Hourglass Plot

Bookends of the first and last acts of the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Joker's Favor".

"I think we were like circles in a Venn diagram, slowly moving towards each other until we merged together as one circle. The only problem was that we kept on moving until one day I looked up and saw her opposite to me again."

— Nightingale

A Story Arc in which two characters or groups slowly, and involuntarily, swap their positions in life. These positions are usually social (who has high-status, who is popular), economic (who is rich), and most of all, moral — who is decent and who is a ruthless bastard. The swapping often leads to escalation — the new poor person is poorer than the old one was, or the new amoral one is much nastier than the old one was.

The pathos from the Hourglass Plot comes from how neither character learns from the situation — they act just the same to each other as they did before, but with roles reversed. Particularly cruel shows will create an infinite-loop Hourglass Plot, where two hostile characters keep swapping positions and treating each other as badly as ever. In rare cases, such plots will involve the characters barely interacting with each other... a pure comparison of one person's rise to another person's fall.

Lucky characters will get a "Not So Different" Remark moment and actually learn from it. Compare: Prince and Pauper, Perspective Reversal, Full-Circle Revolution, Swapped Roles, Became Their Own Antithesis for when there's only one character and no corresponding switch, "Freaky Friday" Flip for an especially literal case, Just the Introduction to the Opposites for when there is no justification for it, and Perspective Flip for when it's a retcon instead of plot development. Compare and contrast: If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him! and You Kill It, You Bought It. Caretaker Reversal is a subtrope.

Not to be confused with a plot where the characters are being timed by a literal hourglass. For those, see Timed Mission and Race Against the Clock.

As this is an Ending Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Attack on Titan:
  • Christa/Historia and Ymir start off with very specific roles: Christa is the resident "goddess", viewed by everyone as an epitome of pure altruism and selflessness, while Ymir carries herself in an utterly self-interested and cynical way, despite falling in love with Christa. As the series progresses, however, their interactions gradually bring out all the past trauma in both of them, and they both have diametrically opposite effects on each other: Historia becomes a lot more grounded, even ruthless at times, particularly after claiming the throne of the Walls, while Ymir ends up sacrificing herself for members of her squad not once, but thrice.
  • Eren has this with several characters:
    • Eren and Armin start off with Eren as the one who believes that he will save the world from the titans, and Armin being the more reserved, cautious one who has absolutely no confidence in himself or his actions. As they go through the series, Armin's plans repeatedly succeed and he slowly grows more confident in them while Eren's plans repeatedly fail and/or are only successful after an immediate disaster. This culminates in Chapter 84 when Eren demands that Levi give Armin the serum and save him because he believes that Armin will be the one to save the world, not Eren himself, since Armin still remembers the dream they had of seeing the outside world. Ironically, after the Time Skip Eren deems Armin to be worthless for not coming up with a proper plan. Eren himself is praised by the public for taking the initiative to resolve the Eldian crisis. For all his intelligence, Armin failed to understand Eren's master plan until it was too late. Eren has to spell it out to him and that is after he unleashes all the Wall Titans to destroy all civilization outside the island.
    • This now also applies to Eren and Reiner, as Eren is seen as the villain by everyone who isn't on the same side as the main characters. Reiner, and the rest of Marley, are only viewed in a negative light by the main characters. Eren points this trope out to Reiner, saying "I'm the same as you".
    • He also has this dynamic with Mikasa: Eren is initially motivated by his desire to free humanity from the Titans, and Mikasa joins him for the sole purpose of protecting him, everyone else be damned. After the Time Skip, Eren is willing to betray his friends' trust to attain his goals and ends up alienating them, while Mikasa grows warmer towards her squadmates and finds herself estranged by Eren's newfound ruthlessness.
    • And interestingly, with the Colossus Titan. At first, Eren is one of the protagonists and the Colossus Titan was seen as the greatest threat. Things go full topsy-turvy much later, now the Colossus Titan is one of the protagonists in the form of Armin, and Eren himself has become the Big Bad with his plan to kill everyone except for the people of Paradis Island.
    • Also has this with his actual half-brother Zeke Yeager and his father Grisha Yeager. Eren was regarded as one of the key opponents against the Beast Titan, the true threat beyond the walls, and the latter tried to save Eren from being 'brainwashed' by their father into committing for his cause, while not knowing Eren joined the fight from his own will. After the Time Skip, Eren reveals himself to be the one actually manipulating his father, making him massacre the Reiss Family and feeding himself to Eren, but also reveals himself as the true threat by releasing the Wall Titans, but Grisha also begs Zeke to stop him from destroying the world, which Zeke listens to.
  • The people of Paradis Island were led to believe they are the last remains of humanity, under the constant outside threat of Titans. As an island populated by Eldians, the outside world treats them with disdain for their people's past actions. By the end of the story, an Eldian and resident of Paradis, Eren Yeager, uses the Titans to threaten the entire world outside the island due to their past actions, leaving only a few dregs of humanity in his wake.
• Beastars: Zigzagged in the first half with Legosi and Louis. Legosi starts out as a kind-hearted-to-the-point-of-being-a-doormat person who everyone assumes the worst of because of his appearance. Louis starts out as a pompous asshole crushed by the weight of others' expectations. The third story arc has them both becoming an idealized version of what society thinks of the other. Louis becomes a feared and respected mob boss and Legosi becomes a strong and dependable agent of justice. However, both are noticeably distorting themselves to fit into their new roles. In terms of their place in society they end up right back where they started in an instant, which is lampshaded by Louis in his inner monologue during graduation. Regardless, the experience still taught both of them a great deal about themselves and what they want out of life.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: The overarching plot is about Tanjiro Kamado, a young man who joins the Demon Slayer Corps in hopes of finding a cure for his sister Nezuko, who was turned into a demon by Big Bad Muzan Kibutsuji. About two hundred chapters later Nezuko does get turned back into a human, but shortly afterwards a dying Muzan turns Tanjiro himself into a demon, making him the one who needs to be cured.
• Dragon Ball: Throughout Z, Goku gains strength by learning to embrace his Saiyan heritage. Vegeta gains strength by learning to become more human.
• Dr. STONE: At the beginning of the series, Tsukasa Shishio's primary motivation is to find a cure for his terminally ill (brain dead) and comatose sister Mirai despite it being beyond modern medical science. At the end of the second story arc, Mirai is restored but immediately afterwards Tsukasa is fatally injured^note stabbed through the chest by his Dragon with an Agenda Hyoga and has to be rendered comatose ^note put in cryogenic stasis until they can find a cure that's beyond modern medical science^note The "Medusa" device, since petrifying and then restoring him will also heal his injury. Mirai even remarks on the situation, saying that Tsukasa spent years looking after her and now she'll spend however long it takes looking after him.
• Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gou has this happen with Satoko and Teppei Houjou: after finding out about his deaths in the "Groundhog Day" Loop due to him being an Evil Uncle, Teppei actually tries to become a decent person towards his niece, including buying her snacks and driving away a group of motorcyclists harassing her. Unfortunately, she has become a homicidal Yandere willing to kill anyone just so she can have her childhood best friend all to herself.
• Hunter × Hunter: At the start of the series, Gon is the All-Loving Hero, albeit with some morality issues, looking for his Disappeared Dad and Killua is an elite assassin not knowing what to do with his life aside from killing. The dynamic between Gon and Killua is turned on its head in the Chimera Ant Arc. Killua learns how to make friends and becomes the Morality Chain for Gon, whose Moral Myopia has him slowly falling into the deep end after Kite's death, culminating with him losing to his rage and killing Pitou. In the end, Gon returns to his idealistic ways but loses his Nen abilities as the condition for his transformation and is now the one Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life after meeting his father while Killua becomes more idealistic and now has a purpose of protecting his sibling Alluka.
• In Love Live! Sunshine!!, this happened with the third years; at the beginning Mari was more reserved and had to be convinced to become a school idol whereas Dia and Kanan were passionate about it. After having Performance Anxiety in Tokyo and being crushed, Kanan and Dia are more closed off and want nothing to do with school idols, while Mari enthusiastically supports Chika's endeavor.
• In Macross Frontier, popular idol singer Sheryl Nome serves as a mentor to up and coming Ranka Lee, but later Sheryl becomes ill and as her popularity wanes, Ranka's soars to the point of becoming a heroine capable of using her song to scare away enemy aliens. Then it happens again when Ranka loses her will to sing and makes a Face–Heel Turn while Sheryl takes her place when it turns out she has the same power.
• In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Precia Testarossa rejects Fate because she isn't her real daughter. In the following season, Fate is trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine and ends up rejecting Dream!Precia because she isn't her real mother.
• My Hero Academia:
  • At the start of the series, protagonist Izuku Midoriya is a massive case of The Chew Toy who gets mocked by everyone for his dream of attending U.A., because he doesn't have a Quirk; meanwhile, his ex-friend/bully Bakugo has a powerful Quirk and is praised by all. When they actually do get into U.A., however, Izuku has gained a Quirk and makes a ton of friends for his kind personality, determination, and strategic mindset. Meanwhile, everyone sees Bakugo in a very mixed light at best, and at his worst as an antisocial Jerkass, with his Quirk being seen as only mildly impressive amongst the equally impressive quirks of his classmates.
  • During the Internship Arc, the rather disorganized League of Villains and their immature manchild of a leader, Tomura Shigaraki, are defeated and humiliated by a branch of the Yakuza known as the Shie Hassaikai, a more ambitious and organized syndicate, led by the calculating and serious Overhaul, who dismisses Shigaraki, and by extension the League, as a non-threat beneath his concern. As the arc goes on, however, the League and its leader make tremendous progress, proving themselves to be quite dangerous. Shie Hassaikai, on the other hand, begins to fall apart as their plans are repeatedly foiled, with Overhaul losing his composure, relying less and less on thought or planning in favor of brute force.
• Naruto: Kakashi starts as a shinobi who only cares about the mission, while Obito thinks that comrades are more important. After the battle of Kannibi Bridge, Kakashi becomes more concerned about comrades and puts them above the mission. Obito however, completely and utterly shatters at seeing the love of his life kill herself with his best friend's attack and is sent down the nihilistic path to becoming Tobi, who will sacrifice anyone and everyone for his mission. In fact, everything about Obito and Kakashi switched after that mission, including the Generation Xerox. Kakashi was originally Sasuke's counterpart and Obito was Naruto's. In the end, however, Kakashi became a kind, loyal shinobi of Konoha who becomes Hokage like Naruto, while Obito becomes a wanted criminal/terrorist who eventually makes a Heel–Face Turn like Sasuke.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: Shinji and Asuka start as the "shy failure" and the "confident Ace Pilot" and over the course of the series, Shinji racks up the most angel kills and Asuka has a breakdown because she doesn't. Shiniji later does revert back into the "shy failure", but that's a different matter.
• Happens in Ruby and Sapphire's shared backstory in Pokémon Adventures. It turns out that the wild and boisterous Sapphire used to be feminine and demure, while the flamboyant Ruby used to be more rambunctious and adventurous. However, after a traumatic incident (which both had forgotten about), the pair pretty much switched personalities, becoming the Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy pair they're known as today.
• In Oshi no Ko, the series begins proper with Aqua swearing revenge on his and Ruby's biological father, who he thinks orchestrated the murder of their mother Ai. He's obsessed with finding out his identity, including doing DNA tests on anyone he can get a sample of, and uses his acting skills to get closer to big shots in the industry. When it looks like he's got a lead on his father and it's revealed that said man has committed murder-suicide many years ago, Aqua loses his obsessive trait and settles more into an everyday, happy life, similar to his twinsister Ruby. She's the one that ends up obsessed with revenge against her father, when she learns that he likely had a part in Ai's death, and uses her position as an idol to gain more and more fame to get noticed. The full turnaround comes with Aqua regaining his original obsession upon learning that the man he thought was his father likely wasn't, starting his search anew. Both twins are out for revenge, but due to not communicating well, they don't realize their goals are the same and their ways of getting it are vastly different, causing friction between them.
• In Phoenix: Karma, Gao begins as a ruthless bandit with a Freudian Excuse and Akanemaru is a simple artisan who winds up stabbed by him for no good reason. As the story progresses, Gao finds salvation through art while Akanemaru discovers his own ambition; by the end, both are changed men, and Gao is a sculptor whose talents outshine even Akanemaru's. The petty Akanemaru will not stand to be upstaged by Gao and throws away his own redemption, telling the tale of Gao's origins as the bandit who wounded him; Gao's remaining arm is taken as punishment and he is thrown into exile. However, Akanemaru himself dies in a fire trying to save his work, and as he dies, the Phoenix tells him that he will never be reborn as a human; Gao, on the other hand, manages to return to his art despite his disability.
• In An Observation Log of My Fiancée Who Calls Herself a Villainess, we have Bertia Ibil Noches and Heronia. In the original otome game, Bertia was the villainess and Heronia the heroine. However, the alternate Bertia is a kind-hearted individual who makes friends, plays matchmaker, and tries to prevent a Bad Future. Despite claiming otherwise, she is the real heroine. In contrast, alternate Heronia effectively brainwashes people, spreads rumors and gossip, and expects the world to revolve around her. By the end, it's clear Heronia is the villainess.
• In Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, a long series of events causes the duel in the seventeenth episode to be a perfect mirror of the first duel in the series; In the original duel, Suletta is the underdog, recently arrived from her backwater planet who scores an unexpected victory against the reigning dueling champion Guel, resulting in her getting engaged to Miorine Rembran. In episode 17, Guel has recently returned to Asticassia after a stay on the backwater planet Earth, and is dueling against Suletta, who at this point has become the undefeated champion. Guel pulls of an underdog victory thanks to Suletta's gundam being sabotaged, and is engaged to Miorine as a result. The biggest difference is that, in the original duel, it was voluntary on both sides, while this time Guel is being pressured into dueling by Miorine who wants Suletta to lose her champion title to protect her from her mother's machinations, and he is clearly not happy about it.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica:
  • Sayaka starts out as an idealistic rookie and The Cape-in training, while Kyoko is introduced as a selfish and cynical Blood Knight. After the Awful Truth comes out, Sayaka becomes an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight with an unhealthy dose of self-loathing, while Kyoko develops into a Defrosting Ice Queen who goes back to being the idealistic girl she once was. Not that it saves either of them.
  • An infamous example occurs at the end of the third movie. Throughout the original series, Homura was a powerless puppet of Kyubey, doomed to suffer and unable to fight back against a seemingly invincible foe. By the end of the movie, Homura steals the goddess Madoka’s powers, becomes the new devil and turns all that despair on to Kyubey, condemning them to an eternity of Mind Rape and being her powerless plaything.
• At the start of Rent-A-Girlfriend, Kazuya goes on his second date with his rental girlfriend, Chizuru, just so he can tell her off, but ends up having to visit his grandmother in the hospital, resulting in his family and Chizuru's grandmother (who is her only remaining family) being convinced they are a couple. Chizuru insists that they tell their families the truth and admit that they're not dating, but Kazuya insists that they keep up the lie. Later on in the story, Kazuya, noticing the toll that lying to everyone is taking on Chizuru, insists on finally coming clean, but Chizuru, not wanting to let her dying grandmother down, refuses.
• In Simoun, the power dynamic between the Broken Ace Neviril and the Naïve Newcomer Aaeru completely reverses in the course of the series. Early on, Aaeru is the energetic and driven one in their relationship, pushing constantly to become Neviril's co-pilot and perform the ultimate Emerald Ri-Majoon with her; Neviril, meanwhile, is still reeling from the loss of her previous co-pilot and lover in a failed attempt at that very Ri-Majoon, so she spends most of the time moping or passively following her orders. By the final episodes, however, Aaeru's youthful idealism is broken and she essentially loses direction in life — and it is Neviril, finally recovering from her depression (with Aaeru's own help), who gives it to her again: namely, to perform that very Ri-Majoon Aaeru wanted and she didn't from the start.
• Star Wars: Visions: "Lop & Ocho" begins with Lop as an orphan and slave of the Galactic Empire who was adopted into Yasaburo's family when his daughter, Ocho, put him on the spot and forced him to be honor-bound to adopt her. By the end, Ocho has betrayed Yasaburo and sided with the Empire, while Lop, whom Yasaburo had come to love as though she were his own flesh and blood, is entrusted as the next leader of the family and bestowed the clan's ancestral lightsaber.
• In The Tatami Galaxy, for most of the series, the Unlucky Everydude protagonist is caught in a "Groundhog Day" Loop, and in every episode, Ozu, a screwball (who is illustrated to look somewhat "demonic"), arranges things so that the protagonist fails to achieve (often romantic) success, and looks bad. Eventually, it is revealed that Ozu's antics are motivated by a combination of his own romantic pursuits and genuine friendship toward the protagonist, and the protagonist has an epiphany wherein he rethinks some of his own behavior and realizes that Ozu is a true friend. At the end of the series, Ozu (now illustrated as normal-looking) seeks the protagonist's aid for his romantic troubles, and the protagonist assumes Ozu's former role of good-natured troll.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
  • The first season starts with Ai hunted down by the Knights of Hanoi and SOL Technologies before being captured/saved by Yusaku and teaming up to fight the two groups. The final season has Ai turncoat and become the final villain while Café Nagi, the Knights of Hanoi, and SOL Technologies team up to stop him and Yusaku was the one to end his life.
  • Early in the series, Yusaku was a Jerkass loner obsessed with revenge while pushing away any potential allies while Ai starts off friendlier and goofy, but is untrustworthy and not taken seriously by everyone. Season 3 reverses this: Ai acts similar to early Yusaku as he becomes revenge-driven for his late friends and shuts down everyone's attempts to stop him. Yusaku, on the other hand, became friendlier, has opened up with his allies, and realized that revenge is not the best way to go. It further helps that Ai tells Roboppi to shut up a couple times as a Call-Back to what Yusaku would often say to Ai early on.

Comic Books

• The Big Kahn begins with Avi as The Dutiful Son, a rabbi set up to take over his father's pulpit, while Lea is the rebellious one who's mostly abandoned religion. The revelations about their father cause Avi to start questioning his beliefs while Lea begins to warm up to Jewish observance.
• Watchmen: Rorscharch and Ozymandias exchange positions at the end. The latter calls the former a right-wing loony and the former regards him as a liberal hypocrite. As a young man, Rorscharch wrote gushingly about Harry Truman's decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the wisdom of Well-Intentioned Extremist thinking. But he's horrified when Ozymandias comes around to it, and does it for real. Rorscharch's code is all about the rules. In his mind, Truman had the authority to do what was needed, since he was President of the US and Commander-in-Chief while Ozymandias did not have any authority to do something similar.

Fan Works

Crossovers

• Code Prime: Chapters 18 and 19 of R1 serve as this for Lelouch and Suzaku. In Chapter 18, What is Justice?, Lelouch is left wondering if the path he is on is the right one when it appears that Shirley's father is killed by the landslide engineered by the Black Knights at Narita, even after receiving words of comfort by Optimus. Suzaku, meanwhile, has his convictions affirmed by these events and accepts Megatron's offer to join the Decepticons. Then in Chapter 19, What is Evil?, Lelouch has his convictions reaffirmed after saving Shirley from Mao and coming clean about everything with Shirley forgiving him. Suzaku ends up having his resolve shaken when he encounters Airachnid in Shinjuku, with the Spider-Con tearing into his ideals, telling him that he's on the wrong side, and nothing he does will make things better.
• Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail:
  • Chloe always felt as though her Childhood Friend Goh was leaving her behind in pursuit of Mew, as well as ditching her in favor of having adventures with Ash. Once she boards the Infinity Train, their situations are reversed: Chloe finds her own companions and has her own escapades while Goh is left miserable in her absence, finally starting to realize how much he took her presence for granted.
  • Chloe also felt as though she was stagnating in Vermillion City, unable to decide what she wished to do with her life. On the Train, she has been figuring out who she wants to be, while Goh and her father are starting to stagnate back home as they refuse to acknowledge their own problems.
• Three Can Keep a Secret: In the series, Dipper was an anxiety-ridden, insecure and neurotic mess who had to face difficult lessons about the consequences of his mistakes, while Mabel was much more self-confident, largely content and secure in herself. By the time this fic begins, their positions have flipped; Dipper's become more confident and secure, while Mabel is an anxiety-ridden mess haunted by the fallout of her flaws.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

• In Towards the Sun, both Zuko and Azula attempted to capture the Gaang for Fire Lord Ozai. Now the Gaang have to capture self-exiled Zuko and Azula to prevent rebellion against Fire Lord Iroh.

Code Geass

• In My Mirror, Sword and Shield when Ordinary High-School Student Suzaku joins Emperor Lelouch in the past, he's surrounded by Lelouch's friends and family and finds shelter and a new identity as a royal knight and mecha pilot. When Lelouch is taken by Suzaku to the future, he's surrounded by Suzaku's friends and family and finds shelter and a new identity as a normal college student.

Danganronpa

• let's go out with a bang!: Over the course of the convention, it becomes clear that Naegi and Enoshima have effectively switched positions. Junko serves as a Spanner in the Works to his attempts to mastermind and manipulate events as Team DR demands.

Disgaea

• Tyrantly Ever After: In the latter half of the story, Valvatorez begins regaining more of his old power. At the same time, Artina's power wanes due to God revoking His favor from her.

Kingdom Hearts

• Aqua is canonically the Team Mom in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. In The Tie That Binds where Ventus doesn't fall into a coma, her age is frozen while trapped in the Realm of Darkness. When she's rescued eight years later, she is mentally and physically younger than Ventus and Xemnas and swaps places with Ventus to become The Baby of the Bunch.

Love Hina

• In For His Own Sake, resident Chew Toy Keitaro decides after three years of abuse and disrespect to leave the Hinata Inn and start working towards a better future, while also recognizing and trying to atone for his past mistakes. Over time, Shinobu, Kitsune and Haruka recognize their own issues and set about improving their own lives. At the same time, several of the more stubborn residents, like Naru, Mokoto and Kaolla Suu, find themselves falling from grace as Surprisingly Realistic Outcome occurs and they have to face the consequences of their actions.

Miraculous Ladybug

• Bitter Victory has Lila replace Marinette as class president, only to learn that everybody expects her to bend over backwards catering to their every demand, no matter how last-minute or implausible their requests are. She eventually realizes that Marinette actually tricked her, giving her a taste of her own tactics, complete with smugly gloating when Lila confronts her.
• the high road: By the climax, Adrien, Alya, Nino, and the rest of Marinette's classmates find themselves in the same position Marinette was originally in: fully aware that Lila is a Manipulative Bitch who's been taking advantage of everyone but unable to convince her biggest victim of the Awful Truth. (Of course, that was Marinette's plan all along.)
• Jerk in Sheep's Clothing is this to the infamous "Chameleon" episode, in which Marinette’s friends all fall for Lila’s honeyed words, while Marinette tries to warn them about them but is not believed and accused of being cruel to Lila. In the fanfic, a New Transfer Student named Henri LeRoi arrives and wins Marinette over with his false loyalty and kindness towards her, while she is completely unaware that Beneath the Mask, he is actually even more of a Manipulative Bastard than Lila. The class quickly find this out and try to warn Marinette, but she refuses to believe them, because Henri is the only one who has truly taken her side, and she accuses her friends of picking on Henri.
• When The Karma of Lies begins, Adrien Agreste is the 'Golden Boy' of Paris, the face of his father's fashion empire, and refusing to help Marinette expose Lila because her Con Artistry isn't directly affecting him. Even though he can clearly see that Lila is isolating Marinette and scamming their friends, he insists that everything will work out on its own. Then karma comes calling, and Marinette hits the Karmic Jackpot while his warranty runs out. Ladybug defeats and unmasks Hawkmoth in an Indy Ploy that leads to her own exposure, making her a beloved figure recognized for protecting Paris, while the Agrestes' reputation and fortunes suffer heavily. Adrien's friends learn how he let Lila lead them on and turn against him; Chat Noir's reputation nosedives since he failed to show up to the Final Battle, and he finds himself dealing with a strict new guardian who won't provide him with the same luxuries he's so used to. To hammer this all home, Marinette ends up being invited to live in the former Agreste manor by Audrey, its new owner, while Adrien lives in her old bedroom as his apartment.
• In Karma Overbalance, a Recursive Fanfiction for The Karma of Lies, Adrien complains that he and Marinette not only swapped places, but that she ended up in a much better position than he'd held originally, with her becoming Loved by All while he lost everything due to being hit with Lila's bad karma on top of his own. Marinette is left so badly shaken by the encounter that she's left wondering whether she will be hit with karmic backlash to the same degree, given her unintentional role in his downfall.
• The Lament Series (ChaoticNeutral):
  • In Chloé's Lament, Chloé wishes to trade lives with Marinette, expecting this to kick in by completely swapping their positions. However, she refused to consider that their personalities would remain the same and that their peers didn't simply hate her for being the Mayor's daughter; they hated her for being a Spoiled Brat. So while Chloé ends up as the daughter of a baker while Marinette's mother becomes the mayor of Paris in this new reality, she finds that she's still Hated by All...and isn't able to hide behind her father's connections anymore.
• Lila's Lament, the Recursive Fanfiction for The Lament Series, flips the roles of Marinette and Adrien around. In the original universe, Marinette tried to expose Lila's deceit while Adrien advocated for her to 'take the high road' and let her lies go unchallenged, naively believing Lila was good deep down. In the new reality created by Lila's Wish, Adrien is no longer an Extreme Doormat and calls her out on her claims. By contrast, Marinette believes that Lila is a Lonely Rich Kid whose deceptions are born out of insecurity, and tries to convince him to stand down.
• Scarlet Lady: "Zombizou" opens with the whole class preparing to celebrate Mme. Bustier's birthday... aside from Chloé, who complains about her lovey-dovey and childish teaching methods. After the titular incident, everyone's positions are reversed: Marinette and the rest of the class admit that Bustier is a Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher who has systematically disappointed them all with her blatant double standards and refusal to punish Chloé for being a Spoiled Brat... while Chloé gets Bustier a late birthday present to thank her for being her biggest enabler.
• Truth and Consequences: At the start of the series, Ladybug and Chat Noir resent each other for their places in the status quo: Ladybug was forced to bear The Chains of Commanding while Chat Noir often proved to be The Load, due to Master Fu focusing primarily on training her as his successor. This led to her struggling under the weight of her responsibilities while Chat Noir was regarded by Paris as a No-Respect Guy. By the time of the sequel, Mending Warped Designs, their positions have swapped: Marinette has spent three years living the normal life that she'd once longed for, and returns to find she can't quite fit back into the Miraculous Team, Locked Out of the Loop and left on the fringes. Meanwhile, Adrien has earned the regard of Paris as one of its most experienced heroes, but his experiences have left him bitter and distancing himself from his would-be teammates.
• What Goes Around Comes Around: Emilie wastes no time manipulating her son into trusting her, playing upon his naivete to trick him into handing over the Cat Ring. She later gives him a Breaking Speech about his childish belief that things will work out the way he wants. Adrien takes this to heart, and during the Final Battle, he turns the tables by pretending to forgive her, offering a hand up... and stealing the Ring right back from her.
• The Wolves in the Woods: Lila realizes, much to her horror, that she's facing this fate after Marinette is forced to transfer out of Francoise Dupont. Her classmates expect her to be just like Marinette and go out of her way to help them with connections she's lied about having... even though she hasn't actually said anything or made any false promises about helping them out. They simply expect her to do that for them, much like they did with Marinette. And due to their Moral Myopia, several of her 'friends' are going around openly bragging that they drove Marinette away and will happily do so to anyone else who crosses them.

My Hero Academia

• One for All and Eight for the Ninth: Bakugou's flashy Quirk made him incredibly popular at all of his schools, while Izuku was at the bottom of the pecking order...up until U.A., which has no tolerance for the sort of bigotry that ran rampant at Aldera Middle School. Now Izuku's the popular, well-liked one while Bakugou's stuck on the low end of the totem pole.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

• Loved and Lost:
  • When the Mane Five are sentenced to slavery as punishment for allowing the Changelings to invade Canterlot by Jewelius, they (unsuccessfully) resort to tearfully groveling and pleading for mercy. Then in the climax, when Jewelius' army is defeated and the heroes cut off his escape routes, he pathetically begs to be spared and bargains for his own life.
  • Just like in canon, Twilight tries to warn her loved ones about the imposter Cadance. Their roles are later reversed when her friends and brother desperately try to tell the resentful and jaded Twilight that Jewelius is the mastermind behind the Canterlot invasion who is using her.
  • Twilight and Cadance are trapped in an abandoned mine, and later Jewelius sentences Shining Armor and Rarity to work as slaves in the Diamond Dogs' mines.

Naruto

• Androgyninja's A Drop of Poison: At the start of the story, Sasuke has nothing but scorn for the civilian-born Sakura, while Naruto is quick to leap to her defense. The boys flip positions after the Chuunin Exams — Sakura earned Sasuke's respect by killing several enemy shinobi, while Naruto is horrified upon learning about her kill count.
• A Case Study in the Sturdiness of the Rookie 9:
  • At first, Kakashi treats his genin team dismissively, letting them misinterpret his neglect as 'encouraging their independence' and ignoring all critiques of how he's handling them. After his Heel Realization, their positions are flipped: Kakashi desperately tries to correct his mistakes but Shino and Sakura ignore his criticism and insist they did nothing wrong.
  • Played for Laughs with the Nara family. At first, Yoshino spends a lot of time nagging Shikamaru while her husband watches her efforts with amusement. Once their son takes an interest in clan politics, however, he starts pressuring his father to get more involved as well, flipping their positions around — now Shikaku's the one getting bossed around by his son while Yoshino enjoys the show.

Persona 5

• Marigolds:
  • In the original timeline, the Phantom Thieves mostly treated Akechi as The Friend Nobody Likes. In the new timeline, Akechi's efforts lead them to trust him more, treating him as a genuine part of the team. They even ask for help and hang out with him outside of official PT business.
  • It's implied that Akechi envies Joker not just for being stronger than him, but for being able to make friends despite his unfortunate circumstances. Now, he's being envied by Makoto not just for being a detective prodigy, but for being able to quickly integrate himself into the Phantom Thieves despite being part of the Conspiracy.
• Rig the Game: Royal: Akira Kurusu was once treated as a pariah in Shujin for a criminal record he undeservedly received. In the new world, he's the vice president of the student council and is widely popular among the student body, even becoming the face of the same school that once ostracized him.

Red vs. Blue

• Murderer's Row: Donut starts off as a hapless Butt-Monkey who survives mainly due to Caboose's protection, whereas Tucker is a respected inmate who is capable in a fight and is feared for having driven another prisoner to suicide with only his words. During Volume 2, Donut becomes vicious and brooding after undergoing a Trauma Conga Line and becomes much more respected as a result, while Tucker is blinded during a Prison Riot. By the time of Volume 3, the two have swapped roles: Tucker is now a defenseless old man who only gets by due to Church's protection, while Donut is respected for being a downright brutal Combat Pragmatist.

Star Wars

• In The Past: When Anakin encounters his time-traveling son and older self, he learns about how he will eventually turn to the Dark Side. For most of the story, Vader acts as the Token Evil Teammate, fully embracing the Dark Side and determined not to change the past. Anakin acts as his Vader's Foil, insisting that the past can be changed and resolves to never turn to the Dark Side. Then everything changes when Palpatine nearly kills Ahsoka and Padmé, frames Anakin for treason, and turns the entire Republic against him. This sets Anakin on his path to the Dark Side. At the same time, the events of the fanfic had caused Vader to decide to stop his younger self's Face–Heel Turn. Now, Anakin's the one who's fully embraced the Dark Side in a misguided attempt to protect his loved ones, while Vader is trying to change the past.

Films — Animation

• Flushed Away begins with Sid, a thuggish sewer rat, invading the wimpy Roddy's home and making a total pushover out of him. Following his experiences down the sewers, Roddy returns as a hardened, bitter rat with a foul temper and a commanding personality, whereas Sid's time living the luxurious lifestyle rubs the edge out of him and he's reduced to being an even bigger wimp than Roddy used to be, with the latter now pushing Sid around.
• The climax to My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games reverses the roles from the climax in My Little Pony: Equestria Girls of Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer, where Human Twilight turns into a monster and Sunset ends up turning her back.
• Wolfwalkers: When Robyn and Mebh first meet, Robyn is a vulnerable and frightened human girl, while Mebh is the brave Wolfwalker who prefers being a wolf over being human and boldly leads her wolves through the forest. In the climax, the tables are turned; Mebh has to be in her human form in order to heal her wounded mother properly, she's frightened of losing the only family she has left, and she's vulnerable to the Lord Protector's army as they close in on her den. Meanwhile, Robyn has grown into her role as a Wolfwalker and embraced her wolf side, bravely and boldly leading the wolves into battle against said army.

Films — Live-Action

• Both 21 Jump Street films have this trope in spades. In high school, Schmidt was an unassuming nerd who was bullied by the cool bully Jenko. After becoming friends and partners, they are sent undercover as high school students where they at first retain their initial behaviors from before. However, Surprisingly Realistic Outcome with their new classmates: Schmidt is now seen as cool because of his pleasing and studious nature while Jenko's carefree attitude is a turn-off for the more responsibly-minded generation he has to mingle in. In doing so, he falls in with the nerd crowd and becomes an outcast himself.
• 22 Jump Street has flipped around the hourglass again: Jenko's alpha jock status allows him to become a popular football player while leaving Schmidt behind.
• In the Anacleto: Agente Secreto movie, the main character is a lazy bum who wants to spend his free time watching movies at home, while his girlfriend wants to go out and have adventures, so she dumps him. At the end of the movie, the main character (who has learned how to be a super-spy) wants to go out and have adventures, but the girlfriend (who has lost an eye and ended up in several death-threatening situations during the movie) only wants to spend her free time watching movies at home... and she dumps him.
• In American Graffiti, Curt is having second thoughts about leaving to go to college and Steve is pressuring him to go. In the end, Curt is the one who ends up leaving to go to college while Steve ends up staying put.
• Bad Genius has this happen between two of its leads, Bank and Lynn. At first, Lynn freely masterminds an exam cheating scheme at school while Bank flat-out refuses to let his classmate copy off of him, even for a hefty sum. By the end, Bank is banned from retaking the STIC and expelled from the school. He tries to blackmail Lynn into stealing the answers to the GATs^note another standardized test in Thailand with her role in the heist, while Lynn, who was wracked with guilt and undergoes a moral epiphany, refuses and exposes the scheme.
• In The Banshees of Inisherin, Padraig is shocked when his old friend Colm wants to abruptly stop being friends on account of him being too 'dull'. By the end of the film, Padraig has become a much more bitter and hardened man after everything that's happened, to the point where Colm is open to being friends again, but Padraig no longer wants that.
• Birth: Sean starts off as a Creepy Child Stalker with a Crush to Anna while she resists him. Then Sean Jr learns that the older Sean was having an affair with Clara, which causes him to change his mind about being a reincarnation. By then, Anna has been convinced that Sean is a reincarnation and tells him that they will run away together until they can remarry.
• Brittany Runs a Marathon sees the titular character become more responsible and healthy while her roommate becomes more wild and less willing to accept someone who's less fun to party with.
• Brothers (2009): Sam, the upright Army officer, is the responsible sibling to Tommy's drunken screw-up. However, Tommy starts straightening out his life, while Sam comes back from combat riddled with PTSD and unable to function.
• The two divorcees in Woody Allen's Celebrity: Lee starts up wanting to immerse himself in celebrity journalism thinking that it will bring him success, while his ex-wife Robin is insecure on top of the neuroses the couple had. As the movie progresses, Lee doesn't get out of his neuroses and starts becoming as insecure as his ex-wife was, which wrecks numerous opportunities for him to succeed, while Robin leaves her many neuroses behind and eventually gets her own celebrity interview program.
• In The Count of Monte Cristo, after betraying his best friend, Fernand is set up with a beautiful wife and an inherited fortune and noble title, while Dantes is locked away in a prison for 16 years. After his escape and subsequent execution of his plans for revenge, Dantes is now the one with the titular noble title, beautiful woman, and nigh-limitless fortune, with Fernand's fortune completely lost, his woman gone, and under threat of imminent arrest for murder and conspiracy.
• Crazy, Stupid, Love: Feckless divorced dad Cal spends the first half of the film wanting to emulate the young, handsome casanova Jacob. After Jacob falls in love with Hannah, he turns to Cal for advice on how to become a likable boyfriend to his new girlfriend's parents.
  Jacob: I looked at people who were in love... and I thought the way that they were behaving... and the things that they were doing and saying... they appeared pathetic, honestly. And I spent all this time with you, I'm trying to make you more like me... and it turns out I just wanna be... I need that drink.
• At the end of Creep, the female lead takes the place of the homeless girl she saw begging at Charing Cross Underground station.
• In the first half of "Crocodile" Dundee, New York City reporter Sue Charlton is a Fish out of Water in Australia with the eponymous Mick Dundee as her guide. The second half has Mick going with Sue to NYC, where Mick becomes the Fish out of Water with Sue as his guide.
• Dead Poets Society: Todd and Neil's arcs. At the beginning of the film, Todd is shy, timid, and hesitant to get involved with Keating's philosophy, while the outgoing Neil is the group's leader, determined to "seize the day" and is the one encouraging and supporting Todd. By the end of the film, it's Neil who is unable to stand up to the pressure on him by his father and tragically commits suicide, while Todd finds his voice, leads the boys to defy the school, and is ultimately the one to live out Keating's teaching.
• DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story: The movie starts with White starring in a Globo Gym ad on TV and Peter watching it and ends with Peter starring in an Average Joe's Gym ad on TV and White watching it. In both cases, the person watching it looks and acts like a slob.
• At the beginning of Dogma, Loki is portrayed as the more ruthless and reckless, wanting to go on one more divinely righteous killing spree before re-entering heaven, while Bartleby is the one who feels compassion for the humans and is more reserved. However, halfway through Bartleby snaps and becomes an Omnicidal Maniac bent on killing everyone, and it is Loki who is attempting to hold him back.
• Flipped: In the beginning, Juli immediately falls in love with Bryce and actively pursues him. But, Bryce is annoyed by her act. Later, ever since Juli found out about Bryce's cowardice and lies, she starts giving up on him. On the contrary, Bryce ends up falling in love with Juli and desperately tries to win her heart.
• The Fly (1986) involves a Love Triangle in which the two male corners of it undergo this. At the beginning, Seth is sweet, timid, kind, and respectful to Veronica, while her ex-lover/editor Stathis is a Clingy Jealous Guy stalking and attempting to manipulate her into reviving their relationship. But then Seth has a Teleporter Accident (which indirectly stems from Stathis's treachery) that turns him into a human-insect hybrid undergoing a Slow Transformation on both physical and mental levels. The result is that by the end, Stathis is the one doing his best to help and protect Veronica while respecting her wishes, while Seth goes mad and becomes a literal and metaphorical monster who maims and almost murders Stathis and tries to fuse himself with Ronnie and their unborn child, whom only he wants to keep. This is a rare example of the trope in which the two men barely interact with each other; after Stathis's introductory scene, they don't meet each other again until the climax/denouement, though each is aware of the other person's evolving role in Veronica's life. Moreover, Seth knows he is becoming the villain by the end but cannot stave off the Split-Personality Takeover, making matters that much more tragic.
• Forrest Gump: Bubba's mother and female ancestors had served as cooks for wealthy white people. When Forrest gives her and her family riches from Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, she becomes wealthy enough to hire a white woman to cook for her.
• House of Sand and Fog: Originally, Behrani appears to be the villain but Kathy ends the film feeling like her alliance with the cop makes her as such.
• Hostel Part II: Timid, passive, apparently kind, and aggressively henpecked Stuart is contrasted against his confident, alpha male friend and co-worker Todd. Todd enjoys flirting with the women and relishes the idea of torturing a woman to death. However, when he comes face-to-face with Whitney and is about to do just that, he has a Heel–Face Turn and immediately regrets his actions and wants out. He accidentally maims her and is horrified and tries to leave. Stuart, on the other hand, becomes increasingly more sadistic as he gets into torturing Beth, and even tries to rape her.
• The Innocent (2022): Abel begins the film looking down on Michel for his prison background and for marrying his mother while in prison. The film ends with Abel marrying Clémence in prison and Michel free.
• Irreconcilable Differences: After Albert divorces Lucy, he lives in a mansion with Blake while Lucy lives in a small apartment. Later, after Albert's career goes downhill and Lucy becomes a bestselling novelist, Lucy buys Albert's mansion while Albert moves into a motel.
• Juno and Mark. She keeps going over to his and Vanessa's house to get to know them better and see what kind of family her baby will have ("I just like being a piece of furniture in your weird life"), while his exposure to her and her teenage flippancy gives him second thoughts about his adulthood and eventually causes him to bail on his wife and the coming baby, to Juno's shock and dismay. His regression triggers her coming of age.
• In the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • In Thor, the titular hero starts out as a vicious Blood Knight while his brother, Loki, is much more cautious and diplomatic. By the movie's end, Thor is much more peaceful and tries to reason with his enemies rather than plunging into battle, while Loki tries to demolish an entire world to achieve his goals.
  • Tony Stark is introduced as a fiercely independent businessman who plays by his own rules and despises government bureaucracy, while Steve Rogers is a patriotic working-class kid from Brooklyn who believes in self-sacrifice and jumps at the chance to serve his country in World War II. Accordingly, when they meet in The Avengers, Tony regularly chafes at authority and almost loses his spot on the Avengers, while Steve remains loyal to SHIELD from start to finish. But as the series goes on, both men's character arcs move in opposite directions. Tony becomes much more willing to submit to authority after one of his inventions grows beyond his control and endangers the world, while Steve becomes much more willing to question authority after he discovers a massive HYDRA conspiracy within the ranks of SHIELD. By Captain America: Civil War, their roles are completely reversed: Tony leads an effort to put the Avengers under government control, while Steve is the one who rebels against the government and fights to remain independent.
  • Captain America: Civil War has Tony recruit Peter Parker to help him arrest Rogers and the other anti-registration heroes, though Peter doesn't want to go to Germany and miss school and has to be blackmailed into it. After the battle, Peter thoroughly enjoyed the experience and wants to join the Avengers full time, while Tony, horrified by the fact Peter almost got seriously injured, feels that bringing him along was a bad idea and wants him to stick to the streets. Spider-Man: Homecoming features Peter trying to prove his worth to Tony while he steadfastly refuses to let him join. By the end, Tony has decided that Peter has proven himself and wants to make him an official member of the team. However, Peter decides that he'd rather stay a street-level hero and fight for the little guys that the Avengers can't and turns the offer down.
  • Black Panther (2018) has this happen with W'Kabi of the Border Tribe and M'Baku of the Jabari Tribe. In the beginning, during T'Challa's ritual coronation, W'Kabi is the most supportive of T'Challa's rise while M'Baku is the one to challenge him for kingship. When T'Challa fails in apprehending Klaue, W'Kabi wavers in his loyalty and brings in Erik (after he delivers him Klaue's dead body), seeking to be kingmaker in his rise after defeating T'Challa. M'Baku, in contrast, has his men rescue T'Challa after falling to the rapids, keeps him alive on ice, and eventually turns around to support T'Challa in his counter-coup against Erik's nascent reign. He even takes W'Kabi's place at T'Challa's right hand in court by the end.
  • In Thor: Ragnarok, Valkyrie is an aimless mercenary who crawled into liquor bottles to escape the trauma of being the Sole Survivor of the Valkyries, while Thor is still an unabashed hero who takes his place as the rightful king of Asgard. By Avengers: Endgame, Valkyrie has stepped in to lead the remainder of the Asgardians as Thor became a reclusive drunken slob during the Time Skip due to the guilt of failing to prevent the Snap and losing his entire family. Even after restoring the universe and defeating Thanos's forces, Thor decides to join the Guardians of the Galaxy and leaves Valkyrie as the rightful Queen of New Asgard.
  • Similarly, in Endgame, the story of Tony Stark and Peter Parker. In Avengers: Infinity War, Peter Parker died by Thanos's Badass Fingersnap, right in the presence of Tony, who absolutely broke down into despair next we see him in Endgame. In the climax of Endgame, however, Tony is the one to do the Badass Fingersnap to defeat Thanos and his army, and partly to safeguard Peter (and his daughter) from dying again. Tony later dies due to the Phlebotinium Overload due to the Stones' powers, dying in the presence of a despairing Peter Parker.
  • Also, Age of Ultron establishes the difference between the philosophies of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. Tony wants to end the fight so he can go home and start a family with Pepper Potts, which he manages to accomplish in the first half of Endgame. Steve believes that a normal life for him is impossible due to being displaced out of time and seeks to fight evil to the bitter end, even contemplating going out with a Heroic Sacrifice. By the end of Endgame, it's Tony Stark who gives up a chance for a normal life to save the universe through a sacrificial play, and it's Steve Rogers who goes home (in the past) to spend the rest of his life with Peggy Carter.
  • Initially, Natasha Romanoff committed various crimes and murders when she was working with the KGB and it is Clint Barton who offers her a chance to atone for her mistakes by joining SHIELD rather than killing her. In Endgame, Clint becomes a ruthless killer after his family's death and it is Natasha who allows him to redeem himself for his crimes by joining the Avengers in order to resurrect everyone.
• This was part of the Character Development between Neo and Smith in the The Matrix film series. Smith picks up human emotions and independent goals (which he doesn't like) while Neo finds himself as a "cog in the machine" with a pre-destined goal (which also proves to be a bit of a drag).
• In the 2011 film One Day, based on the novel by David Nicholls, the two protagonists Emma and Dexter come from completely different backgrounds and life goals, with Emma starting out as a poor waitress after graduating from university and Dexter beginning as a successful television host. Over time, Emma gains success first as a teacher and then as a writer. Dexter goes on a downward spiral and ends up a poor divorcee.
• Pet: The film begins with a disaffected man becoming infatuated with a beautiful writer he claims to have known in high school, going from Endearingly Dorky to Dogged Nice Guy to Stalker with a Crush, leading to his kidnapping her and locking her in a cage under the animal shelter where he works. Then halfway through the movie, he tells her he read her notebook, a stylized journal detailing confessions of her murders. Plural. He wants to "save" her, but she is reluctant to change and pushes in return, telling him that somewhere deep inside, he's like her. She escapes confinement, but by the end of the movie, she seems convinced that he is her soulmate. The "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue reveals that she is happily back with her ex, Eric, and is keeping him locked up in a nearby warehouse, visiting him with food, affection, and Cold-Blooded Torture whenever her murderous impulses rise up.
• In Primer, Aaron starts off as a family man and rather risk-averse (note the scenes where he worries about needing eye protection and warns his wife against using the first batch of ice from the new fridge). Abe starts off unmarried and rather more devil-may-care. Over the course of the film, access to a Time Travel-powered Reset Button makes Aaron become more aggressive and willing to take risks, and he eventually leaves his family. Abe, on the other hand, becomes increasingly worried about the side effects of time travel and oddly protective of Aaron's family.
• Serenity has Mal and the Operative gradually trading roles in terms of their beliefs and convictions. Mal is established throughout Firefly as an idealist so traumatized by the Browncoats' defeat in the Independence War that he tries too hard to suppress his belief in self-determination — even as it keeps shining through his facade. The Operative, meanwhile, is introduced as a secular fanatic who believes so strongly in the Alliance cause, he will sink to any depths to ensure its success. Then, over the course of the film, Mal's passion for liberty and his hatred for the Alliance are reignited (specifically, by Shepherd Book's last words and then by what the crew discovers on Miranda), while the Operative's beliefs are utterly shattered when he is Forced to Watch the Apocalyptic Log from Miranda by Mal.
• She-Devil: Ruth effectively switches places with Mary and Bob by the end of the story. This theme is even stronger in the book, where more emphasis is placed on Ruth's envy of Mary and her glamorous life than revenge on Bob.
• Martin Scorsese's Silence features this dynamic between Fr. Rodrigues and Kichijiro. At the start, the former is a brave and courageous priest and the latter is a Dirty Coward apostate penitent who betrays him repeatedly. Rodrigues frequently feels that his duty to pardon Kichijiro repeatedly is insane, yet in the end after he has apostatized, it is Kichijiro who restores Rodrigues' (now hidden) faith by asking for confession, and on account of the fact that he's more inept at hiding crucifixes than the apostate Rodrigues, he ends up attaining martyrdom while Rodrigues dies as an apostate sellout. In effect, the seeming Judas becomes a Christ figure while the man who starts out wanting to be Jesus, and resembling him, ends up becoming Judas.
• Space Jam: A New Legacy: At the beginning, LeBron comes across as obsessed about playing basketball seriously and unsupportive of his son, Dom, as a result. Al-G Rhythm uses his experience being disrespected to sympathize with Dom and the two have fun together, to the point where Dom considers Al-G his friend and agrees to play against his own father. As the film progresses, LeBron realizes he's been crushing both the Tunes and his son with his expectations. He becomes more laid-back and accepting of unusual tactics. He confesses this to Dom and they hug. As the game turns against him, Al-G becomes angrier and more of a Control Freak, thus losing Dom's friendship, which only enrages Al-G even more.
• Thoroughbreds: Former best friends Lily and Amanda. Lily is an apparently extremely empathic and kind, albeit image-conscious, teenage girl who is thrown into a tailspin when her bullying stepfather Mark plans to send her away to a bad boarding school. Amanda is a resolute underachiever and a sociopath with a bad reputation and no feelings who is awaiting trial for animal cruelty. However, as the film progresses, Amanda learns that Lily is far from perfect - she got thrown out of school for plagiarism and is lying about her prestigious internship. While Amanda is guilty of animal cruelty, it actually resulted from a botched attempt to euthanize her horse. Finally, Lily tells Amanda that she doesn't think her life is worth living since she doesn't have emotions, roofies her, and then brutally murders Mark and frames her for it. Lily also gets away with everything and inherits Mark's vast fortune, but emerges from the experience icy-cold. Amanda, meanwhile, goes to a psychiatric hospital where she genuinely enjoys herself and is shown reminiscing with genuine happiness about her and Lily's past as kids.
• A two-parter in Trading Places. In the first half, Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy swap lifestyles. In the second half, they team up to bankrupt the decadently rich Duke brothers and get rich in the process.
• Unforgiven: The story begins with the Schofield Kid, a jumped-up young gunslinger, enlisting the help of William Munny, a rheumatic old pig farmer who can't even shoot straight or get on his horse anymore. By the time Ned is dead and the film enters its explosive last gunfight, the Schofield Kid has killed a man for the first time and skips town, tearfully vowing to never pick up a gun again; whereas the vengeful William Munny has returned to his bloodthirsty ways, and is out for Sheriff Bill.
• In What About Bob?, Bob Wiley starts off all-but-paralyzed by his various neuroses, while Dr. Leo Marvin is a psychiatrist who's just published a best-selling self-help book. Bob's interactions with the Marvin family help him overcome his fears and learn to interact with normal society—eventually marrying Leo's sister, becoming a psychiatrist himself, and authoring his own book. Leo, meanwhile, becomes increasingly irritated and unhinged in response to Bob (in part because he feared that Bob was replacing him in his family's affections) and ends up catatonic. Though seeing Bob's and his sister's wedding apparently cures him.

Literature

• When Anansi Boys starts, Fat Charlie and Spider are Polar Opposite Twins; Charlie is a mundane, responsible, dull Butt-Monkey — while Spider is a Reality Warper confident carefree party animal who is everything Charlie never had the chance to be and more (To the point that Spider isn't actually Fat Charlie's brother, but his magical trickster side literally severed out of him. And while Fat Charlie isn't actually fat, he is kind of soft, and Spider is slimmer than he is. As the story goes, Charlie becomes more confident and bold and more in touch with his half-god side — while Spider learns about responsibility and caring for others and gets to experience being basically powerless for the first time in his life. By the end of the story they are on more-or-less equal footing, but with Charlie being the more confident twin and the more powerful Reality Warper (due to his affinity to Magic Music). By the end, Spider settles down and starts running a restaurant, growing fatter in the process. While Charlie becomes a singer and grows thinner. A case of Hourglass Plot where although the characters still switch places, their situation is less extreme compared to the initial one.
• Animorphs: In #49, Tobias notes the sad irony between him and Jake: Jake is now effectively orphaned, his whole family having been infested by the Yeerks, just as parentless Tobias rediscovers his long-lost mother.
• In Best Served Cold, Monza is introduced as a cruel and amoral borderline Villain Protagonist and in pursuing revenge on the men who betrayed her and killed her brother, enlists the help of Barbarian Hero Shivers who had left his home in the North as part of a quest to leave his old life behind and become a better man. Initially, Monza belittles Shivers' scruples and acts as The Corrupter, but as the story progresses, Monza starts to feel guilt and flashbacks reveal that she isn't/wasn't such a bad person in the first place, while at the same time, Shivers increasingly loses interest in reform and his status as Token Good Teammate is increasingly called into question. This comes to a head after the two are captured and torturers burn out Shivers' eye. Ultimately, Shivers ends up as a cruel Blood Knight who revels in violence and betrays Monza, whereas Monza ends up as a hard but fair ruler who spares Shivers because of deep regret of her earlier contempt toward his scruples, which she now embraces.
• The plotline of the short story "Come Back Gizmo"; after a boy mistreats his dog because the girl next door tells him to, a strange man gives the dog a gizmo that causes the boy to turn into the dog, and vice versa, until eventually it switches their brains as well as their bodies.
• Older Than Steam: In the first part of the novel, Don Quixote is a Daydream Believer Mad Dreamer and Sancho Panza has Simpleminded Wisdom and represents realism. Both are Static Characters. At the second part, Sancho is influenced by Don Quixote and becomes more and more of a Daydream Believer, while at the end, Don Quixote will become Bored with Insanity by Sancho’s influence. They may have been the very first characters in literature to become Dynamic Characters.
• Harry Potter:
  • As revealed in the finale book, Severus Snape and James Potter. In the beginning, Snape is the neglected, awkward outsider who befriends muggle-born Lily Evans. When they go to school, both he and Lily take a dislike to the wealthy and popular James Potter, who then bullies Snape throughout their years at Hogwarts. As the years go by, Snape falls in with a gang of Voldemort supporters and loses Lily's friendship forever when he publicly calls her a slur. The popular boy eventually wises up and matures into someone Lily could actually marry, while Snape grows more and more mean-spirited over the years, and spends his adulthood being antagonistic to most of people.
  • Another example would be Neville Longbottom and Draco Malfoy. In the first book, Neville is a clumsy Butt-Monkey who constantly bungles spells and is bullied by the Slytherins. Malfoy, on the other hand, is the arrogant top dog of the Slytherins who makes Neville's life hell. By the seventh book, Neville develops into a brave and confident leader among the Gryffindors and all the other students who revolted in the Final Battle, even distinguishing himself by decapitating Nagini with the Sword of Gryffindor. Malfoy, meanwhile, becomes a cringing coward whose former followers turn on him and who just barely manages to scrape a Heel–Face Turn to avoid becoming another Death Eater casualty in the Final Battle.
• In Les Misérables, Cosette starts out as a child slave to the Thenardiers, who abuse her while spoiling their own daughters with expensive clothes and toys. She is then taken into the care of Valjean and nine years later is an educated, well-dressed young lady who enjoys wealth and high social status and eventually becomes a Baroness on marrying Marius, while the Thenardiers lose their inn and become destitute, forcing their daughters to beg and steal on the streets. This is lampshaded by Eponine at one point in the musical.
• In William Faulkner's Light in August, this happens to Lena Grove and Byron Bunch. Not that any Faulkner book is comprehensible the first ten times you read it, but it's there.
• In Thomas Hardy's 1886 novel The Mayor of Casterbridge, Michael Henchard is a reasonably successful grain merchant and the mayor of his hometown of Casterbridge, and when the wife and daughter he sold at auction in a moment of Alcohol-Induced Idiocy seek him out after the man who bought them is lost at sea, he is delighted to have them back in his life and re-marries his wife. At the same time, he befriends a young Scotsman, Donald Farfrae, who is well versed in the latest technology of the grain industry and seems to be just the thing Henchard needs to stabilize his business; however, he fires him in a fit of jealous anger over his growing popularity. By the end of the book, Henchard's past follies and short temper have caused him to lose his business, his fortune, his family, and his position as mayor, while Farfrae sets up his own successful grain business (at which he employs Henchard after the latter goes broke) and buys Henchard's house and most of his furniture when they are sold to pay his debts, marries first a woman who came to Casterbridge hoping to marry the now-widowed Henchard, then Henchard's "daughter" (revealed to be the daughter of the man who bought his wife, Henchard's own daughter having died in infancy), and becomes the mayor of Casterbridge.
• No More Diapers for Ducky!: Ducky knocks on Piggy's door wanting to play, but Piggy is busy sitting on the potty. The book ends with Piggy waiting to play while Ducky sits on the potty.
• In the Vampire Mountain arc of The Saga of Darren Shan, Darren meets Kurda, who has been elected to become a Vampire Prince. They become friends, until the end of the fifth book, when Darren has been condemned to death for failure to complete a task, and Kurda helps him escape... and Darren finds out that Kurda has betrayed all of the vampires. Darren returns to the mountain and exposes the plot, resulting in Kurda being executed, and the Vampire Princes making Darren a Prince because it's the only way to avoid executing him. It's one of the many places where this series ends up being far deeper than it looks. This is lampshaded by Darren in the manga adaptation - drawn by Takahiro Arai who would later draw a truly stellar manga adaptation of Les Misérables.
• The Scarlet Letter features an Hourglass Plot between Hester and Dimmesdale on several levels, especially at the end of the novel.
• Used light-heartedly in the A.A. Milne poem "Twice Times". There are two little bears, a bad one and a good one..."And then quite suddenly (just like Us)/One got Better and the Other got Wuss." Milne then reveals that he's using this as an allegory since he just realized that his son has finally learned all his times tables, while he's getting so old that he can no longer remember where he put anything.
• In Warbreaker, the sisters Vivenna and Siri are initially introduced with Vivenna as a well-mannered and seemingly perfect Princess Classic all set to become queen of Hallandren, and Siri as a disobedient Rebellious Princess running away from her responsibilities. Circumstances make it so that Vivenna has to play a Rebellious Princess type role and Siri has to become a Princess Classic, and over the course of the story, Vivenna's flaws and Siri's virtues become apparent. Ultimately, Vivenna becomes an Action Girl, running from her responsibilities while she figures out who she is, while Siri is all set to become queen of Hallandren, for good this time.
• Woodrow's Trumpet: In the first act, when Woodrow and Nadean start their interracial relationship, Woodrow's brothers and the other longtime locals are scandalized and upset while the liberal suburbanites befriend the pair. Later, the longtime locals become more tolerant of the couple while the suburbanites start clashing with them over their eccentricities (planting a palm tree in the yard, Woodrow running his hounds around and blowing his trumpet, etc.).

Live-Action TV

• Angel: Two examples, both related to the rogue slayer Faith:
  • Her two-episode arc in Season 1 first has Angel going after Faith, and Wesley trying to hold him back, insisting she can be rehabilitated; then in the next episode, after Wesley gets kidnapped and tortured by Faith and Angel realizes her true motives, they switch roles. The arc goes even further back, to Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3, in which Angel's attempt to rehabilitate Faith is interrupted by Wesley getting her arrested by the Council, meaning they have switched roles twice on the subject.
  • Her return in Season 4 is a double example. She switches her role in the Good versus Evil battle with the now soulless Angel(us), as well as her outlook on life with the now cold and jaded Wesley.
• Arrow:
  • Since the entire show follows two different timelines at once, with the first one starting where the other is going to end, Oliver manages to have one of these with himself. In the current timeline, we see him grow from a merciless, homicidal vigilante to a true hero. Meanwhile, in the flashback timeline, we see him gradually change from an amiable Upper-Class Twit into a merciless, homicidal vigilante.
  • The Lance sisters are a straighter example. In the flashbacks, Sara was a Hard-Drinking Party Girl having an affair with her sister's boyfriend, leading to her supposed death in the Queen Gambit's sinking, while Laurel starts the series as a responsible district attorney and Team Mom who helped her family through their grief. By Season 2, Sara came back as a trained assassin and reunites with her family, while Laurel becomes addicted to alcohol and drugs, gets fired from her job, initially refused to reconcile with Sara, and starts blaming everyone else for her problems. When Sara gets Killed Off for Real in Season 3, Laurel becomes even more reckless trying to be a vigilante herself to honor her sister's memory. After Sara came Back from the Dead in Season 4 thanks to the Lazarus Pit, Laurel is tragically killed by Damien Dahrk months later, leaving Sara to mourn her sister.
• The Narn and the Centauri in Babylon 5 are caught in an apparently endless cycle of invasion, occupation, liberation, and revenge. G'Kar starts out as the arrogant jerk seeking power and advancement while Londo is humbled and accepting of his position in life and the lack of any real power. A couple seasons later G'Kar is humbled and powerless while Londo has become one of the most powerful men in the Centauri Empire with the arrogance to match it. By the end of the series, they start flipping again though they lose their arrogance for good.
• Better Call Saul: Kim and Jimmy undergo this in the Season 4 and 5 finales. In Season 4, Kim is quietly shocked and horrified when Jimmy decides to legally adopt the title "Saul Goodman" while practicing law (Saul Goodman being his pseudonym to safeguard his identity in scams), with Jimmy doing the finger gun pose. In the finale of Season 5, Kim proposes a scheme to defraud Howard (which is very unlike how we saw her earlier) with Jimmy even trying to dissuade her from following through, leaving him quietly shocked and horrified, complete with Kim doing the finger gun pose.
• BIA: Carmín and Mara start out as the Alpha Bitch and her quiet, invisible, often ignored assistant. Carmín undergoes a Heel–Face Turn and ends up joining El Fundom, and Mara becomes the new Alpha Bitch.
• In Carnivàle Brother Justin is a preacher who slowly turns to the dark side upon the realization that he is The Antichrist, and also suffers from an unfortunate case of Bad Powers, Bad People. Ben, an escaped criminal on the lam from the law, makes a parallel journey as he comes into his own powers as the Messiah.
• At the beginning of Cloak & Dagger (2018), Tandy is homeless and lives in an abandoned church while Tyrone is a normal student in an upper-middle class neighborhood. By the last episode of the first season, Tandy has reconciled with her mother and moves in with her while Tyrone due to being falsely accused of killing a cop is forced to go on the run and ends up living at the very church Tandy had squatted in.
• Daredevil (2015): In a minor example, Matt and Karen's first two kisses in Season 2 fall into this. At the end of "Penny and Dime," Karen walks Matt home to his apartment in the rain, Matt stops her, and they share a kiss. In "Kinbaku", which takes place over the events of the next day, they end their first date with Matt walking Karen back to her apartment, and then they share a makeout session on her front steps.
• On Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High, neurotic, insecure Melanie is best friends with the insensitive Kathleen. Melanie gains confidence while Kathleen loses hers, and Melanie becomes just as insensitive as Kathleen was when they started. Their problems escalate as they get older, so Kathleen is insensitive to Melanie worrying about her body, while Melanie is insensitive to Kathleen becoming an anorexic abuse victim.
  • The fifth season of Degrassi: The Next Generation has Emma swapping moral positions with her entire circle of friends and family. They screw up their lives one by one, Emma redeems them all — and then she snaps under the pressure, becoming worse than any of them ever were. The climax is them trying to reason with her, as Emma threatens them and says they have no moral right to criticize her. ("You take advantage of drunk girls. You are the drunk girl...")
  • Joey and Wheels as well. At the beginning of Degrassi Junior High, Joey was an irresponsible jokester as well as a bit of a bully while Wheels was his nicer and more sensible best friend. Near the end of Degrassi High, Wheels was a Jerkass whose various misdeeds involved stealing money and lying to his grandma/guardian. Meanwhile, a matured Joey disapproved of his actions and tried to help him.
• Friends: Rachel and Monica. In the series' back story, Rachel was a Rich Bitch and engaged to marry an equally wealthy guy, while Monica was a Formerly Fat poorly-paid assistant chef who thought she'd die alone. During the series, Rachel breaks off her engagement, works as a waitress, and has a lot of disastrous boyfriends, while Monica works her way up the chef ranks — despite a rough, unemployed patch in the middle — and builds a stable, fulfilling relationship. By Season 9, Rachel is a single mother, working a good but not exceptional fashion job, and has a series of failed relationships (and a marriage) under her belt. Monica is an Executive Chef at one of New York's most prestigious restaurants and is Happily Married to her best friend. Things do improve for Rachel by the end of the series, but the contrast is still there.
• Game of Thrones: Tyrion Lannister, the man described by his own father as the "least of the Lannisters", ends up becoming the most universally liked of the family by the time of Season 7, the only one liked by rival factions of House Targaryen and House Stark, and acts in the series finale in the Dragonpit Summit as the linchpin of Westeros.
• Gilmore Girls played this with Rory and Jess. In early seasons, Rory is a hardworking honours student, bound for an Ivy League, aiming to pursue journalism and the golden child of her family, while Jess is a high school dropout with zero life ambitions, his mom kicked him out and he's at odds with his uncle. Come Season 6, Rory has dropped out of college, abandoned her career dreams, and is estranged from her mother, while Jess is a successful author, runs a publishing house with friends, and is closer to his uncle than ever before. Luckily though, Jess's transformation is exactly what Rory needs to get her life together.
• House of the Dragon: Between Corlys Velaryon and his wife Rhaenys. For much of the first season, Corlys was the ambitious one who wanted to achieve high positions at court and put his heirs on the Iron Throne, while Rhaenys was more reluctant. By the time of this season finale, Corlys's brush with death has made him change his tune: he wishes to declare neutrality so he and Rhaenys can retire in peace. Meanwhile, Rhaenys, who was previously distrustful of Rhaenyra and her obviously illegitimate "Velaryon" sons, respects Rhaenyra's conduct in the wake of Viserys's death (especially compared to the Hightowers, who immediately imprisoned Rhaenys and moved to overturn the succession) and encourages Corlys to protect their grandchildren. The two jointly declare their support for Rhaenyra.
• Iron Fist (2017): Ward and Joy Meachum. At the start of Season 1, Ward is very obstinate and outwardly unfeeling, while Joy is more reasonable and willing to listen. By the end of the season, Ward is the reasonable sibling who has made peace with Danny, while spending time in Harold's presence has corrupted Joy and made her into what Ward was at the start of the show.
• In iZombie, the first season's Will They or Won't They? drama comes from the fact that Liv can't tell Major that she's a zombie. He finds out the truth at the very end. The next season continues to explore the relationship, but this time Major is the one keeping a secret from Liv: He is being blackmailed into working as a zombie hitman.
• Lost: Jack starts as a Man of Science, focused on getting the survivors off the Island, while Locke is a Man of Faith, believing that people aren't supposed to leave the Island Because Destiny Says So. It goes on like this for four seasons, until the first reversal happens in Season 5: Jack gets off the Island but becomes increasingly depressed and is looking for a way to come back, while Locke is now desperately searching for a way to get off the Island, believing it to be a necessary step to save everyone. After Jack gets back and Locke is killed, his face assumed by the Big Bad, things get even better: Jack is now a strong believer in Faith, determined to stay on the Island, while Fake-Locke is a cynical pragmatist desperately trying to leave it. By the final episodes, the Survivors led by Jack are now trying to stop the Big Bad from doing the very same thing they tried to do for most of the series.
• Over the course of Merlin, Guinevere and Morgana swap places. Gwen is shy serving girl whilst Morgana is the confident ward of the king. Gwen dislikes Prince Arthur, whilst Morgana flirts with him. Fast-forward four seasons and Guinevere is The High Queen of Camelot, married to King Arthur, whilst Morgana is living in a hovel, stewing in bitterness and hate for her former family.
• Mr. Robot: Elliot Alderson and Dominique Dipierro. Both were mentally ill people who suffered from social anxiety and depression and had difficulty developing relationships, but Elliot is a hacker who kickstarted 5/9 and struggled with his mental disorders while Dominique is an FBI agent who is determined to take down society and the Dark Army despite her depression. Come Season 3, Dominique ends up getting forced into becoming a mole for the Dark Army and is headed towards a downward spiral and Elliot becomes determined in taking them down.
• The Murdoch Mysteries episode "Bloody Hell" begins with Inspector Brakenreid, framed by a Dirty Cop for his own crimes, being given mandatory retirement to work in the city records office. It ends with him using city records to prove the extent of the corruption, and being reinstated, while the Dirty Cop gets sent to the records office instead.
• On NewsRadio, Matthew is usually the office Butt-Monkey, suffering through the cruel pranks of office big shot Bill. Dave tells Matthew to assert himself to Bill, which he does by punching him in the face. Suddenly, Matthew is the office jerk, while Bill becomes meek and passive. The Reset Button is pressed when Bill, defending Matthew, accidentally slaps him, snapping Matthew out of his ego trip.
• This was revealed to be the back story of Regina and Jefferson in Once Upon a Time. In "Hat Trick", Jefferson was an innocent friend of Regina who trapped him in Wonderland and separated him from his daughter Grace. In "The Doctor", Regina is an innocent girl that Jefferson hurts for personal gain, many years before his daughter was born, to make her believe that she couldn't save her True Love Daniel when they could have. Jefferson's tragic back story was a result of Laser-Guided Karma.
• On Orange Is the New Black, Piper begins innocently and is aghast at why people would be so cruel to her just for being naive. When Brooke Soso comes in, Piper is just as harsh to her.
• At the beginning of The Orville, the Krill looked to be the biggest threat to the Union, leading them to reach out to Issac's robotic race, the Kaylon, as potential allies. In the season 2 episode "Identity", it's revealed that the Kaylon were Evil All Along (even Issac, at first), with intentions of wiping out all organic life in the universe. For the climatic fight, the Union gets aid from a surprising source: the Krill. Then, by the end of New Horizons, the Kaylon have reconsidered their stance on organic life and become genuine allies of the Union, while the Krill have united under Teleya's command, formed an alliance with the Moclans, and once again become the biggest threat to the Union.
• Our Miss Brooks: The penultimate episode of the television series, "Principal For A Day", has Miss Brooks appointed principal and Mr. Conklin become a History (not English) teacher. Because Status Quo Is God, their respective positions are restored at the end. Neither seems to learn much from the episode. Miss Brooks enjoys herself thoroughly, and other than adding feminine touches to her office and spending some quality time with Mr. Boynton doesn't abuse her power. Mr. Conklin's temporary humility, and appreciativeness to Miss Brooks' giving him the teaching position, is cast off as soon as he becomes principal again. It helps that Mr. Conklin is a pompous Jerk with a Heart of Gold rather than an outright villain.
• Outnumbered: Jake and Ben. At the beginning of the series, Jake is the serious, geeky older brother who is much closer to his parents, while Ben is the rebellious, outgoing son. As the series continues, Jake becomes a lot 'cooler' and distances himself from his family, while Ben embraces his geekier side and is a lot more affectionate.
• Queen Sugar: Charley and Nova, over the first four seasons. In season 1 Charley starts out more concerned about maintaining her celebrity lifestyle while Nova is a dedicated activist. In season 4 Nova gets caught up in fame after publishing a best-selling book while Charley is focused on fighting to protect the local farmers from white corporate executives.
• In the Season 5 finale of Seinfeld, "The Opposite", George, after realizing how terrible his life is, decides that, since his instincts have always been wrong, going against them should be good for him. By doing so, he suddenly has a girlfriend, is able to move out of his parents' house, and lands his dream job for the New York Yankees. Meanwhile, Elaine, for whom things had been going great, suddenly finds herself unemployed, homeless, and in a romantic slump, realizing to her dismay that "I've become George!". Jerry lampshades the trope with his subplot of how he always manages to break even.
• Shadow and Bone: Nina and Matthias's subplot. They meet aboard a ship where Matthias's people have taken Nina captive; Nina is justifiably spiteful towards him. When the ship capsizes in a storm the two are thrown together by a need to survive and develop feelings for each other. However, at the end, Nina has claimed that Matthias is a slaver to stop him from being executed by Grisha, and so the two end up on a ship bound for Ketterdam. This time, however, it is Nina on the other side of the bars, and Matthias reacts with hatred and anger when he sees her, believing that none of their interactions were real.
• Smallville:
  • Lex and Lionel Luthor. At the beginning of the series, Lex was Clark's friend and ally and Lionel was the Magnificent Bastard. Over time, Lex begins a descent as Lionel redeems himself.
  • In the early days, Chloe is One of the Boys who ended up tangled with the Luthors, at one point allying with Lionel, prying in Clark's personal life, threatening his secret, and Lana is the pretty girl Clark is crazy over. In the middle seasons however, Chloe learns Clark's secret and becomes a supportive sidekick, gets as far away as the Luthors as possible, Clark subtly demonstrates possible romantic feelings towards her, and her femininity becomes more pronounced (just look at her hairstyle change); Lana marries Lex and becomes something of a Dark Action Girl, and starts poking into Clark's secret, not to mention starting Isis.
• Star Trek: Voyager, "Equinox": The Voyager crew comes across their Evil Counterpart: the lost ship Equinox, whose crew are murdering and enslaving their way across the Delta Quadrant. The villainous Equinox captain slowly becomes paralyzed with guilt, just as Janeway becomes just as ruthless as he used to be in her quest to get him.
• Stranger Things: In Season 1, Mike befriends and develops a crush on Eleven, a young girl who Escaped from the Lab, and welcomes her into the Party over the objections of Lucas, who distrusts the mysterious new arrival. In Season 2, Lucas befriends and develops a crush on Max, the new girl at school, and Mike is the one who dislikes her and refuses to let her join the Party, due to feeling that she's taking the missing Eleven's place.
• The TV Movie Summertime Switch revolves around a young street punk and a spoiled rich kid both named Freddie Egan. Their identical names cause the former to be sent to a luxurious summer camp for the rich and the latter to a juvenile correctional facility, though obviously the opposite was supposed to happen. Both end up learning something from the whole experience (especially the rich kid).
• Supernatural:
  • At the start of the series Sam has almost managed to escape his hunter upbringing in favour of a normal life when he's dragged back to the hunt by Dean, who idolises their father and argues that a normal life is for chumps. Over the course of the first five seasons (which is to say, the arc of the show as originally plotted), Sam gets increasingly militant in the fight against evil, while Dean gets increasingly heartsick and tired of the whole thing. The Series Fauxnale at the end of Season 5 sees Sam is giving up not just his life but his eternal afterlife to put Lucifer back in his cage and averting the apocalypse, and Dean retiring to a peaceful life with his girlfriend and her son. Since the series didn't end there, neither of those things lasted for very long, and by season eight the brothers had arguably switched places again, but that's another story.
• An episode of The Twilight Zone (1959), "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville," has the janitor for a large corporation talking with the CEO of the corporation about how he's just gotten a watch for his 40th year with the company, along with a few words about what it's like at the top versus the bottom. One botched trip to the past and several deals with the devil later, not only is the janitor now the CEO and the CEO the janitor, but each now has the personality of the other as well, and the watch gets a mention too.
• In the first episode of Walking with Dinosaurs, stem-mammals are portrayed as relics from the previous mass extinction, and dinosaurs are portrayed as baby-eating menaces who are taking over. In the last episode, dinosaurs are portrayed as relics who are about to die in the next mass extinction, and mammals are portrayed as baby-eating menaces who are about to take over.
• Why Women Kill has this in spades with the characters of Rita and Alma. At the start of season 2, Rita is an immoral Villain With Bad Publicity who has good looks, money, and shallow but numerous friendships with rich socialites like herself. She does wish her rich, emotionally abusive husband would die so she could move with her gigolo, whom she worries may not truly love her. Meanwhile, Alma is a dutiful and frumpy middle-class housewife who lives a life of boring drudgery but her husband and daughter love her deeply and she quickly makes a real friend when she tries to get out. By episode 9, Rita is The Scapegoat for the murder of Rita's husband and revealed her affair, meaning she's ostarcised by all and she loses her money, status, FalseFriends and fancy clothes. However, Rita has changed her worldview and both her gigolo and her maid/cousin have proven that they actually love her, which she now values and wants to reciprocate. Even if that realisation might have come too late and she may lose them both, she at least has solid moral basis on which to rebuild her life. Meanwhile, Alma has gotten everything Rita once had. At the cost of her Only Friend, her husband, and now either her daughter or her daughter's marriage. And the cops are onto her.
• Young Sheldon: At the beginning of "Cowboy Aerobics and 473 Grease-Free Bolts", Sheldon keeps pestering Dr. Linkletter to make him his assistant. By the end, Linkletter is the one pestering Sheldon to tell him what is wrong with his experiment.

Music

• Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" is narrated by a man who is too busy with work to spend time with his son. At the end of song, the now grown-up son has become too busy to spend time with his retired father.

Theatre

• This is a big part of the plot of Shaw's The Devil's Disciple. Richard Dudgeon is introduced as a n'eer-do-well who has his opposite in the Rev. Anthony Andersen, a philanthropic clergyman. The plot is set in motion when British soldiers come to arrest Andersen for treason and Dudgeon takes his place. Ultimately, Dudgeon's nobility and Andersen's weakness are revealed, and at the end of the story, Dudgeon is established as heroic (and much less seedy than he initially appeared), and Andersen has renounced religion and become a Blood Knight revolutionary. The trope is exaggerated, as Andersen asserts that since he has taken Dudgeon's place, Dudgeon must become a clergyman and take up with Anderson's wife.
• In Hadestown, Orpheus and Eurydice swap viewpoints by the end of the show, as the formerly idealistic Orpheus grows more cynical from learning Eurydice went to Hadestown willingly and is beat up for his efforts, while the formerly cynical Eurydice grows more optimistic after seeing all Orpheus goes through to rescue her.
• Hamilton portrays Alexander Hamilton's relationship with Aaron Burr this way. At the start of the play, Hamilton is a fiery idealist who's often impertinent in expressing his beliefs, while Burr is a cool-headed pragmatist who generally tries to avoid choosing sides. Over the course of the story, though, Hamilton gradually becomes more shrewd and calculating (culminating in the Compromise of 1790), while Burr becomes progressively more rash and emotional. This ultimately leads to the Burr-Hamilton duel when Burr lets his personality animosity toward Hamilton get out of control; in the ensuing duel, it's Hamilton who plays it safe by aiming his pistol at the sky, while Burr impulsively shoots Hamilton in the chest.
• Macbeth: Initially, Macbeth shows more scruples/hesitancy to kill Duncan than does his wife, and she pushes him into doing it. Afterward, however, while Lady Macbeth goes increasingly mad from guilt, Macbeth's reaction to guilt is to seemingly lose all emotion and scruple and he far surpass his wife in villainy.
• At the start of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hermia is loved by two men, Helena is the abandoned woman loved by none, Lysander is mutually in love with one woman and respectful of the other, and Demetrius has abandoned the woman who loves him to chase the woman who doesn't. By the time of the lovers' quarrel in the forest, the two women have swapped places in this pattern, as have the two men, thanks to the effects of the magic flower.
• The play Pacific Overtures has two friends, one a samurai and the other a peasant with knowledge of the West, who wind up exchanging places. The samurai is made an ambassador of sorts with the foreign powers as Japan is forcibly opened to trade, and he becomes increasingly westernized in his dress and actions. Meanwhile, the peasant, angry at the way Western powers are exploiting Japan, becomes a hardcore anti-West reactionary after being promoted to the samurai class. Tragedy ensues.
• In Harold Pinter's "A Slight Ache", a middle-class couple invite a tramp into their home; by the end of the play, the husband and the tramp have exchanged places.
• Alma Winemiller and John Buchanan Jr., two main characters of Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams, swap their views on sexual freedom. Prim and neurotic minister's daughter Alma ends up desperately propositioning the young doctor John, with whom she's been in love since childhood, but he, having grown out of his hedonistic ways, rejects her. At the end of the play, he's engaged to Alma's young pupil and she's about to go to the seedy casino with a traveling salesman that she just met.
• In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Antonio saved Sebastian's life after a horrific storm, when they were both mired in a strange country. Antonio grew very close to Sebastian and even got into a duel in Sebastian's defense. When Antonio was placed under arrest by Orsino, his old rival, he expected that Sebastian would help him out — only for Sebastian to act like he's never met Antonio before. Antonio is heartbroken — but fortunately he had really met Sebastian's Half Identical Twin, and the real Sebastian is perfectly happy to help Antonio once he finds him again.

Video Games

• There are two similar shots at the climaxes of Bioshock Infinite and its DLC Burial at Sea: Part Two: The player character is being led by the hand of their companion. For Infinite's main story, Booker is being led by Elizabeth towards one of many doors in a cosmic memory, with Booker stubbornly trying to forget his regretful past after revisiting his rejected baptism while in Burial at Sea Elizabeth is being led by a hallucination of Booker towards Suchong's laboratory as a means of jogging her memory regarding an Ace in the Hole. The player character is emotionally vulnerable while the companion is calmly trying to get them to remember important information.
• Once you've made the Cosmic Horror Reveal in Bloodborne, the Great Ones become these alien, unknowable things that barely even seem to register the fact that they're literally crawling on top of the city of Yharnam. Even the occasional one that pays you enough attention to try to pick you up seem to regard you with roughly the same significance as you would a bug. As you progress, however, you learn that the Great Ones are generally sympathetic in spirit: Rom tries to protect mankind from Things Man Was Not Meant to Know that would make them Go Mad from the Revelation; Ebrietas tries to teach mankind about the secrets of the cosmos in a way that won't ruin them; the Wet Nurse attempts to help humanity transcend and become godlike in their own right, which would also fulfill the Great Ones' desire to sire descendants, and the Brain of Mensis just wants to be left alone. Mankind, in return, kill Rom precisely because they wish to discover what secrets she's keeping from them, they become Mad Scientists and Church Militant Sinister Ministers who abuse Ebrietas' gifts in order to oppress each other and transcend their own humanity, they launch a hunt to kill the Wet Nurse's protégé, and capture, experiment upon, enslave and finally butcher the Brain of Mensis. The real turning point in the story is arguably when Amygdala, who tries to play her traditional role completely straight, ends up with a lethal case of Cthulhu Breaking Her Arm Punching Out A Human, and it culminates with the Moon Presence, who's been trying to free humanity of the Great Ones' influence by exterminating its own kind, finding itself on the receiving end of the extermination once mankind has discovered a way to usurp the Great Ones by becoming Great Ones themselves. That's right, in this story, humans end up being, quite literally, Cthulhu to Cthulhu; we're a race that exploit, betray and exterminate a race of Lovecraftian gods for no greater or knowable reason than simply because we can.
• Between Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior, Mario and Donkey Kong switch roles, the antagonist capturing somebody the protagonist cares about and holding them hostage. They must have worked things out though, as by the time Donkey Kong Country was released, each were the hero in their own respective series.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Delita and Ramza in Final Fantasy Tactics serve as foils to each other throughout most of the game. By the end of the story, Ramza has abandoned his ties to the nobility entirely, while Delita has assumed the highest position of power within the aristocracy.
  • At the start of Final Fantasy X, Tidus just wants to return to Zanarkand while Yuna wants to defeat Sin, something that has claimed the lives of everyone who's previously succeeded at it. At the end of the game, Yuna (with the help of others) manages to defeat Sin without dying, while Tidus willingly lets himself fade from existence (a consequence of Sin being permanently defeated).
• In The Great Ace Attorney 2, the second case begins with Soseki Natsume being accused of the attempted murder of his neighbor, William Shamspeare. The case ends with Shamspeare being hauled off for the attempted murder of his neighbor, Soseki Natsume.
• A sort of roundabout example over the course of Guilty Gear. Sol Badguy begins the first game as a reckless bounty hunter with no purpose in life due to his Gear powers, while Ky Kiske is the calm and idealistic former leader of the Holy Order. Over the course of the series, Sol finds atonement for his sins, while Ky's worldview becomes shattered. As of Strive, Sol loses his Gear powers and becomes a much more relaxed scientist, while Ky becomes more reckless in his diplomatic ventures (although he never becomes as much of an Anti-Hero as Sol). To highlight this change, the final battle with I-No has Ky running into a hopeless battle, while Sol forms a plan before giving I-No a speech on desire. Additionally, Sol is no longer able to use Dragon Install; Ky has that ability now.
• In King's Quest III, Manannan is an evil all powerful Wizard. Gwydion/ Prince Alexander is his tragic slaveboy who is constantly tormented by the Wizard every day of his life. Though by breaking into his secret lab, Gwydion teaches himself Manannan's spells and becomes a novice wizard ultimately turning Manannan into a cat. So at that point, Gwydion is the one with all the magic, and Manannan is powerless and at the whim of his once slave.
• The Last of Us Part II. The game opens with Abby brutally murdering Joel while a helpless Ellie begs for her to stop. Then, over the course of the story, Ellie's quest for vengeance results in death and destruction, while Abby, realizing that her revenge didn't change anything, gradually redeems herself by helping Yara and Lev. By the time we reach the climax of the story, both women have changed dramatically. Abby no longer wants to fight, and Ellie has to threaten to kill a child to coax her into doing so.
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker features one of these; a rich man and a very poor man both have their daughters kidnapped, and the circumstances surrounding their return swaps them over. When you first arrive on Windfall Island, Mila's father is a snooty collector of expensive vases who resides in an opulent mansion, while Maggie's father is a timid beggar who pleads for anyone passing by to rescue his daughter. When the pirates return the girls, they extort Mila's father out of his fortune, leaving the newly reunited family destitute and living on the street; the experience humbles Mila's father and teaches him that there are more important things than money. Meanwhile, Maggie's father manages to make a killing off the rare Skull Necklaces that Maggie brought back with her, allowing them to move into the newly vacated mansion; in the process, he becomes an arrogant snob who turns his nose up at everyone else and throws temper tantrums when the postman tries to deliver mail to his house.
• In Persona 5, a pair of housewife NPCs in the Shibuya subway station undergo this change over the course of the game. The Arrogant Housewife's husband is fairly successful compared to the Modest Housewife's husband, so the former loves rubbing that fact in the latter's face. However, over the course of the game, the Modest Housewife's fortunes improve until she's renamed the Not-So-Modest Housewife, while the Arrogant Housewife's husband eventually loses his job. By the end of the game, the now Not-So-Arrogant Housewife announces that she's moving in with her parents and tries to maintain her dignity, while the Not-So-Modest Housewife is pleased with herself.
• Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero DLC has this happen with Carmine and Kieran, the siblings from Blueberry Academy.
  • At the start of The Teal Mask, Carmine is abrasive, vain, and as close to racist as the E rating allows, challenging the player to a Pokémon battle in an attempt to keep them out of Mossui Town; Kieran, on the other hand, is shy, friendly, and amicable, giving the player a much more friendly battle just because he was impressed by your prowess and wants to see more.
  • During the course of the Kitakami storyline, they and the player cross paths with Ogerpon, the ogre of Kitakami legend (and revealed to be a Hero with Bad Publicity until the second-last cutscene of the expansion). During the course of trying to set things right with Ogerpon, Carmine gradually warms up to the player - though not completely shedding her negative traits - and counts herself among their friends.
  • At the end of The Teal Mask, Ogerpon asks to join the player on their journey... prompting Kieran, who has been a fanboy of "the ogre" since before the truth came to light, to selfishly challenge the player to the "right" to catch her, irregardless of Ogerpon's own feelings. Come The Indigo Disk, Kieran - now the Champion of the Blueberry Academy, with Pokémon at levels on par with Red - is ruling the BB League with an iron fist and making enemies out of everyone (human and Pokémon alike) in his desperate efforts to get strong enough to defeat the player out of spite.
• In Portal 2, Wheatley begins as Chell (the player)'s friend, guiding her along, and helping her to defeat GLaDOS, the computer in charge of the facility, who is trying to kill Chell. Halfway through the game, though, Chell replaces GLaDOS with Wheatley and Wheatley subsequently decides to try to kill Chell, and GLaDOS, running off a potato, accompanies Chell and helps her defeat Wheatley.
• Suikoden IV has this with Lazlo and Snowe Vingerhut. The worse off one gets, the higher the other rises. While Lazlo copes with whatever hand he's dealt, Snowe never learns from his mistakes. Eventually, though, he finally makes his Heel–Face Turn and starts learning from his experiences in retrospect.
• In Undertale, the skeleton brothers shift not in character, but in terms of how they interact with the player. At their first meeting, Sans is friendly to the player character and doesn't take his job as acting as a sentry seriously, while his brother Papyrus is obsessed with capturing the player character. However, Papyrus proves unable to go through with it and ends up befriending the player character, or allowing himself to be killed should the player choose to. By contrast, Sans later ends up confessing that he would have killed the player character on sight had he not previously promised Toriel to not kill them, and proves to be That One Boss should the player choose to go with the Genocide/No Mercy route.
• In World of Warcraft, Jaina Proudmoore started out as the Only Sane Man desiring peace between the Alliance and the Horde while Varian started out as a warmonger who wanted the Horde destroyed. Cue Mists of Pandaria and the destruction of Theramore at Garrosh's hands. Now Jaina is the one who bitterly wants revenge on the Horde while Varian is trying a slightly more diplomatic approach. Jaina even screws up Varian's attempt to bring the Blood Elves back into the Alliance by exiling them from Dalaran. At the end of the expansion Jaina is the one itching to wipe out the Horde even after Garrosh is overthrown while Varian is willing to leave the Horde in peace with nothing more than a stern warning.
• WILL: A Wonderful World has Chang Gyeong-Min and Kang Baek-Ya, a recently-hired policeman and his superior, respectively. Kang has been jaded ever since his old Unit was slaughtered, but gets his passion reignited by Chang. Meanwhile, Chang's been passionate about justice ever since a hero (Kang) saved his life in childhood, but one outcome of his plotline has him disillusioned and choose to retire early.

Web Animation

• Throughout the course of Inanimate Insanity, Apple had grown a fond distrust and anger towards Marshmallow. When she finally explains the reason why she was so angry at her in the beginning of Inanimate Insanity II, the two become Vitriolic Best Buds, with Apple wanting to make friends with Marshmallow and Marshmallow wanting to get away from Apple. When Marshmallow finds out Apple is faking their friendship in order to get closer in the game, she is the one hating on Apple, showing no remorse over her getting eliminated.

Web Comics

• The arc of Band vs. Band where they get sick roughly follows this structure: when confined to her room with a broken ankle, Honey Hart slowly finds her plucky persona slipping, whereas gothic hellraiser Turperntine finds she can't raise hell half as well when she's lost her voice. They both come out of it with newfound respect for each other.
• In General Protection Fault, this happens with Nick and Ki when it comes to trusting others after the events of Surreptitious Machinations, in which Trudy manipulates Nick into helping her in her attempt to take over the world, but is foiled when Ki helps Nick see the truth. Some time later, a woman named Trish (or rather, her Evil Counterpart from a parallel universe) tries to seduce Nick, and when he and Ki later meet up with the real Trish, the fake Trish tries to kill her and claims that she has multiple personality disorder. Nick, having come to regret his gullibility, is now the one who's rightfully suspicious of Trish. Ki, however, has come to realize the value of trusting others after realizing that Trudy isn't entirely bad (since she couldn't bring herself to kill Nick), and decides to give Trish a chance.

Western Animation

• Amphibia: The show sees human teenager Anne trapped in another world filled with Frog Men. The first season in particular focuses on her learning to adjust to life in this strange, new world with the help of the Plantar family until they can figure out a way to get her back home. In the second season finale, after Anne and the Plantars are inadvertently transported to Earth by the Calamity Box, the first half of the third season sees Anne helping the Planters adjust to life in Los Angeles until she can figure out a way to them get back to their own dimension.
• Arcane:
  • Jayce with Heimerdinger and Victor in season 1. In Act 1, after an explosion at his lab and the reveal of his unauthorized use of magic stones, Jayce loses everything by orders of the Piltover council, led by Heimerdinger. In despair, he attempts suicide near the river border between Piltover and Zaun, before being stopped by Victor, who tells him he was right and convinces him to prove it by going behind the council's back, renewing his hope. Come Act III, and Jayce is now leading the council, having personally ousted Heimerdinger, who loses everything but finds a new purpose after meeting Ekko on the Piltover and Zaun river border. At the same time, Victor, wracked with guilt after his unauthorized experiment had tragic consequences, attempts to kill himself in the exact same spot Jayce once tried, before being stopped by Jayce himself, who admits Victor was right and convinces him to fix the problems they face by working with the Council.
• This happens in Avatar: The Last Airbender episode aptly named "Crossroads of Destiny" between Aang and Zuko. Aang is The Chosen One who up to that point had successfully fought off The Empire, while Zuko was a banished, disgraced prince abandoned by his father, the Evil Overlord of said empire, after repeatedly failing to capture Aang. The episode finally sees Aang defeated with Zuko's help, and the following episode brings out that Zuko is now accepted as a prince again in his home country with the approval of his father and famed for killing The Hero, while Aang is thought to be dead after having failed to defend the capital of the one country that could fight against The Empire.
  Aang: I need my honor back.
  • This happens to Zuko and Azula as well. Azula had always been in her father's favor; a remorseless, sadistic killing machine, expert chessmaster, and flawless fire-bender while Zuko was The Unfavorite Noble Demon whose conscience made him too much of an outcast in the family. Zuko is eventually exiled from the Fire Nation and left longing for his father's acceptance, turning into an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain after his many failures to catch Aang. Zuko's character development helps him get over his torment over being neglected by his father and an expert in fire-bending, and with Aang's help, he winds up taking the throne to end the war and become a celebrated leader. Azula, meanwhile, is brushed off by her father and tossed aside when he begins his ploy for global conquest, and after being confronted by her deeply repressed conscience, manifesting as a hallucination of her mother, Azula regresses into a pitiful, insane child. She's eventually confined to a madhouse, tormented by her deeply delusional belief that her mother never loved her as much as Zuko. Even when her mother later apologizes for abandoning her children, Azula still refuses to acknowledge her mother's love for her.
  • Aang and Zuko are this to the previous Avatar (and one of Zuko's great grandfathers), Roku, and the Fire Lord (another one of Zuko's great grandfathers), Sozin, who started the 100-year war and perpetrated the Airbender genocide. As boys Roku and Sozin were best friends but began drifting apart when Roku got back home from a decade spent mastering the other elements and Sozin became the Fire Lord. At Roku's wedding reception, Sozin (the best man) pulled him aside and wanted him to be his partner in imperialism. Roku told him no and to never bring it up ever again. Sozin started going behind his back and when Roku found out, he kicked Sozin's ass but told him he'd spare him on account of their past friendship. From that point on they were enemies. It culminated with Sozin leaving Roku to the mercy of an erupting volcano because, with Roku out of the way, he'd be able to Take Over the World. He committed the genocide about twelve years later. Aang and Zuko started off as enemies or as Uncle Iroh puts it, "their relationship started off a little rocky" who grew to be best friends who together led the world into the more peaceful era of The Legend of Korra.
• Batman: The Animated Series: "Joker's Favor" begins with the Joker threatening to kill Charlie Collins after Charlie yelled at him for cutting him off in traffic, and ends with Charlie threatening the Joker with an ignominious death "blown to bits in an alley alongside a miserable little nobody". Subverted in that Charlie is perfectly content to prank the Joker, leaving him terrified and gibbering in Batman's custody, while the satisfied Everyman himself goes home to a possible meatloaf dinner and learns to appreciate his humdrum life.
• Big City Greens: The episode "Dream Weaver" begins with Cricket waking up in the middle of the night while his family is still asleep, and begins manipulating their dreams to pass the time. The episode ends with the rest of the family waking up after their dreams are fixed, but Cricket is now the one who's too sleepy to join them due to his restless night.
• In Danny Phantom, when Valerie Gray first became a ghost hunter, Danny was wary of her (partially due to her initially being part of the A-Lister crowd) and wasn't keen on the fact that Tucker had a crush on her, even in spite of knowing her secret. Over the course of the series, Tucker came around to the fact that getting close to Valerie was risky and his crush faded away, while Danny, after getting to know Valerie more and vice versa, started becoming infatuated with her.
• Fanboy and Chum Chum: In "Fanboyfriend", Lupe falls for Fanboy after he "saves" her from a "radioactive" spider, but he keeps pestering her that "superheroes can't have girlfriends". In the end, Lupe gets bit by a radioactive ant and gets real superpowers, and Fanboy falls for her, but she sticks to her word.
• Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow share one in G.I. Joe: Renegades. After Snake Eyes is accused of poisoning Hard Master, Snake Eyes is forced to flee his family with the Arashikage and life as a ronin which sets him on the path of joining the Joes. Meanwhile, Storm Shadow becomes the de facto leader of the clan after his uncle's death. Towards the end of the series, he realizes that he was indirectly responsible for Hard Master's death and exiles himself from the clan, while Snake Eyes is absolved and moves on with his new adopted family.
• On Gargoyles, the three-part "Hunter's Moon" arc has the three Canmore siblings acting as the current generation of Hunters. Jason, the oldest and leader, hates all gargoyles and sees them as monsters; the youngest, Jon, was willing to believe gargoyles other than Demona might be innocent. When it seems like the gargoyles are responsible for Jason's death, however, Jon snaps and turns fully against them; Jason, meanwhile, actually survives and realizes there are good gargoyles out there. When Jason tried to defend them against Jon, the latter accidentally shoots and paralyzes the former, which he quickly blames on the gargoyles (in a "Not So Different" Remark moment with Demona).
  Jon: What have I—what have they done to you?!
• I Am Weasel combines this with "Freaky Friday" Flip. "I Architect" sees Weasel and Baboon's brains switched after an accident. Baboon becomes a renowned hero, while Weasel acts like a total idiot and is "gifted" a mandatory retirement.
• Kaeloo: In Episode 209, Stumpy is saddled with watching his little sister Nombril for the day. Nombril keeps trying to get his attention with exaggerated gestures while Stumpy, who is fed up with Nombril constantly interfering with his activities, ignores her and pretends he doesn't even know who she is. Later in the episode, Stumpy annoys Nombril, causing her to start ignoring him. The episode ends with Stumpy desperately trying to get Nombril's attention while she gives him the cold shoulder, saying she doesn't talk to "strangers".
• Kid Cosmic: "Kid Cosmic and the Epic Fail" and "Kid Cosmic and the Soul Kroshing Loss" are two separate episodes that have parallel plots. Kid/Jo both leave their team behind, believing that they can fight the Arc Villain without help from their friends. They take all the Cosmic Stones they have to fight the bad guy, but in the end, they suffer a crushing defeat and end up losing all the stones by the end of it.
• Looney Tunes:
  • The short "Tree for Two" begins with Bully Bulldog Spike being fawned over by smaller dog Chester. The two encounter Sylvester and chase him, cornering him in an alley. Unfortunately, an escaped panther is hiding there, and whenever Spike tries to get Sylvester, the panther attacks him. Neither Spike nor Chester are aware of the panther, so Spike thinks it was Sylvester who beat him, while Chester, who is able to beat Sylvester easily, doesn't understand why his hero can be defeated by a puny cat. By the end of the cartoon, their roles have been reversed, with Chester as the tough guy and Spike as the adulating fanboy.
  • In an early Daffy Duck cartoon, "Daffy Duck in Hollywood," Daffy plays The Prankster tormenting the snobby director. By the end of the cartoon, Daffy is the snobby director while the snobby director is The Prankster.
• Love, Death & Robots has a weird looping version in "The Witness": A girl sees a guy murder a girl who looks just like her. She runs, he gives chase, and she eventually turns the tables, killing him. Then she sees an identical guy who just witnessed this murder. He runs, she gives chase, cut to credits.
• In the Muppet Babies (1984) episode "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dark", Beeker, having seen a slime monster movie a few nights ago, is scared of the dark and can't sleep (keeping Bunsen awake in the process), so Kermit and the others help show him there's nothing about the dark that's scary. In the end, Beeker conquers his fear of the slime monster and is able to sleep that night, however, Kermit, after all the encounters with the monster throughout the episode, is unable to.
• The Patrick Star Show: In "The Patrick Show Sells Out", Mr. Krabs and Plankton sponsor Patrick's show to advertise their restaurants. However, while customers do want to go to the restaurants, their owners are so busy on the show that they can't actually run their businesses. Squidina comes up with a solution: give the entire show to Krabs and Plankton, then advertise her and Patrick's own brand new restaurant on it.
• The plot of Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders episode "Dreamfields". Kale and Gwen are hit with some magic that causes them to hallucinate they've swapped places. It's enough to almost get Kale to Heel–Face Turn...but not quite.
• In The Ren & Stimpy Show episode "Nurse Stimpy", Ren has gotten sick and Stimpy takes it upon himself to nurse him back to health. After enduring Stimpy's well-meaning but humiliating treatments throughout the entire episode, Ren is healthy again, but Stimpy has spent so much time watching over Ren that now he is sick, and Ren is all too happy to return the favor Stimpy gave him.
• Samurai Jack; the episode "Jack Learns to Jump Good" starts with Jack rushing for a time portal which he believes will lead to his goal, only for Aku to appear out of nowhere, grab it, and mock the hero as he futilely tries to leap for it. End of the episode, the same thing happens, but now that Jack can "jump good", he interrupts Aku's gloating by doing so with his sword drawn straight for Aku's face, to the villain's utter horror.
• The Simpsons: "Homer's Enemy" goes from a straight case of Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond, with Homer's backfired attempts to please Frank Grimes, to an inversion when Grimes tries to show everyone why they should also hate Homer, only to backfire on him even harder.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • "Breath of Fresh Squidward" plays with this trope. The episode starts off with SpongeBob (alongside Patrick) barging into Squidward's house uninvited, infuriating the latter to no end. After getting electrocuted, Squidward gets a personality change, barging into SpongeBob's house this time and infuriating him to no end. However, the ending has Squidward getting electrocuted again and returning to his original grumpy self, with both SpongeBob and Patrick turning into clones of Squidward himself (due to getting electrocuted alongside Squidward this time).
  • The first half of "Free Samples" has Plankton give the customers rotten chum samples, and then the same samples disguised as krabby patties, causing them to hate the Krusty Krab. The second half has SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs giving out free krabby patty samples themselves to try and win them back, and SpongeBob succeeds when he gives them the real patties under a new name with different taste.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
  • During the 3 years of the Clone Wars, Anakin’s Padawan Ashoka Tano is hot-blooded and impulsive, while Luminara Unduli’s Padawan, Bariss Offee, is calm, collected, and quiet, studying the whole Geonosian hive to help the Republic triumph at the Second Battle of Geonosis by destroying the reactivated droid factory. By the 3rd and final year of the war, however, Ashoka is the enlightened and wisened one, due to learning the conflict isn’t always black and white, even seeing her future self during her, Anakin, and Obi-Wan’s time on Mortis, Bariss has become the hot-blooded and violent Padawan, haven fallen to the Dark Side and bombed the Jedi Temple in a misguided plan to convince the public that the Jedi were an army fighting for the Dark Side while framing Ashoka in the process.
  • This also applies to the Clones as well, most prominent in Rex and Jesse of the 501st Legion. Rex is initially a hard-wired soldier loyal to the Republic, always following orders, and is initially dismissive of clones that desert the war effort or don’t follow orders, but has a good bond with Anakin and Ashoka. Jesse is also initially a soldier who’s cynical of the Republic but is kind, has a sense of humor, and is willing to bend the rules if it benefits the Republic in the long run. However, as the war goes on, Rex eventually questions if winning the Clone Wars is really worth it, and has his loyalty shaken when Pong Krell tricks the 501st Legion and the 212th Attack Battalion fight each other, Ashoka being framed by Bariss and being chased by the Coruscant Guard on Commander Fox's orders, and Fives, a fellow 501st clone soldier, gunned down by Fox because he was squealing about the Clones’ true purpose that would’ve derailed the war effort, and upon being told to execute Order 66, realized Five was telling the truth and tells Ashoka to find him to help free him from his inhibitor chip. By contrast, Jesse goes through the same stuff Rex went through in the pilot movie during the Siege of Mandalore, and during Order 66, his inhibitor chip activates and he attempts to kill Rex when the former is freed from his own chip as well as Ashoka, despite the latter not being a Jedi.
• Steven Universe:
  • The first time we see Ruby and Sapphire break apart from Garnet, Ruby was livid and Sapphire was calm when dealing with Pearl lying to them about fusion because Sapphire was able to see the outcome of her future vision that time. However, after they discover Rose was Pink Diamond the whole time, they break apart again, and Sapphire, unlike Ruby, is absolutely livid that "Rose" lied to them for millennia, to the point where she runs away in tears.
  • In "The Answer", Ruby and Sapphire first fused because Ruby refused to accept that Sapphire's fate of being poofed, which she had foreseen, was inevitable. In the movie, after they've both been rejuvenated, they re-fuse when Sapphire takes action to save Ruby, who had accepted being shattered by a falling anvil because at least she got to spend time with Sapphire, as Sapphire refuses to let the future she predicted come to pass. It also demonstrates they retain some traces of their memories.
  • Since the beginning of the series, Steven was the one who helped everyone during their moment of crisis and helped them to change their ways for the better. In the Future episode, "I Am My Monster", however, everyone returns the favor by saving Steven from his corrupted form.
• In the Wander over Yonder episode "The Day", Wander is asleep and Sylvia has to find a way to escape Lord Hater and his Mooks while also keeping Wander asleep. This causes Sylvia to feel tired and needing some much-needed rest, while Wander has a lot of energy after being asleep, leading into the events of "The Night", where Sylvia is asleep and Wander has to make sure she stays asleep, first from mundane things such as crickets to three of Lord Hater's Mooks trying to capture the two (who are also kind enough to keep Sylvia asleep). The first scene of each segment also serves as the last scene of the opposite.

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