# as is just because it's an instance of a subclass of a more limited class
            # e.g. UserInDB (containing hashed_password) could be a subclass of User
            # that doesn't have the hashed_password. But because it's a subclass, it
            # would pass the validation and be returned as is.
            # By being a new field, no inheritance will be passed as is. A new model

returned object was a subclass of the `response_model` (e.g. you return a `UserInDB` that inherits from `User` but contains extra fields, like `hashed_password`, and `User` is used in the `response_model`), it would still pass the validation (because `UserInDB` is a subclass of `User`) and the object would be returned as-is, including the `hashed_password`. To fix this, the declared `response_model` is cloned, if it is a Pydantic model class (or contains Pydantic model classes in it, e.g. in a `List[Item]`),...