Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
alt title(s): Sworn Brothers 
Kamina: Don't call me Kamina. Call me bro!
Simon: ..But.. we're not related.
Kamina: That doesn't matter one bit! You and I are soul brothers - brothers of the spirit.
For the musical of the same name, see here
This is where two people (most often two men but can be any sexes, or even more than two people) have made a pact with each other. The reasons for this tend to vary, but most often, it's because one or both of them owes the other his life — frequently in battle. From this moment on, they are brothers. Brothers in the sense that they will do anything to protect and, if necessary, avenge the other.
Sometimes this is portrayed with the two cutting themselves to "mix" their blood. Thus, the trope name.
This trope is very common with Proud Warrior Race Guys, as well as a popular theme in kung fu movies. It's also quite popular in Heroic Bloodshed movies featuring The Triads And The Tongs, who have Blood Brotherhood as a central theme of their organization, best expressed through the 36 Oaths that formal triad members take, which basically boil down to "Do not screw over your sworn brothers, or you will get chopped up by lots of blades." Being criminals, however, Triads and Tongs can be just as prone to backstabbing and betrayal as any other criminal organization, which is especially shown in the grittier cinematic portrayals.
Often, Blood Brothers spend so much time with each other that they're Heterosexual Life Partners. See also Nakama, for when a group of people, because of circumstance, are as close as real family would be.
Examples
Anime
- Simon and Kamina from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
- The manga Gorgeous Carat has Ray and Azura who became blood brothers as kids, complete with mixing of blood. Things go downhill in the present when Azura is revealed to be a Complete Monster, and is the villain for most of the series.
Comic Books
- G.I. Joe has Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, who are the equivalent of Blood Brothers ("sword-brothers") and have indeed saved each other's life in battle. Sometimes even while actively trying to defeat/kill each other. Heavy on elements of The Only One Allowed To Defeat You, Enemy Mine, and Brainwashed And Crazy, the latter on Storm Shadow's part (at least when they're on opposite sides). Storm Shadow saving Snake Eyes' life is an integral part of their backstory.
- There's a pair of Marvel Comics villains known as the Blood Brothers, who are formidable separately but increasingly unstoppable the closer they are to one another.
Film
- Mark Gor (Chow Yun-Fat) and Sung Tse Ho (Ti Lung) from John Woo's A Better Tomorrow are probably the best known examples of Blood Brothers in a Heroic Bloodshed movie. In fact, most of John Woo's Heroic Bloodshed movies tend to have two characters develop such a bond with each other during the course of the movie.
- The 2007 Chinese move The Warlords (starring Jet Li, Andy Lau, and Takeshi Kaneshiro/Jin Chengwu) has the three actors' characters playing sworn brothers along the lines of the Peach Tree Oath quoted above, but with tragic consequences since it doesn't hold nearly as well.
- In the 2009 Sherlock Holmes film, a fortune teller reads Watson's palm and refers to "two brothers, not of blood but of bond". While this trope is probably true of them anyway, her actual statement is suspect because Holmes put her up to saying it.
- An old Bud Spencer spaghetti-Western, where the (anti)hero, played by Bud Spencer, had a rather dim Native American sidekick, who followed him around due to them being 'Blood brothers', since Bud had once saved his life with a blood transfusion.
- Han Solo and Chewbacca are Blood Brothers. While Han Solo most likely didn't think so when he first rescued Chewie, Chewbacca felt he had a "life debt" to Han. At first the "brotherhood" was mostly one way but as they traveled together and Han learned more about Chewie and the "life debt", they became true Blood Brothers.
- According to the liner notes on the Blues Brothers album, Jake and Elwood Blues, unrelated orphans growing up in the same dismal orphanage, swore an oath of Blood Brotherhood by cutting their fingers with an E-string allegedly from a famous bluesman's guitar, essentially adopting each other. The Mission From God came later.
- In Mongol, two ten year olds (one of whom is the future Genghis Khan) become blood brothers after one saves the other's life.
- Interesting twist in Practical Magic, where a pair of sisters swear bloodbrotherhood. This becomes a plot point a couple of times.
- In Son of Rambow, Lee Carter decides he and Will Proudfoot should become blood brothers after he saves Will from drowning.
Literature
- In Robert A Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land, the Martians have what is called a "water brother". If you "share water" with someone, from that moment on, you are their brother.
- In Diana Wynne Jones's The Spellcoats, Kars Adon and Hern make a pact of undying friendship after Hern helps free Kars Adon's people from Kankredin. After Kars Adon takes a knife meant for Hern, he points out that they're now quite literally blood brothers.
- The Indian In The Cupboard: Little Bear and Boone, became Blood Brothers by having their wrists cut and then bound together.
- Mercedes Lackey's Tarma and Kethry are Blood Sisters, complete with a blood-mixing ritual of clasped hands. The pair were given a stamp of divine approval from Tarma's goddess when the wounded hands were instantly healed upon contact, leaving distinctive scars.
- Talia eventually does this with both Skif and Kris. Would've been nice if someone had told Dirk that before he went all I Want My Beloved To Be Happy, but then I suppose we wouldn't have the third book.
- Moby Dick: Ishmael and Queequeg.
- Last of the Mohicans
- In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei swear an oath of brotherhood under the tree of a peach garden as quoted above that lasts for their whole lives. They are not the only sworn brothers in the story but by far the most famous, and for multiple chapters the extent to which Guan Yu will go is a plot point. (It's one thing to condition your surrender to your elder brother's rival on elder brother being MIA and only until he's located, it's another to rub his face in it the way Guan Yu does.)
- An Aiel ritual in the Wheel Of Time can make you brother and sister, the ritual is shown in detail when Elayne and Aviendha go through it to become First-sisters.
- In The Bible, David and Jonathan, make a covenant (pact) and their souls are bound together, making this trope Older Than Feudalism. Jonathan will do anything to protect David, namely betraying his own family.
- In the Catholic Dogma, our true father is God. Thus, we are ALL Blood Brothers.
- Funny, this troper doesn't feel like anyone's brother. Y'know, being female and all.
- Judge Dee's three lieutenants, Ma Joong, Chiao Tai and Tao Gan, consider themselves and refer to each other as Blood Brothers.
- In Conn Iggulden's Emperor series, Caesar and Brutus are blood brothers. 'Course, we all know how that turns out in the end...
- In his later Emperor series, Jochi and Jebe do the blood mixing thing.
- The Devil In Vienna has a female example, with Jewish Inge and Catholic Lieselotte copying a blood brotherhood ritual-drinking wine mixed with their own blood- from a western novel. They always sign their letter "B.S.L" for "Blood Sisterly Love."
- Hagan and Waldhari in Stephan Grundy's Attila's Treasure, especially poignant because of the huge differences between them. As the book progresses it seems as though their devotion to each other only grows stronger the wider the gulf between them.
- Saul Tarvitz and Nathaniel Garro in the Horus Heresy novels. Instead of mixing blood, they carved an Imperial eagle into their gauntlets. It even states that there is only one member of the Emperor's Children Garro considers his brother - Tarvitz.
Live Action TV
- In Star Trek, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are Blood Brothers. This goes even further in the movie, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, when we discover that Spock managed to put his "katra" (soul) into McCoy's mind just before he died.
- Played with in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, season 5. Although Dawn is confused about her own existence as Buffy's sister, an important scene involves Buffy and Dawn clasping bloody hands and Buffy declaring that the same blood, "Summers blood", runs through their veins. So not necessarily making them "blood sisters", but affirming the link that already exists.
- Or it may have been the bit of sympathetic magic that made the Ass Pull at the end of the season work.
- The Easy Company in Band Of Brothers evolves into a Nakama by stacking blood brotherhoods one after another.
- In Hercules The Legendary Journeys, Hercules and Iolaus have admitted to loving each other as brothers. (The fanfic writers often choose to ignore those last two words.)
- Kamen Rider Kabuto uses this trope most clearly in the form of the Hopper Brothers: Yaguruma Sou (Kick Hopper) and Kagayama Shun (Punch Hopper).
Music
- In the song "Goodbye Earl" by the Dixie Chicks, Mary Ann and Wanda are Blood Sisters. When Wanda is put into the hospital by Earl, they get together and kill him.
Mythology
Professional Wrestling
- The famous Anoa'i family, which pioneered the Wild Samoan archetype, was formed by Amituanai Anoa'i and "High Chief" Peter Maivia, two men who did see one another as blood brothers (Anoa'i's children referred to Maivia as their uncle). The family includes Afa and Sika Anoa'i (the original Wild Samoans) The Rock (Dwayne Johnson), the late Rodney Anoa'i (a.k.a. Yokozuna), Solofa Fatu (Rikishi), The Tonga Kid, and Eddie Fatu (known as
YOU MANGA Umaga).
- In one of the 90s episodes of Titanes en el Ring, La Momia cut a ribbon, symbolizing the end of his feud with the late Martin Karadagian, and effectively making them Blood Brothers.
Tabletop Games
- All Space Marines ever in Warhammer 40000. They even call each other "Brother", constantly, though this may be as much their
Catholic Space Nazism somewhat monastic style as their fanatical loyalty to the Chapter and one another.
- And they have all been sort-of genetically manipulated to be similar to their chapter's Founder, essentially making them his children.
- For a slightly more heretical version, teams of Tau Fire Warriors go through the Ta'lissera bonding ritual, producing their own squad-scale Nakama. It also gives them sufficient steel in their little blue backs to return even when eight of the original ten are dead, to avenge their fallen blood kin and kick ass for the Greater Good.
- Dungeons And Dragons. In module CM 1 "Test of the Warlords", the PC's can participate in the ritual of blood sharing with a barbarian chief.
- Changeling The Dreaming has the Oath of Clasped Hands, which is your standard blood-mixing ritual with in-game results. (Specifically, both parties get an additional point of Willpower for as long as the oath is upheld.) It's described as the platonic version of the Oath of Truehearts, which is expressly for lovers.
Theater
- The musical "Blood Brothers", obviously. It goes very, very badly.
- Siegfried and Gunther swear blood brotherhood in Götterdämmerung, with Gunther's half-brother Hagen presiding. Given that Hagen is evil, it's not surprising that this ends badly.
Video Games
- Bosses Grant and Kain R. Heinlein from Fatal Fury have 'sworn an oath of eternal allegiance' to each other, as can be seen when they fight in versus mode.
- The "From this moment, you and I are Sworn Brothers" bit between Darunia and Link in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
- Also, Snake's codec call on the Ice Climbers in Super Smash Bros Brawl implies that the Ice Climbers have formed this kind of bond with each other, though they're more like Blood Brother and Sister.
- Eventually, in Planescape Torment Dak'kon does the Pronouncement of Two Deaths as One with you, effectively making you Blood Brothers until death.
- Subverted in The World Ends With You, where Neku initially hates his first two partners, and fights with them only to keep himself in the Game. He turns into a regular Blood Brother by the time he partners with Beat (and even that was only because he and Beat were the only two Players in the Game).
- Salem and Rios of Army Of Two give off this vibe. When they aren't crushing enemy throats like bemasked counter-terrorist fratboys.
- An alien species called Hunters in the Halo series always come in pars, and will try to avenge the death of the other. This rarely happens though, as they are both practically walking tanks, unless you happen to be the Master Chief.
Web Original
- The Euro-mutt title character of The Saga Of Tuck and his Chinese-American friend, Mike, call each other brother when not trading blows. This isn't just rhetoric: the ritual is re-enacted more than once during the story and allows a kind of psychic link. Tuck claims he can't die unless Mike lets him go, and vice versa. This is so far unproven, but it was close.
- In the WALL-E Forum Roleplay, Domenico and the descendant of his old friend Augusto make an oath to always back each other up/watch after each other, as Domenico and Augusto had done 700 years prior.
Western Animation
- Parodied in The Simpsons when Bart and Milhouse became "spit brothers", complete with spitting in the hands and clasping them. Ewww...
- Used in American Dad, when Stan and his new friend become brothers. The next scene shows them both at a hospital for a blood test, happily showing each other the negative test results.
Real Life
- Temujin, who became Chinggis Khan, formed a blood brotherhood with his best friend, Jamuqa, which was common in Mongolia at the time. To seal this, they cut themselves, dripped blood into fermented mare's milk, and drank each other's blood. Keep in mind, they were about 10 or 11 years old when they did this. Because Mongols are badass. Incidentally, Jamuqa ended up as Temujin's main enemies in the wars to unify Mongolia. But when Temujin finally captured him, he offered him a full pardon, but Jamuqa refused, suggesting that Temujin kill him. Temujin took his blood-brother's advice, and killed him, then gave him a proper burial. Because he was nice like that.
- In Ancient Greece, the Sacred Band of Thebes was a troop of picked soldiers which consisted of pairs of homosexual males. The idea was that lovers would fight more fiercely and more cohesively at each other's sides than would strangers with no ardent bonds. It could be argued that this was more like gay married couples then Blood Brothers.
- The theory was right; Thebes once beat Sparta due to the Sacred Band.
- It isn't that clear cut: the entire Spartan society was dedicated to forging units into Nakama.
- In the Thieves World novels there is an Alternate Company Equivalent of the Sacred Band of Thebes.
- The United States Marine Corps, in general.
|
|
