Basic Trope: Somebody mistakes a thing, person, or animal for a specific other person transformed.
- Straight: Alice is looking for Bob when she sees a cat in his desk chair. She assumes it's him having been turned into a cat.
- Exaggerated: Alice can't find any of her friends and leaps to the conclusion that they've all turned into nearby items and animals.
- Downplayed: Alice is looking for Bob and sees a cat's tail poking out of his closet. She assumes Bob grew a cat's tail, but it's just a cat.
- Justified:
- Bob really does have the power to turn into a cat.
- Alice is stupid.
- Alice is only five years old and believes magic really exists.
- Alice and Bob have sometimes faced up to a Wicked Witch named Carol, who certainly could turn Bob into a cat if she wanted.
- Inverted: Bob did turn into a cat, but when Alice sees him, she thinks he's just a normal cat.
- Subverted: Alice is looking for Bob and sees a cat in his desk chair. She exclaims, "Oh no! Bob, you're a cat!", only for Bob to enter and explain that it isn't him... it's David.
- Double Subverted: Then Alice says, "Oh no! Who's David? We need to turn him back!", to which Bob explains that David is the new cat he adopted from the animal pound.
- Parodied: Alice finds the cat and assumes it's Bob. Bob appears, but Alice is so dumb that she still thinks the cat is Bob, and thinks Bob is a cat having been turned into a human.
- Zigzagged:
- Alice sees a cat on Bob's desk chair and thinks it's him. Bob enters and explains that the cat isn't him, he's David. Alice assumes David is another man who got turned into a cat, but Bob explains that David is just his new cat. As it turns out, however, David really is a transmogrified human but the pound owner didn't realise.
- Alice is indecisive about whether the cat is Bob.
- Averted:
- The cat really is Bob.
- Alice knows the cat is just a cat.
- Invoked: Bob pranks Alice into thinking he turned into a cat, with the help of a real cat.
- Exploited:
- Defied: Bob just got a cat, but he knows that Alice isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. So, before he leaves his desk, he writes her a note saying, "Dear Alice — if you see a cat on my chair, it's not me. It's my new cat David."
- Discussed: "I should get back now. Knowing Alice she probably thinks David is me turned into a cat or something like that!"
- Conversed: "Really? She sees a cat on Bob's chair and her first conclusion is that Bob turned into a cat?!"
- Implied: Alice starts crying when she sees the cat.
- Deconstructed:
- Reconstructed:
- Played for Laughs: Alice keeps trying various methods of turning the cat "back" into Bob and barely missing Bob.
- Played for Drama: Alice believes Bob turned into a cat as a result of her wishing he would go away.
- Played for Horror: There are demons who take the form of cats, so Alice is right to be paranoid around cats.
Back to Mistaken for Transformed.
