Sins of Our Fathers: Difference between revisions

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This one's really popular with immortal or [[Undead]] antagonists, such as vengeful ghosts, liches, vampires, dragons, and the like, as well as many a [[Sealed Evil in a Can]], whose first order of business upon getting out of said can is often meting out some very nasty payback on the descendants of the people who put it in there to start with. As said descendants have typically (though not always) done nothing wrong other than be descended from the people who originally wronged the villain, the result is often a monstrous injustice that a hero will have to set to rights, usually by taking down the villain in question. Or a villain may [[Curse]] a family, with it descending to generation after generation of innocents. On the other hand, if the descendant in question is carrying on their ancestor's role in whatever annoyed the attacker in the first place (for example, fighting evil demons like their ancestor did), it makes a lot more sense.

Sometimes an [[Anti-Hero]] will do this to a villain's children, in hopes of drawing on their parental feelings and dragging said villain out of their fortress.

Sometimes an [[Anti-Hero]] will do this to a villain's children, in hopes of [[Even Evil Has Loved Ones|drawing on their parental feelings]] and dragging said villain out of their fortress.

A variant is the "hereditary prison", when children of prisoners are born in prison and stay there for the rest of their lives, and so on.

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The villain may justify it on the grounds that the children profited by the original crime. Particularly when they own something that belonged to the villain. Do not expect the villain to be deterred by questions such as how he came into possession of the item in the first place, whether the children knew or could have been reasonably expected to know of the provenance of the item, or if they might give it back if they knew. Not that a return might assuage a sufficiently off-his-rocker villain anyway. (On the other hand, the children, aware of the tainted source, may attempt to [[Buy Them Off]] but refuse to restore, which tends to move the situation out of the scope of this trope.)

Contrast [[Revenge by Proxy]], where the target is the child or other associates in preference to the character who actually wronged them, in order to make that character suffer more. [[Revenge Through Corruption]] is when the method of revenge is trying to effect a [[Face Heel Turn]] upon the offspring of one's enemy. See also [[Generational Trauma]], which might overlap if someone decides that the best way to resolve the family issues is to get vengeance on the descendants of the traumatiser.

Contrast [[Revenge by Proxy]], where the target is the child or other associates in preference to the character who actually wronged them, in order to make that character suffer more. [[Revenge Through Corruption]] is when the method of revenge is trying to effect a [[Face Heel Turn]] upon the offspring of one's enemy. See also [[Generational Trauma]], which might overlap if someone decides that the best way to resolve the family issues is to get vengeance on the descendants of the traumatiser, or the trauma could stem from the descendants of the Sinning Father getting shamed and stigmatised or outright physically harmed for said ancestor's legacy.

The trope name comes from a line from [[The Bible]]: "The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon their children."