Kill and Replace: Difference between revisions

* In a short story by [[Paul Jennings]], the narrator tells of his troubles with a duplicate that had all his memories and kept trying to take over his life because it thought it was him, so that in the end he had to kill it in self-defense. The end of the story implies that it's the narrator who was the duplicate.

* Horza, the main character in [[Iain M Banks]]' ''[[The Culture/Consider Phlebas|Consider Phlebas]]'' is a member of a human subspecies called [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|Changers]], who have biological faculties that allow them to take on the appearance of other humanoids (although it takes a lot of concentration and food to complete a change). Horza in particular has been trained as a spy, so he also keenly observes his targets so that when he kills and replaces them he copies not only their appearance but their personality and mannerisms. {{spoiler|Sadly, his otherwise perfect cover is blown twice when an [[Worthy Opponent|enemy spy]] shows up.}}

** The Polyjuice potion is a less heinous form of this. It's used to replace someone, but whoever you're impersonating has to be alive when you take their hair or other part, so you have to keep them alive if you want to look like them for more than an hour. In practice, it's Capture And Replace.

* Kandra do this in ''[[Mistborn]]'', though in an odd variation, they are bound by [[Thou Shall Not Kill]]—their employers must provide the corpse. Whether or not they participate in the [[Cold-Blooded Torture]] that generally goes on ''first'' (in order to root out any secrets necessary to make the impersonation successful) isn't mentioned.