Divine Parentage



One or more of a character's parents is a god, an angel, or one of those Horny Devils. Usually, if a character has Divine Parentage, then so will other characters in the setting.

Divine Parentage is important because the divinity is often hereditary, usually in an All Genes Are Codominant way. Thus, someone with Divine Parentage can do things people who are fully mortal cannot.

If the divine side is dominant or prominent, then you tend to get a demigod.

The trope is Older Than Dirt. Many of the examples are related to mythology, and myths have many examples. Some of the more modern examples are retellings of ancient myths.

Related to Half-Human Hybrid. After all, these characters are half-human, half god.

A step above a Heroic Lineage. Which is perhaps somewhat ironic since 'hero' was originally the ancient greek word for examples of this trope.

May be the end result of a Divine Date.

Comic Books

 * Genesis from Preacher (Comic Book), offspring of an angel and a demon.
 * Cassie Sandmark (the current Wonder Girl) is the daughter of a human woman and Zeus. And as of the 2011 reboot,.
 * Tess Black who appeared briefly in Spider-Man is the daughter of the Norse god Loki and a human woman, something she is unaware of.
 * Raven of Teen Titans is the daughter of the demon Trigon and a human woman, something that causes her considerable angst.

Literature
"''"The youth they tortured was like the tall man who came?" he asked at last. "As like as son to father," she answered, and hesitantly: "If the mind could conceive of the offspring of a union of divinity with humanity, it would picture that youth. The gods of old times mated sometimes with mortal women, our legends tell us."''"
 * from American Gods.
 * Also Fat Charlie and his "brother" Spider from Anansi Boys, although Spider got all the good traits.
 * from The Immortals quartet by Tamora Pierce.
 * The entire plot of the novel Oh My Gods! takes place on a Greek island at a private school for the descendants of gods, and almost every character is one.
 * Discworld
 * Susan Sto Helit is Death's granddaughter. By adoption. She can still walk through walls. Don't ask.
 * Susan briefly compares her situation with that of a classmate, whose great-grandfather was the god Blind Io, making her a hemi-semi-demigoddess. This doesn't seem to come with any powers, but apparently has enough prestige to get a good table at restaurants.
 * Yet another: Lobsang Ludd (and his kind-of brother) is the son of Time.
 * Percy Jackson and The Olympians features a summer camp for demigods.
 * Although is more than a god,   in The Elenium/Tamuli qualifies.
 * in Dragaera.
 * The Scar Night series is awash with angels and gods descended from gods.
 * In The Silmarillion, Luthien is the daughter of the Elven king Thingol and Melian the Maia (a class of divine being roughly equivalent to a demigod or an angel). Luthien often displays flashes of remarkable power as a sign of her heritage.
 * In the Books of Swords, and  are both children of, who is really.
 * In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "Shadows in The Moonlight" Olivia dreams of a godlike being arriving to where a partly human, partly godlike being was tortured to death, and turning the torturers to stone.

Live-Action TV

 * Cady from Reaper might be the devil's daughter.
 * One could make a case for Jenny and Susan, the daughter and granddaughter of the Doctor, a.k.a. The Lonely God.

Myths & Religion

 * The Bible -- specifically, the New Testament -- says that Jesus Christ is this.
 * Classical Mythology
 * Hercules, Perseus, Helen of Troy and many other classical figures were children of Zeus. Sometimes, in fact, Zeus would seduce a woman who was already a distant descendant of his through a previous affair. He sure got around.
 * Zeus had more than anybody else, but there were other gods and goddesses who got in on the mortal action. Virtually every Greek hero is this trope in some way.
 * Countless heroes of the Trojan War, according to the stories.
 * Gilgamesh was 2/3 god, since the Babylonians believed that if two men had sex with a woman and she got pregnant, both were the father. Gilgamesh was the product of such a threesome.
 * In some versions of the story, Merlin's father was an incubus.
 * And in some versions of Irish Mythology, Cu Chullain was the son of The Ace god Lugh.
 * The Emperors of Japan claim descent from the Sun goddess herself. The fascists used this as a justification to kill lots and lots of people and loot their goods in World War 2.
 * In many dynasties in Europe it was common for nobles in Germany to claim Odin as their ancestor long after the Christian era. The attitude of The Government usually seems to have been,"If you keep peace on your estate and show up for battle when the king needs you, your ancestor can be whomever you want him to be."

Tabletop Games

 * Exalted: Gods, Spirits, Demons, Fae, Ghosts and the Celestial Exalted (about anyone with essence 4 or more) can bear or sire children, who inherit some of that power. One of the canonical examples include a woman being impregnated by an earth spirit through an earthquake. The God/Ghost/Demon/Fae-blooded people are a few large steps above mortals, but they still don't have a chance against Exalted. Their parents stand up to Exalted either...
 * The entire premise of Scion is that your character just got a visit from their divine parent telling them it's time to get active.
 * So, so many in Dungeons and Dragons it's not funny. Aasimar and Tiefling are Celestial-blooded and Fiend-blooded, respectively, and things only get wonkier from there. It's even possible to have a character who has Celestial, Fiend, and Dragon blood in his or her veins.

Theater

 * In The Ring of the Nibelung, Siegmund and Sieglinde's father, whom they know as Wälse, is actually the god Wotan, though they never realize it.

Video Games

 * The player character from Baldur's Gate I and II is revealed to be the offspring of.
 * Eternal Daughter's title protagonist.
 * is the son of in Tales of Symphonia, though possesses nothing that sets him apart from other humans , rather fitting given that the game portrays him as The Messiah.
 * The other Kratos
 * One interpretation of the ending of Shadow of the Colossus is that.
 * from Ico, a demigod as well.
 * Kochiya Sanae from Touhou. Bonus point for having her divine great-great-great-...-grandmother lives with her. Sanae's power is described as power to make miracle.
 * The descendants of the 12 Crusaders in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of Holy War, who got their divine powers from  Gods, get these powers passed to them through blood inheritance.
 * In Dark Souls, the Primordial Serpent Kaathe claims that the Chosen Undead is a descendant of the Furtive Pygmy

Visual Novels

 * Appears in Fate Stay Night as a character's "divinity" rank. Seems to be pointless, until unveils   which is a Variable-Length Chain that grows stronger based on the divinity rank of the person it captures. He uses this to kill a number of should-have-been-challenging-opponents. Characters with Divine Parentage include (in order of original divinty rank):   a 2/3 deity; Herclues, Cú Chulainn, Caster   and Alexander the Great from Fate/Zero are all demigods; and lastly Rider.

Web Comics

 * The title characters from Bob and George, explaining how they have their powers.
 * The Evil from Sluggy Freelance: the off-spring of Satan and a house cat.

Web Original

 * In The Gamers Alliance, the Andain have a human and a god as parents. The most famous Andain have been Kagetsu I, Leon, Pooka and Taliesin.
 * Carmilla of the Whateley Universe is the daughter of the demon Gothmog and a woman who it turns out wasn't fully human to start with (she's got some Eldritch Abomination in her family tree, and she is one of those Waites.

Western Animation

 * Raven from Teen Titans is the daughter of a demon and a human woman.
 * Lucy from Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil is, well, Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
 * In Wakfu, Sadlygrove's master Goultard He's basically an expy of Hercules.