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Literal Split Personality
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alt title(s): Starfish Character A character gets split into two or more copies of themself, each of which reflects some facet of their personality. This can be similar to Evil Twin, but the split need not be along the good/evil axis. Sometimes seen as part of a Journey To The Center Of The Mind. When this is not the case, it's usually an effect of the Applied Phlebotinum of the week.
Often the parts have to work together, as none of them is individually capable of what the original character was. Sometimes, as they spend more time together, they start to become more like each other.
Compare Enemy Without, but the components are not necessarily enemies, and unlike in Enemy Without none has any particular claim on being the "original" version. Also compare Me's A Crowd, which is similar in appearance, if nothing else.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Fuko from Clannad might count. After the car accident there is the Fuko in the hospital and the one in the school that everybody seems to be forgetting. Heck, she even spends most of her time carving wooden starfish.
- In Ah My Goddess, Urd gets split into her Goddess and Demon halves, with the former acting much more like Belldandy and the latter more like her mother (not to mention Demon-Urd taking the Stripperiffic outfits of regular-Urd to extreme). They eventually realize that neither Urd is the true Urd and recombine.
- Episode 15 of Keroro Gunsou has resident Yandere Momoka split into her shy, retiring side and her aggressive, angry side thanks to a Keronian G-force simulator and an ill-timed lightning strike.
- In the manga Seven Of Seven, the premise is that a girl named Nana ('Seven' in Japanese) is split into seven facets of her personality. (In this case, they cheat by leaving one that basically is the "original" Nana.)
- In Rosario To Vampire Capu2, the Lilith Mirror splits Moka into her Outer and Inner forms. Both of them are unstable apart, and since the Lilith Mirror's magic needed to be reversed, they rejoin shortly after they split, much to Kokoa's disappointment.
- Kami from Dragonball removed his evil from himself, forming Piccolo Daimao, who was literally made of evil, according to many. However, Piccolo's son (or reincarnation, who is also Piccolo but definitely an alien) fused back with Kami to gain immense power. Though he had become good already.
- Similarly, the Demon God Buu (originally a rotund, bubblegum-colored enemy) turned good, but traumatic events led him to expel all the evil in his body as a gas cloud... which was another form of Buu, but rail-thin and dark, and just as powerful. Then Evil Buu devoured the Good Buu and became... Super Buu! It's that kind of story arc.
- At the end of Mahoraba (Both the anime and Manga), Kozue goes through a version of this as her personalities merge for good.
- Pokemon has Sabrina.
- Gunnm (Battle Angel) has Den, the cybernetic warlord and resistance leader who is actually a rage-driven split personality of radio star Kaos, given independent existence with a remote-controlled robotic body created by Mad Scientist Desty Nova.
- Return to Labyrinth - Mizumi has the power to create ablations, carving off one of a person's aspects into a new being. Moppet is an ablation of Sarah. Moulin and Drumlin are ablations of Mizumi herself.
- In the Four Swords manga, each Link embodies a different part of his personality. For example, the blue Link is rather hot-headed, the red link is cheery, and the purple Link is crafty and thinks a lot.
- Shuffle had Sia's more aggressive split personality, Kikyou, take over when Sia was being too indecisive in what to do about Rin. Kikyou is actually Sia's Dead Little Sister who made a pact with Sia when they were still unborn, enabling her soul to share Sia's body.
- A Filler story of the Ranma 1/2 anime had Happosai use a special incense to duplicate Ranma's female form in a separate, independent entity to do his bidding. Problem is, it was pure evil, had phenomenal Psychic Powers, and kept trying to seduce the original Ranma to drain his Life Energy.
- Father, the Big Bad of Full Metal Alchemist, can do this at will. He expels aspects of his own personality that he doesn't like, and these discarded traits form seperate individuals who typically become his minions. To a certain extent, he regards them as his children, but that's mostly because he has family issues.
- In Bleach, Starrk and Lilynette are both the primera Espada, who split into two in order not to feel lonely, as all his/her "friends" were too weak to survive long.
Comic Books
- Triplicate Girl from The Legion Of Superheroes has this. In some incarnations, it works on a Shy/Outgoing scale.
- Jamie Madrox from the X-Men comics has a mutant power that creates duplicates of himself upon physical impact. Each tends to manifest some aspect of his personality.
- One JLA storyline did this to the League's entire roster- splitting Superman and Clark Kent, Batman and Bruce Wayne, etc. Hilarity spectacularly failed to ensue- Clark was scared of heights while Superman was losing his humanity, Bruce Wayne had no outlet for his rage at the criminal element while Batman lost his motivation, etc. As for the others... It Got Worse. Only Wonder Woman and Aquaman were immune.
- Superman once was an energy being; he then became two energy beings: Superman Red and Blue. We don't like to talk about it.
- Array, from Fred Perry's Gold Digger comic, had the ability to shunt off part of her personality into their own bodies (which could be crafted to look like anyone she wanted). However, when she reabsorbed her duplicates into herself, the personalities remained permanently distinct from the original, giving her a massive MPD.
- Supergirl once had an evil half released by black kryptonite. She came out wearing a black version of her normal outfit.
- This is the background for Bionicle's Vezok and Vezon. Vezok is the original name, and after the split he represents the strength of the original. Vezon (literally "split" in the matoran language) was the intelligent side, but immediately went completely insane.
Film
- In the movie Superman III, Supes gets exposed to some "artificial" Kryptonite that turns him evil, then splits him into an evil Superman and a good Clark Kent.
- The Skekses and the UrRu (Mystics) of The Dark Crystal are the evil and good halves of the UrSkeks.
- A bizarre variation of this happens to Jack Sparrow in Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End. Naturally, considering the character, this is taken to extremes with an entire crew of dozens of Jack Sparrows, each one supposedly reflecting one aspect of his character.
- The movie version of Sadako Yamamura, from The Ring. Originally a child with unbelievably powerful Psychic Powers, her father somehow split her into an innocent side and an evil, supernatural one. The former was sent off to live a (semi) normal life, grew up, and went to college. The latter was imprisoned and subjected to drug treatments that stunted her growth —but did little to assuage either her malevolence or her powers, which she used to contact ( and revive) her adult half halfway across the country. Their reunion... resulted in tragedy for everyone involved.
- In Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo are "remnants" of Sephiroth, who, having died but still existing in The Lifestream, was unable to create a complete avatar of himself. Instead he created these puppets, who were separate persons (and nowhere near as cool) but each embodied some part of his personality. Apparently, Kadaj represents his anger and rage, Loz his speed, strength and attachment to Jenova, and Yazoo his charisma and aloof demeanor.
Literature
- One of the Animorphs books had Rachel, literally shapeshifted into a starfish, get cut in half with a spade. The two starfish halves regenerated into Nice and Mean Rachel, both quite explicitly called that in the text. However, it wasn't just good and evil: in a situation inspired by the Trek version, the kind Rachel could plan complex scenarios but was incapable of focusing in the moment, and the violent one was the opposite, incapable of thinking beyond the moment. They had to work together because neither alone could function well enough to do what she wanted.
- Spock in the Star Trek novel "Spock Must Die". It's caused by — yes, you guessed it, a transporter accident.
- In Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, Anansi's son gets split into Fat Charlie (the uncool, apparently nonmagical one) and Spider (the god). The analogy with starfish is made explicit.
- William Sleator's young adult novel The Duplicate features this, or so the duplicates think. They're wrong, even if they manage to convince the original for a while.
- Robin Hobb seems to have discovered a new use for this in the Soldier's Son trilogy—it can solve Triang Relations.
- A story by Robert Sheckley involves a man who got a schisophrenia cure in his childhood by getting the other personalities siphoned into artificial bodies. He spends the story searching for them around the Solar System.
Live Action TV
- Kirk, in the Star Trek episode "The Enemy Within". However, the "evil" side proved to be the side with the strength to make tough decisions, proving that both halves are needed for the whole to work.
- In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Faces," B'Elanna Torres is split into her Klingon and human halves by the Vidiians: the Klingon is a barely contained rage factory, the human is a simpering wimp.
- A spell intended to remove Buffy's Slayer abilities in an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer hits Xander instead, separating him into a "positive attributes" Xander (charming, well-groomed, and confident) and a "negative attributes" Xander (awkward, paranoid, and insecure). Note that despite the negative Xander's suspicions, neither half is actually evil. Both Xanders also refer to "The Enemy Within" during the episode.
- Lex in a Smallville episode.
- The Ren And Stimpy Show spoofed this by having Ren split into his evil side and his indifferent side in one episode. At the episode's end, Evil Ren deliberately split himself, resulting in Evil Ren and Hideously Evil Ren. Then they got married.
- Farscape subverted this by duplicating the lead character, John Crichton, into two identical (equal and original) characters, both imbued with all the personality traits, good and bad, of the original. This happened at the same time as a split in the crew, with both halves of the crew believing that they had the real Crichton with them. This situation persisted for half a season, and the repercussions ran through the rest of the series.
- This functioned as an arc-wide Reset Button for certain plot points that were almost too-neatly wrapped up. Heroic Sacrifice, anyone?
- Also played straight in the episode "My Three Crichtons," wherein John is split into a Power Trio: the original (ego), an animalistic version that acts purely on emotion (id), and a hyperevolved version that acts purely on logic (superego).
- In General Hospital's Supernatural Soap Opera spinoff Port Charles, Livvie is split in two by her vampire lover Caleb. The bad half continues to live as Livvie. The good half has amnesia and is named Tess.
- In the Doctor Who Big Finish audio "Caerdroia", this happens to the Doctor, who gets split into "the responsible one", "the loopy one", and "the nasty one".
- Also in the new series when the Doctor's severed hand grows into a duplicate of him due to Donna Noble's unintended interference. He became half-human and somewhat more callous in his strategies than the original, remniscent of the Ninth Doctor's more desparate methods.
- In an episode of Goodnight Sweetheart, the protagonist Gary gets hit by lightning at the exact instant he walks through a time-portal. He wakes up on one side of the portal, and later discovers that an unscrupulous, sex-obsessed version of himself appeared on the other side. Hilarity Ensues. Doubly applies as it is later revealed that Gary isn't actually the good side... a third version of him, a very camp, charitable man, shows up at the end of the episode, explaining that he'd been busy helping out in an air-raid shelter.
- Trey of Triforia, the first "Gold Ranger" from Power Rangers Zeo, had the alien ability to split into 3 parts, and got stuck that way when he lost his Ranger powers. They had to wait until the stars were right to recombine him and give him his powers back.
- The Red Dwarf episode "Demons And Angels" featured a triplication device, which created a Good Ship with crew (who exist in the starship equivalent of Crystal Spires And Togas, and can even make Pot Noodles edible), an Evil Ship with crew (where Rimmer's H has fallen sideways and... yeah) and a Neutral Ship with crew (i.e. the original gang). The Neutral Ship duly exploded, and it required a polarity reversal to recreate it from the others.
- There's also the Confidence and Paranoia episode in one of the early series.
Tabletop Games
- In 4th Edition Dungeons And Dragons, the Dragon God Io was cut in two by the King of Terror, Erek-Hus. The two halves then each rose up as a new god: Bahamut and Tiamat, who then killed Erek-Hus. All Io's evil qualities; his hubris, arrogance, and envy, were embodied in Tiamat, while his good qualities, his desire to protect and his sense of equality, were embodied in Bahamut. Both gods inherited Io's preference for working alone, and became bitter enemies after the battle. In previous editions, Bahamut and Tiamat were instead the children of Io.
Video Games
- In Mega Man Star Force, Pat has a split personality, Rey. Gemini becomes his EM wave partner. When he EM Wave Changes and becomes Gemini Spark, Gemini splits into two, an the two personalities split. Gemini Spark White merges with Pat. The dominant one (the one you hit to damage), Gemini Spark Black, merges with Rey.
- Thank Capcom for small blessings; in Star Force 2, both of them are damageable separately.
- The major reveal of Blue's game in SaGa Frontier is that he and his 'twin brother' Rouge were the same person, and the duel to the death was just a formality to establish the dominant personality.
- In Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer Safiya, Nefris, and Lienna are all aspects of The Founder, AKA The Red Woman, deliberately split off into separate bodies.
- The Longest Journey features a character who was split into his logical and emotional halves. His logical side is a cold, amoral human; his emotional side is a Chaos Vortex that nearly kills the player character. When his two sides are reunited, he turns out to be a decent guy.
- Done in Episode 106 of the new Sam And Max series. Hugh Bliss splits Max into his gluttony, his laziness, and his anger, leaving a blissed out Max lacking all of his personality with Sam.
- In the first Breath Of Fire game, the party enters the mind of Mogu, who is in a coma, to find his personality fractured. They have to find his missing Courage in order to bring them together and wake Mogu up.
- And in the fourth Breath Of Fire game, there's one of the most blatant examples. Both Ryu (series protagonist) and Fou-lu (technical antagonist and Woobie) are actually two halves of the same god, the Yorae Dragon/Arukai no Ryuu, that was summoned 600 years ago on the western continent in a desperate attempt to stop a massive civil war. Unfortunately, the summoning was botched; only half the god made it across straightaway (becoming the first emperor of the Fou Empire), the other half ending up landing 600 years in the future and literally halfway across the world. (The Fou Empire and its precessor do not have a good track record at successful summonings.)
- It should be noted the original split isn't good/evil here, but rather along Yin/Yang aspects (Fou-lu being the yin/water/cold aligned half, Ryu being the yang/fire/heat aligned half). Fou-lu is actually neutral at first; he ends up going to Omnicidal Maniac thanks to having his girlfriend used as a Tactical Thermonuclear Curse Peasant in a deliberate attempt to kill him by the very empire he founded (which does not want to give up its regency to him).
- In Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, this happens with Kain. The part of him that is jealous of Cecil getting Rosa got his own body and stole the crystals in order to kill Cecil. The other half of him took on a disguise and went on as the Hooded Man to help out Ceodore.
- In Kingdom Hearts, Sora is split several times. At the end of the first game, the "Sora" players use is actually his heart without a body. His body and soul become Roxas. His memories, particularly those of Kairi become Xion. By the end of Kingdom Hearts II, he's put back together again but Roxas and Xion still exist independently in him somewhere.
- Len had part of personality split into White Len and then bolstered with magic (or something) giving her an evil twin of sorts. The most notable thing besides being, you know, evil, is that White Len speaks a great deal while Len has only spoken two or three times in total.
- In the penultimate scene of Planescape Torment, the Nameless protagonist meets some of his earlier incarnations in person - the good incarnation, the practical incarnation, and the paranoid incarnation.
Web Comics
- Spoofed with a duplication ray (the "Dupe-O-Matic") in the webcomic Melonpool in which Ralph is first split to form his good twin Ralphie, then Ralph was split again to form his even eviler twin Fauntleroy so in essence Ralph was being distilled. Interestingly, Melonpool instead gets split into his usual moron self and a twin who is a genius.
- In The Adventures of Dr McNinja, when the good Doctor finds himself at death's doorway, his soul splits into two figures: his rational, scientific side, dressed in a doctor's scrubs; and his Hot Blooded, justice-obsessed side, dressed in full ninja garb. Both sides have to cooperate to... persuade The Grim Reaper to allow McNinja to live.
- Forms the basis of an early storyline of The Wotch, in which it happens to the main character due to a spell gone awry.
- In a memorable Order of the Stick arc, Haley's speech is corrupted and she is effectively mute for a while, leaving her with no one to talk to except herself. Several sides of her personality are made visible (and audible) to the reader, including Haley's Self-Loathing (dressed as a goth), Haley's self-confidence (a cute perky blond), and Haley's Suspicion (a rapier-wielding rogue), Haley's Optimism (a Child or Halfling version of herself), Haley's Intelect (Elf with pink hair, probably a reference to Varsavius and Vulcans) Haley latent bisexuality (grey dressed, it usually stays in the conner).
Western Animation
- Raven in Teen Titans. Not only did she occasionally split into lots of different personalities, their cloaks were even color-coded for the viewer's convenience.
- Omi from Xiaolin Showdown did this when he used the Ring of the Nine Dragons in Season One.
- Genie in the Aladdin animated series had an episode dedicated to this, where he was split into seven parts of his personality.
- As did Aladdin himself: in another episode his logical head was split from his emotional body.
- Near the end of the first season of Jackie Chan Adventures, the Tiger Talisman splits Jackie into yin (good) and yang (bad) sides. Good Jackie is too pacifistic to fight the Mooks, and Bad Jackie sees nothing wrong with joining them for money, until Good Jackie points out that that means he won't get to fight anymore.
- In the Darkwing Duck episode "Negaduck", the eponymous crimefighter is split into good and evil sides, which are later enhanced into super-good and super-evil sides.
- Starscream's clones in Transformers Animated all embody an aspect of their creator, representing arrogance, sycophancy (that is, kiss-ass-iness), deception (compulsive lying) and cowardice, along with a female clone that tells Starscream not to ask what she represents (fan theories range from Starscream's strategic abilities to his snarky side to feminine/latent homosexual tendencies. The writers refuse to comment).
- While the clones are never named in the show, the similarity between their coloration and the coloration of various jets in Transformers Generation One gives them the fan names of Thundercracker, Sunstorm, Ramjet, and Skywarp in that order. At a recent convention the writers revealed that they'd given the female clone the unofficial name 'Slipstream'.
- The toyline has added an additional one, Dirge, representing Starscream's greed.
- In Danny Phantom, Danny tries to use a ghost dreamcatcher to split his ghost half from his human half. It works about as well as you'd expect. Human Danny was fun-loving, but kind of apathetic, and Ghost Danny was obsessed with crime fighting, but reigning the boyscoutness attitude. They tried to fix it by going through the dreamcatcher again, but this just divides their powers amongst each other. It's revealed they went through the 'split' side twice, and at the end of the episode they finally go through the 'merge' side, which sets everything right.
- In an episode of Captain Planet, Dr. Blight develops a device that creates evil clones of whatever is put in it. The villains capture and clone all of the Planeteer rings to create pollution-causing counterparts (Super Radiation, Deforestation, Smog, Toxics, and Hate). Just like Captain Planet is formed from the power of the Planeteer's five rings, Dr. Blight's rings combine to form Captain Pollution.
Machinima
- In Red Vs Blue Reconstruction, it is revealed that Project Freelancer was given the use of only one A.I. Eager to get more, the Director (on whom the Alpha was based) tried to copy it. When that failed, he instead tortured it to deliberately create a split personality. Different emotions and traits split off from Alpha, each one forming a new A.I. For example, Delta was Alpha's logic, Gamma was its deceit, Omega the rage and Epsilon the memories.
Myths
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