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Split-Personality Merge

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"I know we've clashed a lot, Hyde, but I'm willing to be cool if you are."

"For years, I'd been treating the Hulk like he's some kind of disease, something to get rid of. But then I started looking at him as the cure. Eighteen months in a gamma lab. I put the brains and the brawn together. And now look at me. Best of both worlds."
Bruce Banner, Avengers: Endgame

So Bob is also Charlie, maybe even with a little Albert hiding in there somewhere. There are many possible reasons for the existence of these split personalities, but this co-habitation is rarely peaceful or long lasting, inevitably resulting in a Battle in the Center of the Mind to try and find out which personality will take over. Sometimes though, the winner might not reduce the loser to a tiny, powerless voice or destroy it completely, and instead offers to become one again. With a little Epiphany Therapy, Applied Phlebotinum or even actual psychotherapy, they merge into a single, whole person that is greater than the sum of its minds.

The resulting merged personality is usually a composite of the parts that is well and truly psychologically stable. This is especially true if they were an id, ego, and super ego. If they were moral or temperamental opposites, the resulting merged personality will keep traits of both. In more action-driven works, this merger includes combat ability and powers, so if the character had a moron and a badass coexisting, the united whole will be a badass all the time... while occasionally tripping on banana peels. Similarly, if the reason for the personality split was to seal awesome cosmic powers away (resulting in a Superpowered Evil Side; see both Enemy Within and Enemy Without) the united self will have full control over these powers without risk of Super-Power Meltdown or corruption. If the integration isn't a completely smooth ride, however, expect aftereffects similar to Amnesiac Dissonance. A character with a case of Split Mind, Split Powers might result in a personality with all the powers of each separate personality.

This has notably been the accepted method of treatment of those with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) by psychiatrists, though many in the plural community question if it is always the best choice, advocating a case-by-case basis for treatment.


Examples

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    Anime and Manga 
  • Bakugan: Masqurade, the sadistic, evil, and powerful Brawler that plagues the main cast, is actually Alice, the soft-spoken Friend to All Living Things, Non-Action Girl of the team. She was around her grandfather's laboratory at the time of an accident, creating a Jekyll & Hyde personality that occasionally hijacked her. After she finds this out she initially runs away to avoid harming the team. Ultimately, she comes to peace with and lays the Masquarade personality to rest, who becomes a Spirit Advisor to her in Brawling. This also leads to her becoming an Action Girl (who still keeps her Nice Girl personality).
  • In Bleach, Ichigo's power manifested in the forms of Zangetsu, his Zanpakuto, and his Inner Hollow. In time, he comes to dominate both of them, learning how to use their power for himself. He also tends to take on aspects of their personality and appearance when using their power, such as the coat he acquires in Bankai mode and the mask and personality changes that accompany his Hollowfication. Near the end of the Arrancar arc, Zangetsu and the Inner Hollow merged themselves while Tensa Zangetsu was trying to teach Ichigo the Final Getsuga. The resulting entity appears as Tensa Zangetsu wearing a white robe instead of a black one, and having the top part of the Inner Hollow's super evolved mask. However, his personality largely remain as that of Zangetsu's. Ichigo then merges with THIS personality, and takes on its confidence and... moodiness. Also, the inner hollow turns out to be a merger of his Actual Soul Reaper powers and the hollow powers, while Zangetsu is his Quincy powers.
  • Change 123 is all about trying to merge the personalities of Motoko and HiFuMi and Zero.
  • Done uniquely in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School. One of the main characters, Hajime, underwent a surgery that replaced his personality with a different one, which was then renamed Izuru. After the events of the second game, the two of them managed to reach an accord and merge, signified by heterochromia—one eye Hajime's green, the other Izuru's red. However, rather than one of them being dominant, the resulting persona has traits from them both, and upon being asked which name he goes by in the OVA simply says "either is fine".
  • Death Note: Light Yagami has a minor variation of this when he regains his memories, making this one of the rare unhealthy villainous examples.
  • In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Zenitsu’s usual cowardice and loudness greatly contrasts with his serious side he can only access when asleep or unconscious. But as he grows, he starts speaking in full sentences instead of just “Thunder Breathing, First Form! Thunderclap and Flash (insert variation)!” and is implied to only fall asleep, indicated by a Snot Bubble, meaning he gains a higher level of consciousness while in trance mode. He also starts acting seriously while awake, like when he angrily stopped Daki torturing a little girl. It all culminates in him outright abandoning the need to become asleep or unconscious to fight seriously, as he did against Kaigaku and in the final battle against Muzan, but would still sometimes show his usual loud personality outside of battle.
  • Dragon Ball Z:
    • Centuries after the unnamed Namekian refugee developed a Literal Split Personality that created Kami and King Piccolo, Kami physically and mentally merges with the latter's reincarnation. However, the resulting individual still looks like, acts like, and is called "Piccolo". Not to be confused with the time Piccolo fused with Nail, a completely different and unrelated (though identical-looking) Namekian.
    • The Buu Saga liked to play with this. For starters, the Fusion Dance merges two fighters' personalities as well as their appearances. After that, Majin Buu is absorbed by his dark side, but the new hybrid form is restrained from killing some people due to his good side's influence.
    • In Dragon Ball GT, Good Buu merges with Uub, the reincarnation of Kid Buu, to become Majuub in order to become powerful enough to fight Baby Vegeta.
  • Gundam:
    • In Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Allelujah Haptism temporarily merges with his violent Split Personality Hallelujah Haptism to become "the Super-Soldier" with the piloting skills of two men. This is visually demonstrated by the fact that Allelujah always has his right eye covered by his hair, while when Hallelujah takes over, he sweeps the hair over to cover his left eye instead. When both personalities work together, both eyes are exposed (and he speaks with both voices and personalities in turn).
    • Similar situation with Une in an earlier series, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing. Lady Une has two personalities, "Iron Une", a cold-hearted and ruthless military commander and "Saint Une", who is kind and gentle but ineffectual. She spending about half the series in a coma and wakes up a couple of episodes before the finale, having resolved the conflict and now combining the military skill with the compassion.
  • Hoshin Engi has this with Taikobo and Ou Eki. They later merge together to become Fukki, although Taikobo is the main, dominating personality.
  • Kaguya-sama: Love Is War has a downplayed example. Kaguya explicitly does not have split personality disorder, but she vacillates wildly between her emotional, vulnerable "self" and the "self" that is paranoid and trauma-based. Ice Kaguya (as the latter is known) thinks of her other as stupid, and Kaguya-chan thinks of her other as heartless. After several internal screaming matches, the two accept that they both have a reason for existing, and Kaguya comes closer to being her true self: a girl who can protect herself from her family if needed, but who is also able to appreciate the peace and friendships that give life meaning.
  • In Magical Project S, Misao becomes a lot stronger mentally when she accepts her Pixy Misa Dark Magical Girl persona. (And has full control when turning into Pixy Misa later.)
  • Hikaru and Nova in Magic Knight Rayearth, when Hikaru comes to realize Nova was created from Hikaru's feelings of guilt and regret for killing Princess Emeraude, and finally learns to accept these feelings and forgive herself.
  • Zigzagged a bit in the anime ending of MÄR. Snow was a clone created from a piece of Koyuki's soul. Making them not so much split personalities so much as original and copy. In the end, Snow merges back into Koyuki to become one whole person to be with Ginta on Earth. The ending seems to indicate a complete merge of both sets of memories, while retaining the same personality. It helps they essentially acted as the same person anyway.
  • Naruto:
    • The final arc reveals that Kurama was split in half when Minato performed the Reaper Death Seal on him. His Yin half was trapped alongside Minato in the belly of the Death God, while the Yang half was sealed into baby Naruto. Both are merged back at the conclusion of the series.
    • This is one of the goals of the Eye of the Moon Plan, which requires the union of the nine Tailed Beasts into the single being where they originated from: the Ten Tails. Unlike the case with the Yin and Yang halves of Kurama, this is viewed in a negative light, as it is made clear that the nine are distinct beings with their own personalities, and certainly do not want to become erased just to recreate the Ten Tails.
  • Rosario + Vampire: Even after the destruction of the rosary and her seeming demise, Outer Moka's soul still exists within Inner Moka's body, and by the final chapter, the two have become one, signified by Inner Moka's silver hair turning pink at the ends. This merger overlapped so completely with Inner Moka's own defrosting that nobody other than her father (not even newly merged Moka herself) realized it was happening at first.
  • In Shamanic Princess, the heroine, Tiara, confronts her uncontrolled magical powers in the form of a shadowy, seductive Enemy Without. It gets the better of her at first, but eventually Tiara realizes its power is a result of her fear, so she asserts herself and shows it who's boss. It merges into Tiara, giving her access to her Super Mode for the first time.
  • W-Change!! both inverts this, then plays it straight. Maki's two personalities used to be one entity — with the "light" side representing her happiness and joy and the "dark" sight representing her anger and sorrow, but they diverged into two separate beings at some point. Later, the personalities merged back together, allowing Maki to switch between her two sides at whim.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!:
    • Often overlooked in the English dub of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yugi and the pharaoh usually combine their minds when dueling. The reason this is overlooked is because Yugi merged with the pharaoh looks pretty much exactly like the pharaoh all by himself. On account of the pharaoh looking like an older version of Yugi.
    • In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, this occurs during his final duel against Yubel when Jaden accepts that he is the Supreme King, and no longer fears or denies that power.

    Asian Animation 

    Comic Books 
  • Death's Head II gained independence after the Minion cyborg assimilated the minds of 105 of the most deadly minds in the universe, only to have its last target (the original Death's Head) take over its programming and form a gestalt personality.
  • Crazy Jane of Doom Patrol had 64 distinct personalities when introduced, each with its own superpower. Over the course of her initial run she began integrating them. Two in particular, Baby Doll and Scarlet Harlot, merged to become Baby Harlot. (She was based on Truddi Chase and the Troops, who catalogued 92 people, never integrated, and despised the idea.)
  • In ElfQuest, Two-Edge's mind was split in two by Winnowill, his mother. He tries to use a troll vs. elf war to decide what he really is. note  Later, instead of running, Two-Edge allows Leetah to heal his fractured mind. His later appearances show him to still be a bit loopy, but with only one mind running the show.
  • Spider-Man:
    • The Green Goblin has undergone this after his 1996 comeback, the Goblin previously veering between being an outright Split Personality of Norman Osborn, a psychotic break from reality and the power fantasy of an unstable Corrupt Corporate Executive who just won the Superpower Lottery. Naturally, the amalgation of a mentally ill white collar criminal with his homicidal maniac alternate persona did not exactly make things better- the new Norman Osborn was a Magnificent Bastard who developed particularly twisted views on his emnity with Spider-Man and graduated from millionaire industrialist to head of S.H.I.E.L.D. (because Humans Are Morons). Recently, the Goblin has shown signs of making a comeback, in the form of delusions and homicidal mania.
    • Later, Osborn was purged of the Goblin formula entirely. While he's been Brought Down to Normal, he sees the sudden lucidity as an advantage in crushing his enemies, and the "good" Norman that used to appear during his early bouts of amnesia is entirely absent.
  • Green Lantern: After transforming into Star Sapphire during the mid-80's due to not being able to cope with the extended absence of Hal Jordan, Carol Ferris split into two beings — Predator, which represented "the male side of her", and Carol herself, who was the normal "female side" that loved Hal. After Hal Jordan decided to quit the Green Lantern Corps, Predator kidnapped Carol Ferris and performed a Fusion Dance with her that changed them into Star Sapphire right before Hal's eyes. Later, though, Carol grew more stronger when she accepted the Star Sapphire ring willingly to the point that she regained control of herself in her Star Sapphire form.
  • The Incredible Hulk: Doc Samson once pretended to have done this to the Hulk and Bruce Banner, via Epiphany Therapy. But eventually the change in premise became too much of a problem for the Hulk's title, and the writers made use of the fact that Therapy Does Not Work That Way to establish that Samson had really just created a new, if more stable, alternate. Tossing out the fact that Doc Samson wasn't really in control of the process and didn't fully understand what was happening at the time. Since there are three "main" Hulk personalities (Savage Hulk, Child Hulk and Gray Hulk) and several secondary ones like Devil Hulk and the aforementioned Professor Hulk, it's a topic they have explored several times since, sometimes without including Banner in the merger at all.
  • In the schoolgirl comic book Julie's Jungle Cousin Sue has two personalities: Jungle Sue, a gender-flipped Tarzan who speaks You No Take Candle, acts on instinct and is capable of daring physical feats; and Stuttering Sue, who speaks grammatical English with a stutter and is a physical klutz. By the end of the comic she has managed to integrate the two into one articulate, athletic personality.
  • Exiles: Morph and Proteus actually come to terms with being in each other's body and mind, respectively in Claremont's New Exiles Annual.
  • Superman:
  • Wonder Woman (1987): The Greek Olympians split themselves to create the Roman pantheon a few millennia ago, with both developing distinct personalities and differences over the years, but in the face of Darkseid and the New Gods they remerge with their counterparts for more power with the Greek versions becoming more dominant but changed to reflect their Roman versions.
  • X-Men: Professor X's wayward son Legion had his personalities integrated... into one guy who was far worse than his previous selves put together. The result was the Age of Apocalypse. Before, each of his selves only had access to one mutant power, and the good and neutral personalities acted as somewhat of a restraint on the evil one. The amalgamated version became an utterly ruthless Well-Intentioned Extremist with access to all of Legion's many powers (which turned out to be stronger and more varied than anyone realized). Later, as the focus character of the X-Men: Legacy title, Character Development allows him to do this without going off the rails.

    Fan Works 
  • Becoming Ponies: Fluttershy and Erica eventually perform this. As do one half of Twilight and Isaac.
  • The Chaotic Masters: The purpose of the Journey to the Center of the Mind that the Collector takes Raven on is to merge with her emoticlones, so that she can embrace her emotions and fully control her powers to the extent that Tirek can't use them to influence her.
  • Child of the Storm: Bucky has three separate personalities — Bucky Barnes, Steve's Lovable Rogue Best Friend and Friendly Sniper; the Winter Soldier, the Red Room's implacable, hyper-efficient, and utterly ruthless Super-Soldier assassin; and James, who developed from the remnants of the former mixing with the latter. The first and last merge at the end of Child of the Storm, with the Winter Soldier persona remaining as a Superpowered Evil Side that Bucky can unleash at will.
    • In the sequel, the Red Son persona merges with Harry — though as only a few months worth of memories, without much of a mind of his own, it's dubious whether this totally qualifies. It doesn't change Harry's personality much, but it does make him a much more dangerous opponent, as the Red Son was programmed with all sorts of combat skills.
  • Danganronpa: Paradise Lost: Midway through Chapter 5, Shion Nanashi has a Journey to the Center of the Mind after being confronted with the fact that before she got amnesia, she used to be Monaca Towa, which culminates in the two of them merging together. The resultant has both of their memories, answers to the name of Monaca, and has Shion's sense of righteousness.
  • Facing the Future Series (a Danny Phantom): In "Two For One", at the end of the Battle in the Center of the Mind where his ghost half wanted to do a Split-Personality Takeover, Danny managed to convince him that they were two sides of the same coin and that they needed each other, while apologizing for always seeing him as a burden. This resulted in his two halves merging and Danny getting control of his powerful True Ghost Form.
  • Flinch: Sheik is the embodiment of all of Zelda's repressed anger and violent desires. She's a Psycho for Hire while Zelda is an Actual Pacifist. Eventually, Zelda comes to terms with her aggression, merges Sheik, and gives Samus a No Holds Barred Beat Down.
  • Have Faith: The tetralogy starts by establishing that Faith Lehane (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is actually an alternate personality for Daria Morgendorffer, produced to handle her rage over her family's brutal murder. In the second story, Daria and Faith wind up in a fight with Glorificus who steals the mental energy maintaining their separation. Then Willow pulls the same trick on Glory/Ben. Daria's and Faith's minds work together to become "reason, backed by intuition... more than the sum of her parts," while Glory/Ben become completely paralysed by indecision: "less than the sum".
  • The Immortal Game: Occurs to Twilight Sparkle near the latter end of the fic. Earlier in the story, the psychological trauma of being transformed into Nihilus had caused her mind to split in two — the dominant, peaceful-to-a-fault Sparkle, and the more brutish Twilight. The two personalities spend quite some time arguing, with Twilight pushing for a merge to restore themself to a full and equal mind, but Sparkle being too afraid that Twilight will pull a Split-Personality Takeover and be as monstrous as Nihilus was. Eventually, Titan captures Sparkle and tortures her. The pain and desperation causes Sparkle to accept Twilight and fuse back with her, recreating the real Twilight Sparkle. Cue asskicking.
  • Pony POV Series:
    • Pops up in Pinkie Pie's reharmonizing chapter: Angry Pie, a Split Personality representing Pinkie's anger, attempts a Split-Personality Takeover by absorbing Pinkie and her other personalities. In order to defeat her, Pinkie and Pinkamena fuse together, and the resulting being defeats and absorbs Angry, before fusing with the other personalities, restoring Pinkie's mind to its full state for the first time since she got her cutie mark.
    • Happens again in the Dark World timeline, but differs from the main universe, in that Twilight has to enter her mind and talk her personalities into doing it, and she didn't have split personalities the entire time; she forced her mind back together and a number of factors resulted in it splitting again, allowing Twilight to help her put it back together right.
  • A Shadow of the Titans: According to the Queen, the longer that Jade spends in Shadowkhan form, the more this process will occur with the two of them, until eventually all that's left will be a being with the Queen's amorality, but with Jade's wit to keep her from being Stupid Evil.
  • Shadows over Meridian: Part of the backstory for this Recursive Fanfiction of Kage is that Jade and her Enemy Within, the Queen of the Shadowkhan, eventually decided they needed each other to survive, so they merged together to form a new personality with aspects of both. The main side effect of this is Jade gaining total control over the Shadowkhan tribes.
  • The Weaver Option: The intense Callidus indoctrination and brainwashing apparently broke the mind of Sophia Hess, replacing her with the loyal apprentice Elena Kerrigan. However, on learning about Taylor's success, Sophia resurfaced due to the sheer rage she felt. Elena's mind fought back but could not kill the original as that would destroy their soul; the Emperor instead forced the two minds to merge into a single individual.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In Avengers: Endgame, we see that in the five-year Time Skip after the Snap, Bruce Banner and the Hulk have reached an accord and accepted each other as part of the same being, so there is no longer a transition between the two. "Professor Hulk" retains the Hulk's size, strength and skin tone, but with Banner's brains and easygoing personality (and his wardrobe, glasses and gentle voice).
  • In Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, Pinhead Unbound and Elliot Spencer are merged back into the same being, which turns out to be Pinhead. Joey is given just enough opportunity to stab Pinhead and send him back to the Cenobite dimension.
  • Me, Myself & Irene: "I'm calling the shots from now on, Hank. I don't need you to fight my battles for me. If you can back down from something this important, you're nothing at all. YOU'RE NOTHING AT ALLLLLLLLLLLLLL!"
  • The author and his cartoon character are merged in Monkeybone.

    Literature 
  • This happens to the main character at the end of the Hainish novel City of Illusions.
  • Dandra and Tetkashtai in the Dragon Below trilogy merged into one person at the end of the second book, combining Tetkashtai's psionic power and academic knowledge with Dandra's stubbornness and mental stability to form one psion much more powerful than the sum of her parts.
  • Susannah Dean in The Dark Tower. She originally alternated between the personalities of Detta Walker (kind of psycho and seriously badass) and Odetta Holmes (a wonderful person, but often completely useless). Forcing them to notice each other led to them merging into Susannah, who keeps Detta's ferocity and Odetta's kindliness and feelings for Eddie. Still, the merge isn't perfect; at one point, Susannah has to let Detta take over again because she learned a lesson Odetta never did. "Poetry-readin' bitch like her never had the time for a little ars mathematica." Detta is also prone to resurfacing on her own occasionally, but when she does she is much less vicious than she was originally.
  • Downplayed and reconstructed in The Wheel of Time: Rand Al'Thor suffered a long time clashing with his previous incarnation, psychotic and homicidal Lews Therin Telamon, and finally snapped. Eventually he realized, that "voice of Lews Therin" was a way to manifest memories and experience from previous life, and accepted them as his own. Afterwards, he is still Rand, but much more stable, wiser and knowledgeable.
  • Happens to Tahiri Veila and her implanted Vong personality, Riina Kwaad, in Force Heretic 3: Rebirth. Riina, being a Proud Warrior Race Girl, had attempted a Split-Personality Takeover, but settled on the compromise when she realized that "killing" Tahiri would be disastrous for both of them.
  • Robert Sheckley has a story where a man underwent a treatment in his childhood by having his extra personalities siphoned away into artificial bodies. The story is about him searching for them all over the Solar System. In the end, he collects them all, expecting them all to reintegrate into his, only to have all the parts, including himself, merge into a completely different persona.
  • The Animorphs starfish book, where Rachel morphs a starfish and ends up split in half, with both halves demorphing into a separate version of herself, ended with an Erek-mediated merging of the two halves.
  • An unwanted merging happens in Robert Silverberg's short story "Multiples". 20 Minutes into the Future being multiple is accepted as a variant normal experence, like being gay. A singlet woman voluntarily undergoes an experimental treatment to make her multiple. It works, but doesn't last.
  • Daniel Keyes' novel The Fifth Sally, which is more or less based on century-old cases of multiple personality plus his friendship/working relationship with Billy Milligan, has everybody "fusing" together at the end, as does Shirley Jackson's novel The Birds' Nest and most of the popular-literature accounts, mostly written by doctors and not by the people experiencing the condition, which became popular in the 1970s and '80s. Many of these real-life multiples did not feel that integration was healing or a cure; some wrote their own stories.
  • Rhythm of War: For the past couple of books, Shallan Davar has had three semi-independent personalities: "Shallan" the artist and scholar, "Veil" the spy and street thief, and "Radiant" the duelist and noble. At the climax of this book, we discover that Veil serves a second function: she protects Shallan from her worst memories, the things she dares not consider. When Shallan confronts the final set of memories she's been hiding, Veil integrates into Shallan and ceases to be an independent persona.
  • This eventually happens with the Possessed (at least the ones who aren't complete psychopaths) and the people they've forcibly taken over in The Night's Dawn Trilogy.
  • The Impossible Us: Geoffrey manages this with the aid of Nick's contextualization of his "displaced" memories.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • In "The Replacement", Xander's personality is magically split into two bodies — one being confident, competent Xander and the other being awkward, pathetic Xander — and then merged again at the end.
    • In the penultimate episode of Season 5, the barriers separating Big Bad Glory from her human vessel, Ben, begin to break down. While they still inhabit Ben's body separately, their memories and personalities begin to merge together. This leads to Glory manifesting Ben's empathy and humanity and Ben inheriting Glory's selfishness and ruthlessness, until they agree to work together.
  • At the end of season 2 of Cloak & Dagger (2018), it's ambiguous whether this has happened to Bridget and Mayhem, or whether Mayhem's still in control but listening to Bridget in her head.
  • The Crowded Room: By the end of the series, Danny's undergone fusion therapy to merge his split personalities with him.
  • Despite providing the picture, Jekyll averts this. Even though Jackman and Hyde agree to work together, they retain their individual personalities and powers or lack of them. Their alliance is simply a case of switching voluntarily depending on which would be most useful at any time, and both of them agreeing to devote their respective talents towards the common goal of saving Jackman's family.
  • Kamen Rider Build: The original identity of Takumi Katsuragi resurfaces after some demonic possesion shenanigans knocked out his Split Personality, but opts to merge with him after becoming convinced that it's the better solution, resulting in the latter's identity getting most of former's memories. He still hangs out in Sento's mind to observe him afterwards and occassionally comes forth to talk to him in their shared mindspace.
  • The Secret World of Alex Mack has Evil Alex and Good Alex merge after both of them had been separated.
  • Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard has a downplayed example: Data and Lore's minds are essentially restored and put into a single positronic brain. When a Battle in the Center of the Mind ensues for control over the shared body, Lore seemingly subsumes Data for a complete Split-Personality Takeover — but because Lore deliberately assimilated Data's memories as trophies of his conquest, he effectively becomes Data but with some of Lore's personality (fortunately, not the malevolent aspects) mixed in.
  • In the season 6 finale of Supernatural, Sam is stuck in a Mental World where his identity has split into three personalities: original Sam, soulless Sam, and the mentally broken Sam who's been tortured in Lucifer's cage. Finding his way out of there requires the other two to merge back into him. Unfortunately, soulless Sam is trying to murder original Sam to keep that from happening, and the broken Sam's memories are so traumatic that Sam has to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital in season 7.

    Music 
  • "In Birdsong" by Everything Everything describes the merging of the bicameral mind as the origin of human consciousness.
  • There's an unusual one at the climax of The Who's Rock Opera Quadrophenia. In "The Rock," as Jimmy's life flashes crawls before his eyes, the musical themes representing aspects of his personality merge into one. Hm? You say I can't possibly get all this information from an instrumental? You're right: It's all there in the manual liner notes.
  • In another Rock Opera example, Green Day's American Idiot has this happening to St. Jimmy, the evil side of Jesus of Suburbia ("Jimmy died today; he blew his brains out into the bay").
  • Eminem's kayfabe shows this happening over time. At the start of the story, Slim Shady takes control over the formerly positive Conscious Hip Hop artist and wipes his original personality. Slim's personality forms a bleach-stain even on Eminem's increasing appearances in his discography, causing the line between the two to get blurred, until Marshall kills him in "When I'm Gone" due to him spreading into his personal life. Following Eminem's drug addiction and depression nearly killing him, Slim comes back from the dead Bloodier and Gorier than ever on Relapse, but is then Put on a Bus for most of Recovery (having had a painful reminder to stay on his best behaviour, courtesy of God), while a now dark-haired Eminem airs sincere joy about his Creator Recovery. The following album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2, after Eminem was more comfortable in sobriety, shows a reblonded Eminem having found a comfortable medium with Slim, embracing Slim's exuberance and productive rage as well as Eminem's Olympian compassion. The video for "The Monster" shows Slim locked up in Eminem's mind, but helping him out with his lyrics, while the song itself reminds us that they get along; the Album Closure tells us that the two of them are the same.

    Tabletop Games 
  • The goal of the Multiple Men in Bleak World. Unlike most Experiments, the Multiple Men would rather live with their personalities than silence them and have various methods of getting along.
  • Changeling: The Lost has an Enemy Without variant with regards to the fetch, an impostor made from a fragment of the changeling's soul to fill their place after they're taken by the Gentry. Most changelings are just content to kill their fetch - either in an attempt to reclaim their life or destroy one of "their" tools - but it's possible for a changeling and a fetch to come to a deep, intricate understanding of how each one reflects aspects of the other's personality and being. If that happens, the changeling and fetch merge into one being, with the changeling's Clarity going up a level. Keep in mind this is a long, difficult process, and odds are other changelings won't look on you so kindly for attempting it...
  • With the ubiquity of Brain Uploading in Eclipse Phase it's not uncommon for people to make temporary copies or "forks" of themselves and later reintegrate the two. Unfortunately the longer they remain separate the more likely the chance of integration causing stress.
    • Individuals who are willing to push the boundaries of transhuman science have attempted merging completely different egos together, though this almost always results in insanity.
  • This is a central mechanic of the game, Vox, where characters incorporate the voices in their head as a part of themselves they have 'forgotten,' growing closer to perfection each time.

    Video Games 
  • In Berwick Saga, Once recruited, Owen can switch to between "priest" and "dark priest" at will.
  • It's not fully explained, but this happens in the Dimensional Vortexes in the DS re-release of Chrono Trigger.
  • As the Act 2 of Cyberpunk 2077 goes on, Player Character V starts affecting the mannerism of Johnny Silverhand, after being infected by a biochip containing his Virtual Ghost, they're told it's only a matter of weeks until their personality gets completely overwritten by Silverhand's, and the rest of the game is them trying to find a way to stop it.
  • In The Darkness videogame, Jack Estacado manages to control the Darkness, a demon spirit that existed in his family since WWI, not through guns but by absorbing it into his own spirit. This allowed him to control the Darkness, but the Darkness reminded Jackie "with each life you take. I grow closer to owning your soul!" Guess what he has to do next to reach his Uncle Paulie?
    • Even Death is not enough to escape: Jackie commits suicide after Uncle Paulie kills his girlfriend before his eyes while he's being restrained by the Darkness itself, but comes back with the Darkness still possessing him.
  • Vergil's human half, V, does this with his demonic counterpart, Urizen, in Devil May Cry 5, though they leave behind Griffon, Shadow, and Nightmare, Nelo Angelo's emotional baggage.
  • Disgaea 5: A large part of Killia's backstory is his past as Tyrant Overlord Killidia. Even after turning away from his old life and trying to change for the better after his defeat at Goldion's hands, his destructive urges keep rising back up throughout the story, largely thanks to his quest for revenge against Void Dark. Killia's Big Eater habits were a means to suppress his Tyrant side, but they eventually stop being enough. It takes a return to his second-home Netherworld and another bout with Demon General Bloodis before Killia is finally able to accept his other self.
  • The Fallout: New Vegas DLC Dead Money has Dog and God, a Nightkin with two personalities: the dumb, friendly, always-loyal, always-hungry Dog; and the cold, calculating, intelligent, Jerkass Control Freak with a heart of gold God. Essentially, they are the Id and Superego of one single personality, and eventually you have the option of merging the two personalities into one, or have either Dog or God take over completely. If you merge the two, Dog and God will finally put aside their differences for a brief moment to say thanks and goodbye to you before merging. The merged personality has no memories at all, but has a vague feeling like you've helped him, even though he doesn't know who the hell you are.
  • In Fatal Frame, Kirie ended up split into two parts — one being the vengeful spirit possessed by the Malice and roaming the mansion, killing anyone that comes her way, and another, young version of herself that wants the other to be freed from the Malice and return to her original duty of keeping the Hellgate closed. The post-Final Boss scenes show the two forms merging again, and Kirie returns to her duty.
  • Final Fantasy:
  • A timid Shiro Fubuki from Inazuma Eleven 2, merging with his Hot-Blooded alter-ego by the last two chapters.
  • In Kingdom Hearts, someone whose heart is lost to darkness, but had above-average strength of will, can find that not only does their stolen heart become an instinct-driven Heartless, but their leftover body gets back up and turns into an emotionless Nobody. Killing or melding both of these will resurrect the original person. The Nobody can eventually grow a new heart with enough time and experiences, which makes their subhuman treatment in Kingdom Hearts II rather morally dubious once it's revealed, but the resurrected human retains all of the Nobody's memories and merges any new heart with their own, so most of them are quite fine with it afterward. If you're Sora or Kairi, things get more complicated:
    • Sora managed to keep his human form as a Heartless with some help from Kairi, and his Nobody Roxas didn't get any of his memories. This meant Roxas's appearance and eventual personality were completely different from Sora's, and while they do merge at first, Sora eventually questions the wisdom of the decision and seeks to resurrect Roxas as his own person. Sora doesn't know it, but he's also merged with Xion, an Artificial Human made out of memories stolen from him in a previous adventure, who also has her own personality. Both of them permanently get new bodies towards the end of Kingdom Hearts III.
    • Kairi and Naminé are in a similar boat: since Kairi literally cannot become a Heartless, she's able to retain her body and memories when Naminé is born, leaving Naminé with nothing but the barest of existence to call her own. The pair eventually merge, though this too is undone at the end of Kingdom Hearts III.
    • Vanitas tries to force this with Ventus at the climax of Birth by Sleep, which would cause The End of the World as We Know It if he succeeded. Ven eventually manages to break the merger at the cost of sending both halves into a ten-year-long coma, which they spend trapped inside Sora's heart. Combined with the previously-mentioned mergers, Sora's heart is quite the clown car by the time of 3D, with no less than four other hearts inside him. Xemnas even outright asks Sora how much of him can really be called him after merging with that many other people:
      "The bits and bytes that have made up your life so far... can you say for sure that they are not just copies of someone else's?"
  • In La Pucelle, Eclair confronts and merges with Dark Eclair who is her desire to be free and normal.
  • Inverted in Mass Effect 3 to the geth, formerly a cooperative mass of programs, allowing them to become self-aware individuals, after the recently individualized Legion merges himself with the Consensus.
  • Accepting one's Shadow self in Persona 4 transforms it into a Persona, which isn't quite merged but does act as a Guardian Entity instead of an Enemy Without.
  • This happens in the Good Ending of Silent Hill, in which Cheryl Mason and Alessa Gillespie merge and are reincarnated into a new baby. In Silent Hill 3, it is shown that Harry Mason has decided to care for the child, naming her Heather.
  • In Star Wars: The Old Republic, the Sith Warrior fights an Enemy Without of themselves in their class story on Tatooine. Depending on your current Force alignment, the shadow will taunt you for being either too Light or too Dark. You can bypass the fight entirely by agreeing with it and merging, but you get points for the alignment opposite to yours as a result.
  • In the normal and good endings of Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, Ratatosk's personality comes to terms with the part of himself that is Emil and the two accept each other as parts of a whole.
  • Not quite a merger, but in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, in the climactic dialog with Jeanette/Therese, with high enough stats you can persuade them to make amends and tolerate each other, in which case they bury the hatchet and peacefully coexist. Speaking with them later on reveals they're still separate entities, but apparently much more aware of each other and the ensuing character is named 'Tourette' by the game.
  • Fei in Xenogears merges with no less than three (possibly four, though that one was an Empty Shell) alternate personalities after convincing them to. This is remarkable since he wasn't the original, but the third personality.
  • In Psychonauts 2, Cassie O'Peia is suffering from a fragmented mind due to her mental archetypes being scattered. This culminates in a battle with the dominant Archetype, the Librarian, who represents her Superego. After her defeat, the Archetypes reconcile and combine to form a full version of Cassie.
    Raz: Are you... the real Cassie?
    Cassie: Hmm, not sure. But I'm sure she's in here somewhere.

    Visual Novels 

    Web Animation 
  • The goal of the Meta (a gestalt entity of A.I.s created as Literal Split Personalities) in Red vs. Blue: Reconstruction is to reconstruct the original Alpha AI from which they were split off. According to Word of God, the first AI in the Meta (Sigma) intended to rebuild the Alpha with itself as the leader.
  • In RWBY, it's revealed that every incarnation of the being currently known as Ozpin will eventually have their original personality fuse with those of the previous incarnations'. The current incarnation, Oscar Pine, still has his own identity separate from the collective "Ozpin" personality, but he's accepted the eventuality that he'll ultimately be absorbed.

    Webcomics 
  • The Doctor Who comic The 10 Doctors demonstrates a rare version of the trope. As the title suggests, the Doctor's regenerations 1 through 10 all band together to save the universe. At one point, Ten gets captured by the Daleks and is brainwashed into "Dalek Tor". In order to defeat the programming there is a Battle in the Center of the Mind where the Doctors all form one persona — an amalgam of his multiple personalities.
  • In Drowtales, fae, such as elves, are vulnerable to tainting, meaning that their "souls" have been infected by a demon. Usually, the demon will gradually consume the tainted victim, but it is also possible for the fae to merge their "soul" with the demon, leaving the fae's own personality dominant, making them immune to further Demonic Possession, and sometimes giving them access to special abilities originating from the demon.
  • Gunnerkrigg Court: In Chapter 69, Annie is split into two iterations of herself by Loup's meddling (one of which spent a couple of hours conversing with him in the Wood, while the other spent six months living in the Court with her father). In Chapter 79, Zimmy reunites them, creating a single Annie with the memories of both iterations.
  • Homestuck
    • Inverted: Gamzee Makara begins with the stable merged personality when stoned. Then he sobers up, the personalities split, and both of the resulting personalities are Ax-Crazy.
    • When Jade Harley ascends to the God Tiers, she's merged with her dream self which had branched off into its own different personality, Jadesprite, for a time.
    • This apparently was to be the destiny of Calliope and Caliborn and it is implied to be part of the natural lifespan of their race, the cherubs. Sadly Caliborn managed to kill Calliope's dream self meaning that they will remain as fractured personalities forever.
  • Attempted a few times by Jix and her alternate personalities Remula and Lamerix. The first time it seemed to work for a while, but broke down when she was cloned and Remula was seemingly transferred to the clone they were actually copied. Another time a psychologist tried to get her personalities to destroy each other.
  • Kill Six Billion Demons: Allison makes a Deal with the Devil with Incubus in Seeker of Thrones, giving her greater control of her Magus Key by becoming Incubus' emmisary. During the caper on the Infinite Bank, this causes the Key-mastering parts of Allison — her confident, sociopathic, power-hungry aspects — to merge and take control of her body while the rest of Allison's consciousness is left divided and staring at the whole thing on the sidelines. After the power-hungry aspect leaves Cio to die Allison finally has enough and manages to come to a realization that all the Allisons in her head are her, and goes on to confront and (literally) embrace the power-hungry aspect as another part of herself.
  • This is one of the possible explanations for the ending of the Aiden and Brownwyn arc in Misfile. It wasn't made terribly clear, but Rumisiel did force the Wraith-thing to into Bronwyn's psyche and told it to stay there, and Bronwyn did regain her affection for Aiden as a result.
  • Mingmei Wu and Professor Sorgaz in The Wotch, once Mingmei is made aware of her status as a gender bent teacher dunked in the Fountain of Youth and the origional personality reappears. Perhaps a slight twist on this trope, as well; Mingmei is perfectly willing to go away so Professor Sorgaz can return to his normal life. It is Sorgaz who proposes merger, claiming she already has a better life than he ever did (He proposes merging the best of both worlds — her friends, his bank account).

    Web Original 
  • Empires SMP: While "Dark Sausage", the embodiment of Sausage in his worst, Corrupted state, was initially split from Lord Sausage of Mythland in Season 1, the Protector of Sanctuary, the Season 2 reincarnation of Lord Sausage, merges Dark Sausage as part of his soul again after their battle. Shelby is the only person to learn the two are, in fact, both different and the same person.
  • Happens to Sasha and Abby when Sasha dies while mentally linked with Abby in the Metamor City novel Making the Cut.
  • A fan commentary on the Miraculous Ladybug episode "Oblivio" describes it in terms similar to this trope.
    And despite neither of them having their memories they both still had their personalities and it was really nice to actually see their true selves come out without having any of their previous feelings, beliefs, or influence from their miraculous get in the way. They weren’t trying to be someone they weren’t.. Adrien wasn’t overly flirty, Marinette wasn’t clumsy or nervous... They were just there and they were them.

    Western Animation 
  • DuckTales (2017): In "The Split Sword of Swanstantein!", Lena discovers that logical Huey has mentally locked away his savage emotional side behind a door, calling him "The Duke of Making a Mess", and convinces him that he needs the inner strength of the Duke in order to defeat Steelbeak. While the Duke initially overpowers Huey's rational thinking, Huey finally shakes hands with the Duke, giving him the perfect balance of strength and logic to take down a thug three times his size without giving in to rage.
  • OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: K.O. and Turbo K.O. can merge to form Perfect K.O. so long as one doesn't overpower the other. The Grand Finale sees them merge permanently after K.O. accepts T.K.O. as being him instead of just a part of him, resulting in K.O.'s outfit becoming darker and him now having T.K.O.'s fang.
  • Rick and Morty: In the episode "Rest and Ricklaxation", Rick and Morty get split into "healthy" halves and "toxic" halves. Rick realizes they have to merge back to save the lives of their toxic halves, but Morty refuses to do so and runs away. Eventually, Rick tracks him down and forcefully remerges him.
  • Teen Titans (2003): In "Nevermore", Cyborg and Beast Boy accidentally enter Raven's mindscape, where the personifications of all her emotions live (i.e. Pink Raven is her happiness, Gray Raven is her shyness). When Trigon appears to menace her friends, the Ravens come together to defeat him.
  • Mike in the Total Drama All Stars finale, after hitting the Reset Button, not only loses his other personalities but also gains their abilities, except for Mal's.
  • D.A.V.E. from The Batman is an unusual variant in that he’s a robot programmed like this: take the personalities and skills of all of Gotham’s supervillains and squash them into one mind. His crimes have the traits of different villains on them, and when pressed on his origin rattles off the origins of Joker, Penguin, and Mr. Freeze while trying to recall his own.


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