Magic Upsets: Mind Swap
This scenario ranks right up with the Psyche Clones in terms of complication and lesson-teaching, and it usually shows up in the same places that psyche clones appear.
Every mind-swap episode is essentially the same, so it’s practically a cliché. Some mystical artifact, such as a mirror, is unintentionally activated in the midst of an argument between two people, frequently, if not always, polar opposite siblings. Note that this never happens to two relatively compatible people unless they’re incidental background people, such as James and Irene from The Wotch. The mind swap doesn’t occur until that night when both parties are asleep, and is discovered the next morning as they walk out of their rooms (actually the other person’s room) and encounter themselves. A few minutes of panic follow as they try to figure out what happened and possibly hide the event from a clueless parent. They will then dress, resulting in an exchange of style that needs to be explained somehow during breakfast. Next is the consulting of someone magically inclined in an attempt to rectify the situation. And, in typical irony, it will turn out that the swap can’t be undone until much later in the day, after school gets out. And, as you might guess, the swapped ones go to different schools. Additional mayhem ensues as the two parties risk ruining the other’s social image by enacting their own personality during school. Additional irony could make it so that at least one of the two needs to present something that day in class that doesn’t mesh with the other’s personality too well.
Mind Swaps are a magical way of walking the proverbial mile in another’s shoes. Both parties, after switching back, wind up with an appreciation for what the other has to go through every day. Of course, there could still be some hostility if word leaks about how one of them messed with the other’s image. But, lesson learned, both eventually walk away with a closer bond between them, albeit one that may not last very many episodes in the case of TV show Universes.
I find Mind Swap episodes hard to watch because they’re so unoriginal. Fortunately, it never happens more than once as a major plot device. If it returns as a side-joke to a bigger plot later on, I can put up with it. Psyche Clones are almost as formulaic, but I have an easier time watching those episodes because the various clones’ designations tend to vary significantly between series. What’s really hard to watch is when a Mind Swap occurs to people who know some of the basic Mind Swap formula, and still wind up acting it out.
In Universes where magic is central to everyday life, the Mind Swap device is typically utilized by some group or race in negotiations or the like; two parties willingly swap lives for a little while to see the other’s point of view. The accidental swap that I’m discussing usually occurs when the device is lost, stolen, or entrusted to someone else and the siblings unintentionally trigger it before learning what it’s capable of. Alternately, they could know about it, and trigger it by accident when it happens to be lying nearby and out of sight.
The device typically has a mirror or two, and it’s usually necessary for the reflections of both parties to fall upon it, accompanied by some other action or spoken phrase, such as spinning the mirror. Of course, science can accomplish Mind Swaps too, typically with a big, elaborate brain-switching machine that requires both parties to put on silly helmets or a laser beam kind of thingy that zaps both parties, the latter being easier to accidentally use. I’ve seen at least one device that, instead of switching brains, causes the bodies of the two to change into the form of the other; technically a Body Swap, but a Mind Swap in essence.