Basic Trope: A character pretends to be a disabled person.
- Straight: Bob claims to need a wheelchair. He's seldom seen in public out of one, but when he is, he's clearly able to walk without any problems.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob has convinced everyone that he has an intellectual disability to the point where he's completely unable to walk, talk, care for himself, form relationships, hold a job or live a normal life, when in reality he can do all those things with ease.
- Bob claims to have multiple disabilities, none of which he actually has.
- Bob claims to have an intellectual disability. He's a Mensa-level genius.
- Bob claims to need a wheelchair. He was a star track runner who can still outrun Usain Bolt.
- Downplayed:
- Bob genuinely has a disability, but makes his disability out to be more severe than it actually is. For example, he claims to be completely blind but is actually only partially sighted, or he can walk just fine with crutches but always uses a wheelchair in public under the pretense of needing one.
- Bob claims to have multiple disabilities. He does genuinely have at least one of the disabilities he claims, but certainly not all of them.
- Bob fakes a terminal illness.
- Bob claims to need glasses, but what he doesn't want you to know is that his pair doesn't have lenses and he has normal vision.
- Justified:
- Bob needed to smuggle something important.
- Bob is testing the museum's staff on how they treat handicapped people without their awareness contaminating the test.
- Inverted: Hiding the Handicap
- Subverted:
- Bob's disability is genuine, but the severity of the disability fluctuates.
- Bob gains a genuine disability.
- Bob may not actually have the disability he claimed, but he genuinely does have a different disability.
- Bob's disability is neurological not physical, his blindness is caused by a conversion disorder.
- Bob's disability is stamina related, he can walk without a wheelchair, but not for very long... note
- Bob's glasses are for light-oversensitivity, not vision.
- Double Subverted:
- Then it turns out he was just messing with people.
- Bob's disability is cured.
- Bob is better at taking care of his condition than even he thinks he is.
- Parodied: Bob forgets that he was pretending and is just as surprised at being able to walk.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob actually does have a disability that he claims will eventually get worse over time. It turns out he made a full recovery, but has been stuck with it for so long that even he didn't know it.
- Averted: Bob does not have a disablity and makes no secret of this.
- Enforced: The play is set on a stage which isn't handicap accessible
- Lampshaded: "How is Bob walking? I thought he was in a wheelchair and couldn't walk at all!"
- Invoked: Bob is legitimately disabled. However, he exploits stereotypes relating to disabled people and all-too-common attitudes displayed by non-disabled people towards disabled people to remain Beneath Notice.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Bob thinks it would be too complicated to sit on a wheelchair for years on end (at the very least, it could get annoying), so he decides to skip it.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: Bob has faked being unable to walk for so long he genuinely needs physical therapy to walk again because his legs are so atrophied.
- Reconstructed: Bob is able to exercise discreetly to retain his ability to walk.
- Played for Laughs: Bob makes everyone forget he can walk just by sitting back down in his wheelchair.
Hey, how are you able to click the button to go back to Obfuscating Disability? Aren't you supposed to be disabled?
