Loser Son of Loser Dad/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Character struggles with the scorn of their peers based on something their parents did wrong.

  • Straight: Jake and Lucy's father was a convicted felon who passed away in prison, while their mother is a known alcoholic. Because of this, the other adults see the two as a "lost cause" and have taught their children to scorn the pair.
  • Exaggerated: Jake and Lucy's father murdered the son of a local celebrity in a bar brawl, and was executed. Their mother is rumored to have slept around and was Teen Pregnant with Jake; it's rumored that they aren't even both related to their infamous father, though that doesn't spare them from suffering for his bad reputation.
  • Downplayed: The discrimination lasted for a few weeks. Afterwards, Jake and Lucy were treated as normal people.
  • Justified: Generation Xerox
  • Inverted: Jake and Lucy's upstanding parents are judged for their children's misdeeds.
    • Or Jake and Lucy are presumed to be innocent and charitable at all times, in spite of their secret (or not-so-secret) misdeeds, because their parents have always been held in high-esteem.
    • The people assume Jake and Lucy are good because their parents were so bad, and "Evil skips a generation."
  • Subverted: Despite their parents having a bad rep, Jake and Lucy are judged for who they are.
  • Double Subverted: ...At least, that's what everyone claims. In practice, it's clear that isn't the case by a longshot.
  • Parodied: Jake and Lucy struggle with their family's poor reputation because Daddy once shortchanged the grocery store by a penny. Even though he corrected the mistake immediately after making it.
  • Deconstructed: Having never really been given a chance, the siblings suffer until Jake is murdered while trying to keep the football team from raping his sister. When the police laugh off any thoughts of prosecuting the offenders, Lucy goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge that basically wipes the town off the map.
  • Reconstructed: Having never really been given a chance, the siblings suffer until Jake is murdered while trying to keep the football team from raping his sister. The police went to arrest the entire team and when they questioned Lucy, they realised how misfortunate she and her brother had been. Lucy is given proper shelter, a PSA is made against discrimminating children based on their parent's wrongdoings, and a new law is passed down where berating children for their parent's wrongdoing is a hatecrime punishable by the law.
  • Zig Zagged: ???
  • Averted: No one considers judging people by their parents.
    • Jack and Lucy are orphans.
  • Enforced: ???
  • Lampshaded: "Well, of course Jake and Lucy are bad. After all, we all know that evil runs In the Blood."
  • Invoked: The mayor payed the media to post the picture of the criminal's family up on the TV screen so that they will be recognised.
  • Defied: After the incident, Jake and Lucy's mother moves away from that community to spare her children that sort of treatment.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???
  • Played For Laughs: ???
  • Played For Drama: Not only Jake and Lucy the town's scapegoats because of their parents' misdeeds, but those same parents also abuse them. Due to this double whammy of being scorned by everyone for the actions of the very same people who abuse them, and shown No Sympathy whatsoever - Jake and Lucy are, eventually, Driven to Suicide.

Back to Loser Son of Loser Dad.

Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Loser_Son_of_Loser_Dad/Playing_With?oldid=862147"