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Nice Job Breaking It, Herod: Difference between revisions
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* King Herod's "Massacre of the Innocents" in [[The Bible|the Gospel of Matthew]] is the [[Trope Namer]].
** King Joash of Judah escapes the blade when his aunt protects him as an infant from his grandmother Athaliah, who seeks to kill all heirs to the throne so that she could become queen.
* ''[[Harry Potter
* An example of this occurred in the ''[[Wheel of Time]]'' series, where the prequel novel ''New Spring'' described attempts by the forces of the Dark to find and kill Rand right from the day he was born. Since they weren't entirely sure how old he was at the time, they went around killing pretty much every young male who showed signs of being a channeler.
** An interesting little [[Word of God]] statement mentions that this royally pissed off [[Big Bad]] Ishamael badly enough that he messily killed the head of the Black Ajah at the time.
* A large part of the prequels to [[David Eddings]]' ''[[Belgariad]]'' deals with Polgara's task of safeguarding the line of young Rivan kings from Torak's assassins. In the main story, Asharak gets the full treatment, as Garion enacts a [[Death by Irony|very specific form of revenge]] upon him for the deaths of his parents.
** This is touched off by an earlier Nice Job Breaking It, Herod when Torak sent assassins to eliminate the Rivan royal family. Polgara's charges are the descendants of the one son who inevitably escaped the slaughter.
* "[[Heroics For Beginners]]" mentions a villain who succeeded to the throne of a kingdom by slaughtering the rightful ruler, his wife, their children, and so on. The catch was he couldn't get all of the children—even though he'd been wise enough to schedule an assault on ''every potential heir and his or her family''. Amazingly, the villain was [[Genre Savvy]] enough to '''not''' attempt to break it; not because he didn't want the successors dead, but because if he did kill everyone in the necessary age groups—teenagers and under—he'd cripple the country's economy down the road. Instead, he went [[Properly Paranoid|psychotically paranoid and ended up locking himself in a nigh-inaccessible room.]]
* ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia|The Horse and his Boy]]'': The corrupt official Lord Bar in King Lune's court in Archenland learned of the prophecy that one of the twin newborn princes would someday save Archenland from the greatest danger that would ever threaten it. Even though Bar had no idea what this danger would be, on the off-chance it would be something he would cause, he decided to try to get said prince out of the way just to be on the safe side. Too bad for him Aslan was watching over things...
* Let's not forget [[Macbeth]] (the [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]] version): Because the witches have told him that the offspring of Banquo will be kings, [[Macbeth]] decides it's a good idea to have Banquo and son murdered. The murderers kill Banquo, but naturally screw up the ''important'' part of the job. It's a ''variation'' on the trope, because [[Macbeth]] is not killed or overcome by Fleance, but his descendants later fulfilled the prophecy (at least according to the erroneous genealogies of Shakespeare's time).
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* In ''[[The Graveyard Book]]'', the Jacks of all trades hear a prophecy that some toddler is going to be their doom. They send in an assassin, who kills his whole family but fails to get the baby. You can guess where this is going.
* In ''[[Curse of the Wolfgirl]]'', it is revealed that [[Retired Monster]] Malveria pulled this one out of the playbook back before the "retired" part. Since then, she's become part of the heroes' group of [[True Companions]], and when the obligatory survivor turns up, it is as the [[Big Bad]] of the book.
* ''[[Vorkosigan Saga
* Subverted quite nicely in the short story "Another End of the Empire" by Tim Pratt, which you can read here: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2009/20090622/empire-f.shtml
* In ''[[Gwenhwyfar]]'' by [[Mercedes Lackey]], which is based on Arthurian Legend, the protagonist hears of how Arthur, under the advice of the Merlin, killed all newborn babies in the kingdom (it's even implied that this is the reason why {{spoiler|Gwen's mother dies while giving birth to her baby brother, who also dies}}). Toward the end of the book, [[Big Bad|Medraut]] reveals that {{spoiler|Arthur was trying to kill his illegitimate (and incestuous) son, but Morganna and Anna Morgause foresaw it and worked a spell that caused Medraut to be born a few months early, saving him from Arthur's wrath}}.
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* In ''The Idhún's Memories'', a trilogy by the Spanish writer Laura Gallego, in the world Idhún, Ashran the Necromancer uses an astral conjunction to wipe out all dragons and unicorns after hearing one of each will destroy him. Eventually, one baby dragon and unicorn are rescued and sent to the Earth through magic, which will end up killing him.
* Subverted in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''. The maegi Mirri Maz Duur {{spoiler|magically kills Daenarys Stormborn's unborn son in utero, both for revenge against the father and because the unborn child is prophesied to be the Stallion That Mounts the World, an unstoppable city-smashing warlord. While it doesn't exactly turn out well for Mirri in the end, she DOES successfully prevent the boy from being born and fulfilling whatever his Super Special Destiny was supposed to be.}}
** We shall see, {{spoiler|his mother still lives, and she might well wind up taking her son's mantle and become the Stallion that Mounts the World.}} Prophecies in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' have a tendency to come true.
* Was a large part, although hidden, in the ''[[Ender's Game]]'' series. Specifically in ''Ender's Shadow'': Bean was the only survivor of 20-odd children. He then grew up to assist in the total destruction of the only other sentient species.
* ''[[The Earthsea Trilogy]]'' has a king who received a prophecy his empire will fall because of a person from the former royal house. By then, there were only two children left; a boy and a girl. He was afraid to kill them ([[Royal Blood]]), so he banished them to a desolate island. They survived until old age. Then, one day, Ged is washed ashore. The girl gave him an old family keepsake...
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