There Is Another

Obi-Wan: That boy is our last hope.
Yoda: No. There is another.

— Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

So, you are a writer, and you establish, for the purposes of building up drama and depth, that one of your characters is the Last of Their Kind. However, maybe you later come to feel that this severely restricts the options available to you, especially if you've given your audience a glance or two at others of their kind who are now, obviously, gone.

Never fear! You can easily reveal that this character is not really the Last of Their Kind after all, and their fellows have either been secreted away, ascended to a higher plane of existence, or new ones have come into being somehow. This can be used as a moment of great hope in the heroic sort as this character realizes that they might not be alone after all, or that there is someone who can now help them with a particular plot problem which can only be solved by knowledge another person of their race or culture could possibly possess. The possibility of imprisoned survivors being rescued can also result in a Quest for the Rest plot or subplot. On the other hand, it can also be used as a moment of fear if the one that was the last of their kind was an antagonist or some other problematic force. That is, protagonists seemingly end their journey going, "Great! We've destroyed the last Made of Evil creature/secured the last Artifact of Doom. Let's celebrate!" only to realize that they are not quite done yet.

Thus, this trope can be used to further a story's plot, provide a Sequel Hook, or form the basis of a work's Series Goal or a personal character arc. Conversely, this can also be relegated to a single episode or story arc, with Status Quo Is God negating this development by the end. Maybe after receiving news of these others, the character will find that they have been killed in the meantime or ends up getting there only to witness them die in front of him. Or, perhaps after the reunion, they must be permanently (re-)sealed away in another dimension for their own protection. There's always the good old It Was All A Dream, or the other character(s) somehow falling to Chuck Cunningham Syndrome or whatnot.

This trope can also lead to Only You Can Repopulate My Race if someone proposes an Adam and Eve Plot.

See Sailor Earth for when a fanfiction writer creates this type of character.

Compare The Chosen Many, when "there is another" refers to the fact that another character also has the special qualifications needed to fill the protagonist's role in the plot (prophecies can be vague, after all), and The Last Man Heard a Knock..., a particular version of this trope where The Aloner stumbles upon another of their kind without actively searching for them. Not to be confused with We Have Reserves.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Attack on Titan has Mikasa, the last Asian. Her mother was the same ethnicity, but she was killed as part of Mikasa's backstory. It later turns out that she's just the last Asian within the Walls, and there are (presumably) many of them that remain elsewhere. Kiyomi Azumabito explains that Mikasa is descended from the Azumabito family, a son of which settled within the Walls ages ago.
• Bleach: Uryuu Ishida is introduced as the Last of His Kind until it's revealed his father is the official Last Quincy, a full master of every Quincy technique but refuses to use his power for mysterious reasons. Uryuu is therefore the last practicing Quincy, Ryuuken the last (retired) master. Then it's revealed the Vandenreich Quincies existed in secret and have abandoned the old ways. Uryuu is the last practitioner, and Ryuuken the last master, of the old ways. Then it's revealed Ichigo is half-Quincy because his mother was Ryuuken's cousin.
• Death Note features two uses of this trope.
  • After L's death, Light assumes he now has free reign to be the God of the new world, as L was the only detective smart enough to outmaneuver him. Indeed, he was one step away from proving Light was Kira before his death. Light's plans are ultimately wrecked by the appearance of Mello and Near, who had been raised as L's potential successors, and who quickly deduce that Light is Kira because his increasingly complex plans could only possibly have been executed by the head of the Japanese Task Force.
  • Another application of this trope would be the introduction of Misa, the second Kira.
• Interestingly, Goku is this in Dragon Ball Z. While working on a difficult job for Freeza, Raditz remembers that his long-lost brother was sent away to a distant planet before their home planet was destroyed, so he and the other two remaining Saiyans, Nappa and Prince Vegeta, decide to recruit him to help out. The series does stick to Goku, Vegeta, Raditz and Nappa as the only survivors, however, and besides some Half-Human Hybrid children, no other pure-blood Saiyans are introduced in the main series. Long-lost Saiyan survivors sent to backwater planets serve as a common character type in both the non-canon movies and fanfiction, though.
  • Played straight later on in the form of Tarble, Vegeta's younger brother introduced in the OVA Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!! He was sent away because he lacked the Blood Knight tendencies of the other Saiyans, but comes to Earth to get his brother to help defeat some of Freeza's former minions. But aside from a brief mention in Battle of Gods, he hasn't been seen since.
  • The Non-Serial Movies also introduce a few more Saiyans: Turles, Goku's evil Identical Stranger, and Legendary Super Saiyan Broly and his father Paragus, but they are generally considered non-canon. That was until Dragon Ball Super: Broly made the latter two part of the DB canon.
  • Piccolo receives a version of this when he learns that he's part of the Namekian race. Kami, who shares a soul with him (due to Piccolo splitting off from him), notes that since he/they came to Earth when they were young, they had little to no memory of their home planet. Since the reason they were sent away was because of a great cataclysm, there was no reason for Kami to believe that there were any survivors beyond him. Furthermore, there were apparently different clans of Namekians, with only the Dragon Clan being able to create Dragon Balls. Unfortunately, only a handful of them were left on Namek, and Freeza now has knowledge of this too...
  • Likewise averted in Dragon Ball Online, a far-future video game sequel (sadly never released in English) made with story input from Akira Toriyama. Goku and Vegeta are unable to find enough Saiyan survivors to save their race (whether they are able to find ANY is unclear), but their descendants interbreed with humans to the point where a not-inconsiderable minority of humanity has some Saiyan blood.
• Kaguya-sama: Love Is War has a non-magical example. Ishigami is a "data-processing prodigy" who can see the personality of anyone he looks at, even if they're disguised or attempting to keep their true nature secret. After a bad incident, he started deliberately impeding his vision, which is why he doesn't know that Osaragi has been reading him in the same way for months. Never has the saying, "Who watches the watchmen?" been so literal.
• Michel in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch is kept from realizing the existence of other Ancients by Fuku, the real Man Behind the Man (as opposed to the fake, the Great One), as they would spoil his delusions of turning the world into a flying fish-ridden Mordor.
• In Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, Prospera's Quiet Zero plan comes into effect with an army of Attack Drones that can utilize Aerial Rebuild's data storms on a widespread scale and it seems that there's nothing that can stop her. However, it's revealed that there was another Mobile Suit that was saved from the Vanadis Incident that kickstarts the series - Gundam Calibarn, a Gundam that does not have the filters against data storms, meaning the pilot takes the brunt of the storms.
• Naruto:
  • Sasuke is introduced at the last of the Uchiha clan, though toward the end of the Land of Waves Arc he reveals he has a brother, Itachi, who is presumably still alive somewhere. This is confirmed a few arcs later when Itachi shows up in person. In Part II, shortly before the two have their final showdown, it's revealed that their ancestor, Madara, is not only alive and well, but Itachi's mentor. However, Madara is ultimately revealed to be Obito Uchiha (another of their clansman) in disguise and the real Madara is eventually resurrected.
  • While it hasn't been particularly significant to the plot so far, Kushina Uzumaki implies she may have been the last of her clan before her death, leaving her son, Naruto, as the sole remaining member.. Later, however, Kabuto reveals that Karin is also a member of the Uzumaki clan, as was the now-dead Nagato.

Comic Books

• Cerebus the Aardvark: The series did this with aardvarks.
• ElfQuest: The series does this with the Wolfriders, who believe they are the last of their kind. Imagine their surprise when they find out not only are there more tribes (three [later four] to be precise) but a High One survived as well.
  • It's just as much of a surprise to the Gliders, one of the other tribes, when they discover there are elves out there who can still have children. Their leader, Winnowill, also discovers that she has a non-evil counterpart in Savah (of the first tribe the Wolfriders encounter).
  • In Wavedancers, there is an inversion. Wavelet is an elf who was raised by humans, and does not know there are tribes of elves in this world. She is introduced in a side-plot after other elves discover her, rather than being treated as a protagonist.
• Lobo: In his first own series, Lobo: The Last Czarnian, Lobo has to discover that another Czarnian survived his genocide on his own race. Worse, it's his fourth-grade math teacher (probably one — if not the one — member of his race he hated most), and he has to bring her to Vril Dox unharmed. However, after his contract with Vril Dox is fulfilled, he quickly fixes that mistake by snapping her neck.
• Martian Manhunter: J'onn J'onzz was the last Martian. However, it turns out that he was the last green Martian, and there's a race of Always Chaotic Evil white Martians that are very much alive. Go figure. Eventually they're all killed, except for the good aligned Miss Martian. Which has changed again in the new Martian Manhunter retooling. Not only are there other White Martians, but another Green Martian... and female. But she's evil. And after another apparent retcon in Brightest Day, this is still the case. It's a different Green Martian. Who is also female. And insanely evil.
• Monstress: The Monstra hints that the reason it is living within Maika has to do with her lineage. But when she threatens to kill herself to get rid of it, it replies, "No matter. There is still another of your line into whom I may pass." Maika is understandably surprised.
• PS238: Atlas is believed to be the last Argonian, his Half-Human Hybrid son Ron aside. Except, as it turns out, Argon is completely fine. Atlas turns out to be a Hidden Backup Prince to the royal house, sent to Earth because of an Argonian Civil War, complete with a spaceship and encyclopaedia meant to help him home when he'd reached maturity. The U.S. military, having confiscated the ship during his childhood and gained access to the encyclopaedia, lied to Atlas and told him Argon had been destroyed, out of fear of what could happen if an alien prince went back and told his technologically advanced, superpowered homeworld about a potential new conquest. Atlas, needless to say, is not happy when he finds out what has happened.
• Shakara: Shakara is believed to be the last living member of the Shakara, but it turns out there is another survivor. Cinnibar Brenaka, the heroic founder of the Shakara Federation, who destroyed his own species and is now leading the Hierarchy in secret.
• Sonic the Comic: Knuckles was believed to be the last of the Echidnas until Doctor Zachary appeared.
  • Knuckles also is considered this in the early Archie Comics.
• Superman:
  • At the beginning, there were no Kryptonian survivors except for Superman. From 1950 onward, though, Superman started running into more survivors: Rogues and criminals, his family dog Krypto, the Kandorians, Supergirl... In the mid 80s', it became editorial policy that Superman must be the only Kryptonian, so DC tried to replace the Kryptonian's established characters with similarly-named substitutes. By the year 2000 DC admitted they had failed and brought the original Kryptonian characters back.
  • In Superman (1939) issue #65 (August, 1950), Superman meets other Kryptonian survivors for the first time. Too bad that they are three Kryptonian rogues called Mala, Kizo and U-Ban.
  • In "The Super Dog from Krypton" (March, 1955), teenager Clark Kent meets a a Kryptonian dog-like animal...who turns out to be his own pet dog, in fact!
  • The Super-Duel in Space: As exploring the cities stolen by Brainiac, Superman bumps into Kandor, Krypton's ancient capital city. It was the first instance of the Silver Age Superman running into other Kryptonian survivors (albeit this was retconned when Superboy (1949) #67 (September, 1958) introduced Klax-Ar only two months later).
  • The Life Story of Superman: As telling his life's story, Superman reveals he always felt lonely until Krypto arrived, and he found out he was not the only Kryptonian being in the universe. And then Supergirl arrived, and he had a family again (since Pa and Ma had died several years before).
    Lois Lane: "Lonely? You had your adoptive parents! I'm sure they loved you..."
    Lana Lang: "And what about your friends—Like me? Didn't we count?"
    Superman: "Of course, Lana...Lois...But I'm talking about something else— a different kind of loneliness. The loneliness that comes from thinking you're the only one of your kind in the entire universe! But when Krypto's rocket landed, all that changed!"
  • The Supergirl From Krypton (1959): When Kara meets Superman and identifies herself as a Kryptonian, the older man asks how it can be possible, since he was "the only survivor when Krypton exploded long ago".
  • The Supergirl from Krypton (2004) begins with Superman dwelling on the kind of loneliness that comes with the fact of being the only surviving member of yours species in the whole of the universe. Then he meets Kara, and Superman happily ponders that he is not alone anymore, and never again.
• Y: The Last Man:
  • About ten issues in, it's revealed that two male astronauts avoided the Gendercide because they were in space at the time. A bare bones effort to ensure a safe landing ensued... but both male astronauts died on reentry. The only one to survive was their female cosmonaut partner... who was pregnant with the (male) baby of one of them.
  • In the penultimate arc we find another survivor: Dr. Mann's father, who blames his cloning experiment and/or efforts to sabotage his daughter's for the disaster... and decides that the world would better off with the menfolk out of the way completely since his daughter(s) can continue his work.

Fan Works

• In Blackkat's Reverse, Uzumaki Kushina was considered as the Sole Survivor from the Uzumaki Clan, meaning that the Elemental Nations never expected Kurama appearing and claiming to be her long-lost half-brother.
• In Power Girl fanfic A Force of Four, Kara believed she was the Last Daughter of Krypton after her cousin's death. Then she finds out there three more Kryptonians… and they’re all criminals.
• In the Frozen/How to Train Your Dragon 2 crossover Ice Fury, Elsa and Hiccup each experience this moment when Valka introduces their dragons to each other; Elsa has trained the last Ice Fury, Wintergale, the female counterpart to the Night Furies, with Hiccup and Elsa having each spent years believing that their dragon was the last Fury left.
• The oneshot Only Truly Dead revolves around a few Air Nomads surviving the genocide. A century later, several of their descendants exist. In a twist, all of their descendants (including Ty Lee and June) are fighting against the presumed "last Airbender" Aang. The fic also implies that Ty Lee is an Airbender, but she pretends to be a non-bender.
• In Passageways Harry believed that he and his mother were the last surviving magical descendants of the Eveningshade family, only to discover that a handful of survivors escaped the original massacre and had descendants of their own.
• Used twice in Prince of Death: Harry being the only known living child of the Big Three when he comes to Half-Blood Camp, Chiron naturally thinks he's The Chosen One from the Great Prophecy. Learning Thalia's existence makes him reconsider, as she's older and more likely to fulfill the prophecy before Harry. However, she's transformed into a pine tree and Chiron decides Harry is The Hero after all. Then comes along Percy...
• In Robb Returns, between mercenary companies like the Company of the Rose and the Golden Company, there are members of houses that were long thought endangered or extinct in Westeros, such as the Dustins, Ryders and Mudds.
  • Turns out that this is the exact reason the Company of the Rose was founded in the first place: when Torrhen Stark was told of the Targaryens' eventual downfall, he sent members of all the Northern houses abroad to form the Company, so that in the event of a Northern house dying out in Westeros, there would still be other members to keep that house alive.
• In Second Wind, Chapter 22, it’s heavily implied that, unbeknownst to Luffy and Zoro (or rather, unbeknownst to Zoro; Luffy heard but didn't really understand the implication), one other member of their crew survived to the point where the two of them returned to the past...and consequently, was sent back with them. Forty-two chapters later, that person was finally revealed: Sanji, who survived his final confrontation with the Marines, and was captured and sent to Impel Down. He wasn't sent back with Luffy and Zoro due to his original body being weakened, having suffered from several days of torture, and thus his memories weren't awakened until the climax of the Sabaody Archipelago arc.
• Your Alicorn Is in Another Castle: The plot happens because where there was one alicorn, there are now four... and Celestia didn't bother to tell King Bowser about this. He's quite irritated when he realizes the issue.
• In The Force Is Not A Quirk Obi Wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka know they are the only three Force-Wielders on planet Earth. But when Obi-Wan finds himself, Nemuri, and a young girl trapped in a collapsing building Obi-Wan begs the Force to help him hold back the rubble for he is the only one there who has the power to save them. The Force whispers back no... there is another, revealing Eri doesn't just have a quirk but also is the first Earthling to be able to use the Force

Films — Animated

• Coco: Much of the drama in the third act comes from trying to get Miguel back to the living world with Héctor's photo, the only one of him that is known to exist. When Ernesto throws Miguel off a building and the photo slips out of his hand, it seems that there is no way of saving Héctor from the Final Death. But after Miguel returns to the living world and revives Coco's memory of her papa with the song "Remember Me", she reveals that she kept another photo of Héctor — the piece of the torn ofrenda photo with his face on it, saving his (after)life.
• At the beginning of Ice Age: The Meltdown, Manny the Mammoth is led to believe he's the last of the mammoths. Later, he finds a female mammoth who was living with her possum brothers (...), and at the end he found out a herd of mammoths, and had to make a Friend-or-Idol Decision about staying with them or his friends.
• By the end of Kung Fu Panda 2, everyone is led to believe that Po is the last remaining panda and the rest were all wiped out by Lord Shen. The Sequel Hook reveals that at least a dozen pandas survived the massacre, including Po's biological father.
• Until Shrek Forever After, we assumed Shrek and Fiona and their kids were the only ogres. Then, we find an entire race of ogres acting as La Résistance as Rumplestiltskin has taken over the world.
• This was the premise for The Tigger Movie, in which Tigger thinks he's received a letter from another Tigger. It turns out that the letter was from Roo. The whole movie is an Aesop about the Power of Friendship. And has anyone else on this list declared "I'm the only one!" so triumphantly?
• It seemed in Trolls that the trolls introduced in it were the only types of trolls, especially with the threat of the Bergens. Trolls World Tour reveals not only that the trolls we've known are of a tribe called Pop Trolls, there are other tribes in the world that are physically different and center their culture around different genres of music.

Films — Live-Action

• Subverted in The Chronicles of Riddick, in which Riddick is assumed to be the last Furyan. Turns out there's at least one more... but he's been converted into a Necromonger, and commits suicide immediately after revealing his race.
• Both protagonists of The Dark Crystal believed themselves to be the last of the gelfling race, then invoked this trope when they met.
• Dogma: Mary was a virgin when Jesus was born. The last of her and Joseph's descendants, though, is Bethany. She also developed uterine cancer and had a hysterectomy. At the end of the movie, God regrows her womb, with the new Last Scion in it.
• Hancock had the titular character suffer from amnesia only to be reminded once again, by saving her current husband, that he once had a wife who had the same powers he did.
• The ending of the first Highlander film explicitly said that Connor MacLeod had won "The Prize" and was the last Immortal. Subsequent films (and the TV series) changed that.
• The ending of Gojira states that the titular monster cannot be the only member of his species, and that nuclear bomb testings will only bring about more. Cue the sequel....
  • Later films in the series not only established there was more than one Godzilla, but that the appearance of Minya (Showa/Final Wars) and Junior (Heisei) implied a breeding population. There isn't just one Godzilla. There's an entire species.
• Both the original King Kong and its 1976 remake had sequels where a second giant gorilla shows up;
  • The Son of Kong has Carl Denham go back to Skull Island to find a second giant ape, who is thought to be the son of the original.
  • King Kong Lives has an explorer go to Borneo (which used to be connected to Skull Island) to find a second Kong to give the original a blood transfusion. He finds a single female which he brings back to America. By the end of the movie, both adult Kong's are dead and their son is presumably the Last of His Kind.
• In King Ralph, the title character discovers he's not the only distant relative of the royal family still alive. His advisor, Sir Cedric is too. He had been offered the position first, but he turned it down.
• Star Wars:
  • The trope name comes from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, where after Luke Skywalker rushes off to an obvious trap Vader has set for him, Yoda cryptically dismisses Obi-Wan's suggestion that Luke was the last hope for the Jedi. Originally, it was a Sequel Hook for Episode VI, which would've revolved around Luke and Vader searching the galaxy for Luke's twin sister, but after Lucas decided to wrap the series up, he Arc-Welded the character into the only woman already part of the cast. The line is actually used to chilling effect in said scene since, if Luke is NOT the last hope, he no longer has Plot Armor.
  • Ironically, Leia would again play this role with the same circumstances in The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. Since Luke died in The Last Jedi before Rey could complete her training, Leia ends up taking the role as Jedi mentor since, as it turns out, she herself nearly completed her Jedi training until literally the very last day, making her an unofficial Jedi all along.
  • Used to sinister effect at the end of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, when Yoda and Mace Windu speculate on the origins of Darth Maul; Yoda reminds Mace that "Always two, there are. A master, and an apprentice." As Mace asks rhetorically which one Maul was, the camera focuses ominously on the face of Chancellor Palpatine.

Literature

• In Eragon, we are led to believe that Eragon and Gallbatorix are the only Dragon Riders left in the world, Gallbatorix having slaughtered every Rider and Dragon, with only two eggs and one dragonless Rider left in the world besides them. In Eldest, we find out that Gallbatorix missed one. The elf Oromis and his dragon Glaedr are crippled but alive, and become Eragon and Saphira's teachers. And at the end of the book, we find out that another of the eggs has hatched.
  • The last egg (a green one, named Greeni by fans) hatches in "Inheritance". In this universe, eggs wait to hatch until they sense the proximity of a worthy rider, and this egg hatches for Arya.
  • In Inheritance, it is also revealed that there is a sizeable stockpile of dragon eggs, created just before the fall of Vroengard, that can be used to bring back the dragon riders.
• The first book in The Death Gate Cycle makes Alfred out to be the last Sartan alive. Two books later we find out there are others. Many, many others, living on other worlds.
• A variation. Grand Admiral Thrawn died in The Thrawn Trilogy. He was far from the only one of his species - Chiss are isolationist but not endangered - but there's only one Thrawn. Luke and Mara found his clone floating, asleep or not yet alive, in a Spaarti cylinder underneath his hidden fortress in the Hand of Thrawn duology. They sort-of-accidentally killed it while escaping. But the incredibly elaborate Chiss gambiting in Survivor's Quest has enough elements of Thrawn's style to cause Mara Jade to wonder if he had another clone. Timothy Zahn has said that he'd be interested in writing a book involving Thrawn's clone, who, unusually, would not mentally be Thrawn (while he'd have Thrawn's memories, he'd still know they were just copied memories) and would feel tremendous pressure to live up to the original^note Which, given Chiss skin tone, would make him a Blue Clone with Cloning Blues.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
  • Arthur Dent discovers his entire planet has been rebuilt in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. Then he discovers a parallel version in Mostly Harmless. Then, once the Guide Mk2 has ensured that every parallel Earth in the Whole Sort Of General Mish-Mash has been destroyed, he discovers an Earth colony in And Another Thing....
  • Trillian. Sure, Arthur runs into her only a few hours after the Earth is destroyed, but up till then he believed himself the Last of His Kind.
• Isaac Asimov's Caliban: For most of the book, all the characters believe that Caliban is the only operational robot who's not Three Laws-Compliant and could therefore have assaulted Dr Leving — including Caliban himself. At the climax, it's revealed that the previous prototype for that design of brain, which was supposed to have been destroyed, is still active.
• Shelmerdine in Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography.
• The protagonist of How Like a God thinks he's the only person in the world with Psychic Powers. Wandering a Mental World, he looks out into an ocean, filled with tadpoles that represent the minds of all the people in the world. Then he sees a whale.
• A prophecy in Percy Jackson and the Olympians refers to a child of one of the Big Three (Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades) under the age of sixteen that will decide the fate of the Gods. Due to the nature of the prophecy, after World War II the Three signed a pact not to have any more children, because those children were too powerful and warped the world. Percy is thought to be the necessary referent, since only he and Thalia had been born since the oath and Thalia pulled a Heroic Sacrifice several years ago. Then Thalia comes back to life, and then it turns out that yet another two have been trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine since before the pact.
  • Eventually Thalia chooses to stop aging right before her 16th birthday, the daughter of Hades is killed, and Nico is younger than Percy, so he doesn't qualify, so it refers to Percy after all.
• Possibly a subversion, in L B. Graham’s The Binding of the Blade series, everyone comes to believe that the main character, Joraiem, is a foretold prophet, the only one left on earth to manifest Allfather’s power once the current prophet dies. However, when Joraiem is murdered by a man who is in love with the woman Joraeim just married, it turns out that the prophecy is actually referring to his son, Benjiah.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: House Targaryen is initially introduced with just two alive members (Viserys and Daenerys). Viserys dies midway through A Game of Thrones, leaving Daenerys as the last. But then:
  • Several chapters after Viserys' death, it is revealed that Maester Aemon of the Night's Watch is actually Aemon Targaryen, Viserys' and Daenerys' great-granduncle by way of his younger brother, Aegon V. Aemon is, however, ancient and honor-bound to the Night's Watch. The most he can do is become an advisor to Daenerys if she makes it to Westeros and comes to the Wall, something that he doesn't see, because he dies in A Feast for Crows.
  • In A Dance with Dragons, Tyrion meets with someone who claims himself to be Prince Aegon Targaryen, son of the late Rhaegar, older brother of Viserys and Daenerys. Although his claim is still not proven, this would likely put him in line to the throne before Daenerys. In general in Westeros, the children and grandchildren of the eldest son would come before his younger siblings and their children in succession, with a daughter's claim only coming before her uncles and cousins if it can't pass to her older brother, younger brother, nephew, or even niece first - as the eldest son of the eldest son, the real Aegon would by tradition be the lawful heir before Viserys or Daenerys.^note Key phrase there is "by tradition": Aerys II, the last Targaryen king and father of Rhaegar, Viserys, and Daenerys, bucked tradition by specifically naming his younger son Viserys his heir ahead of his half-Dornish grandchildren by his eldest son Rhaegar, with Viserys in turn naming Daenerys as his heir and thus any diehard Aerys loyalists should follow Daenerys instead of the passed-over Aegon... but as he was widely known to be a cruel madman overthrown and killed more than 10 years ago, you'd be hard-pressed to find any "diehard Aerys loyalists". Worse yet for her, a precedent was set specifically for the Iron Throne to give the crown to more distant male relatives over daughters.^note Early in House Targaryen's reign, this was less clear-set, with Aegon I's eldest grandchild Rhaena Targaryen, her eldest daughter Aerea, Jaehaerys I's eldest daughter Daenerys, his granddaughter Rhaenys, his great-granddaughter Rhaenyra, and Rhaenyra's own eldest granddaughter Daena, all either named official heirs or considered as legitimate contenders for the throne in keeping with Westerosi inheritance rules, at different points during Targaryen rule. However when Jaehaerys actually raised the issue to peacefully settle the matter of who would rule after him, the male lords of Westeros voted to be ruled by the son (Viserys I) of Jaehaerys' younger children instead of by the daughter (Rhaenys) of Jaehaerys' eldest son, semi-officially setting the precedent for men only to sit the throne. The war called the Dance of the Dragons that erupted between Viserys' children only made people more leery of a ruling queen whose claim could be contested by male relatives and invite more war. Aegon believes that Daenerys will be an eager ally because they're (supposedly) family, never considers she might see him as a rival claimant or pretender, and even states that he is eager to make Daenerys his consort while he takes over the Seven Kingdoms. He even preempts her by being the first Targaryen to land in Westeros since the downfall of their family and the first to begin waging war to reclaim the Iron Throne in the Targaryen name, hoping to bait her to come hasten and help him with her dragons.^note And if you're wondering, 'wait, if he's Rhaegar's son and she's Rhaegar's sister, wouldn't that mean..." Yup. For Targaryens, legalized incest to "keep the blood pure" is a proud, time-honored tradition His claim to being the murdered prince seems strengthened by the fact that Varys doubles down on it when talking to a dying Kevan Lannister; when Kevan directly questions the claim, Varys gets serious, insists it is the lost prince, and lists off reasons why Aegon has been shaped into a good king. While Varys is known to lie and manipulate, he had no reason to do so with a dying man and even drops the "simpering tittering eunuch" act to speak in Aegon's favor.
  • A counter-theory has it that if indeed a fake, "Aegon" could be from the exiled, supposedly extinct Targaryen rival branch House Blackfyre, mostly because he has gained the backing of the Golden Company... which was formed by Blackfyre loyalists for the express purpose of seating a Blackfyre on the Iron Throne (though they may also have decided to hitch their wagon to a new horse with the Blackfyres extinct and no road home to Westeros through them). In fairness this would make him a Targaryen by blood, just not one with any right or claim to the throne. If Aegon is a secret Blackfyre, he would still count as an example of this trope, since House Blackfyre was extinguished in the male line and reported extinct, conveniently leaving open the possibility that female Blackfyres could have continued the line by marrying other men, taking their names, and voila, pass "Aegon" off as the murdered prince. This may actually be the most tragic possibility, as not only Aegon but also his caretaker since infancy, Jon Connington, genuinely believe Aegon is the real deal and Jon in particular devoted the rest of his life to putting "Aegon" on the Iron Throne out of love for Aegon's father Rhaegar.
  • There is also the long-festering Epileptic Trees of Jon Snow being the secret son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, born when the latter was kidnapped. As of A Dance with Dragons, however, it has yet to be confirmed.
• In an appendix to The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School, one of the personal secrets traded among the Remove class members reveals that the brain-maggot that infests Polly Palgraive is not the only one of its kind.
• In the Presence of Mine Enemies: Despite their concerns, Heinrich and his family and friends aren't the only surviving Jews in an Alternate Universe where the Nazis won.
  • Several Jews are found living in an isolated village in an occupied country (although they don't end up surviving for much longer after that).
  • Rather disturbingly, the Big Bad and his family have some Jewish blood, although it's pretty clear that they aren't practicing Jews.
  • One of the SS officers investigating the claims that Heinrich is a Jew implies that he is one too after evidence (falsely) clears Heinrich.
  SS Interrogator: You find us in the strangest places.
• The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids originally introduced Juliet as the only female Clockwork Cherub. However, in 2020, Stranded at Memory's End revealed the existence of another, Lethe, who had been trapped in a Ret-Gone limbo state since the 1990's.

Live-Action TV

• A version of this trope appears in both the old and new versions of Battlestar Galactica: the twist being that another battlestar has survived the genocide: the Pegasus.
  • Also in the newer one, another Earth. Or something.
    • The second battlestar is an example, but not the second Earth. The "Earth" that Adama spoke of right after the attack was the ruined Cylon world they found first. When they found another planet they could finally settle on, Adama and the crew named it Earth in deference to the prophesy, but it wasn't another Earth, it was just a reuse of the name.
• Buffyverse:
  • Angel was, for a long time, considered to be the only vampire with a soul, to the point where prophecies referring to the 'vampire with a soul' were assumed naturally to refer to Angel. But then Spike got his soul back.
    Angel: Oh. That's great. Everyone's got a soul now...You know, I started it. The whole 'having a soul'. Before it was all the cool new thing...
  • Earlier on, after a season and a half of opening every episode with "She is the Slayer. She alone will..." yada yada yada, Buffy meets Kendra.
    Buffy: Okay, one more time. You're the who?!
    Kendra: I'm the Slayer.
    Buffy: Nice cover story. But here's a tip: you might wanna try it on someone who's not the real Slayer.
    Kendra: You can't stop me! Even if you kill me, another Slayer will be sent to take my place.
    Buffy: Could you stop with the Slayer thing? I'm the damn Slayer!
  • Subverted at one point: Warren just wanted to join Andrew in quoting The Empire Strikes Back.
    Andrew: That boy is our last hope.
    Warren: No, there is another.
    Andrew: Wait, really? Who's our last hope?
    Warren: No, I was just going with it. It was a thing. He's our last hope.
• Arguably, a form of this occurred in Charmed with Prue's death, which broke the power of three - until the fourth sister, Paige, turned up.
• Doctor Who did this a few times.
  • It's hard to keep track of how many times the Doctor meets "the last Dalek" or "the last of the Daleks." No matter how often this occurs, more seem to pop up from an Alternate Universe, an evil-sealing can, or somewhere else (as if the series would ever dispense permenantly of its most iconic villains).
  • In the third season of the new series, it was revealed that the Doctor himself was not the last of the Time Lords as he believed, as the Master also survived the Time War, unknown to him. The Master, being the Master, has since died, come back to life, and "died" again in less than three years.
  • The fourth season introduced an Opposite-Sex Clone "daughter", although the Doctor was reluctant to consider her a "real" Time Lord. She's still alive, he just doesn't know it.
  • In the 11th Doctor's second series, River Song was confirmed to be part-Time Lord.
  • In "The Day of the Doctor" it's revealed that Gallifrey didn't blow up after all. The Doctor and his past/future incarnations simply moved it to another dimension, with all the Time Lords still on it.
• Forever:
  • In the pilot, Henry has been immortal for 200 years and never met another like himself, so he believes he is the only one. Then his anonymous caller tells him they "share the same pain, same curse, same affliction."
  • In a flashback in "The Night In Question" Adam, who in 2,000+ years has never met another immortal and thought he was alone, meets Abigail, and her reaction to his claim of immortality reveals to him that she has met another like him, setting him on a thirty year quest to find Henry.
• In Game of Thrones the last episode of season six let us know that Daenerys Targaryen isn't Last Of Her Kind since Jon Snow is the son of her eldest brother Rhaegar with Lyanna Stark.
• H₂O: Just Add Water and Mako Mermaids: An H₂O Adventure:
  • The Moon Pool off the coast of Australia was thought to be the only one of its kind, until the third season revealed there is another Moon Pool somewhere in Ireland where Bella got her mermaid powers. This in turn showed the protagonists that they aren't the only mermaids in the world. Mako Mermaids would immediately establishes entire societies of mermaids living in every ocean, ones that humans are obviously unaware of, meaning the protagonists of the previous series would be equally unaware of them.
  • The mermaid pods are all female, with mermen being a thing of the past until Zac fell into the Moon Pool. He's the first merman the Mako pod had seen in centuries, and then Erik arrives and becomes the second. Erik claims that mermen are perfectly extant, they're just raised on land and chased away from the oceans by the mermaid pods. Of course, Erik is also slowly revealed to be an Unreliable Narrator, and his reaction to Zac implies that he's just as surprised to meet another merman as the others were to meet him.
• A version of this is done in House of Anubis where they discover Nina is not the only chosen person in the house, and there is in fact her Osirian, who is destined to protect her. It's Eddie.
• In one episode of The Invisible Man, an invisible man tries to kill the Official. Darien is accused of going rogue before Eberts suggests that Simon Cole, the first Invisible Man test subject, may have done it. Darien starts seeing the invisible Simon's heat signature everywhere he goes as he tries to clear his name. Averted. Simon is actually Dead All Along, shot by the Official when he went crazy. The invisibility gland was taken from Simon and transferred to Darien. Darien is merely being influenced by the dead Simon's memories which were somehow transferred along with the gland. Later, the villain Arnaud finds another invisibility gland and has it implanted in himself, though his has the downside of permanent invisibility.
  • In the novel Last Human, Michael McGruder, the child of Rimmer's one night stand, arrives, having been in stasis a really, really long time.
• Until season 4, Kilgarrah was the last dragon in the BBC's Merlin . But now another dragon, Aithusa, has been hatched.
• In Season 3 of Person of Interest it turns out that there is a second Machine, Samaritan. Unfortunately it ends up in the hands of Decima.
• In Power Rangers S.P.D., the Sirian Anubis "Doggie" Cruger was thought to be the last of his kind after the Troobian Empire destroyed his home planet. At the end of the series, it's learned that his wife, Aisinya, was kept alive within the Troobian Emperor's personal chambers. The logic behind this has yet to pass a cursory examination.
• In Red Dwarf, Lister is believed to be the last human, with his companions being an evolved cat, a hologram, and an android. In the books and the series, an alternate universe version of Christine Kochanski is added to the cast (though how she arrived is very different between the two media.) He also loses the status as last human native to this universe in different ways:
  • In the series, Kryten's repair nanites go a bit too far, rebuilding the entire crew of the Red Dwarf, including previously Put on a Bus cast member Rimmer (who didn't experience "our" Rimmer's adventures with them and had no qualms about double-crossing them.)
  • The Cat is initially believed to be the last known species of Felis Sapiens, the rest of them having left Red Dwarf in search of Fuchal" and their ultimate fate unknown. "The Promised Land", however, finally has them come across a group of his species.
• Search: After they kill the murderer the search party assume their mission is over. Then they realise another infected person is still in the DMZ.
• The Six Million Dollar Man: Steve Austin thought he was the first and only Bionic man ... until the second season when he ran into OSI's "failed experiment": Barney Miller, the Seven Million Dollar Man.
• Smallville has Clark's cousin Kara show up. And then a Kryptonian army led by Colonel Zod.
• In the Stargate-verse, the original movie mentioned that Ra's race was dying, leading many to believe he was the Last of His Kind. In Stargate SG-1, this is apparently ignored: the Goa'uld are numerous, and are the dominant galactic power. This was partially reconciled with the movie later on, when it was established that the Goa'uld were indeed dying out at that time, desperately looking for a host species (which they found in the Tau'ri.) The nature of Ra's species was also changed (from The Greys to snake-like symbiotes), among the many retcons in the transition from the movie to the TV franchise.
• In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, John Henry delivers the line, implying that Skynet is already starting to develop into a complex AI.

Toys

• The Toa Nuva from BIONICLE were implied to be the only Toa in existence during the first few arcs, as before their transformation into new forms, they were just called the Toa^*dubbed "Toa Mata" after The Reveal to differentiate the original team (as in the only Toa). When Takanuva arrived, it was a big deal that there was even one more Toa, with him being the seventh introduced. Then Vakama chose to reveal that they are in fact, not the first Toa, and the series never looked back, introducing several new teams and lone operative Toa. Word of God has it that in their heyday, there were over 1000 Toa.
  Though there are still no other Toa Nuva; the team we're familiar with are the only known ones in existence (and it's eventually revealed they were some of the first Toa ever created). A Toa Nuva being defined as Toa who survived being transformed by Energized Protodermis without being turned into monsters or just disintegrated), something that can only happen if one is destined to transform.
  Although the Toa Nuva learned that were more Toa before them, in the present-day, Toa are few and far between, many having perished as an occupational hazard of their risky adventures, been hunted down by powerful enemies like Dark Hunters or just became Turaga.

Video Games

• Happens all the time in the Breath of Fire games. In the first, you start in the last village of the Light Dragons, but you're supposedly the last warrior capable of harnessing the ancient clan's power. You're not, and you have to kill your sister, who also had that power. In the second, you find the last village of the dragons guarding the Big Bad. In the third, much is made of the fact that you're the last dragon. No, really, you are. Like, the last one. Except for this village over here. And Teepo. But you're the last. The village has voluntarily given up the ability to transform, though, so it's questionable whether they count.
• In Dark Souls DLC, Black Dragon Kalameet is said to be the sole remaining everlasting dragon. Dark Souls III DLC would reveal the survival of another one, Darkeater Midir, raised from an egg by the gods. Your job, as the player character in both games, is to kill them.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: In the original game, the Player Character was thought to be the only Dragonborn... but the Dragonborn DLC reveals that, indeed, There Is Another. It's best said in the trailer:
  Narrator: You didn't think that you were the only one? He was the first!
  • And then averted when you kill him.
  • The only Dragonborn alive, that is. It was established that Talos and his heirs were also Dragonborn, the last of them, Martin Septim, dying 200 years ago.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Red XIII from Final Fantasy VII. You never actually see another member of his race anywhere in the canon, but in the Flash Forward ending, he's shown with a pair of cubs. The compilation reveals he did have a mate, named Deneh, who he lost contact with in one of the prequels, and presumably finds again after the events of the game.
  • Final Fantasy XVI: It is established early on that there can only be one Eikon for each of the eight elements; Phoenix for Fire, Titan for Earth, Garuda for Wind, Ramuh for Lightning, Shiva for Ice, Odin for Darkness, Bahamut for Light, and Leviathan for Water (the latter of which actually doesn't appear in XVI proper). So when a second Eikon of Fire named Ifrit appears in the prologue, everyone is taken by surprise.
• Halo: If you had only played the games that came before Halo 5: Guardians, you'd likely be under the impression that the Master Chief is the last surviving Spartan-II super-soldier, with the rest having died in the Fall of Reach. The Expanded Universe and Word of God reveals, however, that at least fourteen other Spartan-IIs were still alive even during the ending of Halo 4 (and that's not including several genuine MIAs who could return to the story at anytime). These fellow Spartans (despite Chief's knowledge of their survival) never got a single in-game reference until they finally appear in person in Halo 5, outside of a few name-drops by allied NPCs in 4 and an Easter Egg showing a then-clinically-dead (she gets better) Linda's cryotube readout in the Anniversary Edition of Halo: Combat Evolved.
• In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, it's initially established that Reyson is the last survivor of the heron race, due to a genocide by Begnion. However, throughout the game and its sequel, a couple more turn up... including Reyson's sister, and later his elder brother. In addition, his father was stated to be alive not too long after Reyson was introduced. But he's so sick that he can't do anything so he never appears in the game itself.
• Hollow Knight: The Last Stag is, well, the last stag beetle; the sole remaining member of his species left in Hallownest. Nonetheless, when he re-discovers the remnants of the old Stag Nest, after you open every stag station in the game, he decides to hold out hope that there might be fellow survivors outside the kingdom, and changes his name to Old Stag. Should you explore the Stag Nest you can find the remnants of a single fresh egg shell...
• In Homeworld, the Kushan discover that there are other exiles from Hiigara in the galaxy only after they kill them all in self-defense.
  • In Homeworld 2, meanwhile, there's an example with spaceships rather than people. After going through a lot of trouble to acquire the last known Progenitor Dreadnought, the key to reaching the mysterious Sajuuk, a final line of dialogue is delivered quietly at the end of the mission: "There is another Dreadnought. Makaan has it." (This is especially scary since a Dreadnought is much more powerful than anything the player can build at that point in the game, and about 50% stronger than the most powerful ship the player can ever build.)
• Very similar to the original Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords states the player character to be the "last of the Jedi". Except for all the others. It's rationalized as the player character to be perceived as the last of the Jedi, as few others self-identify themselves such and those that do, aren't.
• The Legend of Heroes - Trails: Trails in the Sky SC established that Joshua and Loewe were the only survivors of the Tragedy of Hamel. In Trails of Cold Steel III, it is revealed that Ash Carbide is another survivor, which only made him a prime target for the Curse of Erebonia.
• In Lunar: The Silver Star, Alex eventually surmounts all obstacles to becoming a Dragonmaster, except for the fact that all the dragons are dead. It turns out that Nall, Alex's flying companion, is another white dragon.
• The original Metal Gear Solid ends like this. After Solid Snake kills his Evil Twin Liquid Snake in the game's climax, he's left believing that he's Big Boss' only surviving clone. Then The Stinger hits. Not only is there a third clone named "Solidus"...he's none other than the President of the United States. And Liquid's chief lieutenant Revolver Ocelot was working for him the whole time. Cue Sequel Hook.
• In Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet was discovered to be anything but the Last of His Kind. Lampshaded in Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, where he meets Cool Old Lombax Alister Azimuth.
• The Legend of Spyro: Spyro is thought to be the only purple dragon (since they're only supposed to be born once every ten generations), but the second game reveals that the Dark Master Malefor is also one.
• Splatoon takes place thousands of years After the End, with all land-dwelling mammals having died out long ago. The sole exception to this was a cat named Judd, who was cryogenically sealed away by his human professor. Splatoon 2, however, would soon reveal that another mammal exists in the world of Splatoon — a smaller cat named Li'l Judd that now serves as his companion. It is eventually revealed that Li'l Judd is a direct clone of Judd, created from the capsule in which the latter was sealed away and having been intended as a backup in case the cryostasis failed. As shown in the official relationship chart, Li'l Judd is very much aware that this is the case, and has some complicated feelings on the matter.
• Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood has two examples. However the game isn't canon and only applies to itself.
  • Knuckles turns out to not be the last echidna. There is another clan of echidnas dubbed the Nocturnus Clan and Shade reveals herself to be an echidna near the end of the fourth chapter.
  • Inside the Twilight Cage, there are far more gizoids than we were led to believe. Emerl was just the last Gizoid on Earth instead of in existence.
• Tekken 8: By the end of the game's Story Mode, regardless of the ending chosen, Jin and Kazuya are purged of their Devil Genes. However, come The Stinger, this is not the case. Reina, who survived the brunt of True Devil Kazuya's fully-powered Devil Beam earlier, had actually awakened her own Devil Gene, as she pulled a Thanatos Gambit to achieve that. This left behind a few loose ends with the ongoing Mishima infighting, on top of Reina being revealed as Heihachi's illegitimate daughter.
• Rexxar was said to be the last of the Mok'Nathal (a clan of orc/ogre hybrids) in Warcraft III. Come World of Warcraft, and the Mok'Nathal clan is revealed to have survived after all.
  • Also, the uncorrupted furbolgs. Apart from Krolg in Ashenvale, the Timbermaw tribe at the farthest reaches of civilization was portrayed as the last uncorrupted furbolgs in Azeroth. That is, until the expansion added the Stillpine on the draenei starting island. The island did sport Alliance, however, they had recently shipwrecked there, something which seems to happen often on that island.

Webcomics

• In Darths & Droids, Princess Leia is upset that there is no one else to train Luke to use the Force, but Chewbacca reveals that Yoda is still out there, somewhere.
  Leia: Obi-Wan Kenobi. He was our only hope.
  Chewbacca: No. There is another.
• In Impure Blood, the last Ancient may be the Last of His Kind, but to Roan, it means there is someone else out there with Ancient blood.
• In Neo Kosmos, Tye believes he and his friends Z and Iris are the last remnants of the human race, until he discovers a large group of human kids living on a different floor of the same space station.
• In Rice Boy, this forms the final-act plot twist. Rice Boy gets named as the Fulfiller of the Prophecy of Ridrom, and most of the plot involves him fulfilling the terms of the prophecy necessary to bring the Avatar of Mind back to the world. The final term to fulfill is dying. At the end, as Rice Boy is steeling his nerves for impending death, and the secondary protagonist T.O.E. shows up to save him. Rice Boy then realizes that, in his own way, T.O.E. has also fulfilled all but the final term of the prophecy. T.O.E. then dies, and the Avatar returns.

Western Animation

• In the beginning of Adventures of the Gummi Bears, we are led to believe that the main cast are the only Gummis left. But, starting with the first Season Finale, we learn that other Gummis have started colonies across the sea, and throughout the show meet more and more Gummis.
• Finn the Human from Adventure Time was originally said to be the last human, but as the series went on, it introduced several partial humans like Marceline, former humans like the Ice King, and even a few cyborgs like Susan Strong. Eventually, Finn would encounter his biological father, and much later down the line, an entire human civilization run by his mother, set on an island chain far away from the main continent.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra:
  • Averted with the airbenders. Despite Aang being an eternal optimist, even he has to concede that he is the last airbender in the world. There is a Hope Spot in "Northern Air Temple" when someone mentions to him the existence of "air walkers" living in the titular temple, but they turn out to be Earth Kingdom refugees who utilize gliders to fly. Between ATLA and TLOK, Aang begets an airbender son (Tenzin), who in turn begets three airbender children (Jinora, Ikki, and Meelo), and after he dies he obviously reincarnates into a person capable of airbending (Korra). However, airbending remains strictly in Aang's lineage until Book Three, which shows a bunch of random people gaining the ability to airbend, due to the effects of the Harmonic Convergence.
  • Katara is first thought to be the last Southern Water Tribe waterbender. Disregarding Aang, who learns waterbending from her (ergo making him technically a Southern Water Tribe waterbender), it is revealed in "The Library" that owl spirit Wan Shi Tong knows all known waterbending styles, though he decides to return to the Spirit World at the end of the episode. It's not until "The Puppetmaster" that we are introduced to Hama, another waterbender raised in the South Water Tribe. By the events of TLOK, waterbenders are thriving in the Southern Water Tribe (Korra among them).
  • Iroh is believed to have killed the last dragon years before the events of the series, but "The Firebending Masters" reveals that it was a lie he told to protect the last two dragons: Ran and Shaw. Their whereabouts are unknown in TLOK, but they had at least one dragon descendant, Druk, who became Zuko's pet.
  • Appa is believed to be the last flying bison, but TLOK reveals that sometime after the Hundred Year War, Aang found a herd of flying bisons, which are then nurtured in the restored air temples. Momo is still the last flying lemur, though (the ones in TLOK are flying ring-tailed lemurs, which are close but not the same).
• Futurama has one not-so-straight example: Leela finds someone she believes to be part of her alien race, but turns out to be a shapeshifter who happened to have a thing for women who are the last of their kind. Leela turns out to be a human mutant, not an alien, and the whole situation was just an excuse for an Actor Allusion.
• The Gargoyles. In the beginning of the series, it's implied they're the last. Then they find out the eggs from their Rookery were saved, and raised in Avalon. Then they find a bunch of other clans around the world that survived. Though given the Manhattan Clan's rather limited world view, they weren't exactly exposed to other clans, much less those half-way around the world. So as far as they were concerned, when their clan was destroyed, that was it.
• Steven Universe:
  • In early episodes, it seemed that Pearl, Amethyst, Garnet, and half of Steven were the only remaining Gems, a rock-based species that appeared to be of a magical nature. The first season's Mid-Season Twist would reveal that there was an entire empire of other gems, with them being an alien race that regards the ones on Earth as renegade traitors, of which they actually are the remaining remnants of (well, the only ones that are mentally whole, anyway).
  • In "Are You My Dad?", after Steven encounters a new Gem that appears to be looking for her father, Connie brings up the possibility that Steven may not be the only half-Gem of his kind (since Gems are an inorganic race that don't reproduce). It turns out that the Gem is not looking for her father, or any father for that matter. She was actually in search of what she believes are six variants of humans, one of which is named "My Dad." This is due to a report Peridot sent to the Gem Homeworld seasons prior, where Steven told her of six of the humans he knew after she mistook "Steven" as a species name rather than a personal one, with him naturally calling his father Greg "my dad".
• Predaking spent the third season of Transformers: Prime as the sole living Predacon. In the Grand Finale movie, he discovers that a few more have since been cloned, and makes it his goal to find and lead them.
• In The Venture Brothers, Dr. Venture has a dream in which his dead father warns him "There is another Venture!" in a spooky, dramatic voice. When asked why he said it like that, he answered "Don't ask me; it's your dream." It turns out he was right, the "other Venture" being the twin brother that Dr. Venture swallowed in the womb.
• Voltron: Legendary Defender: In "Blackout", Allura discovers that she and Coran are not the last Alteans alive. Unfortunately, the one she meets is Haggar.
  • Later in the show, they meet another Altean, Romelle, who came from a hidden colony of Alteans.
• One episode of The Wild Thornberrys had a tortoise that was (almost) the Last of His Kind. Sadly Truth in Television, as he was based on a real tortoise called Lonesome George.

Real Life

• This is pretty much the phenomenon of Lazarus taxa.
• Though Lonesome George, the last known Pinta Island tortoise, died in June 2012, scientists have found 17 tortoises that have similar genes, leading to speculation that he may not have been the Last of His Kind.
• A real-world variation is when a species is believed to be the last of its taxonomic family, only for another to be found. The most famous example of this is the okapi. At the turn of the twentieth century, the giraffe, then thought to be one species instead of four, was believed to be the last giraffid until 1901 when, after years of searching, Sir Henry Johnston obtained the skull of an "African Unicorn" and recognized a unique type of tooth that is found only in giraffes and their fossilized ancestors.

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