Basic Trope: A person compliments themselves while disguised as someone else.
- Straight: Bob is disguised as Charlie. When Alice mentions Bob, "Charlie" pretends never to have met him, but adds that he's heard Bob is a great guy.
- Exaggerated:
- "Charlie" goes on at length about how Bob must be so brave, strong, good-looking, brilliant, talented, kind to animals, good at darts, modest...
- Several characters are in disguise, and whenever somebody mentions their real identities, they all say those people must be awesome.
- Downplayed:
- "Charlie" agrees with nice things other people say about Bob but doesn't volunteer any himself.
- "Charlie" says nice things about Bob, but only things that are true and believable.
- When other people insult Bob, "Charlie" says that he isn't that bad.
- While "Charlie" does not speak up when people insult Bob, his face and body language make his annoyance clear.
- Justified:
- Bob is in disguise so he can find out what his friends really think of him. He says nice things about himself to see if they'll disagree.
- Bob is impersonating one of his close friends; it would raise suspicions if "Charlie" didn't at least defend Bob when insulted.
- Everyone in the room knows Bob is disguised as Charlie, and he's joking around.
- Bob has a well-known reputation; the things his "Charlie" persona says about him only match popular belief.
- Inverted:
- Bob insults himself to preserve his cover.
- "Charlie" insults Bob to the point that "Charlie" is clearly an outlet for Bob's self-loathing.
- Bob tries to impersonate his enemy Charlie, but he can't resist taking shots at Charlie even when pretending to be him.
- Alice insults Charlie in front of Bob; she doesn't know and won't believe that Charlie is Bob.
- Bob's fame and the fact that everyone has a strong opinion about him make it rather suspicious that "Charlie" has never heard of him.
- Bob has never made a big deal of his deeds or skills, so few people suspect that "Charlie", who turned up out of the blue to lavish Bob with praise, is Bob.
- Subverted:
- Alice insults Bob in the presence of Charlie, who looks like Bob in disguise. Charlie defends Bob. And then Bob walks into the room, and Charlie says, "Can you believe what she was saying about you?"
- Alice insults Bob while he's present as "Charlie", but he doesn't respond.
- Double Subverted:
- Alice was insulting Charlie all along, but Charlie is disguised as Bob and vice versa.
- At least not until later, when he takes her aside to ask why she hates a great guy like Bob so much.
- Parodied:
- "Charlie" reacts with obvious hostility to the smallest insult to Bob, and several times refers to Bob in the first person.
- Charlie walks in and immediately starts praising Bob, causing everyone else to roll their eyes at the obvious trickery. Minutes later, Bob walks in and says "Hey, Charlie!" while Alice complains to Bob how Charlie wouldn't shut up about him, under the assumption that Everybody Knew Already like she did.
- Zig-Zagged:
- "Charlie" is Bob's attempt to make himself sound good, but he starts to get the impression that Alice likes Bad Boys, and starts trying to describe Bob as such. He gets carried away and quickly becomes a mouthpiece for Bob's insecurities — when Alice berates "Charlie" for being cruel, he goes too far the other way and gives her the impression that the two of them are really good friends.
- Bob has numerous alter egos, and he expresses various opinions of himself with them.
- "Charlie" defends most of Bob's actions, except for the ones that he regrets.
- "This Bob guy, I've never met him myself. The things people say about him are quite impressive, seems like a great guy. Of course, I don't know if everything is true. It could be all a bunch of lies. Maybe he really is just a loser. Then again, even if only some of the things are true, he's still quite a character."
- Bob visits and revisits a location both using his "Charlie" disguise and without one.
- Averted:
- Nobody talks about Bob while "Charlie" is around.
- "Charlie" only refers to Bob with objectivity and stays far away from opinionated descriptions.
- People talk about Bob, but "Charlie" doesn't react to them and may not even hear them.
- Bob never uses a disguise.
- Enforced: "We don't want viewers to think Bob is a Master of Disguise. Have him slip up and praise himself while he's posing as Charlie."
- Lampshaded: "You know, Bob, your disguises would be a lot more effective if you didn't go around telling everyone that Bob is the most amazing man you know."
- Invoked: Alice knows it's Bob in disguise, and decides to mess with his head by loudly saying how ugly she thinks Bob is.
- Exploited: Alice knows that Bob is a Master of Disguise, and insults him whenever she thinks he might be present so he'll reveal himself by his reaction.
- Defied:
- "As Charlie, I'm not even supposed to know who Bob is! I'll react as if they're talking about a total stranger."
- "The first step to being an undercover operative is having complete and utter dissociation of who you are and who you're supposed to be, and that includes not using your disguises to sing praises to your sorry ass. So we will spend the rest of the day insulting you, Bob, while you are to remain as 'Charlie' and pretend you don't know yourself. And rest assured that if you ever break character, we will consider you unfit to be a member of this organization."
- "Oh, and by the way, if you think about insulting yourself to get around this loophole, think again. That still counts as talking about yourself, so if you try and follow us in demeaning yourself, then you're still going to be considered unfit to be a member of this organization. Do you understand us, or do we have to repeat everything that we've said so far a million times over so that it will stick into your head?"
- Discussed: "That's obviously Bob in disguise. Let's see how he reacts if we trash-talk him."
- Conversed: "Oh. The disguised person compliments their real self. What a clever, original joke."
- Deconstructed: Bob is insecure and can't stand to hear anything bad about himself. He's a terrible spy because he always blows his cover by complimenting himself while in disguise.
- Reconstructed:
- This is part of his Kansas City Shuffle — he's mainly a decoy for the real spies, and he's an excellent operative otherwise.
- Bob is charismatic and convincing. He can talk up himself even when pretending to be a stranger.
- Played for Laughs:
- "Charlie" is humorously blatant in praising Bob.
- Bob's Berserk Button is people insulting him, so all "Charlie's" friends can only stare and ask him if he's high as they see him apparently overreacting about someone he never met.
- Because of this trope, Bob's attempt at using a disguise (which was otherwise so perfect that there were no clues that he was Bob, not even in the ten seconds he was alone in the bathroom) becomes an Epic Fail.
- Through his actions, Bob has turned his Charlie identity into The Ace. Everyone thinks Bob is one of the most incompetent men alive (whether it's collateral damage of his efforts to build up Charlie is up to the writer and their sense of irony). Charlie continuously singing Bob's praises makes everybody else wonder what those two are smoking.
- Played for Drama:
- Bob's ego can't bear to hear himself badmouthed, and when he exposes himself to his friends by constantly trying to compliment someone "Charlie" shouldn't really care about, he lets his friends know exactly how much he doesn't trust them.
- Bob uses his Charlie identity to brag about his horrible deeds, and disguise them as warnings.
- Played for Horror: Bob doesn't just get hurt feelings when someone disses him whenever he's around in costume; it's his Berserk Button. Many undercover assignments have gone to hell because "Charlie" went into a Blast Out spree murder or pummeled people to death for apparently dissing someone he never met.
- Implied: The event isn't shown, but Alice and Carol talk about it later and say, "Did you meet that guy Charlie? He was sure enthusiastic about Bob for someone who didn't know him. Isn't that strange?"
No, I've never been to …But He Sounds Handsome, but it sounds like that's a great trope page.
