Twin Switch - Television Tropes & Idioms

A popular plot in series where the lead actors are twins, either identical or very close fraternal, is the Two Timer Date. The advantage in having a twin is, of course, that one can at least try to pull off both dates at the same time. The disadvantage in using this ploy, however, is that usually the twin series is a Different As Night And Day series — the wild one must pose as the book learner to successfully fool the boyfriend, or the book learner has to be a party animal to fool their friends.

Since most twins in such series are high school age or younger, An Aesop almost invariably follows. And even though it's almost always the same Aesop every time, rest assured that there will be another Twin Switch not too far in the future. (See Genre Blindness.)

A real-life variant sometimes occurs on April Fools' Day, when twins attending the same school switch classes to play a prank on a teacher. The teacher being pranked, however, often exposes the switch by asking the twin about a test that the other twin took.

See also Tag Team Twins for a different type of Twin Switch.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

Ouran High School Host Club, with the Hitachiin twins. The fact that Haruhi could tell them apart (rather easily, so it would seem) is what causes their attraction and respect for her.
Turn A Gundam had Dianna Soriel and Kihel Heim periodically switching places.
Subverted with Kagami and Tsukasa in Lucky Star. On Konata's advice, Kagami temporarily unbinds her hair, while Tsukasa dons her sister's ribbons for her own Girlish Pigtails. Kagami (whose hair is longer to begin with) looks even more mature and...rather pretty. Tsukasa (whose hair is short) just looks even more childish.
In the Seinen series Monster, this is played interestingly: we know that a pair of twins were taken for a psychological experiment where one of them is forced to see a killing spree, with the hope that the kid grown to be a cold-blooded murderer. Later, we know that the twin who becomes a cold, malevolent serial killer was the one who hadn't witnessed the murder scenery and only heard about the massacre from the other twin's history. To make things worse, it's implied that their mother confused and gave them the "wrong" twin, which may be or may be not an honest mistake since she dressed both the same way, complete with wigs to conceal their real gender.
- The massacre occurred because Bonaparta wanted to cover up the incident, not because that was part of his "lessons".
Michio Yuki and his older brother in MW. After the death of Michio, his brother makes an evil grin to the viewers, concluding that it is none other than Michio himself, and that his brother was the one who got shot by Minch, not him.
The Sonozaki sisters on Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni are called "Shmion" for a reason. Their Twin Switches cover all bases from comedic to dramatic, reinforcing the confusion as to who is who when (you eventually find out). Just to make it more complicated, at birth, the eldest was supposed to be tattooed to mark her as the rightful heir. The babies were mistaken for one another and were raised as each other.
The maid Kohaku pretends to be her twin younger sister Hisui (in a manner which is not at all comedic) a number of times in Tsukihime. She even switched places for a sex scene! As it turns out, they've also pulled off one gigantic Twin Switch (of sorts) while the protagonist Shiki was away, causing him to mistake who was his Forgotten Childhood Friend. Contact lenses help with this, as they have different color eyes—blue for Hisui, gold for Kohaku.
Taken to a an incredibly creepy level with Hansel and Gretel in Black Lagoon. They flawlessly transition into the other twin's place by switching clothes, changing their voices, and even swapping their personalities. It gets to the point where it is impossible to tell which twin is which and what gender they are at all (it is implied that parts of their body covered by their clothes have been deformed, and that wouldn't be a good indicator).
Tragic example in Naruto: After Hiashi Hyuuga killed a ninja(who was a visiting delegate for another hidden village) for trying to kidnap his daughter, Hinata, the ninja's village demanded Hiashi's head in compensation. The clan elders suggested sending Hiashi's twin brother and Neji's father, Hizashi, in his place. Though Hiashi objected, Hizashi agreed as a way to save his brother, prevent a war and choose his own destiny.
The manga series Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, which is RIFE with Tomato In The Mirror moments, involves at least one classic Twin Switch...of the distinctly unfunny, taking-my-dead-brother's-place type with Fai and Yuui.
- The omake-verse includes a lighter variant: during a treasure hunt featuring one of the twins in question and a "friend" of his, there is a black out, and when the lights go back on the twins are swapped. The second twin is later revealed to be the actual prize of the treasure hunt, having gone off to Italy years prior and just now returning in secret to his brother.
The Kisarazu twins accidentally pull one in The Prince Of Tennis. Mizuki came to recruit Atsushi, but took Ryo instead with him for mistake. When he found out, he gave Ryo an Important Haircut.
The classic 80s shoujo Cipher did this with the main character twins Siva and Cipher. They used to be actors and models together until Siva got a scar on his forehead, and now Cipher does all the modeling and acting work under the name of Siva while Cipher is said to have quit the business. By the way, their actual names are Jack and Roy.
Sae and Yumi from Asatte No Houkou occasionally do this.
An episode of DN Angel has twin sisters Risa and Riku Harada pulling this off, and almost being found out.
In the second Digimon Tamers movie, Henry accidentally grabs his sister's partner Lopmon instead of his own, Terriermon. The latter was not pleased.
Terriermon: Man, how could he think I was Lopmon?! When I get my hands on him, I'll—
Suzie: Terriermon, momentai!
In Touch, Tatsuya impersonates his brother a few times, once taking his place on the baseball team when Kazuya is injured (as Kazuya is a star pitcher and Tatsuya is not yet, the idea was never for him to actually play; just to keep their players' morale up and the opposing team intimidated). At least one other time he pretends to be Kazuya to try and pick up girls, only to be scolded by Minami.
Mixed with Identical Stranger in Weiss Kreuz. Sakura Tomoe, a Naive Everygirl who looks a lot like her crush Ran's comatose younger sister, stashes Aya in a closet when some people come to kidnap her and takes her place. Her kidnapper, Schuldig, was not amused.

Comics

Comic Book Example: Vivian and Constance D'Aramis actually faked Constance's death so that one could appear as Justice League Europe member The Crimson Fox, while the other acted as CEO of their family corporation. Since they had identical superpowers, they switched between the roles.
Tintin adventure "King Ottokar's Sceptre" where a man's twin brother switches places with him as part of the plot to usurp King Muskar.
Another non-comedic example: in Detective Comics #374, Robin gets assaulted and Batman deduces that the man is responsible is boxer Jim Condors. However, upon attempting to turn him into the police, Batman is informed that Condors was in the middle of a boxing match when the assault took place. Batman later figures out that Condors had a twin brother and was able to pull a twin switch in order to get revenge on Robin for sending his brother to jail.
An explanitory letter in the Dutch Disney Magazine Donald Duck that Huey, Louie and Dewey swap hats about to get away with not getting all the names wrong all the time seeing as in most comics they wear coloured caps.

Film

The entirety of the plot of The Parent Trap and its many remakes.
A major element in The Prestige. Angier performs his rival Borden's trademark trick, "The Transported Man", by hiring an actor who resembles him and Twin Switching at the climax. Only at the end is it revealed that this is how Borden does it too; he and his assistant Fallon are identical twins, and they trade identities (and the "Fallon" disguise) each time they perform the trick. In order to maintain the illusion, they keep this a secret from absolutely everyone.
About the B'naii Bagels has the team winning a championship game this way. When Mark's mother, the coach, finds out, she forfeits the game.

Literature

Variation in the Song of the Lioness books: Alanna is to be sent to the convent to receive instruction in the proper behavior of a noblewoman and wants to be a knight; her twin Thom is supposed to go to the palace to be a page, but wants to learn magic (taught at the convent). Instead of switching identities, Alanna dresses as a boy and the two switch destinations.
Castor and Pollux from Robert A Heinlein's The Rolling Stones took each other's places in one semester of high school. Instead of each being burdened with two time-consuming classes, they split it up to each take one class twice. The Aesop occurred in deep space, when the twin who'd taken history instead of advanced math had to spend all his leisure time playing catch-up in that essential spaceman's discipline.
The 'one twin dies and the other takes up their life' variant is actually fairly common in mystery novels; a brilliant usage appears for example in Agatha Christie's A Murder is Announced.
Central to the concept of the Sweet Valley High series of books. In an early entry, All Night Long, Bookish Twin Elizabeth actually ends up taking an exam twice to prevent people finding out that Wild Twin sister Jessica never came home the previous night.
- The concept was subverted in Sweet Valley Twins book, April Fool - where Elizabeth and Jessica just emphasize their differences, so that people will think they're switching places. It turns out to that Jessica had planned this to be a joke on Elizabeth. The twins entire family was in on it, as were some of their teachers and friends.
Fred and George Weasley in Harry Potter have a habit of trading places or names for a joke in both the books and the movies. Parodied amusingly here.
In One Hundred Years Of Solitude, the twins Aureliano Segundo and Jose Arcadio Segundo swap themselves around constantly during childhood, resisting all attempts to distinguish them, because they find others' dismayed reactions to be amusing. Their family has two traditional male names which are used repeatedly down through generations, each of which comes to imply a different set of personality traits; of course, Jose Arcadio becomes more like an Aureliano (silent, disconnected with reality, embittrered, a fighter for lost causes) and vice versa (Aureliano is cherful, charismatic, generous, an epically Big Eater), until both the audience and the members of their family are led to believe that they swapped permanently at some point. They both seduce the same woman; one ends up keeping her as a concubine. During adulthood, they grow VERY dissimilar, but slowly return to their former state until they die at the exact same time, upon which the bodies are mixed up and accidentally buried in the wrong graves.
A Freaky Stories story involves two twins who grew up pretending to be the same person in school and college, and even fall in love with the same woman. When the two both think the other is going to be the one at their wedding, the woman is stood up at the altar until their long lost triplet brother comes in and takes her.
- Another story features twin sisters who hate each other, and use their twin switching to make the other look bad. They eventually get a date with the same guy, who also happened to be a twin, and pulled a switch of his own, leaving them with his less than charming brother.
The Prince and the Pauper, by Mark Twain. They were also separated at birth.

Live Action TV

Sister Sister far too many times to mention. (In the first few seasons, Tia wore a mole to make her look identical to Tamera, but the mole was off by senior year, and was even talked about.)
The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody, many times in the earlier episodes. However, they haven't used it as much now that the one twin is clearly thinner and slightly taller than the other one.
Two Of A Kind, starring the Olsen twins, they even managed to fool their father, who you'd think would remember that one twin was left-handed and the other wasn't.
Most episodes of The Patty Duke Show, albeit the same actress played both twins with the help of Nerd Glasses and a Scottish Accent.
A grisly and totally non-comedic Twin Switch was the basis for an episode of Law And Order Special Victims Unit: A woman sees her twin sister murdered in front of her, then covers it up by posing as her, fooling everyone, including the murdered twin's husband and daughter, until the murdered twin's bones were found three years later.
Another non-comedic example: A man murders his twin then takes over his twin's life on Diagnosis Murder.
Parodied in Degrassi Junior High. A girl has to leave her date early, so she has her twin sister take her place half-way through. It's all for nothing, because the boyfriend is too busy hitting on another girl to notice.
An episode of Tales From The Crypt has a fake Twin Switch. A man falls in love with a pair of beautiful twins, but they tell him that they promised each other that they'd only marry another set of twins. So he replies "But I do have a twin!", and makes up a story that he and his "twin brother" switch places every month, with one of them staying home and the other going on a business trip. So in this way he can date both twins, by doing a fake Twin Switch with himself at the end of the month. Of course, this being Tales from the Crypt, the twins find out eventually, and solve the problem with a chainsaw.
Matthew pulls this on News Radio when his twin brother Andrew came to visit. Trouble is, they didn't look alike, because they really weren't twins. In fact, they weren't even blood brothers; Matthew was adopted but never caught on.
- In a subversion of Matthew's normal stupidity, at the end of the episode it is revealed Matthew has known all along they weren't twins, but went with it because it is Andrew who was adopted.
Venezuelan telenovela La Estrambótica Anastasia managed numerous switches... with triplets. Beat that.
One of the many things the original CSI makes extremely creepy. In the episode "Pirates of the Third Reich", the Neo-Nazi killer responsible for the murder of Lady Heather's daughter killed his twin for deciding to remain an adherent to the Jewish faith, then took his place at a sleep study clinic so he could gain access to victims for concentration camp-style experimentation.
An episode of Barney And Friends where the kids discover the girl they've been playing with is in fact two girls. This editor was fooled (the only thing to tell them apart was their hair bangles...and I was five at the time).
- And a season later, Ashley and Alyssa became part of the cast. Interestingly, not all of their episode appearances were together.
Dennis The Menace UK where he discovers he has a twin who looks just like him. He uses this to his advantage: have the twin talk to Sergeant Slipper whilst he is catapulting everyone with tomatoes (thus getting him out of trouble because Slipper claims "Dennis" was talking to him), making others around Beanotown think they've gone potty, and at the end the twin ends up doing Dennis's washing up after he sneaks out after tea (he had told his twin to wait outside whilst he went to check the coast was clear).
In one episode of Home And Away, Kirsty got Laura to take her place during an exam. Unfortunately for them, Dan had seen everything.
These twins from British Big Brother (not the last, the one before, just to state facts more clearly: 2008.) actually did that to their boyfriends. They took the other 's boyfriend to the bedroom and indulged in foreplay and fondling and then swapped back and scolded them. So hot yet so wrong.
- The Australian Big Brother had a set of twins pretend to be one person. One twin would spend some time in the house while the other would be in his own room with books and TV and such. At any time Big Brother felt like, they would swap over, with only a couple of minutes to update each other on what was happening in the house. They managed to keep it up for two or three weeks until one of the twins cut himself in an accident.
There's an episode of Coupling in which Patrick relates a story in which he'd been unknowingly dating twins for some time, to the point of near-complete exhaustion.
Patrick: Yeah, it would have been worse if they'd been identical...
A sinister version of this occurs in the season one finale of The Worst Witch television series, where Miss Cackle's evil twin "Agatha" locks her sister in a cupboard and proceeds to masquearade as her to launch her revenge against Cackle's Academy.
Katie and Emily switched in one episode of Skins, so that Emily could sit Katie's exam while she was sat at home moping. All of the teachers were fooled, but none of their fellow students.
- And Katie later pretended to be Emily to trick Naomi, although that was mostly over the phone.

Music

There was one Vocaloid song (well, series of songs) about Rin and Len in a fantasy world, where Rin was an evil princess and Len her servant, since they were separated from each other Since Rin was doing terrible things and was a tyrant, soon she was overthrown, but before they could get to her, Len forced Rin to flee, while he disguised as her, and was punished in her place. Each of the major characters get their own songs with the same melody as the origional "Daughter of Evil", except for Len who does the sequel, which tells his side of the story and elaborates on it. And then the last installment was Rin's message of regret, which was basically about how she regrets what happens.

Professional Wrestling

WWE's Brie Bella debuted by winning matches by disappearing under the ring after she's been beaten up for a while and then "mysteriously reappearing" completely unfatigued to pick up the win. This was revealed to be a ruse with her twin sister Nikki.
- During his WWE tenure, Kurt Angle was also apt to pull this with his brother Eric. This would often play out with Eric coming out first dressed as Kurt (but not removing the hood from Kurt's entrance warm-up jacket), and when his opponent would go up to approach Eric thinking it to be Kurt, it would cue an ambush from the correct Angle brother.

Theater

Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, involving a set of twins both named Antipholus, and their servants, also twins, both named Dromio. This, in turn, is based on a play by classical Roman playwright Plautus, making this trope Older Than Feudalism.

Video Games

In Total Overdose, the Good Son is injured in an undercover investigation and in order to salvage the operation, gets the Bad Son sprung from jail to take his place. Different as night and day works in this case, as Ram is far more capable of acting the psychopathic criminal for underworld rep.
Siren: Late in the game, Shiro kills his twin Kei, and takes his place, though the cutscene in which it happens is deliverately ambiguous, making it look like Shiro has killed himself. You can still play as 'Kei', but he has Shiro's items and voice actor.
In Final Fantasy XII, Basch's twin brother Noah, A.K.A. Judge Magister Gabranth, impersonated him and killed King Raminas in order to set the stage for the Archadean take over of Dalmasca. In the end, Basch impersonates Noah as Judge Magister after he dies in order to keep the peace between Archades and the newly freed Dalmasca.
The end of Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations contains a rather complicated example of a Twin Switch. After discovering that innocent nun Iris, who looks identical to Phoenix's murderous ex-girlfriend Dahlia, is actually Dahlia's twin sister you assume that they were pulling off a Twin Switch as part of their plan to murder the victim, Elise Deauxnim. By the end of the case, it turns out that Iris had really been part of the plan to foil Dahlia's murder plot, which had actually been directed at Maya Fey. At the end though, the story drops one more bomb — the real Twin Switch had taken place 5 years earlier, when Phoenix had supposedly been going out with Dahlia. Iris had switched with Dahlia during almost her entire relationship with Phoenix, to keep Dahlia from killing him and had subsequently fallen in love with Phoenix — meaning that she was the one that Phoenix had really loved all along. Which provides a much better reason for why Phoenix — who is not normally portrayed as being quite that stupid — had been so stubborn in refusing to believe that "Dahlia" never really loved him during the trial 5 years earlier.

Webcomic

In Drowtales, Kel'Noz says that he and his sister Mel'anarch used to do this all the time with a nostalgic smile.
In Keychain Of Creation, Secret suggests Karen and Marena do the Twin Switch to get Karen with Ten Winds, because Karen is interested in Ten but very poor at romantic interaction, while Marena is awesome at that sort of thing. Marena smacks her upside the head for such a stupid suggestion, since those plotlines never work.

Western Animation

Both Donald and Douglas, and Bill and Ben on Thomas The Tank Engine have impersonated each other at times.
Particularly egregious on All Grown Up!, where Lil forces her brother to impersonate her for a date she doesn't want to keep

Real Life

Truth In Television when identical Kray Winstones Ronnie and Reggie Kray fooled prison guards by doing this. When Reggie came to see Ronnie in prison, they simply swapped places and Ronnie walked out. The guards were forced to release Reggie.
- Why? He aided a convict escape. He should have been imprisoned for his own hand in it.
The Manchester United defensive pairing, Fabio and Rafael Da Silva, are pretty much made for this. The only way the team staff and management can tell them apart is the fact that one of them is married, and thus wears a ring - and they have been known to swap it. Presumably with the wife's consent...