"Talk about being your own worst enemy."
— Lara Croft in Tomb Raider: Anniversary (after sending a mutant copy of herself into a lava pit)
Doppelgänger, with an umlaut and a majuscule, 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. It is often said that one who sees their own Doppelgänger will die soon. In fiction, this is usually because they kill you themselves and take your place.
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 index includes both mundane and supernatural impersonators of a character.
For twins related by blood, see Twin Tropes. See also Disguise Tropes. If a good character has an evil Doppelgänger, the Doppelgänger is an Evil Twin.
Specific types of Doppelgängers include:
Subcategories:
- Alternate Personality Punishment: An alternate personality or clone of the perpetrator gets punished.
- Alternate Self: It's the same person, but in a different timeline and leading a different life.
- Alternate Self Shipping: Shipping a character with their alternate personality or clone.
- Alternate Species Counterpart: It's the same person, but of a different species.
- Alternate Universe: Self-explanatory.
- Alternative-Self Name-Change: To differentiate the copy from the original, the copy is given a new name.
- Artificial Human: Clones and bioroids are one common way of making duplicates.
- Body Double: A leader uses lookalikes to make assassination more difficult.
- Body Snatcher: Doppelgängers created by bodily possession.
- Changeling Tale: When The Fair Folk abduct children, they often leave behind a "changeling".
- Celebrity Impersonator: Somebody looks like and is mistaken for a famous person
- Clone by Conversion: Being transformed into somebody else's doppelgänger.
- Costume Copycat: When a hero is impersonated by someone in a nearly identical costume.
- Criminal Doppelgänger: When the person's double is also coincidentally a wanted criminal.
- Dead Person Impersonation: When one person takes over another's identity.
- Deep-Immersion Gaming: Gamer characters "become" their avatars.
- Differently Dressed Duplicates: The person has been copied, but their clothes haven't.
- Disposable Decoy Doppelgänger: A clone/doppelgänger created and used for the sole purpose of being a distraction.
- Doppelgänger Attack: When one person makes multiple physical copies of oneself for combat.
- Doppelgänger Spin: When one person makes multiple harmless copies and circle the target to distract them.
- Doppelmerger: A Fusion Dance between a person and their clones or doppelgangers.
- Easy Impersonation: When a hero is impersonated by someone in a not-even-similar costume.
- Evil Brunette Twin: An Evil Twin has darker hair.
- Evil Counterpart: A character (not related to the hero) who is very similar, but something small turned them evil.
- Evil Doppelgänger: The Mirror Universe counterpart of the hero.
- Evil Knockoff: when a robotic duplicate or clone is made of a hero with the purpose of destroying them.
- Evil Twin: When a character has an evil sibling or alternate reality duplicate.
- Face Stealer: When a villain has to harm another character in some way to look like them.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: When two people switch bodies, the result is remarkably doppelgänger-like.
- Gender-Bent Alternate Universe: If said person is a gender-bent version of themselves.
- Humanshifting: A type of shapeshifter that turns into humans.
- Identical Grandson: Heredity is so strong, it can give you the original person back!
- Identical Stranger: For some reason, the gene sequencing fairy took the day off and you have an unrelated twin.
- Identity Impersonator: Creating a doppelgänger of the Secret Identity to prove that our hero is not the superhero.
- Inexplicably Identical Individuals: Not clones. Not related. They all just happen to look, talk, act, and think alike.
- Jekyll & Hyde: When the person is their own doppelgänger.
- Legendary Impostor: Con artist tries to copy a well-known Secret Identity for profit or fun.
- Literal Split Personality: A character's alter-egos are represented by multiple entities.
- Mirror Self: The antithesis of the hero. Often wears black.
- Mobile-Suit Human: When the robot duplicate is piloted by a tiny alien.
- My Sibling Will Live Through Me: When a sibling takes over a person's identity.
- Oddball Doppelgänger: A clone or a lookalike of a character looks just a bit... off.
- Opposite-Sex Clone: A clone of the opposite sex of the original.
- Our Clones Are Identical: An index of clone tropes.
- Replicant Snatching: A robot/alien peels off the original's skin and wears it.
- Robot Me: When the doppelgänger is a robot.
- Separated at Birth: Two (often but not always identical) twins are, well, separated at birth.
- Split at Birth: A singular being separates into multiple entities at birth.
- Surgical Impersonation: When the doppelgänger used Magic Plastic Surgery to impersonate someone.
- Temporal Duplication: Multiple versions of the same person at different points of time, around the same place.
- Twin Switch: Twins momentarily impersonate each other.
Related tropes:
- Actually a Doombot: When the person is revealed to be a robotic duplicate.
- Alleged Lookalikes: Two characters are mistaken for another in-universe but show no physical similarities to the audience.
- Alliance of Alternates: When multiple alternate selves ally with the main one.
- Ambiguous Clone Ending: Did the original kill the clone, or is the clone the survivor?
- Bad Impressionists: Impressions done badly for laughs.
- Becoming the Mask: What happens to many doppelgängers.
- Body Double: When this trope is used to protect Very Important Persons.
- Capture and Replicate: Someone is kept alive while their captor impersonates them.
- Confronting Your Imposter: When the real character and the faker come face to face.
- Counterpart Combat Coordination: Fighting your doppelgängers.
- Creepy Child: Often come in twos, or more.
- Differently Dressed Duplicates: Time travel duplicates dress differently.
- Distaff Counterpart: Very similar to the original character, just the opposite gender. Often a rival or villain.
- Doppelgänger Crossover: Fanfiction crossing over two works featuring the same actor in different roles.
- Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: The doppelgänger gets the same emotional reaction as the original.
- Doppelganger Link: Everything an individual feels, emotionally and physically, is felt by any and all doppelgängers. And yes, even a single death becomes a shared experience.
- Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest: That love interest that just died? They have a duplicate that wants to shack up with you.
- Duplicate Divergence: A doppelgänger starts out identical but differentiates over time.
- Emergency Impersonation: An impersonator tries to fill in for someone else and Hilarity Ensues.
- Expendable Clone: The tendency to see these doubles as highly expendable, if not abominations to be killed.
- Future Me Scares Me: That's who I turn into?!
- Gendered Outfit: When an Opposite-Sex Clone, Distaff Counterpart, or Gender Bender wears an opposite-gender version of an established outfit.
- Glamour Failure: Not all doppelgängers can hide their tells.
- Impostor-Exposing Test: A test to identify an alien or supernatural impostor.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: An impersonator fails to to be convincing.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Animated characters made to look very similar to the actors that play them.
- I Say What I Say: Doppelgängers speaking in unison.
- Kill and Replace: A character murders another and takes their identity, usually by adapting their own appearance.
- Killing Your Alternate Self: After doubles or alternates of characters meet, one or both tries/try to kill the other.
- Mangled Catch Phrase: One person imitates another but screws up the first person's catchphrase.
- Me's a Crowd: When someone tries to clone themselves.
- Mini-Me: A smaller version of an existing character. Can possibly fit into the above subcategory if the copy is sentient.
- Mirror Match: When a character fights themselves (or a reasonably close match) in a video game.
- Mirror Morality Machine: A character is made into their moral opposite thanks to Phlebotinum.
- Mirror Universe: Home to many morality opposite versions of a cast.
- Mistaken for an Imposter: Someone is mistaken for an imposter of themselves.
- Never the Selves Shall Meet: Encountering one's doppelgänger is bad news in and of itself.
- Opening a Can of Clones: A story with clones, especially when used to revive dead characters or undo plot, makes the events lose punch.
- Other Me Annoys Me: A character is irritated by an alternate version of themselves.
- Preferable Impersonator: People like the doppelgänger more than the original.
- Prince and Pauper: Two people switch lives.
- The Psycho Rangers: An entire team of doppelgängers to the Five-Man Band.
- Screw Yourself: Yes, there is Power Perversion Potential to be had here (also Rule 34).
- Shapeshifting Failure: Shapeshifting is sometimes imperfect or too short-lived.
- Spot the Imposter: When the friends of the impersonated have to figure out who the spy is.
- Teleporter Accident: One surefire way to create a duplicate, evil or otherwise.
- Treacherous Spirit Chase: A malign entity poses as a dead loved one to lead the hero into peril.
- Twinmaker: A clone is made to replace a dead original.
- Twin Test: A character is tasked with differentiating between identical siblings by at least one of those siblings.
- Villains Blend in Better: Most villainous doppelgängers easily impersonate their target.
- You Are Who You Eat: A non-human shapeshifts into the form of the person they've eaten.
