History Main / MirrorCharacter

* ''Series/WhiteCollar'': Neal Caffrey and Matthew Keller are both born con artists and used to work together before Neal reformed to work for the FBI. Keller repeatedly makes {{NotSoDifferentRemark}}s to Neal, who doesn't buy it.

* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDragonJakeLong'': Jake and Greggy are from the same family and both inherited the family lineage of dragon transformation and are very egotistical regarding their abilities, but Jake has the experience to back the confidence up, and Greggy falls into "overconfident," very similar to how Jake was when the series first began.

* ''Theatre/{{Hamilton}}'': Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton are both ChildProdigy orphans who graduated early from Kings College, and are ambitious career driven men. They both try to make themselves of value to Washington during the Revolutionary War and afterwards, practice law right next door to each other. They both even suffer complicated romantic personal lives, but are dedicated to leaving behind a legacy their children can be proud of. All of this serves to highlight the big dramatic differences between Hamilton and Burr: whereas Hamilton comes from absolutely nothing and is desperate to prove himself, Burr comes from a respected family and is concerned about protecting his legacy. Moreover, Hamilton seems equal parts driven by his ideological vision for the United States as well as his personal strive for glory, while Burr on the other hand is willing to be and say whatever he needs to in order to grasp power. This ultimately leads to Hamilton and Burr becoming [[TheRival rivals]], with Burr changing parties and colluding with Hamilton's political opposition to keep Hamilton from gaining more power and Hamilton later supporting Thomas Jefferson, his most vocal critique, over Burr in the presidential election because Jefferson has clear beliefs about the country while Burr has none.

Not to be confused with MirrorMatch ''or'' LeftHandedMirror.

See NotSoDifferentRemark for examples where the Mirror relationship is {{lampshaded}} in-universe. Contrast {{Expy}} for suspiciously similar characters existing in ''different'' works in a way that's clearly intended to be a homage--Mirrors have to be in the same narrative.

For plot lines that reflect each other, see PlotParallel.

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* ''Series/CobraKai'': The two main rivals of the show's younger generation, Miguel Diaz and Robby Keene are mirrors of each other's mentors, [[Film/TheKarateKid1984 Daniel [=LaRusso=] and Johnny Lawrence]]. Like Daniel, Miguel is a poor fatherless kid living in Reseda who learns karate to defend himself from a JerkJock bully. Like his father, Johnny, Robby is a troubled delinquent with a poor relationship with his (in Johnny's case step) father who finds direction in life through karate and a new father figure in his sensei. Miguel is who Daniel might have been if he had joined Cobra Kai, while Robby is who Johnny might have been if he had been trained by Mr. Miyagi.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'': Ezra Bridger has a lot of similarities to Luke Skywalker. Both grew up on a desolate planet in the middle of nowhere, and dreamed of adventure. Both join the rebellion and gain a Jedi mentor, both start out with a blue lightsaber before losing it and replacing it with a green one after a fight with Darth Vader, both struggle with the Dark Side but ultimately overcome its temptations, both are seen as a symbol of hope by the rebellion, and both have to step up to become a leader to their friends after [[spoiler:the death of their mentor.]] Both are destined to help the rebellion, but Luke is TheHero of the entire rebellion and plays a vital role in defeating the Empire, while Ezra is TheUnchosenOne and accepts that hs is to protect his homeworld rather than directly challenging the Emperor or destroying the Sith.

* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfAmber'': Eric, the eldest son of King Oberon by his first wife, and Corwin, the eldest ''acknowledged'' son of Oberon by his second. Corwin says they are probably the most alike of the siblings despite Oberon's children numbering in the double-digits, and their bitter rivalry fuels the plot of the early books.

* According to Christian theory, the ArchangelMichael is the leader of Heaven's angels and armies against the forces of evil and is destined to meet the fallen angel Lucifer, formally the most high in Heaven below God Himself, leading his fallen angels in combat during the War of Heaven as mentioned in the book of Revelations.

See NotSoDifferentRemark for examples where the Mirror relationship is {{lampshaded}} in-universe. Contrast {{Expy}} for suspiciously similar characters existing in ''different'' works in a way that is clearly intended to be a homage--Mirrors have to be in the same narrative.

* In ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'', Dark Pit is a clone of Pit and represents not only his darker, repressed traits, but some of the positive ones, such as his resentment at being a tool of the gods. While they're opponents when Dark Pit first appears, they reconcile and Dark Pit assists Pit later. He was even created by the Mirror of Truth (as pictured above).

* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDragonJakeLong:'' Jake and Greggy are from the same family and both inherited the family lineage of dragon transformation and are very egotistical regarding their abilities, but Jake has the experience to back the confidence up, and Greggy falls into "overconfident," very similar to how Jake was when the series first began.
* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom:'' Valerie and Paulina are both popular girls at Danny's school who dislike him initially for plenty of reasons (in large part because he's an outcast even before the ghost powers), and both fall for one of Danny's selves after they're saved by him.

* In ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'', Dark Pit is a clone of Pit and represents not only his darker, repressed traits, but some of the positive ones, such as his resentment at being a tool of the gods. While they're opponents when Dark Pit first appears, they reconcile and Dark Pit assists Pit later. He was even created by the Mirror of Truth.

[[folder:Tropes Common in Mirrors]]

! Examples:

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* ''WesternAnimation/HowToTrainYourDragon2'': TheHero Hiccup and BigBad Drago are both master dragon tamers who grew up fearing dragons, both capable of even taming a Nightfury, and warring over who can influence Toothless is a major part of the final battle.

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* ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz'': Oz to Dorothy are both from the civilized world and transported to the Land of Oz where they were mistaken for great magicians. However, while the plot of the book revolves around Dorothy trying to return to the civilized world, Oz stayed in the Land of Oz and let the people of the land think he was there most powerful wizard.

* ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'': Tony Stark and Stephen Strange share a strong mutual dislike of the other, primarily because they're both InsufferableGenius {{Deadpan Snarker}}s who are evenly matched in both capacities.

Much like a {{Foil}} mimics tinfoil used by jewelers to emphasize the shine of a gemstone with their differences, a Mirror Character reflects a character's traits to highlight the similarities.

Much like a {{Foil}} character mimics tinfoil used by jewelers to emphasize the shine of a gemstone with their differences, a Mirror Character reflects a character's traits to highlight the similarities.

* {{Foil}}

* In Jewish and some Christian theory, Lilith is Eve's counterpart and predecessor as Adam's wife. While Lilith is seen as the mother of demons, Eve is the mother of all humans.
* In Greek mythology, Zeus overthrew his father Chronos as Chronos overthrew his own father, using the same scythe, to rein over all Olympus. However, Chronos was not porperly a god, as he was a Titan, and Zeus definitely was.

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[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'': [[AntiHero Guts]] and [[WhiteHairBlackHeart Griffith]] were born in squalor and grew into the mercenary life to become a [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower superhuman]] MasterSwordsman capable of leading the Band of the Hawk (as Guts discovers when the former leader Griffith was rendered lame and crippled due to being tortured for a year). Both Guts and Griffith each have a respective dream which they effectively ruin for each other. They both love [[CockFight the same woman]]. And while they have plenty of connections the [[NobleMaleRoguishMale contrast]] is clear as well: Guts resembles the [[DarkIsNotEvil archetypal villain]] and often [[BloodKnight acts]] like it despite being TheHero, whilst Griffith can be seen as the [[LightIsNotGood archetypal hero]] being a literal KnightInShiningArmour but who is ultimately [[BigBad the villain]] due to his [[MoralEventHorizon unforgivable actions]] during the Eclipse.
* ''Manga/BlackClover'': The Dark Triad are the respective [[ArchEnemy Arch-Enemies]] and Evil Counterparts to the main trio:
** Dante to Asta. Both are devil hosts whose fighting styles rely on physical power and wielding swords. They also believe in the power of malicious emotions. But while Asta thinks being human is having the heart to control them to do what's right, Dante espouses that being evil in of itself is being human.
** Zenon to Yuno. They are both cold, speak little, and have confidence in their power, preferring to settle things fast with their magics. While Yuno is selfless and cares for his squad, Zenon is merciless and derides his Dark Disciples for being weak.
** Vanica to Noelle. The two both use liquid magic attributes, can be dismissive of others, and are prone to rapidly changing their moods. Although Noelle cares for her comrades and defends the weak, Vanica doesn't care at all about her loyal Dark Disciples and is only interested in fighting strong foes.
* ''Manga/BungoStrayDogs'': Fukuzawa, the leader of the Armed Detective Agency, and Mori, one of the leaders of the Port Mafia, are benevolent leaders of opposing organizations that care for their subordinates and inspire their loyalty. Their organizations, while very different and with very different priorities, are required as equal matches to balance each other out and bring balance to Yokohama.
* ''LightNovel/TheCaseFilesOfJewelerRichard'':
** Seigi and Richard are extremely similar, gentle people who see the beauty in everything, want to help people, and have difficulty gauging the level of their care and enthusiasm to other people's emotional frequency. Invoked when Richard even calls Seigi a "mirror to his soul."
** Seigi, Richard's employee, and Vincent, Richard's former employee. Both are young East-Asian men who worked under Richard in his jewelry shop and have many of the same skills, and both deeply want to help people, but Vincent was unable to overcome his jealousy and insecurity next to Richard while Seigi happily took everything he could from Richard's mentorship. Thanks to Seigi, however, Vincent has started a course to match him more closely and work under Richard once more.
* ''Manga/DNAngel'' has Dark and Krad, two halves of the ''same'' cursed painting who now possess hosts from different hereditary lineages in the same manner and are constantly in conflict. And, well...take a look at the way their names are spelled.
* ''Franchise/DragonBall'':
** Goku and his older brother Raditz. Both are overachievers much like their father before them, born low-class yet fortunate enough to become elite by attrition after their race was wiped out. While Goku embraced the gentle heart given to him by his mother and works his entire life to break the limits of his birth, like his father, Radtiz chose to hide behind others stronger than him while embracing the ruthlessness of being a Saiyan, rejecting his mother's kind influence.
** Vegeta and Goku, eternal rivals. Both are thrill-seeking Saiyan warriors always looking to test, expand, and overcome their limits. While Goku is a cheerful man who cherishes others, greatly values his Earthly upbringing, and was born weak among commoner parents, Vegeta is a rough, arrogant prince who initially cares only for himself, and was born very powerful and heir to the throne of his planet. However, under Goku's influence, even Vegeta comes to proudly defend Earth and their friends.
* ''Manga/FairyTail'':
** Lucy Heartfillia and Mavis Vermillion: Both are kind, suffered abandonment from their parents as children, and now use their wits to beat their opponents. Both girls are close to one of the Dragneel brothers; Mavis is in love with Zeref while Lucy is ship-teased with Natsu. As if to cement how much both girls mirror each other, they only two characters to learn the spell Fairy Sphere and us it against the dragon Acnologia with Mavis protecting everyone from one of Acnologia's attacks while Lucy traps Acnologia's body inside one.
** Future Lucy and Future Rogue both come from futures in which dragons have destroyed the word, the dragon Acnologia destroying Future Rogue's timeline while a hoard of ten thousand dragons destroyed Future Lucy's timeline. Both have lost loved ones and even a body part with Future Rogue losing his right eye while Future Lucy having lost her right hand, which caused them to fall into despair and even lost. The key difference is that Future Lucy comes back in time to save everyone and stop the coming ten thousand dragons from bringing disaster while Future Rogue wants to ensure it happens.
** Future Lucy and the Dragon Acnologia both tried to save people from dragons. Both have even lost a hand with Future Lucy losing her right hand while Acnologia lost his left hand. But while Future Lucy kept her morals in the end in spite of losing everything, Acnologia didn't.
** Future Lucy and Zeref both lost loved ones to dragons and watched Natsu be killed by fire dragons, and were the only survivors of the attacks. Both wanted to return to the past so their tragedies could be averted, but while Zeref changed his mind and decided not to go through with time travel, Future Lucy did.
* In ''Manga/{{given}}'', Ristuka Uenoyama, Mafuyu's boyfriend, and Yuki Yoshida, Mafuyu's now-deceased boyfriend, are both brilliant, kind, charismatic guitarists with a natural knack for music that's nearly unmatched. And, of course, both are very in love with Mafuyu. At first, it seems that Uenoyama will avoid the lack of communication which caused a rift in his relationship with Mafuyu, but once Mafuyu's childhood friend brings Uenoyama one of Yuki's songs to complete, he also starts keeping important secrets from him.
* ''Manga/KaguyaSamaLoveIsWar'': One reason Iino and Ishigami don't get along is because both are forthright and critical. Without other people around to mediate them, they get deadlocked in endless arguments. There's also the fact that neither tells the other how they keep each other from harm. Iino did her best to keep Ishigami from being expelled in middle school and shields him from the other public morals committee members, while Ishigami secretly (and sometimes openly) does his best to spare her from humiliation or keeps her away from suspicious people. However, since they both think true altruism doesn't need any recognition, neither of them knows and interprets each other's actions as being hostile.
* In ''Manga/MagiLabyrinthOfMagic'' there are a number of these.
** Cassim and Alibaba were childhood friends who grew up on the same streets, both taking comfort in Alibaba's mother. When Alibaba returns to Balbaad while Aladdin is working to find his way back to him, Alibaba joins Cassim's gang to upend the social structure in the country, as Cassim needs his light and heart, as well as Alibaba's royal lineage.
** Alibaba and Hakuryuu are likewise mirrors as princes of their countries who were so far down the line of succession they were never expected to take the throne, but who were chosen by magi as king candidates and conquered dungeons with the help of their friends.
** Aladdin and Judar: Both amazingly powerful magi, even with similar clothing schemes and hair, but Judar is the Dark Magi, Fallen into Depravity, through no choice of his own, simply because he was found by the villains of the series at infancy and Aladdin was protected. Nonetheless, after brutally fighting, with their chosen king candidates, fellow mirrors Alibaba and Hakuryuu, they team up at the end.
* In ''LightNovel/KyoKaraMaoh'', Yuuri and Saralegui are both charismatic kings crowned as teenagers with the immense magic power that comes from one human parent intermixed with the magical blood from Yuuri's demon father and Sara's shinzoku mother. But Yuuri is the Demon King, and Saralegui is descended from Saintsland.
* ''Manga/MoriartyThePatriot'':
** Sherlock Holmes and Professor William James Moriarty, both nearly incomparably brilliant men, protective of the weak and set on bringing justice, change, and equality to the British Empire, and both capable of horrible, horrible acts of murder. It's invoked over and over how identical they are, by William, Sherlock, even Lestrade and Mycroft get in on the action, and the series revolves around the idea that they're two halves of one whole.
** William and ''Louis'' start picking this up after ''The Final Problem'' once Louis takes over command of [=MI6=] and the crew, with Moneypenny, Mycroft, and even Sherlock commenting on how much looking at Louis is like looking at his older brother, and how similarly they act.
** William also has a one-arc mirror in Adam Whiteley, the kind, charismatic MP who wants to force equality into British society whether people agree with him or not, and even resorts to blackmail, with a beloved blond disabled little brother who worships him and worries about his safety constantly, and wishes to repent for his sins with death.
* ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'':
** While a good number of characters can be compared and contrasted to Midoriya, there are two characters in particular who are shown to be reflections of what his life could've been like if things didn't work out as they did:
*** Shinso is a general education student who wants to be a hero. Unfortunately, he's saddled with [[CompellingVoice a quirk]] that isn't only unsuited for combat situations, but also makes people think of him as a potential villain. He calls out Midoriya during their [[TournamentArc Sports Festival]] battle as not being able to understand what he's going through, but Midoriya can absolutely relate- having been a quirkless boy with no chance at passing the entrance exam before getting his power, and wanting to be a hero despite everyone telling him he can't.
*** Gentle Criminal grew up wanting to be a hero, but was a failure as a student, and could never gain a provisional license. When he tried to save a citizen's life, his quirk only made things worse, and the public attacked him for getting the way of a hero's job. This reminds Midoriya of his attempts to save Bakugo from the sludge villain, which got him harshly reprimanded, but didn't otherwise ruin his career. Midoriya finds the battle with Gentle hard on a personal level when he realizes just how similar the two of them are.
** Shinso is also quite similar to Monoma who seems to have taken a liking for him since both of them have non-flashy situational Quirks (Monoma needs to touch other Quirk users to copy their Quirks, Shinso needs to have someone address him to make his mind control work) but both want to become pro-heroes regardless.
* ''Anime/PokemonTheOriginalSeries'': Ash's FriendlyRival Ritchie is pretty much who Ash would be if he were a little bit more competent. Their Pokemon rosters are very similar (both using a Pikachu, a member of the Charizard line, a Butterfree, and a member of the Pidgey line), they have similar appearances aside from wearing contrasting colors, and they managed to have a very close championship battle.
* ''Anime/SonicTheHedgehogTheMovie'' introduces Metal Sonic, Sonic's oldest EvilCounterpart and a robot created to match Sonic's abilities and personality.
* In ''Manga/{{Spiral}}'', Hizumi is Ayumu's evil counterpart of sorts. He, too, is a clone of a famously charismatic, intelligent, infallible "older brother," neglected by anyone who was expected to raise him, and similarly unable to die except by the other's hand.
* ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'': Simon and Lordgenome are both legendary Spiral warriors brimming with Spiral Power willing to fight the Anti-spirals for humanity's freedom. While Lordgenome is an opponent at first hoping to crush humanity to keep them safe, Simon fights for their freedom even in the face of certain doom and his indomitable will brings them victory.
--> '''Lordgenome:''' There was once a man who fought as you do, unaware that his actions would lead to the universe's destruction.
* ''Anime/TigerAndBunny'':
** In the first few episodes, Kotetsu is mirrored by the NEXT kid causing havoc in Sternbild, a young boy whose powers developed suddenly and whose friends turned on him immediately after, believing his powers made him a freak who could only hurt people. Kotetsu uses this connection between them to take on the role of the famous hero, Mr. Legend, who inspired him to become a hero, and lets the kid help ''save'' him.
** Turns out, Kotetsu has a bit more in common with Mr. Legend than he'd like, [[spoiler:after he begins losing his NEXT powers and his hero career is thrown into jeopardy. While Kotetsu never ranked as highly as Mr. Legend did, as part of the team with Barnaby, he was an absolute star with attention all over him. Fortunately, Kotetsu managed to avoid turning into abusive, unlike his idol.]]
** As for Barnaby, in the movie ''Tiger & Bunny: The Rising'', he has a mirror in Andrew Scott, another young man whose parents were killed and company destroyed by someone he desperately wants revenge on, emphasizing how Barnaby has finally managed to move past that emotional stage of his life.
** And then there is Golden Ryan, who has some of the most frustrating traits of both Barnaby and Kotetsu mixed into one, an older, experienced hero who still cares about points and ratings the way Barnaby did when he first started--and a trait of his that has been softened considerably after time with Kotetsu.
* ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'': Sensui is the former Spirit Detective and Yusuke's HerosEvilPredecessor. Like Yusuke, he discovered not all demons were evil and made friends with some and worked alongside them, before going full AxCrazy after a traumatic event.
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