History Main / OverusedCopycatCharacter

* ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriorsGundam'' had a field day with all the {{Char Clone}}s running around, both in making them fight and in making fun of them. At one point, [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Duo Maxwell]] sarcastically asks "How many people with goofy masks could there possibly be?" (answer: at ''least'' six) and even Char himself observing one of his more direct copies (in this case, [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Full Frontal]]) and dryly commenting that there are "some things you never notice until you look in from the outside."

* In ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'' campaign 2, the first firbolg character to appear is Pumat Sol, an NPC who GM Creator/MatthewMercer plays with a laid-back personality and [[CanadaEh Canadian accent]]. The players were crazy about the character, to the point that when Creator/TaliesinJaffe lost his character and had to come back with a new one, he came back as Caduceus Clay, a firbolg very similar to Pumat, and leaving Pumat [[PlanetOfCopyhats the baseline for what firbolgs are like in the whole setting]].

[[caption-width-right:350:So many, there's a version out to kill her other versions.]]

* This is explicitly lampshaded on page 12 of the 3.5 Edition supplemental rulebook Dungeon Master's Guide II:
--> Often a player’s favorite role is [[CaptainErsatz a version of a classic character from fiction, comics, TV, or the movies]]. If you’ve been playing for long, you have doubtless already run into your share of [[{{Expy}} suspiciously familiar]] [[{{Literature/TheLordOfTheRings}} white wizards]], [[{{Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian}} sinewy]] [[{{Film/ConanTheBarbarian1982}} barbarians]], or [[{{Literature/TheElricSaga}} pale-complexioned fighter-sorcerers]][....] Drizzt Do’Urden [...] has spawned a legion of PC drow characters over the years.

** Another group of generics were stored in ''Literature/{{Rebecca}}'', and imprinted on Mrs. Danvers. They're even referred to as "Danverclones" at least once.

* In ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIV'', Zangief complains about the overabundance of [[{{Shotoclone}} Fireballs.]]

** A Drizzt {{Expy}}, aptly named Zz'dtri, shows up as a member of the Linear Guild. Vaarsuvius points this out during a battle, and lawyers drag the copycat off-screen. Nale earlier [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0044.html claims]] that now ''all'' Drow became ChaoticGood rebels, "[[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch yearning to throw off the reputation of their evil kin]]". ("Wait, evil kin? Didn't you just say they were [[FlockOfWolves all Chaotic Good]]?" "Details.") Zz'dtri also claims that [[DualWielding dual-wielded]] scimitars are "standard issue", presumably meaning for all drow. It's also subverted since he actually ''does'' turn out to be a [[AlwaysChaoticEvil normal drow]]. [[spoiler:Of course, Zz'dtri later got off scot-free by [[ParodyRetcon declaring himself a parody of Drizzt]] and went back to secretly work for Nale.]]

** ''LightNovel/LordElMelloiIICaseFiles'' plays this for tragedy. Gray, a far-off descendant of the Pendragon lineage, [[spoiler:was transformed into a copy of Artoria by outside circumstances, and as a result was treated as a possible vessel for the return of the Once and Future King.]] She is deeply unhappy about being an Artoria lookalike. She bonds with her teacher, Waver Velvet from ''Literature/FateZero'', over their mutual hatred of Artoria's face.

** ''LightNovel/LordElMelloiIICaseFiles'' plays this for tragedy. Gray, a far-off descendant of the Pendragon lineage, [[spoiler:was transformed into a copy of Artoria by outside circumstances, and as a result was treated as a possible vessel for the return of the Once and Future King.]] She is deeply unhappy about being an Artoria lookalike. She bonds with her teacher, Waver Velvet from ''LightNovel/FateZero'', over their mutual hatred of Artoria's face.

** In ''VideoGame/FateExtellaLink'', Artoria Pendragon is [[LightNovel/FateZero once again]] mistaken for Jeanne d'Arc -- a Saberface introduced in ''LightNovel/FateApocrypha'' -- by Gilles de Rais, to her exasperated fury. After she chases him off, Nero -- who witnessed the battle -- hits on Artoria, saying that the King of Knights' beauty is a close match for her own and they should spend some alone time in her private Roman baths. Artoria promptly flies into a rage and starts channelling Mysterious Heroine X.

* VideoGame/GemsOfWar has dark elves, and several of them have descriptions which lampshade their resemblance to Drizzt.

** ''LightNovel/LordElMelloiIICaseFiles'' plays this for tragedy. Gray, a far-off descendant of the Pendragon lineage, [[spoiler:was transformed into a copy of Artoria by outside circumstances, and as a result was treated as a possible vessel for the return of the Once and Future King.]] She is deeply unhappy about being an Artoria lookalike. She bonds with her teacher, Waver Velvet from ''LightNovel/FateZero'', over their mutual ''hatred'' of Artoria's face.

->''"I am the result of Creator/HideakiAnno failing to make my character unsettling, and instead [[ReiAyanamiExpy my very archetype was copied repeatedly]]."''

->''"I am the result of Creator/HideakiAnno failing to make my character unsettling, and instead my very archetype was copied repeatedly."''

-->'''Obama:''' Well, maybe some people got tired of the grim and squinty "Matterhorn, son of Marathon" shtick you keep doing. Dude, could you be any less original?

-->'''Fei Long:''' Just how many of you hadoken-throwers are there, anyway?

* In ''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation'', Yahtzee ridicules the overuse of the humorless, hard-ass SpaceMarine archetype for FirstPersonShooter {{Player Character}}s. While Master Chief of ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' isn't the ''direct'' source from which the character type is derived, he is held out as the most obvious and recognizable example of the archetype. Seems like ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' is the earliest example of the SpaceMarine variety, while ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein3D}}'' is the earliest example of the humorless hardass marine archetype.

** Paizo, creators of ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'', actually has stated that one of the goals of the Second Darkness adventure path and their portrayal of the drow in general was to redeem the drow in the eyes of players. And by redeem, they meant recast them as a menacing, terrifying, demon-worshipping race willing to exterminate the surface dwellers for their own benefit. Many players feel that it went so far as to go into {{Narm}} territory, and the Adventure Path is commonly ranked among the game's least popular.

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* The ''Franchise/FateSeries'' has a bit of a problem with this. Many characters in the franchise share a physical resemblance to [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Saber]]/Artoria Pendragon, who besides having variants of the original (and one ''literal'' clone in Mordred) also has several unrelated characters who share the same face. Referenced in ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' with characters having a hidden attribute called "[[AscendedMeme Saberface]]", that causes some enemies to react differently to them. Then there's Mysterious Heroine X, who is [[ImplausibleDeniability definitely not Artoria hunting down her clones]].

->''"I am the result of Creator/HideakiAnno failing to make my character unsettling, and instead [[ReiAyanamiExpy my very archetype was copied repeatedly]]."''

* Due to being able to create an absurdly huge number of characters (especially in America, due to the large number of American servers) in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', less-than-creative character names are common. Due to the limited customization options, it's easy to have characters who look like some non-player character even just by accident, or through laziness. There are a small cast of non-player characters who are particularly popular with the playerbase. Thus it's not uncommon to run into player-character expies. Two characters especially get this treatment quite a bit: Arthas Menethil and Illidan Stormrage, of course. Although the jokes about this phenomenon are actually more prevalent than the phenomenon itself. It isn't just names and looks either, on roleplay servers it's not uncommon to encounter [[{{Flanderized}} badly exaggerated]] versions of these characters: [[{{CardCarryingVillain}} eagerly depraved death knights]], [[{{KnightTemplar}} overly zealous paladins]] and [[{{Woobie}} emo demon hunters]] respectively. Most of the time these are just very inexperienced roleplayers trying to get in on the action. Sometimes also done because the character in question is seen as sexy by the creating player (and probably by others too), especially in the case of Illidan.
** When the first expansion, ''Burning Crusade'' was released, with its race of blond elves that could be hunters, thus using bows, the first day there were thousands of bootleg Legolases running around the servers. Llegolas, Legolass, [=L3goLas=] and other [[SarcasmMode imaginative]] versions.

* ''Webcomic/{{Goblins}}'' [[http://www.goblinscomic.com/07102005 also skewers]] [[http://www.goblinscomic.com/07112005/ the idea]] of every drow character being a Drizzt clone, gleefully, with three joining the PC party at the very beginning, including [[YouWannaGetSued Drasst Don'tsue]], Drizzt's half-brother.

->''"I am the result of Creator/HideakiAnno failing to make my character unsettling, and instead my very archetype was copied repeatedly."''

** Lampshaded [[PretenderDiss as a diss]] during ''Anime/FateGrandCarvinal'' when Artoria and [[VideoGame/FateExtra Nero]] (who has the distinction of being the first Saberface created) clash and the former insults Nero as a "franchisee" and Gawain piles on with calling Nero a PaletteSwap. Nero is left chomping at the bit, especially as her teammate Elisabeth ''agrees with them''.

** ''TabletopGame/CriticalRoleTaldoreiCampaignSetting'': The adventure hook "A Lesson in Tropes" pokes fun at the D&D cliche of making a character based off the fantasy hero [[Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt Drizzt]]. The hook consists of a dark elf ranger with a panther pet revealing himself heartless spy planning to assassinate an elven official with little more than a dashing smile and his beautiful eyes.