Brother Sister Incest - Television Tropes & Idioms

Sister Princess and its "sequel" series, Sister Princess Repure, both have incestuous subtexts, but the subtext surfaces clearly in Repure: in the very first episode, Karen recounts how she decided that she would be her brother's bride, despite society's disapproval of such a thing. In the original series it is less visible, although still present — one sister was Wataru's lover in a previous life, at least one other flirts openly with him, and all twelve spend one episode making mock wedding dresses so they can play at being his "bride".
Onegai Twins has what may or may not be an incestuous Love Triangle, between a boy and two girls who both claim to be his twin sister. To add to the blurring of the line, the girl who turns out to actually be his twin is different between the anime and the novelization. Interestingly, though, the setup of the plot clearly steers away from this: whoever turns out to be the twin must step out.
- That said, both girls kiss Maiku before it's over, so be ready for some Squick. The possibility of being his sister keeps them from getting really aggressive, but that's all it does; their ambitions are not deterred.
- Meanwhile, perhaps to provide contrast, there's a minor character (Matagu) who's blatantly attracted to his little sister Haruko.
Magikano plays with the trope: The main character's oldest sister has a downright obsessive love for him (one that is definitly not simply sisterly) even to the point where she claims she will marry him and becomes ultra possessive whenever any other girl shows any interest. However he doesn't seem to have any interest in her. The arrival of the protagonist's Magical Girlfriend makes her intensely jealous and always vying for his attention.
- Despite the show's fanservicey roots, it's never portrayed as actually romantic or sexual though. The manga on the other hand...
In Marmalade Boy, Yuu and Miki become step-siblings when their parents marry (with both sets of parents splitting up and marrying each other), and then find themselves growing attracted to each other. Later in the series, they find evidence that they are actually blood siblings after all; before they learn that this was all a big misunderstanding (said evidence wasn't referring to Yuu, but to his mom's still-born child), they decide that they would marry regardless.
- Interestingly, the Mangaka (according to her notes on the series) originally planned for them to discover that they were blood siblings and split up for good, eventually hitching up with their unrequited love interests in a Distant Finale. Her producer convinced her that it wouldn't go down well with the fans...
Angel Sanctuary features a romantic relationship between the main character, Setsuna, and his (real, not adopted, foster or step-) sister Sara.
In Maze Megaburst Space, not only is the central couple a pair of blood siblings, and not only is the central plot their successful and unrepentant plot to be together, but it goes even beyond that...
In Revolutionary Girl Utena, not only does Touga's sister Nanami harbor an intense crush on her older brother, but she also has a near-insane jealousy of anyone or anything that might attract more of his attention and love than she does. There is also the strange love-hate relationship between Kozue Kaoru and her twin brother Miki, best displayed in the bizarre bathtub-and-straight-razor scene from the Utena movie. Most important to the plot, though, is the semi-consensual relationship between Anthy and her manipulative and domineering brother Akio.
- This troper considers Nanami's obsessive pursuit of Touga a subversion. While the rest of the school clearly thinks she has incestuous feelings for her brother, Nanami herself is shocked and disgusted when Touga tries to put the moves on her. Latter episodes of the show make it evident that Nanami knows nearly nothing about sex. She is too innocent to realize how her desperate need for affection appears to her more dirty-minded classmates (most of whom are involved in some very sketchy relationships).
- Nanami was only forced to confront her feelings to any degree when in the backseat of Akio's car — under duress, and after being molested by Touga. (She did stare at Touga in the shower, and it's obvious that she wasn't asking for just a goodnight kiss in episode ten.) How would she have responded if it had been under different conditions? This Troper isn't sure, but it's an uncomfortable question.
In Tenchi Muyo!, in at least in one of its continuities Tenchi is part of the Juraian royal family, like Ayeka. Ayeka is attracted to him at first primarily because of his familial resemblance to her long-lost half-brother (and betrothed husband-to-be), Tenchi's grandfather. That, of course, makes her Tenchi's half great aunt.
- In fact, in the OVA/GXP continuity Tenchi is related to all of the girls through Sasami/Tsunami.
  - The familial connection between Tenchi and all but two of the girls is metaphysical/magical rather than genetic, though.
Love Hina's most recent segment, the miniseries Love Hina Again, features Keitaro's little step-sister Kanako, who wants to claim him for herself. Throughout her attempted seduction of him she always refers to him as "big brother"...even when half-naked and cuddling up to him.
- In the manga, it's discussed at length that they are Not Blood Siblings - but Keitaro treats Kanako as if they are. As such, he's remarkably freaked out by Kanako's attempts at seduction.
DC Da Capo features another almost-incest relationship between a boy and his foster sister.
In Soul Taker, Runa wanted to marry her twin brother Kyousuke, who declined the honor.
In an unusually negative scene, there is a pseudo-incestuous rape sequence in Ayashi No Ceres.
- It also contains a subversion and plot device of this trope, seeing as Shisou Mikage, who is still madly in love with his wife Ceres, is reincarnated as Aki Mikage. Aki's twin sister Aya is the reincarnation of Ceres, and she is eventually led to killing him to save both herself and Ceres.
Koi Kaze plays this trope straight with two blood siblings who haven't seen each other since childhood. It's arguably one of the most realistic and emotionally powerful portrayals of an incestuous relationship.
The sum of the plot in Boku wa Imouto ni Koi o Suru ("I'm In Love With My Little Sister." Talk about Exactly What It Says On The Tin.)
Alti in Simoun is obsessed with her sister Kaimu, and tries to prod her into choosing to be female so that Alti can become male and "protect" her.
Delphine from Last Exile has a similar fascination with her brother Dio.
Ali and En in the anime-only "Makaiju" ("Doom Tree") arc of Sailor Moon. This is explainable to an extent, however: not only are they the only surviving members of their species, but they are "children" of a tree, which used what remained of its powers to "grow" them after the rest of the species was destroyed in warfare; thus making them "siblings" in roughly the same sense as Adam and Eve.
Dokkoida?! deliberately plays with this trope since Suzuo's Mission Controller, Tampopo, disguises herself as his sister, Kosuzu, to blend into Earth society. The eighth episode in particular parodies this trope to the point of full-fledged Deconstruction: seeing a soap opera using this trope makes all of the Pretty Freeloaders in the apartment the characters live in worry about Kosuzu/Tampopo's relationship with Suzuo — including Kosuzu. Suzuo doesn't notice a thing, and manages to restore the status quo with a Dunno Whats Going On But speech at the end.
Hansel and Gretel from Black Lagoon, even though it's not clear which of them is which, or if they're even different genders.
Genshiken pokes fun at this, with Sasahara, who actually has a sister, delivering the above line.
Tiriel and Sorath in Shakugan No Shana have an incestuous relationship, though in this case it's portrayed in a wholly negative (and downright disgusting) light. What they are muddles the water, but only somewhat. Shana seems to take more offense at the French kissing than anything else.
In Papa To Kiss In The Dark Mira and his father Kyousuke are involved in an overtly sexual relationship. It turns out that Kyousuke is actually Mira's uncle, but that only barely minimizes the squick, which Mira actually lampshades to the audience early on.
In Tsukihime, Shiki's sister has a very possessive crush on him. Parodied in numerous doujinshis and official omakes, including one where Ciel points out the hopelessness of the crush. Shiki's feelings are purely platonic. And a large part sheer terror—Akiha is tsuntsundere at best and yandere at worst. Of course, they are Not Blood Siblings, and Akiha does have her own path in the Visual Novel.
- On that note, Azaka from Kara no Kyoukai also loves her brother deeply, to point where it gets in the way of her becoming friends with the series heroine Ryogi Shiki. Her love may not be the same in nature as Akiha's but since she and her brother were used as a strong basis for Akiha and Shiki, it is likely that the "love for my brother" was carried over as well.
- Though they never did anything incestuous, SHIKI hints many times that he has romantic interest in his sister Akiha. Too bad all she thinks about is her other "brother," making this trouper really feel bad for SHIKI.
- While we're on the note of Type-Moon, in Fate/Stay Night, Ilya, who is Kiritsugu's blood daughter, has quite a bit of affection which could be considered romantic for Kiritsugu's adopted son, Shirou.
Ren and Mihato in They Are My Noble Masters have a mutual brocon-siscon relationship, and are quite supportive of each other. It's almost sweet if one is willing to look past the sibling thing. Then again, this is a show that's filled to the brim with fetishes. They do have a route together in the original h-game.
- In the same series, Shinra is very open about her sexual attraction towards Miyu, her younger sister. Worse, she sexually assaults her on numerous occasions, which is played entirely for laughs. That Miyu seems to be very ambiguous about this and that the youngest sister is actually jealous for being left out just adds to the squick-factor. Fetishes, indeed.
The Spiral manga has a variation: Ayumu was in love with his sister-in-law even before his brother married her, and lived with her after he disappeared. Also, since all of the Blade Children have the same father, Kousuke and Ryoko's relationship, despite growing up as childhood friends rather than siblings, is incestuous. Kousuke specifically asks Ryoko not to call him 'big brother,' saying that he wants to be able to dream of being with her.
Massively implied in ".hack//Legend of the Twilight" ( epecially in the anime, where it's played mostly straight, moreso than the manga, where it's largely played for laughs ) between protagonists Shugo and Rena that the series has become derisively known among critics as ".hack//Twincest".
In Code Geass Lelouch admits that his half-sister Euphemia was the closest thing he had to a first love and his relationship with full-sister Nunnally is considered suspicious both by people in the actual show and by fans of the series. However, it should be noted that Lelouch is a Chaste Hero who has shown little interest in sex, despite spending plenty of time around Kallen and C.C.
- Well, there was that time that he turns to Kallen for comfort after having a nervous breakdown... and promptly gets smacked in the face. Let's not forget that Lelouch might have been treating Kallen as his surrogate little sister (and was reciprocated at that).
  - Seriously where did that come from?
- In the final episode, Lelouch uses the term "aishiteru" to describe his feelings for Nunnally (too bad she is under the effects of Geass at the time and can't remember that afterward), and she reciprocates, a while later, with "aishite imasu" (too bad he is dying at the time). Aishiteru is rarely used in japanese,if it's used,it's only used for really strong affection. Aishite imasu is used even less, and is usually held to be expressly romantic, reserved only for extremely deep romantic love. Siblings do not say 'aishite imasu.' Ever. The Official Code Geass Guide Book mentions in the Suzaku character profile that Lelouch wanted to spend the future with Nunnally, although you could argue whether that meant in any actual romantic capacity or just as brother and sister.
  - Back when the show was airing, there was a merchandise "leak-out" sustaining the idea that one of Lelouch's "non-sisters" could have possibly gotten an "aishiteru" as well (though the girl doesn't seem want to hear it), but apparently that concept was scrapped (along with the whole concept of having characters keylines printed out on gumcards).
- The way Nunnally is dressed (presumably per Lelouch's instructions) in the last episode, during the culmination of Zero Requiem, is rather suspicious.
Aono in sola is obessed with her (younger, for a change) brother Yorito to the point of creating a copy of him that took enough power to leave her bed-ridden for years.
It is heavily implied in Naru Taru that the bully Aki Honda and her older brother Yasuhito have a ... rather intense relationship.
- It's downright spelled in the manga. So much that Aki is once shown straddling Yasuhito while practically naked. Then, Oni shows up, kills Yasuhito by smashing his head on ther wall, and rapes and kills Aki as revenge for what they did to his master, Hiroko.
Renhou and his sister Miiru in Fushigi Yuugi. In fact, their incestuous relationship got them killed by their people, and they go to the Big Bad Tenkou in hopes he'll help them stay together.
The first episode of Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer, the Villains Of The Week were an incestuous set of twins (who were empowered by the Big Bad Evil Guy to save the dying sister) who merged into a gestalt monster "powered by love".
Infinite Ryvius spoiler:We eventually discover that Ikumi had fallen in (that kind of) love with his Dead Older Sister.
Kanan is Hakkai's older sister in the Saiyuki manga, although this was edited out of the anime version, and, as they had been Separated At Birth or very close to it, they weren't originally aware of it. A tie-in novel also suggested that they might be twins as well, which was approved by Word Of God.
Miyuki in Triangle Heart 3 Sweet Songs Forever is actually Kyoya's cousin, but adopted as his sister. In the game she's an option, though in canon he chooses to be with his childhood friend. Yes, this shows up in early episodes Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha; watch as Kyoya states he's going to visit Shinobu. For one second she shows jealousy, and then it's never mentioned again.
In Clannad, Tomoya's wild imagination causes him to imagine the Sunohara siblings as this when he misinterprets one of Mei's lines.
In True Tears what starts as a case of Big Brother Complex evolves into borderline incest when we learn that Jun has romantic feelings toward Noe, his younger sister. This trope is also averted at one point Shinchiro and Hiromi are under the impression that they are siblings but it turns out that they are not related.
Yukito makes a comment to Touya about him having a sister complex in the manga of Card Captor Sakura, although this may just be joking around. (This was before Yukito and Touya became an Official Couple.)
- Think Yukito meant "love for his little sister as a little sister"; nothing of romantic nature.
Hoshina Utau from Shugo Chara loves the resident bishonen catboy of the series, Tsukiyomi Ikuto. The thing is, her real family name is Tsukiyomi and she is Ikuto's sister, which does explain why Ikuto is so cold towards her advances — in fact, he's downright disgusted when she kisses him.
The secret of the Kuhouin family in Kure-nai is that each girl born into the family is imprisoned in the "Inner Sanctuary" for their entire lives, for the sole purpose of bearing the children of their brothers to continue the lineage. Their very existence is kept hidden from the public, and the male members of the family marry women from outside the family just to keep up the masquerade.
In Ghost Hound, the main character, Tarou, has a slight obsession with his sister which leads to him accusing the girl he likes of being his sister reincarnated as an explanation for why he thinks about her all the time.
In D Gray-man, Komui's attitude toward his sister Linali straddles the line between a Big Brother Complex and this trope; even the other characters find it a little creepy and frequently remark on his obsession.
Candy Boy's main theme is the yuri subtext between (fraternal) twin sisters. The lyrics in the recap video appended to the first episode proclaim that "this may be the best pairing in the history of the world". Ahem.
Vampire Knight: Yuuki and Kaname are blood siblings in a romantic relationship. In fact, it has been stated that marriage between siblings in not uncommon between pureblood vampires: For examples, Yuuki and Kaname's parents were married siblings as well.
- The real Kaname died when Yuki was a baby.
  - Biologically, genetically, whatever you want to call it, this Kaname and Yuki ARE still blood related. Only the real Kaname's soul got killed off, allowing rido to implant the soul of the Kuran ancestor in his body. So really, either way, Kaname and Yuki are still related and it's still incest.
Berserk subverts this somewhat, since Serpico and Farnese were in love at one point and are half-siblings, but Serpico's love becomes more brotherly after he learns that Farnese is his half sister.
Minato and Juunichi's relationship in Akane-iro Ni Somaru Saka is seen as this by everyone despite the siblings' insistence that it's not. It turns out everyone else was spot on, because when the show ends, Minato is the one who ends up winning.
In Mahou Shounen Majorian, Mari falls in love with the magical girl form of her brother, Masaru—which makes it kind of hard to classify.
Axis Powers Hetalia has both the traditional brother/sister version and a Ho Yay one. On a hand, the Yandere Natalia/Belarus would love to marry her older brother Ivan/Russia (also a Yandere), which scares him out to no end. On the other, the Annoying Younger Sibling Yonsoo/South Korea isn't much more succesful on getting his older brother Yao/China (and sometimes his other older brother, Kiku/Japan), to aknowledge his more-than-brotherly affection. Both cases are played for laughs.
- And let's not get into the UST and Ship Tease between former (how does this work, anyway?) brothers America and England.
  - Technically, England qualifies as America's ex Big Brother Mentor, until It Got Worse. And we all know how and when that happened.
At one point in the Oh My Goddess manga, a botched love potion fed to Keiichi causes any female to meet his eyes to become passionately infatuated with him — starting with his sister Megumi. She says, "Our love can transcend these foolish bonds of blood!" His horrified reaction: "Oh no it can't!" Fortunately, neutralizing the potion wipes her memory of the incident.
In Minami Ke, Chiaki and Kana's adoration of Haruka many times looks extreme, the fact that they talk about her possessively and will scrutinize any potential love interest says something.
in Kare Kano, Kazuma and Tsubasa simutanously get crushes on their other as their parents get married. Cue Squick from parents, Wangst from Kazuma which make him run away from home, which makes poor Tsubasa down the mental road before it gets better
Somethinged in Fresh Pretty Cure. Miki's brother Kazuki lives with her father (her parents are separated, presumably divorced) and uses his name. She hasn't told her best friends they they're related, and in the first episode she refers to their upcoming outing as a date. The second episode focuses on one of their dates; it also features The Reveal that they're related, but you'd be forgiven for missing this detail.
Vampire Game - It's a big, feuding Royally Screwed Up family, and brother-sister incest is the least of their problems - that couple looks downright normal in comparison, Love Makes You Crazy moments aside.
Happy World: The explanation Takeshi uses to explain Elle's connection to him is that she's his step-sister. Cut to Takeshi exclaiming loudly to her in a classroom "We should make a baby." And they actually go halfway through the act before realising that they're not emotionally ready for it.
- As it turns out, their relationship to eachother is technically step-siblings... probably. Takeshi's mother is Elle's mother, but Elle doesn't have a father, so it's a bit complicated.
- Their child, Prayer, is eventually born... but not through normal means. Takeshi and Elle fuse their bodies, and Prayer is born when they split apart again.
In Shoujo Sect, one of the early hentai scenes is between sisters. Momoko gets mad at Naitou for helping set this up. The amusing thing is that if she hadn't said so, we wouldn't have known they were sisters, what with all the Onee Sama-ing that goes on at all-girl schools.
Ninin Ga Shinobuden has Sasuke imagining that he's the object of an Unwanted Harem. He disturbingly imagines that Shinobu is his sister.
Onii-chan Control has the brother who fled from his younger sister because of this, and the younger sister who followed him there for the same reason.
Two examples of this, running in both directions, are present in Hatsukoi Limited. Ayumi's brother, Yuuji, is a definite siscon, and Koyoi Bessho is defined by her brother complex. Of course, they are but one small part of the Love Dodecahedron that permeates the series.
In the spinoff of Genshiken, Kujibiki Unbalance has the main character's sister pursuing him endlessly, even going so far as to try perfume that is actually a love potion to seduce him. Instead she just succeeds in getting MC's best friend to kiss MC much to his sister's despair and anger.
Subverted in Yuu Watase's pre-Fushigi Yuugi manga, Shishunki Miman Okotowari. Asuka Higuchi falls for her half-brother Manato Sudou early on in the story, and he eventually comes to reciprocate. And then they learn that they aren't blood-related after all.
In Shinkon Gattai Godannar, English pilot Knight Valentine will flirt with any female in sight, much to the consternation of Ellis, his sister and partner, who thinks he doesn't notice her. But if the way he looks at her swimsuit-clad form and the fact that he sees Ellis' face when an amnesiac Mila is hitting him with Charm Person are any indication, he does notice her in that way.
This issue is addressed in a second season episode of Jigoku Shoujo. The incestual love in this case is one-sided, and the offending sibling is, of course, sent to hell. The episode ends on a lighter note; the aforementioned sibling is not tortured on the ferry (unlike sinners who have done worse), and there is the knowledge that the brother and sister will eventually be reunited as per the terms of the curse.
The Manga and Anime of Kiss X Sis is Onegai Twins on steroids The basic plot is this. Keita is a 14 year old junior high school student studying for his high school entrance exams. He has two older stepsisters in high school Riko and Ako. One day his sisters decide to bring him lunch while they have free time from school and end up confessing their love to him in front of his class. To make matters worse, His mother and stepfather are completely ok with this, in fact his mother is taking bets among the neighborhood house wives on which girl he gets first!

Close Anime and Manga

Quicksilver, of the Marvel Universe, is extremely protective of his sister, the Scarlet Witch, and their unusual relationship is a little more suggestive in the revamped Ultimate Marvel.
- Forget "little more suggestive". In the first issue of ''Ultimates 3", it's stated outright:
  Wasp: You don't get it, Mister Rogers, do you? They love each other.
  Captain America: Of course they do. They're brother and sister.
  Wasp: No. It's more than that. They're in love.
  Captain America: But... they are brother and sister.
  Hawkeye: Yep. And if you think we've got problems with that Tony Stark sex video, just wait until somebody in the media figures them out.
  - I would hate to be the one to have to explain that to Mister Rogers.
  - As the above dialogue indicates, the general attitude of the team is, "Oh, Cap, you old 1940s fuddy-duddy, get with the times." This is one of the many reasons the book was less than warmly received.
  - But as the third issue tells us, the rest of the team also finds it to be sick.
  - This troper assumed the "you just don't get it, do you" to refer not to Wasp thinking it's OK, or to Cap needing to get with it as such: but to Cap literally not being able to "get it", what with him being from an earlier, more innocent time.
  - Given the horribly abusive and manipulative childhood their father put them through, it's not actually too psychologically unrealistic that they'd turn to each other for "comfort and joy". Amazing as it seems, the mainstream Marvel Universe versions (orphaned twice, victims of prejudice, the emotional mindfuck of Multiple Choice Past, finding out your real dad is your old Bad Boss, losing your first and second families, and finally being driven insane) had the better lives...
Preacher has two families that indulge in incest, both of whom end up with deformed children: Jesse's childhood friend, Billy-Bob, only has one eye, while the inbred children of Jesus Christ are mentally retarded. The latter was intentional, as they were trying to keep the bloodline of Christ "pure". Since it's been two thousand years, that's a lot of inbred Jesus generations. (Not really sure why they felt a genetically pure Christ with an IQ of 7 was preferable to an intelligent but less pure Christ). Herr Starr comments on this by saying "Son of God or son of man...you can't fuck your sister and expect much good to come of it."
Top Ten has Smax and Rexa, which attempts to justify it by saying they're probably the only two half-ogres in existence, thanks to their unlikely conception. Smax is squicked by the idea, Rexa isn't. He gets over it.
- It's implied that because their home universe is governed by the laws of fairy tales and myth, the taboo doesn't really exist, and Smax is just being a Woobie.
In a later issue of Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil that Men Do, it was revealed that Francis Klum who later becomes Mysterio had been repeatedly raped over the course of his life by his older brother.
Averted in Y The Last Man where Yorick describes his relationship with his sister Hero as being "Like Luke and Leia...but without the French kissing."
Ragdoll of the Secret Six occasionally mentions his relationship with his sister- among other activities, French kissing and prom night.

Close Comics

Super Smash Bros. - The Evangelion Wars: Dialga and Palkia are supposed to be brother and sister (originally brothers, but Palkia got bent). It really doesn't come off that way.

Close Fanfiction

Blades of Glory: villains Franz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg, fairly smolder with sexual tension for one another until they finally fling themselves at each other just as the police are hauling them away. It's ok, though. The actors are married in Real Life. Insert "Awww" here.
- Awww!
Cruel Intentions (or the very funny parody of that film's semi-incestuous lust in Not Another Teen Movie).
- The much campier sequel features a pair of real-life twin sisters sharing a kiss in a shower while the male lead watches. Or So I Heard.
Curse Of The Golden Flower: Accidentally occurs, much to the newly discovered siblings' horror.
Euro Trip. "Here's a fun fact... YOU MADE OUT WITH YOUR SISTER!"
- If Michelle Trachtenberg were my sister, I'd probably make out with her, too.
  - Seconded...
  - Third'd!
  - Call me crazy, but I'd rather make out with her now, when she's not my sister.
  - I see what you did there.
In Joe Dirt, Joe realizes that a woman who is intensely attracted to him may be his long-lost sister, but because he's normally such a loser romantically, he doesn't tell her until after they have sex. Fortunately, it turns out her brother wasn't long-lost, they found him again almost immediately, meaning she's not related to Joe. This means they can have sex again, but Joe can't get it up anymore - until they role play being brother and sister. In the present day setting of the movie, Joe then admits he made that last part up to gross out his listeners.
Ginger Snaps heavily links lycanthropy with sex; this becomes particularly squicky when Ginger suggests Bridgette should let Ginger bite her so they can be their own pack. Ew.
- The sequel Ginger Snaps Back, which places the characters in the eighteenth century ... somehow ... makes this even more explicit, with Bridgette ultimately choosing to be with Ginger over any other considerations. It's also implied in the film that they had killed their parents to be together ...
Gladiator: Emperor Commodus plans to do this with his sister whether she wants to or not (she doesn't), but never gets the chance. That and threatening her son make a good Kick The Dog moment, though.
Hellboy 2: Prince Nuada seems to have a lot of sexual tension going with his sister Princess Nuala. The presence of implied incest was confirmed by Nuada's actor.
High School Musical: Sharpay and Ryan Evans series have a disturbingly close relationship. Heck, their first duet could easily be interpreted as a love song.
- There's not much to interpret. It IS a love song according to Kelsi. The twins just changed it around a bit so it didn't sound so romantic. When Troy and Gabriella sing it correctly, it's clearly a love song.
- Additionally, a joke is made at one point saying that if Sharpay could play both Romeo and Juliet, her brother would be out of a job. Which is a nice joke until you realize that means that the twins have no problem playing romantic roles with each other.
  - What makes the whole scenario stranger is that Ryan was very clearly written to be the group's token gay member. It's only implied, but implied quite strongly.
  - Then of course, there was the moment in the second film where Troy shows signs of jealousy regarding Ryan spending time with Troy's girlfriend Vanessa. Seriously, Troy, of all the good-looking cast members hanging out with your girlfriend, and you're jealous of Ryan?
  - Yeah, but they're actors. Ryan and Sharpay kissing in Romeo and Juliet is about as meaningful as when Brad Pitt kisses Angelina Jolie in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, back when he was married to Jennifer Aniston.
  - Brad Pitt. And Angelina Jolie. Did you think that edit through before you posted it?
  - It was supposed to be a joke.
  - It was.
Hotel New Hampshire uses it for comedy, drama, squick and romance... somehow it works.
House of Yes: the twins blatantly admit to their incestous behavior much to their younger siblings disgust
My Chauffeur: In this otherwise forgettable film, the male and female lead characters hump like bunnies. The next day they find out they might be brother and sister. Hilarity Ensues.
Oldboy: In this Korean thriller, it turns out that the reason the protagonist is imprisoned for ten years in a hidden private jail is that while in school, he told people about seeing the antagonist having sex with a girl who (unbeknownst to the protagonist) was the antagonist's sister. In a further twist, it's revealed that the woman that the protagonist falls in love with after getting out of prison is in fact his own daughter, and that the antagonist aranged his captivity specifically to produce this outcome
The Other Boleyn Girl: Anne Boleyn miscarries her second child, then asks her brother George to try to impregnate her.
Repo! The Genetic Opera has Luigi and Amber Sweet. While all the Largo siblings hate each other, these two have some serious UST going on. Pavi even comments on it in "Mark It Up".
Pavi: My brother and sister should—
Luigi: Pavi! Shut the F*CK up!
The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Riff-Raff and Magenta certainly seem to have a closer relationship than most siblings (just look at a certain phrase above...). The same actors, playing different characters in the execrable sequel, Shock Treatment, have a much more explicitly BSI relationship.
Say It Isn't So has exactly one joke: Chris Klein dates Heather Graham, is led to believe she's his sister. When he finds out he's not he must win her b....zzzzzzzzzzz....
Scarface:Tony Montana's violent protectiveness toward his sister Gina has definite elements of this, inspired by the 1932 film it was a remake of, which had its title character carrying on the same kind of relationship with his own sister. This, combined with the effects of his increasing cocaine addiction, culminates in Tony gunning down his best friend Manny after catching him with her (and after she and Manny had gotten married, no less). Gina confronts Tony near the end about it as his mansion is being besieged by Sosa's killers and tries to kill him, but Sosa's men get her before she can reach him. This, among other things, is what finally drives Tony to take up his M-16 and go out with guns blazing.
Star Wars: Many a fan has commented that if indeed Leia had "always known" that Luke Skywalker was her brother, that casts the full blown snogging in Empire Strikes Back in a whole new light.
- Well the kiss was to try to show she didn't want Han, so it would subconsciously be she'd rather kiss her brother. She must have been REALLY desperate.
  - Also, this (NSFW) Sexy Losers strip.
- This troper used to be in favor of the Luke/Leia shipping. Note that this happened when she was a child. Yikes.
A Very Brady Sequel: Averted (barely) when Greg and Marcia bravely fight an attraction inspired by the real-life sexual tension between Maureen Mc Cormick and Barry Williams in the original show.
- Parodied in Two Stupid Dogs in an episode where the dogs go to live with a family much like the Bradys. The teenage brother and sister get into a fight, before the dad tells them to kiss and make up. They proceed to do so literally by making out.
In the So Bad Its Horrible The Dark Is Rising movie, This Troper and his friends noticed a distinctly unsisterly vibe towards Will from the youngest sister.
The Dreamers. That is all.
In Amityville II: The Possession Sonny Montelli (based on Ronald Defeo, Jr.) is influenced by the evil in the house to seduce and have sex with his sister.
At the end of Serenity River is shown watching Kaylee and her brother have sex. While she doesn't seem turned on she doesn't seem repulsed either, mostly curious.

Close Films

In Sharon Maas's Of Marriageable Age, Saroj finds out Nat is her half-brother, only after she's carrying his child. Of course it turns out she's adopted, in the end..
J.R.R. Tolkien's story of Túrin Turambar (told both in The Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin) has a doomed relationship between Túrin and his Separated At Birth sister Nienor.
- Túrin is based on the character of Kullervo from The Kalevala, who has a similar unknowingly incestuous relationship with his sister.
- The Lord Of The Rings has Bilbo as Frodo's uncle, first cousin and second cousin. There's got to be some incest going on somewhere in that mess.
- Frodo was the son of Bilbo's second cousin on the father's side Drogo and his first cousin on the mother's side Primula, making them First and Second cousins once removed. Frodo just calls Bilbo "uncle" because it's shorter.
House Targaryen in A Song Of Ice And Fire made a proud tradition of breeding brother to sister for generations. Somehow, the descendants come out of it with dashing good looks.
- Though most Targaryens have a penchant to be silver-haired and violet-eyed, their insistence on keeping the bloodline "pure" for three hundred years or so means also that they now tend to produce either an honorable ruler or a complete psychopath, making the Targaryens a sort of on-again-off-again example of Royally Screwed Up.
- Likewise, Cersei and Jaime Lannister, as revealed in the first book. Cersei's children, including King Joffrey, are not the offspring of her husband Robert Baratheon, but of her Half Identical Twin Jaime. If this were ever proven, the kids would be publicly slaughtered as abominations. Mom's not cool with that.
  - Made squicky to Wall Banger proportions when it's revealed that they had these urges since they were small children.
  - She also sleeps with her teen cousin, Lancel, while Jaime is captured. As Tyrion wryly notes, "No one can say that my sister does not love her family."
- And then there's the scene with Theon Greyjoy and his sister Asha, where she gave him a deep and rather passionate kiss. Didn't get too far, and the poor boy didn't know until later, but this troper is starting to wonder about Martin a little.
  - There's not even simply just that. Asha also feels Theon up during that scene and comments on his, uh, size. This troper has gone beyond wondering.
  - Yeah, but in this case, it was a Secret Test Of Character: Asha recognized her brother, even if the reverse wasn't true. Plus, Theon was pretty embarrassed when he found out.
- It's not that Martin has issues, but if he's trying to portray an utterly realistic world, then, well, there's the fact that these things actually did happen in ancient and mediaeval times.
The love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights has overtones of this, but don't worry - he's adopted.
- He's adopted. Really. Because Mr. Earnshaw (who is the only member of his family to ever go to town) just happens to find the boy on the streets of town, and Mr. Earnshaw's wife just happens to take an instant loathing to the child...
- In any case, the vast majority of other unions in the novel are of the lighter variety.
There seems to be no sign of incest in the original book, but that didn't stop the Chronicles Of Narnia fans. You can easily find Peter/Susan, Edmund/Lucy and Peter/Edmund stories. "Blame the chemistry between the actors."
In Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years Of Solitude, the first two propagators of the Buendia family are cousins, and a major theme throughout is the prevention of the family tree from getting too tangled, for fear of "bearing iguanas". There is much Squick. In fact, at the very end, one character becomes the lover of his aunt, thinking she's his long-lost sister.
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides begins with a portrayal of the incestuous relationship between the protagonist's grandparents.
Twice in the Deverry series; the first time as part of the ancient tragedy that drives the first four books, involving a despairing heroine dumped by her one true love, the second time as one of the many acts demonstrating the corrupt nature of the villainess.
In Dean Koontz' The Bad Place, the villain, generally known as "Candy", and his brother, co-protagonist Frank, are two of the offspring of hermaphroditic Roselle (fully reproductively functional as either sex), who was herself the product of brother-on-sister rape.
- The villain's sisters, Violet and Verbina have an implied attraction for each other and a rather blatant one for Candy. Considering that this eventually gets them killed, the latter is definitely not played for eroticism.
Katherine Kurtz's Camber of Culdi. The last king of the Festillic dynasty, Imre I, has an incestuous relationship with his sister Ariella, which produces the line of Festillic pretenders who for generations proceed to plague the Haldane dynasty.
Vladimir Nabokov's Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle chronicles an incestuous family with a focus on a specific brother-sister pair, who end up semi-happily married by the end of the book.
The Dollanganger series by V.C. Andrews. The first two books, famously starting with Flowers in the Attic, focus on two siblings Cathy and Chris who with their younger twin brother and sister are locked in an attic by their grandmother and escape after the male twin dies of poisoned donuts. Turns out the reason their Grandmother Olivia locked them up is because their Mother and Father (who died in a car accident making it necessary for them to move to their Grandparent's mansion) were half-uncle and niece and were disowned because they were caught having sex and then ran away. The big issue is that Cathy and her brother Chris have an incestuous relationship as teenagers that Cathy tries to avoid but, among other things, apparently Rape Is Love, and they end up living as husband and wife in an open secret type of relationship. The big surprise comes in the fifth book and prequel when you find out Cathy's parents were not half-uncle and niece...they were actually half-brother and sister AS WELL as half-uncle and niece due to Cathy's grandfather Malcolm raping his Step-Mother Alicia. They never knew as Alicia and husband died and Malcolm, John Amos, and Olivia NEVER told anyone. All of this leads to (Grandmother) Olivia becoming the cold cruel person she is in the later books in order to hide this from the world
- Many of the author's works are known for this trope, including the Casteel series (Heaven and her uncle Troy), the Cutler series (Dawn and Philip), Landry series (Ruby marries her secret half-brother so he can pose as the father of her illegitimate child, and later has a one night stand with him) and Broken Flower.
John Irving's Hotel New Hampshire.
Orson Scott Card seems fond of twisting this trope. In Speaker for the Dead, sequel to Enders Game, Miro and Ouanda are outed as half-siblings by Ender's Speaking, due to Miro's mother's adulterous relationship with Ouanda's father. Later they both remark that it's lucky that, due to strong Catholicism, they never had sex.
- One critic accused Card of encouraging this trope in Ender's Game, seeing Ender and Valentine as "obviously" incestuous. Card, at this time rarely responding to negative criticism, shot back with both barrels, saying among other things that his critic apparently doesn't believe that brothers and sisters are allowed to care about each other. This contributor feels she missed the point also - if you and your opposite-sex sibling were tender-heared super-geniuses with a megalomaniacal, abusive, psychopathic older brother, and your parents appeared totally oblivious to his threat (at least on the surface), who else would you turn to for support?
  - Ironically, once Ender becomes separated from Valentine (who has gone on to a happy marriage and a family of her own), another character describes Ender as being "celibate, and widowed now as well", which Ender finds pretty apt.
Steve and Roz Brickman from the excellent Amtrak Wars series had a covert sexual relationship while they were younger (and Roz attempts to pursue it in Book 2). However, given the extremely weird nature of the Trackers, it's arguable as to whether or not Roz and Steve are related biologically (they are emotionally at the very least).
In the David Eddings Elenium trilogy, King Aldreas has an incestuous relationship with his sister, Princess Arissa; there is a lingering question, for part of the story, whether he was the father of her son Lycheas.
Titus/Fuchsia is implied, but not explicit. At all.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy features extremely heavily implied Twincest between Rahel and Estha after their 23 year separation.
In the Drizzt Do'Urden novels, Vierna was quite taken with her little brother, but he refused her. That incest is implied to be seen as kinky at best even among dark elves — who, among other things, have sex with demons and engage in public orgies at graduation ceremonies — it kind of drives home that even Vierna, probably the most well-adjusted of the Do'Urden women, is more than a little twisted.
- Vierna seemed to think she was doing him a favor; assuming Drizzt was too embarrassed to engage in the aforementioned public orgy, she was offering to help him fulfill his 'graduation ceremony' in a private setting with someone he knew, rather than in public with a stranger. Although, frankly, the fact that she tried to kill him when he refused cast some serious doubts on her 'doing you a favor' reasoning.
  - Well, she was just trying to kill him, as opposed to what others would have probably done to him if they found out.
  - She also showed him what the consequences are in their society. Death is defenitely preferable to forced hybridization.
In Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, Brother Sister Incest, though not present in the main narrative, is an important part of Estraven's backstory and love life (which is... complicated.)
The Thirteenth Tale has Charlie's obsession of sorts with his younger sister Isabelle. Then again, with a family like theirs, it's hard to turn out in any way normal children.
The titular characters of Kelly Braffet's Josie and Jack have an increasingly sexualized relationship, but it's deliberately unclear if they ever consummated it.
Ian McEwan's debut novel, The Cement Garden, involves a brother's lust for his older sister.
In murder mystery The Demoniacs by John Dickson Carr, the early-eighteenth-century detective has come to suspect that his girlfriend is his half-sister. She isn't. If she is, he wants to find and destroy the evidence. When he admits that to her, after finding out she isn't related, she's pleased rather than squicked; she plainly feels it's romantic.
In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore tells Harry about the Gaunts (Voldemort's maternal family), a wizarding bloodline descended from Salazar Slytherin (and one of the Peverell brothers, which made them distantly related to the Potters) who were so obsessed with blood purity that they tended to marry their cousins, something which Dumbledore describes as leaving them with a "violent streak". The Gaunts we actually see appear to be mildly deformed and mildly mentally retarded, as well as emotionally unbalanced. Plus, since the small Gaunt family we see consists of only father, brother and sister, and are implied to be the only Gaunts left, it is easy to conclude that Merope would have either had to have her brother or her father's child. Squick.
Downtiming The Night Side by Jack Chalker presents this as the inevitable consequence of growing up marooned on a small island with only your parents and siblings for company. It's only natural for the kids to want to do what mom and dad do (a lot, since it 1s a Chalker book) with the only other people available.
The Faerie Queene features intercourse between twins in the womb. The giants Argante and Ollyphant, themselves the product of incest, mingle "in fleshly lust" before birth and emerge clasped in the act.
Mignon of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship is the product of actual Brother Sister Incest. Her parents did not discover that they were siblings until after they had a daughter and the discovery lead to Mignon's mother's suicide and her father's madness.
The end of the Lensman series strongly implies that the Kinnison kids will do this to produce a new race of superbeings. "Doc" Smith implied on several occasions that this idea kept him from doing a sequel, as back then such ideas were strictly taboo— if he wrote that into a story, he'd never find a legitimate science fiction publisher who'd accept it.
In Pyramids, Ptraci's father was Teppicymon XXVII, so she is Teppic's half-sister. This is revealed to the reader midway through the book, but the main characters remain unaware of it until near the end. They show UST for each other during their escape from Djelibeybi. After they meet up again back in Djelibeybi and find out that they are related, Ptraci asks "That doesn't make any difference, does it?", to which Teppic replies "I think it does, really."
In Jean M Auel's Earths Children series, Jondalar's half-sister is madly in love with him. 'Course, since these characters don't understand where babies come from and Jondalar and Joplaya's common parent is their father, they are believed to be something closer to cousins than siblings. Still squicky though.
The Bible - well, technically speaking, Samuel II- has a case of this. David's son, Amnon, lusts after his virgin sister, Tamar, so badly that he pretends to be ill so that Tamar would come to his room to feed him. He then raped her despite her protests (and it being a gigantic no-no in Jewish law). If that isn't Squick-worthy, I don't know what is.
The heroine of Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders finally discovers her long-lost mother. Unfortunately, Moll's mother is also...her mother-in-law. Oops.
Cormac McCarthy's novel Outer Dark opens with a woman giving birth to her brother's baby, and things — as they often do in McCarthy's worlds — quickly go downhill after that.
In The Sound and the Fury, it is implied that Quentin is in love with his sister, and even offers to have sex with her so that he can claim that her out-of-wedlock child is his, shifting the blame to him and preventing her from dishonoring the family (exactly how this would have helped is dubious). She says okay, but he chickens out. He then tries to tell his father that he has "committed incest" with his sister, who doesn't believe him. To top it off, Quentin later commits suicide, and his sister ends up naming her daughter after him. Yeah.
In Mists of Avalon Morgaine and Arthur have sex and concieve a child as part of a religious ritual without either of them being aware of the others identity. When they find out Arthur is apalled but Morgaine maintains that since they were possessed by the God and Goddess at the time it wasn't really them.
The Anna Pigeon mystery A Superior Death by Nevada Barr includes a consenual brother-sister couple (who have had themselves sterilised so there will be no no children). Anna pities them more than condemning them.
In Cassandra Clare's City of Bones a fortuneteller tells Jace that he will "Love the wrong person". He falls in love with Clary, who turns out to be his sister. The book ends with a scene this troper found oddly romantic considering what they both now know.

Close Literature

This troper definitely gets an incest vibe whenever he watches the Children of Dune miniseries. Specifically between Leto II and Ghanima.
- In the book, they actually end up getting married, but Ghanima is very firm on the subject: "I will not bear your children, brother." to which Leto replies; "I love you my sister but that is not the way my thought tends." Leto, actually, at least claims to be unable to reproduce after forming a bond with sandtrouts. Thus he marries his sister (it helps that he has a committee of ancestor advisors presided over by an Egyptian pharaoh in his head), but her children (important to Leto's Golden Path) are fathered by a Corinno who also authors the entries of Encyclopedia Exposita. All this said, Stilgar is not amused.
- Paul and Alia have incestuous overtones in Dune Messiah. At one point, Alia engages a sparring robot nude, before Paul stops her from killing herself (one wonders how long he was standing there). Its certainly not helped by the Bene Gesserit's clear intention to find a way of bargaining for a way to get Paul and his sister to produce an heir.
The British Soap Opera Brookside had a storyline about a brother and sister who engaged in consensual incest and later split up without any direct or karmic punishment.
- While they did split up, they later got back together and were written out of the show by establishing that they'd moved to where no-one knew them and were living as a married couple.
On Lost, Boone and Shannon are stepsiblings who have slept together. Boone was also in love with Shannon.
One episode of House MD had a young married couple whose similar illnesses were thought to be from exposure to the same environmental factor but turned out to be genetic; they were half-siblings through the husband's (white) father's affair with the wife's (black) mother, and had become attracted to each other as teenagers. The father's determined attempts to keep them apart were misinterpreted as disapproval of interracial romance, and the young couple ran away together before finding out they were related. It is intimated their relationship did not survive the revelation.
- Another featured a teen supermodel who seduced her father in order to blackmail him for further freedoms. Oh, wait, did I say "Her"?
  - Yup, that episode fell off the creepy tree and hit every squicking branch on the way down.
A major plot thread in Carnivale involves the obsessive, sadomasochism-tinged relationship between preacher-slash-Antichrist Justin Crowe and his sister Iris.
Somehow played with on Hannah Montana. Miley, in her alter ego as pop star Hannah Montana, is caught going in her own back door by a photographer. To keep her Secret Identity under wraps, she claims to be "visiting a friend"... just as her brother comes out of the house, leading the paparazzi to assume that they're dating.
- It gets worse when the brother realizes that being Hannah's assumed boyfriend has its perks, so he kept the pretense going even after Miley (who is naturally mortified by the whole thing) repeatedly asked him to stop. The whole thing culminated in an over the top parody of Tom Cruise couch jumping incident.
A series of Saturday Night Live skits during the Eddie Murphy era intimated that this was the case with Donny and Marie Osmond. The impressions weren't really that good, and they were really kind of more disturbing than funny.
- And one of them was Elaine Benes. And the other one's career brought even less success.
In the second season of Prison Break, this is the other secret President Reynolds can't allow to become public. The first secret, of course, being faking her brother's death.
In Scrubs, Keith gets mad at Elliott for telling Carla that he made out with his sister in the fifth grade. Elliott says he has nothing to be ashamed about because his sister is gorgeous.
Vince McMahon of World Wrestling Entertainment has been trying to do an incest storyline going all the way back to 1999, when Ken Shamrock was supposed to be in love with his Kayfabe sister (Shamrock refused), then Vince tried to have an incest storyline between himself and Stephanie(she refused), he countered by replacing himself with his son Shane (she refused again). He finally got his incest storyline between Paul Burchill and his Kayfabe sister Katie Lea. Note that his inability to get an incest story actually going didn't prevent him from alluding to such things.
- Did we mention that Paul got saddled with this gimmick because Vince McMahon had never seen any of the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies and assumed nobody else had either (Paul's previous gimmick of a pirate was exceptionally over)?
  - Katie Lea's fawning over her "brother" was met with the crowd chanting That's-her-bro-ther! (clap clap clapclapclap).
  - Thankfully the WWE's move to PG-rated programming killed the great majority of the angle before it got off the ground.
  - I wonder if anyone ever just went up to Vince and told him "You're wanting an incest storyline so badly is kind of creepy and making everyone really uncomfortable. We'd appreciate it if you would stop it." Of course, considering Vince these days, he probably just ignored them and went on planning to bring incest into the WWE. After the necrophilia storyline, that is.
In the HBO series Rome, Octavia, at the behest of her manipulative lesbian lover Servilla, seduces her younger brother Octavian (the future emperor Augustus). There is no evidence for any such affair happening in real life.
- Made even squickier when it turns out he knew all along that she was only seducing him in order to get something in return, and he was curious as to what it would be. He could have just asked, but...
Semi-averted in Veronica Mars: Duncan slept with Veronica shortly after (but not, let it be said, because of) finding out she might be his half-sister, which caused him to break off their long-standing relationship without explanation (she wasn't). Veronica didn't find out about her possible parentage - or the fact that they'd slept together (she'd been accidentally dosed with rohypnol; as had he, which fueled the loss of inhibition) - until much later. They got back together once the whole incest thing was cleared up. (It should be noted that Veronica's taste in men could be charitably described as "quirky".)
Happens not once but twice in Nip/Tuck.
Hinted in Heroes. Maya and Alejandro Herrera are twin siblings who have always been, erm, very close to each other. It doesn't help that Maya has VERY deathly poison powers and for a long time the only one capable to neutralizing them is Alejandro. Not to mention Maya's terrible powers came up the first time during Alejandro's wedding when Maya found out Alejandro's soon-to-be wife was cheating on him... though to be fair, the other man was threatening her in case she spoke.
- It REALLY doesn't help that Maya was acting unusually bitchy and jealous towards Alejandro's bride-to-be even before catching her in flagrante delicto and killing her.
Tony and Effy Stonem from the British teen soap Skins would be, um, a little bit fixated on each other even if one ignored the episode in which Tony hallucinates a beautiful girl asking him outright if he wants to fuck his sister. (Oh, and the first-season episode in which () a sociopathic thug Tony'd competed with over another girl kidnapped Effy, shot her full of heroin, and attempted to force Tony to have sex with her — y'know, as one does — leading to much angst and a really quite stunning shot of shirtless Tony carrying his unconscious little sister out into the night.)
Averted in Dirty Sexy Money. Nick's father works as a lawyer for the Darling family, has an affair with his client's wife and even fathers a child which is passed off as a Darling. Nick has an affair with one of the Darling daughters in his teens. The show might have ended up fitting this trope - if the showrunner hadn't written INCEST on a board in the writer's room and firmly crossed it out.
Throughout Six Feet Under, bipolar Billy Chenowith is shown to have an unhealthy obsession with his genius sister Brenda, which she shares to a certain degree (they have tattoos of each other's childhood nicknames on their backs, for example). Whenever Billy goes off his medication, things start to get a bit crazy, such as when he tries to carve the tattoo off her back after taking his own off in an effort to "cleanse" himself or when he and Brenda get into an argument and she reveals that their mother showed her "what you wrote about me" several years previously. The audience is never told what it was that she read, but the subtext is pretty obvious. As the show progressed, said subtext rapidly became text, to paraphrase Buffy, when Billy tries to kiss Brenda while she comforts him and in season five, after Brenda's husband Nate dies, she begins imagining seeing him telling her that every man she's ever been with has only been a substitute for Billy, and has a dream in which she and Billy begin to have sex.
Arrested Development: Twins Michael and Lindsay end up being Not Blood Siblings, which prompts Lindsay to jump Michael.
Firefly. In an amusing scene deleted from "Our Mrs. Reynolds", Simon is thrown for a loop by his sister's latest bit of loopiness.
River: (to Book): We want you to marry us."
Simon: What? We... no! (pause) What?
River: Two by two. Everyone has a match, a mate, a dopple. I love you.
Simon: No, River... mei-mei... of course, I love you too, but we can't be married.
Simon (to Shepherd Book): She's really crazy! (River kicks Simon in the shin) Ow! Ah, no, I - I don't mean crazy... that's just - you know that's not something brothers and sisters do. I mean, on some planets but only pretty bad ones.
- For added squickiness, River than takes a pillow and puts in under her dress saying "Now we have to be married" for the sake of their child
When Charlie from Two And a Half Men finds out the girl he's currently bedding might be his half-sister, he immediately stops, saying, "Turns out I draw the line at incest." Since the episode takes place during the holidays, supporting characters call it "a Christmas miracle."
Anybody else get this vibe from Nick and Starr on the current (late 2008) season of The Amazing Race?
- YES. I knew I couldn't be the only one!
Cold Case - A rising young senator's aide/girlfriend is killed when she learns that her boyfriend's childhood wasn't just "rough", it was "make your sister look and act like your wife-rough". To the senator's credit, it was an accident and the coverup was his sister's idea.
Law And Order SVU - Like the House example, the children of two uneaqually wealthy families mistake their parents' hatred of their relationship as rivalry when in fact they're half-siblings. The SVU is called in when the girl is accidentally killed by her father after she learned the truth. When the boy learns of it later, he immiediately throws up and he's told to keep it together for the sake of the girl's younger brother, now his half-brother, as both the mothers involved were going to jail for separate incidents in the case. Poor bastard
CSI Miami - Trailers indicate that an upcoming episode is going to play like the Law and Order episode above mixed with Marmalade Boy: A man has two families and his son and daughter fall in love. The Squick comes in after they learn they're half-siblings and stay in the relationship anyway. I smell a double suicide!
In Angel, Gunn once was accused of letting his sister be turned into a vampire due to incestuous feelings for her (It Makes Sense In Context). Seeing the scene where she tries to turn him, and most of that episode, one understands where people got the idea there was something more there.
In one episode of Friends it's heavily hinted that a man that Rachel is dating has a "special relationship" with his sister. They even take baths together.
One episode of ER had a brother & sister go too far when comforting each other after their mother's death and they end up having sex once. She ended up pregnant.
Both averted ("I'm not banging my sister!") and played straight (the McPoyles) on Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia.
Wiseguy. International arms/drug dealers Mel and Susan Profitt. This causes problems when Susan becomes attracted to the protagonist Vinnie Terranova.
Unintentional BSI vibe surfaced on Seventh Heaven frequently, often in the guise of wacky hi-jinx.
- In the pilot episode Mary asks her brother Matt to help her practice kissing. Their father walks in on them before anything happens. Reportedly, the script actually called for them to kiss, but Jessica Biel and Barry Watson refused to do it.
- The seven siblings all had active, obsessive interests in the sex lives of their brothers and sisters.
- In the episode in which Lucy gives birth, brother Matt takes her shopping and the store employees assume they are married. Rather than say "He's my brother," Lucy replies that they are not married, leaving the store employees to assume they have a sexual relationship. While in labor in a stuck elevator, Lucy insists on Matt (in training to be an OBGYN) be the one to deliver her baby even though there are trained, non-related paramedics in the elevator.
- Eric and Annie once refer to Kevin, Lucy's husband, by saying, "He's our son. He's married to our daughter."
An episode of Private Practice had a married couple who found out they were half brother and sister (same sperm donor as a father), and then wanted to stay together and have the sister's tubes tied. The writers then pulled a Debateand Switch when it turned out the brother knew before the couple got married.
The founding and series naming story arc of 1980s Australian prime-time soap, Sons and Daughters, had two non-identical twins, separated at birth and moved to different cities, fall in love. It's only revealed that they are siblings after the engagement. Squicked a generation of Australian soapie viewers as it had been implied their relationship was not platonic by any means.
Passions, being Passions, took this one to the logical extreme: Sisters Whitney and Simone were both in love with Chad, even while they suspected that he was her brother. Even Zombie Charity was in on this, at one point fudging around the hospital records.

Close Live Action TV

In many versions of the Arthurian mythos, Morgause is Arthur's half-sister. Their son and nephew, Mordred, eventually destroys Arthur's kingdom.
In Norse Mythology, marriage and breeding between brother and sister were common amongst the Vanir before their alliance with the Æsir.
- Freyja and Freyr being a prominent example.
In fact, almost by necessity most creation myths involve this, particularly among gods and titans like Zeus and Hera, and their grandparents Earth and Sky—who were mother and son too, technically.
- The whole pantheon is filled with incest of just about every conceivable combination. Brother-Sister Incest is probably the least strange of it.
  - When your father is the sky and your mother is the earth, incest seems less applicable.
In the book of Genesis, Eve was made from Adam's rib, so unless God worked some additional magic, they were brother/sister in a cloning sense. The book doesn't tell us where Cain and Seth's wives come from, but Adam and Eve are the only established source, so it's probably supposed to be a common sense conclusion. Since humanity is still young and vital, it's a case of Incest Is Relative until more careful selection is possible or even necessary. But two thousand years later, the punitive Great Flood leaves only four married couples alive — three of the men are brothers, and the fourth couple are their parents. The following children would have no one to marry but their cousins or siblings. As Genesis also claims that people lived an average of 400 years back in those days, the much shorter lifespans following the Flood can be taken as a result of that tragically narrowed gene pool. This is all consistent with the Bible's theme of Gotterdammerung as a consequence of man's pride leading to repeated falls.
- Later, Abram and Sarai, who would still later be called Abraham and Sarah. Abram asked Sarai to use this fact so he wouldn't be killed over her. She agreed, and they went down to Egypt. The Pharaoh at the time had this lovely 65-year-old taken to his house, and the Pharaoh and his house were subsequently stricken with great plagues. Upon learning that Abram had not told him the important fact that she was his wife, he told Avram off and sent them away. Fast forward twenty-five years, and they went down to Gerar, still planning the same omission. Abimelech took her, and learned from a vision that she was Abraham's wife, and that Abimelech would die if he didn't give her back. He did, but asked Abraham what could have possessed him to omit such an important detail. He explained his reasoning, but also that she was, in fact, his sister from another mother, but from the same father. He let them live there and gave them stuff, and Abraham prayed and the wombs of Abimelech's house were reopened from being stopped up. (Bet that experience made him wary when second cousins Isaac and Rebekah came into town with the same story...)
Averted in the Rigveda. Twins Yami and Yama are the first created mortals, and Yami attempts to seduce Yama so they may continue the human race. Yama refuses on the grounds that she's his sister so that's just wrong.
In ancient Hawaiian myth, the divine couple who gave birth to the Hawaiian islands were either siblings or half-siblings. They also had a daughter who grew up to be so beautiful that her father begun a relationship with her and fathered two more kids. This became the basis for a practice known as pi'o, intentional incestuous mating amongst the ruling class. Extensive genealogies were kept in order to produce the most inbred (and thus, godly) chiefs possible. The commoners were forbidden to do this out of fears that they would start producing children with chieflike levels of mana.
In Greek mythology, Byblis falls in love with her brother Caunus, and defends their relationship by pointing out how many immortals have had incestous relationships. Their story was later retold by Ovid.
- Said incestuous relations between immortals include, but are not limited to: Cronus, the leader of the Titans, marrying his sister Rhea; and their son and daughter, Zeus and Hera, who married each other after Zeus offed and succeeded Cronus.
Alchemy has many incest symbols, especially the hierosgamos or coniunctio ("sacred marriage" or "union"), a chemical wedding of male and female, brother and sister. The rebis is often shown as an incestuous brother and sister, portrayed as a union of Sol and Luna, sun and moon.

Close Mythology

In Deadlands, the Whateley family tree seems to drop nothing but bad apples. Part of the reason for this is the "selective breeding" instituted by the clan's otherworldly patron. Most of the residents of Gomorra, California can't figure out exactly what the relationship is between Nicodemus and Delores Whateley. Some think they're siblings. Some think they're married. Both are right. Squick. (Bonus prize: reading the Whateley Family Bible, complete with a family tree in the front, has driven some folks insane.)
- Just thought it might be worth noting that this might fall better under Literature, since the Whateleys here are likely tributes to the Whateleys of Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror".

Close Tabletop Games

Pre-television example: Wagner's opera Die Walküre ("The Valkyrie", premiered in 1870), second of four operas in his Ring Cycle, involving siblings Siegmund and Sieglinde. Siegfried, the hero of the third and fourth operas in the cycle, is their child. This case is perhaps different from both the anime versions as well as most western versions. Though their love does end in tragedy, the tragedy is due to the fact that Sieglinde is already married to someone else, and not particularly associated with the fact that the Siegmund-Sieglinde relationship is incestuous.
- Of course, as the immortal Anna Russell pointed out, Wotan's enthusiastic and widespread adultery means that nearly every relationship in the Ring cycle is to some degree incestuous: Siegfried only ever meets one woman who's not his aunt. But that's the beauty of Grand Opera: you can do anything, so long as you sing it!
This was a major theme in "revenge tragedies" of the 1600s, which basically aimed to contain as much violence and as many illicit relationships as they could. In The Duchess Of Malfi for example, Duke Ferdinand has obsessive subconscious feelings for his sister, the titular character, which he never fully realises and eventually drive him insane. Cheerful stuff.
- The Courier's Tragedy, a fictional "ill, ill Jacobean revenge play" featured in Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, has a fair amount of this among the villains.
Of course we can't forget Tis Pity She's a Whore (another 1600s drama)! Annabella and Giovanni, not having seen one another since they were young, fight their attraction and seem to have a good deal of wangst over it for a while...but only for a while.
- John Ford, the author of Tis Pity seems to have been mildly fascinated with the concept: in The Broken Heart, Ithocles forcibly marries his sister Penthea to the insanely jealous Bassanes, who soon suspects her of cheating on him with everyone, including, eventually, Ithocles himself. They're not doing it, (any more than Ophelia and Laertes, jeez...) but Ithocles IS very controlling of Penthea's sexuality...
Some interpretations of Hamlet will portray Ophelia and Laertes as either: A) lusting after one another, or B) already sleeping with one another. This is mostly common in psychoanalytic interpretations of the play, which also portray Hamlet as having an Oedipus Complex.
Death Of A Salesman. Biff and Happy seem...closer than most brothers.
- Holy crap, I thought I was the only one who saw this.
In the recent Stephen Sondheim musical Road Show, the subtext between Addison and Wilson Mizner just barely manages to remain "sub". Sharing a sleeping bag in the middle of an Alaska blizzard? Well, it's cold out there (though that doesn't explain the snuggling). Singing about "Brotherly Love" while in said sleeping bag? That's perfectly innocent and only the most dirty-minded spectator would read anything sexual into it. But when Wilson says in the middle of a fight with Addison "How about a farewell kiss from your brother?" and tries to kiss him on the mouth... and when he seems distinctly jealous of Addison's boyfriend... and when the climax of the show turns on Addison telling Wilson to get out of his life because he's ruined everything, to which Wilson nonchalantly responds "You don't want me to go. You love me." and Addison bursts out: "All right! I love you! Does that make us even?"... well, you know what they say: it's only subtext if it's subtle.
Lawrence and Joanna Brown in Lanford Wilson's one act play Home Free. The fact that they're incestuous siblings is actually one of the less worrisome things about their relationship.
- Is it squicky that I was obsessed with this play in middle school? (Would it be less squicky if I pointed out I have no siblings?)
In Bat Boy: the Musical, this trope plays a major role when it is revealed that Edgar and Shelley, who have just confessed their love for each other and had sex, are fraternal twins.

Close Theatre

A regular recurring theme in the Fire Emblem series. Several of the girls in the player's party, well, admire their older brothers a bit too much, with or without some bits of censorship. Examples?
- Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War: Princess Lachesis and King Eltoshan of Nodion (she even straightforwardly says she won't marry a guy who's less cool than her brother), Diadora and Lord Alvis. Note that in the latter's case.... Having the two hook up and breed is actually a part of the Big Bad Manfloy's plan to create a vessel for his Demon Lord. And through Mind Control in Diadora's part, it happens:
  - Yet another example for Genealogy of the Holy War are the High Priest Claude and the Dancer Sylvia, whom many fans believe are really brother and sister. They both possess the Blagi bloodline, and Claude once mentions that Sylvia reminds him of his sister, who disappeared many years ago (and Sylvia says she's an orphan). And yes, they can potentially marry each other and have children (who are playable characters in the second half of the game).
  - Genealogy of the Holy War definitely takes the cake for the King of this trope. If not paired with anyone else, Arthur and Tinny (children of Tiltyu) gets a special dialogue about her past and hinting that Arthur *may* have this kinda feeling to Tinny. Alternatively, cousins Aless (son of Eltoshan) and Nanna (daughter of Lachesis) can be predestined and have a special love dialogue. And if Ayra had kids from Lex, and you paired Lakche with either Johan or Johalvier, well... any familial relationship between them (that kinda makes Lakche and both of them distant cousins, actually) is instantly thrown out of window. And there's also the fact that Julia, daughter of Alvis and Diadora, has a crush on Celice, son of Sigurd and... Diadora, too. Must run in the family, dammit.
- Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade: Clarine and Klein of Reglay
- Fire Emblem: Lady Priscilla of House Carleon and Raven aka Lord Raymond of House Cornwell. They even had a sort-of Childhood Marriage Promise going on... and she intended to ask him to fulfill it.
- Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones: Ephraim and Eirika (which is actually Twincest as well). In a nice reference, though, Ephraim's unique weapon is the spear Siegmund, while Eirika's is the sword Sieglinde; see Die Walküre under Theatre for an explanation.
Though it was Bowdlerized to remove as many references to incest as possible, the idea was too central to the plot of Drakengard to throw it out completely. It's only alluded to once or twice.
The new character in Tekken 6, Miguel Caballero Rojo, adheres this trope in an one-sided way. When his sister announced she's going to get married, he became so furious he almost planned to kill her fiancee. No, Unfortunately, during the wedding, there's a sudden attack, and that killed his sister. Roaring Rampage Of Revenge occurs soon after for Miguel.
In No More Heroes it is implied that Travis and his half-sister Jeane might have been in that sort of relationship. Travis was completely unaware of the situation he was in, and is appropriately shocked and horrified upon finding out.
In Max Payne, one of the Mooks is watching a soap opera where a woman reveals to her lover that she is...his long lost sister!
Taka and his sister Kana from the Visual Novel Kana Little Sister become attracted to each other more and more as time progresses. She is also terminally ill, so the makers have enough material for a lot of melodrama. And boy, do they deliver - no punches pulled here!
Resident Evil Code: Veronica? The relationship between siblings Alfred and Alexia Ashford is by far the creepiest part of the entire game.
- Many more layers are added to the Cake of Creepiness when you add the fact that the twins were born when their "father" was trying to clone his super-genius ancestor Veronica, who his family all but worshipped, and... the embryo divided, which has implications that one or both of the siblings is transgendered or intersex.
In Jagged Alliance 2 you can run into a family of heavily inbred rednecks. One of them will tell you that the inbreeding is what keeps them strong. For some reason they have run out of women though and want you to give them one of your party in exchange for guns.
Janus and Lela in Divine Divinity. And they have sex when they are like only (pre-)teens (Don't worry, it's told to you, not seeing it).
The player character and Imoen of Baldur's Gate grew up treating each other like brother and sister, but are hinted to have/have had romantic overtones in their relationship (yes, even if the player is female), which is overturned in the sequel, when not only does the player have a chance to fall in love with someone else, but Imoen is in fact revealed to be the player's half-sister (though given the nature of their father, it's debatable if they're related at all...).
- Played straight, however, by the Imoen Romance mod. To the mod's credit, it does not take an easy way out of the Squick involved, and presents it as something the player and Imoen simply have to deal with.
Though as an ero-game it's par for the course, Princess Waltz takes this to an almost absurd degree. Arata and Chris are not only half-siblings (same father), they are cousins (their mothers are sisters), and second cousins (their father and respective mothers are also cousins).
The 3rd generation of Dragon Valors in the eponymous PSX game Dragon Valor are a brother-and-sister pair of twincest lovers.
Possibly played with with Mega Man and Roll. In the original series, they're brother and sister. But in Mega Man Legends, they're Like Brother And Sister, with Mega Man being an Accidental Pervert to Roll. In Mega Man Battle Network, they are actually dating. And in Marvel Vs Capcom, Roll is described as Mega Man's sister at one point, then as his girlfriend later! OK, so it was due to a translation error, but it's still makes it the only game where incest truly is suggested.
In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Emma Emmerich, step-sister of Hal Emmerich... well let me quote wikipedia: "It's revealed through conversations between her and Raiden and later between her and her brother before she dies that she has strong romantic feelings towards Hal and wished for him to see her as a woman and not his sister."
- Which, of course, never happened, because Otacon was ~~sensible~~ sleeping with his stepmother/E.E.'s mother.
In Pokemon, there is a couple in the Seven Stars Restaurant. Talking to the girl, she tells you that she'll battle you if you don't tell her boyfriend that this restaurant is her father's. After you defeat her (in a double battle with her boyfriend), the boyfriend comments about losing in Papa's restaurant.
- Uh, no. Her father was the owner, but his father was the chef.
The Visual Novel Lamune has a romantic path for Suzuka, the one-year-younger sister of male lead Kenji. (This troper does not know if the visual novel ever makes a Not Blood Siblings reveal.) The anime adaptation portrays their relationship as a non-romantic sibling relationship, since it follows Nanami's route, though the trope gets poked fun at once when Hikari teases Suzuka about being jealous of Nanami.
In Viva Pinata, (despite how it looks) this can happen veeery easily. Heck, getting the Fourheads practically requires it!
Play with and averted in Super Robot Wars W. When Aria and Regulate join Valstork family, Kazuma think that [[Aria is rather cute. Only to has Regulate, told him how she's happy that Kazuma think of Aria AS SISTER and she WILL be glad if he keep that feeling, in extremely cold voice. Unable to act against one whose like his mother, the ship never get sail.
In "The Sims 2" half of the neighborhood of Strangetown is made up of the Curious Family. But since E Axis didn't bother to set all the relationships correctly, many players have unwittingly married the Curious brothers to their older half-sisters, Lola and Chloe (Curious) Singles. It's also possible for the sisters to have romantic interactions (without cheats) with their surviving father (PT #9 Smith), and now that this troper thinks about it, probably everyone they're related to that's old enough. Thanks, E Axis.

Close Video Games

In the webcomics Better Days and Badly Drawn Kitties (which share some characters).
- Not "share" so much as "The creator of Better Days took a few characters with him when he and the creator of Badly Drawn Kitties ended their homosexual relationship." Excellent way to start something with Better Days fans, by the way.
- Should be noted that the two comics use the sibling's special relationship in completely different ways. "Better Days" uses the relationship dramatically, while BDK uses it as a joke that Crosses The Line Twice.
In the Massive Multiplayer Crossover fan web comic Grim Tales from Down Below by Bleedman, Minimandy/Minnie seems to love her brother, Grim Junior, in a manner beyond what would be acceptable sibling behavior.
- Her heretofore ambiguous feelings, once made explicit, are also cranked up to Axe Crazy levels as indicated by this late strip. Although, she is Not Herself there.
It's the reason Polkster wants an older sister. TOTALLY NSFW
This Loserz strip

Close Web Comics

The topic of sister/sister incest is the premise of the cynical if romantically portrayed Web Serial Novel Sisters. (Later chapters Not Safe For Work)
- That same website also has Becka the Beast, which features a weird variant: Gia and Becka fall in love, but circumstances involving Becka's abusive father force Gia's father to adopt Becka.
This has cropped up in Survival Of The Fittest a couple of times (although in one case this was Twincest). Matthias Kovalenko of V2 was scarily obssessed with his sister Jodeen. (fortunately, she never made it onto the island). Nothing explicit ever occurs, but from Matthias' thoughts, most get the impression it isn't just brotherly concern.

Close Web Original

Despite its Western origins, the writers of Avatar The Last Airbender seem to be playing with this trope. One of the panels during their Shipping Slideshow at Comic Con 2006 romantically paired Princess Azula with Prince Zuko's alter ego, the Blue Spirit. Azula plays the proverbial Temptress, seductively luring her brother back to the dark side in the second season finale. Then of course came a certain bedroom scene in the season 3 premiere...
The Lion King had an example of Brother Sister Incest that was also an Arranged Marriage: Simba and Nala. Most likely most didn't notice because they're only half-brother and sister, and the movie didn't point out that Mufasa, as king of the pride, would be the one to father any children...
- This is pretty normal among lions, so this troper found nothing weird about it.
  - Anthropomorphic lions, so still weird.
  - Not anthropomorphic, just talking. Anthropomorphic would be human-shaped.
- Not really,The Lion King proposes that a pride functions much like a monarchy, with Simba supposed to take over the pride upon his father's death. In real prides, male lions leave the pride upon reaching adolescence and find a new pride to take over from older male lions.
- In some prides, the dominant male kills new cubs of both genders that are not his. So we should just be glad it was only Scar who had it out for Simba.
This troper always thought there was something weird about Martin and Diana's (his step-sister) relationship in Martin Mystery. Turns out, in the original Italian graphic novel, they were lovers. Aaaaah.
Like Saturday Night Live above, Family Guy also did an incest joke about Donnie and Marie.
- And about the characters Lorelei and Rory Gilmore from Gilmore Girls.
In G1 Transformers, Orion Pax and Ariel were originally boyfriend and girlfriend. After their bodies were destroyed, Alpha Trion recreated them both as Optimus Prime and Elita 1 and the two continued the relationship in their new lives. Their anatomy turned out to be so similar that Optimus is able to save Elita's life with an energy transfer, and Optimus seemed a bit disturbed when Alpha Trion told them about their origins. When she goes to kiss him at the end, he even pushes her away. No one outright mentions the word "incest", but it's heavily implied that something weird's going on.
- This Troper got the vibe it was more of "hero's self-sacrifice" by denying kissing her, and God forbid if Optimus removed his battle-mask during G1! Plus what Optimus seemed more disturbed by was he'd forgotten his origins and this old bot knew something only his creator could know. Before hand Optimus was perfectly aware only his frame was compatable with Elita One.
This troper kind of got this vibe from Dexter and Dee Dee in Dexters Laboratory. Especially in that one episode where Dexter ages himself to 16 years to attract his babysitter, but ends up attracting Dee Dee instead.
In American Dad, Roger tricks Steve into believing he's adopted. This triggers a bit of a Heroic BSOD in Steve and one of the first things he does is go to his sister Hayley, says there's always been "sexual tension" between then makes out with her. Hayley is understandably surprised and repulsed.
- There was also one episode where Hayley poses nude for Roger for his painting. Steve takes it, not knowing it's Hayley, and masturbates to it. Hayley doesn't like this (understandable) and tries to get it back. Roger takes advantage of this and hold an auction for the both of them to see who gets the painting. In the end Francine wins the auction and hangs it in the living room.
Cletus and Brandine from The Simpsons are related to each other in all sorts of ways. One of them being as brother and sister.
Aversion: With the communal raising of children the titular species employs in Gargoyles, this was an early fan idea about Demona's and Goliath's relationship, until Word Of God severerly beat that out the fandom by stating that the pheromones a gargoyle releases when he is courting smell horrible to any close family relation. This is only natural, really, since nature prefers genetic diversity over in-breeding.
- Interesting, gargoyles still consider the other gargoyles they were raised with to be their sibling. Coupling inside this social family appears to be perfectly normal (but then with the genetic problem being nonexistent, there's no reason why gargoyles would consider it taboo).
  - Not so much the taboo aspect, simply that if they had already evolved a physical mechanism to prevent inbreeding (the pheremones), then there'd be no pressing advantage to evolving a psychological mechanism (Westermarck Effect - the origin of the incest taboo).
- This is all kind of odd, considering what seems to be a cultural injunction against familial relationships (consider Goliath's reluctance to acknowledge his quite obvious parentage of Angela for the longest time) within clans, as it seems to interfere with their preference toward collectivism and their personal warrior code. A biolgical mechanism to 'sniff out' relatives would seem to completely ruin the basis for that behavior...
Is it just this troper, or is there some subtle subtext in this touching number from An American Tail?
There's also nonstop squicky subtext in the creepy-ass 1977 film Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure. The Raggedies are explicitly said to be twins, and they get a love song. Yep.
In an odd case of Brother/Brother incest, Daggett and Norbert of Angry Beavers are often shipped. However, since this fact is rarely touched upon in the series (the only example I can think of is the first episode) this may be accidental.

Close Western Animation

On the imageboard 4chan incest is referred to as Wincest, and is greatly encouraged by it's residents. This is mostly due to the startlingly large number of hentai doujins posted on the site involving incest.
Standard operating procedure for some social classes in history. The Egyptian royalty (up to the Greek Ptolemies, who adopted Egyptian customs) is perhaps the best known example.
- Including everyone's favorite, Cleopatra, who married her brother when she was 12 and he was 8.
  - She married her other brother when she was 23 and he was 17, after brother #1 was killed in a civil war (he was on one side, she was on the other)
  - The entire Ptolemaic Dynasty is spectacularly inbred. With the incredible amounts of same-generation and cross-generation inbreeding going on, there aren't even terms for some of the relationships between people. Take, for example, Cleopatra VII (the one we all know): her father, Ptolemy XII, is the son of Cleopatra IV and Ptolemy IX (brother and sister), while her mother, Cleopatra V, is the daughter of Bernice III and Ptolemy X. Ptolemy X is the brother of Cleopatra IV and Ptolemy IX, while Bernice III is the daughter of Ptolemy IX and Cleopatra Selene I (brother and sister). Even counting generations gets difficult.
The Romans had the same taboo inherited by later Western civilization, but ancient historians claimed that insane emperor Caligula had sex with his three sisters, especially his favorite Drusilla. Although in all likelihood it was a lurid slander that epitomized his already sensationalistic reign of madness, this was incorporated into his portrayal in I Claudius.
- There was also a persistent rumor in Cicero's day that Clodia Pulchra III was having an affair with (among many, many other men, including being Catullus's "Lesbia") her brother, P. Clodius Pulcher, despite being married...to her first cousin, Q. Caecilus Metellus Celer (until she poisoned him).
Ancient Hawaiian myths are full of this, which happens when a very, very strict Taboo (or Kapu, if you're Hawaiian) system forbids marrying below your status, and the only other avalable prince/princess/demigod is your sibling.
According to genetic sexual attraction, people are attracted to others similar to themselves (like... siblings). The Westermarck effect blocks attraction for people raised together in their early years, but in cases where they were not raised together...
One of the men Henry VIII claimed Anne Boleyn was sleeping with was her own brother. This was probably an invention to make it more likely for him to get rid of her though. Still, the movie The Other Boleyn Girl depicted the story as if it really had happened.
- Well, it had Anne asking her brother, but him unable to go through with it.
- Part of the reason the real-life claim was able to stick is the fact that George Boleyn's wife supported the statement that her husband had been sleeping with his sister. One has to wonder why she'd go along with that, considering that it led to George being executed as well as Anne.
  - 0bviously for revenge. Isn't that the end of all such decadent royals?
  - More likely bullied into it. Henry VIII was a very powerful man, after all.
  - Modern historians believe George and his wife Jane despised each other. George was also gay, and Jane couldn't forgive him for ignoring her. That's what you get when you ban divorce and gay marriage, and support arranged marriages.
  - For what it's worth, Jane recanted the allegation a few years later, shortly before she was beheaded for abetting Katherine Howard's adulteries.
False Occurance: Sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson of the rock group Heart relate a story where their managers placed a fake expose in a trade rag where Ann and Nancy profess their lesbian love for one another. The sisters themselves had no idea about this until a fan mentioned it offhandedly. The sisters' response was the song "Barracuda".
Quite popular with the Internet, judging from the sheer amount of inbound links to this page.
Not uncommon as a theme in folk songs either; "Sheath & Knife" probably being one most easily listened to at the moment Example modern lyrics
Lord Byron is generally believed to have had an affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh (who he didn't meet until they were adults), even commenting that she's the only woman he ever loved. Whether or not he fathered any of her children is debatable.
- One of them in particular, Elizabeth Medora Leigh (Leigh's third daughter and potentially Byron's first), was especially suspicious due to Byron's comments that he feared the child would be born deformed (an "ape", in accordance with 19th century beliefs about incest) and that it would be his fault if she was, in addition to his ex-wife explicitly telling both Medora and Ada Lovelace (Byron's second daughter) that Byron was Medora's father.
A famous and rather bloody murder was committed in France in 1933 by two sisters, Christine and Lea Papin, who were working as maids for the same family. When the husband of their victim came home, he found them naked in bed together; it is very likely that their relationship was incestuous. Their lives inspired the Jean Genet play (and the 1974 movie) The Maids and the 2001 film Sister My Sister, among many others.
A few years ago, in seventeen magazine, there was an article about a brother and sister who were dating eachother. Squicky, eh? NOT! Their parents met because they were dating, started dating, and got married, so don't worry, it's all legal.
The BBC did a My Shocking Story documentary on this, and even interviewed a mother/son couple (obscured, of course). One of the subjects was a man who met his half-sister from the Bahamas and couldn't stop thinking about her, much to the annoyance of his wife.
Porn stars Amber Lynn and Buck Adams kept the fact that they were brother and sister hidden from everyone. The secret only came out when the two of them were hired to perform in the same movie and were scheduled to do a scene together. They naturally refused.
- This did not, however, dissuade Amber Lynn from having a scene with her supposed "sister," Ginger Lynn. (The actresses are not in fact related.)
Then there are the statements (or perhaps misstatements is a better term) by Angelina Jolie about her brother.
Genetic sexual attraction, where siblings (or other blood relatives) meet for the first time as adults and feel an attraction to each other.
My Big Redneck Wedding had an episode where a brother & sister were geting married, but she was adopted by his parents at 16, so it was alright.
If the now-emptied Troper Tales section of this artical was to be believed, this sort of thing has a squickily large representation among tropers.
- Doubt it.

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