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Everyone Is Related: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
In some stories, it's not enough for the hero and villain to be [[Long Lost Sibling|long lost brothers]], separated at birth. It's not enough for the protagonist to find out that the man he has chased down with intense hatred is [[Luke, I Am Your Father|also the man who conceived him]], and thus they are linked by fate. Every main character is secretly related, and everyone they have even incidental contact with is a far removed cousin or uncle. If nothing else, [[The Dragon]] is secretly [[The Lancer]]'s adoptive father, or the [[White Magician Girl]] went to the same monastery as the dread summoner who now threatens all of existence. For one reason or another, everyone of even marginal importance to the story secretly has some kind of connection to each other, to be revealed only at the moment of greatest dramatic impact (because the writers hadn't thought of it until just now). In particularly silly cases, you can gauge a character's rising importance in the story by the fact that they are suddenly revealed to have been related to someone else in the plot all along.
Very common in [[Soap Opera|Soap Operas]], which hinge on dramatic twists. You can't really blame them for eventually running out of reasonable ones and going back to the family well. Also common in particularly [[Mind Screw|Mind Screwy]] and plot-heavy video games and long-running dramatic television series. Modern incarnations are often a [[Deconstruction]], but not always. The presence of (fertile) immortals can easily lead to this, especially if the immortality is itself heritable.
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Subtrope of [[One Degree of Separation]].
{{examples
== Anime and Manga ==
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== Film ==
* [[Crazy Stupid Love]]: Sort of. The main character's friend meets a girl in a bar that made him want to be monogamous {{spoiler|who's the main character's daughter}}, and the woman the main character met in the bar {{spoiler|is his children's teacher}}.
* An unusual variation: [[Kevin Smith]]'s [[The View
== Literature ==
* [[JRR Tolkien (Creator)|JRR Tolkien]]'s Middle-earth (''[[The Lord of the Rings (Literature)|The Lord of the Rings]]'', etc.) has many related protagonists by virture of them mostly being from various prominent families or ruling dynasties. But there aren't really any cases of 'surprise-relatives' (which this trope seems to be about). Well, except perhaps Túrin getting told his wife is actually his grown-up and amnesiac baby sister, but the reader knows that from the start. This is most apparent in the First Age, where all the main Elves and Men are descended from the three 'fathers' of their respective races (Ingwe, Finwe and Elwe/Elu Thingol for the Elves, and Beor, Marach and Haldad for the Men), and there is much intermarriage between the descendents, which eventually leads to the birth of Elrond and Elros, who are descended from all of them simultanously. This trope becomes less apparent in the Second and Third Ages, as the First Age [[Kill
* Most of the wizarding families in [[Harry Potter]] are related in one way or another, especially through the Black family. One of Harry Potter's grandmothers was a Black. Ron Weasley likewise had a Black (a different Black) as a grandmother. Draco Malfoy's mother was Narcissa Black before she married. Likewise, one of Neville Longbottom's grandparents was a member of the Black family. And that's just the major characters...
** Let's see, Tonks is the niece of Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy, making her Draco's cousin. Well, just see the [http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/File:Black_Family_Tree.png family tree yourself] It's surprising that the Lovegood family isn't there.
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* In the ''[[Warrior Cats (Literature)|Warrior Cats]]'' series, considering that each clan has its own [[Tangled Family Tree]], and that cats inside one clan are not allowed to mate with cats from other clans (though some still do), it is not surprising that after a few generations of mating with each other, almost everyone is related to one another inside any given clan, except for newcomers.
* In [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Time Enough for Love]]'', protagonist Lazarus Long is the [[The Older Immortal|oldest living human being]], having survived over 2,300 years thanks to an abnormally long natural lifespan and the technology of [[Fountain of Youth|human rejuvenation]]. It is statistically estimated that, if you claim any ancestry at all from the Howard Families (humans who took part in a breeding program designed to improve longevity), there's an 80+ percent chance that you're his descendant, and the novel makes something of a [[Running Gag]] about everyone Lazarus meets telling him how closely related they are (fifth generation descendent of his eight wife, etc.). This even extends outside the Families, as he's had uncounted unregistered children over the centuries and at one point relates a story about meeting a pair of slave twins whom he suspects of being his great-to-the-nth grandchildren.
* The medieval epic poem ''Parzival'' by Wolfram von Eschenbach lives this trope. The titular hero Parzival [[Long
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** And if you put the pieces together after 358/2 Days and Birth Before Sleep, then (deep breath) {{spoiler|You've got Sora, Riku and Kairi who are related to Ven, Terra and Aqua, however vaguely. Sora and Kairi become heartless (well, Sora does) for a time, meaning they have nobodies, Roxas and Namine. Roxas's appearance is based on Ven, who Sora has been [[Sharing a Body]] with since he was a small child. Then there's Xion, who is based on Roxas's memories of Sora's memories of Kairi. There is a scene where Namine and Xion talk to each other. Somehow, the universe fails to explode.}}
* The ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' series is notorious for this, but the most notable one is ''Genealogy of the Holy War'' where thanks to the "second generation" mechanic, with proper breeding the entire army really ''can'' be composed of various siblings and cousins and cousins' cousins, etc.
** Which can be [[Brother
* ''[[Ace Attorney|Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney]]'' really liked this trope. {{spoiler|Apollo is the half-brother of Trucy Gramarye/Wright, who was adopted by Phoenix Wright. Their mother Thalassa was married to Zak, who was accused of killing her father Magnifi Gramarye. This accounts for pretty much all the main characters besides Kristoph and Klavier...who are brothers}}
** Oh, and don't let us get started on {{spoiler|the Feys. Mia, Maya, Pearl, Morgan, Elise Deauxnim, serial killer Dahlia Hawthorne (who was ''coincidentally'' jailed by aforementioned Mia), her identical twin Iris (who was Phoenix Wright's girlfriend in university while ''posing as Dahlia'')... Pretty much ''all'' females who appear in more than one case in the first three games, safe Maggey, Lotta and Adrian, can be safely assumed to be a Fey. Turns out even ''Bikini'' is one. And those who are ''not'' Feys are sure to have [[One Degree of Separation|some kind of connection]] to them. Especially bad with Phoenix, whose life seems to have been ''determined'' by the Fey Clan ever since loooong before he knew that it even existed.}}
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