History Main / YouLookLikeYouveSeenAGhost

* Played with in ''Theatre/LesMiserables''.

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->'''Random Guy:''' What's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost!
->'''Random Guy #2:''' ''(points to Martha)'' I just did! Look!

A SubTrope of LiteralMetaphor. When characters enter screaming and running from a ghost (or any supernatural creature that would frighten your average [[{{Muggles}} Muggle]]), it is customary for a [[GenreBlindness Genre Blind]] character to say in complete jest, "What's wrong with you? You look like you've seen a ghost." Alternatively, the line may be said mockingly by the 'ghost'--whether they're literally a ghost, some other kind of undead, or merely [[ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated wrongly believed to be dead]]--themselves.

[[TheParody Parodied]] and [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] like crazy these days, but the mystery abounds as to why this isn't a DeadHorseTrope yet. A SubTrope of IWasJustJoking.

* In ''Discworld/GoingPostal'', the face of a dead postmaster is described as looking like he'd seen a ghost. What really happened was that the post office's accumulation of letters gave it [[GeniusLoci something like a soul]] so Postmaster Ignavia saw its past. Unfortunately, as he passed through a spectral image of a former postman he saw ''the inside of the man's head'', and was so shocked he died of fright.

* Used by Lady Van Tassel in Tim Burton's ''Film/SleepyHollow''. [[spoiler:Shortly after said character had faked her own death.]]

* Film/{{Goosebumps}} has a more [[spoiler:literal]] version of the trope. Hannah says the line after finding Stine and Zach. [[spoiler:Thing is, they just finished discussing how [[DeadAllAlong Hannah being a ghost]] affected Stine's life.]]

* This line accompanies TheReveal of the villain's identity in Chapter 12 of ''FanFic/TheMadScientistWars''.

* ''Literature/GhostTwins'': Spoofed in one book when one of the titular twins returns from an encounter with another, yet more mysterious, ghost and her brother asks if she saw a ghost, to which she gives him an odd look and says, "I'm looking at one." Moments later, she confirms his suspicions.

* Spoofed in a ''Ghost Twins'' book when one of the titular twins returns from an encounter with another, yet more mysterious, ghost her brother asks if she saw a ghost, to which she gives him an odd look and says, "I'm looking at one." Moments later, she confirms his suspicions.

* In ''Discworld/GoingPostal'', the face of a dead postmaster is described as looking like he'd seen a ghost. What really happened was that the post office's accumulation of letters gave it [[GeniusLoci something like a soul]] so Postmaster Ignavia saw its past. Unfortunately, he was standing in its present, and out of shock, fell over where he shouldn't.

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* In Creator/DevonMonk's ''Literature/MagicInTheBlood'', after Allie's father starts to haunt her.
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-->-- ''Half Magic''

* In Creator/DevonMonk's Literature/AllieBeckstrom novel ''Magic in the Blood'', after her father starts to haunt her.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10}}'' episode 24, Ghostfreak has just gotten loose from the Omnitrix. Ben's grandfather, not knowing this, goes up to Ben and says the phrase.

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* This line accompanies TheReveal of the villain's identity in Chapter 12 of ''TheMadScientistWars''.

* In Episode 1 of The Dr. Steel Show, DoctorSteel sees a ghostly vision of a magical transforming toy ("Winky") hovering about his lab, but it disappears into an air duct before he can get a Polaroid snapshot of it. Slightly inverted as he was more awed by it than scared.