Single Line of Descent: Difference between revisions

Line 2:

Curious phenomenon where there's only ''one'' true descendant of the some legendary hero/villain or chosen one. Usually it's only that one person who can save the day or bring about [[The End of the World As We Know It]]. [[Because Destiny Says So]], of course. And often it ''has'' to be [[Lineage Comes From the Father|the male line]], or whichever keeps the last name. The fact that there's multiple branching into different last names doesn't count genetically for some bizarre reason.

This is curious in itself. Most family trees branch quite a bit due to multiple children having multiple children. In fact, if you look [~~http://en.~~wikipedia~~.org/wiki/Identical_ancestors_point~~ far enough into the past], you reach a point where every human being alive then is either the ancestor of everybody or nobody who is currently alive. Here apparently only one child was born per generation. In older legends, it was explicitly stated that only the firstborn "counts", but the socioeconomic systems that fostered that kind of thinking withered away, leaving only this trope.

This is curious in itself. Most family trees branch quite a bit due to multiple children having multiple children. In fact, if you look [[wikipedia:Identical ancestors point|far enough into the past]], you reach a point where every human being alive then is either the ancestor of everybody or nobody who is currently alive. Here apparently only one child was born per generation. In older legends, it was explicitly stated that only the firstborn "counts", but the socioeconomic systems that fostered that kind of thinking withered away, leaving only this trope.

Similarly, the sole true descendant is generally treated as essentially equivalent to their ancestor, having the same powers, personality, ethnicity, and so on. Never mind that, if the legendary hero lived twenty generations ago, he had roughly a million contemporaries who are just as closely related to the modern-day version as he.

Line 94:

** Some 30% of Europeans have [[Charlemagne]], or Charles the Great, as their ancestor. Charles was not a first-class fornicator - he had ten children - but all his offspring survived and had in turn children.

* This is averted with pretty much anyone who had descendants, if you go surprisingly not far back in history. A paper in ''Nature'' demonstrated that if a person has four or five grandchildren, either their line tends to die out within a few generations, or the number of descendants begins to increase exponentially. Someone living two or three thousand years ago will either have no descendants at all alive today, or be an ancestor to a lot of people.

* Averted with [~~http://en.~~wikipedia~~.org/wiki/Sophia_of_Hanover~~ Sophia of Hanover] who has over 5000 legitimate descendants. Out of these, all who are not Catholics or married to Catholics (still over 1000) are in line to the British throne.

* Averted with [[wikipedia:Sophia of Hanover|Sophia of Hanover]] who has over 5000 legitimate descendants. Out of these, all who are not Catholics or married to Catholics (still over 1000) are in line to the British throne.

** Due to the fact that the members of European royal families tended to marry members of other European royal families, just about every royal in Europe is descended from her.

** Due to the fact that her descendants were mostly royalty, and that royal men tend to have at least one [[The Mistress|mistress]], there are ''even more'' illegitimate descendants. William IV of the UK alone had ''ten'' illegitimate children by his mistress, the actress Dorothea Jordan (he would have married her, but there would have been an uproar; remember Edward VIII? Now put that a hundred years earlier). Among those illegitimate descendants is [[David Cameron]].

Line 105:

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Single Line Of Descent]]

[[Category:Single Line of Descent]]