Expy Cleanup Thread

I've heard the "don't trope real people" rule is exempt from Reality Shows since they're scripted and therefore separate enough from real-life.

Regardless of whether reality show people are real people (I think they are and I think it's disrespectful to treat them as if they aren't), I don't think they can be expies, since they're not created whole-cloth like actually fictional characters. As such, I don't think they can be enough of a copy to qualify for the trope. This goes as far as until they're completely scripted, in which case it's no longer a reality show.

From DC Super Hero Girls (2019):

• Expy It's hard not to see Lauren Faust's previous work's influence on this show's main girls.
  • Supergirl is Rainbow Dash, an athletic tomboyish rocker with short hair and a raspy voice.
  • Zatanna is Rarity, a purple-haired fashionista with a flair for the dramatic.
  • Batgirl is Pinkie Pie, a hyperactive ball of squeaky, motor-mouthed joy that gives gigantic group hugs.
  • Bumblebee is Fluttershy, the Shrinking Violet that Apologizes a Lot.

There was a similar list on Counterpart Comparison before that trope was axed. I don't think they count as expies of the FIM characters. Faust has used these archetypes in other works as well.

Which of these from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends are accurate?

• Expy:
  • Mac is based on a one-time The Powerpuff Girls character, Mike, who had an imaginary friend of his own. Also, his early design had a lot in common with Linus van Pelt, which is particularly telling when you remember that Bloo's design was based off a child's security blanket. And after the pilot premiered, Craig McCracken's family told him Mac is pretty much what McCracken was like when he was little. His name's even "Mac".
  • Mac's mother shares a lot of similarities with Ms. Bellum.
  • Wilt's creator, Jordan Michaels, is an obvious expy of famous basketball player Michael Jordan.
  • Mr. Herriman is based on the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, being a white rabbit with a waist coat and an obsession with being on time, as well as the eponymous character from Harvey, being imaginary and six feet tall.
  • Frankie is based on McCracken's wife, Lauren Faust.
  • Frit and Frat are basically G-Rated versions of Beavis And Butthead.
  • Lil' Lincoln's au pair Moose, from Emancipation Complication, is one of Big Billy.

They need more context, and the one that has context, Mac, makes an argument for not being an expy, being based on two characters. Maybe the white rabbit, maybe Jordan.

Also lack context. But if the creator uses a bunch of archetypes in several works, they're not expies. They're creator archetypes.

Mac is based on Mike. I know that's been confirmed.

A copy or just based on? The latter can mean anything from Captain Ersatz to loosely inspired by. Expy requires the something close to the first one, but not quite that far.

The Vinsmokes in One Piece are apparently expies of the Dolls from Street Fighter. Is that true?

Monsund sent me a message on my deletion of the Expy entries on Characters.Fire Emblem Awakening Grima And The Grimleal, claiming I had no right to delete them and threatens to add them back.

The entries written before I deleted them:

First entry has dual expy origins, creating confusion.

Second entry has totally no context.

Third entry suffers again from dual expy origins.

Fourth entry is Zero-Context Example.

Does different continuities affect the qualifiers for an Expy? Because that's exactly what Monsund is vehemently arguing in the PMs

RE: Ano Baka Desu

Whilst the Jamil and Grimleal group entries need a rewrite to add context, the Validar and Grima entries explain why they are expys. Validar and Grima are most identical to Manfroy and Loptous respectively, with the latter even having a Mook Carry Over, so a rewrite of the entries can just focus on that.

The official Fire Emblem wikis also note the similarities between all four characters.

The expy video game even has a Fire Emblem entry.

• Fire Emblem, to the notorious degree, as there are so many similar characters fandom categorized them into archetypes.

Edited by Monsund on Mar 17th 2019 at 10:35:06 AM

An expy is specifically a copy of a single character, not a type of character, nor multiple characters.

If it's a general archetype, it's that, not an expy. If the "archetype" is specifically one of another character, it's Fountain of Expies, and not really an archetype, since it means many other characters are also copies of the same character.

As written, Validar and Grima are not examples. Deleting them was the right thing to do.

Fire Emblem has archetypes, Grima is a member of the Medeus archetype, Validar is a member of the Gharnef Archetype.

The Fire Emblem archetype are already listed under expy and the original Archetype makers are also listed under Fountain of Expies.

If Archetypes don't count as Expies, then all those examples on the Expy pages should be deleted.

Edited by Monsund on Mar 18th 2019 at 12:07:58 PM

The Fire Emblem archetypes really should be deleted. Many characters included in the archetypes have enough differences that they can't really be called copies of the original, and the similarities they do have aren't enough to be considered an Expy.

The entry also violates Weblinks Are Not Examples.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Mar 18th 2019 at 12:20:23 PM

So should the Fire Emblem archetypes be moved to Recurring Element and for the villains, Meet the New Boss?

I don't think Meet the New Boss is appropriate, since it seems like the "new boss" has to replace the previous antagonists that the protagonists fight against. The protagonists of Awakening never fight Loptous or Medeus, so Grima isn't replacing any of them.

Recurring Element might be a good fit for the whole archetypes thing, though I'd ask in the "Is this an example?" thread before adding such an entry.

Meet the new Boss is used for Zelda, however, and the example given, with Malladeus, has an entirely different Link and Zelda facing Malladeus.

The entry reads like misuse to me. The entries don't really do a good job showing that the two villains have the same MO as Ganon beyond the standard "villain looks demonic and wants to do horrible things to the setting." Demise definitely shouldn't be there, since there's no Ganon for him to replace in that setting.

That might be something worth bringing up in the "Is this an example?" thread as well.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Mar 18th 2019 at 4:37:28 AM

On a Wiki Walk, I found Re Ditto, which seems related to Expy.

That article sounds like it was launched with the bare minimum hats and hasn't been taken care of since. And I feel it's made by someone who wanted to have a trope that's skirting around Expy's guidelines.

The idea has a certain amount of potential— a character starts out as an adaptation, spinoff, or in some other way related to an existing character, with clearly defined points of distinction, but those points of distinction are minimized as time goes on until the character is nigh-indistinguishable from the original.

Unfortunately, the description confuses the issue by making statements about authorial intent that would be very hard to definitively establish with most examples. The example section is a mess, with at least half of them forgetting about the part where the differences have to be minimized over time. And both the description and the example section have a distinctly complain-y tone.

A TRS thread seems called for, since it would require a description / definition overhaul to rehabilitate the trope. I'd consider cutting it or sending it back to TLP to be a valid option as well; it's got all of eight wicks, we wouldn't exactly be sacrificing much.

Edit: I went ahead and created a TRS thread.

Edited by HighCrate on Mar 21st 2019 at 3:45:43 AM

To those of you who think we shouldn't be troping real life people. Does this include Character sheets? Especially if said people are not paid actors?

I think I need to go on Ask The Troper and suggest maybe doing a general cleanup of Reality Show and Let's Player character sheets. I trust there are now some good people working on them as they pretty much removed all the Expy examples.

This would be the place to bring up Alternate Company Equivalent, right? Because someone is shoehorning a ton of Soul Calibur characters in all across Characters.Soul Calibur VI.

• Kilik: Alternate Company Equivalent: Same company, sister game rather, but the effect is the same; he shares a lot in common with post-Tekken 4 Jin, being a hero with an evil source of power.
  • One similarity does not ACA make.
• Zasalamel: Alternate Company Equivalent: Given how he has knowledge of information he isn't supposed to have in a new timeline, he's the equivalent of Raiden, who, in his own series reboot, also had a vision from his future self in his own game By sheer coincidence, they also both wear white.
  • I mean... no? I admit that they're worth comparing, but equivalent takes a lot more than R Ipple Effect Proof Memory.
• Amy: Alternate Company Equivalent: Of Mitsuru Kirijo, both being royal redheads with rapiers as their weapons, as well as being cold and aloof. Amy's broken hair even resembles the latters. Being a child and all, Amy isn't as fanservicey, though.
  • "Red haired female fencer." That's it.
• Grøh: Alternate Company Equivalent: Same company, sister-series, but he can be considered this to Lars Alexandersson from Tekken. They are both Scandinavian, introduced in the 6th entries of their respective series, and have extremely over-the-top anime designs.
  • "Can be considered" seems like not an example.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: In a strange coincidence, considering they debuted mere weeks from each other, he bears multiple similarities to the Street Fighter series' latest character, G, what with them both being mysterious, highly eccentric, self-styled global leaders obsessed with uniting humanity for their own deranged purposes.
  • Outright said to be a coincidence, I've cut this.
• Geralt: Alternate Company Equivalent: Similar to Cloud in Smash Bros, Geralt is a Super-Soldier and a Magic Knight carrying a wolf motif, in addition to being a Guest Fighter from an RPG. Another similarity they have is using mechanics from their home game implemented as a Fighting game one.^note Limit Breaks in the former, signs in the latter
  • Way too broad, and inaccurate to boot.

these entries were added by Gene0129, who has a bad track record when applying tropes correctly. Seems to me they were going for a shoehorn since they know Expy would be scrutinized by this thread.

Pulled them all and cited the thread.

ACA would need to cite the presence of two rival companies which created those characters, which isn't the case for most of the above.