Shadow Archetype / Video Games

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• Dr. Caulder to Dr. Morris in Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. While treating some of the injured civilians Morris shamefully reflects on how he never actually saw a single patient until after the world ended and how he always had the same motivation as Caulder: to satisfy his own scientific curiosity with no real regard for helping people. Will comforts him and points out though, very much unlike Caulder, that when people needed help Morris stepped up, took charge, and threw his own wants and needs aside to begin saving lives.
• Asura and his mentor Augus in Asura's Wrath have a lot in common: two deities who love fighting to a somewhat unhealthy degree and rely mostly on their strength rather than their Mantra powers and are a force to be reckoned with among the Guardian Generals. Their purpose in life, however, sets them apart drastically: while Asura cares deeply about humanity and his family in particular, and despite appearances takes his duty seriously, Augus joined the Guardian Generals only to satisfy his lust for combat (and for other things such as pretty women for that matter) and seems totally consumed by it given that he rarely talks about anything else. Their final confrontation really highlights their differences.
• In Bioshock Infinite Booker and Comstock are nearly perfect parallels and anti-parallels. A lone anti-hero revolutionary, a monstrous leader of a religious nation. Both at the brutal massacre of Wounded Knee, and other historical parallels. They're Alternate Self versions of one another. Booker is the man who rejected baptism as false redemption, Comstock is the man who accepted it... and ignored redemption.
• BlazBlue's Jin Kisaragi has two shadows: Hakumen and Kagura Mutsuki. The former represents what Jin would be if not for the Yukianesa's influence (and vice versa), and the latter represents what Jin would be if he ever got over his deep-seated issues.
• In Breath of Fire IV, Ryu and Fou Lu are the two split halves of one god; Fou Lu, an ancient Emperor, has grown tired of the mortals he once ruled, and decides to kill all of them, whereas Ryu, new to the world, wants to protect everyone, most prominently Nina. The two end up fusing together at the end of the game, but who ends up as the dominant personality depends on whether you agree with Fou-Lu's mindset or not.
• In Catherine there is Shadow of Vincent, which represents all of Vincent's repressed fears of commitment to marriage and women in general. If this sounds overly similar to Persona below, that's because both were created by Atlus.
• In Deltarune, Spamton is one to two characters:
  • The main reason why he disturbs Kris is because all his rambling about hopelessly trying to escape the strings that pull him echoes their fears of being controlled by and dependent on the SOUL's control. While Kris temporarily rips the SOUL from their body to accomplish whatever they need unhindered when alone, Spamton aims to get rid of his metaphorical and literal strings permanently, and at whoever's expense he's willing to risk. The fact that both of them have a knight armor in their decisive battle and rely on a heart as a weapon only makes the parallel thicker.
  • On the other hand, his situation as a failed salesman who was temporarily successful only because of an Anonymous Benefactor who gave him the right advice at the right time and who couldn't keep up when they disappeared mirrors what Berdly, the number one student of Kris' class, fears the day he and Noelle, the actual smartest student who helps him study and whom he always chooses as a partner for school projects, will get separated. Amusingly, both their battles take a place on a rollercoaster attraction, and they also tend to mask their overclocking smoke as "victory smoke".
• Dante faced enemies of this type a few times in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening:
  • One of the late-game bosses (the last faced before the Boss Rush) is a shadow version of Dante. When it first confronts him, Dante demonstrates an oddly adroit knowledge of literature and culture (pointing out that the Shadow typically represents aspects of themselves the hero must overcome) before defaulting to his typical persona.
    "I know why you're here. You want to ask me some questions. Well too bad! I've already answered them myself. I don't need you. Get lost, you poser."
  • Dante's more direct shadow is his Evil Twin Vergil. While they're both born from a human and a demon, Vergil is what Dante could become if he embraced his demon heritage instead of his humanity.
• In Dragon Age II, Anders and Fenris. Both were essentially enslaved and have a deep, seething hatred of the group that enslaved them; the big difference is that Fenris is a warrior who was enslaved by mages, while Anders is a mage, and so a group of warriors — the Templars — is to him the symbol of subjugation. Both have abilities outside the norm for their class — Fenris has lyrium tattoos that grant him special powers, while Anders is possessed by a spirit of Vengeance that grants him special powers. They hate each other so passionately that there are times one will approve of something they would normally consider horribly unethical just because it pisses the other off.
• In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Paarthurnax lampshades that just because the Dragonborn is mortal, doesn't mean they don't have the same innate urge to dominate and destroy that all Dragons have.
  • In fact, the Dragonborn DLC introduces another Dragonborn who gives in to these impulses.
• Fear & Hunger: Termina has Moonscorching, a Hate Plague created by a Trickster God that turns people into Humanoid Abominations intended to reflect their worst qualities, insecurities, and traumas. For instance, Tanaka was a salaryman who was torn between his own kind nature and his Social Darwinist father's teachings. If moonscorched, his amiable, generous demeanor vanishes and he transforms into a dark reflection of hustle culture, shouting slogans like "the grind never stops" and having shards of the "glass ceiling" emerging from his skull.
• Final Fantasy:
  • In Final Fantasy VII, Cloud, a highly-experienced, sulky jerk, has repeated visions of a weak but kindly little boy that resembles himself. The boy is especially likely to appear when Sephiroth is performing Mind Rape on Cloud, and you can actually control him at some points (although he's limited to running around and cannot interfere with events). After Cloud's mental breakdown, the boy helps talk Tifa through sorting out Cloud's False Memories, eventually shown symbolically 'merging' with Cloud to restore him to his real self. Cloud later admits that he was ashamed of his real self and repressed it, making and embracing delusions in order to present a cooler exterior to the outside world.
    • Vincent also counts as a heroic version but nonetheless, he fits. A brooding loner haunted by the loss of a woman he loved at the hands of his arch-enemy? Vincent is what Cloud might become if he doesn't learn to cope with his issues. Word of God shares this viewpoint.
    • From the same game, we have former-friends-turned-bitter-enemies Barret and Dyne, both of whom were miners who truly believed at first that Shinra would make life better for their hometown of Corel, up until Shinra soldiers started working on a Mako reactor and violently crushing any desent from the miners. It was in that incident that both Barret and Dyne lost one of their arms each, as well as their families, save for Dyne's infant daughter Marlene, whom Barret adopted afterwards. Both of them, thinking the other dead, went down their own dark paths in search of revenge and absolution: Barret founded AVALANCHE to strike back at Shinra in his attempt to set the world right, while Dyne became berift of hope and turned into a serial mass killer. Further driving home the contrast between the two is the arms they lost and replaced with Arm Cannons: Barret lost his right arm, while Dyne lost his left.
  • Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII has Lumina, who seems to be some sort of evil twin for Serah. In actuality, she's everything Claire Farron rejected as weakness as a child when she became "Lightning", now made flesh. Throughout the game, Lumina does some morally ambiguous things that ultimately end up working out for the best for Lightning's friends; some might say Lightning is doing the same by submitting to Bhunivelze's servitude. In their one-on-one talks, Lumina pokes and prods Lightning with facts that the savior herself denies or hides; that the "Serah" that appears to her is fake, that Hope in the Ark isn't quite genuine, and that Lightning needs to admit her own weakness and reach out to her friends for help. In the end, Lumina breaks down and cries at the prospect of being left alone in a dead world. When Lightning admits her weakness, she does the same.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has the Warriors of Darkness, introduced late in Heavensward as counterparts to the Warrior of Light and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. Like the Warrior of Light, the Warriors of Darkness were the chosen champions of Hydaelyn from their own world in The Multiverse, and they had succeeded in defeating the forces of darkness — at a terrible cost. With their world on the brink of destruction due to the power of light overwhelming it, they were manipulated by the Ascians into crossing over into the main world of the game and trying to plunge it into darkness under the misguided belief that it would save their own world. Thankfully, they are set straight and return to their own world to forestall its destruction.
    • Introduced in Stormblood, we have Zenos yae Galvus, crown prince of Garlemald and the expansion's Arc Villain, to the Warrior of Light, both of whom are regarded as the World's Best Warriors who are practically peerless in combat. Where the Warrior of Light fights to protect Hydaelyn from destruction, however, Zenos fights because he enjoys it, and only ever feels truly alive when his life is on the line. After the two cross blades for the first time, Zenos becomes consumed by the desire to continue fighting the Warrior of Light, the only foe he could ever call a Worthy Opponent. So strong is his desire to fight the Warrior of Light that he not only cheated death, but murdered his father, the Emperor, and took the throne, only to conspire with an Ascian to intentionally drive the Empire to ruination and destruction, just to lure out the Warrior for a fight. After that particular plan failed, he later appears in Endwalker's eleventh hour specifically to help them defeat the Endsinger, simply because letting the universe be destroyed would mean no more chances to fight the Warrior...a chance he immediately takes when the dust settles.
• Beta from Horizon Forbidden West is a physical representation of how Aloy might have turned out without Rost's influence, being as she is neurotic, pessimistic and prone to panic attacks because of her isolated, unhappy upbringing.
• Dark Pit of Kid Icarus: Uprising is an example of this, actively defying the Evil Twin trope by manifesting some of Pit's positive repressed traits, such as the desire not to be a pawn of the gods (including the evil goddess who created him).
• The Kingdom Hearts series loves these, using all sorts throughout the games.
  • Ansem, Seeker of Darkness becomes one for Riku. After the first game, Ansem loves reminding Riku of his inner darkness, his Face–Heel Turn, and the fact that Riku betrayed his friends. Thus, he comes to represent Riku's self-loathing.
  • Riku also gets one of these in the form of the Riku Replica, who acts like Riku if he'd fallen to darkness permanently. Riku hates being reminded of it.
• Kingdom of Loathing:
  • The player character is forced to fight a shadow version of themselves. The only way to damage it is with healing items.
  • Every character has a (class-based) Nemesis, who turns out to represent a corrupted version of that class. Seal Clubbers face a seal stronger and fiercer that any before. Turtle Tamers fight a former TT turned Poacher. Pastamancers, who control Pasta Spirits, fight a malevolent pasta spirit who no one can control with a god complex. Saucerors, who allow The Sauce to flow through them, fight a blob formed from the various bits and pieces rejected by the Sauce until it became sentient. Accordion Thieves fight an angry mariachi, and Disco Bandits fight the Spirit of New Wave, the genre which killed Disco. In mid-2009 brief encounters with the Nemesis became possible, and as of early 2010 it's possible to complete the full side-quest against the Nemesis, complete with a secret Island Base (with volcano!) and the Nemesis possessing a One-Winged Angel form.
• Kirby: Most of the villains are this, but some of them are textbook examples of being darker versions of the main heroes.
  • Meta Knight is this to Kirby. The two are excellent swordsmen and are heavily implied to be the same species. However, Meta Knight is an antisocial warrior who is willing to go to the extreme to get the job done. Their colors contrast each other: Kirby is bright pink, while Meta Knight is a dark blue. He's essentially the Shadow to Kirby's Sonic. There's also Dark Meta Knight, who also serves as this to the main Meta Knight, lacking any of the respect of honor for his rivals, opting to just attacking his rivals unprovoked instead of offering them a weapon to defend themselves.
  • Marx from Kirby Super Star is this to Kirby. The two are small spherical creatures who love to eat and have fun, but Marx lacks any of the friendliness or care and respect of his allies that Kirby does, and can effectively be seen as Kirby's Evil Counterpart (given that his Mirror World counterpart who wasn't introduced until eight years later was only Dark Is Not Evil). Their appearances also contrast, with Marx having bright lavender skin in contrast to Kirby's pink, being a Palette Swap of Mirror Kirby prior to its Planet Robobot redesign, and even mirroring the Mirror ability when using his black hole attack. Kirby Star Allies also suggests that he won't cause any more trouble as long as he's well-fed, something that could be said of Kirby himself, but to a worse degree. Additionally, his reason for joining Kirby is because he's pulling an Enemy Mine to stop the Jambastion Cult from starting The End of the World as We Know It and save his own skin, while Kirby is stopping them because he actually cares about his friends.
  • Galacta Knight is this to both Kirby and Meta Knight. For Kirby, the two are pink spherical creatures that wield great power, but Kirby is beloved by almost everyone, while Galacta Knight is a completely mute warrior who is feared by just about anyone for his great power, to the point where he was sealed away for his great strength. Kirby is also pastel pink while Galacta Knight has magenta skin, and Kirby has Innocent Blue Eyes while Galacta Knight has red eyes (prior to Art Evolution in Star Allies). For Meta Knight, he represents what the lone swordsman would become if he lacked any of all due respect for his rivals and lacked any morals aside from attacking anything in his path.
  • Kirby: Triple Deluxe:
    • Queen Sectonia is this for King Dedede. The two are royalty (well, one of them anyway), but the main difference is that despite his greediness, moments of being a plain old jerk, or being quite vain at times, Dedede has a good heart, deeply cares for his Waddle Dees (even when he says only he can be mean to them), managed to set aside his rivalry with Kirby after a while, and his people in Dream Land generally think fondly of him. Sectonia on the other hand represents what Dedede would become if he lacked any of those traits; she's a corrupt monarch obsessed with beauty, is just a massive Jerkass to her subjects, imprisons her own subjects in her dungeon without a second thought, and was ultimately driven mad by her desire to destroy Kirby, losing her own identity in the process.
    • There's also King Dedede's own Mirror World counterpart, Shadow Dedede, who represents everything what King Dedede would become if Kirby hadn't freed him from Dark Matter. The lack of a yukata, the bullseye symbol from Dedede's more villainous days, the massive Belly Mouth he gains in his second phase, and the strong implications that he's even fully possessed by another form of Dark Matter.
  • Finally, there's Void Termina from Kirby Star Allies, who's basically the dark counterpart to Kirby. Sure, the two are Planet Destroyers, but Kirby would never go as far as destroy the entire galaxy. And that's not even going into mentioning Void Termina's true form, which is a large pink sphere with three dots forming a face. A form that looks just like Kirby. The fact that his sound effects are just Kirby's but incredibly pitched down and distorted makes this all the more apparent.
• The Last of Us has Joel and Marlene. Both are harden survivors living in a Post-Apocolyptic world, seen the atrocities humans are capable of committing, and come to view Ellie as a surrogate daughter.. However, Marlene, despite witnessing the worst in humanity still believes it's still worth saving and will go to any lengths to ensure its survival even if it mean having to kill her surrogate daughter to extract the cure for humanity. Joel on the other hand greatly detest humanity because of how much he'd lost at their hands, and is willing to doom it, rather than loose his surrogate daughter. In short, Marlene is Joel if he chose to put humanity's survival above his own feelings and the well being of his loved ones and Joel is Marlene if she chose to put her feelings and self-interests above the greater good.
• In one way or another, Oersted of Live A Live manages to shadow every protagonist in the game.
  • Pogo's desire for love saved him, while Oersted's desire for love damned him.
  • The martial art students were treated poorly by others, but rose beyond their situations and became role models of the land, while Oersted was initially treated like a hero and later decided to become a demon just like what others thought of him.
  • Oboro was ordered to rescue a political prisoner, whom he ended up befriending, and continued working towards peace; while Oersted was ordered to rescue a princess but was rejected by her, and eventually abandoned his cause of protecting the kingdom.
  • The Sundown Kid wanted to be alone and die but was welcomed by a community and found a renewed purpose in companionship, while Oersted wanted to live to protect the kingdom but was betrayed by it and thus lost hope in others.
  • Masaru strengthened his body and soul, while Oersted strengthened his body at the expense of his soul.
  • Akira suffered horribly and was an outcast delinquent, but chose to remain mentally strong, cultivate connections with a few others, and defend his community; while Oersted suffered terribly too, but despite being a hero, he chose to cave in, break away from everyone and destroy his community instead of focusing on something else to protect.
  • Cube found humanity despite being a robot, while Oersted lost it despite being a paragon of humanity.
  • In a way, Beru, the Love Interest of the Prehistory Chapter, has one in the form of Princess Alethea, Oersted's supposed love interest. Beru reciprocates Pogo's love and their relationship continues harmoniously, willing to fight alongside Pogo and can even destroy Odo with her love; while Oersted was given Alethea's hand in marriage after winning a tournament, but she is tricked into hating him, becoming the final catalyst that turns Oersted into Odio with her spiteful suicide.
• Commander Shepard racks up four of these throughout Mass Effect:
  • Saren Arterius, the main antagonist of the first game, is a Spectre much like Shepard, and showcases exactly what happens when a Spectre goes bad. Much like Shepard, Saren is an elite soldier who bands together an elite squad to deal with the Reapers. Saren chooses to side with the Reapers in hope of being spared while Shepard is out to defeat them.
  • Tela Vasir is an Asari Spectre who jumped off the slippery slope by allying herself with the Shadow Broker. If called out on her deeds, Vasir will throw back in Shepard's face how s/he's also willing to work for a morally questionable organization (Cerberus).
  • Javik, the first non-villainous version of this, is the Prothean version of Shepard who failed in his mission to stop the Reapers. During the last Cycle, he watched his homeworld burn, saw his team get indoctrinated and lost the War. As a result of both this and his people's cultural norms, he's taken a rather Social Darwinist philosophy.
  • The Mysterious Figure from the Citadel DLC for 3, who is later revealed to be a Cerberus-created Clone of Shepard. Part of their hatred towards the real Shepard stems from having been created solely for spare parts if they were badly injured, never even supposed to have been conscious at all. Their goal is to Kill and Replace the original Shepard, hacking information from multiple government databases to try and steal their identity. They're shown throughout to be a Bad Boss, a human-supremacist and extremely arrogant, simultaneously jealous and dismissive of the real Shepard's feats and accomplishments, as well as the loyalty they instill in their allies.
  • In Mass Effect 2, Mordin is a scientist who struggles with the guilt of unleashing a virus that reduced the fertility rate of a species, in order to save the galaxy from them. During his loyalty mission, you meet Maleon, another scientist who represents what Mordin would be if he let his guilt overtake him and jumped off the slippery slope.
• Mega Man's rival, Bass, serves as his dark counterpart. Bass was created as a clone of Mega Man by Dr. Wily, and while he isn't outright evil, he is self-centered, arrogant, and obsessed with proving himself as Mega Man's superior. As a result, he sometimes finds himself fighting his own creator — even alongside his nemesis — to prove his superiority.
• Copy X from the Mega Man Zero series is essentially X without his moral compass, honed by a century of ethics testing. Unlike the real X, Copy X takes a side in the conflict between humans and reploids, creating a utopia for humans by brutally oppressing reploids, instead of trying to bring about mutual peace. At the end of the first game, after Copy X's death, the real X admits that, after a century of non-stop fighting, he began to feel himself becoming more and more like his copy.
• In the RPG H-game Meltys Quest, after defeating Esmeralda in her first encounter with the help of careful preparation with New Game Plus the titular main character gets hit with this when attempting to take down the real Big Bad that is Kahan, but finds no one on the throne in the room, then suddenly she gets surprise attacked from him, binding Meltys with his power. He decides to try and take Meltys' body for his own and seemingly succeeds, ecstatically stating that the power within Meltys is far beyond what he was expecting and states that with this amount of power he can easily conquer the world... except he's then suddenly ejected from Meltys. (Dahlia manages to steal his powers as well in the normal story, though in Dahlia's case she still retained her original goals that doesn't stray very far like in this alternate instance) Not only that, but he was ejected out of her without his dark powers. And thus Dark Meltys is born, Kahan shakes off the surprise and attempts to pitifully demand that she must now serve him, only Dark Meltys merely finds his request too boring and tiresome and then easily disintegrates Kahan with her newfound powers and goes on to engulf the entire world in a pleasurable helldom of desire, earning her the moniker/legendary title as the Goddess of Lust^note Changed from "God" to "Goddess" as it matches her gender-wise., "The Succubus Devil".
  • In a bonus dungeon filled with fellow dark-variations of four past bosses, of which are much more dangerous than their normal counterparts, at the end Meltys has the opportunity to fight against her Dark Meltys-self and can be considered to be the True Final Boss, especially with the Awesome Music that plays during said boss.
• Metroid:
  • Both Dark Samus and the SA-X are doppelgangers of Samus Aran created from a remnant of her own likeness (Phazon Suit for the former, and the Varia Suit infested by an X Parasite). Both represent of what Samus would be like at her worst, that is becoming the most unstoppable and dangerous threat to the galaxy.
  • The SA-X's presence in Fusion while Samus escapes her makes a lot of sense. In the second game, all Metroids were exterminated by Samus herself, except for one, the Metroid hatchling. Simply put, the SA-X is basically what if Samus jumped off the slippery slope by killing the baby Metroid rather than sparing it, in the process ensuring the extinction of all Metroids, and allowing the X Parasites cultivate even further.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • Noob Saibot is one to his younger brother Sub-Zero. While both are Lin Kuei assassins, Sub-Zero tries to actively redeem the Lin Kuei from its checkered history, but Noob embraces villainy after he Came Back Wrong as a wraith. This is driven home in Mortal Kombat 9, where even after being robotized, Sub-Zero notes that they are both corrupted versions of their former selves. He's also one to Scorpion, as while both are wraiths who were killed by his arch-nemesis and are resurrected in the Netherrealm thanks to Quan Chi and Shinnok's machinations, Scorpion tries at best to redeem himself and does so in Mortal Kombat X, and goes against Quan Chi when he finds out the necromancer was behind the tragedies he suffered, Noob decides to fully embrace his corruption.
  • Revenant Sub-Zero is a dark mirror of Kuai Liang. Though he was an effective assassin of the Lin Kuei, his compassion and assertiveness prevented him from becoming a fully unfeeling and ruthless assassin. His assertiveness was even enough to make him be a good leader to the Lin Kuei. However, as a Revenant, Sub-Zero is none of those. He's completely subservient to Shinnok and Quan Chi, and he follows every order they give and kills their enemies with no remorse whatsoever. In other words, Kuai Liang's Revenant is what he would be if he were truly cold-blooded.
  • Mortal Kombat 11: The revenant versions of Nightwolf, Kabal, Sindel, Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Kitana and Jade are dark reflections of their past selves, representing what could happen if they fully embraced the Netherrealm's taint to the point it corrupted their minds.
    • Liu Kang may be the Chosen One and the champion of two Mortal Kombat tournaments, but Revenant Liu Kang is what would happen if he lets the glory get to his head and lets it rule his decision-making. His entire hate for Raiden and desire for Kronika to rewind time is because he feels that Raiden "stole his glory" by stopping Shao Kahn and killing him accidentally, unaware of the bigger picture.
    • Revenant Kitana is what would happen if Kitana became the perfect daughter Shao Kahn wanted her to be. In other words, if Kitana acted like Mileena. Arrogant, uncompromising, and indifferent to the suffering of her people, Revenant Kitana cares only about using her status to take what she desires and make those she feels has wronged her suffer under her rule, upholding her adoptive father's desire for Outworld "being the conqueror and never the conquered."
    • Much like how Revenant Kitana is Shao Kahn's perfect daughter, Revenant Jade is his perfect assassin. Unlike the living Jade, who remains loyal to Kitana that is still willing to stand up to both her and Kotal when she feels they're acting out of line, Revenant Jade is a cold-hearted killer that obeys whoever she currently serves without question, taking pride in the fact that she has ditched her morals in favor of killing whoever she's ordered to. She even tells her past self that sticking to Kitana would lead to her death, an idea her past self is appalled by.
    • Revenant Kung Lao is what would happen if Kung Lao was purely Driven by Envy towards his friend and rival Liu Kang, and only cared about avenging the death of his ancestor instead of fighting for a greater good just as his ancestor did. His entire reason for joining Kronika is so he can have a do-over and defeat Shao Kahn in the tournament to one-up Liu Kang.
    • In 11, Sindel is depicted as a queen whose primary belief is that Edenia should embrace its divine heritage and use it to assert power and superiority over other realms. It is because of this belief that she is so compatible with Shao Kahn, as they both desire conquest and an eternal empire to rule over through superior might. Though while she may be evil, Sindel does have her own standards and pride which she upholds to the letter. Her revenant has none of those qualities, meaning she is what would happen if Sindel fought solely For the Evulz. Not for her own enjoyment or for what she perceives to be good for her people, but for the sake of a higher power controlling her, thus becoming no different than one of the lowly commoners her living self takes so much pleasure in lording over.
    • Revenant Kabal is this to his past self in 11. It's revealed that in the past, while Kabal was a former member of the Black Dragon, he only joined as a sort of "get-rich-quick" plan, forgoing becoming a police officer under the impression that it "wouldn't pay the bills". Eventually, his better conscience would catch up to him, and he would abandon the Black Dragon to repent for his crimes, before being unceremoniously killed in the line of duty, resurrected, and then killed again. While a Black Dragon member, Kabal was very prideful and kowtowed to no one, not even Kano, as it's shown that Kano had to trick Past Kabal in order to get him to fight Sonya. Revenant Kabal, by contrast, is fully subservient to those who command him and, whether he realizes or not, more in line with how Kano viewed him.
    • As with the others resurrected to serve Shinnok, Revenant Nightwolf is this to his past self. Years ago, Nightwolf had fallen from the righteous path and had been at odds with the faith of his people. Revenant Nightwolf is what would happen if he had remained a criminal and given in to evil. He has completely renounced his faith in the Great Spirit and is now purely devoted to Shinnok.
  • Raiden has several Shadow Archetypes:
    • Shao Kahn, as an Evil Overlord who ill-treats his minions and subjects just for the sake of it. By Mortal Kombat 11, everyone in Outworld is sick of his tyrannical reign, and this is frequently lampshaded in arcade endings and character interactions.
    • Kronika, a power-hungry Mad God who represents what Raiden could become if he started micromanaging mortals instead of guiding and respecting their free will, corrupting his mind over time. Also, when it comes to gathering followers, Kronika favors manipulation and lying, and discarding her minions when they're of no use. In his MK11 arcade ending, her minion Geras comments how her repeated attempts to create the ideal timeline have whittled away her sanity.
    • Shinnok, a rogue Elder God and the son of Kronika. He easily serves to remind Raiden what he can become if his mind became corrupted with a raw lust for power over the realms. In the past, Shinnok was one of the Elder Gods who sealed away the One Being, but his desire to lord over the realms caused his peers to banish him to the Netherrealm, where he became its overlord after usurping the position from Lucifer.
    • Dark Raiden serves as this to his original self in 11, as he is what happens when Raiden takes his status as Protector of Earthrealm to the worst possible extreme. Devoid of mercy and compassion, Dark Raiden will completely destroy any threat to Earthrealm without exception. He'll even go so far as to obliterate entire realms.
  • Shao Kahn is also the dark antithesis to Kotal Kahn as well, as while Kotal cares deeply for his people and understands when sacrifices and hard choices are needed in order to ensure his subjects' survival, Shao Kahn is an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight who rules as a tyrant and would kill anyone on a whim. In addition to this, Kotal had achieved and attained leadership without murdering his predecessor, while Shao Kahn overthrew his predecessor Onaga and took over at first opportunity.
  • As with her revenant version, Mileena is another example of what would happen if Kitana became Shao Kahn's ideal daughter. Ax-Crazy and indifferent to the suffering of her people, Mileena flaunts her status to take what she desires. Also, while both Kitana and Mileena do become the rulers of Outworld, Mileena leads it with complete incompetence and was widely despised for her abysmal rule. Mileena is also an Evil Knockoff of Kitana, having been created from Kitana's essence but also mixed with some Tarkatan genes. The end result is a monster with a child's mind.
• The New Order Last Days Of Europe: The new age of Russian warlordism after the collapse of the nightmarish Holy Russian Empire is in response to the horrors of the Burgundian System being an additional layer of suffering and horror after the Soviet Union's defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany in World War II. Several states make a reappearance but many are even more radical and extreme. The Black League extends the Great Trial to their own people, Orenburg became a totalitarian communist state, the Kazakhs want to purge Russia of all Russian and Polish influence as revenge for Taboritsky's genocides against them, the formerly idealistic Tomsk was reforged by the conservative and militarist Bastillards, and Kemerovo returns as a broken kingdom ruled by a cynical and depressed King Boris I.
• Word of God for NiGHTS into Dreams… is that NiGHTS is supposed to represent the Shadow Archetype. However, the character is an aversion of the "Always Negative in Fiction": NiGHTS, while somewhat mischievous, is definitely not evil... at least, not during the events of the game. It's said that NiGHTS was created by the Big Bad, Wizeman, as a helper. They instead embodies positive traits that are buried in the protagonists due to their problems—freedom, courage, self-confidence, etc. And NiGHTS has their own shadow archetype: Reala, a servant to Wizeman.
• Persona:
  • Characters meet their Shadows in both Persona 2 games. There is much misery to be had as their doppelgangers air out character flaws to all in earshot, daring them to prove they have learned from or grown past these issues. However these are all just avatars for the one single collective Shadow of all humanity. In Eternal Punishment, neither Kei/Nate Nanjo nor Eriko/Ellen Kirishima meet their 'evil twins' in this way, but find corrupted people who they share common traits with — Kandori Takahisa in Kei's case and Chizuru Ishigami in Eriko's. Eriko also gets chewed out by doppelgangers of her stalker and the Persona protagonist for being obsessed with tracking down the latter herself.
  • Aigis and Metis in Persona 3 FES. Aigis is more reserved and introspective, while Metis is more impulsive and extroverted. It turns out that Metis is, in fact, a product of the Abyss of Time, created when Aigis locked away her human side after the Main Character's death in the original storyline.
  • Persona 4:
    • All the main characters, except the Heroic Mime lead, encounter their inner Shadow Archetype at one point, which are even referred to as "Shadows". These Shadows follow the Jungian archetype and represent whatever the characters may have repressed. They will loudly exclaim these repressed feelings to the world, and do not take kindly to being denied. Accepting and embracing the flaws the shadow archetypes represent is how the party members obtain their persona, another call-out to Jung.
    • A more mundane example of the trope is the real killer, Tohru Adachi, who is a counterpart to both The Hero and Yosuke Hanamura. On the latter's end, they both suffer from Small Town Boredom, Yosuke merely repressing it until his Shadow spills the beans, while Adachi deals with the boredom by using murder for entertainment. With regards to you, both you and Adachi are both relatively recent arrivals who received their powers from the same goddess (Adachi's own persona is basically a palette swap of your starting persona), but only you use it for good. It's played up more in Golden, where your Social Link with him ("The Jester") is the reversed version of your own arcana ("The Fool"); you even both have a mutual fondness for magic tricks. But while you spend your time improving yourself and getting close to people, Adachi basically drifts through life and ignores opportunities that don't offer immediate gratification; basically, he's you if you didn't bother with the non-combat parts of the game.
  • Persona 5 plays with this. The main bosses are the Shadows of the various corrupt individuals you're trying to defeat, and represent the purest form of their distorted ways of thinking. The real people would almost certainly deny what their Shadows say about them, not out of any repression or guilt, but to protect themselves from the repercussions of their evil actions being discovered. And then there's the fourth target, whose Shadow stands as completely unique in this series: Shadow Futaba is a golden Shadow, meaning that she represents repressed positive traits and desires. In this case, the desire to live and be loved. Consequently, she's a very helpful Shadow who wants her real self to accept her so that she can recover from her mental illness.
  • Persona 5 Strikers presents the Jail Monarchs as this to the Phantom Thieves as a whole. Both groups were victims of the corruption of Japanese society and were put into a powerless position that prevented them from being able to do anything until they gained access to the Metaverse and were given the power to change the hearts of those around them. However, while the Phantom Thieves only went after the corrupt in order to stop them from hurting the innocent in the name of justice, the Monarchs go after everyone due to lashing out of pain and revenge from being wronged. There are even certain parallels on an individual level due to each one representing the Reverse Arcana that of the Phantom Thieves represent.
• Alex Mercer of [PROTOTYPE] has... Alex Mercer. Or rather, the real Alex Mercer and the Blacklight Virus as Alex Mercer. Both are ruthless, cruel in their methods, and quick to destroy those who get in their way or cross them... but while the real Alex Mercer truly was completely selfish and sociopathic — trying to take his deadly enhanced Blacklight virus as a bargaining chip to buy his safety from a purge of his company, then releasing it out of spite when that failed, despite his sister living in the city — the Blacklight Mercer actually has some capacity for compassion and kindness. He fights to protect Mercer's sister where the real Mercer was willing to let her die. His fight, although selfish initially, helps save Manhattan and improve things for the innocents caught in the crossfire between Blackwatch and the infection. And in the end, he risks his own life to save Manhattan from nuclear annihilation. Whereas the real Mercer sacrificed his conscience and morals out of self interest, an initial motivation of self interest causes the Blacklight Mercer to develop a conscience and morals.
• Red Dead Redemption II: In many ways, the Skinner Brothers (a gang of brutal killers) mirror Dutch's modus operandi and philosophy before his descent into madness. With all the savagery, chaos, and misanthropy that they embody and none of the Van der Lindes' standards and anti-heroism, the Skinners are living proof of how incredibly frightening a big organization of killers would be if they took Dutch's philosophy to its logical extreme.
• Silent Hill: From the second game on, the hero and antagonist are more or less shadow archetypes of each other:
  • Silent Hill 2: James and Pyramid Head^SpoilerJames gave his terminally ill wife a Mercy Kill. Pyramid Head is a physical manifestation of his guilty feelings and wanders the streets throttling feminine monsters.
  • Silent Hill 3: Heather and Claudia (Heather and Alessa as well)^SpoilerHeather and Claudia both have supernatural powers related to summoning the spirits and malignant influence of Silent Hill, but only Claudia does it willingly. Alessa is Heather's past life, and while both girls want to just end the torment Alessa is willing to resort to euthanasia.
  • Silent Hill 4: Henry and Walter^SpoilerTwo men with more than a hint of insanity trying to escort Eileen to complete an esoteric ritual. Henry to stop Walter and escape Room 302, Walter to kill Henry and Eileen and finally get inside Room 302
  • Silent Hill: Origins: Travis and the Butcher^SpoilerThe Butcher is a vicious Serial Killer. If the player kills over 200 enemies during the game, it's revealed that Travis was the Butcher all along and the Butcher boss fight was the Enemy Without.
  • Silent Hill: Downpour: Murphy and The Boogeyman. The Boogeyman is the embodiment of the murderous revenge that Murphy took against Patrick Napier, the guy who raped and killed his son. The Boogeyman in essence embodies the dehumanization of objects of revenge. He's also a shadow for Anne in her quest to get revenge on Murphy.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • If his name wasn't a dead enough giveaway, Shadow the Hedgehog represents this for the eponymous main character. Specifically, Shadow is what Sonic would be if he was willing to go through some extremes to get the job done.
    • Shadow himself got his own Shadow Archetype, Mephiles, who was created from his actual shadow (take a few seconds to process that). Both were created in human laboratories and have had horrible mistreatment from humans (G.U.N. trying to shutdown Project Shadow and killing Maria, while the Solarian scientists performed experiments to use Solaris for their own game). They also have large egos and manipulated others (Eggman and Silver) to get what they want. While Shadow decided to leave behind his desire for revenge on the human race, Mephiles embraces it with a touch of sadism and wants to destroy every living thing.
  • The Babylon Rogues are this to the main trio of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles.
    • Jet to Sonic. They both live a free life, but Jet is a self-absorbed, petty jerk, who only cares about winning and respects no one but himself.
    • Wave to Tails. They both tend to be the smart one of their group, but Wave completely lacks the humble attitude of Tails, and is very nasty and selfish.
    • Storm to Knuckles. They're both the strong ones of their group, are extremely loyal, somewhat hot-heads, and tend to be a bit shy around girls (which somewhat expose their tough image), but Storm is rather rude, insensitive, and obnoxious, and hangs with the wrong crowd.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: Most of the characters are shadow archetypes to one another (Jedi Knight vs Sith Warrior, for instance) both in story and gameplay terms. The non-Force-using classes split the roles up slightly; for instance, the Trooper (Republic) fights like a Bounty Hunter (Imperial) but their storyline and personality draw more comparisons to the Imperial Agent.
  • The main representatives for the factions also count. Grandmaster Satele on the Republic side is, at first appearance, an ideal Jedi. However, her being descended from Bastila Shan and Revan, who both had nasty falls to the Dark Side put her under a lot of scrutiny. She also had a forbidden affair that produced Theron Shan, was anything but a model parent, and doubled down on Jedi dogma. On the flip side, there's Darth Malgus, who looks like your typical Darth Vader Expy, but is a surprisingly reasonable and thoughtful Sith, and was once a devoted husband (granted, his Twi'lek "wife" was a Sex Slave on paper, and he killed her when another Sith pointed out she could be used as a weakness against him), who ends up rebelling against the Empire in a Xanatos Gambit to force it into making needed reforms.
  • A more pronounced example is the relationship between the apprentices of both the Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior (Kira and Jaesa). Both have very similar personalities, but ultimately went different ways based on their relationship with Jedi. Kira had a mentor who was kind and supportive, and had seen the evil of the Sith. Jaesa had a master who was a hypocritical bully. As a result, Kira became a Jedi Knight while Jaesa (potentially) turned to the Dark Side and became a Sith Apprentice.
  • The Sith Inquisitor and Jedi Consular crank it up even more; their entire teams are inverses of one another. Their first companion is The Big Guy; Qyzen is a Trandoshan who prefers hunting dangerous, but nonsentient wildlife. Khem is a Dashade who prefers eating Force wielders. Talos is a naive Absent-Minded Professor who loves Sith history and mysticism, despite being unable to use the Force himself. Tharan Cedrax is a streetwise citizen of Nar Shadaa who loves anything but Force-based mysticism. Andronikos is a surly pirate that isn't loyal to much but credits, Felix is a cheerful and loyal Republic grunt. Nadia is a powerful, but untrained Force wielder who needs to learn how to control her powers and emotions. Ashara is equally talented, but has been trained as a Jedi all her life and her arc is in accepting her passions. Xalak and Zenith aren't quite as matched, but they're both the bloodthirsty type; Zenith approving of destroying Imperials and collaborators (and civilian casualties are no big deal) as a Cold Sniper and Xalek being a Proud Warrior Race Guy who sees the Sith as living gods.
  • Each class is also its own shadow archetype, since the player is free to choose Light or Dark Side actions at various points throughout the story. For instance, a Light Side Jedi Knight is a Humble Hero and The Cape, whereas a Dark Side Knight is an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy and He Who Fights Monsters; a Dark Side Bounty Hunter is a Psycho for Hire and usually Ax-Crazy, whereas a Light Side Hunter is a Consummate Professional and a Hitman with a Heart.
• Ryu's "evil" side (more like unrestrained) from Street Fighter, the result of Ryu letting go of his humanity to win at any cost. Akuma wants to permanently draw this out of him while Gouken (Ryu's master) teaches him that this is not the way of the warrior. In the actual canon of the story, this is more metaphorical than realized (Ryu never rampages around in his dark side, though he is always afraid it will get the better of him) but some games do allow the player to use this version of Ryu.
  • Street Fighter IV introduces Juri Han, who is this to Chun-Li. In addition to being Kick Chicks, both of them had fathers in law enforcement who were assassinated by Shadaloo. But while Chun-Li follows in her father's footsteps and fights for the sake of justice, Juri is selfish and completely absorbed by her love of violence. In Street Fighter V, Chun-Li's win quote against her even has her wondering how they ended up so different.
• Tales of Symphonia:
  • Mithos seems to fit this trope with Lloyd, both having much the same origins, but the latter not becoming the former by willing to accept one's own mistakes. More specifically, both of them are different flavors of Determinator; one of which is willing to back off to readjust their worldview and grow as a person, the other unyielding and unwilling to stop or reflect on their actions under any circumstances. Three guesses which one is the villain.
  Mithos: Farewell, my shadow, you who stand at the end of the path I chose not to follow.
  • Mithos shares a lot of the same insecurities as all of the party members, as shown by the illusions he uses to prey on their insecurities. He runs away from his problems like the moles and Sheena, has issues with forgiveness and valuing his own life like Presea and Regal, and suffers from Internalized Categorism over his race like Genis and Raine. This trope is especially true for Colette, who can be trapped in any of these illusions depending on whichever character is chosen in Flanoir, due to her guilt in not completing the pilgrimage and feeling ostracized for being a Human Sacrifice. Unlike Mithos, the party members ultimately choose not to accept the easy solution to their problems, which baffles him because he always chose the easier path.
• In Touhou Project, there are a few examples:
  • Byakuren Hijiri is a devout Buddhist nun. Despite having quite the rap sheet of transgressions in her past, most notably using sorcery to make herself immortal in staunch defiance of Buddhist principles and willingly consorting — even empathizing — with youkai and demons, she strives to be one of the nicest people in the setting and one of the strongest proponents for peaceful coexistence. Contrasting her, Seiga Kaku is a heretical Taoist nun whose immortality is at least partly derived from the realization nature contains no moral guidelines, which she treats like a license to be an amoral necromancer. While there is little love lost between Byakuren and the Taoist faction, she responds particularly violently to Seiga.
  • The main character, Reimu, has a shadow archetype in Watatsuki no Yorihime. Both of them are naturally strong and can channel Gods, but Reimu is too carefree and blunt, even lazy, to actually train her own powers much. Yorihime on the other hand is very serious and trains a lot, which means in a fight, Reimu actually loses to Yorihime, despite the fact that Reimu can make herself invincible (for some time).
• Undertale:
  • Flowey serves as one for the Player Character and for the player themselves, as he treats the game's universe as his personal playground and treats the various NPCs as tools for his personal gain without any remorse. Flowey himself has a Shadow Archetype in the name (sort of) of the Fallen Child, who goes to the logical conclusion of destroying the world after having killed everybody while even Flowey didn't consider the possibility (at least not without ambiguity).
  • Mettaton is a narcissistic robot with an obsession for glory who's ready to give up friends and family to fulfill his goals. He shows how Papyrus would be if he didn't hold back his power, if his dream of becoming a royal guard made him betray his friends and family, and if his ambitions overshadowed his qualities.
• The World Ends with You also have this with Neku Sakuraba. Picks up at least three throughout his time in the Reaper’s Game.
  • Joshua can be considered the logical extreme of Neku’s previous mindset, with both of them having trouble being able to understand others, only instead of showing outright disdain like Neku, he opts for a more smug, self-righteous temperament. However, unlike Joshua, who has made this mindset more or less his way of life, Neku finds himself caught between his old worldview and newfound beliefs throughout Week 2 and eventually develops a desire to actually understand people and not give up on them altogether, which comes as a genuine surprise to Joshua.
  • Kitaniji is essentially a look at what a grown up Neku would be like if he had never learned the lessons he did in the game, with both of them wearing headphones, having a passion for the arts, and having a mutual dislike of other people, seeing them as inherently flawed and worthless. However, whereas Neku learns to fully embrace Shibuya, faults and all, and appreciate other viewpoints and ideologies, Kitaniji flat out rejects them, instead trying to force his will on others in an attempt to achieve total conformity.
  • Sho Minamimoto is a very big one for Neku. Both are highly talented and motivated Broken Aces with huge amounts of Imagination (Neku is one of the most powerful Players in the game while Sho is regarded as a top-class Reaper with one of the highest erasure streaks in the history of the UG) that Hanekoma takes a personal interest in for their use when it comes to the Reaper’s Game. They both believe that no one can ever truly understand them and share a distaste for cooperation and other people in general, and are mostly in it for themselves. However, whereas Neku learns to let go of his self-centered mindset and to use his talents for the benefits of other people besides himself, Sho never chooses to reflect upon himself and stays a total asshole to the very end.

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