Masquerade/Playing With

Basic Trope: The existence of the supernatural is hidden from normal people.

• Straight: Vampires exist, but they keep their identity secret from humans.
• Exaggerated: 90% of the population consists of vampires, and the human 10% is still kept in the dark about it.
• Downplayed: The vampires are only hidden from those whom they think will work against them. A lot of people still know they exist, even if they don't openly talk about it.
• Justified: The last time someone found out that vampires existed, they set out to hunt them down. The vampires aren't eager to repeat this.
• Inverted: Normal, non-powered humans keep their existence a secret among a vampire society.
• Subverted: It seems as if nobody knows the vampires exist, but it then turns out that everybody knows, but prefers not to talk about it due to a series of bloody conflicts in the past.
  • Or it turns out that vampires don't really exist.
• Double Subverted: ...Until their memories were wiped to prevent the conflict from reappearing, and the vampires continued living in secrecy.
  • ...until a vampire bares his fangs during The Stinger.
    • Alternately, there seems to be a vampire masquerade, but it turns out vampires don't exist... werewolves, however, do exist, and theirs is the true masquerade.
• Parodied: Vampires look absolutely nothing like humans, but continue pretending to be human in normal society while enthusiastically stating at every opportunity that they are absolutely not vampires at all.
• Zig Zagged: No human knows that the vampires exist... until we meet Alice. Then, however, it turns out that Alice is completely delusional, and although she thinks there are vampires, her beliefs are completely unfounded. Until we find out about the second group of vampires that exactly matches Alice's descriptions, of course. Then, however, it turns out that these vampires are actually just humans pretending to have supernatural powers.
• Averted: Vampires exist, and the humans know it.
• Enforced: The show was originally plotted to be about a human vs. vampire conflict, but the script was rather bloody, and after some Executive Meddling the writers had little choice but to remove the conflict entirely by having the humans not know about the vampires.
• Lampshaded: "Can't we just tell the people that we're vampires? I'm sure not everyone would freak out about it."
• Invoked: As Bob and his vampire family move into a new town, Bob insists that this time, they aren't letting anyone know about their supernatural status, because past experiences have been largely negative.
• Exploited: Alice, a human, realizes that if there were vampires, they probably wouldn't let humans know about it, so she makes sure to vampire-proof her house just in case.
• Defied: Bob actively breaks the secrecy of the masquerade and reveals himself as a vampire to the humans.
• Discussed: "Oh crap, I'm a vampire. Does that mean I'm supposed to hide it from my family or what?"
• Conversed: "I swear, half of the episodes' plots could be resolved if the vampires would just man up and reveal themselves to the townspeople!"
• Deconstructed: The vampires' refusal to show themselves to humans is a sign of their elitism and snobbery - they see themselves as better than typical humans. This leads them to refuse to ask for human help when crisis strikes them all, and they suffer greatly because they will not let themselves integrate into the thriving normal society.

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