"Lord, what fools these mortals be," as Puck, a more benign identity-shifter, put it.
There are two main poles around which his ideas gravitate: crackpot philosophers and identity-shifters.
He's a shape-shifter, an identity hijacker, a human being who would rather appear to be than actually be.
After building his identity as a political shape shifter to accommodate the people, the people still don't like what they see because he appears to lack personal conviction.
Tom Ripley, of "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), is an opaque shape-shifter, the antihero as identity thief.
Which may bring to mind the Yes Men, those notorious shape-shifters who assume the identity of corporate predators for fun and social profit.
She skips between identities like a shape-shifter, an All-American mom in one magazine, a doll-faced 30-year-old superstar in the next.
Gender identity is even more confusing if you're a shape-shifter.
Thomas' previous portraits turned her sitters into brazen shape-shifters, bleeding into their environments to reveal the slippery nature of identity and the profound influence of style.
All that makes racial shape-shifters a fantastic opportunity for a writer: they've got Huck Finn's independence, an identity in turmoil, a secret that could destroy their world, a refusal to be defined by others and a vantage on race that very few ever get to have.
Such images signal a shape shifter's impulse that underpins fashion itself, the urge to try on and successively shed identities like so many disposable designer frocks.
