YMMV / Alma Gêmea

• Adorkable: Mirna and Roberval's clumsy and dorky traits make them very endearing characters.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: For any minimally savvy viewer, it's clear that the Surprise Witness of Olívia and Raul's court case will be Dalila, and that she'll testify against Raul, despite all the characters thinking it'll be the opposite.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Cristina might be a cruel villain, but her character arc can be pitiful to watch, as she feels rejected by everyone, including her relatives and the love of her life. The scene where she kicks everyone out of her mother's funeral and mourns her alone is particularly sad. Also, whenever she has any moment of sanity and thinks about giving up on Rafael and starting a new life, Débora pressures her into insisting, even though it clearly makes her unhappy.
  • Dalila is jerk to everybody around her and she's initially an ally to Cristina and Raul, but it's easy to sympathize with her struggle to find a way to maintain her honor after getting pregnant from the latter, especially with how being a single mother was devastating for a woman's reputation in the 1940s. She is exploited and manipulated by Raul, who just wants to have sex with her and use her as a pawn, and once he steals Abílio's job, Raul threatens to fire her from the flower shop (and she was the one who helped him get there in the first place). While Roberval is very nice to her, it's also depressing that she's forced into a marriage she doesn't want. To make things worse, she has to deal with Terezinha blackmailing her, demanding to use and steal her personal belongings, otherwise she will tell everyone the truth about her pregnancy.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The 2009 reprise of the show spawned multiple gifs of Débora◊ and Cristina◊, which became memes thanks to the over-the-top performances of the actresses in their roles.
  • Débora's "Finally, the refreshments!" ("Finalmente, os refrescos!") line also became a meme in Brazil.
  • The scene where Serena rants about white people being heartless and Zulmira replies "Serena, you're white too" has been used to mock hypocritical white people.
• Narm:
  • The circumstances of Débora's death, who ends up accidentally drinking the poison that she had planned to kill Rafael, can be comical to some viewers, mainly because of the looks and faces that the actress makes.
  • The epilogue showing all the supporting characters coming together years after the deaths of Rafael and Serena is this for many viewers, especially for the bad attempt to age them.
• Narm Charm:
  • Cristina's cartoonish traits might make it hard to take her seriously as a villain, but they're also what make her such a charming character in the first place.
  • Similarly, Débora's goofy antics during her murder attempt against Rafael and her subsequent death are part of what made those scenes so memorable.
• Nightmare Fuel: Cristina's fate is disturbing. We don't even see her dying. Instead, she is taken alive to hell.
• Rooting for the Empire: The protagonist Serena is a nice woman who believes in everyone around her, even those who have made it clear they don't like her, and is easily manipulated. Rafael is no better, mistrusting Serena all the time and refusing to believe that Cristina is a horrible human being until it's too late. In contrast, Cristina is a cartoonish villain who makes all her scenes entertaining.
• Signature Scene:
  • Luna Taking the Bullet for Rafael in the beginning of the story.
  • Mirna throwing Cristina into the pigsty.
  • Débora falling into her own trap and accidentally killing herself with poison.
• Strawman Has a Point: Eduardo, who is a doctor, and Nair, who is a nurse, are very skeptical about the "spiritual treatment" Julian offers to Alexandra. They're not portrayed unsympathetically, but Julian is clearly depicted as being right. While such treatment makes sense in the story's canon, Eduardo and Nair's behaviour is what should be expected from any responsible health worker in real life, and Julian and Sabina's "treatment" would be nothing but quackery that should never be used with a real patient with schizophrenia.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Cristina keeps trying to ruin more and more people's lives as the story goes, her schemes are gradually discovered by the main characters, and she eventually drops her polite mask and starts being snobby towards everyone, so by the end, about every character except for Débora and Ivan hates her. However, she is very popular among the fans of the show for being an entertaining villain.
• Values Dissonance:
  • An indigenous female character being played by a white actress obviously raises some eyebrows these days.
  • Alexandra is a woman who has been hospitalized for years for being schizophrenic. Halfway through the soap opera, it is revealed that she is actually being possessed by a demon and is healed in an exorcism. It's not hard to imagine why so many people found this subplot offensive.
  • Crispim and Kátia's relationship is portrayed as an idealistic romance between a naïve, boorish Half-Witted Hillbilly and a seductive, urban Gold Digger who (initially) has no eyes for him. While their dynamic is quite sweet for most of the story, in one particular scene, after Kátia reveals to Crispim that she's not the "angel" he thinks she is, he reacts violently and forcefully kisses her. Despite this, Crispim is Easily Forgiven by both Kátia and her father Elias, and their subplot goes on as if nothing had happened. Back in the day, no one bat an eye at that, but such In-Universe leniency for Crispim's behaviour would certaintly be met with backlash nowadays.
• The Woobie:
  • Rafael loses the love of his life, Luna, in a brutal armed robbery, because she jumped in front of the bullet to save him. He spends two decades mourning his wife, and only finds joy again after she returns as Serena. However, he is eventually forced into an unwanted marriage with Cristina after she drugs him, sleeps with him and fakes her own pregnancy. Cristina madly sets fire to all of his memories of Luna that he kept in her atelier, making him comatose as he gets hit in the head by a chandelier while trying to save Luna's belongings. She later on tortures and humiliates him while he's in that state. And in the end, he's (accidentally) shot by her and dies along with Serena.
  • Serena begins the story dealing with miners raiding and destroying her indigenous village, resulting in the death of her mother. After arriving in São Paulo, she suffers prejudice everywhere, including from Agnes, who was her mother in her previous life, but hates her now for seeing Serena as an impersonator. She constantly deals with chest pains and other symptoms, a result of her sudden and violent death as Luna. And with Cristina always getting in the way, she is constantly separated from Rafael.
  • Agnes, Luna's mother, is also left in nothing but complete grief and bitterness after the death of her child. Her Rage Against the Heavens after her death is heartbreaking.
  • Adelaide, Luna's grandmother, also bears the grief of Luna's death. Cristina and Débora's ways also constantly make her suffer. Later on, she has to endure losing her own daughter, Débora. Despite their issues (which led to Adelaide justifiedly declaring Débora as no longer her daughter), she obviously still loved her. Made even worse when Cristina brusquely expels Adelaide (and everyone else) from Débora's funeral.
  • Thanks to Raul's setup, Abílio is fired by Rafael after loyally working as a manager at the flower shop for so many years. He is absolutely devastated, not just for unfairly losing his job, but also for losing Rafael's trust. His family goes through serious hardship because of it, especially for how hard it is for a black person to get a job in the racist society of the 1940s.
  • Even though Mirna is a Plucky Comic Relief character, it's hard not to sympathize with her for her frustrated attempts at finding a partner, when Crispim is always driving her dates away by throwing them in the pigsty.
  • Olívia, another mostly comedic character, has a pretty rough arc, enduring multiple losses throughout the story. First, she loses her best friend, Luna. Later on, her marriage is ruined, and thanks to her ex-husband Raul, she loses her house, the guard of Carlito, and her restaurant. On top of it all, she has to deal with people shaming her for being separated and even suggesting her to return to Raul, even though he's constantly screwing up her life.
  • Zulmira and Eurico are constantly humiliated by Débora, who makes ridiculously petty demands and verbally abuses them whenever their work is not considered perfect by her standards (which is pretty much always). She makes Zulmira cry several times, and Eurico gets unhealthily obsessed with perfection in order to impress her, bordering on OCD levels. Zulmira also suffers watching her younger brother Ivan being manipulated and corrupted by Cristina and Débora.
  • Roberval has a sad backstory to begin with, as he was abandoned at a church's door when he was a baby, so he never had a family. He is always humiliated by everyone around him for being poor, especially by his love interest and later on wife Dalila. He pretends to be the one who impreganted Dalila to cover up for her sleeping with Raul, gets beaten up by Osvaldo and Vitório for it, pretty much throwing his reputation away, and it still takes quite a while for Dalila to stop being a jerk to him.
  • Kátia, Rita, and Elias also suffer a lot in the show. Kátia is always slut-shamed by everyone, humiliated by several men, and has no choice but to keep her daughter hidden from society, since she's a single mother. Meanwhile, Rita feels neglected by Kátia, since she hardly ever visits her and she doesn't even let her call her "mommy" in public. Elias has to watch everyone around him constantly speaking ill of his daughter, with Rita always asking him what the word "minx" means, and Kátia's behaviour constantly disappoints him.
  • Alexandra has a very depressing arc, struggling with her mental health issues, with the voices she hears constantly tormenting her. On top of it all, she feels neglected by Eduardo.

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