That example is also poorly written. It reads like "a few things are similar" which is not what Expy is enough.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Removed the Avatar section. While Zuko and Sasuke have some things in common, these are mostly superficial. Their appearance and personalities are very different. The rest of the Gaang are even weaker. The comparison between Aang and Luke Skywalker could be made with just about every young hero ever written.
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"an Expy is a character from one series who is unambiguously and deliberately based on a character in another, older series. "
"Has a few character traits in common with" isn't enough. Good removal.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
What about the Legend Of Korra examples? They're definitely way, way, way, way better than the ATLA examples, but definitely questionable...
- Unalaq, Desna and Eska from The Legend of Korra are Expies of Ozai, Zuko and Azula from the original series, though the latter two are also expies of Mai, hence they both have similar hairstyles and speak in a monotone voice. Tonraq and Senna are expies of Hakoda and Kya, alongside with President Raiko being an expy of Senator Robert Kelly, Varrick and Ginger being expies of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. Team Avatar are expies of notable examples:
- Korra is an Expy of "what if Katara was the Avatar"
- Mako is an Expy of Dick Grayson
- Bolin is an Expy of Josh Nichols
- Asami is an Expy of Mariko Yashida
I'm not really sure how Unaloq is an expy of Ozai, other than being the Big Bad, and Desna and Eska aren't much like Zuko or Azula at all (the sole comparison seems to be "children of the Big Bad)... they are vaguely Mai-like, as they're fairly emotionless, but that's about it. Tonraq and Hokoda definitely qualify, being chief of the tribe who's parent to the main waterbender and saddled with responsibility that keeps him out of being as close to his daughter as he'd like, with very similar personalities. Senna and Kya are weaker, as neither of them got much screen time to really establish a personality.
President Raiko doesn't make any sense, as Senator Kelly is an outspoken anti-mutant politician and Raiko, while a muggle politician, is pretty much a Reasonable Authority Figure. To be honest, I don't know a lot about Drake And J Osh or Mariko, but I highly doubt those are good examples either.
And the other bullet points are just weak. Other than being a water-bender, Korra's personality is very different from Katara's, Mako being a Batman-expy has been discussed on the Korra page and shot down repeatedly. Dick Grayson is even weaker.
EDIT: So for Unaloq, there is one other pretty big similarity between the two: He tried to screw over elder his brother in order to take his rightful place as ruler of their nation. Still weak (that's similar enough that we could make a claim that he's an Expy for MCU Loki, for crying out loud) but in the interest of fairness I thought I'd mention it.
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I also brought this up on the Expy thread
. General consensus was to pull, which I did, except for Hakoda and Tonraq since that seemed solid. I also added some examples from the Korra page.
I agree with the pulls there. Some of these connections are inscrutable to me at best. Really, everything I'd have said was covered by Larkmarn.
NerdsAreSexy.. sometimes
I did some cleanup on the Disney wall of text. Below are my reasonings. Basically, a few traits or plot devices in common do not an expy make. I also removed the claim that Prince Phillip was the same prince as Snow White's an Cinderella's, because he was different enough.
Also, for crying out loud, do they ALL have to subbullets of one bullet about Cinderella? Being made by the same company doesn't make them a single work!
- Snow White and Sleeping Beauty basically have the same plot.
- This fact is used directly in Fables comic, where Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty all are ex-wives of Prince Charming, and the musical Into The Woods, which has has Prince Charming lose interest in Cinderella after they get married and go after Sleeping Beauty.
- Shortlived TV series The Charmings also played with it, having the Prince's ex "Cindy" show up and make Snow jealous.
- This fact is used directly in Fables comic, where Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty all are ex-wives of Prince Charming, and the musical Into The Woods, which has has Prince Charming lose interest in Cinderella after they get married and go after Sleeping Beauty.
- Similarly, Baloo from Disney's The Jungle Book and Little John from Disney's Robin Hood look quite similar, and are both voiced by Phil Harris.
- There is, in fact, a reason for this. Disney was in the financial hole at the time Robin Hood was made and a number of scenes in the film (for example, the dancing in Sherwood Forest and Kaa's/ Sir Hiss's hypnotizing of Prince John) were actually trace-overs from cels in older films such as Snow White, The Jungle Book and The Aristocats. Fortunately Robin Hood did well and Disney was able to carry on.
- -as indeed Maid Marian dancing was a rotoscope of Snow White.
- The characters Ace "Chicken Little" Cluck and Abby Mallard from Chicken Little look an awful lot like the characters Honker Muddlefoot and Gosalyn Mallard from the show Darkwing Duck, respectively (the latter even has the same last name!).
- Aversion, Beauty and the Beast: the designs for Belle and the human version of the Beast were most decidedly not Expies of any other Disney characters.
- The human cast of Tarzan all appear to be expies of the human cast of Beauty And The Beast. Compare Tarzan with the Beast, Jane Porter with Belle, Professor Archimedes Porter with Maurice, and Clayton with Gaston.
- The incinerator at the end of ''Toy Story 3'' is actually an Expy of the Car Crusher at the end of The Brave Little Toaster.
- Another Pixar example would be the fact that Chick Hicks and Miles Axlerod, the villains of the Cars series films, are actually car versions of Randall Boggs and Waternoose, the villains of Monsters, Inc., respectively.
Good work. I came here to make a remark about how Fables ran it, but I think I'd better not.
You know, if they were going to use Fables as an example, they could at least get the order right: Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella. There's an earlier comic that specifically spells it out. Apparently the ladies in question meet once a year to remind themselves why they left this dashing, handsome, "charming", and eventually very brave man. (His cheating heart, helped along by Rose Red in Snow's case.)
Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay late too the party, but Baloo and Little John definitely count. They're both bears, The Lancer to the hero, Big Fun characters. The fact they share animation models makes it even more clear that their personalities are similar, as they wind up sharing a lot of body language.
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Little John is the Lancer. Baloo is a Mentor/Big Brother figure, not the Lancer. If he was the Lancer to anyone, it would be Bagheera, not Mowgli. Baloo is irresponsible, Little John is not. Little John is not an expy of Baloo.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
MagBas
- While not a deliberate Expy despite numerous Shout Outs, take a look at Kim Possible. The Action Girl cheerleader, the Distressed Dude sidekick, Teen Genius and The Libby take on the Dark Action Girl Shadow Archtype and her Big Bad. Most if not all of them are Deadpan Snarkers. Wait, is this Kim or Buffy The Vampire Slayer?
"Short for "Exported Character", an Expy is a character from one series who is unambiguously and DELIBERATELY(Enphasis mine) based on a character in another, older series. "
MagBas
Disney's animated female leads in recent years (Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas) have a distressing sameness about them, which may point to their all being Expies of each other (Pointed out by Animaniacs in this song). All are rebellious (despite having a decent life), do not want to be with a man they are initially bethrothed to (technically Ariel does not want any mermen), all have animal sidekicks. Somewhat subverted with early heroines: Snow White is innocence personified, Cinderella was much more plucky, and Sleeping Beauty was much more passionate.
- Also, for some reason, being a mother to a Disney she-protagonist appears to be a ticket to premature Critical Existence Failure.
- Although Belle has some similarities to the other 90's Disney protagonists, I think it's fair to set her apart for at least one key reason - She wasn't a Princess, she was the daughter of a moderately poor inventor. The other girls were all Princesses who could functionally have anything they wanted because of their respective father's power; the Princesses all yearned to escape from a life of luxury and splendor where they could have anything they wanted. Belle's wish to escape is a little more understandable, being that she's quite literally stuck in a French village with nowhere to go.
- American Dad took the entire family archetype from Family Guy and transfered it near Washington D.C., as well as replaced the dog and baby with a goldfish and alien. Also, Stan may be an expy of Joe Swanson, which would have possibly been lampshaded in the Family Guy episode "Lois Kills Stewie".
- The visual similarities between Stan Smith and Joe Swanson in separate Seth MacFarlane shows, is likely because of Seth's simplistic drawing style and his penchant for characatured jawlines.
- Of course the debate still rages whether those are expies of The Simpsons, if only between their respective Fan Dumbs. The two shows, aside from the occasional Take That!, maintain that they aren't.
- To take the recursion one step backward, when The Simpsons first came out, people accused Homer and Marge of being expies of Fred and Wilma.
Non-YMMV trope.
Removed the following:
The amount of times this argument has come up for Omi, Aang, Krillin, and other monks is getting ridiculous. They are all Xiaolin monks, so of course they are small-framed, bald, tattooed, Asian martial artists. As for mentioning having badass fighting moves, in martial arts cartoons, is kind of ubiquitous.
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