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In the Blood: Difference between revisions
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* In ''[[Eureka Seven]]'', the Thurston family (especially the males) are all well-respected and loved people. Axel Thurston was respected by the military for his design and contributions for the [[LF Os]], Adrock Thurston was remembered by the people for his [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to save the world, and Renton Thurston was also known by all for saving the world and became a hero (his name is displayed on the moon for all to see, as well as a street named after him in the ending).
* [[Axis Powers Hetalia]]: insanity certainly seems to be [[In the Blood]] for the Soviet family. Also, North Italy and Romano are both weak when it comes to warfare and share their love of food and women with Grandpa Rome. Germany and Prussia both have ambition and a love of power. Ironically, it's never clear how countries reproduce or whether they are actually related, and it's implied that they might actually [[Not Blood Siblings|not be related in the traditional sense,]] but those who call themselves family do seem to have a lot of traits in common.
* In the ''[[Detective Conan]]'' ''The Phantom of Baker Street'' [[Non-Serial Movie]], it begins with a social commentary about Japan's hereditary culture but this trope comes around with the revelation that {{spoiler|the bad guy is a descendant of [[Jack the Ripper]] and he feared the bad reputation it would cause if the public got word of it. At one point his panic overruled his common sense, leading him to murder.}} Basically it could be about how concentrating on erasing mistakes of one's ancestors can make you repeat them.
* Zig-zagged to hell and back in a short story in ''Melo Melo Melonpan'' with [[Darkskinned Blonde|Mi]][[Easy Amnesia|ra]] being [[Happily Adopted]] by a woman and her son, [[Not Blood Related|having a secret affair with adopted mom,]] living a good life until being (re)captured by his [[Evil Matriarch|biological]] [[Royally Screwed-Up|mother,]] [[Complete Monster|who used to have him as her personal sex slave until he ran away then does the same with said adoptive family]] [[Laser-Guided Karma|until the adoptive brother kills both her and her mother/Mira's grandmother]] [[Snipe Hunt|then goes to find his mother,]] leaving Mira to raise his inbred daughter and aunt as his Morality Pets [[Hope Spot|to rule the kingdom justly...]] [[Downer Ending|only to learn said Jerkass behavior runs in the]] ''female'' [[Downer Ending|side of the family,]] [[Royally Screwed-Up|doing the exact same things to him until he commits suicide,]] [[God Save Us From the Queen|leaving the kingdom in the hands of two pregnant, inbred Royal Brats. Damn.]]
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** Harry's son Normie, however, turns out to be an [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain]], and gets better ''real'' quick.
** One story suggested Norman's father wasn't a terribly nice man; he may not have worn a funny costume, but he had the same obsession with "a strong heir" that Norm inflicted on Harry.
*** [http://www.spideykicksbutt.com/GreenwithEvil/goblinmysteries.html This link] explains the whole story of Norman Osborn, and how he became [[Complete Monster|the monster we all know and fear.]] And it proves just how evil Norman Osborn's father really was.
* In ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'', the Lensherr/Eisenhart/Maximoff/Da-- Oh, hell, ''[[Magneto]]'s'' family seems to have a lot of issues with this. The man himself tends to go mad fairly regularly, [[Scarlet Witch]] was responsible for ''Avengers Disassembled'' and ''House of M,'' Polaris also seems to spend half her time as an evil lunatic, and [[Quicksilver]] (getting off more lightly than the others) went kind of crazy after getting his powers back following the decimation.
** ''Still'' not the first time Quicksilver's gone crazy.
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{{quote|'''Professor Zoom''': Your mother may be a Thawne, but your father was an Allen. Your blood is polluted.
'''Bart''': Look on the bright side, Professor Plum. We're only half related! }}
* [[Captain America]] has two examples. Helmut Zemo, son of Heinrich Zemo and Sin, son of The Red Skull.
** Somewhat averted by the Red Skull himself, who takes to having had his mind transferred into a clone of Captain America's body by Arnim Zola like a fish takes to water and is never seen to worry about literally having his idealistic enemy's blood now somehow "weakening" him in any way.
** Helmut's tended to avert the trope as well, especially since he founded the Thunderbolts. He's still a [[Manipulative Bastard]] with a serious mad on for Captain America, but he's not the [[Complete Monster]] that his father was.
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** [[Giant Space Flea From Nowhere|Apparently]] he is also, through his mother, the ''first male descendant of King Arthur since Mordred.'' Morgan Le Fay is backing him as King of England. Certain members of the English nobility heard about this before he did, were less than pleased, and lured him out on a giant hunt so they could stab him [[In the Back]]. They were then killed by giants.
** Please note that this story is set around the turn of the 21st century; Hellboy was born on earth in 1945.
* [[Batgirl 2009|Stephanie Brown]] and, to a lesser extent, [[Batgirl 2000|Cassandra Cain]] sometimes get this treatment from Batman because of their parents being supervillains. [[Depending on the Writer|It depends on the writer]]. While Cassandra occasionally struggled with this thinking early on due [[Dark and Troubled Past|to some issues she had]], Stephanie never has, likely because the impetus for her superheroics was to spoil her father's criminal ambitions.
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* Used for comedic effect in ''Children of the Revolution'', a black comedy about the illegitimate son of Joseph Stalin, who ends up starting a totalitarian communist revolution in Australia without ever being informed of who his real father was -- even going so far as to grow the "Stalin mustache."
* In ''[[Young Frankenstein]]'', the titular Dr. "Fronkensteen" tries to avoid following in the <s>footsteps</s> '''vootshtaps''' of his famous relative. He can't, if only because the servants won't let him.
* The ''[[Doom]]'' movie uses [[Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke]] this way. The [[Precursors]] of humanity living on Mars developed a new chromosome that wiped out disease and made them super human... or super evil (You can [[Gotterdammerung|guess what wiped them out)]]. Apparently the chromosome reacted to the something in the "unmapped 10% of the human genome" that unlocked a person's latent "evil" and mutated them into a monster; the best these gentically evil people can hope for is a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] before they fully mutate. So [[Rousseau Was Right|Rousseau was wrong]], technically people ''are'' genetically evil, and all it takes is a little help from [[The Virus]] to bring it out.
* The forever brutish Tannen bloodline in the ''[[Back to The Future]]'' movies. The line goes back to "Mad Dog" Tannen, a murderous [[Wild West]] outlaw who kills Doc Brown in one timeline. In 1955, Biff Tannen is a bully who tries to rape Marty's mother. In various timelines, he matures into an abusive boss, a crime lord, and a bitter old man. Biff's grandson is a monstrous thug.
* Jack Sparrow tells Will Turner in the first ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' movie that "Piracy is in your blood," since his father was also the pirate "Bootstrap Bill" Turner. Later on it turns out to be an important plot point, and Will embraces his pirate heritage. Of course, no mention is made of whether Bootstrap Bill's father was a pirate. One pirate parent is apparently enough to turn his heirs into pirates as well.
* Aragorn in the film version of ''[[Lord of the Rings]]'' has deep seated fear he will prove to have "the blood of Isildur" and choose to use the [[Artifact of Doom|One Ring]], which extends to him being fearful of taking up his mantle as king. Still, the Ring has a rather good track record on the whole evil tempting and corruption thing, so it's not like he's inheriting weakness so much as ''not'' inheriting super resistance to its influence.
** Not exactly the case, as there's a true genetic component there, he's not purely Man, he's got Elven blood in the mix, which accounts for his superior attributes such was longevity (he was 87 at the start of Fellowship, and lived to 210).
* From the 1999 movie ''[[Wing Commander (film)|Wing Commander]]'', Pilgrims.
* In ''[[Repo! The Genetic Opera]]'', this is used in a more literal sense -- Marni died from a rare blood disease, which her daughter, Shilo, inherited. 'Genetic Emancipation' is also based on this trope, {{spoiler|Shilo sings it after realising that she hasn't inherited her mother's disease after all, but that her father was keeping her sick.}}
** Also played with in a figurative sense when {{spoiler|Rotti is trying to get Shilo to kill her father. She claims she's not a murderer to which Rotti responds, "But you share your dad's genetics. What if he passed this to you?" Making reference to his murderous occupation.}}
* In ''[[The Bad Seed]]'', [[Enfante Terrible|Rhoda]] is the granddaughter of a serial killer and has genetically inherited the inability to feel guilt.
* [[Serial Killer]] ''[[Mr. Brooks]]'' worries that his daughter has inherited his homicidal urges.
* Parodied lots in ''[[Tongan Ninja]]'', with the evil [[Big Bad|Mr Big]] and his long-lost son, Action Fighter:
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== Literature ==
* The work of [[H.P. Lovecraft]]. From Shadow Over Innsmouth's {{spoiler|Deep One-blooded}} protagonist to the protagonist of The Rats in the Walls having a predisposition toward {{spoiler|cannibalism and insanity}}; this is not to mention The Tomb's family links between the dead and living, it's completely pervasive.
** Also check out the late Arthur Jermyn. {{spoiler|His family is interbred with an ape.}}
* Imriel in the ''[[Kushiel's Legacy]]'' books is the son of the biggest traitors to his country, and despite him being a good-hearted person (and raised by other goodhearted people), everyone around him suspects that someday he might take after his mother. {{spoiler|Later on, a group of people have a psychic prediction that Imriel's son would take after his mother and destroy their nation, and kill his pregnant wife to make sure this doesn't happen. This editor presumes that evil skipped a generation.}}
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* Merlin himself is alternately an example and an aversion of this trope. In some medieval texts, he inherits his incubus-father's powers ''and'' his evil or amoral nature; in others, he inherents the powers but not the evil, and he receives some powers from God as well.
* Played [[Values Dissonance|horribly straight]] in [[Gene Stratton Porter]]'s 1904 novel ''[[Freckles]]'', in which it's accepted by everyone -- including, too obviously, the author -- that an abused child must be unworthy of compassion, because it is the offspring of [[Abusive Parents]]. The hero turns out to be a good and decent and upright man, of course -- precisely and specifically because his ''parents'' were all those things.
* [[Sherlock Holmes]] speculates that the reason Colonel Moran from "The Adventure of the Empty House" started out as a fine, upstanding soldier of the Empire and then suddenly joined the Moriarty gang might be because "the individual represents in his development the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of the history of his own family." Watson calls this "rather fanciful".
** In another case, Holmes deduced that a nice-seeming man was a closet [[Complete Monster]] because his young son was cruel to animals. While this isn't an implausible deduction, Holmes attributed the boy's misbehavior to this trope rather than to the trauma of abuse at his father's hands.
* Captain Pausert in ''[[The Witches of Karres]]'' had to listen to Councilor Onswud saying he'd known Pausert would go bad (as Onswud saw it), "Just like his great-uncle Threbus! It's in the blood, I always say!" And then Threbus' daughter told Pausert her father had predicted Pausert would break with his home planet -- and ''he'' said it was in the blood.
* Averted with the ''[[The Sword of Truth]]''. {{spoiler|Richard}} Rahl spends several books explaining that he's nothing like Darken Rahl. It turns out that way back when, the Rahls were some of the champions of order and good, but were corrupted by several thousand years of uncontested rule. {{spoiler|Richard}} takes after the parents who raised him, not his genetic ancestors. However, there are Rahl traits - like arrogance, determination, cleverness, and absolute ruthlessness, that the character in question develops over time.
* An issue in the [[Wheel of Time]] - one of the protagonists was adopted, but was assured that he is considered the son of the one who raised him. His genetic family does still take him in, but that probably also has something to do with him being {{spoiler|the Dragon Reborn}}.
** It turns out that the ability to touch Saidar or Saidin is inherited ... and the Red Ajah has been culling male channelers because they go insane and kill everyone in their general area. Oops.
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** Note that Munch's fear isn't entirely unreasonable: his uncle Andrew (played by Jerry Lewis in an episode) had mental problems, and that sort of thing, which can result in suicide, can be heritable. Goren on ''[[Law and Order: Criminal Intent]]'' has the same concerns due to a family history of schizophrenia.
** Also, Olivia went through a very complicated situation where it seemed her fears her coming true... {{spoiler|and not through ''her'', but through her half-brother Simon, who was accused of raping a handicapped woman who later killed herself. He was framed by the victim's sister, though.}}
* There's an episode of the original ''[[Law & Order|Law and Order]]'' ("Born Bad") where a teenager on trial for murder has his parents put this forward as a legal defense - due to a unique genetic condition, the teen is predisposed to a life of violence, and thus not wholly responsible for his actions. {{spoiler|This backfires in the most ''spectacular'' way possible, as the teen himself decides to plea guilty after hearing ''his own defense'' talk about how he's destined to be a violent criminal.}}
* ''Supernatural'''s Sam Winchester develops psychic powers slightly before the start of the show, which eventually turn out to come from their family's demonic nemesis having ''fed'' Sam his own demonic blood in the cradle. Fear about destiny and inevitability increase as more and more of the other children so marked go 'darkside,' or in one case kill their psychotic brother who had, and their father's final words to Dean are that if he can't save Sam, he may have to kill him. Sam resists the original 'destiny' associated with this status by not killing during the demon's little [[Battle Royale]], but the other survivor opens the gate to Hell anyway.
** Later, after he developed his powers further by drinking more [[Psycho Serum|demon blood]] to exorcise demons so he could prevent the Apocalypse and became addicted, it turned out that he'd been being prepped for years to open a different door {{spoiler|, the one to Lucifer's cage}}.
** This gets treated as [[In the Blood]] despite it just being a few drops of ingested liquid rather than actual heredity. Of course, once it turned out their mother Mary sold Azazel the right to take 'something' from her house in ten years, and that in cases where he wasn't interrupted no one was killed or kidnapped, it seemed the demon did in fact have the rights of a parent over the kids he'd bought, and the blood thing was claiming that and preparing them to open the doors and enable the endgame. Presumably he was only in charge of opening doors, given that Sam was the favorite but not necessary to his understanding of the endgame, and chance or destiny or Lilith arranged the rest.
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** {{spoiler|Booth is in a sensitive position; he's both a crack sniper for the government and related to Lincoln assassin John Wilkes-Booth. This is brought up when he (thinks he) proves that one person could've done the JFK assassination. When the others point out that A: he's a professional, B: the experiment was indoors and evidence suggests a cover-up, his confidence in himself and his government almost goes to pieces.}}
* Inverted humorously on ''[[Top Gear]]'', in an episode featuring the presenters' mothers. While some personality influences are obviously present, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond's mothers are slow, careful drivers, and James May's is remarkably aggressive and fast.
* ''Justified'' does not state this trope but is highly influenced by it. Raylan shares a lot of character traits with his father Arlo and does not want to be an angry, violent manipulative bastard like him. The show likes to show how much alike the two of them are even though one of them is a good guy and the other a bad guy.
** This trope is twisted all around with the Crowder family. The patriarch Bo is a brutal career criminal who easily steps into [[Complete Monster]] territory. Boyd is a villain from the beginning but is revealed to operate on very different motives then his father and {{spoiler|does an actual [[Heel Face Turn]] after Raylan shoots him in the series premiere although it takes an entire season for the other main characters to believe that he changed.}} Bo Jr was a star football player and thought to have a great future but ended his life as a wife beating brute whose own family did not feel like avenging. Cousin Johnny is first shown to be the one who has gone straight but in the end is just as bad as his uncle Bo.
* ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]'' has a number of examples in relation to the Dukes: They've been making moonshine ever since before their ancestors came to America. They've been "fighting the system" for as long as the Duke Clan and corrupt politics have coexisted. In the old west, the Duke's ancestors displayed an affection for fast horses; in modern times, they prefer fast cars. The Dukes' ancestors have also been allied with some other clans as far back as those clans have coexisted; this sometimes leads to Uncle Jesse recruiting the descendants of those clans as modern day allies by reminding them of that fact.
** Boss Hogg and Rosco's ancestors in the old west were also shown to be corrupt.
* ''[[Knight Rider]]'' has this with the newer series being a continuation of the old series, and the new Michael Knight being the son of the old Michael Knight. The fact that "Knight" is an alias used after each was supposedly killed also qualifies.
** The new KITT and KARR also qualify, having been built by the same man as the originals. They reprise the rolls of their namesakes, with KARR being psychopathic and having killed people before being deactivated and supposedly destroyed (but actually just put into storage).
*** The new KARR even shares [[Peter Cullen|The voice of his namesake from the origional]].
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== Tabletop Games ==
* Used extensively in ''[[Warhammer 40000]]''. The God-Emperor of Man created the twenty Primarchs, and when each wound up being raised on an alien planet by whoever happened to stumble across them, each become an immensely skilled warrior, and most of them ruled a planet or ten. The modern-day Space Marines are all genetically modified with gene-seed based on one of the Primarchs, and all exhibit behavior similar to that Primarch - the Blood Angels and their descendants, for example, all tend to be pious, noble, and prone to turning into [literally] bloodthirsty kamikaze maniacs intent on ripping the enemy limb from limb and drinking their blood.
** The Tyranid genestealers use this trope as their means of infiltrating other races. They implant their victims with Tyranid genetic material which subverts the genes of the victims. The victim's children are born as hybrids and become genestealer cultists by default.
** The Space Marines, however, are subjected to extreme hypnosis and mild brainwashing at the same time as they receive the gene-seed. This is mostly to make sure all their implants work, but the result is that they end up more like their Primarchs than when they started -- and they were selected in the first place due to their similarity.
* The descendants of extra-planar creatures in [[Dungeons and Dragons]] tend towards the alignments of their forebears. Thus, half-celestials and half-fiends are almost guaranteed to be good and evil. ''Their'' descendants, aasimar/deva and tieflings, are also predisposed (though not guaranteed) to maintain their ancestors' alignment.
** Half-orcs, no matter how civilized their upbringing, favor the barbarian class (especially in 3rd Edition), apparently inheriting the Orc's wild nature.
** The offspring of a [[Always Lawful Good|Generally]] [[Chaotic Good]] Nymph and a [[Always Chaotic Evil|Always]] [[Lawful Evil]] Devil is a [[Neutral Evil]], misshapen, goat legged midget called a Forlarren. They typically befriend the party with tales of their tragic past but the evil inherited from their [[Turn Out Like His Father|Devil father]]([[The Women Are Safe with Us|Its all but stated that]] [[Child of Rape|they're a result of rape]]) causes them to murder a member of the party.
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** The [[Ravenloft]] supplement ''Legacy of the Blood'' [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|uses this trope]] extensively.
* ''[[Champions]]'' supplement ''The Blood and Dr. McQuark''. The Blood have a hereditary tendency to both superpowers and insanity, the result of a bargain one of their ancestors made with a demon.
* In ''[[Hunter: The Vigil]]'', the Lucifuge all believe they are descended from Satan/Lucifer/Beelzebub/whatever name you want to tag the Devil with today. They've decided to [[Screw Destiny]] and fight against the creatures of the night... using the powers of Hell. Problem: the later World of Darkness book ''Inferno'' introduce their cousins, Les Enfants Diabloque, who ''also'' believe they're descended from the Devil and ''like'' it. The two groups are at odds.
* The Shadows of Mexico setting for [[Vampire: The Requiem]] portray the [[Vampires Are Sex Gods|Daeva]] native to that region, called Xoxocti, as priests of the gods. Thanks to centuries of foreign influence, their present day childer don't care about the old ways anymore. Instead, they use their vampiric powers to [[Mundane Utility|become]] [[Fan Service|sexy]] [[Latin Lover|Latin pop stars]], forcing their ancestors to view them as the children of kings who've been [[Son of a Whore|screwing whores]]. This [[Cultural Posturing]] is actually ''a large part of the setting's plot.''
* On the rare occasions [[Promethean: The Created|the Created]] have true children rather than reproduction through reanimation, they're likely to be immune to Disquiet and the illusion of humanity Prometheans automatically project. The kid may grow up somewhat skewed by a childhood of seeing reanimated corpses hanging around, but when word gets around that there's a human they can talk to without said human going [[Torches and Pitchforks]], Junior will have ''plenty'' of protectors.
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== Theater ==
* One of the dramatic tension elements in ''[[Arsenic and Old Lace]]'' is the hereditary insanity suffered by every single member of the Brewster family, and the protagonist's fear that he will eventually succumb to the same madness. {{spoiler|Fortunately, it turns out in the end that he was adopted.}}
* [[Cyrano De Bergerac]]: Even When Cyrano reacts with shock at Roxane's intention to remain with them during the battle, and she responds, ''"Monsieur de Bergerac, I am your cousin."'' lampshades this in a positive context, [[Broken Ace|Cyrano]] and [[Daydream Believer|Roxane's]] [[Beauty Equals Goodness|obsessions]] and [[Master of Delusion|denial]] [[Love Martyr|of reality]] fit them better with the sinister implications of this trope.
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* It's regularly noted in ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' that Battler has more than a few similarities to his grandfather, Kinzo. Considering that Kinzo is certifiably batshit insane in every sense of the word, [[Big Screwed-Up Family|as well as the fact that crazy]] [[It Runs in The Family|seems to run in the family in general]], we can assume that this is not a good thing.
* Gotha's family in [[Dragon Quest V]] starts from a masculine Pankraz, having [[The Hero|a son]] who has as much masculinity as him when he grows up and [[Generation Xerox|pretty much suffers very similar fates as him when he's married.]] While this guy's not as strong as his father, he has an ability to use healing spells, which carries onto his son, who can even cast a better multi healing and revival spells while still being a hard hitter. Also in the game he wonders if he can catch and train monsters like his daddy does.
* In ''[[Crusader Kings]]'', characters will pass onto their offspring a tendency to have similar stats. This was strong enough in earlier versions that a form of Darwinian evolution could be observed, where since characters with higher stats were more likely to survive and to succeed as rulers and pass their traits on, everyone in the late game had insanely high stats
* In the backstory of ''[[Nox]]'', the world of Nox's Legendary Hero wipes out every member of the [[Always Chaotic Evil]] Necromancers, but spares the last Necromancer, a mere baby, sending her off to be raised by the primative but morally neutral Trolls without any knowledge of her true heritage. She, of course, grows up to be the game's [[Big Bad]], and inherits not only her ancestors' total evil, but also their raging Goth-ness. (Although the Wizard ending implies she was possessed by the evil spirits of all her evil ancestors, and without being indwelt by them she's actually a pretty decent lady).
* Likewise, in the ''[[Divine Divinity]] series'', the Hero spares [[The Antichrist]] because he's just a little baby, and tries to raise him as his own son and a champion of truth and justice. This ''does not'' work out, at all (although the failure was at least in part caused by external factors, namely the [[Religion of Evil]] sending an agent to tempt him to the Dark Side).
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* Psychological research shows that alot of our personality traits are partly inherited from our relatives. For example, a child born from parents with deficient levels of Monoamine oxidase A (a neurotransmitter that helps to control aggression and impulsivity) is likely to be more aggressive than a child with normal levels of the "warrior gene". However environmental factors are just as likely to inhibit those chances they will be exhibited in behavior if the child was born in a supportive household rather than a abusive one, the latter which makes the likelihood of them exhibiting aggression 10 times more likely.
* This is a common subject of debate concerning "dangerous" dog breeds such as pitbulls.
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[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
[[Category:In the Blood]]
[[Category:Dysfunctional Family Tropes]]
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