Planet of Copyhats: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

== [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] ==

* The [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] uses this ''aggressively'' (in part due to the fact that ''[[Star Wars]]'' gained a huge fan following and a productive franchise early on when there was only a small body of canon consisting of three movies).

** The most [[Egregious]] example? The Bothans. Their only appearance in the movies is Mon Mothma's line in ''Return of the Jedi'': "Many Bothans died to bring us this information." From that ''single, offhand mention'', EU writers whipped up an ''entire species whose entire society is based around spying and espionage''.

** A few Quarren were seen in Jabba's palace. Thus, the [[Expanded Universe]] features plenty of Quarren mobsters. As they come from the same planet as the Mon Calamari (Admiral Ackbar's people), their people always tend to come off as the more "evil" of the two. Ackbar is a good guy, so ''his'' people will tend towards being the good guys in a story. Take ''[[Star Wars Legacy]]'': Mon Cals are at the forefront of the resistance against the Sith (and pay a heavy price for it), while we have seen at least two Quarren Sith Lords.

** One of the bounty hunters in the line-up on Vader's ship is Bossk, his species, the Trandoshans, got a hat as slavers, mercenaries and bounty hunters.

** Really, pick an alien in any of the movies, look at what that alien was doing, and odds are that's what his race's hat is.

** Averted by Aqualish and Gran: Both are shown as criminals in the movies, but it's established that both two exile their troublemakers and most natives are decent people.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Dragonball Z]]'': So Goku starts of as a strange kid with a monkey tail, and a talent for (and love of) martial arts. Years later, his people, the Saiyans, are introduced with fighting as their hats. While they tend to be evil and ruthless, unlike Goku (and it's implied Goku would have been, too, if not for a [[Tap on the Head]] in his youth), they share a lot of Goku's most famous traits (e.g.: huge appetite, [[Blood Knight|a tendency to give their opponent an advantage to make a fight more fun]]).

 

== Film ==

* In ''[[Terminator]]'' ''2: Judgment Day'', the T-800 wields a minigun in one scene because it is most effective in achieving a particular goal (namely, scaring off the police). ''Rise of the Machines'' and ''Salvation'', in contrast, show the T-800s using the minigun as their preferred weapon of choice.

 

== Literature ==

* The character M3 Green, from [[Star Trek: The Animated Series]], was an overly cautious coward. His race features in the [[Starfleet Corps of Engineers]] novels, having been named the Nasat, and their hat is indeed "being overly cautious". However, the lead Nasat character, P8 Blue, is a straight-forward case of [[My Species Doth Protest Too Much]], as she loves shaking things up and taking risks.

 

* [[Averted]] by the Vulcans of ''[[Star Trek]]''. Vulcans were defined as a logical species early on, and that gave the writers a hook to develop Spock's personality. (Watch "The Cage", "Where No Man Has Gone Before", and "The Man Trap"; Spock is a very different character before he dons the Vulcan logic hat.)

*** A rather mild example, though, but conspicuous because of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'''s atheist tenor.

** Also, in ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'', There is Guinan the Barkeep, who was always eager to listen to people and offer advice. We later learn she is not human, and even later that she is from a race whose hat is "listening".

* In ''[[Stargate (film)|Stargate]]'', Ra is an [[Evil Overlord|evil alien overlord]] (and sole member of his race seen on screen). Come ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', Ra's race, the Goa'uld, has a Hat of being evil overlords posing as deities.

 

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* In [[Touhou]] the tengu and kappa cultures seem to be defined almost entirely by the quirks of Aya and Nitori, respectively. Which leads to the odd consequence of having an entire civilization filled with nothing but [[Intrepid Reporter]]s and their rival [[Paparazzi]].

 

* [[Parodied]] in ''[[Order of the Stick]]''. Drow are supposed to be [[Exclusively Evil]], but then this character Drizzt Do'Urden came along in the ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' series, who was a [[White Sheep]] of the species. [[Overused Copycat Character|Drizzt got extensively copied]], leading to the paradoxical circumstance in which ''every Drow'' is a [[White Sheep]] from an [[Exclusively Evil]] species.

** And then subverted in that the only drow seen so far is, in fact, Chaotic Evil, and was only ''pretending'' to be a [[White Sheep]].

 

== Western Animation ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Settings]]

[[Category:Tropes in Space]]

[[Category:Otherworld Tropes]]

[[Category:Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes]]