Mirror Reveal

Dakota: What's this? Ooh, a picture of a scary monster? Big deal!
Scott: Dude, that's a mirror.
Dakota: Aaahh! I'm a monster!

— Total Drama

When a character undergoes a sudden transformation or change of some kind, they don't always realize what's happened until it's too late. Part of this is because other characters might not want to be rude and call attention to it, and other times they're alone and have nobody there to react, anyway. So, one of the easiest ways of getting a character to see what's happened to them is by having them look in a mirror, or another reflective surface, and discover it that way.

This can have the dual purpose of revealing it to the character as well as the audience, keeping their features obscured until they look in the mirror, but it can just as easily be a shock only to the character. In this way, it can either work as a Reveal Shot, or as a bit of suspense, where the audience waits to see how the character will react to their new looks. In either case, the character is likely to scream, possibly dropping the mirror in the process, or causing others to come running and see it for themselves. In more extreme cases, it'll cause them to Rage Against the Reflection.

In downplayed examples, the "transformation" is something more minor, such as a bad hair-cut. What matters is the way of discovering their new appearance, not the severity of it.

Compare The Mirror Shows Your True Self (which isn't about transformation) and House of Broken Mirrors (which may happen before or after this). Related to Tomato in the Mirror (that's about realizing that it's been oneself all along, this one is about transformations that have happened as part of the story that do not necessarily mean that it was oneself all along) and Just Woke Up That Way. When the audience sees the transformation result before the character does, this overlaps with Oblivious Transformation. Has nothing to do with Mirror Scare, which is a different kind of mirror-related reveal. Sister trope to Hands Looking Wrong, which is the other most common way a transformation is noticed.

Don't confuse with Description in the Mirror, where a character's appearance is described while they look in a mirror, which this can overlap with.

This trope deals in Reveals, so there's unmarked spoilers ahead!

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In the Tamagotchi episode "What? Swapping Personalities", Mametchi doesn't realize that he's in Chamametchi's body until he looks in a mirror.
• In The Twelve Kingdoms, after Youko is pulled into another world, she undergoes a transformation that is subtle, but apparently significant enough that her schoolmate Yuka doesn't recognize her. When Youko asks what's wrong, Yuka silently pulls out a compact and shows it to her.
• Played for Laughs in one episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL. Yuma walks into class in increasingly strange outfits, oblivious to the snickers and confusion his classmates show him. It's only after he's given a mirror on the third or so day that he realizes that he's dressed like a weirdo.
• In the first episode of Zombie Land Saga, main character Sakura is seemingly attacked by several zombies and runs into the rainy streets at night. She tries to get help from a police officer, but when he flies into a panic and threatens her with his gun, she looks in a street mirror and discovers that she's a zombie too, since the rain has washed off the makeup that made her appear to still be human. Then it turns out she and the other zombie girls had been resurrected and recruited to form an idol group.

Asian Animation

• In the Simple Samosa episode "Makkhi Makkhi!", Jalebi discovers the fly stuck on her head when she looks in her bathroom's mirror shortly after waking up.

Comic Books

• The Killing Joke: In (this version of) his backstory, the man who became the Joker saw his new appearance in a puddle and began laughing insanely, implying that this was the moment his mind broke.

Fan Works

• In Blue Sky (Waffles), Wheatley is transferred into a humanoid Hard Light body by Chell, but doesn't appear to notice until she shows him his face in a piece of reflective glass.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami: Multiple uses:
  • Ami only notices her Battle Aura after seeing it in a reflection.
  • In "Ward Trouble", Count Zatkel only notices his Forced Transformation into a chicken when he sees a reflective shield.
• Evershade: Due to with Face Doodling from a mad / sad sister and having a Description in the Mirror:
  I looked in the mirror to see my face, and my reflection seemed as surprised as I was.
  Pink hearts on my left cheek, flowers on my forehead, eyeshadow all around my eyes, cat whiskers coming from my nose and outward, and huge red lips all around mine. All done in bright markers.
  Gabby! I growled as I immediately grabbed a wet towel, and began to wipe the drawings off my face.
• In I Was a Middle-Aged Weretoon, Peppino doesn't realize the full extent of his Toon Transformation until he catches himself in a bathroom mirror.
• The Portal: In the sequel, "Hard Choices", the protagonist's mother arrives in the Dragon Realms and finds out about her Forced Transformation into a dragon when she sees her reflection in a puddle.

Films — Animated

• Brother Bear: When Kenai tries to tell Tanana what happened on the mountain, she only hears ursine growls and snorts. She tells him that she doesn't speak Bear, causing him to check his reflection in the water, thus revealing, to his horror, that he's been transformed.
• In The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: Wallace finds out about his rabbit ears when Gromit holds up a mirror to him.
• In The Emperor's New Groove, Kuzco is completely oblivious as Yzma's potion gradually transforms him into a llama. He only sees that he's been transformed when he rushes to a pond to look at his reflection after seeing that his hand has become a hoof.
• In The Frog Princess, Koshchei tells Vasilisa to look at a magical mirror after she rejects him. The mirror is actually the artifact which transforms her into a frog, meaning she is Forced to Watch the process.
• In My Little Pony: Equestria Girls after Twilight enters the human world, she is shocked at her new human body's features but is unaware of what she really is. She finally gets a look at her own image through the reflection in the trophy case at Canterlot High, and is shocked at what she has become.
• In Pinocchio, Lampwick doesn't notice that he's turning into a donkey until he starts braying. He then feels his now-furry head, and confirms his suspicions when he looks into a mirror.
• In The Princess and the Frog, after Tiana is accidentally turned into a frog for kissing Naveen (because she's not a true princess like he thought), she doesn't realize her transformation until she gets a look at her reflection in a hand mirror.
• In Shrek 2, Shrek doesn't realize he's become human until he looks at his hands, followed by his reflection in a pail of water. Fiona finds out she is human again when she sees herself in a mirror.
• Teacher's Pet: When Dr. Krank turns Spot/Scott into a human, he runs to a mirror to see how he looks as a boy... only to find out that, because of dog years, he's actually in an adult human's body.
  Spot: I'm a boy! I'm a boy! (looks in the mirror) I'm a really big boy.
  Leonard: You're not a boy, Scott. You're a man.
• In Turning Red, when Mei wakes up after first transforming into a huge red panda, she's unaware of her new form until she sees herself in a bathroom mirror.
• In Wolfwalkers, after Robyn becomes a Wolfwalker and leaves her human body as a wolf for the first time, she doesn't fully realize what's happened to her until she sees her reflection in the window next to her bed.

Films — Live-Action

• Mike O' Donnell, from 17 Again (2009), drives home after falling into a river, looks into the mirror while showering the mud off of his clothes, and sees his transformed teenage self in the mirror, causing him to freak out.
• Subverted in Batman (1989). After performing surgery on Jack Napier, the surgeon is horrified by Napier's face when he takes off his bandages. Napier demands a mirror. The surgeon hands him one, but we don't get to see his reflection, only his reaction - sobbing that slowly transforms into maniacal laughter, hinting at his transformation into The Joker.
• Subverted example: in the first Fantastic Four (2005) movie, the future Human Torch convinces the guy who we know to be the one who turns into The Thing that something terrible and irreversible has happened to his face. He slowly lifts the mirror, and he looks totally normal.
• Freaked: Arrogant, vain movie star Ricky Coogan is captured by Mad Scientist Elijah C. Skuggs and mutated by the chemical Zygrot-24; the next morning Elijah jovially greets Ricky with a hand mirror to show "The Beast Boy" his new face. Cue screaming and projectile vomit.
  Ricky: Oh God! That was my good side!
  Elijah: Still is, if you ask me.
• In Hitch, Alex Hitchins has an allergic reaction while on a date. While his date is rushing to get him help, he doesn't think it's that bad... until he sees his face in a mirror.
  Alex Hitchins: Coquille St. Jacques - death on a leaf!
• Inverted in Identity: Ed is understandably freaked when he is shown a mirror and sees his reflection as Malcolm Rivers, a convicted serial killer; The problem is, that is Ed's real face. He is one of Rivers's alternate personalities.
• A variation in the 1977 The Man in the Iron Mask. When King Louis comes face to face with his identical twin disguised as himself, his first response is to rush to a mirror as if to reassure himself that's he's the real King Louis and not this other man.
• At the end of Pleasantville when Mayor Big Bob finally shifts from black and white to color, showing the feeling of real emotion or character depth during the trial effectively against these changes he show true anger for the first time and shifts to color himself and doesn't realise it until shown his reflection in a compact mirror he runs out of the court room in stunned silence.
• The Sex Trip: Eddie wakes up in another woman's bed the day after he gets cursed. We only see his legs as he walks from the bed to the bathroom, and then the camera pans up as both he and the audience discover, via the mirror, that he's turned into a woman.

Literature

• In Animorphs #41: The Familiar, Jake doesn't realize he's woken up 10 years into a Bad Future until he sees his reflection in a metal door.
• In The Chronicles of Narnia, Eustace first discovers his transformation into a dragon upon seeing his reflection in a pool of water.
• In Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Rowley has two pimples on his face. Greg sees them and instantly thinks they're chicken pox, then shows Rowley a mirror. Rowley assumes it's chicken pox, too, and screams.
• The Dresden Files: Happens to Thomas Raith in "Back Up". Whilst on the trail of a dangerous Stygian Sorceress, she casts an illusion upon him that causes him to resemble an evil looking older man (in the hopes of tricking his brother Harry into mistaking him for the villain and killing him). Thomas doesn't realise until he sees his reflection in the mirror, which allows her to escape.
• Eva: When Eva is given a remote-controlled mirror to look around her hospital room, she realises something is amiss because they won't let her see the bed. Eventually, she angles it in a way that lets her see her reflection... and a chimpanzee looks back.
• The Man In The Mirror (1910, by Hudson Douglas) has "Bolter" Baxendale awaken after a night of partying in a very ornate room, and dressed in finery befitting a prince. When he sees his reflection in one of the mirrored walls, Baxendale thinks it's someone come to greet him. It's not until his hand, extended for a handshake, bumps against the glass that Baxendale realizes that it's himself looking so dapper. Prince Juric of Jetland arranged this so that Baxendale could pose as the prince in order to safely scope out his potential bride, Princess Ingrid of Marque.
• Matilda: Mr Wormwood does not understand why everyone is yelling at him about his hair; eventually he demands a mirror to discover that his hair has been bleached a dirty silver.
• Temeraire: Laurence wakes up on a beach in Japan at the beginning of Blood of Tyrants with no memory of how he got halfway around the world. When he finally sees a mirror, he's shocked at how much older and more scarred he looks; he then asks about the date and learns that his last memories are eight years (and seven books) old.
• In the book Things Not Seen, Bobby Phillips doesn't know that he's become invisible until he doesn't see himself in the mirror.
• The Tightrope Men was written by Spy Fiction writer Desmond Bagley as a deliberate evocation of this trope. A man wakes up in a hotel room in Norway with no memory of who he is and how he got there. He doesn't start to Freak Out until he looks in the mirror and sees a completely different face. Bagley decided to take the most terrifying situation he could think of, and then write a book explaining it. The protagonist has been abducted, brainwashed and altered through plastic surgery, then put in the place of a Kidnapped Scientist in order to create a few days confusion so the kidnappers can get away with their prize.
• In the ending of The Ugly Duckling, the now adult ugly duckling is unaware that he wasn't a duck all along, but a swan, until a flock of them accept him and he sees his reflection in the lake.
• In the Warrior Cats book Crookedstar's Promise, while Stormkit is told that he's broken his jaw, he doesn't realize the extent of the injury until he notices that the entire Clan seems to be avoiding looking at his face, so he runs down to the water to look at his reflection. His face is damaged so badly that he doesn't even recognize himself at first, and his mother cruelly renames him Crookedkit.

Live-Action TV

• Altered Carbon: When Takeshi Kovacs realizes he's been resleeved in the first episode he threatens the medical staff with a scalpel and demands a mirror over the doctor's objections that it wouldn't help his psychological state. One of the techs hands him a metal tray, in which he momentarily hallucinates his birth sleeve before stabilizing and seeing his new face.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Giles realizes that Ethan Rayne turned him into a Fyarl demon when he sees his reflection in the mirror, whereupon he breaks some household items during his response to this.
• Doctor Who: In "The Doctor Falls", Bill loses consciousness after undergoing Transformation Horror at the hands of the villains, and when she wakes up she's apparently returned to her usual self. Then the Doctor hands her a mirror, and the reflection shows that she's still transformed and her mind is rejecting the reality to keep her sane.
• Grimm has Monroe and Rosalee talking about the first time they woged. Rosalee says her first time, she didn't realize she'd changed until her brother showed her a mirror.
• House of Anubis: When Amber is cursed to turn old, she first only gets a personality change and complains about things like joint-pain or hearing problems. Then Nina catches her in her room, and is shocked by what she sees; Amber is forced to check the mirror to find that she's now covered in wrinkles.
• Impractical Jokers did this when the four guys all got a Gag Haircut punishment at the end of Season one, when the stylist turned the barber chair towards the mirror. Joe, who hates having long hair, was revealed to have been given a sparkly mullet. Q, who sports wavy black hair, was revealed to have bright red curly locks (think Little Orphan Annie). Sal's head was shaved down the middle, and the hair in the front of his head was bleached. Murr was given the hairstyle of a Munchkinland resident.
• The Incredible Hulk (1977): In the original pilot movie, after his first transformation into the Hulk and back again, Dr. David Banner sees his reflection in the edge of a stream and notices something different about himself for a brief moment. Later recounting the event to a trusted friend, he says, "My eyes were white." Little did he know...
• Downplayed on The Last Man on Earth. After Mike shows up and starts living with the group, Phil wakes up one morning and goes to prepare for the day. When he looks at himself in the mirror before doing so, he discovers that Mike somehow shaved the hair off one side of his head.
• Quantum Leap:
  • In the first episode, after Sam leaps for the first time his brain is "swiss-cheesed", so he doesn't know who he is or what he's doing there. When he first sees himself in the mirror he jumps back, apparently having a mental image of his face which isn't the face he's looking back at.
  • In the early episode "How the Tess Was Won" Sam is trying to woo a woman named Tess on behalf of the man he leaped into, but ends up losing her to another man. Al suggests that Sam look into a mirror where he sees a Hispanic man looking back; Al says that Sam got much further than anyone would have expected (Tess is white, and the story takes place in the 1950s). Evidently Sam never looked into a mirror the entire time he had leaped even though it had been upwards of a week.
  • In one Halloween Episode, Sam looks into the mirror and discovers that he has no reflection.
• In an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the eighteen year old Sabrina is trying to impress, Josh, a college student in his early twenties, who thinks she's not mature enough for him. She uses a magic face lotion that makes her more mature, and behaves like she's also in her early twenties. However as she continues to use the cream she continues aging until she starts behaving and looking like a middle aged woman. When a young witch she's mentoring shows her a mirror, Sabrina looks like her eighteen year old self. When Sabrina becomes an elderly woman, her aunt Zelda casts a spell, and when Sabrina looks at her reflection again, she sees that she's been turned into an octogenarian.
• In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the episode "Face of the Enemy" has Deanna Troi wake up, look in the mirror, and realise that she's been given a Romulan's face.
• In an episode of That '70s Show where Kelso is up for inspection at the police academy, Hyde and Fez, who think that Kelso is becoming a "square", shave his mustache when he's asleep the night before. When the inspector fails him, Kelso starts yelling at Fez and Hyde, and when they show him a mirror, he admits that the Hitler mustache is a good burn.
• In the episode of The X-Files "El Mundo Gira", the Monster of the Week only realizes that he has become this by looking at himself in a mirror.

Video Games

• This happens to Funguy in Chrono Cross. After he notices the party staring at him, he looks in a nearby pool of water and flips out when he sees that he's become a mushroom.
• This happens to the player character in Dark Tales: Morella, because until they see their reflection in the nearby mirror, they don't realize that they have fallen victim to Demonic Possession.
• In Deepest Sleep, this is how the protagonist realizes they have become a Shadow Person.

Visual Novel

• In Virtue's Last Reward, you follow Sigma, who assumes that he's young because his last memories was when he was 22. However, over the course of the game, you never actually see his face. Other characters also mention some peculiar things about him that seem off with your image of him. Once he checks his reflection in some water, he notices that he is actually an old man (with his mind from the past having been put into his old man body).

Web Animation

• Various of the short episodes of Pencilmation are about the Pencil making unwanted changes to Pencilmate that he doesn't realize until he looks at a mirror and he see them by himself, many times for his own horror.

Webcomics

• In anti-HEROES, when Aldran resurrects Lana with a scroll of Lifeblood, he tells her she should fix her hair and conjures a mirror. Since Lifeblood scrolls turn the revivee into a vampire, she casts no reflection.
• In El Goonish Shive, Sarah's magic mark is revealed both in-universe to Sarah and to readers by seeing it on her back in Sarah's bathroom mirror.
• In Kevin & Kell, Danielle only realises that she has become a rabbit when she wakes up in Kevin's house and looks in a mirror.
• While Art of Sequential Art was passed out during holiday merriment, his two flatmates shaved his head in strip #122. A contrite Kat shows him the results in a mirror. Art is shocked at first, then displeased. Strangely, Art's huge eyebrows were left intact.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Zuko does it to himself. He gets up after his fever for a drink and to wash his face. Only when he looks in the mirror, he sees to his horror that he has become Zuko-as-Aang. It turns out to have been All Just a Dream.
• In the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command episode "Opposites Attract", Gravitina uses a special ray on Buzz that causes his head to grow as large as hers (as well as giving him her gravity powers). He's unaware of this until XR shows him his reflection in a mirror, and even then he thinks it's a funhouse mirror until Mira shows him that her head is the same size in the reflection.
• In the Futurama episode "Spanish Fry", Fry has just had his "human horn" (nose) stolen by alien poachers. Zoidberg agrees to tell him tactfully and promptly shouts "Fry your nose is gone! We know not where it is but on your face it is not!". Bender then shoves a mirror in his face and invokes this trope.
• FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman: This happens to Ruff in the cold open for "How Not to Impress the Press". Wanting to be featured on the Canine Weekly Magazine, he wants to try out some beauty cream (which actually a magical concoction called "Enchanted" with a cauldron) when he puts it on his face, The scene cuts to Blossom's face as Pink smoke suddenly covers the screen, when Blossom can see again, she suddenly almost throws up and holds up a mirror for Ruff to see his reflection, and we get treated with a very gross sight of Ruff as a turkey vulture with his voice changed to sounding parrot-like. Cue Ruff having a Freak Out. Thankfully, Ruff's shown to be back to normal in the ending scene because the effects wore off, only to accidentally turn back into a vulture again.
• In Gargoyles, Demona undergoes this at the end of the episode "The Mirror" when she is at first very happy and overjoyed to notice that she is now no longer turning to stone in the day, likely realizing she now has extra time to carry out extermination plots against humans...only to then walk by a mirror and realize, to her horror, that she's now been enchanted into transforming from a gargoyle to a human during the day instead!
• A slight variant occurs in the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002) series. After Keldor is transformed into Skeletor, a horrified Evil-Lyn shows him his reflection. Skeletor sees his head is now nothing but a skull.... and starts laughing manically.
• A Running Gag in Jackie Chan Adventures is for a character to undergo a magical transformation, ask why everyone else is staring, and Uncle to say "Don't look in the mirror!" Naturally, the character immediately does so and freaks out, and Uncle adds "I told you not to look in the mirror!"
• Looney Tunes:
  • "Duck Amuck": Daffy Duck has his body erased by a devilish artist, then redrawn as some bizarre quadrupedal creature. Daffy remarks that he feels strange, but can't pinpoint what's wrong. It's when the artist draws a mirror for him that Daffy sees how hilariously he's been mutated, and rages at the animator.
    Daffy: That's strange, all of a sudden I don't quite feel like myself. Oh, I feel alright, and yet I... I, uh... (sees himself in the mirror) EEK! (angrily, at the animator) You know better than that!
  • Rabbit of Seville has Bugs Bunny pose as the barber during a stage production of Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville. Elmer Fudd gets duped into acting as Bugs's customer. At one point, Bugs massages Elmer's bald scalp with hair restorer, then with Figaro Fertilizer. In seconds, tendrils start rising from Elmer's scalp, and Bugs holds up a mirror so that Elmer can gaze at the sudden growth on his head. Then the gag kicks in: Those aren't hair strands, they're flower stems. Blooms suddenly adorn the tendril ends, causing Elmer to snarl and reach for his trusty firearm.
• In the Christmas Episode of Martin Mystery, Diana's ears grow and she doesn't notice, only complaining that everyone's so loud all of a sudden. Martin then holds up a dinner platter to show her what has happened.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "What Lies Beneath", Ocellus encounters two unreformed changelings who refer to her as "Your Highness". Confused, she looks into a reflective rock, and discovers (to her horror) that she has turned into Queen Chrysalis.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998):
  • In "The Mane Event", Bubbles and Buttercup accidentally give Blossom a matted hairdo, and anyone who looks at her bursts into nonstop laughter. Blossom is unaware of why everyone is laughing until she sees her reflection in the windows of a nearby skyscraper, causing her to realize her bad hair and flees for home.
  • In "Criss Cross Crisis", Blossom finds out that she's in Miss Bellum's body when Buttercup (in the Professor's body) holds a mirror up to her. Afterward, Bubbles, in the Mayor's body, walks over to the bathroom mirror and has this hilarious Double Take.
    Bubbles: Mayor, what are you doing in our house. I'm not in your house, you're in my body. Oh. (beat; cue Spit Take)
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Last Exit to Springfield", when Lisa gets braces, she's given a mirror which she breaks upon seeing her horrific Braces of Orthodontic Overkill, in a parody of the Joker scene from Batman (1989).
  • Subverted in "Homie the Clown" when Krusty the Clown undergoes plastic surgery in order to hide from the Mafia. After removing the bandages and looking in a mirror, Krusty screams and smashes the mirror... because he looks exactly the same, except for the surgeon inexplicably giving him breasts.
• Sofia the First: In "When You Wish Upon a Well" when Amber's wish for Roland to be allergic to Sofia turns her into a cat, she doesn't realize she transformed until she looks at her reflection in the water under a bridge after seeing her hand has become a cat's paw.
• In the Thomas & Friends episode, "Wooly Bear", a crate of treacle falls on Percy when he goes to the harbor, and his crew are unable to get the treacle off despite their best efforts. On his way to meet Thomas at the station, a windstorm tosses hay about, causing some of it to stick to the treacle on Percy. When Percy finally arrives at the station, everyone laughs at him, and Thomas calls him a hairy caterpillar. When Percy's driver shows Percy what he looks like in a mirror, he suddenly realizes why everyone laughed at him. He asks his driver to clean him before Toby comes back to the sheds, but by this time, Thomas tells Toby all about what happened to Percy, and the two make jokes about wooly bear caterpillars, much to Percy's ire.
• Total Drama: No one dares say anything when Dakota goes through the first step of her mutation in "The Treasure Island of Doctor McLean" and all she notices is that everyone else seems shorter now. Once Chris is done with the challenge instructions, he hands her a pocket mirror. Dakota at first thinks he's trying to scare her with a picture of a scary monster but Scott points out she's holding a mirror. Dakota freaks out upon realizing the scary monster is she herself and threatens bodily harm on Chris, who makes a run for it.
• Total DramaRama: In "Wiggin' Out", Bridgette, Leshawna, Izzy, and Owen look for a method to quickly grow a lot of hair so they can donate it. After suffering many ineffective methods, Bridgette finds a recipe for an almond butter amalgamation that includes skunk spray as the final ingredient. Done with it all, Leshawna pushes Bridgette into the concoction so she can act as guinea pig for a change. Bridgette steps out covered in so much hair that her whole body is hidden by it. The other kids don't dare tell her about it and just hand her a mirror. Bridgette screams in horror upon seeing herself and runs to hide amidst the vegetation of the overgrown yard.

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