Basic Trope: Someone confuses two fairly similar objects meant for entirely different things.
- Straight: Alice is giving Bob a video tape of his favorite episode of "Tropers", and it ends up being an embarrassing video of Bob trying to jump from a trampoline into a pool, and failing hilariously.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice somehow confuses a potion for the video tape.
- Alice messes up every time she has to give something to Bob.
- Downplayed: Alice simply gives him a video tape with the wrong episode of "Tropers".
- Justified: Alice had a lot of items that she didn't label.
- Inverted: Alice intends to give Bob the wrong item, but accidentally gives him the right item instead.
- Subverted:
- The video tape is someone jumping from a trampoline into a pool, causing Alice to freak out and realize she gave him the wrong tape. However, this is actually part of the episode.
- It wasn't a swap, Charles taped over the episode.
- Double Subverted:
- ...Even though it is similar to this part of the episode, it's still the video of Bob having an Epic Fail.
- Or it's still the wrong episode.
- Parodied: Bob asks Alice, "You got rid of that embarrassing video of me jumping from the trampoline and into the pool, right?". Alice responds, "Yeah, of course!"... then they pop the video tape in, and guess what plays.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice is supposed to give multiple things to Bob. Certain things she succeeds at giving the correct items for, but some she doesn't.
- Averted: Nobody confuses two items for each other.
- Enforced: "We need to add a source of conflict in some way - how about someone accidentally switching two items?"
- Lampshaded: "You really need to label your objects!"
- Invoked: To defeat Emperor Evulz, the heroes switched out his magical staff for a decoy in order for him to be unable to use it properly.
- Exploited: Bob utilizes this by claiming Alice had scammed him with the wrong tape and deserves a refund.
- Defied: Alice carefully labels all of her items.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Played for Laughs: Bob watches the video of himself and assumes it's a scene from that episode of "Tropers". Alice just goes with it.
- Played for Drama:
- Alice accidentally gives Bob a poisoned drink instead of his regular drink, and she has to Find the Cure!
- Bob is upset by the fact that Alice recorded him doing something embarrassing.
- Played for Horror: Alice accidentally gives Bob a video tape of an extremely graphic Exploitation Film.
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