I Am Not Your Father

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Some adoptions are more obvious than others.

The Reveal that his parents are not his real parents after years of Oblivious Adoption. This is when after a long time, the adoptive parents finally tell him.

Don't confuse with I Have No Son or That Thing Is Not My Child, nor a subversion of Luke, I Am Your Father. Contrast with You're Not My Father, which is not a Reveal but a dismissal.

Not to be confused with I Am Not My Father.

Examples of I Am Not Your Father include:

Film

  • In Disney's Hercules, after Hercules ends up smashing up a lot of stuff in town because he can't control his strength, his mortal father decides to tell him that he's adopted and gives him the medallion with the symbol of Zeus on it, which leads him to the temple.
  • In Kung Fu Panda 2, Mr. Ping finally admits that he's not Po's actual father. Of course, everyone else already knew, but just didn't talk about it.
  • Monty Python's Life of Brian:

Brian, Mr. Cohen wasn't your real father.
I never thought he was, Mum.

  • Spock Prime (Leonard Nimoy) says this when mistaken as Spock's (Zachary Quinto), and thus his father in the 2009 Star Trek film.

Literature

  • The protagonist has a moment like this at the end of Shades of Grey (though it's the result of illegitimacy, not adoption).

Live-Action TV

  • Supernatural, episode 4x10, "Heaven and Hell." Anna Milton discovers that her parents are not her real parents, and she is in fact a fallen angel that was reborn as a human.
  • In the Syfy mini-series Tin Man, DG's parents revealed to her that she's adopted and that they're actually robots.

Newspaper Comics

  • This Bad Habits strip. The parents decided to break the ice now with their son who is a literal dog. Therefore his parents are humans, who can't give birth to dogs.

Oral Tradition, Myths and Legends

  • In some versions of the Arthurian legends, the young Arthur -- who had been fostered with Ector (Cynyr Ceinfarfog in the Welsh accounts) -- was unaware he was a foster child and thought he was Ector's son and Kay's younger brother until his true identity was revealed.

Video Games

  • Dragon Quest IV, at the beginning of the Hero's chapter.
  • Dragon Quest V: None of the Heavenly Brides have real parents, and are actually descendants of Zenithians.
  • Super Mario RPG: Frogfucius dramatically reveals to Mallow: "You...are not a frog!" (Since Mallow is a walking cloud creature, the audience isn't surprised.)
    • Everyone else at Tadpole Pond is shocked. Complete with scare chords accompanying the reveal.
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