Big Screwed-Up Family: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' has the Ikari family, with [[Butt Monkey|Shinji Ikari]], [[Everybody Is Jesus in Purgatory|Yui Ikari]], and [[Abusive Parents|Gendo]] [[Love Makes You Evil|Ika]][[Manipulative Bastard|ri]], [[Driven to Suicide|The Soryu Family]], [[Redemption Equals Death|The Katsuragis]], [[Beta Test Baddie|The]] [[Love Makes You Evil|Akagis]]... and ''all that'' is just the tip of a far more messed-up iceberg. Which has mass added to as the series goes by. [[Dysfunction Junction|One simply does not know where to start.]]

* The Kunos from ''[[Ranma ½]]'', they make the [[Dysfunctional Family|Saotome/Tendo household]] look positively normal.

* ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]:''

** The former British Empire. Canada and Seychelles are pretty much [[Butt Monkey|ignored.]] Nobody cares about [[The Unfavourite|Sealand]]. England had a terrible relationship with his other siblings, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and also possibly has an [[All Love Is Unrequited|unrequited]] love towards [[Love Hurts|America]], whom he [[Brother-Sister Incest|adopted]].

** The Asians. China is an [[Adult Child]] [[Woobie]] who getsa no respect anywhere, Japan is a [[Inscrutable Oriental]] who is ''very'' complex to say it politely, Korea is a [[Keet]] who isn't taken seriously even by Japan and China, Hong Kong is a [[Trickster]] with a perfect poker face, Taiwan is arguably one of the most normal and yet she can't also take China seriously, etc.

== Comic Books ==

* The [[Batman]] Family. Almost all of them are orphans brought together by tragedy. First Dick was raised by Bruce and suffered tension to the point that they seemed ready to break. Then Bruce took in Jason, who was ultimately killed (and brought back to become a wayward son). Barbara was crippled and had to rebuild her life as a paraplegic superheroine. Tim volunteered and his family fell apart for it, Cassandra was drugged into becoming the very thing she feared most, Stephanie was tortured half to death, it took Helena years before she gained acceptance and started to trust the others, and Damian's problems start with being raised in a clan of assassins... they're all waifs, misfits and strays that would belong nowhere if not together.

* The Endless from [[The Sandman]] portray this trope very well. They argue, they're petty and some of them are downright bastards.

* The Roark family from ''[[Sin City]]''. While we don't see a lot of politics among them, the members that we do meet (Cardinal Roark, Senator Roark and Roark Junior) are evil to the core, and John Hartigan states that the bad shit that they get up to on the [[Torture Cellar|Farm on North Cross and Lennox]] has been going on for generations.

* [[Star Wars|The Skywalkers]] (expanded universe). Marrying into said family has caused this to extend to the Solos as well. In the Bantam Era, the Solos and Skywalkers were relatively normal, well adjusted. It wasn't until Del Rey decided to inject massive amounts of [[Wangst]], killed off many popular child characters starting with Anakin Solo, as well as turning Jacen Solo into Jacen [[In Name Only]] that everything became messed up.

* ''[[The Godfather]]:'' Corleones, to some extent. They are a mafia family after all. And there's murders, assassinations, assassination of in-laws, {{spoiler|fratricide...}}

* ''[[The Royal Tenenbaums]]''. They'd probably be happier if it weren't for [["Well Done, Son" Guy|dad]].

** Many elements of the film—particularly child prodigies' unfulfilled potential—are lifted from J.D. Salinger's Glass family stories (which include more short stories and novellas than it would be sensible to list; let's just say everything except ''Catcher in the Rye'': almost correct, if we exclude approximately two thirds of the ''Nine Stories''). Though the Glass' [[Freudian Excuse]] is their eldest son's suicide, not [[Sibling Incest]]. But...does it ''count''? Considering Margot is adopted (as Royal mentions at every possible opportunity).

* The Whateleys from ''[[Deadlands]]''. [[Brother-Sister Incest]], [[Deal with the Devil|worship of evil spirits]], locking less "viable" family members in the attic, and {{spoiler|allowing their patron demon to consume the newest, youngest member of the family corporeally to become a god on Earth}}. Also, the entire family has incredibly weird genetics from swimming around in a shallow gene pool for so damn long. C'mon. [[Guilty Pleasure|Admit it]]. You're dying to [[Player Character|create one of your very own]] (who is of course a [[My Species Doth Protest Too Much|nice guy]]). Bear in mind if you do make one, however, that yours is going to be from a fairly distant branch. That's the only way to make them ''playable''.

* The [[Ravenloft]] setting was ''born'' from this trope. It's got enough of these families to write a book about how screwed up they are ... and Arthaus did so, with ''Legacy of the Blood: Great Families of the Core''.

 

 

** Surprisingly subverted with the von Karmas. While von Karma himself is an [[Amoral Attorney]] of the highest caliber and {{spoiler|murdered Miles Edgeworth's father before adopting him with intention of raising him to be another [[Amoral Attorney]] before having him convicted of his own father's murder fifteen years later}}, he seems to have treated both Miles and Fransiska with no more unkindness than your average demanding parent. The {{spoiler|murder thing}} is still sort of messed up, though.

** Although not all of them are actually related, the Gramarye Troupe from ''Apollo Justice'' certainly fit this trope. {{spoiler|Accidental shootings, blackmail, suicide, frame-ups}}...Trucy's lucky that she's not being raised by them, really.

** The Clover family. The father, [[Evil Genius|Relius]], is a [[Lack of Empathy|sociopathic]] [[Complete Monster]] who turned his daughter into a machine and then used the experience to turn his wife into a superior version... [[For Science!]]! All while, his [[Parental Abandonment|abandoned]] son, Carl, who was forced to finish the experiment that his father begun, because Relius couldn't be bothered to finish the job on Carl's sister, was understandably deeply traumatized by these events. He now greatly distrusts adults and will do ''anything'' to return his sister to normal and get revenge. When they eventually reunite? Relius brags about how he has [[Large Ham|"ACHIEVED PER-FEC-TION"]] with his wife and promptly tries to [[Offing the Offspring|demonstrate her power on his children]].

* The Mishima family from ''[[Tekken]]''. It's [[Badass Family|badass]]... and it's also ridiculously shattered. By ''Tag Tournament 2'', there are certifiably ''five'' family members competing (Jinpachi, Heihachi, Kazuya, Jin, and Lars), spanning ''four'' generations (plus Lee, the adopted son of Heihachi), and you can basically draw a web of who wants to kill who and why. The only one who is 'good' in the general sense of the term is Jinpachi (he has a good heart but is unable to fight the engulfing evil force that has possessed his mind and body; Lars is heroic but is still willing to kill Heihachi unprovoked when the two encounter each other).

* ''[[No More Heroes]]'' features the Touchdown family, which in the last 10% of the game is revealed to be incredibly expansive. There's Travis Touchdown, otaku assassin; {{spoiler|his mother, murdered; his father, who cheated on Travis's mother with another woman, who committed suicide, resulting in resulting in the murder of himself and his wife at the hands of his mistress's daughter Jeane (who Travis was dating, unaware that she was his half-sister); this is all revealed after Jeane kills Dark Star, the number 1 ranked assassin who also claims to be Travis's father. In an unrelated plot, Travis discovers that his rival, Henry, is actually his twin brother, and is married to Sylvia, the woman Travis was pursuing. And they have a daughter, also named Jeane. You might as well count Travis's cat, Jeane, as part of the family to round out the hat-trick.}}

* [[BioShock (series)|The Ryans....and The Lambs]]

* [[Metal Gear Solid]] ''loves'' this trope. First off we have Big Boss who is the most gifted soldier of the 20th century and would be recognized by America as their greatest asset, but after many hardships, betrayals, and tragedies were thrown his way by the government he swore his life to, he became disillusioned and drifted the world as a mercenary. Eventually his disillusionment reached such a point that he sought revolution, overthrowing America and the corrupt forces behind it, the Patriots, who controlled everything in secret, thus bringing a new birth of freedom to the country. Meanwhile the Patriots cloned Big Boss so as to have copies of the greatest living soldier in the world to use at their disposal, and the sons of Big Boss would go on to agree with their father's stance (Liquid and Solidus both try making their own Outer Heavens) and have feuds (Snake and Liquid fought their father) with their genetic father, and the protagonist of the series Solid Snake would eventually defeat his father in single combat, being the lapdog of America that Big Boss had once been. Liquid Snake, failing in his feud with Big Boss, took up his cause in order to prove he was better than his father by succeeding in the dream of defeating the Patriots where his father had failed, and Solidus the third son takes up his father's cause as well, but both brothers are stopped in part by their brother Solid Snake just as he had stopped their father. The Snake family only knows how to fight one another, which comes off as sad as all of them have noble causes but they all get manipulated so that they have to fight each other, and even when this is brought to their attention their differences are never settled.

** Don't forget Ocelot, who's The Boss's son, but comes to admire Big Boss as a father figure, too, in his own way. Or the Emmerich family, as elaborated upon in ''Peace Walker''. Hell, it's even suggested that Otacon's mother is [[Depraved Bisexual|Strangelove]]!

*** {{spoiler|Said child is actually a result of Kinzo's [[Parental Incest]] with his mistress's daughter. Said child grows up in an orphanage and brought as a servant to the family, and orchestrates the murders that occur on the island.}}

** His eldest daughter Eva has some major issues with her older brother and treats Natsuhi poorly, not to mention they pretty much had a "competition" to see who'd first give birth to a child who could be appointed as succesor. She also dislikes [[Meido|Shannon]], and is against her relationship with Eva's son, George. {{spoiler|When she finds the gold in Episode Three, she becomes a witch and basically goes insane}}. Beyond that, in Episode 6, {{spoiler|when George tells her he's going to marry Shannon, she basically goes insane again, and George kills her}}. Not to mention how Kinzo denied her the right to be the succesor despite her intelligence and investing talent, [[Heir Club for Men|solely for her gender.]] {{spoiler|Except in one timeline.}}

** The youngest daughter, Rosa, is a horribly [[Abusive Parents|abusive mother]] towards her daughter, [[Creepy Child|Maria]]. This is because she is incredibly stressed out as a young, single mother whose husband left her, {{spoiler|and even now, she's trying to convince to come back by cosigning a loan for him that threw her deep into debt. He, of course, has no intention of returning}}, and Rosa knows that even as she tries to do this. Some of the abuse also comes from her own frustration at having been bullied by her siblings when she was a kid, which Rudolf comes to aknowledge at some point.

* The Sonozaki clan in ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'' qualifies.

* In the webcomic ''God Mode'' Marceline's family seems [http://godmodeonline.com/d/20060224.html really screwed up]. But what can you expect when [[Red Eyes, Take Warning|red eyes]] run in a family?

* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' takes a mostly-feudal society with [[Real Life]] amount of [[Cloak and Dagger|grand scheming and backstabbing]] and adds an equal amount of [[Mad Scientist|mad scientists]], so it's an entirely expectable result for many nobles.

{{quote|'''Tarvek''': And how is it even ''possible'' you're on ''my'' side here?

'''Violetta''': Oh, well, you know, ''family''...

{{quote|'''Agatha''': She says someone's trying to kill her.

'''Violetta''': Well, ''sure'', she's one of ''my relatives''. }}

** The Mongfishes aren't much better. Case in point: [[Complete Monster|Lucrezia]] and her sister Serpentina. The daughter of her other sister, Demonica, whom {{spoiler|we know as Zola}} and the rest of their clan working hard to subvert Lucrezia's minions and hijack her scheme - not because they disagree about the whole [[Zombie Apocalypse]] thing, they only want a good share of its fruits.

** The Heterodyne family ''was'' known outside the town primarily for their bloodthirsty rampages (see "[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20091014 My vacation]" picture in their castle). [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20110209 Armored toys] in the nursery is a telltale sign, though little iron cages were used more sparingly. Bill and Barry gave the family a bit of an image makeover with their heroics. To their associates they are known for being as much of dangerous lunatics as other [[Mad Scientist]]s, but not that much of control freaks, thus e.g. their creations [[Turned Against Their Masters]] much less often - there are many monsters who remain loyal for centuries.

** The Vasa dynasty, who tended to be either really competent, really crazy or, quite often, both. With juicy scandals like alleged wife-murdering, poisoning, random stabbings, castration of foreign dignitaries and stuff like that. Really, the Tudors have nothing on their Swedish contemporaries. Granted, the branch of the Vasa family which ruled the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for two generations (Sigismund III and his two sons) seemed to be of the competent kind, behaving within the norms of the aristocracy of their times: Sigismund burned down his palace (and a part of Cracovia along with it) [[Mad Scientist|while playing alchemist]], the elder son Vladislav was a legend among the whores of most major Polish and Lithuanian cities, and the younger son Casimir was infamous for his affairs with married women (regardless of social standing).

* The Kennedy family all experienced tragic, terrible misfortune (assassination, accidents, medical problems, and at least one botched lobotomy) after [[John F. Kennedy|JFK's]] assassination.

** The Habsburgs - any family whose family tree actually bends back on itself, and generally resembles a bramble thicket, is hardly the most stable, but as monarchs they generally all loathed each other.

** The descendants of Queen Victoria - Kaiser Wilhelm II was related to George, King-Emperor of the British Empire, who was related to the Czar... not to mention the hemophilia.