History Main / TwinSwitch

* The end of ''PhoenixWrightAceAttorney: Trials and Tribulations'' contains a rather complicated example of a Twin Switch. After discovering that [[spoiler:innocent nun Iris, who looks identical to Phoenix's murderous ex-girlfriend Dahlia,]] is actually [[spoiler:Dahlia's twin sister]] you assume that they were pulling off a Twin Switch as part of [[spoiler:their plan to murder the victim, Elise Deauxnim.]] By the end of the case, it turns out that [[spoiler:Iris had really been part of the plan to ''foil'' Dahlia's murder plot, which had actually been directed at Maya Fey.]] At the end though, the story drops one more bomb -- [[spoiler: the ''real'' Twin Switch had taken place 5 years earlier, when Phoenix had supposedly been going out with Dahlia. Iris had switched with Dahlia during almost her entire relationship with Phoenix, to keep Dahlia from killing him and had subsequently fallen in love with Phoenix -- meaning that she was the one that Phoenix had really loved all along. Which provides a much better reason for why Phoenix -- who is not normally portrayed as being quite ''that'' stupid -- had been so stubborn in refusing to believe that "Dahlia" never really loved him during the trial 5 years earlier.]]

* Another TwinSwitch happens in the second VisualNovel/AceAttorney game, [[spoiler:in the backstory for Case 2. This was the killer's motive for murder, because she had switched places with her sister after her death. So when the victim tried to have her spirit channeled, she killed them to keep the fact that she wasn't dead from getting out.]]

** Actually, after watching the show for a while, it becomes almost ridiculously easy to tell them apart. They have subtle but different manerism and dress-senses. It is almost as if they are two different people. [[note]][[DontExplainTheJoke Rather than using camera-trickery, the two are played by identical twins Kathryn and Megan Prescott]][[/note]]

* In ''VisualNovel/DanganRonpa'', [[spoiler:the [[BigBad mastermind]] switched places with her twin sister before the game even started. She then had her sister killed to create the illusion that "she" was dead. Late in the game, once the protagonists learn the identity of the missing "sixteenth student", she uses the corpse to fake her death(under her original identity) and frame them for it.]]

* This happens in ''{{Transmission}}'' at least once, where one of the twins steals the other's date for the night and the lady doesn't even notice.

* This happens in ''Transmission'' at least once, where one of the twins steals the other's date for the night and the lady doesn't even notice.

* In the ''AxisPowersHetalia'' fic ''SevenLittleKillers'', [[spoiler: America and Canada switch places repeatedly in the story.]] For example, in the hostage scene, [[spoiler: "America" kills Vietnam and Finland.]] For extra bonus [[spoiler: Canada, who's pretending to be America, tells Japan that he has to break a finger for everyone he wants to save.]] He only breaks [[spoiler: 4, out of the required 6.]]

* Central to the resolution of one of the ''TheCatWho...'' mysteries by Lilian Jackson Braun. [[spoiler:A couple has adult twin sons, David and Harley. One night, Harley and his wife Jill are murdered when someone breaks into their home. It's eventually revealed that it was actually ''David'' and Jill who were murdered; Harley and David's wife, who were having an affair, had planned the whole thing so they could be together without anyone realizing. The twins' parents figured it out, however, and were utterly destroyed - the mother had a stroke over it.]]

* The Sonozaki sisters on ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' are called "[[FanNickname Shmion]]" because yheir Twin Switches cover all bases from comedic to dramatic, reinforcing the confusion as to who is who (you eventually find out). They even loved pulling this off in their childhood. Just to make it more complicated, [[spoiler:the switch became permanent when they (unwittingly) switched on the day Mion was marked with the demon on her back. As a result, the real Shion became Mion, and vice-versa.]]

* The Sonozaki sisters on ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenThy'' are called "[[FanNickname Shmion]]" because yheir Twin Switches cover all bases from comedic to dramatic, reinforcing the confusion as to who is who (you eventually find out). They even loved pulling this off in their childhood. Just to make it more complicated, [[spoiler:the switch became permanent when they (unwittingly) switched on the day Mion was marked with the demon on her back. As a result, the real Shion became Mion, and vice-versa.]]

* The Sonozaki sisters on ''VisualNovel/HigurashiNoNakuKoroNi'' are called "[[FanNickname Shmion]]" for a reason. Their Twin Switches cover all bases from comedic to dramatic, reinforcing the confusion as to who is who when (you eventually find out). They even loved pulling this off in their childhood. Just to make it more complicated, [[spoiler:the switch became permanent when they (unwittingly) switched on the day Mion was marked with the demon on her back. As a result, the real Shion became Mion, and vice-versa.]]

* In the ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' fanfict ''Equal Halves,'' [[hottip:*:where Ranma meets his born-a-girl AU counterpart from the prequel ''Genma's Daughter'']] Ranma and Ranko do this so that Ranma can practice talking to Akane without it becoming a shouting match. They even get the idea from seeing ''TheParentTrap'' on TV.

** Actually, after watching the show for a while, it becomes almost ridiculously easy to tell them apart. They have subtle but different manerism and dress-senses. It is almost as if they are two different people. [[hottip:*:[[DontExplainTheJoke Rather than using camera-trickery, the two are played by identical twins Kathryn and Megan Prescott]]]]

* ''Series/SisterSister'' far too many times to mention. (In the first few seasons, Tia wore a mole to make her look identical to Tamera, but the mole was off by senior year, and was even [[LampshadeHanging talked about]].)

** Subverted in another episode where one of their friends asks Tia why she's coming out of Tamera's classroom, blowing their cover.

Since most twins in such series are high school age or younger, AnAesop almost invariably follows. And even though it's almost always the same Aesop every time, rest assured that there will be another Twin Switch not too far in the future. (See GenreBlindness.)

* This was done an insane number of times in the ''SweetValleyHigh'' series and its various spin-offs.

* The Harris Brothers were also known to do this.

Since most twins in such series are high school age or younger, AnAesop almost invariably follows. And even though it's almost always the same Aesop every time, rest assured that there will be another TwinSwitch not too far in the future. (See GenreBlindness.)

See also TagTeamTwins for a [[ProfessionalWrestling different]] type of TwinSwitch.

** However, the TwinSwitch plot ''was'' used in ''[[spoiler:Elephants Can Remember]]''.
* Fred and George Weasley in ''HarryPotter'' have a habit of trading places or names for a joke in both the books and the movies. [[spoiler: Parodied amusingly [[http://slinkers.deviantart.com/art/Name-Swappery-72642476 here.]]]]

* A grisly and totally non-comedic TwinSwitch was the basis for an episode of ''LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'': [[spoiler:A woman sees her twin sister murdered in front of her, then covers it up by posing as her, fooling everyone, including the murdered twin's husband and daughter, until the murdered twin's bones were found three years later.]]

* An episode of ''TalesFromTheCrypt'' has a [[FakeTwinGambit fake]] TwinSwitch. A man falls in love with a pair of beautiful twins, but they tell him that they promised each other that they'd only marry another set of twins. So he replies "But I do have a twin!", and makes up a story that he and his "twin brother" switch places every month, with one of them staying home and the other going on a business trip. So in this way he can date both twins, by doing a fake TwinSwitch with himself at the end of the month. Of course, this being ''Tales from the Crypt'', the twins find out eventually, [[spoiler:and solve the problem with a chainsaw.]]
* Matthew pulls this on ''NewsRadio'' when his twin brother Andrew came to visit. Trouble is, they didn't look alike, because they really weren't twins. In fact, they weren't even ''blood'' brothers; Matthew was adopted but never caught on.

* ''TokimekiMemorial 2'' and ''4'' has examples of TwinSwitch with Miho and Maho Shirayuki, and Tadashi and Rui Nanakawa. The first set are identical twin sisters who are {{Polar Opposite|Twins}}s, with Maho as [[SecretCharacter the shadow sister]], and you'll need to spot the differences in order to know who is who during dates, if you want to score Maho. The second set are brother and sister twins, and the only way to formally get to know Rui and be able to date her is to spot her a few times during her Twin Switch sessions.

* The end of ''PhoenixWrightAceAttorney: Trials and Tribulations'' contains a rather complicated example of a TwinSwitch. After discovering that [[spoiler:innocent nun Iris, who looks identical to Phoenix's murderous ex-girlfriend Dahlia,]] is actually [[spoiler:Dahlia's twin sister]] you assume that they were pulling off a TwinSwitch as part of [[spoiler:their plan to murder the victim, Elise Deauxnim.]] By the end of the case, it turns out that [[spoiler:Iris had really been part of the plan to ''foil'' Dahlia's murder plot, which had actually been directed at Maya Fey.]] At the end though, the story drops one more bomb -- [[spoiler: the ''real'' TwinSwitch had taken place 5 years earlier, when Phoenix had supposedly been going out with Dahlia. Iris had switched with Dahlia during almost her entire relationship with Phoenix, to keep Dahlia from killing him and had subsequently fallen in love with Phoenix -- meaning that she was the one that Phoenix had really loved all along. Which provides a much better reason for why Phoenix -- who is not normally portrayed as being quite ''that'' stupid -- had been so stubborn in refusing to believe that "Dahlia" never really loved him during the trial 5 years earlier.]]

* The maid Kohaku pretends to be her twin younger sister Hisui (in a manner which is not at all comedic) a number of times in ''VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}}''. [[spoiler:She even switched places for a ''[[{{Hentai}} sex scene]]''! As it turns out, they've also pulled off one gigantic TwinSwitch (of sorts) while the protagonist Shiki was away, causing him to mistake who was his ForgottenChildhoodFriend.]] Contact lenses help with this, as they have different color eyes--blue for Hisui, gold for Kohaku. [[spoiler:Interestingly enough, Kohaku herself doesn't seem to have realized that she's swapped roles with Hisui since they were children. This makes her think that Shiki has forgotten who gave her the ribbon whereas he was simply confused about which twin was which.]]

* In ''KeychainOfCreation'', Secret suggests Karen and Marena do the TwinSwitch to get Karen with Ten Winds, because Karen is interested in Ten but very poor at romantic interaction, while Marena is awesome at that sort of thing. Marena smacks her upside the head for such a stupid suggestion, since [[GenreSavvy those plotlines never work]].

* ''SisterSister'' far too many times to mention. (In the first few seasons, Tia wore a mole to make her look identical to Tamera, but the mole was off by senior year, and was even [[LampshadeHanging talked about]].)

* PlayedForDrama and possibly deconstructed in ''AshitaNoNadja''. [[spoiler: When Francis Harcourt is mistaken as Black Rose, he refuses to discard his identity and fully intends to pay for his older twin Keith's acts as a GentlemanThief. This is seen as a sign of Francis's [[HeroicBSOD current mental/emotional unstability]], however, and not to mention Keith himself is ''extremely'' disturbed and distressed by the prospect.]]

* Another non-comedic example: in ''[[Comicbook/{{Batman}} Detective Comics]]'' #374, Robin gets assaulted and Batman deduces that the man is responsible is boxer Jim Condors. However, upon attempting to turn him into the police, Batman is informed that Condors was in the middle of a boxing match when the assault took place. Batman later figures out that Condors had a twin brother and was able to pull a twin switch in order to get revenge on Robin for sending his brother to jail.