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Impersonating the Evil Twin

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An Evil Twin will often try to impersonate the character they're a twin of, but sometimes it's reversed and instead the character is pretending to be the Evil Twin. Never mind that the original character hasn't studied the Evil Twin's typical mannerisms, knows nothing of his background and may not have his abilities. Never mind that the Evil Twin may be wearing a mask or equivalent which the real character can't take off since it's his real face. They look alike, so it has to work, right? In fact, it works more often than it should, often stopped only by gross problems (such as the real Evil Twin walking through the door or being put in a situation where they'd have to commit a truly evil act), not by the dozens of flaws in the impersonation that nobody notices. Frequently it works because even if the Evil Twin's Mooks might notice that their boss is Not Himself, they are often ultimately too scared of him to question his changes in behavior.

Compare with Hugh Mann, where an attempt to pass as human by a non-human is hilariously obvious. Sometimes exposed by a Bluff the Impostor maneuver. Subtrope to Identical Twin Mistake.


Examples

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    Anime & Manga 
  • In the Reigai arc in Bleach, Mayuri disguises himself as his reigai impostor. Using fake contact lenses.
  • The Decepticon toy-only character Sky Shadow in the Transformers: Cybertron has the same body mold as the Autobot Jetfire, which allows him to impersonate Jetfire as a spy. However, he actually is Jetfire, impersonating an impersonator in order to spy on the Decepticons. Confused yet?
  • In Fushigi Yuugi, Suboshi pretends to be Amiboshi for awhile so he can avenge Yui's alleged rape.
  • In Fairy Tail, Erza Scarlet impersonates Erza Knightwalker, her Bizarro Universe counterpart. After the ruse is exposed, Knightwalker angrily cuts her hair so Scarlet can't do it again.

    Comic Books 
  • Fantastic Four: In Fantastic Four (1961) #2, the original Skrull story, the FF pretend to be the Skrull spies. They get away with it, too, since apparently the Skrulls don't ask them to speak Skrullian, let alone to change back into Skrull form. They also convince the Skrulls that Earth has amazing defences by showing them a science-fiction comic book. Reed explained that something about how they see compared to humans resulted in them believing that what they saw on the comics were actual Earth defensive monsters.
  • The Flash: Detective Morillo impersonates Plunder, his Mirror Universe evil duplicate, and takes the opportunity to bust on his partner.
    Morillo: Yeah, I killed those cops and buried 'em. It wasn't easy. The old one was really fat. And ugly. And pretty bad at his job...
  • The Smurfs: Papa Smurf in the story "The Smurf Menace" attempts to impersonate his Evil Twin self the Great Leader after he, Jokey, and Hefty escape being imprisoned in the Gray Smurfs' prison camp in order to find the laboratory in the Grey Smurf Village and make the antidote that will cause the Gray Smurfs to disappear. The Gray Smurfs encountering Papa Smurf almost buy into the impersonation until Jokey accidentally lets slip a joke that gives them away.
  • Shang-Chi: In Master of Kung Fu, one of the final arcs reveals that his father has cloned Shang-Chi to create an equally deadly but more obedient son. Shang-Chi fakes his clone's facial scar and impersonates him to fool his father.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): An odd variant, as Evil Sonic, prior to his change into Scourge, decides to have some fun and swaps places with Sonic, putting our hero at the mercy of his traitorous teammates while he decided to woo every girl in Knothole. It's also discovered that he had done that to his Antoine as well, swapping him with his heroic counterpart. This last bit was to explain away why Antoine Took a Level in Jerkass after a Time Skip.
  • Teen Titans: In one storyline, the villain (mentally disturbed former Titan Jericho) can jump into people's bodies, and was last seen occupying Cyborg, so to draw out another hero (the Vigilante) who is also looking for him, Cyborg pretends to still be possessed and fights his teammates... only to get the robot half of his head shot out for his trouble when the Vigilante shows up. Sometimes this works too well...

    Fan Works 
  • Played with in With Strings Attached. During the New Zork chapter, the real Ringo is automatically mistaken for “Beagle Ringo” when he accidentally teleports into the Plaza Hotel, even though he has a beard (everyone assumes he had it magically grown on during a drunken bender). Given that his presence makes some trouble for “Beagle Ringo,” this sort of makes him the Evil Twin through no fault of his own. (It also makes his beard a Beard of Evil.)
  • In the Final Fantasy VI fanfic Worshippers of Insanity and related works by the author, Gogo is actually Kefka's (good) twin brother. Long story. He uses this to his advantage twice in the former by pretending to be Kefka in front of members of the Cult of Kefka to trick them into spilling their plans and later leave him alone with the captured Returners. There's even a second duplication of sorts, as for the latter trick to work, Cid had to impersonate Gogo.
  • In Out of the Dead Land, one character manages to pull this off in the lead-up to a Big Damn Heroes scene, with "twin" meaning "robot duplicate" here. Namely, Natasha, who Tony later points out is probably the only one of them who could impersonate a robot convincingly enough to fool a literal computer program (e.g. the Not Quite Dead Arnim Zola).

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Pretty much all of the movie Face/Off is a twist on this, with both Sean Archer and Castor Troy assuming the other's identity for different reasons (Archer to stop Castor's evil plot and Castor to mess with Archer's life royally). This is made easier through a process that allows them to switch faces, with body differences being taken care of as well. Archer has spent so much time pursuing Castor that he knows everything about him and as such can properly imitate his voice. Castor, on the other hand acts nothing like Archer, but given Archer had a strained relationship with his coworkers and family since Castor killed his son, when Castor goes around acting as Archer, they are taken aback by his different personality like he found religion but nobody immediately guesses the truth.
  • This was the ultimate twist in the 1998 film version of The Man in the Iron Mask, as the Three Musketeers work to replace the corrupt King of France with his secret twin brother.
  • The Avengers (1998). Mrs. Peel gets into Sir August's underground base by posing as her Evil Twin clone (she wears the clone's black leather jumpsuit and gives a password). Sir August thought that the clone survived the balloon crash and tricked Steed into thinking that it was the real Mrs. Peel. He realizes she isn't the clone (and sends Bailey after her) when he detects her going after his weather control machine. Note that none of this was stated in the movie, the audience had to figure it out for themselves.
  • Tom Lincoln in The Island (2005) isn't necessarily evil. He's just a rich playboy whose philandering ways have resulted in him having a few months left to live. But when his "insurance policy", i.e. his clone Lincoln Six Echo shows up at his home, he appears to be glad to find out about it. He then immediately calls the cloning company and tells them about the clone. Tom Lincoln tells Lincoln Six Echo he will take him to the media to reveal this fraud but it's really a trap. At the end of the trap Lincoln Six Echo (conveniently wearing Tom's clothes) manages to slip his bracelet on Tom's arm, resulting in the latter's death. He further continues to imitate Tom by adopting his Scottish accent after hearing it for about an hour. Laurent, a trained mercenary, fails to detect any deception, even though the clone slipped the bracelet on Tom's arm in while Laurent was looking at them. Only later, while performing an autopsy on Tom's body, the doctor realizes that the bracelet is on the wrong arm. Meanwhile, the clone has infiltrated the cloning company as Tom (supposedly there to make a new clone), still using a Scottish accent and behaving like a rich playboy. Oh, and he says "shite" at one point, even though Tom never said the word in his presence.
    • Of course, one of the subplots in the film is that the clones are starting to recall memories of their "donors", so this is partially justified.
  • Bette Davis did this in two different movies. In romantic melodrama A Stolen Life, Kate is accidentally mistaken for her now dead Evil Twin sister, Pat. She passes off as her easily enough but soon everyone around her knows something is off. In Dead Ringer, which is played more for tragic drama, Edith murders her Evil Twin sister Margaret and assumes her identity. Once again (of course), things go wrong.
  • A wild turn in the 2023 Lifetime film The Man With My Husband's Face. When her husband Heath vanishes on a trip, Katrina is happy when he returns but with some mild amnesia. She writes off his odd behavior as effects of the accident but gets suspicious when she sees he suddenly has a leg tattoo. A woman named Prisca shows up, claiming she's the therapist for Jacob, Heath's twin brother who was separated at birth. Heath just learned Jacob existed and upset at him having a great life. Katrina and Prisca look up a storage locker and horrified to find Heath's body. Katrina races to tell the police of this imposter but the body is gone and when she brings them to Prisca, she claims to have no idea who Katrina is and to top if off, Jacob's tattoo is gone. Escaping the cops, Katrina finds Jacob and Prisca together and realizes the truth: "Jacob" never existed, it's been Heath all along and this whole thing was a scam to make it appear Katrina was crazy about "my husband's evil murderous twin" and have her institutionalized so Heath can get control of her stock options in a company about to go public and make her millions. Luckily, Katrina is able to stop both and expose the plot to the cops.

    Gamebooks 
  • In book 19 of Lone Wolf, the hero kills his Evil Twin, Wolf's Bane, and impersonates him. He successfully infiltrates the enemy base, and Wolf's Bane's superiors are fooled because Lone Wolf's aura was altered to match his. He is outed when he is forced to help Alyss, who has snuck in as well and gets spotted.

    Literature 
  • Played both ways and then subverted multiple times in thriller The Third Twin by Ken Follett. Main character, plucky academic underdog, has uncovered evidence that eight identical twins (including her boyfriend) were implanted secretly (and nonconsensually) in separate mothers during the early days of in vitro fertilization; boyfriend's Evil Counterpart and titular Third Twin, who was raised by the Corrupt Corporate Executive who ran the experiment, spies on her on his father's behalf. Evil Counterpart's cover is blown when he shows a behavioral tic she saw his dad use, and then captured when Boyfriend intervenes. Boyfriend then impersonates Evil Counterpart—and succeeds for nearly 12 hours—only to have his cover blown when he fails to show a behavioral tic (a family in-joke).
  • In Keith Laumer's classic Imperium, a man is recruited by an interdimensional empire that occupies alternate Earths. His mission is to replace the overlord of one of these realities, who is his alternate self. The ruse works perfectly until the first time he confronts one of the overlord's inner circle — who, upon seeing him, immediately orders his arrest. What no one except the inner circle knew was that the warlord had lost both his legs some time previously.
  • In the Skulduggery Pleasant novel Kingdom of the Wicked, Valkyrie impersonates her Antichrist Evil Counterpart Darquesse. In a subversion, she acts her heart out and does a decent job, probably because the stakes are insanely higher than usual with this trope - Darquesse is a Physical Goddess who can survive beheadings, and she is trying to bluff Mevolent, another Physical God who can and has fought her to a standstill. Eventually, Mevolent sees through her, just in time for a handy Teleporter to get Val the hell out of there.
  • Done inadvertently in Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Door Through Space; the hero and his antagonist both fit the same general description, and when the hero realizes that the bad guys have mistaken him for the other guy he proceeds to take advantage as best he can.
  • Similarly, in the Animorphs story The Andalite Chronicles, Elfangor impersonates Visser Three shortly after the latter managed to take control of Alloran's body. The thing is, the Visser's subordinates only know that he's supposed to have an Andalite host now, but doesn't know which Andalite, so they believe Elfangor and obey his order... to attack the real Visser Three while Elfangor escapes. Oops.
  • Kim Kinnison does something very similar to this in Second Stage Lensmen. While not actually standing in for an evil version of himself, the position he rises to within the enemy organisation corresponds almost exactly to the one he occupies in the Galactic Patrol's hierarchy (one below the actual leadership but with major input into strategic decision making), and the mental discipline needed to stay in character matches this trope very well. Unfortunately the one being who has any suspicion of him and can call him on it does, and at the most critical point in the plan. The fact that Kinnison pretty much knows this is coming doesn't make what follows any easier for him.
  • An example from the children's book series Secrets of Droon. The Power Trio is exploring a lost city and find out that two of them are doubles of the Duke and his sister. The kid who looks like the Duke tries to get the guards to go away by ordering them to go make him a burger... but he asks for extra pickles, leading to this exchange:
    Guard: But... Duke Slorpo hates pickles...
    Neal: Really? What kind of a nut is he? I mean, am I?
  • Subverted in Ranger's Apprentice with Halt. He has to impersonate his twin brother, but actually knows what his evil twin is like. It helps that his twin hardly ever appeared in public, so the impersonation was fairly easy to pull off. Those who had met his twin were surprised, and suspected something, but, not being aware that he had a twin in the first place, they weren't sure what to think.
  • Tash Arranda tries this, not so much to fool any one person but to better blend in with her horde of clones in Galaxy of Fear. Success is mixed - her first attempt fails, but later she also pretends one of her clones is her, which works.
  • "One Lonely Night" by Mickey Spillane. A radical politician campaigning against corruption and Dirty Communists hires Mike Hammer to catch his insane twin brother who committed a murder in public in apparent attempt to destroy his reputation (fortunately the politician was giving a speech before hundreds of people at the time). Inverted in that Mike discovers the brother is a fraternal twin who doesn't look anything like the politician, who hired a look-alike actor to give the speech and committed the murder himself.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Doctor Who
    • Subverted in The Chase. The Daleks have made a robot double of the Doctor, which he pulled the plug on. The travellers discuss having the Doctor pretending to be the robot, and conclude that it's an absurd idea because the Daleks should know that their own robot isn't working. The Doctor sneaks off in the middle of the conversation to do it anyway... and is caught in around five seconds.
    • In The Enemy of the World, the Doctor visits Earth during the year 2018 and is discovered to bear a shocking resemblance to a Central American would-be dictator named Salamander. The "good guys" ask him to impersonate Salamander and infiltrate his organization. At the end of the story, with his evil plans in ruins, Salamander makes an unsuccessful attempt to escape in the TARDIS by impersonating the Doctor.
    • Done also in The Android Invasion when the Doctor pretends to be his android double and successfully fools the other androids. He also succeeds in reprogramming his double to assist him, a fact which is only revealed after the double has done a Heroic Sacrifice in front of his horrified companion.
    • Done by the Doctor in the story Meglos; discovered only when Meglos is shot in the belief that he's the Doctor and replies, "satisfied?"
    • Again in "The Almost People" with the Doctor switching places with his Ganger counterpart. His impersonation fools everyone... and the Gangers turn out to not be evil after all.
  • In Alias, after Anna Espinosa is "doubled" to look exactly like Sydney Bristow, Sydney kills and impersonates her to gain access to Prophet 5 and Arvin Sloane.
  • In Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Doppelgangland", Willow pretends to be Vampire Willow. She gets caught due to being insufficiently evil, which one supposes you could call an error in the impersonation. However, it initially works well, and has an effect on helping the Scoobies' strategy, because the Mirror Universe Evil Twin's mooks don't know her much either and also are scared of her.
  • In Knight Rider, Michael Knight impersonates his evil twin, Garth, in "Goliath". Revealed when his Beard of Evil is torn off.
  • A non-twin variation is used in The 100, where Clarke, having been subjugated to a Grand Theft Me by Josephine for several episodes before purging her, has to impersonate being Josephine herself, claiming that "she" eliminated "Clarke's" mind. As the two had seen each other's thoughts and memories during that time, and even gained some of each others skills, Clarke can put on a near-perfect impersonation of Josephine.
  • Hercules: The Legendary Journeys: Done when Hercules ends up in a Mirror Universe. In this case, though, he is undone by a flaw in his impersonation — specifically, by an offer of his "favorite" food, which his Evil Twin actually hated.
  • Star Trek
    • The only really good example of this in canon Star Trek is the original Mirror Universe episode "Mirror, Mirror", in which Kirk, Uhura, McCoy, and Scotty switch places with their Mirror counterparts due to a teleporter accident (meanwhile, in the Prime Universe, their Mirror counterparts are swiftly unmasked and thrown in the brig by Spock). In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Mirror Universe episodes, counterpart visitors are either known to be counterparts or were replacing good guys, and in Star Trek: Enterprise Mirror Universe episodes don't feature the main universe at all, so there are no counterparts. Non-canon novels, comics, and fanfics still feature this trope, though.
    • In encounters with the Borg, Jean-Luc Picard occasionally imitates Locutus (his identity when he was assimilated), since Borg drones will still acknowledge him as such. He does this a couple of times on the show and extensively in the novel The Return.
    • Lampshaded at the end of "Mirror, Mirror", when Spock points out that Good Kirk and co., being civilized, were successfully able to pretend to be savages, while their savage counterparts lacked the self-control necessary to pull the reverse stunt.
    • In the Expanded Universe, Mirror Kira has now been replaced by a crazy Cardassian from the main universe, who was surgically alternated years ago to resemble the main Kira in part of a failed intelligence scheme. (Although this Cardassian was never seen in the series, "Second Skin" has Kira asserted to be her and surgically altered "back".) This attempt appears to have inexplicably worked, despite the replacement not being the correct species, from the correct universe, or even an alternate universe version of that person, and thus having obvious gaps in knowledge.
    • And now, in Star Trek: Discovery, the good guys have to pretend to be their Mirror Universe counterparts again. The two best examples are Sylvia Tilly, whose Doppelgänger is the ruthless captain of the ISS Discovery (i.e., everything Tilly is not) and Michael Burnham, whose counterpart is the equally feared captain of the ISS Shenzhou. Brunham easily slips into the role of her counterpart, while Tilly takes several tries to get it right. Also, while Lorca does pretend to be his own double, we're not told anything about Mirror Lorca, other than his failed attempt at rebelling against The Emperor, which could either indicate that he's a good guy (unlikely, given that it pretty much takes a Klingon Promotion to become a captain in this universe) or that he was simply making a play for the throne himself. Then again, Prime Lorca is hardly a paragon of virtue, given his highly questionable actions of late (which gets explained when it turns out the Lorca we'd been following through the series is Mirror Lorca — he crossed over after his coup failed and impersonated his Prime counterpart, covering up imperfections by pretending to have PTSD from the loss of his entire command). For bonus points, Lorca has his crew disguise the ship herself as her own Evil Counterpart, even repainting the decals to say "ISS Discovery", and modifying the crew's uniforms to match the Terran ones, plus removing any aliens from the bridge.
    • Zig-zagged throughout the two-part Star Trek: Voyager episode "Equinox". The EMH from the USS Equinox, whose ethical subroutines were deleted by Capt. Ransom, inverts this trope, forcibly trading places with the Doctor from Voyager. Posing as his Voyager counterpart, he helps free his ship's officers after they're arrested and later secretly gives information about Voyager to them. While aboard the Equinox, the Doctor has his own subroutines suspended by Ransom and forced to operate on Seven, effectively turned into his own evil twin. After he's brought back to normal, the Doctor notes "It's quite disconcerting to know that all someone has to do is flick a switch to turn me into Mister Hyde.".
  • Sliders:
    • Averted in the pilot, where Arturo does a fairly reasonable impersonation of his otherworld Communist general counterpart. The soldier lets him through, but still shows the wherewithal to call command and ask where the said general is.
    • Unfortunately, this trope was played all too straight as the series wore on.
  • In the Charmed (1998) episode "The Importance of Being Phoebe", the demon Kaia shapeshifted to appear like Phoebe, and Phoebe was able to impersonate Kaia in turn just by adopting some of her slutty mannerisms such as constantly playing with her hair.
  • The Prisoner (1967): In the episode "The Schizoid Man", after his double is killed, Number 6 decides to impersonate him in order to escape from The Village. He fails due to a Bluff the Impostor trick by Number 2.
  • An episode of Friends has Phoebe pretending to be her sister Ursula to break up with Joey (to clarify, Ursula had decided to just stop seeing Joey, so Phoebe posed as her to give Joey closure with a proper break-up).
  • Done in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Ripple Effect", when the team's counterparts from other realities start getting stuck in their world. One team is slightly eviler than the rest. Predictably, this situation results in a brain-exploding number of self-impersonations. Also, in an earlier episode, Teal'c pulls a Kill and Replace on his own doppelganger to fool alt-Apophis, even though the original plan was to stun the double.
  • In one Hogan's Heroes episode, the Germans planned to fake the escape of a British officer, sending his double, who'd assassinate Churchill after arriving in England. The Heroes, of course, captured the German impostor, rescued the Brit, and let the Germans ship him safely off to Britain. When greeted by a German soldier, he covered up his inability to speak German by claiming he was sticking to the British disguise. "Speak in English, you fool; I'm Group Captain Roberts, RAF."
  • An episode of The Avengers (1960s), "Two's a Crowd" had foreign agents groom an unscrupulous male model who closely resembled Steed to murder and impersonate him. He didn't do a good enough job of the "murder" part, resulting in Steed infiltrating the spy ring. Essentially the same concept was reused in The New Avengers episode "Faces."
  • In The Legend of Dick and Dom, the Big Bad creates Evil Twin versions of the heroes; when this is discovered, Prince Dick impersonates one of them to discover what they are up to. Notably, his fake Beard of Evil is slightly more convincing than the doppleganger's real one, probably because the Big Bad is not very competent.
  • This trope is pretty much the entire plot of Ringer, although Bridget doesn't know that Siobhan is still alive until the last episode of the first season. Bridget gets away with it most of the time, although if on the occasions she's had to go to the police they'd thought of just taking her fingerprints the game would have been up a lot sooner...
  • In one episode of Xena: Warrior Princess, Joxer pretends to be his triplet brother Jett, a freelance assassin. It's quite amusing.
  • In one episode of Thunderstone, Sundance is forced to do this in order to save Becky after she is captured by Sutch (Who tricked her by pretending to be Sundance). It fools almost nobody, but Sundance still manages to escape with Becky (as well as Noah and Arushka) because part of the villain’s plan involved letting them go.
  • The Flash (2014):
    • In "Enter Zoom", Linda Park impersonates her Earth 2 counterpart, Doctor Light, in an attempt to lure Zoom into a trap. Unfortunately, her acting skills are horrible. It's a moot point because Zoom takes the bait anyway to prove he's much more powerful than Flash and beats the crap out of him.
    • In "Gorilla Warfare", the Earth-2 Harrison Wells puts on his Earth 1 counterpart's Reverse Flash costume in an attempt to pacify Grodd, as Reverse Flash was one of the only humans Grodd liked. It fails because he's too nice; Grodd points out Reverse Flash never politely asks for anything and instead takes it.
    • In "Invincible", Cisco and Caitlin distract Black Siren by disguising themselves as their Earth 2 counterparts, Reverb and Killer Frost. The attempt fails, as she pulls a "think fast" trick on "Reverb", then reveals that Cisco's Earth-2 counterpart has a different dominant hand.
  • In Crisis on Earth-X, Oliver impersonates his Earth-X Nazi counterpart to infiltrate their base. The ruse falls apart when he is asked to execute the counterpart of his love interest Felicity. Naturally, Quentin-X is Properly Paranoid and doesn't give him a loaded gun, but being Oliver that doesn't stop him from instead slaughtering everyone else in the room and freeing her.
  • In the episode of Once Upon a Time, "The Brothers Jones", David pretends to be James to fool Cruella, as the two are lovers. Subverted as it turns out Cruella wasn't fooled for a second and just played along for fun.
  • Wonder Woman (1975): In "The Deadly Toys". Wonder Woman faces off against the toyman's robot version of herself that has been designed to defeat Diana and take her place. The battle ends with Wonder Woman being knocked unconscious by the aforementioned robot, who then follows the bad guy to enact his evil plan. Or so it seems.
  • In Batwoman (2019), following Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019) a Beth Kane from a universe where she never became Alice ends up on Earth-Prime. She attempts to impersonate Alice to save Kate, but doesn't know about Alice and Mouse's Trust Password.

    Video Games 
  • At the beginning of Final Fantasy XII, Basch was imprisoned for regicide on Dalmasca's sovereign, Ashe's father, though it comes to light later when Basch is rescued that it wasn't he who committed the crime, but his identical twin brother who works under the Archadian Empire: Judge Gabranth. This was reversed at the end of the game when Gabranth, on his dying breath, asked Basch to protect Larsa, who was to be the next Archadian Emperor. Basch takes on the role of Judge Gabranth for this purpose, his brother's death kept a secret.
  • Metal Gear:
    • Done briefly in a Gimmick Level in Metal Gear Solid Integral's VR Missions - one stage requires the player to identify a soldier with poor eyesight who 'even mistook Snake for someone else', who is a murderer, and drag him to a spot on the map. The way of doing this is discovering a blond wig item hidden in the stage, which Snake then puts on, making him resemble Liquid. With the wig, walking past the soldier who did it causes him to salute.
    • Averted in the main game where, during the opening briefing sections Snake has long hair just like Liquid. One of the things he asks for at the end of the briefings is for a pair of scissors to cut his hair so he won't be mistaken for his evil twin.
    • Weird example in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, as it was coincidental. Solid Snake dresses as a fictional Navy SEAL in order to get into an offshore cleaning facility without arousing suspicion. He encounters Raiden, who instantly recognizes him as being a dead ringer for Liquid Snake, another survivor of the cloning project which Solid Snake was born from — because of this, he's unnaturally suspicious. It doesn't help that the disguise is paper-thin — the director stated he wanted to make the disguise as transparent as possible to see how many players he could manage to fool nonetheless. (Add to this a third clone claiming to be Solid Snake while not even bothering to dress up, and you've got yourself a headache.) The game also credits the voice actor whenever a new character is introduced, so it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to put two and two together.
  • Mother 3: Lucas was accidentally allowed into several Pigmask complexes after the Pigmasks mistake him for his twin brother Claus, aka their commander the Masked Man. The Pigmasks even gave him "his" uniform and provided Pigmask ones for his friends! Lucas had no idea that his brother was still "alive", much less the commander of the Pigmasks, so he was probably thoroughly confused by the incidents.

    Visual Novels 

    Webcomics 
  • This is toyed with in a storyline for Bob and George — when the president is kidnapped by ninjas, Mike finds the ninjas obeying him without reason or rhyme, letting the president go without a fight. Later on, it's discovered that Mike's non-alternate universe variant (as Mike came from an alternate universe with Mynd) is their real boss. Well, was.
  • Inverted in The Order of the Stick: Elan manages to (finally) use his twin situation to his advantage when he tricks a prisoner of his father into attacking Nale by making said prisoner believe Nale is him.
  • In Drowtales Ariel Val'Sarghress and Kalki aren't twins, actually being half-sisters, but thanks to Ariel's shapeshifting she's able to impersonate Kalki long enough to get them out of the city of Felde by pretending to kick all the guests out, relying on Kalki's Wild Card reputation and status as the boss' kid to divert any push back or suspicion.

    Western Animation 
  • Darkwing Duck:
    • Darkwing Duck tries to pull this off once. It actually works perfectly, but The Fearsome Five had just decided to betray Negaduck, so they all jump him... before the real Negaduck walks in, and whips them back into line.
    • There's also an odd case where he actually turns himself into Negaduck in order to find the real Negaduck's hideout.
  • Scarlett from G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero is a Master of Disguise, but was typically horrible at actually impersonating somebody. In one episode, she attempts to impersonate an evil scientist's wife/partner. The trope is subverted in that she is immediately spotted because she did not greet "her" husband by insulting him. Typically Scarlett will get caught one way or another. Her evil counterpart — The Baroness — and shapeshifter/illusionist Zartan are much more competent.
  • Justice League:
    • The League members are sent to a Alternate Universe where their counterparts, known as the Justice Lords, eventually went rogue and took the Well-Intentioned Extremist route. There's a point when the League members (excluding Batman) try to enter that universe's Arkham by pretending to be their counterparts, which they fail to pull off due to not following the secret password procedure correctly.
    • The trope is then subverted when the league are surrounded by the police; Lord Batman shows up and calls them off, escorting the League to safety. Superman at first thinks it's really their own Batman obeying this trope, but it turns out that it really is Lord Batman.
  • Played with in the Justice League Unlimited episode "The Great Brain Robbery". Flash's mind is stuck in Lex Luthor's body, and Flash's impersonation of Luthor largely consists of him ham-handedly talking about how "evil" all his actions are. He is only outed after Luthor (in Flash's body) exposes him. A few people do catch on to the ruse, but don't reveal it for their own reasons:
    • Tala prefers the gentler Flash as her lover. (So much for Hawkgirl's "fastest man alive" insult.)
    • Gorilla Grodd hates both Flash and Luthor and is fine with letting Flash sweat it out until the ruse falls apart on its own.
    • Bizarro is... well, Bizarro, and unable to articulate his insight. "Am you Bizarro's mommy?"
    • To further confuse the point, the Flash really is Lex Luthor (on Smallville). That is to say, Michael Rosenbaum, who plays Luthor in Smallville, is also the voice of the Flash.
    • It's averted in the same episode by the fact that Dr. Fate, whose magic was involved in the mind switch, immediately points out that Luthor's mind has ended up in Flash's body. Luthor, for his part, doesn't even try to act like the Flash. And when he takes off his mask to find out the Flash's secret identity, he has "no idea who this is."
  • The Powerpuff Girls (1998) episode "Bubble Boy" has Bubbles impersonating her Spear Counterpart Boomer. However, she actually does have trouble with Boomer's mannerisms (which apparently includes eating cockroaches) and Brick is almost immediately suspicious of her. And of course, there's still the question of how she manages to look exactly like Boomer just by putting down her hair...
  • In The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes episode "Ultron Unlimited", Captain America pretends to be a robot so he can rescue the other heroes from Ultron. The other "robo-vengers" fall for this disguise, but Ultron sees through it.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: During the big fight against the changelings in "A Canterlot Wedding, Part 2", Fluttershy convinces three changelings disguised as her that she's also a changeling, by acting hostile just like them. They leave her alone, but four Rainbow Dashes assault her... and one of them sucker punches the other three, revealing herself to be the real Dash. Conversely, Applejack finds her Back-to-Back Badasses moment with Twilight ruined when the latter reveals its real form.
  • Total Drama Pahkitew Island: After Amy frames Sammy for losing the challenge, Sammy tricks her into eating a poisonous fruit that renders her unable to speak, and then poses as her during the elimination ceremony. The Twin Switch works with the only people who noticed it being Jasmine (who thought Amy deserved it), Chris (who thought it was interesting and got a lot of mileage out of hinting it to Sammy afterward), and Scarlett (who didn't care and thought everyone else noticed as well). Sammy only needed to copy Amy's mannerisms during the elimination; she's free to act like herself afterward because Amy was able to convince everyone but Jasmine and Scarlett that she was the nice one.

 
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Alternative Title(s): I Am You And You Are Me, Evil Twin Impersonation, I Am He As You Are He

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Twinning Isn't Everything

Faced with her own elimination, Sammy tricks her Evil Twin Amy into eating a poisonous fruit that renders her unable to speak, and then poses as her, getting Amy eliminated in her place.

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5 (18 votes)

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