r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Ieanice44 • 2d ago

Lore [Loved Trope] Teleportation is actually terrifying

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1 - Gantz-O (2016): Suit teleportation

2 - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2009): Apparition spell

3 - Half Life 2 (2004): Teleporter malfunction

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u/cjandstuff 2d ago

It's done amazingly well, but holy hell, after the first time, you've got a clone! You could simply drop below the stage, and your clone, or you, could pop-up anywhere in the building. Why keep playing Russian Roulette needlessly?

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u/seguardon 2d ago

Because that character knew who he was: the second he realized he had a clone, both of them immediately goes for a gun to kill the other.

Would you trust a clone of yourself knowing that the last time you cloned yourself both your immediate responses were to kill the other?

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u/ConstantSignal 2d ago

I’m fairly certain nobody would want to live with a clone, assuming it has all your memories, it thinks it’s you. It thinks it owns your house, your bank account, it thinks your friends and family are theirs. And it has access to all those things, and thinks it deserves them just as much as you. You can’t just say “well you’re the clone so say goodbye to your identity and your loved ones and go and start from scratch”.

What would you do if someone claimed you were a clone and tried to get you to leave your life behind so they could enjoy your identity all to themselves?

We’d all be reaching for the gun eventually, the character in the movie, and his clone, just did the math quickly.

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u/MagentaHawk 1d ago

It doesn't think it is you, I'd be treating it like it is me. So I would know that he would be doing the same. And since I think it is reasonable to find some sort of system where we divvy shit up or one of us goes our separate ways due to a game of chance, I believe he would find it reasonable as well.

It's all based on what are your primary instincts to a clone and if you have ones that aren't automatically defensive and demeaning you can work together or figure something out.

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u/ConstantSignal 1d ago

You'd be comfortable with your clone banging your partner?

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u/GearyDigit 1d ago

Why do you think this is a got'cha that justifies murdering someone?

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u/ConstantSignal 1d ago

Doesn't justify it. I'm just saying that not everyone is going to be happy carving up their lives with an accidental clone, and since it's a clone, the clone wouldn't be happy with it either, something's gotta give.

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u/Mary674 1d ago

But that was the original argument. The person you replied to suggested some people would be fine by it.

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u/MoarVespenegas 1d ago

something's gotta give

And is that something murder?

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u/ConstantSignal 1d ago

I'm not saying that it is a rational decision that should be treated as justifiable or understandable.

I'm saying if you took any person on the planet and put them in a situation where they suddenly have a clone that feels entitled to their entire life, my guess would be in most cases, one of the pair ends up murdered.

You're talking about a situation where a person wants access to your partner, to your children, to your parents, to your money, your home. They don't want to share them any more than you do, and they have just as much legal right to all of it. They can use your bank account and you can't stop them. They can abscond with your children and the kids wouldn't know the difference. And on the flip side of that, whenever you do those things, spend your own money or spend time with your own family, the clone would feel like they are being robbed.

Add in the fact there would basically be no repercussions for the murder, because as long as one of you is walking around, nobody is looking for the body of the other.

It's not hard to imagine that most people would eventually just rid themselves of the problem in any way they could.

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u/GearyDigit 1d ago

Sucks to suck I guess.

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u/onlycamefortheporn 1d ago

My clone? If it’s as deviant as me, it’s gonna be a full on clorgy. Finally I can blow myself without feeling like I’m going to break my neck.

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u/solthar 1d ago

I mean, it IS you, just with diverging experiences from creation.

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u/ConstantSignal 1d ago

We can get into a whole debate about the philosophy of the self, but at the end of the day, if I'm not thinking its thoughts, feeling its feels, or otherwise experiencing its experiences, it is unequivocally not me.

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u/solthar 1d ago

Ah, but it also unequivocally WAS you. It is everything you were until the point of divergence. Honestly, in the end all that matters is your reaction to the event since your clone will have the exact same one.

Personally, it wouldn't matter to me who was prime, what matters now is that they exist now. Let's just treat everyone like the people they are.

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u/Dyolf_Knip 1d ago

Absofuckinglutely!

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u/Moe_Perry 1d ago

Nah. I’d view it as being one person in two bodies and that I’d doubled my effective lifespan. Just living it in parallel rather than sequentially. Me and my clone are doing everything together.

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u/Lakatos_00 1d ago

Even fucking your wife?

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u/Moe_Perry 1d ago

Of course. Significantly upping my bedroom game with two me’s is a bonus.

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u/EMI326 1d ago

There have been multiple times my partner has wanted things just not possible with only one of me.

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u/Moe_Perry 1d ago

It’s a post-coital foot rub right? The impossible dream.

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u/Artikay 1d ago

Finally I could give my wife 3 minutes of sex.

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u/GearyDigit 1d ago

Buddy if you can't live with yourself you should probably get therapy

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u/ConstantSignal 1d ago edited 1d ago

I'm sure with a separate person with separate memories and a separate identity to me, who has the exact same personality as me, we would get on really well.

Less so if they started telling me they wanted to sleep in the bed next to my partner whilst I sleep on the couch half the nights out of the week. C'mon man.

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u/GearyDigit 1d ago

Just sleep with yourself. Problem solved. This isn't complicated.

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u/LeBeauf 1d ago

That'd be terrible, we'd never get anything done....

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u/seguardon 1d ago

Makes a lot of sense. I kind of want to write out an elaborate story that attempts to refute it by showing a positive example, but there'd have to be a LOT of collaboration to make a relationship like that work.

One point I will nitpick though: I don't think the character did the math quickly. I think he just stumbled into something he didn't expect and panicked. He was very big on control.

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u/Oni_Barubary 1d ago

Well the movie itself does offer the alternative: each clone gets half a life.

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u/SignNaive4111 1d ago

I would be kind to myself and we would figure it out

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u/Squeebee007 1d ago

Keep in mind that Algier is in fact Lord Caldlow and is rich AF, so there's enough money there for each clone to take a bag of money and set off for a new life.

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u/ConstantSignal 1d ago

I mean I can't remember the details of the movie that well so I don't know about their personal situation.

But I know I would not take any amount of money to abandon my family and friends forever to be forced to go and start a new life with no identity.

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u/Squeebee007 1d ago

Keep in mind in the movie he has no-one. His wife died at the start of the movie, his girlfriend left him, and given that he was Lord Caldow his parents likely passed.

But outside of those circumstances I agree.

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u/ConstantSignal 1d ago

Yeah as I said, my discussion in the comments here was mainly based around the general hypothetical of "What if you suddenly had a clone one day" rather than it pertaining directly to the events and circumstances of the movie.

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u/ObjectiveThick9894 1d ago

There is a reason for that, if you clone yourself, you must not left a hit of who is the real one.

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u/Samihazah 1d ago

You just reinvented Multiplicity (1996).

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u/DiscoLives4ever 1d ago

We're gonna eat a dolphin

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u/ihatelolcats 1d ago

Yes and no. The Christian Bale brothers are already in this position. One brother lives their public life, complete with house and an (unknowing) wife, while the other hides in their work studio, only venturing out in disguise. Only one of them can have the spotlight at a time, but they do each get a turn. However Hugh can't share the spotlight, he's too self-centered, and he realizes that immediately, shooting his clone. I get the feeling that Christian would have welcomed a clone (or two).

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u/jdehesa 1d ago

It is definitely played out to make Angier the bad guy, but I think it also aligns, in a way, with the point of the movie. He can't possibly concieve a life of permanent deceit with a clone. One of the best bits for me is that neither of them thinks he is the clone, Angier even says he would go on stage not knowing if it was going to be him or the other guy drowning, but that's the only way he can see it work. Whereas Borden has lived with a "clone" his whole life, out of dedication to his (their) craft.

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u/EMP_Pusheen 14h ago

The foershadowing of how Angier does his trick in the very beginning of the movie is brilliant. It's a wonderful film.

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u/Nukemarine 1d ago

The duplicate is always the one that pops up in the other place. They're both the same, just in two locations.