Surprise Incest: Difference between revisions

* In Frances Burney's 1778 novel ''[[Evelina]]'', the eponymous heroine saves one Mr. MacCartney from suicide, since he believes he fell in love with his sister. MacCartney grows to idolize his savior Evelina in a quasi-romantic fashion. However, at the end of the novel, Evelina is revealed to be his real sister, while his original beloved was an unwitting (and unrelated) impostor.

* Henry Fielding seems to like to subvert this trope for particular effect: In ''Joseph Andrews'', the hero thinks for a while that his childhood sweetheart is his sister; while in ''[[Tom Jones]]'', a random one night stand is later seemingly revealed to be the protagonist's mother... Oh NO! Our hero has done something legitimately bad! {{spoiler|Fortunately, this is later resolved to be a lie.}}

* In [[Orson Scott Card]]'s ''Speaker For The Dead'', {{spoiler|Miro discovers his mom was cheating on his (sterile) dad with Libo, which makes him and his girlfriend half-siblings. Miro doesn't care, but the girl does. Tragedy ensues}}.

* In the Peter David novel ''[[Sir Apropos of Nothing]]'', the title character eventually falls in love with the princess he's guarding. But the morning after they've consummated their love, he finds a flame birthmark on her hip, which suspiciously looks like the one on his. {{spoiler|Further, it's revealed (though to Apropos only) that the princess is the illegitimate daughter of the Queen and the court jester... and that answers Apropos' question of who his father is, as his mother was raped by a gang of knights... and a shadowy figure that matches the description of the court jester.}}

** This is dealt with at greater length in ''[[The Children of Húrin|The Children of Hurin]]''.

** This is based on the story of Kullervo from ''[[The Kalevala]]''. He unknowingly sleeps with his own sister, who then commits suicide.