to a concert but can't afford the tickets. Veronica buys them and then tries various ways for Archie to stumble across them so it seems like he's the one treating her rather than vice versa. At one point she hires a homeless man to ask Archie for the directions to Main Street. Archie tells him, "You're ''on'' Main Street." The homeless man rewards him by giving the two tickets as a present, but Archie sees through the ruse and goes away after yelling at the man, who is then stuck with a quizzical look and two concert tickets.

* ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'': After Manjoume left Duel Academy in disgust after a second humiliating loss to Misawa, he ended up shipwrecked and near North Academy, Duel Academy's rival school, which was situated in an arctic tundra. He was told by a disheveled man by the door that they wouldn't let anyone in without a full deck of forty cards, and there were cards hidden around the area; he himself had found 39, but was too exhausted to keep looking. Because the man refuses to sell them, Manjoume goes out and searches for his own, finding forty of them; but when he fears the man might freeze to death, he gives him one so he can go in (fibbing and saying he has 41). When the man goes in, Manjoume wonders what he's going to do ''now''; and suddenly he sees another card, which later becomes essential to winning a duel later in the episode. [[spoiler:He later finds out that this was a SecretTestOfCharacter; the guy was North Academy's chancellor.]]

* ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' features the usual test with a twist. In Babylonia, the protagonist comes across an old, crippled beggar. The nearby people comment that he's been there for days and is perhaps starving, but ultimately leave him since there are wellfare services. the protagonist decides to buy some bread for the old man, but before they leave, the old man stops them and commends them for not just helping someone in need, but also trying to give them exactly what they need, thus demonstrating that they aren't doing this out of empty pity. He introduces himself as the old king Ziusudra and gives some advice on how to deal with the goddesses attacking Babylonia before taking their leave. [[spoiler: He ''actually'' turns out to be the First Hassan-i Sabbāh and provides more direct help much later against Tiamat.]]

* "Series/OnceUponATime" has an interesting inversion. Rumplestilskin, who is also the show's version of the Beast, takes in an old beggar, gives him a meal, and tells him of his desperation of losing his son to being conscripted in war. [[spoiler:It turns out that that old beggar is the Dark One. As "thanks", he tricks Rumple into taking his powers and becoming the new Dark One.]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/entrapment.png]]]]

-->-- '''TheNarrator''', ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast''

* In ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast'', a prince is being asked for shelter from the cold by a beggar woman who's actually an enchantress in disguise. The prince refuses, even after she warns him "not to be deceived by appearances", and she curses him to be a beast until he learns how to love and grow out of his selfishness.

* G.K. Jayaram from {{Film/Amal}} is apparently a mean-spirited hobo. In reality, he's a rich hotel mogul looking for a right person to inherit his wealth. However, unlike typical example, he ''does'' live as a beggar full-time, purposefully so. So while there is a lot of money and properties tied to his name, he never uses any of it and the hobo "disguise" turns out to be his lifestyle of choice, separated from his riches (which are managed by his business partner anyway).

* The French movie ''Film/TheWingOrTheThigh'' starts with a restaurant owner ordering his staff to shower preferential treatment on someone he's identified as working for a food critic, completely ignoring an old woman's requests for water. While the man does work for the critic, his boss (played by Creator/LouisDeFunes) was DisguisedInDrag as the old woman, and gives an appropriately scathing review.

* In ''Film/{{Cinderella 2015}}'', the Fairy Godmother first appears to Ella as an old beggar woman, she doesn't reveal her true self until after Ella has shown her kindness by getting her a drink even while she was miserable from not being allowed to go to the ball.

* In ''Literature/TheFoolOfTheWorldAndTheFlyingShip'', the Fool's brothers ignore the strange old beggar at the side of the road, and are never heard from again. The Fool greets the beggar kindly and shares his lunch, and the man tells the Fool where to find the flying ship.

* Parodied in ''Discworld/WyrdSisters'', where Tomjon's theatre troupe meet some witches disguised as innocent peasant women, and being GenreSavvy know that if you meet a mysterious old woman in the road you have to share your lunch, or help her across the river, or bad fortune will attend you. There aren't any rivers handy, and Granny Weatherwax and Mistress Garlick both turn up their noses at the troupe's humble lunch, but Nanny Ogg shamelessly mooches food, drink, a smoke, and a lift into town.
** Parodied even further some years later in ''Discworld/TheScienceOfDiscworld'', which briefly shows Granny ''actually'' out picking up wood, utterly fed up with people wandering by assuming she's a god or genie or something of that ilk in disguise, and asking her for wishes. When Shawn Ogg comes by to give her a message, she tells him to bugger off, until he manages to get the point across.

[[caption-width-right:350:"''Please, take this [[TheTragicRose rose]] in exchange for shelter from the [[SnowMeansCold bitter cold]]!''"[[note]]He didn't and got himself turned into a beast, and his servants turned into {{Animate Inanimate Object}}s. Good going, Adam.[[/note]]]]