History Main / AmbiguousCloneEnding

At some point in the story, the hero was [[ArtificialHuman cloned.]] At the climax of the story, the hero fights their clone and one lives while the other dies. However, whether the survivor is the clone or the original is left uncertain. This usually leaves a lot of uncertainty and angst because the survivor fears seeing a TomatoInTheMirror, and may grapple with the guilt of essentially [[KillingYourAlternateSelf having murdered him or herself]].

* In ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', we learn in Chapter 115 that this is part of {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Twice's backstory, and the reason why he acts so strange. He decided to abuse his cloning Quirk in order to have his clones(which are identical to him but fade away if they suffer injuries equivalent to a broken bone) commit crimes, but then his clones turned on and killed each other, resulting in Twice becoming traumatized(to the point he has a breakdown if his face isn't covered) and not knowing whether he's the original or a clone. And then in [[TheReveal Chapter 229]], [[spoiler:during the fight with the Meta Liberation Army he suffers enough damage to realize he ''is'' the real Twice, and it's enough to let him get enough self-confidence back in the short-term [[LetsGetDangerous to cut loose with his cloning abilities again.]]]] In the Paranormal Liberation War arc, [[spoiler:Twice's final clone only lasts for a minute or so after the real Twice is killed, before falling apart, which finally proves that the scenario Twice feared was impossible.]]

SubTrope of AmbiguousEnding. Compare SchrodingersButterfly, where whether the heroes escaped the LotusEaterMachine is left in doubt. ShellGame is a prerequisite. May involve a ShipOfTheseusParadox.

SubTrope of AmbiguousEnding. Compare SchrodingersButterfly, where whether the heroes escaped the LotusEaterMachine is left in doubt. ShellGame is a prerequisite.

* ''WesternAnimation/Invincible2021:'' The Mauler Twins make sure this is always the case for them whenever one dies, and purposefully set up the process of cloning and copying the memories to be so perfect and seamless that, by the time it's over, both have the ''exact'' same memories. They bicker like siblings on who's the real one and who's the last clone, but admit during a more emotional moment that it's better that way; it ''never'' ends well if they know who the clone is, in their words.[[note]]The comic shows what happens when they know which one is the clone. The 'original' (easily recognized due to his burn scars) would boss the 'clone' so much, that the clone eventually snaps and poisons the original.[[/note]]

** Resolved in a 2019 ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' story, in which the surviving Osgood claims she's not a Zygon. But she might be lying.

* ''Series/ScarecrowAndMrsKing'' in the second season episode "Odds on a Dead Pigeon" the bad guys get a hired killer to have plastic surgery to transform herself into Amanda. At the climax they are both hanging off a building and Lee has to save the right Amanda.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': {{Subverted|Trope}} in the episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S4E1InHisImage In His Image]]". Near the end of the episode, {{Ridiculously Human Robot|s}} Alan and his creator Walter get into a fight. A few minutes later, Alan's fiancée comes in and one of them escorts her out of the room, reassuring her that everything is okay. Then we see Alan's body lying on the floor.

** Part of a throwaway gag in one ImagineSpot, but with a robot replicant instead of a clone.

** Then subverted again when Chris thinks he has to either shoot Peter or an old man. [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} This being Chris]], he's completely ignoring how neither of them look anything alike!

** The episode "Out of Time". ''Starbug'' is confronted by an upgraded (but identical looking) ''Starbug'', crewed by evil future versions of the Starbug crew. It ends with the "good" vessel losing most of its crew, and a laser blowing up one of the combatants. Which ship won isn't revealed until the next series. (It was the evil crew that won, but the TemporalParadox that resulted from it caused the ResetButton to be hit)
** It's was also initially left unclear which Rimmer is the Rimmer we see from Back To Earth onwards (the one from Series I-VII who [[spoiler: became Ace Rimmer]] or the one from Series VIII who [[spoiler: may or may not have died during the series cliffhanger]]) as Series X presented evidence for both scenarios.[[note]]Series X!Rimmer talks about remembering being killed by the radiation leak, which only happened to the first Rimmer, but also mentions dealing with the chameleonic microbes, which happened with the second Rimmer.[[/note]] It was eventually revealed through WordOfGod in 2020 that the Rimmer seen since then is indeed the one who went off to become Ace.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': {{Subverted|Trope}} in the episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E103InHisImage In His Image]]". Near the end of the episode, RidiculouslyHumanRobot Alan and his creator Walter get into a fight. A few minutes later, Alan's fiancée comes in and one of them escorts her out of the room, reassuring her that everything is okay. Then we see Alan's body lying on the floor.

* {{Invoked}} in the ''Manga/TigerMask'' manga: when Tiger Mask faces his EvilTwin he shows up wearing a band on his arm and fighting clean while the imposter had no band and committed fouls, but at one point Tiger Mask loses the band and gets ''pissed'' enough to fight back in kind, and nobody can't tell which one won. [[spoiler:Then {{Subverted}} when the match's promoter quickly points out that the winner is the real one, as his mask has plastic fangs and the loser's has steel ones.]]

* The ending of season 2 of ''LetsPlay/FluxBuddies''. After fighting [[LetsPlay/DuncanJones Duncan's]] evil clone Lalnable Hector for over a season, Lalnable reveals that ''he'' is the original and ''our'' Duncan is one of the clones. Of course, he's not exactly a reliable source...

* ''Film/{{Annihilation}}'' ends with Lena returning from the Shimmer. It doesn't seem apparent during her debriefing to her superiors, but when she reunites with Kane (who she has learned actually died in the Shimmer and was apparently replaced by a clone... [[MindScrew maybe]]), she asks him if he's really Kane, which he answers by asking ''her'' if she's really Lena. Subtle hints (particularly Lena's eyes changing) at least suggest that Lena isn't the same person as she was before entering the Shimmer.

* In ''Literature/DirtyPair: Fatal But Not Serious'', both Yuri (Girly Girl of the LovelyAngels) and her LaserGuidedTykebomb [[EvilTwin clone]] are seriously wounded while escaping a supernova. In the epilogue, one Yuri is bedridden as her partner Kei tells her about the funeral for the other Yuri she just came back from. [[spoiler:Subverted in the last panel, where it's revealed that the clone's the one who survived.]]
* ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'': An odd case occurs in the ''Split Decisions'' story arc where the Hulk is cloned. The final confrontation follows all the conventions of the Ambiguous Clone Ending: Banner and the Clone face each other alone, the fight itself isn't shown, and the scene skips to Banner returning to his friends telling them the clone is dead. It seems like we're meant to be unsure that the real Hulk won... except that the clone was heavily modified, and in Hulk form looks unmistakably different from the real Hulk. Since we see the Hulk looking perfectly normal the very next storyline, he's clearly the original... so why does the narrative go through all the plot points associated with this trope?
* It happens in ''Lobo''.
** For a while there, even one drop of Lobo's blood would grow into a clone. Whenever this happens, the Lobos would team up to kill all of their enemies and then turn on each other. The lone surviving Lobo would be declared the "real" Lobo. Since it didn't matter to Lobo--or any of his clones--who survived as long as one of them did, and everyone else in the Franchise/DCUniverse tries to avoid Lobo anyway, readers didn't really care either.
*** Except for Slo'bo. See, at one point Lobo was de-aged to about fifteen and hanging out with ComicBook/YoungJustice, and he died... and when all the blood-clones grew up and started killing each other (while everyone else, thinking he was dead, was very far away), one of them ''ran and hid.'' After the others were done, he came out and ran back to Earth while the new Lobo was off doing whatever, but he was too ashamed to be called Lobo anymore, so he took a new name.
* Doing this ultimately led to the ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' [[ComicBook/TheCloneSaga Clone Saga]]. And, by extension, to the somewhat shorter ''Brand New May'' saga in the ''ComicBook/SpiderGirl'' comics. [[UnbuiltTrope However]], the first "Clone Saga" (during Creator/GerryConway's run on the book) offered a strong reason why the Peter seen at the end was the original: [[spoiler:all the clones of Peter were fixated on [[TheLostLenore Gwen Stacy]], while the real Peter had undergone CharacterDevelopment since her death and had begun a relationship with ComicBook/MaryJaneWatson. Knowing this, Peter does not look at the results, as his ability to grow past that point proves that he's the original. Too bad editorial forgot that by the time TheNineties rolled around]].
* Back in the early 90s, DC Comics revisited the famous ''Sand Franchise/{{Superman}}'' storyline, in which a being of pure sand was created after Superman eradicated Kryptonite from the Earth. In the end, the two fight and a massive explosion took place within the Fortress of Solitude, the story ending with Superman talking to Luthor with the hinting that the surviving Superman was actually the sand creature. At one point, the prevalent rumor was that this story was supposed to have been DC's escape route if the marriage between Clark and Lois didn't pan out had the incident that led to ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman'' not occur, but it's been proven to be not true.

%%* Occurs in ''Webcomic/PlanetZebeth'' between Samus and her backup.

* The ending of season 2 of ''LetsPlay/FluxBuddies''. After fighting [[LetsPlay/DuncanJones Duncan's]] evil clone Lalnable Hector for over a season, Lalnable reveals that ''he'' is the original and ''our'' Duncan is (one of) the clones. Of course, he's not exactly a reliable source...

* In the ''Series/DontHugMeImScared'' episode "Death", Duck returns from the dead to discover that he's been replaced by a shapeshifting blob, who has taken on his likeness. After a tense moment of silence, the Ducks decide that they can live with each other. A variation of the theme song plays, with the second Duck awkwardly shoehorned in. Duck kills the other Duck before the song can even finish, deciding that "four doesn't work". The question is did the real Duck kill the clone, or vice versa? Duck has shown homicidal tendencies before, but who's to say the clone hasn't completely copied his personality?

* ''WesternAnimation/Invincible2021:'' The Mauler Twins make sure this is always the case for them whenever one dies, and purposefully set up the process of cloning and copying the memories to be so perfect and seamless that, by the time it's over, both have the ''exact'' same memories. They bicker like siblings on who's the real one and who's the last clone, but admit during a more emotional moment that it's better that way; it ''never'' ends well if they know who the clone is, in their words.

* Downplayed in part five of ''LightNovel/TheGardenOfSinners''. Soon after Touko is killed by Cornelius Alba, another Touko comes through the door and returns the favor. Before he is killed, Alba tries desperately to comprehend whether the one he killed was the original or the clone, but Touko dismisses this as irrelevant -- mainly because, as a doll-maker of unparalleled talent, she has achieved the ultimate mastery and can create infinite copies of herself that are indistinguishable from her original, thus making this entire notion meaningless. It is therefore entirely possible that both Toukos we see in the story are clones/dolls/copies, while her original body is long dead -- it wouldn't change anything about her character, and isn't addressed again at any point.

* In ''LightNovel/DirtyPair: Fatal But Not Serious'', both Yuri (Girly Girl of the LovelyAngels) and her LaserGuidedTykebomb [[EvilTwin clone]] are seriously wounded while escaping a supernova. In the epilogue, one Yuri is bedridden as her partner Kei tells her about the funeral for the other Yuri she just came back from. [[spoiler:Subverted in the last panel, where it's revealed that the clone's the one who survived.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}''[='s=] backstory, Albrecht Entrati, pioneer of Void technology, encountered a {{Doppelganger}} of himself during his first voyage. When nobody else reported encountering this being, he began to question his own identity, ultimately deciding to reject Orokin {{Immortality}} and commit suicide by old age.

* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'': PlayedForLaughs in the episode "Moonvasion!". Prior to this episode, Gyro had succeeded in his goal of making a clone army of himself. Over the course of the episode, two of the Gyros are killed and the remaining ones aren't entirely sure if the original Gyro was among the deceased.

* ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/38670549 Under Moonlight]]'' has WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom decide not to rescue [[ExpendableClone of his]] [[MesACrowd ghostly duplicates]] from a horrible fate, as saving them would mean gaining all their memories of being experimented upon [[spoiler:by his own parents]]. As he leaves, the POV switches to the captive Danny, who thinks that "He was the real Danny, actually. He was right here, after all. And no one. No one was coming back for him."

* In ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', we learn in Chapter 115 that this is part of {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Twice's backstory, and the reason why he acts so strange. He decided to abuse his cloning Quirk in order to have his clones(which are identical to him but fade away if they suffer injuries equivalent to a broken bone) commit crimes, but then his clones turned on and killed each other, resulting in Twice becoming traumatized(to the point he has a breakdown if his face isn't covered) and not knowing whether he's the original or a clone. And then in [[TheReveal Chapter 229]], [[spoiler:during the fight with the Meta Liberation Army he suffers enough damage to realize he ''is'' the real Twice, and it's enough to let him get enough self-confidence back in the short-term [[LetsGetDangerous to cut loose with his cloning abilities again.]]]] In the Paranormal Liberation War arc, [[spoiler:Twice's final clone only lasts for a minute or so after the real Twice is killed, before falling apart, which finally proves that the scenario Twice feared was impossible.]]
* In ''Anime/ReadOrDie'' when the "good" Nancy fights the "evil" Nancy it's nearly impossible to keep track of which is which during the fight. This creates an extra layer of drama when the surviving Nancy shows up and pretends to shoot the heroine so she can get close enough to the BigBad to kill him. To make the ending more complicated, the one who wins the fight elects to join the villain in death afterwards, leaving Yomiko a note that she didn't kill the other one after all. If you pay really close attention, they have different dominant hands, something Yomiko picks up on in one scene since she figures out which Nancy to stand next to when they're facing off.
* ''Anime/LupinIII'':
** The first movie, ''Anime/TheMysteryOfMamo'' seems to be heading for this until the climax, in which [[spoiler:[[TheAntagonist Mamo]] reveals that the Lupin that died at the beginning was the clone.]] When [[SympatheticInspectorAntagonist Inspector Zenigata]] shows up afterwards to arrest Lupin, [[spoiler:he tries to invoke this trope with Zenigata,]] but the inspector doesn't care.
** [[MythologyGag Referenced]] in the later Lupin movie ''Anime/GreenVsRed'', where it isn't clear if the Lupin at the end is the real one, Yasuo dressed as Lupin, or another impersonator entirely. [[MindScrew No-one seems to care.]]
* Downplayed in part five of ''LightNovel/TheGardenOfSinners''. Soon after Touko is killed by Cornelius Alba, another Touko comes through the door and returns the favor. Before he is killed, Alba tries desperately to comprehend whether the one he killed was the original or the clone, but Touko dismisses this as irrelevant -- mainly because, as a doll-maker of unparalleled talent, she has achieved the ultimate mastery and can create infinite copies of herself that are indistinguishable from her original, thus making this entire notion meaningless. It is therefore entirely possible that both Toukos we see in the story are clones/dolls/copies, while her original body is long dead -- it wouldn't change anything about her character, and isn't addressed again at any point.

--> '''Vila''': "Hey, which one are you, anyway?"
--> '''Avon''': "Does it really matter?"

* Doing this ultimately led to the ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' [[ComicBook/TheCloneSaga Clone Saga]]. And, by extension, to the somewhat shorter ''Brand New May'' saga in the ''ComicBook/SpiderGirl'' comics. [[UnbuiltTrope However]], the first "Clone Saga" (during Creator/GerryConway's run on the book) offered a strong reason why the Peter seen at the end was the original: [[spoiler:all the clones of Peter were fixated on [[TheLostLenore Gwen Stacy]], while the real Peter had undergone CharacterDevelopment since her death and had begun a relationship with ComicBook/MaryJaneWatson. Knowing this, Peter does not look at the results, as his ability to grow past that point proves that he's the original. Too bad editorial forgot that by the time TheNineties rolled around.]]

*** Except for Slo'bo. See, at one point Lobo was de-aged to about fifteen and hanging out with ComicBook/YoungJustice, and he died… and when all the blood-clones grew up and started killing each other (while everyone else, thinking he was dead, was very far away), one of them ''ran and hid.'' After the others were done, he came out and ran back to Earth while the new Lobo was off doing whatever, but he was too ashamed to be called Lobo anymore, so he took a new name.
* In ''LightNovel/DirtyPair: Fatal But Not Serious'', both Yuri (Girly Girl of the LovelyAngels) and her LaserGuidedTykebomb [[EvilTwin clone]] are seriously wounded while escaping a supernova. In the epilogue, one Yuri is bedridden as her partner Kei tells her about the funeral for the other Yuri she just came back from. [[spoiler:Subverted in the last panel, where it's revealed that the clone's the one who survived.]]
* ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'': An odd case occurs in the ''Split Decisions'' story arc where the Hulk is cloned. The final confrontation follows all the conventions of the Ambiguous Clone Ending: Banner and the Clone face each other alone, the fight itself isn't shown, and the scene skips to Banner returning to his friends telling them the clone is dead. It seems like we're meant to be unsure that the real Hulk won... except that the clone was heavily modified, and in Hulk form looks unmistakably different from the real Hulk. Since we see the Hulk looking perfectly normal the very next storyline, he's clearly the original... so why does the narrative go through all the plot points associated with this trope?
* Back in the early 90s, DC Comics revisited the famous ''Sand Franchise/{{Superman}}'' storyline, in which a being of pure sand was created after Superman eradicated Kryptonite from the Earth. In the end, the two fight and a massive explosion took place within the Fortress of Solitude, the story ending with Superman talking to Luthor with the hinting that the surviving Superman was actually the sand creature. At one point, the prevalent rumor was that this story was supposed to have been DC's escape route if the marriage between Clark and Lois didn't pan out had the incident that lead to ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman'' not occur, but it's been proven to be not true.

* After several assassination attempts by the CIA, UsefulNotes/FidelCastro decided to look for a body double to serve as a decoy. After several days of search they found the perfect candidate: an inmate from an insane asylum who, like Fidel, smoked cigars, walked with long strides, constantly ranted against American imperialism, and even refused to take baths too. So they took him out, tried (unsuccessfully) to bathe him, dressed him in an olive green military suit, and presented him to Fidel, who was so impressed by his likeness that not even he could tell who was the real one! So he took his double for a ride on a Soviet jeep, with such bad luck that they crashed. When their comrades arrived to the crash site, they saw with horror that one of them had been killed!

* ''Literature/AlexRider''

* In ''[[VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}} Kagetsu Tohya]]'', if you decide to search for the killer, sometimes you do battle with him. The killer is you, ''somehow''. During some of the battles, it gets so confusing the fighters themselves begin mixing which is which, and the winner himself doesn't know who he is anymore. [[GroundhogDayLoop Try Again!]]
* The ending of ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'' is ambiguous on whether the person who appears at the end is Luke, Asch, or an amalgamation of the two. The only piece of evidence is an optional sidequest reveals that creatures who undergo fomicry suffer a "big crunch" effect after a certain amount of time, in which the fonons of the original disperse and are absorbed into the clone. However, the sidequest does not reveal how much of the original persists after this process, leaving the answer vague.

* Not precisely a clone ([[spoiler:the clone acts ''way'' different]]), but towards the end of ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', Shepard has to grapple with the ontological confusion of their being brought back from a really-most-sincerely-dead state by Cerberus. To whit, are they the actual Shepard, with a bunch of cybernetics that helped restore brain function... or are they a bunch of cybernetics programmed to believe it's Shepard? Shepard's companions and/or love interest are emphatic in their defense that they're the real deal, but none of them can offer any concrete proof, except for a romanced Liara (because of the "merging of consciousness" that comes with Asari mating) -- and even she can't be 100% certain the difference would be noticeable.

* In ''Podcast/WelcomeToNightVale'', Intern Dana is the only intern to have ever graduated from RedShirt status at Night Vale Community Radio. Only problem is, it might not have been the original Dana who survived the death match with her doppelganger in "The Sandstorm". Due to this, from then on she's referred to as "Intern Dana, or her double".
-->'''Dana''': I remember, I am Dana. Or, I am Dana’s double. One of us killed the other with the stapler. Even I don’t know which one. [[FakeMemories I have these memories, but memories prove nothing]]. Experiences also prove nothing.

* The ending of season 2 of LetsPlay/FluxBuddies. After fighting [[LetsPlay/DuncanJones Duncan's]] evil clone Lalnable Hector for over a season, Lalnable reveals that ''he'' is the original and ''our'' Duncan is (one of) the clones. Of course, he's not exactly a reliable source...

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/TimeSquad'' had Larry make a double of himself, with each double making another until there were hordes of them. Otto and Tuddrussel decided to shove all but one who claims to be the original into space. Despite the final Larry booted out being especially insistent he's the original and the one left behind giving an evil laugh, status quo is restored when he's shunted back to a subservient role.
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'':
** Part of a throwaway gag in one ImagineSpot, but with a robot replicant instead of a clone.
** Played straight when Stewie creates an evil clone of himself. [[spoiler:It is implied that Brian shot the wrong one with an ending in the style of Music/MichaelJackson's "Thriller" video.]]
** Then subverted again when Chris thinks he has to either shoot Peter or an old man. [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} This being Chris]], he's completely ignoring how neither of them look anything alike!
** In "Roads to Vegas" two perfect copies of Brian and Stewie are created. By the end of the episode, one Brian and one Stewie are both dead...but the show never specifies which pair is the original and which is the copy (Did the machine teleport them to Vegas and leave clones behind, or teleport the clones to Vegas?). Since there's one death in each pair, either the original Brian or original Stewie is definitely dead.
* One Halloween short on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' involving a magical hammock that made multiple Homer Simpson clones ends with all the Homer clones being lured off a cliff to their doom using giant donuts pulled by helicopters. [[spoiler:However, it turns out that ''the real Homer'' was amongst the clones who fell to their doom (according to the surviving clone he was the first one over the cliff). Marge is understandably distraught at first but is mollified when the clone offers her a backrub. The fact that the song "Love the one You're With" by Stephen Stills is playing in the background also helps.]]
* Played with in "Too Many Pinkie Pies" episode of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' after Twilight zaps away all the clones in the room and only the original Pinkie remains. At first she shouts joyfully "I'm me! I'm me! I'm me!", but then she suddenly stops and asks herself "Or am I?", nervously examines her own face and concludes: "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I am".

** A third possible option presented later in the series is that he's real and has [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia prosopagnosia]]: He's present for [[spoiler:the birth of Lana's daughter, Abbiejean, which occurs ''after'' the four Kriegers' struggle, but doesn't recognise her the following season, despite seeing her extensively since her birth.]]. He did suffer a long fall.
* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'':
** In "The [=ABCs=] of Beth", Rick offers to make a perfect clone of Beth that will possess her memories and take over her role in the family while the real Beth can go on vacation. It's not revealed how she answered. In the following episode, "The Rickchurian Mortydate", however, Beth remembers this conversation and becomes convinced that she is a clone created to replace the original Beth after she agreed to Rick's offer. She never gets hard proof either way[[note]]For what it's worth, Rick vehemently insists she is not a clone, but offers no evidence other than his word, which, given his history of lying to and manipulating his family, cannot entirely be trusted and both Beth and Morty point out he'd probably say the same thing if she ''was'' a clone[[/note]], but ultimately decides that clone or not, she is happy with her current life and even reconciles with Jerry.
** "Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri" reveals that [[spoiler: Rick ''did'' create a clone of Beth after she told him she wanted him to make the decision for her. However, Rick decided to randomize the two so that not even he would know if the 'original' Beth was the one living with him or the one off having space adventures. Since Rick set things up so that even he would never be able to find out if he changed his mind, we may never get a real answer]].
** PlayedForLaughs at the end of "Mortynight Run". Rick and Morty go back to the Jerryboree to pick up Jerry after their adventure, however, an alternate Rick asks if their Jerry is actually his Jerry, but Morty lost their identification token so they can't say for sure. Rick doesn't really care and swaps Jerrys with the other Rick. "Solaricks" reveals that [[spoiler:yes, the first Jerry was the right one and the one they swapped with is a different Jerry. They still don't care after finding out, however, and the "right" Jerry ends up dying at the end of the episode anyway.]]
** In "Mortiplicity", Rick created [[InsistentTerminology decoys]] of himself and his family, who then created decoys of themselves until there were dozens of identical and near-identical Smith families. Those who realized they were decoys either killed themselves out of despair or started killing other decoys until ThereCanBeOnlyOne. By the time they nearly all wiped each other out in a massive war, they don't even care ''which'' Rick, Morty, Beth, Jerry, or Summer survived so long as they are the only ones.
---> '''Rick''': You the, uh, Summer I came with?\\
'''Summer''': Probably.\\
'''Rick''': Good enough.
* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'': Played for laughs in the episode "Moonvasion!". Prior to this episode, Gyro had succeeded in his goal of making a clone army of himself. Over the course of the episode, two of the Gyros are killed and the remaining ones aren't entirely sure if the original Gyro was among the deceased.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'' has one with Anne, who dies after using the Calamity Gems to destroy the Core. The Cosmic Guardian tells her they made a backup of her that should be the same, but it's not made clear if she's entirely a separate being or if it's just her body that was replaced. Regardless, Anne says she'll probably have an existential crisis over it later.

* ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'': An odd case occurs in the ''Split Decisions'' story arc where the Hulk is cloned. The final confrontation follows all the conventions of the AmbiguousCloneEnding: Banner and the Clone face each other alone, the fight itself isn't shown, and the scene skips to Banner returning to his friends telling them the clone is dead. It seems like we're meant to be unsure that the real Hulk won... except that the clone was heavily modified, and in Hulk form looks unmistakably different from the real Hulk. Since we see the Hulk looking perfectly normal the very next storyline, he's clearly the original... so why does the narrative go through all the plot points associated with this trope?

** In ''Mortiplicity'', Rick created [[InsistentTerminology decoys]] of himself and his family, who then created decoys of themselves until there were dozens of identical and near-identical Smith families. Those who realized they were decoys either killed themselves out of despair or started killing other decoys until ThereCanBeOnlyOne. By the time they nearly all wiped each other out in a massive war, they don't even care ''which'' Rick, Morty, Beth, Jerry, or Summer survived so long as they are the only ones.