Doppelgänger

For this week's episode, we're heading over to Germany and the rest of Europe to see double, with the Doppelgänger! How does this monster relate to Abraham Lincoln? What should you not do when you see your own? Find out this week!

Transcript

INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

It’s a crazy busy week for me, starting a new job and rescuing a stray cat - as well as pulling my back for the fifth time since new years day. I’ve never felt so old, but of course - we keep calm and carry on.

DESCRIPTION:

We’re seeing double this week though as we head over to Germany and the rest of Europe for a really well known monster, and monster is a loose term - yes, it’s the Doppelgänger. 

A Doppelgänger itself is described as a wraith, spirit or ghost that replicates a living person almost exactly - therefore, they don’t really have a specific description. Whilst they are physically touchable, they do not cast a shadow, which is a good way to tell them apart. They can mimic the person's body, face, voice and mannerisms, as well as parts of their personality - which does make them immensely good copies. Whilst they’re not evil, they’re also not good is the best way to summarise them. 

A Doppelgänger has shapeshifting abilities and are able to transform into any person, as well as animals. And whilst it isn’t a power, they are generally considered to be incredibly bad omens or signs of impending death to the person they are mimicking, almost saying that they would take their place. If they speak to a person, they will give them misleading or bad intended advice, as well as planting evil thoughts into their mind which causes confusion, and sometimes these thoughts will come to fruition.

It is advised if you ever suspect someone of being a Doppelgänger, that you do not speak to them and they will eventually go away. You are also able to see other people’s Doppelgängers, as well as your own - but it means that the omen is meant for the other, not yourself, which still sucks. Of course, you can warn that person, but there’s not really much that can be done about it once you have seen them. 

We don’t know anything about how to banish them, although we believe it’s through exorcism. We also don’t know if they appear for any reason other than to predict death or if they do anything else than wander around speaking to people as that person - we just don’t really know much about the monster itself unfortunately.

If you’re into D&D, then you may be thinking that Doppelgängers look very specific, with their white skin stretched all over their sharp, pointy humanoid bodies, with glowing eyes and Ken doll-like pubic areas. As we know from previous episodes with D&D monsters, a lot of the time these are not backed up in folklore and this one is no different I’m afraid.

One thing we do need to mention is that Doppelgängers are not evil twins, which is often considered within the media, but they are two separate things. Whilst these Doppelgängers take on the appearance of someone and can commit evil acts, they are not related to the person or in fact, mortal. An evil twin is usually used in a literal sense, again, mostly within modern media - with a good and bad sibling duo, usually with the good triumphing over the bad in the end too. 

ORIGIN:

For etymology, it’s not in English so it automatically makes it more interesting. It’s from the German Doppelgänger, from the root words doppel meaning double and gänger meaning walker. It does have an umlaut on the a in German, but we don’t tend to use it in English - I’ve put it into the title because I like using the actual names from the languages they are written in. 

In history, Doppelgängers go back to the early 1600’s, 1612 to be precise when an English poet saw his wife’s Doppelgänger in Paris on the same night she had a stillborn baby. We have this on written record in 1675 and he said the following to a friend;

I have seen a dreadful vision since I saw you: I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms. I cannot be surer that I now live, then that I have not slept since I saw you: and am, assure, that at her second appearing, she stopped, looked me in the face, and vanished.

You might be thinking that hey, you said this monster was German, this origin means it’s English. The problem with that is that they weren’t called Doppelgängers at this point, so we’re attributing this after they have been invented in Germany later on, which is why I’ve described them as German and European. 

The first official written account of a Doppelgänger was in 1796, when the German writer Jean Paul mentioned them in his novel Siebenkäs where he described it as a sinister copy of a person, but with a slightly different spelling as Doppeltgänger - which means the same thing and this is usually considered the first time they are written into history, but the first account trumps this. 

Following this, there were plenty of sightings from pretty famous people throughout the ages.

In 1822, Mary Shelley, the famous Frankenstein’s writer, lost her poet husband Percy to the depths of the sea in Pisa, Italy. She said that before he passed, he claimed to have seen his own Doppelgänger and had had a nightmare of the house collapsing in a flood, which all happened a week after Mary had had a near fatal miscarriage. 

Next up in 1833, the German writer Goethe wrote that he dreamed of a figure of himself on horseback in a grey suit that he had never worn. 8 years later, he travelled along that same road and accidentally wore the same colour suit to visit his dead lover, and the farewell was much easier due to the comfort of the Doppelgänger dream - which is an interesting example of a benevolent sighting in contrast to the usual omen of death.

In 1893, Vice Admiral Sir George Tryon was seen in his drawing room during a party without talking to anyone and staring straight ahead. But Tryon was actually on the HMS Victoria off the coast of Syria, where the same night, it collided with HMS Camperdown following an unexpected order to turn the ship towards the other vessel. Tryon was considered down with his ship, and the Doppelgänger took his place at home when he was drowning.

In 1895, US President Abraham Lincoln said that he had seen himself double in his bureau mirror, appearing slightly paler than him. His wife was incredibly worried, and told him that because the image was paler, it was a bad omen - which she interpreted as Lincoln not finishing his second term, which we know is true - but that’s because he was assassinated.

Lastly, a popular story that you can find in Ripley’s Believe it or Not books is the one of King Umberto of Italy - who found that a restaurant owner was his utter duplicate. They had the same first name, born on the same day in the same place, married a woman of the same name and in the same place, had a son called Vittorio and were named for bravery twice at the same ceremony. The King later found out that the other Umberto had been killed in a shooting accident, and hours later he was shot and killed. 

This trope is really common within modern media, as well as many fairy tales and myths. In Greek mythology, Narcissus falls in love with his own reflection, Edgar Allen Poe’s William Wilson, Elizabeth Gaskill’s The Poor Clare and Hans Christian Andersen’s The Shadow all talk about their sad characters that are haunted by an evil Doppelgänger.

In modern times, Doppelgänger as a word is still used to describe someone who looks incredibly similar to you and may have some intertwining traits. With the introduction of the internet, people all over the world have searched for their Doppelgängers online using facial recognition software and some have found pretty close matches. In studies of these people, their DNA is even crazy similar, even more than their own siblings, which is weird, but when you take into account that there are 8 billion people on earth, it makes sense that there may be someone out there that looks alarmingly like us.

There are also Doppelgängers from other places, such as the Ka in Egyptian mythology, which was considered a spirit double who had the same memories and feelings as its real counterpart. The Norse had the Vardøger which was a spirit version of a person that would always arrive before them, which made others believe the person was already there. The Finnish have another name for this, which is Etiäinen, but more embodies the anticipation for something bad to happen. 

Lastly, in the Orkney Islands in Scotland, they believe in Trows, which are pregnant fairies who would give birth to sickly children. They would steal healthy human babies and replace them much like Changelings who would turn into replicas of the actual child - in both cases, expectant mothers were guarded against these monsters. I’ve not covered any of these bar Changelings, but I’d recommend checking that out and I’ll cover the rest eventually.

But do we think that Doppelgängers are a thing? There are definitely beliefs around double selves, but scientists believe that this belief comes from injuries or brain stimulations that cause hallucinations and spatial issues, making the person believe that they’re seeing double. There’s even a name for it, heautoscopy, where someone hallucinates their own body. Supernaturally, there’s a belief that the body is weak enough when we sleep that our spirits are free to wander. But there are people who believe in parallel universes too and that Doppelgängers are multiverse versions of ourselves - and no matter how utterly ‘credible’ that sounds, the belief in them has not dwindled in a terribly long time.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Now onto modern media, we have loads this week because they are quite an easy and common trope within media, so I hope you’re ready.

For art, the best portrait I can recommend is very famous for this monster - How They Met Themselves by Dante Gabriel Rossetti from around 1860, which depicts two lovers meeting their alternative glowing selves in the woods at twilight, and the real woman collapsing. I can’t give you better than this, but the alternative is the D&D art, which is really cool, but not strictly canon within folklore.

In movies, we have; Us, Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper, Abeltje, The Simpsons Movie, A Tale of Two Toads, The Addams Family, Following, Johnny Stecchino, The Muppets Most Wanted, The Whole Town’s Talking, The Wrong Man, Wrongfully Accused, Bullseye, The Cloverfield Paradox, Mulholland Dr, Wild Wild West, Underground, The Prestige, Monte Carlo, Kagemusha, The Little Rascals, Hollow Triumph, Angel On My Shoulder & The Majestic.

For TV, we have; Powerpuff Girls, Cow and Chicken, Twin Peaks, Elementary, Kim Possible, The Outer Limits, The A Team, Gargoyles, Route 66, Doctor Who, Chowder, The Brady Bunch, Psych, Drake & Josh, Spongebob Squarepants, The Dukes of Hazzard, Only Fools and Horses, Fairly Odd Parents, Even Stevens, American Dad, Get Smart, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Incredible Hulk, Regular Show, Lost in Space, Inspector Gadget, Bones, Orphan Black, The X-Files, Looney Toons, NCIS, Castle, Monk, Xena: Warrior Princess, Family Guy, Sons of Anarchy, Scrubs, Dexter’s Laboratory, The Rookie, Perfect Strangers, The Flintstones, How I Met Your Mother, Frasier, Community, 30 Rock, Futurama & The Simpsons.

In video games, we have ones such as; Super Mario Sunshine, Fate/Grand Order, Animal Crossing, Devil May Cry, Sonic Adventure 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, Mystery Case Files: The Countess, Saints Row 4, Metroid, Skies of Arcadia, The Simpsons, Ace Attorney, Henry Stickmin, Felix the Cat, Betrayal at Krondor, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda, Star Ocean, Octopath Traveler 2, Fire Emblem, Warioware: Smooth Moves, Tales Series, Suikoden 5, Xenoblade Chronicles 1, Infinite Undiscovery, Alice in the Country of Hearts, Cafe Enchante, Your Turn to Die & Asdivine Hearts.

My book recommendation this week is Tales of the German Imagination by Various German authors including the Brothers Grimm and Ingebord Bachmann - this one is really good for any German folklore fans like me.

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?

I am going to say yes for this one, BUT I’m saying it with a caveat. I totally believe that we can find someone that looks like us and potentially has the same interests, and I think it’s wild when people do and they have weird close DNA. I’m also not sure I disbelieve that they are a bad omen for you, although they might even be a blessing for things like organ transplants I guess. 

What I do disbelieve is the ghostly part, which is what makes this monster a monster for this podcast. So in technicality, do I believe they’re a myth monster - no, do I believe literal Doppelgängers exist in a more modern context - absolutely yes and that has been proven, we just use the word differently now. 

I’ve always really liked Doppelgängers as monsters, the thought of a ghostly version of yourself haunting you and making others believe you’re somewhere you’re not is pretty cool. The concept that you might come home from work one night and find yourself already in bed is CREEPY, but it’s cool. 

I know that my Doppelgänger is Olive from On The Buses, which was a British sitcom in the late 60’s - and it’s not flattering, but that’s what my mother always says. 

But what do you think? Do Doppelgängers pop up haunting their real selves? Let me know on Twitter!

OUTRO: 

What an awesome monster, as I said, I’ve been excited to cover this one as it’s one of my favourites from one of my favourite places in the world. And they do slightly freak me out, so there’s that too.

Next week, we’re heading over to America and looking at a Native creature that is still depicted in murals on the Mississippi River, get ready to hide from the terrifying Piasa Bird next Thursday!

For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube, Threads and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods, Buymeacoffee and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.

Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.