Basic Trope: Talking about oneself in the third person when referring to oneself in the first person is the norm.
- Straight: Percy usually refers to himself in the third person.
- Exaggerated:
- Percy always refers to himself in the third person, no matter how often people tell him to stop.
- Percy always refers to himself in the third person, never even using the pronoun "he" about himself (e.g., "Percy needs a job because Percy needs money").
- Percy always refers to himself and every other organism around him in the third person.
- Percy not only refers to himself in the third person all the time, but also demands that everyone else do so (e.g. someone asking him, "What does Percy want for lunch?") and gets upset when they don't.
- Percy only says his name, and no other words.
- Downplayed:
- Percy sometimes stops himself from talking about himself in the third person.
- Percy does this when he talks to babies.
- Percy never says "I" or "me".
- Justified:
- Percy is a vain villain with an awesome-sounding title he wants to say as often as possible.
- Percy is a Hulk Speaking primitive, and doesn't know about pronouns.
- In Percy's culture, talking about oneself in the third person is considered a sign of humility, and failing to do so can be considered rude.
- Percy's native language only has pronouns for the third person, so everyone speaking it is forced to do this. Percy has recently started learning English, and hasn't mastered English pronouns yet.
- While Percy isn't the villainous type, he has quite a big ego. Therefore, he says his name in place of his personal pronouns referring to him to make him feel mightier and more important.
- Percy has spent years impersonating Tom. After he stops doing it, he's so used to referring to Percy in the third person that he doesn't bother to change back.
- It's part of his Percy the Magnificent magician act.
- Percy has so many names/titles that he always has to quantify in what capacity he's speaking… prepending his identifiers with "I" wouldn't add anything useful.
- Percy is a child and hasn't learned how to use pronouns to refer to himself yet.
- Inverted:
- Percy refers to himself in the second person.
- Percy addresses everyone in the third person (like asking Alice "Does Alice want me to buy bread for her?").
- Percy refers to himself in the first person in a place where referring to oneself in the third person is the norm.
- Subverted: Percy says, "Yes, Percy was at the bus stop today." He was talking about someone else named Percy.
- Double Subverted: Percy always refers to himself using his full name, Percy (Pierce Philip Price) Parks.
- Parodied: Percy refers to himself in the third person, except his reply when asked why he does so is: "I never use the word 'I' because I don't know about it."
- Zig-Zagged: Percy talks about himself sometimes in the first person and sometimes in the third person.
- Averted: Percy talks about himself in the first person.
- Enforced:
- "Quick! Is there an easy way to make a character sound vain and ignorant at the same time?"
- Alternatively, "Quick! Is there an easy way to make a pretended cultural difference?"
- Lampshaded: "Percy always talks about himself in the third person."
- Invoked: Percy moves to a country where this is the norm, and is encouraged to act according to it.
- Exploited: Percy's name is supposed to be unknown, but somebody asks him a question that he can't answer without using a personal pronoun, and so he gives away his name.
- Defied: Percy is told to stop referring to himself in the third person because it makes him sound vain and ignorant. He listens and learns how to use first-person pronouns.
- Discussed: "It sounds weird when people talk about themselves in the third person, doesn't it?"
- Conversed: "Can't we see a cartoon in which the villain knows about first-person pronouns instead?"
- Implied: Percy is The Ghost, and Bob talks about him doing this.
- Deconstructed:
- Percy is used to circumstances wherein talking about oneself in the third person is a sign of humility and can't bring himself to use the first person. Everyone else thinks he's vain for doing so, however, and he is subjected to shabby treatment for it.
- Percy, as a character in a western work, stops and asks the narrator why he and so many other characters like him are written like this, since nobody ever actually talks like this in Real Life.
- Reconstructed: Percy's friends explain that when Percy talks about himself in the third person, it's because he comes from a culture where this is a sign of respect. Eventually, people get this and appreciate the extra respect.
- Plotted a Good Waste: Percy's referral to himself in the third person, forgetting that he should use the first person, is foreshadowing that he's going senile.
- Played for Laughs:
- Played for Drama: Percy loses his entire social circle because he talks about himself in the third person.
- Played for Horror:
- Percy's name is a Brown Note that makes all who hear it suffer Cruel and Unusual Deaths. He won't stop saying it, however.
- Percy was put through a Trauma Conga Line or became Brainwashed and Crazy; he starts referring to himself in third person to show how he will never truly feel like himself again.
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