Loving a Shadow: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

In the character's mind, one type of relationship was simply confused with another. This has some basis in reality, where some potentially romantic relationships are actually people seeking "figures". (Hell, [[Truth in Television|who]] ''[[Truth in Television|hasn't]]'' [[Truth in Television|done this at some point]]?) They spend time with a person because he or she [[Replacement Goldfish|reminds]] them of someone ''else''. For example, some characters attracted to older characters often have an absent parent or older sibling or their [[Dead Little Sister]]. This situation is often the inherent role of an Unwanted Harem's [[Unlucky Everydude]].

 

 

Doing this poorly can feel incredibly cheap if the "explanation" doesn't make sense or potential evidence wasn't [[Ass Pull|presented beforehand]], as it feels as if the writers are just [[Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends|going down the list of romantic opposition and checking them off.]]

Like [[Death of the Hypotenuse]] and [[Ron the Death Eater]], this trope serves as a subtrope of [[Die for Our Ship]] in [[Fanfic]], to clear the way for the author's [[Shipping|preferred 'ship]].

 

 

 

Most definitely can be [[Truth in Television]].

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* In ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', the girl [[Shotacon|most overtly fond of Negi]], Class Representative Ayaka, had a younger brother who died at birth the same year Negi was born. It's a bit of an inversion, however, because in many ways, Negi really ''is'' the "shadow" Ayaka wanted her [[Dead Little Sister|baby brother]] to be.

*** Let' not forget one of the few times Asuna gets conflicting feelings about Negi. She had just had a dream about Nagi. Whom it seems she rather liked.

** There's also a slightly more literal version involving a student falling in love with Negi's "cousin", who's actually Negi magically aged up. The results are rather disastrous (and [[Averted Trope|not]] in the [[Hilarity Ensues|good way]]).

* On ''[[Fushigi Yuugi]]'', [[Wholesome Crossdresser]] Nuriko's habits were handwaved by the explanation that he was taking the place of his [[Dead Little Sister]] Kourin.

* In ''[[Vision of Escaflowne]]'', everyone assumes Allan Schezar is attracted to slender young ingenues (borderline-legal in Japan, crimes almost elsewhere). In fact, hints that are revealed later indicate that they are all [[Replacement Goldfish]] - specifically, replacements for his little sister [[Failure Knight|whom he was unable to rescue in his youth]].

** And let's not forget that Hitomi's attraction to Allen Schezar was partly caused by his ''extreme'' similarity (both physical and personality-wise) to her beloved Amano-sempai, her long-time crush in school.

* In ''[[Macross]]'', Misa Hayase was deeply affected by {{spoiler|the loss of her beloved fiancé and childhood friend, Riber Fruhling. Later, Minmay's handsome cousin Kaifun enters the scene, and he looks a LOT like a Chinese version of the deceased Riber...}}

* This is a plot point for two characters in Satoshi Kon's ''[[Millennium Actress]]''. It is even the subject of more direct [[Lampshade Hanging]] at one point. The main character became an actress in order to find the man she loves, a rebellious artist. She sees him very briefly in her youth, and continues to keep the torch alight all her life. {{spoiler|In the end she admits that "It's the ''chasing him'' that I really love."}}

** [[Alternate Character Interpretation|Another way to look at it]] is that {{spoiler|Yuki did love Tohru, but she fell in love with Kyo instead. Yuki gave up and invented the above excuse to feel better about not being chosen.}}

** [[Alternate Character Interpretation|Or maybe]] he fell for her in part due to her {{spoiler|maternal personality traits, then shied away and said what he did because he was feeling shades of Oedipus Rex}}.

* {{spoiler|Sonken Chuubou}} in ''[[Ikki Tousen]]: Great Guardians'' was the reincarnation of {{spoiler|Shuuyu Koukin's wife from their past lives, so she was crushing out on him before they even met. She stops doing so once Koukin says [[Screw Destiny|she shouldn't make fate rule her happiness]], though. That, and Koukin was already in love with his cousin ''and'' Chuubou's "older sister", Sonsaku Hakufu, which Chuubou [[I Want My Beloved to Be Happy|also accepted]] very gracefully.}}

* In ''[[Naruto]]'', all of the [[All Girls Want Bad Boys|girls that crush on]] [[Ineffectual Loner|Sasuke]] fall under this trope. {{spoiler|Karin gets a good look at the real Sasuke as he punches a hole in her to kill Danzo, which ends her affection pretty definitely.}}

* In ''[[Sailor Moon]]'', it's speculated that {{spoiler|Seiya's crush on Usagi may have come from how similar she was to the Starlight's leader, Princess Kakyuu.}}

* May Chang in ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' has a HUGE crush on Ed when she's introduced (with dream sequences no doubt reminding some of ''Ouran'' above). She inevitably finds out what he's really like...but shortly afterwards she gets to know Al and the squeefest starts all over again. {{spoiler|Not even seeing Al's true emaciated body once he's restored to his original form puts her off, and they eventually get married}}.

* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' has this going on because apparently it's not in enough Tropes already. Misato at one point openly admits in her narration she loved Kaji at least somewhat because he reminded him of her father, who died in the Second Impact.

* Since the plot of [[The World God Only Knows]] revolves around having Keima make girls fall in love with him for their own good, there's going to be a lot of this. In fact, he seems to do it intentionally. He projects whatever personality they want to see in him so that they become attracted while he helps them solve whatever problems created a gap for them in the first place. Only two targets and the supernatural characters avert this.

** How the little girl whom Shiratori loved was a big fangirl of the Japanese police force didn't really help. Neither did the fact that, back then, Kobayashi lacked [[Meganekko|her glasses]], which is the main physical difference between her and Satou.

* Tadase from [[Shugo Chara]]. 'Nuff said.

* A positive subversion of this trope occurs in ''Presents''. An artist falls in love with the daughter of a gallery owner at first sight. The daughter is a [[Rich Bitch]] who says she'll only go out with him if he can paint a fabulous portrait of her and then give it to her as a present. The artist tries and fails repeatedly, until Kurumi tells him that he needs to put into the portrait what he felt when he saw her for the first time. The last portrait is hailed as a masterpiece and put on display in another gallery. When the rich girl reads about this, she greedily decides to remind the artist that he owes his success to her and his promise about the painting. The artist, surprisingly, turns her down, because he realizes she's not who he fell in love with. The girl he fell in love with is the girl he saw that day, the girl who is immortalized in that portrait, and for all his hard work and everything he put into it, he gets his dream girl. {{spoiler|The girl in the portrait steps out from the frame and becomes real. The artist receives a happy ending with his love, the rich girl, on the other hand...}}

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

** Of course, Nightwing gets this ''all the time.'' At one point he had upwards of six love interests, all of whom were infatuated with different shadows.

* In an old ''[[She Hulk]]'' comic, She-Hulk meets an old boyfriend who introduced her to his new girlfriend who looked just like She-Hulk only not so green. The two women glared at each other.

 

== [[Film]] ==

* One of the waitresses in ''[[I Really Hate My Job]]'' wonders if her crush on Danny Huston is just this. But then she shrugs it off with wondering if he'd fall in love with her.

* The main character in ''[[While You Were Sleeping]]'' nurses a crush on a regular commuter at the train station where she collects tokens. Over the course of the movie, she comes to discover that, while not really a bad man, he's not the man she thought he was, and finds herself falling for his brother, whom she gets to know quite well.

* Rob Gordon in ''[[High Fidelity]]'' realizes this about [[Tomboyish Name|Charlie]], his third ex. He spends most of the movie reminiscing about how fantastic, and sophisticated, and amazing, and profoundly intellectual, and out of his league she was - back when they dated in college - until he finally sees her again after having [[Older and Wiser|grown up a bit]]. It would be an understatement to say Rob discovers how utterly boring and shallow and repulsive she truly is and always was.

* Actually subverted in ''[[Laura]]''. When it turns out she is alive, she is basically what the detective hoped she would be.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* One of more critical parts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's [[The Great Gatsby]] is when the title character, in an affair with his childhood sweetheart, our narrator's cousin, is revealed to love the ''idea'' of Daisy, an idea which she doesn't and can't live up to. When he tries to get her to renounce her love for her husband, Tom, she's unable to respond and the climactic chapter is where the affair falls apart in spectacular fashion.

** And whatever his actual age, when he smiled at their wedding he looked ''ten years younger'' than he had throughout the rest of the movie.

* In ''[[Mercy Thompson|Iron Kissed]]'', {{spoiler|Samuel and Mercy simultaneously come to the epiphany that he's not jealous of her flirting with a stranger because he's fallen out of love with her. His jealousy in the previous two books is handwaved as "teasing", despite the fact that he nearly came to blows to Adam.}}

* In [[Tim Powers]]' ''[[The Stress of Her Regard]]'', Crawford's second wife Julia was murdered horribly on their wedding night. Years later, her [[Angsty Surviving Twin]] roleplays Julia very accurately for an extended period - and Crawford realizes that he never really knew Julia, and doesn't like what he sees of her now.

** Raistlin himself has this for {{spoiler|Laurana}} in ''Dragons of the Hourglass Mage'', and though he realizes that what he feels isn't anything more than a crush inspired by her beauty and non-negative reaction to him, he spends a chunk of the book trying to find ways to rescue her [[Badass in Distress|from Kitiara's clutches]] if the opportunity arises {{spoiler|(it doesn't, but he still has brief imagine-spots of rescuing her}}.)

* A variation from the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] novel ''[[X Wing Series|Wraith Squadron]]''. Kell thinks he's in love with another pilot, who tells him in no uncertain terms, after asking a few tough questions, that he doesn't love her but his mental image of her. Later, using the criteria she set out earlier, he finds that he's in love with the "real" her... which prompts her to tackle him to the floor in his quarters, as she was smitten almost from the start and was just waiting.

* In the Mary Higgins Clark novel A Cry in the Night, the relationship between Jenny and her artist husband Erich is like this from both sides. Jenny loves the gentle sensitive guy that she believes Erich must be based on his paintings; Erich loves Jenny because she looks like his dead mother. Needless to say, this does not end well.

* In K.A. Knaak's ''Dragonrealm'', Gwendolyn originally falls for Cabe Bedlam because of his similarities with his grandfather Nathan, who was once her lover; but later she falls for all those peculiarities that make Cabe himself.

** Phaethon realizes that most of his love for Daphne Prime was inspired by Daphne Tercius, even when she was a doll and not an emacipiated partial.

** Daphne Prime reveals that, in the [[Backstory]], she approached Phaethon to get to Helion because she was in love the idea of a man who preserved the life of the sun, and when she actually met Helion, did not like him at all.

* [[Lolita]] argubly. Consider for a second that the origins of Humbert Humbert's obsession with Lolita is explained by him in the very first pages. He says the it was his unconsummated relationship with Annabel that caused him to be attracted to "nymphets". So he essentially loves Lolita because she reminds him of Annabel.

* Quite a lot of fans who [[Derailing Love Interests|dislike the canon Harry/Ginny pairing]] consider Ginny Weasley to be in love with The Boy Who Lived, not [[Harry Potter]].

** Hermione says that Rodmilla Vane is only interested in Harry because he's The Chosen One.

* The reason that Elli Quinn didn't marry Miles is because she was in love with his alter ego Admiral Miles Naismith, rather than his true persona [[Vorkosigan Saga|Lord Miles Vorkosigan]].

* In ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' Asha considers Tristifer Botley to be doing this to her, and wishes he would stop going on about how much he loves her.

* In Diane Hoh's ''Guilty'', Katie Sullivan believes that somebody is stalking her and plans to kill her because they blame her for the death of her boyfriend, Brownie. {{spoiler|It turns out that Katie is actually being stalked by one of her friends, and that he was the one responsible for Brownie's death. He was trying to kill Katie because, in actuality, Katie went through a massive personality overhaul as a result of Brownie's death. She wasn't "guilty" for Brownie's death, she was "guilty" for killing the old her, whom everyone used to refer to as Kit.}}

* It is quite probable that Desdemona's love for Othello is of this nature and he suspects it making him an easy target for Iago's manipulation.

 

** Chloe Sullivan has a similar situation with Davis Bloome in Season 8, where he's clearly a [[Unlucky Childhood Friend|Clark substitute.]]

** There's also Much, who falls for Kate despite the fact she treats him rather poorly. Fan speculation is that she simply reminds him of Eve, his Season 1 love interest, who also had distinctive blonde hair.

* In ''[[Frasier]]'' Daphne and Niles got together after seven years of UST, after which Daphne developed a weight problem, which a therapist speculated was due to anxiety over being unable to live up to the image Niles had built up of her (a fact seemingly confirmed by the fact that Niles remained oblivious to her rather severe weight gain). Frasier later speculates that Niles may also fear being unable to live up to being in a real relationship with her. The problem is resolved when the two of them [[Crowning Moment of Funny|make a long list of everything they hate about each other]].

* This is a theory in [[Charmed]] that Phoebe loved Coop because he's like the safer version of her ex Cole. Coop acted like Cole only he's good because he's a cupid and not a demon.

* Played poignantly in an episode of ''[[Jonathan Creek]].'' At first Robin Priest seems a bit of a lout for having an affair with an unpleasant blonde. However, it turns out that his so-called wife took advantage of a bump to his head and [[Brainwashed]] him into believing that they were married. When [[The Reveal]] comes, it's clear that his immediate attraction to the blonde was simply because she bore a startling resemblance to his ''real'' wife, who - though dead - is displayed prominantly in several portraits around his former house.

 

== [[Music]] ==

* "The One You Really Love" by The Magnetic Fields.

* "Behavior" by Steel Train.

And then I woke up. }}

 

* Played straight with ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]''. Romeo begins the story utterly heartbroken that his one true love has dumped him. The minute he sees Juliet, he is utterly infatuated with his new one true love. Some interpret this to mean he is too needy or in love with the idea of being in love. However, such an interpretation is not popular because it destroys the notion that the play [[Misaimed Fandom|depicts love at its most ideal]].

* The musical version of [[Les Misérables]] had Eponine sum up this trope best with "And I know, it's only in my mind. That I'm talking to myself and not to him... I love him, but only on my own."

* [[Cyrano De Bergerac]]: One of the core points of the play is that Roxane doesn’t love Christian or Cyrano, she is in love with their [[Shadow Archetype]]: An entity who has all the positive traits of both suitors, but none of their defects, a true shadow.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* A story which can be read in [[Elder Scrolls|Morrowind]], titled "Palla," tells the tale of a mage who falls in love with a long-dead woman depicted fighting a monster in a statue. Of course, it doesn't turn out like he thought it would. {{spoiler|Palla turns out to be the name of the monster. Guess who comes back to life?}}

** Laharl himself seems to be attracted to Flonne, and it's mentioned that she reminds him of his deceased mother.

* If she's paired up with [[Horse Archer]] Midayle, [[Pirate Girl]] Briggid from ''[[Fire Emblem Jugdral]]'' will straightforwardly tell him that she's not sure if he loves her for herself or because she is the twin older sister of Adean, the [[White Magician Girl]] he used to love, and Midayle will have to disabuse her of such a belief.

** She exhibits a similar fear if she's paired up with [[The Archer]] Jamuka, whom Adean helped to have a [[Heel Face Turn]]. Again, Jamuka will reply via saying that he loves only her now.

** It's implied in one of the mangas that {{spoiler|Alvis}}, a man with a BIG {{spoiler|[[Oedipus Complex]]}}, may have fallen for {{spoiler|Diadora}} because she reminded him of {{spoiler|his much adored mother}}. For massive irony, {{spoiler|Diadora was his half-sister... ''and they shared the same mom''. Whoops.}}

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* In ''[[Namir Deiter]]'', Cedric convinces himself that he's still in love with Tipper (his high-school sweetheart, whom ''he'' broke up with). Tipper tells him point-blank that he's in love with the girl she used to be and she's changed drastically since then. Not to mention she's engaged to someone else. Cedric doesn't take no for an answer. From Tipper OR her fiancee, Charles. [http://www.namirdeiter.com/comics/index.php?date=20081019 It doesn't] [http://www.namirdeiter.com/comics/index.php?date=20081021 end well]. Then again, Cedric has always been portrayed as a flake who tends to react first and think when forced to.

* Haruna sees Onii-san as a replacement for her dead fiance Mamoru in ''[[Tsunami Channel|Experimental Comic Kotone]]''.

* This turns out to be the major source of conflict between Misho and Marena in ''[[Keychain of Creation]]''. Misho refuses to have casual sex with Marena. He wants more than that. Marena actually wants that too, but won't commit to anything more until she's sure that Misho {{spoiler|sees her as she is now, not [[Reincarnation Romance|as she was a millenium ago]], when she was Misho's First Age Lunar consort.}}

* One arc of ''[[Least I Could Do]]'' has Issa introducing the guys to her new boyfriend, who bears a very strong resemblance to Rayne. The other guys notice this and wonder among themselves if she realizes this, as Issa has adamantly resisted Rayne's advances for the last decade or so.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

 

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Love Tropes]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]