History Main / HereditaryCurse

* ''VideoGame/TheGreatGaias'': According to the [[AllThereInTheManual official Horizen's End website]], Grindelwald Maultor actually had a hard time maintaining his popularity as Validus's emperor with his [[FauxAffablyEvil charisma]] alone and many doubted his propaganda. He got around this by convincing them to sacrifice their current children in a ritual that will supposedly protect their future children from the blight. In reality, this caused all future generations of humans to be cursed to be completely unquestioning of his orders. However, Adramelech secretly spared his own child, Gerum Greyhem, resulting in the Greyhem line becoming immune to Maultor's blood curse. Tantalasia eventually managed to convince Arthur Greyhem to see through Maultor's lies, and he used his untainted blood to free much of humanity from Maultor's influence.

** Late in the story it's revealed that [[spoiler: Warden Walker's grandfather, Trout Walker, the defacto ruler of Green Lake, was cursed after he led the lynch mob that murdered Sam after he and Kaye Barlow fell in love]]. As part of the curse, the lush Green Lake became an arid desert, and Kissing Kate Barlow [[spoiler: cursed Trout by telling him that he and his descendants will never find her treasure, which included the wealth and worldly possessions of Stanley Yelnats I]]. The curse is finally broken when Stanley finds the treasure that [[spoiler: the Warden was forced by Trout to help him find, and she was arrested for using the camps inmates as slave labor, and for hiding the possibility that Stanley and Zero had died in the desert]].

* The plot of ''Literature/{{Holes}}'' is driven by a bad luck curse on Stanley Yelnats' family due to an ancestor [[GypsyCurse cheating a Gypsy]] by accident. After getting sent to a juvenile detention camp for a crime that he didn't commit, Stanley winds up unintentionally breaking the curse after he [[spoiler:pays off the debt to the Gypsy's descendant by doing what his ancestor had promised with them]].

* In ''Webcomic/{{Baalbuddy}}'', there's a recurring character named [[MeaningfulName Virgina Kissless]], a skilled knight who despite being [[HeadTurningBeauty a very physically attractive woman]], has had no luck in losing her virginity, despite making it abundantly clear that [[ExtremeOmnisexual she has almost no standards]]. For example: she tried faking getting stuck in a hole in the wall in a town's main square and was asked to pay for the damages when no man took her up on her "offer"; disguised herself as a succubus in a dungeon, only to be rejected by [[EveryoneHasStandards an elf-orc duo who were expecting an experienced succubus not a human virgin]]; she even tried to force herself on [[TotemPoleTrench three goblins]] who [[PrankDate asked her out on a date as a prank]]. Its later revealed that one of her ancestors, [[NerdsAreVirgins a nerd at a magic academy]], summoned a wish demon, and wished that he would be more attractive and thus have more luck with women. Despite being told that a descendant will be cursed to be repulsive to anyone she finds attractive, [[ItsAllAboutMe he tells the demon he doesn't care and his wish is granted]]. However, after a "series of wacky sex adventures", [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone he asked what he could do to reverse the curse]], only to be told the curse can't be undone, with the only hope Virginia has is for a man with an [[ExtremeLibido extremely high sex drive]] to find her, and then the curse will be broken. [[AnythingThatMoves Cue Sir Richard, a powerful paladin, who has detected a woman he hasn't slept with yet]].

!!Examples

[[folder: Anime and Manga]]

* Subverted in ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'', where the fate of Joestar men was to die young to protect the world from evil. [[spoiler:Such fates befell both Jonathan Joestar and his father, who died at the hands of Dio Brando, and Joseph's father, who was killed by a vampire. Joseph subverts the curse when he appears to die in an erupting volcano, but managed to survive and recuperated in Italy while everyone thought he was dead. He would go on to live into his 90s. Jotaro Kujo lived to his forties before dying at the hands of Enrico Pucci, along with his nineteen-year-old daughter Jolyne, when Pucci hit the universal ResetButton.]]

[[folder: Comics]]

[[folder: Fan Works]]

[[folder: Films -- Animated]]

[[folder: Films -- Live-Action]]

[[folder: Folklore]]

[[folder: Literature]]

* In ''Literature/InCryptid'', James Smith's family has been under a curse for hundreds of years, though he doesn't know it at first. It turns out that his ancestor made a [[DealWithTheDevil deal]] with [[AtTheCrossroads the Crossroads]] to ensure that his sorcerer genes would breed true (sorcery often [[RecessiveSuperGenes skips a generation or two]]), to ensure the safety of New Gravesend. The [[JackassGenie Crossroads]] [[LiteralGenie interpreted]] that to mean [[spoiler:there must always be a sorcerer of this family line in New Gravesend. Therefore, [[ClosedCircle they can never leave the town limits.]] There also only needs to be one sorcerer at a time, so as soon as a child's powers manifest, their sorcerer parent dies.]]

[[folder: Live Action TV]]

* In ''Series/WynonnaEarp'' the Earp family is the subject of a demonic curse. Everyone slain by Wyatt Earp is returned from Hell as demonic revenants, and are trapped within the region known as the Black River Triangle. When the heir of the family comes of age they must attempt to end the curse by killing all the revenants with the magical Peacemaker gun. Any revenants the heir manages to slay return to Hell until the heir dies, becoming more unstable and demonic each time.

[[folder: Religion and Mythology]]

[[folder: Tabletop Game]]

[[folder: Theatre]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

* The gipsy curse that was once cast upon Raz in ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'', which makes Raz not only unable to swim, but also to enter a body of water at all [[spoiler:(even when the water is made out of cardboard)]]. This is a unusual use of the trope, as Raz is never "uncursed", and it does not drive the main plot at all [[spoiler: except a small portion revolving Linda the lungfish]].

[[folder: Web Comics]]

[[folder: Web Original]]

[[folder: Western Animation]]

[[folder: Real Life]]

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12786941/3/Return-of-the-Thornwood-Family Return of the Thornwood Family]]'' a vampire cursed the Thornwoods to seek out the unknown. While this might seem like a more benign curse than most at first, when you factor in things which are [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow better left unknown]]...

* ''Literature/TheEnchantedFiles'': In ''Diary of a Mad Brownie'' / ''Cursed'', the Cairns family of brownies have carried one for a few hundred years, ever since Seamus Cairns helped Ewan [=McGonagall=] and the Queen's daughter, the Princess of Sunshine, send messages back and forth until they fell in love, causing the Princess to leave the Enchanted Realm to be with him until he died. It affects the human family each brownie is living with, bringing misery on them.

[[African]

[[folder: Real Life]]
* Modern genetic research suggests that a lot of health problems originated in Neanderthals (who early humans interbred with). This explains why diseases like arthritis and schizophrenia are more common in people who originated from regions where humans and Neanderthals used to co-exist.

* In the titular short story in ''''[[Literature/TheNecromanticMysteriesOfKyleMurchisonBooth The Bone Key]]'''', it's revealed that Booth's mother's family, the Murchisons, have a family curse that will cause their spouses to die young. Any relative affected by the curse, like Booth, will develop white hair by the age of 25. The only way around it is to marry another Murchison, and the family is now dying out due to inbreeding. In a later story, "To Die for Moonlight", one of Booth's relatives tries to arrange a marriage for him with a woman whose family is also cursed, in hopes that the curses might somehow cancel each other out.

* In ''Manga/InuYasha'', Miroku's family was cursed by Naraku with the Wind Tunnel: a black hole in the palm of the right hand that's passed down through each generation. The Wind Tunnel absorbs everything in front of it unless sealed by enchanted prayer beads. While it [[CursedWithAwesome it can be used as a powerful weapon]], the Wind Tunnel is constantly expanding and overusing it only accelerates the process. Eventually, it will grow too large for the beads to contain it and it will [[SuperPowerMeltdown consume its bearer and all that surrounds him in a wide area]]. A fate that befell Miroku's father and grandfather before him. While the rate of expansion can be monitored and slowed to a point, the Wind Tunnel's collapse is impossible to fully predict let alone stop. The only way for Miroku to free himself and his descendants from this fate is to [[NoOntologicalInertia kill Naraku]].
* Subverted in ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'', where the fate of Joestar men was to die young to protect the world from evil. [[spoiler:Such fates befell both Jonathan Joestar and his father, who died at the hands of Dio Brando, and Joseph's father, who was killed by a vampire. Joseph subverts the curse when he appears to die in an erupting volcano, but managed to survive and recuperated in Italy while everyone thought he was dead. He would go on to live into his 90s. Jotaro Kujo lived to his forties before dying at the hands of Enrico Pucci, along with daughter Jolyne, when Pucci hit the universal ResetButton.]]