History Main / CopiedTheMoralsToo

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' has a villain make "evil clones" of the heroes. However, the Uncle later determines the clones are under mind control, and once the spell is broken, they promptly side with the originals.

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': In the episode [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS02E14Whispers "Whispers"]], aliens copy Chief O'Brien. But the copy was so much like O'Brien that he investigates their crime and tries to helpfully uncover why things seem so off on the station. As he dies, begs the heroes "[[IfIDoNotReturn tell Keiko I love her]]".

* ''Manga/DragonBallSuper'': During the Potaufeu mini arc, the Commeson manages to absorb Vegeta's power and creates a duplicate of him. However the copy also winds up inheriting Vegeta's massive ego, HonorBeforeReason fighting principles, and his love for Trunks, which makes him unable to be easily controlled by the Commeson and constantly defies his master's orders in favour of fighting Goku fairly.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': The creation of Gecko Moriah's zombies involve removing a person's shadow and inserting it into a lifeless corpse, giving it life again and [[PowerCopying allowing it to use the owner's non-Devil Fruit based fighting style]]. In addition the zombie will also inherit the owner's personality and morals such as the zombie created from Sanji's shadow inheriting his policy to never kick a woman, Zoro's inheriting his principles about being a swordsman, or Oars inheriting Luffy's ambitions to be King of the Pirates. This winds up making them difficult to control in their early state but its downplayed in that these personality traits eventually end up vanishing after a while, becoming completely loyal to Moriah and his officers.
* This is what finally caused the downfall of Hyper Metal Sonic in ''Anime/SonicTheHedgehogTheMovie''. Having copied the life data of Sonic in order to better fight him, Metal begins emulating Sonic's personality. Ultimately, when Sonic bested him, Metal chose to sacrifice himself to save Planet Freedom, bidding his foe a fond farewell.

* ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'': Pandora uses a cursed mirror to create an opposite of Pit to serve as Medusa's general. Instead Dark Pit promptly attacks her and starts doing his own thing, crossing blades with Pit but mostly attacking the Underworld Armies. Multiple theories for this are thrown around InUniverse, the two most agreed-upon being that Pit's most defining trait is his loyalty to Palutena so his opposite is obsessed with personal freedom and self-determines beyond that, and/or Pit was in the process of shattering said mirror the moment his copy emerged, leading to an irregular reflection.

* Something of a recurring problem for the Mecha Sonic series in ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' when they start to develop sapience, though its less they copy his morals and more his fierce independence, which Robotnik hates. The most notable one was the original Mecha that attacked Floating Island. It rebuilt itself with a power gem and managed to capture Tails, using him as bait to force Sonic into a no holds barred beatdown. However, when the volcano Mecha had trapped Tails in began to erupt, the robot found he couldn't leave the fox to his fate and broke off his attack, using his power gem to stave off the lava while Sonic rescued their friend. Later this Mecha was recovered by the Freedom Fighters and became the heroic, though ultimately tragic, hero Shard.

** Inverted when Calvin first creates his Duplicator to make a [[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/01/11 clone of himself]] to do the chores while he and Hobbes go play. Calvin is thwarted because the clone obviously hates chores just as much as Calvin does and refuses to do them, then later goes on to clone himself repeatedly.

[[folder:Film]]
* In ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'', V'ger creates a robot duplicate of Lt. Ilia to examine the "carbon units" infesting the ''Enterprise''. Kirk orders Decker, who was once her lover, to try to awaken any memories Robo-Ilia may have of the original, and Decker has some success in doing so.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Coraline}}'' the [[ApologeticAttacker Other Father]] and [[StepfordSmiler Other Wybie]] are both copies of people in Coraline's life created by the [[HumanoidAbomination Other Mother]] to lure the young girl in to devour her soul, but she did a little too good a job copying them as both genuinely care about Coraline and [[spoiler:both pull {{Heroic Sacrifice}}s to save her life]]. The Other Bobinsky also seems to have genuinely inherited the real one's love of entertaining people, as he tries to convince Coraline to stay by promising they'll have fun and spend time together [[ObliviouslyEvil without realizing what the Other Mother actually intends to do with the young girl]].

* ''Series/DoctorWho''
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E6Extremis "Extremis"]], aliens copy everyone, including the Doctor, into a VR simulation in an attempt to see how well their takeover of Earth will go. The Extremis!Doctor is such a good copy that he's able to send the aliens' plans to his real-world counterpart.

* Done deliberately so with the [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot Life-Model Decoy]] of May in ''Series/AgentsOfShield'', as she was designed as a ManchurianAgent of sorts who didn't even realize she was a machine, and whose programming was ''very'' subtle to the point she was made to feel as if she wanted to follow her orders. [[spoiler: It backfires when she ends up pulling a HeroicSacrifice and blowing herself up along with the much more evil robotic duplicates of Coulson and Fitz, in order to save the lives of Daisy, Simmons, and the surviving agents: she ultimately decides to [[GrownBeyondTheirProgramming screw her programming]] and do what she wants, which is be the hero.]]

* In ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasyOperaOmnia'', Kuja implants a Dark Manikin of Vivi into the party after kidnapping the original. However, the Manikin starts taking on Vivi's mannerisms as well and instead of killing Zidane and the others like Kuja plans he ends up befriending everyone and becoming a surrogate little brother to Vivi [[spoiler: until he gives Vivi his brilliance back and dies]].

* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', this is how [[spoiler:The High Priest of Hel]] is defeated in the penultimate book, this foe being [[spoiler:Durkon after being transformed into a vampire; the vampire spirit takes over, while Durkon's soul is trapped inside his own mind and ForcedToWatch]]. Since [[spoiler: the vampire is essentially Durkon "on your worst day", Durkon realises he can release enough memories to cause AssimilationBackfire (though he needs to trick the vampire into accepting all these memories). The High Priest gains Durkon's morality, and allows himself to be slain to stop Hel's plan.]]

* During the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' "Heart of Steel" arc, a [[AIIsACrapshoot Rogue A.I.]] called H.A.R.D.A.C began implementing a plan to KillAndReplace all of humanity with [[RobotMe robotic duplicates]]. In a later episode a duplicate of Batman/Bruce Wayne was belatedly activated and brought online. However the duplicate, just like Batman, turns out to have a firm ThouShallNotKill principle, (something Batman himself notes when the duplicate passes up numerous opportunities to kill Batman) and when it thinks it has accidentally killed the real Batman it goes berserk with [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone horror and rage]], and promptly destroys H.A.R.D.A.C for good, destroying itself at the same time in the process.
* The version of Bizarro seen in ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' is a failed clone of Superman created by Lex Luthor, who wants an army of Superman clones. He rejects Lex's plan, insisting that he really is Superman (despite rapidly undergoing [[CloneDegeneration both physical and mental degeneration]]) and trying to be a hero. His heroic deeds are all failures, but at the end of his first episode he does perform a HeroicSacrifice to save both the real Superman and Lois.
* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'': In "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueS1E18And19Legends Legends]]", members of the League are trapped in an AlternateUniverse in an idyllic city out of UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks, protected by its own superhero team, the Justice Guild -- who are all eventually revealed as illusions created by [[TheDogWasTheMastermind their kid sidekick]] Ray Thompson, who was actually a mutant with RealityWarper powers recreating the world he once knew AfterTheEnd. After the reveal, when the League is fighting Ray, the Justice Guild fights alongside them despite knowing that Ray's defeat would end their existence. "We died once to save this Earth, and we can do it again!"

--> '''Red Volcano:''' [[IronicEcho No more Pinocchios.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/SheRaPrincessOfPower'' had an episode where [[BigBad Hordak]] used a creature which replicated She-Ra's powers. At a critical point in the battle, it turned out too much of her personality was copied as well.

* In the Ryo-Ohki series of ''Anime/TenchiMuyo'', Dr. Clay has his robot Zero copy the body of Ryoko and infiltrate the Misaki house to kidnap Washu. However, she also copied the emotional feelings Ryoko has for Tenchi, and she ends up being flustered around him.

* In ''ComicBook/MegaMan'', the second Copy Robot is a malicious copy of Rock down to all of the Special Weapons he has currently equipped. But after Rock manages to subdue him, the Copy Robot has a change of heart because he's also copied Rock's ability to learn and ponders the life he could have as a domestic robot. Unfortunately, he doesn't get to ruminate on this for long, as he's [[HeelFaceDoorSlam immediately hit by a Crash Bomber]] and [[HeroicSacrifice shoves Rock out of the way before exploding]].

A subtrope of GoneHorriblyRight. Compare and contrast BecomingTheMask, LostInCharacter, DeepCoverAgent, AssimilationBackfire, and PreferableImpersonator. The copy themselves may not even know that they're a copy and genuinely believe that they're the heroic character, and thus might face a TomatoInTheMirror surprise when they discover their true identity. Trying to copy TheParagon or a character with IncorruptiblePurePureness is particularly likely to result in this trope playing out. Compare MorallySuperiorCopy, for when a clone or duplicate turns out to be morally superior to the villainous original.

* The version of SelfDemonstrating/{{Bizarro}} seen in ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' is a failed clone of Superman created by Lex Luthor, who wants an army of Superman clones. He rejects Lex's plan, insisting that he really is Superman (despite rapidly undergoing [[CloneDegeneration both physical and mental degeneration]]) and trying to be a hero. His heroic deeds are all failures, but at the end of his first episode he does perform a HeroicSacrifice to save both the real Superman and Lois.

[[quoteright:220:[[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/copymorals.PNG]]]]

A subtrope of GoneHorriblyRight. Compare and contrast BecomingTheMask, LostInCharacter, DeepCoverAgent, AssimilationBackfire, and PreferableImpersonator. The copy themselves may not even know that they're a copy and genuinely believe that they're the heroic character, and thus might face a TomatoInTheMirror surprise when they discover their true identity. Trying to copy TheParagon or a character with IncorruptiblePurePureness is particularly likely to result in this trope playing out.

'''Hobbes:''' He's a duplicate of you all right.\\
'''[[ItsAllAboutMe Calvin:]]''' [[ObliviousToHisOwnDescription What do you mean?]] [[MoralMyopia THIS guy's a total jerk!]]

-->--'''Franchise/{{Batman}}''' (to his robot counterpart after [[ThouShaltNotKill it refuses to kill]]), ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE62HisSiliconSoul His Silicon Soul]]"

A subtrope of GoneHorriblyRight. Compare and contrast BecomingTheMask, LostInCharacter, DeepCoverAgent, AssimilationBackfire, and PreferableImpersonator. The copy themselves may not even know that they're a copy and genuinely believe that they're the heroic character, and thus might face a TomatoInTheMirror surprise when they discover their true identity.

* One ''ComicBook/TheSimpsons'' comic has Sideshow Bob doing a VillainTeamup with Kang and Kodos, and creating an evil clone of Ned Flanders. However, the clone eventually gives up on being evil because the inherent goodness he took from Flanders was enough to override the villains' attempts to programme him into being their pawn.
* Something of a recurring problem for the Mecha Sonic series in ''ComicBook/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog'' when they start to develop sapience, though its less they copy his morals and more his fierce independence, which Robotnik hates. The most notable one was the original Mecha that attacked Floating Island. It rebuilt itself with a power gem and managed to capture Tails, using him as bait to force Sonic into a no holds barred beatdown. However, when the volcano Mecha had trapped Tails in began to erupt, the robot found he couldn't leave the fox to his fate and broke off his attack, using his power gem to stave off the lava while Sonic rescued their friend. Later this Mecha was recovered by the Freedom Fighters and became the heroic, though ultimately tragic, hero Shard.

A bad guy sets out to [[TheInfiltration infiltrate the good guys]] by creating a copy of one of them. Maybe it's done via a [[RobotMe robot duplicate]], or [[EvilDoppelganger evil clone]], a [[VoluntaryShapeshifting shapeshifter]] or some other version of EvilKnockoff. Perhaps the goal is to KillAndReplace, or just to incapacitate the original and use the copy to spy on the good guys.

'''[[ItsAllAboutMe Calvin:]]''' What do you mean? [[MoralMyopia THIS guy's a total jerk!]]

* During the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' "Heart of Steel" arc, a [[AIIsACrapshoot Rogue A.I.]] called H.A.R.D.A.C began implementing a plan to KillAndReplace all of humanity. In a later episode a duplicate of Batman/Bruce Wayne was belatedly activated and brought online. However the duplicate, just like Batman, turns out to have a firm ThouShallNotKill principle, (something Batman himself notes when the duplicate passes up numerous opportunities to kill Batman) and when it thinks it has accidentally killed the real Batman it goes berserk with [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone horror and rage]], and promptly destroys H.A.R.D.A.C for good, destroying itself at the same time in the process.

[[folder:Live-Action Film]]
* In ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'', V'ger creates a robot duplicate of Lt. Ilia to examine the "carbon units" infesting the ''Enterprise''. Kirk orders Decker, who was once her lover, to try to awaken any memories Robo-Ilia may have of the original, and Decker has some success in doing so.
[[/folder]]

* This trope is used intentionally throughout the ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' franchise. While it had long been known how to create genetic duplicates of people (known as [[CallARabbitASmeerp gholas]] in universe) who may have a vague sense of the person they were before, but despite many attempts they've been unable to get a ghola to reclaim the full memories or past life of the person it was created from. In ''Literature/DuneMessiah'' a ghola regains past life memories for the first time when a ghola called Hayt made from the deceased Duncan Idaho is brainwashed to assassinate Paul Atreides. Idaho had UndyingLoyalty to the Atreides family and [[HeroicSacrifice gave his life]] so that Paul and Lady Jessica could escape their enemies, so when Hayt is triggered to kill Paul, he finds himself resisting and the trauma of the LogicBomb allows the ghola to recover complete recall of his past life memories. He not only resists the trigger but kills the person who used it.

* In the fourth season SeriesFauxnale of ''Series/Babylon5'' titled "The Deconstruction Of Falling Stars", one vignette shows that 500 years after the show's present time, a propagandist for a xenphobic, Orwellian faction of [=EarthGov=] uses holographic recreations of the B5 command crew to try to frame them as war criminals and mad scientists who experimented on humans at the behest of "alien masters". He starts by using holograms with the crews' actual personalities and memories intact before overwriting them with the new "evil" personalities he needs for his holo-recordings. However, the hologram of Security Chief Michael Garibaldi, as paranoid as the real one (and just as good with computers), gets the man {{Monologuing}} about his plan, secretly transmitting it and the base coordinates to the other, pro-Alliance faction. Just before the base is destroyed, he quietly says to the other holograms, ''"Rest easy, friends. Rest easy."''

* In the fourth season SeriesFauxnale of ''Series/Babylon5'' titled "The Deconstruction Of Falling Stars", a scientist uses 500-year-old images of the command crew to frame them as war criminals and mad scientists who experimented on humans at the behest of "alien masters". However, the image of Security Chief Michael Garibaldi, as paranoid as the real one (and just as good with computers), gets the man {{Monologuing}} about his plan, secretly transmitting it and the base coordinates to the other side. As the base is destroyed, he quietly says to the others, "Rest well, my friends."