"To the selfish, all are selfish."
Psychological Projection is a common behavioral phenomenon in which a character projects their traits, emotions, or desires onto another character by presuming they feel or think the same. Most often, the character denies some aspect of their thoughts or behavior while simultaneously assuming or accusing others of doing or thinking those same things. (e.g. The Bully says, "I'm not a bully; that guy [that I'm picking on] is just a big Jerkass!") They're using themselves as a basis for understanding others and their perception to see their flaws and virtues in other people. This is usually done unconsciously and never explicitly stated by the character, making it hard to notice. But if a character presumes something about another without having any reasons to think so and the presumption has something in common with themselves, they are probably projecting.
Often (though not always) a Sub-Trope of Hypocrite. Clone by Conversion is the literal version of this. This trope can sometimes be a manifestation of The Golden Rule because people will naturally project themselves onto others and expect them to act the same. It often overlaps with Evil Cannot Comprehend Good, Good Cannot Comprehend Evil, Straw Hypocrite, Boomerang Bigot, and Protagonist-Centered Morality. Related to All Psychology Is Freudian, Darwinist Desire, and The Golden Rule. The Shadow Archetype is essentially this trope given a tangible form. It may involve Verbal Deflection.
Compare Captain Oblivious and Theory Tunnel Vision. Contrast Hypocrite Has a Point, where the character's accusations have merit despite the accuser not living up to them.
Not to be confused with Astral Projection, Enemy Without, or Mental Picture Projector, which are more literal and fictional.
Subtropes:
- Armoured Closet Gay: Somebody acts excessively macho and homophobic to hide the fact that they're gay.
- Author Avatar: The author of a story projects themself on a specific character in that story.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The villain projects their evil onto the hero and doesn't understand why the hero doesn't act as expected.
- Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: The exact inverse; the hero projects their good onto the villain and does not understand why the villain acts unexpectedly.
- Never My Fault: The character blames everyone but themselves for what they've done.
- Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: The character projects their own hated sexuality upon others, to the grief of many.
- Shallow Cannot Comprehend True Love: Superficial character assumes that everyone else is shallow like they are.
- Wishful Projection: Where an idea, rather than a personality trait, is projected from one person onto someone else, but that assumption is false with no factual basis.
- You Are What You Hate: Somebody shows hatred for a particular group but is secretly/unknowingly a member.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Several Batman villains project their own origins and insecurities onto Batman.
- This is what The Joker is ultimately trying to prove in The Killing Joke, that everyone's really like him deep down, justifying his murderous madness by trying to demonstrate people being strained by worries and neuroses until they have an extremely bad day and snap like he did.
- Hugo Strange thinks that Batman does what he does because he enjoys being powerful and feared since that is what Strange wants to be (and for extra irony, he's a psychologist).
- Tommy Elliot/Hush knows Batman's true identity but thinks that Bruce Wayne is happy that his parents were killed because Elliot's parents were abusive and he celebrated when they died.
- Lex Luthor is often shown doing this to his archenemy Superman.
- In the story The Black Ring, Lex claims Superman doesn't empathize with humanity at all, but it's pretty clear he's projecting this trait onto his archnemesis.
- In general, it's sometimes implied that Lex often accuses Superman of using his powers to lord over humanity because, if their positions were reversed, that's exactly what Lex would do.
- Although the reason why Lex never realizes Superman is Clark Kent varies Depending on the Writer, this trope contributes to a few of them.
- One idea is that Lex himself would never deliberately pass up an opportunity to make himself look good, so the idea that Superman is doing his heroics anonymously while living a quiet life as a liked-but-not-adored reporter does not compute. He even fires a computer programmer who used an elaborate computer program to assemble the known facts about Clark Kent and Superman to determine the connection between the two when the system concluded that Clark Kent was Superman, as obviously, it must be flawed somehow to reach that conclusion when Lex already knows Superman wouldn't bother with a secret identity.
- Another claim is that Lex himself has several false identities that he uses to do business; thus, if one of those identities becomes unusable for whatever reason, he can simply discard it and move on. The idea of uncovering Superman's secret identity, therefore, is less "unachievable" and more "pointless", because he assumes Superman does the same, and if Lex discovers one and makes use of that information, then Superman too will just discard it and move on.
- Stories by Grant Morrison in Justice League and 52 show that Lex believes that Superman is as obsessed with him as he is with Superman, and truly thinks that everything Superman does—even just saving some random people's lives—is somehow an attempt to show him up.
- In All-Star Superman, we get to see what Lex would do if he had Superman's powers: discard all his technology and attempt to Take Over the World with nothing but brute strength, when he accuses Superman of not needing to be smart when he has all his power. Meanwhile, Superman ultimately defeats Lex by using technology to cause his Hour of Power to run out ahead of schedule.
- Iron Man (Tony Stark) came to think during Secret Invasion (2008) that Captain America had been replaced by a Skrull before the events of Civil War (2006) because Cap is a reasonable person and would have agreed the Superhero Registration Act was the right thing to do if it were really him... right? Meanwhile, every other hero tries to get at Tony to prove he was replaced by a Skrull for the opposite reasons. No one important was replaced by Skrulls, so their actions are their own. For better or worse.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics). Invoked in Sonic Universe #63 when Espio accuses Knuckles of projecting his fear of ghosts on to him.
- Spider-Man:
- Harry Osborn, shortly before his original death in the comics, claimed that Spider-Man only tried to 'destroy' the Osborn family because he resented their 'stable' family dynamic while being a burden on relatives who never wanted him. Harry's mind was now so twisted that he couldn't recognize Norman's flaws as a parent.
- J. Jonah Jameson's distrust of Spider-Man is often portrayed as him projecting his cynicism and selfishness onto Spider-Man, concluding he has some secret self-serving agenda.
- In Superior Spider-Man (2023), Otto's "The Reason You Suck" Speech for Bailey reeks of this. He accuses Bailey of being "an impostor" when Otto himself stole Peter's identity and life and calls Bailey a "sad, broken little boy destined for failure" when Otto himself was trapped in a decaying body after many, many defeats at the hands of the wall-crawler. He ends his tirade by declaring that Bailey will never be Spider-Man, the identity that Otto is trying to subsume.
- The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: Getaway falls into this while lecturing Riptide, claiming that the main characters didn't take Riptide with them because they looked down on him for being unintelligent...at which point Riptide proves he's not as stupid as Getaway thinks he is by immediately pegging this as his captor's Inferiority Superiority Complex at work.
Getaway: D'you know why Team Megatron lost interest in you? D'you know why they didn't take you to Necroworld? Clue: it's because you're not like them. Brainstorm, Ratchet, Nightbeat, Skids. They're smart guys, Riptide. And you... you're really not.
Riptide: I'm not a psychiatrist either but I'm pretty sure this conversation says more about you than me. - Ultimate Invasion: The Maker claims one of the reasons for his secret alliance of supervillains is because ordinary people resent and despise those with superpowers for being better than them. The Maker was heavily bullied as a teenager, and apparently, his immortality has done nothing to erase the young man lashing out at the world he was when he first turned evil. Likewise, his torture of Earth-6160's Reed Richards, to the extent that he essentially "forces" Reed to become the 6160 version of Doctor Doom after killing the rest of the would-be Fantastic Four, is apparently to prove that Reed could become just as much of a villain as he did, but it doesn't work. Even after everything the Maker does, Reed remains solidly heroic.
- Wonder Woman (1987)
- Circe believes everyone, including Wonder Woman, is as cynical and cruel as she is and tries to prove it, first by trying to make Diana kill a mind-controlled Superman and then by making Diana kill Circe herself on live television. Both attempts fail, and Diana retorts that Circe is angry over feeling rejected and alone all her life and is simply projecting her feelings onto other people.
- Diana of Themyscira (Wonder Woman)
- Wonder Woman herself projects her morality onto Barbara Anne Minerva and is devastated to learn just how cruel and deceptive even the women in "man's world" can be.
- Wonder Woman also projects her morality onto Maxima because they have so much in common and get along well. While they both come from warrior societies, Diana's society is isolationist and she left it to bring peace and love to the outside world. Maxima's society is expansionist, Maxima is largely the reason for it being that way, and she's only in the Justice League because she wants to bear the children of strong men, thinking Superman will be more receptive to her advances if she helps some poor weak people.
Films — Animation
- This is the central character trait and biggest Fatal Flaw of Frollo in Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Clopin: Judge Claude Frollo longed to purge the world of vice and sin
And he saw corruption everywhere — except within. - In Kung Fu Panda 2, Lord Shen tells Po that his parents hated him even though there is no evidence to back this up; however, Shen believes his parents hated him.
- The Nightmare Before Christmas: Jack Skellington feels dissatisfied and stuck in a rut due to having to dedicate himself to Halloween every year, which eventually drives him to boredom and even depression. When he discovers Christmas Town, he assumes Santa Claus must feel the same way about his holiday, which enables him to rationalize kidnapping Santa and taking his place as giving him a well-deserved break.
- Tangled:
- At the beginning of the movie, the All-Loving Heroine Rapunzel believes she only needs to show Mother Gothel that she is capable of living outside the tower to get her permission to leave, because why would a reasonable person want to keep Rapunzel in a tower forever?
- Mother Gothel is not only The Sociopath but also a Control Freak who has spent the last 18 years of her life in an elaborate charade to make Rapunzel The Pawn so Gothel can use her as her personal Fountain of Youth. This was necessary because once Rapunzel realizes she has so much power over Mother Gothel, why would she selflessly want to help her mother? In addition, in a bit of gaslighting, she tells Rapunzel that the world is selfish and cruel, and would only want to use her, while actively using Rapunzel herself, which Rapunzel highlights herself.
Rapunzel: I've spent my entire life hiding from people who would use me for my power—when I should have been hiding from you!
- To take this up the ante, Gothel knavishly murders Flynn Rider/Eugene Fitzherbert and soullessly accuses Rapunzel of "making" her do that to him.
Gothel: Now look what you've done, Rapunzel. Oh, don't worry, dear. Our secret will die with him.
- In Turning Red, Ming projects her feelings about the red panda transformation onto Mei, motivating Ming to treat Mei like she's been Blessed with Suck since that was Ming's experience with it.
Films — Live Action
- In 12 Angry Men, the defendant is accused of killing his father, and Juror 3 is certain that he's guilty. When this is challenged, he rants about the pain of an ungrateful child who turns on you despite everything you've done for him. It becomes painfully evident that he's reacting to the pain of his strained relationship with his son. When 3 realizes what he's doing, he breaks into tears and changes his verdict to not guilty.
- In Boyhood, Olivia tends to project her flaws onto her daughter Samantha, angrily lecturing her for having a "bullshit attitude" and her selfishness, two things that apply to Olivia herself and she tends to ignore the fact that she consistently shows more preference to Mason Jr. Samantha even calls her out on it.
- The Dark Knight: In the climax, the Joker subjects two ferries — one carrying civilians, the other carrying inmates — to a "social experiment"; both boats have a detonator that will set off explosives on the other ferry. The first ferry to blow up the other will live. Ultimately, the passengers of both ferries cannot bring themselves to kill the other to save their lives much to the Joker's shock. This leads to Batman saying this:
What were you trying to prove? That deep down, everyone's as ugly as you? You're alone!
- In Don't Worry Darling, once it is revealed that the Victory project is really an elaborate virtual reality simulation, Jack tries to defend himself by arguing that Alice was unhappy in the real world and he did all this for her sake. The most charitable interpretation of this argument is that Jack assumed Alice was unhappy with their real lives because he was unhappy; however, this ignores the fact that Alice was only so stressed and tired because she had to work long hours at the hospital. She mainly did this because Jack didn't have a job and still expected her to do everything for him, and she otherwise seemed content and even proud of her work at the hospital. Frankly, if anything in their real lives was making Alice unhappy, it was Jack himself.
- In The Frighteners, Agent Dammers claims that Frank's efforts are all based around his own pathetic need for self-gratification, Dammers' mental issues, and Wrong Genre Savvy leave him incapable of acknowledging that Frank is genuinely trying to stop a killer ghost, as opposed to Dammers' belief that Frank is a killer psychic.
- In Hulk, David tells Betty that the world won't accept Bruce due to his uniqueness, she will never relate to Bruce no matter how hard she tries, and she will eventually abandon him. David projects onto Betty his belief that power and uniqueness lead to isolation, and having emotional connections is pointless, so, like himself, Bruce is doomed to be alone and unloved.
- In Irreconcilable Differences, Lucy tells Casey at her emancipation trial, "I know why you want to divorce your father. I know you never got over his abandoning us." Casey replies, "No, Mom, you never got over his abandoning us."
- In Jurassic World, Claire tells Owen he is not in control as he demands that the ACU team be called off from tracking the Indominus rex. However, Claire is likely talking to herself, secretly admitting her lack of control in the situation.
- In the direct-to-TV-movie Killer Ending, it is revealed that the killer, Caroline, previously killed Scott, the husband of writer Agatha Sayers, because she was convinced that Scott was hurting Agatha's daughter Sarah the same way Caroline was sexually abused by her own father. While Scott was an abusive husband, Agatha insists that he never did anything to Sarah, while Caroline is just projecting her idea of their relationship based on what she went through in the past.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- The Avengers: Loki's default mode in the film.
- He lectures the crowd of Germans on how the mad scramble for power and identity diminishes their life's joy, something he is reluctant to admit about himself.
- He refers to Bruce Banner/Hulk as a "mindless beast" that "makes play he's still a man," asks how desperate Nick Fury is to summon "such lost creatures" to defend him, and constantly taunts Banner with looks. When Black Widow calls Loki a monster, he replies, "No, you've brought the monster." In Thor, Loki called himself a monster after learning his true parentage, and in Thor: The Dark World, he says that Thor must be truly desperate to come to him for help.
- During his speech to Black Widow, he talks as much about himself as he talks about her. Bonus points for showing his reflection in the glass that separates them:
Loki: Your ledger is dripping, it's gushing red. [...] You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you, and they will never go away!
- And again in Thor: The Dark World, where he warns Thor about potentially losing Jane, while Loki himself is still mourning their mother's death:
Loki: You'll never be ready! The only woman whose love you prized will be snatched from you!
- In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the High Evolutionary has a raging Inferiority Superiority Complex. He vents this by abusing and killing his creations because their imperfections remind him of his flaws.
- The Avengers: Loki's default mode in the film.
- MonsterVerse:
- Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): Courtesy of Drs. Mark and Emma Russell.
- Dr. Mark Russell calls Monarch foolish for thinking humans and Titans can co-exist, saying all Titans should be exterminated after losing Andrew. However, Mark is the fool for using his rage and unresolved grief as an excuse for his assertion rather than an objective judgment based on the destruction the Titans can cause. Mark blames Godzilla for his son's death even though the two MUTOs are the Titans who instigated the destruction that ultimately caused the whole thing and went out of their way to harm people; meanwhile, Godzilla was only fighting to stop them. Wanting someone to blame for his loss, Mark projected his anger onto Godzilla since he was still alive and the MUTOs were dead.
- Mark accuses Emma of caring more about her work and the Titans than her well-being and family. Mark is slightly right, but that's also what he did. By turning to the bottle and holding onto his anger instead of facing his grief, he neglected his health and responsibilities as a husband and father.
- The novelization and a filmed deleted scene show that Emma tried to estrange Madison from Mark by lying to her about why he left them. Emma said Mark reduced himself to a drunk and a Titan-hating bigot after Andrew's death and abandoned them because he didn't love them anymore. Emma is bitter about Mark leaving her and Madison when they needed him most, seeing Mark as the only one at fault for their Grief-Induced Split. Emma argues that she stayed strong and kept herself together for Madison's sake while Mark didn't, though her Sanity Slippage proves otherwise, and she refuses to see that she also played a role in the divorce. Emma tells Madison that Mark gave up on them, but Madison calls her out for being the one who gave up since she gave up on humanity after losing Andrew.
- Godzilla vs. Kong: Mostly from Mark, especially in the novelization.
- The film implies it, but the novel confirms why Mark has turned against Godzilla again despite witnessing his heroics five years prior. Since Godzilla is now attacking Apex facilities seemingly for nothing, Mark is comparing him to Emma, fearing that history is repeating itself. Mark claims Emma and Godzilla are similar because they desire to protect the world, but think the collateral damage their actions cause is necessary for the world's greater good. As Madison argues that it's wrong for Mark to doubt Godzilla because he only attacks for good reason, Mark says that animals can change like people; in other words, even Godzilla can turn bad on a dime since Emma shocked everyone by betraying Monarch and throwing in her lot with Alan Jonah.
- In the novel, Madison believes her father doesn't trust her because he's been projecting his trust issues with Emma onto her since Emma's death. Madison remaining with Emma instead of fleeing to Mark in Outpost 31 likely has something to do with it, but Mark is wrong to hold it against Madison since Emma manipulated her.
- After returning to Monarch out of obligation, Mark also projects his desire for a normal life onto Madison. He has them live in a suburban neighborhood, has Madison attend public high school instead of continuing her homeschooling, and forbids her from further involvement in Monarch and Titan-related matters. Adamant about making Madison the normal daughter he wants, Mark pulls rank on Madison, patronizes her, and dismisses her complaints about being miserable in school and her theories about Godzilla and Apex. He's using his self-pity and fear of losing Madison again to try to helicopter-parent her into helplessness, treating her like she's a victim and a dumb child who doesn't know what's best for her. Mark is oblivious to how he's hurting Madison, further estranging them and encouraging her rebelliousness, which he realizes after she runs off.
- Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): Courtesy of Drs. Mark and Emma Russell.
- In What About Bob?, Dr. Marvin tells Dr. Tomsky, "You've been duped by a textbook narcissist, a brilliant sociopath!", right after trying to get Bob admitted to a mental hospital on false pretenses. She appears to be aware of this, suggesting after hearing it that he get some psychological help himself.
Literature
- All Dressed in White: Walter's accusation that his ex-wife Sandra pushed him, their children, and their grandchildren aside to pursue answers about their missing daughter Amanda is a reflection of his own guilt about his neglectful parenting and his fear that Amanda disappeared to escape from his expectations. Walter's son also points out to him that he never even talks about Amanda anymore, almost as if she didn't exist. Walter eventually admits that he couldn't bear talking about Amanda partly because he blamed himself for her disappearance and partly because he was in denial she is likely dead, telling Sandra that she was actually stronger than him because his response was to act like it didn't happen rather than face up to it.
- This trope forms a central criticism surrounding Magsarion in Avesta of Black and White. The younger brother of the great hero Varhman, following his death, now has everyone saddling him with being their beacon of hope and constantly projecting their assumptions onto him. He is left to reject all that his brother was just to try and be his own person, and yet people around him keep ignoring his true self, constantly assuming they know all about him and what he is thinking when nothing could be further from the truth. This in turn only ends up fueling his hatred.
- A Certain Magical Index: Kakeru Kamisato hates suddenly gaining a superpower and being compelled to use it to save people. He believes it to be a curse and tries to become normal again by attacking the beings he believes are responsible for empowering him. When he learns of Touma Kamijou and his similar ability, he automatically assumes Touma feels the same way and tries to get him to join forces in his goal, and is thrown for a loop when Touma explains that powers or no powers, he's all about saving and protecting people.
- The Creation Alchemist Enjoys Freedom: The humans in the Dolgara Empire (the ones at the top, mostly) are people obsessed with the idea that strength in combat trumps everything else - including anything related to logistics and support. Since the Demon Realm's nobility also values strength, the humans project this same obsession onto them, not realizing that the demons learned their lesson from the Dolgara-Demon war of 200 years before and place proper respect on those who run support for others. This bites the humans plenty of times, as their attempts to flex at the demons make them look like chumps... and makes them realize too late that Thor would be happily welcomed by the demons because of his skills.
- Everything I Never Told You deals with this trope via how the Lee family treats each other. They all constantly project their issues onto each other instead of communicating about their feelings. For instance, Lydia is the favorite child because James and Marilyn project their hopes and dreams onto her — popularity for James and academic success for Marilyn and remain oblivious to the fact that Lydia is only trying to live up to their expectations to make her parents happy, not because she wants to herself. Meanwhile, James and Nath have a highly tense relationship because James sees himself as a boy in Nath and resents him for being weak and nerdy like he was. Only Hannah is exempt from this and that's only because her family never pays any attention to her. Outside the family, Nath's animosity towards Jack is that he perceives Jack's behavior towards him as being mockery when it's his insecurity leading him to jump to assume the worst in his classmate and he's unaware Jack had a crush on him for a very long time and used his friendship with Lydia as an excuse to get closer to Nath.
- Harry Potter:
- Snape's attitude towards Harry is part this, part Sins of the Father, as he and Harry's father James hated each other from day one. The thing is, from what we see of Snape's past, it's easy to spot that the two were really not that different from each other at school, and Snape was arguably the worse of the two; Snape loved to dabble with The Dark Arts while James firmly refused them, even saving Snape from a prank from Sirius that could've killed him. The fact that Snape loved Lily, but she ultimately married James because he eventually cleaned up his act lends credence to Snape not only projecting James' bad traits onto Harry but also his own, given that James eventually grew out of them while Snape didn't.
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has Gilderoy Lockhart, who upon meeting Harry immediately assumes that the latter is as hungry for fame and attention as he is, and no matter what Harry does or says there's no dissuading Lockhart from that notion.
- Katniss tends to do this a lot in The Hunger Games. For example, in Catching Fire, she insists that the other Tributes are out to get her and Peeta and that they cannot be trusted… but the first thing Katniss does upon entering the Arena is try to kill the other Tributes. She also plots about backstabbing them several times, with the justification that it's to save Peeta.
- Hurog: The villainous characters are very prone to this. Ward's father regularly beat him, so violently that Ward took some brain damage (he still speaks very slowly) and decided to exaggerate it by Obfuscating Stupidity. There was no sensible reason to attack Ward, but the father had offed his father for Klingon Promotion and was now afraid Ward would do the same. Then there is King Jakoven, who is a chronic murderer of innocent people, which is, hilariously enough, caused by his paranoia about others planning things against him. (In part. It's safe to assume he's a jerk, too) Every villain assumes that Ward would kill his whole family to inherit Castle Hurog. While Ward does want to inherit Hurog very much, he would never kill his family over it, but as the villains themselves would do it, it is "obvious" to them that, of course, that must be what he is planning.
- The Innsmouth Legacy: Ron Spector has a deep desire to make sure America understands and appreciates that Deep Ones as well as other Aeonists can be loyal as well as useful American citizens. Aphra has no interest in this whatsoever. However, Ron, as a closeted Jewish man working for the FBI in the Forties, has a huge desire to convince the government to change its stance on minorities.
- Judge Dee:
- In "The Chinese Lake Murders", the father of a newly-married woman comes barging into the tribunal to vociferously accuse the father of the groom of having abducted his daughter for his obscene ends. It's a clue that the man has... issues... with his daughter, and his status as the Big Bad is not much of a surprise.
- In "The Phantom of the Temple", the judge calls out a man who tried to pull a Framing the Guilty Party with a fake message from a dying girl as being too convoluted for a young woman's panicked mind, identifying himself immediately.
- Let Me Call You Sweetheart: Part of the reason Dr Smith was convinced his son-in-law Skip murdered his daughter Suzanne was because he believes he himself would've killed his wife for having an affair, and that any man would if he'd been married to a woman like Suzanne. It turns out Skip didn't kill her.
- The Lord of the Rings: A big part of the reason the plan to destroy the Ring ultimately works is because Sauron is so arrogant and cynical that he projects his lust for power onto everyone else.
- He doesn't bother setting any guard around Mount Doom nor watching it closely, despite it being the only thing that can destroy the One Ring (and him by extension) simply because he doesn't even consider the possibility someone would want to destroy it, believing the only reason someone would carry it is to try and use its power for themselves.
- And when he turns Denethor against the Fellowship by hinting Gandalf simply wants to conquer Middle Earth himself, the narration notes that it isn't a mere lie to cause division; Sauron genuinely believes it to be true.
- Northanger Abbey: Sheltered, kind-hearted Catherine Morland generally projects her own honest nature onto others, never thinking that someone could be manipulating her. While this causes her quite a bit of trouble in society, it is also what endears her to her love interest, Henry, who admires her guilelessness in comparison to his own greedy, domineering father.
- The Rising of the Shield Hero:
- One bad experience after another with King Aultcray and Princess Malty leads to Naofumi initially projecting his feelings of animosity onto the second princess Melty, immediately thinking she was untrustworthy and was secretly planning to set him up, due to being related to Aultcray and Malty. This is despite Melty presenting herself as a genuinely kind-hearted princess when they first met, and even personally intervening to prevent Malty and Motoyasu from forcing Naofumi to fight a duel with the latter in the middle of a public area just moments prior. Naofumi does eventually realize his mistake and now sees her as a trusted ally and friend.
- Aultcray himself projects his Irrational Hatred of the Shield Hero in general and his hatred of demi-humans onto Naofumi, which led him to try and ruin the latter's life and reputation as much as possible. Not helping was the King's eldest daughter manipulating him into continuously making life hard for the new Shield Hero. This, as well as his incompetence in watching over Melromarc, catch up to him when his wife Queen Mirelia strips him and Malty of their royal status and allows Naofumi to legally change their names to "Trash" and "Bitch" respectively.
- Grand Inquisitor Zhaspahr Clyntahn of Safehold tends to project his own Evil Can Not Comprehend Good mentality on others. His second in command, Wyllym Rayno, even lampshades the act as projection when Clyntahn describes the Church's Captain-General as a weak-willed coward, jumping at shadows and wanting to pull his troops back to safety immediately after Rayno recognizes that Clyntahn, at least subconsciously, fears the Church will lose the war. Church Treasurer Rhobair Duchairn notes much the same when Clyntahn proclaims, without irony, that "men who've sold their souls have every reason to murder true servants of God and then lie about their victims to justify their bloody actions."
- Secrets of the Silent Witch: Bernie Jones secretly looked down on Monica but acted as a friend because her admiration helped prop up his ego. When Monica surpassed him in magic and became a Sage, Bernie accused Monica of having been secretly looking down on him all along.
- Sherlock Holmes: Downplayed: Sherlock sometimes reconstructs a crime by putting himself in the criminal's place, and in "the Musgrave Ritual", he says that as said criminal was exceedingly smart, this was easier than usual.
You know my methods in such cases, Watson. I put myself in the man’s place and, having first gauged his intelligence, I try to imagine how I should myself have proceeded under the same circumstances. In this case the matter was simplified by Brunton’s intelligence being quite first-rate, so that it was unnecessary to make any allowance for the personal equation
, as the astronomers have dubbed it.
- The Stormlight Archive: Sadeas assumes that everyone is secretly as bloodthirsty and manipulative as he is, just that they try to hide it because he's better at the game than they are. This leads to him getting blindsided several times; at the end of the second book, he tells Adolin about his plans to kill Adolin's father, assuming that they'll wage a bloody civil war for a few years and eventually become staunch allies. But they're alone with no witnesses at the time, so Adolin just kills him on the spot.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: The Lannisters do this a lot.
- Lord Tywin Lannister married for love, and yet demands his children enter into loveless unions to suit his own family ambitions. He hates his son Tyrion for frequenting prostitutes which is something he is equally guilty of.
- Jaime and Cersei both call each other a "golden fool". In both cases it's true, but neither recognizes it equally in themselves.
- Let's look at the way Tyrion Lannister describes Cersei: "And she is greedy. Greedy for power, for honor, for love." This is an accurate characterization of Cersei — but it's also an equally accurate characterization of himself.
- Cersei mistakenly suspects that her daughter-in-law Margery Tyrell may be carrying on an affair with her brother Ser Loras. It's implied that the reason Cersei wonders this is because she herself has had a long-standing incestuous relationship with her own brother Jaime.
- In Sword Art Online, Kyouji Shinkawa admired his older brother for his ability to kill while he was trapped in SAO. He projects his adulation onto his crush Shino Asada, due to her own past as a killer, despite knowing the fact that she hates being labeled as a killer. When she was younger, she had to kill a bank robber in self-defense and has regretted it ever since.
- Wear Your Soul Round Your Neck: Perfect humans have an easy time projecting their worst traits onto malforms, especially their own - fittingly or not. Dr. Goodfellow assumes that Thyssa's just as perverted as he is, and Lili assumes she lacks empathy.
Live-Action TV
- Khofit, a contestant on the second season of the Israeli Beauty and the Geek had a pet pug she would project her negative emotions onto. In a particularly low point, when the local satire show Eretz Nehederet featured an impression of her and her dog in one of their skits, she said she wasn't insulted, but her pug was insulted because the pug used in the skit was fat.
- CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: In the episode "Genetic Disorder", the Victim of the Week is found in the bedroom of coroner Al Robbins while his wife is in the house. Drawing on his own experience of cheating and divorce, Brass assumes that the wife is having an affair and disregards any of the conflicting evidence until the very end. When the truth becomes apparent, Brass apologizes to Robbins personally for seeing his marriage in Robbins and letting that cloud his judgment.
- In Diagnosis: Murder episode "A Model Murder", Catherine is convinced Wendy's fiancés are just like Wendy's father, set to abandon Wendy like she was.
- Homicide: Life on the Street:
- In one episode, Bolander and Munch investigate the murder of a man by his wife. Bolander sympathizes with the woman because he projects his unhappy marriage onto her and ignores her guilt until Munch convinces him to view the situation objectively and arrest her.
- A tragic example occurs with Bayliss. He admits he takes cases involving child abuse (particularly sexual abuse) so personally because he sees himself in every abused child, as he was molested by his uncle throughout his childhood and had an emotionally abusive childhood.
- House of the Dragon: In the second episode of season 2, Criston Cole is well aware that had he not broken his Kingsguard vow of celibacy by sleeping with the Queen Dowager, he may have prevented the young heir's assassination. He takes his guilt out on Arryk, accusing the latter of being a bad Kingsguard knight because...his white cloak is muddy. Criston then spirals some more, accusing Arryk of inherently being traitorous on account of his twin defecting to Rhaenyra's side, and orders him on a suicide mission.
- Interview with the Vampire (2022): In "Like the Light by Which God Made the World Before He Made Light", for Louis de Pointe du Lac, Claudia was partly a replacement for his sister Grace, so he's suspicious that Madeleine Éparvier is likewise looking for a replacement for her late sister Aimée.
- In Loki, this is Loki's default psychological defense, just like in The Avengers:
- He states that for most people "choice breeds shame and uncertainty and regret" because others always take the wrong paths. When Mobius asks if Loki is an exemption from this rule, Loki insults Mobius to avoid answering the question.
- When he watches a video of his supposed death in Avengers: Infinity War, it looks like his future self is saying "you will never be a god" to the Variant Loki rather than Thanos. The worst insult Loki tossed at Thanos when he died was the thing Loki himself feared the most.
- He initially accuses the TVA of being a fraud, the weak who claim divinity and who've conjured a cruel elaborate trick to control others through fear. After seeing the recording of the future events of his life and his eventual death, the disillusioned and broken Loki repeats this diatribe word for word, but now he is referring to himself.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Sauron sees himself in Galadriel, as the dark to her light and vice versa. Galadriel confesses how betrayed she felt by people close to her who could no longer distinguish her from the very dark she was fighting. True to his nature, he is deceiving, but he does empathize with Galadriel because he felt the same after Morgoth's defeat and Adar's betrayal. He assumes that Galadriel is like him; attracted to his darkness as he is attracted to her light, resulting in him asking her to rule Middle-earth by his side. Sauron gets her attention when he tells her that he's the only one who sees her greatness when everybody else is doubting her.
- Lucifer (2016): A Running Gag throughout the series is that whenever the titular character gets psychological advice from his therapist, he finds a way to shift the blame for what she's describing onto pretty much whomever he's angry at that week.
- Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: It turns out that part of why Cate Randa thinks the very worst of her Disappeared Dad upon discovering his Secret Other Family — on top of her various other, understandable reasons — is because Cate herself was cheating on her girlfriend before she lost almost everything in the backstory, much like how it now turns out her father was cheating on her mother on an even bigger scale, so she's adding a projection of her own self-loathing onto her pre-existing daddy issues.
- In Squid Game, Sang-woo's You Should Have Died Instead speech at Player 069 who was begging the remaining players to call a vote to go home after the death of his wife Player 070 appears to be this. He rants to Player 069 that they all knew there would be deaths and going home now would not bring the eliminated players back or allow the survivors to atone for their actions. If his wife mattered so much to him, he should have chosen his fate in the previous game rather than sacrifice hers. Sang-woo is all but screaming his guilt about tricking and betraying Ali and leaving him to die in the last game.
- Superman & Lois: Lucy Lane continually insists that her problem with Lois is how her sister refuses to admit that she's wrong, when in reality it's Lucy's main problem; she keeps blaming others for her mistakes rather than admit that she followed the wrong person (cult leader Ally Alston).
- Tiger King: Jeff Lowe describes his first meeting with Joe Exotic as the latter sizing up "his next victim". While Joe did value his association with Jeff for what he assumed Jeff was worth financially, given Jeff's status as a very skilled Con Man who later took over the zoo entirely, this was probably going through his mind at the time as well. In the aftershow, he also mocks James Garretson for being a Fat Bastard (jokingly calling him a "sexy man") despite being an unattractive Dirty Old Man himself who's very insecure about his baldness.
- The Twilight Zone (1959): In "Sounds and Silences," Roswell admits to projecting his mother's outlandish aversion to loud noises onto his wife. However, his wife can't stand loud noises only because Roswell became obsessed with them to the point of it being an irritating eccentricity.
- The White Lotus: After Rachel leaves him, Shane angrily calls her a baby. She firmly retorts that he's the real baby, being coddled by his mother and throwing a fit over being put in the wrong room, despite getting an equally good one.
Music
- Could be the point of these lines in Voltaire's "Future Ex Girlfriend":
Newspaper Comics
- Several of Calvin's schemes for bugging Susie rely on the assumption she is as obsessed with bugging him as he is her, and not understanding that she really could not care less. Unsurprisingly, they usually fail.
Hobbes: Maybe she wasn't paying attention to us.
Calvin: That's inconceivable! Who wouldn't be interested in everything we do?!
Roleplay
- In Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues, Benedict has internalized all of his father's abuse under layers and layers of lies, and as a result doesn't believe that anyone else is truthful either.
Tabletop Games
- On Dark Sun, halflings distrust all other races, accusing them of always planning to kill and eat the halflings if they see them as vulnerable. This is stated to be because that's exactly what the halflings would do if the situations were reversed. For added irony, despite the Crapsack World that Athas is, the halflings are the only race that habitually practice cannibalism. The one other race with a propensity for it, the thri-kreen, consider it a literal last resort, ranking sapient flesh as just barely above carrion and the flesh of other thri-kreen.note
- Warhammer 40,000: Multiple confrontations during the Horus Heresy would have a Traitor Primarch projecting something on the Loyalist one they were fighting, usually assuming the other Primarch shared their own deepest flaw. The closest Lorgar comes to a true Heel Realization is when he realises that while he had built up a mental image of Guilliman hating him and taking joy in the destruction of Monarchia, when in fact the Ultramarines had reluctantly followed the orders of their absolute ruler and took no pleasure in the violence - the hatred, the joy in cruelty, that was Lorgar himself. Similarly, Mortarion assumes the Khan has a lot more of Mortarion's own hunger for power and control than he actually does, to the point of attempting to recruit the Khan to his anti-psyker campaign even though the Khan not only co-sponsored the initiative to train Space Marine combat psykers, he merrily ignored the Emperor's orders to stop doing so after Nicaea.
Toys
- This is what the viewer is supposed to do when watching Hello Kitty. Without a mouth, the viewer can project their own feelings upon Kitty.
Visual Novels
- Ace Attorney:
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Miles Edgeworth assumes that every defendant in court is guilty and cannot be trusted because he believes that he himself is guilty of accidentally killing his father as a child and is now a Karma Houdini; he prosecutes others so harshly because he imagines that they're in the same situation he was. He gets over it after Phoenix proves that he was innocent all along, and Manfred von Karma was the real killer.
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations, the reason Godot is a Jerkass to Phoenix only is because he blames Phoenix for failing to protect his mentor Mia (despite Phoenix bringing the true culprit to justice). Godot actually blames himself for the same, as he was in a coma when Mia was killed, but he doesn't actually admit that to himself until late in the game.
- In act III of Doki Doki Literature Club!, Monika begins talking about the yandere archetype. She mentions that it seems to describe one of the members of the club...that being Yuri, who became violently obsessive over the protagonist in the previous act. However, Yuri only harms herself, so her yandere status is debatable; whereas Monika, the real yandere of the game, has "deleted" all other members by this point, and is both extremely narcissistic and extremely jealous over the player.
- In Fate/stay night, Kirei Kotomine is a Reluctant Psycho constantly torn between his enjoyment of causing suffering and his strong moral convictions. In his search for a kindred spirit, he believed that Kiritsugu Emiya might be the same as him, but was disappointed to find they were not alike. In the "Heaven's Feel" route, Kirei begins projecting onto the nascent Angra Mainyu instead. He resolves to ensure its birth so he can see whether a being whose very existence is evil will intellectually approve of being evil.
- In Slay the Princess, the Narrator tasks the Player with killing the titular Princess. Whenever the Player gets to the cabin where she’s been locked up in, he says that she will lie, cheat and do everything she can to avoid being killed and that the Player shouldn’t believe anything that she says. But when the full story comes out, it appears that the Narrator was projecting his own untrustworthiness onto the Princess, who is usually less deceptive than he is.
Web Animation
- 13 Cards: Clones Tell Scary Stories: When Waru is trying to get the lights back on, he asks Gabriel to stand closer to him, claiming that Gabriel will get scared standing there by himself when in fact it's Waru who's scared of standing alone without Gabriel by his side.
- The Amazing Digital Circus: "Fast Food Masquerade": During Jax's "reevaluation", Gangle, in the video tape, mentions creative ideas, such as wanting to be a webcomic artist, as being unrealistic and unattainable and having to be put aside to face the cold hard reality that wage labor is what's in your future. While it's directed at Jax, it's made very apparent (especially during the ending) that said dream was Gangle's before it was crushed by unspecified events.
- Red vs. Blue: Locus tends to assume that people he feels are similar to him have a similar 'Just Following Orders' thought process. Agent Washington regrets that period of his life, Sigma (and by extension, the Meta) wanted to Become a Real Boy instead of becoming a weapon, and Agent Maine (before Sigma drove him mad) followed orders because he believed they served the greater good; he felt that following orders blindly would make him a slave instead of a soldier. Wash eventually catches on and bluntly spells out that Locus's projection is just an excuse to not confront the guilt for everything he's done.
- RWBY:
- Cinder Fall often justifies her villainy by accusing her enemies of doing things with the same motives she has, such as accusing Pyrrha of trying to take power that isn't rightfully hers (that of the Fall Maiden) and accusing Winter of hoarding power for her own gain, thinking that by doing so it's hers forever, when Cinder herself is trying to hoard power by going after every Maiden she can, Salem's orders or not. She fails to see the irony that she's condemning herself by pointing out why her motives won't end well.
- Adam Taurus projects quite a few of his own character flaws onto Blake. He accuses her of cowardice, but he abandoned his own men at Haven Academy to be arrested while he escaped; the White Fang turned on him for doing that. He also calls her selfish, but he is the one determined to stalk her across the continent just to drag her back to his side regardless of what she wants. Blake calls him delusional.
- Cobalt from Wolf Song: The Movie, during his Motive Rant accuses his former friend Zar of “not caring of who or what he treads on to get where he is” and “only caring about himself”, before recounting his childhood trauma. However, this is the same Cobalt who lashes out violently at any slight, shows little regard for his subordinates, and has a highly inflated ego; and by this point, he’s talking to someone who is more selfless and has thoroughly redeemed himself since the act. Cobalt is literally projecting his most obvious flaws on someone who has grown past them, in other words
Webcomics
- In Ask Frisk and Company, when the AFAC version of Chara meets the Chara from Ask Drunk Chara, they immediately accuse their counterpart of trying to run away from their problems. Drunk Chara is actually The Atoner who is trying to make up for his actions by being a better person than he was during the Genocide Run, while AFAC!Chara is trying to destroy the world largely because they don't want to confront the fact that their Genocide Run was entirely their own fault (and can't be blamed on humanity being inherently evil or something else like that). When askers point this fact out, AFAC!Chara has a Villainous Breakdown, which culminates in a Despair Event Horizon.
- El Goonish Shive:
- Projection very strongly colours how Magus views Ellen. Ellen is an Opposite-Sex Clone of Elliot who shares all of his memories up to the point of her creation. Magus is an alternate universe version of Ellen who happens to be a trans man. As such, Magus assumes incorrectly that Ellen must identify as male, and tries to forcibly turn her male as a result.
- Jay is convinced that Grace's friendliness and naivety are all an act so she can gather followers for some purpose. Grace really is that bubbly, it's just that Jay is so used to lying and controlling people that she assumes Grace must be equally manipulative.
- In Shifty Look's Katamari, Ace constantly accuses the Prince of taking all the credit and being a total glory hound who can't stand not being the center of attention. In reality, Ace is the one who's completely desperate for attention, and is so self-centered that his response to finding out that one of his cousins needs his help is "What's in it for me?"
- Nebula: Mercury immediately jumps to the conclusion that Sun's as angry as he is at the idiocy of the other planets as soon as Sun mentions feeling weird around them, and starts to rant about their faults until Sun cuts him off and says that no, that's really not what he was going to say.
- In The Order of the Stick,
- Belkar, the Token Evil Teammate halfling, is comforting Bloodfeast the Eviscerator, a tyranosaur who spent most of his time in the comic polymorphed into a lizard. While his attempt to understand how Bloodfeast feels may not be wrong, it's also clearly a description of himself, which he doesn't notice:
Belkar: I guess it's probably been a bigger change for you, right? Back home, you were the strongest and meanest one around. And then you leave and it's just POOF! Everyone's bigger than you all of a sudden. Everyone's a giant and you maybe go a little crazy with the biting as a result, right? [Beat] I don't know where I was going with that.- In a more tragic instance, Girard Draketooth is Chaotic Neutral and believes that everyone is out for their own self-interest. Therefore, he immediately believes that Soon Kim, a Lawful Good paladin, would break the group's oath to not interfere in the Gate guardian affairs of the others. Draketooth has no intent to honor the oath himself and automatically assumes that Soon is just like him, purely interested in the only things that matter to himself, never once realizing that a paladin would prefer to uphold his word of honor regardless of the choices of the rest of the group, who all broke the oath in some way. This schism leads to almost all of the Gates falling as a result.
- Belkar, the Token Evil Teammate halfling, is comforting
- Paranatural:
- Forge goes on a long rant to Spender about how Spender's Well-Intentioned Extremist tendencies will cause nothing but pain for everyone around him. While Spender is a Well-Intentioned Extremist, it's blatantly obvious that Forge is projecting; he's yelling at Spender for Spender leaving his kids in danger—even though the only reason they're in danger is because Forge damaged their vehicle without considering the consequences.
Spender: Maybe some forethought then would have prevented the problem you're so keen to make my responsibility.
- Projecting is a very common theme throughout the series. The villains are the worst about it, but even the main characters tend to assume people share their flaws—and then lash out at someone they perceive as being too similar to themselves. Max calls this "projectance"... and so does everyone else.
- Forge goes on a long rant to Spender about how Spender's Well-Intentioned Extremist tendencies will cause nothing but pain for everyone around him. While Spender is a Well-Intentioned Extremist, it's blatantly obvious that Forge is projecting; he's yelling at Spender for Spender leaving his kids in danger—even though the only reason they're in danger is because Forge damaged their vehicle without considering the consequences.
- In Questionable Content:
- Anh, hoping for a one-night stand with Sven, assumes Hannerlore's conversation with him is an attempt to claim her territory, and is so convinced of this that when Hanners tries to set them up because she thinks Sven needs a stable relationship and doesn't realise that Anh is ... not that, she thinks it makes more sense to interprete this as Hanners wanting her to break Sven's heart, so Hanners can pick up the pieces. They get it sorted eventually.
Anh: Devious. I like it.
- But then Anh follows this up by deciding that, because she thinks [she] might be in love with her" despite being straight, Hanners probably feels the same way and, specifically saying she's not into girls is sending "mixed signals". Hanners gets Marten as a mediator and Anh immediately assumes they want a threesome, and, in declining, brings up puppy play out of pretty much nowhere. When Marten decides this is beyond his ability to mediate and he needs to get his mom involved, Anh yells "Oh my god, you're perverts!" They get it sorted again, eventually.
Anh: I need a drink. This "misunderstanding" has disinterred a number of unsettling truths about myself and they need to be throroughly re-embalmed.
Hanners: You mean like the puppy thing?
Anh: THOROUGHLY RE-EMBALMED.
- Anh, hoping for a one-night stand with Sven, assumes Hannerlore's conversation with him is an attempt to claim her territory
- Sluggy Freelance: Gwynn thinks Torg is out to get her and can't be trusted not to do and say nasty things behind her back. That only describes herself in respect to him — really he thinks highly of her and would never be intentionally malicious (unintentionally is another matter). On the other side of the coin, Torg thinks their fighting is not serious — which would only be true if she could take it as well as he can.
- xkcd: "Projecting" does it in a meta way: "Like a lot of you, I have a real problem with projection."
Web Original
- Folding Ideas' video essay "I Don't Know James Rolfe" is primarily framed as a character study of James Rolfe as an extremely influential internet creator, but as the video progresses, the more that it steadily becomes clear that host/essayist Dan Olson is actually using this dissection of James to reflect on his own self-perception as a filmmaker and creative. A significant passage of Dan's essay features him speaking to the camera while images of James Rolfe are being literally projected onto him.
- The Onion has an article where everyone in a Dysfunctional Family projects their insecurities on the family dog.
- Rats SMP: Upon being advised to carve a scarier design for his pumpkin to ward off a spirit in the Halloween Episode, Owen redesigns it to the scariest thing he can think of — a clock. Martyn and Apo immediately interpret it as "ageing" and the passage of time, which Owen goes along with whenever someone questions if him living in a broken grandfather clock while being scared of them would constitute as hypocrisy. In truth, the reason he's so afraid of clocks in the first place is that he lost his tail to one in a tinkering accident in the past.
Real Life
- There's a Spanish proverb, "cree el ladrón que todos son de su condición", that translates to "the thief believes everyone is like him".
- Hell, the whole point of the Audience Surrogate is this trope.
- Fandom Rivalry often takes form in this, especially when particularly toxic parts of a fandom get involved and Fan Hater is invoked. It's not uncommon for people to complain and accuse the fans of the rival work of the very same things they themselves do, even in the same breath, and never see the irony of their accusations.
- A similar thing happens with Ship-to-Ship Combat between factions of the same fandom.
- Common romantic advice: 9 times out of 10, the partner who's overly concerned with your faithfulness to the relationship is the one cheating on you.
- Another common bit of advice: If you run into an asshole in the morning, they're the asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.
- If one has interacted with people with extreme bigotry, it's easy to notice this as a means used to morally justify their views. To them, their bigotry is justified because the people they're bigoted against (IE, another race, gender, sexual identity, etc.) are the real bigoted ones, so it's completely OK to vote against them having rights and hate them. They also assume that moderates and people in their group who aren't bigoted are just lying and secretly, everyone hates the other side and are just being too polite/cowardly to admit it. The idea of not being racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. is completely alien to them, so they simply don't believe that there are people who genuinely believe in acceptance and equality.
- Many stereotypes developed by racists toward marginalized groups (perhaps most notoriously, black people) come across as this. Minorities have been accused by bigots of being lazy (when colonization frequently involved slave labor) and violent (as if, once again, colonization didn't all too often involve massacres of large numbers of natives of whatever nation the colonials had landed on, along with usually forcing them into some kind of unfree labor, which must be maintained through force).
- When Nazi Germany invaded Soviet Russia in 1941, the Red Army's dispositions could not have been more ideal: instead of withdrawing his forces inward and forcing the Germans to attenuate their supply lines and risk being caught in the winter (similar to how Napoleon's invasion failed), Josef Stalin left large contingents of troops garrisoning the Eastern European territories (in Poland, Finland, and the Baltics) which had been ceded to Russia by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939. As a result, the Germans were able to drive straight through the Soviets' defenses and envelop and capture huge numbers of Soviet troops before advancing into the Russian interior. Historians later theorized that Stalin, having won the territories from Nazi Germany, assumed that Adolf Hitler would focus on recapturing them since that was what Stalin would do in Hitler's place.
- One of the many uses of therapy animals, especially with children, is that someone who has trouble putting their feelings into words might find it easier to tell the therapist what they think the animal is feeling ... which is usually what they're feeling.
