Basic Trope: The next generation looks, acts, and/or fulfills the same roles as the previous one.
- Straight: Alice and Bob's children, Annie and Billy, look like Alice and Bob (respectively) in miniature form.
- Exaggerated:
- Not only does Annie look like a miniature Alice, she has the exact same personality. Billy looks and acts exactly like Bob.
- Bob and Alice are the ancestors of all humans, and every single one of their descendants takes up every single trait from Bob (if male) or Alice (if female) without even a slightest deviation.
- Downplayed: Annie and Billy resemble their parents, but there are a few differences.
- Justified:
- Annie and Billy are clones of Alice and Bob made in a lab using People Jars.
- Alice and Bob are Starfish Aliens who reproduce asexually (budding, mitosis, what have you) as well as (or instead of) sexually.
- It just so happened that Annie got mostly Alice's genes, and Billy got mostly Bob's genes.
- Inverted:
- Annie and Billy look like Alice and Bob, but their personalities and the roles they fill in the story are completely different.
- Annie is Bob's Distaff Counterpart, Billy is Alice's Spear Counterpart.
- Annie and Billy look and act like their parents' enemies.
- Subverted: Annie looks like Alice, but her personality and her role are completely different. Billy looks like Bob, but he is otherwise completely different.
- Double Subverted: Annie's personality and role are Bob's personality and role, and Billy's are Alice's.
- Parodied:
- Everyone in their community is an exact replica of their parents.
- People constantly call Annie and Billy by their parents' names, to their chagrin.
- Zig Zagged: Sometimes Annie and Billy act and dress like their parents, and sometimes they don't.
- Averted: Annie and Billy don't much look and act like Alice and Bob.
- Enforced:
- The writer is trying to show that History Repeats Itself.
- Annie and Billy are created to replace their parents after one generation passes.
- It's a simple explanation for the Celebrity Paradox between the actors and the characters they play in the Science Fiction show.
- Lampshaded:
- "Annie, you look just like your mother!"
- "Billy, you're the spitting image of your father!"
- Invoked: Annie and Billy don't naturally look like Alice and Bob, but they so admire them that they start copying Alice and Bob's hairstyles, clothing, hair colors, ideals, etc.
- Exploited: Michael, who does not like Alice and Bob, gets the upper hand on them in a debate over the one issue they most care about, and when Annie and Billy leap in to defend their parents, he shows them up as just doing what their parents are.
- Defied: Annie and Billy dye their hair and style it completely different than their parents. They wear different clothes than their parents do and try to be the opposite of their parents. (For example, if Alice was a Neutral Female, then Annie strives to be the Action Girl. If Bob was the quarterback on the football team, Billy joins Chess Club at school.)
- Discussed: "Those kids are just like their parents! Freaky!"
- Conversed: "I know! Don't they, like, wanna be themselves or anything?"
- Implied: Alice and Bob contemplate how they'll deal with having only one of themselves in town when Annie and Billy move to another city.
- Deconstructed: Annie and Billy are just like Alice and Bob, because they've been raised to be. Alice and Bob wanted mini versions of themselves, and they got miniature versions of themselves, perhaps to "live through" their children. Annie and Billy, however, are reaching the age where they want to be themselves.
- Reconstructed: Annie and Billy learn to be themselves, but still retain some of the best character traits of Alice and Bob. Even if they did happen to change their hair and style of clothes, and develop their own personalities and interests. Because they have Alice and Bob's good traits, the next generation is even more successful than the last.
- Played For Laughs: Annie and Billy resemble Alice and Bob so closely it hurts, but are not Alice and Bob's children, and are not even related to Alice and Bob.
- Played For Drama: Annie and Billy struggle to learn to be themselves, and not copies of their parents.
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