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{{trope}}
[[File:LichsMirror_4744.jpg|link=Magic:
{{quote|'''Engywook:''' Next is the Magic Mirror Gate. Atreju has to face his true self. <br />
'''Falkor:''' So what? That won't be too hard for him. <br />
'''Engywook:''' Oh, that's what everyone thinks! But kind people find out that they are cruel. Brave men discover that they are really cowards! Confronted by their true selves, most men run away screaming! |''[[The Neverending Story (
This is a trope for all the times a characters' reflection in a mirror is different than what others (viewer included) see with the naked eye. In fiction, mirrors are treated as able to cause [[Glamour Failure]] in supernatural creatures, reveal [[Mind Control]], and if the [[Magic Mirror|mirror is magical]], reveal a character's true nature. The most common uses are [[Glamour Failure|revealing]] the [[This Was His True Form|true form]] of a [[Shape Shifter]], that a character is a [[Vampire]] or [[The Soulless|soulless]], and if a character is under [[Mind Control]].
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Another common variation is for the mirror to show an aspect of a person's personality. The nasty, spiteful, cruel, but beautiful girl becomes a hag in the magic mirror. Conversely, it can reveal the [[Reluctant Monster]] or [[Baleful Polymorph|balefully polymorphed]] character to be noble and good.
A subtrope of [[Glamour Failure]] and [[Lie to
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== Film ==
* In ''[[All of Me]]'', Steve Martin's character sees Lily Tomlin's character, with whom he is [[Sharing a Body]], any time he looks into a reflective surface.
* ''[[
** Not quite. When reflected by one mirror, its played straight. However, once Eames was in front of multiple mirrors and once he was in a mirrored elevator. In both cases, some reflections showed his true face, others reflected his disguise. Which mirrors reflected his true face and which reflected his disguise changed (almost certainly deliberately) between cuts.
** Supposedly, when Ariadne did the double-mirror thing in her test dreams, only Cobb's reflection appeared.
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* ''[[Sleepwalkers]]'': Despite having human forms, the cat creatures' true forms are shown if they're in view of a mirror.
* ''[[Source Code]]'': The viewer see Coulter running around trying to save the day, the reflection in the window and presumably everyone on the train sees Sean Fentress.
* Reversed in the ''[[
* Used at the very end of 2011's ''[[Thor (
* ''[[The Tenth Kingdom]]'' used an inversion. The Queen used a hypnotic mirror which showed her merely standing behind Virginia, when in fact she was strangling her. It wasn't until Virginia glanced to the side and saw the truth in another mirror that she was able to break free.
* Subverted in a Richard Creena movie where he's playing a cop who brings the female suspect a large rectangular-wrapped parcel which he says is her 'true self'. She just laughs and says he's obviously got a mirror. He removes the wrapping and she's shocked to see a rather uncomplimentary painting of her by a former friend.
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== Literature ==
* In the children's fantasy book ''The Castle in the Attic'', one of the primary weapons of the [[Evil Sorcerer|evil wizard]] [[Big Bad|Alastor]] is a [[Magic Mirror]] with this power. It eventually [[Hoist
* ''[[Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone]]'': Played with. The mirror of Erised shows the viewer's fondest desire ''at that moment'' and definitely NOT anything objectively ''true''.
* Used by Nathaniel Hawthorne in at least two short stories, ''Dr. Heidigger's Experiment'' and ''Feathertop.'' In the former, a number of rejuvenated old people are seen in their wrinkly true selves in the mirror; in the latter, a handsome young cavalier is seen in the mirror in his true form of a dilapidated scarecrow.
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* Subverted in ''[[Discworld]]'': Witches are well aware that mirrors ''don't'' show your true self. They can show your opposite a billion times, which can be problematic when there's only one soul to go around.
** Instead, on Discworld it is your ''eyes'' that reveal your true self, and no amount of magic or power can disguise eyes as part of a broader transformation.
* In [[L. Frank Baum]]'s ''Queen Zixi of Ix'', the title queen can only make herself look beautiful to others because of this trope.
* In [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s ''[[
* ''[[The Neverending Story (
* In the ''[[Spellsinger]]'' novel "Time of the Transference," the group finds this kind of mirror. The results are ambiguous for everyone but Cautious, whose reflection is unchanged.
{{quote| '''Cautious:''' I am what you see. Worse things to be.}}
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== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[
* Inverted in ''[[Quantum Leap]]''. On-screen, Sam appears as himself. But mirrors and reflective surfaces show the true appearance of whomever he's leaped into.
** Which startles him in the series finale, when he sees himself in the mirror. With gray hair.
** There is also an episode where he leaps into a man who lives in a castle and thinks he's a vampire. As such, there are no mirrors in sight. At the end, he removes fake fangs off another vampire wannabe and, satisfied, is prepared to leap. Right before leaping, he looks at a metal tray which doesn't reflect him. This was hinted in the previous episode, where the new person in the waiting room revealed vampire fangs.
* ''[[
** Originated in ''[[Stargate SG
* ''[[Ultraviolet]]:'' The British [[Too Good to Last]] TV Show. Vampires have no reflection, and also no TV image or anything like that.
* ''[[X Files]]'': The episode "Dreamland" is a [[Freaky Friday Flip]] in which Mulder switches places with [[The Men in Black|Man In Black]] Morris Fletcher. As in the ''[[Quantum Leap]]'' example, the audience continues to see Mulder as Mulder, but his reflection reveals that everyone else sees him as Fletcher, and ''vice versa''.
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{{quote| '''Angel:''' I'm invisible!<br />
'''Cordelia:''' No you're not.<br />
'''Angel:''' Oh. [[Tomato in
* The true face of several monsters in ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' that can pass for humans (like wraiths, changelings and sirens) are revealed by mirrors.
* Averted in ''[[Moonlight]]'', where vampires only appear as blurs in old films due to silver emulsion but show up perfectly fine on digital cameras. This is actually a problem, as a blurry photo only revealed that the photographer was incompetent, while a clear digital picture of a vampire with a [[Game Face]] feeding on someone is compromising evidence. It is not mentioned if the image is blurred in regular silver mirrors (which are still widely used).
* An episode of ''[[Star Trek:
* ''[[Twin Peaks]]'', in two of the scariest scenes in the series. In this case it's actually showing the malevolent entity [[Grand Theft Me|possessing]] the person in question, but the idea is the same.
* Played with in ''[[Kamen Rider Dragon Knight]].'' [[Big Bad|General Xaviax]] approaches potential Riders disguised as a human, but when he glances at his reflection, his true form is revealed.
* The Latinoamerican soap opera ''La Mujer En El Espejo'' (The Woman In The Mirror) has an interesting variation: a magic mirror that "contains" the image of a beautiful woman. It can be used by women to take on her looks, but regular mirrors will still reflect their true appearance.
* In one ''[[Are You Afraid of the Dark?]]'' episode "The Tale of the Mystical Mirror", the antagonist is an old witch/beauty shop owner who uses illusions to maintain the appearance of youth, but mirrors reveal her true age. When the protagonist investigates the witch's house after her friends who work at the shop go missing, she realizes something is wrong when she can't find any mirrors in the house.
* In ''[[Dead Like Me]]'', similar to Quantum Leap, the camera sees the main characters (who are all grim reapers who died in an accident or a murder) as they were in life; mirrors show how they look to the other characters. This change in appearance is to keep anyone who knew them in life from catching on.
* An interesting variant in ''[[
* In the ''[[
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== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'': Al has to find a magic mirror in a room full of regular mirrors. He finds it when he notices that his reflection is wearing his "street rat" clothes instead of the princely robes he has on.
* ''[[
* In an episode of ''[[The Pirates of Dark Water]]'' Bloth used a magical artifact to [[Freaky Friday Flip|swap bodies with Ren]], as well as having Konk swap bodies with Niddler. However, while in the other person's body, their reflection still shows who they really are.
* ''[[
* ''[[Family Guy]]'': Similar to the ''[[
* In the ''[[Justice League]]'' episode "Paradise Lost", when Wonder Woman and Superman find an ancient artifact, they start seeing each other as monsters and fighting, thinking that the "monster" had done something to his friend. Superman is the first to catch on upon seeing Wonder Woman's reflection in a fountain, and stops fighting altogether, allowing Diana, still seeing him as the monster, to mercilessly pummel him. It's not until the "monster" points to a mirror that she looks and sees she was fighting Supes all along.
== Video Games ==
* The Mirror of Ra appears in several ''[[
** In ''[[
** In ''[[
** In ''[[
** In ''[[
* Inverted in ''[[
* In ''[[King's Quest VI]]'', there is a mirror with this quality; depending on which path you take, it can be used in one of two different ways. The basic good ending has Alexander using it to [[Spot the Imposter]] by forcing a genie to resume his true form. The best ending has him use it against Death himself, forcing him to witness the horror of his own existence, causing him to shed a single tear and lose his wager against Alexander.
* In ''[[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne]]'', you have to find Mot before you can engage in his battle. He disguises himself as a statue and hides among the other statues. The trick to finding him is that the floor that the statues are on is a reflective surface. Mot is the statue that isn't reflected in the floor.
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* A similar thing happens in ''[[Persona 3]]'' with the Lovers boss. You have to break the mirrors that ''don't'' show your reflection in order to get to the boss chamber.
* In ''[[Rule of Rose]]'' a bathroom mirror on the Airship shows, not the protagonist's "true" form, but the environment's; it shows the orphanage that is the Airship's true face.
* In ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro
* In ''[[
* A [[Good Bad Bug|glitch]] causes this to happen in ''[[Jak II Renegade]]''. When looking in the mirror behind the bar in the Hip Hog Heaven Saloon, Jak's reflection has the horns of his [[Super-Powered Evil Side|dark form]]. They flicker in and out as he moves.
* In ''[[Quest for Glory]] II'', the Enchantress Aziza uses water magic to reflect the true image of the Hero of Spielburg's pack animal, to reveal that it is actually the missing Emir of Raseir.
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