"The skin of Faethor's face, large-pored and grainy at best, underwent a swift metamorphosis. Watching it, I thought: I have never known what he looks like. And even now I won't know. He is how he wants me to see him!"
— Thibor Ferenczy, Necroscope II: Whamphyri
When it comes to characters who can change their form in some way, most stories usually tend to show their true form at some point in the story. If a character is a Body Snatcher, then their original body will usually be revealed at some point. If a character is a shapeshifter, their true form will usually be revealed before or when they die. Someone who Was Once a Man will usually have their original form revealed at some point. However, some stories might have a character exclusively appear in an altered form, but never show what the character originally looked like.
There are multiple ways this trope can be used. Sometimes a story might simply not bother showing a character's form and never take note of it. Other stories might have a character change into their true form, but it never appears to the audience for one reason or another. Still other stories might have a reason why the character's true form to not appear, such as losing the ability to transform into it or by having the character forget it. Some stories might even imply, but never confirm, that some shapeshifters don't have a "true form" due to the nature of their existence.
Sub-Trope of The Un-Reveal. Compare Impersonation-Exclusive Character, for when a character's imposter(s) are seen, but not the original person. Also compare You Cannot Grasp the True Form when seeing that form is impossible because it is either impossible to perceive or harmful to do so. See also The Ghost, The Faceless, and He Who Must Not Be Seen. This trope often overlaps with Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder and/or A Form You Are Comfortable With, in depictions where the audience never gets to see the character's true form. May lead to Transformed Ever After if it becomes a permanent state of affairs. If the characters in-universe do get to see it, then this can also be a case of Take Our Word for It (for better or for worse).
Warning: Because this trope involves information that isn't revealed, ALL SPOILERS WILL BE UNMARKED.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You:
- Downplayed with Kusuri; she's a third-year high school student, but an experimental immortality drug she created makes her resemble an 8-year-old. She can temporarily revert to her true form with her neutralizer drug, but said reversions are extremely rare.
- Played straight with Kusuri's father; his visible forms are either an 8-year-old boy, courtesy of his daughter's prototype immortality drug, or a muscular giant, courtesy of a bodybuilding drug he created around the time he met Kusuri's mother. He used to have an average appearance for his age before using the latter drug, whose permanent effect was only negated because of the semipermanent effect of the former drug.
- Betterman: Lamia's default human form resembles that of Hinoki's brother Mario due to Lamia consuming the Vivele Fruit that grew from his body. What Lamia originally looked like is never revealed.
- Black Butler's demon butler Sebastian usually takes a form resembling Ciel's deceased father, and his actual demonic appearance is never fully seen onscreen. He seems to have a pair of Combat Stilettos, claws, slit fuchsia irises, multiple eyes and wings but that's all the detail we get and only in fragments.
- Delicious in Dungeon: Succubi are stated to be a sort of shapeshifting giant mosquito. They always use glamour to take the shape of Your Heart's Desire when they appear before a person, which they retain even after death, so we never see what they actually look like. Only small bits are revealed, like a proboscis that shoots out of the mouth to feed on a victim, insect wings they sprout when they try to take down a target by force, and an Imagine Spot showed they have compound eyes.
- Dragon Ball:
- Captain Ginyu's purple Horned Humanoid form is heavily implied to not be his true form, as his Body Change technique is something he has used multiple times before and is well known among Frieza's forces. The series never outright states whether or not Ginyu's initial body is his original body, but various video games do, and claim that his original body is known only to a select few.
- Frieza's father King Cold is always shown in his equivalent of Frieza's second form, which is a suppression of his true form. King Cold's true form is never seen, not even in Dragon Ball Heroes.
- Dragon Ball Z: The World's Strongest: Dr. Wheelo was a human scientist whose brain was put in a Humongous Mecha to preserve his life, and his original human form is never shown in the film. In Dragon Ball Heroes, he posseses a human-like cyborg form known as "Dr. W", but it's never directly stated if it's appearance is meant to be that of his human body.
- Dragon Ball Z: Cooler's Revenge: Inverted by Cooler; he's mentioned to possess lower forms like his brother Frieza, but we only ever see him in his final, true form as well as his One-Winged Angel form.
- Fullmetal Alchemist (2003): Envy is a Voluntary Shapeshifter who is later revealed to have originally been the deceased half-brother of Edward and Alphonse, with him transforming into a form that resembles Edward when revealing this information. However, according to Word of God, the form Envy showed Edward is not what he actually looks like, but he transformed into it to get the point across to Edward, and his actual true form is never shown.
- Naruto: Tsunade uses a transformation technique to maintain her young image. The only times she returns to her true elderly form is when she is low on chakra. But both times that this happened we only saw part of her face. What we see of the rest of her body implies that while her jutsu makes her appear younger than she actually is, her true form looks older than she actually is (probably because her rapid-regeneration jutsu cuts into her lifespan).
- One Piece: "Big News" Morgans is only ever seen in using the hybrid form of his Devil Fruit, which causes him to appear as a bird man. Exactly what his human form looks like (and why he choses to never change back) is completely unknown.
- Soul Eater: Asura's Weapon Partner, Vajra, is only seen in his weapon form, and his human form is never shown.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL:
- While most of the Chaos Numbers have their base forms shown, due to the way it's summoned, Chaos Number 5: Chaos Chimera Dragon only has its base form, Number 5: Doom Chimera Dragon mentioned in its card text and it never appears onscreen. This was eventually subverted in the real life card game, where Doom Chimera Dragon was released several years after its Chaos form.
- Inverted with Number 54: Lion Heart, who has a Chaos Number form, but it never appeared on screen due to Yuma preventing Alito from summoning it when he tried.
Comic Books
- Batman: The face of the man who would become The Joker has never been fully seen. While a face was seen in The Killing Joke, since the clown runs on Multiple-Choice Past, we can't even be sure it was him in the first place.
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Zig-zagged in the final chapter of Century; when the narrative finally catches up with The Antichrist, it's made clear that he's changed significantly since he was fully human: not only has he shaved himself bald and covered his original identifying marks, but he's begun sprouting eyeballs all over his head. His true identity isn't mentioned, and we never get see what he used to look like prior to his transformation, since the flashback scene in which he slaughters all his friends after discovering his true nature is from his POV. However, readers can very easily tell from the hurricane of not-so-subtle references that the Antichrist is none other than Harry Potter.
- V for Vendetta: Played with; the man who would eventually become V started out as a test subject at Larkhill Resettlement Camp, but though we see get a broad look at the various persecuted individuals that were given Dr Surridge's experimental compound, there's no way of telling which of them was V. After emerging as the sole survivor of the experiment, "the man in Room 5" is only ever seen in shadow, and though Surridge describes him as "ugly", there's no indication of which of the prisoners he was, how severely the compound mutated his body (if at all), and no mention of his real name. In the present, V is such a Master of Disguise that even when he isn't wearing his trademarked mask, he's still hiding behind another identity; the one exception to this is when V unmasks himself to Dr Surridge in their final meeting — with his back to the reader, of course — whereupon she can only remark on how "beautiful" he is. In the finale, V dies from a gunshot wound; Evie is tempted to remove his mask and see who he really is, but whenever she tries, she's only greeted with an Imagine Spot in which she encounters the face of her father, of Gordon, or even herself. In the end, she decides to leave his true identity undisturbed.
Film — Animated
- Beowulf (2007): It's made clear that Grendel's Mother is a shapeshifter just like her children, but her true form is never seen in full: when undisguised, the scene will always be shot from her POV, during which only her clawed hands and long tail are clearly in view; later, while interacting with Beowulf in her almost-human form, a good look at her reflection reveals something distinctly non-human, but nothing clear.
- NIMONA (2023): The eponymous shapeshifter doesn't appear to possess a true form; her usual spunky redheaded teenage self is just a form she likes to wear, and she treats it no differently than her other shapes, which she cycles through as easily as breathing and almost as often. During the "origin story" she shares with Ballister, she claims that she used to be just an ordinary redheaded little girl, before admitting that she made the whole thing up to get on Ballister's nerves. In the climactic flashback, it turns out that Nimona spent most of her true origin story trying to live among animals and didn't even assume a human form until she met and befriended Gloreth; the only hint of a true form seen in this sequence is a trail of glowing pink energy flitting in and out of shot just before Nimona enters the shot in the form of a bird.
Film — Live-Action
- Better than You: The shapeshifter only ever takes the form of the protagonist and his girlfriend, at all other times remaining unseen except for the moment when he distorts himself out of shape in order to devour the protagonist alive and assume his identity full time. In this case, it's justified by the fact that the shapeshifter is permanently adopting the protagonist's shape as his true form, even to the point of replacing him in his girlfriend's eyes.
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008): Klaatu when he arrives on Earth emerges from a humanoid cocoon in the likeness of a human who was previously contacted and analyzed by his fellow aliens. Klaatu makes it clear that he assumed this form so that the humans of Earth would be more comfortable interacting with him, and when he's asked what his true form looks like, all that's said about it is "it would only scare you".
- Lifechanger: Drew shapeshifts by absorbing the forms of other human beings, killing them in the process, and ultimately has to keep murdering people to escape death when his current body starts to decay. However, because he loses his current shape in the process of claiming a new one, Drew's original body was lost the day he first discovered his powers as a child and is never seen on camera. However, this is played with in the finale, when a suicidal Drew allows himself to decay to the end... only to instead transform into a cocoon containing a new body for Drew. It's not clear if this is Drew's original shape or just another identity, but if it's the former, then it's aged significantly since he last had it.
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: Played with in that Martia is a species of shapeshifter called a Chameloid. She alternates appearances between a young, dark skinned woman and a hulking, hairy beast. When Dr. McCoy asks whether the young woman's image is her true form, she simply states that she assumed a pleasing form.
- The Thing (1982): The titular "Thing" is a shapeshifting alien able to perfectly assimilate and mimic any animal. It's shown to be as intelligent as a human and retains its memories through its assimilations. However, if it has an original form, it's never shown; whenever it's forced to reveal itself, it erupts into random fleshy body parts and undifferentiated meat instead of anything recognizable as a distinct organism. This is one respect in which the adaptation differs from the novella, which did show the true form (as a three-eyed blue humanoid with tendril hair).
- Transformers: Rise of the Beasts:
- Apelinq and Airazor never have their Robot Modes shown in the actual film itself, with only their respective toy lines showing us what their respective robot modes look like.
- Unicron never transforms once in the film and remains in his Planet Mode. Only time will tell when his next appearance changes that.
- Underworld: Evolution: William Corvinus is the Monster Progenitor of the Lycans, and unlike his more evolved descendants, cannot transform back into a human or retain a human intellect. However, despite the numerous flashbacks and the emphasis on Marcus Corvinus' quest to release him from captivity so they can create a Master Race of sapient vampire-lycan hybrids, William is never seen prior to his transformation at any point, nor is he ever cured by hybridization. Instead, he remains a gigantic berserk Wolf Man for the entire duration of the film.
- Van Helsing: Zig-zagged; the first werewolf encountered is never seen in human form at any point. In the film's mythos, werewolves are permanently locked in their giant wolf forms after the final stroke of midnight on the first full moon, reverting only at the moment of death, but though it's made pretty clear that this first werewolf was shot with a silver bullet by Velkan, it tackles him off a cliff before it can succumb to its injury — conveniently hiding the fact that it was able to bite Velkan in the process. In the novelization, however, the werewolf doesn't make it over the cliff along with Velkan and instead reverts to human form in front of Anna before dying.
- What Dreams May Come: In Heaven, the departed are free to assume whatever appearance they like; as such, Albert and Leona eventually reveal their true forms to Chris over the course of the film: Ethan and Marie, Chris' children, who had both assumed forms that were familiar to their father in order to advise him. By contrast, the Tracker's true form is never revealed, though he does cheekily admit it to Chris during their journey through the final region of Hell: the real Albert Lewis.
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Judge Doom in the climax is revealed to be a Toon wearing some sort of disguise that makes him look like a human. We do see his eyes, but other than that, what he looks like under the suit is never shown, with even the other Toons having no idea what he is. A sequel novel does show what he looks like, but it's not clear if that's canon.
Literature
- The Ellimist in Animorphs always takes A Form You Are Comfortable With, and being a Transhuman Abomination of sorts who exists between time and space, may not have a true body at all. Even his original form as a Ketran is only vaguely described in The Ellimist Chronicles.
- The Camp Half-Blood Series: The Gods of Olympus all take the form of humans, because their true divine forms will destroy anyone who sees it.
- Children of the Red King: Yorath Yewbeam is significantly over a century old and survives by shapeshifting into younger human and animal bodies but he has probably been unable to reassume his decrepit true body since before Charlie or his classmates were born.
- Harry Potter: Boggarts are this both in and out-of-universe, as they are shapeshifting beings who take the form of a viewer's worst fear. What Boggarts truly look like is unknown, as they instantly disguise themselves the moment someone looks at them.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Ainur are spiritual beings who can create bodies to inhabit, and change their appearances. It is confirmed that they do have "default" appearances (for example, the Vala Tulkas was described to have ruddy flesh and golden hair and beard), and some take to shapeshifting more than others. The Wizards Gandalf, Saruman and Radagast are all Maiar spirits who were forced to take the form of elderly humans, so their true favored form is unknown. Sauron was also a Maia and a shapeshifter, adopting guises both terrible and fair. He eventually lost the ability to shapeshift and lost the ability to assume a fair shape. Like for the others, it's never clear what Sauron's "default" form, if any, was, and the form he was confined to is never described to the reader as Sauron does not physically appear in his namesake book — the only thing we know is from Gandalf relating Gollum's description of Sauron that he still is missing a finger on the hand where the One Ring was cut off.
- The Martian Chronicles: In the story "The Martian", a colonist couple from Earth encounter a person who looks and sounds like their son Tom — except Tom died of pneumonia long ago. He is in fact a surviving Martian, who wants to live with them and has taken on the form of Tom using their mental images of their dead son. Unfortunately, the Martian finds that other Earthmen have equally powerful mental images of their dead loved ones, and he (or she?) changes form repeatedly, taking on both male and female forms in response to each new mental image. Eventually the strain kills the Martian, and their dead body is a mishmash of all the different forms they had taken. No one ever sees Tom's real, Martian form.
He lay on the stones, melted wax cooling, his face all faces, one eye blue, the other golden, hair that was brown, red, yellow, black, one eyebrow thick, one thin, one hand large, one small.
- Necroscope: In Wamphyri, after seeing Faethor Ferenczy's shapeshifting powers in action, Thibor reflects that he still doesn't actually know what Faethor's true form looks like. The same goes for the audience, for in sharp contrast to Thibor's extended flashback sequence, we never see what Faethor was like prior to becoming Wamphyri and never get any idea of what he looks like beyond whatever appearance he's chosen for the moment.
- This trope is discussed in Who Goes There?, featuring the frozen alien whose appearance is that of a humanoid with three eyes and blue, worm-like hair. But when they discover that this being can shapeshift and mimic any living thing, one character theorizes that the form they saw wasn't the "original" one, but simply another alien race that the entity imitated.
- The Witches: While exploring the Grand High Witch's hotel room in the form of a mouse, the protagonist stumbles upon three frogs hiding under her bed. Given the common Witch habit of transforming their victims instead of killing them directly, the protagonist assumes that the frogs are just more transformed children, seemingly confirmed by the way the Grand High Witch toys with them upon returning to the room. Nothing is ever learned of the three frogs' original identities, and none of them are ever returned to human form.
Live-Action TV
- 3rd Rock from the Sun: The aliens are never seen in their true form, which is said to resemble a "purple tube."
- Babylon 5: Vorlons are energy beings who wear encounter suits (pretending that they cannot survive outside their own atmosphere) when surrounded by other beings. The reality is Vorlons are Precursors who have genetically altered several younger races to perceive them as that culture's version of a angelic/holy being (Humans see them as Angels, though being seen that way is taxing for the Vorlon, hence the use of the suit. Kosh II when attacked and his suit broken reveals a form resembling an octopus made out of energy, but the show itself never confirms if it's the Vorlon's true form (JMS would confirm in a usenet post that it is). Furthermore, a later episode shows that Humanity would itself eventually evolve into Vorlon-like energy beings, which raises the question of if the octopus form in any way resembles what Vorlons looked like as physical beings.
- Batman (1966): The Master of Disguise False Face is always shown disguised as another character and what he actually looks like is never shown.
- The Collector: The Devil uses dozens of different meat suits or illusions for The Nth Doctor casting but his true angelic or demonic form never is shown.
- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: Shapeshifting Mona’s default season 2 form is a perky young woman, but Ken theorizes her true form is just a bunch of sentient cells.
- Doctor Who:
- The series played with this regarding the Doctor himself for quite some time, that the First Doctor seen was not his original form, and countless regenerations have happened offscreen beforehand, or even been Ret-Gone out of existence. So what the Doctor looked like on Gallifrey has been something of a mystery for ages, with often vague declarations of what life was even like back then. The Timeless Children would at least show us what they originally looked like, a literal undying child that regenerated all injury. But what of their life afterwards before the time of the First Doctor is still unknown.
- The Doctor's Evil Counterpart, The Master, is even more of an enigma in this regard. We find out about the Time Lords' 12 limit regeneration per cycle from the fact that the first Master we see was on his last regeneration, forcing him into body after body until the Time Lords gave him a new cycle. When the First Doctor met the current Master in The Five Doctors, he found him familiar but otherwise didn't recognize him. We at least see what his first incarnation was like as an eight year old, but what the Master looked like as an adult on Gallifrey, or even his native name has been lost to time.
- "Ghost Light":
- Josiah Samuel Smith is revealed to be an alien used as part of Light's survey of earthly life, routinely metamorphosing into new shapes until he can match the dominant species — leaving behind vacant husks. As Ace and the Doctor explore Gabriel Chase, they encounter the husks of several of Josiah's previous forms, including an insectoid version, a reptilian version, and the most recent near-human version. However, we never encounter the husk of Josiah's original form, if it still exists.
- Control also begins to change as she escapes the cellars of Gabriel Chase, gradually losing her Voice of the Legion and growing advanced enough to operate the controls of Light's ship, eventually becoming physically human by the time she arrives on the ground floor. However, we never see what Control's original form looks like, as she's either kept behind a locked door or hidden beneath a very dense hooded cloak until she leaves the cellar.
- When the Doctor and Control awaken him from his ship, Light is dismayed to find that he's transformed against his will into a glowing humanoid figure. However, we never get a good look at his original form, and it seems that Light can't revert to it, another aspect of universal change that even the godlike bureaucrat can't resist.
- The nameless entity haunting the planet Midnight from "Midnight" and "The Well" is never seen fully in its true form by the audience, nor by anyone else who lives to tell the tale, emphasizing its exceptionally enigmatic and unknowable nature among the show's rogues gallery. In its debut, the entity first appears when a mechanic describes glimpsing (but the camera doesn't see) something dark and shifting, "like a shadow", running across the barren planet's landscape towards the humans' safe environment just before the radiation shields coming down cut off all view of the outside environment — a couple minutes later, the cast hear but can't see (with all the windows closed) something outside knocking on the cruiser's hull, trying the door and crawling on the roof, before the entity dents the cruiser's hull inward without breaching it and it fully enters and possesses one of the passengers inside as its host. In "The Well", the entity's true form is invisible to the naked eye most of the time, but characters and the camera now catch partial and fleeting glimpses of a dark, cobalt-colored and segmented "head". The soldiers who the entity kills for losing its new "game" get to see it in full just before it does the deed, but the camera never shows what they're seeing — only their instant reactions of abject horror and terror, which is saying a lot considering that these are trained, inter-galactic military combatants.
- Farscape:
- In "DNA Mad Scientist", it's eventually revealed that the apparent Bar Full of Aliens is actually inhabited by the scientists that created Namtar, having been repurposed as test subjects and mutated by Namtar himself when he took over the lab. As the former project leader, Kornata features the most extreme examples of this, including a monstrously oversized right arm and hand on top of all her various growths. However, though the episode ends with the test subjects being presumably freed in the wake of Namtar's defeat, we never see any of them restored to normal apart from Aeryn and we never get to see what Kornata and the others used to look like. note
- In "Unrealized Reality," the interdimensional being that Crichton calls "Einstein" takes the form of a pale, well-dressed man with pitch-black eyes in order to safely interact with visitors to his pocket dimension. His true form is never seen and given that he comes from another universe where life is vastly different from ours, it probably wouldn't be safe for him or Crichton. It's eventually revealed that the Ancients are actually members of Einstein's people who have been "substantially modified" to live in our universe, indicating that the shapeshifting giant bugs we met back in "A Human Reaction" are only a vague idea of what Einstein really looks like.
- The Good Place: Most of the demons appear disguised as humans, even in the Bad Place, and while there are glimpses of a couple of demons like Todd in the flesh, demons in the main cast are never shown outside their human suits. Michael does reveal that his true form is a 6,000-foot-tall fire squid, and Vicki states she is an acid snake, but both are never shown. In the series finale, Michael decides to become fully human, preventing his demon form from ever appearing.
- Goosebumps (1995): In "The Haunted Mask", the shopkeeper where the titular mask and its brethren came from reveals that his face throughout his screentime is actually an as-yet-uncorrupted mask bonded to his head, and he says that whatever his real face underneath looks like, it's apparently horrific, to the point where he's unwilling to show it even to a heavily-traumatized Carly Beth.
- Joan of Arcadia: God never shows its true form to Joan, instead adopting various human guises of all ages, sexes, and races.
- In Penny Dreadful, Dracula appears this way. He's a Fallen Angel, who's true form is implied to be a full on Eldritch Abomination, but he only ever appears in various human guises, usually that of Dr. Alexander Sweet. Vanessa learns that this technically means he is vulnerable in human form, and can be killed. However, in practice, he's still too fast and strong to fight directly, and too smart trap.
- Stargate SG-1: Thanks to being partially Ascended, the System Lord Anubis takes various forms across the series, from his classic faceless black-cloaked body, to a disembodied essence possessing human hosts, and even a pushy businessman at a celestial diner. However, his original body (host or symbiote) is never depicted, and Anubis likely doesn’t have access to either.
- Star Trek: Voyager: The episode "Vis à Vis" features a Body Surfing alien who goes through four bodies over the course of the episode: a female alien (Daelen), a male alien (Steth), Tom Paris, and Captain Janeway. None of these is the alien's original form. Paris-in-Steth's body and Steth-in-Daelen's body work together to thwart the alien's plan, restoring themselves and Janeway to their original forms and trapping the alien in Daelen's body. Steth leaves at the end of the episode to track down the real Daelen and the alien's other victims.
- Supah Ninjas: In "Jelly Face" and "Detention", the ninjas fight a villain named Jelly Face, who can change his face to look like other people. In both episodes, his real face is never seen. Both times he appears, his face does change to its true appearance after he gets knocked out, but only the ninjas see it. According to Amanda, his real face is ugly.
Amanda: Wow. I can see why he wanted a makeover.
- Supernatural: Almost all the supernatural creatures either genuinely look human (like vampires), or disguise themselves in human form throughout their screentime, and practically none of the latter camp's true forms are wholly seen onscreen, only referenced; as a way to work around the show's budget constraints on special effects without resorting to the underwhelming CGI and prosthetics often used by other pre-streaming fantasy TV shows.
- Demons outside of their human hosts look on the material plane like black smoke, but they apparently have true spiritual forms which can be perceived by people or beings with the right supernatural senses, and whatever it is, it's very ugly-looking. Dean when able to see demons' true faces comments that Ruby's true face looks like a shockingly "ugly broad", and it takes him a while to notice the difference between Ruby and Lilith's true faces. An amnesiac angel likewise freaks out upon seeing Ruby without knowing what she is, frantically asking what's wrong with her face. There are several visual hints throughout the show when it comes to demons and Hell that their true spiritual forms are shaped like skeletons.
- Angels without a host on Earth similarly look like blinding white lights, or streams of blue-glowing demon smoke in the later seasons, but have an unseen true spiritual form. Their spiritual forms have the archetypal angel wings and halos, and Zachariah comments that his has six wings and four faces including a lion's, while Castiel says that his is the height of the Chrysler Building. Lucifer's true form is (or was) considered beautiful by angel standards when he was still in Heaven — long after he was banished to Hell, he shows his true form to Sam and Rowena both offscreen, and whatever they see is downright traumatic for them. They manage better than most: Castiel's true form makes one human's eyeballs explode.
- One episode introduces dragons, with indications they are gigantic bat-like reptilians. While others see their true forms, their actual appearance is never glimpsed thanks to the show's budgets. Many other monsters follow suit, only appearing in a humanoid form with little pieces of inhumanity leaking through.
- The Leviathans are "clever, poisonous" Lovecraftian horrors sealed away by God himself for how dangerous they were. While the major villains of season 7, their true appearances are never shown beyond glimpses through human form.
- Eve, Mother of Monsters, only appears in a human host, with a decaying and monstrous guise shown through video. Naturally, her true appearance is never really witnessed.
- Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger: Justified with Shurikenger, who is a Master of Disguise who only appears in his ranger form or as other people because he gave up his true form to gain his powers. His original form is never shown, even in flashbacks.
- The Umbrella Academy (2019):
- Played with; Reginald Hargreeves is eventually revealed to be an alien wearing a skinsuit, but the alien is never seen in full at any point in the series; the audience only ever sees bladed tentacles emerging from the skinsuit's gloves, the back of the alien's head when unmasked, and a bloody mess after the alien's head is blown open by Alison in season 3.
- In season 4, Abigail Hargreeves is also an alien like Reginald, and like Reginald, her true form is never seen. In this case, we only ever see her revealing her tentacles, and other than that, nothing else — to the point that when she resorts to flaying people and using their skins as disguises in her scheme, she wears them over her skinsuit for some reason.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons: Pale Night is an Obyrith demon prince and the mother of the Tanar'ri. She's generally perceived as a diaphanous, white sheet that billowed in a non-existent wind, with the contours of the sheet alluding to a seductive, enticing female body, with white hair covering her face. In reality Pale Night's true appearance is described as causing instant madness or even death to those who successfully glimpse at it — a successful saving throw to resist the effects means that the target simply fails to perceive her. Her true form is otherwise never described and Pale Night does (sometimes) attempt to stop others from seeing it. The "sheet" she wears is actually a distortion effect caused by reality itself trying to censor her because she's so unnatural that she should not actually exist.
- Warhammer 40,000: The Changeling is a Daemonic Herald of Tzeentch who was blessed with the ability to shapeshift into any form, with two exceptions. He cannot turn into Tzeentch, nor his original form, as he has totally forgotten what it was. He is desperate to find out, but only Tzeentch knows what it is and keeps it a secret in order to maintain control over him.
Video Games
- Batman: Arkham Asylum: Played with; Clayface is sealed in an airtight cell to keep him from escaping and will shapeshift into Aaron Cash, Warden Sharp, and Commissioner Gordon in an effort to fool Batman into setting him free. However, though his in-game profile contains a beautifully illustrated image of his gigantic clay true form, he's never actually seen using it at any point in the game; indeed, Clayface only ever transforms when the in-game camera is pointed away from him, so we don't even get a hint of his real clay flesh in mid-transition. Furthermore, Clayface's pre-shapeshifter identity of Basil Karlo is never seen either in the profile or in-game — to the point that Dr Young's notes claim that Karlo uses his original form so rarely that his identity is in danger of splintering. note
- Banjo-Kazooie: Mumbo the shaman was cursed by his former student Gruntilda, and has worn a skull as his head ever since. In no game in the series, his actual, pre-transformation form has ever been seen, and it's implied that he can only get it back once Gruntilda is defeated permanently.
- Catherine: Full Body: Rin is an alien who takes on a human form to interact with humanity. While his older brothers resemble a group of small, pink aliens in their true form, Rin exclusively uses his human form even in his True Ending where he marries Vincent.
- Crash Bandicoot:
- While it's known that Crash was once a normal non-sapient bandicoot before Cortex and N. Brio subjected him to the Evolv-O-Ray, both the original game and the N. Sane Trilogy remake have Crash's pre-mutated appearance be somewhat obscured by the camera angle and Cortex being in the shot. Though given that Crash is already wearing his trademark shorts and shoes before the Evolv-O-Ray zaps him with longer limbs, what we get a glimpse of in the opening may not even be his pre-mutated appearance, but an interim form between it and his final Funny Animal look.
- The shadow puppet-styled opening
for Crash of the Titans does show a pre-mutated Crash in silhouette, but the opening itself seems to be a way to introduce the game's premise rather than act as a serious backstory (given that it contradicts the rest of the series). The cancelled game Crash Landed would have involved Crash saving other pre-mutated bandicoots from Cortex's forces, and the pitch for the cancelled Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Cartoon Show finally shows a pre-mutated Crash in full.
- We also never see what the series' other animal characters (e.g. Tawna, Coco, Cortex's henchmen) looked like before being mutated, with our closest glimpse being the aforementioned N. Sane Trilogy opening showing the eyes of Koala Kong, Pinstripe and possibly Tiny Tiger peering out of their cages.
- Supplementary material has stated that while Aku Aku is the spirit of an ancient witch doctor encased within a Floating Mask, with the same presumably applying to his twin brother Uka Uka. Their original appearances have never been seen, either.
- Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten: Inverted with President Hugo, who Valvatorez mentions has two stronger forms. However, due to Hugo being weakened from the lack of fear energy in the Netherworld, he can't transform, and even as a playable character, his other forms are never revealed.
- Final Fantasy XIV: Because Ascians hop from one body to the next in their quest to rejoin Zodiark, their true bodies are never seen in the present day. Of the thirteen seen in game, only Emet-Selch, Elidibus, Lahabrea and Fandaniel have their original forms revealed.
- I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream: Benny was subject to Body Horror by AM to resemble an ape-like creature. While AM states that Benny was once a strong, handsome man, his original appearance is never shown.
- Knights of the Old Republic: The legendary assassin Rulan Prolik is an enigmatic shapeshifter of such power that even Hulas hasn't learned what he really looks like or even what he is, unable to determine if Rulan is using some powerful alien technology or if he's just one of an entire species of shapeshifters. When you finally catch up with him, Rulan takes the form of a passive Wookiee hunter, your ally Jolee Bindo, a Terentatek, and a Tach. When you kill him, he transforms one last time... but into a generic desiccated corpse, with no hint of who or what Rulan really was.
- Legacy of Kain: Played with throughout the series.
- The vampire Vorador has evolved considerably since his days as a mortal, and despite his ability to shapeshift and the presence of time travel throughout the series, is only ever encountered in his usual pointy-eared, furry-faced evolved form. However, in Legacy of Kain: Defiance, a mural depicts him as a mortal at the very moment he was made into a vampire by Janos Audron.
- Raziel and his vampire "brothers," Turel, Dumah, Rahab, Zephon, and Melchiah, are all encountered as their usual selves in the opening cutscene of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, complete with the mutations they have developed so far; later in the same game, most of them are encountered centuries later as horrific distortions of their vampiric selves, with Raziel appearing as a skeletal undead wraith throughout the game, and Turel making his own appearance as a mutant vampire "god" in Defiance. However, though a generous dose of time travel in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 introduces the original human incarnations of the brothers, only Raziel's human self is ever fully revealed, with the rest being completely hidden beneath their armour. Several centuries after their deaths, all six of them are depicted unmasked in a Sarafan mural memorializing their brutal murders... but given the degree of artistic license at work in the Sarafans' artwork note , it's not clear if any of these depictions are accurate.
- Subverted: in Soul Reaver 2, Janos Audron is depicted as a winged vampire with blue-tinted skin in Sarafan artwork, and despite the obvious case of Historical Villain Upgrade in play, it initially looks as if he's another example of a vampire that's mutated beyond their human form. However, it turns out that Janos is a member of an entire species of vampirized Winged Humanoids with blue skin and was never human at all.
- The Legend of Dragoon: Played with; the Virage Embryo is capable of shapeshifting even while still dormant, instinctively altering its unborn body to confuse Dart and co with various environments based on their memories. In the finale, Melbu Frahma's ghost implants himself into the Virage Embryo's body in place of its soul to become the God of Destruction, shapeshifting multiple times over the course of the ensuing final boss battle. However, there's no indication that any of the shapes that Frahma assumes are the Virage Embryo's true, awakened form — if it even has one.
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: Anju's fiancé Kafei was cursed into the body of a child by the Skull Kid. The curse is presumably undone in the ending but during the cutscene of his and Anju's wedding, Kafei's adult body remains offscreen.
- Lobotomy Corporation: Nothing There is an Abnormality who is never seen without a "shell", or rather a really mangled human corpse it's wearing. And on the offchance that it decides to discard its old shell and wear something else, it'll cover every inch of the screen in guts to do it.
- Mega Man Battle Network 3: White and Blue: CopyMan.EXE, a NetNavi capable of copying another NetNavi's appearance and abilities. In this case he appears as an enhanced version of GutsMan.EXE to fight, but his true form is never revealed, and he never makes another appearance in the series.
- Pokémon:
- Kyurem, Reshiram, and Zekrom were once a single dragon that was split into three. Kyurem later received two forms where it fuses with one of the two other dragons, but the original dragon made from all three has never been revealed.
- Mimikyu from always hides under its disguise, so its true form is never shown because seeing it is deadly, according to the Pokédex.
- Pokémon Legends: Arceus revealed that every time you battled and potentially caught Arceus, that was one of many avatars It uses to interact with the physical world and we have never seen Its true form.
- The Secret World: Played with; the godlike Filth entity known as the Black Signal was once a human by the name of John Copely, and in Issue #10, Mental Time Travel allows you to see what he was like before his transformation... but players never get a good look at his face, since in his memories, John doesn't actually have one.
- The Shapeshifting Detective: The title character is on strict orders to hide their natural form, so the player never gets to see it or learn anything about it other than that it's unpleasant. The only in-game ways for another character to see it are if the detective takes a spiked drink from Zak, who flees in fear, and if they die in the ending, in which case the police have no clue what the body used to be.
- Star Fox: Andross in the games appears as a floating head with two hands, with his One-Winged Angel form being a giant brain. However, these forms are stated to be the result of experiments, meaning he resembled an anthropomorphic ape beforehand, though his pre-experiment self is never shown.
- Super Robot Wars: Whenever the series adapts live-action Tokusatsu series, the game only ever shows the human characters in their transformed state. Out-of-universe, the reason is because doing so would result in the developers having to pay fees for using the actors' likeness in their work.
- Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2: Passeau is a Summon Spirit who spends the entire game possessing Nina's body. When she's ultimately forced out of it, she instantly disappears, without us ever getting a look at her real form.
- World of Warcraft: Ulfar, the last of the Drust Thornspeakers, is only ever seen shapeshifted into the form of a bramblebear. His home does have a desk and bed, implying that he does return to his natural form, but never in sight of anyone else.
Visual Novels
- Olympia Soirée: Much emphasis is placed on Himuka's true form being so ugly, Olympia would flee if she saw it. At the end of his route, Olympia has seen it...but the player hasn't.
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies: The phantom is a Master of Disguise who spends the entire game disguised as other people. During his Villainous Breakdown, he takes off several masks he has and is about to reveal his true face, but after he gets shot, his face is covered by the shadows.
Webcomics
- Eerie Cuties: Blair is a spirit of a man (who judging from dialogue, is likewise a monster hunter) who was implanted into one of Nina's female dolls. The series ended without us ever learning what he really looked like (since it likewise joked that none of the cast were interested in his backstory).
Web Original
- SCP Foundation: SCP-9545 (AKA Agent Anybody) is a shapeshifting being that most commonly takes the form of a stereotypical government agent in black. However, it's made clear that this isn't its true form, since the appearance, build, sex, and ethnicity of Agent Anybody will change between incidents, and when the Foundation catches up with SCP-9545 at the end of the document, it doesn't reveal its Shapeshifter Default Form — if it even possesses one. Agent Anybody is later revealed to be one of the Children of Proteus, just like SCP-8078, so it should possess a black-and-gold Blob Monster Shapeshifter Default Form, but it never reveals its true shape at any point.
Western Animation
- American Dragon: Jake Long: Dragons in the series can transform between a dragon and human form. The Dark Dragon's human form is never seen, though given his hatred of humanity it wouldn't be a stretch to suggest that he refuses to use it.
- Danger Mouse: Agent 57, the Agency's Master of Disguise, is able to shapeshift to any species, but has been doing it for so long he's forgotten what his true form is. He manages to change into it once, but it is unseen to the audience, and judging from DM's terrified reaction, it's not pretty to look at.
- Evil Con Carne: Downplayed with Hector, who is a Brain in a Jar attached to a bear. While his human self does appear in flashbacks and pictures, his original face isn't shown, but we do see that he was a muscular man with black hair.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: Nergal Jr. is a Voluntary Shapeshifter who mainly takes the form of a boy he kidnapped, and while he does transform into his true form in his debut episode, it's never shown to the audience, with the only thing known about it is that it's some sort of monstrous creature that horrified Billy.
- Transformers:
- Beast Wars: The pre-altmode forms of the Maximals and Predacons are kept shadowed and out of frame. Only Megatron's is seen clearly (his body is that of the Giant robot from ReBoot).
- Transformers: Prime: Makeshift is a transformer who can take the form of other transformers. He spends the sole episode he's in disguised as Wheeljack. We only get to see his true form as a shadowed silhouette.
- Transformers: Cyberverse: Maccadam, who is secretly Alchemist Prime, one of the original 13 Transformers created by their creator god Primus transforms only once in the show, when Megatron threatens violence in his bar. We never see his alt-mode directly. Only that it's huge as its shadow covers everyone and has winglike appendages and makes his voice deeper. Seeing it immediately makes Megatron stand down and leave and shocks everyone in the bar.
- Amalgamous Prime is noted as having "infinite" shapeshifting ability and rarely staying in any one particular form for very long. What his original form is, if he even has one, is rarely revealed in any continuity.
- The Venture Bros.:
- The Master never appears in his true form, and the forms he takes are typically for his amusement or kink, such as Cerberus to mock Orpheus's arcane knowledge or Katherine the Great's horse as a perverse sex act.
- Played with for the Sovereign; he's initially disguised as a holographic head to conceal its true form before he's presented as David Bowie. However, it turns out that the Sovereign is actually a shapeshifter merely impersonating the musician, and his true form according to Monstroso is either the "creature on the cover of Diamond Dogs" or the "woman beside Bowie on the cover of Pinups." Since the Sovereign is killed, it's never shown which it is.
- The alien seen in "Twenty Years To Midnight" reveals his true form after an incensed Rusty yells at him for taking the appearance of his dead and highly abusive father. While the audience never sees what this true form is, it's apparently so horrifying that the other characters figuratively, or in Ned's case, literally, crap themselves.