Suspiciously Similar Substitute/Playing With

Basic Trope: The replacement of an absent character with one with lots of shared traits.

• Straight: After Bob's tragic death, a new adventurer called Rob replaces him as the group's Combat Medic. It turns out both also share some characteristic personality traits.
• Exaggerated: After Bob's heart-breaking Heroic Sacrifice, he gets replaced immediately (on the next scene to be precise!) by Rob, who is a carbon copy of him! ...Except he wears Cool Shades and a Funny Afro.
• Justified: Bob knew he was going to die, and cloned himself before he did.
• Inverted: Rob joins the group to replace Bob; but, for better or worse, he is the complete opposite of the former.
• Subverted: On a dramatic moment, Rob reveals to have been Bob all the time; he was just pulling an act to fool his enemies into making them think he was dead.
  • Alternatively, Rob seems to be similar to Bob in many ways, but Character Development goes quickly enough to make Rob less like Bob.
• Double Subverted: ...However, Rob doesn't know that such claim is only partially truth, because he's a clone with the memories and personality of the late Bob, which means the original still is Dead for Real.
• Parodied: Bob's replacement turns to be a LITERAL cardboard cut-out of him that speaks using recycled voice clips from the dead one. To make things even more absurd, the new Bob is better with the ladies than the original one!
• Deconstructed: The psychological impact of Bob's death is so deep, that the group forces Rob to emulate his personality, skills and even appearance. The stress of having to live up to his predecessor's name also leaves a great mark on Rob, which eventually causes him to lose his own personality as he transforms into a hollow shell that looks and acts like an imperfect Bob copy.
  • The group keeps talking about how much better Bob was than Rob. Rob does his best, but can't fill the shoes of his predecessor. Eventually the stress of trying to be someone he's not drives him to suicide.
• Reconstructed: It turns out Bob was Rob's greatest hero, so he's trying to live up to the height of his idol's name by following his path as a tribute to him. Eventually he grows beyond Bob's legacy and turns into a legend on his own.
• Zig Zagged: After Bob's death, a guy extremely similar to him called Rob joins the group. However, when the real Bob turns to be Not Quite Dead, Rob unmasks "himself" as Robin, Bob's long lost twin sister. But then the "real" Bob is killed again, revealing it was just a robot! But who destroyed the impostor? It was the real Bob! Who now sports a Badass Moustache... And a disturbing evil laugh?!
• Averted: While Rob now covers Bob's role, he's different enough that no one can establish a true parallel between the two of them.
• Enforced: "After Bob's death, we received a great amount of input from fans that wanted him back. However, that would have been impossible without altering the in-story rules and emotional tone. To compensate that, we gave Rob's a lot of Bob's most liked characteristics, but the fans haven't received him too well."
  • The actor who portrayed Bob had to leave for personal reasons, but his character is still important to the plans the creators had for the plot, so they bring in a new actor and give him a very similar characterization to fill the role in later plot-related events.
• Lampshaded: "Hey guys: 'I Can't Believe It's Not Bob!' We guarantee your total satisfaction, or we'll refund your money!"
  • "Rob, such a plucky, strong guy. Reminds me of someone dear to me."
• Invoked: Rob turns be an infiltrated agent that studied and mimicked Bob's personality gain the group's thrust faster.
• Defied: The group actively discourages Rob from any conduct remotely similar to Bob's; they feel extremely uncomfortable about it.
• Discussed: "You know, all things considered I think we'll just call you Bob II from now on." "Inconceivable! I'm nothing like him." "See?! You keep using that word! 'Inconceivable' used to be his catch phrase."
• Conversed: "I understand that Bob's actor had to leave the show due health problems, but this replacement-gimmick was so lazy that I could bet they just erased part of the 'B' on Bob's name from the script and called it a day!"

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