Evil Twin: Difference between revisions

Often, in science fiction, the '''Evil Twin''' is created from the original character by [[Applied Phlebotinum]]. Most of the time, this results in a "Good Twin" and "Evil Twin", neither of which are complete entities on their own. See [[Starfish Character]] for examples of this.

Sci-Fi versions usually wind up playing [[Spot the Imposter]].

* Subverted in the comic book ''[[Hellblazer]]'', in which it is revealed that the series's star, John Constantine ''is'' the 'evil' twin, having strangled his brother in the womb with his own umbilical cord. He later crossed over to a parallel universe, where his brother had become an incredibly powerful and celebrated magus.

* In the comic book ''[[Gold Digger (Comic Book)|Gold Digger]],'' the two main characters (Gina and her adopted were-cheetah sister, Brittany) accidentally create a clone of themselves that shares traits from both of them, including their memories, in an attempt to remove a curse from themselves. After several battles with the clone, Gina realizes that the reason the clone is trying to kill them is because the curse is inhabiting the clone, motivating its irrational desire to kill them. Her father, an arch-mage, happens to show up in time to dispel the curse, and the clone is invited to join the family and given the name ''Brianna'' (a portmanteau of ''Brittany'' and ''Gina''). Later on, the Djinn Madrid uses magics to disguise herself as Gina so well she can fool empaths. This backfires though, erasing her original form, and since then, Madrid has been slowly overwritten by Gina, to the point {{spoiler|that a future version of herself traveled to the edge of existence and beyond to save her 'baby sister'}}

* [[The Flash]] (Barry Allen version) had an Evil Twin in the form of Eobard Thawne, who had plastic surgery to resemble him, and then traveled back from the 25th century to become Professor Zoom, the Reverse Flash. A later [[Retcon]] would reveal that Zoom was descended from Malcolm Thawne, aka Cobalt Blue, who really ''was'' Barry's estranged twin brother but had completely different powers.

** In the 30th century Eobard's descendant created Inertia, a clone of Barry's ([[Tangled Family Tree|and his own]]) grandson Impulse, and sent him back in time to fight his counterpart.

== Fan Works ==

Hoo boy. Let's say it's popular, and even more so if the base subject has a [[Mirror Universe]] or an Evil Twin as part of its own canon.

* Conversed in a [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4302297/9/In_His_Shoes one-shot] within the [[Avatar: The Last Airbender|ATLA]] [[Another Brother]] [[Alternate Universe|universe,]] where Sokka believes an evil twin was the reason that[[Laser-Guided Amnesia|Zuko]] was banished.

* ''[[Turnabout Storm]]'': [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|Pinkie Pie]] suggests that Rainbow Dash has one of these, called [[Sdrawkcab Name|Wob Niar]], as a possible explanation of how the murder of [[Original Character|Ace Swift]] went down. [[Ace Attorney|Phoenix]] insists on it being a stupid idea, but Pinkie being [[Cloudcuckoolander|Pinkie]], she sticks with it.

* ''[[Lois and Clark]]'' had Lois's evil twin, who was a clone. And Superman's misguided-and-sees-Lex-as-his-father twin, who was also a clone.

* [[Averted Trope|Averted]] in ''[[Castle]]''. The murder victim (Zalman) had a twin brother (Edmund), who [[Identical Twin ID Tag|wore eyeglasses]] and turned up mysteriously while Castle and Beckett were searching the victim's secret magic workshop. Castle immediately [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this trope and speculates that ''Edmund'' was the victim and Zalman murdered him to assume his happy family life and prosperous, stable job as an accountant, while inheriting his own magic shop plus insurance money. Played straight; Lanie double checks the fingerprints and immediately rules Castle's theory out. While the twins were very different, ''both'' were good guys who lacked stage presence.

** William Riker has one, thanks to a [[Phlebotinum Breakdown|transporter malfunction]], that's at first just missing some social niceties after being stranded on a planet alone for the better part of a decade.

** And then "Thomas" Riker shows up in ''[[Deep Space Nine]]'', impersonates his brother, and steals the Defiant for a mission with the Maquis, making him at least seriously misguided. (He's right about the hidden Cardassian fleet.)

** Lots of evil twins in the [[Mirror Universe]], of course, but [[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Intendent Kira Nerys]] deserves special mention for being the only one who's actually met her counterpart. And got [[Screw Yourself|the hots for her]].

** Spock's "evil twin" was terrifyingly cold and ruthless; however, apart from the beard, he actually was identical to his regular universe counterpart, and was simply behaving logically for someone living in an evil empire. When he realizes what's happening, he helps Kirk return to his original universe so he can get his (evil) captain back. Kirk is even able to persuade him to rebel from the empire on moral grounds.

* In ''[[Lidsville]]'' the villain Hoodoo had a good twin, Bruce, the White Sheep of the family.

* ''[[WKRP in Cincinnati]]'' did it with Venus Flytrap being suspected of crimes that were committed by a pimp-dressed Evil Twin complete with the obligatory goatee.

* ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' has had three shapeshifter episodes:

** "Skin", "Nightshifter", and "Monster Movie". The latter two don't really use this trope, but "Skin" prominently features a shapeshifter who becomes an Evil Twin of Dean.

== Tabletop Games ==

* In ''[[GURPS]]'', Evil Twin is a disadvantage a character can take for additional points. The disadvantage makes the PC have to take the fall for things his evil twin does, as well as other characters thinking that the PC is crazy, or has a split personality. Interestingly, the Evil Twin has this disadvantage as well, and occasionally the Evil Twin will be blamed for something the PC did. And if you play an evil character with this disadvantage, you have to worry about getting the credit for your "Good" Twin doing things like saving orphanages.

** D&D loves this trope. It also had the Mirror Of Opposition, which spawned an Evil Twin of anyone who looked at it (the twin then mmediately tried to kll and replace the original), the spell Simulacrum (a physically identical but less-powerful duplicate of the target, absolutely loyal to the caster), and at least two different takes on the "magically created copy of you trying to kill you" in monster form, the nastier of which had the horrifying combination of being more powerful than the original and ''totally invulnerable to anyone else's attacks''.

* In ''[[Changeling: The Lost]]'', when [[The Fair Folk]] kidnap mortals they leave behind Fetches, magical duplicates of their victims, right down to their memories. All Fetches are incomplete, though, meaning they lack ''something'' of the original. When that something is empathy or a sense of right and wrong, then you've got an Evil Twin. Things get more complicated if they merely lack your alcoholism or bitterness, though. It works both ways. Fetches don't know they're not the original person, so when someone shows up who looks like a monsterous version of them (and nobody else can see the monsterous things, and thinks it looks ''exactly'' like them, but a different age), who hates their guts and has strange magical powers, they are perfectly justified to think they are the victim of this trope.

* Mona Sax, the "knockout [[Femme Fatale]]" of ''[[Max Payne (series)|Max Payne]]'', introduces herself as the "evil twin" of Lisa Punchinello, the Don's wife. Lisa is killed by the Don near the end of the second act, and Mona shows up later during the [[Storming the Castle|final assault on the Aesir building]], where she does a [[Heel Face Turn]] and apparently dies, only to show up again in the sequel, in which she plays a major role as Max's partner/love interest.

* In all three episodes of Apogee's ''Monster Bash'' you end up having to fight Johnny Dash's evil twin. These fights are somewhat harder than most enemies partly because the evil twin can take more damage than most monsters and partly because the evil twin uses the exact same sprite graphics as the player's character, making things confusing at times.

* Played straight ''and'' inverted in the third installment of ''[[Phoenix Wright]]''. {{spoiler|Partway through the final case, good twin Iris is replaced and impersonated by evil twin Dahlia, though you don't realize this until later. And at the end, you learn that six years prior, Iris pretended to be Dahlia for several months.}}

** Also given a workout in another case in the same game, where Phoenix must track down his evil twin (nicknamed "Xin Ehop" by Maya) who has gotten a client found guilty with a laughable defence.

* The [[Big Bad]] of the ''[[Adventure Quest]]'' Bizarre Flecks [[Story Arc]] is Artix's [[Alternate Universe]] counterpart; while the Artix of our reality is an [[The Undead|undead]]-[[The Hunter|slaying]] paladin, [[Fan Nickname|Artix von Facial Hair]] is a sadistic [[Necromancer]] who appears to have [[Villain World|successfully]] [[Take Over the World|taken over his world]]. Ryuusei's analog from said arc is an [[Inverted Trope|inversion]], and an interesting and competent one at that.

* [[Lyrical Nanoha|Nanoha, Fate and Hayate]] got their very own Evil Twins in the form of The Darkness of the Book of Darkness copies Material-S(tarlight), Material-L(ightning) and Material-D(arkness), respectively, in the PSP game ''Battle of the Aces''. They are identical to their good analogues, except that they are stronger, their skills can't be customized, they have different hair and clothes colors, and their personalities are complete opposites of the originals ([[The Spock|Material-S is coldly logical]], Material-L is [[The Berserker]], and Material-D [[Big Bad|is just plain evil]]).

* The boss of the fourth level in ''[[Viewtiful Joe]]'' is "Another Joe", who looks just like Joe to the point the original makes a deal with him: loser has to wear a yellow outfit. His boss theme is even a [[Boss Remix]] of "Joe the Hero". {{spoiler|It's actually Alastor.}}

* [[Borderlands|Dr. Zed]] and his evil [[Mad Scientist]] brother Dr. Ned ([[Suspiciously Specific Denial|who is a totally different, in no way made up person]], [[Running Gag|and not just Dr. Zed in a cheap mustache disguise]]) qualify for this trope.

* Good old-fashioned separated-at-birth actual twin Nale in ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]''. He's the head of the [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]] (but not [[The Dragon]], oddly enough), while his good twin Elan is a comically inept bard. Further, the members of his "Linear Guild" were deliberately chosen by Nale to be [[Evil Counterpart|"evil opposites"]] of the rest of the good guys (though he does recruit a [[Token Good Teammate]] as a counterpart to [[Sociopathic Hero|Belkar]]). Not to mention that Elan is [[Chaotic Good]] while Nale is [[Lawful Evil]]. Further parodying the trope, Nale has a goatee - and his own actions have rendered Elan unable to grow facial hair.

* In ''Gaming Guardians'', Ultima was a [[Shape Shifter|doppelganger-demon]] who was permanently empowered by Scarlet Jester with a copy of Radical's powers, which also caused her default form to become a duplicate of Radical.

* Subverted in ''[http://www.melonpool.com [[Melonpool]]]'', in which the duplicate, Ralphie, is the good one. Also, the ''Melonpool''/''[http://www.itswalky.com It's Walky!]'' [[Crossover]] used the Dup-o-matic on an opposing army, who then immediately began fighting amongst each other. This crossover led to the creation of 'Anti-Joyce', who was the opposite of Joyce in that she was sexually active, rather than prudish. Interestingly, the storylines would have long-term consequences in both series: Ralphie joining the crew in [[Melonpool]], while the murder of Anti-Joyce in ''It's Walky!'' would lead to serious psychological (and later, legal) problems for the original.

* Subverted in ''[[Concerned]]'', as protagonist Gordon Frohman's twin brother Norman Frohman is a highly-effective special ops agent working for the resistance. Since Gordon Frohman is Dr. Breen's biggest fan, wants to join the Combine, and is bitterly jealous towards Gordon Freeman, that makes him...

'''Evil The Cat:''' Curses!

'''Good The Cat:''' Kisses! }}

** Don't forget the Anti-Fairies.

* ''[[The Tick (animation)]]'' has Mucus Tick, an evil clone created by inter-dimensional horror Thrakkazog from a tissue, or rather Kleenex, sample taken from The Tick when he had a cold. Mucus Tick was, appropriately, green and amorphous. The sample was taken from a clone of Arthur, which among its most telling features is that it could only say, "I Arthur." The Tick considered that a rather compelling argument when it came time to determine which one was real.

* One episode of ''[[Jacob Two Two]]'' introduced Principal Greedyguts' ''good'' twin, who immediately became popular with the kids. {{spoiler|And then subverted it, [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing|showing him to be]] ''even worse'' than the principal. [[Sadist Teacher|And that's saying something]].}}

* The Mondays from ''[[The Secret Saturdays]]''.

{{quote|'''Batman:''' [to Owlman] There is a difference between you and me. We both looked into the abyss, but when it looked back as us, you blinked. }}

* An inversion in ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers]]'': crime boss Jackie Subtract has a twin brother, Aiden. Aiden is a harmless inventor with a squeaky-clean criminal record who is mistaken for his brother far too often for his liking.

* Played with in ''[[Re Boot]]''. While the "second Bob" is truly evil {{spoiler|he's really Megabyte in disguise}}, he acts like a good character and even convinces a few people that the first Bob is fake. [[Up to Eleven|He even convinced the real Bob that he was a fake]]. Like the [[Gargoyles]] example earlier, this show averted the "switching good twin with bad twin" bit, since "second Bob"'s only claim to being real was that he looked normal while "first Bob" was Web degraded.

* [[Samurai Jack]] vs. Mad Jack.

* One episode of ''The [[Scooby Doo]] Show" featured Arlene Wilcox, whose evil twin tried to take advantage of their resemblance to have her executed as a witch. It'd have worked if not for those [[Meddling Kids]].

[[Category:Villains]]

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