I get what you all are saying about how sometimes it's unrealistic to play canon characters and their relatives but I myself find nothing wrong with doing so, so long as you remember that they aren't the character you are basing their line off. For example my MoM charrie, Mei Lin and my school charrie from last term are Malfoy's on their mothers side, being the grandchildren of Scorpious Malfoy. I know the Malfoy's may seem a little cliche for a Slytherin but for me it wasn't something I threw in intentionally. It kinda just happened, and I made sure to make them original where it counts. For me Mei Lin and Sakura were individual people who knew what had happened in their family and tried to live up to that while still being their own personality. Both of them are Japanese on their fathers side so I didn't have the cliche of having Malfoy as a last name or anything. I guess that also made it easier to play a realistic OMG we're long lost relatives plot when it came up. After all they lived in Japan their whole lives so they wouldn't have met half their English relatives due to the difference it countries. However I only made the Malfoy connection due to the fact I was playing the cousin of another girl who was playing a Malfoy descendant.

If your going to play a canon related charrie however I do believe that it's important to remember that they aren't the person you are basing them off. To me it doesn't show a lack of originality, for some people it may just be showing how much they love the family they are pretending their charrie is from. It can also be funny to see just how different people can make the charrie from the family they are based off while still showing links to that family. For me it was just a little thing I threw in near the end of the original development stages of my charries that brought me a few new people to RP with due to a family link that was shared by others. Just as long as we keep it original we should be allowed to RP whoever we want within the limits of the SS timeline obviously.