History Main / ReplacementGoldfish

* In ''Literature/GoldTreeAndSilverTree'', Gold-Tree is poisoned by her evil mother and presumed dead. Her husband is devastated, but moves on and marries another princess. (Notably, [[DudeShesLikeInAComa the usual revival method]] never occurs to the prince.) However, the second princess finds the dead/sleeping Gold-Tree and revives her. While the Prince is happy to be reunited with Gold-Tree, he assures the second princess that she is still his wife as well, and [[{{Polyamory}} all three of them]] go on to live HappilyEverAfter.

-->-- '''Commissioner Pravin Lal''' - "Time of Bereavement", ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri''

* Creator/RoosterTeeth [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7ABSsu-ACM had a great moment]] during their [[LetsPlay/AchievementHunterMinecraftSeries Minecraft]] episodes. One RunningGag in the series was Ryan's pet cow, Edgar - the animal kept wandering in to his house, so Ryan dug a pit, put in a glass ceiling, and kept Edgar in a dungeon of sorts that thoroughly disturbed the rest of the cast. During "King Ryan, Part 1," Michael snuck into Ryan's house and broke Edgar out, only to find at the end of "King Ryan, Part 2" that the dungeon was back and so was the cow. Ryan had spotted Michael's work and silently led a new cow into his house, then repaired the dungeon while the others were busy. When Michael protested that Edgar was still free (actually, Geoff unwittingly harvested him for leather), Ryan clarified that ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH_Qe7SkciI&t=36m54s "Edgar is the one in the hole."]]''
* She's still around, but since Nella gained the confidence to tell WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick that she was going too far with the abuse, Elisa unwillingly filled the abused best friend role.
* In ''WebVideo/DemoReel'', Rebecca Stone unknowingly is this for director Donnie, replacing his [[spoiler: dead actress mom]]. They have the same RavenHairIvorySkin, the same issues with the industry and she keeps getting roles in his movies where the original dies, but the remake makes them survive or come back to life in ways that don't make sense.
* In ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'', Harvey considered Linkara to be a replacement for his deceased son, although he wouldn't admit it. The 2012 Christmas episodes involved the [[YetAnotherChristmasCarol Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future]] trying to get Harvey to accept his son's death and that Linkara will never replace him.
* ''WebVideo/TwitchPlaysPokemonEmerald'': The day after accidentally releasing her Oddish, A went to the Safari Zone and caught '''twenty-nine''' Oddish and a Gloom. One of them [[MauveShirt ended up as a member of the party]], was [[AscendedExtra evolved into Vileplume]], and named [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Cabbage the White]] after Cabbage, the released Gloom from ''WebVideo/TwitchPlaysPokemonRed''.

* Becomes a DeconstructedTrope in ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}''. [[spoiler:While stuck in the Ever After, Jaune discovers a village of living paper creatures called Paper Pleasers. Determined to protect them, Jaune becomes TheCaretaker for them, even going so far as to name them after the people he's met over the years. Problem is is that they ''don't want to be protected'': they've done their purpose and they want to Ascend and be resurrected as something new. However, since Jaune has a very poor opinion on that, he purposefully prevents them from doing so, leading them to take a {{Determinator}} stance in being DrivenToSuicide. When Team RWBY learn of this, they are unnerved by this and when the Paper Pleasers finally do Ascend, Jaune takes it ''badly'']].

* ''Theatre/MissSaigon'': After losing his Vietnamese bride Kim during the fall of Saigon, American soldier Chris reluctantly decides to get on with his life and finds new love with a woman named Ellen, not realizing that Kim survived and gave birth to his son. Typically, Ellen is played by a white woman with blonde or red hair, but towards the end of the show's first Broadway run, she was played by an Asian actress. Suddenly, it seemed very likely that Chris married Ellen not to get on with his life, but because she [[DoppelgangerReplacementLoveInterest reminded him of his lost love Kim]].

* Inadvertently done in ''Theatre/MissSaigon'' towards the end of the show's first Broadway run. The role of Ellen (the woman the male lead Chris marries after returning from the Vietnam War) was cast with an Asian woman instead of the usual Caucasian blonde/redhead. Suddenly, it seemed very likely that Chris married Ellen not to get on with his life, but because she reminded him of his lost love Kim.

* Due to Elsa's apparent abandonment of her sister in ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'', Anna seeks to fill the void left behind by her and find someone who truly loved her. And she found one in the form of Hans whom promised to her that he won't shut her out and afterwards, she immediately agreed to marry him after getting to know each other for a while. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, it is later revealed that said man only used her for his own goals and when her usefulness is up, he callously abandons her to die. But then later she gets informed that there is someone who actually loved her and that is Kristoff whom Anna just realized.]]

* ''GuillermoDelTorosPinocchio'' provides a sobering {{Deconstruction}} of this trope. In this adaptation of ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfPinocchio'', the eponymous puppet is created when a drunken Gepetto, who is still angry and grieving from the loss of his son Carlo twenty years prior from collateral damage from UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, cuts down the tree he planted next to Carlo's grave (and which Sebastian J. Cricket has made a home out of) and carves it into a very loose effigy of the boy. The deconstruction takes up the first half of the film when Gepetto tries to get used to said puppet and treats him identically to Carlo, not caring that Pinocchio has developed an identity of his own. This leads to an argument between the two where Gepetto angrily calls Pinocchio a burden for joining Volpe's traveling circus against his wishes, resulting in a hurt Pinocchio returning to the circus to earn money for his father. Gepetto, distraught over Pinocchio's disappearance, realizes that the kid loves him like a father regardless after Sebastian calls him out on it, and never compares him to Carlo again once he sets off to find him.

[[quoteright:219:[[Manga/AstroBoy https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/astroboy_0.png]]]][[caption-width-right:219:[[ParentalAbandonment This does not end well.]]]]

If the new "goldfish" is unlucky, they constantly live in the shadow of the dead person and feel they [[WellDoneSonGuy can't measure up]], which can also be the [[WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent secret disappointment]] of the MadScientist. If unwary visitors are unlucky, the LivingDollCollector will try to use them as parts or playmates for their replacement. If this is combined with CloneByConversion (ie. turning someone else into the person they lost), we are definitely heading into MadScientist territory.

* [[spoiler:Epsilon]] in ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' acts as a replacement goldfish best friend for Caboose, replacing [[spoiler: Church]]. Of course, he has the original's personality and memories, so it's not too big of a deal for him.

If the new "goldfish" is unlucky, they constantly live in the shadow of the dead person and feel they [[WellDoneSonGuy can't measure up]], which can also be the [[WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent secret disappointment]] of the MadScientist. If unwary visitors are unlucky, the LivingDollCollector will try to use them as parts or playmates for their replacement in TheDollEpisode. If this is combined with CloneByConversion (ie. turning someone else into the person they lost), we are definitely heading into MadScientist territory.

* ''LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonEmerald'': The day after accidentally releasing her Oddish, A went to the Safari Zone and caught '''twenty-nine''' Oddish and a Gloom. One of them [[MauveShirt ended up as a member of the party]], was [[AscendedExtra evolved into Vileplume]], and named [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Cabbage the White]] after Cabbage, the released Gloom from ''LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonRed''.

* Taken UpToEleven in ''LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonEmerald'': the day after accidentally releasing her Oddish, A went to the Safari Zone and caught '''twenty-nine''' Oddish and a Gloom. One of them [[MauveShirt ended up as a member of the party]], was [[AscendedExtra evolved into Vileplume]], and named [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Cabbage the White]] after Cabbage, the released Gloom from ''LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonRed''.

[[quoteright:219:[[Manga/AstroBoy https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/astroboy_0.png]]]][[caption-width-right:350:[[ParentalAbandonment This does not end well.]]]]

[[quoteright:219:[[Manga/AstroBoy https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/astroboy_0.png]]]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Megamind}}'' has an interesting variation on this; after the movie's namesake supervillain apparently manages to defeat his longtime archnemesis Metro Man, he quickly finds his victory to be completely meaningless (since he had no other purpose in life beyond that and being [[CardCarryingVillain over-the-top villainous]]), and ends up mourning the death. Using leftover DNA, Megamind decides to create a new superhero that can stop him and maintain the status quo. [[spoiler:Brutally averted, as the replacement ends up being ''even more'' evil than him.]]

** In the ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' setting, the mad Beholder crime lord Xanathar loves only two things and two things alone -- himself (par for the course for Beholders) and his pet goldfish, Sylgar. If anything happens to Sylgar, [[BerserkButton bad things happen to his underlings]]. Therefore, if Sylgar ever ends up dead, his cronies go behind his back, procure a new goldfish (or even another type of fish if they're ''really'' in a pinch) put it in the bowl, and [[RefugeInAudacity pretend it's Sylgar]]. It's been implied in the fluff that this has happened multiple times in the past ([[FridgeLogic which, given how long goldfish in real life tend to live, is possibly a near-weekly occurrence and a well-honed survival skill among the Xanathar guild...]]). In at least one adventure, it's said that even relatively low-level adventurers have a chance of surviving an encounter with Xanathar, if they can manage to hold Sylgar hostage...

In realistic settings, this could be an orphan taken in by a parent who has recently lost a child (to death, relocation, etc). In a sci-fi setting, the typical trope is the lonely scientist who {{creat|ingLife}}es a [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots robot, android]], [[{{AI}} artificial intelligence]] or [[ArtificialHuman clone]] in the image of the deceased. Often it's a RobotGirl or RoboticSpouse, or RobotKid in the case of a dead child.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Megamind}}'' has an interesting variation on this; after the movie's namesake supervillain apparently manages to defeat his longtime archnemesis Metro Man, he quickly finds his victory to be completely meaningless (since he had no other purpose in life beyond that and being [[CardCarryingVillain over-the-top villainous]]), and ends up mourning the death. Using leftover DNA, Megamind decides to create a new superhero that can stop him and maintain the status quo. [[spoiler:Brutally averted, as the replacement ends being being ''even more'' evil than him.]]

The MotherlyScientist is someone who legitimately loves the new creation for themselves; either as the original creator or surrogate.

* In [[Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon Disney's]] ''Disney/{{Tarzan}}'', the titular character was adopted by Kala who recently lost her baby to Sabor. Kala and Kerchak [[AvertedTrope did agree]] that Tarzan "could never replace the one [they] lost."

* Due to Elsa's apparent abandonment of her sister in ''Disney/{{Frozen}}'', Anna seeks to fill the void left behind by her and find someone who truly loved her. And she found one in the form of Hans whom promised to her that he won't shut her out and afterwards, she immediately agreed to marry him after getting to know each other for a while. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, it is later revealed that said man only used her for his own goals and when her usefulness is up, he callously abandons her to die. But then later she gets informed that there is someone who actually loved her and that is Kristoff whom Anna just realized.]]

* In ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'', [[spoiler:whenever Komari witnesses blood or death, her repressed memories of her dead brother come out and force her into a HeroicBSOD. The only way she can wrench herself out of that state is to pretend that some kind of appropriate nearby person is actually her brother and act like nothing is wrong as a StepfordSmiler until she can push her negative feelings back down enough again. In the good end Riki manages to break her out of the cycle and force her to accept reality, but in the bad end he agrees to pretend to be her brother and they stay that way.]]

In realistic settings, this could be an orphan taken in by a parent who has recently lost a child (to death, relocation, etc). In a sci-fi setting, the typical trope is the lonely scientist who {{creat|ingLife}}es a [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots robot, android]], [[{{AI}} artificial intelligence]], [[ArtificialHuman clone]] in the image of the deceased. Often it's a RobotGirl or RoboticSpouse, or RobotKid in the case of a dead child.

In realistic settings, this could be an orphan taken in by a parent who has recently lost a child (to death, relocation, etc). In a sci-fi setting, the typical trope is the lonely scientist who {{creat|ingLife}}es a [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots robot, android]], [[BrainUploading artificial intelligence]], [[ArtificialHuman clone]] in the image of the deceased. Often it's a RobotGirl or RoboticSpouse, or RobotKid in the case of a dead child.