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"Kill them all... no... no, that's not me... Help me! I'm scared of me..."
Doc, Red vs. Blue

Maybe Bob saw an Alternate Universe in which he was evil. Or maybe he sees an evil goateed twin indulging in his dark fantasies. Or maybe he simply sees a sordid side to his character gaining ground. Or maybe he meets an evil future time-traveling version of himself. Or maybe he delivers Extreme Mêlée Revenge to a villain, but has to be dragged away and only realizes afterward that he kicked him while he was down. Whatever the case, he is horrified. He may attempt to nip a Face–Heel Turn in the bud (this may or may not backfire).

Sister trope to Future Me Scares Me (where the future version doesn't necessarily have to be evil). Can overlap with Future Self Reveal. An inversion of Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment, with the hero worrying that his evil doppelganger is him on some level. Often a theme of uses of Evil Twin. One way a character may try to suppress a Superpowered Evil Side. See also Other Me Annoys Me.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach is afraid of his Inner Hollow taking over, as he transforms into an out-of-control but extremely powerful monster.
  • Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel: When Shirou eventually realizes the risks Sakura poses as her role as the Shadow is revealed, he begins dreaming about how he will have to be the one to kill her. This is further compounded by his dream voice mocking him for hesitating. Finally, he sees a future white-haired, golden-eyed version of himself looking like his evil darkened EMIYA executing Sakura.
  • Inuyasha: The titular character is afraid of his full demon state, mainly because it could threaten the life of his Love Interest and puts humans in danger as well.
  • Junji Ito Kyoufu Manga Collection includes a series of stories involving an Ordinary High-School Student named Oshikiri who finds out that his house is a portal to an Alternate Universe, and the other Oshikiri has found a way to cross over. The problem is, the other him is a serial killer...
  • Magic Knight Rayearth has this be the case for Princess Emeraude. Too scared of their own, evil side that would prefer to only live for her beloved Zagato and forego being the Pillar, even taking Cephiro's destruction into account, they choose to take the only path they consider possible. She summons the Magic Knights and begs them to kill her before her evil side takes over and begins to actively wish for Cephiro's destruction.
  • Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Only three days after her Heel–Face Turn, Ilulu is shown to be genuinely disturbed when reminded of her former Ax-Crazy personality.
  • Tokyo Ghoul: Haise Sasaki is utterly terrified of his old self Ken Kaneki, as he is afraid both of losing the life he has built if he recovers his memories and of whatever kind of monster he may have been, as the hallucinatory Kaneki's appearance, demeanour and creepy way of addressing Sasaki comes across as an evil side attempting to take control.
  • Tokyo Revengers: Mikey's videotape addressed to Takemichi for the present-day shows that Mikey was well-aware that he would descend into evil eventually, and for this reason he disbands Toman and asks the present-day Takemichi not to find him for his own safety. It turns out Mikey was right — he became the leader of Bonten, Japan's worst criminal group.
  • Trigun: Vash the Stampede seems to feel shades of this, among other things, toward his Evil Twin, the Big Bad of the series. Especially in the manga, where their truly remarkable biology sets them apart more than in the anime and young Vash came a lot closer to going off the deep end, because Knives' Start of Darkness was a lot more justified.

    Comic Books 
  • Alone: After finally returning to her normal self, Camille compares the time she spent as the Midnight-Child as a waking nightmare, though what made the experience the most terrifying was that she could feel that it was still her personality in control, just a more extreme version of it.
    Leila: I don't think it was your fault, Camille. It was that darned monolith that probably-
    Camille: Don't try to find excuses for me Leila. I can see how everyone's looking at me here... and they're probably right to be afraid of me. I'm just not a good person, that's all.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In Quor'toth, Willow begins going dark again and starts freaking out, forcing Angel to comfort her and calm her down.
    Willow: Angel, I can't! Please, I can't fight! Not now...
    Angel: It's going to be okay.
    Willow: No! You don't know me like this! It's never okay!
    Angel: Willow, it will be. I promise you. I need you to trust me. I know that's hard, after Twilight, after everything, but please, Willow. Can you trust me?
    Willow: I... I... yes. But I don't trust me.
  • Captain America:
    • Steve Rogers faces his worst nightmare in Secret Empire: himself as a fascist.
    • Way earlier, in the 1972 arc that established that the Cap in the 1950s Commie Smasher stories was in fact a right-wing Loony Fan later named William Burnside, facing an insane fascist doppelgänger in battle causes Steve to realize that he didn't go through psych evals before being given the serum, meaning the military was just lucky he happened to be mentally stable. This brings him to a thought that deeply unsettles him: he could have just as easily had the Fatal Flaw that drove Burnside to fascistic Patriotic Fervor.
  • Ex Machina: Near the end of the story, it's revealed that Mitchell Hundred's superpowers are a cosmic weapon bestowed on him by eldritch horrors that conquer universes by making their native Hundreds into advance agents. The spokesman of said monsters takes some delight in terrorizing Mitchell with the fact that for every variant of himself that becomes a superhero and tries to stop the invaders, two more become supervillains and loyally serve their masters. The series ends in a way that leaves it VERY ambiguous as to whether or not the Mitchell we've been following is one of the former or the latter.
  • The Incredible Hulk:
    • In The Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect, the Hulk is transported to a future ruled by a brutal being called the Maestro, who had killed all the other superheroes and turned out to be a future version of the Hulk himself
    • There's also the Devil and Guilt Hulks, the worst parts of Banner's extremely fractured psyche, locked up in the very depths of his mind. Devil Hulk especially wants to smash the entire world, just for Bruce. Immortal Hulk then turns some of this on its head: The Devil Hulk isn't actually a full-blown Omnicidal Maniac, but Bruce's view of him was twisted by his dad issues. Devil Hulk's pretty annoyed about that one. And after the events of Secret Empire, he takes control over the other Hulk personalities, and in conversation with Doc Samson reveals that in doing so, he sealed away an even more dangerous personality let loose by Bruce's most recent string of traumas.
  • Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (Boom! Studios): The Big Bad of the first arc is an alternate universe version of Tommy who chose to stay on Rita's side after the mind control was broken, eventually conquering Earth with her. Tommy is more than a little concerned that it might be a matter of time before he becomes the same.
  • The Mighty Thor: During War of the Realms, In Thor 2018 #12, Loki is disgusted by his past self's sadism as well as his own evil deeds — starting Malekith on the path to becoming a warmonger and stealing the life of his child self. To top it all off, he sees a vision of his future self as the All-Butcher Necrogod in the distant future of All-Father Thor and is horrified at the prospect of being so evil. It's enough to make him plead he stays dead once and for all.
  • Superman:
    • Pre-Crisis Supergirl was frightened of Satan Girl, a duplicate of hers who was more powerful, evil, ruthless, and extremely conniving.
    • In "Girl Power", Supergirl was split into her normal self and an evil alternate personality when exposed to black Kryptonite. Supergirl was frightened of her dark, violent, and murderous self because "Dark Supergirl" claimed she was the real Kara, and Supergirl's kind and well-meaning persona was only an act.
    • In Legion of Super-Heroes storyline The Great Darkness Saga, Superboy is spooked by one Servant of Darkness who somehow looks familiar, has his same powers and wears a diamond emblem on his chest. Later it's revealed that Servant is a Superman clone created by Darkseid
    • Post-Flashpoint Siobhan Smythe fears that her Silver Banshee persona will take over her body when it manifests.

    Fan Works 
  • Back to the Beginning sees Himiko Midoriya learn what Himiko Toga became in Izuku and Ochako's respective timelines. She is horrified and vows that she will do everything she can to avoid that fate.
  • In the sequel of Child of the Storm, Harry gets a look at the multiverse, primarily at different versions of him. One was a horrifying vision of himself as the Dark Phoenix, a potential fate that he's absolutely terrified of. Unsurprisingly, this results in a massive freak-out.
  • The Miraculous Ladybug fanfic, Divergent Points: ML Salt, where Marinette, Adrien, and Alya each find themselves acting out as twisted versions of themselves, and all three horrified. A particular case is Marinette's encounter with "Saltinette", the Tulpa of the salt dimension who acts that her friends had betrayed her during the events of "Chameleon". Marinette views her copy as a spiteful, self-centered maniac, and outrights tells her no matter what happens, she'll never give up on her friends and become like her.
  • Another Miraculous Ladybug fic Funhouse Mirror has an Akuma that causes Alya to run into a Mirror Universe version of herself that is based on every Ron the Death Eater cliche applied to her. Alya is horrified at how much of a ruthless servant her counterpart is to Lila, especially when she starts bragging about a plan to trigger one of Chloe's allergies despite the fact it could possibly be fatal. It's later implied that several of the other main characters had a similar experience.
  • Inverted in Fade to Orange, whereas a response to Lila Rossi's protests that there must be a future where she succeeds instead of fall apart due to her lies and selfish attitude, Bunnyx shows her exactly that through an Alternate Timeline. There, not only is Lila good, but also has a genuine friendship with Marinette and her other classmates, finds her own success through soccer, and even gets picked by Ladybug for her own Miraculous. Lila desperately tries to find some sort of self-serving or potential betrayal in her good self as it goes on, as she can't accept that a version was able to succeed by becoming a genuinely good person through hard work.
  • In Harry and the Shipgirls Wei Ying, during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong in World War II, was trapped behind enemy lines. Seeing what the Japanese were doing, she became the magical serial killer Lady Kitsune, delivering vengeance to the Japanese and their Chinese collaborators for their crimes. This cut especially deep due to Ying being consecrated to Guan Yu, the Chinese deity of Righteous Justice.
  • In Supergirl story Hellsister Trilogy, Satan Girl is the Girl of Steel's evil duplicate, her dark side's embodiment. Kara is terrified of her.
  • Downplayed in If Wishes Were Ponies. Harry, towards the end of Book II, finally learns that he had a Horcrux in his scar that was destroyed during Tirek's attack on Equestria. He's horrified when he realizes that he has no idea how much of him is him and how much is a result of Tom Riddle's influence. He resolves to never be like Tom Riddle and to let the CMC, Hermione, and Ginny help him be a better pony.
  • Inner Demons: Twilight Sparkle is horrified when she uncovers a prophecy that seems to foretell her becoming an Ultimate Evil and taking over Equestria. After discovering the prophecy, she's plagued by bad dreams about being consumed by her inner darkness, one of which opens with seeing herself proclaim her rule to the terrified citizens of Ponyville. Eventually, however, the darkness consumes her, and she becomes the thing she feared.
  • In the Star Trek: The Original Series fanfic Insontis, Spock goes into a brief Heroic BSoD when he realizes that it was his alternate-universe self who mind raped McCoy, horrified by the thought that he could be capable of such things in any reality.
  • The Persona 5 AU Its Just A Light Rain But The Storms Still Comin has the Phantom Thieves exploring Akira's Palace and meeting cognitive versions of themselves, with Ann in particular being horrified to realise how Akira sees her, as the cruelty and sadism on display are not that much of an exaggeration of how she's acted around him in the real world.
  • Indirectly invoked in the Legends of Tomorrow fic "I Trust You With Me" when Jax overhears Stein and Cisco talking about the Earth-2 Deathstorm and Cisco mentions how that version of Ronnie hadn't let "his" Stein out in years. While Jax consciously knows that he and Stein aren't Deathstorm, and is aware that he isn't even Ronnie in any sense, the very idea that he could be capable of trapping Stein like that makes Jax feel so scared that he actively tries to avoid Stein for a while until Stein learns the reason for his fears and assures Jax that he trusts the other man not to abuse that control.
  • In The Legend Of Spyro New Frontier both Cynder and Spyro admit that they are terrified of their respective dark forms' personalities overcoming them, resulting in a sadistic monster and violent berserker respectively.
  • Legend of Zelda: Sacred Reliquary: Ganondorf of all people - the latest reincarnation regained his past lives' memories and regrets everything. An Eldritch Abomination called the Nameless uses it against him by taking the form of Dark Beast Ganon.
  • Life Ore Death may be one of the few stories to ever invert this trope. When the Team goes to the Tower of Fate they end up fighting various evil versions of themselves as part of a test of worthiness. Aqualad defies this trope because he's made peace with his recent emotional upsets, and even beats his copy off-screen. However, Ferris is sufficiently at home with her inner darkness to outwit her clone and cow the copy with a Breaking Speech after a brutal sucker punch.
    Ferris: "You have none of my willingness to endure pain, but I have all of your willingness to inflict and enjoy it. Consider what you would do in my place to a helpless foe, and think very carefully before you try and last second, last-ditch efforts."
  • In the Harry Potter/Torchwood crossover The Magic of Torchwood, de-aged Jack is frightened by his - admittedly distinctly unnerving - worst possible future self, portrayed by a boggart (it is explained in-universe that boggarts are very intelligent, it's just rare that a fear is strong enough for them to show it and take a sentient form). Of course, Jack being Jack, he considers it to be good company, explaining that while he's terrified of what the boggart represents, he still enjoys talking with it.
  • In Warhammer 40,000 fanfic Return of the Primarchs, many Primarchs have this reaction. Good-Horus is terrified of what Chaos-Horus did and when Fulgrim faces his daemonic self, he has a Heroic BSoD which Ferrus must pull him out of.
  • In the My Little Pony fanfic Rise of Empress Midnight, Empress Midnight is the alternate version of Twilight Sparkle.
  • Nia in Tengen Toppa Gurren Solvernia. Up to chapter 18, she was a Messianic Archetype, then Kamina dies. And the effect of his death on her is so bad that, adding to the depression, she develops an evil Split Personality inside her mind that manifests as a sentient shadow resembling an older version of her as its shape that wouldn't lose any opportunity to get free.
    Shadow!Nia:: "Look at it! Look at what you are capable of! Look at how you killed them: the beastmen who dared to oppose you, your so-called friends who held you back, all of them dead at your hand. And you enjoyed every second of it."
  • In the Star Trek (2009) fanfic Written in the Stars, both the Fem!Kirk of the Alt Reality and the Fem!Kirk of the original timeline take a look at their counterpart from the Alternate Reality of the Mirror Universe. Younger Jane's reaction is this trope.
    I don't think I like this other reality...
  • In A Loud Among Demons, the constant chaos and stress of living in Hell combined with the evil magic flowing through him caused Lincoln Loud to slowly develop an alternative personality that's far more demonic in nature, one that frequently urges him to give into his baser instincts and act more aggressively to protect the people he cares about. After an encounter with the D.H.O.R.K.S. that allowed said personality to temporarily surface, Lincoln was beside himself with fear over the way he acted for days.
  • The Weaving Force: Taylor remembers becoming Khepri during Gold Morning, and the trauma shapes her for years afterwards. An interesting variant in that this is also a case of I Hate Past Me, rather than confronting an alternate version of herself.

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • At one point in An American Carol, Michael Malone sees an alternate timeline where the South won the American Civil War, and he is a slaveholder who out-Legrees Simon Legree.
  • In Silent Hill, Sharon is initially horrified watching her evil side, Dark Alessa, slaughter the church full of cultists with telepathically controlled barbed wire. The director has stated that, when she stops being frightened, this is a sign that her two sides have fused together again.
  • Star Wars
    • We see a touch of this at the climax of Return of the Jedi, as Luke stops himself from finishing his Curb-Stomp Battle against Darth Vader.
    • In The Rise of Skywalker, as soon as Rey grabs the Sith Wayfinder, she's ambushed by a vision of herself as a Sith, who tells her to not be afraid of who she is before attacking and driving her out of the vault.

    Literature 
  • Rachel of the Animorphs goes through a process with results practically identical to Kirk in Star Trek's "The Enemy Within" with a split into aggressive and passive personality characteristics, each with their own flaws that get counterbalanced with the other strengths and with the passive side being frightened of the aggressive violent tendencies of the other.
    • As the series goes on, Rachel (no longer split) gets more and more worried about her emerging Blood Knight tendencies.
  • Commander Vimes in Discworld has The Beast. It's made clear in several of the books that the reason he's so devoted to the rule of law is horror as to what he might do without it.
    • Granny Weatherwax is this way too. Nanny Ogg explains that Granny is so good "because she's got Granny Weatherwax staring over her shoulder all the time".
  • The Dresden Files:
    • Bob the Skull's personality is heavily dependent on who has ownership of him at that time. With Harry, he's a sex-obsessed, heavily snarky exposition centre. He is therefore terrified of what he was like when he was owned by the (now deceased) Necromancer Heinrich Kemmler, and has no interest in returning to that state of mind. Which is seriously saying something, because Bob barely understands the concept of morality, so when he says someone is bad, they're bad.
      "Bob, would you be willing to take on Evil Bob?"
      "I'd... prefer not to. I'd really, really prefer not to. You have no idea. That me was crazy. And buff. He worked out."
    • Harry himself has met his subconscious a few times, and their conversations fit the trope as well. Subconscious Harry even has a Beard of Evil, though he's less evil than impulsive: he tends to show up when Harry is actively or subconsciously refusing to take advantage of knowledge or skills due to a moral high ground, even when it's actively getting Harry killed. Real Harry always ends up admitting that Subconscious Harry has a point, though he rarely does exactly what Subconscious Harry wants. Both of them tend to reject Lasciel's attempts to subvert them, though Subconscious Harry is much more confident in their ability to subvert her. Subconscious Harry notably does not show up when Real Harry is emotionally compromised, such as during the entire arc of Changes.
  • In the Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventures, future alternate Fitz, now known as Father Kreiner, scares Fitz. Being a Sad Clown Deadpan Snarker, he pretends not to take him seriously:
    I am the real Fitzgerald Michael Kreiner and I claim my five pounds.note 
  • In How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, Charles Yu says that peering into parallel universes, 35 of the other versions of himself (out of 39) were assholes. He mentions that if that many alternate versions of you are jerks, you're probably not hot stuff yourself.
  • At one point in The Wise Mans' Fear, Kvothe is poisoned with a substance that lowers his inhibitions (in an attempt to get him to flunk his exams and have too high a tuition to stay at the University). He correctly diagnoses it, runs to the infirmary, and gets himself a moral touchstone - someone whose judgement he trusts, because he doesn't trust himself until the stuff gets through his system. Based on his remarks under the influence, he was completely right; he talks about mundane activities, science, sexual assault, and murder in the same emotionless tone of voice.
  • From the New Jedi Order series, Tahiri, though she only heard her Dark Messiah Bad Future self described by her best friend/love interest Anakin Solo after he had a vision of her rather than encountering her herself. Considering that Yuuzhan Vong Shapers had tried to turn her into one of their species (and partially succeeded), Tahiri is right to be afraid of what she might become. Her relationship with her Yuuzhan Vong Enemy Within Riina ultimately subverts this one- Riina's a bloodthirsty Proud Warrior Race Girl, true, but she's also a scared, emotionally damaged girl who's spent years trapped alone in Tahiri's subconscious. Tahiri eventually learns to empathize with Riina and ends up pulling a Split-Personality Merge that may have averted the above Bad Future - or might be the first step in its fulfillment. We'll probably never know.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
    • A situation like this is Played for Drama. After Leopold Fitz returns from the Framework, an alternate reality simulation in which he was a cruel sociopath known as The Doctor, he suffers severe PTSD and crosses the Despair Event Horizon because his actions within caused the deaths of two real people — innocent civilian Agnes Kitsworth and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s own Director Mace. Fitz is forced to grapple with the fact that he himself did those things, and "not some other man or a decoy" (because the Framework's altered circumstances created a role of an evil Fitz whom he was forced to be, with no memory of the real world while inside). His fellow teammates are very forgiving, but it's pretty clear that Fitz is going to need some time to recover from the experience.
      • It doesn't help that the next season features a "fear dimension" arc that involves characters' greatest fears being made real. "The Doctor" appears to manifest in one episode and Fitz is terrified of what he might do, but the reveal at the end is even worse than he expected: the Doctor never manifested, Fitz was suffering a psychotic break and hallucinating him while actually being the one carrying doing it all, including outsmarting himself to force him to complete the tasks at gunpoint and, eventually, convincing the "good" version of himself that the "evil" counterpart was right about the necessity of it all even if it required violating and assaulting some of his best friends to carry out their agenda
    • The Framework arc also provides us with a good Grant Ward. This version hates the actions his real-world self has taken and wants to prove that he's nothing like his counterpart. He's like this because he was recruited by Victoria Hand, a genuinely nice person, instead of John Garrett, who is a Manipulative Bastard HYDRA sleeper agent with extreme narcissism and no regard for life other than his own. The tragedy here is that Grant Ward really could have been the good agent he pretended to be, had he actually had an inspiring mentor instead of a toxic one. Some of what he did wasn't just pretending or manipulation, as this Ward proves that the real Grant Ward was good deep down, and capable of rehabilitation and redemption all along, if he had been given a real chance.
      Good Ward: I would hate you to think that I'm anything like the Grant Ward you knew over there.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • In "Doppelgangland", Willow Rosenberg ran into a vampire version of herself from another dimension. Although the thing that actually horrifies her is more the fact that vampire Willow seems into her, and "skanky".
    • Later episodes seem to have Willow using call-backs to Evil Willow's mannerisms, particularly when she goes on her Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
    • She also feels this way about her own dark side in Season 7.
    • This is very much a running theme of the series. Faith is so disgusted with herself after she turned evil she wants to die. Buffy breaks down when she discovers how much like Faith she had become. Giles would very much like to keep the things he did as Ripper buried, thank you. Angel has that curse that makes him feel regret over the things he did. And part of the reason Spike hates Angelus is because of how much of a monster he made him.
  • Doctor Who:
    • In "The Ultimate Foe", it turns out that the Valeyard is an embodiment of the Doctor's darkest aspects, from somewhere after his twelfth incarnation, without any of the Doctor's virtue or morals, pure unbridled darkness. The Doctor is not happy.
    • "The Family of Blood": Although the Doctor is not (usually) evil, this is the reaction that John Smith, the human version of him created by the Chameleon Arch, has to finding out that the Doctor is real, as everything he finds out about him just frightens him even more.
    • In "The Waters of Mars", the Doctor finally has enough of the universe screwing him over, and declares that the laws of time are his, and they will obey him as he tries to save a doomed crew of astronauts from a terrible fate. The power trip makes him sound like his archnemesis the Master, and he's finally snapped out of it and realizes the horror of what he was becoming when his companion from the episode commits suicide to keep time on the right track. He grapples with the temptation again in the following episode, but overcomes his demons by sacrificing his current life and triggering a regeneration to save the life of a friend instead of saving himself.
    • In "Amy's Choice" the Dream Lord, the creepy villain of the episode is the collection of the Doctor's darker side. Chillingly, the Doctor figures this out because, in his own words, "only one person in the universe hates me as much as you do".
  • The Flash (2014):
    • Season 2 introduces the concept of alternate Earths. When visiting Earth 2, both Caitlin and Cisco discover their counterparts from that Earth are evil meta's: Killer Frost and Reverb respectively. Cisco in particular becomes terrified of turning into a villain himself for some episodes afterwards, but this ultimately never happens. Caitlin on the other hand becomes Killer Frost as well in season 3.
    • Season 3's Big Bad Savitar is ultimately revealed to be an evil, future version of Barry Allen. Something present-day Barry does not take well.
  • Loki (2021): While He Who Remains openly admits he's not remotely a nice person himself, everything he's done is to try and prevent the existence of even less benevolent versions of himself who just see the multiverse as one great big sandcastle to kick over, having already seen what one version could do.
  • While under the influence of ibogaine in the Nikita episode "Echoes", Alex hallucinates a version of herself that had defeated Division and regained control of her family's company Zetrov. She had become a Machiavellian Corrupt Corporate Executive. She later remarked to Nikita that the possible future scared the hell out of her.
  • A variation happened in Power Rangers Lost Galaxy. Karone had thought at that point that Astronema was gone forever, but it wasn't quite true. After Leo lost his powers to Magnetox, she remembered a powerful warrior who had a weapon that might restore them... A warrior that Astronema had turned to stone after killing his tribe. Nonetheless, she and Leo went to the site of the battle, where the spirits of the dead forced her to battle a spiritual replica of Astronema to prove the evil within her was truly gone. The spirit of her evil self didn't truly scare her, but it would be wrong to say this was easy; she defeated it, but Leo was almost killed in the process.
  • Star Trek has a decent history of Evil Twins, what with transporter accidents and the Mirror Universe. There's the example of Kirk being a Literal Split Personality with an aggressive, hot-headed side and a passive, weak-willed but logical side and the passive side is afraid of the aggressive one. Major Kira Nerys of Deep Space Nine gets a similar deal to Willow in the Buffy example. However, since the Mirror Universe normally involves plots of being swapped with the guy on the other side (presumably to avoid having to deal with one actor being in a single scene) mostly you get the counterparts never meeting and at most Evil You Scares (but sexually intrigues) Me. Or in Deep Space Nine's version, their opposite is usually dead on one side of the mirror or the other. However, Kira interacts a lot with her Evil Counterpart (though not to the extent the evil counterpart would have liked).
  • In Star Trek: Discovery, timid and dorky Cadet Tilly is horrified to find out her mirror universe counterpart is a brutal, vicious murderer who made it to captain by Klingon Promotion.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: One of Data's earliest encounters with emotion is feeling hatred when fighting the Borg in "Descent". The fact that this first emotion of his was a negative one and that he apparently enjoyed indulging in the furious killing of an enemy disturbs him. Then his Evil Twin Lore, who embraces his negative emotions and so personifies them to Data, turns up (and is in fact the cause of Data's sudden unleashing of emotion). Data would probably have been scared of him, if fear hadn't been saved for a later episode.
  • In Two and a Half Men, Alan worries in the episode "The Price of Healthy Gums Is Eternal Vigilance" that he may have unconsciously shoplifted a Silly Putty egg when he was nine, and has spent his life struggling to keep Bad Alan under control. He hasn't considered the alternative (true) explanation that his brother Charlie planted the stolen Silly Putty in his pocket, assuming that goody-goody Alan was less likely to be caught.

    Roleplay 

    Toys 
  • BIONICLE:
    • An alternate-universe Makuta Teridax who never turned against Mata Nui enters the main universe to confront the Big Bad who is just about on the verge of winning. It's not so much "Evil Me Scares Me" so much as "Evil Me Has To Die".
    • During the Hordika saga, the former Toa Metru team constantly battle with their Hordika infection slowly turning them bestial, until they learn how to control and take advantage of it. Their disillusioned leader Vakama though succumbs to his evil side after already having seen his fate in a horrific vision. Even 1,000 years after they have been cured, he and the rest of his fellows dread thinking of the event.
    • Played with in an unreleased segment of the Shadow Toa scene, only found in LEGO's official internal documents. Pohatu's evil clone attempts to faze him by explaining he isn't special, unlike his brothers. His intimidation backfires though, as Pohatu humbly agrees that he doesn't need to be special and realizes he has nothing to fear from his evil self.

    Video Games 
  • In the DLC chapters of Alan Wake, "The Signal" and "The Writer", Alan is stuck in the Dark Place as a result of the events of the main game and has been split into two personalities, a rational and self-determined part, whom the player controls, and an insane and self-destructive part, who has gained control over the world and can shape it to his will. The former is at first very disturbed by the latter, but it later turns into disdainful annoyance as the Dark Alan keeps making up more and more absurd and contrived hindrances to slow his progress toward sanity. The story of the DLC is that the Dark Place drives you insane if you don't have something to focus on. At the end of The Signal, Alan manages to re-merge his insane and sane sides, only to almost immediately go insane again and split for The Writer. His "insane" side is more correctly defined as his self-destructive tendencies (shown throughout the flashbacks in the main game) driven to the extreme without his logical, rational side to hold it back.
  • In the Assassin's Creed III DLC The Tyranny of King Washington, the events of the DLC turn out to be a vision generated by a Piece of Eden to show what would happen if Washington claimed its power for himself. Washington is so horrified by the tyrant he becomes in this alternate timeline that he begs Connor to throw the Piece of Eden into the sea to prevent anyone from ever taking it. Later, Washington is tempted by a voice in his own head suggesting that he become king of the newborn United States of America, but he rejects it.
  • Batman: The Telltale Series has Harvey Dent, the persona of Two-Face. Although it is possible to stop the facial scarring that brings Two-Face's iconic look, it is not possible to prevent a Literal Split Personality within Dent: One is his normal self and the other is a cruel, violent man lashing out at the problems he sees in Gotham - including Harvey, who he views as "weak". Good Harvey is terrified of this dark personality, and at one point, begs Bruce not to leave him alone with the voice.
  • A major reveal in BioShock Infinite is that Booker DeWitt is, in fact, an alternate version of the game's Big Bad, Zachary Comstock. This affects him enough that he chooses to go back in time and kill himself (or at least all the versions of himself that would have become Comstock) to prevent the horrors of the game from occurring.
  • Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: In the Chapter 6 trial, Hajime Hinata is horrified to learn he's the former self of Izuru Kamukura, the "Ultimate Hope" who was not only turned to the side of Ultimate Despair, but kickstarted the events of the game by smuggling the Junko "virus" onto Jabberwock Island and uploading it to the Neo World Program.
  • Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach: While Sun is admittedly overbearing and downright manic, it is ultimately harmless and seems to genuinely want to keep its wards in Superstar Daycare happy and safe. Which is likely why its only rule is keeping the lights on, and is intensely distressed when the lights go off, as it turns them into the far less benevolent Moon, who is obsessed with "punishing" bad children who stay up past their bedtime, and has traumatized children who have stayed in their Daycare. And when Gregory accidentally breaks this rule and Sun comes back, it is (rather understandably) deeply upset with him, and bans him from the Daycare for it.
  • A variation involving a clone feeling this towards the original, but in one of the big climatic story beats of Halo Infinite, the UNSC AI The Weapon finds out that she is an exact copy of Cortana, who by this point has gone rogue and led an AI (or "Created") uprising against the rest of the galaxy, committing many horrific atrocities in her campaign of conquest. Master Chief drives the point home by bluntly telling her that she is Cortana, if she and the Chief had never met. The Weapon's reaction to this news tells the whole story.
    The Weapon: I'M HER?! Is that what I'll become?!
  • Injustice: Gods Among Us: Superman has to defeat his Evil Twin from an alternate reality. The alternate Superman became evil when the Joker tricked him into killing Lois Lane and his unborn child and destroying Metropolis. Later, Superman admits that he could have turned out the same as his alternate self had he experienced the same loss. In his arcade ending he even creates and swallows what is essentially a kryptonite nanobomb and gives the remote to the justice league to kill him if he ever does the same.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie has Ishmelga-Rean, a different version of Rean Schwarzer who decided to pull off his Heroic Sacrifice at the end of Cold Steel IV. He ends up looking like a mixed version of Rean with Ishmelga and wants to bombard the world due to the Elysium System believing that the only way the world will not go into conflict is to get rid of everything.
  • At the end of Psychonauts, when Raz ends up confronting the mental image of his father that he sees as an abusive psychic-hating figure, his real father eventually manages to break into his mind to help and is shocked and saddened at how his son sees him.
  • Star Renegades: Upon reaching the ISS Eternal, the rebels discover that the overseers in charge of invading their galaxy are alternate-reality versions of Wynn and Davion, the protagonist twins introduced at the beginning of the game. These alternate selves have become Imperium leaders in the belief that it will keep their own realities peaceful and orderly. Wynn is disgusted by this, rejecting her and Davion's alternate selves.
  • Super Robot Wars X: Taking a page from the Buddy Complex mobile game, 20 year-old Bizon and his 90 year-old self, Evgeni, manage to exist in the same time period at the same time (explained in this game as a result of Embryo's interference). If the secret conditions are met, Bizon, disgusted with Evgeni and determined to change himself for the better, will join X-Cross to defeat his potential future self.

    Webcomics 
  • In El Goonish Shive, Grace stops attacking Damien when she notices her blood stained hand and its resemblance to her memory of Damien's hand after he killed all those people in the lab where she was born. She is startled (and seems to come to the conclusion that if she kills him she will be just like him) and apologizes to him.
  • Homestuck:
    • Dirk feels "haunted" by alternate versions of himself who seem to inevitably go bad — such as his sinister, manipulative AI clone and his alternate universe adult self who became an Abusive Parent to Dave (this one is also arguably an example of Future Me Scares Me since Bro represents the person Dirk could grow up to be if he doesn't watch himself).
    • Played with by Meenah, when she first hears about all the atrocities her alternate universe self the Condesce performed, her first reaction is happiness so profound that she sinks into a brief coma. Later she learns what the Condesce did to the Psiionic, the alternate universe version of the mentally handicapped Mituna, and she suddenly finds herself disturbed and horrified.
  • Kill Six Billion Demons: Both Cio and Allison end up going through this during the Seeker of Thrones arc. Cio has to struggle with a past identity, as she was formerly the Ebon Devil Yabalchoath, a vicious backstabbing tyrant of a guild lord, and the events of the arc force her into a role similar to her previous actions. Allison has to deal with what she could be, since her deal with Incubus gives her a split personality that has the will and knowledge to properly use her power but is also a self-centered sociopath.
  • Lackadaisy: Calvin is a shy, quiet, kind young man who wants to be a police officer. He also goes a bit doolally when faced with violence. He is terrified of what he does when he slips into this mode, especially since Ax-Crazy mode got him kicked out of the police academy and drove him to violently kill the pig farmers that attacked the Lackadaisy.
  • Sinfest:
    • Fuchsia has this reaction to her reflection after losing her temper with Seymour. In all likelihood, this was a side of herself she never wanted Criminy to see.
    • After getting mindwiped, Lil' E also has this response.
  • Hannelore from Questionable Content is definitely freaked out by the evil version of her seen in an Imagine Spot in this comic.
  • TwoKinds: Trace Legacy is horrified at who he was before his amnesia (mass-murdered 400,000 Keidran and sent 100,000 humans to the slaughterhouse), so he has resolved to stop trying to cure himself before his split personality kills his new girlfriend (and son). Sadly, there appears to be a third split personality that is all magic-crack addict and no Well-Intentioned Extremist that feeds off the naïve amnesic personality.

    Web Original 
  • Bad Two Sentence Horror: A particularly well-known story by fans is about a guy who doesn't like looking in the mirror because whatever looked back at them was always the evil version of themself.

    Western Animation 
  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender Aang actually says, "I was scary" when reflecting on the Avatar State. A little different since the Avatar State isn't evil but rather an implacable force of nature.
  • In keeping with tradition, Harvey Dent (later Two-Face) in Batman: The Animated Series is horrified at what his vengeful personality does when it has control.
  • In Ben 10, Ben is shown to be scared of his Ghostfreak form several times. This turns out to be completely justified.
  • Danny Phantom: In "The Ultimate Enemy", Danny's future self, who crossed the Despair Event Horizon after his friends, family, and teacher were killed. After Danny absorbs Vlad Plasmius's ghost half and goes on a ten-year-long rampage, Danny's present-day self is brought to the future and is horrified at what he's become.
  • DuckTales (2017): In "Sky Pirates...in the Sky!", this gets inverted when Louie gets his hands on the Sapphire of Souls, which reflects his true darkest desires. However, Louie's natural greed and manipulative tendencies end up creeping out his dark self instead. At the end, the gem was revealed to be a fake, so Louie was talking to his reflection the entire time.
  • Family Guy: When Brian accuses Stewie of getting soft, Stewie decides to maximize his evil side. It backfires, kind of: he ends up creating a separate, wholly evil Stewie. He isn't happy once he sees what the clone is capable of.
  • Happens repeatedly with several characters in Justice League after the titular heroes encounter their Well-Intentioned Extremist counterparts known as the Justice Lords.
  • Kaeloo: Kaeloo has often been shown to be terrified of her Bad Kaeloo side, who has a horrific mean streak and adores violently abusing people.
  • In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Celestia meets her ambitious, sister-resenting inner side in a nightmare and does not immediately know how to deal with it.
  • In Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja, Julian gets so terrified of Evil Julian that Randy and Howard have to let him tag along on their trip to the snow festival because he simply can't be left alone.
  • In Teen Titans (2003), this seems to be the case with Plasmus. Actually a symbiote, while his original form is human, he involuntarily transforms into a large purple ooze monster whenever he is awake. Thus, whenever he is in custody, technology is used by the authorities to keep him asleep. And given what he says the first time he appears, he's terrified of what he turns into, and is willing to stay asleep forever if that's what it takes to avoid it.
  • Turtles Forever: The 1987 series Shredder is scared absolutely shitless of his 2003 counterpart, the Utrom Shredder. Not without reason — the Utrom Shredder is easily the most dangerous and insane incarnation of the Shredder in the history of the franchise — he nearly destroyed all of reality to kill the Turtles, willingly. Only one other incarnation comes even remotely close to his level of menace, and he appeared in the series after this movie.

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Jaden and the Supreme King

Jaden fears the powerful Supreme King side of himself.

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