Not what it sounds like: Impersonating An Officer

You'd think this trope would be Exactly What It Says on the Tin, i.e., disguising one's self as law enforcement or military personnel for some means. It's actually about characters who are not police officers behaving as though they were.

Granted, there does not seem to be much misuse, so maybe I'm being too picky. Thoughts?

What?

Almost every example looks like misuse to me. I can't see any good way to differentiate the majority of them from Bavarian Fire Drill.

For the record:

Bavarian Fire Drill = A character pretends to be an official in order to get people to do what they want.

Impersonating an Officer = (IN THEORY) A character tangentially linked to Law Enforcement oversteps their bounds, usually by forgetting their place.

In practice almost all the examples are pure Bavarian Fire Drill, occasionally with a couple of subversions.

Badly needs a rename imo.

It could be a useful subtrope of Bavarian Fire Drill (which, incidentally, should probably have some reference to the not terribly obvious Trope Namer up top, in the description.)

The main problem with Impersonating an Officer is the name, since many of the people involved actually are law enforcement officers of some sort, or have some close ties to law enforcement, at least. The overacting CSI guy with the sunglasses is an officer; he's just not the kind of officer who you'd expect to be leading an investigation, ordering detectives around, interrogating suspects, etc.

...Hm.

Bavarian Fire Drill seems like it shouldn't really be about impersonating anyone. It's about acting in an official manner (not necessarily claiming to be anyone important in particular) to achieve something the characters want (even if that something is 'to vaguely confuse random people for their own amusement'). The idea is to make complete strangers ASSUME you have authority, at least in the example of the Trope Namer.

Actually impersonating someone of importance seems like it would be a different trope. Subtle difference perhaps, but...

Maybe we should go through and sort these all out to 'acting in an officious manner to get people to assume you're important' and 'actually claiming to be someone important' and list them under Bavarian Fire Drill and Impersonating an Officer respectively? Maybe rewrite the trope descriptions to make it more clear.

edited 19th Nov '10 8:35:32 AM by savage

It seems we have three tropes here:

1: Acting like you are in authority to make people assume you are an authority

2: Impersonating an official when you are not one (often goes hand in hand with the first trope)

3: An official acting outside their actual authority, as being an "official" suddenly gives them authority on anything, somewhat similar to Open Heart Dentistry or Omnidisciplinary Scientist.

edited 19th Nov '10 8:45:49 AM by Sackett

Almost anything requiring a "see X for what I Thought It Meant" disclaimer needs a rename by definition, wicks be damned.

Necrobump!

Agree it needs a rename. Huh...Acting Like An Officer? Acting Like A Cop?

And +1 for rename.

Definitely needs a rename, and to a name that makes it clear that it's not just any character impersonating a law enforcement officer. Not sure either of the names would work for that reason — they both have the same problem the current title does, where they sound like any character impersonating rather than another kind of official.

This is very closely related to The Main Characters Do Everything. I think the only real difference is that The Main Characters Do Everything is about characters within an organization (police force, hospital) doing multiple roles that would all be done by someone within the organization, but in Real Life not all by the same person, because they're the main characters. In this trope, characters not within an organization do roles that in Real Life could only be done by someone within the organization(without getting in big trouble, anyway), with a specific focus on crime-scene investigation.

There is now a crowner on this subject here.

Cursory glance at the examples shows a worrying misuse rate for Exactly What It Says on the Tin. I support a rename.

Crowner seems done. But we need a few more possible titles before we do the alt-titles crowner.

Overstepping Authority as a name possibility?

edited 17th Jul '11 9:52:08 PM by NoirGrimoir

Overstepping Authority sounds good to me.

Overstepping Authority sounds way too broad. That could be any number of situations not "civilians doing investigative work that only police/military/etc. can legally do"

To be "overstepping", you really have to have had some authority in the first place.

There is now an alt titles crowner here. Feel free to add more options.

Bump for more votes. Overstepping Authority is currently the only one with positive votes.

Looking at the trope, I think Official Sustitute For The Police would be best.

They characters are semi-officials who aren't really police, but substitute for them.

Overstepping Authority sounds WAY too broad. That could be pretty much anything. A babysitter letting a kid stay up an extra twenty minutes could be overstepping their authority.

Official Substitute For The Police is simply wrong. It sounds like someone who has been deputized, e.g. for a posse. Or when the military is called in to help suppress rioting and looting. There's nothing official about this trope. This is unauthorized, unofficial behavior treated as no big thang.

edit: it may simply be that this trope is too rare/too specific in real life to have a simple name of its own, so we may need to go with a longer, more specific name.

edited 26th Jul '11 3:19:47 PM by Xtifr

Private Detective With A Badge?

I like Any Badge Lets You Be A Cop. Private detective licence = cop. Hot Scientist's key card = cop. Press pass = cop.

No Badge? No Problem! ? I mean, a lot of times these characters don't have any official status. Like Nancy Drew. "My dad is a defense attorney" is not a justification for breaking and entering and a host of other things she does, but if she runs into the police she'll never get in trouble.