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{{trope}}
{{quote|One of the strongest ''natural'' proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ''ass for a lion''.
|Thomas Paine|''Common Sense''}}
A successful bigwig, be it in business, politics, magic or even world conquest, is growing old, and in preparation for an eventual retirement/death looks to their children to see who among them can [[Take Up My Sword|take up]] [[Taking Up the Mantle|their mantle]]... and is faced with incompetence, disinterest, or a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] in the making. These are by no means an exhaustive list of possible shortcomings, indeed just about anything that can make a parent ask "[[Why Couldn't You Be Different?]]" is grounds for this trope. Special mention should go to times when the Inadequate Inheritor is not good/heroic enough, [[Evil Parents Want Good Kids|too evil]], or ''[[Minion
Whatever the case, the prospective retiree doesn't think they deserve their potential inheritance... at least, not as they currently are.
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Cue an [[Impossible Task]], search for a non standard heir from outside the family (who has a statistically abnormal chance to be an orphan/bastard child of the retiree), or otherwise trying to reform their potential heir or forcibly change them one way or another. Results vary: the heir may become worthy, rebel against their "benefactor" (which may be what they [[Batman Gambit|always]] [[Manipulative Bastard|wanted)]] or fail outright and prompt the retiree to switch to plan B, become [[Immortality|immortal.]]
Expect this to be a knife through the heart of any children who [["Well Done, Son" Guy|just want their parent to say]] "I'm [[So Proud of You]]" but have been passed over. In the most extreme cases, they might get an ''actual'' [[Offing the Offspring|knife in the heart]] to make way for a more suitable candidate. Especially nasty when an iron-handed [[The Patriarch|Patriach]] crushed their spirit into [[Nice Guy]] and [[The Dutiful Son]] and now despises them for
May be related [[The Wrongful Heir to
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In the ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' anime, Gozaburo Kaiba was heavily disappointed in his son Noah because he wasn't dedicated enough to be heir of his company (not to mention the fact that he was ''[[Virtual Ghost|dead]]''). So instead he adopts an orphan and gives him some [[Training
* In ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro
* In a flashback in ''[[Naruto]]'', Hiashi states that he's disappointed with Hinata's performance and notes that the clan doesn't need a weak heir, but never goes so far as to openly disinherit her. This, however, is ''before'' Hinata [[Took a Level
* A [[Rumiko Takahashi]] short story focused on a variation of this. Under insistence from her boyfriend Susumu, a woman named Nozomi pretends to be her dead best friend Noriko in order to claim an inheritance from Noriko's long dead grandmother. It helped that the last time Noriko's family saw her was with her mother when she was a little girl. Nozomi winds up receiving help from the grandmother's spirit, on the condition that the first thing she does with the money is provide a proper burial for Noriko (Nozomi was extremely offended that Susumu suggested such a ruse, but conceded because they have massive debts). Eventually, Nozomi learns that her Noriko's mother had nearly been disowned by the family for eloping with a man, and only came back once when Noriko was a child to meet grandmother. It's implied that the grandmother didn't like the family any more than Noriko's mother did, as she made it clear that no one other than Noriko could touch the property registry. It's also implied that the family might have killed the grandmother themselves.
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* In [[The DCU]], [[Darkseid]] is known to take a dim view of any of his lieutenants actually being able to control his empire after he dies... especially his son Kalibak.
** Of course, when he so much as disappears for a few days they immediately descend into declaring open war on each other, so it's probably a justified view.
* Subverted in ''[[Watchmen (
* ''[[Batman]]'' foe Ra's Al Ghul has stubbornly clung to life for centuries via Lazarus Pits and body snatching from beyond the grave since he doesn't believe any of his children are worthy of taking over his criminal empire. He first crossed paths with Bruce Wayne because he thought he could convince Bruce to become his heir with the temptations of power (his empire) and love (his daughter Talia).
* [[Disney Ducks Comic Universe|Scrooge McDuck]] eventually named Huey, Dewey and Louie as his sole heirs because (in part) the miser feared Donald would squander his fortune given the opportunity and considered Gladstone too lazy to deserve the inheritance. Not to mention Donald's (lack of) business skills.
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== [[Film]] ==
* Dr. Evil and his son Scott in the ''[[Austin Powers]]'' films. Dr. Evil is rather disappointed that his son doesn't want to follow in his footsteps, though Scott was heading in that direction in the second movie and becomes a near copy of his father in the third. {{spoiler|The irony is that by that point <s>Dr. Evil</s> "Dougie" had [[Heel Face Turn|reformed]]}}.
* The King of the Swamp Castle in ''[[Monty Python and
* ''[[Gladiator (
* In ''[[Repo!
* The title character in ''Yellowbeard'' is extremely disappointed in his son Dan for being a nice guy: he wanted Dan to be a vicious, murderous pirate like himself.
* This the entire plot of ''[[Billy Madison]]''. Billy wants to inherit his father's hotel chain upon the announcement of the latter's retirement, but is deemed unworthy because he's uneducated, obnoxious, an idiot, and sometimes an ass. Billy tries to remedy this by trying to complete the education he never truly received to avoid having his father hand over the reigns to corporate sleezebag Eric Gordon.
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== [[Literature]] ==
* Rudyard Kipling's poem [https://web.archive.org/web/20140113093230/http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_gloster.htm "The Mary Gloster"].
* In [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Stardust (
* In [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[
* In ''[[Hero Series|Heroes Adrift]]'', the main characters are sent to look for a long-lost bastard descendant of the queen as an alternate heir. Both the queen and the heir end up hating this idea once they actually meet.
* This is the reason Samwell Tarly ends up joining the Night's Watch in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''. His dad wants a warrior and a lord for a heir, and Sam is soft-hearted boy of some obesity. When, after a long series of miscarriages and daughters, a second male heir is produced, his dad offers him a choice: join the Night's Watch, thereby forsaking all claims to land and heirs, or experience a "tragic hunting accident."
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** Speaking of, the current membership of the Kingsguard itself is considered this by its veteran members. Lord Commander Selmy considers the other six utterly unworthy; Jamie for breaking his oath and the rest for their lack of skill (in his late 60s, he claims to be capable of killing the five of them as easily as a dagger cuts through cheese, and they believe him). Things go down hill once he's kicked out. Jaime replaces him as commander, and tells one of the new guard that a member he had served with prior to the start of the series would have been able to cut through the six new members "with his left hand, while taking a piss with his right."
* Kate Blackwell struggles with finding a proper heir in Sidney Sheldon's ''Master of the Game''.
** Her son Tony wants to be an artist. {{spoiler|She manipulates his career in painting to fail. Then she seems to encourage him to marry a Texas oilman's daughter; instead, his attempt to rebel sends him into the arms of an heiress to the company Kate REALLY wants, and soon she's pregnant with potential heirs. Unfortunately, there's a [[Death
** The resultant granddaughters are twins, but Alexandra has no interest in the company, and Eve is far too evil to inherit it. {{spoiler|Eve manipulates herself into Kate's good graces again, but winds up with a [[Fate Worse Than Death]].}}
** {{spoiler|Alexandra has a son, and at book's end Kate is already making plans to mold him into a suitable heir at last...}}
* ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to
* ''[[The Shadow of the Wind]]'' has Don Ricardo, a rich industrial who thinks his son Jorge unfitted to take over his business, {{spoiler|so he seeks out the woman he impregnated fifteen years earlier, trying to groom their son Julián into his heir, glad he was not aborted as Ricardo had ordered the woman. He's not so glad about it later on.}}
* In the first ''[[
* [[Heralds of Valdemar|King Valdemar's]] fear that one of these might take the throne resulted in the arrival of the Companions, and an immediate edit to the inheritance laws to require that the monarch of Valdemar must also be a Herald.
== [[Live
* On ''[[Haven]]'' Police Chief Wournos is trying various was to to get his son Nathan ready to take over for him and be able to deal with the deadly "Troubles" on his own-He aims to make his son tougher because he'll need to be.
* Played with in an early episode of ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]''. Grand Nagus Zek proclaims Quark to be his successor, and promptly dies soon afterward. Quark becomes Nagus and Zek's son makes several attempts on his life so that he can usurp the title. {{spoiler|Turns out Zek's not really dead, and it was all a ruse to test to see if his son was ready to be Nagus. Zek determines that he isn't due to his impulsive attempts to simply kill Quark instead of subtly amassing power and support before getting rid of him. Quark himself was not in on the ruse and was not very happy to find out his life was endangered just to teach Zek's son a lesson.}} The successor ends up being {{spoiler|Rom}}.
* One episode of ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'', "The Masks," is about a group of greedy, selfish in-laws who visit a dying man only because they want a part of his large inheritance. The man gives them the condition that they can only inherit his fortune if they wear a set of hideous-looking masks until midnight. They succeed in fulfilling this condition (and as it turns out, the old man dies at the very stroke of midnight), but the man gets the last laugh on them as it turns out that the masks have permanently disfigured their faces to make them more suitable for their personalities.
* Drives most of the plot of ''[[Downton Abbey]]''. On the death of his heir, on the ''Titanic'', the Earl of Grantham's estate is all set to pass to...a solicitor. Gasp. Of course, the real issue is that Grantham would much rather leave his estate to one of his actual children (but can't, because they're all girls) than to a distant relative he's never met, who could potentially throw his daughters out onto the streets with nothing when the time comes.
* ''[[Justified (TV series)|Justified]]'' has Detroit mafia don Theo Tonin and his son [[Man Child|Sammy]], a spoiled, weak-willed mob prince who hides behind his father's reputation. As Theo's son, Sammy is the logical inheritor of the crime syndicate, but neither Theo nor Quarles has a high opinion of him.
== [[Tabletop
* In the ''[[Ravenloft]]'' setting, Azalin's son Irik was considered an unsuitable successor by his [[Lawful Evil]] father due to actually being a decent guy. Azalin eventually executed his own son for rebelling against him, and with no "suitable" heir, was "forced" to become a [[Our Liches Are Different|lich]].
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Shinji in ''[[Fate/stay
** Only in one route though. In the other two, {{spoiler|Shinji loses big time to Shirou instead, after Sakura gave Rider to him}}. And, of course, {{spoiler|Sakura has spent the last eleven years being horrifically abused by ''both'' of them, so she's hardly won either...}}.
* In ''[[Ace Attorney]]'', Franziska von Karma accuses Edgeworth of disgracing her father's family name due to his losses at the hands of Phoenix Wright. She's flummoxed when he doesn't care about the insult, since he's had [[Character Development]] and learned there were more important things than a perfect winning streak.
** And because {{spoiler|von Karma was a murderer who killed Edgeworth's father and tried to get him accused of murder}}, but that issue is never really brought up.
* And Shiki in ''[[Tsukihime]]'' is disinherited because he is extremely sick after an almost deadly accident, and even after recovering is still too bad as a result. {{spoiler|Also, he is not a real Tohno, only was fooled - and thus fooled the others - in believing to be. The real Tohno SHIKI was killed, and even after coming back to life he was too mentally unstable.}}
* ''[[
* In the backstory of ''[[
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Prince Zuko of ''[[
* In ''[[Kim Possible]],'' Señor Senior, Sr. is a classic [[Affably Evil]] Villain whose greatest disappointment is his [[Cloudcuckoolander]] / [[Minion
** This doesn't seem to bother Junior all that much, however. If anything, it only annoys him. Also, it's clear that Señor Senior, Sr. loves his son and fully intends to make him his heir, he's just a little frustrated.
* In ''[[
* Beezy on ''[[Jimmy Two
* In ''[[The Simpsons (
* In ''[[Thundercats 2011
* In ''[[Top Cat]] and the Beverly Hills Cats'', a wealthy woman left her entire fortune to her niece because she hates her other relatives. No reason for this hatred has ever been mentioned.
* In ''[[
== [[Web Original]] ==
* In one ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' short, Strong Bad wonders who will take up his email-answering mantle after he dies. He's so disappointed with all the candidates that he resolves to just never die.
* Bruce Goodkind, the richest man in the ''[[Whateley Universe]]'' and head of the mutant-hating Goodkind family, seems to be having this problem. Oldest son? Came out as a [[
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Quain'tana from ''[[
== [[Real Life]] ==
* JT, the crack gang leader made famous for letting grad student [https://web.archive.org/web/20130914214614/http://www.sudhirvenkatesh.org/ Sudhir Venkatesh] stick around with his gang. Venkatesh writes about how, toward the end of his career, JT tried to rebuild his gang in new areas but was largely thwarted by prospective gangsters being more interested in whether they can get a new bicycle if they join the gang than in JT's dreams of power and wealth.
* Inverted by [[
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