Shadow Archetype / Live-Action TV

• 24: Tony Almeida to Jack Bauer. Like Jack, Tony would do anything to protect his loved ones, but unlike Jack, who always manages to balance this with respect for The Needs of the Many, Tony takes this to morally indefensible extremes. In Season 3, Tony helps Stephen Saunders to escape when CTU is closing in on him after Saunders captures and threatens Tony's wife Michelle, prolonging a terrorist threat and risking innocent lives, for which he is fired from CTU. In Season 7, like Jack, Tony sees the death of his wife as a major Cynicism Catalyst, but he takes Jack's rage, bitterness against the world and "ends justify the means" attitude to extremes that even Jack is horrified by, causing a terrorist attack with a bioweapon in Washington D.C. and planning to kill Jack with a bomb as a means to get close enough to Michelle's killer to have his revenge. The parallels are made all the more obvious when Jack has a similar Face–Heel Turn in Season 8 after Renee is killed, and is only barely prevented from crossing the line as badly as Tony did when Chloe manages to talk him down before he starts World War III.
• Babylon 5
  • The Vorlon race and its shadow counterpart, the, er, Shadows. The series starts off with the standard depiction of the Shadows as evil, but then shows that in a different way Vorlons are evil too. Both the Vorlons and Shadows are ancient races who remained in this galaxy to guide and help younger races develop. The problem is the Vorlons believe development from strict order and control. The Shadows believe in development from the chaos found in survival of the fittest. They were supposed to work together, but they got into a pissing contest about who was right, and forgot why they were left in the galaxy in the first place; they leave in shame when the younger races remind them of this fact and tell them to get lost.
  • Garibaldi faces his own darker side, in a way, in season 4. He was captured by a telepath named Bester who wanted him to find an anti-telepath conspiracy. He didn't have Garibaldi's personality wiped, but enhanced Garibaldi's paranoia and dislike of authority to the point Garibaldi left his job, his friends, and betrayed one all for the sake of this mission.
  • Then there is Londo Mollari and Lord Refa. Refa initiates Londo`s darker side extremely well. Only after his heel realization does Londo consciously try to get rid of him.
  • Londo and G'Kar as well. G'Kar starts as a Machiavellian instigator who is reasonably well-connected within his government, while Londo is a sympathetic powerless has-been reliving old glories. Over the next several seasons, Londo rises greatly while being responsible for widespread destruction, G'Kar is forced into exile and becomes a major resistance leader, and finally, G'Kar is offered and refuses the chance to rule Narn, while Londo ascends to the throne as Emperor and lives out the rest of his life at the mercy of a Puppeteer Parasite before welcoming death at G'Kar's hands.
  • Londo (yet again) and his protege, Vir Cotto, who acts as Londo's conscience (as best as he can). Londo is entirely aware that he is the darker side of this coin, and does what he can to protect Vir and keep him on the path of good.
• Played for Laughs on black•ish, Dre and Bow's least preferred child each reflects their character flaws. Bow can be just as prideful and flighty as Zoey is and Dre does have quite a lot in common with Junior; namely, both being huge Momma's Boys with No Social Skills (though Dre is better in that regard). Also, it's indicated that as a kid, Dre was as awkward as Junior.
• Breaking Bad:
  • Inverted with Gustavo Fring. He's what Heisenberg aspires to be. Rich, powerful, feared, and possessing state of the art infrastructure, making him the most powerful drug lord this side up north. Problem is, Heisenberg's effectiveness is crippled by his ego and bad decisions, a fact pointed out by Fring himself and later on, Mike in "The Reason You Suck" Speech. When Heisenberg kills Fring and tries to forge his own drug empire, things start to go downhill.
  • Played completely straight with Jack Welker. In many ways, he's the ultimate personification of the kind of person Walt would be if he had allowed his Heisenberg persona to take complete control of his personality — a ruthless, merciless, sociopathic man ready to retire with a multi-million dollar profit.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Many characters in the series represent who other characters could have been if they'd gone wrong.
  • Buffy has three shadows over the course of the series:
    • In Seasons 1-3, Cordelia is Buffy's shadow. She's the exact kind of shallow, self-obsessed cheerleader stereotype that Buffy was pre-Character Development in the movie, and represents who Buffy could be if she chose to neglect her Slayer duties and live a normal life.
    • In Season 2, Kendra becomes Buffy's shadow. She represents the "traditional" Slayer that Buffy could have become without family and friends: a living weapon whose only purpose is to slay demons and serve the Powers That Be.
    • In Season 3, Faith becomes Buffy's new shadow. She represents the exact opposite path, a Buffy who decides that being the Slayer makes her better than ordinary people and uses her powers for selfish goals.
  • Giles has Ethan Rayne, his Evil Former Friend who reminds him of his rebellious days as "Ripper", before he chose to accept his responsibility as a Watcher.
  • Adam to Riley, as a being created and controlled by the Initiative who rebelled against his former masters. But while Riley struggles to find a new identity outside of the Initiative where he can do good without blindly following orders, Adam concludes that he is nothing more than a monster whose purpose is to kill innocents and create more beings like himself.
  • The season 4 finale makes Forrest another Riley shadow. Raised as a Frankenstein's Monster under Adam's control, he represents what Riley would become if he failed to overcome the influence of Adam's Mind Control chip.
  • Riley is an inversion for Xander, being everything Xander wishes he could be. He's the Scoobies' Badass Normal, a role that Xander often aspires to but generally falls short of, has actual military training in contrast to Xander's Fake Memories of being in the military that he gained from being turned into his Halloween soldier costume, and is in a relationship with Buffy, whom Xander has had an unrequited crush on since the start of the series. It's implied that this is why Xander is such a strong Shipper on Deck for Buffy/Riley, and he often tries to copy Riley's actions to comedic effect.
  • Jonathan is what Xander might have become if he'd made a few wrong turns and didn't have Willow, then Buffy, in his life.
  • Several characters manage to be their own shadows. In particular, vampires are a hollow reflection of the person they were before they died, having all of their memories and personality traits but none of their morals or self-control, due to lacking a soul.
    • Pre-siring Angel, or Liam, was a lazy drunken hedonist. After becoming a vampire, Angelus twists these traits into pure sadism. After regaining his soul, Angel is left with the constant struggle to suppress Angelus's personality lest he become a monster again.
    • In life, William the Bloody (Awful Poet) was a pure romantic. As a vampire, Spike is mostly only capable of expressing love as a deep, unhealthy obsession. But he's always monogamously devoted to one deep, unhealthy romantic obsession at a time.
    • Willow has two shadow selves, Vampire Willow from the Wish Dimension and Dark Willow. Vampire Willow, in addition to being dangerous and creepy, shows signs of Willow's latent sexuality. Dark Willow shows what Willow is capable of when unleashing her full unrestrained power without her friends to reel in her destructive side.
    • Oz has his werewolf side, which he claims is present within him even when he is in human form. "Fear Itself" implies that the wolf represents Oz's greatest fear: that he may become a danger to his loved ones.
• Cobra Kai:
  • It's clear that Johnny and Daniel both see each other as this. Johnny sees Daniel as the embodiment of his failure in the 1984 All Valley, which caused Kreese to turn on him and started the chain of events that led him to become a broken mess of an adult, while Daniel sees Johnny as a reminder of the bullying he suffered at his hands in high school, and of his own seduction by Cobra Kai in The Karate Kid Part III. With both men associating each other with so many painful memories, it's almost impossible for them to admit how similar they really are.
    Ali: And the truth is, you guys are more alike than you want to admit. Maybe you recognize parts of yourselves in each other, and maybe you don't always like what you see.
  • Kreese represents all of Johnny's worst traits taken to the extreme, and the flawed Cobra Kai philosophy from which Johnny is trying to escape. While Johnny's Politically Incorrect Hero status is the result of ignorance rather than malice, Kreese revels in his openly racist attitudes. While Johnny, despite his Disco Dan tendencies, learns to be more in touch with modern society and adapts the lessons he learned in The '80s to better fit the present day, Kreese shows no signs of wanting to change, and commits fully to living in the past, acting as if he's still in the midst of the Vietnam War and despising the modern world in which he lives. Johnny sees both the merits and flaws of Cobra Kai's teachings and only inadvertently passes bad lessons on to his students, while Kreese refuses to acknowledge any problems with the "no mercy" mentality and actively encourages his students to become Ax-Crazy psychopaths.
  • Likewise, Terry Silver to Daniel: both are successful businessmen, both tend to resort to convoluted plots to take down an opponent (Daniel tries pricing out Johnny when he reinstalls Cobra Kai, Silver engages in gaslighting and manipulation and frames Kreese for an assault he committed). It also takes very little despite their outward zen attitudes to plunge back into their karate rivalries to the point of obsession. The main difference is that Daniel immediately listens to various characters calling him out and is a fundamentally Nice Guy for all his faults while Silver is a Corrupt Corporate Executive who actually relishes manipulating and inflicting violence on people. As Daniel's former Evil Mentor, Silver also represents Daniel's greatest regret, the fact that he was once seduced by Cobra Kai's teachings, which is why Silver is capable of getting under Daniel's skin in a way nobody else can.
  • Tory Nichols to Robby Keene. Both are troubled youths from broken homes who engage in petty crime and find direction in life through karate. Except while Robby is able to turn away from his life of delinquency due to Daniel's guidance, Cobra Kai (or rather Kreese) galvanizes Tory's worst traits and she eventually goes from a borderline Jerk with a Heart of Gold to a full-on Jerk with the Heart of a Jerk. Both also deal with feelings of jealousy, Robby with Miguel and Tory with Sam, as Miguel and Sam still have lingering feelings for one another. Robby is eventually willing to confess to Sam that he feared "losing points" with her, while Tory reacts with almost homicidal rage after seeing Sam and Miguel kiss at Moon's party. Tory in many ways represents what Robby could have become if Daniel hadn't taken him under his tutelage, and she's ultimately the one who convinces him to embrace his dark side and join Cobra Kai. Tory even calls Robby out on suppressing the Tory side of his personality when they meet at the probation office in Season 3.
    Tory: At least I know who I am. You're still pretending to be something you're not.
  • Hawk grows to view Demetri as one, seeing his more pacifistic and meek tendencies as an embodiment of all the "nerd shit" he wants to reject. Demetri doesn't seem to realize this at first, viewing it as his friend just acting like a jerk until Hawk goes so far as to try and violently assault him for a Yelp review and the two grow to be enemies.
  • In Season 1, Yasmine represents the kind of shallow, bullying Alpha Bitch that Sam could become if she decides to value popularity over doing the right thing, and is a Toxic Friend Influence who tries to push her down that path.
  • Aisha represents the old, nerdy interests that Sam is rejecting in her attempts to join the popular crowd. Although Sam ultimately realizes her mistake in associating with the likes of Yasmine and apologizes to Aisha for pushing her away, the two never fully reconcile, indicating that Sam will never quite be the same person she was.
  • Hawk to Johnny. Both took up studying under Cobra Kai to build up their self-confidence, only to become bullies thanks to Kreese's influence. While Johnny finally sees the true flaws of the Cobra Kai mentality in Season 2 and becomes an Internal Reformist, Hawk rejects his influence in favor of Kreese. Johnny overcomes his past abuse at Kreese's hands by symbolically confronting Hawk after the school brawl to warn him against going down the same path and telling him that Kreese doesn't care about him. It's clear that Johnny's words are as much directed at his own younger self as they are at Hawk.
    Johnny: [Kreese] doesn't give a shit about you! About any of you. So, if you wanna keep whining about the past like a bunch of pussies, fine. We could play that game. Wanna stick with Kreese? Go ahead. Don't say I didn't warn you when your life ends up in the shitter.
  • Hawk to Miguel. While Miguel struggles throughout seasons 2 and 3 with his loyalty to Johnny and Cobra Kai, Hawk represents who Miguel could become if he makes the wrong decision by completely going off the deep end and fully embracing Kreese's toxic teachings. Miguel reaffirms his sense of honor by defeating Hawk and Coyote Creek and returning the Medal of Honor he stole to Miyagi-Do, and later breaks off their friendship entirely after Hawk breaks Demetri's arm, symbolizing his rejection of this path.
• The Miniature Killer (and her presumably-incestuous foster father Ernie Dell) are shadows of Sara and Grissom on CSI. The Miniature Killer represents everything that Sara and Grissom are unwilling to face about Sara's past and her consequent incompleteness as a person.
• Dexter's whole shtick is that he kills people who represent what he would be if he didn't have a code. So, in effect, he has killed hundreds of manifestations of his Shadow Archetype. On top of that, every season introduces a new mentor-type figure who presents a more personal version of the archetype.
• Doctor Who
  • The Master is this to the Doctor, with all of his arrogance, superiority and passion for meddling augmented with megalomania. The new series at several points makes it explicit that it would be very easy for one to become the other.
  • The new series frequently contrasts the Doctor with himself and what he could become. Especially in "Amy's Choice", with the darker self showing the Doctor's wishes for control, power, and interestingly, his own self-hatred.
  • The Valeyard is a more literal example, as he's explicitly stated to be the Doctor's inner evil and darkest qualities personified.
• Forever: Dr. Henry Morgan is a relatively young immortal who has spent the last thirty years, since his wife Abigail disappeared, keeping the world at arm's length, working with corpses instead of patients, and "avoiding messy emotional entanglements." Adam is immortal like Henry, but has been around so long and cut himself off from humanity so thoroughly he's become a sociopath who believes he's Above Good and Evil. Henry spends the series learning how to open up and let people in again.
• Frasier: Niles Crane, the original trope namer for Replacement Flat Character, is what older brother Frasier would have been like without the character development he experienced on Cheers. While Frasier's experiences in Boston made him into a more rounded person, Niles remains a stuffy perfectionist who's obsessed with fitting into high society.
• A less serious example on Friends is Mr. Heckles and Chandler. They both started out as witty jokesters, but avoided getting close to anyone. The difference was Mr. Heckles never overcame his issues and died alone, while Chandler learned from his example and thanks to his friends, built meaningful relationships, and eventually fell in love.
• Fringe has a series of complex and interesting examples revolving around Walter Bishop. Beware Spoiler:
  • In the early season, Walternate was meant to be Walter's shadow should he lost his son and still retain his intelligence: a brilliant, ruthless scientist who's also at the height of power.
  • Even earlier, William Bell was made out to be Walter's shadow: they're are equally brilliant but one became a billionaire and one was locked up in a mental institution. Walter (and everyone else) even lampshaded this.
  • However, come season 4, it turned out that Walter, had he met all the required conditions: brain intact, loss his son, and with William Bell encouraging his brilliance and egomania was much much worse than either of them. This was represented by changed timeline Williams Bells who had a massive god complex that led him to destroy two universes to create his own ideal utopia with his own will imposed as the law of physics. He also implied that this is what Walter would've done had he not been so afraid of his own power.
• Game of Thrones: Cersei is the picture of what could have gone wrong with several other female characters who shared some characteristics with her:
  • To Sansa. They were both sheltered daddy's girls from noble families, living a fantasy of marrying a Prince Charming, which in both cases has gone horribly wrong, leaving them both disillusioned. Sansa's kinder nature and not actually spending years in a horrible marriage have left her in a better mental shape than Cersei, for now at least.
  • Tywin notes a similarity between a young Cersei and Arya in their spirited and rebellious natures. However, Cersei was forced by Tywin to conform to the standard submissive role for a Westerosi woman, and put her energy into becoming an evil queen.
  • Both Tyrell women, Margaery and Olenna, share many traits with Cersei — they're manipulative, willing to use seduction (in Olenna's case, in the past) to further their goals and were "blessed" with not particularly politically competent husbands. Olenna and Cersei also share ruthlessness and and similarities in their acts go as far as committing a regicide and letting an innocent man take the fall. However, by growing (at least in Margaery's case) in a household where the female role was valued and taught — instead of being reduced to a property of a man and a piece to haggle — and being sane, they get out of their roles everything Cersei couldn't: Margaery is a popular queen and gets to manipulate even Joffrey, and Olenna is the real head of her family who has raised a capable heiress and is the closest thing the series has to a female Tywin.
• Heroes
  • Elle Bishop and Claire Bennett — it's explicitly mentioned by the resident Magnificent Bastard that he protected Claire from the company because he didn't want her to become Elle.
  • Sylar and Peter Petrelli have been explicitly described by Word of God and the actors, as two sides of the same coin, with similar powers and desires to be special. Sylar's method just involves a lot more blood and crazy.
• House: In one episode, a man became his own shadow when he had a neurological problem that caused him to spout whatever came into his head.
• Jackman and Hyde in Jekyll, just like the source material.
• Killing Eve:
  • Villanelle and Eve are this to each other. Villanelle might be enjoying her life as a sensation-seeking assassin all too much but she’s drawn to Eve’s life of stability and a legitimate job with friends and co-workers who like her. Eve has a good job, a good husband, has good friends in Bill and Elena, and has enough time to do her hobbies, but she’s drawn to female assassins and dreams of a life - like Villanelle's - where she gets to live out her desires and impulses without any compunction or self-consciousness.
  • The Ghost is this to Eve. Both are older Asian women who are generally viewed as being Beneath Suspicion despite being highly intelligent and competent, and both use their skills for violence, about which they don't take particular pleasure.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
  • Sauron serves as a darker archetype to different characters:
    • In a sense, Sauron is what Galadriel could become if she would give in her darkest impulses. She is already revengeful, ambitious, not exactly above using people for her own ends, and is hell-bend on committing genocide against the Orcs. Galadriel is capable to recognize she would turn into a tyrant next to Sauron, though he merely wants her to be his Queen.
    • To his very future nemesis, Aragorn. His human identity is built of the same mold Aragorn was built as Strider, appealing to the fantasies of a young elven maiden growing up with the myths of Beren and Tuor fresh in mind. A "lost king" stripped of his royal upbringing and rightful throne from an evil impostor, humble in his looks and gruff in his ways but ultimately noble and good willed, ready to lead his people to salvation. But while Aragorn was the real deal, Halbrand was the impostor all along. And while Aragorn was eager to accept his destiny, Halbrand kept refusing it until Galadriel snapped him out of his bad mental state.
  • Adar to Gil-galad, which is reflected in their breastplates having the same design, with Adar's being black instead of gold. Both view other races as a means towards preserving their own, though Gil-galad will try to maintain at least a veneer of diplomacy while Adar turns to slavery and murder.
• In one episode of Malcolm in the Middle, Malcolm meets a middle-aged man (played by Jason Alexander) who exemplifies his Insufferable Genius traits and is thus alone and friendless, representing Malcolm's potential future.
• Morgana is this to Merlin post-Face–Heel Turn. She's done a lot of the immoral things he's done (killing innocents, betraying friends, choosing loyalties) but while he avoids them until he has no choice, she does them with an almost sadistic relish. Her Freudian Excuse is also one of the key parts of his Conflicting Loyalty (they are magical in a kingdom that fears magic).
• Once Upon a Time: Lilith is Emma's mirror image in almost every way, and explicitly calls herself the "anti-Saviour". Whereas Emma is the child of two fairytale heroes; Lilith is the daughter of Maleficent, an iconic villain. They were both raised in the real world, but while Emma spent her childhood bouncing around the system, Lilith was adopted by a wealthy family. Emma initially refuses to believe in magic or that the people of Storybrooke are fairytale characters, meanwhile Lilith knows exactly what Storybrooke is and spends years trying to get into it. It's eventually revealed that their destinies are linked as Snow and Charming performed a ritual before Emma was born that exorcised the darkness from her soul and put it in Lilith.
• In the BBC's Sherlock, Jim Moriarty, the "consulting criminal", is an even more direct Shadow Archetype to Sherlock Holmes than the original literary character was. Like Sherlock, Jim is phenomenally clever, unfettered and easily bored with everyday life. But unlike Sherlock, who solves crimes and puzzles, Jim staves off boredom and puts his brain to the test by masterminding perfect crimes on behalf of wannabe criminals. He represents what Sherlock could become someday, and shows just how important Sherlock and John's friendship is in pushing Sherlock towards being heroic and doing the right thing.
• Tony's second series episode of Skins is a study in Jungian psychology; Sean Pertwee's character(s), the crazy dude on the train and the admissions counselor at the university, together form Tony's shadow (Tony explicitly describes himself as "<the counselor>'s bad dream, him before he was destroyed by the system")
• The Sopranos: Phil Leotardo represents the darkest aspects of Tony Soprano's personality cranked up — whereas Tony is a deeply flawed Jerkass but is still sympathetic, Phil is unlikable, unpleasant, depraved, and a massive Hate Sink.
• Star Trek
  • A classic shadow pair is the good-yet-indecisive Kirk and his evil-yet-effective twin in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Enemy Within": "I have to take him back... inside myself. I can't survive without him. I don't want him back. He's like an animal, a thoughtless, brutal animal — and yet it's me. Me." Really though, both the good and evil Kirk are Shadow Archetypes to the real Kirk; he wouldn't want to be either one of them.
    • In the Star Trek: Voyager episode Star Trek Voyager S 3 E 17 "Darkling" The Doctor undergoes a similar type of split, and he even describess himself as the Shadow in explicit terms, but, unlike in the above episode his existence is a fluke, and he isn't an integral part of the character's core makeup. In the end, he is deleted with no ill effects to the original personality.
  • Romulans are the shadows of the Vulcans, and on dimensional level, the Mirror Universe is the shadow of the Star Trek 'verse.
  • The Borg are shadows to humanity, being uniform and collectivist versus human individualism and self-determination. They also share several traits with humans, such as adaptability and desire for self-improvement, all of which they can do MUCH faster. They explore space searching for other forms of life, but while the humans of Star Trek wish to meet with other species peacefully to learn about them, the Borg learn by conquering and assimilating other life. Another parallel is mentioned by Eddington in Deep Space Nine, pointing out how the Borg state their plans for assimilation, while humans slowly manipulate races into joining the Federation.
  • The Dominion are shadows to the Federation — they are a large galactic alliance that professes the ideals of peace, co-operation, freedom and self-determination, yet do not truly practice them and are extremely aggressive in war. The Dominion is what the Federation would become if humanity became hypocritical to the point where they only paid lip service to those ideals.
  • Patrick Stewart once suggested in an interview that Q was Captain Picard's shadow, representing the repressed aspects of Picard's psyche (possibly including repressed homoerotic impulses as well).
• Ultraman Orb Jugglus Juggler is basically what Gai could be like if he had no one around him to serve as his moral compass. As both of them lost someone close to them according Orb novel — with Gai nearly to the point of Roaring Rampage of Revenge after losing Shorty as much as Juggler lost Micott. Luckily, Gai regained his senses instead of going off the deep end.
  • Ultraman Z: Celebro is basically a second Juggler and has all of his worst traits ratcheted up — from his lack of shame, inability to process positive emotions such as kindness and compassion, poor impulse control and need for stimulation. The similarities end given Juggler has already changed and already has a moral compass in STORAGE's crew members, but retains his amoral and obnoxious personality from his home series, while fighting off aliens trying to threaten Earth and his crew just to relieve his stress.
• Ultraman Geed: Like the aforementioned Ultraman Zero above, Belial is also one to his own son, Riku, the titular Ultraman Geed himself, to whom he bears an uncanny resemblance with. If people like Laiha, or even Zero himself weren't around in Riku's life to guide or support him, he would essentially become a second Belial.
• The Wild Wild West: Why is a Diabolical Mastermind like Depraved Dwarf Miguelito Quixote Loveless is so obsessed with a lowly paid Secret Service Agent like Jim West, to the point of purposely adding him to all his world conquest schemes (and ensuring Failure Is the Only Option)? Both of them are intelligent (but Loveless is a scientific genius), handsome, and have a lot of success with the Girl of the Week. Loveless will never accept that succeeding at world conquest would result for him in a ''But then what?'' situation; he'll still be the same bitter man (James West once sadly and respectfully eulogizes him as That little man with a giant rage against the whole universe). Trying to destroy West, the man who reminds Loveless that being shorter than anyone else is not obstacle to happiness, is his true dream. This is also why James West, who is usually quite willing to kill a malefactor, tries nearly every episode to rehabilitate Loveless, pointing out how much good his genius could accomplish.
  • In many ways, Loveless is also Artemus Gordon's shadow: both are geniuses who often come up with technology decades ahead of their time. In many episodes, Artemus seems to be genuinely jealous of Jim West's respect for Loveless' intelligence!

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