Analogies are never perfect. That's not their point. It's an illustration of a point. Presumably you understood it, but I'll clarify anyway: the point is that if you have one important similarity, it might raise suspicion, but it's the fact that you have several of them, even if all but one are minor, that may convince you that something's going on. Yes, in the example it's much clearer, but that was the point: to make it unambiguous.
And my point, to make it unambiguous, is that a 'minor similarity' is not an 'important similarity'. If you agree that these similarities are truly minor, then it IS utterly disingenuous to keep trying to add them to the 'big picture' along with the other similarities that are actually significant.
See above. That is not to say that the individual elements aren't important. In fact, I'm saying that dismissing them individually misses the bigger picture.
"That's not to say that the individual elements aren't important, but we're still only allowed to talk about the big picture" - half a dozen of one, six of the other.
Also, you're *still* totally failing to acknowledge that including ridiculously pedantic 'similarities' actually harms the 'big picture' and does not enhance it in any way.
Yes they do, because although I agree that the sum total of Discovery is very dissimilar to the game Tardigrades, the basic concept of the tardigrade and how its used in the story, together with a small number of additional, similar elements, is what I find odd. I don't think that "makes no sense".
As I already said, find the tardigrade odd if you will. I disagree, but it is an easily understandable position. You have still yet to give any logical reason why any of the rest of it should ever be considered odd in the first place, though.
How about if it's an asian from Hong Kong? Does it suddenly no longer count? I don't think a "specific" amount is very useful since people could dodge lawsuits by making ridiculously small alterations.
If all we know is that it's an asian from Hong Kong, then, yes. Obviously these examples are inherently incomplete because we're not actually creating a show here. In reality, one must look at the *total* picture of the character in question and judge whether it could reasonably be considered too similar to the original. So, name, ethnicity, background, appearance, personality, position, interests, etc. If the two characters share nothing on that list, it is pathetic to act like one is a copy. If they share everything on that list, it is pathetic to act like one isn't a copy. If they share 50%+ that would be a plausible copy (but by no means certain), 70-75% a highly probable one, 25-30% or less a highly improbable one. This is also simplified somewhat since specific traits that are highly important to the original characters are more suspicious while traits that are basically throwaway knowledge that never mattered much in the original are much less suspicious.
If you're asking me for an exact determination of 'here is the line and nowhere else', then you're in the wrong discussion, because that kind of determination is way too complex and variable to ever be made in such a generic 'one size fits all' conversation and any attempt to even come close would require a much more precise style of language than is ever going to happen here.
But what we can say quite easily, without needing to tread into the exact line between fine and no longer fine, is that if the ONLY thing shared between two characters is gender and skin color or gender, skin color and hair style, then those characters are obviously WAY more different than they are similar and it is ridiculous to act like one might somehow be a copy of the other.
