Expy/Literature

• In the many, many books of the Dragonlance series, any kender characters that appear are likely to be a direct Expy of Tasselhoff Burrfoot, since most of the race's members seem to have the same (bizarre) personality. Most of them end up being the Alien Scrappy of that particular book, but on some occasions, there have been some major subversions...
  • Of course, within the Dragonlance series there are also the gods Paladine and Takhisis, who serve as stand-ins for the traditional Dungeons & Dragons deities Bahamut and Tiamat, respectively.
  • And of course, the authors' next series, the Death Gate Cycle, includes a pretty blatant example of this trope in the form of bumbling would-be wizard Zifnab.
  • Don't forget Zanfib, from another Margaret Weis/Tracy Hickman collaboration.
• Half the main cast of These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer are Expys of the main characters in The Black Moth. They even have the events of TBM as backstory, and the Dukes of Andover and Avon share a nickname, "Satanas".
  • The nickname of the Duke of Andover is actually 'Devil', and Avon's nickname is 'Satanas', not that it matters too much as they mean the same thing
• Pretty much every main/significant minor character in every Dan Brown book ever.
• Kane in the Ea Cycle is an expy of Kane from Karl Edward Wagner's stories.
  • Furthermore, a lot of people and things in Ea Cycle have direct counterparts in the same author's earlier sci-fi series.
• Intra-series example: In the Warhammer 40,000 Horus Heresy novels, both Saul Tarvitz and Nathaniel Garro sort of come off as expies of Garviel Loken...
• Intra-series example: In Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, all the female characters are expies of each other. Except the one that dresses like a guy. Kinda.
  • This is a matter of opinion.
• Vampire Hunter D was based on Phil Collins. No, really.
• It's often asserted that Robert E. Howard's barbarian characters are expies of each other, though there are some fundamental differences between them. Still, one could view Cormac Mac Art, Cormac Fitzgeoffrey and Conan as cut from a similar cloth.
• In the Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventures novel Vampire Science, the Doctor is brought into the situation by Dr Carolyn McDonnell, a highly-motivated San Francisco doctor whom he met on a previous visit to the city (as established in the prologue). Dr Grace Holloway from The Movie was Exiled From Continuity at the time.
• Almost every protagonist of Louis L'Amour's hundred-or-so-books is pretty much one of two guys:
  • A Badass White guy from some place east of where the book is set.
  • An Indian Brave who is just like the Badass White Guy except that a big deal is made about his race.
• The Discworld book Equal Rites has an Archchancellor of Unseen University who is clearly a first draft of the later character Ridcully, particularly as both have somewhat romantic relationships with Granny Weatherwax. Also, it's possible to see Aziraphale of Good Omens as something of an expy of Carrot from the "Watch" books- both are extremely idealistic characters who rather than being the Wide-Eyed Idealist, are rather clever, even cunning.
  • Pratchett often plays this for comedy: we've been introduced to about five suspiciously similar versions of Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler. Sergeant Doppelpunkt and Corporal Knopf (Colon and Nobbs) show up in The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, and Igors are Expies of each other.
    • Literally, in case that wasn't clear. One of the defining characteristics of an Igor is that he has parts of several other Igors stitched onto his body to replace missing/faulty parts. When an Igor says he has his father's eyes, he means it.
  • Good Omens also introduces a Death who is similar in many ways (though far from identical) to the Discworld's Death.
  • The Patrician in early appearances (The Colour of Magic) doesn't look or sound like Lord Vetinari in the later books, except for his catchphrase ("Don't let me detain you") and his method of management, although Word of God says he's been the same man the whole time. (Death's attitude also seems to change significantly from its starting point. Word of God is that the characters have developed as Terry himself changed and matured as a writer.)
  • In Wintersmith, Anoia the Goddess of Things that Get Stuck in Drawers has exactly the same personality (and chain-smoking habit) as Adora Belle Dearheart in the books about Moist.
    • She's also heavily implied to be the deity formerly known as Lela the Volcano Goddess ("the Storm God keeps raining on her lava"), who was explicitly compared with Adora Belle in Going Postal.
  • First Mate Cox in Nation is exactly the same kind of Ax Crazy Complete Monster as Carcer, down to sharing some of the same dialogue.
    • Andy Shank is also described like this.
  • Brutha from Small Gods is an expy (or at least extended shout-out) to Severian of Book of the New Sun. Both of them are big guys with Photographic Memory who grow up in monasteries of a weird Crystal Dragon Jesus religion. Pratchett seems to acknowledge the similarity in having one of the people Brutha meets named Severian.
  • Mrs Tachyon in Johnny and The Bomb has the same manner of speaking as Foul Ole Ron. Thankfully, the Smell of Foul Ole Ron does not get an Expy.
• Anthony Bourdain's Gone Bamboo features, as well as Mary Sues of himself and his then-wife, a few characters from his earlier A Bone in the Throat. In at least the first British edition of the later book, their names are the same as in A Bone in the Throat, in American editions, they have been changed, e.g. "Charlie Wagons" becomes "Donnie Wicks".
• Roddy Doyle's The Van mostly features the same cast of characters as his earlier The Snapper; the film versions of the two books were made by different production companies, the makers ofThe Snapper had the rights to use them, so the names were changed in the second film.
• All of Tom Holt's male protagonists are basically the same person. The women get a little more variety, but not that much.
• Children's author Bill Peet started out as a Disney cartoonist and a degree of expyness can be seen between Dumbo, whom he created and the title character of Chester The Worldly Pig. Both begin lives at the circus on a bad note, mocked by the audiences and ill-treated by clowns, but later achieve happiness and success there through an extraordinary talent (flying with ears/body coloring which looks like a map of the world)
• Harry Potter, Ginny (tough, non-nonsense, smart, red-haired girl) is just Lily but with brown eyes. James Potter and Sirius Black's young, teenage selves as seen in the 800-word prequel JK Rowling wrote for charity are completely interchangeable with Fred and George Weasley, who also go on to use the Marauder's Map (invented by James and Sirius and their friends), as well as one of them dying and leaving the other scarred for life. If you changed the names in the 800-word prequel, the story would fit exactly to Fred and George with the exception of physical descriptions, their dialogue has exactly the same patterns and brand of humour, making James and Sirius seem very shallow in development (at least, them in their youth. Similarly, it could be argued that the death of Tonks and Remus serves to make their son Ted an expy for Harry, whose parents were killed during the First Rise of Voldemort.
  • The children in the epilogue all seem to be Expys to some extent - Lily wants to go to Hogwarts now despite being too young, Rose changed into her school robes ahead of time, Albus is worried he'll be in Slytherin...
    • Not to mention James Jr being somewhat a mix of Ron and any/all of James/Sirius/Fred/George.
  • Merope could be considered one for Mayella from To Kill a Mockingbird. Seriously, think about it.
  • Many of the characters were inspired by either other fictional characters or people in real life. For example, Harry and Dumbledore are expies of Wart and Merlin from The Sword in the Stone, Hermione is an Author Avatar, Aunt Marge and Dolores Umbridge are expies of Margaret Thatcher, and the Big Bad himself is an expy of Adolf Hitler and Darth Vader/Sidious.
  • In the first book, there's a member of Dudley's gang named Piers Polkiss. From his description and what little we see of his personality, he's essentially an early version of Peter Pettigrew.
• David Eddings does this repeatedly, blatantly, and unashamedly... so blatantly, in fact, that it becomes a plot point, at least in-universe.
• If you click on Robert A. Heinlein you will see listed on his page his three most common character types.
• Technically, mystery writer Dick Francis didn't reuse protagonists, but in terms of personality, they're all exactly the same guy.
  • Yes, he did. Sid Halley (4 books) and Kit Fielding (2). How sad is it that I know this? But otherwise, yeah, they're all pretty much the same bloke.
• The Inheritance Cycle has these:
  • Brom is Obi-wan
  • Eragon is Luke
  • Oromis is Yoda
  • Nasuada is Leia
  • Ajihad and Hrothgar are Rebel generals (Reekan, Jan Dodonna, etc.)
  • Islanzadi is Mon Mothma
  • Galbatorix is Palpatine
  • Other magic-users are non-Jedi force traditions
  • The Riders' swords are lightsabers
  • (Christopher Paolini admitted in an interview that when he began the series, he pretty much made the whole thing out of archetypes.)
• Joel Rosenberg transplanted the characters of Durine, Kethol and Pirojil from his Guardians of the Flame series into the novel Murder In La Mut, which he co-wrote with Raymond E. Feist. The whole book is basically an excuse to put Rosenberg's characters in Feist's world for one novel and let hilarity ensue.
• Michael Grant co-wrote the Animorphs series with his wife, K. A. Applegate and transplanted the character of Marco into his new novel series Gone as Edilio. Both characters are somewhat short Hispanic youths with dry wits who are remarkably competent despite their laid back natures.
  • Not to mention Dekka is Tate from Remnants except younger. The characters of Caine and Diana are reminiscent of Yago and 2Face from the same series respectively.
  • An earlier Applegrant example: Senna Wales of Everworld is a more developed version of David, the Sixth Ranger from Animorphs. Indeed, one could expand the argument to say that all the main characters from Everworld are inspired by Animorphs, Senna's just the most blatant example.
• Given what's known about Jim Butcher's love of comics, Harry Dresden of The Dresden Files can be seen as an Expy of Spider-Man, with magic instead of radioactivity.
  • Lord and Lady Placida are Expys of Aral and Cordelia Vorkosigan. Butcher has outright admitted this.
• The whole point of the Meg Cabot novel Avalon High, where all the major characters are revealed to be reincarnations of King Arthur legend. The main character, Ellie, is originally thought to be the reincarnation of the minor character Elaine, the Lady of Shalott but is revealed to be the much more important Lady of the Lake.
• This is lampshaded (as so many tropes are) in the Thursday Next books; a minor character mentions offhand that two literary characters seem very similar. In fact, they are the same character, but Thursday doesn't try to enlighten the speaker on the "economies of the Book World."
• Oscar Wilde did this - the briefly-mentioned Baron von Arnheim (aristocratic, art-loving, corrupt, heavily implied to be gay) in An Ideal Husband is an obvious expy of the (ditto all of the above) Lord Henry in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Lord Illingworth from A Woman of No Importance differs from the other two only in being slightly less evil and slightly more attracted to women.
• In the Beauty Trilogy, by Anne Rice, the character of Laurent is exactly the same as Lestat, minus the vampirism.
• Margo of John Green's Paper Towns is essentially Alaska of Looking for Alaska. Though Margo is toned down from manic Alaska, the two have a similar purpose, the unreachable and mysterious object of affection for Q and Pudge (who are very similar and are largely considered author stand-ins).
• Jane and her niece Eliza in Edward Eager's books.
• Several of William Makepeace Thackeray's novels have female characters with a B. name who are The Vamp or a Femme Fatale (Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair, Beatriz in Henry Esmond, and a Blanche in Pendennis).
• PG Wodehouse lampshaded this in the preface to Summer Lightning, where he mentions a critic who claimed his last novel recycled "all the old Wodehouse characters under different names." Summer Lightning itself, the preface notes, neatly averts this by including all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names.
• Laurence Kirkle in Beyond the Western Sea has a character arc that's very similar to Charlotte's in The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.
• Turnip Fitzhugh in the Pink Carnation series resembles Bertie Wooster.
• The four children of In the Keep of Time are in many ways quite similar to the four Pevensies of Narnia. At the start, Andrew is dismissive of his younger siblings and not particularly excited about their stay in the country, and he is also the first to adapt very well to the past and become immersed in the time period and even a warrior mentality, like Peter; Elinor is the one most skeptical about the reality and acceptability of the adventure, as well as the Team Mom, like Susan; Ian is very much resentful and jealous of his youngest sister; and Ollie herself is the one whose recklessness and eager curiosity leads them into the past in the first place. However, they all eventually grow beyond these roles, with Andrew rejecting the past world for the present, Elinor becoming stronger and more willing to believe in the impossible, Ian not betraying them like Edmund did, and Ollie ends up losing herself and has to be taught and bonded with her siblings before she can recall who she is—which may perhaps be a commentary on Lucy's being thought mad and how incredibly willing she was to believe and immerse herself in Narnia.
• Percy Jackson and The Olympians has Connor and Travis Stoll, who while not actually twins (Connor is a year older) are pretty much the Weasley Twins without the red hair and large family, and with an added streak of kleptomania.
• Tamora Pierce's Tortall Universe contains a god named Gainel the Dream King, whose visual description is pretty much identical to Dream. The name "Gainel" may be a play on Neil Gaiman.
• While H.P. Lovecraft himself largely avoided this (indeed, he's on record as wanting to break free of the tired old horror clichés that were en vogue in his time, as well as a confirmed materialist), later Theme Park Versions of the Cthulhu Mythos frequently end up looking rather like straight-up expies of the literal forces of Hell. Forbidden pacts, supernatural corruption, Things Man Was Not Meant To Traffic With Lest He Lose His Immortal Soul... it's all there, just dressed up with more tentacles.
• Brandon Sanderson says that Warbreaker's Siri and Vivenna were exported from a novel that he never finished writing. Additionally, he mentions that Denth is heavily based on La Résistance leader Kelsier from his previous Mistborn series in part to make the reveal that he's actually evil all the more unexpected.
• Stock characters are pretty much the same across several of V. C. Andrews' series. The heroines, their love interests and their children seem to follow the same kind of mold, with a few deviations. So do the "evil grandmother" figures (Olivia Foxworth, Olivia Logan, Lillian Cutler ...), the "jealous sister" figures (Vera Whitefern, Fanny Casteel, Clara Sue Cutler, Allison Randolph ...), the "vain mother who doesn't care" (Corrine Dollanganger, Jillian Tatterton, Laura Sue Cutler, Haille Logan, Megan Hudson ...) and the "perverted old men" (Tony Tatterton, Octavius Tate, etc).
• Onimi from the New Jedi Order series of Star Wars, is essentially the Star Wars incarnation of Kefka Palazzo from Final Fantasy VI, in personality, position, as well as backstory. Essentially, before the events of the book started, Onimi used to be a mere shaper, like how Kefka originally was an average human being. However, both characters did a ritual/experiment that greatly deformed them, and yet at the same time resulted in being infused with the ability to utilize magic/the Force. It is also heavily implied that the same thing that resulted in their deformation and the origin of their powers also resulted in them becoming insane and being demoted to being a court jester. Likewise, both also desired to become a god for no reason outside of just out due to their insanity, and also manipulated their ruler and the empire into helping them.
• Jodi Picoult has many of these throughout her stories, especially after the popularity of My Sister's Keeper. There is the mother of a sick child who means well but focuses on the child to the point of ignoring everyone else (Sara, Charlotte, Emma), the husband who feels that what the mother is doing is wrong but won't do anything about it (Brian, Sean), the sick child who is always wiser than their years and who often has little character development until the last chapter (Kate, Willow, Claire Nealon), the ignored child (Anna and Jesse, Amelia) and the lawyer with personal problems (Campbell, Jordan, Marin).
• It might border on Captain Ersatz, given the similarity of names, but in A Song of Ice and Fire, Samwell Tarly is an affectionate Shout-Out to Samwise Gamgee of Lord of the Rings, and with this in mind, it also seems like Those Two Guys on the Night Watch, Grenn and Pyp, are supposed to suggest Merry and Pippin.
• In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice meets the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. In Through the Looking Glass, she meets two of the White King's messengers, Hatta and Haigha (Hatter and Hare).
• The novel Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac features a character who closely resembles Ducky from Pretty in Pink, in his flamboyance, his status as the female protagonist's "best friend", and his Everyone Can See It crush on her. Unlike Ducky, he gets together with the protagonist in the end.
• Zilpha Keatley Snyder keeps doing this. Several of her books after The Changeling feature characters who, while not literal transpositions of Ivy Carson and Martha Abbott, are certainly close relatives. Look for them in the Green-Sky Trilogy, The Unseen, and The Treasures of Weatherby. She even puts an interracial cast a la The Egypt Game into Martha's upper-crust Castle Court residence in a later series, and re-uses the name Abbott in The Bronze Pen. She is also fond of the Big Fancy House (often ancient, abandoned, falling to pieces, and in one case so horribly burned that the little girls make up a Ghost Story about it).
• Noel Streatfeild often does this with a character who is a nanny or nurse to the protagonist(s). Hannah in Thursday's Child, Nana in Ballet Shoes, Hannah in Theater Shoes, Nana in Skating Shoes, and Pursey in Dancing Shoes all have essentially the same personality (and nearly the same name--even Pursey was once a nanny, although she isn't during the book) but are not the same person.
• Captain Nemo from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is an expy for Odysseus: A great sailor, The Captain of a ship who commanded a Red Shirt crew, that claimed he was “No One”, who fought against beings he cannot defeat (Nemo against The Empire, Odiseus against Jerkass Gods) motivated by You Can't Go Home Again.
• Sisterhood series by Fern Michaels: Charles Martin is totally an Expy of James Bond. He is British, he spent time working for MI 6, and is definitely a spook. Unlike Mr. Bond, however, Charles mostly does the planning and pulling various strings. That, and he is at least 60 years old.
• Intra-universe example: Terry Brooks' Shannara books. Essentially each set of main characters, as they are successively descended from each other, differ little from their ancestors. (The plot lines are even more similar than the characters.)
• Fifty Shades Of Grey is an outrageously popular erotic novel trilogy that started as a Twilight fanfic. A fascinating breakdown of the similarities between the original fanfic and the published novel is here.