Oct 16 2008
Secret Identity Aesthetics
And I finally get into the RPG Blog Carnival mindset. Superheroes really shouldn’t have given me this big a difficulty.
The secret identity isn’t just a matter of tossing on a costume and saying you’re done, regardless of what Superman would make you think. There’s a lot more to it, and neglecting little details is as likely as not going to get you discovered. For purpose of this post, I’m going to be introducing two terms: The street-self and the shadow-self. The first is the normal, usually default identity; the second is the secret identity, usually a costumed do-something-er.
Costume is, however, a good start. This works best when you have costumes that don’t look like what you normally wear. The Standard Superhero Spandex actually does assist in this regard; since it’s something that you should theoretically be able to wear under your street clothing, it is by necessity going to present a different profile than your standard clothing. (I also recommend intensifying this by wearing clothing with a dynamically different shape when not being one’s shadow-self. Contrast, contrast, contrast!) Posture can help as well—one self slouching while the other stands up straight, for instance.
Then there’s hair and eyes. For some reason, this is the feature most often forgotten by many heroic-types. Superman’s glasses-on, glasses-off effect is all very simple, but really, unless those glasses house a gaze attack that inflicts Plot-Enforced Stupidity on the target, it really shouldn’t work. Ditto a number of magical girls; the hair usually really. Isn’t. That. Different. How is anyone fooled? But if you adjust the length of the hair a bit, or the color, or even the style (Crossroads, anyone?); change the skin color, maybe the eye color; add a mask or a hood or something that just renders it unnoticeable (Spoiler comes to mind)… now you’re getting somewhere.
Another point is behavior. Now, this is partly covered under posture, but that’s only the start of it. It can also cover how loudly and forcefully you speak, how you react to people, turns of speech (using a shadow-self catch-phrase while in street is more recoverable than, say, letting someone see your costume, but still awkward), and other quirks like that. The best way to hide a showboating shadow-self is to be modest in the street; a cynical street-self can provide an excellent distraction for an altruistic shadow-self; you get the idea.
Then there’s the hard part—knowing when and where to switch between identities. Superman’s method, again, just isn’t going to work here. For one thing, phone booths aren’t exactly common in this day and age. Besides, the problem with a phone booth is that it’s one way in, one way out. If you go in, and someone else comes out, it’s not that hard to put two and two together. And don’t get me started on transforming or changing or what have you in the middle of a crowd. Particularly if you’ve got the Standard Magical Girl Transformation Sequence with its implied nudity—not only do you lose your secret identity, but there goes your dignity!
Might do more on this, might not. We’ll see, right?
“Have you got any idea how hard it is to find two people in a city of millions based on no more than a physical description?” — Vilui, Sailor Dora, Act 5, Interlude 10
This is, obviously, something I’ve had to think hard about for the Sailor Moon fan fiction I’m writing, but I’ve come to the simple conclusion that even if your two selves do look nearly identical, you can avoid discovery if no-one is ever allowed to see both your selves. (This wouldn’t work so well for someone like Superman, but in SM the victims-of-the-day are nearly always unconscious.) A bonus to using this method is that it allows my villains to discover, or try to discover, the heroes’ civilian identities in much more realistic ways than the standard “I saw them transforming, now I know exactly who they are, in spite of the fact that I never saw these girls before in my life.” (Hence the above quote.)
Yes, but. One of the things that prompted that particular paragraph actually was one of the plot-arcs from an early Sailor Moon season. Remember that mini-one near the end of the first major arc, when the Negaverse crew manage to mistake every single member of the team for her in extremely short order, even when the person with the meatball hair is standing right in front of them? The episode that turned on the hair sample was decently feasible, but the others–I can’t call it anything but Plot-Induced Stupidity at that point. (Then again, I’m just as surprised by the fact that I remember it six years later.)
…though, from the single episode randomed at my college anime club, I think I can safely say that the live-action version manages to avoid the situation more cleanly.
Of course I remember those episodes
You’ll be pleased to know in my version I changed things round to avoid that particular stupidity.
Well, superman actually has “super-hypnotism.” Seriously. It’s in the official comics and everything.
Right here: http://superdickery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=36%3Astupor-powers-index&id=742%3Amore-super-hypnotism&Itemid=24
It explains why he only needs to put on glasses to disguise himself. He’s constantly hypnotizing everyone who looks at him, without thinking about it. It even works over TV, and hangs around in pictures.
Of course, this was all before they actually started doing what you’re saying. Now, most super heroes do act differently than their secret identity.
Ah, right.
One wonders about the side-effects….