For Halloween I Am Going As Myself / Literature

• In American Psycho, serial killer Patrick Bateman goes to a Halloween party dressed as a serial killer, complete with real human blood on his suit. He comes in second in the party's costume contest, which really upsets him.
• In the book Beastly by Alex Flinn, a modern take on "Beauty and the Beast", the Beast, Kyle, attends a high school's Halloween party with regular clothes on over his fur.
• Blanche The Blue-Nosed Witch is, other than her witch's hat, dressed something like a little girl dressed as a witch. She's thusly mistaken for just another kid trick or treating by adults—and the kids are fascinated with her witch talents but not so much they don't fold her into the group.
• In Tanya Huff's Blood Lines, vampire Henry Fitzroy goes to a Halloween party as Dracula. His partner is dubious, but Henry points out it's actually good camouflage—if he pretends to be a vampire on Halloween, obviously he isn't one the rest of the year.
• In the Book of the New Sun, Severian attends a masquerade ball in his executioner's outfit, under the (correct) assumption that everyone will assume that it's a disguise.
• Spider Robinson's Callahan's Crosstime Saloon story "Unnatural Causes". An alien Krundai comes to Callahan's bar on Halloween night as himself (green, furry and pointed, oversized ears).
• Played with in The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod: Eight Grade Bites. Vlad, a vampire, goes to a Halloween party wearing plastic fangs and a cape.
• Discussed in The Cloak Society, when the main characters, a group of Kid Sidekicks and reformed supervillains, wear Halloween costumes while going on a mission.
  Kyle: But you just get to wear that Domino Mask? That's not even a costume.
  Alex: Yes it is. I'm a bank robber.
  Kyle: When I met you, you were robbing a bank. That's not a costume.
  • For added humor, Kirbie is wearing a werewolf mask.
• Discworld:
  • In one of the early books, as a homage to "The Masque of the Red Death", a wizard who has just summoned Death is surprised to notice that, besides the usual outfit of cowl and scythe, he is also holding a cocktail sausage on a toothpick.
    Death: (defensively) I WAS AT A PARTY.
    Wizard: Er ... was it a good party?
    Death: AT THE MOMENT IT IS. I SUSPECT IT MAY GO DOWNHILL VERY QUICKLY AFTER MIDNIGHT.
    Wizard: Why?
    Death: THAT'S WHEN THEY THINK I'M GOING TO TAKE MY MASK OFF.
  • In the later novel Maskerade, as well as the non-Discworld short story "Turntables of the Night", Death is wearing a cheap skeleton mask over his actual skull.
    Death: I THOUGHT I SHOULD GET INTO THE SPIRIT OF THE THING.
  • And then there's Wyrd Sisters, where Death takes the place on stage of an actor who was supposed to be playing Death... and then gets stage fright. As he points out, in his line of work, normally only one person sees him at a time. An audience is kind of new for him.
  • Intentionally used by the Faculty of Unseen University, who don "False False Beards" — little loops of wire over their ears and into their real beards — to "disguise" them as people wearing very obvious false wizard-beards.
  • Re-visited in I Shall Wear Midnight, when Mrs. Proust disguises Tiffany's genuine witch hat by sprinkling glitter on it and attaching an "Apprentice Witch Hat, AM $2.50" costume-shop label to its brim. It also turns out that Mrs. Proust is not wearing one of the stereotyped Wicked Witch masks she sells ... she was the model for them.
  • In Witches Abroad, Greebo is transformed from a nasty gray tomcat into a human so he can accompany the witches to the Samedi Nuit Mort masked ball. He chooses a ginger cat mask to wear ("Alwaysss wanted to be gingerrrr.")
  • Also in Witches Abroad, the witches are watching a parade with several dancers disguised as skeletons (all in black, with the bones painted on). As they share a bottle, Nanny Ogg passes it to the tall, skeletal figure next to her and remarks, "My, them bones is painted on good." A moment later she does a belated double-take, but by then Death has already moved on.
  • In Monstrous Regiment, the heroes need to sneak into a heavily fortified... um, fortress. Since the squad is made up of Girls pretending to be boys, they take the obvious route of masquerading as "washerwomen". They get caught out by the guards because they are obviously boys dressed as women. Which Tonker then debunks by flashing the guards. Subverted by Lt. Blouse, who DOES get in, despite being the only actual male in the squad, and hence the only one who is actually disguised as a female.
  • Inverted in Eric, where Astfgl the King of Hell dresses in royal diabolic regalia of his own design... which is, basically, a kid's cheap Halloween devil-costume, complete with silly strap-on hornlets and a trident that keeps falling apart.
• Dream Park: In The Moon Maze Game, teenage Prince Ali of Kikaya participates in the titular LARP in the role of... a young prince of Kikaya.
• The Dresden Files:
  • Played with when wizard Harry Dresden goes to the Vampire's Masquerade Ball... dressed as a vampire. He is being deliberately insulting, and so dresses as the most cliche Dracula stereotype he can come up with; caked-on white face paint, giant cape with a tall collar, fake blood around his mouth, the works.
    Harry: Not only that, but a cheesy vampire.
  • Played straight with his friend Michael, Knight of the Cross, who went dressed as a Knight Templar to the same party. The vampires thought it was a costume until one made the mistake of touching him and got burned.
• Used in some Forgotten Realms novels:
  • Including Ed Greenwood's Silverfall (Qilue came round a masquerade "disguised" as "drow princess") and Elaine Cunningham's Daughter of the Drow (Dark Elves are stylish and thus a valid "costume"):
  Fyodor: You wish to join the festival, and slip into the city among the others... But what about your disguise?
  Liriel Baenre: I'm a drow, of course. It's quite an exotic costume. And authentic, too!
  • In Ed Greenwood's Ladies Night at the Yawning Portal:
    Jalamra, Jalamra, have you not seen spell-spun illusions before? I ask you: just how would a band of no less than seven illithids, walking along quite openly in their robes with mauve tentacles a-slimily quivering, manage to get right to the heart of Waterdeep? Next you'll be telling me th—...
• The Further Adventures of Batman: In "Wise Men Of Gotham", Bruce Wayne is at a costume ball and disguised as Batman (admittedly looking shabby due to his recent late-night activities), along with about three other people who are also pretending to be Batman.
• In Gardens of the Moon, the first book of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, many people in the streets of Darujhistan are impressed by the great Tiste Andii 'costume' Anomander Rake is wearing for Lady Simtal's party. The laquered dragon mask also turns out to be more of an in-joke than a disguise, since he can turn into one. Alchemist Baruk called it, too:
  Anomander Rake: As I understand such things, the event includes the wearing of disguises. Do you fear I lack taste?
  Alchemist Baruk: I've no doubt your attire will be suitable. Particularly if you choose the costume of a Tiste Andii warlord.
• The protagonist of The Gargoyle enjoys the lack of attention his hideous burns receive during Halloween. Now, if only they didn't make his angel costume look so satanic...
• In Halloween Romance, the two main characters meet while they are both doing this.
• In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a Muggle child complimented Voldemort on his "costume" just before he murdered the Potters on Halloween of 1981.
• In In Search of Dorothy, the Scarecrow finds it easy to get around Earth due to Halloween making everyone think he's wearing a costume.
• In Charles de Lint's Jack of Kinrowan, a pink-haired fairy mentions that one reason she likes the modern era is that she no longer has to dye her hair.
• Used cleverly in the subversive children's novel Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. Jennifer, a sombre, beautifully creepy Afro-American girl, wears authentic Pilgrim clothing to her school's Halloween party. She tells her friend Elizabeth that the real witches were Pilgrims and that she herself is a witch who spends most of the year disguised as an ordinary schoolgirl; by dressing this way she is becoming undisguised.
• In Junie B., First Grader: BOO... and I MEAN It!, Junie B. is scared of Halloween because of five secrets that Paulie Allen Puffer told her and said that she mustn't tell anyone else or her head will turn into a wart. The first of these is that real monsters and witches go trick or treating on Halloween, but don't wear costumes because everybody thinks they're already dressed up. "BUT THEY'RE NOT. THEY ARE WEARING THEIR REAL ACTUAL FACE AND CLOTHES!"
• The fictional play The King in Yellow features this scene. (The excerpt is found in "The Mask" by Robert W. Chambers.)
  Camilla: You, sir, should unmask.
  Stranger: Indeed?
  Cassilda: Indeed it's time. We have all laid aside disguise but you.
  Stranger: I wear no mask.
  Camilla: (terrified, aside to Cassilda) No mask? No mask?!?
• Mercedes Lackey:
  • Invoked and averted in the Diana Tregarde story "Satanic, Versus..." The heroine considers going to a costume party with her boyfriend as a witch and a vampire—but he argues that there's no point in going as what they really are, and they dress as The Avengers (1960s) instead.
  • Played straight in one of the Heralds of Valdemar novels. When feline Beast Man Nyara goes into Hardorn with a covert team, she goes in disguise ... as a "misshapen" woman made up to look like a catgirl, complete with "seams" shaved into her fur and a set of absurdly large fake ears.
  • Toyed with in the Valdemar novel Oathbreakers. Lady Kethryveris of house Pheregrul rides into the capital of Rethwellan with a string of high-quality mounts for sale, obtained through her oath-sisterhood with Shin'a'in chieftain Tarma shena Tale'sedrin. While the preceding was completely true the two left out a few details (not least of which were the facts that House Pheregrul had been on hard times for decades and clan Tale'sedrin had exactly two members, counting Tarma's oathsister).
  • Similarly in Exile's Valor, Herald Myste Willinger managed to infiltrate the outside bit of a conspiracy using her own face, name, and pre-Choosing skillset because; as the Haven-reared frumpy nearsighted clerk convinced her new Companion to let her give notice and take her up the hill via side streets after dark, none of her prior acquaintances (including the co-conspirator who spotted her) knew she was a Herald and all she needed was a plausible excuse for having dropped out of sight.
    Alberich: "Where else, but for the Army working? At least until the Wars ended."
• One of the earliest Trope Codifiers was Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death". In the story, a plague has swept the world and torn through the populace. A Duke ends up holding an extravagant party as the world dies around his estate, and locks the doors so no plague carriers can get in or out. Of course, when the Small Ben strikes midnight, it turns out that one of the party guests isn't wearing a mask after all, and is actually the personification of the plague. And then everybody dies.
• In the first Monster High YA novel, Frankie rallies her friends to flaunt their true natures at the Halloween dance to rebel against the Masquerade, and simultaneously impress Brett, the movie monster fanboy she's crushing on. It goes to hell when she and Brett are making out and he fiddles with Frankie's neck stitches, causing her head to fall off.
• In Bruce Coville's The Monster's Ring, the main character twists the ring twice ("Twist it once, you're horned and haired;/Twist it twice, and fangs are bared...") shortly before the school Halloween party and lets everyone assume the result is an incredibly good costume.
• In Nightingale's Lament, a Nightside novel, a singer eludes her rabid fans' attentions by stopping off at a nightclub where all the staff, and most of the patrons, are drag queen impersonators of their favorite singing divas. She easily passes unnoticed in the crowd of Madonnas, Dolly Partons, and assorted Spice Girls.
• The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross. The elf spy who's trying to Honey Trap Laundry operative Alex Schwartz has to meet his parents, but worries they might be powerful sorcerers who can see past her glamor. So she gets some friends to organise a cosplay party afterwards and goes as Agent First of Spies and Liars, the first daughter of the Elven King. Fortunately the parents are quite mundane and far too distracted by Alex's sister marrying a transgender boy/girlfriend to pay much attention to Alex's Manic Pixie Dream Girlfriend. Alex though finally tumbles to what he should have noticed some time ago, glamor or not.
• Although he does wear a costume, in The Phantom of the Opera it is implied that Erik is not wearing a mask when he attends the masquerade as Red Death.
• In Robert Bloch's "The Secret Of Sebek", some genuine occultists avoid persecution for their practices by hosting parties for dilettante spiritualists and psychic charlatans, ensuring their own genuine mystic rites will go unremarked upon.
• Used twice in the eighth novel of Wearing the Cape, specifically in the story crossover with Grrl Power. The straightest version is when Sydney (aka The Mighty Halo), main protagonist of the webcomic swaps her real gear for toy versions and a metal ring that appears to hold her orbs (which normally float above her head in a circle when not in use), to look like a Halo cosplayer while scoping the dealers room of a convention her team is attending. The second time is when Astra, main protagonist from the novels, arrives in Sydney's reality while in costume... where she and her team and their exploits are the subject of a superhero television show and she is presumed to be someone cosplaying as the character at the same convention.
• In Wings by Aprilynne Pike, David helps make Laurel's wings look fake so she can be convincing at the school costume ball. Extra 'Awwwww!' factor for the cutesy line: "I'll have to tell them only Laurel gets wings."
• Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick: The protagonist, a celebrity in her city, goes undercover at a Halloween party by dressing as "Torture Victim Zoey" from the final act of the previous novel. The heavy wound make-up obscures her face and allows her to effortlessly blend in among several other "Zoeys".

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