Cloning Blues: Difference between revisions

* ''[[RahXephon]]'' has {{spoiler|Isshiki Makoto, who, in both flashbacks and his final breakdown, is shown to take the fact that he's an inferior clone...rather hard, to say the least. Indeed, he almost directly causes humanity to lose the Human-Mu war out of a need to prove that he was more than an imperfect copy of his "father"}}

* In a truly staggering example of the clone inferiority complex, after the villain of first season of ''[[Slayers]]'', Rezo the Red Priest, makes a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] and dies on the apocalyptic magics of the protagonists to allow the destruction of the demon he was host to, the clone created by his spurned former lover becomes obsessed with convincing the same protagonists to use the exact same potentially world-ending spell on him so that, in the unlikely event of his survival, he can claim to have achieved something the original had not. The dubiousness of trying to one-up a self-sacrificing gesture by surviving your own is apparently lost on the mind of a megalomaniac.

** Likewise in the companion series, ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'', where the {{spoiler|Syaoran we start out with is a clone of the Syaoran from the latter half of the series. The clone first sacrifices his life for the original and then is [[My Own Grampa|reincarnated back into the original's father]]}}.

* The contestants in ''[[Gantz]]'' were all clones created at the time of death of their originals, with all memories intact. Sometimes Gantz makes mistakes, and so sometimes the 'dead' originals get better.

* Matt, in Nancy Farmer's ''[[House of the Scorpion]]'', is treated like crap by most of the people in the world simply because clones are normally reduced to the intelligence level of invalids. They are marked as "property" and treated more like inanimate objects than living things. As you can probably tell, this is a big problem for Matt, who has not had his brain destroyed and is thus a sapient person. It doesn't make it better for him when he discovers that he was not meant to replace El Patron as ruler of Opium, the fictional nation in the book, but {{spoiler|to be harvested for organs once El Patron's went bad.}}

* In the ''[[Deathstalker]]'' novels by Simon R. Green, we have {{spoiler|Evangeline Shreck (cloned before the series starts to replace the Evangeline who was killed by her father when she wouldn't let him rape her), and the clone of High Lord Dram}}. And the clones (and sometimes [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|esper clones]]) that the empire enslaves for labor.

** Gholas originally weren't strictly clones. Up until the third book in the series, gholas are the actual bodies of the deceased. They're just placed into axlotl tanks as quickly as possible, which essentially regrows the dead tissue and brain cells enough that the body is brought back to life. The body has no memories of its former life. But then, the Bene Tleilax engineered a [[Xanatos Gambit]] that resulted in the ghola having their psyche exposed to something their former life would vehemently oppose, which shocks their mind into reawakening. The later novels have gholas grown from simple cells, rather than the original body, so they are true clones—but they are still known as gholas because the term evolved over time to encompass a far more complicated definition. They still have the stigma of necromancy, though.

* The clones in [[William Sleator]]'s ''[[The Duplicate]]'' have it rough. First off they get less and less sane the farther from the original they are, and the sanest ones develop black marks on their hands and die abruptly. Since they're not convinced that they are copies (they're physically and mentally identical to the original until the marks appear), this all feels monstrously unfair.

* In Jeff Long's ''Year Zero'', adult human clones are created using ancient DNA, then used as expendable guinea pigs for research to cure an unstoppable plague. Not only are these clones fully sentient, but they retain the memories of their entire lives, up to and including their deaths, and so assume they're being punished in the afterlife.

* ''[[The Cuckoo's Boys]]'' by [[Robert Reed]] revolves around the aftermath of a tailored virus causing millions of women to be "impregnated" artificially with the genetic code of a brilliant biologist. The clones (referred to as "Philip Stevens" or PSes) all have their creators features and high IQ, but develop uniquely based on who raises them; it doesn't stop mandatory sterilization, acts of terrorism, genocide, and glorified concentration camps, however.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Not too surprisingly, the original psycho-jealous-killer-clone rule still applies in the [[Ravenloft]] setting, even in the 3E products.

** Other ways of "cloning"—such as Simulacrum—don't have this problem.

** The dwarves used deepspawn to quickly churn out lots of adult and skilled troops during [http://www.candlekeep.com/fr_faq.htm#_Toc16090581 The Spawn Wars]. This may have more insidious side-effects, though. From Eric Boyd's Q&A on ''Drizzt Do'Urden's Guide To The Underdark'':

** Played with even ''further'', when it turns out that the clones all remember what Franz did to their people. [[Turned Against Their Masters|But at least something is being played straight.]]

* Used, abused, subverted, and played straight in [https://web.archive.org/web/20190118100705/http://www.applevalleycomic.com/ Apple Valley]. An early accident causes secondary character Doyle to be able to split into "quantum doubles", which Dr Hubris (the resident evil scientist and Doyle's boss) takes extreme advantage of as an unexhaustable supply of expendable test subjects. Later it's mentioned that they dispose of the dead Doyles by blackmailing companies they claim contributed to Doyle's deaths. For his suffering, Doyle does manage to pick up a Doppleganger Attack later on, making him useful as something other than a meat dispenser.

 

== Web Original ==

* BitchStewie and BitchBrian in ''[[Family Guy]]''.

** And Stewie's evil clone.

* [[Superboy]] in ''[[Young Justice (animation)|Young Justice]]'', being [[Superman]]'s clone. Superman himself [[That Thing Is Not My Child|is]] [["Well Done, Son" Guy|not]] [[Parental Neglect|pleased]].

** Interestingly, Superman currently uses this as a rationalization why he shouldn't mentor Superboy—he thinks that if he does, Superboy will feel the need to live up to him. However, it's pretty clear that Superman really just finds his clone's existence disturbing.

** By the end of the first season, {{spoiler|Roy Harper/Red Arrow. The one we've been following throughout the show was revealed to be a clone from Cadmus, while the real Roy was put in stasis for three years. He does not take the news about his true nature, along with being an unwilling traitor, very well.}}

* On ''[[American Dad]]'' Stan uses CIA technology to create a clone of his son Steve to prove to his wife his way of raising him is better.

 

== Real Life ==

 

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[[Category:You Hate What You Are]]