History Main / WishfulProjection

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]

[[folder:Live-Action Television]]

Prejudices are a funny thing; they can make those who have them delude themselves into believing they know strangers better than the strangers know themselves. Therefore, you sometimes see people in fiction ascribing certain qualities to other people, without having any grounds for doing so. Sometimes, they will even get angry or disappointed if the target does not or cannot live up to their baseless assumptions. If it's a {{Tsundere}} that held the image, expect her to hold the guy up to the standards anyway and yell at him if he falls out of line with her perceptions.

* In ''Anime/DragonPilotHisoneAndMasotan'', Hisone's superior Remi was not chosen to be a dragon pilot and watched as a friend became one instead. She later admitted that she projected her shattered dreams to be a pilot onto Hisone and was ''infuriated'' at Hisone when [[spoiler: Hisone decides to quit the JSDF after she falls in love and isn't able to pilot Masotan anymore.]]

[[folder:Live Action Television]]

* In ''VideoGame/Persona4'' ''[[UpdatedRerelease Golden]]'', the [[spoiler: Hunger]] Social Link has [[PlayerCharacter Yu]] confronting [[spoiler: [[BigBad Adachi]]]] alone after discovering his identity as the SerialKiller and trying to [[TalkingTheMonsterToDeath talk some sense into him]]. He then calls Yu an idiot and angrily asserts that the version of him Yu [[PowerOfTrust "believed in"]] was just a fictional representation of him living in his head, before telling him to stop wasting both their time and come back with the others to fight him.

* In ''Anime/DragonPilotHisoneAndMasotan'', Hisone's superior Remi was not chosen to be a dragon pilot and watched as a friend became one instead. She later admitted that she projected her shattered dreams to be a pilot onto Hisone and was ''infuriated'' at Hisone when [[spoiler: Hisone decides to quit the JSDF after she falls in love and isn't able to pilot Masotan anymore.]]

* In ''Anime/DragonPilotHisoneAndMasotan'', Hisone's superior Remi was unable to become a dragon pilot and lost that position to a fellow pilot. She later admits that she projected her shattered dreams to be a pilot onto Hisone and was ''infuriated'' at Hisone when [[spoiler: Hisone decides to quit the JSDF when she falls in love and isn't able to pilot Masotan anymore.]]

[[folder:Film - Animated]]

* ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'': Shadow Weaver always favored Adora over the other Horde recruits she trained, calling her an "ambitious, cutthroat, ruthless warrior". But as Adora herself points out, she doesn't actually possess ''any'' of those traits and never did. Ironically, they better describe Adora's friend Catra--who Shadow Weaver [[TheUnFavorite blatantly despises]].

* In ''Manga/LuckyStar'', Konata assumes a large foreigner is a violent kidnapper.
* In the ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' manga, May Chang hears about the eponymous Fullmetal Alchemist from various people, and forms a mental image of a ''tall'', ''gentlemanly'' ''prince''... and is horrified to find the short, rude reality. She later forms a similar image of Al's real body, after Alphonse, offended that she would think him similar to his brother, provides an exaggerated opinion of his own traits.
* ''Literature/FullMetalPanic''

* In ''Manga/{{Kurohime}}'', the main character Zero has fallen in love with a powerful witch that saved him as a child, but as he grows older everyone tells him that the woman he fell for was an evil $^#%@, the problem is Zero refuses to listen. When Zero finally does meet Kurohime, she turns out to be a selfish brat who thinks men are toys and will use men to get whatever she wants and take over the world, going so far as even branding men with the kanji for "Dog" on their back. [[spoiler: About a third of the way in the manga, though, she gets a lot better and actually falls for Zero]].
** Although we learn that the bratty Kurohime [[spoiler: is only a part of the original one (a part without love and compassion at that) and any evil she did before the split [[WellIntentionedExtremist wasn't out of malice]] [[RageAgainstTheHeavens (well, not against humans)]].]]
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': A variation, where the wishful projection is on a person who is ''dead''. A lot of Kakashi Hatake's baggage stems from his over-idealization of his deceased best friend, Obito Uchiha. Kakashi lost every single member of his original team in the span of a single year, and it broke him to almost beyond repair. Literally the only thing that kept him going was his promise to be Obito's eyes, so as a result, Kakashi devoted his entire life to being a memorial of his best friend. Every facet of his personality is modeled after what he believed Obito would have turned out had he managed to live to adulthood, and all his actions are in hopes to living up to all of Obito's ideals and wishes. Essentially, Kakashi is so hard on himself when it comes to his mistakes because he always believes that Obito would've succeeded where he failed (even though, realistically, that is ''very'' unlikely). In all his grief, he's forgotten that while Obito was a very kind and admirable person, he was still human, and far from perfect. [[spoiler:Something that Kakashi only realizes when he learns what ''[[FaceHeelTurn really]]'' [[BecameTheirOwnAntithesis happened]] [[BrokenPedestal to]] [[BigBad Obito]]]].

[[folder:Comic Book]]

* Similarly, ComicBook/LexLuthor seems to genuinely believe at times that Franchise/{{Superman}} is a pompous, controlling alien who only wants the worship and slavish devotion of everyone on the planet...presumably because Luthor himself is an arrogant, controlling human who wants the worship of everyone on the planet. One story even has Lex rejecting a computer analysis that tells him Clark Kent is Superman, because he can't believe that any man would waste time being normal while having all of Supes' power at his disposal.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Encanto}}'', Alma was the most vocal for the ArrangedMarriage for Isabella and Mariano. It's noticed that out of the grandchildren, Isabella resembles a young Alma the closest and Mariano happens to look a lot like Alma's late husband Pedro. It's possible that Alma is projecting her desire to see the same love that she had with Pedro and for a married couple to live a a long life together that she and Pedro had been denied.

* In one episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'', Stabler admitted at the end that he failed to realize that a young woman was the killer because he saw her as a victim, not a person. In another he failed to recognize a husband going through a divorce was escalating and about to become violent because he was also going through a divorce at the time and wouldn't do that himself. SVU does this quite a bit due to their tendency to pull ItsPersonal cases more or less every week.

* In Music/PoetsOfTheFall's ObsessionSong "[[https://youtu.be/MKk1u5RMTn4?list=PLjACqN5i5sDWIIpg-5EB4WcitMMqnXhFP Carnival of Rust]]," the LoveHungry singer is depicted as LovingAShadow from the outset, but it isn't enough that the object of his affection should love him back. He's also insistent they share the same dysfunctional, guilty level of fixation that he does, and telegraphs this via a loaded TrialBalloonQuestion.

* In ''VideoGame/Persona5Strikers'', Akane Hasagawa is a lonely, angry girl who is a huge fan of the Phantom Thieves but projects her own romantic ideals on them. Namely, that her idea of justice is impulsive, selfish and destructive, differing greatly from the Thieves' idea of justice. She also [[MisaimedFandom mistook]] the Thieves' rebellion against specific, corrupted individuals as ''all authority figures'', including her father, are inherently evil, all rebels are always good, hoping that the Thieves would dismantle the law enforcement she hated so much. So when the Thieves "betray" her by working with her father (who is a police officer), it shatters her trust in them and allows her to be easily manipulated by the BigBad to turn on them.

* ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'': Shadow Weaver always favored Adora over the other Horde recruits she trained, calling her an "ambitious, cutthroat, ruthless warrior". But as Adora herself points out, she doesn't actually possess ''any'' of those traits and never did. Ironically, they better describe Adora's friend Catra--who Shadow Weaver [[TheUnFavorite blatantly despises.]]

* ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic''

* ''LightNovel/FullmetalPanic''

* ''Series/adTV1995'' had a sketch called ''The Average Asian'', in which a completely ordinary fellow of stereotypically East Asian phenotype is expected to live up to all kinds of stereotypes. Eventually, one of them turns out to be true: he actually ''can'' summon a horde of ninjas to do his bidding, and he unleashes them to take revenge in one sketch when he finally has had enough of all the racist assumptions people make about him.

* ''Lightnovel/FullmetalPanic''

** [[Comicbook/GrantMorrisonsBatman The Black Glove]] make a similar mistake, believing that Bruce is just playing a twisted game like they are. Both of them believe they know Batman better than he knows himself and both are off the mark.

* ''Series/{{MADtv}}'' had a sketch called ''The Average Asian'', in which a completely ordinary fellow of stereotypically East Asian phenotype is expected to live up to all kinds of stereotypes. Eventually, one of them turns out to be true: he actually ''can'' summon a horde of ninjas to do his bidding, and he unleashes them to take revenge in one sketch when he finally has had enough of all the racist assumptions people make about him.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

[[folder: Film - Animated]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Encanto}}'', Alma was the most vocal for the ArrangedMarriage for Isabella and Mariano. It's noticed that out of the grandchildren, Isabelle resembles a young Alma the cloest and Mariano happens to look a lot like Alma's late husband Pedro. It's possible that Alma is projecting her desire to see the same love that she had with Pedro and for a married couple to live a a long life together that she and Pedro had been denied.

* Similarly, ComicBook/LexLuthor seems to genuinely believe at times that Franchise/{{Superman}} is a pompous, controlling alien who only wants the worship and slavish devotion of everyone on the planet.