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Two Aliases, One Character
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There are, supposedly, two characters. Maybe one is never seen, or is only mentioned in passing, or whose face is never seen, or it's a book and the author ain't much for descriptions. These two never meet, are never in the same scene, and/or never interact with the same characters. Eventually it's revealed that they're actually the same person. Note that, contrary to what the trope name suggests, they do not actually need two aliases (i.e. pseudonyms) for this trope to apply — but either the characters in-universe or the reader/viewer (or both) need to believe them to be separate people, until The Reveal.

This trope also applies to Multiple Personalities, so long as characters/audience are unaware that they physically share the same body. It is possible to use this as Character Development if the character assume(s/d) a new alias unbeknownst to other characters, especially if the previous alias and persona are considered dead or status unknown. It is also used to reveal that a character is Evil All Along, especially if one of the aliases is a Hidden Villain.

This is often a source of Wild Mass Guessing, with fans trying to argue that two different characters are really the same person, usually with no given reason why this person would have another identity.

Usually involves Secret Identity, though sometimes it's only a surprise to the audience that the characters are the same. May involve Holding Both Sides of the Conversation, if the two identities pretend to talk to each other. Compare Invented Individual, where someone makes up a new identity without pretending to be them (though less personal examples can blur the line between the two); Canon Character All Along, where a new character is revealed to be an already existing character; and Future Self Reveal, where two characters are revealed to be the same person from different points in time. Contrast Collective Identity, which is Two Characters, One Alias.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime and Manga 
  • Goji and Abullah in both the original Astro Boy and Naoki Urasawa's retelling Pluto. (In the former, just a disguise; in the latter, an alternate personality.)
  • Bakugan:
    • Masquerade/Alice. This is a shock even to her.
    • In "Mectanium Surge", Wiseman, a brawler that the Noneds had aligned with was at first thought to be Gunz, a brawler Dan had fought with prior to the attack of the evil nomad mectagon. It's eventually revealed that he is actually Cordegon, the leader of the mectagon, who had used Gunz's form as a disguise.
  • Death Note:
    • L isn't just one of the top 3 detectives in the world, he's all of them under separate aliases. In Another Note, Mello estimates the number of aliases L goes by to be somewhere in the three-digit range.
    • Early in the series the audience never sees Light's father around the house, being told that he's working. Turns out he's the police chief that's already been around for a few chapters.
    • After L's death at his hands, Light Yagami assumes control of the Kira Taskforce and presents himself to police around the world under the name "L" while still maintaining his identity as Kira.
  • Digimon Adventure 02: Ken Ichijoji is the Digimon Kaiser. Although that is made rather obvious to the audience in episode 3, it's only in episode 8 that the characters learn about it.
  • Digimon Frontier: After Garmmon/Kouji saves Agnimon/Takuya from Duskmon, Takuya/Flamon is sent back in time to the human world, where he discovers a boy whose face looks identical to Kouji's. Several episodes later in the present, it's revealed that the mysterious boy is Kouichi, Kouji's long lost twin brother, and that Kouichi has been transformed into Duskmon. After Duskmon remembers who he was before becoming a Digimon, he tells Beowulfmon/Kouji the truth during their next encounter.
  • Dragon Ball Z: Videl and her classmates learn at the 25th Tenkaichi Budokai that Gohan is both, the Great Saiyaman and the Golden Warrior. (Videl already figured out that he's the former, but the latter was a surprise to her.)
  • Dragon Ball Super: Future Zamasu's ally and Goku's Evil Counterpart, Goku Black, turns out to be an alternate version of Zamasu who switched bodies with Goku.
  • Fairy Tail is rather fond of this, with some characters pulling off two aliases via magical projections of themselves:
    • Councilman Siegrain, initially believed to be the Good Twin of the terrorist Jellal, is later revealed to be Jellal's magical double created to manipulate the council in a ploy to gather enough magic energy to revive Zeref.
    • Alexei, a mysterious armored man first seen leading Raven Tail's elite team in the Grand Magic Games, is actually Raven Tail's master Ivan, who places a holographic projection of himself in the rafters while he privately interrogates his son Laxus in person since guild masters are forbidden from taking part in the tournament.
    • Mato, the pumpkin mask-wearing mascot of the Grand Magic Games, is later revealed to be the King of Fiore himself, Toma E. Fiore. The first indicator of this is when Mato is absent on the second day of the Games, which is the only day the king happens to show up.
    • Zeref's ultimate Etherious demon is called "E.N.D." While this name is an alias by itself, it is short for Etherious Natsu Dragneel, revealing the true identity behind E.N.D.
    • Emperor Spriggan, the initially unseen ruler of the Alvarez Empire, is believed by everyone who knows his name to be the next in a long line of Arc Villain before the final battle with Zeref and Acnologia. A short while later, he makes his appearance and it turns out it actually is Zeref himself, signaling the climax of the series.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist (manga and Brotherhood anime):
    • Pride, the most powerful of the Homunculi, turns out to have a public identity the Elric brothers are familiar with: Selim Bradley, the "son" of Führer King Bradley/Wrath.
    • Subverted by Van Hohenheim and Father. Considering that they look exactly alike and that Hohenheim is secretive, morally ambiguous, and much longer-lived than any normal human, it's reasonable to assume that they're the same person. Turns out that Father is a Doppelgänger who took on Hohenheim's appearance due to some shared history and Applied Phlebotinum. Not only that, the two fill the roles of Big Good and Big Bad, respectively.
  • The final episode of Futari wa Pretty Cure MaX Heart reveals that Baldes, the leader of the Elite Four, is actually Jaaku King posing as a powerful underling. However, some may argue it's not too big a twist considering that both characters have the same voice actor.
  • Go, Go, Loser Ranger!: As part of D's first assignment with the Green Squadron, he meets up with an informant named Chidori who along with him, Usukubo, and Hisui get caught in the "Groundhog Day" Loop caused by the Boss Monster Magatia. When the group figures out the loop and finally corners the monster, Chidori reveals himself to be the Green Keeper. Helping preserve the reveal is that Green Keeper is the only one whose helmet has a faceplate; otherwise, it would expose the black lipstick that Chidori has.
  • In K, Shiro is actually Adolf K. Weismann, the Silver King, in the body of an Ordinary High-School Student.
  • In Kill la Kill, Ryuko's father Isshin Matoi is revealed to be an alias for Satsuki's father Soichiro Kiryuin, which means that Ryuko and Satsuki are actually sisters.
  • In My Hero Academia...
  • In the penultimate episode of Odd Taxi, ditch_11 the one who scammed Tanaka with a Donraku eraser gum 16 years ago and ranked 1# on "Zoological Garden" turns out to be the username of Dob, a dangerous criminal Odokawa is after. Although, Dob denies scamming him before. He's shot anyways.
  • One Piece:
    • In the Punk Hazard arc, we learn that The Man Behind the Man of the Arc Villain is someone who calls himself "Joker" and is one of the most impactful figures in the criminal underworld. It's later revealed that Joker is a character we already know: Donquixote Doflamingo.
    • In Wano, there is a swordsmith named Tenguyama Hitetsu, who cares for an orphan child named Tama and is waiting for Toki's prophecy to pass. He is actually Kozuki Sukiyaki, the deposed Shogun who faked his death out of shame for letting his son die and Orochi oppress Wano for so long.
  • In Tokyo Ghoul, this serves as The Reveal of the series finale. The Aogiri Tree executive Eto Yoshimura (real name), horror novelist Sen Takatsuki, and the mysterious One-Eyed Owl are the same person.
    • The Big Bad of :re goes by three aliases, much like Eto. He is Kichimura Wasshu, Bastard Bastard son of Tsuneyoshi Wasshu; Nimura Furuta, mild-mannered assistant to Shiki Kijima; and Souta, member of the Pierrot Clown gang.
  • Witch Watch: The malevolent witch who sets his eyes on Nico has a familiar who goes by the name of Wolf and appears as a white-haired man. As Nico and her friends are on the run from the witch's puppets, Moi gets pulled into a Pocket Dimension by Keigo, who reveals that he is both working for the witch and a werewolf. As Keigo transforms, his hair changes shape and turns from black to white, revealing him to have been Wolf the entire time.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!:
    • As revealed in the final arc of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yami Bakura, the evil spirit of the Millennium Ring that Yugi and his friends had run across several times is actually Zorc Necrophades, the demonic beast that attacked ancient Egypt.
    • In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Judai and the Supreme King are revealed by Misawa to be one and the same.

    Audio Drama 
  • In the Big Finish Doctor Who story Scenes From Her Life, the insane aristocrats Lord Stormblood and Lady Selphulcre, and their creepy servant Swordfish, who are seemingly holding the Time Lady Caleera prisoner in a psi-amplification machine, are eventually revealed to be characters we've seen in the flashbacks to her life on Gallifrey: the Chief Archivist who was her superior in her junior archivist job, the Educator who kept telling her to stop daydreaming and focus on temporal mechanics, and the Psychosurgeon who supressed her Psychic Powers because they were too dangerous. She blamed all of them for being Brought Down to Normal, and wiped their memories so they'd help with her plan to regain her abilities.

    Comic Books 
  • American Born Chinese: This is a key point. Jin Wang and Danny are the same person, even though their stories are told in parallel. The aliases are used to emphasize the (cultural) differences in the character as he struggles to define his identity.
  • Batman: Batman (Grant Morrison) introduced a gentleman investigator with a bandaged face named Oberon Sexton, who assisted Batman for some time trying to track down a series of murders they were both sure were linked, but couldn't spot the pattern to. Eventually Batman realised what the pattern was: all the deaths were references to the punchlines of several jokes. The bandages came off Sexton's face, and sure enough, the Joker was grinning under them. A later Morrison story featured Nero Nykto, the criminal detective, who was hired by a gang moving into Gotham to investigate Batman Incorporated, but turned out to be Batman himself.
  • Justice League of America: In an early issue of JLA: Year One, each of the five superheroes makes an acquaintance in their civilian identities — Perez the coast guard stands up for Aquaman in a bar, Lora Denton investigates Hal Jordan's test flight for the FAA, Officer Sherman looks in on Diana Lance's flower shop, Detective Jackson starts working with forensics officer Barry Allen, and supercop John Jones is approached by reporter Cal Redmond and creepy fellow detective Vince Logan. It turns out all of these except the last two are J'onn J'onzz using his shapeshifting to spy on the others. It doesn't go down well.
  • Moon Knight: Lovable cabbie Jake Lockley and debonair millionaire Steven Grant are in actuality both aliases for the believed-dead mercenary Marc Spector. Oh, and he's also the vigilante Moon Knight.
  • The Shadow: The titular character is actually Lamont Cranston, millionaire. Except he's not. The real Lamont is secretly on an extended vacation so that Kent Allard, the actual Shadow, can enjoy posing as him while doing vigilante work.
  • Shadowhawk: The actual identity of the hero was kept secret from the reader for a full year of the comic's run.
  • Star Wars Legends: Star Wars: Legacy brings us Morrigan Corde and Nyna Callixte. It's unclear which one came first, or if they're aliases of a third identity.
  • Thunderbolts: The entire team in Thunderbolts (1997), with the reveal that they're the Masters of Evil posing as heroes only coming at the end of the first issue.
  • Watchmen: Rorschach is revealed to be the guy with the 'End is Nigh' sign.
  • X-Men: This was the original plan for the character Xorn by creator Grant Morrison; after a long time serving on the team, Xorn unmasked and turned out to be Magneto. Ultimately subverted by Executive Meddling when Xorn was retconned as an original character who believed himself to be Magneto.

    Fan Works 
  • Alicorn: Rainbow Miriam Dash, also known as Princess Aurora. The former name was given to her by her adopted parents, while the latter is her birthname, given to her by her birthmother, Princess Celestia. She greatly prefers to be called Rainbow Dash, and the only ponies who call her Aurora are either strangers who don't know her preference, or Celestia when she thinks Rainbow can't hear.
  • In the penultimate chapter Ashes of Time it's revealed President Alma Coin is in fact Lucy Gray Baird, who changed her name after she vanished. The real reason for her rebellion was revenge against Snow for everything he's done to her.
  • Climbing Out: In the second chapter, Optimus Prime informs the Autobots that Megatron is gone and they have a new ally named Leonidas. The audience knows that Prime is using Exact Words, as Leonidas is the new name of a reformed Megatron.
  • Midway through Danganronpa: Memento Mori, it is revealed that the mastermind of the Killing Game is someone known as Naoya Edogawa. In the final Class Trial, Naoya Edogawa is revealed to be the true name of the Ultimate Private Investigator, Kaiji Kudo.
  • Danganronpa: Komm Susser Tod: Mamoru Kurosawa, the Ultimate Screenwriter, is an avid fan of SHADOWMOUNTAIN, an infamous hentai artist. It is revealed partway through Chapter 1, after Mamoru is murdered, that his praise was because they were the same person.
  • Double Agent Vader:
    • Much like in canon, Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader are the same person, and this is only known by all the usual suspects in canon, though Leia catches onto it at the end of Rocks and Water. This continuity adds a third alias to this, Ekkreth the Rebel Double Agent; in relation to his Imperial persona, this is currently only known to the Organas, Mon Mothma, and Lorth Needa.
    • Rocks and Water has Kadee mention a Captain Altor in the Imperial fleet, who is apparently too competent to be the Admiral leading the Rebel hunt. The later-published The Slave Who Makes Free reveals that Tova Altor is, in fact, Tatooine freedwoman Bentu Rockstrider's assumed name as a Double Agent.
  • fernwithy's The Hunger Games fan fiction stories, The End of the World series does this, along with Composite Character, with Caesar Flickerman being a prominent presence, naturally, having an oddly deep amount of empathy for the victors and the tributes they mentor. It is occasionally, although always subtly hinted that he is also Charlie Flynn, the Victor of the 1st Quarter Quell, who refused to go back home to District 5 after they voted for him to go into the Hunger Games and disappeared shortly after President Snow took power. and eventually confirmed in one of the final stories, House of Cards.
  • For the Glory of Irk: After they're outed as Syndicate Rangers, Lor and Carrius are referred to both by their true names and their human identities of Clark and Conner. The latter get phased out over time, however, as Dib gets used to them, until they're exclusively referred to by their true names; by Chapter 42, Dib has trouble even remembering the human aliases.
  • My Hero Academia: Mechanical green: Dr. Isa Tsuneyo, Izumi's therapist after her failed suicide attempt, and Dr. Paxton Frederick Jones, the Mad Scientist responsible for the Avalon War. Both are introduced as original characters with vastly different personalities and appearances, only to be revealed as one and the same at the end of Chapter 7, the former being a cover identity for the latter while he was Faking the Dead, who proceeds with "killing" the former identity once he finds he's done all he can with it.
  • Not Another Alicorn: Rainbow Dash eventually comes to accept that her conflicting identities of Rainbow Dash and Aurora are not conflicting, and she can be both at once. By the end of the fic and going into the sequel, she uses both names interchangeably.
  • A large part of the early chapters and sidestory of Pokémon Reset Bloodlines drop separate hints about two villains: the Bloodline King and the youngest of the Seven Brothers of Orre (who is actually Ash's Disappeared Dad). It's not until Chapter 34 of the main story that the narration confirms the two are one and the same.
  • Taylor Varga: In order to keep her actual power (the ability to shapeshift into any form that is at least vaguely reptilian) under wraps, Taylor goes to a lot of trouble to pretend she is actually several related lizard-themed capes. This gets a lot easier when she works out how to use a form of spatial folding to be in two places at once, especially since the Varga can run one of her bodies while she runs the other, and both halves of her form can shapeshift independently.
  • In The Victors Project series:
    • The Big Bad of The Bonds of Blood is The Speaker, who was driven out of the Capitol and the Districts to live in the wild. At the beginning of the story, he and his tribe torture Enobaria and kills her friends (motivating her to volunteer for the 62nd Hunger Games in exchange for the opportunity to face him again). In the final chapters, he turns out to be Tanni Romero, a character from Fall Into the River seeking revenge for the punishment he got for getting a victor pregnant.
    • During Chapter 37 of the main story, a Peacekeeper commander who enlists Mags to investigate the death of her fellow Victor Wheaton is revealed to actually be Coriolanus Snow, who uses what she uncovers to seize the presidency.

    Film — Animated 
  • Moana: Big Bad lava demon Te Ka and mother goddess Te Fiti are the same entity. Te Fiti became Te Ka when her heart was stolen, robbing her of the power to create life, and returns to her real self when Moana returns it.
  • The Mystery of Mamo gives Mamo the alias of Howard Lockewood. He needs the alias because nobody gave out birth certificates 10,000 years ago.
  • In Wreck-It Ralph, King Candy, the ruler of the Sugar Rush arcade racing game, is revealed in the climax to be Turbo, the hero of an older generation racing game who was notorious among his fellow video game characters for hacking a newer game out of jealousy, which ended up breaking both in the process. It is revealed that he survived the event and did the same thing to Sugar Rush, only with a bit more subtlety.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • In Batman Begins, Bruce meets Ducard who acts as a spokesperson for the legendary Ra's al Ghul. It turns out that the Ra's that Bruce had met was more likely to be a decoy while Ducard is the actual Ra's.
  • Dressed to Kill: Dr Elliott and the transgender mass murderer Bobbi are the same person.
  • Fear Clinic: The masked shooter from the diner turns out to be the most recent patient at the clinic, Blake.
  • The Frighteners: Johnny Barlett is The Soul Collector, going around killing people with a "mystery heart condition." This has gotten him a new body count of well over twenty people by the time the film starts properly.
  • The James Bond film series has several such instances:
    • Mr. Big, the Harlem drug lord who's planning on trafficking free heroin in Live and Let Die, turns out to be Dr. Kananga, the strongman ruler of the fictional Caribbean country of San Monique.
    • GoldenEye: The eponymous and rarely-seen head of the Janus crime syndicate is revealed to be Big Bad Friend Alec Trevelyan, formerly 006 and believed to be KIA when he and Bond were sabotaging a chemical weapons facility in Arkangelsk nine years prior, when Bond meets him in St. Petersburg.
    • Die Another Day: Gustav Graves, the young head of a new multinational corporation that managed to corner the world diamond market is revealed to be Colonel Tan-Sun Moon, formerly of the Korean People's Army who was presumed dead by MI6 after Bond's mission in the Korean DMZ in the Action Prologue seemingly killed him — turns out he escaped death unbeknownst to both Western intelligence as well as his own father General Moon. It's unexpected since Gustav Graves, played by Toby Stephens, is visibly Caucasian while Colonel Moon, played by Will Yun Lee, is visibly Asian — this is explained in-universe by a radical new gene-therapy technology that could change the looks of a persom better than plastic surgery, which Moon took advantage of in Cuba while laying low during the years Bond spent as a POW in North Korea.
    • The Big Bad in the Daniel Craig-era Bond films is revealed to be Franz Oberhauser in Spectre, the son-by-blood of Bond's foster father. He took on the name Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the name of the Big Bad who appeared in the Sean Connery and Roger Moore films prior to the reboot, as Oberhauser rejected his birth name after seeing his father favor James over him when they were children, eventually murdering their father and taking on his mother's maiden name.
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The British Government official known as "M" who brought the League together turns out to also be The Phantom, their opponent. And then it's revealed that his real identity is Professor James Moriarty.
  • The child protagonist Casey in Masquerade is revealed to be a younger version of the antagonist Rose (whose real name is Casey Rose). Confused? There are actually two narrative threads happening at the same time, separated by many years.
  • In Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, there are several references to Scott's band wanting to attract the attention of G-man, an influential producer. Ramona also makes some off-hand references to her previous boyfriend Gideon. These two both refer to Gideon Graves, who is the Big Bad.
  • Scream: A version that applies to several versions where the Ghostface killer is revealed to be another member of the cast, and plenty of times more than one.
  • In The Secret of My Success, business-savvy executive Carlton Whitfield is actually lowly mailroom worker Brantley Foster. This double-life isn't concealed from the viewing audience, but only one person in the movie (Brantley's co-worker) learns of it before the climax, and even then, only by accident.
  • Star Wars does this quite a bit, although by now most of them are well known:
    • Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, a Jedi Knight who fell to great evil by becoming a Sith Lord.
    • Chancellor Sheev Palpatine/Darth Sidious, if you watch the movies in chronological rather than production order.
    • In The Phantom Menace, it's revealed that Queen Amidala and her handmaiden Padmé are actually one and the same, the Queen having swapped places with a lookalike handmaiden for her protection. The fact that Natalie Portman (Padmé) and Keira Knightley (decoy Sabé) look quite similar and that the Queen is always wearing rather elaborate make-up and clothing helps to keep up the charade; apparently, their own parents had difficulty telling them apart on set when they were in full costume.
    • At the end of Attack of the Clones, Count Dooku and Darth Tyranus are revealed to be the same person, though most viewers had already guessed this. However, the Jedi themselves wouldn't know this until "The Lost One", when Lom Pyke reveals Dooku's Sith name during his fight with Anakin and Obi-Wan after eliminating Silman on Oba Diah.
    • In A New Hope, Luke wonders if Obi-Wan Kenobi, the man mentioned in Princess Leia's emergency message, is a relation to "Old Ben" Kenobi, a local hermit. He is soon informed by Old Ben that he himself is Obi-Wan.
    • In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke meets a weird little green hermit on Dagobah who says he can take him to Jedi Master Yoda. He soon realises that the hermit actually is Yoda himself, who had been giving him a Secret Test of Character.
    • Done quite subtly in Solo. Vos, the head of the Crimson Dawn syndicate, offhandedly mentions that he himself answers to someone even higher up the chain of command. In the end, that someone is revealed to be Maul, the former Sith apprentice of Darth Sidious. This is particularly surprising for audiences who weren't familiar with The Clone Wars or Rebels, as Maul was apparently killed off much earlier in the franchise (The Phantom Menace, to be exact, which was released nineteen years before Solo).
  • In TRON: Legacy: Castor, Zuse's gatekeeper, actually is Zuse.
  • The Usual Suspects features the hapless Verbal Kint interrogated by Agent Kujan, recounting how he and several other criminals, led by ex-cop Dean Keaton, were press-ganged into working for the elusive mastermind Keyser Söze. In The Summation, Kujan surmises that Keaton was in fact Söze all along, posing as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold to manipulate Kint and the other criminals, and then personally dispose of them. However, in the movie's Signature Scene a few minutes later, Kujan realizes too late that he had it backwards; Söze is actually Kint himself.
  • Valentine: The film's main villain running around and killing the main cast is a faceless figure wearing a Fallen Cupid mask. The most obvious suspect is Jeremy Melton, a young man who'd been framed for rape by the main characters years ago. However, Jeremy hasn't been seen in years; the real mystery is figuring out which of the other characters in the film is Jeremy's public identity.

    Literature 
  • Mr. World and Low-Key Lyesmith are both aliases of the god Loki in American Gods.
  • Another: At the end of the climax, it turns out that Sakakibara's aunt Reiko has not only been the assistant homeroom teacher Mikami the entire time, but is also the dead person who is the caused of the cursed deaths in the present. Part of why the deception towards the readers and audience worked is because that their full name has not been disclosed prior to this and that they look completely different when they're in private or working at school. The anime took a step further by crediting their Seiyuu with a pseudonym for the latter "role" in order to avoid Significant Double Casting.
  • The Apothecary Diaries: Shisui—a servant girl who Maomao befriends—turns out to have been an alias used by Consort Loulan as a King Incognito disguise to covertly influence palace affairs while advancing her family's machinations. No one suspected this thanks to her skills in disguising herself and using her lady-in-waiting Renpu as a Body Double so she can sneak away and roam the palace as Shisui.
  • Ascendance of a Bookworm:
    • This is done with the archduke of Ehrenfest. He gets several mentions in the story that don't include his first name, only to properly debut via a King Incognito during which he goes by his real first name. On top of this, a character who debuts much earlier than the archduke of Ehrenfest turns out to be a member of his family, but always refers to him by title in public and, in one case, his own thoughts. There is also a chapter establishing that character's family situation that mentions the relative who's the archduke via the nature of their familial relationship all while not using any titles or names.
    • A young girl from a wealthy family is basically engaged to an adult noble and will become his mistress as soon as she reaches adult age. Later in the story, an Impoverished Patrician noble the protagonist met more or less by chance mentions that he had to acquire a large sum of money he needed by borrowing it from the family of his older brother's mistress. That scene might be a good time to remember that at that point, all the reader knows of the man to whom the aforementioned wealthy young girl is "engaged" is his name and the fact that he's part of the nobility's lowest strata.
  • Baccano!:
    • Claire Stanfield not only has the reputation as the world's most violent and dangerous assassin, but is also the greatest challenger to that claim, Felix Walken. Gustavo then makes the mistake of hiring the latter to kill the former (along with his stepbrothers, the Gandors) and violent hilarity ensues.
    • Despite the fact that immortals have magically-enforced difficulty with aliases, Lebreau Fermet Viralesque is usually only known by one part of his real name per identity.
  • The Beginning After the End: In Arthur's past life as Grey, he had a best friend named Nico who he lost contact with after he was tricked into murdering his fiancée Cecilia. In his reincarnation, he makes a new best friend named Elijah who gets kidnapped during the attack on Xyrus Academy. Years later at the end of the War Arc, Arthur is confronted by a seemingly brainwashed Elijah, who then reveals that he is Nico's reincarnation and was Not Brainwashed the entire time as he has been seeking revenge for Cecilia's death.
  • Come Out and Fight: Bearded prospector Dobie Gill and toothless, eyepatch-wearing goat farmer Cheesy Pew, the two hermits who clearly have important information about what is going on but quickly drop out of sight, are really disguises Maxwell and Riley Chilton assume a few days of every month to commit acts of sabotage and other crimese. The pair are fugitive murderers from Ohio, so if anyone from Ohio traces them to New Mexico, they can disappear into the Pew and Gill disguises, and if anyone implicates Pew and Gill in the local crimes, they can abandon those disguises while continuing as normal in their other personas.
  • Cradle Series: One of the background plots throughout the series is the search for Ozriel the Reaper, the missing eighth Judge of the Abidan. It is not until the end of the tenth book (out of twelve) that we discover that Eithan Aurelius (who has been part of the main party since the second book) is Ozriel under a veil of unprecedented effectiveness.
  • Dan Brown's Robert Langdon series: In Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code, the mysterious unseen leader of the villains turns out to be a seemingly sympathetic character.
  • Chronicles of Ancient Darkness: In book 5, Thiazzi the Oak Mage has killed the Forest Horse Clan's mage and become the new mage (or impersonated the old one), riling up the clan against the Auroch Clan. Renn goes to reveal this to the Auroch Mage, only to find out that Thiazzi is the Auroch Mage as well.
  • In the Coldfire Trilogy, Gerald Terrant passes himself off as a servant to the Hunter, but is actually the Hunter himself.
  • Cormoran Strike Novels:
    • In Career of Evil, Donald Laing and Ray Williams are the same person. Laing (his true identity) uses crutches he doesn't need when acting as himself, and when he meets Strike in the guise of Ray Williams, he uses a different accent and rubs something in his eyes to make himself cry, so he can hold a handkerchief to his face.
    • In Troubled Blood, Strike interviews Janice Beattie twice and speaks to Clare Spencer the social worker on the phone. Janice and Clare are the same person. Janice, who speaks with a thick Cockney accent, adopts a "middle-class" accent when phoning Strike as "Clare".
  • The Cosmere:
    • In Warbreaker, it turns out that the infamous Kalad the Usurper, who nearly started a world war, and the revered Peacegiver, who ended it, were really the same person, who had become The Atoner, even though history thinks this was two different people. That person has many names, and is currently known as Vasher, and their "real" name (or at least the name they were given when they Returned) was Warbreaker the Peaceful.
    • To add to the above example, in The Stornlight Archive, Vasher turns up in book 2, Words of Radiance going by Vanthel/Zahel, and Vivenna turns up in book 3, Oathbringer, as Highmarshal Azure. Vasher is more easily identifiable before the reveal, as he uses colour-related idioms, while Vivenna isn't unmasked until she's seen in Shadesmar.
    • Shard Bavadin/Autonomy. There are entire pantheons of which every member is her.
  • In The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmond Dantès is also known as Lord Wilmore, Sinbad the Sailor, Abbé Busoni, Monsieur Zaccone, and, of course, The Count of Monte Cristo.
  • In The Dagger and the Coin, it is revealed at the end of the first novel and heavily hinted at throughout that the renegade Spider Priest of the prologue is one and the same as the affable actor Master Kit.
  • The Dalemark Quartet: In the fourth book, The Crown of Dalemark, Maewen, who is from the future, knows that the first King of Dalemark after the interregnum was Amil I "the Great". At the climax of the book, it's revealed that Mitt, introduced in book 2, Drowned Ammet, becomes Amil, taking it as his regnal name.
    • It's hinted at in the fact that both Mitt and Amil are shortened variants of Alhammitt.
  • From Danganronpa Zero, Ryoko Otonashi is Big Bad Junko Enoshima after getting amnesia.
  • In The Dark Tower, Marten and Walter are both aliases for King's meta-villain Randall Flagg.
  • Death in the Clouds: Norman is Mr. Richards, the husband of Giselle's daughter. In addition, Giselle's daughter Anne Morisot is Madeline, Lady Horbury's maid.
  • In The Dinosaur Lords, the Mysterious Watcher Witness and Mysterious Benefactor Aphrodite turn out to be one and the same mysterious Genius Loci.
  • In Dragaera, Kiera the Thief is also Sethra Lavode. In this case, the two characters share some common friends, but The Reveal is totally a shock because they seemingly have little in common, although once the reveal is made, clues in earlier books become noticeable.
  • In Dune, the Fremen leader "Liet" and the Planetologist "Dr. Kynes" are actually Liet-Kynes.
  • In The Fifth Season, the first book of the Broken Earth trilogy, it gets revealed that the three characters the book follows the perspective of, Damaya, Syenite, and Essun, are the same person at different times. Similarly, Tonkee turns out to be Binof.
  • Fight Club: Tyler and the narrator. In fact, at one point, the narrator even wonders if Tyler and Marla are the same person, invoking this trope.
  • There's a number of examples of this in The First Law and its semi-sequels:
    • Early in the first trilogy, dashing soldier turned disfigured Torture Technician Inquisitor Glokta has his Big Fun former friend and comrade Salems Rews shipped to a penal colony in the North for defrauding the Crown. In the story line set in the North, one character who appears is the hideously burned convict and ex-soldier Pike. There's no real hint that Rews and Pike are the same person, and it is therefore a shocking twist when Pike/Rews pulls No Doubt the Years Have Changed Me on Glokta at the very end of the trilogy.
    • In Best Served Cold (2009), the antiheroine Monza is nursed back to health after her attempted murder by a somewhat creepy man calling himself the Bone Thief. Also appearing in the novel is the seasoned Professional Killer Shenkt. What makes the reveal that the two men are the same person a bit of twist is that the Bone Thief was established as an ally of Monza and Shenkt at least ostensibly accepted a commission to kill her.
    • In Red Country, although the real names of the characters are never said, the reader is to understand that The So-Called Coward Lamb is The Dreaded Logen Ninefingers/The Bloody Nine and The Mayor is former Merchant Princess Carlot dan Eider.
    • The magus Bayaz has ruled the Union behind the scenes for centuries, something which he accomplished through multiple instances of this. Bayaz is bald as have been the lead advisers to various kings and Bayaz claims apparently truthfully that all of those bald men were actually just him. Among other things, he was Bialoveld, known for being The Good Chancellor and producing Machiavellian political writings, as well as the arch-reactionary Zoller who founded the Inquisition and enforced the law through torture and repression. Additionally, Bayaz controls the powerful bank Valint and Balk and is both Valint and Balk.
  • Foreign Affairs (1984): Fred eventually figures out that his high-class actress girlfriend Rosemary, and Rosemary's foul-mouthed Cockney cleaning lady Mrs. Harris, are the same person. Rosemary, who 1) has long wanted to play working-class characters, but doesn't get offered such parts, and 2) is eventually revealed to be mentally unstable, has occasionally been masquerading as an otherwise non-existent cleaning lady for months.
  • Foundation Series:
    • The Mule: Magnifico Giganticus, who claims to be the Mule's escaped jester, is actually the Mule. The fact that nearly every description the reader gets of the Mule comes from Magnifico (it's explicitly pointed out that Magnifico is pathologically terrified of the Mule, making his descriptions gross exaggerations) helps obscure this.
    • Prelude to Foundation: Cleon I's Chief of Staff, Eto Demerzel, is hiding a secret identity; he's actually R. Daneel Olivaw, from Robots and Empire. Chetter Hummin is suspicious of him, and tries to help Hari Seldon avoid the man behind the throne, because Eto is hiding secrets and will want to use Seldon's work for selfish reasons. This works up until the climax, when Seldon encounters Eto Demerzel directly, and realizes that Chetter Hummin is a false identity used by Demerzel to control his actions all along. The identity (Chetter Hummin) is a pun — he's cheating at being human — because he's a robot.
  • Tom McGrath's Gates of Ivory, Gates of Horn: Cary and his nemesis/brother are different sides of the same person.
  • In The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, the lost Good Queen Mallow is now the semi-villain Marquess.
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: This is done with the Heir of Slytherin (the instigator of the attacks against Muggleborns at Hogwarts), and Tom Marvolo Riddle (the person who solved the crime the last time the Heir of Slytherin menaced Hogwarts). It turns out that Riddle is not only the Heir of Slytherin (he pretended to solve the crime by framing Hagrid), both identities are aliases of Lord Voldemort, the resident Big Bad of the series. Tom Riddle is his birth name, he is probably the Heir of Slytherin, and Lord Voldemort is an alias he chose for himself as a Significant Anagram.
  • A Head Full of Ghosts: Merry's memories are interspersed with chatty blog posts breaking down the exorcism show from "Karen Brissette". Merry is Karen.
  • Hercule Poirot series:
    • Murder on the Orient Express, Mrs. Hubbard is actually Linda Arden, Daisy Armstrong's grandmother.
    • One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, Mabelle Sainsbury Seale is actually Mrs. Albert Chapman, who herself is really Alistair Blunt's first wife, Gerda, who's been posing as his cousin! And the last chapter reveals Reginald Barnes is actually Albert Chapman, and hence knew "Mrs Albert Chapman" was an imposter.
  • I Did NOT Give That Spider Superhuman Intelligence!: Corporate-Sponsored Superhero Palooka Joe and his supposed sponsor Jake Bradley are the same man.
  • The Last Of The Venitars takes this to the extreme. Tobias, James and the Beast are all revealed to be the same person, albeit in different time periods. Francis is also revealed to be "the old man".
  • In The Lives of Christopher Chant, the cross-dimensional smuggler known as "the Wraith" turns out to be the protagonist's Uncle Ralph. note 
  • Aragorn as Strider/Thorongil/whatever name he uses for adventuring and Aragorn as Elessar the Isildur's Heir in The Lord of the Rings. There's no surprise for the reader, but in-universe not many people know they are the same person. Barliman Butterbur particularly is very surprised when he learns that the King who Returned and Strider the strange vagabond he knew are one and the same.
  • Scylla/Henry Levy in Marathon Man. The novel makes a big secret out of it.
  • Sylvia Daisy, the cruel governess and Mrs. Pouncer, the wicked witch in The Midnight Folk.
  • In Les Misérables, Jean Valjean is also known as Monsieur Madeleine, Ultime Fauchelevent, and Monsieur Leblanc which are both twists in-universe and out (although more so the former). Also, the Jondrettes later in the novel are revealed to be the Thénardiers.
  • The Norby Chronicles:
    • Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot: Ing the Ingrate is deceiving everyone by wearing a voice distorter and a mask to prevent people from learning his true identity; Agent Two Gridlow. It isn't revealed until the penultimate chapter, and neither character is on-screen for very long.
    • Norby Finds a Villain: By chapter three, Threezy is revealed to be Ing, from Norby's first adventure. As Ing, he's malevolent and attempts to destroy the universe, but nearly dying and then getting healed by the Twintas causes a realigning of his priorities. Once he wakes again at the end of chapter fifteen, he chooses to remain as Threezy the funny clown who does magic tricks.
  • In The Pale Assassin, Le Scalpel is actually Guy Dechamps.
  • Gen is actually the Queen's Thief, Eugenides, revealed at the end of The Thief, the first book in The Queen's Thief series.
  • Ravenloft: In Vampire of the Mists, Katya and Trina are revealed at the end to be the same person.
  • In Philip MacDonald's 1930 murder mystery The Rynox Murder, the chief suspect turns out to be an alternate identity of the “victim”.
  • In The Saga of Darren Shan, you know from as soon as he introduces himself that Harkat Mulds is a creature resurrected from a dead soul. What you don't know until book 10 is that the person he was when he was alive is Kurda Smahlt, a vampire who featured prominently in the series before that point, and whose life overlaps with Harkat's presence in the story. Time travel was involved.
  • In Sard Harker, Harker stumbles on a plot by a criminal named Hirsch to abduct and ritually murder a woman named Margarita Kingsborough. He spends most of the novel a few steps behind the villains, and doesn't meet either Hirsch or Miss Kingsborough properly until nearly the end — and both of them turn out to be examples of this trope.
    • Part of Harker's backstory is that many years ago he met and fell in love with a woman called Juanita de la Torre, only to be parted from her in circumstances such that he was unable to find her again — until he meets Margarita Kingsborough near the end of the novel, and immediately recognizes her. This is foreshadowed heavily from the outset and the eventual reveal is not so much "Señorita de la Torre and Miss Kingsborough are the same person" as "This is how it's possible that Señorita de la Torre and Miss Kingsborough are the same person".
    • Father Garsinton, an apparently friendly character Harker meets near the beginning of the book before stumbling on the kidnapping plot, turns out to have been Hirsch in disguise.
    • Also, when recounting the backstory of Harker's friend Don Miguel, mention is made of a man named Rafael who was involved in the death of Don Miguel's fiancée and escaped retribution afterward; the first time that Rafael's surname or Hirsch's given name is mentioned is when it is revealed that Rafael Hirsch is both of them.
  • The Scarlet Pimpernel: The Scarlet Pimpernel and his everyday identity are introduced separately and treated as two distinct characters until Marguerite realises who the latter is, around two thirds of the way through the novel.
  • In The Secret Adversary, the heroes need to locate a missing woman before the villain learns an important secret from her, but are hampered by the fact that they don't know what either looks like. (They have the woman's name, but no photo or physical description, and the villain keeps both his true name and appearance secret even from his colleagues.) Both the villain and the woman appear in the narrative and interact with the heroes under other names before their true identities are revealed.
  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Lord Bertilak and the Green Knight turn out to be the same person.
  • Skulduggery Pleasant likes to do this.
  • So I'm a Spider, So What?: Shiraori, the Big Bad to Shun, one of the main characters, and the one responsible for his brother's death is Kumoko, the other main character, after she has ascended to a God.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire:
    • In A Game of Thrones, after being forced into retirement by Joffrey, Ser Barristan Selmy pledges to serve the rightful ruler and vanishes. A decent part of the next two books features various people vying for the throne wondering where the hell he went, until late in the third book he unmasks himself... on the other side of the world, where he's serving Daenerys Targaryen and has been for some time, under the name Arstan Whitebeard.
    • In A Feast for Crows, Samwell Tarly briefly meets a girl called Cat. The reader knows all along that Cat is really Arya Stark, and that she is the sister of Samwell's friend Jon Snow, but he is oblivious to this.
    • Theon Greyjoy is knocked out at the end of A Clash of Kings, and then is missing for the next two books. Then in A Dance with Dragons, a dirty, weak, and slightly insane character called Reek is introduced. Gradually, hints are made, until it is finally made clear that Reek is what is left of Theon after a year of physical and mental torture.
  • Song of the Lioness: In book 3, The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, a mysterious rogue named Claw turns up in Corus as part of an attempt to become the Rogue himself, overthrowing the current Rogue, George. George gets suspicious that Claw may have been noble-born, and brings Baron Myles in to see Claw secretly. Myles agrees with George's suspicions, and sets one of his agents to investigate. The investigation reveals that Claw is Ralon of Malven, The Bully page who troubled Alanna during her early years in knight training, before she managed to decisively beat him in a fight and cause him to quit training. He was unrecognizable due to facial disfigurements caused when the maid of a girl he tried to rape threw acid in his face.
  • The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Jekyll and Hyde are the same person.
  • "Talma Gordon": At the end, Dr. Thornton's hitherto unseen wife, who was mentioned only briefly at the start, is revealed to be none other than Talma herself.
  • Cleverly used in the Terok Nor book Dawn of the Eagles, in which a single character is secretly both a member of the Orallian religious underground and a Central Command officer. Both roles use his real name, with the twist that the narration for one role is on a First-Name Basis, and the other on Last-Name Basis. Thus, The Reveal is as simple as him saying his full name, Thrax Sa'kat.
  • For most of Thief of Time, even Lobsang and Jeremy themselves don't realize they're the same person. This one is more confusing than most, because they're the same person but have separate bodies (it's complicated).
  • In The Three Hostages, the hero has several encounters with mysterious "sad, grey-faced" man who forms part of the villain's entourage, but doesn't learn his name until near the end, at which point he turns out to be a person who has been mentioned several times in another context.
  • In Unnatural Death, Lord Peter and Inspector Parker never meet the prime suspect in person, so they don't realise that another one of the suspects whom they have met is an alias for the same person rather than an accomplice. The truth is eventually revealed when Bunter demonstrates the two have the same fingerprints.
  • The Westing Game: The entire point of the game is that one man has set up three identities named for points of the compass, and the winner is the first person to realize this and look for a fourth.
  • Where the Crawdads Sing: The final chapter reveals that Kya, the main character, is also "lesser-known poet, Amanda Hamilton, published recently in the local newspaper", whose poems she would often quote throughout the novel, and which has seemed unusually seemed to parallel aspects of her life.
  • The Witchlands:
    • Safi has a beef on Caden, aka the Chiseled Cheater, who "stole" all her money in a card game. Aeduan meets the commander of Prince Leopold's Hell-Bard bodyguards, a man named Fitz Grieg. It's eventually revealed that the two are one and the same: Hell-Bard Commander Caden Fitz Grieg.
    • In Sightwitch, Eridysi finds out that the soldier she's fallen in love with and the Rook King's general she's been wanting to meet for some time are the same person. She calls him out on this, but he replies that he didn't lie to her: he is a soldier, just a really high-ranking one.
    • Bloodwitch reveals that the Ragnor, the Raider King of Arithuania, is really the Rook King's General.
  • In The Word Is Murder, Robert Cornwallis, the funeral director and Dan Roberts, Damian Cowper's thwarted RADA classmate are the same person.
  • The Zodiac Series: In the third book, Black Moon, it's revealed that Morscerta, the Aquarian ambassador who seemingly died in the armada, and Crompton, the current ambassador who until then had seemed like a Reasonable Authority Figure, are not only the same person, they're also Aquarius, the master who had been orchestrating all the tragedies in the series.
  • Zones of Thought: A justifiably partial example appears in The Children of the Sky. What's left of Steel is disguised as Screwfloss using fake dyed pelt-markings, but when one of his members is killed, he loses some cognitive capacity, which causes him to be lax in keeping the disguise maintained.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In the second season of Chuck, the main focus for the protagonist is to find two people: Orion, the creator of the Intersect project whom no one he's spoken to has seen or heard from, and his estranged father, Stephen Bartowski. Naturally, Stephen is Orion.
  • Doctor Who:
    • Captain Jack Harkness and the Face of Boe, two vastly different characters that appeared in vastly different stories, are implied to be this by a line of dialogue in "Last of the Time Lords".
    • Season 3 name-drops a then-unseen character, Harold Saxon, several times. in The Sound of Drums it is revealed that Saxon was actually the Master the entire time.
    • A number of characters introduced around the same time in series 6 (Amy's baby, the girl in the astronaut suit, Amy's childhood friend Mels) turn out to be River Song at different ages.
    • "The Return of Doctor Mysterio": Grant's employer, Mrs. Lombard, doesn't appear on screen until well into the episode, at which point it's revealed that she's Lucy Fletcher, the Intrepid Reporter that Grant rescued as his superhero alter ego. (Fletcher is her maiden name, which she still uses for professional purposes.) Grant knew all along, but the Doctor and Nardole find out at the same time as the audience.
  • His & Hers: local TV reporter Lexy Jones is Catherine Alexis Kelly, or Alex Kelly, or Catherine Kelly.
  • From the Kamen Rider franchise...
    • Kamen Rider Fourze: The series' Big Bad, initially just called "The Red-Eyed Man", turns out to be Amanogawa High School's chairman Mitsuaki Gamou, former astronaut and implied by a Flashback at the start of the series to be the killer of Kengo Utahoshi's father. One of his Dragons is the incredibly powerful and ruthless Virgo Zodiarts, whose main job is making Gamou's enemies disappear...permanently. Kamen Rider Meteor has his supervisor Tachibana, who tracks Zodiarts from the satellite M-BUS that gives Ryusei the power to transform into Meteor. Later on we meet Dr. Kuniteru Emoto, a friend of Dr. Utahoshi's who is nervous and clumsy but very smart and willing to help Kengo. The big reveal: Emoto is Virgo, Tachibana, and Dr. Utahoshi's killer. They were friends once, but he grew jealous and betrayed his friend — and he's capable of generating the "red eyes" like Gamou. Over time he began to feel remorse for his actions and tried to redeem himself by helping the Kamen Riders as Tachibana in the hopes of stopping Gamou.
    • Kamen Rider Wizard: From the start of the series we have the "White Wizard", the enigmatic Rider-like mentor who appeared to Haruto after he survived the Sabbat, giving him the Transformation Trinket and training he needed to become Wizard. Partway through the series, a mysterious man shows up at the antiques shop and commissions "Pops" Wajima to craft him a magic ring; Haruto's contacts in the government identify the man as Sou Fueki, a physicist and college professor. While Fueki being the White Wizard is obvious enough, the real reveal is that he's also Wiseman, the Big Bad who's been commanding the Phantoms, and is really playing both sides to achieve his ultimate goal, resurrecting his deceased daughter. Post-series it was revealed that the White Wizard's official name is "Kamen Rider Wiseman", which was kept hidden for obvious reasons.
    • Played strangely in Kamen Rider Ghost — the ghostly Sage who assists the heroes is obviously played by the same actor as the villains' Minister Edith, but they're so different in personality and goals that it's unclear whether this is at play or there's some other reason for their resemblance (further confused by implications that one or both characters can create Artificial Ghosts). Then the heroes start meeting with Edith, and he doesn't seem to recognise them or know who the Sage is. The truth is revealed anticlimactically when at one of their meetings, Edith forgets to change out of his Sage outfit.
    • Kamen Rider Build does this legitimately with Blood Stalk, the mysterious and eccentric enemy commander who's present from the start of the series. Fairly early on it's revealed that he's actually Soichi Isurugi, the mysterious and eccentric coffee shop owner who's been helping Build from the very beginning. Later on, it's revealed that "Stalk" is actually an alien entity named Evolt that was possessing Isurugi and trying to reclaim his original power so he can destroy Earth.
  • Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: "Families": Jason Connor uses the alias Barry Coyle to continue his long running affair and hide his second family from the first and the first from the second.
  • Life on Mars: The Morton Brothers/Vic Tyler.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has the Dark Lord Sauron who first appears as Halbrand, a scruffy, cynical human who charms and manipulates Galadriel and gives her a We Can Rule Together proposal. Later, he transforms into Annatar, the Lord of Gifts and presents himself as an angelic being sent to help Celebrimbor forge the rings of power. Sauron is shown to be a shape-shifter will become one or the other when the situation calls for it.
  • Lost:
    • The Man in Black, Fake Locke, Fake Christian, and the Smoke Monster are all one and the same being.
    • Locke's father also turns out to be "Sawyer", the con artist behind Sawyer's tragic childhood.
  • Magnum, P.I.: Magnum suspects this about Higgins, that he is secretly author Robin Masters, the never-seen owner of their estate. Higgins even seems to confirm this to him at one point, but then quickly walks it back.
  • A very minor example in universe occurs in The Newsroom, Both Will Macavoy and Charlie Skinner have sources that told them about war crime committed by the US government, while the story was pretty much a go at that point Will's source cinches the deal and galvanizes the crew. Since the story is told via flashback the audience is instantly aware that they share the same source, but none of the characters realize that till it's much too late.
  • Odd Squad: In "Totally Odd Squad", Oprah tells the story of how she became the Director of Precinct 13579. Back in 1983, she was an Investigation agent and stopped a villainess known as the "Patternista", who had stolen the giant ball of gum from the town museum and kidnapped Oprah's boss. Despite her partner O'Donahue giving up and (presumably) quitting Odd Squad midway through, Oprah pushes on and manages to find the Patternista's location. However, when she arrives and confronts the villainess, she takes off her outfit and reveals that the "Patternista" is really Oprah's boss, who had been planning to retire and made up the entire case as a test to see if Oprah was fit to be her successor.
  • Power Rangers:
  • Stranger Things Season 4 ups the ante by having four characters across two storylines all being the same person: Victor Creel's son Henry, initially thought to be one of Vecna's first victims, had psychic powers, and was the one to actually kill his sister and mother, but the strain of using his powers like that put hin in a coma. The government took him and began conducting experiements in Hawkins Labratory, where he becomes the test subject number One. Later he is watching over the later subjects disguised as an orderly, and he manipulates Eleven into removing his Power Limiter, after which he massacres the other inhabitants. When Eleven rejects his offer that We Can Rule Together, a psychic duel ensues that ends with him hurled into the Upside Down, where he becomes Vecna.
  • Tin Man (2007) had a mild example when the party went to find "The Seeker" in the realm of the unwanted, who could guide them to Ahamo, one of the Queen's helpers. Well, yes, they are the same fellow... and that same fellow's third alias was the Queen's consort (and DG & Azkedellia's father).
  • The Westworld first season finale gives us two of these reveals.
    • We first found out that the chivalrous, likeable William and the older, seemingly sociopathic Man in Black are the same person separated by 30 years, all of William's scenes having actually been flashbacks.
    • Then we discover that our protagonist Dolores is in fact Wyatt, the sinister cult leading boogeyman-like figure oft mentioned throughout the season (specifically, Wyatt is a character who's code was merged with Dolores' decades earlier, and who she ends up channeling in full force once she achieves sentience).

    Tabletop Games 
  • Changeling: The Lost: A True Fae can hold between zero and five Titles, each of which is for most purposes an entire separate character with its own goals, personality, powers, and resources. These Titles do not necessarily have to be related to each other in any way (especially since the Fae are constantly fighting to steal Titles from each other), and sometimes the only way to discover the relation between a Fae's Titles is to injure one of them and see who else gets angry.

    Theatre 
  • L'art Reste tells the story of Kim Hyang-an Back to Front, starting with her death in 2004, and college student Byeon Dong-rim chronologically. In the end, they meet in the middle, showing how she came to change her name.
  • In Jasper in Deadland, Jasper has to rescue his friend Agnes from 'Deadland' before the place curses him with amnesia and he forgets who he is. On his journey he is assisted by an Afterlife Tourguide named Gretchen who turns out to be Agnes, having forgotten her previous life.
  • In The Umbilical Brothers' live show Speedmouse, the Brothers frequently interact with Tina the Stage Manager, who is heard but never seen, and the Roadie, a voiceless stagehand in a clown costume. The denouement features the Brothers discovering that Tina and the Roadie are one and the same.

    Video Games 
  • BioShock 1 has Atlas, who turns out to be Frank Fontaine — an unscrupulous mobster who sparked the Rapture civil war and has been manipulating the player character throughout the game. He's had numerous other aliases in the past as he tricked others into doing his bidding as well.
  • Two examples in BioShock Infinite: Robert and Rosalind Lutece turn out to be not twins, but different instances of the same person, who happened to be of the opposite gender in a different timeline. Also, the protagonist of the game, Booker DeWitt, and the Big Bad Father Comstock likewise turn out to be the same person from different timelines. To kill Comstock for good, Booker has to go back in time to before the two diverged and kill himself.
  • In The Case of the Golden Idol, Lazarus Herst is the alter ego of Edmund Cloudsley. Having used the idol's powers to make himself younger, Cloudsley fakes his death and resumes his work under his new identity.
  • In Chrono Trigger, Fiendlord Magus from 600 A.D. and Prince Janus from 12,000 B.C. are one and the same. Time Travel is involved, so both Magus and Janus appear on-screen at the same time. Because both versions of this character were introduced in two different time periods, not to mention that Magus is a man and Janus is a boy, players are none the wiser about their connection. However, it's revealed that an incident caused Janus to be forcibly dragged into the year 580 A.D. with no way to return. 20 years later, he gained a terrifying reputation as the Fiendlord Magus.
  • The Raincoat Killer in Deadly Premonition is George Woodman.
  • Destiny: You’re informed fairly early that Dredgen Yor was an evil Guardian and that his true identity was concealed from the public. You don’t learn until much later that his true identity is one of the other Posthumous Characters you hear a lot about; Rezyl Azzir, the much-beloved Greater-Scope Paragon. The Vanguard covered up the fact that he became Dredgen out of fear of what it would do to morale.
  • Detective Grimoire: Tangle Tower has this with the culprit revealed as Penny Pointer and Hawkshaw as the same person, giving her and the disguise a surest alibi to cover their tracks.
  • Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening reveals Arkham is Jester, but for their screentime in around the first half of the story, they are never present in the same scene, thus creating the impression that they are two different characters. Arkham is mostly seen accompanying Vergil, while Jester is mostly seen indirectly guiding Dante if the latter is stuck while exploring. Oftentimes however, Arkham has chances of separating ways with Vergil, justifying why he can still move somewhere as Jester. When The Reveal is made known to the other characters, Arkham constantly switches between his usual form and Jester.
  • Disgaea:
  • Final Fantasy XIV:
    • The Shadowhunter encountered in Patch 4.3 is a gunblade-wielding Garlean who claims to have history with the Scions and the Warrior of Light when he comes to Alphinaud's aid in the Burn. This is because he's Gaius van Baelsar, and he's out to kill every Ascian he can get his hands on as revenge for manipulating him and for the destruction at the Praetorium.
    • Solus zos Galvus, the first emperor of the Garlean Empire, dies relatively early in the plot to illness. However, it's later revealed that he is in fact Emet-Selch, the mysterious third Paragon of the Ascians, who used his death as Solus to plunge Garlemald into a bloody Civil War.
    • The Shadowkeeper is a mythical figure from Norvandt's past who once terrorized the land and did battle with its Warriors of Light. In the wake of the Flood of Light, the Shadowkeeper has almost been deified as an embodiment of darkness while the Warriors of Light are scorned for nearly ending the world. The Shadowkeeper is in fact Cylva, the barmaid at the Wandering Stairs, and once a Warrior of Light of the Thirteenth. She once journeyed alongside Ardbert's party and became the Shadowkeeper in a desperate attempt to save her world. But she later realized her folly and now hopes to preserve her friends' memory through the true story of their heroics.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • Parodied with Devdan and Danved in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. Despite doing absolutely nothing to chance his appearance, Danved still claims he's not Devdan. Played straight with The Black Knight and General Zelgius, and Sephiran and Lehran.
    • Fire Emblem: Three Houses:
      • The true name of "the goddess" worshiped by the Church of Seiros isn't revealed until a few months into the game: it's Sothis, as in the young-looking girl whose spirit is bound to the protagonist's.
      • Saint Seiros and the Four Saints Macuil, Indech, Cichol and Cethleann were the legendary heroes who defeated Nemesis a thousand years ago. They are still around as Rhea, Lord of the Desert, Lord of the Lake, Seteth and Flayn, respectively.
  • Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator throws a major curve-ball that has reverberations throughout the entire franchise, which is further backed up the Survival Logbook: Mike Schmidt and "Eggs Benedict" are the same man, and any number of previous protagonists, Jeremy Fitzgerald, Fritz Smith, anf the unnamed night guard from the third game, could also be aliases of the same man- Michael Afton.
  • At the very end of Ghost Trick, it is revealed that Ray is an aged Missile from another timeline where everything went wrong.
  • The Origami Killer in Heavy Rain is Scott Shelby.
  • There are quite a few examples in The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel:
    • Comrade C, the leader of Imperial Liberation Front is actually none other than Crow Armbrust, the lazy playboy who's just recently joined your class.
    • Likewise, the host of Abend Time, Misty and the famous opera singer Vita Clotilde turn out to be one and the same. And not just that, she's also the second Anguis of Ouroboros!
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Agahnim is introduced as a wizard trying to release Ganon from the Dark World. Agahnim is later revealed to be an alter-ego of Ganon that can operate in the Light World (In the Japanese version, Ganon specifically refers to Agahnim as a bunshin, or split soul).
    • In The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, it turns out Impa remained in the Sealed Temple in the ancient past and, through The Slow Path, became The Old One.
  • Lenna's Inception: Beating each archangel boss gives Lenna a corrupted memory, a flashback that reveals some information about the backstory. A character who frequently appears in these is an archangel whose name is a glitchy mess. The final corrupted memory, called "Lenna's Inception", reveals that this archangel is Lenna, who was transformed into a human.
  • In Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS, it's revealed early on that Setsuna Yuki and the Student Council President Nana Nakagawa are actually the same person. Nakagawa's parents don't approve of her otaku interests or her love of school idols, so she expresses that through her Setsuna Yuki alias.
  • Manhunt 2 has Danny Lamb/Leo Kasper.
  • In Mass Effect 2, Shepard inquires about the location of their friend and ally Garrus Valkarian, only to be told that he disappeared a while ago. Not long after, they are sent to recruit an Omega vigilante called Archangel. Yup, one and the same.
  • Mega Man Battle Network 3: White and Blue: During the N1 Grand Prix, we are introduced to the mysterious NetBattler Q, a competitor in the Grand Prix who no one knows anything about. Near the end of the tournament, it's revealed that Q is actually Sunayama, the producer of the Grand Prix, who also reveals himself to be a member of the WWW at the same time.
  • In Mitsumete Knight, the enemy Generals love to pull this: Salishuan the Spy is Raizze Haimer; Zeelbis the Bloody is Dolphan's High Priest; and Wolfgario the Ravager is Dyunos Dolphan.
  • In Myth, Big Bad Balor is revealed to be Connacht, the greatest hero of the Wind Age.
  • In NEO: The World Ends with You, Rindo has an online friend known as Swallow who he's never met in person, but learns that both of them are in Shibuya during the prologue. Interestingly, they're still able to communicate after Rindo gets dragged into the Reapers' Game and is cut off from contact with the outside world. This is because the account belongs to Shoka, a Reaper who was using it to interact with the world of the living.
  • Pony Island: By messing around with variables in the game's code, you can unlock a secret conversation with Satan. He'll let you in on a little secret of his: Sometimes he likes to talk in other voices. When he tells you this, his Voice Grunting and body color becomes that of the Hopeless Soul, massively throwing the entire plot of the game into question.
  • In the third episode of Sam & Max: Freelance Police, Don Ted E. Bear and Harry Moleman turn out to be the same character.
  • Sea of Stars: Seraï is Captain Klee'shaë, though the game never really tries to hide this fact and it's only really a "surprise" to the main characters. This turns out to be a cover for a bigger twist about Seraï's identity.
  • Shantae and the Seven Sirens: It turns out that one of the festival's half-genies is an imposter. Fillin the Blank being Rottytops, which isn't too surprising. In a rare case, you get to find out from Harmony that she used another alias when talking to her (Ima Goodgirl), so that's three aliases.
  • In Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, Penelope and the Black Baron are the same character.
    • It also happens in the fourth game, with Penelope again, posing as the Black Knight.
  • Smite: In Mayan Mythology, one of the Hero Twins Xbalanque (male) is an incarnation of the previous moon deity Awilix (female). In this game, both of them are present and can either fight side by side or each other.
  • Star Wars Legends: Perhaps the most famous (and most commonly spoiled) example in RPGs is probably the Player Character of Knights of the Old Republic, who turns out to have been the brainwashed and amnesiac Darth Revan — a former Big Bad, who was believed to have been killed by the Jedi in the Backstory — all along.
  • Super Pokémon Eevee Edition: GeoSigma, Hypervisor of Battle, is also Team Rocket Boss Giovanni. While he did agree to support Zero's plan to reboot the game's reality, which would destroy the world as the player knows it, he only did so on the condition that arrangements be made to spare his son.
  • Tales Series:
    • Tales of Symphonia:
      • Regal Bryant, who manages to fit this trope despite never using an alias. The convict in your party is only referred to as Regal, while the Lezareno executive is consistently referred to as President Bryant.
      • This is taken even further with Mithos, the half-elf child you meet and befriend after his home is attacked. Not only is he the same Mithos as Mithos the hero, but his last name is revealed to be Yggdrasill, the older-looking main villain of the game who you've already met and battled at the time.
    • In Tales of Vesperia, it is revealed that Raven, trusted member of your party and the guild Altosk, is actually Captain Schwann of the Imperial Knights.
  • In Undertale, the killer referred to as "ASGORE" and the friendly King Dreemurr are the same person. The Reveal happens long before you meet him, however, and as none of the monsters are under any illusions as to the king's full name, it's only a Tomato Surprise.
    • A much bigger spoiler is Flowey being the “dead” prince, Asriel Dreemurr. This one is known to almost nobody and only ever gets revealed to you.
  • The World Ends with You has the Composer being Joshua.
    • As well as the mysterious artist CAT being Hanekoma.
  • A major reveal in Xenoblade Chronicles 1 is that all of the Faced Mechon aside from Egil/Gold Face are Homs who were captured and Reforged into a Minion.
    • Metal Face, The Heavy for the first half of the game, is Mumkhar, Dunban's friend and comrade who abandoned him in the Battle of Sword Valley and seemed to get killed by Mechon.
    • Face Nemesis, the third major Faced Mechon fought, is piloted by Fiora, Shulk's Love Interest who appeared to be killed by Metal Face in Chapter 2, and possessed by Lady Meyneth, Egil's helper and the goddess of Mechonis.
    • Jade Face, the last of the Faced Mechon fought before Egil/Gold Face, is Gadolt, Sharla's missing fiancé who she spent the game tracking down.
  • Xenogears: The mysterious guy in the red gear who calls himself Id turns out to be your main character Fei's alternate personality.

    Visual Novels 
  • The Ace Attorney series has done this a lot:
    • In the first game's fourth case, Phoenix and the players meet a mysterious boat shop caretaker, whose identity and past are completely unknown. It's eventually revealed that he's actually Yanni Yogi, previously mentioned to be the prime suspect of the DL-6 incident.
    • Trials and Tribulations:
      • The game introduces rival prosecutor Godot, a mysterious rookie prosecutor who harbors an intense hatred for Phoenix. During the game's fourth case, the players see Diego Armando, previously mentioned to be Mia's boyfriend before being poisoned, and it's shown that he and Godot are the same person.
      • The players meet Elise Deauxnim during the fifth case, a picture book author who ends up being the victim. It's revealed halfway through that she's actually Maya's mother, Misty Fey, who disappeared when the police's use of a spirit medium during the DL-6 incident was leaked to the public.
    • Apollo Justice:
      • The victim of the first case, Shadi Smith, is revealed during the fourth case to be Zak Gramarye, real name Shadi Enigmar, Trucy's biological father, who went into hiding after escaping from his trial 7 years ago.
      • During the third case, the players meet Lamiroir, a singer who has no memory of her past. Near the end of the game, it's revealed that she's actually Thalassa Gramarye, Trucy's mother and a member of Troupe Gramarye, who lost her memory and sight after she was accidentally shot by Zak and Valant during practice, during which everyone believed her to have died.
    • During Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, the players meet Shih-na, Interpol agent Shi-Long Lang's secretary. Then, the next case, a Whole Episode Flashback to 7 years ago, introduces defense attorney Calisto Yew, who reveals herself as the Yatagarasu working for an international smuggling ring. During the fifth case, it's revealed that the two are the same person, shown when Shih-na starts laughing exactly like Yew.
    • Prosecutor's Gambit:
      • The players are introduced to Bronco Knight, a bodyguard and killer of the first case, and Simeon Saint, a circus performer and Knight's childhood friend. During the fifth case, the two are revealed to be the sons of Paul Halique and Carmelo Gusto, respectively, who were briefly mentioned and shown during the third case. This information helps Edgeworth to deduce that Simeon is the person who has been masterminding the murders of the game.
      • During the third case, the victim of the IS-7 incident, Artie Frost, is eventually revealed to be Paul Halique a famous sculptor who was briefly mentioned by a few characters beforehand.
    • During Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, the characters, while reading Newton Belduke's suicide note, learn of the existence of a daughter of his. During the finale of the game, it is revealed that High Inquisitor Darklaw is in fact his daughter, Eve Belduke, who wants revenge on the Storyteller because of his suicide.
    • In Dual Destinies, the players learn of the existence of an international spy known only as "the phantom", who is believed to be responsible for the UR-1 incident and the one behind the murder and bombing of the fourth and fifth cases. Near the end of the game, it's revealed that Detective Bobby Fulbright is actually the phantom. Then, later, it's also revealed that the real Fulbright has been Dead All Along, with the one shown throughout the game merely being the phantom impersonating him.
    • Spirit of Justice:
      • During the third case, Phoenix meets a man with amnesia during his investigation, who was given the name A'nohn Ihmus (TBD) when asked to testify in court. It's then revealed that he's actually Datz Are'bal, a member of the Defiant Dragons who was mentioned to have recently escaped from prison, and who lost his memories during the escape.
      • Throughout the game, Rayfa's personal aide Nayna appears to serve Rayfa. Then, during the last case, Apollo finds out that the previous queen, Amara Sigatar Khura'in, is actually alive, having survived her assassination attempt and was hidden away by the Royal Family. Then, during the trial, it's revealed that Nayna is indeed Amara.
    • The Great Ace Attorney:
      • In Adventures, Ryunosuke's best friend, Kazuma Asogi, is accidentally killed while traveling to England. Then, in the sequel, Resolve, the players meet Prosecutor van Zieks's new apprentice, a mysterious stranger wearing a mask, who turns out to be Kazuma, who actually survived and was secretly sent away while still amnesiac by Herlock Sholmes, before making his own way to England.
      • During the fourth case of Resolve, Herlock is asked by Evie Vigil to find her husband, Daley Vigil, who had recently gone missing (for a day). Then, during the trial, Ryunosuke meets Gossip, a street vendor who sells gossip. It's revealed during the trial that Gossip is actually Daley Vigil, who, unbeknownst to his wife, became a street vendor after being fired as a prison guard during a government cover-up.
  • Artificial Nexus: Roderick, the Bad Boss of the employees, is the same person as Professor Herzing, the supposed Big Bad, although the deeds of the latter turn out to mostly be lies.
  • Danganronpa:
  • When They Cry:
    • Higurashi: When They Cry:
      • In a couple of arcs, Shion combines this with Twin Switch and Mind Screw. She imprisons her sister and becomes 'Mion' to the public eye, but continues to contact Keiichi as Shion.
      • Later on, it turns out that the local god and Big Bad Oyashiro-sama is the small and innocent Hanyuu Furude. The true Big Bad, the false Oyashiro, is later revealed at the end of that same arc to be local nurse Miyo Takano.
    • In Umineko: When They Cry, it's heavily implied and later confirmed in the manga that Beatrice, Shannon and Kanon are all the same person; their true identity is Sayo Yasuda, who originally created them as "characters" that they pretend to be in order to cope with their low self-esteem and gender issues. However, in a twist on this trope, while these three characters are often shown interacting with one another to the viewer, the catch is that no one In-Universe ever sees them together outside of fantasy scenes (which are narrated by Beatrice, so you can't trust them). The conversations between these characters are meant to represent Sayo's inner conflicts.
  • YOU and ME and HER: It's not until well into Aoi's route that Ryuujirou, Yuutarou's apparently-offscreen little brother who he refers to every now and then and has a subplot about learning to accept his crossdressing hobby, is revealed as the true identity of Haru, Miyuki's cute and seemingly-female fellow drama club student.
    Web Animation 
  • This is one of the biggest differences between TVTome Adventures and its reboot, TOME. In the original, Zetto and Kirbopher were a Stock Shōnen Rival and The Lancer, respectively, but in the reboot they are eventually revealed to be the same person using multiple accounts. Gamecrazed and SOFDTI also turn out to be the same person in the reboot as well.
    Webcomics 
  • In the Bravoman web comic series, Bravowoman turns out to be Bravoman's lawyer.
  • In Cucumber Quest, Princess Azalea and Mr. R turn out to be the real identities of Saturday and Brambleby, respectively.
  • In Girl Genius, twenty years before the story starts, the continent was attacked by an unknown Spark simply called "the Other," who started by destroying Castle Heterodyne and kidnapping Lucrezia Mongfish, the wife of William Heterodyne, and attacked many more places before Klaus Wulfenbach returned. Except Lucrezia Mongfish is the Other.
  • In Homestuck, the rude but seemingly harmless undyingUmbrage is later revealed to be the younger version of Lord English.
  • The Order of the Stick: The elf ambassador Polozius turns out to be a fabricated name and disguise by Zz'dtri.
  • Sluggy Freelance: Kusari is never seen outside her all-concealing ninja suit until her Dramatic Unmask twenty years into the comic's run. More accurately, never seen except in her other identity as Sasha. Unlike most examples, Kusari is able to share scenes with her other role since she is secretly a cloned Hive Mind.
  • In Unsounded, the identity of the mastermind behind the First Silver operation, "Delicieu", is revealed midway through the first arc. It's not until five chapters later that we learn that name is an alias adopted by Cutter, a character we've already met. Later it gets more complicated when it turns out the original bearer of the name "Delicieu" was a different person, whom Cutter is essentially impersonating.

    Web Original 
  • 3D Workers Island: It's heavily implied PLawler, the admin for the 3D Workers Island Discovery Pages, and Pat, one of the Workers inside the screensaver, are the same person.
  • Eliezer Yudkowsky's Masculine Mongoose stories have Baibhav Hegadi, known to the world in general to be the rather ineffectual and silly-looking superpowered individual Fastman (when he's not running an electric scooter dealership). Fastman is also known to be occasionally employed as a superspeed messenger (at standard rates) by the significantly more impressive superhero the Masculine Mongoose, who everyone in the world also knows is the millionaire Bruce Kent. Everyone, of course, except Bruce himself and Baibhav, who know that the Mongoose is just another of Baibhav's aliases, set up as a cut-out because Baibhav has a fairly extended family and Bruce has none.
  • Nan Quest purposefully plays with reader expectations through this. One of the antagonists introduced early on is a creature called the Pilgrim. During a later Time Travel segment, Nan meets a man called Lorenzo, who describes himself as a pilgrim. The obvious assumption is that they are the same person, but this is actually a Red Herring. The Pilgrim is actually Henry, A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing who pretended to be the Love Interest.
  • Petscop: Paul's friend Belle and Tiara are the same person.

    Western Animation 
  • Zuko/Blue Spirit from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Leads to a bit of hilarity in Avatar: The Last Airbender - "The Ember Island Players" since the playwright didn't know the two characters were one and the same and had one attack the other.
  • In The New Batman Adventures episode "Judgment Day", "The Judge" is revealed to be Two-Face's new third personality.
  • The second story arc in Beware the Batman features a bit character called Dane Lisslow, who later befriends Bruce Wayne. The rest of the arc later introduces Deathstroke and a Batman impostor. The impostor is later revealed to be Lisslow, who was forced to dress up as Batman by Deathstroke, who held his son hostage. Lisslow seemingly dies after the reveal. Come the next episode, it turns out Lisslow faked his death and his backstory. He IS Deathstroke. The same voice actor voicing another unrelated character further maintained the mystery until the reveal.
  • Central Park: In "The Shadow", Bitsy recounts how the titular jewel thief robbed the Brandenham Hotel fifty years ago and was never caught. Near the end, she's forced to admit that she was in fact the thief in question.
  • In DuckTales (1987) episode "The Masked Mallard", there is the titular character of the episode gone rogue and a reporter named Lawrence Loudmouth bad mouthing him. It turns out he's the criminal.
  • The first episode of season 2 of Miraculous Ladybug reveals that Hawk Moth and Gabriel Agreste are one and the same.
  • The ninth season of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic features Grogar as an alter-ego for Discord, who only wanted to gather some previous villains to mentally prepare Twilight Sparkle for her coronation, something that isn't revealed until the Grand Finale.
  • OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes has a case of three aliases, originally all believed to be different people, for one character, though one of these three plays with it a bit:
    • The straight example is that the former hero Laserblast survived the accident that was believed to have killed him, but was de-powered during it and turned to crime afterwards, becoming the villainous Professor Venomous by the present day.
    • Then in a slightly more complex example, it's revealed that Shadowy Figure is Professor Venomous's Turbo form, created when the latter experimented on himself in an attempt to get his powers back. Where it gets complicated is that Shadowy Figure is more than just the Superpowered Evil Side for Venomous the way that T.K.O. is for K.O.; Shadowy is a straight-up Split Personality that Venomous himself doesn't know about until the episode where the audience also finds out. Shadowy always knew they were the same person, but didn't want Venomous to know, and actively took measures to keep him from learning this.
  • In the second season of The Owl House, we learn about a 17th century human named Philip Wittebane, who was trapped on the Boiling Isles before Luz, and whose journal Luz uses to try to find a way home. In the episode "Elsewhere and Elsewhen", it's revealed that Philip would later become none other than Emperor Belos. Luz simply failed to recognize Belos as Philip because in the meantime, he had aged significantly, shaved off his beard, and gained a band of horrible rot across his face due to the amount of palisman essence he had to consume to keep himself alive for over 350 years.
    Belos: It does feel good to hear another human say that name. I had to change it after Philip was run out of too many towns.
  • In the sixth season of South Park, we meet Lu Kim, the Chinese owner of the Asian restaurant City Wok. Nine seasons later, one episode introduced Dr. Janus, who suffers a severe case of Multiple Personality Disorder. The same episode reveals that his strongest personality was none other than Lu Kim.
  • In season 2 of The Spectacular Spider-Man, there's the Master Planner who is the Big Bad for a 4-episode story arc. He turns out to be Doctor Octopus, who's been pretending to be rehabilitated the entire time. He even explains the reason for this double-identity by stating that while Spiderman is looking for the Master Planner, he'll pay less attention to Doc Ock.
  • In Star Wars Rebels, the rebels have an informant who uses the codename Fulcrum. The first season finale reveals Fulcrum to be Ahsoka Tano from Star Wars: The Clone Wars. After Ahsoka disappears from the scene, a new person uses the Fulcrum codename, ultimately revealed to be Agent Kallus.
  • Steven Universe: In "A Single Pale Rose", it's revealed that Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond are the same person, in a rather complicated gambit of Running Both Sides that really didn't go as planned. In a similar vein, the Pearl from the Crystal Gems who loyally served Rose Quartz turns out to have been Pink Diamond's Pearl, and helped Pink Diamond fake her death.
  • There are two villains in the 2003 version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Shredder and Ch'rell, the evil Utrom prisoner that caused the Utroms to crash land on Earth millennia ago. Guess what is the result?
  • Robin/Red X in Teen Titans (2003) — initially. Then someone else steals the Red X costume and never gets unmasked.
  • In Transformers: Animated, the head of the Autobot Intelligence, Longarm Prime, is revealed at the end of his debut episode to be Shockwave, who is acting as The Mole.
  • On Yogi's Space Race, the heroic Captain Good and the villainous Phantom Phink are one and the same, changing into one another at will, but nobody else in the race bothers to question why they are never seen in the same realm. Ditto for their animal sidekicks Clean Cat and Sinister Sludge.

    Real Life 
  • One of the famous Iga ninja is rumored to have done this to confuse his enemies, even going as far as having his subordinates pretend along with him. His alias was a competing ninja leader in the same area.
  • The morning and evening star. In many cultures, they are used as a metaphor for Star-Crossed Lovers, since they are never in the sky at the same time. They were discovered to be the same planet, Venus.
  • Online users who tend to make use of Sockpuppet accounts can often be this, especially if their sockpuppets tend to make up the bulk of their community. AstroTurf campaigns do something similar but on a far larger scale due to their role as companies, political parties, and other groups who masquerade as grassroots organizations .

 
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Apothecary Diaries (SPOILER)

Maomao's friend Shisui is revealed to be Consort Loulan in disguise.

Pale Rose [MAJO...

Two Names

Secret Sleep

Alternative Title(s): Two Names One Character

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Apothecary Diaries (SPOILER)

Maomao's friend Shisui is revealed to be Consort Loulan in disguise.

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