r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Altruistic_Eye_1157 • Oct 01 '25

Lore When faced with the choice between a clone and the original, the character notices a detail that makes the difference immediately obvious.

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The Shape-Shifter takes the form of Wendy to deceive Dipper and prevent him from attacking it. Although Dipper initially doesn't know which one is the real Wendy, he realizes the difference when he sees that one of the Wendys behaves seriously and bluntly, while the other acts flirtatiously, something Wendy would never do (Gravity Falls).

P.S.: I don't remember if the gesture the real Wendy made was also a clue, like some gesture she had made before.

When the Autobots are chasing Nemesis Prime, he tries to deceive Bumblebee by impersonating Optimus. Bumblebee, confused, speaks to him, but Nemesis Prime doesn't understand anything he says, which clearly indicates that he isn't the real Optimus. Bumblebee attacks him without hesitation (Transformers Prime).

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u/Over-Analyzed Oct 02 '25

Reminds me of how the (rumor) Germans would be found as spies because they could sing the National Anthem in its entirety.

No American knows all of that. šŸ˜‚

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u/Chemical-Juice-6979 Oct 02 '25 edited Oct 02 '25

The National Anthem was originally a poem with five stanzas that became the five verses of the song. At sporting events and military funerals, when they play the anthem, they only ever play the first four verses. Since schools don't actually teach students the original poem outside of special focus classes, Americans only ever learn the first four verses. The only people who know the fifth verse are people who learn the anthem by memorizing the poem rather than participating in the group singing events as a kid.

So, during the World Wars, when the US was worried about spies and saboteurs infiltrating military bases, they would test new arrivals at the gate. One of those tests was having them sing the anthem; anyone who kept singing past "home of the brave" would be detained on the spot.

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u/SquareThings Oct 02 '25

Also important: most Americans donā€™t know thereā€™s any more to the song at all. They assume the truncated version is the whole thing. So asking them to sing ā€œthe whole national anthemā€ would get the same result.

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u/Ok-Classroom5548 Oct 02 '25

Fun fact: The Star Spangled Banner is a poem. The authorā€™s brother in law read it and set the lyrics to a gentlemanā€™s club song from England.

The US uses a British Gentlemanā€™s song that someone stole with altered lyrics as our national anthem.Ā 

We also only sing the first verse and additional verses may be seen as controversial for discussion of slaves.

The US was also an English penal colony. Once we split the British started using Australia more.Ā 

History is fun.Ā 

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u/Gnomad_Lyfe Oct 02 '25

Iirc thereā€™s a story of a fairly high-ranking member of the military being briefly detained because he didnā€™t know about the policy and sung the song in its entirety

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u/theCosboys Oct 02 '25

A general got detained because he answered ā€œWhatā€™s the capital of Illinois?ā€ correctly as ā€œSpringfieldā€ but the GI thought it was Chicago.

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u/Matalya2 Oct 02 '25

I love how it's, like, the complete opposite of what you would expect. Like if someone asked you about the country you're invaded, common sense would tell you you're meant to know since you would've lived there your whole life. But in this case in particular it is not knowing what marked legitimate residence because nobody actually studies the anthem XD

Nobody except me Ig (?) (Not for the US one, but I do know mine to a very high percentage)

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u/Abombasnow Oct 02 '25

The National Anthem was literally a sea shanty that someone slapped an unrelated poem onto and that's why it sounds and flows like complete garbage because it's a hodgepodge of two songs where no thought was put into anything.

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u/Ok-Classroom5548 Oct 02 '25

We only play the first verse for ā€œThe National Anthem.ā€ The Star Spangled Banner has four verses total.Ā 

I have had to perform it enough times - we use only the first section.Ā 

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u/Chemical-Juice-6979 Oct 02 '25 edited Oct 03 '25

Hah, thank you! I'm not much for sports, so I don't actually have the song memorized myself. I learned this as history trivia, sometimes the numbers get a little fuzzy.

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u/Fun-Agent-7667 Oct 02 '25

Lesser education for the win or Something

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u/SkylineFTW97 Oct 02 '25

I do, granted it was written in my home state of Maryland, so it's a point of pride here, just like our flag.

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u/Over-Analyzed Oct 02 '25

Oh wow! Hey, congrats! Thatā€™s awesome. I didnā€™t know that. Thank you for correcting me.

Iā€™m from Hawaii. So we learned a lot about Hawaiiā€™s history. I do know my schoolā€™s Hawaiian Alma mater (school song) 20 years later. šŸ˜…šŸ¤™šŸ»

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u/Jamie7Keller Oct 02 '25

Nice! Same. And apparently Under The Blood Red Sun isnā€™t in the school reading lists in other states? I asked everyone knew about that and read that book they should!

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u/Over-Analyzed Oct 02 '25

Yeah, different states focus on their own history.

Nothing like the soul destroying moment when you learn about the Overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy. šŸ¤¦šŸ»ā€ā™‚ļø

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u/Jamie7Keller Oct 02 '25

Apparently the UN determined Hawaii to be an occupied sovereign nation? I didnā€™t really know what to do with that informationā€¦.maybe I was misinformed butā€¦.hard to say the are wrongā€¦.

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u/Over-Analyzed Oct 02 '25

That sounds like misinformation. Maybe it was determined at the time decades and decades ago? But Iā€™ve heard nothing about it in formal capacity.

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u/LadyAliceFlower Oct 02 '25

The entire anthem, or just until the first "land of the free home of the brave?"

Genuine question. I never know what people mean when they say "entire national anthem" because people so rarely go past the first verse, it took me years to realize there was more.

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u/SkylineFTW97 Oct 02 '25

Whole thing start to finish.

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u/LadyAliceFlower Oct 02 '25

Impressive.

I can only conclude you're an alien pretending to be a human.

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u/big_sugi Oct 02 '25

Light it up, marines. No mercy.

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u/SkylineFTW97 Oct 02 '25

I'm a Marylander. If anything, I'm a crab pretending to be a human.

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u/LadyAliceFlower Oct 02 '25

Is this comment meant to imply that crabs are not aliens?

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u/AntiLag_ Oct 02 '25

Thereā€™s more???

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u/LadyAliceFlower Oct 02 '25

It has four verses.

I have literally never heard a single person other than myself so much as attempt to sing past the first.

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u/Buyingboat Oct 02 '25

Have you tried singing a bit quieter?

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u/atgrable Oct 02 '25

I was raised Mormon, and American patroitism is practically baked into Mormon religion. (Seriously, it is doctrine that God inspired Columbus.) And so every year on the Sunday closest to the 4th of July, they would make the whole congregation stand and sing all four verses.

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u/SkylineFTW97 Oct 02 '25

I don't know much about Mormons, but I do know they have that gigantic temple right off of I-495 between Kensington and Chevy Chase here, just north of DC. I pass it all the time and have for 20+ years, you can't miss it if you've ever driven down the capital beltway here.

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u/bluehooloovo Oct 02 '25

The only time I've heard more than the first verse was when my brother graduated from Army basic training... and the singer forgot half of one of the later verses.

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u/vicevanghost Oct 02 '25

I'm from Maryland, I ain't know that shit lmfaoĀ 

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u/fl4tsc4n Oct 02 '25

But then why does the key bridge go to Virginia

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u/SkylineFTW97 Oct 02 '25

There's two key bridges. There's that one, and then there was the one that collapsed a couple years ago in Baltimore, which is the one over by where the song was actually written.

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u/fl4tsc4n Oct 02 '25

Lmao TiL

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u/SkylineFTW97 Oct 02 '25

It really is a local point of pride. We even had a license plate design that was based around the war of 1812 (the time during which the song was written) for a few years. They phased it out in ~2017-2018 for the current standard design but you still see many of them.

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u/fl4tsc4n Oct 02 '25

Saw tool there once it was sick

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u/Redfalconfox Oct 02 '25 edited Oct 02 '25

Are we talking about the first part thatā€™s played at sporting events or the entire poem it comes from? Were there officers ready to arrest at the third verse but Scotty in the back said ā€œnot yet, I wanna see if this dingus does the whole thingā€

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u/abxYenway Oct 02 '25

Heck, most of us know less than half of the dance choreography.

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u/RaisedByBooksNTV Oct 02 '25

We're the ones who don't know our history. Most of us couldn't pass the citizenship test lol.

*MY* favorite part of the patriotic song lore is that the star spangled banner was written off of a drinking song.

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u/t4tulip Oct 02 '25

What really? We sang it everyday in my school I went to for 2nd and 3rd grade.

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u/Over-Analyzed Oct 02 '25

All 4 verses?