Tangled Family Tree: Difference between revisions

''You have got to live''

''Through time travel, death, and cloning,''

 

Tropes like [[Luke, I Am Your Father]], [[Family Relationship Switcheroo]], [[Separated at Birth]], [[Everyone Is Related]], [[My Own Grampa]], [[Cain and Abel and Seth]] and the [[Evil Twin]] make for drama, and they're an easy way of shaking up the dynamics of a long-running series. Sometimes a little ''too'' easy. Layer too many of those tropes onto the same group of characters, and what you end up with is a '''Tangled Family Tree'''. This isn't just a [[Dysfunctional Family]], this is a family with members so numerous, relationships so tangled, and circumstances so bizarre that it's impossible to keep track of them without a flow chart.

 

'''SPOILER WARNING.''' These convoluted relationships tend to be tied in with every event in the plot, especially the family secrets.

 

* ''[[Tenchi Muyo!]]'': [http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111201040848/tenchi/images/d/d8/Tenchi_ova_family_tree_updated.png This says it all, really....] Words do not exist to refer to most of those familial ties. Most likely, if the people involved didn't all live so damn long (or possess magical symbiotic trees), the extended Juraian royal family would have traits that make the Habsburg Chin look positively ''normal''.

** That doesn't even get into the alternate universes, including one featuring Tenchi's ''half-brother''.

* Let's map the ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' family tree, which can be quite a doozy due to all the clones, adoptions, and miscellaneous [[Artificial Human]]-related goodness. First there's the Takamachi family with Nanoha, who's now the mother of Vivio, who's now also the daughter of Fate, who in addition to being the daughter of Precia, is also the daughter of Lindy, connecting her to the Harlaown family which includes Chrono, Amy, Erio, and Caro. {{spoiler|Vivio was cloned from Olivie Segbrecht}}, who has romantic ties with Klaus Ingvalt, the person Einhart was reincarnated from. {{spoiler|Vivio's}} creator-father is Jail Scaglietti, who is also the creator-father of the Numbers, four of which are now {{spoiler|a part of the Nakajima family}}, and is also the creator-father of Zest's clone, who was the father figure of both Lutecia and Agito. He was also the co-creator of {{spoiler|Fate}}. {{spoiler|Agito had since}} been adopted into the Yagami family, which includes Hayate, Reinforce Zwei, and the Wolkenritter. Speaking of the Wolkenritter, it includes Signum, who is implied to be {{spoiler|Agito's original Master}} and thus the person she was born from. Incidentally, Reinforce Zwei was born from the Linker Core organ of both Hayate and Reinforce Eins ({{spoiler|which had been merged}}). Back to the Nakajimas, Subaru and Teana seems to have romantic ties, and Subaru was going to adopt {{spoiler|Tohma, who is currently in a sort of [[Love Triangle]] with Lily and Isis, and is also being sought out by the Huckebein family since they plan to adopt him into their family}}. All clear? Good.

* In ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'', {{spoiler|Kinzo and Beatrice I had a daughter, Beatrice II. Kinzo then [[Squick|had another child]] [[Parental Incest|with Beatrice II]]: Yasu/Shannon/Kanon/Beatrice III. Now realize that Yasushkannontrice is a relationship with two or three of Kinzo's grandchildren, and how ''those'' guys are actually connected in the family tree.}} Yep.

 

== Comic Books ==

** Add to that the general [[True Companions|familial nature]] of the Rogues, and the fact that Iris Allen is, well, ''was'' raising Weather Wizard's [[It's a Long Story|son]] and the ties begin to bind a little more. Oh, and since time travel's involved, there's a good possibility that Boomer (who's aged normally into his early twenties) is actually [[Younger Than They Look|Bart's]] ''little'' brother.

** It gets even crazier when you throw in the [[Feuding Families|millennia-old feud]] the first two families have with the third, and that a major reason for the feud is due to said families being related in the first place... [http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Allen_Family hope you have plenty of time on your hands and a firm grasp on your sanity, you'll need it.]

** And to make matters worse/better, both the Earth-2 (The original [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] 1930s version, and Power Girl's cousin) and Earth-22 (The [[Kingdom Come]] version) Supermen stopped by the Main DCU durring the 2000s. One of whom died, and came back as a Black Lantern.

*** Them and half a dozen more: Superboy-Prime (A teenage [[Face Heel Turn]]-ed Superman from 'our' Earth), [[Evil Twin|Ultraman]], [[Final Crisis|Overman]], some future Superman who could be from an alternate timeline...

* [[Swamp Thing]]'s supporting character Tefe Holland: The character is the daughter of Swamp Thing and Abby Arcane Holland. Tefe was originally a floating spirit called Sprout, who tried to find a body from a recently deceased person, was eventually given a body through Abby Holland having a baby, which was conceived through the Swamp Thing possessing [[John Constantine]] and having sex with her. Due to Constantine having the demon Nergal's blood in his veins at this time, Tefe is also part demon. She eventually became an Earth elemental like her father, beginning a line of human Earth elementals as a new Swamp Thing in Swamp Thing vol. 3, having all of her father's powers, but retaining a human appearance.

 

{{quote|'''Harry:''' This will be the weirdest family.

'''Draco:''' If you think that, you haven't seen the Malfoy family tree. ''*shuddering*'' That ''really'' isn't a pretty sight. }}

* The ''[[Death Note]]'' [[Troll Fic]] ''[[Light and Dark - The Adventures of Dark Yagami]]'' is an impressive continuity snarl that features Dark Yagami, Light Yagami's [[Copy Cat Sue|Copy Cat]] [[Marty Stu]] [[Long Lost Sibling]] who is shagging [[Parental Incest|Light's mom (who is also his mom)]]. But it gets more twisted {{spoiler|he apparently went back in time and fathered himself and later became Light's dad.}}

* In the world of the [[Mega Crossover]] [[Fanfic|fan]][[Web Comic|comic]] ''[[Roommates 2007|Roommates]]'' and its [[Spin-Off]] ''[[Girls Next Door]]'' every [[Witch Species|magical]] [[The Fair Folk|being]] from every [[Fanon]] is related. This is as chaotic and [[Mind Screw|weird]] as you might guess and some even have [[Time Master|time magic]] to boot. Someone theorized in the comment section once that the magic family tree must be the unholy bastard child of an elaborate Celtic knot and the [[Timey-Wimey Ball]].

** The other [[Spin-Off]] ''[[Down the Street]]'' seems to do this with [[Our Vampires Are Different|vampires]].

** And yet another, the [[Ho Yay]] one about the Valjean/Javert ship titled ''Superintendent'' with the characters of [[Victor Hugo]].

 

== Film ==

* In the ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]'' movie, Sam's [http://tfwiki.net/w2/images2/c/c7/Witwickytree.jpg family tree] apparently suggests two generations of inbreeding. It's more likely however that Sam just did a very poor job on his school assignment.

* In [[The Devil's Rejects]], how the members of the Firefly [[The Clan|clan]] are related to one another is complicated and never fully explained. Otis and Baby refer to each other as brother and sister throughout the movie; Captain Spaulding is Baby's father but doesn't appear to be related to Otis; Mama Firefly is presumably the mother of Baby, Otis (in [[House of 1000 Corpses]] they say she adopted him into the family) as well as Tiny, the deformed giant, and Rufus (from the beginning of the movie). Then we meet a black pimp named Charlie who Captain Spaulding says is his brother (presumably his half-brother).

 

== Literature ==

* Isabel Allende's ''House of the Spirits'' focuses on a family tree that gets rather ridiculously convoluted by the end, and that's without the aid of anything particularly supernatural.

* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' features lots of [[The Clan]], but only one family can have a Tangled Family Tree - House Frey, whose elderly patriarch Lord Walder Frey is on his eighth wife and has over a hundred living descendants.

** Lazarus Long did NOT make his mother pregnant with himself (as implied), but in the later books, he is the ancestor of about 99% of all humans. And he did have children with at least 2 of his female clones!

** "[[All You Zombies]]" by [[Robert A. Heinlein]]. It's a very tangled family tree, considering that {{spoiler|there's only one person in it}}.

** It's almost as bad with the [http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/harrypotter/images/thumb/e/e0/Familytree2.jpg/700px-Familytree2.jpg Peverell Family tree.] Seriously, Voldemort is like Harry's great-great-great uncle thrice removed.

*** And yes, the Peverell family tree includes the Black family tree, as well as ''almost every major character in the series''. Wizards are rare enough that they're all varying degrees of comparatively close cousins at this point.

* In [[Middlesex]] by Jeffrey Eugenides, Cal/Calliope's family tree is like this. His parents, Tessie and Milton, are 2nd cousins. His grandparents, Lefty and Desdemona, are actually brother and sister. Then there's the offhand mention early in the book that Lefty and Desdemona are also 3rd cousins...

 

* True to its comic book roots, the Petrelli family tree on ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' is slowly but surely getting its way there. It started with mom Angela, sons Peter and Nathan, and Nathan's wife and kids. Then Claire was revealed as a Secret Petrelli Child (by Nathan), tying in her adopted family the Bennets and biological mother Meredith. Later we found out that Flint is Meredith's brother, and that Angela's husband Arthur and sister Alice were still alive.

** For a while, it was teased that Sylar was a third Petrelli brother, but this turned out to be a big fat lie. But Sylar has his own problems, as his relationships with his parents and their siblings are kind of screwed up. {{spoiler|Then he joined the Petrelli tree for real by becoming Nathan's [[Replacement Goldfish]].}}

* On ''[[American Horror Story]]'' Constance has four kids (three of whom we meet). Her son Tate ends up {{spoiler|impregnating Vivien, who also gets pregnant by her husband Ben on the same day, meaning her twins have different fathers. Meanwhile, Tate falls in love with Vivien and Ben's daughter Violet. And all of this crazy happens before we bring up the fact that Tate is also a ''freaking ghost!''}}.

* [[Married... with Children]]: "In Wanker County, nobody's really outside the family."

 

== Music ==

* "None but the Lonely Heart"—A [[Spike Jones]] Soaperetta

 

* Pretty much every named character in [[Classical Mythology]] can be placed somewhere on one massive and convoluted family tree. This is partly because the "long-running continuity" we're talking about here stretched over centuries of oral tradition and scores of different storytellers, and partly because... well... Zeus slept around a ''lot.'' Seriously, on any given family tree he's everyone's ancestor in at least two different places.

** It really doesn't help that the Olympian gods, who via traditional and less-than-traditional means birthed the majority of the gods, were children of the Titans, who were themselves the children of Gaia and Ouranos ([[Incest Is Relative|see a pattern]]?), and that Zeus was far from the only one who considered monogamy beneath him.

 

== Radio ==

 

== Tabletop Gaming ==

** Try living in Malfeas, the Demon City, where a significant portion of the local vocabulary is devoted to describing such phenomena as being related to someone's twenty-seventh soul, being the whole-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts of hundreds of [[Demon Lords and Archdevils|demon lords]], or living in a portion of the landscape that happens to also be [[Genius Loci|your father.]]

* The original Black Box edition of the [[Ravenloft]] setting included a series of family trees for such prominent bloodlines as the Boritsis, d'Honaires, Weathermays and Von Zaroviches. As the purpose of these was to seed people's Ravenloft campaigns with story ideas, each tree had several built-in plot hooks, and a few were connected to others through intermarriage or the like.

 

== Video Games ==

** ''[[Kingdom Hearts 3D|3D]]'' has taken this trope and ran with it to ''extreme'' levels of litigiousness. {{spoiler|Master Xehanort, [[Back from the Dead]], is gathering together a new Organization XIII. Who are among its ranks? ''Thirteen Xehanorts brought together across various timelines.'' A younger incarnation Master Xehanort (known better to players as the [[Bonus Boss|Unknown/Mysterious Figure]] from ''BBS'' and co-existing alongside his older self) was tasked by Ansem, Seeker of Darkness (who was able to time travel due to his lack of a body) of gathering thirteen incarnations of Xehanort. Aside of Master Xehanort, Young Xehanort, Xemnas, and Ansem, Braig and Isa (the original personas of Xigbar and Saïx) are revealed to be Xehanorts as well, having been infused with a part of Master Xehanort's heart and gradually turning ''into'' Xehanort (slowly adopting features of his such as golden eyes and pointed ears). Additionally, the plan was to turn ''Sora'' into the final member of this group (luckily, it was thwarted by a [[Big Damn Heroes]] moment from Lea, Axel's original identity), and the original plan for the first Organization XIII was to use the Nobodies as vessels for Xehanort's heart.}}

 

* ''[[Princess Waltz]]''. It's hard to get into too much detail without major spoilers, but let's give it a shot. A man and a woman got married, and had a son. The woman's sister had two daughters. When the second generation grew up, the elder of the daughters married the son (her cousin), and had a son. However, the younger sister seduced him as well, and had a daughter. When the third generation grew up, {{spoiler|they became the protagonist of the game and his primary love interest}}. Interestingly, [[Elephant in the Living Room|no one ever mentions this]].

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Scooby Doo]]'' over various spinoffs, has introduced enough cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews, and even ''siblings'' of Shaggy, Scooby, Fred, Daphne, and Velma (most of them appearing only once and then never to be seen again) that they probably fall under this trope.

 

* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]],'' Bob's adopted daughter Molly is a pink furry monster who was spontaneously generated in a lab accident. Molly shares a tiny bit of genetic material with Bob's girlfriend Jean, making Jean her biological mother "just a little bit." Molly lived for a time with Jean's Uncle Cestus Poole, whom Molly addresses as Uncle Cess. Molly built a sentient robot named Roofus, who regards her as his mother, which makes Bob and Jean his grandparents. Roofus now lives on another planet, being raised by Bob's alien friend Voluptua, whom Molly addresses as "Auntie Voluptua." Molly also has a genetically identical cloned "sister" named Galatea, grown by Dean Martin (no, no ''that'' Dean Martin), who is her de facto father. She is also Jean's biological daughter "just a little bit" just as Molly is. Galatea addresses Bob as "Uncle." Molly regards Roofus as Galatea's nephew.

** Molly now also has a ''second'' clone sister named Djali ("Jolly"), short for Djaliana, who was grown by Galatea. Jolly looks like her sisters except for being [[Kaiju|a couple of hundred feet tall.]] Despite being grown by Galatea, she still considers Jean her mother.

** And now as of Act 6 {{spoiler|we have an [[Alternate Universe]] where the human ectobiological parents are now the children, and vice versa.}} Just to make things more confusing.

* Though it is (so far) without time travel, he Val'Sarghress family tree in ''[[Drowtales]]'' is quickly becoming this with recent revelations about {{spoiler|Kalki Nidraa'chal}}, who turns out to be {{spoiler|the child of Snadhya'rune Vel'Sharen and Mel'arnach Val'Sarghress ([[Family Relationship Switcheroo|who is Ariel's real mother]]) who are [[Homosexual Reproduction|both women]], and technically makes Kalki Ariel's half-sister}}. And that doesn't even touch on the fact that {{spoiler|Ariel's father is a dark-elf turned ''giant spider''}} or how {{spoiler|Diva'ratrika}} is technically Ariel's {{spoiler|step-grandmother}}. Spoilerific chart [http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/9600/sharensarghressfamilytr.png here] for those daring.

 

== Web Original ==

* The majority of the cast in ''[[Thalia's Musings]]''. It's the Greek Pantheon.

* Creative (ab)use of the relationship settings on [[Facebook]] can result in these.

 

== Real Life ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Family Tropes]]

[[Category:Ensembles]]