Psychological Projection in Western Animation.
- In Arcane Silco adopts orphan Powder in part because he is projecting his past self onto her, seeing Powder being abandoned by her sister, Vi as the same as himself being betrayed and almost killed by Vander, a man who was like a brother to him. He raises her clearly trying to make her strong, so the world won't hurt her, like he himself has become, going so far to even baptize her in the same toxic waters where Vander almost killed him, as means to help her kill all remaining love for Vi the way he had to kill all positive feelings towards Vander. While she would claim Silco did not mold her into Jinx, it is very clear he helped her adopt this Mad Bomber persona and his actions caused further deterioration of her mental state.
- Courage the Cowardly Dog: Eustace Bagge repeatedly calls Courage stupid and mocks him for his cowardice and not doing anything right. When it comes down to it, Eustace is exactly everything he calls Courage out for being; he gets injured, maimed, transformed, and otherwise killed for being Too Dumb to Live at least Once an Episode, can't cook, can't grow anything in his farm, and can't fix anything, is completely useless during whatever ordeal the Bagges come across, and, as noted by the Shadow in "The Shadow of Courage," is an even bigger coward than Courage himself.
- DuckTales (2017): Negaduck (AKA Jim Starling, the actor who portrayed Darkwing Duck in the in-universe TV series) seems to think that the actor hired to be Darkwing in the film reboot, Drake Mallard, is a selfish gloryhound who only cares for the limelight just like himself, ignoring that the new actor is clearly an Ascended Fanboy who wants to live up to the original show, and that Starling's attempt to upstage Mallard was what caused the accident that turned him into Negaduck.
- In Gargoyles, this is one of Demona's many, many, many problems. She tends to assume that all other Gargoyles want to Kill All Humans (untrue), and that, given the opportunity, anyone she allies with is itching to betray her- when in reality, she's usually the first and only person in any given situation to think of treachery. Demona's inability to understand motives more altruistic than her own is one of the biggest reasons she spends the series desperately, wretchedly alone, having caused the deaths of basically everyone she ever really cared about because she couldn't stop mistrusting others.
- Gravity Falls:
- In "Dipper and Mabel vs. The Future", while offering Dipper a chance to be his apprentice, Stanford ends up projecting his issues with his twin brother, Stanley onto him. While he's not wrong that Dipper has a right to be his own person separate from Mabel, he also doesn't see how different their relationship is compared to his own broken relationship. Ford gets better in the Grand Finale, deciding to work on reconnecting with Stan rather than run away from his issues.
- Stan also projects onto Dipper, believing he has to target Dipper specifically with the difficult and painful household chores, open mockery, and a frequent denial of positive reinforcement to toughen him up and make him worth something, in contrast with Mabel, whom he very obviously treats better. We later learn that Stan sees his own childhood self in Dipper and this is a projection of how he sees his past worth. His replicating aspects of the favoritism with Mabel and Tough Love with Dipper is further implied to be part of his denial over his father's own harsh treatment of him when he was a kid, because he's convinced himself it was necessary for him to grow up and therefore is necessary for Dipper. While he eases up on this and proves he cares about Dipper as much as Mabel, unlike Ford, Stan never really accepts on-screen that his father was just cruel.
- Harley Quinn (2019): In season 2, Harley and crew have to deal with Mr. Freeze. When Harley finds out that his wife, Nora, is sick, she projects her Mad Love issues with The Joker onto the two of them. She assumes that he is a misogynistic Control Freak like Joker and that Nora's not really sick. She thinks that he doesn't really love her and that he just keeps her as a Human Popsicle to control her. It's quite telling that most of everyone around her, including fellow villains, think she's nuts. Of course, the truth is that Mr. Freeze loves Nora more than anything else in the world and respects her as an equal. When Harley's involvement jeopardizes her health and he has to give his life to cure Nora, Harley realizes she was projecting her own failures onto them before a distraught Nora tells them to Get Out!.
- In Kim Possible, Bonnie sometimes accuses Kim of acting like everything is all about her or lording her talents over everyone else, when in reality she's the arrogant and self-centered one. It's implied that this is because she's jealous of Kim's position as captain of the cheerleading squad and overall popularity.
- In "Miraculous Ladybug" episode "Protection" Lila Rossi uses this as a manipulation tactic towards Kagami in order to purposefully cause mental distress in her and subsequently make her susceptible to akumatization by claiming that her best friend Marinette is actually a toxic and manipulative liar who takes advantage of everyone's kindness and trust in her and who should be avoided at all costs, all things which describe Lila herself to a T.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Twilight's Kingdom" (Parts 1 and 2). Discord ends up assuming Tirek appreciates their "friendship" as much as he does, but it turns out Tirek only wanted to use Discord for his own benefit.
- The Owl House:
- In "Lost in Language", Academic Alpha Bitch Amity Blight calls Luz a bully due to her getting in trouble and embarrassed during their previous interactions. Amity herself talked down to her former best friend Willow for failing in school, stomped on King's cupcake simply to spite Luz, and nearly got her killed twice for the sake of satisfying her own ego, which is what got Amity into those difficult scenarios in the first place. Not to mention that she refused to hear Luz's perspective on what actually happened, wanting to clear up the misconceptions and reconcile. It isn't until the end of the episode that Amity gradually starts to see this and has a Heel Realization.
- In "Keeping Up A-fear-ances", a moping Lilith bums King out by projecting her issues with her negligent mother onto his missing father, denouncing King's father for not being there to see his son hatch — even though, at the time, she had no way of knowing the circumstances behind the disappearance of King's father and indeed it does turn out to be nothing like that.
- In "Eclipse Lake", Hunter believes that Luz's strange emoji messages to Amity are a cryptic warning to come back with results or there will be consequences, because that's what Belos would tell him. Amity initially believes him not only because of her own self-worth issues, but also because Luz never told Amity how to read the messages. King helps Amity realize Luz's messages have no ill intent, and Hunter's views are based on his own twisted experiences with Belos.note
- In "Follies at the Coven Day Parade", Luz projects her worries about the promise she made to her mother onto Kikimora's Family Versus Career issue, and becomes firmly convinced that if she can solve Kiki's problem then that'll be proof that her turmoil can be resolved. It's only when Kikimora gladly abandons her family over the chance for a promotion that Luz realizes their situations are Not So Similar.
- Over the course of the series Luz often projects situations from her favorite book series, Good Witch Azura, usually projecting the titular character onto herself. Then comes Season 3 episode "Thanks to Them", where Luz is spiralling into guilt over being tricked into helping Emperor Belos and fearing her friends will hate her if they ever find out. We see how bad has her mental state gotten when she first projects on an unnamed hero of a book discussed in the classroom, ranting how he was always someone else's Unwitting Pawn, made things worse wherever he'd go and the world would be better off if he was never born and then, watching Good Witch Azura 2: The Betrayening starts projecting on treacherous character, Villainous Lucy fearing that just as Azura swears to never forgive Lucy's betrayal, her friends will see her as Belos' willing accomplice and abandon her. This is contrasted within the same episode with Hunter who manages to work out some of his own issues about being a Grimwalker created by Belos by projecting on Cosmic Frontier character Chief Engineer O'Bailey and his own struggle with being a clone.
- Due to his refusal to own up to his own mistakes and Fantastic Racism towards witches, Belos projects a lot of his own flaws onto the residents of the Isles, accusing them of being conniving and evil. Belos is blissfully unaware that he fits this description much better, given that he's betrayed every ally he's ever had and plans to commit genocide on the Boiling Isles just so he'll be seen as a hero.
- Rick and Morty:
- Some of the stuff Rick Sanchez accuses his opponents of doing (while valid) could equally be said of his own actions and behaviour:
- In "Something Ricked This Way Comes", he mocks Mr. Needful (The Devil) for his Faustian Jackass Genie shtick but most of Rick's own devices and contraptions work in similar ironic fashion, such as giving a device that can make Snuffles understands humans while knowing that it would eventually lead the dogs to be Turned Against Their Masters. The Mr. Meeseeks box meanwhile does create a friendly fellow to help you out, though Rick warns it only does simple errands (it only became problematic because Jerry was not that good at golf though one could assert that he was too specific for his request while Summer and Beth's were more open-ended.) Most of the times his simple contraptions to help the family only complicates their lives. However, the big difference is that while Mr. Needful does it out of a sense of pleasure for ironic punishments, Rick's contraptions seem to be more his carelessness.
- In "Vindicators 3", he mocks the superhero group for keeping a sidekick as a Tagalong Kid just to make themselves look cooler in the eyes of the gullible, but that applies to his dynamic with Morty, where he drags Morty against his will into crazy adventures mostly to prove how awesome he is and prevent his grandson from idolizing anyone but himself. Toxic Rick proves this to Toxic Morty by openly invoking A God Am I and insisting how dumb Morty is in comparison to him. To be fair, unlike the Vindicators, Rick actually needs Morty in his adventures, due to the fact that Morty's brain waves block Rick's thus making Rick impossible to be tracked down, and Morty Took a Level in Badass from partaking in Rick's adventures. Though the reasons why Rick drags Morty along are mostly selfish.
- Rick Prime is shown to also dip into this projection; thinking that at heart every single Rick Sanchez throughout the Multiverse are immoral God-complex'd assholes like he is; that after Rick C-137: the only other Rick who actually invented Portal Travel and was Happily Married decided to continue living a quiet life with his family, Rick Prime sent a bomb to kill Rick C-137s' family. Taken to extremes afterwards where Rick Prime would kill his wife Diane Sanchez in a way that also wound up killing every single version of Diane Sanchez throughout The Multiverse: just to force every other Rick to become assholes.
- Some of the stuff Rick Sanchez accuses his opponents of doing (while valid) could equally be said of his own actions and behaviour:
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: When Adora defects from the Horde and Catra decides to stay behind, this perceived betrayal hits Catra hard, and she uses any opportunity she can to justify her assumptions about it. She thinks that Scorpia was shunned by the other princesses for looking different, is quick to believe Adora abandoned Entrapta, and calls Adora out for treating her as a sidekick. There are some elements of truth in all those, but it's clear she's jumping on whatever allows her to think the worst of Adora and princesses in general.
- South Park: Cartman has a habit of perpetuating his narcissism by pinning the blame onto others, most commonly Kyle, who he accuses of being sneaky, greedy, and selfish on the basis of being Jewish despite those traits fitting Cartman much better. This is most blatant in Season 21, where Cartman frequently mocks and emotionally abuses his girlfriend Heidi, but convinces himself that because she wants to talk about her feelings, that makes her the abuser. In "Put it Down," he claims that he only stayed in a relationship with her because she threatened suicide, but it soon comes out that Cartman was the one who threatened suicide because Heidi wanted to dump him.
- In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Stuck in the Wringer", the townspeople get defensive when SpongeBob furiously berates Patrick for ruining his day by gluing him in the wringer and claim he "was born mean", despite ridiculing him over something that wasn't even their business.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: "Deal No Deal" makes it clear that Rafa Martez, who constantly gets herself and her sister Trace embroiled in shady business out of self-interest, engages in this. She accuses Ahsoka of befriending Trace out of some ulterior motive, incapable of believing someone could act selflessly for someone they only just met. Meanwhile, Rafa is pressuring Trace into a mission of dubious legality while keeping her in the dark about the details.
- Star Wars Rebels:
- It quickly becomes apparent that Darth Maul is projecting his relationship with his deceased brother/apprentice Savage onto Ezra, constantly assuming that Ezra will think and act like Savage, while repeatedly slipping into calling Ezra "brother".
- "Steps Into Shadow": When the Bendu tells Kanan that he brings conflict with him, Kanan immediately assumes he's talking about the Sith holocron, even though the Bendu made clear that it's Kanan causing imbalance in the Force. Later, Kanan pins the fear he's feeling on the krykna, then Ezra, before realizing it's his own.
- In Steven Universe, Pearl has done this, particularly in "Sworn to the Sword", where she ended up (temporarily) indoctrinating Connie into the mindset that she was "nothing" compared to her liege, Steven, and that to protect him she needed to be willing to put herself into hopelessly dangerous situations and even die for him without hesitation. It is revealed that during the war, Pearl "took great pride" in giving her life for Rose Quartz, using herself as a shield and getting needlessly "killed" numerous times despite Rose being much stronger than her and fervently objecting to Pearl senselessly putting herself in danger.
