A list of media we consider to be good representation of Plurality, because why not?
So much media portrays plurality or dissociative disorders as scary and bad, and to counter this we offer the ones we like and think do a good job of not being "hey this alter's gonna kill you" while also just being good works in general. Some examples are more blatant than others with the aspects of being different people in the same body, others are more subtle and can be chalked up to "it's a superpower" or "it's a fantasy thing" but also... This is our list and we don't care if people agree or disagree on if the plurality of a character is "canon" or not.
Severance
This is the most obvious example. The premise itself surrounds a character who surgically splits his consciousness in order to avoid trauma and continue functioning at work. His "work self" and his "outside self" are both him, yet they have no memory crossover and pursue different things as separate people would. It's got a lot of weirdness and mystery, but it's not horror related at all. The whole show is mostly a commentary on capitalism, ethics, and nepotism in our opinion. The actual characters with the splits slowly find out about the "other them" and leads into many, many things changing for them and their families and friends. The splitting procedure is done consensually, but is viewed by outsiders as controversial and even "wrong" in some cases, but the general public doesn't know much about those living with the split consciousness.
Steven Universe
This one's sort of a stretch, but we absolutely love Garnet. A character that is the whole of two people that love each other so much they become one person? Boy if that doesn't sound like an in-sys relationship to us! Plus, fusion in general still treats the multiple gems in one as "in there somewhere" (for lack of a better term), and the individual gems can still be spoken to while fused. Fusion is also able to be undone, letting each gem separate individually while still retaining memories as the fusion gem. When unfused, they are individually separate and distinct. When fused, they work in tandem as one and essentially become co-con or another person entirely. It's cool and we like that it's also an allegory for relationships too.
Fight Club
While this is borderline "bad" representation (as in one alter is "the dangerous one"), we would still consider this movie to be overall accurate in some ways. While the main character essentially hallucinates his alter, they are distinct and treated as separate for most of the movie. We also think that it is important to note that the other mental health issues portrayed in the movie (depression, self-harm, addiction, etc) are central to the story and character(s). Also, there are still no "evil" characters really. At worst they're morally gray and rebellious to the point of danger, not inherently bad. Essentially, one alter is an "average working guy" and the other is the "wild and reckless rebel". Again, it's not the best representation but it's still better than... Split
Deadpool
Sooo Deadpool. Not movie Deadpool, video game and comic Deadpool. He thinks in different voices/fonts and the voices often seem to basically be "backseating" or co-con while not necessarily being in control of the body. We would classify Deadpool as perhaps being more of a median system based on our admittedly very limited knowledge of the character outside of the movies. We played the game up to a certain point years ago, and I think we have one, maybe two comics where the multiple voices/alters appear in text. Take this one with a grain of salt.
Piranesi
This book literally created an introject for us, so we're putting it in. It's an odd read and the point of realization of the main character (possibly) being plural comes near the end of the book. There is quite literally a line of text talking about crying for the person you "were" before in the context of amnesia. Pretty much Piranesi writing "I think this guy I was before was crying through me" near the end. He's so dissociated from the world and the person he was before that in the end he still doesn't fully recall his previous experiences. To us, it reads as one host going dormant and another coming into his own world and experiences. Also the world in which Piranesi lives is fascinating.
This list will be added to later because we probably have more examples that we can't think of right now. I swear there was a video game we played that also gave off the "vibes" of plurality in a character but it's escaping me at the moment. Hope this makes sense lol.
Share your own thoughts and recommendations below, we'd love to see more representation that portrays plurality/dissociation/DID more positively!
