• Akame ga Kill!: Zank the Beheader reads Akame's mind and uses an illusion to make himself look like the person she loves the most, her sister Kurome. To his shock, Akame doesn't hesitate to strike him down.
• Amatsuki: The Yakou uses the bodies of Kurotobi's former teachers to stop him, Ainezu, and Kanzo from attacking.
• Ayakashi Triangle:
  • Shirogane pulls a more benign example on Suzu: He shapeshifts into her crush Matsuri’s male form to beg for more food. She fully knows it’s an illusion, but finds it too frustrating to endure.
    Shiromatsu: Please, Suzu? I need... your dango...
    Suzu (thinking): (trembling) Don’t whisper in my ear!
  • A corrupted baku attacks Suzu in her dreams with a copy of Matsuri, playing on her fears that Matsuri would see her as a dangerous ayakashi. This backfires horribly because while Suzu doesn't want to fight a copy of Matsuri, she'd gladly do sexual things to it without the small restraint she shows to the real thing.
• Bleach:
  • The hollow Grand Fisher has a lure on his head. By reading his target's psyche, he can transform that lure into the person the target cares about the most. He impersonates Ichigo's dead mother early on in the series.
  • Later on, an Arrancar also impersonates Kaien Shiba, Rukia's mentor, to great effect. This particular one happened to be the 9th Espada, Aaroniero Arruruerie. In both cases, the impersonator had eaten the impersonate-ee.
• A Certain Magical Index:
  • The girl in the dress can make people feel in their hearts that she is someone else, usually a loved one. Shiage Hamazura is unable to attack her when she makes him feel that she is Rikou Takitsubo, his girlfriend. The girl in the dress notes that some people will attack her harder if she tries this, because by perceiving her as a loved one, they believe they have been betrayed and become enraged. When faced against Accelerator, she retreats, reasoning that the Ax-Crazy psycho would react that way.
  • This happens twice in the series' New Testament Vol 6:
    • Shizuri Mugino gets confronted by what seems to be Frenda Seivelun, who she had killed back when she was a bad guy and had been feeling guilty about ever since. "Frenda" orders her to atone for her sin by dying, then moves to attack her. At the last second, Mugino snaps out of it and fights back. Her hunch that it wasn't actually Frenda was right, it was a shapeshifting man who wanted to play on Mugino's guilt to weaken and then kill her.
    • Teitoku Kakine makes an army with his Dark Matter that looks, sounds, and acts like the Misaka Sisters and turns them on Accelerator. Accelerator, who had sworn to protect the Misaka Sisters and is eternally guilty about killing some back when he was a bad guy, falls into despair and almost lets them kill him. Mugino steps in and saves him. Drawing on her experience with the fake Frenda, she reminds Accelerator that they're just Kakine's puppets, not the actual Misaka Sisters, which restores his will to fight.
• Dance in the Vampire Bund: One of the assassins sent after Akira in vol 4 pulled this. It worked perfectly when he took the form of Graham, a colleague whom Akira killed under as yet unknown circumstances, but then she(?) twisted the knife and tried to extract information by taking the form of Mina. Big. Mistake. Turns out Akria is also a shapeshifter, and Akira rips said shapeshifter apart.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Dragon Ball Z: Whenever Buu absorbs someone, he takes on their physical traits and mannerisms, which makes for an unnerving fight if the person fighting is a close friend or loved one.
  • Super Dragon Ball Heroes: In the manga version, Majin Ozotto tends to throw people off by shapeshifting into their loved ones, like when he distracts Gohan by shifting into his wife Videl.
• In Dragon Knights, Sinistora takes the form of the dead Crewger, sending Rath spiralling since Rath is currently possessing Crewger's dead body.
• Fairy Tail:
  • A variation of this is used by Monsieur Sol against Elfman in the anime. He uses his earth powers to create clones of Elfman's sister Lisanna, who all begin angrily accusing him of killing her.
  • Much later during the Tartarus arc, Natsu, Lucy, and Happy are going up against a demon named Franmalth who can turn into creatures whose souls he's absorbed, be they human or otherwise. He turns into two of Lucy's Spirits to invoke this on Natsu, who can't bring himself to hurt the already much-abused Aries and gets sucker-punched for refusing to attack her. Luckily, Franmalth next tries to use Taurus, who is much more capable of taking such a hit.
    Natsu: Now you I can hit!
• Envy of Fullmetal Alchemist positively loves this.
  • In a pivotal moment, they use this to kill Hughes by transforming into a replica of the wife he adores, which makes poor old Hughes freeze just long enough to get shot. It's really clinched by his facial expression: he knows it's not Gracia, but he still can't make himself attack "her". And given Envy's regenerative powers, it wasn't really necessary either, it was just For the Evulz.
  • In one encounter, Envy is about to be stabbed by Ling Yao, so they alter their appearance to that of Lan Fan, who has just been driven away to get medical attention for a severe injury she attained while protecting Ling, causing him to freeze up and enable Gluttony to swallow him. Brotherhood takes this a step further than the manga, having Envy appear as Lan Fan in her current vulnerable state; bandaged and without her left arm, her mask gone revealing a hurt expression. Though admittedly, that was because in the anime adaptation they'd only seen Lan Fan unmasked as the anime cut out their earlier fight with her, so it was due to this rather than due to any extra ruthlessness.
  • In Envy's fight against Mustang near the end of the manga: Mustang finally gets to confront Envy about who murdered Hughes. Envy responds by shape-shifting into Gracia Hughes, and laughing at how easy this made killing Hughes. Mustang is not amused. During the fight, they end up in some narrow corridors, and Envy takes the opportunity to appear in Hughes's form. It does make Mustang momentarily flinch, but unfortunately for Envy, the whole reason Mustang was after them was because they had murdered Hughes, and the reminder only served to piss him off even more. It was a Curb-Stomp Battle to begin with, and that stunt only made things worse for Envy.
  • Hilariously, Envy is something of a Hypocrite regarding their use of this trope, referring to it as a cheap trick and taunting opponents when they fall for it, but then turns around and tries to invoke What the Hell, Hero? on the ones that don't.
    Envy (to Mustang, while disguised as Hughes): What's the matter with you?! You didn't even hesitate to incinerate your best friend!
  • During his climactic fight with Ed at the end of Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), Envy cycles through the forms of everyone who's been either hurt or killed as result of Ed's actions. He tries to psyche him out by turning into Dr. Marcoh, his mom/Sloth, Hughes, and Mustang (which only makes Ed attack him harder). For the most part it only makes Ed angrier (pointing out he killed Sloth when she tried it), and he even goads Envy into showing his original (human) form. Let's just say it was one family reunion Ed was not expecting, and the shock allows Envy to line up a fatal blow.
• Variation in Getter Robo Armageddon, where an Invader (who can infect humans and turn them into more Invaders) attempt to guilt-trip the Shin Getter team by coating itself in the reformed bodies of not-quite-dead victims. This successfully prevents the Shin Getter team from attacking it - but its not quite so useful defending against Ryoma and the Black Getter, who simply do not give a fuck.
• In Gonna Be the Twin-Tail!!, Fox Guildy creates a mindless duplicate of Tail Red and uses it as a shield. The original cannot bear to attack it, but Tail Blue smashes it without hesitation. Fox Guildy is shocked and asks how she could attack her own friend. Annoyed, Tail Blue says she isn't stupid; Tail Red is standing over there and she saw Fox materialize the duplicate.
• In Heaven's Lost Property, Chaos shifts in and out of the forms of Nymph's friends while beating her up and berating her. Nymph objectively knows that the being before her is Chaos and not her friends, but it doesn't matter, she's too traumatized to fight back. When Ikaros tries to attack Chaos, she shifts into Tomoki, and Ikaros is fooled even though she saw her transform before her eyes and obeys Chaos until Astraea intervenes. Later, when Ikaros is about to throw Chaos into the sea, Chaos turns into Tomoki again and begs her to stop, but this time, Ikaros points out that Tomoki is an excellent swimmer and wouldn't be worried about the sea.
• In High School D×D, as a last ditch effort to save herself, Raynare takes on her human disguise Yuuma Amano. Issei cannot strike her in this form, so he walks away and leaves it to Rias, who kills her without hesitation.
• Inuyasha the Movie: Fire on the Mystic Island: Inuyasha manages to get the better of the Kikyo clone during their fight, but can't bring himself to finish her off; the real Kikyo proceeds to show up and kill the clone herself before berating Inuyasha for letting himself be tricked by the fake.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Stardust Crusaders: Cameo uses his Jerkass Genie Stand to manipulate Polnareff into this by reanimating his dead sister and Mohammed Avdol (who died defending him), blaming him for their deaths. Luckily, the real and alive Avdol appears to save the day, and Polnareff wises up to take down the fake creation of his sister.
  • Steel Ball Run: This is the basis of Axl Ro's Stand, Civil War. It conjures images of things people "sacrificed" (read: abandoned or destroyed) and feel guilty about, which merges with their body and kills them.
• Katanagatari: Seitou Hakari, the tenth deviant blade, is guarded by a "holy man", Higaki Rinne, who takes the form of whoever one feels the most guilty about. In Togame's case, it is her late father. In Shichika's case, it is as an amalgam of Shichika's sister Nanami, Meisai, Konayuki, and Kiguchi, on top of cycling between either of the four; Shichika had lost to all but Meisai and in the case of her and Nanami he was forced to kill them to get their blades. In doing so, Higaki tests the protagonists to see if they are worthy to acquire the blade by forcing them to confront their greatest regrets.
• Nabari no Ou: Played for Laughs in an omake where Tobari is unable to attack Fuuma when he takes Raimei and Miharu's forms. It fails when Fuuma takes Kouichi's form, though.
• One Piece:
  • Mr. 2 Bon Clay uses this as a desperation attack against Sanji. However, Sanji beats him up anyway as he's impersonating Usopp. Bon Clay is about to give up till he carelessly switches to Nami, which paralyzes Sanji with lust. Bon Clay comments, "It can't really be that easy, can it?" He toggles his face-switching power on and off to cure his disbelief, and then uses the form of Nami against Sanji because Nami looks just too cute for him to hit. Sanji only turns the fight around when he realizes Bon Clay has to return to his original form while actually attacking.
  • A less funny example happens during Wano when Kanjuro creates a replica of Kozuki Oden and convince Kikunojo not to attack him. He's successful and stabs the young samurai. She expresses her regret to Kin'emon for not being able to stop him.
• In Pokémon Adventures, Essentia does this when it looks like she's otherwise beaten; her sudden transformation into X surprises his Kangaskhan long enough for her to land a good hit on it before trying to run off.
• Played with in Magi: Labyrinth of Magic. The villain Aum Madaura can brainwash people into seeing her as their mother; Hakuryuu falls under her spell and fights his friends for her. We get Flashbacks as this is going on about how his evil uncle/stepfather killed Hakuryuu's father and brothers and corrupted his mother afterward. Unfortunately for Aum Madaura, Hakuryuu's memory eventually reaches the point where he remembers that it's his mother who was actually Evil All Along, and he decapitates her.
• In Project ARMS, one of the cyborgs that Hayato fights tries to trick him by impersonating Ryo. In this case, it was done to trick Hayato and not guilt him. After Hayato figures out the truth and impales him, the cyborg takes the form of Hayato's dead mother before dying.
• Parodied in Ranma ½, when the Cat Demon possesses Genma, thinking that Ranma wouldn't attack him. Ranma's response: "IT'S EXORCISM TIME!" To explain further, it really didn't help that Genma forced Ramna to fight a giant cat since, no matter how weak a demon it was, Ranma is utterly terrified of cats. Right before booting his son towards said terror, Genma says that it's a martial artist's job to defeat demons, no matter what. Ranma repeats that right before beating up his old man.
• In Saint Seiya, Lyumnades Kaza did this thrice on-screen (plus a couple off-screen times). First in a battle against Cygnus Hyoga, taking the form of Aquarius. Then against Pegasus. Then in battle against Shun by transforming into his brother; it didn't work at first. He did it again when Shun was getting the upper hand, and it made Shun doubt enough for Kaza to beat him. Finally he did it against Shun's brother Ikki by transforming into Shun. But as Ikki was a Anti-Hero, it didn't work.
  • Better yet, Ikki beats Kaza by transforming into him, and Kaza whines that he's unable to hit his own image. This shows how cowardly he is, because this wouldn't have worked on any of the heroes.
  • It's implied it could have worked had Kaza transformed into Esmeralda, Ikki's long lost love.
• Dougan in the Saiyuki Requiem movie absolutely adores doing this; so much so that it becomes pretty much the premise of the entire movie. For Sanzo he changes into his mentor Koumyou as well as his teammates Sha Gojyo, and Son Goku. For Goku he changes into Genjo Sanzo. For Sha Gojyo he changes into Hakkai and induces stabby death onto him. And for Cho Hakkai he shapeshifts into both his dear sister/lover Kanan as well as his friend Goku.
  • Various enemies try this in the Saiyuki manga as well. Usually to not much effect since the main characters can be positively gleeful about beating up doppelgangers of one another. On one memorable occasion they start beating up a doppelganger of Gojyo before realising it's not him (they did have reason to be angry with him at the time, though).
• The Sorcerer Hunters manga had a variation: We eventually learn that Body Surfing demon Almond Rassel had been trapped in the body of Apricot, the Missing Mom of Carrot and Marron. In the final battle, Almond has to fight Onion Glace (Carrot's Crouching Moron Hidden Retired Badass father), and plays his current body for all it's worth. Onion has no problem attacking Almond's clones, but can't bring himself to attack the real body of his wife. His solution: grab on to Almond and stab them both with his boomeranging Big Freaking Axe, which he aimed at himself.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Dartz projects the images (and voices) of Yugi's soul-stolen friends onto his Mirror Knight monsters to intimidate Yugi out of attacking them. Seto Kaiba doesn't care and attacks them without hesitation. In the original version, Seto says it's a willing sacrifice to save the world. In the dub, Seto thinks Dartz just reprogrammed the holograms to show their friends to throw them off their game. Regardless of the version, destroying the Mirror Knights merely frees their friends' souls instead of destroying them.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Trueman throws Austin O'Brien off his game during their duel by shapeshifting into Austin's father and using a replica of his father's deck (but with some of Trueman's own cards in it). Trueman also plays on Austin's guilt by bringing up an incident where his parents were trapped in a burning car and he chose to save his father first (even though his father was able to save his mother, Austin was filled with self-loathing that he didn't choose to save her). Austin still puts up a valiant fight, but he eventually panics and makes a mistake that causes him to lose.

• The DCU:
  • Batman '66: The story "The Fiend is False" has False-Face attempt to deter Batman from knocking him out by assuming the likeness of Abraham Lincoln. It doesn't work.
  • Green Lantern: The Red Lantern Rankorr used his power ring to make constructs resembling Abysmus' victims, paralyzing him with guilt and allowing Atrocitus to defeat him.
  • Legion of Darkseid: Superman tries to attack an evil, monstrous version of Chameleon Boy, but he shifts into the form of his heroic counterpart. Superman hesitates, but Superboy-Prime does not care and clocks the imposter.
  • The Sandman (1989): Loki attempts to pull this on the second Corinthian, cycling through a series of forms (starting with Dream, followed by a dragon, the Corinthian himself^*Corinthian's reaction: "Oh, please. Credit me with at least the wit to know which one of us I am.", the toddler who the Corinthian is supposed to be rescuing, a flame, and finally his true form) trying to find one the Corinthian won't strangle. The Corinthian, needless to say, is not impressed.
  • Supergirl: In one issue, Supergirl faces a psychic, sentient dinosaur called the Empathosaur in her '00s series. It probes her mind and makes his head look like her father. Supergirl is completely unimpressed, commenting that a man's head sticking out of a dinosaur's body isn't going to fool anybody.
  • When the Teen Titans and the Justice League of America collided, the Titan Mirage went up against the Martian Manhunter by posing as his dead wife.
• Elementals by Bill Willingham did an elaborate variant which revealed that a shapeshifter that the Elementals had fought before had, over the course of a Story Arc gotten one of the team, Morningstar, to fall in love with him/her.
• Marvel Universe:
  • Astonishing X-Men: Subverted (and inverted?) in Joss Whedon's run. Kitty is confronted with Piotr (the genuine article); not believing it's really Piotr, Back from the Dead, she tells him that if he's a robot or a clone, she'll understand, but if he's a shapeshifter or illusionist, he's in for a new meaning of pain.
  • Avengers: The Initiative: Early on, Trauma had difficulty controlling his fear-based transformation powers, causing him to freak out Cloud 9 by transforming into a zombified version of MVP, who was killed while protecting Cloud 9 from an errant rifle blast. When Hank Pym tried to intervene, Trauma transformed into an extremely battered version of Janet Van Dyne, reminding Hank of his domestic abuse incident, which sent poor Hank scrambling for his anti-anxiety meds.
  • The Punisher: A man tried to defeat the Punisher by surgically altering assassins to resemble his past victims, thinking that he would be able to rattle him by showing him the "ghosts of those who haunt him." Frank mows them down and kills the man after explaining that he doesn't care about his victims; he sends them to Hell and doesn't think about them afterwards.
  • Runaways:
    • An inadvertent version occurred when the team visited the Avengers Academy. Reptil tried to entertain the guests by showing off his dinosaur-transformation abilities. He made the mistake of turning into a deinonychus in front of Klara who, up to that point, still believed that she was responsible for Old Lace's apparent death, resulting in Karolina having to rush over and calm the poor girl down before her powers started kicking in.
    • Xavin shifts into the late wife of a man-turned-monster to talk him down from his destructive rampage.
  • Secret Invasion (2008): Several Skrulls shapeshift into corpses and claim to be victims of the Stamford Incident. Although it works on Penance at first, he remembers the faces of everyone who really perished and attacks.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): In one issue Amy is facing off against the wizard Naugus when he suddenly takes the form of Sonic, her crush. She immediately mocks him for trying that trick, decides that he's too pathetic for her to bother, and lets Knuckles and Shadow — neither of whom would be very torn up over having to beat up Sonic — finish him off.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): Mimic the Octopus can mimick others (to an extent) through shapeshifting. Being the manipulative backstabbing sociopath he is, Mimic enjoys playing on others' feelings and employs this trope from time to time, such as when Whisper has him dead-to-rights during their first encounter by assuming the forms of their dead Diamond Cutter comrades in a bid to throw her off, or when making a point to Tangle that attachments are a weakness by taking the form of her close friend Jewel, thus preventing Tangle from attacking him despite knowing it's Mimic.^note that said, both instances subvert this trope when Whisper's Relative Button pushes her into attacking Mimic regardless while Tangle, though affected at first, uses her tail to attack Mimic from behind.
• WildC.A.T.s (WildStorm): A rare heroic example comes. When the team was fighting Lord Entropy, an impossibly powerful madman who wanted revenge against Lord Emp for killing his wife, Voodoo used her illusion to look like her. Entropy was so confused that Emp had enough time to prepare to wipe the floor with him.

• In Nodwick, the party encounters an undead monstrosity that uses magic to make whoever is looking at it see a dead mentor or parental figure they would trust implicitly (Nodwick sees his former guildmaster, Arthax sees the man who trained him to be a wizard, Piffany sees the head priest who raised her, and Rowan sees her adventurer father). All of them can only stare dead-eyed at it and mumble "I thought you were dead". Fortunately, while the magic also affected Orville, his species of dragon instinctively try to fight and kill their own parents for dominance.

Crossovers

• Universe Falls: In "Into the Bunker", Experiment 210 shape-shifts into Rose Quartz in order to break Amethyst's spirit and make her drop her guard.
• A Red Rose in the Blue Wind: The image source, Mimic, pulls this off in this crossover, as once he's downed by Shadow, he transforms into Maria Robotnik and tries to make him hesitate. It's deconstructed, however, as Shadow continues to attack it, knowing fully well that Maria is long dead. It does make Ruby and Pyrrha curious about her though.
• To the New World:
  • Creatures made of humanity, and spellcasters wielding it, are able to scan their opponents' minds for emotional weakpoints, then clad themselves appropriately. One humanity monster hones in on Miquella's Old Shame by transforming into Radahn, while Sirris spends a good chunk of time haunted by a humanity-Hodrick.
  • On a more individual level, this is one of the tactics favored by the Formless Mother, which attacks Morgott as the people who shamed him and Eira as the creatures that killed her.

Dungeons & Dragons

• Vow of Nudity: This is how the apparitions in the hideout basement target the party members. Each one shapeshifts into a figure from their past that will unnerve or in some way cloud their judgment and make them less capable of defending themselves:
  • Iaqo's apparition assumes the form of Clew, his former teammate who he introduced to the love of his life (and then later ran away with her.)
  • Mona's assumes the form of a frog that tried to eat her when she was still a young fairy.
  • Spectra's assumes an alternate version of herself where she was loved and nurtured in her youth and therefore grew up to have all her dreams realized. (This phantom succeeded so well that Spectra could barely muster any counterattacks and loses her fight badly.)
  • Gloria's takes the form of her father, King Victor, chastising her for working against her own kingdom and claiming she was never good enough to inherit his throne anyway.
  • Invoked by Gloria, who witnessed the apparition that supposedly killed Lucine and reports that it was a twisted version of Mona belittling and demoralizing her. She later admits this was false, but Mona is so emotionally shattered by the thought that Lucine thought of her that way that she abandons the party immediately after learning this.

Fate Series

• HV-S02: Quests for the Golden Fleece: When Atalanta, Medea, and Medusa battle the Calyadonian Boar, the demon Ars Theurgia attempts the throw Atalanta off by making the boar shift into her father, King Iasus. Since Atalanta hates her father for abandoning her to die as an infant and then trying to suck up to her after she became a famous hero, this backfires and she attacks harder.

Final Fantasy VI

• In Antinomia: Final Fantasy VI, Kefka uses a Terra illusion to make himself look like Terra while he stabs Leo, who is rescued by the real Terra. Leo naturally has a hard time trusting Terra after this.

Kingdom Hearts

• In A Match made in Hell, the Big Bad tried this separately on Sora, Roxas, and Pete, transforming into everyone they knew, including Organization XIII.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

• In The Beginning of Infinity, Thor thinks Hela (of whose identity he is unaware of at the time) is using this to manipulate him. She looks very like Loki, who has been killed moments ago trying to undo Odin's curse on Thor and promises to save Loki if Thor agrees to a Deal with the Devil with her. Subverted in that while she is manipulating him, the form is just her own - Odin had his adopted son's form resemble his lost daughter's for sentimental reasons.

My Hero Academia

• AMP: It's revealed that All for One did this to All Might during their climatic fight several years ago, shape-shifting into Nana and using her voice to berate All Might for failing to save her. All Might quickly lampshades this, questioning why AFO is blatantly goading someone who already wants to kill him, but decides to take it as permission to kick the villain's ass even harder.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

• The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum: Inverted by TCB!Trixie, who takes on the appearance of Lyra Heartstrings in order to Draw Aggro from Focus Ray, as the moment he sees her, he immediately drops everything else to charge at her.
• In Getting Back on Your Hooves: Checker does this to most of the Mane Six during the Final Battle, taking the form of their loved ones and giving them each a Breaking Lecture based around their personal faults and saying those faults have in some way harmed said loved ones. Special mention goes to Rainbow Dash's, which involves her how she handled Discord's Sadistic Choice, something she feels genuine guilt for.
• Pony POV Series:
  • When Twilight travels into Trixie's mind in order to undo her discording, Loneliness creates an illusion of a mental hospital and takes the form of a doctor, and tries to convince Twilight that she killed Trixie and has been institutionalized. Fortunately, Twilight notices the mistakes in the illusion and breaks free.
  • During the Finale Arc, it is revealed that during Dark World, Rainbow Dash almost managed to break the "Groundhog Day" Loop on her own by beating Nightmare Paradox into submission. Before she could finish her off, Paradox turned into Twilight Sparkle, which caused Rainbow to hesitate long enough for Paradox to drive a sword through her chest. Rainbow was incapacitated and cursed herself for falling for such a simple trick.
  • In an alternate timeline where Queen Chrysalis conquered Equestria, it is mentioned that she managed to defeat King Sombra by turning into Radiant Hope, the only person he ever loved, then striking him down when he hesitated. She also tried it on Zecora by turning into Fluttershy, but it didn't work.
  • In the Chaos Verse (an official spin-off of the POV Series), the Big Bad Nightmare Phobia infiltrates Fluttershy's dreams and takes the form of her friends to try and drive her to suicide. It almost works, but thankfully, Fluttercruel is able to intervene and save her.

Naruto

• OrangeLemon's Sannin Swap: Dark!Naruto employs one against Naruto, starting by taking on Gaara's form while asking him why he called Gaara worthless after fighting so hard to avenge him''. Throughout the entire fight, he continuously takes the form of various important figures in Naruto's life while dismantling all of his self-justifications for running away from Konoha.

Pokémon

• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: Hilda talks to Belladonna while disguised as Aurora in Chapter 31, correctly surmising that she's very unlikely to attack somebody who looks like one of her lovers. This is at least partly because Belladonna, aware that there's probably something wrong with herself, is afraid that attacking something that looks like a loved one might send her down a very dark path.

Torchwood

• To the Sticking Place: According to Jack, Gwanzulums normally take on the form of someone's loved ones so that they can stick close to them and feed off their life energy. However, the one who infiltrates the Hub is far more malicious with their shapeshifting, taking on the form of Ianto's dead girlfriend Lisa to scare him and taunt him over his role in Lisa's death - or lack of, as it is soon revealed. Understandably, Ianto is unable to shoot her because of who she looks like, something which the alien knew would happen, and it's left up to the others to kill them.

X-Men

• Used very weirdly in this fan-comic where Partial Transformation is used to produce something that doesn't really match anyone or is even a plausible human:
  Logan: I, uh, don't want to fight you anymore. Or look at you. Ever again.

• Inverted in Dreamscape. Assassin Tommy Ray murdered his father as a teenager. While fighting him in a dream, the heroic Alex distracts him by changing his appearance to that of the father and asking Tommy Ray why he killed him.
• In The Exorcist (1973), the demon takes on the voice of Father Karras' recently deceased elderly mother.
• In Event Horizon, the title ship has taken over Dr. Weir. In an effort to get to Captain Miller, Weir takes the form of a flaming Edward Corrick, the man in Miller's back story whom he had to leave behind in his greatest failure. Miller doesn't buy the attempt to guilt-trip him for a minute though: "No. You're not Edward Corrick. I watched him die."
• In Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, when Hansel is beating up the evil witch Muriel, she takes on her beautiful form (Famke Janssen) and begs for mercy. Hansel says, "Nice try," and continues the attack.
• In Mortal Kombat (1995), the villain Shang Tsung tries to pull this gambit with Liu Kang by assuming the form of his dead brother Chan, whom Shang Tsung had killed at the start of the movie. Despite seeing it happen right in front of him, Liu is reluctant to fight back at first given his guilt about Chan dying due to attempting to take his place as Earthrealm's defender. However, Shang makes the mistake of telling Liu that Chan "forgives him" for letting him die, as it causes Liu to remember and finally accept that Chan would never blame him for the choices he made himself.
• The monster in Phantoms turns itself into a little boy who looks like the kid Ben Affleck's character accidentally killed in his former life in the FBI.
• In Pokémon Detective Pikachu, a Ditto transforms into Tim's crush Lucy while he's fighting it. Tim starts saying that he has no problem hitting it regardless, but it takes the opportunity to knock him off his feet while he's talking.
• In the Spiderwick books and The Film of the Book, Mulgarath attempts to do this to the main character by transforming into his dad. Much like in the FMA example, the main character has Parental Issues and this ends up being a bad choice.
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day: The T-1000 shapeshifts into Sarah Connor in an attempt to lure and terminate her son John. The attempt fails when the real Sarah appears behind the T-1000, and John trusts her characteristic approach ("Get out of the way, John") over the duplicate's attitude of slumped defeat. In the film's special edition, John notices the T-1000 has warped and misshapen feet, as its shapeshifting abilities were compromised by the machine's earlier exposure to liquid nitrogen.
• In Wrath of the Titans, Perseus fights and defeats a minotaur. As he's about to finish it off, the minotaur suddenly starts talking in his son's voice, begging his "father" not to hurt him. Perseus kills it anyway.
• X-Men (Film Series):
  • Mystique tries this on her captors in X-Men: The Last Stand. She transforms into the President and threatens to have them all court martialed if they do not release her, and then a little girl who begs and cries to be let out. She finally turns mockingly back into herself when one of the guards threatens to empty a can of pepper spray in her face if she doesn't knock it off.
  • In the second movie, X2: X-Men United, while in an Enemy Mine situation with the X-Men, Mystique tries to seduce Logan as Jean, Rogue, and Storm. He gets wise when he sees the scars he left on her belly from the first movie.

• A rare hero-to-hero (and subverted) example appears in Animorphs #41, The Familiar, when Jake meets Elfangor and Calls the Old Man Out for putting the fate of Earth on their shoulders. It turns out to be Tobias in an aged-up Ax morph. Of course, the whole book is revealed to be All Just a Dream at the end.
• Older Than Print: In Arabian Nights, one story involves a hero being told that he must kill a demon that is taking the shape of his mother. He refuses, is sent back where he started, and has to undertake all the other challenges of the quest again, as well as kill the copy of his mother.
• In a non-villainous example, Bartimaeus of The Bartimaeus Trilogy regularly appears in the form of Kitty Jones in the beginning of Ptolemy's Gate, purely because he knows how much guilt his master still feels over Kitty's apparent death in the previous book. He sometimes exaggerates the curves, though.
• In The Horse Lord, the first volume of The Book of Years, the resurrected sorcerer Kalarr cu Ruruc takes the shape of the hero's dead father to put him off guard during their climactic duel. Unfortunately, Kalarr makes the mistake of using real shapeshifting magic to do it, rather than illusion, and having already worked an insanely powerful magic spell in the previous chapter to destroy an attacking army, the shapeshift proves too strenuous for the sorcerer to sustain, backlashing and injuring him horribly.
• In Child of the Prophecy, the Evil Matriarch Oonagh does this during the middle of the climactic showdown: while facing off her son and granddaughter, she takes on the appearance of the son's dead wife. Made worse by the fact that she killed the wife in the first place. This throws her son off-balance long enough that she would have killed him, had his half-brother not intervened.
• Ciaphas Cain experiences this in one book: while on a raid on a Slaaneshi cult, he's quite surprised to see Amberley Veil (his boss with benefits), and can't bring himself to shoot her. In fact, hearing the soldier next to him comment in the same love-struck tones though with a different name, he is consumed by jealousy and about to shoot him. Fortunately, Jurgen moves closer and dispels the effect, revealing her as the old brothel owner. "Impersonating an Inquisitor is a capital crime" indeed.
• Harry Potter:
  • A spell in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows gives Ron Weasley a double-dosage of this trope - the two people closest and dearest to the victim manifest and give a Breaking Speech in the form of a counterpoint argument.
  • A Boggart does this to Mrs. Weasley in The Order of the Phoenix, tormenting her by transforming into an image of her children, dead. The "Guilt" part is amplified when the reader knows that Mrs. Weasley's two brothers, Fabian and Gideon, died in the previous war against Voldemort, so Molly has all the more reason to dread losing her family.
• Legacy of the Force: In Sacrifice, Jacen disguises himself as Ben while dueling Mara.
• A very neat example takes place in Lord of Light during — well, calling it a fight would charitable — between Yama, the God of Death and Mara, the God of Trickery. The first of many Moment of Awesome for Yama.
• Magic Time: There's a whole swarm of these towards the end of the final book, divided into groups targeting each main character. (For instance, a doctor who survived Chernobyl fights animated radiation corpses. What, the title made you think it was a kids' book?)
• In the Myth Adventures novel Myth-Taken Identity, a group of shape shifters are running around disguised as the protagonist of the series, and their chief uses it against the protagonist's mentor in the climactic fight.
• Perelandra: Ransom is fighting the Un-man — the demon-possessed undead corpse of Weston — when it suddenly reverts to Weston's actual personality and begs for mercy. Ransom ignores it, and the narration points out that Weston's actual soul had most likely been completely subsumed long before.
• Thousand Sons: In Ahriman: Exile, when Ahriman summons a daemon in order to interrogate it about Amon’s plans, the daemon tries to break his concentration (and thus escape from its bindings) by taking on the form of his dead brother Ohrmuzd. Ahriman, being no stranger to the ways of daemons, is unfazed.
• This is one of the main tactics of Sacred Eclipse in Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle. Against Celis, it becomes her mentor Wade; against Greifer, it becomes his princess Milmiette (which doesn't work, Greifer sarcastically says that the real Milmiette already knows he has a rude personality); against Lisha, it becomes her father Count Atismata; against Lux, it becomes Lisha (this does cause him to flinch, due to the fake Lisha saying something unexpected^note she begs Lux not to kill her again; against Yoruka (more accurately, Lux being controlled by Yoruka) it becomes her younger brother.

• Altered Carbon: This is a standard form of execution on Harlen's World. In the Circle the condemned is forced to fight to the death synth-copies of people in their personal lives whom they have wronged in some way, as it makes it that much harder to kill them.
• Angel:
  • Subverted in "Lineage" when the Monster of the Week appears as Wesley's distant father and is unceremoniously shot. Notably, this only happens after he threatens Wesley's love interest, and since Wesley does think that it's his real father at the time, he spends the next episode absent, apparently dealing with the revelation that he would have been willing to kill his own father. Made more humorous with all the other characters saying how they killed their fathers or mothers and haven't looked back since.
  • Although not done intentionally, the demon Illyria (who has "hollowed out" and taken over the body of Fred) notes that Spike has no problem punching her in the face.
    Illyria: This shell... you had affection for it.
    Spike: Tons. Loved the bird.
    Illyria: Yet you strike at her form without sentiment.
    Spike: You ain't her. I can see it. Lord knows I can smell it. And I got no problem hitting it.
• Ash vs. Evil Dead: During their Final Battle, season 2 Big Bad Baal does this to Ash by taking on the forms of his dead loved ones — his best friend Chet, sister Cheryl, and father Brock.
• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this is the First's main tactic. Creepily, its Dragon Caleb inverts this — the First turns into girls he had murdered so that he can reenact killing them again. The First even tells Caleb that most people dislike seeing dead people they know and that he is a rare exception. Caleb really likes Reminiscing About His Victims.
• In Class (2016), the tentacled monster called the Lankin creates convincing copies of people's dead relatives and goads them to touch them so it can eat their souls.
• Doctor Who: The TARDIS' emergency hologram voice interface inadvertently does this to the Eleventh Doctor in "Let's Kill Hitler", turning into each of the Tenth Doctor's companions in turn:
  [TARDIS turns into the Eleventh Doctor]
  The Doctor: Oh no no no no, give me someone I like.
  [TARDIS turns into Rose]
  The Doctor: Thanks! Give me guilt.
  [TARDIS turns into Martha]
  The Doctor: Also guilt.
  [TARDIS turns into Donna]
  The Doctor: More guilt.
• In Heroes (2006), Candace — who can actually cast illusions, but uses it in a way equivalent to shapeshifting — as Simone to Isaac.
• Kamen Rider:
  • The Worm creatures in Kamen Rider Kabuto occasionally do this by showing the image of the person they'd replaced. One early episode has a Worm guilt-tripping Kagami with the form of his brother, noting that since the Worm has all the memories of his victim, if the Worm dies, the victim will be killed "a second time".
  • It happens again in Kamen Rider Double's movie, Begins Night, in which a dopant poses as Shotaro's mentor and in turn, Kamen Rider Skull. When it is revealed that it's the Dummy Dopant doing the imitating, this pisses off Shotaro.
  • The Worms do this yet again in Kamen Rider Zi-O, this time accidentally, when a Worm manipulates Sou Yaguruma by posing as his deceased partner Kageyama. Yaguruma isn't fooled, because he's the one who had to Mercy Kill Kageyama in the first place, but he still does what the Worm wants simply because he can't bear to lose him again. At the end of the arc the Worm actually inverts the usual trope and guilts Yaguruma by spitefully declaring in its dying moments that it's not Kageyama.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
  • When Galadriel discovers that Halbrand is Sauron in disguise, she proceeds to attack him, but he traps her into a Mind Rape where he takes the form of her brother back when they both lived in Valinor. Galadriel is taken aback to see him alive and falls for the deceit until "Finrod" starts to justify Sauron's deeds.
  • When Galadriel confronts and fights Sauron in Season Two, he goes even further. He outmatches her in their fight, but when she unexpectedly gets the upper hand, he transforms into Halbrand, reminding her of the feelings she once had for him and how he duped her. He also transforms into Galadriel herself and Celebrimbor, reminding her that he saw her as a kindred spirit and that Galadriel brought Sauron to Celebrimbor's workshop, which ultimatley led to the elven smith's death.
• Lost: The Smoke Monster a.k.a. the Man in Black does this a lot to the main characters, though he usually impersonates their beloved ones: he appears to Jack as his late father, to Eko as his late brother, to Ben as his late daughter, to Richard as his late wife... you get the idea.
• The Red Dwarf episode "Polymorph" features the Polymorph, a genetic mutant who uses its shapeshifting ability to drive its victims to extremes of some emotion, which it then feeds on/sucks out. Thus, at one point, Kryten becomes the victim of a literal Shapeshifter Guilt Trip when the Polymorph impersonates Rimmer and tells Kryten that the Cat getting attacked was Kryten's fault in order to drain his guilt. It's not a straight example, though, since Kryten doesn't know that it's the Polymorph while it's in Rimmer's form.
• The Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Man Trap" features an alien shapeshifter who impersonates McCoy's old flame, causing him to hesitate to shoot it.
• Supernatural:
  • "Skin" does this when Sam fights a shapeshifter disguised as Dean. Sam can't kill him, so Dean does.
  • Averted in "Fallen Idol", in which a pagan god is about to take the form of the brothers' dad John Winchester but is killed before that happens.
  • This happens again in the sixth season. When the boys prove unwilling to listen to her, the Mother of All Monsters takes on the form of none other than their mom Mary Winchester. Still doesn't stop the Winchesters from ganking her.
  • In "The Rupture", Castiel and the demon Belphegor, using the body of one of Castiel's fallen friends, venture into Hell to draw the escaped souls back into it, only for Belphegor to reveal he was using them all along to become a god. As Castiel fights him, Belphegor's last trick is to pretend to be Castiel's dead friend, but Cas sees right through it and angrily incinerates him.
• Young Dracula has a variant when Elizabeta turns into everyone Vlad cares about whom he's disappointed or failed. Rather than doing it to gain an advantage, though, she's already beaten him and is just throwing his failures in his face before she kills him.

• Apos creates a doppelganger of Bit during one of his battle with the Group.

• The special ability of Kyton devils in Dungeons & Dragons. They appear like humans wrapped in chains, but during a fight they reveal their face, which imitates someone their attacker knows.
• In Monte Cook's World of Darkness, Demons can learn the ability to read a victim's most emotionally compromising memories, reflexively shapeshift into the people associated with them, and deliver an Emotion Bomb or subliminal instruction.

• In BIONICLE, Makuta first appears to the Toa as a small Matoran. They know it must be some sort of trick, but they are still hesitant to attack him... until he goes One-Winged Angel.

• A.I.L.A uses this as a Relative Button; after Samuel's attempts at unplugging the titular insane AI failed, A.I.L.A (who can assume a human form to communicate with her users) then turns into Samuel's dead daughter Lily and chases after him, while mocking him for causing the accident that killed Lily years ago.
  A.I.L.A:[as Lily] The argument, the drinking, the accident... that's right, that's when it all went to shit. Do you remember now?... No nightmare can compare to the horror you KNOW you've caused.
• The Baldur's Gate series features doppelgangers and other shapeshifters who like to impersonate other characters, but all of them shift into their normal forms when attacking, thus disqualifying some interesting scenes from quite exemplifying this trope.
  • The closest to actually qualifying are the doppelgangers that attack you in the Candlekeep catacombs that appear in the form of familiar Candlekeep inhabitants and give lame, one-sentence excuses for attacking you. The greater doppelgangers near the exit try to convince you that it's all been an illusion placed on you by Sarevok and you've actually been killing the people that the doppelgangers looked like, trying to make you feel guilty, but they stop pretending immediately if you choose to fight them. Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal also has a similar scene where some wraiths have a go at breaking you by talking in the form of lost loved ones, but they too do it only before the battle is joined, not during it.
  • In the backstory, the dwarf Durlag built his fortress as a safe haven for all of his kin, but unfortunately, it got infested by doppelgangers. He had to fight his way out of the fortress through monsters bearing the faces of his family and companions, which caused him to go insane. He now saw enemies everywhere and booby-trapped the whole place with more traps than you'll see again in the whole series.
• Beyond Good & Evil: In the Final Boss fight, the Big Bad's shapeshifting Mooks mimic the forms of Jade's sidekicks. They accuse her in a Creepy Monotone of causing their suffering, and beg her to join the villain to take the pain away. Considering their natural tendencies, this is especially unnerving. Worse, they do this right after the Big Bad apparently absorbs them both, leaving you to wonder just how fake it is.
• Case 03: True Cannibal Boy: The original Cannibal Boy can transform into people from their targets' memories in order to easily trick them into opening their window. After encountering Brucie, they take the form of Hans for the rest of the game.
• Chrono Trigger: One room in Magus' castle features an enemy who takes on the form of someone beloved to the character in the lead (Crono's mother, Lucca/Marle's father, Queen Leene for Frog). The first time you run into it, it doesn't attack, but the next time...
  "Leene": Frog! You're alive!
  "Leene": That won't do at all.
• Dante's Inferno: Lucifer takes the shape of Dante, along with his form massacring innocent people in his grand illusions, to break the will of Dante's wife's soul, Beatrice.
• Dracula Unleashed: Alexander, Helsing and Harker confront a friend turned vampire Juliet. They chase her back to her crypt where in a last ditch effort to save herself, changes into Harker and Alexander's wife and fiancee respectively. Harker sees through the guise but Alexander, apparently forgetting that that they're dealing with a supernatural force, nearly falls for it before Helsing stops him.
• Dragon Quest V: Queen Ferz, the shapeshifting High Priestress of the evil Order of ZugZwang, poses as the hero's missing mother to talk him into joining the Order.
• Fable III: After having to leave behind your mentor Walter in the deserts of Aurora, the demonic Crawler taunts you with illusions of Walter begging for help and being brutally killed by the Crawler's shadow monster minions.
• Fate/Grand Order:
  • Grendel reads the party's minds and shapeshifts into their friends like Jeanne, Nero, and Drake to make them hold back. Fortunately, Beowulf is used to his tricks and defeats him.
  • In the Final Chapter of Ordeal Call, Maris CHALDEAS tries to make the heroes hesitate by creating illusions of people they failed to save like Gerda, but this just pisses them off.
• Final Fantasy Tactics Advance: The final totema attempts this in a cut scene. It changes from Ritz, to Doned, to Mewt (all characters with a close relation to the main character), and then finally to the main character himself, each one trying a different tactic to try to get him to stay in the world and not destroy the final crystal. None of it works, though it does succeed in briefly mind fucking the main character.
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location: Voice Changeling example: Ennard changes its voice to a little British girl's voice towards the end of the alternate final night, trying to get you to let it in. The voice belongs to Elizabeth Afton, the little girl that Circus Baby (the main personality within Ennard) killed and ended up possessed by (though Baby may be unaware that she is Elizabeth). Elizabeth's voice is used on the player character because Ennard believes he is William Afton, Elizabeth's father who is responsible for her death by creating Circus Baby and accidentally leaving Elizabeth alone with it. While Ennard is mistaken about the player character's identity, the use of the little girl's voice probably still does have an effect on him because he is actually Michael Afton, Elizabeth's brother.
• God of War: Ascension: Kratos starts strangling Tisiphone and then she transforms into Lysandra, his wife. He hesitates for a moment, then continues.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: You can attempt this twice, once against Igos du Ikana with his knight captain's mask (which fails completely), and once against the Gorman brothers with their brother's mask (which upsets them so much they can't fight).
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Midna briefly transforms into the likenesses of the recently kidnapped Colin and Ilia in order to remind Link that he has a personal motivation to fight back against Zant and the Twilight. Oddly, this is the only time she displays shapeshifting powers.
• Metal Gear:
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: You can briefly pull this off thanks to Latex Perfection. Put on the Raikov mask and uniform when fighting his gay lover to distract him for a moment. "Ivan is that you?"
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: Used a few times in a section of the first boss battle with Laughing Octopus, who uses her OctoCamo and FaceCamo to disguise herself as Naomi, then as Metal Gear Mk. II, with Otacon's voice. When you approach it, it attacks you, with Otacon's voice (although obviously not him speaking) making fun of you. Of course, you can spot the flaws easily (she never changes out of her suit when in the face cameo and MK II is much bigger then its normal size. Plus Otacan doesn't flag you down with it in regular play.)
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption: Gandrayda pulls one of these once you defeat her. First, she changes into Ghor, then into Rundas, then into Samus which leads to the image of a Samus nearly corrupted by the Phazon standing over a normal Samus laying on the ground dying. The whole thing takes less than a minute, and the only sound that comes out of her mouth is a scream, but the message to Samus is clear: "You couldn't save them from The Corruption, you couldn't save me from it, and you're not going to be able to save yourself. Your Days Are Numbered, Samus."
• NEO: The World Ends with You: On Week 3 Day 5, the Wicked Twisters have to take down Plague Noise that have taken the forms of those who were erased. After beating "Motoi", Beat realizes that the next Noise will resemble Kanon, which would undoubtedly affect Fret, and right before he brings it up, Nagi shuts him up and he realizes what's going on.
  Beat: You worried 'bout Fret? I mean, the next Noise to show up is prob'ly gonna be—
  Nagi: [cutting him off] Oh, wherefore must our destination be so far away!?
  Beat: Huh? ...Ohhh. Right, my legs is killin' me already, yo.
• Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door: Not quite an exact use, but referenced when the Shadow Queen takes over Peach's body, Goombella tells you that no matter how much it looks like your friend, you can't think of it that way and just have to fight it.
• Spec Ops: The Line: A heavy trooper with an automatic shotgun "transforms" into Lugo, who was killed about an hour prior. Keep in mind nobody in this game has supernatural powers; the whole scene is Captain Walker's hallucination. He's guilt-tripping himself.
• StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm: Anti-Hero Kerrigan faces-off against the Shapeshifting Narud/Duran. The first tactic he uses is to shapeshift into Jim Raynor, which causes Kerrigan to hesitate for a quick moment, before having her Berserk Button pushed and beats up Narud mercilessly. Near the end of the fight, Narud shapeshifts into Kerrigan before she was infested, which causes her to hesitate long enough for him to stab her.
• Star Fox: Assault: The final boss tries to pull this, although only with voices from the various people that died (or are presumed dead) during the storyline, including Fox's father James. Which is the clincher, since Fox knows that "my father would never tell me to give up!"
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed:
  • The Holoprojection droid PROXY uses it to his advantage several times. Going against Vader as Obi-Wan Kenobi or against Boba Fett as his father Jango does not guarantee him victory, but does confuse his opponent for a few precious seconds.
  • In the Wii/PS2/PSP version of the first game, Darth Phobos briefly adopts the appearance of Juno Eclipse to lure Galen into letting his guard down at the start of the fight. After you defeat her, she tries it again to stop you from killing her. It doesn't work.
  • In the beginning of the sequel, Darth Vader orders Starkiller to destroy a droid that looks like Juno Eclipse, but he can't. The game's novelization includes a scene where Starkiller is confronted by a Juno droid again, as well as droids of his friends and father, but this time he declares that dreams and memories have no power over him anymore and destroys them all. The Dark Apprentice destroyed his Juno droid and declared that he felt nothing.
• Suikoden II: Neclord appears to resurrect Viktor's Childhood Friend, Daisy, offering to trade her for the Star Dragon Sword. Viktor appears to be conflicted, but then says that he knows that resurrection is impossible, and decapitates the doppleganger.
• Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis: when you enter the Very Definitely Final Dungeon, the first battle has Shaher attempt this on Alphonse and Eleanor, and who he takes the illusion of depends on the route you take. If you take Path A, he becomes Rictor, Alphonse's commander who was possessed by Shaher and subsequently killed by Alphonse. If you take Path B, he takes the form of Cybil, who felt she could no longer trust Alphonse and was later possessed by Shaher in a similar manner of Rictor in Path A. However, Alphonse doesn't buy it one bit, and simply lashes out at them and causes the illusion to break. Then again though, Shaher did actually say he would take their form to their face, but to be fair, even before he said this, Alphonse wasn't buying it.
• Tales of the Abyss: Sync the Tempest mocks the protagonists, asking how it feels to fight against someone who resembles their deceased friend Ion. Luke counters that while he may resemble their friend, he isn't him.
• UK Sight Reading Tournament has a character in UKSRTX going by the name of Peeesh, who takes the role of several characters the protagonists know; Taro, who Ayaze has a past with, then Ayaze herself in a battle with Laer, then Laer's creator Luculent.
• Undertale: Flowey can shapeshift his face to resemble other characters. The first instance most players will see is him making his face resemble Toriel's after you kill her, then reload in order to spare her, while telling you that he knows what you did because he once had the ability to save and load himself. He also does this before his transformation into Photoshop Flowey, making his face resemble those of Asgore and even the player character themself. And if you make it to the end of a No Mercy route, after realizing that he is not exempt from you killing anyone who gets in your way, he makes both his face and his voice resemble his past form of Asriel as he pleads with you not to kill him.

• In DEATH BATTLE!, when Obi-Wan finds himself trapped in a genjutsu by Kakashi, who should appear but Darth Vader himself, wreathed in shadows and with glowing red eyes.
• Murder Drones: Cyn uses her illusions to disguise as N a couple of times in attempts to manipulate emotionally vulnerable targets, first to draw in an apologetic V to force N to choose between letting Cyn capture/kill her or giving away his hiding spot to save her, then to trick Uzi into thinking she mortally wounded N to make her drop her guard as J went in for a sneak attack. Both times, the real N interrupts and reveals the deception.
• In the finale of RWBY Volume 7, Team JNPR faces off against Neo, a Master of Illusion who at one point uses her powers to disguise herself as Nora in order to steal the Relic of Knowledge off Oscar when he lets his guard down. As she escapes, Ren tries to strike her down, only for Neo to switch her Technicolor Eyes to Nora's light blue and flash Ren a look of fear. Ren and Nora are close Childhood Friends who also received a Relationship Upgrade a few episodes before this, so it's not surprising when Ren freezes up with a horrified expression, giving Neo enough time to take him down and easily retreat. While it's clear it's only a Critical Hesitation Blunder on Ren's part, apparently the mere notion of hurting Nora is enough to cause him to cry.

• In Archipelago, Face-Changer Han finds himself backed into a corner by Lucinda, and attempts this trope multiple times to save himself. He shifts into Knull (their Token Good Teammate), Miss Tabitha (Lucinda's former mentor), and Corveau (the man who broke her heart, causing her Start of Darkness). It doesn't take, and she runs him through. At her behest, he shows her (but not the reader) his true form before their Disney Villain Death.
• In Drowtales, Khaless does this to Lulianne using the face of her niece Sael, who Khaless may have killed and/or absorbed.
• Nodwick: An evil cleric creates Masques, undead monsters that appear as a person Back from the Dead to whoever sees them, allowing them to approach their target unhindered. It would have worked, except one of the victims was a dragon, who have... very territorial instincts where it comes to their parents. It therefore torched the dead, breaking the spell.
• A downplayed example appeared in everybody's favorite Trope Overdosed work, The Order of the Stick, when Elan's Evil Twin, Nale, faces off against Roy. If he was hoping that Roy would be reluctant to attack someone who looks identical to one of his party-members, he was DEAD WRONG.
  Roy: I've been suppressing the urge to beat the crap out of someone who looks EXACTLY like you for a long, long time.
• In Wilde Life, Clifford first meets Raven when the latter looks like a little kid, though he quickly learns that Raven knows humanshifting and likely took that form to seem more innocent than he really is. At one point Cliff is about to attack Raven when he's in his teenage form, only for him to quickly switch back to being a kid. Clifford pulls back on instinct and, combined with his general stress and drunkenness at the time, winds up throwing up.

• Eccentrically Bored: A borderline case in Crystal's backstory. The Archangel first appeared to her in the form of her recently-deceased brother.
  • Later on, It takes Crystal's form at the end, when it comes for Joey. If Hidden in the Trees is anything to go by, it keeps taking Crystal's form whenever it and Joey have an encounter.
• Played with in the first episode of Gary and his demons: in the Dramatic Chase Opening Gary maims an orphan he thinks is a shapeshifting demon in disguise, though in Gary's defense, he makes a very good argument why and manages to counter all the arguments the orphan makes about not being a demon. Later, the same demon plays it straight by disguising itself as the now crippled orphan.
• The Noedolekcin Archives: According to a tweet, Kirk has the ability to shapeshift into anyone, while still maintaining his creepy appearance. The exact purpose was initially unknown until "Nick Jr. Anomaly (2001, Found Footage)" confirmed that he shapeshifted into Nick to give Jr. a false sense of security.
• Mocked in Seanbaby's Super Quiz.
  Question 13: Shape Changers You're in a fight against a group of super villains, and one of them is a shape-changer. Suddenly, your dead girlfriend shows up in her underwear. Do you: A: Ignore her. It's possible that your girlfriend climbed out of her grave, changed into her panties, and got on a plane to see you during a fight, but it's probably the shape-changer, genius.

• GamingPlush64: In Flowey vs Monika, near the end when Flowey has her on the ropes, he begins taking on the faces of other members of the literature club who died at her hands to taunt her.
  Sayori: You hanged me out to dry because I'd want them before you.
  Yuri: That's a knife to the gut, but that's just Monika for you.
• Super Power Beat Down: In a battle between Darth Vader and Gandalf, Gandalf takes on Anakin Skywalker's form to briefly shock Vader.
• Many animatics of Thunder Bringer use Zeus' precedents of Shapeshifting Seducer in Greek Mythology to instead psychologically torment Odysseus and his crew.
  • In AnniFlamma's take, Zeus transform into one of Helios' cows and march towards Eurylochus, showing the King of the God is aware who killed one of the cows while Eurylochus brings his head down in shame.
  • HAH Studios animatic takes the psychological horror aspect of Zeus' shapeshifting to the extreme, as he changes forms between Helen (the cause of the Trojan War), Hector (The Dreaded to the Greeks), and their various foes like Circe, Polyphemus, and Scylla. One notable example has Zeus taking the form of Odysseus' dead friend Polities when demanding the king to give up on his crew or take their punishment in their place.

• Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers: One of Mogul the Sorcerer's illusions is that of Zachary's wife. Mogul learns the hard way that this is Zach's fastest-acting Berserk Button. The Queen also pulls this trick on Zach during the Dream Sequence in "Psychocrypt."
• Ben 10:
  • Ben 10: "Permanent Retirement", Ben is beating the tar out of one of the evil aliens (already posing as Grandpa Max) as Wildmutt when it shapeshifts to close up its revealing wounds and says in Max's voice, "Now, you wouldn't want to hurt old Grandpa Max, would ya?" Ben-as-Wildmutt hesitates, allowing the alien to start wallopping him and forcing Gwen to have to remind him of reality.
  • Ben 10: Ultimate Alien: "The Perfect Girlfriend": Elena shapeshifts into Julie to make Ben hesitate to attack her.
• Gargoyles: In "The New Olympians", Proteus irritates the prison warden Taurus by taking the form of his father (whom Proteus murdered) and begging to be released from jail.
• Played with in Generator Rex. While Rex fights Jack Scarecrow, the latter uses his Shapeshifting abilities to turn into various friends/comrades of Rex. Rex is more than willing to punch (and possibly kill) him while taking the forms of people he loves, but fighting in blind rage quickly drains his powers.
• Gravity Falls has a variant in the episode "Into the Bunker" — after being shoved in a Cryo-Prison, the shapeshifting monster tells Dipper that he will never find the Author, and that if he keeps trying, "this will be the last form you'll ever take." It then transforms into a copy of Dipper, screaming in horror, as the freezing takes effect.
  Soos: Good luck sleeping tonight!
• Harley Quinn (2019): In "L.O.D.R.S.V.P.", Clayface tries to make Aquaman stand down by turning into Superman. With his poor acting skills (he claims to be from "Kryptalon", among his general character inaccuracies) and the fact he transformed right in front of him, Aquaman is not fooled for a second and chops his head off (luckily, Clayface can survive that).
• Used by Brainithor's drones in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Divided We Fall". First he turns them into the Justice Lords, an alternate version of the League who turned evil after their Superman killed Lex Luthor. It has different reactions on each member.
  • When the Superman copy is about to be destroyed by Superman, it turns into Lex and says "This Is the Part Where... you kill me, right?" causing Superman to hesitate long enough for it to (almost) turn the tables.
  • The Flash and Batman aren't affected: the Flash drone's attempt to Break Him by Talking fails miserably, and Batman defeats his double before it could open its mouth. Flash's is particularly amusing, as him being aware of his heart of the team status and playing it up is what allows him to ignore his double's words.
  • Green Lantern and Hawkgirl are at first hounded by their doubles, but, having gone through a nasty break-up, decide to switch partners and take the opportunity to "let out some steam".
  • Wonder Woman's copy doesn't even speak, but she and Superman take a cue from the ex-couple and trade sparring partners, ending with them smashing their doubles into each other.
  • We never get to know how (or if) J'onn actually beat his own clone during his Shapeshifter Showdown.
• Legion of Super Heroes (2006): In "Fear Factory", the Monster of the Week tries to save itself by turning into Ma Kent, but Superman roars, "You are not my mother!" and smashes it.
• Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2023): The Beyonder introduces himself to Lunella this way to mess with her. He turns into her dad and pretends to have stumbled into her secret lair, then starts shapeshifting into each of Lunella's family members and classmates each reacting to finding out that she's Moon Girl, before finally revealing himself.
• The Owl House: In "King's Tide", as Luz and the Hexsquad are fighting the monstrous Belos, Belos shifts his head into his human form to ask Hunter, What the Hell, Hero? It only briefly works before Hunter decides he's lying (since, y'know, Hunter is slowly dying from the Coven Sigil that Belos put on him long before the betrayal).
  Belos: [faking being upset] Hunter, why are you hurting me? I only wanted to help you!
• Rick and Morty: In "The Ricks Must Be Crazy", the A.I. in Rick's car creates an illusion of the SWAT officer's dead son to give him a Heroic BSoD and lose the will to attack.
• The Secret Show: In "Flick the Switch", the Impostors' leader Red Eye assumes the form of Victor's mother in order to lure him back into their lair and trap him and Anita.
• Used to great effect in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power's season 4 finale. Double Trouble gives Catra a speech about how she constantly pushes people away and blames them for it, while shifting between the forms of Adora, Shadow Weaver, Hordak, and Scorpia (all people who had messy relationships with Catra).
• Non-combat example from Steven Universe. Amethyst and Greg get sucked into rewatching their old favorite TV sitcom for almost two straight days, and eventually Greg realizes that he's missed watching the New Year's fireworks with his son Steven. Amethyst urges him to stay, even shape-shifting into Steven in order to convince him. Greg doesn't take kindly to it, and Amethyst responds by mockingly shape-shifting into him; when that fails, she angrily shape-shifts into Greg's dead lover Rose Quartz while blaming him for taking Rose away from her, even as Greg hides in a corner and begs her to stop.
• Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!: Skeleton King turns into the Alchemist and uses it against Nova.
• In Sym-Bionic Titan, the main trio fights a chameleon monster that tries to do this, notably impersonating Octus' girlfriend Kimmy. Octus is fortunately, reminded that it's not really her (especially as the mutraddi's eyes are pretty much its own).
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003), the Demon Shredder fulfills this when he uses his human face, the same as Karai's adoptive father's one, to take her off-guard at the very moment when she seemed to have an advantage, though he later states that he was just playing with her the whole time.
• In the Transformers: Animated episode(s) "Endgame", Shockwave tries this on Bulkhead and Bumblebee, asking if they're really willing to take out their old friend Longarm by changing to his form. (In this case, he's only sort of playing head games, as Longarm and Shockwave were always the same person.) The Autobots feign sympathy for a minute before smacking him up.
• X-Men: The Animated Series:
  • An inversion appears during a Story Arc of the animated series; a Brainwashed and Crazy Morph shapeshifts into Wolverine's most hated foes (including Sabretooth and Omega Red), trying to take advantage of Wolvie's fractured and tormented memories of said foes to drive him to insanity. Unfortunately for him, Wolvie's got plenty of experience with repressing those memories, and he only escapes by taking advantage of the one memory Wolvie can't repress: being forced to leave Morph to die after a semi-botched mission. Prior to that, he shapeshifted into Wolverine's unrequited love interest Jean, and mocked him about how she'll never love him.
  • Similarly, Mystique shapeshifts into Ms. Marvel to dredge up a bad memory in Rogue of her past to try and guilt her into abandoning the X-Men and hook back up with her; the memory was of Mystique ordering Rogue to fully absorb Marvel's powers and personality, an action that caused Marvel to pop up on occasion as accusatory hallucinations. Rogue eventually had to ditch Mystique as a result, joining the X-Men and having Professor X block her mind of Marvel and the incident to keep the hallucinations at bay, but since he was at this time MIA and unable to keep the block in place, Mystique was trying to convince Rogue that she was the only one in the world who could help her with it.
• X-Men '97: In order to lure a Brood-infested Wolverine into the Adamantium chamber to cure him, Morph first turns into Cyclops to use Wolverine's resentment for the guy to goad him into the room, but the plan is ruined when Sabretooth tries to kill Wolverine instead. Then when Wolverine nearly kills Morph, he transforms into Jean Grey, which hits him with guilt just long enough for Lady Deathstrike to throw Wolverine into the Adamantium chamber.