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Law 43
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The 48 Laws of Power, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power, Morality, and Pragmatism
Emotion vs. Action
The Pitfalls of Greed
History and Human Nature
Summary
Analysis
Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect. The Mirror Effect means copying your enemies perhaps for the purpose of mocking them or for the purpose of hiding your real intentions—it can be a powerful tool. Joseph Fouché used this tool to great effect over his long political career, managing to survive by using spies that allowed him to anticipate and mirror the moves of Napoleon. Many others have similarly had success with this law, including Yellow Kid Weil, who set up a whole fake bank to mirror reality and trick people into giving him money.
Greene’s book is about metaphorically looking at yourself in the mirror to discover your strengths and how the world sees you. In this law, he invokes a literal mirror, outlining a technique that people like Joseph Fouché and the Yellow Kid have used to foil their rivals. Crucially, in this law, Greene only suggests copying a rival if it achieves some other purpose, like mocking them. He believes that copying someone exactly to try to replicate their success is misguided, since it’s impossible to recreate the past exactly.
Active
Themes
While the Mirror Effect can be powerful, it also comes with dangers. If you become someone’s reflection, there is always the risk that you’ll get stuck there in an inferior position due to how others will associate you with the person you’re mirroring.
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