See the full list of examples at Mirroring Factions.
- 24: Christopher Henderson and President Charles Logan's dynamic as part of the Sentox Conspiracy in Season 5 serves as a dark mirror to the relationship between Jack Bauer and David Palmer, with Henderson in Jack's role as the badass agent who will stop at nothing to complete his mission, while Logan is the President from whom he takes his orders, with the two having many phone conversations while Henderson is in the field that are framed similarly to those Jack and Palmer used to have.
- In Babylon 5: Once upon a time, there was a peaceful race that was attacked by savage enemies coming from nowhere who enslaved and killed them until they fought them off, and then expanded to both take their revenge and prevent this from ever happening again, only to become violent conquerors themselves in the process. This is the backstory of the Narn, invaded by the Centauri... And the Centauri themselves, invaded by the Xon (the main difference being that the Centauri successfully exterminated the Xon while the Narn were never a serious danger to the more powerful Centauri).
- Band of Brothers: In the last episode, the final speech of a German general to his collected men before they (the German soldiers) are sent back home drives the point home that the German rank-and-file soldiers and the American soldiers aren't all that different after all. The speech the colonel makes could very well have been made by Major Winters to his own men and have meant the same thing: "Men, it's been a long war, it's been a tough war. You've fought bravely, proudly for your country. You're a special group. You've found in one another a bond that exists only in combat, among brothers. You've shared foxholes, held each other in dire moments. You've seen death and suffered together. I'm proud to have served with each and every one of you. You all deserve long and happy lives in peace."
- Character Development and Backstory have combined to make this the case between Humanity and the Cylons in the new Battlestar Galactica. Many of the Cylons have come to realize they are no better than humans and are in fact very human indeed. Humanity had slowly come around to the point where most of the main cast acknowledge the Cylons are people too, though the process on their end is hampered by the Cylons whole killed 20 billion people thing which makes it easier for people to deny the similarities- admittedly, they may have a point. This leads to a great deal of trouble when most of the main group are forced to acknowledge this trope, they needed to or they would both die essentially, but a great many cannot get past the aforementioned stumbling block for obvious reasons.
- The Korean Drama series Crash Landing on You shows that despite the major differences in political and economic systems in North and South Korea, the people of both nations are still Korean and can be quite alike. The women in Jeong-Hyuk's rural village are quite gossipy about village affairs and romance like their urban South Korean counterparts, the elites of both nations play sinister games for clout and power, and Jeong-Hyuk's soldiers are not mooks, but rather treated as a Band of Brothers with their individual quirks and steadfast loyalty to each other like how a South Korean series would depict its own soldiers.
- Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. One of the recurring themes was the constant clashing between the mostly white townspeople/Army and the Native Americans who had been displaced by them. But it was often noted that the dog soldiers could be just as cruel and violent as the Army that they despised. Later, when Dorothy and Cloud Dancing strike up a friendship when she decides to write a book about him, she endures much ridicule and snubs from the locals, to the point where she stands him up for one of their meetings. When she goes to apologize and admit to why she didn't show up, he points out the angry and disapproving looks from his people, revealing that he's been facing the same problem – and that both groups can be just as prejudiced as the other.
- A French Village: The French Resistance later hang and shoot people without trial, just like the Germans.
- Kamen Rider Gaim: The Overlord Inves are eventually revealed to have once been a species quite similar to humanity that was targeted by the Helheim Forest. Their leader Rosyuo is even able to have a friendly chat with Takatora.
- The Outer Limits (1995): In "Promised Land", Rebecca realizes that the Tsal-Kahn are not really monsters or all that different from humanity when she's about to strike Krenn with a chair, and she covers her son Ma'al to protect him. This is the realization it takes for both sides to make peace.
- The Promise (2011): The series makes this point explicit regarding Jewish militants in the 40s and Palestinian militants in the early 2000s. Both are Fighting for a Homeland and willing to use brutal tactics in doing so. They are viewed as freedom fighters by supporters, terrorists by enemies. Further, the British used some tactics to fight the Jewish militants that modern Israel also uses against Palestinians. The series implies that both the conflicts will only end with the militants getting a homeland.
- While they are sometimes great guys, if a little arrogant and condescending (and having proved useless at stopping their cousins), the Tok'ra of Stargate SG-1 are occasionally accused of not being that different from the Goa'uld. Given that their progenitor was a good Goa'uld it would appear it is possible for Goa'uld to not be inherently evil, and some are far less grandiose and insane than the others. On the other side of things, the Tok'ra are different as they take hosts only with permission and live in a symbiosis with those hosts. At least that's the idea. A couple of instances where a Tok'ra took a host unwillingly (although that was possibly a misunderstanding) and dominated their host and took action without their permission (deliberate) suggest there might be some truth to the accusations. Really the Tok'ra are like when a government claims it is introducing extraordinarily harsh measures which 'shall only very rarely be used' in that they still have the potential to Kick the Dog like the Goa'uld and sometimes do so. Despite this, the Tok'ra get very upset if someone should make the comparison as if someone should be able to tell the good snake parasites from the bad ones on sight, even though Goa'uld can fake being in true symbiosis with their hosts as well.
- Star Trek
- Star Trek: The Original Series: In "The Savage Curtain", a Sufficiently Advanced Alien sets up a fight between "good" and "evil": Kirk, Spock, and facsimiles of Abraham Lincoln and the Vulcan Surak are on one side, and replicas of four "evil" people from various human and alien races form the other side. The alien wants to learn more about the philosophies of "good" and "evil". After Kirk and company win, the alien complains it doesn't understand — the "good" side and the "evil" side use the same tactics and have the same goals: kill the enemy. Kirk responds by pointing out that the evil side fought for power, while he fought to save the lives of his crew, which the alien had threatened to destroy.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation:
- "The Chase" ends with the same overture. A Klingon, Cardassian, Romulan, and human (Picard) deploy to an unknown planet to solve a puzzle there. While the delegations have their standoff, a hologram of an ancient humanoid reveals herself as the common progenitor of all four races. The Klingons and Cardassians reject the message due to their own prejudices (the Cardassian captain being disgusted by the idea that their species could even be slightly related to Klingons), but the Romulan captain seems moved by it, suggesting to Picard .before his ship departs that, "One day..." [there may be peace].
- "A Matter of Honor" gives our actual first look at a "common Klingon soldier" when Riker spends some time aboard a Klingon cruiser. In addition to showing he's able to fit in among them, he also notes that your average Klingon is at the core just trying to get through the day; they have goals, desires, personalities, even issues.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
- "Past Tense": Bashir questions whether this might be the case after getting a look at the ugly side of human history. Sisko, having no concrete answer to give, only replies that he hopes they never have to find out.Bashir: It makes you wonder, doesn't it? Are humans really any different than Cardassians or Romulans? If push comes to shove, if something disastrous happens to the Federation, if we are frightened enough, or desperate enough, how would we react? Would we stay true to our ideals or would we just stay up here, right back where we started?
- The heroes are aware that the Romulan Empire and the Cardassian Union both have a sinister State Sec in their services (the Tal Shi'ar and Obsidian Order, respectively), but they always thought that their own Federation was above such nefarious organisations... until they learn that they too have one in the form of Section 31.
- "Past Tense": Bashir questions whether this might be the case after getting a look at the ugly side of human history. Sisko, having no concrete answer to give, only replies that he hopes they never have to find out.
- Star Trek: Picard: In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1", Sutra equates the Federation's ban on creating synthetic lifeforms with the Romulan policy to hunt them down to extinction, since both ultimately result in their annihilation — the federation, in his eyes, just has better PR.Sutra: Are you and your Federation any different from the Romulans? Banning synthetics was just a way of exterminating us in advance.
- Supernatural: This is Heaven and Hell: while nominally on opposite sides, even Heaven has a torture chamber and they suffer similar power vacuums and the resultant effects through the ranks throughout the series. They even both rely on possessing human vessels to function.
- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles:
- One of the recurring themes is how the tactics of the human resistance have come to resemble those of SkyNet and its terminators as their battle gets more and more desperate. One of the most chilling scenes has Sarah repeating Kyle's warning from the first movie, about how the machines will never rest until their target is dead. Meanwhile, the events onscreen show Derek murdering Andy Goode in cold blood.
- How much the machines are coming to resemble humans in their quest to infiltrate them. Sarah makes note of this at the end of another episode, saying that if machines ever learn to create art or appreciate emotion, then "they won't need to destroy us. They'll be us." While this is happening, we see Cameron doing ballet for no readily apparent reason, while Derek watches, unsure of what to think.
- Then there's the fact that the machines are not a unified front. There is dissent, and some machines are even willing to ally with La Résistance against SkyNet, including Catherine Weaver.
- The Twilight Zone (1959) had a lot of these, considering it aired just after World War II and The Korean War during the Cold War. One featured a WW2 Pacific Theater Sociopathic Soldier who was eager for Japanese blood, to the disgust of his battle-weary comrades. One of them points out that the enemy is just as sick of battle as they are (if not more so), but it takes the soldier becoming a Japanese soldier and having his bloodthirsty words parroted back to him for him to get it.
- Westworld: Ford emphasized that the hosts and humans are the same given that humans largely live their lives in set routines and follow orders without question. As seen in Season 3, he's not completely wrong: humanity outside the park is in the same situation as the hosts where their lives are controlled and dictated by the system. Anyone who doesn't follow the system is considered an outlier that needs to be reconditioned and if the reconditioning fails, they're sent into a cryogenic state just like the damaged hosts who are sent into cold storage. This belief about humanity and hosts being the same after seeing what humanity is like out of the park made Dolores realize that not all of them are Always Chaotic Evil.
- The Wire: a central theme. Whether following the police, drug dealers, Stevadore's union, city politics, a school or the press, there are people obsessed with showing good numbers, nepotism, petty personal grudges getting in the way of doing things right, a dislike for snitching, and the odd Internal Reformist who usually fails at his mission.
