In the Blood: Difference between revisions

Genealogy and Ancestry are really popular tropes in fiction. It makes a great [[Secret Legacy]], a source of [[Cain and Abel|fraternal conflict]], adds drama with an unexpected [[Luke, I Am Your Father|family reunion]], and can set up a host of different conflicts and relationships. Just like in real life, a person's ancestry can determine their genes and, to a lesser extent, their personality and even their talents; but in fiction this extends to [[Lamarck Was Right|skills]], [[Superpowerful Genetics|superpowers]], and even moral alignment.

 

 

The reverse is not always true though. A [[Card-Carrying Villain]] with a good family is rarely compelled towards good -- though it does inform a possible [[Heel Face Turn]] later on thanks to [[The Power of Love]] from their family.

A pretty common twist for heroes with [[Muggle Foster Parents]] is that they are the child of the [[Big Bad]] who has been spirited away and raised like an [[Ordinary High School Student]] in the hopes that [[Upbringing Makes the Hero|Nurture can beat out their inherently evil Nature]]. Amazingly, sometimes it's because [[Evil Parents Want Good Kids]]. In extreme cases, this "Nature" can manifest as an [[Enemy Within]] or a [[Super-Powered Evil Side]]. Again, this twist can lead to a [[Shower of Angst]]. For some reason, the parent they get the bad blood from is [[Lineage Comes From the Father|usually the dad]]. Another twist is the son of a mighty warrior becoming a mighty warrior themselves, even if they were orphaned as a baby.

 

 

{{examples}}

** They address this trope directly at one point, with Crowley pointing out that Lucifer was originally an ''angel'', so the idea that Adam is destined to become evil due to demonic genetics is absurd. Incidentally, in this story demons and angels even have identical wings; falling from grace just changes what team you're playing for.

* All over the place in The Kite Runner, as: Hassan's son is said to be very much like him, which plays this straight. {{spoiler|Seemingly subverted with Amir and Baba, as Amir believes Baba hates him for not being the image of a man as he was, but played straight and [[Lampshade Hanging|noted]] by Amir when his hatred of him may have stemmed his guilt from how Baba was Hassan's actual father with an affair with Hassan's mother, and they both had past shames. Averted with Hassan, as he is a much more kindly person than his biological father, and said to be near-impossible to anger as opposed to Baba, which is much like Hassan's perceived father.}}

** Understandable as this is a kid's series. Kids don't really understand 'grey' so much as they do 'GOOD' and 'BAD'. However, this is not a good thing to teach kids.

* The entire plot of [[Wilkie Collins]]' 19th-century thriller ''Armadale'' revolves around this trope; a young man who has (for unrelated reasons) adopted a pseudonym meets another young man who shares his birth name of Allan Armadale. They become fast friends, until the first young man discovers that his father had murdered the father of the other Allan Armadale. He spends much of the rest of the novel haunted by his father's conviction that the sons are destined to repeat the fathers' fatal feud.

* In [[King Arthur|Arthurian literature]], Mordred, the [[Brother-Sister Incest|born-by-incest]], [[Fallen Hero|sometimes-tragic]] nephew-son of [[The Messiah|the King]], is a villain BECAUSE his parents consummated in sin. This is often the reason for the fall of Camelot as well. And Despite that in the original Welsh legends had Medrawd as a hero and unrelated enemy of Arthur's, with Arthur as the [[Knight Templar|villain]], and the incest originated in the Vulgate Lancelot-Grail Cycle.

* In P.C. Hodgell's [[Chronicles of the Kencyrath]] series, Shanir (magic) powers are inherited genetically among the Highborn race. Incestuous breeding programs in the past to breed stronger Shanir have led to some very damaged bloodlines, exacerbated by dwindling numbers (and probably causing them, too, due to impacts on fertility). Heroine Jame and her twin brother Torisen are of the "royal" house of Knorth, inheriting both powerful abilities and the possibility of insanity; Torisen constantly worries that he carries the Knorth madness and worries he'll become his father. One of those abilities is also [[In the Blood]]; blood-binding. Anyone who consumes their blood will be bound to them mind, body and soul until death and beyond. Creepy stuff.

** Interestingly, some other drow are implied to have had the ''potential'' to be good, but to have lost it due to the lives they've lived. Drizzt's sister turned evil due to their mother's influence, and Jarlaxle (who isn't even from Drizzt's family!) demonstrates what Drizzt observes as an odd sort of sanity for a drow, despite being a ruthless mercenary. Given Mooshi's comment that the children of evil species often demonstrate "not-so-subtle differences" from good races, a mutation is looking more and more probable, albeit a mutation that's struck more than one family line. Of course, he's also son of Yvonnel, and she lived to the respectable age of 2043 not by doing things [[For the Evulz]] when it's bad for business - the House Baenre got its status because she was the one who said "stop this foolishness" when Menzoberranzan began descent into open infighting the first time. Of her other children, we know Gromph, who also lived to his age not on the reputation of his family, and Quenthel, who can compete in creative cruelty with the best of 'em, but in ''[[War of the Spider Queen]]'' managed to throw off [[Stupid Evil]] mind control because such ''un''-[[Pragmatic Villainy]] as going [[Ax Crazy]] was against her nature.

* In the Middle English [[Chivalric Romance]] ''Sir Gowther,'' the title character is the son of a devil (the same devil who begot Merlin). He kills several nursemaids by suckling them to death, then grows up as a naturally horrible person who eventually goes so far as to lead a gang rape of a convent full of nuns whom he then locks up and sets on fire. However, when someone actually tells him that he is the son of the devil, he repents immediately, goes to the Pope for penance, and eventually becomes more or less a saint.

* 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 Book of Exalted Deeds (basically a handbook for being Good) says that killing them is wrong, but also points out that if the DM pulls a bait-and-switch too often by having monsters the players have been merciful to betray them, its understandable that they will be upset and less trusting in the future.

** [[Birthright]] all rotates around bloodlines ([[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|duh]]) carryng little portions of lost godly powers.

* 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

* 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).