Basic Trope: Several historical figures are the same person.
- Straight: Beethoven, da Vinci, Elvis, and Caleb Glass are all secretly a shapeshifting entity known as "Little Man", who has taken different identities over several centuries.
- Exaggerated: Beethoven, da Vinci, Elvis, Caleb Glass, Monty Python, Benito Mussolini, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. Rogers, Aristotle, Galileo, and Biblical Adam are all secretly Little Man.
- Downplayed: Elvis is the same person as Beethoven, having risen from the grave through a magic spell. The appearance discrepancy is justified by the natural imperfection of centuries of rot being undone in a few seconds.
- Justified: Little Man is an immortal Renaissance Man with too much time on his hands.
- Inverted: Legacy Character
- Subverted: Little Man claims to have been Beethoven and da Vinci before being sealed away but he doesn't even remotely match their skills on a bad day and can't remotely match the knowledge of a specialist historian. He was just a poser all along.
- Double Subverted: ???
- Parodied: Justin Bieber, every one of the Beatles, and the author's school bully are all the Devil incarnate.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted: There are no immortal beings that take the form of different people who become important over and over again.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: Bob, a mad scientist, creates Little Man and sends him back in time to create a Stable Time Loop.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Little Man takes great care not to become a historical figure under any identity of his other than "Little Man" itself.
- Discussed: "Hey Bob, our tour guide knows da Vinci a little too well. You think he's secretly da Vinci himself?" "No, he's definitely Mozart. Look at his hairdo!" "Hey, maybe he's both."
- Conversed: "Those historical figures existed at the same time, so what Little Man is claiming isn't possible. DING!"
- Deconstructed: The people who are Little Man in the work have established childhoods in real life, the absence of which causes a Butterfly Effect that makes history completely different from real life.
- Reconstructed: Little Man operates via Kill and Replace/Grand Theft Me, stealing the memories of the 'real' figures and doing so much more with their lives than they alone would. He considers his slaughter a favor to mankind.
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