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Impostor All Along (trope)

Uriah Olathaire: The Lord of Mankind is the light and the way, and all of his actions are for the benefit of mankind, which are his people, so it is taught by the holy words of our order and above all—
Apocalypsis: There is no one to hear you.
Uriah: I DON'T CARE what you say anymore! You have done what you feel you need to do, and I'll not buttress your ego with self-righteousness by playing around any longer! You listen to my words yet hear nothingend this charade!
Apocalypsis: As you wish. No more games... (drops the disguise, filling the room with light)

Sometimes, a character seems a bit sketchy. They may have an Out-of-Character Moment or two, or they act just a little too perfect. But you (and the other characters) probably don't think much of it. However, just when you think you finally understand or know the character well enough, the writer decides to pull a fast one on you, and it's revealed that that wasn't the "real" version of the character. It was just an impersonator.

In order to qualify for this trope, an example must be:

  1. Clearly meant to be a Plot Twist within the original story.
  2. The character must be important to the plot in some way.
  3. It must be intentional on the impostor's part. Even in cases where the character is doing this unwillingly, the person forcing them to do it is the one who's responsible for it.

Multiple scenarios can count for this trope:

  • Character A does genuinely exist in-universe but has been impersonated by Character B since we first met them.
  • Character A is really an alter ego of Character B and doesn't actually exist.
  • Character A was Dead All Along and Character B portrayed them to keep their legacy alive.
  • The character is replaced by a clone or robot of themselves when they didn't intend for it to happen.
  • Same as the above situation except with a doppelganger.
  • Character A is forced by Character B to be Character C against their will.
  • The character is actually a decoy set up by the original character to distract their enemies.

Cases where the real version of the character gets established in the story before they get replaced, ones where the original version of the character continues to be in the story after their impersonator is taken care of, and cases where the impostor only shows up for a single/few scene(s) may also count so long as they meet the aforementioned criteria.

Since Tropes Are Tools, setting up this trope and revealing it properly can can be a good way to build up suspense and drama, especially if the characters have to find the original version of the impersonated character. If not foreshadowed properly, however, it will likely come off as an Ass Pull to the audience.

Super-Trope to Actually a Doombot, Dead Person Impersonation, and Impersonation-Exclusive Character. Compare/contrast Genuine Impostor, in which Character A pretends to be Character B but it turns out that they're both the same person. Contrast Tomato in the Mirror, in which the character themselves finds out they're not who they think they are. May overlap with Dead All Along, Dressing as the Enemy, Evil All Along, Kill and Replace, Latex Perfection, Spot the Impostor, The Real Remington Steele, and/or Twin Switch. See also Possessed All Along and "They're Not Real" Reveal.

As this is a Plot Twist, unmarked spoilers abound. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Chainsaw Man: 'Fami' is the Famine Devil in Part 2 of the series, and everything from the Academy Arc has happened because of her doing. While Yoru/the War Devil didn't recognize her as another Horsemen of the Apocalypse devil is handwaved by Fami revealing they all have facial blindness, so altering an appearance can throw them off. Then she reveals herself to have taken on her younger sister's identity and steps out as the Death Devil, arguably the Big Bad of the entire series because a prophecy states she'll bring about the ruin of mankind.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
    • Stardust Crusaders: While Joseph is using his Hermit Purple on a television, he receives a message stating Kakyoin is an enemy. At the same time, Jotaro notices Kakyoin exhibiting odd behavior before discovering that it's actually Rubber Soul impersonating Kakyoin.
    • Stone Ocean: After F.F manages to discover Pucci's identity as Whitesnake's user, she's able to escape with assistance from Weather Report to inform Jolyne. However, the Weather Report that accompanied F.F turned out to be Pucci's Whitesnake in disguise to catch them off-guard with a strike attack.
    • Steel Ball Run: During his personal investigation, Mountain Tim encounters Johnny that suddenly attacks him and gives chase before realizing partway that the Johnny he encountered was Benjamin Boom Boom intending to lure them into a trap.
    • JoJolion: The heroes are initially convinced that Satoru Akefu is the leader of the Rock Humans before it is discovered that Satoru has been deceased for years, and the person they've been pursuing is actually the Stand, Wonder Of U, belonging to the actual leader, Toru.
    • The JoJoLands: After realizing someone is trailing them to obtain the lava rock, Paco advises Jodio to discard it, who refuses. Then, Jodio discovers Paco had been directly behind him, and the Paco he's been speaking too is actually Charming Man who immediately launches a sneak attack.
  • Jujutsu Kaisen: It originally seems like Suguru Geto will reprise his role as the Big Bad following the events of the original short story Jujutsu Kaisen 0. However, the Shibuya Arc would reveal that Geto has been Dead All Along, killed by Gojo at the end of JJK0. The Geto shown in the main series is his corpse puppeteered around by the Ancient Evil Kenjaku, whose plans are even worse than anything Geto planned.
  • Fairy Tail:
    • The series's Starter Villain appears to be a Fairy Tail wizard named Salamander who seduces, drugs, and traffics women, seemingly setting up the guild as the series antagonists. By the end of the first chapter, he's ousted as a Con Artist by Natsu, The Hero, who turns out to be the real Salamander (his moniker).
    • In a Filler Arc, Lucy meets a distant relative named Michelle Lobster, who rekindles their long-forgotten relationship so Lucy can help her uncover the mystery of an ancient artifact left by Lucy's late father. Towards the climax of the arc, "Michelle" gradually unveils her true identity as Imitatia, The Dragon of the Neo Oración Seis made from a doll Lucy abandoned, who aids her guild's Evil Plan for the artifact in exchange for an eternity to spend with Lucy again; the real Michelle is a comatose patient with no blood relation to Lucy.
    • Subverted with Silver, a Tartaros member who appears to be Gray's long-dead father. When Gray argues that he watched the demon Deliora kill Silver first-hand, Silver seemingly drops the act and claims he is Deliora, using Silver's corpse as a host. Once Gray defeats him, however, he sees through his father's charade and learns the truth: Silver is a Revenant Zombie who took Deliora's identity to integrate himself into Tartaros and destroy it from within, and to convince his son to put him out of his misery.
    • Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest: The sequel introduces the White Wizard, a 100-year-old witch and cult leader who supposedly rivals Zeref the Black Wizard, one of the Big Bads of the original manga. While she lives up to the image with her power to steal magic and control beings as mighty as the Five Dragon Gods, she turns out to be a pretender named Faris, a Miko from another world who was forced into the identity to save her home. The actual White Wizard, Athena, appears later as The Dragon to Viernes, one of the Dragon Gods.
  • In Miyu Chan Will Always Be Your Friend, it turns out that the eponymous character isn't really Yuushin's childhood friend as she had led him to believe, but is somebody else with the same name who knew the real Miyu and impersonated her after the real Miyu's death so as to get information on who killed her.

    Comic Books 
  • 52: Ralph Dibny is approached by the Helm of Nabu, who offers to help him find a way to bring his deceased wife back to life. Much later, "Nabu" is revealed to actually be the villain Felix Faust in disguise, who had been planning to trick Ralph into giving up his soul to the demon Neron in order to square Faust's own debt. Unfortunately for Faust, Ralph figured out early on that "Nabu" was an imposter, and was prepared for the double cross.
  • Batman & Superman: World's Finest (1999): In the first issue of this ten-issue limited series, Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent's mutual friend, plastic surgeon Harrison Grey, is killed when Batman and Superman's inability to work together causes an attempt to rescue Grey when he's kidnapped to go wrong. However, in the final issue, we learn the "Grey" who was killed was actually Grey's body double, created by the real Grey using his surgical skills, who had poisoned the real Grey (who luckily wasn't killed, just left with amnesia) and dumped him outside of Gotham City in an attempt to take over the real Grey's life.
  • Outsiders (2003): Early on in the series, Arsenal is seen holding secret meetings with Batman, the team's secret sponsor, behind the back of team leader Nightwing, who would almost certainly object to learning that his former mentor and adoptive father was watching his team. When, many issues later, Nightwing inevitably finds out, he confronts Batman about the arrangement, only for Batman to reveal that while he has been funding the team, he hasn't spoken to Arsenal in over a year. It turns out that the "Batman" that Arsenal has been meeting was actually Slade Wilson, AKA Deathstroke, one of Nightwing and Arsenal's oldest enemies.
  • The Power Fantasy: In issue #9, The Jacky Magus of the present is revealed to actually be Dev, Eliza Hellbound's thought-to-be-dead husband and a member of the real Magus' inner circle. Turns out during The Second Summer of Love, Magus could only fix the hole created by The Queen trying to drag the whole world into Hell from the other side, so he sent Dev back to impersonate him in order to maintain the balance of Superpowers and steward magic.
  • Spider-Man: Played with. During the early days of the Hobgoblin's reign of terror, Spidey's attempts to unmask him have led to him discovering some unwitting patsy under the mask, one time finding Flash Thompson under there. Long after the real Hobgoblin is revealed to be Roderick Kingsley, there's always the chance that the Hobgoblin flying around is some poor schmoe brainwashed and dressed up as him.
  • Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: Ultra Magnus is eventually revealed to have died long in the distant past, with Tyrest having created a suit of Power Armor that looked just like the original in order to give the appearance of Magnus being an "unkillabe" enforcer of the law. The current pilot, Minimus Ambus, has been Ultra Magnus longer than anyone else has ever held the identity and after the secret comes out, Ratchet, who knew the original, tells Ambus that he considers Ambus to be the "real" Ultra Magnus.
  • X-Men: Domino was seemingly introduced in New Mutants #98, but it was eventually revealed in X-Force (1991) #11 that she's not really Domino at all, but a different character — Deadpool's ex-girlfriend, Vanessa (A.K.A. Copycat). The real Domino had actually been under the captivity of Tolliver.

    Comic Strips 
  • One season of the British comic strip Striker centered around the revelation that Warbury's star midfielder Kurt Panzer was actually an impostor named Klaus Gerber. The real Kurt Panzer, Klaus' childhood friend, drowned as a child in a bullying incident that went horribly wrong; Klaus killed the bully in revenge, and over the course of his stint in juvenile detention, he came to convince himself that he was Kurt, partly to fulfill his friend's dream of becoming a professional footballer and partly to dissociate himself from the trauma of the whole thing. When the bully's father comes looking for revenge, "Kurt"'s identity (and playing ability) slowly begin to unravel until the truth finally emerges.

    Fan Works 
  • In Belonging, Raven's new boyfriend, Mark, drugs her and attempts to rape her. Beast Boy stops him and states that, judging from the smell, Raven's actually been dating a disguised Adonis all along.
  • Danganronpa Re:Programmed: In Chapter 4, Chihiro attempts to hack Alter Ego into the school’s network to hijack the mastermind’s controls, only for him and the others witness Monokuma destroying Alter Ego right in from of them the next day as punishment for this attempted sabotage. Later, at the end of the fifth chapter during Chihiro’s execution, Alter Ego suddenly appears and shuts down his execution, revealing that they have taken control of the school’s electrical system. As Kyoko reveals, Chihiro had told her that the Alter Ego he hacked into the system was actually his doppelgänger, created with an USB and computer provided by Monokuma via the fourth motive. Overlooked by some, the program destroyed by Monokuma referred to Chihiro by his name, instead of "Master" like the original Alter Ego. Once Chihiro witnessed Monokuma destroying the fake, he immediately ran back to the hidden room and sent the real Alter Ego into the system while the mastermind had their guard down, allowing Alter Ego to gain complete access to all the Academy's data.
  • Scootertrix the Abridged:
    • In episode 20, Rarity pressures Fluttershy into being her clothes model for an ad campaign, which strains their friendship almost to the breaking point. Eventually Rarity realizes she went too far, so she apologizes. Except Fluttershy has no idea what Rarity's talking about because she's been out of town for the whole week attending a convention. We then cut to Kyle, the changeling spy, as he reports to his superior what he learned while impersonating Fluttershy for the past week.
    • In episode 26, the main six confront Starlight Glimmer for the episode's Batman Cold Open. Upon defeat, Starlight flees into the Inescapable Caves of Doom—but despite this, she inexplicably shows up again halfway through the episode. Immediately, she gets to work stirring up anti-monarchist sentiment among ponykind—directly threatening Princess Luna that there will be revolts all over Equestria if Luna doesn't abdicate. But Luna Takes a Third Option and exposes that "Starlight" is actually the enemy Queen Chrysalis in disguise. note 
  • "The Spectacular Spinneret" reveals that the Mary Jane Watson who has been living with Paul Rabin and acting as Jackpot is actually Vanna Smith, a woman who once believed Spider-Man was stalking her; after Mary Jane rejected Paul, she was rescued by Madame Web and taken on a trip through the multiverse to find her and Peter's lost daughter May, with Vanna taking Mary Jane's role so that she could be with Paul as part of Mephisto's efforts to undermine Peter and prevent May from existing.

    Films — Animated 
  • The Bad Guys (2022): The little old lady at the gala doesn't seem special at all, but it's later revealed in Mr. Wolf's flashback that she was actually Professor Marmalade in disguise since he knew that if he pretended to be good, he would set his whole plan of getting rid of The Bad Guys permanently in motion.
  • The LEGO Batman Movie: At the beginning, the mayor of Gotham allows herself to be taken where the joker and the rest of the villains are in order to try and resolve matters peacefully. She's soon revealed to be Batman in disguise, who dressed himself up as the mayor in order to throw his enemies for a loop and to take them down easier.
  • Played with in SCOOB!. Dick Dastardly disguises himself to trick the heroes multiple times throughout the movie. At the end, he's turned in to the Mystery Gang and Falcon Fury by his mistreated robots and Velma unmasks him to reveal Simon Cowell. Confused as to why he would decide to become a supervillain, Velma decides to unmask him again and reveal the real Dick Dastardly.
  • Wreck-It Ralph: King Candy is already a Slimeball who programmed himself to be the ruler of Sugar Rush and tried to get rid of Princess Vanellope, causing her to become very glitchy as a result. When she bumps into him during the big race later on, her glitch leeches on to him and reveals who he actually is: another arcade game character named Turbo, who'd left his game decades before, causing it to become unplugged and for the other characters in the arcade to be careful with going between the arcade games during day hours.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Die Another Day: Big Bad Gustav Graves is actually renegade North Korean colonel Tan Sun-Moon in disguise. Elements of the literary Hugo Drax's backstory and MO from Moonraker were been used in developing Moon's character such as being the elite soldier of a totalitarian regime who faked his death and created a new identity as a snobby British playboy with a fake rags-to-riches backstory, and building a space project to supposedly solve the world's problems thru a mining fortune (which is actually from African blood diamonds; said space project involves using a Kill Sat to destroy the DMZ so that KPA-aligned terrorists can invade South Korea). Moon himself stated he modeled the Graves persona on the initial impression he had of James Bond when the latter was imprisoned in North Korea.
  • Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The auror Percival Graves shown throughout the film is revealed at the end to actually be Gellert Grindelwald in disguise. While according to Word of God there was a real Percival Graves, a descendant of one of the twelve original American aurors, it's never revealed what happened to him.
  • Frailty: Fenton Meiks meets with an FBI agent to confess he murdered his brother Adam, whom he claims is the "God's Hand" serial killer. While taking the agent to where he buried Adam, Fenton details their childhood being raised by their Serial Killer father with Adam as his loyal acolyte. The agent is disturbed to find more God's Hand victims at the burial site, and also notes Adam had promised to bury Fenton there, which makes no sense to him. Fenton answers:
    Fenton Meiks: Yes it does... if the man standing in front of you is Adam Meiks.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Spider-Man: Far From Home: The Post-Credits scene reveals that the Nick Fury and Maria Hill who had been helping Peter throughout the film are actually the Skrulls Talos and Soren, who were covering for their absence while the two were taking time off the planet.
    • The Big Bad of Iron Man 3 is the leader of the Ten Rings, the Mandarin. When Tony finally meets the Mandarin, he turns out to be an actor named Trevor Slattery employed by the film's true villain, Aldrich Killian. Killian also claims the name Mandarin, but the later One-Shot All Hail the King reveals he wasn't the real Mandarin either. The real Mandarin – or at least the leader of the Ten Rings, the "Mandarin" name was Killian's invention – appears as the Big Bad of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
  • Scooby-Doo:
    • Scooby-Doo (2002): During the climax, Emile Mondavarious, the owner of Mystery Island, is revealed to be a robotic suit piloted by the actual Big Bad, Scrappy-Doo. After Scrappy is defeated and arrested, the gang finds the real Emile Mondavarious trapped underground, where he's been the whole time.
    • In Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, the movie's Big Bad is ultimately revealed to have been news reporter Heather Jasper-Howe. It's then revealed that "Heather Jasper-Howe" doesn't actually exist, and "her" true identity is Dr. Jonathan Jacobo.
  • Spiral (2021): Young detective and father to a baby, William Schenks joins the police force and is partnered with senior detective Zeke Banks in the search for a Jigsaw copycat named Spiral. Eventually, William Schenks becomes another victim of the Spiral Killer, who is targeting corrupt cops. William Schenks never existed; William Schenks is actually William Emerson, the Spiral Killer, who faked his death by using his accomplice's corpse as a decoy. Even the story of the baby was a fabrication to provide more sympathy to the "character".
  • Tootsie has it in the Show Within a Show. When Michael decides to reveal himself as a man instead of a woman, he ad-libs the story of a guy who took on his late sister's identity.
  • The Visit: A woman sends her two children to stay with her parents, whom they have never met because their mother had been estranged from her parents for years. The grandparents act more and more strangely, and the children eventually discover they are escaped mental patients who had murdered their actual grandparents.

    Literature 
  • After the Funeral: At the beginning of the novel, the Abernethie family gathers for the funeral of their patriarch Richard, who apparently died of natural causes; during the repast, his sister Cora abruptly asks "But he was murdered, wasn't he?" When Cora is found dead in her bed the next day, the police think that she was killed for knowing too much about what really happened to Richard. Hercule Poirot figures out the truth—Richard really did die of natural causes, and the "Cora" who attended the funeral was actually Miss Gilchrist, her lady's companion, in an elaborate disguise. As it turns out, Cora was Miss Gilchrist's target all along, and she devised the ruse about Richard's own death to throw suspicion off herself.
  • A to Z Mysteries: In "The Absent Author", Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose are confused as to why the author Wallis Wallace never showed up to their book signing convention. With the help of an elderly lady named Mavis, they go around town searching for clues as to their whereabouts. After they find out that Wallis is staying in the local hotel, they go to their room and find a man Bound and Gagged to a chair. After they free him, he says he's Wallis, but Ruth isn't convinced. She then suddenly theorizes that Mavis is actually Wallis, since she's wearing a scarf with Ms on it, which are Ws when turned upside down. Surprisingly, this shot in the dark actually turns out to be true, as the lady immediately takes off her disguise and reveals herself to indeed be Wallis Wallace. She then explains that she and her brother Walker (the man who'd been tied up) made up an entire scheme to see if anyone would try to find them, and she congratulates the kids for solving it.
  • The Bad Guys: At the end of "Intergalactic Gas", it's revealed that the evil guinea pig Professor Rupert Marmalade is actually an alien who's hellbent on conquering Earth in disguise.
  • The Cat in the Stacks Mysteries: In Book 5 (The Silence of the Library), Charlie gets a chance to meet Electra Barnes Cartwright, author of one of his favorite book series from childhood. In the climax, it turns out "Mrs. Cartwright" was being impersonated by her grandson Eugene Marter, in part because while the real Mrs. Cartwright is still mentally sharp for her age (she's about a hundred years old), she's also delusional and thinks she's actually Veronica Thane, the lead character from the books she wrote.
  • Codex Alera: While Tavi is at the Academy, studying to become a Cursor, he befriends a classmate named Gaella. Then it turns out she's really Rook, placed there as a spy for someone else, having taken the identity of the real Gaella; it's presumed the original was killed to help keep the masquerade.
  • The Chronicles of the Deryni: In the climax of High Deryni, Duke Rhydon of Eastmarch, who is The Dragon to the enemy King Wencit of Torenth, reveals himself to be Stefan Coram, one of the good guys in disguise. Coram replaced the real Rhydon years ago, after Rhydon died of a sudden heart attack, and used Deryni shape-changing magic to make himself look like Rhydon to any eye. He's been pretending to be Rhydon ever since, and doing it so well that even Wencit never suspected.
  • Goosebumps:
    • Somewhat played with in Stay Out of the Basement. Margaret Brewer is concerned about how much time her father spends in the basement experimenting on plants. She also starts seeing signs that something's wrong with her father, and on top of that, he never lets her or her brother enter the basement. One day, she finds her real father tied up in the basement closet. When the plant clone goes down into the basement, she hears her father call her "Princess", which the clone plant never said. She then gets a knife and cuts her father on the hand and finds normal red blood. Her father then axes the clone, who spews green liquid everywhere. Afterwards, Mr. Brewer decides to be done with experimenting with plants once and from all. However, the plant clone is still able to communicate with Margaret via a flower, and he insists he's her real father.
    • Bad Hare Day has a rather unique case of this. Magic aficionado Tim Swanson finally gets a chance to see his favorite magician Amaz-o live on stage, and even gets to participate in one of the tricks. After the show however, he finds out that the magician is a total Jerkass, and then steals Amaz-o's bag of tricks out of retaliation. The tricks are fun at first but eventually get out of hand, so they go back to Amaz-o for help. When they go back to his office, they find out that Amaz-o was actually a lifesize dummy being controlled by his magic rabbit, who was the actual Amaz-o who'd been turned into a bunny by a rival long ago.
    • Zig-zagged in Frankenstein's Dog. Kat Parker is excited to visit her uncle Victor at his house in Transylvania but hears stories about him from the locals in the town nearby. A boy named Robby helps her into the house and she meets her uncle, who's currently obsessed with making artificial intelligence and even has a lifelike assistant named Frank, and also owns a dog named Poochie. That night Kat finds out that Victor is actually a robot of the real Victor, and replaces him accordingly. Later, Poochie is shown growling at Victor, implying he doesn't trust his owner. Victor then tries to make a robot version of Kat. She later wakes up and sees more robots of Victor, all of whom demand her to get rid of the others. She decides to find out who the real one is with the help of Poochie, but he leads her and Robby to a closet full of Victors who will claim to be the real one. When they leave, they find the actual Victor, who says he's just arrived from France and got the dates mixed up. He then says that he no longer does robotics and is currently focused on cloning, to which he shows them clones of Poochie.
  • Harry Potter:
    • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Mad-Eye Moody is a rather eccentric fellow, but is shown to be a rather competent Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. After the final challenge of the Triwizard Tournament, he takes Harry aside and tells him that he was the one who put his name in the Goblet. Dumbledore then comes over and stops Moody from hurting Harry. It's revealed that Moody was actually Barty Crouch Jr., a follower of Lord Voldemort, who'd taken Polyjuice Potion (A special type of elixir that can make you look like someone else if you put a bit of their DNA in the mixture) for an entire year to gather info to tell his master.
    • A more minor example in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Several times throughout the story, Harry and Ron run into some girls who blush whenever they are asked questions. The boys later find out that they were actually Crabbe and Goyle, Draco Malfoy's lackeys. They took Polyjuice Potion and kept watch outside of the rooms that Draco was searching in.
  • He Who Fights with Monsters: After foiling the attempts of the god Purity (gods' names reflect their essential nature in this series) to conquer and replace most of the world's current inhabitants, over the course of several years, the central characters discover that Purity effectively committed suicide over 500 years ago. At that time the god Disguise stepped into the role of Purity, subverting Purity's church to his own ends, and Disguise is who they've actually been opposing.
  • Horus Heresy:
    • The last Christian priest on Terra, Uriah Olathaire, spends a rainy night arguing with a strange and mysterious man named Revelation about the merits of secularism versus religion. When Uriah is finally sick of Revelation's verbal games, his guest drops the act and reveals his true identity and agenda: he is the Emperor of Mankind, and he is here to destroy the last church on Earth.
    • Lorgar Aurelian's Number Two, Erebus, is revealed to have murdered the real person by that name as a child and stolen his identity, before leaving town to become a priest of the Covenant—a form of Chaos worship. Where the original Erebus was believed destined for greatness, "our" Erebus becomes one of the major factors in Lorgar's Face–Heel Turn.
  • Isaac Asimov:
    • In Prelude to Foundation, Seldon is helped throughout the book by a benefactor named Chetter Hummin, who helps him stay free of the Evil Chancellor, Eto Demerzel. At the end, Hummin is revealed to be an undercover identity of Demerzel himself. And the Demerzel is revealed to be a cover identity for R. Daneel Olivaw, a 20,000+-year-old robot.
    • In The Mule, the heroes rescue the titular villain's jester, Magnifico, who joins them in their attempt to defeat him. The ending reveals he was the Mule all along.
  • Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Syr Flover, one of the serving girls at the Hostess of Fertility pub, takes a liking to Bell Cranel and asks him out during the Goddess Festival. This leads to the revelation that she's connected to the Freya Familia, whose patron goddess has been stalking Bell for a while. The truth is, the "Syr" that Bell has known all this time is in fact Freya herself, having traded identities with her Number Two, who goes by the name Hörn when she isn't masquerading as Freya.
  • Kane Chronicles: At the end of The Red Pyramid, when Zia is killed by Set, it's revealed that the Zia the Kanes knew had been a shabti (an enchanted clay figure) all along. Sadie quickly puts together what happened; the real Zia had become the host for the river goddess Nephthys, so for her own safety Iskandar placed her into suspended animation, hid her, and created the replacement shabti to avoid suspicion. The Kanes find the real Zia in the second book, but while she has the memories of her shabti, she doesn't feel the same way about Carter and Sadie as the fake Zia did.
  • Gideon the Ninth: Dulcinea Septimus is revealed at the climax to have been the killer's first victim along with her Cavalier Protesilaus. The "Dulcinea" Gideon has interacted with throughout the book is actually Cytherea the First, one of the Emperor's immortal lyctors who orchestrated everything including the lyctor trials in order to get a shot at luring the Emperor back to the Dominicus system and assassinate him. She was able to keep up the deception because no one at Canaan had actually met Dulcinea in person, and the royalty of Dulcinea's house — which Cytherea founded — look pretty alike anyway. Protesilaus was reanimated and necromantically puppeteered by her, an impossible feat for a mortal necromancer but trivial for a lyctor, which kept anyone from suspecting it.
  • Michael Vey: In The Hunt for Jade Dragon, while being imprisoned in the Taiwan compound of the evil Elgen Inc., the titular Glow (A youth with electrical powers) is saved from getting tortured by a man who appears to be his father, who he previously thought was dead, and the man tells his son he's been allied with the Elgen ever since he faked his death. At the end of the book, Michael's teammate who can see through walls tells Michael that his "father" was actually just Dr. Hatch, the leader of the Elgen, who, with the help of another Glow, made himself appear as Michael'sfather so he could extract important information from him.
  • The Moomins: In one book, the characters throw a party, and what appears to be a mouse and housecat show up, but they turn out to be the Hobgoblin and the Black Panther, who disguised themselves with magic.
  • Moonraker: Graf Hugo von der Drache is actually a Nazi Deep Cover Agent who falsely claimed to be a "amnesiac WWII soldier" named Hugo Drax. By sheer coincidence, the "Drax" surname happens to be surprisingly close to his real one. The real Hugo Drax was an orphan who went MIA during the war. Drache/Drax's scheme involves nuking London in revenge for the wartime defeat of Nazi Germany by pretending to be an English gentleman.
  • Mr. Men: A wizard gives Mr Mean a lesson in not being mean, saying "if you are mean again, it's potatoes my dear; if not, other vegetables as well". Later, Mr Mean meets an old lady asking for help to carry her washing; and when Mr Mean refuses, his nose turns into a carrot. After he has helped the lady, she turns back into the wizard. This happens twice more: with an old man asking for help chopping wood, and a little boy whose ball is stuck on a high wall.
  • Star Wars:
    • In the Legends X-Wing series of novels readers are alerted that there was an imposter within Rogue Squadron. Author Michael Stackpole took great care to lead readers to believe that others like Emtrey might be the spy before he revealed towards the end of the Krytos Trap that the imposter was Erisi Dlarit. That plot twist came out of blue not only in-universe for most of the squadron in-universe but for most readers as well. Once Wedge, General Cracken, and Corran Horn reveal Erisi's deception to the New Republic, it becomes fairly obvious that she had been an imposter all along.
    • Later zig-zagged in the Wraith Squadron portion of the series with the character of Gara Petothel. She infiltrates the Wraiths for Warlord Zsinj under the alias of Lara Notsil. During her time with the Wraiths she becomes disillusioned with the Galactic Empire and wants to switch sides for real but is found out in the meantime. Petothel then fakes her own death and establishes herself as Kirney Slane on Corellia.
  • Throughout Use of Weapons, the reader is led to believe that the main character is Cheradenine Zakalwe, a war hero from his home planet who fought against “the Chairmaker”, the leader of his home planet’s civil war and his own former friend Elethiomel leading to a phobia of chairs in the present day. It isn’t until the very end of the book that we find out that “Zakalwe” is actually Elethiomel, the real Zakalwe did not survive his suicide attempt after learning Elethiomel killed his sister and made a chair from her bones, and thus it was Elethiomel who fled their planet and was found by the Culture, meaning he really was a psychopath the whole time.
  • Wings of Fire:
    • In Winter Turning, the titular dragon Winter wants to find his brother Hailstorm before he gets killed by the evil Queen Scarlet. With the help of his friends and a dragon named Pyrite who's loyal to Scarlet, he searches all over Pyhrria, but to no avail. Winter suddenly notices that Pyrite is very protective of her necklace for some reason, so he decides to remove it. Pyrite immediately transforms back into Hailstorm, and they figure out that the Queen used magic to turn him into a submissive and forgetful servant.
    • A similar plot twist happens in Escaping Peril. The queen's daughter Ruby accuses her subject Peril, who has special scales that can burn any living thing that touches them, of killing her older sister Tourmaline years earlier. However, during her fight with her mother for the throne, she's revealed to actually be her sister who had been magically transformed. After killing her mother and claiming the throne, she ultimately decides to keep both personalities.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Andromeda: In the episode "The Mathematics of Tears", the heroes find a High Guard ship with an insane, unresponsive AI, and seemingly immortal people onboard claiming to be the skeleton crew left behind by the captain before he and the rest perished in a ground battle. Later, it turns out the captain took everyone to the battle. The supposedly human leader of the crew is the main avatar of the ship AI, and the rest are likewise avatars, created in the likeness of her favorite crew members.
  • Arrowverse:
    • The Flash (2014):
      • Since the start of the series, the viewers caught on early that "Harrison Wells" isn't the good man he claims to be based on his suspicious behavior and the fact that he was pretending to be handicapped. It's eventually revealed halfway throughout the first season that he's really Eobard Thawne a.k.a the Reverse-Flash, who killed the real Wells and was wearing his face for over a decade.
      • In Season 2, the man Team Flash knows as "Jay Garrick" is revealed to be Hunter Zolomom/Zoom, who imprisoned the real Jay Garrick from Earth-3 and stole his identity to manipulate Team Flash and gain their trust.
    • Supergirl (2015): Throughout the first several episodes of the first season, we see the occasional shot where Hank Henshaw's eyes flash red, and comic book fans will know that these are hinting towards him being Cyborg Superman. Eventually, we learn that he's actually an alien, specifically J'onn J'onzz, and has been impersonating the real Hank Henshaw after he died.
  • The Blacklist: It's revealed at the end of Season 5 that the real Raymond Reddington has been dead for over 30 years, with the show's Villain Protagonist who has been using that name since the beginning is someone else who took on the identity after the original's death.
  • Dark Matter (2015): It turns out two of the Raza crew joined under false identities, which was complicated when the entire crew got amnesia, leading them to believe they really were who they pretended to be. One/"Jace Corso" turns out to be a man who impersonated the real Corso to get closer to Marcus Boone (Three), the chief suspect in his wife's death. Six/"Griffin Jones" was a Galactic Authority agent infiltrating the crew under a cover identity.
  • The Good Place, from the episode "Tinker, Tailor, Demon, Spy": Glenn, a demon defecting from The Bad Place, attempts to warn the Soul Squad that Michael is not who he seems: agents from The Bad Place captured the real Michael weeks ago and left behind a demon in a Michael suit to take his place. Unsure who to trust, the Soul Squad interrogate both Michael and Glenn. Surprisingly, Jason is the one who figures out the truth: Janet is the one who was captured and replaced by an evil duplicate, not Michael.
  • Kamen Rider Revice: At the beginning of the series, we are introduced to Yujiro Wakabayashi, the head commander of FENIX who personally spearheaded the Revice System project meant to combat and exterminate the demon-worshipping cult, Deadmans. It is later revealed that Wakabayashi was actually the Chameleon Deadman in disguise, having killed the real Wakabayashi and impersonating him since Episode 1, just mere seconds after witnessing Ikki and Vice transform. No one at FENIX was any wiser until Episode 14 when he is exposed and later reveals the truth.
  • Mr. Robot: The very last episode reveals that the Elliot that audiences have been following for the entire series is not actually Elliot, but The Mastermind, an alternate personality created by the real Elliot after suffering trauma, and which became the dominant personality because his actions (as well as Mr. Robot's) have caused even more trauma.
  • Quantum Leap: In "The Boogeyman", who we think is Al is revealed to be The Devil when the real Al shows up.
  • In Secret Invasion, it's revealed that Colonel Rhodes/War Machine was captured and replaced by a Skrull going all the way back to Avengers: Infinity War.
  • Square One TV: In the Mathnet episode "The Trial of George Frankly", the titular agent is faced with accusations of robbing a bank earlier in the week and also has video footage against him, even though he'd been away fishing that day. He and his partner Kate Monday try to gather enough evidence to prove he's innocent, but during the trial, the evidence against George is too great and George even testifies that he did do it. After this confession, the real George Frankly comes into the courtroom and exposes his impersonator and the pilot who tried to take him away.
  • Stargate SG-1: Jonas is quite upset to learn that his assistant and love interest, Kianna, is possessed by a goa'uld, wondering Was It All a Lie? The goa'uld, who does actually care about him, points out to him that he never met the host before she was possessed; "All this time it was never Kianna, it was always me."
  • Star Trek:
    • In Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Man Trap", the Enterprise crew goes to a remote planet so that Dr. McCoy can run some standard medical tests on Dr. Robert Crater and his wife, Nancy. However, it later turns out that Nancy is really a shapeshifter who needs huge amounts of salt and not the real Nancy.
    • Star Trek: Voyager: Seska appears to be a wayward Bajoran Maquis crewwoman, but later she turns out to have been a Cardassian in disguise and a spy.
    • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Multiple episodes involved characters finding out that someone was actually being impersonated by a Changeling, with some episodes involving trying to determine who the Changeling was. General Martok, for instance, was an antagonistic Klingon who nearly forced an open war with the Federation out of paranoia of the Changelings, before it turned out he was a Changeling. Eventually, Worf and Garak meet the real Martok, who'd been imprisoned in a Dominion internment camp for two years. Also imprisoned at the camp is Doctor Bashir; it turns out that the Bashir on DS9 is also a Changeling.
    • Star Trek: Discovery:
      • The Captain Lorca we are first introduced to turns out to be an imposter from the Mirror Universe.
      • Ash Tyler turns out to be a Klingon sleeper agent, originally named Voq, who was genetically spliced with a captured Starfleet officer, surgically altered, and his memories modified. Ash himself is unaware of this at first.
  • Studio C: Parodied in "Deathbed Repentance". All the members of a family pretend to be dying in order to get a confession out of the other, and they record each other's confessions. After they all decide to try and forget the whole thing, the servant in the room stops recording them and reveals himself to be their enemy Jose Delgado, and then removes his disguise, his hair and mustache, to reveal the exact same mustache and exact same hair underneath.
  • Supernatural: In the season 4 episode "Jump the Shark" Sam and Dean learn of the existence of their secret half-brother, Adam Milligan. They bond with him while hunting a ghoul that killed his mother. However, they discover in the end that the ghoul actually killed the mother and Adam, and the man they have been spending time with was the ghoul in disguise the whole time. They successfully kill the ghoul, but Adam is still dead, and they collectively mourn the brother they never knew. They eventually meet the real Adam in Season 5 when he is resurrected by the Archangel Michael.
  • WandaVision: Lampshaded. Wanda's friendly, nosy neighbor Agnes reveals herself to be the witch Agatha Harkness in a particularly on-the-nose song at the end of "Breaking the Fourth Wall". The same sequence reveals she was manipulating Ralph Bohner to impersonate Wanda's dead brother Pietro as well.
    Who's been messing up everything?
    It's been Agatha all along!
    Who's been pulling every evil string?
    It's been Agatha all along!

    Radio 
  • Torchwood: The Lost Files: Throughout "The House of the Dead", Ianto interacts with Gwen on his headset, talking about how oddly Jack has been behaving. When Jack notices Ianto doing it, he reveals that the headset was never turned on in the first place — what Ianto thought was Gwen was in fact Syriath, an Eldritch Abomination using Gwen's voice to encourage efforts to set her free from the Rift.

    Tabletop Games 
  • BattleTech: Captain General is the ruler of the Free Worlds League and the man in that position is the heavily scarred Thomas Marik. The official story is that he survived an assassination. The reality is that the N.G.O. Superpower ComStar replaced him with a body double because cybernetics were used to save him but the society of the Free World League hates cyborgs. The imposter was found out originally by Victor Steiner-Davion after a DNA test showed that Isis Marik (the daughter of the real Thomas Marik) was not related to her alleged younger half-brother Joshua (the son of the imposter). When the truth was finally revealed to the Inner Sphere as a whole during the Word of Blake Jihad, the imposter was chased out of the Free Worlds League (which subsequently splintered into a number of smaller factions before it reunited decades later) but was not otherwise punished because he was the best Captain General the league ever had. His real name was never known, but after that, he started going by Thomas Halas. The real Thomas Marik survived to become The Master, the monster leading the Word Of Blake.
  • Magic: The Gathering: In the story for Outlaws of Thunder Junction, the planeswalker Ashiok recruits a Caper Crew in order to rob a vault on the plane that was created by the Fomori, an ancient race of giants who once ruled over the now-vacant plane... except that the 'Ashiok' in question has been, since the end of the Wilds of Eldraine story, Jace Beleren using illusion magic in order to hatch a year-long plan to steal the primary treasure of the vault.

    Theatre 
  • An Inspector Calls: After Inspector Goole leaves at the end of the second act, the Birlings spend part of the third act digesting his various revelations before Mr. Birling, skeptical of the whole thing, phones Scotland Yard to inquire about Goole. He's informed that there is no "Inspector Goole", and promptly dismisses the entire Eva Smith story (and the Birlings' alleged roles in it) as the lies of an impostor. Then the police call them back, and it's implied that Eva's story may not be so fake after all...

    Video Games 
  • Anna's Quest: The Wizard of Wunderhorn reveals to be Winfriede hiding her true appearance under the spell. The true Wizard from the other hand was imprisoned by her, so she can pretend that she is the Wizard.
  • Another Code: Ashley's goal in the first game is to reunite with her father, Richard Robins. Midway through the game, she succeeds, but can't help feeling that something's not quite right about him; in the remake, she goes as far as to declare that he can't possibly be her father. Towards the end of the game, she finds the real Richard Robins locked inside his laboratory and learns that the man she met earlier was actually the Big Bad, Bill Edward, passing himself off as Richard to try and trick Ashley into furthering his plans.
  • Batman: Arkham City: During the climax, after Talia al'Ghul seemingly kills the Joker, Batman ponders the night's events and realizes that the Joker he's been dealing with for most of the game — and the one Talia just stabbed — was actually Clayface in disguise. Sadly, he realizes this a second too late, as the real Joker then appears and shoots Talia dead.
  • Chrono Trigger: In both 600 A.D. and the present day, it's revealed that the Chancellor of Guardia castle was kidnapped and replaced by a monster named Yakra. The Yakra in 600 A.D. disguised himself as the Chancellor in an attempt to kidnap and assassinate Queen Leene, while his descendant, Yakra XIII, is revealed to have impersonated the chancellor as part of his plan to kill Chrono and his party to avenge his ancestor's defeat. In both instances, the real Chancellor is revealed to have been locked up in a treasure chest.
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition: Midway through the game, the Grey Warden companion Blackwall soon reveals that his true identity is Thom Rainier, an Orlesian fugitive who took up the identity of the real Blackwall after the latter died from a darkspawn ambush to save his life. Feeling that he didn’t deserve to be saved by a Grey Warden for his crimes, he assumed Blackwall’s identity and pretended to be a Grey Warden for years as a form of atonement. He would have gone through with his Joining on his own, but the Wardens' own secrecy meant that Rainier thought he had no proof of recruitment, and was worried that the Wardens would think he killed Blackwall.
  • Genshin Impact: This is a strangely common theme among the Archons. Venti is revealed as a wind sprite using the shape of his dead companion, Ei is initially replaced by a puppet she created until the Traveler finds her, and Furina turns out to be impersonating Focalors and is actually the god's human half. The rest of the Archons are also involved with alternate identities, though not direct impersonations.
  • God of War Ragnarök: Týr is a central figure that Kratos and Atreus seek in order to prevent Ragnarök, eventually being rescued from Odin's captivity and made an ally, but two-thirds into the game, it's revealed that he's in fact Odin taking on his appearance in order to sabotage their rebellion from the inside-out. In the post-game, it's revealed that the real Týr is in fact still alive and in a much more elaborate prison.
  • Honkai: Star Rail: The "Tingyun" that accompanies the Astral Express crew on the Xianzhou Luofu is revealed to be Lord Ravager Phantylia in disguise, who aims to sow discord within the Luofu to cause their society to collapse. Meanwhile, other characters who know Tingyun (especially Yukong) believe that Tingyun was real and Phantylia was just impersonating her.
  • Inazuma Eleven Go: Galaxy: After Inazuma Japan wins the FFI V2, it is revealed that all opponents they faced are aliens impersonating international players from Earth.
  • Kingdom Hearts: The first game's Big Bad, Ansem, is initially believed to have been a Mad Scientist whose experiments of the heart led him to grow an obsession with darkness to the point that he not only created the Heartless but became one himself. It's not until Kingdom Hearts II that King Mickey reveals that the "Ansem" Sora and his party fought is actually the Heartless of an impostor named Xehanort, who stole the real Ansem's identity before he split himself into his Heartless (who would take on the stolen name) and his Nobody (who would go by Xemnas).
  • King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride: The troll king who kidnaps one of the two protagonists at the start of the story turns out to be a brainwashed and shapeshifted impostor who is controlled by the Big Bad. The player gets to rescue the real one later on.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom: Facette, one of the advisors to Chief Seera, is vocal in her opposition to Zelda, who can fix the rifts plaguing the Gerudo desert, but cannot immediately prove it. After Zelda does fix a rift, it turns out that the real Facette was stuck in a rift and is now back. The impostor is actually an echo made by the Big Bad to sabotage efforts to deal with the rifts.
  • Mary Skelter: In Mary Skelter Finale, Clara's team come across an injured girl calling herself Rachel, who gives a backstory that's entirely different from what is shown in Riley's flashback of her separation from Rachel. It turns out that this "Rachel" is actually a disguised Gallows, one of the members of Massacre Pink. She was attempting sow distrust and turn everyone against Pyre, who turns out to be the real Rachel, having lost all memories of her childhood due to the horrific torture Massacre Pink's master put her through.
  • Master Detective Archives: Rain Code: Zilch Alexander, one of the Master Detectives Yuma meets on the Amaterasu Express in Chapter 0, is revealed to actually be a hitman that killed and replaced the real Zilch, though this is not revealed to Yuma until after the case is solved and "Zilch" is dead.
  • Metal Gear Solid: Among the people helping Solid Snake with his mission is an old friend of his by the name of Master McDonnell Miller. However, near the end, it's revealed that Master Miller was found to be dead three days before the Shadow Moses incident, and the Miller that Snake had been interacting with this whole time was actually Liquid Snake. In addition, who Snake thought was DARPA Chief Donald Anderson turns out to have been the heretofore unencountered FOXHOUND member Decoy Octopus, who was forced to impersonate Anderson after Ocelot accidentally killed the real guy during a torture session.
  • Might and Magic X has a fellow raider Dunstan as the very first NPC your party can interact with and he can show you Sorpigal by the Sea if you don't know your way around. You'll meet him again a few times in unlikely places. Later you'll find out that he's actually Erebos in disguise, with true Dunstan being killed by him ages ago in Tomb of Thousand Terrors with his party minus Shiva, who can tell you more, and by playing Dream Shard Dungeon you can actually relive the event leading to his demise.
  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door: The sixth chapter of the game is largely a Mystery Episode that takes place on the Excess Express; on the second day of the trip, various items go missing, and Mario and the gang trace the thefts back to Zip Toad, a famous movie star who's traveling on the train with them. Once he's caught, though, it's revealed that this Zip Toad is actually the Shapeshifter and Recurring Boss Doopliss, who has teamed up with the Shadow Sirens to defeat the plumber.
  • Persona 5: It’s revealed late in the game that the Igor that’s been guiding you is actually the Greater-Scope Villain, Yaldabaoth, who imprisoned the real Igor and assumed his identity as part of his plan. When the protagonist rejects his temptations after he’s revealed, the real Igor is freed and takes back the Velvet Room.
  • Professor Layton:
  • Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando: Abercromble Fizzwiget tricked Ratchet and Clank into stealing back a dangerous experimental beast called the protopet and tries to sell it on the market with no regard to how much of a danger it is. Towards the end, Abercromble was revealed to have been Captain Quark in disguise and had the real one trapped.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Sonic Adventure 2: Towards the end of the Dark Story, Rouge finds a newspaper clipping with a photo of the Biolizard, proclaiming it to be the Ultimate Life Form, and throwing into question who or what Shadow (the self-proclaimed "ultimate life form") actually is. Subverted when the Last Story clarifies that the Biolizard is just a Psycho Prototype and Shadow is the true Ultimate Life Form.
    • Sonic Heroes: After multiple instances of Eggman turning out to be Actually a Doombot, the end of Team Chaotix's storyline reveals he's been locked inside Final Fortress the whole time, and the Secret Final Campaign reveals that the true Big Bad is actually Metal Sonic, who's been impersonating Eggman for the entire game.
    • Sonic Rivals: The villain of the game appears to be Dr. Eggman until, at the climax of Shadow's route, it's revealed that Eggman is one of those who has been turned into a card. The villain then reveals himself to be Eggman's future descendent, Eggman Nega, having been impersonating Eggman the whole time.
  • Suzerain: Livia Suno, Secretary of Anton Rayne is actually Rumburg spy named Ilana Vance impersonating real Livia Suno, who is found dead.
  • System Shock 2: For the first three floors of the game, the player receives orders from Dr. Janice Polito, who is acting as Mission Control and trying to get you to a face-to-face meeting on the fourth floor. Shortly after reaching the fourth floor, you find Polito... or rather, her body, since she committed suicide weeks ago. The voice giving the player orders was actually the rogue AI SHO-DAN, Big Bad of the previous game.

    Visual Novels 
  • Ace Attorney:
    • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All: The big twist of "Reunion, and Turnabout" is that Ini Miney has been Dead All Along. The "Ini Miney" you've been talking to throughout the case is her sister Mimi, who was badly injured in the same crash that killed Ini, was mistaken for her, and given facial reconstruction surgery that made her resemble Ini. Mimi has been impersonating Ini ever since in an attempt to escape her own Dark and Troubled Past.
    • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations: In "Turnabout Memories", Phoenix refuses to believe that his girlfriend of eight months, Dahlia Hawthorne, could be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing serial murderer, to the point of insisting that she must have an Evil Twin. The final case, "Bridge to the Tournabout", reveals that Dahlia does have a twin sister, Iris (and that Dahlia is unequivocally the evil one). At the very end of the case, Iris confesses that Phoenix only actually met Dahlia twice, and the "Dahlia" he'd been dating those eight months had actually been Iris pulling a Twin Switch to protect him from Dahlia's wrath.
    • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies: Throughout the story, the cast meet a detective by the name of Bobby Fulbright who is close with the game's main prosecutor, Simon Blackquill. Come the final trial, there begins a discussion on a criminal known simply as the Phantom, and it turns out that Fulbright is the Phantom's current disguise with the real Fulbright being dead some time ago.
    • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice: In "The Magical Turnabout", Trucy is accused of killing The Great Mr. Reus, a magician who was expelled from Trucy's grandfather's magician troupe. However, during the trial, it turns out the victim isn't the original Mr. Reus, but a fanboy who took up the role under the guidance of the original Mr. Reus, TV show producer Roger Retinz. Retinz was the one who had the fanboy killed in order to frame Trucy for the death, as revenge for his expulsion.
    • Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit: The president of Zheng Fa, Di-Jung Wang, encountered in the first case of the game, is supposedly a brave leader who looks out for his people, yet his behavior seen in that case suggests anything but, having plotted a Fake Assassination attempt against himself so that the supposed Assassin Outclassin' would boost his popularity. This is because this is a Body Double who, with some assistance, carried out an assassination of the real president and took his place several years prior. The final case of the game, in which the body double is killed, uncovers the true nature of what happened to the real president.
  • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: During the killing game, Junko Enoshima is one of the first students to get killed after she attacks Monokuma. Later, the remaining characters solve the mystery and find out that the real Junko Enoshima was behind the entire killing game at Hope's Peak Academy, and the Junko who died was really her twin sister Mukuro Ikusaba posing as her so the real Junko could operate behind the scenes.

    Web Animation 
  • The Last Church: At the film's climax, Apocalypsis drops the act and reveals to Uriah that the man he spoke, laughed, argued, and drank with was none other than the Emperor of Mankind. And unfortunately, he plans on burning the Church of the Fulgur Lapis to the ground to represent the Imperium's "final" triumph over superstition.
  • Murder Drones: At the end of "The Promening", Tessa—whom N, J, and V all worked for before they became Disassembly Drones—arrives on Copper-9 and teams up with the trio of Uzi, N, and V in order to stop the Absolute Solver from wreaking more havoc. However, it's revealed at the end of "Mass Destruction" that "Tessa" is actually the Absolute Solver, who has been wearing her skin around since the night of the Gala where it went on to slaughter everyone present, Tessa included.
  • Team Fortress 2: "Meet the Spy" has the BLU Scout, who is revealed at the end to be the RED Spy that the surviving BLU Team has been tracking down the entire time. Unfortunately for the BLU Soldier and BLU Heavy present, the RED Spy has his knife in his hands, and is standing right behind both of them, leading to the former two's demises.

    Webcomics 

    Web Video 
  • Life of Luxury:
    • In an early video titled "We Found Her Under the Bed", Chester and Parker go to the house of a young lady named Bella who e-mailed them about seeing someone who looks exactly like her roaming around her house at night. When they try to talk to her about it, she stays mostly quiet, and the guys go to the guest room to sleep. In the middle of the night, they receive a call from Bella saying they can do the investigation when she returns home later in the week. Realizing the implications of what she said, they quickly leave before the doppelganger can do anything to them.
    • In "Something is Wrong with Her Mother", they go to the house of a lady named Emma, who reported seeing someone in the woods who might be planning on breaking into her house. When they enter her house, they're greeted by a strange middle-aged woman who says she's really Emma. Later that night, Chester hears someone Banging for Help, and goes to the basement to find out. There, he finds the real Emma tied up, and when the fake Emma finds out that he's discovered her ruse she locks both of them in the basement. Later, Parker wakes up, goes and helps them, and they all escape out the window and drive back to headquarters before the mentally ill lady can capture them again.

    Western Animation 
  • Camp Lazlo: In the final episode, it’s revealed that Camp Kidney’s scoutmaster, Scoutmaster Lumpus, is an insane fraud who kidnapped the REAL scoutmaster and left him Bound and Gagged in his own cabin’s closet all summer. On the last day of summer, the real scoutmaster somehow escaped and told the police, who show up at the end and take Lumpus away. Given that Lumpus has always been a Psychopathic Manchild, it actually makes sense that he’s just an impostor.
  • DC Animated Universe:
    • Batman: The Animated Series:
      • "Almost Got 'Im" follows the Joker, the Penguin, Two-Face, Killer Croc, and Poison Ivy as they discuss which of them has come the closest to defeating Batman while playing a game of poker. After the Joker reveals he currently has a plan in progress to get Revenge by Proxy by killing Catwoman, Killer Croc reveals himself to actually be Batman in disguise, having infiltrated the meeting in order to trick the Joker into revealing his plan.
      • "House & Garden" has Poison Ivy as supposedly retired from evil and happily married with two adopted children. The family is all plant clones of her husband, who's been locked up by her before we meet the clones.
    • Batman Beyond: Talia al Ghul appears in one episode, only to reveal at the end she's been possessed by her father decades ago.
    • Justice League
      • The pilot has a borderline case. The real Carter has some lines and screen time at the beginning, but the one the League has been dealing with has been replaced by an alien shapeshifter ages ago.
      • Vandal Savage who intends to marry Princess Audrey claims to be the grandson of the Savage who lived during WWII. In reality, both are undercover identities of an immortal with age in the five digit figures.
  • Futurama:
    • The aftermath of the second series finale leaves everyone but Farnsworth and Fry dead. Farnsworth uses a machine to revive everyone but it doesn't work on Leela. Fry is left heartbroken and has a robotic duplicate of Leela built to fill the void. This causes a conflict when the original Leela comes back to life and gets in a fight with the robot. In the scuffle, they accidentally blast a hole in Fry's chest, revealing he was also a robot the entire time. As it turns out, it was actually Leela and Farnsworth who survived with Fry's body being obliterated, so Leela got a robot copy of Fry, but in a freak accident, her body was destroyed and robo-Fry lost his short-term memory. Farnsworth just let everything play out, assuming the original Fry was beyond saving, but he got better.
    • In "The Silence of the Clamps", Bender had to go into the Witness Protection Program to stay safe from the Robot Mafia. While making a delivery on the moon, the crew meets a robot farmer that looks like Bender but claims to go by "Billy West", and doesn't know who they are. At first they think Bender is doing a pretty good acting job until Professor sees the robot's memory circuit and thinks Bender has been reprogrammed. Despite Zoidberg protecting the robot from Clamps, he is killed by the Donbot's daughter who Bender abandoned. The crew then grieves over Bender's apparent death at a pizza parlor, where it's revealed that's where Bender was actually hiding. Upon realizing that an innocent bot was killed... they celebrate the fact that with the Robot Mafia thinking Bender was dead, he can come out of hiding.
  • Gravity Falls: In the episode "Not What He Seems", Dipper and Mabel find a box filled with several fake IDs, passports, a newspaper with the headline "Stan Pines Dead", and a photo of Stan that calls him an "unnamed grifter" — this causes them to wonder if their "Grunkle" really is who he claims to be. In the next episode, "A Tale of Two Stans", it turns out that to some extent, they were right; Stan's full first name is revealed to be Stanley, not Stanford, and he took his twin brother's identity after the latter's disappearance. Stanley reveals that he had done all of this (including faking his own death in a car accident) to secretly find a way to bring back his brother Stanford, and lied to everyone because he couldn't handle the possibility of anyone finding out what actually happened.
  • The Legend of Vox Machina: The titular gang finds out that Brimscythe, the blue member of Thordak's Chroma Conclave, has been impersonating General Krieg (whom he killed long ago) the whole time. Krieg's troops find out this as well, but they are not as lucky since Brimscythe unleashes his wrath when they congregate in front of him.
  • Lost in Oz (2015): Dorothy Gale (a descendant of the well-known one) is transported to the modern world of Oz after saying an incantation and tries to find the right elements to get back to Kansas. She hears that Queen Glinda can help her get back, but it takes a very big effort to get her castle to come back to Oz. When she finally meets Glinda, the queen promises she'll help her go home and make Oz better. But after saying it, the Pearl of Pingaree she's wearing (which can detect whenever someone is lying) turns black. Realizing she's been caught, the villain Langwidere banishes her to a painting prison, where she finds the real Glinda, who has also been banished. Fortunately, they find a portal back to the real world and meet up with Dorothy's friends to plan how to defeat the evil Glinda.
  • Miraculous Ladybug: In the episode "Confrontation", Marinette finally manages to prove that her nemesis Lila has been lying about all of her accomplishments for the past four seasons, and has exposed enough of her misdeeds to finally get her expelled from College Francois Dupont...only for it turn out that Lila never existed in the first place. As Lila calmly departs the school, she discards a wig and a pair of contact lenses to reveal that she is Cerise, who's still a student in good standing somewhere else in the city. Not only that but somehow "Lila" has managed to convince three different women she's their daughter, making it unclear just who she really is.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "A Canterlot Wedding", Twilight Sparkle is very happy to see her older brother Shining Armor get married to her old foalsitter Princess Cadence. But when she notices how different Cadence is acting compared to how she remembered her, she tries to convince everyone that Cadence is up to something, but no one will listen to her. She's then banished by Cadence and finds the real Cadence. They help each other get back to the wedding and expose the imposter, who turns out to be a queen of a species whose entire thing is posing as other ponies and draining them of their love and energy.
  • The Owl House:
    • An in-universe example happens to the main character and her mother. Neither of them realized that the Luz is the Human Realm was a basilisk in disguise trying to escape their Dark and Troubled Past.
    • Invoked by Luz in "Clouds on the Horizon". After Kikimora threatens to take Hunter to Emperor Belos, who's planning on killing him, Luz convinces Gus to disguise her as Hunter and vice versa so he won't be put in danger. While the ploy ends up working, everyone is quite surprised when the "Luz" with them is revealed to be Hunter.
  • Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths and Legends: One episode has the team infiltrating Area 51 where, among the various items that are stored there, we see a human skeleton. Towards the end of the series, its revealed that that skeleton is actually that of James Rinaker, the director of the Alliance, except he's been dead since the Forties. The Rinaker that we've been seeing this whole time is in actuality a Shadoen agent sent to Earth to keep the various species that live there divided and fighting amongst themselves so they won't be able to mount a defense when the Shadoen assault fleet arrives.
  • She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:
    • In the fourth season, the heroes meet a young girl called Flutterina who is a fan of She-Ra and wants to join her as an ally. After she's invited to the team, it's revealed to the audience that she's actually the shapeshifter Double Trouble in disguise.
    • The fifth season has some of the characters attend a club that Prince Peekablue, usually a recluse, has been performing at, in the hope that he can provide them with useful information from his power of far sight. However, once again, it turns out to be Double Trouble.
  • The Simpsons: ''The Principal and the Pauper" reveals that Skinner is actually named Armin Tamzarian and was impersonating the "real" Seymour Skinner, who comes back and tries to replace him, then eventually gets run out of town in a parody of Status Quo Is God. However, the creators later decided the episode was no longer canon.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Spy Buddies", Plankton hasn't been up to anything for a while, so Mr. Krabs recruits SpongeBob and Patrick to spy on Plankton to find out what he's doing. At the end, it's revealed that this was because Mr. Krabs and Plankton disguised each other as the opposite and swapped places to see who could steal the Krabby Patty formula better.
  • Star Trek: The Animated Series: In the episode "The Survivor," our heroes find Carter Winston, who has been missing and presumed dead for years. It turns out that this guy is really a shapeshifting alien who has assumed Carter's identity after the real one died.
  • Steven Universe:
    • In "Open Book", Steven takes his friend Connie into Rose Quartz’s magical room to help her play out an alternate ending to her favorite fantasy novel series. The room can poof up any thing of Steven’s command, so Steven makes a costume shop for Connie to create her costume. Connie takes a while to dress, but once Steven asks to see her, she comes out of the shop in her costume. Throughout their attempt at creating a new ending, Connie keeps asking for what Steven wants whenever Steven asks her what she wants. This disappointed Steven for he intended this all to be for her. So once Steven tells her "I don't want you to just do what I want." Connie freaks out, and slips into a Broken Record. Steven then realizes that when he wanted to see Connie, the room listened, and created a clone of her. Meaning the real Connie is still in the costume shop!
    • Rose Quartz, the late leader of the Crystal Gems, had previously been stated to have shattered Pink Diamond, one of the four leaders of Homeworld. The big reveal of "A Single Pale Rose" is that Pink Diamond was Rose Quartz, and used Pearl to fake her shattering to lead the rebellion. Steven Universe: Future would introduce actual Rose Quartzes, including one that resembles the Crystal Gem Rose Quartz.
  • Transformers: Animated: Bumblebee's old friend Longarm, who helped him prove fellow Autobot Wasp was a Decepticon spy is revealed to actually be Shockwave, the real spy who framed Wasp to cover his tracks at the end of his first appearance. From that point forward, the series practically revels in the Dramatic Irony that none of the main characters know while the audience does — and that Longarm is so trusted by the Autobots that he's been promoted to Prime.
  • The Venture Bros.: In "O.S.I. Love You", government agents arrive at The O.S.I. to interview everybody to see what they have learned about the Guild. After making their leave, another group of agents arrive for an interview, with the team realizing the agents they've revealed everything too were actually the Investors in disguise.
  • W.I.T.C.H. (2004): Two of the heroes' allies on Meridian during the first season are Trill, a kind kitchen maid working in Prince Phobos' castle, and the Mage, the enigmatic mystic who resides in the Infinite City. Halfway the second season, they're both revealed to be disguises of the new Big Bad Nerissa. Trill turns out to be nothing more than a fake identity, and the real Mage has been dead (most likely by Nerissa's doing) for more than a decade.

 
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Mickey reveals the truth

Mickey reveals to Sora's party that the Ansem they fought on their first journey together is actually the Heartless of an impostor.

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4.9 (10 votes)

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Main / ImpostorAllAlong

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