Misused: Paper Thin Disguise

Paper-Thin Disguise is a trope about awful disguises that still fool people. However, the title is vague, and can easily be mistaken for bad disguises in general, as shown by the Paper Thin Wick Check:

• Correct: 28/92, or ~30%
• Disguise fails: 14/92, or ~15%
• General bad disguise: 20/92, or ~21%
• Non-Disguise Examples: 4/92, or 4%
• ZCE/PCE: 21/92, or ~23%
• Unsortable: 4/92, or 4%

Some notes on the wick check before we go forward with the analysis. I checked 84 unique wicks, but those 84 wicks contained 92 separate examples in total, which is why it's the number I used in the percentage calculation and folder numbering. The correct folder is in the lead, but only because it had two separate example trees. When going by wick count alone, the correct folder only had 23 of them, which means it's only slightly more common than General Bad Disguise and the amount of ZCE.

So, if we total the 3 misuse folders together (not counting ZCE and Unsortable), we get 48 misused examples, or about ~52% total. Obviously there's a problem here, but what do we do about it?

My first thought is that we can just make the current trope be for bad-disguises, whether they work or don't. Basically, broaden it to fit the misuse, since the title already works perfectly for it. If we still think the current definition is tropeworthy, we can split it, since there's still plenty of examples we can move over; this will require more work, but is possible if people are interested in doing it.

Opening

~Prettycoolguy also wanted to be pinged

to broadening for now. I think the misuse is still tropeworthy—I've seen bad disguises that fool no one be used for comedy, for example. I agree that we can split/yard the current definition if it's deemed split-worthy as well.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Oct 6th 2022 at 8:51:00 AM

I'd be down for broadening and split.

I wanted to be pinged for this because I had thoughts in how to deal with this, and it seems like the wick check confirmed my suspicions. I feel like the issue is that this is three distinctly different ideas in one that the big three sections captured:

1. An Audience Reaction where people are baffled that a totally obvious disguise works. This is only applicable in cases where the disguise's thinness is not commented on in the work at all.

2. A character who blatantly throws on a cheap, obvious disguise that the person wearing it, or someone with them, comments how it would never work in a million years. However, it somehow fools everyone, usually in a case of comedy.

3. A subversion of the above where a character does throw on an acknowledged-as paper thin disguise, but the person or people the character tries to fool instantly know it's them.

I feel, to clear confusion as well as to separate the tropes from the reactions, such a split is needed.

Edited by prettycoolguy on Oct 6th 2022 at 9:15:57 AM

How about broadening Paper-Thin Disguise to any paper-thin disguise but require an in-universe point-out or for the work to have some sort of cartoon logic or comedic element. This includes bullet 2. and 3. of and excludes examples of 1.

I think that works. I don't think we need a reaction version, it would probably just fall under things like Idiot Ball, What An Idiot, and so on.

Lampshaded/Invoked/Subverted. If someone wears a disguise that's obvious to the audience but it works as intended, it's either deliberately for viewer's convinience or to show that the target is indeed a fool.

I also want to bring up the similarities that some misuse has with Charlie Brown from Outta Town and/or Clark Kenting.

Edited by NotGonnaDoALot4 on Oct 7th 2022 at 11:10:47 AM

I agree with Tabs's proposal. I think that could involve making this IUEO if it isn't already.

Both the description and the laconic mention “the audience” pretty heavily, so they should definitely be modified.

If we add a requirement for character reactions and make this IUEO to account for said character reactions, we'd definitely need to remove that.

We don't need to associate that definition with an audience reaction. Part of the point behind "bad disguise that works in-universe" is to allow the audience to know who the character is.

• A disguise thin enough to inform the audience who is really present, while also being good enough to fool the majority of the other characters.

This is not Clark Kenting, because that's "over a long period of time", a subtrope of this concept. It isn't Charlie Brown from Outta Town, because it doesn't require a redemption plot (although with that very specific plot, we shouldn't limit it to "bad" disguises).

Most domino mask disguises aren't actually all that effective in real life, but they function as a narrative shorthand to say "these two characters are the same person, but nobody in the story recognizes them because of the mask". This is the same thing.

The domino masks, sunglasses, glasses-moustache, Highly-Visible Ninja, etc. are often to benefit the audience.

Oh, Paper-Thin Disguise is on the Rule of Perception index. Thinking:

• Trope for any thin disguise
  • Trope for a thin disguise that doesn't work in-universe and not for the audience, either
  • Trope for a thin disguise that works in-universe but not for the audience <- current def. of Paper-Thin Disguise
    • Assumed feature: the disguise doesn't work for the audience and that's the intention

Edited by Tabs on Oct 7th 2022 at 8:52:08 AM

Why not keep the name “Paper-Thin Disguise” or “Transparent Plastic Disguise” for terrible disguises that people immediately see through (a disguise version of Blatant Lies) and rename the current to something else? Perhaps Obvious Yet Successful Disguise

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Oct 8th 2022 at 10:17:05 AM

That was actually my idea in the OP

O Op. My bad.

Oop. My bad.

Heh, no worries, it just means you're on my same wavelength.

If I wasn't clear before, I don't think that the current definition is a trope (it is an Audience Reaction), but I don't think it is useful either, as it implies an opportunity for complaining about In-Universe characters not seeing through the disguise.

I'm in favour of expanding the definition but not of re-launching another "trope" for the current meaning, which would essentially be "The supertrope, but badly-done". There's a point to this diametric opposite of Latex Perfection, and that's to clue the audience in on who is actually present in the scene. My own avatar is a "master of disguise" and his talents range from being able to change the features of his face merely by concentrating, to putting on a pair of glasses.

His "skill" is directly related to how easily the creator wants the audience to identify which character he is.

Can Paper-Thin Disguise be retooled into a trope about terrible, easy to see through, disguises then?

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Oct 8th 2022 at 1:41:37 PM

I still don't think the YMMV version is worth splitting off. It's covered by various things already.