History Main / ChangelingFantasy

* The ''Literature/{{Temeraire}}'' series has an odd take on this. While the [=titular=] dragon ''is'' considered a valued and unique [[OrganicShip piece of ordinance]] in the British Aerial Corps; when he goes to China he finds out that A) dragons in general are treated as large [=citizens/subjects=] with wings rather than talking warbeasts and B) ''he'' is by rights part of the Imperial Household. While he does return to Britain, it is with plans for reform on his mind.

* ''Literature/TheCasteelSeries'': Heaven, who grew up in extreme poverty in the country backwoods to a neglectful father and a stepmother who runs her ragged, learns that her birth mother actually came from a wealthy family and from then on frequently dreams about one day escaping her miserable life in the backwoods and finding her wealthy relatives. When she gets to do just that in later books, she learns that her fantasy isn't all it's cracked up to be -- while she does get to live a more comfortable, luxurious life and have access to the higher education she never would've had in the Willies, she's still scorned by the upper-class students at her school and her mother's family turns out to be even more screwed-up than her adoptive one.

* ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'': Invoked and defied. Miles tells his clone-brother Mark that most orphans dream of the changeling fantasy about having royal parents (which Cordelia and Aral technically are). Mark bitterly rejects this, saying he "always knew the score".

* Alois Trancy from the second season of ''Manga/BlackButler'' claims this is what happened to him, since he went missing as an infant (which caused his mother [[DrivenToSuicide kill herself from despair]]) and reappeared years later after living with a foster family in an ordinary village and was taken back in by his father, the late Earl Trancy. In the first episode it's mentioned that he claims fairies abducted him, which his uncle is incredibly suspicious about and intends to prove he's a fraud. [[spoiler:The uncle's right, Alois is actually Jim Macken, an ordinary boy who was only posing as the Earl's son... and was actually his SexSlave until he snapped and killed the Earl by making a contract with a demon.]]

* ''Series/VeronicaMars'': Parodied. In the episode "My Mother the Fiend," Veronica finds out who Trina Echolls's real parents are. After the big reveal, Trina confides to Veronica that she had always dreamed that her real parents were movie stars. To which Veronica answers: "Trina, your parents ''were'' movie stars..."

* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTales'' episode "Princess Problems", Patch is suspected of being a long-lost princess, but the tomboyish Patch does ''not'' look forward to having to leave her friends and family behind for the life of royalty. Fortunately, it turns out Patch isn't the princess they were looking for.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'', "Princess Angelica": Angelica convinces herself she's really a princess, and when the "Home Office King" comes to fix her mother's fax machine, stows away in his truck.

* Inverted in ''Film/Shazam2019''. Billy (secretly) becomes an extraordinary superhero while [[spoiler: his biological mother is living a mundane, less-than-stellar life and wants nothing to do with her son.]]

* In ''Literature/{{Freckles}}'', it's inverted; the hero is convinced that his birth is as lowly as it seems, and the other characters set out to persuade him otherwise.

* The hero in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'' was actually brainwashed so that he wouldn't remember that he's actually [[spoiler: half Dragovian]].
** Inverted with Angelo and Marcello, though…

** Played oddly in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVII''. The protagonist's foster mother actually ''did'' give birth to the him; he was conceived hundreds of years ago and gestated for seven months, at which point his real mother turned into a mermaid (thus lacking a womb) and the Spirit of Water teleported him into a random woman's womb at a random point in the future.

** Gilgamesh believed himself to be an orphan taken into the Baron's care, and spent the first years of his life at the bottom of the pecking order established by the other kids on Castle Wulfenbach. He used to imagine who his parents might have been (maybe even a lost Heterodyne!). After a couple of [[RedHerring red herrings]], he finally found out he was the heir to the Wulfenbach empire, raised in secret for his own protection. Unfortunately that revelation (and the need to keep it secret) drove a wedge between him and his friends, especially his former best friend Tarvek, a situation not helped by someone intercepting all of their attempted correspondence. [[spoiler:Actually, Gil gets a double dose since his mother is the amazonian Queen of the fabled hidden LadyLand of Skifander, as shown by his ability to ''throw an entire titan-class clank'' (though he did sprain his shoulder doing it) and his father believes Gil had to be kept hidden from his mother's people as well, for reasons he has yet to explain.]]

** Agatha doesn't know that she's sole surviving heir to a dynasty of {{Mad Scientist}}s, that her dad was a the legendary hero she grew up hearing stories about, or that her adoptive parents are their iconic assistants Punch and Judy (although she did know they were Frankenstein-esque "constructs"). She preferred her normal life. In a {{ZigZagg|ingTrope}}ed case of sorts, her mother is evil and she [[spoiler:has tried to possess Agatha]].

* [[PlayingWithATrope Played With]], [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]], and ultimately [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss''. [[spoiler: As the [[CloningBlues replica]] of the real Luke fon Fabre, Luke is essentially a "[[ChangelingTale changeling child]]" left in place of the "real" one. He [[HeroicBSOD doesn't handle it well]] and it leaves him with crippling [[HeroicSelfDeprecation self esteem issues]] all on top of the one closest to being his parent (in [[ParentalSubstitute actions]] and being responsible for his creation) being the BigBad. It's subverted when his "fake" parents accept him as their own son despite his origins; though Luke struggles to accept himself as a Fabre long into the latter parts of the game.]]

* In Creator/JamesThurber's ''Literature/The13Clocks'', at the end, the [[AristocratsAreEvil Wicked Duke]] reveals that the Princess Saralinda is not his niece; he had kidnapped her.
* In ''Literature/{{Animorphs}},'' [[TheWoobie Tobias]] admits that he spent his childhood hoping that his [[ParentalAbandonment absentee parents]] had abandoned him because they were secretly spies or in the Witness Protection Program or something. In fact, [[DisappearedDad his father]] was [[spoiler:a [[VoluntaryShapeshifting shapeshifting]] alien who left [[DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou to fight a war]]]], while [[MissingMom his mother]] was [[spoiler:unable to care for him due to medical problems]].

* In Creator/GeneStrattonPorter's ''Literature/{{Freckles}}'', it's inverted; the hero is convinced that his birth is as lowly as it seems, and the other characters set out to persuade him otherwise.
* ''Franchise/HarryPotter'': Harry is orphaned and raised within an abusive household, but discovers early in [[Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone the first book]] that he's a wizard, extremely well-off thanks to his parents' inheritance, and a celebrity within the wizarding world. However, most of the parental figures he acquires either abuse or betray him, or are killed, and the Dursleys who raised him get slightly sympathetic by the end. (Well, his aunt and cousin do anyways. [[EvilUncle The uncle]] stays a {{jerkass}}.)

* Creator/ChristopherPaolini's ''[[Literature/InheritanceCycle Eragon]]'', which features the titular {{Farmboy}} becoming a DragonRider and leaving the village where he grew up with his adoptive parents. He knew they were not his real parents from the start, however, and didn't find out until much later on who his real father was.

** In the Literature/WitchWorld novel ''The Jargoon Pard'', Kethan was SwitchedAtBirth to ensure his mother [[HeirClubForMen had a son]]. ContrivedCoincidence ensures he meets his birth parents and the girl they are raised, and he ends up with them. (This combines with HappilyAdopted, though -- the girl stays with them, too.)
* ''Literature/OliverTwist'' by Creator/CharlesDickens is a low-rent version, where the missing parent turns out to be middle-class -- but given that the title character was thoroughly poverty-stricken, it's a major leg up.

** Finding out the ''other'' parent is often a bad thing. For starters some parents were kind of absent. One can understand not telling a kid since they'd brag (Hey, it didn't turn out so well for poor Phaethon!) but when they ''need'' to know and they aren't there… well… Things are improving in the new saga. (Demigods were claimed instantly, and they actually ''talk'' to their children)

* PlayedWith in ''Literature/TheSecretOfPlatform13,'' also by Creator/EvaIbbotson. The heroes are looking for a missing prince kidnapped by RichBitch Mrs. Trottle. They meet Ben, a very kind and intelligent servant boy, who's ecstatic to hear this...[[SubvertedTrope before they all realize that]] they're actually looking for Raymond, a SpoiledBrat being raised as Mrs. Trottle's son. Raymond, while quite happy to hear that he's even more special than he thought, is reluctant to leave his family unless the heroes can bribe him with more than he's already getting. [[spoiler:DoubleSubverted at the end, when a letter from Ben's (supposed) grandmother reveals that he was the kidnapped prince all along]].

* Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth, by Creator/HPLovecraft, features a young man who travels to New England to explore his genealogy and who ultimately learns that his great-grandmother was the queen of a race of amphibious fish-people, and that he is destined to eventually metamorphosize into a fish-person himself. But once you actually ''are'' a fish-person, you think it's awesome.

** Subverted heavily in ''Literature/TheWarriorsApprentice'', when Elena Bothari finally meets her mother. Turns out her mother wants nothing to do with her, because [[spoiler:Elena is the product of rape. Then Elena's mother kills her father in revenge.]]

* [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] in Sharon Creech's ''Literature/TheWanderer'': Sophie constantly thinks of her adopted family as her biological one, until she is finally forced to admit that she is adopted and that the sea (which she likes a lot) killed her biological parents.