Out of Character Alert: Difference between revisions

* In ''[[Die Hard]] With a Vengeance'', a bunch of German mercenaries impersonate cops. Although the leader speaks English with a flawless American accent, he slips up on a few word choices, such as calling an elevator a "lift" and saying that it's raining "dogs and cats," instead of the usual "cats and dogs. When McClane recognizes that one of them is wearing a friend's badge, and mentions the lottery to figure out if anyone on the elevator is real. None of the fake cops know last night's numbers, though in the beginning it's established that every NYPD cop plays the lottery with their badge number.

* Since we don't have a "Something They Would Never Do"-Trope: One of the ''[[Dirty Harry]]'' films had Harry walk into a café that was being robbed. Everyone inside was forced to act naturally while "The Cop" made his order, but the waitress managed to warn Harry by pouring about five tea-spoons of sugar in his coffee after ten years of "His Usual" being No Sugar, No Milk.

* Inverted in ''[[Single White Female]]'': Allie has just realized the extent of her roommate Hedy's depravity and psychosis when she realizes that she's murdered her boyfriend. Desperate to get out of the apartment without arousing Hedy's suspicion, Allie hurriedly claims that her upstairs neighbor Graham had called her and invited her to hang out with him. Unfortunately, unknown to Allie, Hedy bludgeoned Graham to death the previous night (but as it turns out he was merely unconscious) and knows Allie's lying.

* In [[Inglourious Basterds]] one of the team's plans gets upset by this when, trying to pass for German soldiers and ordering drinks, they use the American gesture for the number three instead of the German version. The real German soldiers notice this and promptly try to eliminate the imposters.

* ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'' presents a written variant in the third book. The trio's Grammar Nazi auntie leaves them what looked like a suicide note, but was filled with mistakes, leading them to deduce that it was written under duress and contained some hidden message. Which it did: the letters involved in the misspelled and malformed words spelled out where she was actually hiding.

* In the ''[[Jack Reacher]]'' novel "Tripwire", his girl-friend has been captured and been ordered to lure him into a trap. She calls him up and opens the conversation with "Hi, Jack". The point is that the main character is *always* called Reacher, by everyone including his mother when he was very young, and no one ever uses his first name. The coincidence of "Hi, Jack" and "hijack" only makes it more convincing that this is indeed a trap.

* In ''Fearless'', there's one arc where Gaia is being forced to humiliate Ed Fargo. He asks her "You're enjoying this aren't you?" and Gaia answers, "Yes, I like torturing you. Almost as much as I like Lox." This is actually more of a coded message, as Gaia hates Lox and is trying to tell Ed she is being forced to do this. However, she would never say she likes Lox, so it works.

* In the second ''Lady Grace'' mystery, Lady Sarah is abducted by a sea captain, and alerts Grace/ anyone who can help with a message passed by a commoner that she sends her love to " Lady Jane, my dearest friend". the two young women hate each other with passion, and so Grace and Masu are off to the rescue in a trice.

* In the [[Tom Clancy]]/Larry Bond novel ''Red Storm Rising'', Air Force weatherman Mike Edwards, stranded on occupied Iceland and radioing NATO everything he sees, is given a Duress Code. Played with in that he nearly says it by mistake. (If captured and made to phone in phony reports, he is supposed to preface the message with "Beagle Calling Doghouse, things are going great.)

* In ''[[The Dresden Files]]: Blood Rites'', after the two of them are captured by the [[Big Bad]], Lord Raith, Murphy calls Harry "Mister Dresden." Raith dismisses it without a second thought, but Harry immediately picks up on it as her playing up being helpless, as it went against both the [[Vitriolic Best Buds|nature]] of their friendship and her feminist personality.

* In ''[[World War Z]]'' the Chinese doctor who encountered one of the first victims of the zombie plague had a friend working in the government. This friend was an eternal pessimist; no matter the situation, he'd always assume it was going to get worse. When the doctor tells his friend about the victim over the phone the friend says, "Don't worry. Everything's going to be all right." That's when the doctor knew that things were really bad.

* John Birmingham's ''Axis Of Time'': A [[Time Travel|temporally-displaced]] multinational fleet from 2021 and the US Pacific Fleet of 1941 have just engaged in battle by accident, and are trying to sort out the situation. One of the 1941 sailors volunteers to go over to the future fleet, and arranges a duress signal with his superiors by suggesting "My sainted mother taught me never to swear, so if anything is wrong, I could slip in a fucking profanity, sir."

* The ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of". A robotic double is made of Kirk, with the robot having a duplicate of his mind as well. Kirk foils the plan during the procedure by mentally focusing on a racist insult toward Spock, something he would never normally say but which is consequently implanted into the double.

** There's another one in "Whom the Gods Destroy," when the villain tries to bluff his way out of failing a Trust Password test by telling Scotty that he was just testing to make sure that he wouldn't let anyone beam up without the password. Given how long Kirk and Scotty have known one another, and how much they trust one another, Scotty immediately figures out that the "just testing you" story is bogus.

* On ''[[Angel]]'', Lorne appears to have pursued a career in show business and is only seen during brief telephone calls every few episodes, and each time, he asks how Fluffy is doing. The main characters are convinced that his success is just going to his head and that he is constantly snubbing them, but when they finally come to his rescue, he says, "Fluffy. Fluffy the dog. The dog you don't have. The universally recognized code for I'm being held prisoner. Send help!"

** Hilariously played off when they got the call originally.

'''Pilot''': Enjoying each other's company. Preparing a meal for... everyone but Rygel. He's... not hungry. }}

** After hanging up Crichton says "something's wrong".

** In an earlier episode, Hotch was uncharacteristically frustrated with Reid's earlier difficulty in the shooting range after they had both been captured. He eventually convinced the UNSUB to let him kick Reid before they both died, which gave Reid a chance to grab the gun in his ankle holster. Later Reid said he'd figured out the plan at the very beginning, making the drawn-out scene unnecessary.

** In the DVD commentary for "Revelations," the writers mused on this swap and eventually agreed that Reid and Hotch have "a very effective spite-based communication."

** in a previous episode, a 12 year old boy was being held hostage, and used the proof of life video his captors took to try to alert everyone to his location. " Don't forget to feed Ace," he says, only his family doesn't have any pets. Ace turns out to be a place, a subway station where lines A, C and E all run. Thanks to Castles quick thinking and the victim of the week's invention, the kid is rescued.

* In a chilling episode of ''[[Rescue 911]]'', a woman is told by a rapist to call in sick to her workplace. She promptly dials a male friend and tells him, "I can't come in to work today," thus alerting the friend that she's in trouble and he needs to stop by PRONTO. A few seconds later, she does the same thing again with 911, and the dispatcher immediately works out that there's something wrong and sends the police.

* On an episode of ''[[Baywatch]]'', as Stephanie gets into her truck, she's confronted by an escaped convict, who orders her to drive off the beach. During the drive, Mitch radios Stephanie to tell her to return to headquarters. The criminal orders Stephanie to tell Mitch that she has found a lost child and is driving him around to find his parents. Stephanie complies, knowing that the criminal has just [[Hoist by His Own Petard|hoisted himself by his own petard]]. Ironically, in his efforts to avoid detection, ''he's'' the one who has told her to say [[Something They Would Never Say|something she would never say]]. The lifeguards NEVER drive lost children around to find their parents. Policy dictates that they bring the children to headquarters. Sure enough, Mitch realizes Stephanie's in trouble and sends the police to find her.

* Rather terrifyingly [[Inverted]] in an episode of ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]''. The setup is that [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing|Morgana]] has convinced [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|King Uther]] that his son Arthur has been enchanted by Guinevere. Convinced that Arthur is under a spell Uther orders Guinevere to be burnt at the stake, at which point a panicking Arthur tells his father that he'd be willing to renounce his claim on the throne if only Guinevere is spared. Unfortunately, Uther takes this as "final proof" that Arthur is under a spell, claiming that it's something that he would never say. Except of course, he ''does''.

* In ''[[The Spectacular Spider-Man]]'' {{spoiler|Norman Osborn does not apologize.}} The Chameleon would though.

* On an episode of ''[[Men in Black (animation)|Men in Black]]'', J instantly realized that an alien was impersonating K, because K would never had laughed at any of his jokes.

** Which is sort of ironic, because usually, [[The Speechless|Jericho doesn't either]].

* This was how Cosgrove discredited an evil clone in ''[[Freakazoid]]'': he asked if the clone wanted to [[Running Gag|go to a Yakov Smirnov festival]]. The clone said "no". (Compare that to Freakazoid's usual "DO I!")

* When captured during [[The Vietnam War]], then-aviator Jeremiah Denton communicated to the American audience during a televised interview by blinking in Morse code, spelling out the word "torture".

* One urban legend describes a prisoner of war forced to write a letter to his family saying that he is being treated well. In the letter is a cryptic sentence: "Please give little Jimmie the stamp for his collection." The family doesn't know anyone named Jimmie, so they realize that it must be a clue. They steam the stamp off the envelope, and on the other side is written the truth of the prisoner's condition: "They've cut off my [hands/legs/tongue]."

** Not to mention that letters sent by POW don't have stamps, at least not before they've entered Red Cross' hands.

** I heard of the inverse, a prisoner of war wrote to his parents who lived in a village small enough not to have street names. The fake address he made up (Kings' Road or Road of the Kings, plus a ridiculously high number) was a quote from [[The Bible]] (Book kings, the number indicating the verse) describing prisoners being treated WELL. By using a code to say this the family could be sure it was true.