Spiritual Antithesis

Spiritual Successor's Evil Twin, Spiritual Antithesis is referencing an earlier work by using similar characters and themes but going in a completely different direction. Often set at the opposite end of Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism. May serve as a Deconstruction (or Reconstruction if the original work was a deconstruction itself) or Stealth Parody of the original work.

Usually seen as a Take That against the original work (but not always- it can simply be meant commentary on the original story or as a What If? scenario, or just an attempt to create a distinct work-in fact, it's not uncommon for these kind of works to be done by the same people), and closely related to Satire. May involve Whole-Plot Reference. Sometimes, this is a sequel to the original work. See also The Moral Substitute, a related trope, where a work is intended to work as antithesis to a more popular work, with more religious, political or moral themes.

Of course, nothing prevents a work from being the Spiritual Antithesis of one work and the Spiritual Successor of another at the same time, which may often result in said work being X Meets Y or This Is Your Premise on Drugs.

Genres that play this role to each other:

• Cosmic Horror Story and Lovecraft Lite
• Heroic Fantasy & High Fantasy and Low Fantasy and Dark Fantasy
• Standard Fantasy Setting and New Weird
• Cyberpunk & Post Cyber Punk and a little-known Punk Punk genre actually called "Punk Punk" that has more realistic technology and characters loyally working for the sorts of corporations that Cyberpunk and Post Cyber Punk protagonists rebel against.
• Deconstruction and Reconstruction (not Mutually Exclusive)
• The two major subgenres of Spy Drama, Tuxedo and Martini and Stale Beer, act as this to each other (again, not mutually exclusive)
• Space Opera and Hard Science Fiction (yet again, not mutually exclusive)
• Super Robot Genre and Real Robot Genre (also not mutually exclusive)

Examples of Spiritual Antithesis include:

Anime and Manga

• Tiger and Bunny might be this for Darker Than Black - both are takes on Superhero genre that have superhumans glowing blue while using their powers, but former has much more idealistic take than latter, which is much more cynical and preffers Not Wearing Tights and antiheroic variety. Neither works go into extremes - just like Darker Than Black stays on the cynical side but acknowledges existence of idealism, Tiger and Bunny is very optimistic, but has few shades of cynicism on it.
• Code Geass and Gundam 00 are this towards Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny - directors of both didn't liked how SEED and Destiny turned out and dedicated their series to deconstruct several elements that annoyed them.
• Yoshiyuki Tomino likes to follow up his dark and depressing series with their opposites - Zambot 3 was followed by Daitarn 3, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam by Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, and Space Runaway Ideon by Combat Mecha Xabungle.
• Gurren Lagann was this to Neon Genesis Evangelion (bonus points for being made by the same people) and its own Spiritual Predecessor Space Runaway Ideon.
  • FLCL is another Spiritual Antithesis to Evangelion, also created by the same people - according to rumors, many people who just finished working on End of Evangelion felt down and wanted to create something crazy and optimistic to cheer themselves up.
  • You may also say that GaoGaiGar, first reconstruction of Super Robot genre after Evangelion was another one of these for it - it celebrated and embraced the same tropes Evangelion criticized or outright rejected.
• Makoto Shinkai's last two works have strong contrast with his two previous works
  • Voices of a Distant Star and 5 Centimeters Per Second - while former is about love, that survives despite great (as in, cosmic) distance between two people, latter says that not every love can be that strong and sometimes separated people grow apart from each other.
  • The Place Promised in Our Early Days and Children Who Chase Lost Voices From Deep Below - former says that love can prevail and unite people against all odds, but latter reminds you that there is one barrier that nothing can break - death.
• Aki Sora and Uwakoi, from the same author, both deconstruct the Harem Genre with effeminate male leads who are taken advantage of by lust-driven girls and have a lot of softcore H-scenes. But though the former mainly deals with Brother-Sister Incest, it's more light-hearted with a happy(ish) ending, while the latter is much darker with a bleak ending.
  • Uwakoi and the anime for School Days - the male leads of both use pretty girls to satisfy their libido and their promiscuity leads to them getting gruesomely murdered. The lead of School Days is a self-absorbed douchebag who manipulates his lovers to the point of insanity, while the more likeable lead of Uwakoi struggles with sex addiction, which allows mentally-unstable girls to take advantage of him.
  • Aki Sora and Swing Out Sisters - both are about a feminine boy having sexual relations with his sisters; a big-busted sister who coddles him and a tomboyish sister who bullies him. While the former is an ecchi title full of angst and drama, the latter is a romantic comedy hentai.

Comic Books

• Warren Ellis enjoys these:
  • Switchblade Honey is his answer to Star Trek - it shows a future where the exploration of space is handled by a bunch of insane egomaniacs, which leads to a war with a much more powerful enemy, which humanity is losing. Heroic idealists, who would become great heroes of Starfleet in Star Trek, here end up in prison for opposing the corrupted system.
  • In the afterword of Black Summer, he contrasted it with Civil War, saying that Mark Millar's event shows watered down version of superheroes coming in conflict with the goverment, while he wanted to show in Black Summer what he thinks would really happen.
  • When Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross created Marvels, deconstructing but still idealistic portrayal of Marvel Universe, Ellis wrote Ruins - depressing Alternate Universe where everything that could go wrong, worse that you can imagine - that is generally seen as Marvels' Evil Twin. When Busiek made sequel to Marvels, Ellis respond with Ghost Boxes - compilation of alternate Universes where X-Men failed to stop the threat from his Astonishing X-Men series, each more depressing that previous one.
• Transformers:
  • IDW's second Transformers ongoing is the exact opposite of Phase 2 of its previous continuity. Transformers Robots in Disguise showed a divided Cybertron slowly unifying following the Great War and Transformers More Than Meets the Eye offerred a radical reinvention of Cybertronian mythology. The 2019 reboot by contrast opened on a unified pre-war Cybertron that was slowly fracturing and most of the lore was more in line with the accepted blueprint that the Transformers Aligned Universe had birthed. Even the Cybertrons contrast each other. The 2005 continuity's Cybertron was a Crapsack World run by a Fantastic Caste System where the Decepticons started out as Well-Intentioned Extremists trying to bring equal rights to their people. The 2019 continuity's Cybertron was a, largely, egalitarian utopia with the Decepticons just being fascists who wanted to conquer.
  • Transformers: Last Bot Standing is, in many ways, very similar to Beast Wars: Uprising, being a Deconstruction of Transformers. In many others, it goes in the opposite direction. While both stories agreed that the time of the Autobots and Decepticons is over, Uprising, despite their ancestors' mistakes, ultimately had a happy ending for the next generation of Cybertronians while Last Bot Standing makes clear that there is no happy ending and that, thanks to the actions of Optimus Prime and Galvatron's generation, the Cybertronian race is over. Both stories also starred an aged Rodimus but while Uprising believed that the Cybertronians could change for the better and had him fight for a voice and future for his generation, Last Bot Standing Rodimus is a Hunter of His Own Kind who believes that the Cybertronians are too dangerous to live and have to be stopped for the sake of any future the galaxy might have.
• Marvel's 2023 Ultimate Universe was confirmed by Word of God to be this to the original Ultimate Marvel. In Ultimate Marvel's attempt to modernize Marvel lore, Earth-1610 was a Deconstruction of some of the Fridge Logic of Earth-616, ultimately ending up creating a Darker and Edgier Crapsack World. By contrast Ultimate Universe seeks to be a Reconstruction of what makes Earth-616 so great, the heroes of Earth-6160 outright hoping to Set Right What Once Went Wrong and turn their Darker and Edgier Crapsack World into one as hopeful as Earth-616.

Fan Fiction

• Party of None is a reconstruction of Cupcakes, in that it actively avoids using excessive violence to make a point that Dark Fics don't need it to be scary.
• The Harry Potter/Marvel Cinematic Universe Mega Crossover Child of the Storm:
  • Its most often cited, and contrasted, foil is Harry Potter and the Invincible Technomage. Both could be, largely, described as the Marvel Universe interacting with the Potter Verse via an Adaptational Badass In Name Only version of Harry Potter but they spin this basic premise in different directions: Technomage treats the Potter Verse as an Always Second Best Straw Loser compared to the power levels of the Marvel Universe (and to be fair, Marvel canon has shown Doctor Strange doing magic far above even the mightiest Harry Potter wizard) and is a firm believer of Muggles Do It Better through advanced technology. CoS by contrast treats both 'verses as equal in terms of power and threats (usually on the basis that Marvel magic is Awesome but Impractical while HP magic is Boring but Practical) and while it has shades of Magitek, it prefers to lean on the side of magic instead of technology. Even in terms of characters, they have a few contrasts:
    • Technomage!Tony Stark has felt the effects of Children Raise You, thanks to adopting Harry, and is a much more mature character than he normally is. CoS!Tony is largely Plucky Comic Relief, having been flanderized into something of a Cloudcuckoolander. Even after he becomes a father.
    • By contrast, Technomage has Thor and Scarlet Witch as just One-Scene Wonders, largely there to make the audience laugh and show how badass Marvel is. CoS has them as important characters who have gone through an Adaptational Angst Upgrade.
    • While both stories are not shy to paint a Truer to the Text version of Severus Snape, doing away with the films' Adaptational Niceness, Technomage!Snape ultimately grows as a person after his behaviour is called out, coming to realize what a petty jerkass he's become. CoS!Snape only gets ever pettier after he's called out.
    • Even both version of Harry contrast. Harry Stark is more of a Magitek Deadpan Snarker who is almost dissonantly calm about most things and is quite reluctant to engage in a fight, all but begging his foes to stand down lest he unleash a Curb Stomp Battle who, despite how powerful he is, is stated a few times to be on the low-end of the Marvel totem pole and is handling grunt work that isn't worth Doctor Strange's time. And since Harry Stark was rescued from the Dursleys when he was only six (five years before the story starts), he barely thinks of them and has moved on from his trauma, the only remnant being that he resents Lily and James as Abusive Parents for thinking they left him with the Dursleys. Harry Thorson by contrast is all about magic and, since he's a teenager going through puberty, is a ball of violently raging hormones who, while he does want to avoid fighting, will gladly dive into Unstoppable Rage if he's forced into battle and is said to be the Chosen One and a very influential figure in the Nine Realms and the larger galaxy. Harry Thorson was only rescued from the Dursleys during the first story's fourth chapter meaning the emotional wounds are still quite fresh and he still hasn't fully healed from his trauma.
  • The author cited inspiration from the X-Men: Evolution/Superman crossover The Last Son. But while The Last Son is largely a sci-fi fic that leans on the Lighter and Softer side of things, Child of the Storm is a Darker and Edgier story that largely deals with magic. And while both fics believe Humans Are Special, The Last Son focuses more on the collective human spirit. While CoS also believes Humans Are Special (or have the potential/will be one day), it also has a heavy focus on Earth Is the Center of the Universe, due to a variety of magical factors, while The Last Son emphasizes that Earth is special because of its people more than anything else.
  • Child of the Storm later got its own Spiritual Antithesis in the Harry Potter section of the Mega Crossover There Was Once An Avenger From Krypton. In CoS, Harry is very clearly set up as The Chosen One and HP is the centre of Earth's magical community. In the Kryptonverse, Harry's time as The Chosen One (for only one isolated community and not Earth as a whole) is long past and the Wizarding World is generally seen as an isolated backwater among magical communities. Even in a meta-sense, while CoS is an Alternate Universe that largely defies The Stations of the Canon, the Kryptonverse is a Merged Reality that has to follow the stations to a degree lest it collapse under the weight of its paradoxes. And while the author of CoS either ignores or agrees with J. K. Rowling's controversial beliefs, keeping the dynamics of the Wizarding World largely as they were in canon, the author of the Kryptonverse furiously regards JK as a Broken Pedestal, rewriting many HP aspects as a Take That towards JK's bigotry.
• The Miraculous Ladybug webcomic Scarlet Lady inspired two. Scarlet Lady is partially a Fix Fic kicked off when Chloé stole the Ladybug earrings before Marinette's purse, before she could discover them, and showing the changes big and small that result from that. The biggest change is that without someone to aspire to, Chloé/Scarlet Lady doesn't waste time in a Heel Face Revolving Door, going right to being a Villain Protagonist and Nominal Heroine who only wants the limelight, leading to everyone hating both of her personas, the heroes only tolerating her because of her World-Healing Wave. The webcomic also takes the position that Chloé's Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse, making clear that Audrey is barely a factor in Chloé's everyday life, highlighting that Zoé (who was raised only by their cruel mother) is living proof that Chloé just chose to be evil because she thinks it's fun.
  • Its most obvious foil is The Adventures of Lady Luck:
    • In Lady Luck, Chloé is chosen by Fu to wield the Ladybug and sees the responsibility as a calling to become a better person, though her attempts to do are understandably mired by people being skeptical of the former Alpha Bitch's sudden kindness, resulting in a lot of Oblivious Guilt Slinging but people ultimately do come around to Chloé. In Scarlet Lady, Chloé's worst impulses are fed by having the earrings and it takes only until "Rogercop" for her to start driving Adrien and Sabrina, her Only Friends, away.
    • Lady Luck also places a heavy emphasis on the emotional abuse Audrey inflicts on her daughter, even giving her an Adaptational Jerkass treatment to drive the point home, showing how that has warped Chloé and seriously damaged her self-esteem, ultimately inspiring André to be a better man and divorce Audrey so she can't hurt Chloé anymore. Scarlet Lady by contrast has Audrey as more of a Cloudcuckoolander, operating on the same Blue and Orange Morality/I Reject Your Reality mindset that Chloé does and gives her a degree (a very small degree mind you) of Adaptational Niceness by showing that she does care for her daughters. For bonus points, while circumstances in Lady Luck have delayed Zoé's introduction, she appears a whole two seasons early in Scarlet Lady.
    • Both fics invoke Adaptational Jerkass for Marinette in their early stages but for different reasons. In Lady Luck, it's the shock of learning that Chloé (the person who remorselessly bullied her for years) is Paris' beloved superhero but she eventually learns to accept Chloé's Heel Face Turn as sincere. But before she fully accepts Chloé, this attitude has led to Marinette being akumatized. In Scarlet Lady, Marinette's Adaptational Jerkass is the result of her canonical Chronic Hero Syndrome being left to simmer without a Miraculous to solve the problem herself. Word of God for Scarlet Lady been clear that Marinette will never be akumatized because: she has less stress in this AU; given how protective Chat Noir is of her, Hawk Moth knows that it's best not to give a Person of Mass Destruction incentive to avert "Thou Shalt Not Kill" and Marinette is already so competent, that if she was Akumatized, she'd become an outright Invincible Villain who would deliver victory to Hawk Moth in seconds.
    • Both fics are Fix Fics but come in different flavours. Lady Luck takes issue with Chloé's Face Heel Turn, showing how Chloé can indeed grow as a person. Scarlet Lady takes issue with Marinette's canonical Informed Wrongness and Chloé's canonical Karma Houdini, seeking to do away with both.
    • Lady Luck gives most villains an Adaptational Badass and/or Adaptational Niceness treatment, showing how they need to be outsmarted rather than outfought and many realizing that it was Disproportionate Retribution. Scarlet Lady, by sharp contrast, does not have any measure of respect for its villains, frequently mocking how petty the Akumas are and calling out how Chloé, Gabriel and pre-Heel Face Turn Lila's plans are ultimately self-serving and rather poorly thought through.
    • Lady Luck‍'‍s version of Chloé is a borderline In Name Only version, starting out with Adaptational Niceness (before graduating to full Adaptational Heroism) as well as making her a lot smarter. Scarlet Lady‍'‍s Chloé is exaggerated into an Adaptational Jerkass (before graduating to full Adaptational Villainy) with her Dumb Blonde moments played up, but she's still recognizably the same character as her canon self.
    • And perhaps the biggest contrast: Lady Luck has several Take Thats at the main show, sometimes quite spiteful ones, out of its anger for how Chloé was mishandled in canon. Scarlet Lady is first and foremost an Affectionate Parody. While it isn't above a Take That, they're always good-natured.
  • Selfish girl and Miraculouses splits the difference. Chloé/Scarlet Lady is chosen by Fu but her moment of kindness that caused him to do so was a fluke, leading to her becoming a Nominal Heroine... until Chloé gets a wake up call about how serious she has to take things, causing her to pull a Heel Face Turn. For bonus points, this starts after the fic's take on "Volpina", the Trauma Conga Line that Lila forces on the main trio (Chloé, Adrien and Marinette) causing them to grow as people. In Scarlet Lady‍'‍s take on "Volpina", the Trauma Conga Line that Chloé puts Lila through leads to Lila's own Heel Face Turn while the episode confirms that Scarlet Lady truly does not give a fuck about anyone but herself.

Film

• D.W. Griffith was accused of racism in The Birth of a Nation, so he made the anti-racism movie Intolerance afterwards.
• Steven Spielberg produced Poltergeist at the same time as he was making E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to contrast each other. He described ET as the Suburban Dream... while Poltergeist was the Suburban Nightmare.
  • Another example would be The War of the Worlds 2005 to both E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. All three show the different ways alien contact could go, but whereas E.T. and Close Encounters feature Innocent Aliens, The War of the Worlds 2005 is a film where the Aliens Are Bastards who undertake an Alien Invasion. In addition, The War of the Worlds 2005 is based on a book (and, to an extent, an earlier film), whereas the other two films in the "trilogy" are essentially original. Spielberg himself said this trope was intended, and he thinks of the movies as a kind of trilogy.
• Similar to the above, James Cameron's three films about aliens have similar pattern, although in reverse order, meaning they are a Spiritual Antithesis to Spielberg's trilogy also. The first film is Aliens, which features Always Chaotic Evil Attack Animal Aliens and is a sequel film to Alien, whereas The Abyss features benevolent Sufficiently Advanced Aliens who may or may not be Ultraterrestrials, and Avatar inverts the typical Alien Invasion formula by having the Humans invade the aliens' homeworld, showing that Humans Are Bastards and that Humans Are the Real Monsters, and features Starfish Aliens in the form of animals and Humanoid Aliens/Rubber Forehead Aliens as the native intelligence.
• Among Star Wars, The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are about as far from each other as they can get. TFA relied heavily on nostalgia to draw the audience back into the world of Star Wars, to the point of virtually repeating A New Hope. TLJ, on the other hand, rejected nostalgia and deconstructed many played out Star Wars clichés, saying that the characters, and the franchise, had to stop retreading old ground if they wanted to grow. The best summary though is how the haters of each film reacted. TFA inspired "It's the Same, Now It Sucks" while TLJ got "They Changed It, Now It Sucks".
• The Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Extended Universe. While the MCU is generally Lighter and Softer than its comic counterpart, featuring Adaptational Heroism and Adaptational Niceness for many characters, and opted for individual entries that slowly established the Shared Universe, the DCEU is generally Darker and Edgier, opting for Adaptational Jerkass, Adaptational Villainy and even Adaptational Angst Upgrade for many and having its Crisis Crossovers before most of the individual adventures of the heroes.

Literature

• His Dark Materials is this to The Chronicles of Narnia. Pullman isn't trying to hide his hate for Lewis' series, so it was probably intentional.
• Alex Rider is this to Spy Kids and Agent Cody Banks. Whereas those films embrace the fantasy of being Spy, Alex tries to show more of the reality. To a lesser extent, the books are this to the James Bond series (although not out of spite for Fleming- Horowitz is big Bond fan, but he didn't want to be accused of plagiarism, so he consciously tried to make his series as different as possible).
• Lord of the Flies is this towards the children's book Coral Island. Coral Island has young boys living on an island after their ship's catastrophe and working together to fight "the savages". Godling, having an issue with racist undertones and savagery being presented as an outside threat and not something that lies in human nature, wrote a book in which young boys end up abandoning their civilized ways and trying to kill each other. Ironically, another writer, Robert A. Heinlein, took issue with that portrayal and wrote Tunnel In The Sky, which served as an opposite to Lord of the Flies - boys end up on an alien world and work together for their survival. Some try to go the same way as characters from Golding's book, but end up quickly killed. Insu-Pu is another spiritual opposite to Lord of the Flies.
• Chinua Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart in response to the old classic, Heart of Darkness. He found the latter to be one of the most racist things he'd ever read and wanted to show that native Africans were not, as previously believed, total savages.
• Friedrich Nietzsche wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None as an opposite philosophical story to the New Testament.
• The Black Company is this for High Fantasy genre — if one assumes that typical works of High Fantasy are propaganda of the winners, then this is closer to how those events really looked like.
• Starship Troopers (the novel) gets this treatment a lot, especially in the 1970s and 80s, with works like Haldemann's Forever War and Steakley's Armor being the two most blatant. Even Drake's Hammer's Slammers could probably be listed.
  • And Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.
  • Most obviously, it's own film adaptation, which is a satire of war culture and a Take That at some of the Novel's themes and ideas.
• John Sladek's satirical Roderick series features a robot who views a corrupt world through innocent eyes. Sladek then turned the idea on its head in the novel Tik-Tok: the world is just as corrupt, so its robot Anti-Hero decides to exploit it by being even more corrupt.
• Richard K Morgan intends A Land Fit for Heroes to be this to The Lord of the Rings.

Live Action TV

• Star Trek inspired a few:
  • Blake's 7 was meant to be Star Trek turned on its head: the symbol of the fascist Terran Federation was even the symbol of the Federation Starfleet turned 90 degrees to the right.
  • Farscape is another anti-Star Trek space opera - like Blake's 7, it featured a group of scruffy fugitives as the main characters, alternately fighting or fleeing the clean, well-dressed military.
  • Also, with the 2000's Battlestar Galactica, Ronald D. Moore was pretty much able to do everything he had ever wanted to do on Star Trek: Voyager but wasn't allowed. Particularly, he got to show the ship taking a beating from being trapped without access to port to restock, how the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits was close to tearing itself apart and emphasize the looming danger of a technologically superior foe whereas Executive Meddling on Voyager always reverted to Status Quo Is God and led to the Villain Decay of the Borg.
• The Quantum Leap episode "Lee Harvey Oswald" (demonstrating that Oswald could have and most likely did act alone) was made in response to the Oliver Stone film JFK.
• Firefly's setting is deliberately a change of pace from the standard Space Western or Wagon Train to the Stars where the main characters are backed by The Federation or some major organization.
• Prehistoric Park, despite also being a Spiritual Licensee to Jurassic Park, is also this. Both are about wildlife parks filled with prehistoric animals, but Prehistoric Park is consistently depicted as a (mostly) working zoo, whereas in Jurassic Park things often go wrong and all hell breaks loose. In Jurassic Park, most of the animals brought back are dinosaurs, whereas Prehistoric Park has a more varied amount of animals from various prehistoric eras (Cretaceous, ice age, Carboniferous etc.). In Jurassic Park, the animals are genetically engineered, whereas Prehistoric Park's are captured via time travel. Prehistoric Park is an Animal Sanctuary/Wildlife Park that is not open to the public (although the unmade movie would have it open to the public) whereas Jurassic Park is a zoological theme park that is intended for Public Display (although it is only seen open to the Public in the 4th film, Jurassic World).
• Doctor Who:
  • Steven Moffat readily admits that the Eleventh Doctor's tenure and Sherlock are very similar but also very different. Both are about a Guile Hero and their companion but Doctor Who is about exploring a madcap world of Science Fantasy that can be consumed by all audiences while Sherlock is set in contemporary London and is much Darker and Edgier than Who. The Moff even went as far to contrast the Doctor and Sherlock, noting that the former "is an angel trying to be human" while the latter "is a human trying to be a god."
  • Every era of Doctor Who seeks to be this compared to its predecessor. For example, the Second Doctor's era was a cosmic hobo who sailed randomly through time and space while the Third Doctor's era was an episodic Monster of the Week set-up where he worked with the military.
  • In his interview about his self-novelization of "Rose", Russell T. Davies opined that it was the polar opposite of "The Day of the Doctor". "Rose" is a heavily-grounded story that is told through the POV of Rose Tyler, an average woman on the street, where the Doctor is shown as a mysterious and unknowable figure and doesn't require much knowledge about Doctor Who. "The Day of the Doctor" by contrast is a timey-wimey story set in the past, the present and on Gallifrey, is told primarily from the Doctor's POV and requires knowledge about the previous lore of Who.
• The Flash is the polar opposite to its parent show Arrow. Whereas Arrow is a gritty Darker and Edgier show that shies away from the more outlandish aspects of DC Comics (such as aliens and metahumans) in favour of a more realistic tone, The Flash is very much Lighter and Softer, sometimes even Denser and Wackier, embracing its comic book roots and frequently having outlandish plots.

Multiple Media

• Star Trek: Lower Decks contrasts much of the philosophy of the show it owes the most inspiration from, Star Trek: The Next Generation. While both shows believe that Humans Are Good, TNG opted for a Humans Are Special viewpoint, showing mankind as having outgrown its petty squabbles and baser instincts, focusing on Picard and his command crew aboard the flagship solving great cosmic mysteries and events. LD by contrast believes that Humans Are Flawed and should embrace that while focusing on the lowest ranked members of the crew of a workhorse starship just trying to get by in their daily duties and embroiled in petty squabbles.
• Superficially, Rick and Morty is the exact same thing as Doctor Who, both shows follow a Science Hero who shows their companion the myriad of the cosmic horrors and wonders beyond Earth. In practice, they couldn't be more different. While the Doctor believes that everyone and everything matters, Rick has most empathically said that nothing, even the life of his own family, matters, casually murdering people and whole civilizations (though more out of indifference than open malice) that the Doctor would go out of his way to save. While Doctor Who speaks of the wonders of Time Travel and rarely explores Alternate Universes, Rick and Morty eschews Time Travel, barring one Time Travel Episode, instead focusing on exploring The Multiverse.
• The Amazon Prime adaptation of Invincible is the polar opposite of its sister show, Amazon Prime's adaptation of The Boys. While both shows are Bloodier and Gorier and seek to deconstruct aspects of the superhero genre, they play it in contrasting ways:
  • Invincible is ultimately a Reconstruction of superheroes, albeit one with a heavier emphasis on Reality Ensues and the Setting Update than most. While Invincible isn't afraid to show that heroes have their flaws, its Central Theme is that heroes can inspire new generations to stand up for what's right. Even if the heroes themselves don't live up to their legacies, the world is richer a place for Hope Bringers like them existing.
  • The Boys by contrast is 100% meant to be a Deconstruction, painting superheroes (though they serve more as stand-ins for celebrities, politicians and celebrity politicians) as having created a Crapsack World and how dangerous, physically and psychologically, they are towards fragile Muggles. Fittingly, while Invincible takes place in a more stereotypically comic-book setting; one with aliens and supervillains that exists Twenty Minutes Into the Future; The Boys is Like Reality Unless Noted, having no aliens or supervillains.
• Though The Owl House is often seen as an Affectionate Parody/Spiritual Successor to Harry Potter, it more accurately slots in here:
  • On the surface Harry Potter and Luz Noceda are similar, both outsiders to the Wizarding World from a broken home and find greater comfort in their Chosen Family but take that concept in different ways.
    • Harry hated living with the Dursleys and at his best only tolerated them, thinking that, even for all their flaws, they didn't deserve to be murdered by dark creatures or wizards and ultimately left them behind when he came of age. Luz by contrast loves Camila with all her heart, welcoming her into the world of magic.
    • Likewise, Harry was The Chosen One, having a clear path and destiny, while entering into a society that knew and respected him greatly. Luz is The Unchosen One, entering the Boiling Isles as a complete nobody who has to prove herself by her own merit.
    • Despite being the title character, Harry is largely a passive character, nothing and no-one changing due to his direct influence. Luz by contrast throws herself into everything, being a massive force for change to the point that by Season 1's end, Nothing Is the Same Anymore.
  • The Boiling Isles also provides a marked contrast to the Wizarding society. Despite all of its systemic flaws, the Wizarding world was presented as an overall just place, the problems that made it a Crapsaccharine World in later books largely being the result of Voldemort and his legacy. The Boiling Isles is shown to be a Crapsaccharine World right from the start, the series not being shy to discuss the unfair Fantastic Caste System and other issues. While Belos is the most prevalent source of that injustice, defeating him is only one step of the problem. To properly fix things, the Owl Housers have to dismantle the corrupt system and the bad actors that allowed him to ascend and maintain power. Dumbledore's Army by contrast doesn't fix the system, instead assuming the roles of the corrupt old guard, thinking that the system can function with the right actors but don't enact much in the way of change, such that nothing much has changed in the epilogue compared to the opening of the first book.
  • Harry Potter barely left the Wizarding World. And while The Owl House is largely just set on the Boiling Isles, it has a few episodes on Earth and hints, though the Collector/Titan war, that there is a much larger universe out there.
• Star Wars:
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey is probably one of the most famous examples, or at least the most famous sci-fi movie example, being the most obvious example of the Space Opera and Hard Science Fiction contrast seen above. Both are iconic, epic science fiction films with great Special Effects; both are considered not just some of the best sci-fi films ever, they are also considered two of the best films of all time. However, apart from this, they are almost completely different. 2001 is hard sci-fi, falling on the One Big Lie on our scale (with the alien monoliths, and, more debatably, the Mind Screw Gainax Ending), has, for the most part, Absent Aliens (it features their monolith technology at least) and a lack of Sound in Space (except for classical music). Its setting is our solar system, Twenty Minutes Into the Future (it was released in 1968, and set in 2001). 2001‍'‍s third act (and elements of its prologue) put it in True Art Is Incomprehensible territory, including a Gainax Ending. Star Wars, on the other hand, is a space opera that falls into Science In Genre Only on our scale, with Loads and Loads of Races, and lots of Space Is Noisy (not only is there an iconic soundtrack, there are lots of noises from the spaceships). Star Wars is famously set A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away, and it follows a standard Hero's Journey narrative to create a more universal appeal. This is likely unintentional, though: Star Wars was always meant to be a Genre Throwback to "pulp" Sci-fi and Sci-Fi film serials like Flash Gordon
  • Though Star Wars is often accused of plagiarizing Dune (Princess Alia vs. Princess Leia, Arrakis vs. Tatooine) it would be more accurate to say it slides into here. Dune is focused on Internal Reformists (or at least those hoping to be such) and lives in a Crapsack World that is borderline Evil Versus Evil as institutionalized corruption sinks its teeth into everyone, with the good guys arguably being A Lighter Shade of Black. Star Wars by contrast is focused on those who would tear down the corruption from the outside and bring about something new and while there are moments of Black and Gray Morality, the heroes are always shown to be morally superior than the fascists they fight against. Perhaps the biggest contrast is that space travel in Dune is very tightly regulated owning to the Spice and their ban on intelligent machines. Star Wars by contrast has very Casual Interstellar Travel and droids are everywhere.

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer 40000 is this for the idealistic Space Opera genre as a whole, especially Star Trek, following the principle that Humans Are Special and showing them living peacefully with other races and defeating various space evils. In contrast, The Empire of Man is utterly racist, and its position at the galactic power table was paid for with the blood of millions of humans.
• Paranoia is this for the more common type of game in which the PCs are generally expected to work together toward common goals.
• Mortasheen to Pokethulhu. Both are Darker and Edgier Deconstructive Parodies of Mons games like Pokémon, and both feature Adorable Abominations as the Mons. However, Mortasheen inverts the way it's typically used, having grotesque monsters with adorable personalities, whereas Pokethulhu uses the more common adorable-appearances evil-personalities combination. In Mortasheen, all the trainers are mutants and the entire (main) society is dedicated to monster catching. In Pokethulhu, the trainers (or cultists) are human children and they form a separate subculture.

Video Games

• The Iranian students who made Rescue Nuke Scientist (in which the player controls Iranian soldiers rescuing captured nuclear engineers from Israel) said it was meant as a response to Assault On Iran (in which the player controls American soldiers attacking an Iranian nuclear weapons facility). The makers of Assault On Iran responded to that with Payback In Iraq, which even includes characters and events from Rescue. And said they hoped the makers of Rescue Nuke Scientist would respond again.
• Gears of War and Call of Duty are different ways of taking the shooter genre (Gears being about taking cover and COD making both sides weak to bullets), seemingly as a counterpart to the radical influence of Halo.
  • These games are even more of an antithesis to Doom. While Doom has a mighty player smashing hordes of distinct and clearly evil monsters into a fine goo with fantastic weaponry, Call of Duty is a very realistic war story with a weak protagonist fighting similar foes. Gears of War centers on a seemingly hopeless war, while Doom is full of hope and humorous secrets.
• Freedom Planet to Sonic the Hedgehog, especially the contemporary games. Sonic is a Japanese production based on American and Mayan culture, while FP is made in America and is based on Chinese culture. The main characters are designed to be adorable as opposed to edgy, and the vile, bloodthirsty Brevon as the main enemy contrasts how Sonic's more evil enemies are either only in one game or (as of now) don't exist, in contrast to the comical Eggman. The combat is also heavily emphasized and well-constructed as opposed to Sonic's quick button-mashing.
  • The earlier Sparkster series is also a contrast. While similar enough, its platforming to speed ratio is the opposite of Sonic's, and Sparkster's design is more medieval and timeless than the "hip" Sonic, with a humble personality to boot.
  • Crash Bandicoot is the biggest anti-Sonic of them all. The big difference is that while Sonic usually tries to be serious, Crash doesn't bother, and is much more cartoonish and silly (even moreso as it went on!). Cortex's big head contrasts Eggman's wide body, and instead of fighting him repeatedly, a variety of cheesy characters confront Crash.
• Crash Bandicoot to Mega Man. Both are platforming series of science fiction genre, where a hero fights against mad scientists, who strive for World domination. While Crash is a bandicoot, who was meant to be a soldier of mad scientist, Dr. Neo Cortex, but he betrayed his master because of system error, causing its own lack of intelligence, while Mega Man is a robot built initially for peaceful purposes (lab assistant) by a benevolent scientist, Dr. Light, but was modified for combat to fight against Dr. Wily, a former colleague of Dr. Light, who wants to prove the World to be better in Robotics than Dr. Light. in Crash Bandicoot series player completes stages in linear order and to achieve the True Ending, you have to break all the crates and collect all gems, while in Mega Man stages have non-linear order and basic stages can be completed in any order.
• Mortal Kombat to Street Fighter. Mortal Kombat is made in USA and features fantasy world and realistic graphics, while Street Fighter is made in Japan and features real world fighters with anime graphics. Mortal Kombat has amounts of blood, gore and secrets and primitive battle system (for early 2D games), while Street Fighter has complex battle system which is easy to understand and difficult to master and little blood and secret fighters were introduced in 1994. The first Mortal Kombat game was the bestseller for Sega Genesis in 16-bit wars, while Street Fighter II was the bestseller for SNES.
  • From there, Killer Instinct to Samurai Shodown; both are major franchises that were in competition with MK and SF and providing distinct experiences. The soundtrack to KI is funky, while SS is much more sombre. Shodown is defined by strong singular hits, while Killer Instinct uses long combos.

Western Animation

• The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Ruby Gloom are both children's cartoons with macabre and dark themes, a female protagonist and a skeleton as a main character, but that's about where the similarities end. Billy and Mandy is a very cynical, traditionally animated show, with a Karma Houdini Cynical Villain Protagonist, and a relatively bright colour palette (the (villainous) female protagonist wears bright clothes) set in a Modern-Day Everytown, America that is Like Reality Unless Noted (although they often journey into other dimensions that are much stranger). Ruby Gloom is an idealistic and optimistic show, animated in flash with a happy-go-lucky female protagonist who is always optimistic, and has a darker colour palette (the female protagonist wears dark clothes, reinforcing this) set in a Victorian-Gothic Aesthetic Schizo-Tech/Decade Dissonance Halloweentown. Also, Billy and Mandy was a cartoon first, whereas Ruby Gloom is a Merchandise-Driven show based on a toyline (although the show is more famous, and the merchandise suffers from Adaptation Displacement)
  • Invader Zim is a more clear-cut antithesis to Billy and Mandy. Billy and Mandy is done by showrunners and animators who worked on lighthearted family shows, and they don't change much for this show, meaning the show never goes as far as it should when it comes to the dark stuff. Invader Zim, on the other hand, is made by the man behind Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, and he brings the expected writing style to the show, going way darker than Billy and Mandy, and that darkness coming from a more sincere place than Billy and Mandy.
• Transformers:
  • Transformers Animated and Transformers Prime are broadly similar but take different directions. Animated had a Lighter and Softer artstyle that harkened back to the original cartoon while Prime‍'‍s art was based on the grittier, more complex, style of the Bayverse. While both sought to deconstruct the Great War, Animated examined what war did to Cybertronian society as a whole, namely that it had devolved into Black and Gray Morality and risked becoming an outright Evil Versus Evil situation, while Prime showed what a Forever War did to the individual combatants of the conflict, traumatizing most of them and making them more loyal to individuals than causes. Even their takes on the lore contrasted each other, Animated Adapted Out most of Cybertronian mythology while Prime was the first television show to explore it.
  • Transformers: EarthSpark:
    • The show is largely one to its direct predecessor, the War for Cybertron trilogy. The trilogy was an overtly Darker and Edgier take on Transformers that explored the horrors of war. EarthSpark is a Lighter and Softer take that shows people moving on from the war.
    • Over the course of its run, EarthSpark ultimately became one to Transformers Prime. While both shows had a human-heavy first season and a third party as the season's final boss that forced an Enemy Mine between Autobot and Decepticon, they diverged after that. Prime began to downplay the humans after the opener of Season 2 and culminated in the Autobots returning to Cybertron for good in the Grand Finale. EarthSpark by contrast emphasizes the humans even more starting in Season 2 and while the Autobots do eventually return to Cybertron in the Grand Finale, they ultimately leave shortly afterwards. And while Prime had one of the most evil versions of Megatron pulling a Hazy Feel Turn in the finale, EarthSpark Megatron, one of the nicest, reverts to his Decepticon mindset and ends the show as the villain.
• Masters of the Universe: Revelation to She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. While both reimagined the Masters of the Universe brand and weren't afraid to break with old trends, She-Ra redid everything from the ground up, distancing itself from the original shows, while Revelation leaned on the original continuity to ask some tough questions about the world. In She-Ra, Big Bad Hordak is given Adaptational Heroism and Hidden Depths before ultimately being replaced by horrifyingly shallow Horde Prime as the True Final Boss. In Revelation, Big Bad Skeletor is as petty and one-dimensional as ever while the humanized Evil-Lyn manages to usurp him as the True Final Boss.