Basic Trope: Someone mistakes a related person for the person they were looking for.
- Straight: Alice sees a well-dressed man and thinks she's found a famous professor called Dr. Woodley. It turns out that the young lady next to the man she saw was Dr. Woodley, and the man is just her assistant Bob.
- Exaggerated:
- Every single person who comes looking for Dr. Woodley always mistake Bob as "him", to the real professor's annoyance.
- Alice mistakes Bob, a middle aged well-dressed man, for Dr. Woodley, and then thinks the younger also well-dressed woman beside him must be Dr. Woodley. The real Dr. Woodley is the seemingly ditzy teenager.
- Downplayed: Alice is not sure which one is Dr. Woodley and so she asks, while looking at Bob.
- Justified:
- Dr. Woodley looks about fifteen and too young to be a professor, while Bob is in uniform.
- Dr. Woodley is a Bunny-Ears Lawyer, and needs a more official appearing assistant to be at her side.
- Dr. Woodley does not speak Alice's language, and Bob is translating her words verbatim, including introducing himself by her name.
- Inverted: Alice mistakes Dr. Woodley for the assistant.
- Subverted: The young lady was just joking, she's not actually Dr. Woodley.
- Double Subverted: The other lady with the crazy hair is Dr. Woodley.
- Parodied:
- A bunny is Dr. Woodley.
- Alice got a comprehensive physical description of Dr. Woodley before she went to meet her. Yet, somehow, she mistakes every other tenant and visitor for Dr. Woodley.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice is looking for Dr. Woodley, head of the lab, and assumes that it is Bob. Bob is Dr. Bob Woodley, but he tells her that his sister, Dr. Carol Woodley, is the head of the lab. Still, Bob happens to be qualified to address Alice's problem as well and does so.
- Averted: Alice doesn't mistake Bob for Dr. Woodley.
- Enforced: To set up An Aesop about how you should not judge people by their appearances.
- Invoked: Bob puts on Dr. Woodley's uniform.
- Exploited: Dr. Woodley can go incognito as all attention is on Bob.
- Defied: Alice sees someone matching Dr. Woodley's description but asks someone nearby to confirm who it is before approaching him.
- Discussed: "And when I saw Bob I thought he was Dr. Woodley but Dr. Woodley was actually this fifteen-year-old girl!"
- Conversed: "Characters should not judge people by their appearance. Anyone could be the doctor in this show's universe — even a kid!"
- Implied:
- Dr. Woodley says that this type of mistake happens a lot, but she doesn't elaborate.
- Bob suddenly goes from being demanding to submissive to Dr. Woodley, implying he discovered she was not someone he could bark orders at.
- Deconstructed: Dr. Woodley finds it grating that people don't recognize her; it infuriates her that people make such assumptions on appearance. This ends poorly for poor Bob.
- Reconstructed: Dr. Woodley is initially annoyed that people assume the more official-looking Bob is the doctor of the two, but eventually decides it's a good Secret Test of Character. If they haven't done their research before coming to her, and don't even think to ask, she knows she's dealing with someone likely to give her problems later on.
- Played for Laughs: Alice thinks everyone in the building is Dr. Woodley, but it turns out Dr. Woodley is a three-year-old boy.
- Played for Drama: Dr. Woodley keeps being mistaken for the assistant as she's a woman who must constantly deal with sexism.
Sorry, but I'm just the "Playing With" page, Actually, That's My Assistant is over there.
