Morally Superior Copy

Soft kitty, good kitty
Little ball of fur
Nice kitty, unlike daddy
Purr purr purr...

Kyle: You say it as if you're talking about someone else. It was all your fault, Hax! Shoulder the blame!
AI Hax: I have his memories and knowledge, but I myself am not the one you knew as Hax. I reside here merely as an artificial intelligence assimilated with the core of the Vanargand.

— Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2

Clones sure are awful, right? When they're not straight up evil to the core, they have a bad habit of trying to Kill and Replace their natural counterpart. They're a living manifestation of why Creating Life Is Bad, after all.

Well, sometimes, Clones Are People, Too. And sometimes, that idea is taken to its logical conclusion. What if the original is just a real scumbag? And sometimes, the duplicate chooses to take a more sympathetic path.

More often than not, this will be the provenance of a duplicate that is unaware of their true origin (and everything else about their history, to boot). The revelation of their status as a clone or other duplicate, as well as the crimes of their original self, are likely to trigger a massive Tomato in the Mirror moment or Clone Angst. If the original is still around, expect them to claim that the copy is Not Even Human and try to force a Heroic BSoD.

Compare Copied the Morals, Too, for when a clone of a hero that is supposed to be evil fails at whatever purpose they were created for because they inherited too much of the hero's personality. Also compare Mirror Character, which is a character who significantly reflects another's traits. Related to I Am Not My Father, where the child rejects their parent's morality. See also Evil Twin, for when identical twins are moral opposites, and Preferable Impersonator, which is when someone is replaced by an impersonator who is preferred over the original. Not to be confused with The Moral Substitute, which deals with creating a version of something that's in line with a given group's values. Virtuous Character Copy is essentially this trope as applied to Expies.

Obviously, as this trope tends to be tied up in some pretty intense reveals, there will be unmarked spoilers ahead. You Have Been Warned.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Several characters in the Seed sub-series are clones of Al da Flaga, who was an extremely narcissistic man who wanted an heir, but considered any children he had with his wife to be "contaminated" by her genes, so he turned to cloning instead to produce a copy of himself. With the possible exception of Rau le Creuset, the primary villain of the first series, all the clones produced by this program turn out to be much more moral people than Al himself. And even Rau hates his "father", considering Al to be representative of the evils of humanity.

Audio Plays

• Revelation 'F': Frigid is a clone of Trogen, however, since he's newly created, he has no active hatred for Freeza and lets him go, and doesn't listen to Trogen's posthumous instructions, wanting to be his own man and rule the Frigidarians as he sees fit.

Comic Books

• The Avengers: Evil robot Ultron always comes back because he has equipment stashed away that will build a replacement duplicate if he is destroyed. He used to program that equipment to upgrade him with each iteration... until one version came out sensible enough to realize that all of his Omnicidal Maniac schemes were idiotic and pointless, and wouldn't it be better to just put all the cackling supervillainy aside and reconcile with his father, Hank Pym? Unfortunately, the previous Ultron wasn't actually dead, and evil Ultron absolutely freaked out at the existence of the nice Ultron, killing him and vowing that there would never, ever be another Ultron like him. Pity, he was actually a really nice guy.
• Batman: In Batman: Last Knight on Earth, while we do follow Batman, we're not exactly following Bruce Wayne. The protagonist is a Batman clone/copy, while Bruce Wayne ended up becoming the Big Bad Omega. The Batman clone soon becomes a Redeeming Replacement after ultimately defeating and killing Omega.
• Judge Dredd: Downplayed , as Dredd is not a villain, but he is a hardline enforcer of the fascist Judge System, seeking to keep people in line more than to keep them happy. One of his clones, Dolman, decides to opt out of this life and walk his own path, and grows up to be happier and more well-adjusted for it.
• The Mighty Thor: Issue 95 of Journey into Mystery had a villain called Professor Zaxton use an invention of his to create an Evil Knockoff of Thor. He ultimately falls to his death while his machine is destroyed, but not before said contraption creates a benevolent clone of Zaxton to take the scientist's place after his demise.
• Old Man Logan: When Logan and Hawkeye arrive to Las Vegas, they encounter Hawkeye's ex-wife, who married a copy of Ultron who became nice (and a bit Camp Straight), who had even been a surrogate father to Hawkeye's daughter. If Ashley "Spider-Bitch" Barton became an awful individual, it surely was not because of him.
• The Outsiders: In one issue of Batman and the Outsiders, Nazis create a mature clone of Hitler who they have watched over by a simple-minded Jewish girl. They then show him movies of his predecessor's accomplishments, intending for him to kill the girl once his memories return. The clone, whom the girl had saved from choking on his food at one point, shoots himself out of horror once he understands his origins. Turns out clones aren't really the same person the original was.
• Spider-Man: The endgame of Harry Osborn in the 2009-2010 version of The Clone Saga was to bring his father, Norman Osborn, back via cloning. However, the Norman clone quickly becomes horrified by what the original warped Harry into, talking Kaine into returning baby May, trying to talk Harry out of his madness, and eventually performing a Heroic Sacrifice to save Peter from the Goblin Glider in the same way Ben did in the mid-1990s story (and thus die similarly to how the original Norman went out in The Night Gwen Stacy Died).
• Superboy: Conner Kent falls under this, in addition to Copied the Morals, Too, as he is a clone of both Superman and Lex Luthor. Luthor believed that the clone possessing his genes would be both easier to control and behave more like a "Luthor" than Superman. For added insurance, he also subconsciously conditioned the clone to act as a Manchurian Agent that he could directly control. But Superboy's desire to be a hero like Superman was far stronger than whatever was imprinted on him by Luthor.
• Teen Titans: The second incarnation of Terra is basically exactly what the original had appeared to be before turning out to be Evil All Along. It's inconsistent, though, on whether she's supposed to be a clone or the resurrected original who lost her memories.

Comic Strips

• Invoked in Calvin and Hobbes when Calvin duplicates only his good side (after learning from his first time copying himself). Hilarity ensues when the duplicate runs up against the bad reputation of the original Calvin, but things really get spicy when his good side turns out to have a crush on Susie. When Calvin finds out, he ends up fighting with his duplicate, which abruptly vanishes in a Puff of Logic after being goaded into acting as mean-spirited as his original.

Fan Fiction

• Codex Equus:
  • Moufette is Smellba's Opposite-Sex Clone. However, whereas Smellba is an evil, sadistic witch that enjoys torturing creatures with her olfactory magics, Moufette is a benevolent, good god.
  • Luminiferous is a clone of his father Morning Star, the Light of Perfection/Baleful Light, who sought to shape Equus and the surrounding universe according to his own twisted ideas of perfection. Luminiferous turns out noble and good and goes on to stop his father and help the world wherever he goes.
• CONSEQUENCES (Miraculous Ladybug): In Running Amok, Ladybug and Chat Noir use the Peacock Miraculous to create Senti-Bird, a sentimonster of Pavona (Lila using the Peacock) in order to trick and defeat Hawkmoth. Senti-Bird is everything Lila pretends to be but isn't: heroic, nice, empathetic and willing to use her powers to help other people.
• With This Ring introduces this trope in the story arc Triumph Of the Will when the Justice League are tracking Nazi supervillains Wolf Krieger and Captain Nazi. Orange Lantern comes across a man named Helmut Schreiber, a Brazilian citizen who turns out to be the only survivor of a post-WW2 project to clone Hitler. However, the project had fallen apart and Schreiber had simply been raised in a normal orphanage completely unaware that he was in any way out of the ordinary, and would go on to become a successful architect and marry a black woman with whom he has three children. Krieger eventually hunts him down, planning to use him as a focus to pull the remains of Hitler's soul out of Hell and create a magical embodiment of fascism, but he is stopped by Orange Lantern and Rocket. Schreiber is portrayed as just a normal man with nothing in common with the original aside from genetics.

Films — Live-Action

• The premise of The Island (2005) revolves around clones created from wealthy people to serve as an extra set of organs to preserve their lives. Lincoln and Jordan seek out the help of Lincoln's progenitor, Tom Lincoln, who suffers from liver cirrhosis and signed on to the project to obtain a replacement liver, to expose Dr. Merrick's cloning experiments. However, while Tom is surprised to find that Merrick Biotech made a complete sapient clone of him and not the vegetative mass of organs he was made to believe, he tries to turn Lincoln and Jordan over to Merrick's men to keep the experiments secret and save his own life.
• Replicant revolves around a Cowboy Cop who, driven to capture a terrorist at any cost, greenlights an illegal cloning of the terrorist in the hopes the clone will lead him to the villain. The clone quickly grows from being child-like to having a full understanding of what is being asked of him, and completely refuses to follow the morals of his genetic donor (who goes as far as to invoke Clone Angst on him in the hopes to recruit him), eventually leading to a full-blown brawl in which the terrorist gets killed.
• Deconstructed in Us. The original Adelaide was abducted and replaced by her Tethered during the introduction, and the Adelaide we've been following the whole time is actually the fake. However, despite the film's main character initially being a Creepy Child who stole Red's life, she grew to be a loving mother and wife while Red became a vengeful Dark Messiah who schemes to Kill and Replace her double.

Literature

• Grand Central Arena: Marc C. DeQuesne was created by the Hyperion project primarily as an incarnation of the villain from Skylark Series with the same name. They leavened him with personality traits from Martin Crane of the same series and Kimball Kinnison from Lensman. Because of the personality shifts and the moral choices he has made over the years, Marc uses his talents for much less selfish goals than his namesake — though he does retain the original DeQuesne's capacity for ruthlessness when he deems it necessary.
• In the Old Man's War novel The Ghost Brigades, the authorities make a clone of a rogue scientist, implanted with a copy of the original's memories from just before he went rogue, in the hope that the clone will be able to tell them what the scientist is up to and how to stop him. The memory copy seems at first not to have taken, so the clone is given his own name and allowed to start building a life for himself, and by the time the memories do start surfacing he's formed his own moral code and freely chooses to oppose his progenitor.
• The novelization of The Rise of Skywalker reveals that Rey's father was a clone of Palpatine, the Dark Lord of the Sith. He appears to have been far less nefarious than the original, dying in the process of trying to hide his child from being found by the Emperor.
• Ward:
  • Swansong is a clone of Damsel of Distress that chooses to be a hero instead of a villain.
  • The fifth Harbinger clone develops a sense of morality that the original and his fellow clones lack, to the point that he feels remorse for his original template's involvement in the creation of Case 53s, and in the epilogue chooses to become a hero.

Live-Action TV

• Aliens in the Family: When Bobut runs away, he uses one of Snizzy's inventions to create a duplicate that's nicer than the original. Eventually, everyone realizes something is wrong because the new Bobut is way too nice.
• Knight Rider contains a rare non-biological example: KARR, the original prototype for KITT, lacks the imperative to protect human life and as result is ruthless, selfish and arrogant. By contrast, KITT is kind, selfless and values all life, despite being the inferior production line copy.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River", Weyoun 6 is the lone Weyoun clone who disagrees with the Founders' genocidal stance and attempts to defect to the Federation by reinterpreting his genetically programmed loyalties to said Founders as applying as well to Odo.
• Star Trek: Voyager: In "Nothing Human", the Doctor needs to create a consultant to work with to solve a medical crisis that's going to kill B'lannna Torres. He conjures up a holographic version of the best exobiologist known to the Federation, a Cardassian named Crell Moset. The hologram is kind, courteous, funny, and extremely gifted in the field of medicine. His inspiration was also an immoral monster who mimicked Josef Mengele's crimes. The Doctor calls out the new Moset for this even though he's only three days old at this point, and discovers that the holographic creation was based on what the Cardassians released to the Federation, which left out all the really negative stuff. As such, this part of Moset was never integrated into new Moset's programme, and he's genuinely shocked and disgusted by his inspiration's actions. Even though he's an innocent, the Doctor deletes his programme anyway.

Tabletop Games

• While a Fetch from Changeling: The Lost is usually somehow... off compared to the changeling it was made to replace, there are cases where the Fetch is missing a character Flaw and is generally a better person than the original, making it even harder for the changeling to remove them to resume their old life in the rare cases not much time has passed in the real world or Arcadia.

Video Games

• Axiom Verge: The Trace the player controls is actually a genetic copy of Athetos, the original Trace who became a scientific abomination and committed genocide against an alien race. The player Trace makes it his goal to stop Athetos for good.
• BioShock Infinite eventually reveals that the Player Character Booker DeWitt and the Big Bad Father Zachary Hale Comstock are the same person from different timelines. The latter chose an easy path to forgiveness for the atrocities he had committed against American Natives and became a tyrant as a result, while the former chose to live with his guilt and became more of an Anti-Hero as a result.
• Destiny 2: Beyond Light gives us Clovis Bray I. Obsessed with becoming the last universal common ancestor for humanity, he developed the Brain Uploading technology that would create the Exos, also part of his bid to escape death with immortality. He ultimately created two copies of himself, an A.I. copy of his mind, which would oversee the Exo-manufacturing facility called the Deep Stone Crypt, and an Exo duplicate with his basic personality but not his memories (memory wipes reduce complications with the brain upload). Clovis I's Exo, when he discovered what a heartless monster his antecedent was, chose to reject his philosophies after getting Clovis I's memories uploaded to him. The Exo Clovis — after going to war against the Vex, shutting down their portal in the Glassway on Europa, and suffering numerous resets in the process — underwent one last reset, but requested that his Clovis memories be removed, taking a new identity as Banshee-44.
• In the backstory of Digital Devil Saga, a lonely Sera created a group of AI friends based on people she knew in real life. Since Sera was still a young child, she didn't realize that Serph Sheffield was manipulating her with kindness, nor that the nurse who took care of her despised her, so she created the AIs Serph and Argilla as a Princely Young Man and a Cool Big Sis respectively. In an inversion, she didn't realize that Heat O'Brien was the only one who cared about her; she created the AI Heat as scary and angry, because she didn't know that O'Brien was furious because of how poorly she was treated.
• Dragalia Lost plays with this. It turns out that Euden is actually a clone of Nedrick, and was made because Nedrick was presumed to have died. While Euden is an All-Loving Hero, Nedrick is an Antihero. However, it turns out that Nedrick was actually just like Euden at one point, and the only reason he acts evil is because he was revived by Bahamut, and because he was rejected by society, Nedrick believed that he had to become his pawn in exchange. Even when he starts to break free of Bahamut’s influence, Nedrick is still a bit of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Although Euden also had a tough time in society, he still had Zethia and Notte, who helped guide him to the path of righteousness that he’s shown to be in in the present day.
• In Final Fantasy XV, one of the heroes, Prompto, is a clone of Verstael, who bred clones specifically to convert into daemons and use them to power magitek troopers. Prompto is a loyal friend to the main hero, Noctis, and travels with him after the destruction and invasion of their home city by the magitek troopers.
• Halo has the IsoDidact, a Clone by Conversion of the original Didact created after the original Didact was executed and his wife, the Librarian, deemed the Didact's expertise necessary to fight the Flood. To this end, she chose a young man named Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting and overwrote his memories and personality with the Didact's, promising to return his body once they were done. Eventually, the original Didact turns up alive, but had since been driven insane, becoming hateful and genocidal towards humans and appalling both his wife and his clone. Additionally, Bornstellar's personality resurfaced and the IsoDidact's personality became a balanced mix of his original personality and the Didact's, causing him to become more moral than the original.
• Mega Man Zero 3 plays with this trope, as it involves a conflict between the original Zero whose mind is in a clone body and the evil A.I. Omega occupying Zero's original body. Zero, having learned that he was the original viral Maverick, chose to go into suspended animation after the Maverick Wars, allowing the best Reploid scientists and programmers to study his mind and body; from that, the Mother Elf program was created to finally end the Maverick Virus threat. Dr. Weil, however, felt that Reploid-kind was getting off easy, so under the guise of his "Project Elpizo" he acquired Zero's body, upgraded it, and placed an A.I. in there that replicated Maverick Zero, thus creating Omega, alongside corrupting the Mother Elf into the Dark Elf, kickstarting the Elf Wars which ended 60% of humanity and 90% of Reploids. Original Zero had a copy body quickly made so that he could fight alongside X to seal Omega away. Afterwards, Zero went back into hibernation, feeling the whole situation was his fault to begin with.
• In the Metal Gear series, Big Boss eventually resolves that soldiers can only find satisfaction in the act of warfare itself (whereas higher ideals, such as patriotism, are more often than not tools used by corrupt men to manipulate soldiers into dying for worthless causes). His clone/son Solid Snake strives to transcend Big Boss' cynicism by proving that a more peaceful world is both possible and desirable.
• The Nintendo Wars game Advance Wars: Days of Ruin has Catleia (in the PAL translation) and Isabella (in the US translation). In both translations, she's a clone of a significantly eviler character, essentially starting out as a blank state, and making the choice to become good (or possibly neutral, but with her actions having primarily good consequences). Oddly, though, the details vary somewhat from translation to translation – in the PAL version it's clear that there were plenty of spare clones available and this particular one was being used as an experiment as to what would happen if one was added to the "good side" of the storyline, due to the villain considering the individual clones to be mostly worthless.
• OMORI: Perfectheart is a clone of Sweetheart and is much more polite and friendly. She is so perfect that not only does she resemble Sweetheart completely, but she actually has a tolerable attitude — beyond perfect, in other words. Sweetheart rejected her because she was outright insulted at the thought of someone more perfect than herself.
• Towards the end of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, it's revealed that the version-dependent Professor, Sada/Turo, actually died several years prior to the events of the game, and that the "Professor" you've been speaking with throughout the game is actually an AI-controlled robotic duplicate. At roughly the same time, it's revealed that the original Professor was also morally gray at best, downright villains at worst, having built a Time Machine to bring Pokémon from the past/future into the modern day knowing full well that this would wreak havoc on the local ecosystem. The AI Professor, despite having been programmed with all of the original's memories and personality, realized just how much of a disaster this would be and resolved to put a stop to it, reaching out to the Player Character specifically for the purpose of putting an end to their creators' schemes.
• In [PROTOTYPE], the player character Alex Mercer is an Anti-Hero at best and a Villain Protagonist at worst. Once it's revealed that the Alex you're playing is little more than an Anthropomorphic Personification of The Virus taking over the city with a couple of the real Alex's memories, even he's disgusted by the original Alex's actions.
• Downplayed in Skylanders Imaginators. Kaos uses his powers to create a copy of himself in the belief that Skylands wouldn't stand a chance if there was two of him. However, the copy wanted Skylands to himself and opted to side with the Skylanders against his creator.
• Street Fighter: Several clones:
  • Cammy White is a female clone of M. Bison, a Card-Carrying Villain who wants to Take Over the World with Shadaloo. After Dhalsim breaks his Mind Control over her, she now works for the British government to rescue Shadaloo's victims.
  • Abel was born as a replacement body for M. Bison, who wants world domination and is responsible for almost every bad thing that happens in the series, committing multiple murders and abducting teenage girls. Eventually, Abel is taken in by Charlie Nash, who trains him to be a hero.
• Tales of the Abyss:
  • The manga reveals that the original Ion was a Creepy Child bordering on The Sociopath, treating other people like pets, and may well have been responsible for Van's plan to replace the entire planet with a replica. The Ion seen in-game, the original's seventh and final replica, is a Nice Guy and one of the heroes' most reliable allies. Another Ion replica, given the name Florian, is a completely innocent Cheerful Child.
  • Luke and Asch are a slightly more complicated case because Asch isn't really evil. Luke on the other hand goes through a truly vicious Break the Haughty that leads to him becoming a much kinder and more heroic person than his original.

Web Animation

• gen:LOCK: Played with. The original Julian Chase was captured and corrupted by the Union, transforming the once noble Lieutenant into the vicious, violent Nemesis. The Polity, however, made a clone of Chase, who, due to not ever being captured by the Union, retains his heroism and battles Nemesis, effectively taking his original's place as the true hero of the Polity.

Webcomics

• In Melonpool, Ralph Zinobop is a colossal, irresponsible selfish jerk. So naturally, when he was accidentally duplicated by a machine that makes opposite personality clones, the result was Ralphie, an incredibly nice guy and conscientious worrywart. Both versions stick around as main characters.
• In Scoob and Shag, the Shag we have been following for the run of the comic is revealed to be a clone of the original Shag, who died under still unexplained circumstances years ago and just the latest line of clones that Scoob secretly commissioned from Velm. An earlier clone generation of Shag is coerced into serving under Big Bad Mick by showing Shag that he's not the original and is sent to Earth to act as a secret mole that will free Mick for his plans in taking over Earth. He also holds onto the original Shag's Ballyhoo, Jump Cut, and reveals that our Shag can't get that power until he, the earlier clone, is dead.

Western Animation

• In one episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the Plutonians capture Master Shake and replace him with a (hideously deformed) clone named Major Shake as part of a plot to Take Over the World. Frylock and Meatwad are easily able to tell he's not the real Shake, but because Major Shake is actually kind and pleasant unlike the real Shake, they don't mind. It helps that the Plutonians are so dumb they don't even have a logical plan, much less a consistent one.
• Batman: The Animated Series: In "Beware the Creeper", Ryder is doing a reenactment of the Joker's origin when the Clown Prince decides to crash it with Smylex gas to present his own version of events, with Ryder taking his role. Result: a bizarre-looking lunatic, but as Ryder was a decent, compassionate man before his transformation, he became a Cloudcuckoolander Idiot Hero as opposed to Joker's deranged sociopathy. From a production standpoint, the crew decided to introduce Creeper to the DC Animated Universe, had trouble designing him as he kept looking like the Joker, and decided to just run with it.
  Joker: Let's show the folks at home what really happened 7 years ago. I'll be Batman, you be me! [chucks Ryder over the railing into vat of chemicals]
• Earthworm Jim: In "Opposites Attack", Evil Jim makes a ray to create evil copies of Peter Puppy and Princess Whats-Her-Name in order to have a team of his own against Jim which eventually lead to the capture of the heroes whom he presents to the other villains. When he does so though, he drops his ray and accidentally zaps all of the villains, creating copies of them that are nicer and morally heroic (except for the copy of Professor Monkey-for-a-head, whose copy is just swapped personality of his two minds with the monkey acting like the professor and the professor acting like the monkey). In the end, Jim gets a hold of the ray and zaps Evil Jim with it a few times, resulting in multiple heroic Earthworm Jims. Evil Jim realizes how much trouble he and the other villains are in.
• The Johnny Bravo episode "Send in the Clones" has a Mad Scientist create dozens of Johnny clones. Since Johnny is a Brainless Beauty, Casanova Wannabe, and Jerk Jock, the scientist decides to increase the clones' empathy and intelligence. Everyone in Johnny's life prefers the clones — even after discovering that they're fake — and decide to let the scientist keep up his work; it's ultimately Johnny who screws things up by messing with the machinery, which instantly disintegrates all of the copies.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:
  • Hordak is one of many clones of Horde Prime who does everything he can to please the original. This initially manifests as him being a brutal conqueror (at first to try to help Prime conquer the galaxy, later in an attempt to imitate and flatter Prime), but Horde Prime deems Hordak to be defective because Hordak's mind can split from Prime's hive mind, thus allowing him independent thought. As Prime is an In Their Own Image sort of villain, Hordak's individuality is intolerable to him and he attempts to snuff out Hordak's sense of self. Despite Prime's efforts, Hordak's friendship with Entrapta ultimately redeems him and motivates him to turn against Horde Prime.
  • Wrong Hordak ultimately ends up being an even straighter example. Being a fresh clone, Wrong Hordak is accidentally unhooked from the hive mind by Entrapta and Bow. After that, he follows She-Ra's group with the belief that they are loyal followers of Horde Prime until he finds proof that Horde Prime isn't the all powerful ruler he thought he is, resulting in him joining the rebellion. Even when he claimed loyalty to Horde Prime, he had a Minion with an F in Evil personality.

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