This may stem from an enchantment whose conditions the hero or heroine has broken, as in East of the Sun and West of the Moon, or because the lover has been enchanted into forgetting the hero or heroine, as in The Master Maid, or merely from the belief that the true hero or heroine is dead or lost, as in Maid Maleen. Other tales have characters take the hero or heroine's place without claiming to be the original. Such false heroes include Cinderella's stepsisters, who chop off parts of their feet to fit the shoe, but are given away by the blood the washerwoman's daughter in Black Bull of Norroway, whose mother lies about who washed the blood out of the hero's shirt, but whose lies are given away when the heroine bribes her way to the hero the king's marshall in The Two Brothers, who chops off the dragon's seven heads, but only after the huntsman hero has cut out the dragon's tongues, so that when the heads are displayed, the huntsman can observe that their tongues are missing (a common motif when a false hero claims to have killed a monster) and the older brothers in The Golden Bird, who try to kill their younger brother and do steal his prizes, but when the youngest survives, those prizes recognize him as the true hero.

In most of the tales that use this figure, the false hero is the final obstacle to the hero's happiness. These include The Goose Girl where a serving maid takes the princess's place, and makes her a goose girl, The White and the Black Bride where the stepmother pushes the bride into the river and puts her own daughter in her place, and The Lord of Lorn and the False Steward, where the steward robs the young lord of Lorn and passes himself off as him, with the true lord serving a shepherd. In some tales, the false hero appears early, and constitutes the main obstacle to the hero. Vladimir Propp identified it as one of the seven roles he found in an analysis of Russian folktales, but the figure is widely found in many nations' tales. Cinderella is tested to distinguish her from her stepsisters, the false heroes The false hero is usually punished, and the true hero put in his place. By testing, it is revealed that the claims are false, and the hero's true.

The false hero presents some claim to the position. The character appears near the end of a story in order to claim to be the hero or heroine and is usually of the same sex as the hero or heroine. The false hero is a stock character in fairy tales, and sometimes also in ballads.

False hero walktrough