Brother Sister Incest - Television Tropes & Idioms

Sasahara sets the record straight.

Nothing adds that certain je ne sais quoi to a storyline like a romantic or sexual attraction between siblings. For some reason - possibly owing to the dirty minds of manga and anime creators - incestuous feelings between siblings (usually a brother and a sister, but not always) can be found in even the most mainstream of stories. (We won't even go into how often it shows up in hentai anime...) Most of the time it may be merely implied, but sometimes it's laid out right in the open for the viewer to see. Its presence in a story usually adds a great deal of emotional intensity.

Frequently actual incest is avoided through the device of siblings who aren't really -- they're fostered, or step-sibs, or adopted. Thus, while in arbitrary terms of relationship they may be brother or sister, in "true" terms of blood they are not, and may pursue their chosen target with relative impunity. Often it's just an extreme version of the Unlucky Childhood Friend setup; male and female characters who normally couldn't cohabitate or possibly even interact normally with each other are 'forced' to but meet with an arbitrary contrivance preventing them from developing past it. The only difference being the audience is more likely to accept the latter contrivance as believable.

Many sociologists believe that the instinctual aversion to incest is caused by familiarity and growing up in proximity rather than some sort of recognition of heritage (the Westermarck effect

). Many close tribal and small village communities marry outside of the tribe or village because of this.

Although the Japanese have just as much of an incest taboo as any other culture (though they do have nothing against cousin intermarriage), there does not seem to be any automatic assumption of tragedy surrounding incestuous relationships in anime, as there would be in most Western productions. It may be shown as sad, improper, and/or perhaps even reprehensible, but participants are no more likely to come out to a bad end than any other characters in the story. A supposed Japanese legend which states that star-crossed lovers are reborn as siblings probably has something to do with it as well.

It is also very common in anime, at least, to see a girl address a boy she's interested in as onii-sama, the ultra-respectful form of ... 'big brother'. For example, in Mai-HiME, Munakata Shiho addresses Tate Yuuichi in exactly this way, and harbors an obsessive desire for him that leads to some fairly serious jealousy of her rival (Tokiha Mai). This is also a common trope of bishoujo games. Of course, this is more a Japanese language trope; onii-sama or onee-sama ("big sister") is a fairly standard thing to call someone older than you that you respect.

Compare Incest Is Relative, Only Child Syndrome. See also Creepy Twins, Twincest, Not Blood Siblings, Kissing Cousins.

Needless to say, doesn't help the Like Brother And Sister argument at all.

Examples:

Anime

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.
Magikano plays with the trope, as the arrival of the protagonist's Magical Girlfriend makes his second youngest sister intensely jealous and always vying for his attention. Despite the show's fanservicey roots, it's never portrayed as actually romantic or sexual though.
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, they decide that they would marry regardless.
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).
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.
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.
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. One 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.
In Papa To Kiss In The Dark Mira and his father are involved in an overtly sexual relationship. It turns out that Kyousuke is not actually Mira's father but his uncle, but only barely minimizes the squick, which Mira actually lampshades to the audience early on.
In Magikano 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.
In Tsukihime, Shiki's sister has a 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. Of course, they are Not Blood Siblings...
- Akiha does have her own path, though.
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.
- 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.
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 fanserving Kallen and C.C.
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.
Ren and his sister Miisu in Fushigi Yuugi. In fact, their incestuous relationship almost 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 BBEG 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 Little 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 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.
Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle has "Syaoran" wanting to make love to an alternate universe version of his mother, implying that Syaoran has a massive Oedipus Complex. This is justified by being written by CLAMP.
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.
Naruto has the semi-common fan pairing of Neji and Hinata Hyuga, which doesn't seem to qualify at first since they're cousins rather than real brother and sister. Until you realize that their fathers, Hiashi (for Hinata) and Hizashi (for Neji) were identical twins, so from a genetic standpoint they're the same as half-siblings.
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.

Film

The villains of Blades of Glory, 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
Riff-Raff and Magenta in The Rocky Horror Picture Show certainly seem to have a closer relationship than most siblings. The same actors, playing different characters in the excrable sequel, Shock Treatment, have a much more explicitly BSI relationship.
Many a Star Wars fan 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 editor is surprised that no one has mentioned Cruel Intentions, or the very funny parody of that film's semi-incestuous lust in Not Another Teen Movie.
In the otherwise forgettable film My Chauffeur, the male and female lead characters hump like bunnies. The next day they find out they might be brother and sister. Hilarity Ensues.
Euro Trip. "Here's a fun fact... YOU MADE OUT WITH YOUR SISTER!"
- In all fairness, if Michelle Trachtenberg were my sister, I'd probably make out with her, too.
Tony Montana's violent protectiveness toward his sister Gina in Scarface 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.
Emperor Commodus, in Gladiator would like to be doing this with his sister, who is generally squicked by the idea. However, he is the Emperor of Rome, and people who refuse anything point-blank don't generally last long.
In The Other Boleyn Girl, after then-queen Anne Boleyn miscarries her second child, she becomes desperate and asks her brother George to try to impregnate her.
- Given that Anne Boleyn was really charged with incest (among other things) and was executed on this basis, despite widespread recognition that these were trumped up charges, it seems rather poor taste to depict her actually willing to commit incest, when the real problem was the Henry had found a younger model already.
In Hellboy 2, every time Prince Nauda is around his sister, he's either right up in her space, touching her suggestively, or saying something odd (at least once about lust). He also seems strangely jealous of his sister's love interest.

Live Action TV

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.
- The brother soon discovers that being Hannah's assumed boyfriend has it's perks. When Miley wanted to put the rumors to rest, he tried to do the opposite, resorting to increasingly outlandish measures to preserve the illusion.
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.
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.
- 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).
In the HBO series Rome, Octavia, at the beset of her manipulative lesbian lover Servilla, seduces her younger brother Octavian (the future emperor Augustus). Octavian is actually underage at the time, for added squick. There is no evidence for any such affair happening in real life.
Semi-averted in Veronica Mars: Duncan slept with Veronica after finding out she might be his half-sister (She wasn't). Veronica didn't find out about their possible relationship - or the fact that they'd slept together (She'd been accidentally dosed with rohypnol) - until much later. They become an official couple later, anyway. (It should be noted that Veronica's taste in men could be charitably described as "flawed")
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 (I Am Not Making This Up) 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.

Western Animation

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.
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 French graphic novel, they were lovers. Aaaaah.
Like Saturday Night Live above, Family Guy also did an incest joke about Donnie and Marie.
Although not really siblings, the relationship between Kissing Cousins Ben and Gwen from Ben 10 are reminiscent of a bickering married couple. And boy, do fandoms rejoice from this!
In G1 Transformers, Optimus Prime and Elita One were both created by Alpha Trion. Which makes them kinda brother and sister, even though they're not really aware of it. Which just makes their whole relationship look weird.

Comic Books

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."
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 f#*% your sister and expect much good to come of it."
- This editor sees a simple answer: stupid people are easy to manipulate.
  - True, but there actually is an in-story reason given by Allfather D'Aronique. He claims that while the child's mortal husk is damaged, when the time for the second coming arrives, his divine nature will overpower it.
- Actually, Billy bob's family inbreeding was for the same reason, to keep the bloodline pure. I seem to recall Billy-Bob mentioning he was to marry his sister like his parents did and their parents before them. I would think it was intentional to have two families that indulge in incest and end up with deformed children.
Top 10 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.

Literature

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.
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.
- And then there’s the scene with Theon Greyjoy and his sister Asha. 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.
The love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights has overtones of this, but don't worry - he's adopted. And even then, we don't like Heathcliff.
- He's adopted. Really. Because a 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, whose wife just happens to take an instant loathing to the child...
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.
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 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 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 half-brother 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 the Speaker for the Dead series, a brother and sister have sexual relations with eachother, and later find out that they are siblings. The Homecoming series involves a brother and sister having sex reluctantly, because the Crystal Dragon Jesus (who also happens to be Lost Technology) orders them to.
- Actually Miro and Ouanda never had sex. They did make out though.
  - However, that's only because Ouanda's interest in Miro stops right there, but the loss of feeling is entirely one way. This is made even funnier when Miro is physically crippled in an accident and Ouanda starts nursing him, leaving an awkward platonic-versus-much-more love conflict going on as they're essentially forced to live together.
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).
The Fairytale Donkey-Skin and it's variation had the titular heroine fleeing from marriage with her *father*! Usually, most modern adaptions has shifted the blame for the father's desire from himself (desiring a woman as beautiful as his Dead Wife to the dead woman's request (marry one who can wear her ring). Doesn't make it less Squicky.
- Deerskin is a novel based off the tale. Unlike the story, the heroine didn't escape until after the father impregnated her (!)
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.

Myth And Legend

In many versions of the Arthurian mythos, Morgause is Arthur's half-sister. Their son, 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.
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.
- Actually, Cain buggers off to a city which is just not mentioned until that point; Genesis is a convoluted mishmash of two different takes on the Creation (In one God is "up there", and in the other he's mostly walking around being corporeal), and many things are a bit unexplained. One of these is just why there is suddenly civilisation outside of Eden when people start to be kicked out. However, much incest does happen in the bible: Noah's family is all that is left after the Flood, and Lot (after his wife turns to salt) is raped by his daughters after they get him drunk. That's just off the top of my head; much of the old testament has naughty goings on (Read the Song of Solomon and you'll see what I mean).
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.

Theatre

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)! Anabella 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.
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.

Video Games

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 4: 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: I Am Not Making This Up.
  - Yet another example for Fire Emblem 4 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).
  - The 4th series 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, daughter of Sigurd and... Diadora, too. Must run in the family, dammit.
- Fire Emblem 6: Clarine and Klein of Reglay
- Fire Emblem 7: 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 8: Ephraim and Eirika (which is actually Twincest as well).
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, I Am Not Making This Up. 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!

Web Comics

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.

Real Life

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.
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.
- It got to the point that any Roman emperor worth his salt was sleeping with at least one blood relative. Caligula and his sisters is the most notorious example, but there's also Claudius and his niece, Nero and his mother, Domitian and his niece...
- 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).
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.
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.
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.

Tabletop Games

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.)

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