Cast Speciation: Difference between revisions

 

== [[Anime]] & [[Manga]] ==

** Pretty much all her incarnations treat her as a veteran, and occasionally showcase her greater experience at being a [[Magical Girl]] than the rest of the Senshi, and except in the anime. The manga and live-action show especially shows her being serious and knowledgeable; the anime suggests that ''not being alone'' has loosened her up from the more serious personality she had in earlier seasons, but shows her being able to pull magical girl stunts (like leaping onto send-floor balconies ''from the street outside the house'') while in civilian form.

** The series also had no other main characters with electric Pokemon until Dawn got a Pachirisu.

*** May and Jessie briefly owned a Wurmple each at the same time, though this was likely intentional, as it provided an opportunity to showcase its multiple evolutions.

*** And May eventually ended up getting both a Bulbasaur and a Squirtle--though unlike Ash's, hers eventually evolved.

** Dawn captured an annoyingly powerful Buizel, despite already having the water type Piplup and not even being a battler, while Ash didn't have any on his team. [[I Knew It!|Cue rumors that she would eventually trade it to him]].

** This is also built into the setting. Two people can't have the same Devil Fruit power at the same time - the fruit won't regrow until the last person who ate it dies.

* Happened a lot in ''[[Naruto]]''. Even though for the exception of [[Elemental Powers]] and inherited bloodline techniques anyone can learn anything, each character has between 1-5 special moves that no one outside of their clan or direct [[Master Apprentice Chain]] is ever seen using.

** The most notable example is Sakura/Ino. Both had similar personalities (if anything, Ino was a more extreme version of Sakura), but by being each other's rivals, they became characters in their own respective rights. Character development further separated them.

** Naruto and Kiba also get this treatment; they have similar personalities (again, Kiba is described as being "even wilder than Naruto" by way of introduction), but have very different power sets in order to differentiate between the two. Later on, they become more separated.

** In short, besides color and hand motions, there's virtually no difference between a Kamehameha, Gallick Gun, Final Flash, or Masenko.

** The only exception to this rule was when USSJ Trunks was stated to be more powerful than Perfect Cell but too slow to hit him.

* As noted above, there's been a running gag in [[The DCU]] over the years about the [[Justice League]]'s two "stretchy guys," Plastic Man and Ralph "Elongated Man" Dibny, who have the same powers and similarly light-hearted personalities. (The Elongated Man was created as a [[Captain Ersatz]] of Plastic Man, whose creator was unaware that DC had acquired the rights to Plas) DC separated the characters by emphasizing that Elongated Man was also a brilliant detective, and exaggerating Plastic Man's fun-loving side to the point of outright lunacy (at one point Plas says about Ralph, "Nice guy, but someone left the door open and his personality just bolted"). DC seemed to be doing away with the confusion by making Ralph darker and moodier, arguably to the character's detriment, before concluding this character arc by having him die in a [[Heroic Sacrifice]]. And more recently, {{spoiler|Ralph and his wife have returned as crime-fighting ghosts}}. Which is ... quite different indeed.

** The JLA used the rule of "no two people can have the same power" to keep Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman out of the League for over a decade. Her husband eventually put his foot down about it. Of course, under that rule (as Scott Tipton once put it), the entire League should consist of [[Flying Brick|Superman]], [[Green Lantern Ring|Green Lantern]], [[Gadgeteer Genius|the Atom]], Wonder Woman (only for the whip of truth) and ''possibly'' [[The Chessmaster|Batman]] (the Atom's already pretty damn smart, [[Batman Gambit|but not in the same way]]).

** Thing is, EM/Plastic Man don't have the same abilities. Elongated Man is a "stretchy guy who happens to be a genius detective-type". Plastic Man basically IS plastic, and can control/reshape every molecule in his body. Plus being nigh-invulnerable and seemingly immortal (3000ish years old and still going strong). Batman himself referred to Plas as the most dangerous being on the planet, so...

* Back during the [[Silver Age]], Superman and the Flash were equally fast. Modern comics have made the Flash much faster than Superman to balance out Superman having a lots of other superpowers besides just running fast.

*** Of course, once you actually join the Legion, the first thing they give you is a flight ring - so apparently there is one power it's okay for everyone to have.

* In the ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'' verse, it has become formulaic for every team to have a telepath, powerhouse, energy blaster, and/or one member who won the [[Superpower Lottery]].

*** ...if not a telepath an animalistic mutant... at least before [[Wolverine Publicity]] [http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/219810 flew out of control].

* In the [[Fantastic Four]] both Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) and Ben Grimm (The Thing) are highly intelligent and honored scholars and scientists, but everyone likes to focus on Ben's physical strength rather than his brain and the result is that the Thing very often comes off as [[Book Dumb]].

 

== [[Live Action Television]] ==

*** Heck, the flashbacks in various episodes show that they've been that more or less since Spike got turned.

* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', the split between Buffy and Faith can fit this trope.

** While Giles is made fun of because of his [[British Stuffiness]], he's a lot more laid back compared to Wesley (at least before his character development), as well as having a dark past. Gwendolyn Post, a rogue Watcher, is also seen as incredibly stuffy even compared to Giles and Wesley.

** Willow and Tara, both witches in the Scooby Gang, were set apart by their usage of magic. As Willow grew in power as a witch, she used her powers more often, whereas Tara would only use her magic for support or in dire situations. Willow also had the benefit of being a skilled computer hacker, but she used those skills less as the show went on.

* [[Lampshaded]] in the 4th-season ''[[Desperate Housewives]]'' episode "In Buddy's Eyes":

{{quote| '''Bree''': (to Katherine) Here's the thing you need to understand about me and my friends. We each have our niche. Gabrielle's the glamorous one, Susan's the adorable one, Lynette's smart, Edie's ... Edie, and I'm the domestic one, the organizer, the one who knows that there are three tines on a dessert fork, and the one who gets teased for that. That's who I am. And that's also who you are.}}

* Some players of the superhero MMORPG ''[[City of Heroes]]'' may avoid having more than one person on the team with the same powers or even the same class to avoid redundancy, especially as a team can only have up to eight members. On the other hand, there are cases when such redundancy may be desired if the superpowers have effects that can easily be stacked on a foe, such as with [[Standard Status Effects|status effects]] when used against highly resistant foes.

* In other MMOs, this is where hybrid classes truly shine, especially in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' where players can now take two specializations. For example, if an offensive-casting or melee Druid joins a party that already has strong DPS, she can be the healer or Tank instead, depending on what's needed more.

* Slightly different, but fits here: The original ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' featured multiple [[Palette Swap]] [[Player Character]] units, including the identical-portrait Saji and Maji (Bord and Cord in English). Remakes of that game and sequels with the same cast thankfully changed all of that (Bord and Cord have different tunic styles and are looking different directions now).

* ''[[Touhou]]'' has always featured Reimu, a [[Miko|shrine maiden]], who is tasked with hunting youkai and preventing them from causing trouble. Terminally selfish and lazy, Reimu sees these duties as an annoying chore, and puts little effort into her training, instead relying entirely on her [[The Gift|ridiculously powerful talents]] and family tools (and she originally hadn't even bothered to learn how to use either of those). Further, she's a staunch [[Nay Theist]]; as a shrine maiden, she ''should'' be establishing good relations with the gods so that they'll loan her their power, ''should'' be encouraging the people's faith in the gods so they have more power to give her... but Reimu simply can't be bothered, no matter how many youkai mock her about it. [[Grumpy Bear|Reimu outright believes]] [[Hard Work Hardly Works|that effort is not rewarded]].

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* ''[[The Land Before Time]]'' has built up a number of secondary characters over the sequels, one of the most popular being Ali, a girl who is the same species of dinosaur as Littlefoot. However, despite her popularity, she has not shown up more than twice and when a guest character was elevated to main character for the TV show, Chomper was picked instead. Admittedly he was popular in his own right, but the likelihood that the writers did not want two characters of the same species in the main group was probably a factor.

{{quote| "If you're a Super Friend, being able to fly is like being able to break a graham cracker along the line... All the Super Friends who can't fly can just hop in a little supercar or something invisible that flies... Regular people can't fly, but they can kick Hawkman's pigeon ass as soon as he lands."}}