Follow TV Tropes

Following

The Dividual

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dupondt_7.png
Detectives Thomson and Thompson (unrelated). Notice their ties and moustaches.

"They are a unit; they even share the same name."
— Description of MasterBlaster, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

Two (or more) characters who, for all intents and purposes, act as one character, always appear together and are never introduced individually. Even if there are frequent disagreements between the members of the Dividual, they will act as one entity as soon as the Plot moves on.

There are two types:

  • The Twindividual: The individuals making up the Dividual are near-identical or very similar in at least one but usually several aspects (appearance, character traits, way of talking, job etc.). Sometimes, the twindividuals' members differ in some conspicuous way (for example: one fat, one skinny) but are still uniform in all other ways. Finishing Each Other's Sentences is not uncommon among twindividuals.
  • The Syndividual: The individuals of which the Dividual consists have different looks and character traits but form a symbiotic relationship. Often their character types complement each other in some (comedic) way. They might have a division of labor thing going on, for example with one character being the spokesperson of the dividual.

The defining characteristic that sets a syndividual apart from a twindividual is the symbiotic aspect: a twindividual is just a homogenous crowd while a syndividual has a specific shtick with distinct roles. As a rule of thumb, twindividuals are based on the principle of Birds of a Feather while Opposites Attract in syndividuals.

Duos are the most common form of the Dividual, while trios are somewhat rarer but not unheard of. Larger groups are rarely depicted in this manner, but it does happen occasionally.

Typically, the Dividual is a background character or part of an Ensemble Cast but another frequent setup is something similar to an Adventure Duo where the two main characters form a dividual. This setup heavily restricts the available plots as the two main characters must always act as one in relation to other characters. In those cases, the work's name will often be simply the characters' names, in "Alice and Bob" fashion.

Might overlap with Heterosexual Life-Partners, Those Two Guys and/or Bumbling Henchmen Duo. Single-Minded Twins is a subtrope. Compare Literal Split Personality, Hive Mind, Fusion Dance, and I Am Legion. Two Beings, One Body is an inversion of sorts. See Puppet Fighter for two characters treated as one in gameplay. If the members of the Dividual are twins, expect any number of Twin Tropes (especially Single-Minded Twins) to be in place (although it's also possible for Polar Opposite Twins to be a Syndividual). Sometimes, the Dividual will exhibit Twin Tropes despite the fact that its members are not twins. For a romantic couple that is often referred to by a single name, see Portmanteau Couple Name. Over time, they may end up going through Divergent Character Evolution.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

Twindividual:

    Anime & Manga 
  • Black Lagoon has the 'vampire twins', going by Hansel and Gretel, who go so far as to switch clothes and names. After one dies, the other one even goes so far as to imitate the other's voice. They're widely considered some of the creepiest characters throughout the series.
  • Captain Tsubasa: The Tachibana twins, Kazuo and Masao. Their game heavily relies on them being Single-Minded Twins and combining with each other, and they never play separately. In the World Youth Arc, Coach Minato Gamo temporarily expels them from the Japanese Team so they break out of this trope and become able to play individually.
  • Daemons of the Shadow Realm has lots of examples of this, since the titular daemons come in pairs that can range from an upper and lower set of teeth, to a fast rabbit and a tortoise that can weigh you down so much you can't move. The twindividual ones tend to have simpler, more straightforward, and similar or complementary powers compared to syndividual ones.
  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba has Sumi Nakahara, Naho Takada and Kiyo Terauchi, three servants at the Butterfly Mansion. Despite not being related, they all look and sound very similar, are rarely seen apart and essentially share the same personality.
  • Uikyo and Kikyo in In the Heart of Kunoichi Tsubaki. The two of them almost mirror each other exactly in terms of appearance, color scheme and legwear withstanding. They also share the same personality, sometimes speaking and acting in tandem with one another, and are almost never seen without the other. However, they aren't actually related to each other, but are simply really close best friends, to the point where the manga itself dubs them the "best friend duo".
  • Fololo and Falala (or Lololo and Lalala in Japanese) in Kirby: Right Back at Ya! are a quite literal case of this; the duo function as a single being down to Finishing Each Other's Sentences, and rarely split apart, if ever... because they originally were a single being, cut in two by a Monster of the Week, Slice 'n' Splice.
  • The Matsuno sextuplets in Osomatsu-kun act like this often. While they do have slight differences between them and have their own individual adventures, they aren't fully distinguishable and most jokes involving them rely on their identical looks and personalities. Completely averted in Osomatsu-san, where they've experienced Divergent Character Evolution.
  • Ouran High School Host Club's Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin appear to be interchangeable, and in fact it later becomes a minor plot point that no one can tell them apart except Haruhi. They occasionally exhibit signs of being annoyed by this, but mostly seem to accept that to everyone else, they are a collective. Later in the series, however, the two begin to diverge from each other, and even start to hit notes of Polar Opposite Twins - once Kaoru starts to realize how dangerously codependent they've become and how limited they've allowed their world to be. Once they start to act individually it becomes apparent that Kaoru is much more reasonable and calm, if somewhat self-deprecating, and Hikaru is more aggressive and selfish, mostly because of his Tsundere personality; in other words, their Trickster Twins act was some compromise between them, making Kaoru less pleasant and Hikaru more.
  • Elle and Ille from Rio -Rainbow Gate!-, twin girls in Playboy Bunny outfits who work at a Casino. Ille always repeats the last word/phrase Elle says.
  • Seven of Seven has three Jerkass romantic rivals who often act and speak in unison, in addition to the eponymous character who's a Literal Split Personality.
  • Texhnolyze has Kano's three mothers acting basically like a single organism.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Meikyuu Brothers are basically the same character, but doubled, with their purpose being Tag Team Twins to duel against Yugi and Jonouchi. The two look practically the same, except their tattoos and the colors of their clothings, they use a team-based strategy and their both liars. In the manga, both of the doors their guarding leads to the same room.
  • The Half-Identical Twins from Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, Luca and Lua, are often treated as one character, which is even reflecting in the name of Team 5D's. While this is partially true and the twins do have a very strong bond, this trope is often subverted. For most of the time, Lua is treated as an extra to his younger sister Luca, mostly because of him being not a Signer until the Grand Finale. Lua is also given more screen time and character interactions, despite Luca being technically more important to the plot and setting than her brother.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: The Tyler Sisters, Gloria and Grace, are another pair of Tag Team Twins, and unlike other examples, they both use the same archetype, meaning they can support each other perfectly. Their personalities and appearances are differentiated as Polar Opposite Twins, but ultimately, both of them pull a Heel–Face Turn at the same time.

    Asian Animation 
  • In the Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf season Flying Island: The Sky Adventure, there's barely anything to set apart any of the seven Rainbow Beans besides their color schemes; they're the same competitive and obnoxious character otherwise.

    Comic Books 
  • The Avengers: The Blood Brothers are two bulky alien twins, whose powers are based on how close they are to one another. Leading to this trope to the fullest.
  • Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Huey, Dewey and Louie. The fact that they have all the exact same personality, and are impossible to tell apart without their hats, means that they're basically one boy with three bodies. The early comics even had their dialogue as one speech bubble with three arrows, when they weren't Finishing Each Other's Sentences instead. The DuckTales (1987) cartoon gives each brother a role he plays more often than not: Louie (green) tends to consult the book, Dewey (blue) tends to voice the collective decisions and Huey (red) tends to be the first to act; one episode is a clear subvertion — Dewey tries to leave The Dividual when frustrated that no one outside their family can tell them apart; still, the triplets are mostly interchangeable. Averted in Quack Pack and DuckTales (2017).
    • Interestingly, the 2017 reboot does poke fun at the triplets' dividuality from the comics:
      Lena: That's cute, with the names and the color-coded outfits... is that your thing, you're all exactly the same?
      Huey, Dewey, & Louie: Ha, no way! We're all unique snowflakes... Well, this usually never happens! This is really weird! Okay, stop talking! (beat) Antidisestablishmentarianism! Seriously?! GAH!
  • Dreamkeepers: The Indigo twins: Indi and Digo, indistinguishable in any way and always working together. Their fur patterns are inverse, but they keep changing colours and patterns, also synchronously.
  • Legion of Super-Heroes: Triplicate Girl's alien race the Carggites have the natural ability to split into three identical bodies. In most continuities, each group of three is treated as a Trividual. But the Post Zero Hour version of Triplicate Girl, named Triad, was persecuted by Carggite society because her three selves had distinct personalities (one aggressive, one submissive, and one balanced between the two). Her aunt secretly had the same condition and claimed that this was actually the natural state for Carggites, and that their culture's insistence on making each person's parts act the same was cruel and harmful.
  • Noob: Non Player Characters Bartémulius and Nostariat.
  • Spider-Man: Carnage is the result of the symbiotic bonding between serial killer Cletus Kasady and the offspring of the Venom symbiote, with the former being in complete control and the latter usually being completely subservient to him, acting as an extension of his body.
  • Tintin: Dupont and Dupond (Thomson and Thompson for the English-speakers).

    Fairy Tales 
  • This trope is quite common in fairy tales. For example, in the Russian fairy tale, "Seven Simeons", (here)", brothers share the same name, look almost identical and always help each other with their trades.

    Films — Animation 
  • Bambi: Thumper's sisters all look and act identically to each other, to the point where both the midquel and Disney's Bunnies series drop a sister with absolutely no change to the dynamic. They aren't even given individual names outside of the latter.
  • Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker: Dee Dee are twin sisters in the Jokerz gang who form a Siblings in Crime team and are generally referred to as if they were one person. Apparently, their real names are Delia and Deidre Dennis, and they're Harley Quinn's granddaughters.
  • Beauty and the Beast: The Bimbettes (Gaston's fangirls) trio are, for all intents and purposes, a single entity, as they always appear together, do the same things at the same time, and have identical designs outside of their outfits' colors.
  • Finding Nemo: The seagulls are a flock of some thirty or forty individuals, but they're also very flat characters with the same exact design, behavior and personality as one another, and all act together with the singular goal of eating food.
  • How to Train Your Dragon (2010): Ruffnut and Tuffnut are fraternal twins so similar, aside from respectively being female and male, that their choice of a two-headed zippleback as a dragon steed could be foreseen from the film's beginning. They're so accustomed to living and working side-by-side that background dialogue in one scene has Ruffnut fail to recognize her own twin, because she's sitting on the wrong side of Tuffnut for a change.
  • Kronk's New Groove: Kronk's dual secretaries, Tina and Marge, who look nearly identical except for their hair and sound exactly alike. A running gag is that Kronk gets the two mixed up and them having to correct him.
  • The Triplets of Belleville:
    • The eponymous Triplets essentially function as a single character and are seen together for the majority of their screen time. They shortly separate only when one of them goes frog-fishing.
    • The French Mafia goons are not only identical, they're frequently shown in pairs standing so close together that their suits appear to merge into one big square of black. The ones we're first introduced to even mirror each other's movements.
  • Turning Red: Aaron T. and Aaron Z. are almost always next to each other, to the point it's difficult for casual viewers to tell which is which. It's particularly noticeable that Mei elaborately describes Robaire, Jesse, and Tae Young's unique traits and then glosses over Aaron T. and Aaron Z. by simply saying that they are "like, really talented, too".

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd from the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever. They hang out together, they work together, they are always together.
  • The Gunfighter: Eddie's brothers are all unnamed and fairly indistinct in terms of being vengeance-seeking Determinators who share their screen time.
  • The albino ghost twins in The Matrix Reloaded. They're identical twins that dress alike, fight in concert and can't seem to say an entire sentence without the other's help. As they're constructs of the Matrix, they're probably either one partially corrupt program or copies of each other. The trios of Agents do a lot of this, too.
  • Alfred Borden and "Fallon" from The Prestige in order to live as the perfect magic act. They regularly switch between who is Alfred and who is Fallon so both get equal time in the spotlight, but their secret is kept from everyone, including their lovers.
  • Bill & Ted: Across all three movies, they are almost never seen apart, have practically the exact same personality and frequently Speak in Unison. By the time of Bill & Ted Face the Music they say "We love you" to their wives, being seemingly incapable of perceiving themselves to be separate.
    • Their wives Joanna and Elizabeth are also an example: they're never seen apart and don't seem to have separate personalities at all (they are also sisters).
    • In Bill & Ted Face the Music their daughters Billy and Thea are likewise the same, only being different in their appearance. They refer to their father and uncle collectively as "dads".
    • And then there's Station, who is literally one mind in two bodies, with the ability to merge back into one being when needed.

    Literature 
  • Baccano!: Isaac and Miria share an entry on the cast page. People within the series get the same impression as well, so much so that the mere fact that Miria shows up to the Genoard mansion alone in Alice in Jails alerts Jacuzzi's gang that something has gone very wrong (namely, that Isaac was arrested and sent to Alcatraz).
  • Book of Brownies have it's three main characters, the brownie trio Hop, Skip and Jump who literally spends every chapter together, speaking in unison as if they're a single entity. Jump did get separated from the trio at one point when they're fleeing from the evil Red Goblin, but rejoins Hop and Skip literally three pages later.
  • Word of God notes that the three Ravers of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant are like this; Donaldson envisioned them as "perfect minions" and so never bothered giving them distinct personalities or motivations, so they'd be completely interchangeable; as far as the plot is concerned, they might as well be one creature that can be in three places at once. To add another layer, they're also all pretty much lesser copies of their boss, Lord Foul.
  • The Three in the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids story Marksmanship-526 and the Secret Society Stratagem, who represent the Third Universe at a meeting of interdimensional delegates, are described as "three identical grim-faced men" wearing identical golden outfits, and they never get individual names. Notably, it's suggested that they're wearing A Form You Are Comfortable With, meaning their true forms may be more individual, with them only looking the same because they all used the same disguise.
  • Durarara!!:
  • In the sci-fi detective novel Emissaries Of The Dead, the cylinked twins Oscin and Skye Porrinyard are this. They're very similar in appearance, except that one is male and one is female, and through cybernetic modification, they essentially have one merged consciousness.
  • Harry Potter:
    • Fred and George, the Weasley twins. Fred is the more outgoing one and George is slightly more reserved, but it's easy to miss considering they share a love of colorful pranks and are almost always together. Until Deathly Hallows, that is, when George is nearly killed and Fred has to deal with his brother's potential death. Then George gets his taste of this when Fred is actually killed.
    • Example of characters who are not literal twins: Crabbe and Goyle, two big Slytherin boys who basically exist to follow Malfoy around looking menacing and laughing at his jokes. This lasts until book seven, where Crabbe develops a bigger nasty streak than Malfoy or Goyle and gets himself killed.
  • Ultimately subverted in Horus Heresy. As mentioned in Tabletop Games section, Alpharius and Omegon are publicly known as one person, called, appropriately, Alpharius Omegon, and they are both Single-Minded Twins and capable of seamlessly pretending to be one another, but as the Heresy goes on, there's a bigger and bigger gap growing between the two.
  • Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth: Malcolm, Colin and Dunkan Makenzie possess aspects of both twindividual and syndividual. Malcolm's genetic defect prevents him from conceiving healthy children, so he turned to cloning to produce a heir. Since Colin inherited his father's faulty gene, his son Duncan is also a clone. On one hand they predictably have very similar physique and their ways of thinking are similar enough that they can finish each other's sentences, predict each other's reactions and communicate in a form of shorthand. On the other hand there's the obvious age difference and they have differing but complementing personalities with Malcolm being pragmatic and formal, Colin being more amiable and charismatic, and Duncan being more emotional and less down-to-earth than the other two. The syndividual aspect is at least partially intentional as Malcolm decided to focus Colin's education and upbringing on areas he himself lacked skill in.
  • This trope's Older Than Print: Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris from Le Morte D Arthur and various other Arthurian legends are the two youngest Orkney brothers. Aside from Gareth's brief stint as hero of his own tale in Malory's version, the two are so closely associated that it's not always clear which one is speaking, which barely matters as they're never shown to hold a separate opinion and even ultimately die in the same way for the same cause. In some versions they even marry near-identical sisters, though their wives' personalities very much reflect Sibling Yin-Yang, in contrast to their own closeness in temperament. Some scholars now believe that this might be due to Gareth and Gaheris starting out as a single character who got divided in two due to a transmission error.
  • In Marcel Aymé's collection of short stories Les contes du chat perché (translated as The Magic Pictures and The Wonderful Farm), the parents of the protagonists (two little girls) are handled as a single entity for everything they do and say, with only one or two occurrences of only one of them speaking. Even when they grab something the girls had been hiding, the narrative mentions that they hold it with their four hands. The girls themselves are close to be a syndividual, as they seldom do anything separately, but they at least have different names and personalities.
  • "Samneric", the twins from Lord of the Flies. That's right, the two are referred to by one name. They once were referred to individually as "Sam and Eric", but they are increasingly treated by the other boys as a single entity over the course of the book. In one scene, they are described as having trouble keeping guard because they are unused to sleeping non-simultaneously.
  • The fanboys Lyle and Lloyd in Geoph Essex's Lovely Assistant are Heterosexual Life-Partners who play this very, very straight.
    Talking to the fanboys was like talking to one person with two heads and an insatiable appetite for breakfast foods.
  • Scorch and Leff in the eighth book of the Malazan Book of the Fallen. While Scorch seems perpetually surprised by everything, Leff is more on the suspicious side, but otherwise they seem a lot alike and they always act and are perceived by others as one entity, and mostly serve as comic relief. Until they turn out to be surprisingly competent.
  • Meg Langslow Mysteries: ''No Nest for the Wicket" features two realtors who are pretty similar in appearance and personality, share all of their scenes, and are both named Suzie. Other characters call them either "the Suzies" or "the clones."
  • Kay and Lorna from Monster Girl Doctor are both war orphans that were adopted by the Arte family. Despite not being blood related, they look and act similarly enough that they're often referred to as "the twins".
  • Thingumy and Bob from The Moomins. Both have a similar personality and appearance, and they are practically always together and inseparable. When the Hobgoblin went around granting people's wishes in Finn Family Moomintroll, the two of them got one shared wish because he couldn't tell them apart. The main way to differentiate them is through their clothes: Thingumy has a red hat and blue clothes, while Bob is dressed in red.
  • Sora and Shiro take this to the extreme in No Game No Life. They're nearly invincible when playing together, but if they get separated even briefly they'll instantly have nervous breakdowns.
  • Percy Jackson and the Olympians give us Travis and Connor Stoll, the Joint Head-Counselors of the Hermes Cabin. They aren't twins, but they might as well be, as no one seems to be able to remember who's older and who's younger, and they look very, very similar. They're also unrepentant pranksters (not surprising given their godly parent) making them rather like the Weasley Twins in Harry Potter.
  • Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans are a syndividual in Jules Verne's Robur the Conqueror.
  • Gestalt from The Rook is the extreme version of this trope: four siblings who, collectively, are Gestalt. As in one being with four bodies, constantly seeing through eight eyes. Apparently Gestalt can make the four adopt different mannerisms around people who don't know they're a hive mind, but we never see them bother to be anything other than lockstep creepy in the novel.
  • Irri and Jhiqui, the handmaidens to Daenerys Targaryen, from A Song of Ice and Fire. They are nearly always mentioned together, they have a Share Phrase, and are more or less interchangeable.
  • Craig and Fry, the insurance detectives from Jules Verne's Tribulations of a Chinaman in China. The two were an inspiration for Tintin's Thompson and Thomson, although these are quite competent. They're never seen away from each other, never referred to separately, alternate words to form complete sentences, and don't even bother talking to each other as they have the exact same thoughts.
  • The Ruzzo brothers from The Vampire Files are Chicago gangsters who look so much alike, and so seldom work apart from each other, that their fellow-gangsters refer to them in the singular as often as the plural (e.g. "Tell Ruzzo to get their butt in the car, already.")
  • The clone society in Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm likes to view its various clone "families" this way. Their society starts to fall apart when a few members start to rediscover individuality.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Twins Cody and Logan from Baskets are always seen and mentioned together, following up seamlessly on what the other says, working together as a DJ act and lacking the Twin Desynch of their elder adopted twin brothers.
  • Scully and Hitchcock from Brooklyn Nine-Nine are inseparable partners and essentially interchangeable, characterized equally by their laziness, stupidity and gluttony.
    Hitchcock: And once again, Hitchcock and Scully save the day.
    Amy: You didn't do anything. It was all Scully.
    Hitchcock: We're a package deal, everyone knows that.
  • Doctor Who: The Osgoods, introduced in "The Day of the Doctor", are a human woman and a Zygon who originally impersonated her for nefarious purposes. They ended up getting along swimmingly, and made themselves into symbols of the peace treaty between humans and Zygons, refusing to tell anyone which is which. In "Death in Heaven", Missy kills one of them, but the survivor still refuses to spill the beans. Eventually, another Zygon takes the place of the dead Osgood. So now they consist of either a human and a Zygon or two Zygons. They still refuse to tell anyone which is which. They even have a Psychic Link so what one knows, both know. (According to Ingrid Oliver, their actress, it is possible to tell which Osgood is which — and she and the writers know — but no-one has been able to figure it out yet.)
  • Kamen Rider Double, fittingly, has two examples, one of each type:
    • Detectives Makky and Jinno are the Syndividual, constantly disagreeing and arguing in funny ways but rarely seen apart except in the movies.
    • High school students Queen and Elizabeth are the Twindividual: nearly indistinguishable, completely inseparable, and treated by the plot as a single character.
  • Letterkenny: Reilly and Jonesy are best friends and hockey teammates who have identical personalities. They do everything as a pair, including playing (or coaching) hockey well or poorly, entering a spelling bee as a pair, and regularly swapping or sharing sexual partners. Wayne mentions not being able to tell them apart, and Katy, who formerly dated them as a pair, often calls them Pete and Repeat. Their only time spent apart was when Katy decided to date only Reilly, which quickly fizzled as he could not be apart from Jonesy.
  • Power Rangers:
  • Star Trek:
    • The Bynars of Star Trek: The Next Generation are a species of twindividuals.
    • In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "twinned Miradorn" (presumably there are non-twinned ones to whom this doesn't apply) are considered two halves of the same being. When one is killed before the other, the surviving twin calls his mourning a "loss of self," and his only purpose left in life is to avenge his twin before joining him in death.
  • The trio of jocks from Student Bodies. The cartoon shots even depict them as a single person with three heads.
  • Teen Wolf: Identical twins Ethan and Aiden are introduced as an inseparable set. Even their shifted alpha form is a physical merging of the two into a single hulking form. They are not developed as individual characters until Aiden is killed.
  • Ed and Larry from The West Wing. It was occasionally lampshaded that the main characters couldn't remember which of them was which.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Vampire: The Masquerade had a Sabbat only artificial bloodline created by Tzimisce, the Blood Brothers. They actually straddle the line between Twindividual and Syndividual, since Blood Brother groups tended to have more than two members, who would look identical, have similar personalities and generally act as one organism, to the point of lending each other blood, limbs and other body parts.
  • Warhammer 40,000 gives us Alpharius Omegon, the Primarch of the Alpha Legion. In reality they were Alpharius and Omegon, who were identical twins and are described as "two bodies, but one soul". As their combat doctrine focused on espionage, deception, and covert ops, force they frequently switched places for their own ends; and to complicate matters, the entire Alpha Legion also looks like them, and one of their calling cards was that each one identified themselves as "Alpharius". When they interacted with other members of the Imperium formally, Alpharius was the public face, while Omegon's existence was one of the best kept secrets in the galaxy.

    Theatre 
  • Exaggerated in The Gondoliers, where Marco and Giuseppe jointly become the King of Barataria until it can be settled which one of them it really is, and they make comical attempts to act "as one individual" by Finishing Each Other's Sentences and singing recitatives in unison.
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Shakespeare's Hamlet are treated as this. Their interchangeability and uniformity is hinted at by Shakespeare in the very choice of their names, which exhibit the same metric properties and ethnic background. Their dividuality is further played with in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, to the point that two characters can't agree on which one is which.
  • The River City School Board in The Music Man: Ewart Dunlop, Oliver Hix, Jacey Squires and Olin Britt. They were at each other's throats for 15 years, but once Harold Hill teaches them to sing barbershop quartet music, he predicts that the townspeople will "never see one of those men without the other three."
  • The two "Nieces" in Peter Grimes almost never do anything separately, and sing mostly in unison, harmony or canon with each other.
  • Westeros: An American Musical: The Sand Snakes are inseparable and have similar personalities. They are even introduced via the play's Song Parody of Hamilton's "The Schulyer Sisters".

    Video Games 
  • The Luteces, brother-and-sister inventors of Columbia's floating city technology in BioShock Infinite always appear side by side, snarking at each other and at Dewitt. They are identical in almost every way, same clothes, same mode of speech, same age, same builds - except one is male (Robert) and one is female (Rosalind). It's later revealed that they're not brother and sister. They're the same person but from different dimensions - one born male, one born female.
  • In Broforce, the Boondock Bros (an Expy of The Boondock Saints) count for all intents and purposes as one character, despite being two people. They are controlled similarly to the Ice Climbers in Super Smash Bros..
  • The Twins in The Cave control and act exactly the same as any single other character. Careful study of their movements raises the question of whether there still really are two of them or if by the present date one has been replaced by a life-size ventriloquist's dummy.
  • Chess Choco Cookie from Cookie Run. While they have individual names (Pawn White Cookie and Pawn Black Cookie), they act as one, as seen in their quote below.
    Pawn White Cookie: There's two of us!
    Pawn Black Cookie: But we act as one.
  • Jaryn and Kerith from Dance Central are Half-Identical Twins that are similar in every other aspect, both physical and behavioral, to the point other characters think they're creepy. There's a reason these two are always introduced together both in-game and in media; they're basically the same person, split into two only because the game needs two dancers per crew.
  • Dead Man's Hand have the Twins, a Dual Boss who's together everywhere, including their boss fight. You even see them on a "Wanted!" Poster - two faces in a single sheet.
  • Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening gives us Agni and Rudra - a pair of sentient demonic swords who first appear as a Dual Boss, and are always together in their limited cutscene screentime. They also collectively share the same title of "The Firestorm". When defeated, they offer their services to Dante in slicing, dicing, and occasionally commenting on combos he pulls off while using them. Even then, these two are indivisible in-game; you can't equip them in any way other than simultaneous Dual Wielding.
  • In Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle starting with the SR unit [Unbridled Horror] Androids #17 and #18, there are units that are comprised of two characters that act as one unit. The Joined Forces category comprises itself of characters that are like this.
  • Morris and Derek, background dancers from Elite Beat Agents.
  • EXTRAPOWER has a few dividual pairs. In Attack of Darkforce, each of these examples emphasize this aspect by making them into a single combat unit each:
    • Davie and Marie, Zophy's friends who follow him on adventures. They're commonly simply called Davimari for how much the two are thought of as one package deal.
    • Ranran and En, a diminutive but powerful disciple of the spirit medium Master Wu and the large Youkai who protects her.
    • Mashura and Hashura, two ninjas who together form Shura Soshu. The brother-sister team is considered so close that the death of one is paramount to the death of both.
  • In Fate/Grand Order there are a few of these.
    • Valkyrie is actually three different warriors, and each different ascension swaps one for another instead of increasing their power, as they have already reached their limits. They also act like a Hive Mind, capable of linking with other Valkyries (although there aren't any left).
    • Euryale and Stheno are both sisters, and refer to each other as themselves. However unlike the other examples, they are separate Servants, and are lonely if you don't have the other one.
    • Katsushika Hokusai and his daughter Oi also qualify, because they both have historically used the "Hokusai" name when painting, which is reflected in their Saint Graph.
    • The Dioscuri are actually the titular twins Castor and Pollux working as a Brother–Sister Team. In-game, they're classed as a Saber, but in lore only Pollux is the Saber while Castor is an Avenger (which is reflected by their unit having all the Avenger class's passive skills). Notably, it's emphasized compared to other dividual Servants where their normal attacks as well as their Noble Phantasm has both of them fight together instead of the usual formula where only one of them does the majority of the attacks until the Noble Phantasm where the dividual Servants then work together. Personality-wise, they diverge, as Castor is a somewhat arrogant Jerkass with a Inferiority Superiority Complex while Pollux is a Nice Girl who has to rein her brother in. Their Lostbelt versions are worse, with Castor's negative traits being exaggerated while Pollux is a Yes-Man to her brother.
  • Thorn and Zorn from Final Fantasy IX. In fact, they're literally one person, as shown when they rejoin into Meltigemini for their boss fight.
  • Fire Emblem Engage:
    • The Emblem of the Sacred consists of Eirika and Ephraim, both representing Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. This, however, is only for combat, as all non-combat moments (and mid-battle dialogue) exclusively use Eirika, with Ephraim nowhere to be found.
    • With the DLC expansion pass come two more Emblems that serve as Dividuals: First is the Emblem of Rivals, an Emblem containing all three the Academy-Era iterations of Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and the Emblem of Bonds, featuring Chrom and Robin, the main characters of Fire Emblem: Awakening. Unlike the Emblem of the Sacred, the Emblem of Rivals and Emblem of Bonds all have the characters part of them show up outside of combat.
  • I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: Despite having their own profiles in Sol's friend list, Sol never runs into Marz's dads separately.
  • Kirby Star Allies has the Three Mage Sisters, while initially introduced individually, they can be unlocked as a single Dream Friend and together they make a huge Game-Breaker.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, the boss of Stone Tower Temple is a pair of enormous worm-like monsters collectively known as Twinmold. Other than one being red and the other being blue (and having weaknesses to ice or fire arrows respectively), everything else about them is the same. The description for Twinmold's Remains, the Plot Coupon you receive for defeating them, refers to Twinmold as the boss (not bosses) of Stone Tower Temple. Also, if you return to Stone Tower Temple during a future cycle, you will be greeted with the message "Ye who hold my remains... Return to the appointed place to face me". While this is the same exact message that all the dungeon bosses give, it further supports the fact that Twinmold is a single entity. note 
  • Neptunia: Rom and Ram are Polar Opposite Twins, but they are almost always together. Their core personalities are reflections of their older sister Blanc's two extreme character traits (to the point that Neptune once joked that if you add Rom and Ram together and divide the result by two, you get Blanc) with Rom being an introverted but polite Shrinking Violet being a reflection of Blanc's nature as The Stoic and Ram being an extroverted prankster being a reflection of Blanc's Hair-Trigger Temper, the twins have almost identical movesets, have basically the same weapons and matching costumes, they get upgrades at the same time and they always join the party at the same time. Their goddess forms are even more of a Palette Swap than they already are in their human forms, and they share the same divine name: White Sister. Later games do differentiate then a bit more by giving Ram a more offensive kit while Rom is mostly support.
  • 1010 from No Straight Roads is a group of androids in a Boy Band. The androids are always a unit, look exactly alike save for hair style and hair color, and even all have the same voice. They serve as a satire of over-produced boy bands as if one unit is destroyed, their manager can replace them with an exact copy, meaning they're a literal manufactured band.
  • The Outfoxies: Despite no longer being Conjoined Twins following a train accident, Danny and Demi still look very much alike and do everything together... including assassination.
  • Pokémon:
    • Exeggcute consists of six largely identical egg-shaped seeds, linked to one another by a telepathic bond. When they evolve, they become a single organism in Exeggutor, albeit with multiple heads.
    • Introduced in Gen VI, Binacle always co-exist in pairs, living in the same rock. The paired constituents often squabble with one another, and, if they bother one another too much, they may even leave and seek out a new rock to inhabit with a new partner. Upon evolving into Barbaracle, the two Binacle become seven, with six acting as the limbs and the leader forming the head. The individual Binacle that form the limbs do have minds of their own and can function independently, though they usually follow the head Binacle's orders.
    • From Gen VIII, Falinks is treated as a single Pokémon, but is comprised of a unit of six smaller creatures. Five of them (the troopers) are identical to one another, while the leader (referred to as the 'brass') is larger and has a longer horn, directing the troopers from the front of their formations.
    • Gen IX introduces Tandemaus, consisting of two identical-looking mice being treated as a single Pokémon. The two are exceptional in teamwork and even divide up their food evenly. They evolve into Maushold, which adds a smaller mouse or two.
    • The "Indigo Disk" DLC of this same generation introduces Hydrapple, which, despite its name suggesting an example of a Multiple Head Case, consists of seven snakelike 'syrpents' coexisting within an apple-shaped glob of syrup. One acts as the commander and is always visible sticking out of the top, two bring up the rear to provide mobility, and the remaining four hide within the sides, ready to pop out.
  • The DeWynter Sisters in Saints Row: The Third seem to have this relationship - never being seen without one another and operating as co-right hands to Loren. At least until Kiki's death, that is. However, they're reunited in Hell in Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell.
  • Popo and Nana in their appearance in Super Smash Bros., though they weren't like this in their original game.
  • 0b10 from Temtem is a pair of 0b1 that constantly orbit each other.
  • The Battle Cats:
    • Rope Jump Cat's evolved form, Pair Rope Jump Cat, consists of two cats jumping rope, and they fight as a single unit. This also applies to the Bean Cats, Gentleman Bros., Figure Skating Cats, Sushi Cats, and Twinstars. The Lifeguard Cats are similar, but consist of three cats stacked on top of each other.
    • Those Guys are a trio of wimpy stick figures who like to gang up, and fight as one very weak enemy. Strangely, the enemy Trolly Blogger, which is a single stick figure, has higher base stats.
  • Team Jump from Thomas Was Alone. They are identical squares sharing all the same abilities and being entirely interchangeable. Team Jump is inseparable, to the point where they do not even appear to have individual names. They are simply Team Jump. They pride themselves on their teamwork, and overcome obstacles together to advance as a single unit.

    Visual Novels 
  • Played with and deconstructed in multiple games in the Danganronpa series:
    • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc has twin sisters Junko Enoshima, the Ultimate Fashionista and Mukuro Ikusaba, the Ultimate Soldier. Together they are the Ultimate Despair and cause the Tragedy to alleviate Enoshima's boredom. Enoshima is the brains and Ikusaba is the brawn, making up a Syndividual relationship, although the nature of their relationship isn't explored until the novels Danganronpa Zero and Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc IF and then Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School. It's played with, as Enoshima can operate perfectly fine without Ikusaba, but Ikusaba is extremely dependent on Enoshima, obeying her without question and even gets excited by the fact Enoshima wants to kill her too. Ikusaba believes Enoshima needs her just as much as she needs Enoshima, as she rants about to Enoshima's own memory-wiped self in Zero, causing the mind-wiped and chronically amnesic personality Ryoko Otonashi to realize just how incredibly unhealthy the relationship between the twins is and that Ikusaba's love for Enoshima's is more than sisterly. The only time Ikusaba disobeys Enoshima is in an alternate universe, and only after her crush almost dies to save her from the attack Enoshima used to kill her in the main timeline. However, while Enoshima is flashy, loud, rude and overt to the extreme, Ikusaba is quiet and reserved, down to Enoshima's outlandish fashion compared to Ikusaba's basic school uniform which she only adds a combat vest to when needed. However, both are extremely brutal killers, although Ikusaba tends to go for the quick kill and Enoshima prefers torturous, sadistic kills with death traps that would put a Bond villain to shame. Enoshima's first intentional on-screen kill involves shooting a man to space and then having him crash back down, reducing him to bones. Ikusaba just stabs people.
    • Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair features Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu, the Ultimate Yakuza and Peko Pekoyama, the Ultimate Swordswoman and his bodyguard, whom operate in a Syndividual way. Kuzuryu is a loud, brash, egotistical and very swear-happy person, whereas Pekoyama is quiet, reserved and polite but utterly subservient to him. Pekoyama sees herself as his “sword”, having been raised to serve him and carry out his orders without question, and doesn’t consider her own needs or self meaningful at all, only his own. Kuzuryu meanwhile absolutely hates this, due to actually loving her and wanting her to be her own person. This eventually gets her killed due to her killing one of the people involved in his sister's murder so he wouldn't, leading to him losing his eye and almost dying trying to save her from her execution.
    • Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony has Korekiyo Shinguji and his unnamed sister, working as one-body Twindividual. However, she’s dead and only exists as his split personality. Maybe. She might actually be her actual spirit possessing him, but either way he has become a serial killer in order to give her “friends” in the afterlife. He wears her makeup at all times while hiding it with a sickness mask (when she/“she” is speaking she removes it), was explicitly involved in an incestuous relationship with her prior to her death, they appear to have been extremely physically similar prior to her death, and she made his uniform for him which he always wears. His interest in the supernatural parts of human mythology appear to be tied to his inability to let her go, he knows rituals for invoking the dead and his execution features her spirit separate from him so it’s quite possible she really was possessing him. Either way, based on the fact they were the only people they spent time with in life, his interest in his talent was born from his time with her and they had the same dynamic in life, just with less serial killing they were clearly this way back when she was alive.
  • Virus and Trip from DRAMAtical Murder are often seen together, share a bad ending together, dress as the exact opposite of each other's outfit, work in the yakuza, and are both leaders of Morphine and dangerously obsessed with Aoba.
  • Hiveswap Friendsim: Soleil Twins. The new Troll Call page doesn't know whether to refer to them as "Two clowns, or two halves of one clown," and they state that they were supposed to be one troll but divided into two before they hatched.

    Web Animation 
  • The Gemini twins from AstroLOLogy are referred to as a single entity in episode titles and fortune messages, outside of the prototype shorts (where the one with three eyes is named Gerry and the one with one eye is named Gary) and the Japanese dub (which refers to them as Mittsu and Itchi respectively).
  • Charlie the Unicorn has the pair of pink and blue unicorns that... are never given names, so fans have taken to just calling them "Pink and Blue". Always together. They are practically the same person twice, minus the color swap, and their collective insanity operates on the exact same wavelength, leaving poor Charlie hopelessly lost and at their mercy.
  • Happy Tree Friends: The raccoon twins Lifty and Shifty look identical and both enjoy stealing things. The only difference is that the latter always wears a fedora.
  • FUWAMOCO of hololive EN Advent consists of the twins Fuwawa and Mococo Abyssgard, who have very similar models save for secondary colors (Fuwawa has blue and Mococo pink) and stated that they share many goals, likes, and dislikes in their debut. They always stream together, even sharing the same channel to do so.
  • RWBY: The twins Corsac and Fennec Albain. During their Volume 4 arc, they act and are refereed to as an unit rather than two separated people. However, in Volume 5, Fennec is killed during the failed Belladonna siege, leaving Corsac to suffer a Villainous Breakdown in grief as he's arrested.

    Web Comics 
  • The Lydian Option: The Cotyorites (Proxenus, Nicarchus, and Clearchus) are highly similar looking members of a philosopher race that appear together (and complete dialogue together).
  • Phantomarine: Cheth. He is particularly fond of taking the form of a pair of Creepy Twins.
  • The Order of the Stick: The Inter-Fiend Cooperation Commission is composed of Lee (a devil), Nero (a daemon) and Cedrik (a demon) that always talk and act as a trio. They're basically interchangeable, and despite being supposedly of different evil alignments, don't really have distinct personalities. Sabine describes their team dynamic in strip #903, but they'd still be identical without the color-coding.
  • Stand Still, Stay Silent: Håkan, Sune and Anna Västerström, the children of the couple behind the expedition. They all have Bratty Half-Pint as their main character trait and are always acting together in their antics, which makes them quite a handful for any adult trying to deal with them alone.

    Web Videos 
  • Noob: Bartémulius and Nostariat, the pair of Insufferable Genius alchemists that are a recurring Quest Giver and Escort Mission charge in the franchise. The only time Bartémulius was seen alone was in the webseries version, when Nostariat's actress couldn't show up for filming. While they are Fat and Skinny in addition to being different sexes, their lines of dialogue tend to be quite similar.

    Western Animation 
  • Bob's Burgers: Andy and Ollie Pesto, to the point where being assigned separate partners on a field trip causes them to have an emotional breakdown.
  • Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars!: Frix and Frax, the Toad Air Marshal's twin assistants, almost never appear separately.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door:
    • The Interesting Twins from Beneath the Mountain, despite being brother and sister and having distinct personalities, invariably act as a team. It helps that the shade on their faces make each one resemble half of a Yin-Yang.
    • The five Delightful Children from Down the Lane. They are five kids from different families, but they function as an individual. They stick close enough together that they're in physical contact with each other, never separate (except on two occasions, which become major plot points for those episodes), occupy the same seat at school, and even speak in unison. The only reason why they aren't a Hive Mind is that their actions and reactions become different from each other when panicked — otherwise, they're on identical mental wavelengths.
  • Donald Duck: Huey, Dewey, and Louie functioned like this in most of their original appearances. Eventually, they started being portrayed with distinct personalities (and, in Quack Pack, distinct appearances), but what these personalities were never stayed consistent from one series to the next, so on a meta level, they might as well still be interchangeable.
  • The Fairly OddParents!: Tad and Chad are almost identical twins except one of them is white and the other is black and are usually treated like a single person. In one episode they both ran for class president as a single candidate and won.
  • G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero: The twin employers of Extensive Enterprises are this; best noticed when they are speaking. The only way to tell them apart is Xamot's facial scar.
  • My Little Pony:
    • My Little Pony 'n Friends: The bushwoolies typically appear in groups of up to a dozen, without names or distinct personalities, and are never seen alone. Their tendency to speak quickly and talk over each other also makes it impossible to tell which one is saying any specific thing. For all narrative intents and purposes, they act as a single character that so happens to have several designs on-screen at any given time.
      • "The End of Flutter Valley" averts this by giving the three bushwoolies in its story unique names and character traits; it doesn't stick.
      • This is lampshaded in "Sweet Stuff and the Treasure Hunt", where they turn out to be the last thing to be found in a scavenger hunt — the clue leading to them describes the item to be found as "Something that is one even when it is many". Sweet Stuff works this out while trying to rescue a group of them who got stuck in a tree; her first attempt to get them to jump into her grasp one by one fell through because they aren't all that great at grasping the idea of doing things individually.
    • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
      • Flim and Flam of the Flim-Flam Brothers are perfect Twindividuals. While their cutie marks are different (but complementing; an apple slice versus an apple missing a slice) and only one has a mustache, they're otherwise interchangeable. While they don't complete each others' sentences, their dialogue interlocks in a similar fashion, as they give each other feed lines and background patter and alternate smoothly between each other during longer dialogues.
      • The spa ponies, Lotus and Aloe, have identical mane and coat colors, although inverted (one has a pink coat with a blue mane and tail while the other has a blue coat with a pink mane and tails). They haven't had enough speaking roles to make any real pattern clear, but otherwise act as interchangeable models for the same background character.
      • The "Swooning Ponies" from "Hard to Say Anything" are inspired by the Bimbettes from Beauty and the Beast, and like them they always act as a trio, each of them being infatuated with Feather Bangs (but not even competing about it).
  • 101 Dalmatian Street: Triple-D and the Dimitri Trio are this. This gets deconstructed in "It's My Party", where the pups of Triple-D get upset when it seems like even their own family do not see each of them as individuals.
  • Popeye: Peepeye, Poopeye, Pupeye and Pipeye, Popeye's lookalike nephews. In the Famous Studio shorts, their verbal tic was starting a sentence then sending it to the next down the line to the last person for completion.
  • The Simpsons:
    • Terri and Sherri, the Creepy Twins in Bart's class. It's never made clear which is which. They even go to the model UN as Trinidad and Tobago (a single country). However, they do insist that they're individuals, and Bart apparently has a crush on one of them. One episode even uses the line "Sherri, but not Terri" as a gag by itself.
      Both: I'm Sherri, she's Terri.
    • Rod and Todd Flanders, despite a two-year age gap.
    • Kang and Kodos are a pretty textbook case, being only distinguishable by their different voice actors.
  • Steven Universe:
    • The three Ruby bodyguards shown in "The Answer" are identical in all but the placement of their gemstone and have very similar personalities. When they fuse together the resulting Gem is basically nothing more than a bigger Ruby. The one who would later become a major cast member ends up setting herself apart and defects from Homeworld.
    • In season 3, another group of five Rubies are introduced in the episode "Hit the Diamond," known now by the fanbase as 'The Ruby Squad,' and in the Wanted arc that ended season 4 we are also introduced to a pair of Topazes who may like being fused a bit too much for Homewold's tastes. Both of these groups also fuse to become larger versions of themselves in their respective episodes.
  • Superjail!'s Twins are always together and display identical personalities and motives. It's shown that trying to separate them or make them not do something together will only upset them.
  • Thomas & Friends: Frequently played straight with many of the twin pairs, with the longest-running example being Bill and Ben. Donald and Douglas are often an aversion — many stories, particularly those based on the books, feature one twin but not the other (though by Series 6 they were said to "nearly always work together" in the one where They Have a Fight).
  • Total Drama:
    • Katie and Sadie are BFFFLsnote  who freak out at the thought of being separated from each other in any way. They look different but dress the same and have the same sweet-but-flighty personality.
    • Subverted, however, by twins Amy and Sammy — or, as everyone calls them, Amy and Samey. Amy is a Big Sister Bully and glory hog, while Samey is an Extreme Doormat who eventually bites back.
  • The Venture Bros. has several pairs who are usually seen together (and apparently they tend to be based to some extent on the show's two creators), but the only ones who really come off as inseparable are the Guild agents Watch and Ward. Henchmen 21 and 24 began as a Dividual, but eventually they developed out of it.
    Henchman 21: Hey, you think you could sign this, boss? It's for 24. He got knifed by the Moppets.
    The Monarch: Which one is 24 again?
    Henchman 21: What? You're kidding, right? Let me give you a hint. You know how every time you talk to me, there's usually another guy next to me? That's 24.
  • Work It Out Wombats! has the crab triplets - Carly, Cece, and Clyde. They effectively function as a single character, since they're always seen together and do the same things.


Syndividual:

    Anime & Manga 
  • Muto Ashirogi in Bakuman。 is a two man team consisting of Moritaka Mashiro and Akito Takagi, who have been nigh inseparable since middle school. Mashiro is an artist and Takagi is a writer, and most of the other authors in Shonen Jump (Or Shonen Jack in the anime) treat them similar to a single entity.
  • The Light Card and the Dark Card in Cardcaptor Sakura. You can probably guess what they do. They wear white and black, respectively, but look similar (with long hair crowned in metal, and elegant gowns featuring Navel-Deep Neckline) and have identically graceful, refined manners. Cardcaptors must engage them as a unit. They ask to be sealed together, and Sakura does so.
  • Daemons of the Shadow Realm has lots of examples of this, since the titular daemons come in pairs that can range from an upper and lower set of teeth, to a fast rabbit and a tortoise that can weigh you down so much you can't move. The syndividual ones tend to have more complex and contrasting powers compared to twindividual ones.
  • The protagonists of No Game No Life, Blank, cannot be apart or they'll suffer something similar to withdrawal symptoms. However, the pair is basically unstoppable when together. To emphasize this, the two are dissimilar to each other in terms of everything, such as age, gender, colour scheme, specializations, etc.
  • Ouran High School Host Club's Honey and Mori. They both have their own personalities and their own "charm" to attract girls, but they often work as a set that functions by making The Stoic and quiet Mori look more approachable and friendly by having the small and cute Honey around (Tamaki even describes the look as "a big bear that befriended a little rabbit"). It's not uncommon for Mori to carry Honey around in his shoulders either. It helps that they are cousins too.
  • Sailor Moon: Uranus and Neptune; the two were explicitly designed as a pair by Takeuchi and it shows. The two are always introduced as a pair, never get solo songs in the Sera Myu, only duets, and the times they're seen apart can be counted on one hand, and never appear in an episode/chapter/musical without the other. When they're forcibly separated for an episode in Sailor Stars, Uranus remarks on how weird it is to not have Neptune with her. While there are jokes that one of them often lacks a personality (normally Neptune) that doesn't revolve around the other among fans, the two are fleshed out as individuals but half of it is word of god or doesn't get to shine for any length of time.
  • Symphogear G introduces Shirabe and Kirika, both having Symphogears originating from the same goddess. As such, their battle songs are meant to be mixed together, so they can sing in duets. They are nigh-inseparable in G, but their individualities clash with each other during the climax of the season. Then in GX, they seem to lose any individuality except their opposite, but matching character traits.

    Comic Books 
  • Gold Digger: One issue in the Tournament Arc featured a "duo individual", which basically means that a punch-specialist and a kick-specialist can literally band together and complement each other's strengths, in a duel no less. The only drawback is that separating the two is an automatic win condition, something that one of the specialists has to be yelled at about before she stops the gluttonous "overtime".
  • Robin: The rational cool headed Hudman and impulsive hot headed Hudson are essentially opposites that are always joined at the hip and Ives gives them a joint nickname of "Hudster", which is how they're often introduced or refered to. This worked against Kevin Hudman when later writers attributed "Hudster" to Hudson and seemed to forget Hudman was a character at all.
  • Wonder Woman Vol 1: During the Golden Age the Holliday Girls are, for the most part, not named, wear the same outfit and are treated as interchangable. Their leader Etta Candy along with Bobby and Glamora are exceptions, with the Heyday triplets and Virginia True being interchangable with the rest of the gals before and after the issues in which they are named.

    Comic Strips 
  • Richandamy from Zits are an extreme example: they're only physically separated when they HAVE to be (such as separate classes), and have been seen literally contorting and stretching superhumanly to be together even then. During a temporary breakup the others were literally unable to call them by their separate names, as in it caused Jeremy physical pain to do so.

    Creators 
  • Television presenters Ant and Dec. British audiences have been watching them for decades and are still not completely sure which one is which. Their inseparability was perhaps best summed up by the comedian Marcus Brigstocke (whilst remarking on an otherwise unrelated topic).
    Marcus Brigstocke: The relationship between war and religion is a lot like the relationship between Ant & Dec. You could have one without the other, but I'm not sure anyone would see the point.
  • Laurel and Hardy, they are only known for their work together.
  • Penn & Teller, on TV, in film, on stage, etc. They're so closely associated in all media that it's almost a subversion to see them separate, for example, Penn on his personal video blog or Teller lecturing at conventions.

    Fan Works 
  • Dæmorphing: Ax considers humans and their daemons to be one being in two bodies, and a Yeerk who controls a human controls their daemon as well.
  • Half Past Adventure, an Adventure Time fanfic, has a couple:
  • Thanks, but no: The Snake Miraculous turns both Max and his AI companion Markov into the superhero unit King Cobra, with Markov as King and Max as Cobra.
  • There's More Magic Out There: The Akumas Wicked Witch and Little Red were created from a single Akuma butterfly, which reminds Ladybug of Sapotis. Their true identities are Alix and Chloe respectively, with their synchronized change linked to the pre-existing Familiar bond between them.

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • Bone and Chair, the stand-ins for The Mad Hatter and the March Hare in Patrick Senecal's Aliss. Bone, the more intelligent of the two, is in charge, while Chair provides the muscle. Their arrival on any scene generates a guaranteed Oh, Crap!, given the usual result.
  • Tom and his second Yeerk are treated as a singular entity throughout Animorphs; they never appear apart once the latter is introduced, and characters usually refer to them both as "Tom".
  • Gestalt from The Chequy Files: The Rook is actually one person in multiple bodies.
  • Caramon and Raistlin in Dragonlance, at least at the start. Sure, their personalities are different, and sure there's a lot of one-way arguing going on, but the moment there is danger, they take action like a single person.
  • Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth: Malcolm, Colin and Dunkan Makenzie possess aspects of both twindividual and syndividual. Malcolm's genetic defect prevents him from conceiving healthy children, so he turned to cloning to produce a heir. Since Colin inherited his father's faulty gene, his son Duncan is also a clone. On one hand they predictably have very similar physique and their ways of thinking are similar enough that they can finish each other's sentences, predict each other's reactions and communicate in a form of shorthand. On the other hand there's the obvious age difference and they have differing but complementing personalities with Malcolm being pragmatic and formal, Colin being more amiable and charismatic, and Duncan being more emotional and less down-to-earth than the other two. The syndividual aspect is at least partially intentional as Malcolm decided to focus Colin's education and upbringing on areas he himself lacked skill in.
  • In Grent's Fall, the Halifax brothers are almost always mentioned as a pair, not singly. They even die in the same battle.
  • Neverwhere has Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar. They take their partnership seriously enough that when Mr. Croup is sucked through a gateway into deep space, Mr. Vandemar voluntarily follows him.
  • In A Night in the Lonesome October, Morris and MacCab function as a single unit, neither ever being mentioned separately or doing anything without the other. They even die simultaneously. Where all the other teams in the Game consist of one human and one familiar animal, theirs is the two of them sharing one familiar, the owl Nightwind.
  • In None But Man by Gordon R. Dickson the Moldaug society and mentality is based on three Moldaug working in sync with one another to form a single individual. While many trios are composed of siblings, making them more of twindividuals, their equivalent of Antichrist is expected to team up with a "hermit" (whose profession is unfit for trios) and a madman (whom nobody wants in their trio). This is what the heroes imitate.
  • Stephen and Sandra Farraday, a married couple from Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie, act as a syndividual to other characters, who remark on how it's always "the Farradays" and neven Stephen or Sandra. The reader gets to see a bit of disagreement behind the scenes, though.
  • In Secret Histories, Maxwell and Victoria Drood are a pair of Armory lab assistants who work, plan, fight, and converse so much in sync with one another, and are so deeply in love, that when they take over as Jack Drood's successors, everyone refers to the couple as the Armourer.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agents Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons spend enough time together that they are referred to by pretty much everybody (up to and including Director Fury) as "Fitzsimmons" (and occasionally it's "Fitzsimmons is..." rather than "Fitzsimmons are..."). They even sort of refer to themselves this way, using "we" a lot and automatically operating under the assumption that they feel the same way about everything (e.g. "He was our favorite professor"). Although they are both scientists, they fulfill separate roles, specializing in engineering and biochem, respectively. Their personalities are also shown to be opposing but complementary in many respects.
  • Better Off Ted: Phil and Lem, the lab workers. Often used explicitly as a gag.
    • Veronica refers to them at one point as "Mustache and Glasses", despite the fact that it's Lem who has both.
      Ted: First of all, "Mustache and Glasses" are the same person.
  • Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Prudence, Agatha, & Dorcas have distinct physical appearances and individual personality traits, but they still match the trope because they always wear similar outfits and often act like they are one single person.
  • An episode of Criminal Minds has the UnSub as a trio of construction workers who stick close together, travel together, and murder individuals one by one by mobbing them. Even when confronting the FBI at the end, they remain in roughly the same place, never separating more than a few meters apart. They are defeated when one of them is accidentally shot and killed, severely demoralizing the other two enough to allow the FBI to easily corner and arrest them.
  • Scrubs:
    • Invoked in the episode "My Fairy Tale", where Carla and Turk merge into one annoying two-headed monster.
    • Turk and J.D. are such inseparable friends that in one episode it is joked that, in college, Turk dated an Indian girl who only went out with him because she thought his last name was "Anjaydee". (This is strictly In-Universe, though, as J.D. and Turk are actually the main characters and both have a lot of individual depth apart from being each others' best friends.)
  • Seinfeld Jerry and George try to pull this off for one episode to be a woman's boyfriend. Jerry does the actual dating while George manages schedules and anniversaries. George's theory was that the two of them working together might be able to accomplish the tasks of one normal man.
    Jerry: Then each of us would only have to be, like, a half-man.
    [George nods]
    Jerry: ...That sounds about right!

    Music 
  • The Tears for Fears song "Change" is about the end of a very close friendship, and the narrator feels that he and his former friend were so emotionally attached to each other that they both lost their sense of individuality when they were together, essentially behaving like a single person.
    We walk and talk in time
    I walk and talk in two
    Where does the end of me
    Become the start of you?

    Tabletop Games 
  • If there happens to be eight people who want to play a face-to-face game of the seven-player Diplomacy, traditionally Austria-Hungary gets two people assigned to it as a nod to the Dual Monarchy nature of the state in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Both players represent Austria-Hungary in negotiations with other powers and discuss their units' orders among themselves for each turn.

    Video Games 
  • Gremolitions, Inc. from Atlas Reactor are two gremunculi called Idd and Odd who ride together on a hoverbike with a giant mortar.
  • Shayne and Aurox from Battleborn are a 16 year old punk Action Girl that's somehow bonded to an Eldritch Abomination Rock Monster. Together, the two function as one playable character.
  • Body Blows: Of the extraterrestrial fighters introduced in ''Body Blows Galactic", Dino is a Velociraptor-like creature who fights along with a smaller green creature that rides on its back. Some moves allow for the use of a Fastball Special by launching the rider or having the raptor hold down an opponent and let the rider do a close range beat down.
  • Dual Boss Gorc and Pic from Dark Forces Saga.
  • Eric and Leah from Deadstorm Pirates are implied to be this trope according to flavor text shown at the end of each level, with further implication that they pose as a Battle Couple to ward off suspicion.
  • Disgaea 3's Kyoko Needleworker and Asuka Cranekick, Raspberyl's Girl Posse.
  • Dragon Quest V: Kon the Knight and Slon the Rook are not particularly different from one another and only ever seen apart during their respective final battles. The biggest differences between them are that Slon is really stupid and that Kon like to make horse puns.
  • Exit Fate: Trevor and Sick, the two Kirgardian Commandos, are always seen together, back each other up in dialog, and have a synergistic fighting style (Trevor being Dark-elemental melee with Sick as Light-elemental support). Taken up several levels after they become Demons, one of the effects being that their dialog becomes even more interwoven and complementary. You later find out that the spirits possessing them were two halves of the same being.
  • In Fate/Grand Order there are a few of these.
    • Anne Bonny and Mary Read are two individuals summoned as one Servant, both pirates, and are pretty much a couple, and if one collapses and is no longer able to fight, the other is also rendered unable to fight.
    • Avenger of Shinkuku, a.k.a. Hessian Lobo is a unit of two individual fictional characters from two different stories who are sort of "fused" into a single Servant. The wolf (Wolf King Lobo) is the dominant personality, while his rider (the Hessian soldier) is the one aiding the mount.
    • Sakamoto Ryōma and Oryō are also two individuals summoned as one Servant, Oryō being a dragon spirit that was trapped and pierced by a cursed spear and so planned on all kinds of deceptions to trick Ryōma into releasing her and then killing him, only to fall in love with him when he simply pulled it out and told her "that must have been tough". Oryō also counts as Ryōma's Noble Phantasm, hence why their True Name only contains his own name rather than being a pair of two names like the two pirates above.
    • As a Servant, Jason is never summoned by just himself alone, but he goes with the Argonauts to fight for him. In gameplay, he commands Heracles, Atalante and Medea Lily to attack for him, while he himself just either attacks with sloppy sword swings, provides support or just runs around.
    • In Super Bunyan's Third Ascension, she's accompanied by Rider and Assassin (whose True Names are deliberately not said) who fight alongside her.
    • Don Quixote and Sancho are summoned together as a Lancer. Their Squire skill enables Quixote to do fine if Sancho dies but Sancho will die if Quixote dies.
  • Final Fantasy
    • Twins Palom and Porom from Final Fantasy IV are always together, even wearing matchng clothes. By the time of the sequel the two became drastically different to signify their growth.
    • Final Fantasy VII
      • The Cait Sith character is officially a robotic cat riding a giant moogle to for quicker transport and combat purposes, essentially making it the character too. Cait Sith and his giant mog are both controlled by yet another character named Reeve Tuesti.
      • Aside from their respective introductions, Reno and Rude are always seen working together.
      • Barret's AVALANCHE comrades Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie are mostly flocked together both in the game and official character discriptions.
    • Final Fantasy VIII
      • Except for his first Boss Battle accompanied by Galbadian soldiers moments earlier, Raijin always shares the same scenes with Fujin. The two even share the same card in the Triple Triad Mini-Game.
      • Biggs and Wedge, two Mauve Shirts, are always together. Like the previous pair, they also share the same card in Triple Triad.
      • The Earth-based Summon Magic are the aptly named Brothers consisting of Sacred and Minotaur.
  • Boyfriend and Girlfriend, the main couple of Friday Night Funkin'. Boyfriend is a headstrong rapper and the player character, and Girlfriend cheers him on while playing music. Neither is seen without the other during the main game, and they're officially stated to pretty much be the only thing on each other's minds, to the point that not even hypnotism or manipulation can keep them apart. Attempts made on Boyfriend's life inevitably have Girlfriend tag along to back him up.
  • Gomar and Shioh, drivers of the Twin Noritta from the F-Zero games. Their whole race takes this trait, where as soon as they are born they pair up with another individual and become partners for life (or until married). They actually needed special permission to become F-Zero racers because the rules usually only allow one pilot per machine.
  • Two playable characters in Granblue Fantasy function like this (Morphe/Phoebe and Dorothy/Claudia). Since they're both two characters in one party member slot, each one has their own set of three skills with different effects and a shared fourth skill to swap out the current for the other. The Maids Dorothy and Claudia also have the effect of going to 200% meter for their charge attack.
  • In Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, Alex and Ash are siblings that are controlled as a single unit, with Alex standing in front with a chainsaw and Ash behind her with guns. If one of them dies, the other drops their weapon and surrenders.
  • Mr. Right and Mr. Left in I Miss the Sunrise. Even their names imply they are never seen apart.
  • An update for Kirby Star Allies added Adeleine and Ribbon from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, and they're treated as one character. While Adeleine takes care of most attacks using the Artist ability and her Art Initiates Life power, Ribbon handles flying as well as a couple additional attacks.
  • Kindred from League of Legends is Runeterra's equivalent of The Grim Reaper. They are a yin-and-yang syndividual pair who personify the two faces of Death: whereas Lamb is Death as seen by people who peacefully accept that their time has come, Wolf represents Death's ruthless pursuit of those who fear and flee from it. A piece of dialogue between the two implies quite clearly that they used to be a single entity who split himself in half because it was the only cure for his loneliness.
  • The three Golden Goddesses from The Legend of Zelda have their own unique spheres of influence within the series' mythology, though they are for the most part treated as a singular unit within the games proper.
  • MapleStory has Zero, a pair of twins who make up a single playable class. Their individual names are Alpha and Beta, although you'd never know it given how rarely they're referred to as separate entities outside of their story quest.
  • Mortal Kombat X has Ferra/Torr, a small child-like female riding upon a large hulking brute. Ferra is the one who does the talking while Torr does the smashing. Their ending reveals them to be members of the same species in different stages of life: Ferra will eventually outgrow Torr and become just as big as him, serving as the mount to another small creature.
  • Many of the characters in Namco × Capcom belong to this trope.
    • In its sequel, Project × Zone, every independent unit is a Dividual. Solo units do exist, but must be "equipped" to a dual unit in order to take part in battle. In that game's sequel, Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey are combined into one solo unit, making this a straighter example.
  • This is the case with Zen and Rei in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth - they function as a single unit, and only take up a single spot in the party roster. Zen casts offensive magic, while Rei casts curative magic. Late game spoilers reveal that Rei could only use her curative magic when she's near Zen, as said magic was originally Zen's to begin with. Also, after the player completes the fourth labyrinth, Rei is kidnapped and Zen becomes a standalone party member.
  • Psychonauts: Crystal and Clem are two halves of an annoying whole. They're never seen apart. While they seem pretty identical at first glance, there are subtle differences between the two: Crystal is naïve and optimistic while Clem is cynical and protective of Crystal. These differences are more pronounced on their Character Blogs.
  • Sam & Max have this dynamic in the Sam & Max: Freelance Police game series. Sam is generally the character controlled by the player (until the third season of the Telltale games, when the player takes control of Max when his newly-discovered psychic abilities are called for), but both Sam & Max Hit the Road and various episodes of the Telltale games require Max to solve a puzzle (in Hit the Road, he can actually be used as an item).
  • SINoALICE has the Three Little Pigs, who form a single recruitable character and are generally inseparable. In battle, only one of them actually fights; the other two just stand there and stuff their faces.
  • Spider-Man: Miles Morales: Both Miles and his Big Brother Mentor Peter Parker are known as Spider-Man despite Miles being acknowledged as a Legacy Character in-universe.
  • Superhero League of Hoboken has Zaniac and Toastbuster, a crimefighting duo who joins your league near the end of the game. They're complete opposites, both in looks and abilities (Zaniac is incredibly brainy, while Toastbuster is pure brawn) but insist that they're in fact twin brothers. The good doctors at the Richard Nixon Memorial Hospital wouldn't have lied to them, would they?
  • The Super Smash Bros. series features a number of examples. These include Banjo and Kazooie, Rosalina & Luma, Olimar (or Alph) and various Pikmin, and Duck Hunt, a trio consisting of the dog, a duck, and an offscreen shooter wielding an NES Zapper.
  • Game units will sometimes be syndividuals, for example the Goblin Alchemist Hero Unit of Warcraft 3, a goblin carried around by an ogre. The ogre hits things and the goblin throws potions, and both get speaking lines. Same with Dwarf mortar teams from the Alliance.

    Visual Novels 
  • Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: The great thief Yatagarasu is revealed in the final case to not be one person, but a secret team of three who go outside the law to take down a smuggling ring that can't be defeated through legal means: detective Tyrell Badd, prosecutor Byrne Faraday and defense attorney Calisto Yew, albeit the latter turned out to be The Mole and killed the second.
    Yew: Hey, Edgeworth. The Yatagarasu has three legs. Do you know why that is?
    Edgeworth: Why it has three legs...? [...] No, it can't be!
  • Dark Nights: Jace and Blace are brothers, who look similar (but not indentical) and always work together, but have different personalities: Blace is hot-tempered one and Jace is easy-going one. Blace guards the Heaven Gates, and Jace guards the Gates of Hell.
  • Hiveswap Friendsim: Folykl Darane and Kuprum Maxlol. Folykl has a condition called "Voidrot", which means she needs psychic energy to sustain herself — and Kuprum is her life support. They almost always together. Kuprum has more fun and optimistic personality, while Folykl is more grounded. They're constantly making fun of and insulting each other, but still very good friends. In the game, they share the same route.
  • Monster Prom: The Wolfpack, a group of werewolves that serve as the football team. Nobody, not even the Wolfpack themselves, know who each other are as individuals, and it's made rampantly clear that that's just how they like it.

    Web Videos 
  • The Healthy Band from Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 5 mostly act as one individual, and there's not much distinction between the four of them aside besides appearance. They do frequently contradict each other, but then they contradict themselves as well, and no-one in-universe comments on it.

    Western Animation 
  • Yakko, Wakko and Dot from Animaniacs are almost always act as a unit while having different but complementary traits.
  • The titular characters of Beavis and Butt-Head have a few mannerisms of their own—Beavis is stupider, Butt-Head is a bigger jerk—but it's mostly a matter of degrees. Almost all their personality traits barring a Running Gag or two are shared to some degree, most of their dialogue could be swapped without changing much, and they're pretty much inseparable.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door: Mr. Fibb and Mr. Wink, two Heterosexual Life-Partners who attack using special chairs. They're never seen apart, even when they're not doing villainy, like watching TV. The only time they act separate is when Mr. Fibb puts on a toupee to try to impress his childhood crush. Of course, they're based on Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd from Diamonds Are Forever.
  • The Weird Sisters on Gargoyles always show up, act, and are treated as a single unit. Word of God, however, says that each of them has a particular focus—Phoebe symbolizes grace, Luna symbolizes fate, and Selene symbolizes vengeance. At any given point one of the three is "ascendant" over the others, but they work to achieve all three goals in the long run.
  • Ed, Edd n Eddy:
    • The other kids seem to think of the Eds as interchangeable. When one of the protagonists does something to anger the other kids, they'll punish the three uniformly despite their lack of involvement. Additionally, when they attempted to join the Urban Rangers, they were given one chance for each badge for the three of them.
    • The Kanker Sisters look different enough from each other to raise questions about whether they're biologically related... and sure enough, their intro episode makes it clear that they all have different fathers. It still doesn't stop them from being nearly identical in behavior in the early episodes. The youngest one, May, starts to break the mold a bit later on.
  • Walter and Perry in Home Movies almost always dress alike, have very similar high-pitched voices, and are always seen together, usually holding hands.
  • On Invader Zim, the Almighty Tallest, Red and Purple, form a Big Bad Duumvirate that rules the Irken Empire. They're always seen together (including in the flashbacks in "The Trial," set before they were in charge). The first episode had them as Vitriolic Best Buds but largely interchangeable, while later episodes established Red as the smarter one (when necessary) and Purple as more ditzy.
  • The Crust Cousins on My Life as a Teenage Robot. They’re hardly ever seen apart, but are quite different from each other. Brit is cold and calculating, while Tiff is more brash and loud.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: The Cutie Mark Crusaders are a case of Syndividuals. They are all distinctly different in personality and appearance (and each is a member of a different type of pony), but they are very close-knit and have the same motivations, and usually act as a group. They do have occasional breakout appearances, though.
  • The title characters of Phineas and Ferb are almost always together and, while both technical and creative geniuses, have nearly opposite personalities (Phineas being active and talkative, Ferb being passive and mostly silent).
  • Carl and Lenny from The Simpsons span the whole range of this trope. Early on the show they form a borderline twindividual (different looks but identical nondescript characterization), later on, they sometimes were treated as a bickering syndividual (and Heterosexual Life-Partners), and at some point, the writers decided to deconstruct their dividual to facetiously emphasize the characters' (non-existent) individuality — only to reconstruct it for a throw-away gag in the next episode.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: Spongebob and Patrick, especially in the later seasons, often come across as equally obnoxious manchildren, with Spongebob being just slightly smarter and more mature.
  • Ruby and Sapphire in Steven Universe look and act very different, but are basically inseparable. In a more literal interpretation of functioning as a single character, they spend the majority of their time fused together as one person.
  • Teen Titans Go! has made Beast Boy and Cyborg into this trope, the two are rarely ever apart to the point of being utterly heartbroken if they're ever split up.


 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Top

SSBU: Pyra and Mythra

Pyra and Mythra are the two personalities of a Living Weapon known as the Aegis, being literally inseparable since they share a single body. In their appearance in Super Smash Bros., they can switch between each other at will, share a single slot in the fighter roster, and are meant to be a "complimentary contrast" duo with each other with their literal fire power and light speed respectively.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (16 votes)

Example of:

Main / TheDividual

Media sources:

Report