History Main / HalfHumanHybrid

* ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'' has three in the main party, all of whom are of the half-elven variety. Vex and Vax are twins born from a union between an elven noble and a human peasant, and Keyleth belongs to a druid tribe comprised of many different races. Not surprising of course, given that this is a D&D campaign.

[[folder:Films — Animation]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaidIIReturnToTheSea'': Ariel's daughter Melody is half-human, half-mermaid, and wants to live in the sea, which is the exact opposite of what her mother wanted in the first film. In the end, [[spoiler:she is given the choice to become a full mermaid, gain a tail, and live in the sea, but she declines, [[TakeAThirdOption in order to reunite both halves of her family, and presumably spends the rest of her life switching back and forth from human to mermaid.]]]]

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See also InterspeciesRomance. A common result of a FantasticRomance. May lead to {{Uneven Hybrid}}s or {{Heinz Hybrid}}s, if the family tree does not end with them. An inter-species humanoid hybrid that averts the "half human" part is a NonhumanHumanoidHybrid. If the non-human parent is from an AlwaysChaoticEvil race, this trope may result from the human being RaisedByOrcs.

In fictionland, human beings can conceive children with any intelligent species in existence. [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Demons]], [[OurElvesAreDifferent elves]], aliens, [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]], you name it — not only will a human [[BoldlyComing sleep with it]], they'll engender children. [[HumanMomNonhumanDad The mother is in a majority of cases the human]], with the non-human [[LineageComesFromTheFather father providing the powers]]. If they are not physically viable, rest assured there are scientists somewhere who will fiddle with DNA until a hybrid is created. They'll do it even if there's no reason to think the creature should have DNA in the first place. That's ''Earth's'' solution for storing your genome. It requires a lot of supporting stuff in the cells, and not even everything on Earth uses it. Thankfully, the RuleOfCool and RuleOfSexy let us mix it up with whatever the GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe's ancestors evolved to store ''their'' genomes in. Good thing there are NoBiochemicalBarriers! And if you can't find a scientist to do it for you, you're in luck. AWizardDidIt is just as handy a HandWave.

For those people who ''[[{{Shapeshifting}} turn into]]'' hybrids, see {{Animorphism}} and MixAndMatchCritter. A character born human but changed to be part-nonhuman later on would be an ArtificialHybrid. If the character was already a different non-human species, or gets hybridized a second time, they become a HybridMonster.

Not to be confused with LittleBitBeastly and BeastMan, for characters that look like this trope but are actually a fantastical or extraterrestrial species that ([[InexplicableCulturalTies for some reason]]) [[HumanAliens looks a lot like us]] with some added fur, ears, or a tail.

See also InterspeciesRomance. A common result of a FantasticRomance. See {{Dhampyr}} for half vampire/half human hybrids specifically. May lead to {{Uneven Hybrid}}s or {{Heinz Hybrid}}s, if the family tree does not end with them. An inter-species humanoid hybrid that averts the "half human" part is a NonhumanHumanoidHybrid. If the non-human parent is from an AlwaysChaoticEvil race, this trope may result from the human being RaisedByOrcs.

In fictionland, human beings can conceive children with any intelligent species in existence. [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Demons]], [[OurElvesAreDifferent elves]], aliens, [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]], you name it — not only will a human [[BoldlyComing sleep with it]], they'll engender children. [[HumanMomNonhumanDad The mother is in a majority of cases the human]] with the non-human [[LineageComesFromTheFather father providing the powers]]. If they are not physically viable, rest assured there are scientists somewhere who will fiddle with DNA until a hybrid is created. They'll do it even if there's no reason to think the creature should have DNA in the first place. That's ''Earth's'' solution for storing your genome. It requires a lot of supporting stuff in the cells, and not even everything on Earth uses it. Thankfully, the RuleOfCool and RuleOfSexy let us mix it up with whatever the GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe's ancestors evolved to store ''their'' genomes in. Good thing there are NoBiochemicalBarriers! And if you can't find a scientist to do it for you, you're in luck. AWizardDidIt is just as handy a HandWave.

This is present in most [[SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness unrealistic]] fictional genres, including ScienceFiction (or, rather SpaceOpera), fantasy, horror, etc. In reality, many closely related Earth species share over 99% of their DNA, but cannot produce viable offspring. This makes it extremely unlikely that creatures of different planets would be able to interbreed, but then again, [[MarsNeedsWomen Mars does need women]].

This is present in most [[MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness unrealistic]] fictional genres, including ScienceFiction (or, rather SpaceOpera), fantasy, horror, etc. In reality, many closely related Earth species share over 99% of their DNA, but cannot produce viable offspring. This makes it extremely unlikely that creatures of different planets would be able to interbreed, but then again, [[MarsNeedsWomen Mars does need women]].

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]
* Alice in ''Film/{{Seventh Son|2015}}'' is the daughter of a human father and a witch mother (in the film, witches are implied to be a separate species). [[spoiler:It turns out the hero, Tom, is one as well.]]
* Barf the Mawg from ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'', played by John Candy. "I'm a Mawg. Half man, half dog. I'm my own best friend!" Even worse, the gangster Pizza the Hutt is described as ''half-man, half pizza''. So ''that's'' how those PizzaBoySpecialDelivery scenes really end...
* Partially {{justified|Trope}} in ''Film/{{Species}}''. [[spoiler:While alien/human hybrids are created through HandWaving, the ''three-quarters human'' children of TheVirus infected astronaut in ''Film/SpeciesII'' who are sickly and (apparently) sterile. He wants to mate with Eve in particular because she's a fertile half-hybrid]].
* In Roger Avary's film adaptation of ''WesternAnimation/{{Beowulf|2007}}'', Grendel is a HalfHumanHybrid. He may be sterile (given his apparent lack of reproductive organs), and though it may just be because he's a monster he gives a good impression of being sickly. He's hideously deformed, has what appears to be a nasty skin condition, and is sometimes heard whimpering as if in pain (though that's probably just because loud noises irritate his [[AchillesHeel super-sensitive ear]]). The dragon at the end of the film is also a HalfHumanHybrid, [[spoiler:born of a mating between Beowulf and Grendel's mother]]. This is also very much unlike [[Literature/{{Beowulf}} the original poem]], where no human ancestry was suggested for Grendel except that he was a distant [[TheDescendantsOfCain descendant of Cain]].
* In Sturla Gunnarsson's ''Beowulf & Grendel'' (2005), Grendel is referred to as a [[AllTrollsAreDifferent troll]] but his mother is some sort of sea creature. [[spoiler:His son with Selma is this trope played straight.]]
* B-movie ''Arachnid'' has a gigantic alien spider giving birth to all kinds of other huge bugs. Sometimes it is required to lay the eggs inside a human. We never get any clue exactly what, if anything, it was mating with.
* ''Film/AlienResurrection'' has a half-human, half-Alien {{squick}}fest born from a Xenomorph Queen with a human reproductive system. [[FridgeLogic Who was laying eggs for the first two thirds of the movie.]]
* In ''Film/{{Splice}}'', two married scientists pioneer a new technology to 'plug and play' any number of different animal's DNA together to produce new unique organisms. They decide to take the next step and insert human DNA into the mix. That worked out about as well as you would expect.
* In ''Film/CaptainBerlin'' Doctor Sinds mutant is controlled with a mechanical device to an unknown degree
* In ''Film/{{Dreamscape}}'', Alex is trying to help a young boy whose nightmares take the shape of a half-man/half-snake creature. One of the villains also later assumes this form while in the dream world.
* ''Film/JupiterAscending'':
** Caine, both [[DesignerBabies genetically manufactured]] and [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent half wolf]]. Stinger and Famulus also count, being half bee and half deer respectively.
** Technically, ''all of Earth'' is this way, Earth-humans having been spliced with native species during the seeding.
* In the LiveActionAdaptation of ''Film/BloodTheLastVampire'' is the {{Dhampyr}} Saya. She is over [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld 400 years old]], and has hunted many vampires in this period. And she is the daughter of a human and the vampire queen.
* ''Film/TheGoldenChild'' has Kala, a half-dragon, half-human woman (it is stated that her mother was raped by a dragon) who spends most of her screentime hidden behind a screen and having her silhouette admired by Chandler. Unobscured, she has a serpentine lower half and a snakelike tongue.
* Peter Quill is revealed during ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' to be human on one side and ''something else'' on the other. His father, [[spoiler:Ego]], plays a significant role in ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2''. [[spoiler:He's the BigBad.]]
* ''Film/{{Mythica}}'': Dagen is a half-elf, son of an elven mother and an unknown human father.
* In ''Film/Hellboy2019'', it turns out Hellboy himself is one. His father was a demon lord, his mother a mostly normal human woman.
* ''Film/{{Djinn}}'': [[spoiler:Khalid]] turns out to be the child of a female djinn and human man.
* In ''Film/TheEroticRitesOfFrankenstein'', Melissa is part bird, with green feathers along her arms and torso. She says that Cagliostro created her, but no further explanation is given for her condition.
* ''Film/Aquaman2018'': Arthur is the son of an [[ApparentlyHumanMerfolk Atlantean]] mother and human father.
* ''Film/HanselAndGretelWitchHunters'': [[spoiler:Hansel and Gretel]]'s mother turns out to have in fact been a (good) witch, which here is treated as a [[WitchSpecies separate species]]. Their father was a normal human.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* ConspiracyTheorist Creator/DavidIcke claims in his book ''The Biggest Secret'' that the world is secretly ruled by [[ReptilianConspiracy reptilian aliens]] who can take human shape and interbreed with humans. Specifically, ''12-foot tall specimens that drink human blood''.[[note]]Apparently, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League got annoyed, and cited the whole ''Elder Protocols'' schtick to suggest that when talking about reptilians, he meant Jews. Those that know him suggest that when he talks about reptilians, he means it.[[/note]] Sounds like he read a little too much Creator/RobertEHoward pulp novels, as ''King {{Literature/Kull}}'' has the same plot points.
* There was a Russian scientist in the early 20th century who attempted to create a Humanzee, but apparently none of his experiments panned out and his funding was eventually cut. Interesting that in all accounts of trying to inseminate human women with ape sperm, the ape always happens to die shortly before the scheduled date. For the curious, said scientist was [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17039_9-real-life-mad-scientists.html Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov]] (#5 on the list, bottom of the first page). Apparently, the story gets even stranger. [[http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4219 Thoroughly examined here.]] Ivanov can be conservatively described as having been a completely insane crackpot, but stories of surviving ''Humanzee'' creations are the accounts of conspiracy theories with no evidence behind them and most of what we know of biology arguing for its near impossibility.\\\
In 1977, it was proven that human sperm could penetrate the outer membranes of a gibbon egg. Gibbons, also called Hylobatids or lesser apes, are even less closely related to humans than chimps. The tests were repeated with eggs from non-Hominoidea species, like baboons and rhesus monkeys, which the sperm did not attempt to fertilize. While purely theoretical at this point, it suggests interbreeding between these groups could be possible.
* Subverted with Oliver, a wild-born chimpanzee raised in a human household. Because of his bald features and preference for bipedal walking, he was long suspected to be a human/chimp hybrid, but [=DNA=] tests eventually determined that he's a chimpanzee from a wild population with slightly less fur and smaller heads than most. Walking upright is a behavior he learned by copying humans. Just to clinch the argument, he ended up with debilitating arthritis in his back and feet from walking upright, and had to spend his twilight years knuckle walking like a normal chimp. He just wasn't built for that stunt, and it wore his body down like ballet wears a ballerina down.
* State Representative William "Tracy" Arnold R-MS attempted to introduce House Bill 819, the Protection of the Human Person Act, to [[DefiedTrope prevent this trope]]. The response from anyone in Congress who actually knew anything about science amounted to "You're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist." Apart from human+animal sperm+egg nonsense, it broadly outlaws genetically engineered embryos and intelligent nonhumans.
* Most people from northern Europe can trace up to 4% of their DNA to Neanderthals, and it is believed that there was interbreeding in the past. So technically, an entire population of HalfHumanHybrid people did actually exist in the past, crossing back into the human population to dilute the genes. Not that that amounts to much. Humans are still 99.9% identical genetically when you get right down to it, and since Neanderthals were virtually identical to humans anyway, most of that DNA was identical to the DNA we already had just came from a different source. The few new genes we got from Neanderthals still fall into that one-tenth of a percent that makes us distinct. Or rather, Neanderthals ''were'' humans, just a separate subspecies from the Cro-Magnons who were the first "modern" humans. The ancestors of Neanderthals were the first humans to leave Africa, while the Cro-Magnons evolved and left Africa later. Interbreeding was apparently relatively common when they met, as all humans of non-African descent today have at least some Neanderthal DNA. The Cro-Magnons were already ''significantly'' more numerous than the Neanderthals when they met, so the the Neanderthal populations that survived the end of the last Ice Age were most likely absorbed into the Cro-Magnon population and because of their low numbers left a comparatively minor impression in modern human gene pool.
** Another subspecies, the Denisovans, is more represented among some parts of the modern human species, mainly those of Micronesia. Again, they were basically absorbed by the Cro-Magnon population during the last Ice Age and, like Neanderthals, made a minor contribution to the current human genome. It's just larger among the Micronesian population at up to 6% of their genes.
[[/folder]]

* The eponymous ''WesternAnimation/ArloTheAlligatorBoy'' is half human, half alligator. His birth father Ansel is half bird. There's also the reverse merman Marcellus, and the Beast, who's more like a dog-cat-tiger hybrid.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaidIIReturnToTheSea'': Ariel's daughter Melody is half-human, half mermaid, and wants to live in the sea, which is the exact opposite of what her mother wanted in the first film. In the end, [[spoiler: she is given the choice to become a full mermaid, gain a tail, and live in the sea, but she declines, [[TakeAThirdOption in order to reunite both halves of her family, and presumably spends the rest of her life switching back and forth from human to mermaid.]]]]

[[folder:Myths & Religion]]
* In fact, this is OlderThanDirt. Half-human children of the gods go back almost 4500 years with the Sumerian (Mesopotamian) myth of [[Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh Gilgamesh]], who was supposedly one third man and two thirds god -- a heritage which would require an infinite number of ancestors, according to modern biology. Truth is, [[ScienceMarchesOn the Mesopotamians simply didn't understand how genetics worked]]. Possible interpretations based on contemporary understanding of hereditary include that he inherited twice as much from his divine mother as his mortal father, or that his father was himself a demigod, meaning he gave a mortal part and a divine part, combined with the mother's divinity (in actual genetics, that would make him ''three quarters'' god). It has also been suggested that the Mesopotamians believed everyone was "part god" in a ''spiritual'' sense, and Gilgamesh was just more so.
* Other mythologies such as Greek are filled with the half-human children of gods and monsters (described below). Even Judeo-Christian legend has Lilith's demonic children and the {{nephilim}}, the result of "unauthorized" human/angel relations.
** Presumably, if you were a god, you could use some miracle to make it work out between yourself and a mortal, meaning that as silly as it sounds, this might actually be justified.
** Odin himself is half-Jotun and half-Aesir... his father Bor was Aesir but his mother Bestla was a frost giant. Thus making Thor three quarters Jotun and one-quarter Aesir. Loki's children Narvi and Vali born of the Goddess Sigyn would qualify as half-Jotun and half-Aesir. Magni, Thor's son with the giantess Jarnsaxa would be seven eighths Jotun and one eighth Aesir.
** Loki was willing to have sex with anything and he did. In various stories he [[GenderBender both fathered and mothered]] a great number of children, several of which were extremely important in the cosmology. (For instance: Hel, Fenrir and Jormugand--children of Loki and his Jotun/Giant wife despite the latter two appearing like animal-monsters--and Odin's horse Sleipnir.) Since Loki is not human and is also a shapeshifter most of these technically don't count as half human hybrids, but they are hybrids of a sort.
* Myth/{{Merlin}} is traditionally depicted as the son of a woman (sometimes a witch, occasionally a nun) and an incubus. [[DistaffCounterpart Or, sometimes, a man and a succubus]]. This is often given as an explanation for his magical and prophetic abilities. Modern interpretations of the legends vary significantly on Merlin's parentage.
** This was the result of the Christianization of the legend, to explain how Merlin could wield magic powers (which are [[AlwaysChaoticEvil always Satanic]]), but still be a good guy. The woman incidentally is nearly always a raped nun who dunks her newborn into holy water to wash evil away from him as soon as he is born, but he still grows up a horny bastard with a taste for young virgins -- the modern tellings tend to forget that aspect of his character.
** Pretty sure in both the Christian and non-Christianized versions of the Arthurian Tradition Merlin was depicted as something of a fey spirit. So, half fairy was more like it. See works like the Elfin Knight, which predates most of the Malory as we know today. In the ''Literature/HistoryOfTheKingsOfBritain'' Merlin was depicted as born from a rather consensual experience. Try not to think about that too much.
** ... And if you want to go back to the source material with the myth of Myrddin and his sister, it's implied that they both have "magical" heritage. However, the emphasis is more on Myrddin's far-reaching Sight than anything else.
* Myth/GreekMythology is ''freaking full of them'', so many, you'd need a separate page to list them. Most of the Greek heroes (and even ''some gods'') are half-human children of gods and monsters. Zeus being [[ReallyGetsAround particularly infamous]], with upwards of 30 noted hybrids by mortal women, several of his hybrids ascending to the pantheon, such as Heracles and Dionysus.
** Despite Zeus' reputation (and his seducing several women in the shape of an animal), none of the BeastMan hybrids were his children.
*** The Minotaur was the child of Queen Pasiphae and a very large bull that king Minos unwisely decided to keep instead of sacrificing to Poseidon as he'd promised. Poseidon made Pasiphae fall in lust with the bull as revenge.
*** The centaurs are supposedly the children of a guy named Centaurus, a deformed human [[BestialityIsDepraved who had sex with mares]]. He himself was the son of a human (Ixion) and a cloud-nymph clone of Hera (another version skips Centaurus and has Ixion father the centaurs directly). Yet another version has them descend from Zeus spilling his seed on the ground.
* From Eastern Europe (especially, but not limited to, Romania) there is the {{dhampir}} or dhampire, child of a vampire and a human. Dhampir are meant to be excellent vampire hunters, but have a nasty habit of becoming vampires themselves when they die in many of the stories. Most half-human half-vampire characters in fiction draw on the dhampir mythology to some degree.
* Then we can go to Japan. Japanese folktales are rife with [[ShapeshiftingLover henge]], usually Kitsune, taking the form of human women, marrying humans, and having children. Abe no Seimei, a surprisingly close parallel to Merlin, was reputed to be half Kitsune.
* A minor figure in the mythology of The Church of the Sub-Genius is Saint Oliver the Humanzee, who even has his own feast day. There really was a chimp named Oliver who was suspected of being a Humanzee, but DNA tests eventually revealed he was just a funny looking chimp.
* In some cultures in South America, there are tales of half-dolphin half-humans (the river dolphins, botos, can turn into people who almost always wear white hats).
* Literature/TheBible is very hush-hush on what the {{Nephilim}} were, but the most common theory is human-angel hybrids.
-->"And the sons of God looked upon the daughters of men and saw that they were fair, and took wives of all that they chose--and there were giants ["nephilim" in Hebrew] in the land in those days."
* [[Myth/CelticMythology Celtic hero Cu Chulainn]] was the son of a mortal woman and Lugh the Long Handed of the Tuatha Dé Danann, who passed down most of his [[TheAce Ace]]-like qualities to the child in question. Since Lugh himself was also half Fomorian ([[TheOldGods a race of primordial monsters that preceded the Tuatha Dé Danann]]), Cu Chulainn also inherited something from ''them'' as well--namely, [[SuperpoweredEvilSide the tendency to transform into a hideous, bloodthirsty abomination unable to distinguish friend from foe]].
* Epona, a Celtic goddess associated with horses, is sometimes depicted as half-horse. One backstory is that her father hated women and thus had kids with a horse instead.
* Some early [[UsefulNotes/{{Gnosticism}} Gnostic]] writings claimed that Eve mated with the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and that Cain was the resulting offspring. Mainstream Christian theologians have consistently viewed this belief as heretical, but that hasn't stopped the "serpent seed" doctrine from cropping up again from time to time.
[[/folder]]

** The centaurs are supposedly the children of a guy named Centaurus, a deformed human [[BestialityIsDepraved who had sex with mares]]. He himself was the son of a human and a cloud-nymph clone of Hera.

The results of an InterspeciesRomance and/or GeneticEngineering.

* ''{{Film/Djinn}}'': [[spoiler:Khalid]] turns out to be the child of a female djinn and human man.

* ConspiracyTheorist Creator/DavidIcke claims in his book ''The Biggest Secret'' that the world is secretly ruled by [[TheReptilians reptilian aliens]] who can take human shape and interbreed with humans. Specifically, ''12-foot tall specimens that drink human blood''.[[note]]Apparently, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League got annoyed, and cited the whole ''Elder Protocols'' schtick to suggest that when talking about reptilians, he meant Jews. Those that know him suggest that when he talks about reptilians, he means it.[[/note]] Sounds like he read a little too much Creator/RobertEHoward pulp novels, as ''King {{Literature/Kull}}'' has the same plot points.

* In ''Literature/FairyTalesOfMourania'' Halfbloods are the spawn of humans and supernatural creatures. MainCharacter Sept is a half-mermaid.

-->-- '''Wizard Whateley''', ''Literature/TheDunwichHorror''.

* ''ComicStrip/DickTracy'':
** The new Moon Maid. She was originally Glenna Ermine, the daughter of villain Poise Ermine. She won second place in a look-alike contest for the original, long deceased Moon Maid, and subsequently was kidnapped, had the original Moon Maid's DNA superimposed over her own, had facial surgery, and was given the original Moon Maid's memories. The scientists involved were using her as part of a plot to steal Diet Smith's Space Coupe.
** A more traditional example is Moon Maid and Junior Tracy's daughter Honeymoon Tracy, who looked perfectly human to start with (to the point that when the Moon People started being downplayed, there was no reason for a new reader to suspect she wasn't). Shortly after the new Moon Maid was introduced, reminding the readers of Honeymoon's origins, her antennae grew in.

* In ''Film/TheFly1986'', [[AlcoholInducedIdiocy intoxicated]] scientist Seth Brundle tests himself in his experimental teleportation pods, unaware that a common housefly had entered the chamber with him; as the simple computer cannot teleport both entities as separate, Seth and the fly are fused at the genetic level. Despite experiencing some initial benefits (which he incorrectly believes is the result of the teleportation procedure) like an enhanced sex drive and increased strength, he slowly begins to transform into a diseased mutant and his sanity and health deteriorate. [[spoiler:In the finale he transforms into a terrifying insectoid man, the "Brundlefly" and tries to fuse with his girlfriend and unborn child as a last-ditch effort to regain his humanity and save himself.]]

* ''Film/DistrictNine'': After he is brought in to [=MNU=], a scientist states that [[spoiler:Wikus]]'s DNA is in perfect balance between human and alien. It's only for a very short amount of time though, because the alien DNA is quickly taking over the human.

[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]
* Bio-Monster DNA, a half-man, half-spider resulting from a sex change operation gone wrong. More readily apparent, a product of Wrestling/{{FMW}}'s "Sports Entertainment" phase.[[/folder]]

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'':
** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-748 SCP-748 ("Industrial Dissolution")]]; one of SCP-748's products is the (highly radioactive) meat of a creature that is a hybrid species of human, squid and pig.
** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1929 SCP-1929 ("Down To Earth")]]; an area affected by a massive dust storm that turns people and animals into dust, occasionally merging them.