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The Non Abelian Hodge Correspondence identifies moduli spaces of Higgs bundles on a Riemann surface with representation varieties for the surface fundamental group. For representations into complex semisimple Lie groups, the components of these spaces are labeled by obvious topological invariants, while replacing the complex group by a real form can lead to the appearance of extra `exotic’ components. We will describe this phenomenon and what it signifies, as seen mostly from the perspective of Higgs bundles.