Mirrors in Storytelling

What do mirrors and storytelling have in common? I think of magic mirrors in fairy tales first. “Mirror, mirror on the wall . . .” from Snow White or the magic mirror from The Sister’s Grimm by Michael Buckley. I have to add the Mirror of Erised in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Characters can also mirror each other. I have been brushing up on some craft info lately and read a passage about mirror characters in Darcy Pattison’s Novel Metamorphosis (a great workbook on revision). She said Mirror Characters “are used to highlight similarities or contrast differences” and gave one example as Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’s characters of pirates Pintel and Ragetti mirroring the two bumbling British soldiers.

I mentioned this at the dinner table one night. The Parker children are taking their Summer Rights seriously by watching the entire Star Wars series (again) this week. They told me there are mirror characters in Star Wars also and gave these examples:

Anakin’s arm cut off (Episode II)
Luke’s hand cut off (Episode VI)

Anakin electrocuted by Count Dooku (Episode II)
Luke electrocuted by Emperor/Darth Sidious (Episode VI)

In the Harry Potter series, I see Harry and Tom Riddle/Voldemort as mirror characters.

Do you recognize any mirror characters in your favorite books or movies?