Replacement Goldfish/Playing With
Basic Trope: Someone builds a duplicate of a deceased loved one.
- Straight: Dr. Sauerkraut's daughter dies in a plane crash, so he builds a Robot Girl in her likeness to replace her.
- Exaggerated: After the success of his daughter's replacement, Dr. Sauerkraut turns it into a business.
- After the success of his daughter's replacement, Dr. Sauerkraut builds several dozens of the Robot Girl, each one reflecting an aspect of the late daughter he loved.
- Downplayed: Dr. Sauerkraut's daughter dies in a plane crash, so he adopts a little girl who survived in that plane crash, believing that it's the humane thing to do.
- Justified: Dr. Sauerkraut sold his daughter to Space Aliens/The Devil/The Fair Folk in exchange for the secrets of his advanced robotic technology, and builds a replacement to stop people from learning what he did.
- The poor doctor can't let go of his late daughter.
- Inverted: Dr. Sauerkraut builds the replica to prevent the death of the loved one in the first place, like a clone intended as an organ donor to save his diseased and dying daughter.
- Dr. Sauerkraut builds a replica of himself in case he dies.
- Dr. Sauerkraut builds an idealized version of his daughter, and then kills the real one. Fukken crazy.
- Subverted: The replacement is imperfect, and frequently has violent mood swings.
- Alternately: The original is still alive, albeit kidnapped/insane/in a coma.
- Alternately: Dr. Sauerkraut turns out to be the Replacement Goldfish, having been built by his daughter, who was the only one who survived the plane crash.
- Alternately: Dr. Sauerkraut tries for this at first, then realizes half-way through that this would be unfair to both his daughter's memory and her replica's psyche, so instead he raises the replica to be her own self, only tangentially related to the original.
- Alternately: Dr. Sauerkraut never did and never could have children. The robot girl isn't based on anyone in particular, but is meant to be what his daughter would have been.
- Double Subverted: The replacement frequently has violent mood swings... which is exactly how the original acted.
- Alternatively, Dr.Sauerkraut created a robot to resolve the problem (whatever it was) and made it in hisi daughter's image to inspire himself. then it starts acting like his daughter before the problem started.
- Who herself was a robot and created Doctor 2.0 by modifying her specs.
- Alternately (fourth one down), despite Dr. Sauerkraut's initial objections, the replica says she's fine with being exactly like Sauerkraut's daughter, since that is what she was designed for; she can't be her own self instead because "her own self" is Sauerkraut's daughter.
- Parodied: The replacement is obviously a robot, sporting "robot ears" and a built-in plasma cannon.
- Alternatively: His replacement goldfish is really a replacement goldfish.
- Deconstructed: The replacement Goes Mad From the Revelation when she learns that her entire life is a lie.
- The real one was in a coma beyond all hope for recovering. By some miracle she woke up, and call her dad out. A Cain and Abel relationship developed between the real daughter and the replacement, which ended tragically for everyone involved.
- When people learn of Dr. Sauerkraut's success, they want him to build replacements for their dead loved ones. The doctor complies, the people get what they want-- every single one of them. Thus creating a race of robots that can never live up to the originals and further depressing the body they were made for.
- Dr. Sauerkraut is disappointed that the replacement won't grow up like a normal daughter. His mental imbalance grows, and he sells the daughter off.
- Reconstructed: The replacement Wangsts for a bit, but eventually gets over it and becomes her own person.
- The real one was in a coma beyond all hope for recovering. By some miracle she woke up, and was promptly touched by her dad's (desperate) love for her. She accepts the replacement as her little sister. They lived happily ever after.
- The race of robots Become The Mask and no one can tell the difference.
- Zig Zagged: Dr. Sauerkraut builds a robotic duplicate of his dead daughter which is composed of machine parts and the remains of his dead daughter's body.. That body is trashed beyond repair but the good doctor has a Heart Drive with the sum total of her memory and personality, which he places into a second robot body. Then background noise in the uploading process caused variations in her personality and she behaves differently. These differences however are ironed out as the robot enters the daily routine of the daughter's life.
- Averted: Someone dies. No attempt is made to replace her.
- Enforced: "Now, how are we going to shoehorn a robot into this Harem Series?"
- Lampshaded: "What, you mean like Astro Boy?"
- Invoked: Dr. Sauerkraut gets the idea after reading Astro Boy.
- Alternatively: A robotics expert seeks out venture capitalists who recently lost loved ones for funding.
- Defied: Dr. Sauerkraut refuses to replace his daughter.
- Discussed: Dr. Sauerkraut and Dr. Ishkabibble discuss whether he should build a robot, make a clone, or just brainwash someone.
- Conversed: Some guy is pitching this idea as a new Anime series, and is trying to figure out how to make it more than just an Astro Boy rip-off.
- Played for Laughs: Dr. Sauerkraut's daughter dies in a plane crash, so he builds a Robot Girl in her likeness to replace her. The problem is, he modeled the robot after himself, so it's really a boy who must crossdress to please his eccentric daddy.
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