“Your Clone Wants to Kill You Because You Lack Self Knowledge” by Algon

My friend @Croissanthology is puzzled why it is such a common trope for fictional clones to turn on their creators. There's the Doylist answer that it is a cheap way to make for a mind being divided against itself, which explains a lot of the drama in my view e.g. pure betrayal. But there's also the Watsonian answer I learnt from that great teacher, Mother of Learning.

In the novel Mother of Learning, perhaps the most useful spell is simulacrum. It can be used to make an ectoplasmic shell that looks like you, has a copy of your mind and shares your mana pool. Naturally, the main characters abuse the heck out of this. So useful is it, that they wonder why on earth every great mage doesn't use it.

A grizzled old battle mage supplies part of the answer to the question posed by the MC, and in turn our dear Croissant. He says

"[...] if you don’t like doing something, your simulacrum won’t like doing it either… so it's a bad idea to foist things you hate upon your simulacrums. This also means that if you can’t bring yourself to sacrifice your life for [...]

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First published:
November 15th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bXG79EsEmjR3agQtd/your-clone-wants-to-kill-you-because-you-lack-self-knowledge

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.