Surprise Incest: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|''How was I supposed to know that me and her were both related?

 

''The Game The Whole Family Can Play!''

''Haha! Guess what you were doing?''

 

The surprise relationship is usually either brother/sister, half-siblings, parent/child (much rarer these days than it was in ancient Greece), or, very rarely, uncle/niece or aunt/nephew. Cousins are only borderline [[squick]]y since marriage between cousins is actually legal in some regions, and is quite acceptable in many romance novels. In fact, in the ''[[Arabian Nights]]'', a man will call a woman he loves or is married to "daughter of my uncle", because in that time marriage between cousins was considered the best option! Because of this, it almost never appears as a plot point since it's a little too close for some folks to be comfortable, but not close enough that the plot demands the relationship break up.

 

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', Shinji Ikari and Rei Ayanami seem to have some warm fuzzy feelings for each other, but there is a vague connection between Rei and Shinji's mom, Yui. The real kicker is when the viewer learns that {{spoiler|Rei was cloned partly from Shinji's mother and partly from Lilith, the mother of the entire human race.}} This technically makes Rei {{spoiler|Shinji's half-sister. Shinji remains unaware of this, he only discovers that Rei is a clone of ''something''}}. But whether or not their relationship moves past [[Like Brother and Sister]] is open to discussion.

** While the manga does seem to lean in a Shinji/Rei direction, it's not that simple. {{spoiler|Rei gradually falls in love with Shinji, but doesn't really realize it until it's thrown in her face by Armisael, who does so in a twisted [[Hannibal Lecture]] fashion. Shinji isn't romantically attracted to Rei, but feels a connection with her that he can't explain and wants to get as close to her as he can.}}

* The manga ''[[Maya's Funeral Procession]]'' has the main character, Reina, falling in love with {{spoiler|a mysterious girl named Maya}}, only to discover that {{spoiler|Reina is the product of her mother's affair with Maya's father}} and thus they're actually half-siblings.

* ''[[Koi Kaze]]'' has 27-year-old Koshiro and 15-year-old Nanoka having a chance encounter, going to an amusement park together, forming an emotional connection and spark of mutual attraction, and then finding out they're brother and sister in ''the first episode''. This turns into a deconstruction of [[Brother-Sister Incest]], as the two go on to develop a painful and guilt-ridden romantic relationship against their better judgment, fully aware of the devastating implications if their secret got out, but both unwilling to live without the other.

* Depending on your interpretation of their relationship before the big reveal, Kira and Cagalli of ''[[Gundam Seed]]''. They never really got around to doing anything, but they definitely looked like the usual romantic pairing all the way up to the last five episodes of the series. [[Word of God]] is that this was a deliberate reference to Luke and Leia.

* Negi and {{spoiler|Asuna}}, one of the most popular and [[Ship Tease|teased]] pairings in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', {{spoiler|are ''very'' distantly related by the Lifemaker, maybe closer, but how close has yet to be revealed.}}.

* In ''[[Daily Lives of High School Boys]]'', Emi, after days of [[Cannot Spit It Out]], finally finds the chance to confess her love to the visiting Hidenori on a festival, which coincides with his last day in town which happened to be his maternal hometown. But just when she thinks she finally found her chance, Hidenori makes a most surprising revelation to her: they are cousins.

{{quote|'''Emi''':"And so, I ended my summer break without being able to do a thing."}}

 

== Comic Books ==

* It may never have been revealed to the characters, but [[Elf Quest|Cutter]] once got it on with Kahvi during a pre-battle orgy, and Kahvi takes up with him while Cutter's family is lost in time, though it doesn't really work out. Much later, readers learned that Kahvi is the daughter of former Wolfriders chief Two-Spear. Cutter is a direct descendant of Two-Spear's half-sister, Huntress Skyfire, making Kahvi his cousin four times removed. Which, especially considering the small gene pool of the Wolfriders, isn't spectacularly close. And with Recognition preventing conception for any but good genetic combinations, the elves may not ''have'' an incest taboo.

** Also, if one looks at Scouter/Tyleet's relationship, you'll realize they're 2nd cousins (Brothers Longbranch and One-Eye, Longbranch sires Nightfall, One-Eye sires Scouter, Nightfall has Tyleet, Scouter and Tyleet Recognize). It makes sense, however, that such in-pairings will happen in such a small tribe- so yes, Recognition probably does take care of the biggest problem with incest. Thankfully, however, we haven't been subjected to any -closer- pairings...

* In the [[Marvel Universe]], Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler finds out that his then-girlfriend is {{spoiler|his adoptive sister in magical disguise.}} This wouldn't have been so [[squick]]y except for two things: 1) He kept dating her anyway; and 2) She knew the whole time.

* A story arc in ''[[The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers]]'' has Fat Freddy looking for his old home in Cleveland, broke, hungry, and bemoaning his perpetual bad luck. Just then, to his delight, a cute girl appears, befriends him, takes him home, feeds him, and joins him in the bathtub. A car pulls in and she warns "Here come my parents!" - Freddy sees them and exclaims "Holy Toledo, these are ''my'' parents too!"

 

== Fan Works ==

* In ''[http://percyjacksonfanfiction.wikia.com/wiki/Love_Kills Love Kills]'', a ''[[Percy Jackson and The Olympians]]'' fanfiction, {{spoiler|the main character, Jade, falls in love with Luke only to find out that he's her brother}}.

* In ''[[Naruto Veangance Revelaitons]]'', it turns out that Taliana, one of the girls Ronan regularly has sex with, is actually his mother. Then it turns out that she's a clone of Sakura, making Ronan's relationship with her incestuous as well.

 

== Film ==

* An extremely [[squick]]y reversal in ''[[Cave Dwellers|Ator The Fighting Eagle]]'': Ator and his sister Sunya are "in love" and want to marry, only later to find out that Ator was adopted, meaning they aren't siblings at all and can now safely marry. The [[Squick]] comes from the fact that they had fully [[Brother-Sister Incest|planned to marry]] even before they learned of Ator's adoption.

** Which leads you to wonder how she knew what kissing her brother open-mouth-style felt like..

** This actually isn't all that unrealistic. Kissing is very informative on a subconscious level, as chemicals in the saliva can reveal the level of your arousal to your partner by taste, and it's believed that the [[wikipedia:Major histocompatibility complex#MHC and sexual selection|Major Histocompatibility Complex]] has mechanisms in place that cause women to generally be more attracted to men whose MHC genes are more different, thereby encouraging genetic diversity and thus offspring with stronger immune systems. In this sense, it's entirely possible that Lorraine would instinctively recognize that Marty was related to her, or at the very least realize that Marty just wasn't all that attracted to her.

* The movie ''My Chauffeur'' flirted with this. As one of several [[The Un-Reveal|seeming reveals]] about who the female lead's "real father" was. Apparently Mom got around.

* ''[[Oldboy]]'', in which the main character is the victim of an elaborate revenge/imprisonment plot, the final result of which leads him to discover that {{spoiler|the woman he has fallen madly in love with is, in fact, his daughter}}. He, uh, doesn't take it so well.

* The major couple in ''[[The Beastmaster]]'' turn out to be cousins, though not one person ever remarks on this. Considering that she's described as his half-brother's cousin, maybe they're [[Not Blood Siblings|not blood cousins]] after all. She could always be the niece of the king's second wife.

* The Japanese film ''[[Bubble He No Go]]'' has a father sending his daughter (who doesn't know he's her father) back in time some 20 years to find her mother, only to find her younger father instead, who tries to shag her, but she refuses, only to almost give in but then he shortly before realizes that... and so on.

* In ''[[Lone Star]]'' {{spoiler|two characters that had dated in high school over their parents' STRONG objections reconnect as adults. They later find a photograph of his dad and her mom and realize why their parents were so opposed to them dating, namely, that they're half-siblings. But they're very much in love and she says that, due to complications in her last pregnancy, she can no longer have children. It's implied that they will stay together.}}

* In ''[[Tromeo and Juliet]]'', the eponymous pair find out at the end they're brother and sister, but decide to get married anyway. In true Troma fashion, they have hideously deformed kids.

* In the film ''[[Jean De Florette]]'' Papet and his nephew Ugolin drive a hunchback to his death in order to get his land. In the sequel ''[[Manon of the Spring]]'' {{spoiler|Ugolin sees the hunchback's daughter Manon bathing in a pond and falls desperately in love with her. He commits suicide when she rejects him. At the end his uncle Papet learns that Manon's father was his long-lost son. That means Ugolin was in love his own niece.}}

* In ''[[Curse of the Golden Flower]]'', {{spoiler|Chan and Wan}} eventually find out they're half siblings, and take it [[Freak-Out|about as well as you'd expect]].

* In Japanese film ''[[Inugami]]'', {{spoiler|Miki and Akira}} discover that they are mother and son. They also discover that {{spoiler|Akira}} is a product of [[Brother-Sister Incest|another, similarly themed trope]].

* Invoked in the Spanish film ''Km. 0'' - a woman hires a gigolo for an extra-marital fling, then comes to believe he's the son she gave up for adoption years earlier. {{spoiler|The actual son turns out to be the gigolo's roommate, to her great relief.}}

 

== Literature ==

* 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}}.

** 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.

* In the novel ''[[Moll Flanders]]'' by Daniel Defoe, Moll unknowingly marries her half-brother (her mother having abandoned her as an infant) and has two children with him. Upon discovering the truth, the dissolves the marriage and flees Virginia for England, leaving her two children behind.

* In ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', Theon Greyjoy's [[She's All Grown Up|unrecognized]] tomboy sister practically seduces him until [[The Reveal]] to purposely [[Squick|mess with his head]].

* In Juliet Marillier's novel ''[[The Sevenwaters Trilogy|Son of the Shadows]]'', the protagonists' sister, Niamh, falls for a druid. When her family finds out, they marry her off in a strategic alliance without telling her that the reason they're so horrified is because {{spoiler|the druid (Ciaran) is actually the son of her mother's evil stepmother, thus making him her half-uncle. Oops.}}

** Their relationship is later vindicated though. Their {{spoiler|daughter}} turns out to be {{spoiler|the child of the prophecy, ending a longstanding feud with Britain over sacred ground.}}. Unfortunately, {{spoiler|Niamh never lived to see this, having been pushed off a cliff by the aforementioned evil stepmother when the child was a toddler}}.

* In ''The Hollow Hills'', the second book in Mary Stewart's retelling of the story of [[King Arthur]], Morgause, Arthur's half-sister, bewitches him into sleeping with her, and he only finds out afterward of their relation to one another.

* Subverted in ''[[The Elvenbane]]'' by [[Andre Norton]] and Mercedes Lackey when Valyn is determined to push away Shana even though he admits that she is lovely and knows that she has a massive crush on him. He does this because he suspects that she is his half-sister. He actually goes so far as to set her up with his sidekick in a "handfasting" ritual. However, he picks up the [[Idiot Ball]] when he refuses to tell her why he is rejecting her even though she is hurt and angry about it. His excuse? She was [[Raised by Wolves]] (or dragons, in her case) and he's not sure if such things matter to her, in spite of the fact that she has already shown herself to be intelligent and fairly well-versed in human and elven culture.

* In the [[Jin Yong]] novel ''Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils'', all the women Prince Duan Yu has relationship with turned out to be one of his father's natural daughters. Subverted in that Duan Yu was later revealed to be the product of a one-night-stand between his mother and a rival to his father's throne.

* The Kwisatz Haderach breeding program of the Bene Gesserit in the ''[[Dune]]'' series does rather a lot of this if the crosses mentioned in the books are a representative sample. The people involved are generally unaware, at least at the time.

* In ''[[The Mists of Avalon]]'', a [[Feminist Fantasy|feminist retelling of Arthurian legend]], [[The Chessmaster|Viviane]] sets Morgaine up to sleep with her half-brother Arthur as part of a religious ritual. Neither of them recognized the other until after it was too late, and both were suitably freaked out.

* Happens not once, but twice in ''[[The Stone Dance of the Chameleon]]''. Carnelian and Osidian meet in secret and have a passionate affair. Then it turns out that Osidian is the [[God-Emperor]]'s son, making them [[Kissing Cousins|cousins]], since Carnelian's mother is the emperor's sister. Later, though, it turns out that Carnelian's father is actually [[Brother-Sister Incest|the emperor himself]] - which is not atypical in the ruling house, Osidian's mother being the emperor's other sister. Making them, you know, [[Sibling Incest|brothers]]. In case you hadn't noticed, this is [[Royally Screwed-Up|one messed up family.]]

* Subverted in the ''[[Mortal Instruments]]'' series. Clary and Jace are revealed to be siblings at the end of Book 1. They spend all of Book 2 and most of Book 3 angsting about their attraction, until it's revealed that {{spoiler|[[Not Blood Siblings|Jace was adopted.]]}} Played straight with {{spoiler|Sebastian/Jonathan, Clary's ''actual'' brother, [[Villainous Incest|who kisses her despite knowing full well that she's his sister.]]}}

* ''[[The Monk]]'': As if raping [[The Ingenue|Antonia]] wasn't enough, Ambrosio later learns she is his much younger sister.

* In the final [[Lensman]] novel, ''Children of the Lens,'' it's all but stated that the Kinnison kids (one boy, four girls) will be the progenitors of the Arisians' replacements.

* In [[Sherlock in Love]], [[Sherlock Holmes]] finds himself falling in love with the astoundingly intelligent and musically-gifted Violet Sigerson. {{spoiler|And then finds out that she is his half-sister, due to his mother's marital unfaithfulness. Holmes eventually tries to pursue a relationship, but Violet will have none of it and [[Faking the Dead|fakes her death]] to stop him forever.}}

 

* An unusual example in ''[[True Blood]]'', in which vampire Bill finds out his human squeeze Portia is actually his 3rd great-granddaughter.

* Occurred in at least one plotline in ''[[Law and Order SVU]]'' {{spoiler|The girl was the product of her mother's affair with the boy's father, and when the two began dating due to accidental reverse psychology (the mothers hated each other - the father was in fact the husband of both and living a double-life, known about by one of the wives the whole time) the girl is accidentally killed by her father when he reveals to her that he is the boy's father too. The autopsy reveals that the girl was pregnant when she died and that the boy was the father and that he was related to her. The boy is horrified and vomits in Stabler's office. The boy's mother kills his father when she finds out that he was planning on leaving her for the girl's mother, who was jailed for her part in the myriad crimes going around, with whom he also has a son, the boy's half-brother, and leaving the two new half brothers without any parent not in prison.}}

* One episode of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' had a young married couple who both turned out to share the same rare genetic disease... because unknown to the couple, the man's father had slept with the woman's mother and they were half-siblings.

** On top of that, the half-brother wants to stay together; while the half-sister is disgusted. The episode ends without resolving the situation, leaving the brother/husband hoping that she'll come back while Foreman (who supports the relationship) keeps him company.

* ''[[Red Dwarf]]'': it was revealed that Lister's ex-girlfriend Kochanski is actually his mother. In the next series, Lister still uses a [[Love Potion|sexual-magnetism virus]] to seduce her in an elevator despite his knowledge of this and it nearly works. Then again, Red Dwarf is not known for its continuity, and the revelation of Lister's parentage was probably not carried over from one series to the next. This editor certainly hopes so.

** Then again, Lister also discovered at the same time that he was his own father, which probably trumps any genetic relationship concerns.

*** They also could also be a race of Half-Siblings if you take into consideration that female cats ''can'' actually get pregnant from two [[Really Gets Around|(or more)]] different males in a ''single'' litter.

* In the 2007 remake of ''[[Flash Gordon (TV series)|Flash Gordon]]'' {{spoiler|Aura and Terek were in place to start up a romantic relationship, only for the eponymous hero to burst into the room to inform them that they are siblings. Later, it turns out they're twins.}}

{{quote|'''The Hair''': I think we're third cousins.

'''Liz''': Yeah, I'll see you at the reunion. }}

* On ''[[Green Wing]]'', Guy Secretan doesn't find out {{spoiler|Joanna}} is his long-lost and presumed-dead ''mother'' until after they've slept together. And it's been caught on tape.

** There is a memorable scene in this drama where one of the rivals, after being clued of the above situation and arguably tired for the on-off situation who has already left her out of the game, ends yelling to one part of the conflicted couple "It doesn't matter if you are really siblings or not, just go out of the country and marry anyway! Abroad nobody is going to know!".

* In ''[[Veronica Mars]]'', Duncan Kane broke up with Veronica because his mother told him she was his half-sister. After the first season finale revealed Veronica and Duncan weren't related, they got back together (until Duncan got [[Put on a Bus]]).

* In a Season 5 episode of ''[[The A-Team]]'', "Family Reunion," [[Handsome Lech|Face]] helps an attractive woman come to terms with her fugitive father reentering her life. Afterwards, he tells Murdock that he's going to ask her out after their mission is over because he's never met anyone else he's "felt so at ease with." Murdock starts insisting that she's not Face's type because he and the audience both know, due to dramatic irony, that {{spoiler|this beautiful woman is actually his half-sister, and her fugitive father is also his}}.

* In season 3 of ''[[Sons of Anarchy]]'' it is revealed that Jax Teller and Trinity Ashbey are both John Teller's children. Ony a few people know of this and since Jax lives in California and Trinity in Northern Ireland they do not see the need to tell them. When Jax comes to Ireland he and Trinity quickly hit it off and are about to have sex when their mothers walk in on them.

* ''[[Endgame]]'': When the son of the Huxley Hotel's owner goes missing, it turns out that he's gone on a bender because he discovered that the girl he was planning to marry was really his half sister, because his father had had an affair with her mother. {{spoiler|but then it also turns out that his ''mother'' had been having an affair too, so his father wasn't really his father, and they were unrelated after all.}}

* {{spoiler|Zig-zagged}} on ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]''; Maeby has an on/off relationship with {{spoiler|Steve Holt}}, who is ultimately revealed to be {{spoiler|her uncle GOB's illegitimate son (Played Straight).}} This prompts the couple to break up, but it turns out that {{spoiler|Maeby's mother Lindsay was adopted, meaning Maeby isn't related to Steve after all (Subverted), or indeed her other cousin George Michael, who had been attracted to her since the pilot (Inverted).}} An adult eventually finds out, however, and decides that regardless of who is related to whom the whole thing is just too weird.

* In ''[[The Nanny]]'', Fran finally meets a guy who seems absolutely perfect for her: Jewish, a doctor, and understands her. At Fran's cousin's wedding, they see each other, and kiss. Cue Fran's mother...

{{quote|'''Sylvia:''' Oh, Fran, I see you've met your cousin.

* ''[[Bored to Death]]'', {{spoiler|Jonathon and his girlfriend find out they're half-siblings.}} Left unresolved due to cancellation.

* In one episode of ''[[Boy Meets World]]'', Eric hooks up with a girl at a [[It Makes Sense in Context|combined school rave/parents' anniversary party]] who turns out to be his cousin. While they didn't get anywhere, he's still thoroughly squicked at the situation.

** It was a double-whammy, too. Not only was {{spoiler|Cavil designed to resemble Ellen's father, she had also viewed him a son. Just another sign of how deep his misanthropism and hatred toward his "parents" really ran}}.

* The end of the episode with the Pimp Hat in ''[[Less Than Perfect]]'' had Owen and his [[Distaff Counterpart]] date reveal that one of the many things they had in common was that they both had donor dads who were artists. Claude pulls him aside to tell him that it was very likely they were brother and sister. He retorts that "this couldn't wait until tomorrow?", meaning he wasn't completely against the incest.

 

 

== Music ==

* In the folk song "I'm My Own Grandpa," the narrator marries an older woman with an adult daughter. The narrator's father then marries the daughter, making the son's stepdaughter his stepmother. Because the narrator is married to his stepmother's mother, he has become his own step-grandfather. Not actually incest, either.

** A real life example was just avoided when Mandy Smith's mother broke up with Rolling Stone Bill Wyman's son. Smith and Wyman were married at the time, giving Smith a narrow escape from becoming her own step-granddaughter-in-law.

* The song "Butterflies" by [[Sia]] plays this on the listeners. It sounds like just a regular song about lingering awkwardness in a relationship, until the very last line right at the end of the song, when she casually remarks "Because we came from the same cocoon".

* Cornelis Vreeswijk's "Incest Song" has a similar structure an example named above: Boy meets girls, falls in love. Dad intervenes, claiming they are his sisters. Boy then talks to mom, mom: "Oh, don't worry, he's probably right but he's not YOUR father anyway..."

* The protagonist of the Chinese classic ''[[Dream of the Red Chamber]]'' is first cousins with both of his main love interests, although this was hardly taboo in China at the time.

* The folk song "[http://www.lyricsdownload.com/sainte-marie-buffy-johnny-be-fair-lyrics.html Johnny Be Fair]" parodies this. The female narrator repeatedly falls in love with men, only for her father to pull out the [[Parental Marriage Veto]] because he's ''their'' father too. In the end she goes to her mother, who says "he's not really your father, marry anyone you want". It dates back to Elizabethan times and probably further.

* Gothic Americana might not exist as a genre without this trope. Slim Cesna's Auto Club has an EP named "Crossbreeding Begins at Home." Similarly, about half of Jay Munly's oeuvre seems to rely upon this trope. If you're curious, look up the lyrics to "Big Black Bull Comes Like a Caesar" and "There's a Goose Walking Over My Grave." Beware the [[Squick]], though.

 

* Oedipus' story in [[Greek Mythology]] is particularly [[squick]]tastic since he unknowingly married his own mother. They only learned the truth years ''after'' having four kids together.

 

== Theatre ==

* The story of Oedipus is the subject of [[Sophocles]]' ''[[Oedipus the King]]''.

 

 

== Video Games ==

** Just to drive home how creepy this trope is, the whole story was ''[[Breaking the Fourth Wall|told in fast-forward]]'', so as not to "jack up the age rating of the game even further" and doom it to be delayed as "[[Duke Nukem Forever|No More Heroes Forever]]".

* In ''[[Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney|Apollo Justice Ace Attorney]]'', we see the protagonist, Apollo Justice. His attractive assistant is Trucy Wright, Phoenix Wright's daughter. They were often paired together in eyes of the fans, until it was revealed that Trucy was adopted, and her last name is really Enigmar. The problem? That was the maiden name of Apollo's mother, and the two were half-siblings. Oddly, it still hasn't stopped the fan pairing from still occurring.

** A good chunk of the reason why the pairing still happens is probably because while the ''players'' learn that Trucy and Apollo are related, they themselves actually do ''not'' find this out, oddly enough.

 

* Happens twice to Dave Strider in ''[[Homestuck]]''. He used to hit on Rose (ironically) before learning that they were brother and sister. In Act 6, he and Rose see their mother in a dream, resulting in the following conversation later:

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* The original plot of [[The Nostalgia Chick]]'s "Thanks For The Feedback" would have been a parody of Luke and Leia, with she and [[The Nostalgia Critic]] finding out they were related after having sex.

 

== Western Animation ==

* In ''[[Family Guy]]'', hit on (no [[Pun]] intended) in a later Halloween episode. Meg and her friends actually get invited to a costume party, and she goes dressed as a Slutty Cat, complete with mask covering 75% of her face. One game of spin the bottle/seven minutes of heaven later, she's escorted to the closet with someone in an all-concealing [[Transformers|Optimus Prime]] costume. When they're in there too long, the door is opened to reveal it being Chris.. While they're half-naked on the ground making out. [[Squick|They didn't take it well]], and lines like "We did so much!" imply there was more than just lips involved, though they seemed to have gotten over it by the end of the episode.

* A subversion occurs in an episode of ''[[King of the Hill]]'', when Bill dates a single mother with two children. Dale immediately becomes suspicious of the girl, Kate, when she starts hanging around Joseph. After secretly running a DNA test on her, Dale finds out that she and Joseph are brother and sister. Dale assumes that HE is actually Kate's father, but everyone else knows that it's really John Redcorn. The rest of the episode has Peggy making sure Joseph and Kate don't, um, explore a deeper relationship.

 

== Real Life ==

* There was an incident, [[wikipedia:Cecil Jacobson|somewhere in this world]], where a doctor (secretly) used his own sperm for all his artificial inseminations, meaning that a community now has many couples who might well be half siblings.

** This also [[Ripped from the Headlines|showed up in]] ''[[Law and Order]]''.

** And the manga of ''Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna'' (it bothers but does not stop one [[Official Couple]]).

** And [[Milan Kundera]]'s ''Farewell Waltz''.

* In Britain at least, it's not illegal for first cousins to marry, and this troper's grandparents were first cousins. Cousins in the nobility of bygone days often married to keep titles and land within the family. Queen Elizabeth II's husband, Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh, is her second cousin once removed (though some insist he is actually her third cousin - in the British Royal Family and due to Queen Victoria having so many offspring who married into the European royalty/nobility, it gets rather complicated).

 

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Love Tropes]]