Doppelganger - Television Tropes & Idioms

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Doppelganger

Twin. Doppelgänger, with an umlaut, is the German word for a ghostly double of a living person or more commonly simply a word for someone looking exactly like someone else, i.e. an impostor or double. It means "double (walker)", in the original.

Traditionally, Doppelgängers have strange, supernatural origins, unlike twins which usually have more natural explanations. A Mirror Universe, Cloning, alien intervention, and magic are all possible sources of a Doppelgänger. For purposes of clarity, this this index includes both mundane and supernatural impersonators of a character.

Specific types of doppelgangers include:

Body Snatcher — Doppelgangers created by bodily possession.
Cloning Blues — Clones are one common way of making duplicates.
Costume Copycat — When a hero is impersonated by someone in a nearly identical costume.
Dead Person Impersonation — When one person takes over another's identity.
Doppelganger Replacement Love Interest — That Love Interest that just died? S/he has a duplicate in the real world that wants to shack up with you.
Easy Impersonation — When a hero is impersonated by someone in a not-even-similar costume.
Evil Counterpart - A character (not related to the hero) who is very similar, but For Want Of A Nail turned evil.
Evil Knockoff - when a robotic duplicate or clone is made of a hero with the purpose of destroying them.
- Mobile Suit Human — When the robot duplicate is piloted by a tiny alien.
Evil Twin — When a character has an evil sibling or alternate reality duplicate.
Freaky Friday Flip — When two people switch bodies, the result is remarkably doppelganger-like.
Identical Stranger — For some reason, the gene sequencing fairy took the day off and you have an unrelated twin.
Jekyll And Hyde — When the person is their own doppelganger.
Mirror Match — When a character fights themselves in a video game... or a reasonably close match.
The Psycho Rangers — An entire team of doppelgangers to the Five Man Band.
Replicant Snatching — Or when a robot/alien peels off the original's skin and wears it.
Shape Shifting — Some doppelgangers can do it by shape shifting.

Related tropes:

Antagonists Assimilate — Most villainous doppelgangers easily impersonate their target.
Becoming The Mask — What happens to many doppelgangers.
Glamour Failure — Not all doppelgangers can hide their tells.
Guise Will Be Guise — An impersonator tries to fill in for someone else and Hilarity Ensues.
Identity Impersonator — A ploy heroes use to throw off people are snooping their Secret Identity.
Mirror Universe — Home to many morality opposite versions of a cast.
Prince And Pauper — Two people switch lives.
Spot The Imposter — When the friends of the impersonated have to figure out who the spy is.