Basic Trope: A person projects their feelings about someone they know (a family member/friend/rival/arch nemesis) onto an Identical Stranger (clone, temporal duplicate, zombie, shapeshifter) that "is" or used to be that person.
- Straight:
- While on a dimension-hopping trip, Bob sees Alicia, the alternate-universe version of his dead sister, Alice. He quickly becomes attached to her and is fiercely protective of her.
- Alice meets a clone of her nemesis Dracone. Despite the clone seeming friendly, she treats him coldly and continually suspects the worst of him.
- Bob meets his alternate-universe self and assumes he's a good guy because he himself is a good guy.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob acts as though Alicia really is Alice, asking her questions about things that happened in their past and being shocked when she likes a kind of music that Alice hated.
- Alice acts like Dracone's clone really is him.
- Downplayed:
- Alicia merely looks very similar (but not quite identical) to Alice, triggering Bob's protective instincts.
- Alice is suspicious of Dracone's clone, but not uber-suspicious and she doesn't act cold.
- Justified: As they say, "If it looks like a duck..."
- Inverted:
- Bob meets Alicia and is cold towards her, because he hates the reminder that Alice is dead.
- Alice tries to make friends with Dracone's clone, happy that he seems not to be like his original.
- Bob meets Robert the Bloody, his Mirror Universe self, and worries that Robert is what he's really like.
- Subverted:
- Bob initially seems protective of Alicia... but then it turns out that he thinks she's actually sent by his nemesis as a way to break him. He merely feigned the protective attitude to get her to let her guard down.
- Alice appears to be acting suspicious of Dracone's clone, but it turns out that she was only testing him to make sure he really wasn't evil.
- Double Subverted: ...or so s/he says after The Reveal.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig Zagged:
- Bob initially is protective of Alicia, but when she does something Alice would never do, he stops, only to start again when Alicia does something that reminds him of Alice.
- Alice acts suspicious of Dracone's clone, but then grows to trust him but still has moments of distrust.
- Averted:
- There are no identical strangers.
- There are identical strangers, but people don't project their feelings onto them.
- Enforced: Alice's actress had a guarantee of one more episode in her contract, but her character has been killed off. So they bring her back as an alternate universe version. It's easier (and more dramatic) if Bob reacts to her the same way.
- Lampshaded: "Yeah, I know it's not her/him, but I just can't help my feelings."
- Invoked:
- Alicia lets Bob pretend she's Alice for a few minutes so he can work through his issues.
- When Bob goes up against her during a fight, Carla transforms herself into Alice's shape, hoping that Bob will hesitate to punch her if she looks like his dead sister.
- Exploited: Alicia is a Mirror Universe duplicate of Alice and uses Bob's implicit trust in her to trap him.
- Defied:
- Bob has heard of this reaction before and purposely treats Alicia no differently than he would anyone else in the alternate universe.
- Alice avoids being mean to Dracone's clone, knowing it's not really him and not wanting to have to deal with two Dracones who hate her just because she couldn't bring herself to differentiate between them.
- Discussed: "What if I meet someone I know in this alternate universe and project my feelings onto them?"
- Conversed:
- "That Bob had a really dumb moment when he treated the alternate universe counterpart like the real person!"
- "I felt bad for that clone. He hasn't met Dracone so he had no idea why Alice was being so scornful of him."
- Implied:
- Bob is seen being much friendlier towards Alicia than the other alternate universe people.
- Alice briefly gives Dracone's clone a Death Glare.
- Deconstructed:
- Bob's protective bias towards Alicia causes him to overlook the signs that she's an Evil Doppelgänger.
- Alicia's negative bias against Dracone stops her from recognizing the signs that he's genuinely a good clone, which causes problems that she otherwise would have avoided.
- Reconstructed: ???
- Played for Laughs: The clone and Alicia have no idea why Alice and Bob are acting the way they are, so they do the 'cuckoo' sign.
- Played for Drama: ???
Back to Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment.
