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"Aw, and I thought we were so close... So nice to finally meet you, face to face!"
Bad Ash: I'm Bad Ash! And you're Good Ash! You're a goody-little-two-shoes! Good Ash: Good, Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
When someone's inner darkness doesn't quite take over someone, but it does "escape" their body and rampage around. Fighting someone else's Enemy Without is tricky, as often it will either kill the person projecting it if it dies, or it will just resurrect itself until the actual darkness in the hero's heart is dealt with by the hero themselves.
Often symbolically represents repression, and the hero's refusal to acknowledge the darkness within or some other aspect of themselves. Victory is achieved half the time via "reintegrating" with it. Occasionally, however, it can be seen as representing some other inner demon, and thus, rather than being reintegrated, it must be abandoned, purged, or confronted and conquered. It's generally obvious which one in context, though the first one tends to be more popular.
Sometimes this battle will occur inside someone's own head in a dreamscape, making it both the Enemy Within and the Enemy Without at the same time.
This trope is very similar to both The Heartless and Starfish Character. It is distinguished from The Heartless by having some personal connection to the person/people it was created from, and from Starfish Character by leaving behind a clearly-defined original character.
See also: Evil Twin, Enemy Within, Shadow Archetype, Ghost In The Machine. The "evil" is usually a characters Dream Mirror.
Examples
Anime and Manga
- In Gunnm/Battle Angel Alita, Kaos's backstory is that Den was originally Kaos's evil impulses that occasionally surfaced to do evil things, and Kaos's father, Desty Nova, found a way to pull Den out and give him a body of his own, leaving Kaos free of Den's influence.
- In Magic Knight Rayearth, Nova was the suppression of Hikaru's hatred for herself, given physical form by the magic of Cephiro.
- Subversion: Madlax was a benign version of this; in this case, she was the sublimated desire of a young girl to kill her Brainwashed And Crazy father in self-defense. Uniquely, she grew up on her own without too many defects, as a relatively friendly mercenary in a war-torn land.
- In Bleach Ichigo has to battle his own mirror self inside a dreamscape.
- It's mentioned later on that forcing a Shingami's zanpaktou to manifest,then submit to you,is a required technique for accessing the second release.
- In a possible subversion, Piccolo from Dragonball began his existence as Kami's cast-off evil side. Through the course of Dragonball Z, he exhibits more and more heroic qualities, eventually going so far as to re-integrate himself with Kami for a much-needed power boost.
- Played fairly straight with Majin Buu. His evil side comes out, fights him, then turns him into chocolate and eats him.
- This is part of the plot of the anime Seven Of Seven. The main character, Nana, is an ordinary schoolgirl who finds herself with six alter egos representing different aspects of her personality (hot-headed Nanappe, cheerful Nanacchi, sensitive crybaby Nanarin, lazy and laid-back Nanakko, intellectual Nanasama, and eccentric Nanapon) after messing with one of her inventor uncle's experiments.
- An episode of Keroro Gunsou is a direct spoof of Seven of Seven: Giroro acquires a sextet of alter-egos representing parts of his personality. The gag is, only one is obviously part of him (his "inner soldier"), and the others much less so, like his inner coward, his romantic side, and his feminine and poetic sides, the last two female!
- This happens twice and in two variations in Ranma 1/2. The first time Ranma was split into his female (and evil) self and his male (and normal) self. The second time he found a way to physically fight his shadow, and inevitably, the shadow turned out to be slightly evil because it lacked a superego.
- Both the cases are present only in the anime version. In the manga this trope is not used (More precisely, in an episode there is a double of a female Ranma; but she is not a double but a ghost that, being sealed in a mirror, manifests herself looking as a female Ranma).
- The corrupted self-defense program that separated from the Book of Darkness once Hayate became its master in the second season of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. It was even explicitly called the "darkness of the Book of Darkness" by Hayate.
- Subverted in the Touhou doujin Remily the Strange. When Remilia looks into a cursed mirror, it creates a doppleganger that's supposed to represent the victim's repressed evil. However, Remilia is already completely evil, so the doppleganger ends being extremely timid and "spaced out".
- Fate Stay Night: While not split in double-personalities, Emiya Shirou (who optimistically believes in his ideal to be a superhero who saves everybody) is definitely a foil to himself: as Archer, his jaded and bitter future self, was betrayed and disillusioned by following this ideal to the end. The sheer contrast between Archer and Shirou forces him to acknowledge the flaws in his ideal, as Archer himself is proof that following it blindly while ignoring the reality of things will only harm himself.
Comic Books
- Professor X has attacked the X-Men via this method on a few occasions; once in the 90s cartoon, and several times in the comics, most notably as a fusion of his and Magneto's darkness, Onslaught.
- Marvel Universe character The Sentry's arch-nemesis, The Void, is his own personal Enemy Without. It's implied that the incident which caused The Sentry to be erased from the minds of the Marvel Universe's populace for about 30 years was a failed attempt at re-integration.
- In the UK's Sonic the Hedgehog comic series (not the same as the Archie one), Sonic lost control when he turned into Super Sonic, becoming interested only in causing as much destruction as he could. Eventually, Super was split from Sonic, becoming a recurring antagonist in his own right, and later a pacifistic protagonist who knew nothing of his past or name and fearing having to use his powers to help people because of his Superpowered Evil Side.
Film
- In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke encounters a phantom Darth Vader in a Force-flooded cave on Dagobah. When he strikes it down, it turns out to have his own face, representative of his own fear of turning to the Dark Side if he should do this for reals.
Literature
- This is the premise for most of A Wizard of Earthsea.
- The Yamiko in Sailor Nothing (also The Heartless).
- In Thursday Next, Thursday's adventures eventually inspire a book series, with the books' interpretations of Thursday appearing in the fictional Bookworld. The Thursday of the first four books is a leather-wearing pastiche of Badass Anti Hero cliches, who eventually just decides to turn evil. Interestingly, after these four books the writers decided to go in the opposite direction so there's also a Thursday who's a touchy-feely Granola Girl. This gives the impression that she's become a Starfish Character, except that the real Thursday is still around and is demonstrably the only one from the Real World.
Live Action TV
He also appears at the end of the episode, repeating the line and snapping his fingers with a big smile on his face.
- An episode of Angel serves as a perfect example of the dreamscape variety. Faith (through methods and because of reasons that are both too complicated to explain) ends up inside Angel's head and meets Angelus (Angels Enemy Within) there as well as Angel. This culminates in a battle between Angel and Angelus achieved by carefully choreographed fight scenes with David Boreanaz and a split screen. It was quite impressive.
Video Games
- In Ultima 9, it is revealed that The Guardian, the Big Bad of the later games, is in fact the "cast off" parts of the hero after he became the Avatar, the embodiment of Virtue. Note that this contradicts parts of the plot in Ultima 7 and 8 and in Ultima Underworld 2.
- In Final Fantasy IV, in order for Cecil the Black Knight to become a Paladin, he had to face his past self and allow it to "punish" him without striking back, thus defeating it. The sequence makes more sense in the first Japanese version, as Cecil's past self exclusively uses a special attack that not only damages the enemies, but damages himself as well; this attack was removed from the American version, but the fight scene was unchanged. This only applies to the original Super NES release - the American versions of the Playstation and Game Boy Advance ports are identical to the Japanese and the attack exists in both.
- A similar thing happens in the sequel The After except Kain's dark side escapes, forcing Kain to track it down, but not before Kain's dark side wrecks havok stealing crystals.
- In Final Fantasy VI, sleeping in a certain town with Cyan in your party triggers a sequence where the other three members of your party fight through a series of dream sequences inside his head, based on the character's previous adventures in the game, and ultimately fight a being that is devouring his soul from within.
- Happens quite a few times in Kingdom Hearts.
- "Dark Megaman" at the end of Megaman Battle Network 4. In Battle Network 5, hewould spawn on the enemy side whenever one of the Dangerous Forbidden Technique Dark Chips backfired.
- "Dark Link" at the end of Zelda 2: The Adventures of Link. Dark Link appears in later Zelda games as well, but this one fits the trope the best.
- The Transcendent One from Planescape: Torment, your mortality made flesh and removed from your body by magic... Who has nothing but the deepest of loathing for you and does not want to return.
- A Puzzle Boss in the original Prince Of Persia revolved around this concept, being a dark or ghostly Prince split off by a magic mirror. As usual, the solution was to re-integrate.
- The post-final boss level in Prince Of Persia: The Two Thrones also fits this trope. To defeat the Dark Prince, the embodiment of the Prince's evil qualities, after a lengthy scripted portion, you must run away from the fight, since violence only breeds more violence
- Eclair in La Pucelle has to fight her inner evil self; the resolution is that she must accept it, whereupon she gets the ability to transform into that self in later combats. However, the gameplay required to do this is an ordinary combat with a cut scene at the end showing the "acceptance".
- Inversion: Rularuu the Ravager, a Sufficiently Advanced Alien eater-of-dimensions from City Of Heroes, has a Hero Without, Faathim the Kind, who helps you fight him.
- City Of Heroes also has the Madam of Mystery, who gets stronger every time you fight her again. It turns out that she is the manifestation of darkness in the soul of the very person who is sending you to defeat her, only she doesn't know it.
- In a City Of Villains mission, you go inside Johnny Sonata's head and kill his soul.
- Maggie, and later Pandora, in Persona.
- Persona 3's expansion, FES, has a dark version of the main character as a boss. It is somewhat subverted by the fact that the main character does not actually fight it, as he died before FES.
- The Kingdom Hearts incarnation of Sephiroth appears to be this for Cloud - as such, all of Sora's skills cannot defeat him and This Is Something Hes Got To Do Himself. You can at least convince him to back off by battering him around.
- In the original Shadow Hearts, Yuri had to deal with the mysterious Fox Face, who appears if the in-game Karma Meter rose to high by defeating enemies. Halfway through the game, it is revealed that Fox Face is the manifestation of Yuri's fear of succumbing to the monsters that dwell within his soul as a Harmonixer. Once he learns that his soul belongs to himself alone, and the monsters can never take him over, Fox Face disappears. In addition, when Yuri harmonizes with a monster soul after this sequence, his animation changes from a frightening cry of anguish with accompanying head pain to a simple grunt with accompanying arm swing, showing that he has cast off his fear of his power.
- In Twisted Metal Head-On, it is revealed that Sweet Tooth, the psychotic clown, is a split personality of Marcus Kane. They drive different cars, and can fight and kill each other in the game. Eventually, Marcus gives in to Sweet Tooth's influence, and together, they drive a building and become Tower Tooth, the final boss of the game, as well as Dark Tooth, which is a super-powered ice cream truck with giant jaws that smash opponents. Which they also drive together. And ALL FOUR of these can fight in the same match. I Am Not Making This Up.
- To be fair, it's also suggested that either the entire series is Marcus' hallucination or Marcus is a Reality Warper.
- The final boss of Megaman Zero 3 may or may not be Zero's Superpowered Evil Side possessing a separate body. His origins are left somewhat vague.
- The first two-thirds of Jade Cocoon 2 are spent collecting items that will allow the demon possessing Kahu to be drawn out and defeated in this manner. Afterwards, Kahu must travel to the Forest of Darkness and slay four kalma who are possessing his friends and drawing out their inner evil or self-doubt.
- In Soul Calibur, Nightmare was originally Siegfried's alter ego, but subsequent games have given it its own body and personality (an extremely Chaotic Evil one).
- What, no Pyramid Head? He's eventually revealed to be the incarnation of James Sunderland's guilt and weakness over his wife Mary. True, he has been appearing in recent games despite James not being around, but those have been just irrelevant Fanservice. There's also many other examples from elsewhere in the series.
Webcomics
- An interesting variation is found in 8-Bit Theater, where during the main characters' trip into the Castle Of Ordeals, the only thing evil enough on the Castle's record to represent Black Mage's sins is... himself
 , who becomes more powerful as Black Mage reminds the doppel-ganger of a few sins the Castle forgot to add. In typical fashion, Black Mage stabs the manifestation in the back of the head. Then absorbs its energy to avoid the catharsis of literally killing his own evil. Then has sex with the corpse.
- The last part of that is only implied, rather than explicitly shown, though.
- In The Wotch, Anne once tries to create helper duplicates, and is Genre Savvy enough to make sure none of them believe they're the original or decide they'd rather stay separate. Something goes wrong with it anyway, and each copy is a different aspect of her personality (often simply wearing a different color, though a few take on forms from previous arcs, such as her courage being a Batgirl-based hero, and her curiosity being a Cat Girl.) The villains talked her anger, frustrated with having been kept from acting by the rest of Anne's personality, into refusing to return and trying to get rid of the others.
Web Original
- This was attempted in Survival Of The Fittest version two, but didn't work out. The character Walter Smith was originally made in the pregame with the concept of him being the manifestation of Jack Bexley's dark side, as Jack was also a politician's child but, while he did not let himself be corrupted as Walter was, still had part of him that was like that. The plan was that they'd be bitter rivals, and Jack would eventually kill Walter in a fight late in the game as a symbol of finally getting rid of that side of his personality. Unfortunately, Jack's handler left the site and never put Jack into the game, leaving the storyline in the air and Walter as a pure evil villain without any of the symbolism.
Western Animation
- In the animated series Ben 10, Ben's Ghostfreak form is revealed near the end of the second season to be bad news.... After Ben loses control, Ghostfreak winds up separated from Ben's body and on his own, chasing Ben and possessing others for the remainder of the episode, trying to get back to Ben's body and take over. One of the examples where "re-integrating" the Enemy Without would be a very bad idea.
- Then again... (Near the end of the third season, a copy of the "true" (sunlight-vulnerable) Ghostfreak ends up on the Omnitrix. Whether this copy contains Ghostfreak's personality remains to be seen).
- In Samurai Jack, Aku realizes that none of his forces are as strong as Jack is... so he creates an Evil Twin of Jack, made of Jack's anger and fury, to take him out. Naturally, Jack wins when he accepts it and doesn't fight back.
- In Darkwing Duck, the first episode ever written with a character called "Negaduck" was not truly starring the recurring Evil Twin Alternate Universe Negaduck that came to spearhead the Fearsome Five in later days. This Negaduck was the accidental byproduct of an invention Megavolt called "the tron-splitter", which was designed to separate an object into its component "positrons and negatrons", and then later re-merge them. A locked door, thus separated, would leave an empty doorway Megavolt could simply stroll through, and once re-merged without ever being unlocked, there would be no sign of tampering for the CSI squad to analyze. Things start going wrong when Darkwing catches him red-handed, and in the ensuing fight, Megavolt turns the tron-splitter on DW. DW's good side turns out, much like Captain Kirk, to lack the necessary sock-pow forthrightness that makes for a quack-fu action hero, while his evil side is unhesitantly violent, and goes on a fearsome rampage. Later, it is discovered that the tron-splitter can "galvanize" a tron-pure subject, imparting functionally limitless super powers. As always, the solution is to re-merge the two before the Enemy Without destroys everything. Also includes an instance of Spot The Imposter, early on after the split.
- As implied, this is all a comedic rehash of an episode of the original Star Trek in which a transporter accident splits Captain Kirk in two.
- In Justice League Unlimited's third season, Shadow Thief was revealed to be Hawkman's Enemy Without.
- In the South Park episode "Fourth Grade," Mr. Garrison has a face-off with his "Gay Side" in a direct parody of the cave in The Empire Strikes Back. He loses.
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