History Main / SinsOFOurFathers

* As a rule of thumb, it's very common for ''Miraculous Ladybug'' stories set after [[BigBad Hawk Moth]] is defeated and unmasked as Gabriel Agreste to have his son Adrien stuck picking up the tab on his mess. The sympathy Adrien gets in such stories [[BaseBreakingCharacter tends to vary]], however. Either this is one more hardship for the LonelyRichKid that his classmates are heartbroken by, or it's the source of a convenient dose of [[LaserGuidedKarma karma]] for the BitchInSheepsClothing to deal with after the heroes [[WeUsedToBeFriends cut ties with him]].

* [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] in ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/44607043/chapters/121613383 A Price to Pay]]'', where Adrien [[FaceHeelTurn betrayed Ladybug]] after learning his father was Hawkmoth and [[TheBadGuyWins helped him win]]. While both expected to fully escape the consequences of their actions because [[RealityWarpingIsNotAToy reality was rewritten]] by his Wish, both find themselves ConvictedByPublicOpinion after Gabriel kills Tom Dupain-Cheng in a car accident and [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney bribes his way]] out of legal consequences. As far as everyone in Paris is concerned, Gabriel Agreste is a murderer, and Adrien the son of a murderer. Even Emilie [[IHaveNoSon disowned him]] alongside divorcing Gabriel, disgusted by his insistence that his father hadn't done anything wrong.

*** Played painfully straight along with [[RevengebeforeReason Revenge before Reason]] by the Dwarfs of ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'', who hold grudges for as long as it takes to settle them, no matter if everyone related to the grudge is long dead. A great example being when an Empire noble hired a group of Dwarf masons to build a massive castle, and after all that hard work, paid them. The problem? He shorted them, by how much you ask...2 & 1/2 coins (which is hinted to be accidental). The grudge was written down in the Great Book, and decades later, a massive throng of dwarfs marched down to demand retribution from the Noble's descendant, who to him just seemed like a massive army that had appeared on his doorsteps demanding blood. [[PlayedForLaughs Hilarity Ensues]].

** [[spoiler: Since Kento is Helios' AlienPrince, Dolmen deems it fit to take out his anger of being maltreated as a clone on him. When Earl begs him to have mercy and says that Kento has nothing to do with his past, Dolmen retorts that doesn't care because the boy is a member of the Heliosian Royal Family, and he hates them with a passion]].

** In spite of never partaking in the atrocities and decadence of the World Nobles, [[spoiler:the Donquixote Family was persecuted in the town they resided in just because they had the blood of the Celestial Dragons. Since they gave up their rights as World Nobles, they were hunted down by the locals, with the matriarch eventually dying of illness. Eventually the men of the family were caught by a mob and tortured at the stake. Then, when the eldest son Doflamingo murdered his father and attempted to return to Mariejois, he was rebuffed for being the son of "traitors" and hunted down by the other World Nobles.]]

* PlayedWith in ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/5796685/ The Sins of the Father]]'''s take on Elektra Natchios. Elektra seeks revenge against Wilson Fisk not just for having her father murdered, but for everything that he made Hugo do. As it's eventually revealed, Hugo got his business up and running by borrowing money from a loan shark who employed Fisk as an enforcer. Later, he and his business partners concocted a scheme to cheat the government out of import taxes by bribing customs officials to declare only a fraction of the cargo that came in on his ships. When Fisk began his partnerships with the Russians and Chinese, he blackmailed Hugo into smuggling Madame Gao's heroin by threatening to expose Hugo's scheme and cause a scandal that would ruin Hugo's reputation. After Fisk was exposed by Nelson & Murdock and arrested, Hugo was able to shut down the operation. But about a half-year later, Fisk (via Vanessa) tried to strongarm Hugo into resuming the smuggling, with a new satellite gang, the Enforcers, doing distribution. Rather than cooperate, Hugo decided to coerce Fisk into giving up the blackmail papers he had on him in exchange for giving him a ledger he kept of every shipment he had done for Fisk. Fisk didn't take this too well and instead hired Bullseye to kill Hugo as well as Carl Hoffman (the corrupt cop who was personally coerced by Fisk into killing his partner).

* PlayedWith in ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/44607043/chapters/121613383 A Price to Pay]]'', where Adrien [[FaceHeelTurn betrayed Ladybug]] after learning his father was Hawkmoth and [[TheBadGuyWins helped him win]]. While both expected to fully escape the consequences of their actions because [[RealityWarpingIsNotAToy reality was rewritten]] by his Wish, both find themselves ConvictedByPublicOpinion after Gabriel kills Tom Dupain-Cheng in a car accident and [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney bribes his way]] out of legal consequences. As far as everyone in Paris is concerned, Gabriel Agreste is a murderer, and Adrien the son of a murderer. Even Emilie [[IHaveNoSon disowned him]] alongside divorcing Gabriel, disgusted by his insistence that his father hadn't done anything wrong.

* In the Literature/SilverJohn story "The Desrick on Yandro", John witnesses a flock of FearsomeCritters dealing out vengeance to the grandson of Joris Yandro, who abandoned a backwoods witch named Polly Wiltse.

* The young man in Music/CreedenceClearwaterRevivial's "Porterville" is liable to be ''lynched'' because he is his no-good father's son. Although he has a chip on his shoulder about this, it's hinted in the song that he's not as bad as his father.

*** Played painfully straight along with [[RevengebeforeReason Revenge before Reason]] by the Dwarfs of ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'', who hold grudges for as long as it takes to settle them, no matter if everyone related to the grudge is long dead. A great example being when an Empire noble hired a group of Dwarf masons to build a massive castle, and after all that hard work, paid them. The problem? He shorted them, by how much you ask...2 & 1/2 coins(which is hinted to be accidental). The grudge was written down in the Great Book, and decades later, a massive throng of dwarfs marched down to demand retribution from the Noble's descendant, who to him just seemed like a massive army that had appeared on his doorsteps demanding blood. HilarityEnsues.

* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'': During the DiscOneFinalDungeon of ''EPISODE 4'', [[spoiler:Mother reveals that she wants to get revenge against the [[AbusivePrecursors Photoners]] for creating and abandoning her for being an imperfect clone of Xion, upon which Xiera chimes in to inform her that the Photoners have been dead for centuries. Mother, no less deterred, decides to destroy ARKS instead since they were created by the Photoners as their replacements. The heroes manage to beat some sense into her before she does anything rash, however.]]

* Discussed in ''WebAnimation/OverlySarcasticProductions''' Trope Talk on the subject. Red observes that vengeance isn't so much about justice as it is about people having anger (justifiable or not) and wanting an acceptable target to vent it at. If the person who actually did them wrong is unavailable and they turn their wrath onto the next best thing, or if hurting them would cause harm to an innocent party (e.g., killing them would orphan their child, who is completely blameless), this trope comes into play. This can easily cause a nasty CycleOfVengeance, as revenge almost always ultimately hurts someone who didn't deserve it, directly or indirectly, giving ''them'' some anger they now want to vent. If it goes on long enough or is taken to an absolute extreme, this can lead to people being punished for the actions of someone who just happened to be from the same country or of the same ethnicity as them, with Red specifically citing the "Curse of Ham" from the Literature/BookOfGenesis as an example.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'': [[Characters/TheLegendOfKorraAsamiSato Asami Sato]] ended up becoming a pariah in the eyes of the public due the Sato name being tarnished by her father's involvement with Amon. After getting a contract with the United Republic Government, that phase eventually ended. For most of the series, she did work darn hard to distance herself from her father. Despite cleansing her family name's bad reputation, she's still hurt and bitter towards her father for putting her in that position.

* The protagonists of ''Anime/YattermanNight'' live in the outskirts of the Yatter Kingdom thanks to the thievery of their ancestors, the Doronbo Gang. They've been effectively barred from entering, even when they're in dire need of help.

** Dr. Brooks [[PointOfDivergence talks Mark Russell out of enrolling Madison in a public school]], pointing out that Madison's late mother is an infamous genocidal madwoman who murdered millions of people by proxy just one year ago and high-schoolers will liably take KidsAreCruel to the extreme and a couple of them might even try to ''murder'' her, if they were to find out who Madison is related to.
** [[AdaptationalHeroism Ren Serizawa]]'s family name carries a lot of weight due to his FamedInStory late father, which enables him to [[spoiler:infiltrate [[EvilInc Apex Cybernetics]] as a spy]].

* ''Literature/HelenAndTroysEpicRoadQuest'': Most curses and mythical afflictions are usually the result of a god or wizard cursing someone's bloodline, so the curse will often crop up in their descendants with varying severity. In the old days, they would be shamed for it, but modern thinking takes a more nuanced approach and treat the afflicted with less judgment.

* Creator/HPLovecraft: "The Doom that Came to Sarnath". The city of Sarnath, shortly after its founding, destroyed a nearby city inhabited by non-human creatures. A thousand years later, as the city celebrated the anniversary of their victory, the doom came to Sarnath.

* In the {{novelization}} of ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'', one of the reasons why [[Characters/MonsterVerseMadisonRussell Madison]] is bullied and ostracized at school is because of her late mother's global EcoTerrorist crimes in [[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 the previous story]].

*** Finally, the antagonist of the Ninja quests for ''Stormblood'', Hanzo, is a descendant of a famous Doman ninja; one of the ancestor's students was responsible for founding the village which your job tutors come from, which Hanzo sees as a betrayal. Not only does he intend to destroy the village in its entirety for its founder's actions, but Hanzo slays his underling Oboro - [[UngratefulBastard immediately after Oboro had (seemingly) carried out his instructions to the letter]] - simply for being trained by the village.