Evil Counterpart

"Our methods have not differed as much as you pretend. I am but a shadowy reflection of you. It would take only a nudge to make you like me. To push you out of the light." —Rene Belloq, Raiders of the Lost Ark

A character who looks like the protagonists and has/had abilities and obstacles similar to the them, but is evil. Sometimes, but not always, a Big Bad.

Frequently, the Evil Counterpart is the character equivalent of For Want of a Nail: he represents what our hero could have become as a result of a very small change in his Backstory. They also save creators the trouble of thinking up new abilities to give their villains, especially for comic book heroes and video games (where new abilities have to be implemented).

Often leads to a Not So Different moment.

Often a Dark Magical Girl; contrast with the Worthy Opponent. Applied to an entire team, they are The Psycho Rangers. Because The Hero and the Evil Counterpart are such great foils for each other, the counterpart has an excellent chance of being the hero's Arch Enemy, although this is not always the case.

Sister Trope to Evil Twin (evil biological twin), Evil Knockoff (intentionally created evil duplicate), Criminal Doppelganger (evil Identical Stranger) and Jekyll and Hyde (when the hero and his/her counterpart are the same person).

If the first character to be introduced is the evil one, the good one would be his Good Counterpart.

Examples of Evil Counterpart include:

Anime and Manga

• In Naruto practically every antagonist has some quality that represents how one of the good guys could have gone horribly wrong.
  • Gaara is the titular character's evil counterpart, as a boy who spent his childhood tormented by the demon inside him and abused by those around him. As if to drive the point in further, he's the youngest son of the Fourth Kazekage; Naruto is the son of the Fourth Hokage. He represents what Naruto would have become if not for his True Companions. After meeting Naruto, however, he mellows out and pulls a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Kabuto too, in an inversion. Realizing that Naruto is practically a good counterpart to himself, decides to take on Orochimaru's cells to mimic being a jinchuriki like Naruto. He also undergoes training under the White Snake Sage to become a Sage just like Naruto.
  • Nagato is also an evil counterpart to Naruto, especially since he's an Uzumaki. He plays Dark Messiah to Naruto's Christ figure.
  • Aaand now there's Obito as well, since he was explicitly compared to Naruto earlier in the story. Obito bears a dozen similarities to Naruto, he has uncanny resemblance to Naruto, he has the same dream of becoming Hokage as Naruto, same unrequited love for a girl (Obito with Rin, Naruto with Sakura) and Obito possess the same jealously for the "cool guy" of the team. And by time his villain, the mask wearing Tobi who would've killed a minute old baby and sic a massive demonic fox on a woman weakened from pregnancy if he wasn't stopped . Ouch. And the parallels just keep on mounting with Obito becoming a Jinchuriki and being revealed that he is also an orphan who never met his parents. Obito sees all these similarities and tries his best to brake Naruto's spirit, like his was broken when Rin died. But Naruto brings Obito back to the light though the connection they have.
    • Obito is also an evil counterpart for Kakashi, who went through the same horrific childhood as Obito but ended up making an entirely different choice. Kakashi even openly acknowledges he might have chosen a similar path if not for, oh irony, Obito's own words.
  • Madara is this for Itachi, as both were prodigious Uchiha ninja that cared for their brothers over everything else and survived a ninja holocaust. While Itachi became a pacifist, Madara became a warmongerer.
  • And of course Sasuke for Naruto. both them lost their parents and grew up alone, the differences balance the similarities: Naruto was a noisy outcast and disliked and mocked by the village (mainly due to having the Demon Fox inside him). Sasuke was adored and in sympathy from the village for losing his clan. But ultimately Naruto saved the village and won their respect and care. Sasuke on the other hand did his best to destroy the village to try avenge his bother and clan (despite Itachi wanting the opposite). Naruto starting off as embarrassing trouble maker and then became the greatest Hokage in ages, Sasuke was a prodigy adored by almost everybody around him and then became one of the greatest threats and disappointments for the Village. Sasuke is now a despised outcast the end of Naruto similar to how Naruto was at the start of the series.
  • Danzo to his contemporary Hiruzen Sarutobi. Hiruzen saw the ninja of Konoha as his family, while Danzo saw them as soldiers. Hiruzen was also a very genuine person, gaining strength from hard work and forging relationships through understanding; while Danzo has artificial upgrades and manipulates people into giving him what he wants.
• Tsubasa in Kannazuki no Miko is Souma's evil counterpart as well as his older brother.
• Vicious is Spike's Evil Counterpart in Cowboy Bebop. They share identical histories as crime syndicate assassins, and once worked together. Spike gave up his killing life after a near-death experience, but Vicious never did, and holds Spike in contempt for betraying his "true nature".
• The anime Gate Keepers features a Dark Gate Keeper known as "Shadow", who it turns out became embittered with humanity by a family tragedy that he tried (and failed) to avert.
• Dragon Ball
  • Both Piccolos were the evil counterpart of Kami. That is, before Piccolo makes his Heel–Face Turn and they remerge.
  • Lunch (or Launch depending on translation)) has a bad counterpart though her Split Personality which she turns into whenever she sneezes. In her Blue haired lady side Launch is kind, generous and doting. In her blonde form Launch is greedy, mean spirited and trigger happy while she starts off as a evil comic foil the generally decent Dragon Ball gang though her bad side helps out occasionally, during the Tien saga Launch becomes a pseudo Anti-Hero helping out Goku and even becomes depressed over Krilln's death.
  • Goku has a lot of evil counterparts:
    • King Piccolo and his son Piccolo Jr. Both are aliens from worlds that were in distress (one being outright destroyed), they both were raised in isolation away from the civilized world, lost their memories of their old worlds, and had come to see the blue planet as their one true home. Their arrival on Earth also greatly impacted the planet changing it forever. The difference between them is that whereas living on Earth gave Goku the best qualities of humanity, it gave the Nameless Namekian that later split into Kami and Piccolo the worst qualities.
    • Vegeta, initially. They are both Saiyans who love to fight and challenge themselves. The difference is that Goku values life and fights to protect those he loves, while Vegeta couldn't have cared less about anyone but himself. Vegeta eventually learns to value others and to accept and return love.
    • His older brother, Raditz. They both love to fight and were born on the low end of the power scale of Saiyan society. Goku is brave (not afraid of death) and chose to grow stronger instead of choosing to stay as a "low class". Raditz is a coward who begs for his life when he's about to be killed and remained weak because he hid behind people much stronger than him instead of trying to improve his own skill.
    • Majin Buu, all forms. They love to fight, learn techniques from just seeing them once, have a love for food, are man children, and can be playful while beating on someone. Buu, however, is an entity who doesn't care about anything besides itself and destroys and kills for fun.
    • Turles from the third The Tree of Might. His entire character was based on the idea of what kind of person Goku would have grown up to become if he had never cracked his skull and gotten amnesia.
    • Yajirobe meanwhile was never a villain, but was a short, dim-witted and spiky-haired man who lived alone in the middle of nowhere, phenomonally strong and obsessed with food, mirroring Goku at the start of Dragon Ball. The contrast here was that Yajirobe was lazy, cowardly and generally much less pure compared to Goku's much more earnest demeanor. A kind of Chaotic Neutral Counterpart.
    • Beerus, although more like a Chaotic Neutral counterpart like Yajirobe. Both of them being rather lazy outside of the prospect of fighting things, obsessed with food, kind and respectful but with no sense of being rude, outright terrifying to enemies when angry, and generally the most dangerous things in the universe. Only difference is that Beerus had nobody giving him a moral compass.
    • Dragon Ball Super introduces Goku Black, an evil version of Goku who appears in Future Trunks's timeline. He has Goku's lust for battle and his constantly growing more powerful after every battle (not to mention pulling a new level of Super Saiyan out of thin air), but lacks any of Goku's purity and kind-heartedness, holding humanity in utter contempt and wanting to exterminate them.
    • Namekian Lord Slug from the fourth movie is evil counterpart to Piccolo which is saying something since Piccolo is already a evil counterpart to Kami.
    • Cell is an eviler counterpart to Vegeta. Both love to fight and challenge themselves in battle. They are also both extremely arrogant and believe that there's nothing stronger than them and will throw a fit if that belief is proven incorrect. Their pride and arrogance becomes their undoing, first with Vegeta for letting Cell reach his perfect form for the sake of the challenge and Cell pushing Gohan over the edge so he could become powerful enough to challenge him. The difference, Vegeta eventually learns the value of life, family, and does becomes a good person. Cell remained a Jerk Ass to the bitter end.
    • Cell is also the Evil Counterpart to whomever he's facing. In his Imperfect form, he battled Piccolo - like Piccolo, Imperfect Cell is canny and calculating, preferring to retreat or abuse cheap tactics when the fight goes against him. His Semi-Perfect form contrasts Vegeta as mentioned above, and is also the loudest and crudest of the Cell forms, and the quickest to lose his temper. His Perfect form is a contrast to Goku - like Goku, he is laidback and uncaring, and prefers to give his opponents a sporting chance whenever possible. When he returns as Super Perfect Cell, he becomes like Gohan's Super Saiyan 2 form - a mad berserker who seeks only to destroy everything and takes pleasure in every bit of pain.
    • Like Cell above, Frieza is an eviler counterpart to Vegeta. Both of them are princes of their respective empires, born extremely powerful, commands the respect and fear of those around them, have lofty ambitions of ruling the universe for all eternity, are rule by their pride of being the strongest, and are selfish, soil brats who will Rage Quit if things don't go their way. Vegeta got better though character development. Frieza remained an unrepentant asshole who allowed his pride to utterly destroy him, three times. Frieza also serves as Vegeta's Shadow Archetype.
    • From the original series, Master Roshi and the Crane Hermit Master Shen. Both trained under the same master, fought the Demon King Piccolo, are particularly about who train under them, and are legends in the martial arts world. However, Shen became corrupted by King Piccolo and use martial arts for greed and petty reasons, while Roshi use martial arts to enhance ones life and protect others. Shen's pettiness and greed eventually cost him his students, while Roshi's students continued to wear his colors long after they had surpassed him.
    • Dragon Ball Super introduces Universe 6 as a Mirror Universe to Universe 7 (the one the series takes place in). In Universe 6 the Saiyans are heroic fighters for justice and Frieza's counterpart, Frost, is a benevolent fighter of evil. This led to many fans to half-jokingly state that this meant Universe 7 was the Evil Counterpart to Universe 6. However, Earth doesn't exist in Universe 6... because the U6 humans were apparently such evil warring bastards that they nuked themselves into oblivion. Also, it turns out that Frost is just as evil as Frieza, he's just smarter about it. While Freeza simply conquered planets, Frost stages fake wars, intervenes to end them, then buys, renovates, and sells the planets on the cheap; as a result he's more successful than Freeza and the universe at large regards him as a noble hero rather than the "Emperor of Evil".
• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Whenever someone turns evil, 9 times out of 10 they'll acquire an evil version of whatever cards they usually play:
  • Yuuki Juudai: Elemental Heroes/Evil Heroes (after becoming Haou)
  • Marufuji Ryou: Cyber Dragons/Cyberdark Dragons (when he becomes Hell Kaiser Ryou)
  • Johan Andersen: Gem Beasts/Advanced Gem Beasts after he becomes possessed by Yubel)
  • There's also the Sangenma (Sacred Beasts) and Wicked Gods, direct counterparts to the Egyptian God Cards in the anime and Yu-Gi-Oh R manga.
• Rave Master:
  • Lucia Raregroove is the Evil Counterpart of the main protagonist Haru Glory, a fate not unlike the one suffered by their fathers before them. He even wields an Evil Knockoff of Haru's sword.
  • Also the Dark Bring Pool, which seals away (then drowns) anyone stupid enough to dive into it's ominous purple water while producing a darker copy.
• Gundam SEED introduces Mu La Flaga and Rau Le Creuset. Rau isn't just an Evil Counterpart, he's a faulty clone of Mu's father. Le Creuset actually manages to be the Evil Counterpart to 3 characters. As a cold-blooded subversion of The Obi-Wan, he's a counterpart to Big Brother Mentor La Flaga. He also however, is the counterpart to Born Winner Kira Yamato, demonstrating how badly the kid could have turned out if he hadn't had decent parents. Finally, he's the philisophical opposite of Lacus Clyne, preaching a gospel of nihilism, misanthropy and Omnicidal Mania in contrast to her Technical Pacifism and humanism.
  • The Evil Counterpart trope doesn't just apply to characters; the Archangel, the cool battleship of the main characters, gets an Evil Counterpart in the Dominion which is identical to Archangel in every way except for one: it's black instead of white.
• Gundam Wing is none too subtle in setting up the Epyon to be Wing Zero's evil counterpart. Wing Zero's back mounted thrusters make it resemble an angel (made ridiculously blatant by the Wing Zero Custom), while the Epyon resembles a devil. The 2 suits are similar in their construction: they both can transform into a jet mode, and they both contain a Zero System. However, they are also opposites: Wing Zero has a super-powerful gun, Epyon has a super-powerful sword. Also, the two Zero Systems are hinted to work in different ways, with Wing's "showing you the future", and Epyon's "showing you your death".
  • Interestingly though, the "On the Next..." narration for Epyon's introduction episode says it's evil "just like Zero"; presumably this refers to the ZERO System rather than Wing Zero itself.
• Code Geass has Schneizel vi Britannia, who sometimes seems like a good Counterpart when compared to his Magnificent Bastard of a little brother, Lelouch, a fact mirrored by their color preference in chess.
  • It's possibly a closer match with Charles, Lelouch's father. Once he takes the spotlight, we see that his past and personality are surprisingly similar to Lelouch's, except that Lelouch never reaches the point where he'd marry his buxom subordinate.
    • Speaking of buxom subordinates, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that Marianne is Kallen's Evil Counterpart. Both are highly capable insanely hot Action Girl Knightmare Frame pilots that are completely devoted to their Non-Action Guy men. The crucial difference is that Marianne is a Lady Macbeth with no moral compass while Kallen's moral framework is so strong that she chooses her belief in what's right over the man she loves.
    • According to Word of God, Kallen might have actually done the same thing as Marianne if Lelouch had actually came out and said that he loved her. That's why he doesn't say it -- he doesn't want to drag her down with him as he enacts his Thanatos Gambit.
  • The Geass video game introduces twin princes Castor and Pollux, who are more directly Evil Counterparts; like Lelouch, they're amoral Chessmasters with Evil Eye powers, but unlike him, they have absolutely no problem using their Geass to make people their slaves.
  • Mao is another Evil Counterpart to Lelouch. He's not only the same age as Lelouch (even though he looks older than 17), but he also represents what would happen if Lelouch lets his geass drive him mad.
• This trope appears in Season 2 of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. (Warning: major spoilers.)
  • Kuze is really similar to the Major, the series protagonist. They both were the 2 only survivors of a plane crash as children of about the same age who became friends in the hospital until they both got their first cybernetic bodies and lost contact. While the Major became a police officer working for the government, Kuze became a terrorist opposing the state. Both share the same goals of helping and protecting the people from corruption and crime, their only differences being which side of the law they chose to stand on.
• To Aru Majutsu no Index: ACCELERATOR AND FLIPPING TOUMA KAMIYAN!!!
  • In some ways they're polar opposites!
    • Accelerator, having a power that could almost qualify as a Game Breaker were it not for one OUTRAGEOUSLY simple weakness known as the "reverse punch method" where one only has to stop their attack on Accelerator right before it would actually make contact. And whilst Accelerator has this unbelievably devastating power, Touma's ability has a side effect some would call fatal.
    • The companion parallel: Touma saved Index and Accelerator saved Last Order, whom are eerily similar in almost every way aside from one strange reverse.
    • Heaven Cancellor notes that they're 2 sides of the same coin. Both want to protect their loved ones, Accelerator by killing or at least maiming anyone who threatens them, Touma by simply beating them up and then locking them up or befriending them.
  • Following Accelerator's Heel Face Turn, Teitoku Kakine becomes his evil counterpart. Both have won the Superpower Lottery and their powers are somewhat related, both are extremely sadistic, and both were on an A God Am I journey. But even when Accelerator was evil, he adhered to Even Evil Has Standards, while Kakine gleefully tortures anyone in his path. Also, Accelerator wanted to become a god to get people to leave him alone, while Kakine wanted to be one because of his incredible ego.
  • Umidori Kuroyoru is an evil counterpart to both Saiai Kinuhata and Accelerator. She has the same power as Saiai, but uses it more aggressively and is a jerk compared to the more cheerful Saiai. Accelerator notes that Umidori's personality and fighting style is identical to his prior to his Heel Face Turn.
  • Fiamma of the Right is another counterpart to Touma, who even compares their powers and draws attention to their similarities. Both use their Right Hands to shatter something that someone worked desperately to obtain, except Touma uses his to solve the problems around him and Fiamma his own personal problems — selflessness versus selfishness. In their final battle, Touma points out the biggest difference between them: Fiamma observed the world and was disgusted by what he saw, so he wanted to "save the world" by wiping out the human race. Touma observed the world and saw evil people to fight and good people to protect.
  • The author's notes explain that Aureolus Izzard is what Touma would have become if he had failed to save Index.
• This happens to Optimus Prime from Transformers quite a bit, most especially in the Japanese series. In Robots in Disguise, this takes the form of Scourge, who mirrors Optimus's appearance and strength. The fact that he's not outright identical to Optimus keeps him from being an Evil Twin.
  • However, Nemesis Prime from Transformers Armada IS an Evil Twin, with his coloration being the only difference, as is the one that crops up in the backstory for Alternators/Binaltech.
  • Motormaster from the Generation 1 cartoon could be considered the original Evil Counterpart for Optimus Prime. He had the same alternate mode and was built to be just below Megatron in power.
• Haruhi Suzumiya In the later novels, the whole SOS-Brigade is revealed to have an Evil Counterpart group--alien interface, esper, time traveler, and "god" (whose powers had for some reason transferred to Haruhi). They aren't really evil; they just have opposing goals. The only one not represented in this dysfunctional group is Kyon, who they try to win over in the latest novel.
  • Well, not all of them are evil. Kyouko seems to have bitten off more than she can chew, Kuyou is much more ambiguous but seems to run on Blue and Orange Morality, and Sasaki is actually not evil at all, and is secretly on Kyon's side, but Fujiwara goes completely insane and tries to kill Haruhi in order to remake the timeline in his own image. He also claims to be related to his counterpart, but we don't know if that's true or not.
  • Also, Ryoko Asakura for Yuki Nagato.
• Aion in Chrono Crusade is clearly Chrono's evil counterpart; even their time manipulation skills are opposed or complementary in the anime. In the manga their powers don't seem to be quite as related, but instead it takes the For Want of a Nail path if you think about it -- as revealed near the end of the manga, Aion became bent on his path for remaking the world and Pandaemonium when he received visions of Pandaemonium's memories on his coming-of-age day. If Chrono is his twin brother, that means that he probably was lined up to have the ceremony, as well. He never had a chance because of the hubbub Aion caused, but if Chrono had gone first instead of Aion, Chrono probably would've been the one to go crazy, and Aion would've been the "good" twin. The fact that Aion refuses to tell Chrono the truth and says it's "better this way" probably shows that he, himself, is aware of how close Chrono came to being like him.
• Vash in Trigun has his Evil Twin Knives, who gives a good idea of what Vash would've become if he hadn't been a mama's boy.
• In the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, Father is Hohenheim's Evil Counterpart. He's also even weirder than him. This means that in both the anime and manga version, the Elric brothers eventually have to fight the Doppelganger of one of their parents. Toward the end of the manga, Father becomes more like an evil counterpart to Ed, as his bishonen "God" form looks like young Hohenheim/Ed except with Father's cruel eyes, and Father's arrogance and obsession with gaining knowledge at all costs is a dark reflection of Ed's tendency toward Pride.
  • Wrath is an Evil Counterpart of Ling. Both cover Charles Atlas Superpowers and impressive swordsmanship with a front of Obfuscating Stupidity, and Ling's actual Papa Wolf attitude toward his friends and subjects is mirrored in Wrath's pretensions to being a Father to His Men- in reality, he really couldn't give a damn about his subjects. Also, just as Wrath is a human-turned hommunculus, Ling gets turned into the second Greed. However, while Wrath lost his human identity in his transformation, Ling manages to maintain his consciousness and serves as The Conscience to Greed. Wrath started life as the 12th candidate for Fuhrer and Ling is the 12th son of the Emperor.
  • Kimblee in the manga comes across as something of an evil counterpart to Scar. Both have destruction-based powers and invoke Light Is Not Good (although Scar is at worst an Anti-Villain). Also, Kimblee "created" Scar, delivering the injury that gave him his nickname, and the role of Kimblee and other State Alchemists in carrying out genocide against Scar and his people is the motivation for Scar's revenge.
    • To support this argument, look at the scene where Scar is standing on the roof with Kimblee on the ground, with Scar himself pointing how their situations were reversed from in Ishval. Also, Scar moved on past his focus on revenge while Kimblee's obsession towards completing his job never waned.
    • A recent chapter seems to give Scar another evil counterpart in Bradley, who describes both of them as nameless warriors, and again, you have the perpetrator of genocide versus the victim of genocide.
• In Chiko: Heiress Of The Phantom Thief, the titular Chiko has something of an evil counterpart in Angie, who started off as a sweet happy-go-lucky girl befriended Chiko. She just happened to be the daughter of the head of security of the museum Chiko and her fellow thieves were casing. Chiko willingly betrays her and conducts the theft, leaving her behind. One Wham! Episode later, she's stuck on the top of a moving train with an Ax Crazy Angie trying to drive an axe into her skull. Smooth, Chiko, smooth.
• Like Vampire Hunter D, Rei-Ginsei is a weirdly beautiful Hunter with supernatural powers. Unlike D, he's egotistical, completely amoral, only helps beautiful women and doesn't hesitate to try to torture a child to death to get what he wants.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has Lordgenome, the Spiral King, a Spiral Knight who might be considered what Simon would have become if he hadn't had Nia to find the Anti-Spiral homeworld and therefore end the war in his favor.

Lordgenome: There once was a man who fought like you, not realizing his actions would bring about the destruction of humanity.

• • Guame the Steady is Boota's Evil Counterpart. Guame is shown as a small critter accompanying a young Lordgenome exactly the way Boota does Simon.
  • Another candidate for Simon's Evil Counterpart is Rossiu, although not so much evil as a Well-Intentioned Extremist who is very Wrong Genre Savvy.
• Sensui from Yu Yu Hakusho is the protagonist's Evil Counterpart. Sensui was the spirit detective for Earth before Yusuke was and both had a strong binary belief of good/evil and human/demon. The main difference is that after Sensui accidentally witnesses the "Feast of Human Vices" those beliefs were shattered. Another 'more fragile and idealistic equals turning to the Dark Side.'
  • A better and lampshaped example would be Younger Toguro, who Yusuke would be if he gave into his Blood Knight tendencies, and stopped caring for his Nakama.
    • Slightly subverted as he is a Death Seeker as well.
• Mahou Sensei Negima has Setsuna and Tsukiyomi, the mad Shinmeiryuu swordswoman to match Setsuna in every major battle. Unlike Setsuna, Tsukiyomi is bloodthirsty, direct and wins by any means necessary. Setsuna is quiet, humble and rarely fights for anything other than her charge, Konoka. Plus they're both lesbians, but Setsuna's innocent and taciturn while Tsukiyomi likes to speak in Double Entendre and Subtext and is willing to do anything at all, at anytime she can (ironically, to Setsuna herself).
  • Kotaro seemed to be an Evil Counterpart to Negi during the Kyoto arc, although he has since done a Heel Face Turn and become The Rival. Currently, Big Bad Fate Averruncus appears to be an Evil Counterpart to Negi, as each is a cute boy with a group of female partners backing them up.
  • Fate's entire team is made up of Evil Counterparts, some obvious and some not. Anya's mirror is an Emotionless Girl who looks quite similar to Anya and likes the same element. Yue and Nodoka's opposites are the panty-less Emotionless Girl and the panther girl, respectively, although the only similarity between Nodoka and panther seems to be hair color and they hang out with their version of Yue. Haruna is vaguely connected to the girl with the lute, in that they are both artists (music vs drawing). Finally, as stated above, Fate is Negi's opposite. They both have female followers.
• Bleach:
  • Grimmjow, a hollow with shinigami powers is the foil of Ichigo, a shinigami with hollow powers. They are both determined to become the strongest fighter and both have Blood Knight instincts. However, Ichigo controls his love of battle, believing he should fight only to protect, whereas Grimmjow believes battle lust should be indulged for its own sake.
  • There's also Sosuke Aizen and Kisuke Urahara. Sometimes, it's hard to tell which one's the real villain, but "Turn Back the Pendulum" kind of closed the book on that one. Both are super genius Chessmasters who constantly Troll everyone, even their allies. But while Urahara cares about his allies in the end, Aizen doesn't care about anybody and will terminate his allies as soon as he's finished with them. They are both extremely intelligent scientists whose conflict with each other consists of one protracted chess game. The difference between them is that Urahara cares about the people he has to use whereas Aizen refuses to trust or bond with anyone. Aizen was willing to break the universe to fix it whereas Urahara didn't think that was the right thing to do.
    • Aizen is also an evil counterpart to Toshiro Hitsugaya and eviler counterpart to fellow villain Coyote Starrk. All three grew up mostly alone due to their incredible power (Aizen and Hitsugaya scared everyone away, Starrk accidentally killed anything that approached him due to Power Incontinence). Hitsugaya was able to work through his misfortune and form attachments to his friends and adopted family. Starrk formed attachments to Aizen and their fellow villains (the only reason he's a villain is to stay with his newfound friends). Aizen, despite being respected by the exact same people as Hitsugaya and Starrk, and even winning the heart of Momo Hinamori (Hitsugaya's Unlucky Childhood Friend), did not form any attachments to them and again, does not care about anybody.
  • Subverted with Mayuri Kurotsuchi and Szayelaporro Granz. Szayelaporro is Mayuri's evil-er counterpart. Mayuri is an evil Mad Scientist who is motivated For Science!. The reason Szayel is far worse than Mayuri is because he believes science exists solely for him to achieve perfection whereas Mayuri genuinely wants to advance society's knowledge. To paraphrase Stimpy: "It's the Evil Counterpart... and the really Evil Counterpart!"
  • Nnoitra is what Kenpachi would turn into if he just gave up on life. Kenpachi loves to fight, puts handicaps on himself to make the fight last longer and give his opponents a chance, and typically leaves his enemies alive so that they can come after him again; he's crazy, but in a fun kind of way. Nnoitra on the other hand, is completely Axe Crazy, hates everybody, has a misogynistic streak that's definitely absent from Kenpachi, uses dirty tricks, leaves a mile-wide trail of dead bodies behind him, and is looking to die. Their battle (and twin eyepatches) nicely emphasise their similarities and differences.
  • In fact, 2/3 of the Arrancar seem to be evil counterparts of one member of the Gotei 13 or another: Ggio Vega and Shaolin "Soifon" Fon are both agile, fast and athletic melee fighters, who are generally calm, loyal and firm, and seem to have a fairly low view on their comrades. They even look similar, but where Soifon is a mostly cold and professional Tsundere that seriously fangirls over her female idol, Ggio is a cocky and sarcastic taunter with a short fuse and 'bit of a boastful air to him, and the respect he harbors for his male commander appears to be more platonic. Furthermore, Soifon's antagonism towards her subordinates is mainly a pseudo-facade, her way of toughening them up, while Ggio appeared genuinely indifferent to his fellow Fraccion, barely reacting - if at all to their deaths.
    • Yumichika Ayasegawa and Charlotte Cuuhlhourne initially appear to share similar vain, narcissistic tendencies with Yumichika as fightloving as any other Blood Knight and Charlotte an even more flamboyant drag queen. However, the superficial similarity falls away as the fight progresses to reveal Charlotte believes that beauty is derived from physical strength which is a philosophy echoed by the 11th division. Yumichika, however, ends up revealing that his adherence to 11th division philosophy (and the "beauty" of it) is only skin-deep, indicating he's proud of his zanpakutou and its power even though his division's philosophy means he's not supposed to be, and also revealing that his strength doesn't lie with the physical as it does for both Charlotte and the 11th division, but with the spiritual (kido) instead. The depth of what he's sacrificing for the sake of his division, friend and captain also reveals Yumichika's narcissism doesn't run as deeply as he seems to want people to think and that he certainly doesn't want anyone to realise how self-sacrificing he really is. In the end, the fight reveals only superficial similarities between the two by highlighting that Charlotte is everything the 11th division philosophy stands for and everything that Yumichika personally - when allowed to admit it - does not.
    • Nirgge Parduoc and Marechiyo Omaeda are both large and fat, boastful and demeaning, though Omaeda is more vain and cowardly, while Nirgge is at least patient and relatively calmer.
  • Coyote Starrk is kind of a subversion. He's clearly the lazy and apathetic counterpart to the easy-going and carefree Shunsui Kyoraku, but the only "bad" thing he's done so far is lazily fight against Kyoraku, and then, he offered to back out of. Come to think of it, between offering to pretend-fight him and taking one of the weakest arrancar in Aizen's army as his underling (or so we think, she's actually his zanpakuto), the only reason he's evil at all is because he's on the villains' side. He's Neutral Lazy to Kyoraku's Neutral Good, until he releases. The annoyance of having to go all-out turned lazy into pissed, though apparently not pissed enough to use his stronger attacks yet.
    • That Starrk decided to join Aizen simply because he wanted comrades, seemingly irrespective of what said companions got up to, could be seen as bad enough. The 'evil' aspect specifically is harder to argue for when he's driven not by malice but by loneliness; it does not justify his actions/association, but his motivation is an odd one for a supposed villain. His reason for fighting is one any number of Heroes adhere to -- to protect his friends. Kyoraku has similar motivations and is unscrupulous about what he needs to do to achieve them. Starrk's internal monologue makes it painfully obvious that his reluctance was genuine and he'd sooner be friends with the captain, but no such insight is given into Kyoraku's thoughts on the matter, leaving the extent of their similarities ambiguous.
  • Ichigo gains another evil counterpart in Kugo Ginjo, a warrior with very similar powers and origin. They even have similar personalities, through Ginjo is revealed to have been faking and has no qualms over using and betraying allies, while Ichigo's main motivation is to protect his True Companions. Also, have similar powers and origins, but the villain (Ginjo) can't handle being mistrusted by Soul Society, goes off the rails and begins a process of revenge that harms innocents as well as warriors. Ichigo understood the necessity for Soul Society's monitoring of substitute shinigami and accepted it as part of the responsibility of wearing the uniform. He also keeps a fight personal rather than dragging in innocents and using them as weapons. In Ginjo's case, he demonstrates what Ichigo might have been if their situations had been reversed. One of his dying thoughts even lampshades this, as he wonders if their lives had been reversed, would one have turned out like the other.
  • The Espada and the Stern Ritter are both Evil Counterparts to the Gotei 13. They're all basically squad leaders, with the Gotei Captains leading an organized company of disciplined soldiers while the Espada lead only a group of hand-picked lieutenants and the Stern Ritter merely having extra pull in an otherwise standardized army. The Espada are an "army" in name only with each individual member basically being in competition with the others. The Stern Ritter swing to the other extreme and are an army whose leader hates conflict and they are all expected to play their individual parts without question.
  • Speaking to the Gotei 13 and the Wandenreich, Yhwach is the Evil Counterpart to Genryuusai Shigekuni Yamamoto, the Captain Commander. Both are insanely powerful and strict leaders of their respective armies, and in the past, both were equally ruthless and amoral. However, Yamamoto found something worth protecting and thus mellowed out, while Yhwach has retained his cold, opportunistic pragmatism.
• In Death Note Light is the Evil Counterpart of L.
  • And Mello the Evil Counterpart to Near.
  • And Beyond Birthday is L's other Evil Counterpart.
• Buggy the Clown from One Piece seemed to be introduced as an Evil Counterpart to Luffy; Indeed, their devil fruits are practically opposite in several ways, but similar in others (allow for long range attacking, provide invulnerability to certain kinds of attacks). While Luffy is irrepressibly cheerful, Buggy is constantly aggravated, etc.
  • It looks like Blackbeard is shaping up to be Luffy's Evil Counterpart in addition to the Big Bad. He's initially introduced as someone who has similar dreams to Luffy and similar ambitions, as well as the same Big Eater nature (though with completely different tastes in food). Then it turns out he takes things a bit further and will actually betray his True Companions and kill them to fulfill his ambitions. He even subtly points this out when he and Luffy reunite in Impel Down and hints that they're Not So Different. It helps that his crew mimics Luffy's as well, with Van Augur as counterpart to Usopp, Shiliew to Zoro, etc.
    • The Blackbeard pirates except perhaps the original members don't think of each other as nakama and some members has expressed an interest in dethroning Blackbeard as leader. Some of them stated that if Blackbeard wasn't able to steal Whitebeard's powers, they would have just abandoned him to the Marines. Also, many of the members are Gonk in contrast with the Straw Hats who are good-looking, cool or cute.
  • Frankly you could say that most every Big Bad Luffy's encountered along the way was something of an Evil Counterpart with Crocodile being an embittered ruthless Chessmaster that gave up on dreams and Moria revealing that he lost his beloved True Companions in the New World. They seem to act as chilling reminders of what Luffy may become if he didn't hold onto his dreams or his friends.
  • Interestingly, Admiral Akainu could serve as one for Ace. Along with the heat powers, they're both devoted to their own sense of justice; Akainu adheres to absolute justice, hunting down any criminal, while Ace was determined to take down Blackbeard for his murder of a crewmate. These codes even go beyond those of their superiors/captain, as Sengoku and Whitebeard both have their limits. What separates them is that Ace genuine cares for others, while Akainu murders them if they oppose him.
  • Lately, Hyouzou, the New Fishman Pirates' assassin, is this to Zoro. Both of them are powerful swordsmen, enjoy drinking and have a calm demeanor. However, Zoro was never shown drunk while Hyouzou became drunk and blindly attacked anyone around him. Hyouzou only works with people who offer him the most money while Zoro has no interest for money and fights for his True Companions.
  • Sanji gets a creepy counterpart in Thriller Bark in the form of Invisible man Absalom from the Quirky Miniboss Squad. Sanji and Absalom bear many similarities to each other, both of them are blonde short-tempered pervs with a strong love for Navigator Nami also Sanji and Absalom both wanted the power of invisibility to peek on nude babes. But the similarities end there, personalty-wise Sanji is far different form Absalom, while Sanji is compassionate, charming and fearless. Absalom is cruel and down right malicious (even molesting poor Nami while she's a bathing) and cowardly too when Sanji finds out what Absalom has done he delivers a rage filled beatdown on him in which Abaslom tries to flee and uses cheap tactics to get a advantage. Sanji soon sees that if he actually got the powers of invisibility he'd become no better than Absalom, so he gives up on it (though he still wants to peek on ladies). It's also fun to note Sanji gets pissed off when Absalom took Nami from him to be his bride, and Absalom of course gets equally pissed off when Sanji heroically steals her back.
    • Sanji less sinister counterpoint is the goofy cook Wanze both of them are the cooks of their respective teams and are martial artists too, but while Sanji is a graceful cook who respects food, Wanze is klutzy idiotic madman who serves ramen though his nose. Wanze also uses kitchen knives and food as weapons something that's a big no-no in Sanji's book, he declares that Wanze is a disgrace to name of chef before sending the freaky cook flying.
    • It could also be said Sanji's brothers (Vinsmoke Ichji, Niji and Yonji) are his evil counterparts all four of them are powerful royals princes but unlike Sanji the Vinsmoke brothers are utter scumbags who delight in hurting people, wasting precious food and abusing helpless women all three of which push Sanji's Berserk Button. They also prone to using underhand moves, black mail and will use a Human Shield when possible while Sanji is a much fairer fighter and is frequently the human shield for his friends. Bonus Points for all four Vinsmokes boys being attracted to Nami.
  • Usopp gets a interesting counterpart in Water 7 in the form of Kaku, both of them have long ridiculous noses, both are in love with ships and sailing and are the more free spirited and cheery ones of the cohorts. But in truth Kaku is far more dangerous and stronger than Usopp, defeating the cowardly Sniper in seconds and throwing Usopp's beloved ship The Going Merry out into the waves stating that he already claimed that it was broken earlier and now it should be scrapped much to Usopp's horror. When Kaku gets his ridiculous Giraffe form he becomes the butt of many jokes similar to how Usopp is on the crew.
  • Nami herself has few counterparts (Miss Double Finger, Kalifa etc) who are intelligent, manipulative and beautiful like her. But while Nami is essentially a good and caring person, Miss Double Finger and Kalifia are ruthless Femme Fatale(s) who couldn't less for compassion.
  • Jinbe and Arlong are a subtle one and a non-human example being fish dudes. Both of them hated humans and held bitter memories of Fish man slavery by humans, but after their mentor and hero Fisher Tiger kicked the bucket Jinble came to respect and care for humans while Arlong hated them forever becoming just as evil as they were to him.
• GaoGaiGar: Each of the 11 Planetary Masters of Sol is an Evil Counterpart for a member of the main GGG crew, even though it's not immediately apparent which is which.
• Back when Kinnikuman was a superhero, Kinkotsuman was introduced as his villainous counterpart; He was just as bad at what he did as Kinnikuman was. Unlike Kinnikuman, he was unable to eventually find a more fitting profession and slowly became less prominent as more serious villains started showing up.
• In Full Metal Panic, there's the Creepy Twins Yu Fan and Yu Lan, who are shown to have been through extremely similar wars and circumstances as Sousuke. Just like Sousuke, they're rather emotionless, extremely loyal to the person that took care of them, and their occupations are very alike. Main difference? Sousuke was adopted by Kalinin and the twins were adopted by Gauron. Funnily enough, Gauron (as elaborated on in the novels) is revealed to have actually tried to take Sousuke when Sousuke was young, but Sousuke refused. 5 years later, and Gauron is still fantasizing and obsessing over "beautiful" Sousuke. If there's anything Sousuke did right when he was young, it was knowing who to accept as his father figure.
• In Katekyo Hitman Reborn, the whole Varia is meant to be tailored as being Evil Counterparts to the Vongola family. Xanxus is Tsuna's counterpart, both having Dying Will flame powers and both competing for the same position as the boss. The only one that is unclear exactly which is the Evil Counterpart is Mukuro to Marmon - especially since Marmon is mainly motivated by money and isn't nearly as cynical or scary.
• Every major robot villain in Astro Boy is an evil, or at least morally ambiguous counterpart to some extent. What makes them interesting is how each one completely inverts a major aspect of Astro's personality or show what he'd be like if things had happened differently, or to underscore the fact that who he is rather than what he is makes him a hero, for example:
  • Atlas, who has become Astro's biggest rival over the years. Though he was little more than a violent thug in his first appearance, he was later updated in the 80s anime as a Composite Character of Atlas, Astro's "brother" Cobalt & the Blue Knight. In the 2003 series, with the Blue Knight retained as a separate character, though, their conflict was more personal than political. Both had terrible relationships with the men they called "father", but had very different ways of dealing with it; Atlas' involving kidnapping, industrial sabotage & attempted murder. What makes it more poignant is the fact that they were both based on the same technology, adding a layer of "there but for the grace of god go I" for Astro, that an advanced AI can choose between good & evil.
  • Astro II, a "more human" version of Astro, including human vices such as lust & sloth.
• Nearly every season of Sailor Moon has a set of villain counterparts to the Inner Senshi. R has the Akayashi Sisters (Koan-Mars, Bertier-Mercury, Petz-Jupiter, Calaveras-Venus), S has the Witches 5 (Eudial-Mars, Mimete-Venus, Tellu-Jupiter, Villuy-Mercury), SuperS has the Amazoness Quartet (Cere Cere-Venus, Palla Palla-Mercury, Jun Jun-Jupiter, Ves Ves-Mars).
  • This carried over to at least one video game adaptation, Sailor Moon Another Story. In that game, while it brought back all their old foes to that point as bosses, the main villains (other than the Big Bad) were the Oppositio Senshi, 5 teenage girls with powers mirroring the Inner Sehshi, and names based on Babylonian gods and goddesses: Sin (god of the moon), Nabu (god of Wisdom), Nergal (god of war), Marduk (god of thunder and leader of the gods), and Ishtar (goddess of love).
  • In the manga, Queen Nehellenia of the Dead Moon Circus was seen as a shadowy, mirror reflection of Queen Serenity. Likewise, Nehellenia's kingdom of the Dead Moon was hidden inside the shadow of the moon's center.
• In Inuyasha, this is the Big Bad's motivation. Naraku seems to hate InuYasha specifically due to their similarities: they have the same half-demon nature, causing loneliness to both, but InuYasha forms bonds to soothe his loneliness, while Naraku destroys the bonds of other people to make himself feel better. Naraku's frustration over this is the reason why he never really does anything but try to power himself up or ruin InuYasha's life (symbolically destroying his own half-breed nature).
• Jagi from Fist of the North Star was initially built up as an evil counterpart to Kenshiro, having the same 7 scars and everything. Whereas Kenshiro uses his skills to protect the weak and punish villains, Jagi uses Hokuto Shinken to terrorize villagers. Subverted as it is revealed that Jagi never truly mastered Hokuto Shinken and that he's not the only other student to learn Hokuto Shinken from Master Ryuken.
• Arcade Gamer Fubuki has a rival, who has her OWN version of the Passion Panties except hers are black. Also, she wears rollerblades so she can twirl around and activate her passion panties herself rather than waiting for a friend with a fan.
• Both Commander Sazabi and Professor Gerbera are this to Captain Gundam from SD Gundam Force, Gerbera more explicitly so.
• Anemone is the Evil Counterpart to the titular character of Eureka Seven. Though it turns out she's not so evil after all, at least not by the end of the series.
• Hei in Darker Than Black has a couple of characters who qualify as evil counterparts: There is Wei, a fellow Chinese Badass whose psychopathy contrasts with Hei's relative restraint. Like Hei, Wei is also one of the few contractors shown to be capable of emotion, but his are all negative to Hei's positive ones. Another character Nick has the same power as Hei, the same nice guy persona, and has the same goal of finding his Dead Little Sister, but he wants to achieve it through murdering people; Harvest, the Big Bad of the interquel manga has the opposite power to Hei- while Hei's power involves creating material on an atomic level, Harvest's involves destroying it; Mina in season 2 wears a similar costume/shares similar weaponry to Hei and is also The Stoic, but is also a dark reflection of Kirihara, sharing a similar background of being The Ojou.
• Much of season 2 of Cardcaptor Sakura (at least the first third to half) was spent seemingly building up Eriol, Ruby Moon, and Spinel Sun as Evil Counterparts to Sakura, Yue, and Kero, respectively. However, this was all or mostly a sham. Not only is Ruby Moon hardly as dangerous and ruthless as Yue is (usually) described as, at best coming off as merely annoying and hate-worthy, but Spinel Sun is often adorable and harmless, acting more as a bored Greek Chorus to the events. As for Eriol himself...opinions are divided on if he or his actions were "evil", but he's certainly not as different from Sakura as might have been supposed.
• In X 1999 Fuuma is evil counterpart to Kamui and Seishiro is Evil Counterpart to Subaru.
• In Girls Bravo, the main character Yukinari and the Big Bad Yukina, as if the similar names weren't a big enough clue. While in some ways they are complete opposites -- he's a powerless Non-Action Guy who is allergic to women but generally doesn't hold a grudge against them ,and she's an Extraordinarily Empowered Girl who is allergic to men and wants to kill all of them -- both of them have dealt with a great deal of pain in their lives that led to them both being Allergic to Love with the opposite gender. In the end Yukinari is able to stop her from committing gendercide simply by gently talking her down and helping her deal with the insecurities that created the situation in the first place. Unfortunately for Yukinari, his former Evil Counterpart falls in love with him and becomes a Yandere Stalker with a Crush with a bad habit of sneaking into his bed (naked) while he's sleeping. Also, while she isn't allergic to him, he is still allergic to her.
• The main characters of Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt have ones in the demons Scanty and Kneesocks. Unlike the hedonistic Chaotic Neutral protagonists concerned either with sex and sweets, the demons are strictly Lawful Evil, obsessed with Rrrrrrrrrules and evil schemes. Their Team Pet Chuck even gets one with Fastener, who's much less of a Butt Monkey.
• Truly explored in the PSP games Nanoha: Battle of the Aces and Nanoha: Gears of Destiny, where Nanoha, Fate and Hayate have 3 counterparts for themselves. Stern a.k.a. Material-S (Seikou the Starlight Destroyer), Revi the Slasher a.k.a. Material-L (Rai-chan), "Load" a.k.a. Material-D (Yami or 'Your Majesty').
  • The same can be said about Karen of Huckebein in relation to Hayate, both are caring heads of their respective groups, both have a family-like approach to them and both are apparently masters of mysterious ancient belkan books, also their debut in battle during FORCE is precisely a very close encounter between the two. The difference comes as Karen have a much more gray morale and is perfectly ok with stabbing people In the Back. But the real ice on the cake is that Karen, unlike Hayate, shows to be able to defend herself in combat as also saving her family and giving them confidence and hope.
  • Cypha seems to be deliberately designed as this to Signum. Both are busty swordswomen, but Signum is The Stoic Redheaded Hero (pink, technically) with both eyes intact and a single Western-style sword, while Cypha is a Psychotic Smirker evil blonde with an Eyepatch of Power who dual wields Katanas Are Better.
• Fairy Tail throws this trope at us a few times.
  • Reitei Lyon (an ice mage trained by the same master) is this to Gray, in addition to Rival Turned Evil.
  • Gajeel, the Iron Dragon Slayer, is introduced as this to Natsu, the Fire Dragon Slayer, but after a Heel Face Turn he becomes Natsu's rival.
    • Currently, Zancrow of Grimmore Heart is Natsu's, being a psychotic fire mage who can also eat flames like Natsu.
  • Angel of the Oracion Seis seems to be a pretty blatant one of the protagonist Lucy; they're both celestial spirit mages that possess Golden keys. While Angel is overwhelmingly powerful, Lucy is still relatively naive and relies more on skill. The biggest difference seems to be in the treatment of their spirits. Lucy treasures all of them and treats them well, while Angel is willing to deliberately injure them to achieve victory.
  • Master Jose of Phantom Lord was one for Makarov, before it became painfully apparent that Jose couldn't stand up to him in a fight. Most of his magic was darkness based, while Makarov's spells (other than his size increase) are light based. The next one is Master Hades of Grimore Heart. In addition to being the previous guildmaster of Fairy Tail, and Makarov's former mentor, he's the only one in the entire series to have beaten Makarov in a fair fight.
  • It seems like they're building Bluenote Stinger, Master Hades' dragon, into one for Gildarts Clive.
  • Erza Scarlet has one with Erza Knightwalker
  • Sabertooth gives us a lot of ones. Sting and Rogue, the Twin Dragon Slayers, for Natsu and Gajeel, respectably. Orga, who is the Lightning God Slayer, for Laxus. And Rufus whose Memory Make magic is creation based and is a counterpart for Gray. An unusual one is the Sabertooth guild master, Jiemma, who seems to be what Laxus would have turned into had he not been stopped from his takeover attempt by Natsu and Gajeel.
• Rurouni Kenshin has a few of these:
  • Whereas Kenshin wants a peaceful Japan in which war will no longer be necessary, Shishio, the man who replaced him as hitokiri is The Social Darwinist and wants to create a Japan that is a proud warrior race. Also, while Kenshin has neat X Marks the Hero scars, Shishio was badly burned and wraps himself in bandages.
  • Shishio's follower Soujirou is also one to Kenshin. Kenshin endured a sad childhood and was orphaned before being adopted by a master who trained him in swordsmanship. In personality, Kenshin didn't start out all that happy but eventually took on a cheerful Obfuscating Stupidity. As a dark mirror to Kenshin, Soujirou grew up in an abusive family and found an Evil Mentor in Shishio, who gave him the encouragement to become a Self-Made Orphan. In terms of personality, Soujirou has a more extreme version of Kenshin's forced cheerfuless, being a Stepford Smiler who is incapable of showing (and to an extent feeling) any emotion.
  • To complement this, Shishio serves as one for Kenshin's master Hiko Sejuro. Both are powerful and influential mentors who inspire ideologies in their pupils. While they're both hardened in some way, Hiko holds some optimism towards Kenshin's path. Shishio, while he does care about him, brainwashes Sojiro into his ideology. Hiko comically abuses Kenshin but respects his pupil's decisions.
  • Sanosuke has evil counterparts in Cho, one of Shishio's men, and later, Banjin, a follower of Enishi. Both of these characters have dress and hair styles clearly similar to Sanosuke's, and while Sanosuke is a Boisterous Bruiser with a code, Cho and Banjin take a love of fighting to Blood Knight levels and have no real morals.
    • Monk Anji is also one of Sanosuke. They're both fist-fighters who suffered a the loss of loved ones; Sanosuke with Captain Sagara and Anji with all of his adoptive children. To deal with this pain, they turned to violence. When they meet Kenshin and Shishio respectively, the dynamic is also reflected. Sanosuke, while vitriolic to Kenshin, trusts him completely. Anji is merely siding with Shishio for his own reasons.
    • Earlier then that, there's Shikijou. Like Sano, he enjoys fighting and has immense loyalty to the one who defeated him (Aoshi), but the depths to which he's willing to go for strength disgusts Sano (this is played up more in the manga).
  • Enishi Yukishiro, mentioned two points above, is an Evil Counterpart to Kenshin on an even more personal level than Shishio. Both he and Kenshin received lasting physical marks from the same incident (the accidental death of Tomoe, Kenshin's wife and Enishi's sister, at Kenshin's hand)--Kenshin got the second part of his famous cross-scar, while Enishi got Locked Into Strangeness via his hair turning white from the shock. However, while that same incident motivated Kenshin's future Thou Shalt Not Kill and The Atoner mentality, Enishi turned Ax Crazy and hell-bent on revenge. To further the counterpart theme further, their animal motifs are traditional opposites (Kenshin's fighting style is reminiscent of the dragon, while Enishi's is akin to the tiger) and Enishi's Watou-jutsu sword techniques are coincidentally perfectly able to counter Kenshin's Hiten Mitsurugi techniques.
• Devimon and Ladydevimon to Angemon and Angewomon in Digimon Adventure.
  • Also 2 of Kurata's minions from Digimon Savers --Kouki to Masaru and Nanami to Touma.
• In Eyeshield 21 Clifford D. Louis of The Pentagram is a pretty obvious Evil Counterpart to Hiruma of the Deimon Devil-Bats. They're both talented poker players and Evil Genius quarterbacks, who invoke Blond Guys Are Evil and love a good challenge. They even both where #1 jerseys. The only real differences are Hiruma's preference for trick plays, and Clifford's greater speed. Before Clifford arrived, Marco of the Hakushuu Dinosaurs was a slightly less obvious one: he's a Manipulative Bastard to Hiruma's Trickster Archetype, and unlike Hiruma, prefers to avoid facing strong teams. At the same time, though, they both favour using any tactics necessary to win, use intelligent plays to compensate for a lack of natural talent, Determinator their way through crippling injuries, and get the very best out of their team. You could arguably throw in the Ojou White Knights' Takami as a Good Counterpart to the both of them, as he shares almost all of those same qualities, but without the penchant for brutality.
• Suitengu's motives in Speed Grapher reveal him to be an Anti-Villain counterpart to Saiga. They have more shared history than they know.
• Medaka Box: Besides obvious parallels between the protagonist, Kumagawa is also a dark mirror of Zenkichi, sharing similar traits while sitll appearing to be complete opposites. While Zenkichi is a tsundere, Kumagawa is a compulsive liar. Similarly, they're both attached to some of the most powerful figures in the story; Zenkichi to Medaka, Kumagawa to Ajimu. While Zenkichi doesn't think much his abilities, Kumagawa claims to be epitome of weakness, yet both are some of the most determined people in the series.
• Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Oriko and Kirika are either Evil or Extreme Counterpart to Madoka and Homura, respectively. Both Madoka and Oriko have angelic magical appearance, both aim to save the world. Homura can stop time, Kirika can slow down time. Homura will do anything to save Madoka, Kirika will do anything including mass murder for Oriko's vision. Homura's and Kirika's obsession has to do with Madoka and Oriko respectively being nice to them.
• The tragedy of the Count in Gankutsuou centers around Fernand's betrayal of Edmond out of love for Mercedes. Skip forward one generation, and Albert has many of the traits Edmond did (most obviously an amazing ability to attract friends and followers), with Franz as his Fernand and Eugenie as his Mercedes. The difference is that Franz is too loyal to Albert to do anything to harm him and it is due to this that Albert retains his kind heart and life even after all the crap the Count puts Albert through and becomes The Messiah who saves Edmond Dantes' soul at the end.
• In Pokémon, Paul is this to Ash more than any other Rival character. Ash is kind, helps others, respects his opponents, sees the true potential in all Pokemon, and travels with True Companions, also treating his Pokemon as such. Paul is mean, out for himself, mocks those he beats as "weak" (including Maylene), tosses away Pokemon who don't immediately measure up, travels alone, and puts his Pokemon through Training From Hell.
  • New Rival Trip is kind of a provincial dick, but has never been shown to mistreat his Pokemon.
• Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple has several examples, both among the teen fighters and the master-class warriors.
  • One of the earliest examples is an Evil Counterpart for Kenichi--Odin, the First Fist of Ragnarok otherwise known as Ryuto Asamiya. They were inspired by the same childhood incident (seeing a then-5-year-old Miu beating up adult thugs all by herself), but while Kenichi was motivated to fight for justice (something he wouldn't remember until years later in the present day), Odin was motivated to gain power. Shortly after the aforementioned incident, the two had a fight for a yin-yang pin Miu had given Kenichi in exchange for a cat pin she wanted; Kenichi won the fight, but then offered the pin to Ryuto anyway and suggested to pretend that Ryuto had won--which only wound up offending Ryuto's pride and sparked his Start of Darkness.
  • Natsu Tanimoto, a.k.a. Loki the Fifth Fist of Ragnarok, had a brief Evil Counterpart in Berserker, the Second Fist, after Tanimoto defected from Ragnarok; while Tanimoto advocated hard work and training, Berserker was a naturally-gifted fighter with no formal training who could nevertheless give Tanimoto a sound thrashing during their clash. (It's played with, however, in that Tanimoto is currently going through the Heel Face Revolving Door.)
  • Kisara Nanjo was originally touted as an Evil Counterpart to Miu back when she was Ragnarok's Eighth Fist, Valkyrie. Following her Heel Face Turn, she got her own Evil Counterpart in Freya, the Third Fist, due to the fact that she used to be one of Freya's underlings and also concerning their differing views on the use of weapons (Kisara, while not begrudging Freya for using weapons, simply didn't feel she herself should resort to weapons in order to stand alongside men as a fighter); eventually though, Freya had her own Heel Face Turn and the two remain friends (maybe).
  • Since Yami is the organizational Evil Counterpart to Ryozanpaku, by default the members of YOMI (all disciples of the One Shadow Nine Fist members of Yami) become Evil Counterparts to Kenichi. One of the more notable counterparts in this regard would be Sho Kanou; both he and Kenichi were motivated by affection for Miu and Kanou even pulled a Redemption Equals Death because of her. As well, Kajima Satomi (the disciple of the One Shadow) may eventually turn out to be this for Kenichi as well.
  • The earliest master-class example would be Kensei Ma's older brother Sougetsu Ma--both men are well-known fighters from China, but Sougetsu is considered a disgrace on the family name due to his embracing of the killing-fist philosophy and his turning to crime. And now Sougetsu is a member of the Nine Fists, making him an even greater counterpart to Kensei.
  • Two members of the One Shadow Nine Fists group are Evil Counterparts for two members of Ryozanpaku--"God Fist" Akira Hongo for Sakaki Shio and Agaard Jum Sai for Apachai Hopachai. In both cases they're childhood friends of their respective good counterparts and fighting partners who turned to the dark side. However, in Agaard's case, he turned to the killing-fist philosophy out of pure instinct, a fact Apachai understands and respects; while Sakaki's and Hongo's differing philosophies came out of the same incident that tore apart their comradeship--the death of their mutual friend at Hongo's hand during a fight to apply for a position with Yami, which prompted Sakaki to utterly reject the killing-fist philosophy. Both Nine Fists members are an interesting case, however, in that Agaard is an Affably Evil Friendly Enemy and Hongo is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who will Pet the Dog occasionally and has high moral footing.
    • It's also played with where Hongo is concerned, as he gets his own Evil Counterpart: Silcardo Junazard, the "Demon Fist" of the Nine Fists. Whereas Hongo cares about his students in his own way and has a strict sense of honor, Junazard has killed students who failed to live up to his expectations, sacrifices henchmen as casually as if he were breathing, and tricked Hongo into almost killing Kenichi so he could kidnap and brainwash Miu. The last point is what prompts Hongo's Enemy Mine with Ryozanpaku and his subsequent grudge match with Junazard.
  • Yet another master-class example: Alexander Gaidar, the One Shadow Nine Fists' resident Command Sambo master, is an Evil Counterpart to Ryozanpaku's judo master Akisame Koetsuji where appreciation of artwork is concerned. Both men are extremely talented sculptors, and are capable of making impressive pieces of artwork out of the steel and stone of their surroundings even while they're fighting each other.
  • The One Shadow himself is an Evil Counterpart to three different people on different levels: to his father Hayato Furinji, since they're respectively the leaders of Yami and Ryouzanpaku; to his former best friend Koetsuji, since both are skilled in combat and medicinal applications; and quite possibly to Kenichi, who wears Saiga's former arm-guards and represents the kind of character Saiga used to have before his Face Heel Turn, whereas Saiga represents what Kenichi could potentially become if he had a Face Heel Turn for the sake of a loved one.

Comic Books

• The 1950s incarnation of Captain America ("Commie Smasher") was (through the magic of Retcon) explained away as an obsessed fan of the original who insisted on replacing him during the time when he was presumed dead; while the US government decided to humor him, the faulty version of the Super Soldier enhancement process eventually drove him insane. While he was eventually captured and placed in suspended animation, he broke out years later and attacked who he thought was another Captain America imposter - the real Captain America, who had defrosted from his own accidental suspended animation.
• Bizarro is an imperfect clone (of varying origin, depending on the medium) of Superman, with all of the Man of Steel's powers and none of his intelligence or morality.
  • Taking into account various media, between Ultraman (which name alone refers to several similar characters), Justice Lord Superman, Cal and Kal-El in Smallville, Superboy Prime, mind controlled Captain Marvel, Cyborg Superman, etc., Superman has more evil counterparts than he knows what to do with.
    • The Krypton Man/Eradicator was yet another one in his early appearances, before becoming an Anti-Hero Substitute after The Death of Superman.
• DC's White Martians are evil counterparts of the Green Martians.
• Black Adam was the Evil Counterpart of Captain Marvel, his predecessor as a bearer of the power of Shazam who became corrupted by its power.
• Similarly, not only was the Green Lantern foe Sinestro once a Green Lantern himself, in Post-Crisis continuity he actually trained Hal Jordan in the use of his powers before becoming his nemesis.
  • Recently, there are even more popping up, but not all evil (so sort of non-evil counterparts to the evil counterparts): while the green represents will, and yellow represents fear, there's now violet (love), blue (hope), red (rage), orange (greed), and indigo (compassion). And eventually black (death), which is the really evil counterpart.
  • Kyle Rayner got 2 energy-wielding/manipulating Evil Counterparts, himself. On the 'ring-wielder' side of things, Alex Nero - who was Ax Crazy, and possibly killed his parents as a teenager. On the 'might've become' side of things, Effigy, who was what Kyle might've been if he hadn't matured and gained a sense of responsibility about the ring and super-heroics in general.
  • Some individual members of the Sinestro Corps are evil counterparts of specific GLs; for instance Arkillo (Evil Kiliwog) and Ranxx the Sentient City (Evil Mogo the Living Planet).
• The criminal Killer Moth originally patterned himself as an Evil Counterpart to Batman... but quickly sank to a third-string position in the Rogues Gallery. As we said, the Counterpart is sometimes a Big Bad, but not always. It was probably a bad idea to name himself after something bats eat.
  • Continuing in that vein, the Wrath was a Pre Crisis villain who was even more of a Batman counterpart, down to duplicating much of his origin (his parents being killed in a shootout by Commissioner Gordon in his days as a rookie beat cop). Not only did he not become a Big Bad, he was essentially a one-shot opponent.
    • He reappeared in The Batman animated series, which also gave him a younger brother to act as Evil Counterpart to Robin.
    • And similarly, Batman Confidential introduces a new Wrath, the original's protégé, as Nightwing's Evil Counterpart.
  • Yet another Batman counterpart came in the pages of JLA, with Prometheus; he was the child of gangsters who had been gunned down by the cops when he was a boy, and his great physical fighting abilities were the result, not of training, but of "recording" other people's abilities electronically and loading them into his brain with a cybernetic helmet. Oddly, though, he isn't a particularly Batman-focused villain, usually meeting up with the hero only as part of an attempt to take down the whole JLA.
    • And both Prometheus and the Wrath are at large once again. Yes, they're practically the same person except for Prometheus' focus on technological gadgetry.
  • Bane was created as something of an Evil Counterpart to Batman, having trained his mind and body while in prison (serving part of his late father's term). The big difference is Bane's use of the chemical Venom to give himself Super Strength. Bane could also be considered an evil counterpart to Doc Savage, particularly with regard to his original aides.
  • Two-Face also mirrors Batman in his dual nature - Batman's identities are secret and united in their goals while Two-Face's are obvious and opposed. Harvey Dent started out with the exact same goal as Bruce, making him an example of what Batman could become if he loses his self-control, and was a close friend and confidant of either Bruce or Batman in most continuities.
  • While Bruce Wayne had caring, loving parents, Tommy Elliot's were both cut from the Rich Bitch cloth (and his father was an abusive alcoholic). To keep himself from harm and create a better life for himself, he arranged a car accident that killed his father and left his mother an overbearing cripple. Tommy hated that Bruce's dad saved his mom and that Bruce eventually got the life Tommy wanted for himself. Upon being told by the Riddler that Bruce was Batman, Tommy became Hush, an archetype of Batman who is a criminal mastermind.
  • Owlman and Talon, Batman and Robin's counterparts from Earth-3, the Evil Counterpart Universe.
  • The Ax Crazy Black Mask. Like Bruce, he was the son of wealthy parents who died due to unnatural causes. The difference is that Black Mask happened to kill his own parents and run his company into the ground with his own incompetence, before becoming a masked and increasingly violent crime lord. He even met Bruce as a child. He's as much of an Anti-Bruce Wayne as an Anti-Batman.
  • Catman was going to be one of these for about 5 minutes. Add in the Red Hood (formerly Jason Todd, the 2nd Robin, a vigilante who kills villains left and right when he isn't in Countdown) and Batzarro, which, yes, is a thing that really exists, and he has about a dozen of these.
  • Batman's gallery is built on the Evil Counterpart concept, mainly because writers acknowledge that what Bruce does isn't exactly sane and love to point out how easily it could have gone another way.
  • To the point where its hard to find a villain who isn't an evil counterpart of some facet of Batman. The Joker himself has pointed out they are both the results of something traumatic and life shattering, but to add, the Scarecrow uses fear just as much as Batman does, the Riddler uses his intellect more effectively than physical strength, Ra's Al Ghul is a man with a lifelong war on crime, and Mr. Freeze is motivated into his actions by the person he loves most in the world.
• Venom is Spider-Man's Evil Counterpart, created when he symbolically cast off the darkness within him. Later, when Venom became an Anti-Hero, Carnage was created to be his Evil Counterpart...
  • Toxin is Venom's Good Counterpart.
    • Well, now we have Anti-Venom for that.
  • Spider-Man has had several villains meant to be his thematic opposite, from the Fly (who gained his powers in an accident much like Peter's own, but never stopped "looking out for number one" and blamed everyone else for his shortcomings) to the Scorpion (ditto; Bonus points for being an arachnid, too. And then the original Scorpion became Venom for a while). Dr. Octopus shares many personality traits with Spider-Man and is even based on another 8-legged creature. Less obviously, there's the Spider-Wasp.
• Sabretooth is portrayed as Wolverine's evil similar, with near identical powers and completely feral. And he's implied to be Wolverine's half-brother; if he is, then they've hated each other their entire lives. Interestingly however, both characters were introduced separately from each other, Wolverine first appeared (with slightly different powers than his X-Men debut) in the Hulk comic, while Sabretooth was introduced (with no powers at all and claws that were only part of his gloves) in the pages of Iron Fist.
  • This may not be quite so coincidental, as Chris Claremont and John Byrne were working on the Iron Fist title around the same time as their classic run on X-Men.
• Following in their dad's footsteps, X-23 and Daken seem to be heading towards this type of relationship with X-23 being the "good" counterpart and Daken being the "evil" counterpart.
• The 2nd Supernova is an Evil Counterpart of Booster Gold, who invented the Supernova identity. While Booster works with Rip Hunter, Time Master, to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, Supernova is working with time-travel based villains like Per Degaton to set things wrong in the first place. Supernova also has an Evil Counterpart of Booster's Robot Buddy, Skeets, and at the end of his first appearance is revealed to be Booster's father.
  • Another member of the Time Stealers is Black Beetle, an Evil Counterpart to Blue Beetle with a Multiple Choice Past.
• Flintheart Glomgold, of the Disney Ducks Comic Universe (and later DuckTales) is an evil counterpart to Scrooge McDuck - every bit as ambitious as Scrooge, almost as wealthy, but with none of Scrooge's redeeming factors, such as his honesty and sense of fair play.
  • DuckTales even increased the similarities by making Flintheart Scottish, the same nationality as Scrooge - though this was because he was originally South African in the comics, and they wanted to avoid unfortunate connections.
• The Marvel Comics series Sleepwalker has an Evil Counterpart in Psyko, who possesses warping abilities similar to Sleepwalker's. Sleepwalker, an alien devoted to protecting the minds of innocent people from insanity, became fused with the human Rick Sheridan when he found himself trapped in Rick's mind, whereas Psyko was created when a human Serial Killer became fused with a demonic creature from the Mindscape, giving him the ability to spread his madness like a disease, Mind Raping everyone around him.
• Doctor Strange has an Evil Counterpart in Baron Mordo, who was studying with (and planning to off) the Ancient One before Stephen Strange showed up.
  • Other than their common teacher, however, the two men actually do not have very much in common, their life histories and backgrounds are very different. Doctor Strange did not even realize the supernatural was real until his middle years, and only began to pursue it because an accident crippled his surgical abilities, his background is actually scientific. Mordo was raised supernatural, from a supernatural family, and steeped in evil from early youth, his background is more traditionally magical/occultist, and he always sought power.
• Red Sonja meets her Evil Counterpart, Crimson Katherine, in Giant-Size Red Sonja #2.
• The Catwoman series tried giving Selina an Evil Counterpart a couple of times. One was She-Cat (another cat-based thief, but a less skilled and less ethical one, who eventually turned out to know Selina from when they were in the same orphanage) and another was Hellhound (a male chauvinist who'd been trained by the same Old Master, and been The Unfavorite). Neither of them caught on.
• Aquaman has had several evil counterparts. The most obvious is the Ocean Master, his own brother. Others include Black Manta, Charybdis, Evil Twin Thanatos, and the Thirst.
• In Circle of Blood, the first Punisher miniseries, Castle fights against a brainwashed army of criminals, all patterned after him.
• Judge Dredd has the Dark Judges, who have taken the policing style of the Judges to an extreme where Mega-City One is practically Utopian.
• Iron Man has Iron Monger, another businessman who wears Powered Armour.
  • The Mandarin is more the anti-Stark than the anti-Iron Man. Stark is a playboy. Mandarin is a pimp with a harem who uses rape as a motivational tool. Stark is a thrill-seeker. Mandarin participates in gladiatorial games so he can thrill to putting his fist through someone's head. Stark sacrificed his health so he could help the world. The Mandarin sacrifices everything and everyone around him to become stronger.
  • The dozen or so Crimson Dynamos.
  • Justin Hammer is the anti-Stark-as-businessman. While Tony uses his money to fight crime, Hammer uses his to sponsor it.
• The Hulk now has the Red Hulk. The Leader and the Abomination probably fit this role too.
• Oddly enough, Hulk's Rogues Gallery also includes someone else's Evil Counterparts. The U-Foes are a group of four villains whose origin, powers, and personalities are all extremely similar to those of the Fantastic Four. Strangely, they have never faced the FF despite all of the characters being Marvel Comics characters.
• She Hulk now has Red She-Hulk.
  • Titania too. Like Jennifer, she was also a shy wallflower in high school that gained superpowers later in life. There are a few key differences though. She-Hulk never asked for her powers (she adjusted well enough though) while Titania was so desperate to be powerful and special that she let Doctor Doom experiment on her. She-Hulk's transformation helped her gain real confidence both as She-Hulk and as Jennifer Walters. Titania's powers act as a crutch and deep down she is still the insecure Mary MacPherran. Titania resents She-Hulk specifically because She-Hulk is stronger than her in every way.
• "Except for an accident of circumstance, I could have been your Luke Skywalker, and he could have been me. After all, we were both farmboys who loved to fly." Baron Soontir Fel, the best non-Vader pilot in the Empire, says this to Wedge Antilles after he's captured by Rogue Squadron. Farm Boy origins aside, he's actually closer to being the counterpart to Wedge, who also happens to be his brother-in-law. Fel is distinctly not evil; he's Imperial, which does put him on the "wrong" side, but he's not an evil man. He actually joins Rogue Squadron for a time, before disappearing and ending up as part of the Empire of the Hand.
• Moon Knight had Evil Counterpart villains for his Marc Spector identity (Bushman), his Steven Grant identity (Midnight Man), and his Moon Knight persona (Black Spectre).
• Starman's Jack Knight and Nash were on their respective sides of the law mainly because their fathers pushed them there.
• All four Flashes have fought a "reverse flash" of some sort or another. Jay Garrick had the Rival, an old college professor who discovered his power source and committed crimes dressed like the Flash. Barry Allen fought Professor Zoom, a stalker who wanted to destroy everything Flash loved. Wally West's counterpart is Zoom, a former profiler who is convinced that super heroes are only effective if they lose people they care about. Bart Allen had Inertia, an evil clone of himself.
  • Barry Allen also fought his prior to unknown twin Malcolm Thawne aka Colbalt Blue who established his own legacy of evil that mirrored the Flash Family. Including Professor Zoom.
• From the Knights of the Old Republic comics, both Big Bad Haazen and hero Zayne Carrick are relatively weak Force-sensitives who were considered failed Jedi apprentices. The difference is that Haazen allowed his bitterness and jealousy of his more talented peers to utterly consume his life, while Zayne still maintains his fundamental human decency no matter what. The series' other main protagonist, Jarael, now has one of her own in the form of Chantique, who represents what Jarael would be if she allowed herself to be dominated by her Dark and Troubled Past.
• Raven Red in the Jet Dream feature. Like Jet, she's also a top-notch aviatrix with an all-girl team.
• The entire Justice League of America has an Evil Counterpart in the Mirror Universe Crime Syndicate of America. Ultraman opposes Superman. Superwoman is sometimes an evil Amazon, sometimes her world's Lois Lane, and recently, Mary Marvel but always stands in opposition to Wonder Woman. The magic-fuelled Power Ring is Evil Counterpart to Green Lantern. Psychotic speedster Johnny Quick is the opposite of The Flash. And Owlman, who began as a Smug Snake Evil Genius Chessmaster with More Than Mind Control powers, and is now usually portrayed as a homicidal maniac with Badass Abnormal Power Armour is the Evil Counterpart to however Batman is being portrayed this week.
• Reed Richards and Doctor Doom: archenemies, both intellectually-inclined supergeniuses, both master inventors, both with major strengths in technology, both hammy and prone to Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, both pretty similar in personality once you factor out Doom's This Is Your Brain on Evil. A lot of their battles consist of them passive-aggressively complimenting each other's moves in ways that often sound a lot like two computer geeks playing together. The key difference between them usually centres on how they handle responsibility; Doom's entire motivation stems from the fact that he can't accept that it was his own error, not Reed's interference, that caused the accident which scarred him, and maintains his vendetta to avoid having to acknowledge that he was at fault all along and Reed is just a little bit smarter than him, while Reed is a lot more willing to accept fault when he's in the wrong and will attempt to make amends or correct his mistakes.
• Steelgrip Starkey And The All-Purpose Power Tool pits Steelgrip Starkey against Ironarm Gantry. In contrast to the heroically pure Steelgrip, Ironarm is brutish, selfish, and prone to bursts of anger and pettiness.
  • The All-Purpose Power Tool itself has an Evil Counterpart in Ironarm's Worldbeater, a massive, polluting contraption with bolted-on components that tears up the landscape as it works.
• Death Mayhew, commander of the Nazi flying group the White Lions, was this to Blackhawk.
• While they never met, Kevin and Miho from Sin City were meant to be counterparts of one another. Kevin is obviously the evil one while Miho is at least the Anti-Hero version.
  • Marv and Manute from the same series also fit as they are both big, scary determinators. Dwight all but lampshaded this when he brought Marv in to deal with Manute. Bonus points are given to the fact that while Manute is evil, well dressed, and highly educated, Marv is good (in comparison), a bit of a bum, and not very book smart.
• Darkhawk has quite a few due to wearing armor that was originally meant for an army of Space Pirates.
• Gideon Graves to Scott Pilgrim. They are both assholes who gloss over their misdeeds with Self-Serving Memory, and are horrible to their girlfriends. Gideon takes his Yandere tendencies Up to Eleven, while Scott eventually realizes his faults and genuinely wants to change and be a better person.

Fanworks

• Dungeon Keeper Ami has Mercury and Mukrezar - both are physically weak, but possess devistateing magical skill, both conquered the Avatar islands, both are resourceful and cunning and use that to win rather than brute strength.
• The X Men fic The Wraith Saga gives us The Wraith, an Eldritch Abomination that is essentially the Yang to the Phoenix Force's Yin, representing Death, darkness and oblivion. Subverted, in that the Phoenix can also be extremely destructive in its own way, but it's made clear that the Wraith potentially poses a much graver threat if it gets out of control.
• Fallout Equestria has Lilpip and Red Eye. Both are Stable Dwellers that wish to make Equestria like, or better than what it was before the Great War. They also both represent one of the Elements of Harmony when corrupted.
  • Red Eye, who gave up every comfort he had to bring some sense of order to the Wasteland, represents corrupted generosity.
  • Lilpip, who's overwhelming concern for others often leads to self-destructive and irresponsible decisions, represents corrupted kindness.
  • Lilpip herself lampshades this as she realizes that, though she despises Red Eye's system being built on slavery, it's the first real working infrastructure Equestria has had in hundreds of years. Red Eye, for his part, feels enough mutuality with Lilpip that he offers to abdicate his position to her. It doesn't help that Lilpip is your typical Fallout protagonist (albeit one with exceptionally good karma) and Red Eye is very much an anti-villain compared to other antagonists in the story.
• To Kill a Thief has Light Yagami to Miyako Toudaiji.
• Metroid: Kamen Rider Generations Vol. 3: Fates Intertwined:
  • Shingetsu has several Good (and Eviler) Counterparts:
    • Goro Izumi: Both are egotistical, charming and charismatic individuals that's near Magnificent Bastard levels, Shingetsu is a vampiric galactic warlord who believes the weak are nothing more as prey for the strong and his inability to accept failure; nevertheless, he's an honorable warrior deep down. Goro is a wealthy Earthling, inventor, and a legitimate businessman and owner of a Mega Corp. Starting out as a glory-hound, Character Development has Goro transition into a Jerk with a Heart of Gold after meeting notable people such as Taki, a ninja 400 years from the past along with her student, Natsu. And, Sento Kiryu, a genius physicist who Goro considers his equal.
    • To Samus. They are both deemed as the strongest warriors in the universe on the opposing sides of the conflict. Shingetsu is a power-hungry leader of a clan of demonic aliens whose ambition is to rule the universe with an iron fist. Samus is an intergalactic bounty hunter who gathered five Kamen Riders dedicated to protect not only Earth but the entire galaxy as well.
    • Night Rogue. Shingetsu's much more heinous compared to him. Both are leaders of villainous factions that seek after Pandora's Box. While Gentoku's goal is revealed to militarize the Rider System for the benefit of war to protect his nation from the neighboring rivals, Shingetsu is a tyrannical warmonger and a malignant narcissist who imposes the rule of survival of the fittest.
    • To Ryuga Banjo in their ability to blend themselves into society; Banjou sports poor disguises to avoid capture from authorities, Shingetsu blends in perfectly as a normal person with appropriate clothes, all while he instigates chaos to draw the attention of Faust. Banjou is a hot-tempered Dumb Muscle, while Shingetsu is both an Arrogant Kung Fu Guy and a Chessmaster at the same time.
  • Rakurai, the Dragon to Shingetsu is one to Taki as both are kunoichi fighting for their respective opposing sides. Rakurai is Shingetsu's right-hand woman and is very loyal towards him and she obeys his every order without question whereas Taki served as the moral compass and Love Interest towards Goro and made him into a better person as their relationship evolves into being a Battle Couple. This has becomes apparent when Rakurai is revealed to be Goro's long-lost sister, Anzu.
  • Kamen Rider G7 Icarus XYZ's Super Mode, Archangel Armor is the Good Counterpart to Blood Stalk to ridiculous extremes. The Blood Stalk suit was designed to encourage the rise of Hazard Levels of those who were injected with Nebula Gas (especially those of Sento and Banjou). The Archangel Armor is the exact opposite, functioning as a Kryptonite Factor on anyone injected with Nebula Gases to permanently Level Drain their Hazard Levels, and renders the usage of the Transteam Gun useless.
  • Mega Corps Nanba Heavy Industries is this to ZETA Technologies as is with their respective heads, the elderly Jusaburo Nanba to the younger Goro Izumi. Both are technological industries with the intent of innovating a Kamen Rider-esque technology - Nanba plans to militarize the Rider System under the supervision of Faust's leaders (Night Rogue and Blood Stalk) to make a war profit, while ZETA Tech created the G7 suits designed for police and military use under legitimate means.
  • Kaguya serves as the Evil Counterpart for both Goro: both are executives of a powerful company - Elpis Corporation and ZETA Technology Industries. Goro is a benevolent and charismatic boss to his employees and runs his company under legitimate means, while Kaguya is a corrupt businesswoman who sees her workers as expendable resources than actual people and is known to make deals under the table (i.e., her sponsorship with Foundation X). Though Goro's first meeting with Sento was an awkward start, he becomes friends with him and looked up to his wisdom. Their friendship was strained when Goro found out that Sento was Takumi Katsuragi, the founder of Faust; but he begrudgingly reconciled with him afterward.  Kaguya has a lingering resentment, jealousy, and hatred towards Takumi Katsuragi, one of her childhood friends with her future husband Ryohei. Kaguya would go out of her way to make Katsuragi's life a living hell, even when finding out Katsuragi is now Sento, by kidnapping Sawa and Misora and having them being raped out of spite. What makes Kaguya so irredeemable is her inability to feel, if not all forms of, love - seeing her own husband and daughter as objects of gratification than an actual family. Goro, in the other hand, despite being a Handsome Lech and for all his morally grey actions, truly cares for Taki (and by extension, the latter's student Natsu), his sister Anzu, and he sees the Legend Riders that come before Build as role models.
  • In Engine Sentai Go-Onger: 10 YEARS PRELUDE feat. Kamen Rider Build, Kai Amataro serves as this to the following characters:
    • Sento (and by extension, Takumi Katsuragi). Both are members of a Nebulous Evil Organisation who conduct illegal experimentations (Faust and Foundation X), and their respective fathers were scientists and looked up to them. Sento/Takumi have a loving mother and father (the latter of which, despite being initially believed to be the leader of Faust's remnants), the death of Kai's own father changed him to the point he becomes the victim of his own abusive mother, and finally snaps by killing said mother.
    • With Goro, both are arrogant intellectuals with their own brand of textbook narcissism. Goro is a gentlemanly inventor who is popular with women with a healthy relationship to a ninja from the past, Kai is a misogynistic psychopath with a massive God complex along with a history of Domestic Abuse.
    • In lesser notes, Kai also served as the Anti-Sosuke throughout the series. While Sosuke is one of the people who established the friendship between Engines and humans. Kai on the other hand, sees friendship as an alien concept, as well the embodiment of utter Lack of Empathy.
    • Chapter 33 also establishes that he also serves as this to Saki Rouyama/Go-On Yellow. Saki is a cheerful person who wants others to smile, even in times of grim situations. Kai is a sadistic monster through and through, finding happiness at the despair and suffering he inflicts on other people just for kicks.
    • Kai is also the embodiment of what the reformed Gaiark Pollution Ministers are not. While the Gaiark wanted to pollute the Human World as their ideal paradise, they have their own moral boundaries each they would not cross. Kai is a sociopathic Mad Scientist who will do whatever it takes necessary to achieve godhood. The Gaiark are beings from the Machine World, while Kai is only human; even Hiramechimedes flat-out describes Kai as a despicable human being with no shred of kindness and compassion.

Film - Animated

• In Toy Story 3, it turns out Lotso-Huggin' Bear was once very much like Woody. He was the favorite toy of a little kid who enjoyed her toys very much, Daisy being very much like Andy, and he had a small but loyal posse of other toys who would always lend a hand. On top of that, he has all the intelligence, resourcefulness, and planning skills of Woody. Where he and Woody diverged is their response to being separated from their respective owners, and arguably, what happened with their owners when separated. In the original Toy Story, when Woody and Buzz go missing and Andy finds out, Andy frantically searches for them until they return, and they never give up hope. When Lotso goes missing and Daisy finds out, they buy another Lotso and call it a day. This causes Lotso to snap and completely lose his faith in people. He then goes to Sunnyside Daycare, gathers allies, and becomes a dictator. If Woody had turned evil and bitter, he would've taken the same strategy: Gather allies, then gather power in anticipation of any upcoming threats.
  • It gets even more true when you find out that Lotso's role as the tyrannical dictator was supposed to be Woody's first role before the suits changed it.
• Chick Hicks, the main villain of Cars (also by Pixar) is actually the evil counterpart to Lightning McQueen. Both are actually portrayed as mean and arrogant racecars who cared about nothing but themselves and made fun of other cars. What makes them different is that at the end of the film, McQueen ends up losing the final race but is now respected by the other cars since he actually now learned to accept defeat by helping another racecar, Strip "The King" Weathers, cross the finish line after he was crashed by Chick, while Chick ended up winning the same race but is ultimately betrayed by everyone else since they found out about what he did to The King, and that doing such is actually against the racing code.
• In Kung Fu Panda, Tai Lung to Po. Both were raised to carry on the work of their much tinier fathers and have destinies tied to the Dragon Scroll .
  • Also, Tigress and Tai Lung. Both don't know their real parents (one was raised in an Orphanage of Love, the other was a Door Step Baby). Both only wanted their father/teacher's love. Like Tai Lung, Tigress believed she would be chosen as the Dragon Warrior by Oogway, and resented Po for 'stealing her thunder.' They also both suffer from Pride and a bad temper. Only the fact Tigress remained honorable and chose to become an even better and more worthy warrior (and, most likely, her defeat at the Thread of Hope) kept her from following the same path.
• The Disney Animated Canon have lots of examples:
  • Sleeping Beauty has the evil fairy Maleficent to the 3 good fairies
  • The Princess and the Frog has Facilier (evil, male, tall, slim, young, attractive, slick) and Mama Odie (benevolent, female, short, pudgy, very old, hard of hearing and a goofball). Originally Facilier was supposed to be Odie's son.
  • Leroy and Stitch.
  • Disney villains in general are the evil counterparts to Disney Princesses. Guess which one has more characters!
• Mozenrath to Aladdin. Both of them are very clever and quick-witted, yet they are occasionally prone to letting their youthful impatience and boredom get in their way of completely reaching their full potential, and they're both hinted to have rather unpleasant pasts. Oh, and neither of them is ever seen without their faithful animal companions.
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit?: Judge Doom to Eddie Valiant; both are law enforcement who hold a certain hatred towards toons. However, deep down, Eddie holds a certain fondness for toons, suppressing it mainly becuase of his brother's death and is still a good person underneath. Doom's hatred is perhaps more intense, which is ironic as he turns out to be a toon himself.

Film - Live-Action

• In Kill Bill, Elle Driver, AKA California Mountain Snake, is the Evil Counterpart of Beatrix Kiddo, AKA Black Mamba.
• Trevelyan (the former Agent 006) in Goldeneye. He even gives the For Want of a Nail reasoning and a Not So Different speech.
• Rene Belloq from Raiders of the Lost Ark is a classic example. Both he and Indy are successful Adventurer Archaeologists, with the main difference being that Belloq is willing to work with anyone (including the Nazis) on a job, and that he's perfectly content to let someone else find the treasure then steal it from them at gunpoint. Belloq also delivers an excellent example of a Not So Different speech at one point.
• Iron Monger (Obadiah Stane) to Iron Man (Tony Stark) in the 2008 film.
• The Man with the Golden Gun: Scaramanga and Bond. Scaramanga gives a Not So Different speech:

Bond: "You live well, Scaramanga." Scaramanga: "At a million dollars a contract I can afford to, Mr Bond. You work for peanuts, a hearty well done from her Majesty the Queen and a pittance of a pension. Apart from that, we are the same. To us, Mr Bond, we are the best." Bond: "There's a useful four letter word, and you're full of it."

• Push has two. Nick's counterpart is Victor, and Cassie's counterpart is the Triad Watcher. Victor is a better Mover than Nick, and the Triad Watcher is a better Watcher than Cassie.
  • It seems to be implied that Nick and Cassie are every bit (if not more) powerful, but are novices at actually exercising their powers compared to their more experienced counterparts.
    • That, and the fact they are son and daughter of the best mover and watcher anyone has ever seen (Cassie's mum set up events for ten years in the future) so they may have genetically inherited a bit of it. The agent pusher is also a counterpart of the experiment survivor, although she could arguably already be better.
• In Star Wars, Darth Vader is naturally the Evil Counterpart of Luke Skywalker (a living incarnation of the evil that Luke is perfectly capable of), and Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious is the Evil Counterpart of Yoda.
• Star Trek Nemesis had Shinzon, the evil clone of Jean-Luc Picard whose main purpose in the story is to show what Picard himself could have become, had he grown up under more oppressive circumstances. Picard himself uses this in an attempt to demonstrate that Shinzon had the choice to become a better person, while Shinzon wanted to prove that Being Tortured Makes You Evil.
• In the Heisei series, Godzilla gained an Evil Counterpart in SpaceGodzilla, a being created from a fusion of Biollante (who was a fusion of Godzilla's DNA, the DNA of a rose and the DNA of a scientist's dead daughter) and a crystalline entity. While Godzilla was in neutral "force of nature" mode, SpaceGodzilla was definitely malicious and evil, coming to Earth to kidnap Godzilla's young son and conquer the planet.
  • The more heroic Showa Godzilla has two Evil Counterparts: King Ghidorah and MechaGodzilla.
• The writers' and director's audio commentary for Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl at one point refers to Captain Barbossa as "the dark side of Jack Sparrow".
• In Black Swan, Lily might be this to Nina. Nina frequently hallucinates a phantom doppelganger that seems to mean her harm.
  • This mirrors Swan Lake, the ballet the film is centered around; Odile the Black Swan is this to the White Swan, Odette.
• According to Jordy, the Bread-Squeezer is this to Jason in Mystery Team.
• Glory has the Negro irregulars to the 54th Massachusetts. The 54th are trained soldiers while the irregulars are nothing but looters. Their behavior is justified as why Southerners fight to keep slavery.
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon plays with this. Sam and Bumblebee are given dark counterparts in the form of Soundwave and Dylan Gould. Bumblebee came to Sam for help, Sam's family having a history with Cybertronians. Likewise, Dylan's dad received Soundwave as a "client", as the Decepticon had him crunch numbers to make further trips by NASA to the moon improbable, ensuring no one would ever find the Ark. This becomes a case of Fridge Brilliance in the final battle, where both human and Autobot kill their respective counterparts.

Dylan Gould: (to Sam) "Do you really think you were the first one recruited to join the "noble" alien cause?"

• Edward Nygma, AKA The Riddler, is the evil counterpart of Bruce Wayne in Batman Forever. He leaves Wayne Enterprises, becomes a supervillain, goes on a robbery spree and uses the money to create his own company. He even starts apeing Wayne's personal style.
• Clemenza and Tessio from The Godfather start as Co-Dragons of the Corleone crime family. They both are reluctant about leadership passing onto Michael, but Tessio ends up betraying them by trying to set up Michael's death so he can ingratiate himself with Don Barzini.

Literature

• In the Harry Potter books, Big Bad Voldemort is Harrys counterpart, having been raised in similar conditions and circumstances, and accidentally given some of his power to him, but taking a different moral/ethical path.
  • Additionally, Gellert Grindelwald is the dark twin of Albus Dumbledore.
  • Bellatrix Lestrange is the Evil Counterpart of Sirius Black. They grew up in the same environment and have similar temperaments. They're both skilled magically, and they resemble each other physically. They're both very devoted to their respective sides, and would do anything to protect those they care about. Their deaths even parallel each other, which Harry points out.
    • Bellatrix is also an evil counterpart to Hermione Granger. Hermione is as devoted to Harry as Bellatrix is to Voldemort. Both intelligent and powerful witches, willing to go to extremes for their purposes.
  • Many fans look to Dolores Umbridge as an evil counterpart to Minerva McGonagall. Both are senior members of Hogwarts and known as strict disciplinarians, but McGonagall is stoic but ultimately good, while Umbridge is a very thorough Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. They butt heads often after Dumbledore departs.
  • Some interpret Peter Pettigrew as Ron's Evil Counterpart. They're both overshadowed by their more popular/gifted friends, but while Pettigrew only latches onto strong people, Ron truly cares about Harry and Hermione. Immediately regretting abandoning them in the last book counts.
  • Remus Lupin and Fenrir Grayback. While they're both werewolves (and Remus was bitten by Grayback as a child), Fenrir goes after and attacks people, particularly children, while Remus tries his hardest to avoid hurting someone.
• R.A. Salvatore feels the need to state that Artemis Entreri is Drizzt's "dark mirror" every time the two meet.
  • This is partially because Artemis himself became obsessed with the concept of them as opposites, to the extent that Jarlaxle faked Drizzt's death and hoped that Artemis would drop it now.
  • Interestingly, Salvatore would later write a far better example of an evil counterpart for Drizzt in the form of King Obould Many-Arrows (not an original character for Salvatore, but he gave him all his real characterization). Like Drizzt, Obould is an exceptional member of an Always Chaotic Evil race that sees the obvious flaws in his native society and rejects them. Unlike Drizzt who chose to run away from drow society and strike out on his own, Obould grabs orc society by the neck and forces a fundamental change in it, waging a brutal war not for the sake of plunder as most orcs do, but to carve out a kingdom where orcs can form a true civilization. What makes this interesting is that Salvatore never points out the parallels between them.
• In the Inheritance Cycle, Murtagh was already a slightly darker version of Eragon before Galbatorix recaptured him and forced him to become a Blood Knight.
  • Nasuada has to keep a close reign on her modus operandi, so that she doesn't turn into Galbatorix.
• Discworld examples:
  • Granny Weatherwax's sister Lily, in the novel Witches Abroad. A somewhat ironic example, as Lily considers herself to be the good one, and Granny thinks of herself as an Anti-Villain, being a prime example of Good Is Not Nice. It's played with a bit since the Theory of Narrative Causality means that any magically inclined siblings on the Disc will eventually form a Good/Evil pair, and the reason Granny is mad at her sister is because she didn't want to be the Good one and was forced into the role when Lily ran away.
  • Lord Hong to Lord Vetinari in the novel Interesting Times. Though the two never meet (and Vetinari may not even be aware of Hong's existence) the uncanny similarities of hyper competence, forward thinking, manipulation and the ability to wield power are made clear. Hong is a younger Vetinari with all the sense of duty channeled into personal ambition. Hong's mistake is that he thinks everyone is like the Agatean people; he doesn't know people and how to push their levers whilst Vetinari is a master of getting people to do what he wants them to do, even though they think they aren't.
  • In general, members of the Assassins' Guild seem to be the evil counterparts of Vimes -- he is a gritty Technical Pacifist who fights dirty whereas they are unsurprisingly well-bred hired killers.
  • Going Postal has the contrast between Moist von Lipwig, a Deconstruction of the Gentleman Thief, (who proves he has a heart) and Manipulative Bastard Con Man Reacher Gilt. Part of Moist's motivation is to prove that he is different than Gilt, in defiance of Not So Different.
  • Reaper Man has the New Death in contrast with Death/Bill Door. The New Death takes pleasure in taking lives, while Death feels compassion for humanity.
• Shiwan Khan, one of The Shadow's antagonists, had the same ability to "Cloud Men's Minds", and was one of the few villains to appear in more than one novel. In the 1994 film, the Evil Counterpart aspect of the characters was made much more explicit: both were trained by a mystic known as The Tulpu, but whereas Lamont Cranston turned away from evil, Shiwan Khan did not.
• Blade of the Flame has Makala for Diran on and off.
• Marth for Tristam in Heirs of Ash.
• The Wheel of Time has several.
  • Ishamael for Rand. Both are the leaders of their respective side and are extremely strong in the one power. But while Rand believes in doing his duty and saving world, Ishamael became a Nihilist who wants to destroy the pattern because he believes that everything is meaningless, that the dark will inevitably win and that it his purpose to fight for the dark one. He also seems to view his role in the ever repeating pattern to convince the Dragon to submit to this view; during the darkest depths of his psychotic breakdown Rand considers whether his counterpart was in fact right and almost destroys the pattern himself after a bit of Nietzsche Wannabe speechifying of his own
  • Lanfear for Moiraine: Both women assisted Rand and would have killed him if necessary. But while Moiraine just wants him to save the world and oppose the dark one, Lanfear is a Yandere darlfriend who wants him to serve the dark one.
  • Slayer for Perrin: Both have connections with wolves and dream powers. Both of them enjoy killing and they both tried to lead the two rivers villagers against trollocs
  • Taim for Loghain: Both are false dragons who serve Rand reluctantly and both want glory. But unlike Logain, Taim is a darkfriend who wants to help the dark one triumph
  • Elaida for Siuan: Both are Amyrlins who were extremely powerful channlers, plot and manipulate others, want to control the dragon reborn and are motivated by foretellings about the dragon reborn. However Elaid is far more arrogant and organizes a coup, wants to kidnap and control rand to satisfy her ego and while Siuan tries to train Egwene into being her successor, Elaida wants to make Egwene her servant.
• Recent Star Wars novels have taken the unfortunate fact that Shira Brie/Lumiya and Mara Jade are the same recycled character concept and chosen to emphasize the fact that Lumiya is Mara Jade's Evil Counterpart. The Legacy of the Force series, for instance, has for the first time confirmed that Shira Brie was part of the same Emperor's Hand program as Mara Jade and equal to her in rank, and, ironically, that if she had been nearby when the 2nd Death Star blew up and been given the task of horribly murdering Luke Skywalker, she could very likely have been the one redeemed by love who ended up marrying Luke instead of being horribly disfigured and eventually killed by him.
• In the Ea Cycle Morjin is what Valashu would become if he went to The Dark Side.
• When August Derleth took H.P. Lovecraft's ideas and ran with them, he posited a group of "good" counterparts of the Great Old Ones called the "Elder Gods." Brian Lumley took this concept even further in his Cthulhu Mythos novels, with appearances by the Elder Gods Kthanid (a good Cthulhu) and Yad-Thaddag (a good Yog-Sothoth).
• John Sunlight, the only villain to face Doc Savage more than once in the novels, had many qualities in common with Doc.
  • An even more obvious Evil Counterpart appears in the Doc Savage Annual published by DC Comics. It featured Siegfried, a young man raised by one of Doc's former teachers under the training regime developed by Doc's father. Siegfried and his mentor were in service of the Nazis.
• Un from Shinigami no Ballad, who is counterpart to the main character. Weirdly enough, even though she wields power of destruction, she is consider to be the being of creation, and that even though Momo's appearance are all white, she's actually Un's shadow.
• Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty.
  • Dr. John H. Watson and Col. Sebastian Moran.
  • Taken to its logical extreme in Neil Gaiman's Alternate Universe short story A Study in Emerald, where the reader gradually realizes that in this world the nameless detective who lives at Baker Street and helps the police with cases is Moriarty, and the culprits for the latest case he is investigating are Holmes and Watson. Although the nature of this society is such that Holmes and Watson are still the good guys.
  • Taken to another logical extreme in Kim Newman's "A Shambles in Belgravia", which not only has Moran documenting Moriaty's "cases" as Evil Dr Watson, but also supplies him with an Evil Mrs Hudson (the madame Mrs Halifax), and Evil Baker Street Irregulars (the Conduit Street Comanche - a "tribe of junior beggars, whores, pickpockets and garotters"). And in his spare time, Moriarty breeds wasps, apparently out of sheer malevolence and balancing Holmes's retirement as a beekeeper.
    • Extreme, yes. Logical, no.
  • In the Raffles series, Raffles and Bunny are essentially evil (or at least anti-heroic) counterparts of Holmes and Watson.
• Auguste Dupin and Minister D.
• In Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Series, specifically beginning in Brothers in Arms where the hero Miles Vorkosigan meets his evil clone in a battle of wits and subterfuge. An earlier novel, The Vor Game has the female mercenary Cavilo, who is as short as Miles is (but more obviously physically attractive) and has a very similar talent for disguise and subterfuge. On the other hand, while Miles is ultimately a very good and loyal person, Cavilo is a psychopath.
• In the Skulduggery Pleasant series; Caelan has shades of being this to Fletcher. Both are infatuated with Valkyrie, both are vain and good-looking, they're pretty ineffectual despite having access to incredible power, and are very much the outsiders in the group of protagonists, and would both happily live their own lives away from the danger and chaos of saving the world if Valkyrie weren't involved. The main difference between them is that Fletcher is a Technical Pacifist who hates violence, and Caelan, on the other hand has killed dozens of helpless mortal women over imagined slights.
  • A good indicator of this is that, although he's seriously hurt when Valkyrie breaks up with him, Fletcher is able to move past it and get on with his own life, whereas Caelan simply cannot let her go and decides to kill her for "infidelity".
  • This is because, after Character Development takes away Fletcher's cowardice and most of his arrogance, he's pretty well adjusted and normal, whereas Caelan, on the other hand is so batshit insane, he killed his mentor for trying to warn him off his obsession (later B Brain In A Jar Clockwork King, behaves much like his Primal Earth counterpart, including his obsession with Penelope Yin
  • Penelope Yin, counterpart to herself, is a Resistance spy in Mother Mayham's mental hospital
  • Belladonna Vetrano, counterpart to Ghost Widow, is still alive, and a member of the Resistance.
• A Song of Ice and Fire
  • Eddard Stark and his bannerman Roose Bolton are both northern Lords. Ned believes in fairness and honor while Roose does not. They both cultivate an image of a Reasonable Authority Figure but Ned lives this philosophy.
  • Daenerys and her nephew Aegon. He is however implied to be an imposter.

Live action television

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.
  • Pre-Heel Face Turn Faith and Spike to the titular heroes.
  • Cordelia and Harmony are both ex-popular high school girls who leave for Los Angeles. Cordie works with Angel while Harm works for Wolfram & Hart.
  • Tara serves as Willow's conscience while Amy is The Corrupter.
  • Halfrek acts as the Poisonous Friend to ex-vengeance demon Anya.
  • Gunn works with Angel. Gino is a fanatical demon hunter who thinks Gunn's a sellout.
• 24
  • Stephen Saunders, Habib Marwan and Christopher Henderson are all resourceful and ruthless family guys like Jack Bauer.
  • Carrie Turner is a morally bankrupt career climber unlike her ex-best friend Michelle Dessler.
  • Charles Logan is President Evil compared to Reasonable Authority Figure David Palmer.
  • Karen Hayes and Miles Papasian start out as Those Two Guys from the Department of Homeland Security but Miles turns traitor by destroying evidence proving President Logan's complicity in the terrorist attacks in season 5.
• Game of Thrones
  • Heroic Bastard Jon Snow has Bastard Bastard Ramsay Snow, Smalljon Umber (both rally the North against a greater threat) and Euron Greyjoy (another upstart king who seeks the help of a powerful queen).
  • Daenerys and Cersei both have messed up relationships with their brothers and fathers, and they've both lost their children (real children for Cersei, one dragon for Dany). Dany's loss convinces her to set aside her quest for the throne to defeat a bigger threat but Cersei just keeps going no matter what it costs.
  • Littlefinger and Daenerys have similar backstories and motivations. They are both treated as foreigners in their own lands and both come from nothing but gain considerable power and influence (she by becoming a charismatic slave liberator with many loyal and loving followers, and he by being a ruthless backstage player who manipulates and betrays anyone to suit his goals. They both want to end the noble families' rule in Westeros but while she wants to do to bring peace to the common people, he just wants revenge for a childish grudge he's never forgiven.
  • Jon Arryn and Tywin Lannister are cunning Lords who operate behind the scenes but while Jon tries to act as King Robert's conscience, Tywin is content to let the realm run to the ground so long as his family gets rewarded for all their "service".
• The town of New Bern is this to Jericho. Jericho is a salt mining town trying to maintain the rule of law while New Bern is a dictatorship run by its sheriff.

Video Games

• Pokémon Mystery Dungeon have Gengar to the main character.
• Metroid:
  • The SA-X from Metroid: Fusion is stated by Samus herself to be the embodiment of her potential for evil. It has all of her EXACT abilities, but no heart or conscience, which makes sense, as it is a clone of her created from X-Parasite infection.
  • Dark Samus from the Metroid Prime Trilogy also fills the role of evil counterpart to Samus. Dark Samus has abilities quite similar to Samus' abilities, though her moves are a slight variant of Samus' moves plus she has her own abilities as well. The games' scan logs state that Dark Samus is quite intelligent and can manipulate other races to benefit her own agenda, which is to spread the corruptible Phazon across the galaxy. Ironically enough, chronologically, Samus ends up becoming Dark Samus's own Good Counterpart; in Fusion Samus has Metroid DNA integrated with her body to save her from the X and Dark Samus was born when the Metroid Prime integrated Samus's Phazon Suit and DNA into itself at the end of the titular game.
• Malefor from The Legend of Spyro trilogy seems to be this to Spyro. Both are Purple Dragons, both were, according to Chief Prowlus and the statues of him all over the place, heroic in their youth, and both were trained freely by their elders in the Dragon Elements. The difference is Malefor let his power go to his head and went mad with power while Spyro remained good hearted (though Spyro was raised by dragonflies which may have had something to do with it). Malefor is aware of this and worked it into his Not So Different Hannibal Lecture.
• Soul Nomad and The World Eaters has Revya as this to Levin in one path of the New Game+.
  • In the main game, various characters have evil counterparts of their own. Shauna for Endorph, Cuthbert for Vitali, Lobo for Christophe and Dio for Odie among others.
• Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana has Mull served as an Evil Counterpart of Arlin the swordsman. They even share the same sprite, only with Palette Swap into a red outfit.
• In Hitman: Blood Money, Mark Parchezzi III is this to Agent 47. Even though 47 can be viewed as a villain, he is shown to have a set of values and morality, while what little is seen of Parchezzi shows him to be completely without scruples. Plus, while 47 performs rather indiscriminate hits, Parchezzi works for the Franchise, a clandestine government group with the goal of keeping human cloning illegal so that nobody else may benefit from it.
• Dark Link. Full. Freaking. Stop.
  • Also, The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword's Ghirahim as Demise's sword to Fi as Link's sword. Demise's weapon even looks like a dark version of the Master Sword
  • Vaati is another example, Vaati is a selfish power hungry evil to Link's selfless altruistic good, powerful wizard to Link's master swordsman, and even have a very similar appearance though the colors are suitably different.
  • Zig-zagged with Princess Hilda from The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. She looks like an evil version of Princess Zelda— what with her red eyes to Zelda's Innocent Blue Eyes, her purple attire to Zelda's pink attire, and her dark hair color to Zelda's blonde hair. Still, she is morally ambiguous and even helpful towards Link. Until the final boss that is, where it's revealed she is working with the Big Bad. Then again double subverted when it turns out she isn't evil, she is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who would risk another kingdom for her own. Hilda was being used and after the boss battle she makes up with Zelda.
• Meta Knight from the Kirby series has Galacta Knight. Both have very similar appearance, attacks, and movesets. The primary differences between the two are that Galacta Knight lacks Meta Knight's sense of chivalry, and Galacta has a more angelic appearance compared to Meta Knight (White feathered wings and brighter colors compared to Meta's bat wings and dark colors).
  • Meta Knight also has Dark Meta Knight, who had first appeared in "The Amazing Mirror" and later appeared as the true final boss of "Triple Deluxe".
  • Kirby has Shadow Kirby in "The Amazing Mirror", although he goes through a Heel–Face Turn once Kirby realizes that he wants his world to be saved just as much as Kirby wants his own world to be saved, which results in them becoming allies.
  • Meta Knight himself sometimes acts as an evil counterpart to Kirby (or perhaps vice versa), being the lawful to his chaotic and looking very similar to him beneath the mask.
  • King Dedede has Shadow Dedede, who is fought during Dededetour in "Triple Deluxe".
• Crash Bandicoot has the obviously titled Evil/Nega Crash, his alternate universe equivelant from the Tenth Dimention. Fake Crash (a goofy lookalike created from "an experiment gone horribly wrong") interchanges between being an antagonist or occasional friend of Crash, similar to Wario.
• Wario was once an evil rival of Mario, complete with evil versions of Mario's powerups. Then he shifted to a greedy Anti-Hero who stole from other villains, soon replacing his dark powerups with the gimmick of Nigh-Invulnerability and bizarre transformations based on how he is injured. On a couple of occasions Wario has actually helped Mario however, both with and without selfish motives.
  • Later on, Nintendo gave Luigi his own Evil Counterpart in the form of Waluigi.
  • Wario got one himself in Wario Land: Shake It!. The Shake King was essentially a bigger, greedier Wario, with most of his abilities mirroring those of Wario. This is assuming he can be called an Evil Counterpart; Wario isn't exactly a good guy to begin with.
  • It's interesting to note that the prefix 'wa, originated from the word "warui" means plenty of things, including "evil" in Japanese. Hence, Wario and Waluigi are, literally, "Bad Mario" and "Bad Luigi". However, their names can also mean, based on the meanings for the word "Warui", " Wrong Mario/Luigi", "Poor Mario/Luigi", "Hateful Mario/Luigi", "Abominable Mario/Luigi", "Wrong Mario/Luigi" or "Inferior Mario/Luigi".
  • Furthermore, Waluigi´s name in Japanese is an anagram to the word "Ijiwaru". Which means his name has extra meanings such as "Ill-tempered Luigi" or "Sadistic Luigi".
  • Bowser gets one in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story when the Dark Star becomes Dark Bowser, the final boss.
• Mutons of the new X-COM: Enemy Unknown have been described like this, an alien SEAL Team Six to fight your own troops.
• In Alpha Protocol, Conrad Marburg is something of an evil counterpart to Mike; a rogue agent from a previous incarnation of Alpha Protocol called Deus Vult, who like Mike was cut loose and falsely declared rogue because it was politically convenient. Unlike Mike, who's still trying to get to the bottom of the conspiracy, Marburg lost faith in the government and now works for Leland.
• The Simon the Sorcerer games play with this. At the end of the 3rd game, a second Simon appears who is different in two aspects: a) he's corporeal (long story) and b) he has a goatee. Wait, Simon's not a nice guy either, right? Well it turns out that the counterpart is actually the lawful counterpart to Simon. He even shaves his beard to get rid of the stigma.
• Subverted in the Bayonetta franchise, the titular character's magical order called the Umbran Witches are a female-only group of magic-users who have contracts with infernal demons and can slow down time. By all accounts they should be the evil counterparts to the the male-only group of magic-users who work with angels and can speed up time, the Lumen Sages, except in the first game the Lumen Sages tried to exterminate the Umbran Witch order in order to steal their half of a god's power, the Eyes of the World, which would make them the evil counterparts. Of course, this gets fully subverted in the sequel when its revealed the Lumen Sages weren't really evil, they were led down a path of destruction by the angels lying to them in an attempt at a power-grab for the Eyes of the World, coupled with the Lumen Sage leader, Balder, being corrupted by housing the pure evil half of the soul of the former God of Chaos in his body. Additionally, despite the Umbra Witches serving demons, the demons are played straight, meaning they could deceive the titular character into doing something bad.
• Akuma is Ryu's Blue counterpart in various Street Fighter games and their adaptations. The brother of Ryu's master, Akuma was a student of the same martial art and was also driven by the desire to be the most powerful martial artist, deciding that he was willing to kill those he defeated in the pursuit of true strength, while Ryu ultimately rejects killing. (The exception being in Street Fighter Alpha 2 and 3, where there's an Evil Ryu Secret Character. There, he turns out even worse than Akuma. Whereas Akuma has a sort of moral code, even if it falls heavily under Blue and Orange Morality, Evil Ryu is just a cold-blooded killer who ends up slaughtering the entire cast.)
  • Another example would be Rose and M. Bison, as both are wielders of Soul Power. Whereas Bison uses his corrupted Soul Power {which he calls Psycho Power} for pure evil, Rose is very heroic, kind, and uses her Soul Power to aid the other heroes, going as far as to offering her life to Bison in order to spare them. The fact that she was created from Bison's discarded goodness further cements the connection the two ultimately share.
  • In Super Street Fighter IV, Juri is the evil counterpart to Chun Li, both whose parents were murdered by Shadaloo.
  • Also, Balrog is the Evil Counterpart to Dudley (both boxers by hire) and Seth is the Evil Counterpart to Abel.
  • Ultra Street Fighter IV gives us Decapre for Cammy. Aside from being the her twin, the former also represents what the latter could have become had she not broken free from her brainwashing.
• Final Fantasy games frequently employ this trope.
  • Final Fantasy IV has Cecil and Golbez. It's revealed that they're blood brothers, and Cecil thinks when he finds out that it could easily be him, that was possessed by Zemus to act as the villain. In the sequel they have mirror movesets, Cecil having White Magic while Golbez has Black Magic, and their Cover and Taunt abilities both draw attacks from allies in different ways.
  • Final Fantasy VI had Kefka as the Evil Counterpart to Celes and Terra. With Celes, they were both products of the same Super Soldier project, and were both generals of The Empire. With Terra, they both have detachment from humanity and love no one, but Terra underwent Character Development to understand and find love, while Kefka decided it wasn't worth feeling.
    • There is also a clear contrast drawn between Kefka, a Bad Boss who harasses his troops and is generally a menace, to the honorable and beloved General Leo Cristophe.
  • Final Fantasy VII builds up Sephiroth as Cloud's, but while the link starts as fairly concrete at the start of the game, the reveal that Much of Cloud's backstory was a lie and was, in fact, the tale of his friend Zack pushes this aside.
    • If you compare how they react to revelations about themselves; Sephiroth thought he was special and awesome, only to learn that he was a laboratory monster. Likewise, Cloud thought he was this epic super-soldier, only to learn that everything he remembered about that was a lie. But where Sephiroth desperately tried to restore his pride through godly delusions, Cloud managed to (with Tifa's help) restore himself to a state free of delusions.
  • Spin-offs instead treat Sephiroth as more an Evil Counterpart to Aerith — he thinks he's the last Cetra, she actually is; both had fathers involved in the Jenova Project; Aerith has the White Materia to call Holy, Sephiroth seeks the Black Materia to call Meteor; Aerith is a benevolent protector of the planet, Sephiorth is more in line with an eco-terrorist. Word of God has said they were intended during development to be revealed as siblings, which is why they have similar hairstyles and both have Green Eyes. In a novella set before Advent Children, it's implied Aerith could have created avatars of herself like Sephiroth did, but she felt it more important to let Cloud handle things on his own.
  • Cloud and Sephiroth's appearances in Kingdom Hearts play this totally straight with them, with Sephiroth sporting a black angel's wing on his right shoulder and Cloud having a black demon's wing on his left shoulder. In the same series, it is even heavily implied, if not outright stated, that the Sephiroth in that game was actually Cloud's Enemy Without, an embodiment of his inner darkness.
  • There's also Dyne in relation to Barret. Both are men from Corel who lost their arms in a Shinra attack and got Arm Cannons to replace them. Also, they are both violent, but Barret directs his anger at Shinra while Dyne snapped and became an Omnicidal Maniac. It shows that Barret could have followed a very similar path to him.
  • On a lesser note there's Hojo against Gast Faremis. Both were scientists working for Shinra, but Gast was a kind man who used science to obtain wisdom when Hojo is an immoral Mad Scientist. Futhermore, Hojo is the father of Sephiroth, which is the evil counterpart to Aeris, Gast's daughter.
  • In Dirge of Cerberus, all of the Tsviets share something in common with Vincent. Shelke is immortal, Nero wields Darkness, Rosso has similar attire (red clothes, metal gauntlets) and fighting methods, Azul has the same shapeshifting powers, and Weiss is trying to attain the power of Omega, the antithesis to Chaos. Furthermore, he's the vessel for Hojo, who turns into monsters like Vincent, but has no morals or physical prowess to call his own. Oh, they also all use a combination of guns and martial arts, leaning towards guns. Except for Shelke. Rosso and Vincent lampshade this with their discussion on each other's "humanity."
  • Final Fantasy VIII. Seifer was an evil counterpart to Squall, both using gunblades and been trained at the same Garden. Although Seifer was more ambitious than evil.
    • And Ultimecia is the Evil Counterpart to both Rinoa and Ellone.
  • Final Fantasy IX had Zidane to Kuja - both created by Garland to lead Gaia to war. Zidane is horrified when he thinks that if things had gone differently, he could be the one doing all the evil Kuja has been doing.
  • The Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 duet has Tidus and Shuyin; one died while failing to protect his beloved, while the other gave his existence and succeeded. They even look alike, and fans speculate the fayth deliberately modeled Tidus after Shuyin in their dream-Zanarkand.
    • Both Yunalesca and Seymour are evil counterparts to Yuna.
    • Given his status as Unsent, Seymour was pulling double duty as the counterpart to Yuna and Auron.
  • Final Fantasy XII has the for most of the game evil Gabranth and the good Basch, who doubles as a pair with an Evil Twin.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics A2 has Illua, the Big Bad of the game and evil counterpart to Luso. Luso and Illua both have grimoires that have blank pages and are filling up with words as they go on their adventures. If Luso fills out his book, it will give him the power to return home, but if Illua fills out her book, then she gets to summon a great evil demon from another dimension to terrorize Ivalice with. Whether Illua succeeds in defeating Luso or not doesn't matter since once she is slain, her last efforts get recorded in the book and the demon gets summoned anyway.
• The King of Fighters
  • Iori is this for Kyo.
  • The New Face team from KOF97 is this to Team Japan when they reveal their Orochi powers. Fragile Speedster Chris starts Playing with Fire like Kyo, Lightning Bruiser Yashiro becomes a grappler like Daimon, and Cute Bruiser Shermie starts shooting electricity like Benimaru.

Webcomics

• Miho in Megatokyo seems to fashion herself as an Evil Counterpart to Yuki. She has the same powers, and when she awakens Yuki to her powers, says that Yuki's are based on love, while hers are lonely and dark. But then again, no one ever knows what's with Miho.
• Celesto Morgan to Dominic Deegan.
  • Karnak (now the recently deposed King of Hell) and Dominic's father Donovan. Both were orphans raised in foreign lands by a different race/species (orcs raised Karnak and elves raised Donovan). When the two of them met they even became friends, though Karnak never did appreciate Donovan's sense of humor. Unfortunately, they both fell in love with the same woman, but Miranda only loved Karnak as a friend and had already given her heart to Donovan. This frustrated Karnak so much that he grew to despise Donvan and invoked a brutal tradition of orc culture and tried to kill Donovan and take Miranda for himself.
• In Fans!, Keith Feddyg to Rikk.
• User Friendly has the Crud Puppy, a scalpel-wielding Evil Counterpart to the Dust Puppy.
• The Order of the Stick has the Linear Guild, a team of Evil Counterparts to the titular band, led by Elan's Evil Twin Nale. After their first defeat, Nale recruited replacements to purposefully continue the "evil opposites" theme.
  • Taken to its logical conclusion with Yokyok, who is actually a GOOD counterpart to the Chaotic Evil Belkar Bitterleaf.
  • Crystal to Haley.
  • Redcloak seems like he is Hinjo's evil counterpart.
  • Roy however insists that Thog is not his Evil Counterpart and is merely just different from him, stating that there has to be more to it than just Roy being a Genius Bruiser and Thog being Dumb Muscle.
    • Immediately before Thog reacts to his tusk being broken almost exactly the same way Roy reacted to his sword being broken.
    • Later on however, Thog is replaced by General Tarquin, a highly intelligent Fighter. He even states that he's joining in partly because he sees Roy as a Worthy Opponent.
• Penny and Aggie contains a team of Evil Counterparts to Penny's clique gathered by Penny's social rival who read way too many comic books before her makeover into an Alpha Bitch thanks to Penny and Aggie.
• In Sluggy Freelance Kusari serves as the Evil Counterpart to Oasis. They're both superbly skilled, (seemingly) immortal assassins created/raised by Hereti Corp, and Kusari even claims they're sisters. Since Kusari has never been seen without her mask on, speculation rages as to whether or not she is actually an Evil Twin.
• Lord Tedd in El Goonish Shive along with Shade Tail. Ellen tried to be this for a while but quickly gave up on it.
• In Eight Bit Theater with the main characters being the Evil Counterparts of the true Light Warriors which travel the world since then stumbling from one disaster into another. Also, there are the other warriors which are also (mostly) way less evil than the protagonists.
• Shortpacked gives us McAwesome's Parasailing and Chocolate Bakery... or, more accurately, the titular store is the Evil Counterpart to McAwesome's. Gustavo, Evan, Rose and Zaph are well-adjusted expies of Galasso, Ethan, Amber and Faz. Ronnie's counterpart is Franklin D Roosevelt, Ninja Rick's is a pirate, and Robin's is Agatha from her original SEMME team. The others so far don't have counterparts, but Mike moonlights there, and gets drunk to do so, so he's his own counterpart.
• Sonichu has a few for both its titular character and the Author Avatar. For the titular character, there's Metal Sonichu and Black Sonichu/Blachu/Blake, though Blake turns good. For the Author Avatar, there's Naitsirhc, whom takes Evil Counterpart to a major extreme.
• The titular characters of Bob and George. While George is depicted as god of electricity, Bob is depicted as god of fire. George's "true" form is called Blitz (originally Spark) and Bob's true form is called Napalm. They both got their powers from their mother. In the story, Bob/Napalm calls himself "the destroyer of civilisations" and George/Spark/Blitz believes in justice. Also, in the end, they get help from their respective protectors; Bob from Helmeted Author and George from Shadowy Author. Also, it's revealed that both of them were protected by their mother.
• Raven Red, as in her original comic book incarnation, serves as the evil aviatrix counterpart for the T-Girl heroine of Jet Dream, Harmony Thunder.

Web Original

• Trey and Troy, the "bad" Dimensional Guardians from the web fiction serial Dimension Heroes often pick fights with the protagonists.
• In the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, The ambitious and brutal Blackstar was thrown out of the Guardsmen, the intergalactic superhuman police force, and is now the sworn enemy of the heroic Guardsman, defender of Earth.
  • The Tyrants are a "mirror universe" version of the Global Guardians.
• That Guy With The Glasses has multiple, mostly due to a lack of actors. A list: Dark Paw, Black Lantern Spoony One Prime, Ask That Guy With The Glasses, Phelous D1, Suolehp, Mechakara, and Judas Liz.
• Among LOLcats, Basement Cat to Ceiling Cat.
  • Tacgnol to Longcat.

Western Animation

• In Futurama, Fry assumes that the character Flexo is this to Bender but his jealousy blinds him to the fact that it's actually the other way around.

Fry: How can I live my life if I can't even tell good from evil? Bender: Eh, they're both fine choices. Whatever floats your boat.

• On Kim Possible, Dr. Drakken's Dragon Shego is a sort of evil counterpart to Kim. She's a former teen hero herself. The similarities in their overall character design leads some new viewers to think Shego is Kim's Evil Twin.
  • They also both get together with their partner in crime/justice. There is an episode dedicated to just how similar they are if Shego was good; they are so compatible it ramps up the Ho Yay to very impressive levels for a Disney Cartoon, due to it splitting up the Kim Possible + Ron Stoppable romance.
  • Though he's considered Kim's archenemy, Dr. Drakken serves as a good counterpoint to Kim's sidekick Ron. Both are not particularly good fighters and leave fighting to their female companions. Drakken is outwardly intelligent, but manages to botch many of his schemes due to incompetence. Ron often acts buffoonish, but it's implied that he holds some innate intelligence. Their similarities are highlighted in the episode "Bad Boy".
• Kevin, aka "Kevin 11" from Ben 10. Only a little in his 1st appearance, but more and more each time he shows up. He starts as a sociopathic kid a little older than Ben with the ability to absorb energy. He absorbs energy from the Omnitrix twice in his debut episode, each time transforming him halfway into one of Ben's alien forms. By the time he resurfaces in his 2nd episode, he's all alien, and can change between them, but can't stay human very long. At the end of that episode, he winds up as a freaky hybrid, incorporating a little bit of human form and aspects of all 10 original aliens, and from then on he's stuck that way.
  • In Alien Force, Kevin pulls a Heel Face Turn and gets his own Evil Counterpart as a result, Mike Morningstar/Darkstar, who also has energy absorption powers. Ben, in the meantime, gets a new Evil Counterpart in Albedo, who doubles as his Evil Twin.
• Negaduck -both versions, the first arguably moreso, as he is the the dark half of Darkwing's personality, given form after he is zapped by Megavolt's Tron Splitter device. He resolves to kill his Posiduck counterpart, so as to conquer the underworld undeterred. The second, from an alternate universe, is no less evil, as he delights in the thought of murder, and at one point tries to destroy all of St. Canard in one fell swoop.
• In Metajets, The Stunt-Hawks are a trio of criminals flying newer, more advanced transforming jets designed by the same man who designed the good Metajets.
• In Avatar: The Last Airbender, there are numerous parallels between Katara and Azula: roughly the same age, they are both are the daughters of leaders with leadership skills of their own, both freakishly powerful and talented prodigies with their elements, both at least occasionally overbearing control freaks and possessed of a dangerous temper when provoked. On opposite lines of the Red Oni, Blue Oni divide they may be, but taking into account their fathers' personalities/influences they are far more alike than one may think.
  • Azula also serves as an Evil Counterpart to both Zuko and Iroh. As Zuko's, she shows what he could have been if he really did have everything he thinks that he wants (and 50 extra I.Q. points, at least). As Iroh's, she trys to steer Zuko down the wrong path rather than the right one. This is Lampshaded in a dream sequence Zuko has, in which he is being consulted by a red dragon and a blue dragon on which path to take in life, good or evil. The red dragon, who advocates good, has Iroh's voice, while the blue, who advocates evil, has Azula's. This situation comes true in Season Two's finale, in which Zuko chooses Azula's way only to regret it.
  • Zuko has another one in Zhao who is older than him, experienced in war, willing to sacrifice others to further his own career, and seems to have favor with in the Fire Nation helping him go through the ranks. It is also shown with the fact that they're also unfriendly rivals in the show always fighting whether physically or over Aang. They also attempt to capture Aang for different reasons, Zuko so he can restore his honor and return home, and Zhao as a vanity project.
  • Hama serves as another Evil Counterpart to Katara. Both of them went through horrible things during the war against the Fire Nation (Katara lost her mother; Hama was captured and left to rot in a prison cell); however, Hama became so obsessed with revenge that she became no better than those who hurt her, even going as far as imprisoning innocent civilians in a cave simply because they were Fire Nation.
• Buzz Lightyear of Star Command has two: XL, the psychotic prototype of XR, and Warp Darkmatter, Buzz's ex-partner turned amoral mercenary.
  • Gravitina is often cited as being a evil counterpart of Mira and many fans pointing to Torgue the bounty hunter as a counterpart for Booster. also there was that that mirror mirror universe.
• Red X to Robin in the Teen Titans animated series, although Red was more of a "Morally Ambigious Counterpart". Also, Blackfire to Starfire.
  • Word of God says they designed Slade to be an evil version of Batman, though Batman himself never appears in the series (except possibly once, in silhouette).
  • From a team standpoint, the HIVE are the evil counterparts to the Titans, at least before they became flanderized into joke villains. Brother Blood doesn't start out as an evil counterpart to his Arch Enemy Cyborg, but becomes such during the events of the third season finale.
• Vlad to Danny in Danny Phantom. True to the trope, the Not So Different speech is one of Vlad's favourite tactics, leading to the expected denial from Danny.
  • Dark Danny-his evil future version- is the other evil counterpart to Danny.
• Captain Planet has an evil counterpart in Captain Pollution, composed of the polluting powers of Super Radiation, Deforestation, Smog, Toxics and Hate.
• In Batman the Animated Series, The Creeper was presented as the Joker's good counterpart, being doused by the Joker's Psycho Serum but turning out as a well-intentioned mad man. Amusingly, he is just as obsessively attracted to Harley Quinn as she is to the Joker.
• The Fairly Odd Parents-Timmy might have two: Remy Buxaplenty and Mr. Crocker. Remy is a rich kid with a fairy godparent and Crocker had fairies (Cosmo and Wanda) until Timmy caused them to be revealed when he went back in time. Timmy has had Not So Different moments with Remy and Crocker before.
  • And what about Gary, Timmy's imaginary friend?
  • The Fairies have these in the form of the Anti-Fairies and Pixies, but the Anti-Fairies are the true Evil Counterparts, as they are the Fairies with blue skin, pointy ears, and fangs, and taken further with Foop, who is cube-shaped.
• Maggie Simpson had her arch-nemesis Gerald the unibrow baby.
• Dexter & Dee Dee had Mandark & Lala-Vava
• Thailog of Gargoyles is an Evil Counterpart to both Goliath and Xanatos, ironically enough. He's Goliath's evil clone, but he also embodies the depths of evil of which Xanatos would become capable if he lost the last threads holding him to his humanity. Both characters see Thailog as one of their most dangerous enemies, if not the most.
• Lotor's Robeast in Voltron: The Fleet of Doom is an evil counterpart to Lion Voltron and Vehicle Voltron.
  • Dracotron in Voltron: The Third Dimension, which is made up of 5 robot dragons, is an evil counterpart of Voltron.
• In an episode of The Adventures of Sam and Max, the eponymous duo accidentally release Dangly Deever, a Howdy Doody-style children's show marionette, while futzing with one of the Geek's numerous research projects. This seems harmless enough, until the Geek returns in time for an evil version of Dangly, and several other puppets who didn't get good counterparts, to break free. At the climax, the two Danglies are struggling for dominance while the heroes try to pick out their target.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: The Delightful Children are the Evil Counterparts of Sector V.
• In an episode of Phineas and Ferb, the titular boys compete with a pair of similar kids named Thaddeus and Thor. They're not evil, per se, but Thaddeus is obviously a Jerkass compared to Phineas.
  • In The Movie , the characters go to Another Dimension , where they find alternate themselves. As Dr. Doofenshmitz fails being evil, his 2nd Dimension self, as his opposite, is truly evil.
• Men in Black: The Animated Series: The Fmek alien race is the evil counterpart to the Arquillian alien race.
• The Powerpuff Girls: has two sets. The Rowdyruff Boys are a group of little boys with the same powers but the opposite morality, and were created by Mojo Jojo from snips, snails, and puppy dogs tails. The Powerpunk Girls are from an alternate universe where the evil Oppressor Plutonium (Professor Utonium's own evil counterpart) created them to conquer the world.
  • Dick Hardly is one for Professor Utonium, being little more than a sleazy money-grubbing scientist who made knockoffs of the Powerpuff Girls with no legitimate love for them.
• The Dreamstone utilizes a non character example, instead one of the title MacGuffin. The Nightmare Stone, much like the Dream Stone is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, a magical gem able to send nightmares to sleeping residents while fending of good dreams. In another reversal, the heroes are made to steal the Nightmare Stone from the villains much like the latter try to steal the Dreamstone throughout the series.
  • For a character based example Zordrak may be this to the Dream Maker, an intelligent and highly powerful sorcerer who uses his power to send dreams to the world around him and watches over a population of somewhat loyal bumbling creatures. In contrast to the benevolent Dream Maker however, Zordrak is a Bad Boss vehement on conquest and spreading nightmares.
• Princess Luna's from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic is the good counterpart to her Face Heel Turn form Nightmare Moon. While this may seem too obvious to be worth mentioning at first once one really gets to SEE Luna one realizes just how little difference there is in their personalities.
• In Steven Universe, Jasper to Amethyst. Both are hot-blooded, rude, brash, rely on brute strength, and love to fight. But while Amethyst loves to goof off and has love and compassion for others, Jasper exists to fight, is always serious, and doesn't get the importance of love. She also shares Amethyst's hair style and is physically similar to her, but larger, and they both attack with a spin dash. To further push the matter, Jasper is colored orange, complementary to Amethyst's purple. "Too Far" reveals that Amethyst is a Quartz Gem like Jasper, with Jasper representing what a successful Kindergarten Gem should look like. By contrast, Amethyst is an "overcooked runt" that stayed in the ground too long, hence her short stature and comparatively weaker abilities. This comes to a head in "Crack the Whip", where they finally fight. Jasper, thanks to a combination of training and her superior capabilities, beats her down easily. "Beta" takes this even further by revealing that Jasper was also made on Earth, in the Beta Kindergarten. All the other holes are misshapen while hers is the only one that's perfect. And while Amethyst sees Jasper as her Arch-Enemy, Jasper views her as an embarrassment.

Tropes That Are Evil Counterparts Of Other Tropes

• Affably Evil is the evil counterpart of Good Is Not Nice.
• Always Chaotic Evil is the evil counterpart of Always Lawful Good.
• The Antichrist is the evil counterpart of Messianic Archetype and Anti-Anti-Christ.
• Anti-Villain is the evil counterpart to Anti-Hero (or perhaps the other way around).
• Bad Guy Bar is the evil counterpart to Good Guy Bar.
• The Bad Guy Wins is the evil counterpart to The Good Guys Always Win.
• Bastard Bastard is the evil counterpart to Heroic Bastard.
• Being Evil Sucks and This Is Your Brain on Evil are both evil counterparts of Being Good Sucks (or may be the other way around).
• Beware the Silly Ones is the evil counterpart to Beware the Nice Ones.
• Black Knight is the evil counterpart of Knight in Shining Armour.
• Black Magic is the evil counterpart of White Magic.
• Head-in-The-Sand Management and Drunk with Power are both meaner counterparts of Reasonable Authority Figure and Benevolent Boss.
  • Tyrant Takes the Helm is when someone goes from the good to the bad shortly after taking power.
• Character Alignment: Each one has an evil counterpart.
  • Chaotic Evil is the evil counterpart to Chaotic Good and Chaotic Neutral.
  • Lawful Evil is the evil counterpart of Lawful Good and Lawful Neutral.
  • Neutral Evil is the evil counterpart of Neutral Good and True Neutral.
• Complete Monster (a character who is pure evil) is the evil counterpart of The Messiah (a character who is pure good).
• Cut Lex Luthor a Cheque is the evil counterpart of Reed Richards Is Useless.
• Dark Is Evil is an evil counterpart of both Dark Is Not Evil and Light Is Good.
  • Dark Magical Girl is the evil counterpart to Magical Girl.
  • Dark Action Girl is the evil counterpart to Action Girl.
  • Dark Reprise is the evil counterpart of Triumphant Reprise.
  • Dark Messiah is the evil counterpart of The Messiah and Messianic Archetype.
  • The Dark Side is the evil counterpart of The Force.
• Deal with the Devil is the evil counterpart of Bargain with Heaven
• Deep South is the evil counterpart of Sweet Home Alabama.
• Designated Villain is the evil counterpart of Designated Hero (or arguably the other way around).
• Demon Lords and Archdevils is the evil counterpart of Celestial Paragons and Archangels.
• Diabolus Ex Machina is the evil counterpart of Deus Ex Machina.
• Disc One Final Boss is the evil counterpart of Decoy Protagonist.
• The Empire is the evil counterpart of both The Federation and The Kingdom.
• Evil Albino is the evil counterpart of Heroic Albino.
• Evil Chancellor is, obviously, the evil counterpart of The Good Chancellor.
• Evil Costume Switch = Good Costume Switch
• Evil Is Sexy is the evil counterpart to Beauty Equals Goodness.
• Evil Mentor and Treacherous Advisor are evil counterparts to The Obi-Wan and Big Brother Mentor, with Cynical Mentor occupying the middle field.
• Evil Orphan is the evil counterpart of Heartwarming Orphan.
• Evil Teacher and Sadist Teacher are evil counterparts to Stern Teacher, Cool Teacher and (specially) Badass Teacher.
• Face Heel Turn is the evil counterpart of Heel Face Turn.
• Fat Bastard is the evil counterpart to Big Fun.
• Fallen Angel is the evil counterpart of Ascended Demon and Our Angels Are Different.
• Fantasy Axis of Evil is the evil counterpart of Five Races.
• Faux Affably Evil is the evil counterpart of Noble Demon.
• Five-Bad Band is the evil counterpart of a Five-Man Band.
  • Dark Chick is the evil counterpart of The Chick.
  • The Brute is the evil counterpart of The Big Guy.
  • Evil Genius is the evil counterpart of The Smart Guy.
  • The Dragon is the evil counterpart of both The Lancer and The Hero.
  • Big Bad is the evil counterpart of The Hero.
  • Bigger Bad is the evil counterpart of the Big Good.
• Four Is Death is the evil counterpart of Numerological Motif.
• God Save Us From the Queen is the evil counterpart of both The High Queen and The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask
• Hannibal Lecture is the evil counterpart of Kirk Summation.
  • Shut Up, Kirk is the evil counterpart of Shut UP, Hannibal.
• Heel Face Door Slam is the evil counterpart of You Are Better Than You Think You Are.
• Hobbes Was Right is the evil counterpart of Rousseau Was Right.
• Humans Are Bastards is the evil counterpart of Humans Are Good.
• Invincible Villain is the evil counterpart of Invincible Hero.
• Jerkass is the meaner counterpart of Nice Guy.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing is the meaner counterpart of Jerk with a Heart of Gold and Jerkass Facade.
• God Is Evil is an evil counterpart to God Is Good.
• God of Evil and Jerkass Gods are evil counterparts to God of Good.
• Kick the Dog and Shoot the Dog are both evil counterparts to Pet the Dog.
• The Legions of Hell is the evil counterpart of Council of Angels.
• Light Is Not Good is an evil counterpart of both Light Is Good and Dark Is Not Evil.
• A Lighter Shade of Black is the evil counterpart of A Lighter Shade of Grey.
• Love Makes You Evil is the evil counterpart to Love Redeems.
• Made of Evil is the evil counterpart to Made of Good.
• Manipulative Bastard is the evil counterpart to the Guile Hero.
• Mind Rape is the evil counterpart to Care Bear Stare.
• The Mole is the evil counterpart of Reverse Mole.
• Monster Clown is the evil counterpart of Non-Ironic Clown.
• Mooks are the evil counterparts to Red Shirts.
• Multiversal Conqueror is the evil counterpart to Guardian of the Multiverse.
• Murder the Hypotenuse and If I Can't Have You are evil counterparts to I Want My Beloved to Be Happy.
• The Omniscient Council of Vagueness is the evil counterpart ot Law Enforcement, Inc. or Heroes-R-Us.
• Orcus on His Throne is the evil counterpart to Take Your Time.
• Orphanage of Fear is the evil counterpart of Orphanage of Love.
• Peer Pressure Makes You Evil and With Friends Like These... are both evil counterparts to The Power of Friendship.
• The Power of Hate and Destructive Romance are evil counterparts to The Power of Love.
• Psychopathic Manchild is the evil counterpart to Adult Child.
• Religion of Evil, Path of Inspiration and Corrupt Church are all evil counterparts of Saintly Church.
• Ron the Death Eater is the evil counterpart of Draco in Leather Pants (or maybe that's the other way around).
• The Remnant is the evil counterpart to La Résistance.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized is the evil counterpart of The Revolution Will Not Be Villified.
• Every other Screw the Rules, etc. trope and Just Following Orders is the evil counterpart of Screw the Money, I Have Rules and Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right.
• Sealed Evil in a Can is the evil counterpart of Sealed Good in a Can.
• Seven Deadly Sins are the evil counterparts to the Seven Heavenly Virtues.
• Sex Is Evil is the evil counterpart to Sex Is Good
• Sinister Minister is the evil counterpart of Good Shepherd and Dark Shepherd.
• Stupid Evil is the evil counterpart to Stupid Good.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm story arcs features the downfall of a Reasonable Authority Figure by their evil counterpart.
• Villain Antagonist is the evil counterpart of both Hero Protagonist and Hero Antagonist.
• Villain Ball is the evil counterpart of Hero Ball.
• Villain Protagonist is the evil counterpart of both Hero Protagonist and Hero Antagonist.
• Villain Sue is the evil counterpart of Mary Sue.
• Villain with Good Publicity is the evil counterpart of Hero with Bad Publicity.
• Villainous Breakdown is the evil counterpart of Heroic BSOD.
• Wicked Cultured is the evil counterpart of Gentleman and a Scholar.