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Generation Xerox
alt title(s): Following In Fathers Footsteps
Rakan hammers the point...

Someday Mother will die and I'll get the money
Mom leans down and says "My sentiments exactly.
You son of a bitch, I Palindrome I."
— They Might Be Giants, "I Palindrome I"

Yes, we know that Lamarck Was Right... but this is getting silly.

You see, not only has our hero discovered his Secret Legacy and realized that, due to his Superpowerful Genetics, he has inherited all of Mum and Dad's abilities (including the ones courtesy of Charles Atlas)... he's found out that he's destined/doomed to live out a replay of their lives.

This trope takes "following in your parent's footsteps" to a whole new level. The character hasn't just inherited their parents' character traits and superpowers — they've inherited their entire life story.

They will meet the same people their parents met, or, if this isn't possible, they will have an equivalent. If Mandy's best friend when she was a child was Polly the Soap Box Sadie, her daughter Mindy will befriend Paula the Soap Box Sadie on her first day of school. Sometimes it's just a coincidence, where the child seems to gravitate towards the same type of people as their mum and dad were drawn to, but often the new associate will have some direct tie to the parent's past (i.e. is the daughter of someone that knew the character's mum).

Often, certain key events will happen exactly as they did in the past. Turn Out Like His Father is most likely to fail when crossed with this trope. In many plotlines, however, the outcome will change at the last moment since the hero(ine) has heard the story from their parents and has had the time to work out what went wrong and worked up the guts to change it. For example, if the hero's dad fell out with his best friend because neither would apologize to the other, the hero will figure out that saying sorry is the best way to keep his own friendship going.

To a certain point, this trope can be a Justified Trope. If the parents send the kid to the same school as they themselves went to, then it's not such a stretch to believe that the son or daughter will encounter the same people. If the parents kept in touch with their old friends, it's not unlikely that the child will befriend the children of those friends. However, if the parents moved to a different country, assumed secret identities and tried to forget the past, only to have Junior come home from his first day of school announcing that his dad's right hand man is his English teacher... that's a bit more of a stretch.

Mentors who become parental figures will also tend to pass on their life story, although karma rather than genetics will be held responsible for the resulting deja vu.

Love Interests and relationships tend to get copied whole cloth as well. Whether it's the descendants of two Star Crossed Lovers or the child of the Official Couple from a Love Dodecahedron finding out they have their parent's stable's children gunning for them with cupid's arrows.

And heaven help you if your parents/mentors made a mess of their lives, because guess what? Yup, that Fatal Flaw was hereditary too. Better get to work figuring out just how they screwed things up, because if you don't, chances are the same tragedy's going to happen again. And it'll be your fault this time around, in which case you'll have no choice but to pass the entire scenario on to your son or daughter and hope that they can Set Right What Once Went Wrong — a sort of generational Groundhog Day Loop.

See also In The Blood, Secret Legacy, Superpowerful Genetics.

Very often, the exact same actors will be used to portray the ancestors. The more distant they are, the more likely this is.

Examples

Anime and Manga
  • In Pet Shop Of Horrors, Count D's dad is portrayed throughout the series as a nasty piece of work, a Manipulative Bastard supreme. It's surprising then, when a short story reveals that D's dad was much like his son when he was younger, to the point he even had a "Leon" of his own in the form of Vesca Howell — a loud mouthed and brash best friend who he was exceedingly fond of but whom he ultimately abandoned, just as D abandoned Leon at the end of Petshop. The elder D's later "madness", and the fact that he and Howell were eventually responsible for each other's deaths, doesn't bode well for his son, especially given the "Count D" family's odd connection to karma.
  • As much as Tomoya of Clannad hates his father for neglecting him to dull the pain of his mother's death he has become exactly the same to his own little girl Ushio to forget that her birth killed Nagisa.
  • One of the themes of Naruto is the recurrence of certain characters, traits, and patterns across the generations. Team 7's relations and characteristics, for example, are a dead ringer for those of the Legendary Sannin. This was one of the reason many fans were able to pick up on a Luke I Am Your Father revelation long before it was revealed in canon.
    • Not that it was particularly subtle.
    • As a matter of fact, the relationship between Naruto and his friend/rival Sasuke works as a Generation Xerox on three separate levels across multiple generations.
    • What about the Ino-Shika-Chou trio?
      • Many aspects of Shikamaru much more closely parallel their sensei's than his father, though there is some overlap.
      • Also, Gai/Rock Lee. Same haircut, same jumpsuit, same training regimen... Hell, I think they even have the same eyelashes.
      • Well, Guy made Lee like that. They do have the same eyelashes and hair color, though.
      • And Guy made Lee in his own image?
    • Part of the drama/storyline is that Generation Xerox is present, but also a curse of types. Sasuke is the biggest example/offender that he seems like silly putty. Is he going to be a copy of Kakashi, Orochimaru, Itachi or Madara?
  • One episode of Yu-Gi-Oh features a duel between Yugi and a girl named Rebecca, who accuses Yugi's grandfather of stealing his Blue-Eyes White Dragon card from her grandfather. The duel ends up mirroring exactly a duel between the two grandfathers held in a caved-in archaeological site, with the last bit of water on the line. Both Yugi and his grandfather ended up surrendering their duels even though they would have won with their last card draw.
  • Subverted in One Piece. The exploits of Luffy are implied to very closely mirror those of Gol D. Roger, the previous Pirate King; he also meets quite a few people who personally knew the guy(either that, or the successor of said person), and his actions are consistently described by these people as being exactly what Roger would do. However, it's pretty clear right from the start that Roger isn't Luffy's father, and it's outright confirmed later on. But the real kicker came in fairly recently: Roger actually did have a son: Ace, Luffy's brother, who absolutely despises the guy and wants nothing to do with him.
  • The final episode of Digimon Adventure 02, the second season of Digimon, ends with a Where Are They Now Epilogue in which all twelve of the heroes from the past two seasons bring their children to the Digital World for a get-together. Not only do many of the kids look somewhat like their parents, but ALL their partner Digimon are lower-level forms of their parents' own partner Digimon. This scene is not popular with the fans, though that's mainly for shipping-related reasons.
  • Rapidly subverted in Mahou Sensei Negima manga, which has the earnest, 10-year-old genius mage Negi following in the footsteps of his hugely-famous Disappeared Dad, the "Thousand Master" Nagi... Only later Nagi is shown to be a laidback magic school dropout who —although quite powerful— had to read spells off of a card and resorted to cheap tricks whenever possible (like, say, luring a certain vampire into a covered hole in the ground). In power and personality, they're completely different, and Negi increases the divide even further by choosing the powers of darkness.
    • That all said MANY comparasions can be made between generations, and grow with each relevation: Negi=Nagi, Kotarou=Jack Rakan, Setsuna=Eishun, and of course Ala Alba=Ala Rubra. For that matter Albrieo Imma is rather mischevious and the team healer, like Konoka. And with the Nagi calling the Zect his "master" recalls Ku Fei.
      • In chapter 258 Rakan flashback confirms above, and also shows that theres exist a sticking resemblance between relationship that Negi's parent's had and the one he shares with his partner, Asuna.
      • Asuna, of course, being Negi's aunt.
  • Possible application in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. Due to time travel and reincarnation, The Syaoran and Sakura that we start the manga with turn out to be the parents of one of the people they are cloned from and virtually identical to. Whether the clones are imitating their originals, or the younger male is imitating his father (who just happens to also be his clone) is a matter best left to illegal substances. Or at least alcohol.
  • Played with in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, where the villain notes that all of what the heroes are doing has been done before to no success. They succeed anyway.
  • Code Geass. An Emperor and his partner, to whom he is very close, form a very elaborate plan to unite the world for its own good by any means necessary, so those they love will be happy. Now, thinking carefully, am I talking about Emperor Charles di Brittannia and Marianne "The Flash" Lamperouge, or Lelouch vi Britannia/Lamperouge and Suzaku "Knight of Zero" Kururugi?
    • Then Rolo is Xerox V.V.
  • A Pettanko sorceress from Zephilia meets a mercenary swordsman and they fall in love while fighting to make a buck. Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev, or Lina's parents?
  • A rough-looking Jerk With A Heart Of Gold from the north punches his way through adversity, gets lost easily and is very Hot Blooded. Sanosuke Sagara, or his father Kamishimoemon?
    • Actually, I was thinking Conan the Barbarian.
  • A Hot Scientist gets involved with one of her bosses, is used and manipulated by her lover, breaks down horribly when she realizes what has been truly going on, sees a very young girl as her rival and kills her, sorta, and ultimately meets her doom in quite the fucked up way. Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, or her mother Naoko?
  • Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, so much.
  • Seiichirou Kitano from Angel Densetsu not only is as scary as his father. He gets in the same exact problems at school because of that, and knows his girlfriend only when she understand he's The Messiah. Exactly the same as his father's. The only, marginal, difference between the two is that Seiichirou trades in being The Juggernaut (on top of being a Lightning Bruiser) for a metric ton of Selective Obliviousness.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha: Our main character is an over-powered Magic Warrior despite being an elementary schoolgirl. Her first magic teacher is Yuuno, she has a pair of ordinary friends of contrasting personalities, and looming over the horizon is a brooding, mysterious Dark Magical Girl rival who enjoys balancing on high places and is every bit her equal. Now, is this Nanoha Takamachi in the first season or Vivio Takamachi in ViVid? Of course, unlike her Nanoha-mama, Vivio has the advantage of the old cast looking after her, so while Dark Magical Girl Fate remained at large for the entire first season, Dark Magical Girl Heidi got befriended almost immediately at the start of ViVid when her attempt at The Worf Effect on Nove backfired on her.

Comic Books
  • Both played straight and subverted for all it's worth in Runaways.
  • John Constantine's 19th century ancestor, Lady Johanna Constantine, is a suave, dashing sorceress with a tendency to doom her loved ones to horrible fates. The immortal Hob Galding also met an Elizabethan warlock called Jack Constantine, who came to a nasty end in a graveyard.
  • In Spider-Girl, and related series like A-Next, most of the characters are awfully similar to their parents, mentors, or inspirations. The next generation of superheroes has different demographics, however, as a disproportionate number of daughters fill their fathers' shoes. In their favour, they often have different personalites and motives, just similar career and fashion choices.
    • Spider-Man —> Spider-Girl; Spider-Woman —> Spider-Man; Captain America —> American Dream; Ant Man —> Stinger; Black Cat —> Scarlet Spider; Daredevil, Ghost Rider, and Ben Reilly —> Darkdevil; Quicksilver —> Blue Streak; Falcon —> Ladyhawk; Juggernaut —> J2; Wolverine and Elekra —> Wild Thing; etc, etc...
  • An early Legion Of Super Heroes story had Supergirl join a Legion who said they were the children of the Legion Superboy joined. This was never referenced again, and Superboy and Supergirl were members of the same Legion from then on.
    • L.E.G.I.O.N. sometimes plays with this, with ancestors of the LOSH characters having similar stories.

Fan Fic
  • Especially common in Ranma 1/2 and Harry Potter (Marauders or next generation) Fan Fic. Even before the Deathly Hallows epilogue.
    • It's not just those two series, it's everywhere. Most "Next Gen" fic will feature kids who are either 1.) Exact carbon copies of their parents or 2.) Have a blend of traits that the writer thought were the coolest aspects of said parents. This applies to personality, fighting styles, what the kids want to be when they grow up, etc.. Occasionally the kids will have certain aspects of their grandparents if they showed up in the series and they were likable enough. When you get right down to it, many of these "original characters" are the same damn people and the only difference will depend on what the writer's favorite name is.
      • And while we're on the subject, this leaches into the shipping as well. For example, if the writer is a Harry/Draco fan, this will come across/feature in an Al/Scorpius fic. Same goes for Rose/Scorpius = Hermione/Draco, among others.
    • Hell, the Sailor Moon fanseries "Sailor Moon Z(odiac)" does this with by giving almost every named character a Silver Millenium counterpart, up to and including (Insert Name Here)'s family status and relationships!

Film
  • In the Back To The Future trilogy, George McFly is bullied by Biff Tannen; his grandson Marty McFly, Jr is goaded into crime by Griff Tannen. Both characters' escape from their respective tormentor was catalyzed by Marty McFly, Sr, who is himself (initially) goaded into crime by Douglas Needles (not a Tannen, but he fills the same Jerk Jock/Corrupt Corporate Executive role as Biff).
    • Marty Sr is reluctant to send his demo tape to a record producer because he "couldn't handle that kind of rejection". George (in the original history) won't send his manuscript to a publisher for the same reason.
  • Star Wars: Young Skywalker is whisked away from his home on Tattooine by a Jedi Knight. He then saves the day by flying a starfighter into battle and improbably blowing up the enemy space station, befriending R2-D2 in the process. He then receives training in the Force against Yoda's protests, leading him to overconfidently attack Palpatine's Dragon, losing an appendage for his troubles. Now, are we talking about Luke or Anakin?
    • Arguably taken a step further in the Expanded Universe, in which Luke decides there's no such thing as a 'light side' and 'dark side', only the Force, henceforth using the force entirely as he sees fit. Later, after a certain incident, he comes to the rapid conclusion that he's made a terrible mistake, and cuts himself of from the unsavory elements of the Force. In some ways, reflecting how Anakin came to embrace the Dark Side, only to repent and slay the Emperor. Anakin's grandson follows almost exactly the same path as Vader, all the while ironically looking back at history so he did not make the same mistakes, which he did. The conclusion was arguably inverted as he ended up not repenting before his death.
  • In Forrest Gump, both Bubba's mother and Lieutenant Dan are depicted as coming from long lines of service (the Blue clan comes from a long line of servants, and Lieutenant Dan's ancestors had died in each of America's wars.) In both cases, it's Forrest's intervention that breaks their cycles: He saves Lieutenant Dan from death (but not from losing his legs) in Vietnam, and he gives Bubba's mother a cut of his shrimping money (the last scene she's in has someone serving her.)
  • Mamma Mia! has a mild version: Sophie's relationship with her best friends Ali and Lisa is identical to that of her mother Donna and her best friends Tanya and Rosie - both groups have their own friendship chants and the similarity is Lampshaded in a later scene when both groups unwittingly have a near identical conversation.
  • The film The Duchess seems to be a determined attempt to present the life of Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire, as a foreshadowing of her collateral descendant Diana, Princess of Wales.
  • In Tremors 4: Back to Perfection, Burt's 19th century ancestor encounters the Graboids.

Literature
  • In Harry Potter, this cuts both ways. Harry's father and his cohorts from their days at Hogwarts, the Marauders, map well onto Harry and his friends — and he meets every single one of them before the end of the third book. And the "first day at Hogwarts" at the end of Deathly Hallows is a dead ringer for Harry's own "first day" way back in Philosopher's Stone. This is emphasised when Harry's daughter Lily whines that she wants to go to Hogwarts now to her mother, Ginny... who said the same thing six books earlier.
    • This is also subverted to an extent with Harry's father — Harry unthinkingly assumes that their characters were xeroxed until Harry's father James turns out to have been a pampered little idiot in his teenage years, properly maturing only when he was out of school. It's implied that Harry's unhappy upbringing has made him a better person in some respects. Dumbledore also comments to Snape he finds Harry's personality a lot like his mother's, rather than his father's.
  • A non heroic example is present in Gabriel García Márquez's novel One Hundred Years Of Solitude. The names and the personality traits associated with those names emerges in each generation of the Buendí­a family, leading to a cycle of repeating mishaps and tragedies which only ends with the death of the last member of the family and the destruction of the town the family founded.
  • It is rather subtle but the similarities between the younger generation of (especially, but definitely not just them) Stark children in A Song of Ice and Fire and the previous generation has been pointed out.
    • Subtle??? How many times did Catelyn say Robb was just like Ned and then go into so mournful rememberance?
  • Every generation of the Ohmsford family in Terry Brooks Shannara series includes one member who, against his family's advice, Jumps At The Call of the druid Allanon (or his successors). This family member stands a good chance of being friends with the impulsive Prince of Leah, and will almost certainly encounter the King of the Silver River and be accompanied by a group of Men, Dwarves and Elves (probably including Elven royalty) against the Big Bad. They may also have a more sensible sibling who accompanies them to stop them getting into trouble, encounter a Loveable Rogue named Creel, and befriend a Moor Cat.
  • In Neal Stephenson’s novel Cryptonomicon and its multipart Prequel, The Baroque Cycle, the characters of Lawrence Waterhouse and his ancestor Daniel are both descended from nonconformist preachers (Lawrence’s grandfather, Bunyan, and Daniel’s father, Drake). Despite an unconventional childhood, they attend a prestigious university (Princeton/Cambridge) where they form a strong but uneasy friendship with an obsessive, gay ubergenius (Alan Turing/Isaac Newton). They subsequently come onto the radar of the mysterious immortal Enoch Root, and become involved in a complex secret war involving hidden gold and cryptography, with the assistance of Sergeant Bob Shaftoe (of the US Marines/the King’s Own Black Torrent Guards), while also becoming involved with the political machinations of the Comstock family (Earl Comstock, first head of the NSA/Roger Comstock, Marquis of Ravenscar) and working on early computers (very early in Daniel's case).
    • Oh, and amongst the genuine historic figures Waterhouse meets is the famous military leader, Churchill (Winston Churchill/John Churchill, Duke of Marlbrough).
    • Laurence’s grandson, Randy, in Cryptonomicon's 1990s sections, also fits the pattern to some extent; he’s a computer geek, he becomes involved in Root’s conspiracy, works with Bobby Shaftoe’s son (and has a relationship with his granddaughter), and deals with the political machinations of Earl Comstock’s descendant. Admittedly, he starts out with an interest in his grandfather’s work, but that doesn’t explain all of it, and certainly not why his capitalist venture partner just happens to be descended from a member of the original Bob Shaftoe’s brother’s pirate crew (as, incidentally, is Goto Dengo, one of a handful of characters to appear in the 1940s and 1990s sequences of Cryptonomicon. He’s a Japanese soldier who converts to Christianity; his ancestor was one of the "Kirishitan" Jesuits persecuted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi).
  • The writing of David Eddings, especially the Belgariad/Malloreon series and the Elenium/Tamuli series, in which characters specifically point out the similarity of events. This repetition is put down to Destiny by The Obi Wan/Dirty Old Man/Byronic Hero Belgarath and Creepy Child/Oracular Urchin/Physical God Aphrael, respectively. At the end of both series, however, it is claimed that this cycle of Destined Events has been broken, making the future unpredictable.
  • Subverted to some extent in Tamora Pierce's Trickster's Choice, where it is revealed that the daughter of female knight Alanna has no interest in becoming a knight herself, and in fact begins the book as a rather lazy and unambitious individual.
    • It's a pretty mild subversion, though, because what she wants is to follow in the footsteps of her spymaster father instead...
  • In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff and Isabella's son Linton Heathcliff has the worst traits of both of his parents, being a nasty, cowardly snob. On the positive side, Hareton Earnshaw and Catherine Linton have a lot in common with young Heathcliff and young Catherine Earnshaw (in fact, Heathcliff deliberately keeps Hareton uneducated to mold him into a new version of himself), but turn out to be better than the older generation.
  • There is something like this is seen in Vanity Fair- Amelia, who is something of a Wide Eyed Idealist Yamato Nadeshiko has a son George who she terribly spoils, leading him on a path to become like his father, George, who was a snobish Jerk Jock wannabe aristocrat, but whereas Dogged Nice Guy Dobbin wasn't successful in reforming the earlier George, he is able to mould the younger one his step-son into a better person. The other "heroine", Becky Sharpe, has a Freudian Excuse for some of her behavior. She neglects her son Rawdon, who is named after his father who was better than most of his family who were a long line of evil aristocrats. While less of a character than young George, the younger Rawdon also seems to grow up to be a better person than his parents- he gives his mother a settlement not to come near him ever again which contrasts with how his grandfather, Sir Pitt Crawley tried to cheat his children out of inheritance owed to them.
  • Happened in Welkin Weasels - even their names are very similar: the descendants of Mawk and Scirf are named Maudlin and Scruff, respectively.
  • In Mercedes Lackey's Heralds Of Valdemar series, the Ashkevrons are shown to be very much like this generation after generation. The ones who don't fit the mold (such as Herald-Mage Vanyel) eventually run away from home.
  • The Sweet Valley 'Saga' books rely on the idea that the present inhabitants of Sweet Valley largely are Xeroxed from the ancestors who are the subjects of the books. Patmans and Fowlers are of course in some way derived from nobility, for example.
  • The whole plot of Madeleine L'Engle's A Swiftly Tilting Planet is Charles Wallace traveling through history tracing the interactions of three people reborn again and again doomed to repeat the same actions as their ancestors.
  • In Discworld novels, "Old Stoneface" Vimes is the Knight Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, and is well known for his belief that nobody is above the law, to the extent that he famously arrested the ruler of the city. While this obviously refers to Sam, during the time period of the novels, it's also a description of Suffer-Not-Injustice, some 300 years earlier. (The difference: Suffer-Not-Injustice executed the king; Lord Vetinari was let off on a technicality, and it all turned out to be part of his Xanatos Gambit).

Live Action TV
  • Although the various generations of the Blackadder family are accompanied by Baldrick and an Upper Class Twit, it's not until Blackadder Goes Forth that we get a real sense of history repeating, with more recurring characters from previous series than before, including one-off characters who take their own plotlines from the earlier series with them (Bob the Sweet Polly Oliver, for instance, or Nurse Mary, who's a WWI version of Amy Hardwood from Third). The fact the basic set-up is similar to Blackadder II (Edmund, Balders and the twit are all based in location 1. Blackadder is frequently summoned to location 2 where an obsequious hanger-on with equal status tries to get him in trouble with a psychotic loon who has power of life and death over everyone involved) is just the icing on the cake.
  • In the Star Trek universe Dr Soong was an eccentric scientist, whose work on creating artificial humanoids made him distrusted. One of his more powerful creations turned out to be a concienceless monster who had to be stopped by the crew of the Enterprise. Another, however, was a good person who aided the Enterprise crew in this. Arik (and Malik and Udar) from Star Trek Enterprise or Noonien (and Lore and Data) from Star Trek The Next Generation?
  • They might have got better (kind of) but in Supernatural's Mystery Spot, Dean died and Sam became a ruthless hunter, bent on revenge against Dean's killer. As you would recall, their mother died (she didn't get better) and their father became a ruthless hunter, bent on revenge against her killer. And yes, it's as slashy as it sounds.
    • Sam is John 2.0 Period.
  • Played with in the first episode of the final season of Buffy, when Dawn is joined by two outcast classmates - a mousy shy girl and a loudmouthed guy - and fights monsters on their first day at the newly rebuilt Sunnydale High. Those characters were subsequently forgotten.
  • Pretty much the whole concept of the new series of Minder. Archie Daley, the nephew of Arthur Daley? Who picked up a taxi driver as an assistant? Okay.
  • In the Robin Hood episode "Bad Blood" Flashbacks reveal that the emnity between the Gisbournes and the Locksleys started due to a love triangle between Guy and Robin's fathers, which ended with the woman involved being killed by one of them (Malcom of Locksley, and unlike Guy's murder of Marian, it was an accident). Ghislane of Gisbourne also shows flashes of her daughter's political ambition, and gets shouted down by a sexist community leader in a similar manner to the arrival of Isabella's husband.
  • In the Smallville episode Relic, Clark sees flashes of his father's brief time in Smallville as a young man. Jor-El, Clark dad, falls in love with Lana Lang's aunt, Jonathan Kent's father is seen as noble farmer who helps Jor-El, and the bad guy is a Luthor, Lex's grandfather. And a corrupt Sheriff. The first Sheriff in Smallville is also found out to be corrupt
  • Lorelai and Rory from Gilmore Girls. It's mentioned several times in the series how they alike their personalities are. Rory's first boyfriend reminded Lorelai of Rory's father for example.
  • In Press Gang, it is revealed in a flashback that Spike's mom and Spike's dad were carbon copies of Spike and Linda when in High School.

Music
  • Offspring's Way Down the Line is entirely about this trope.
    There is a chain that's never broken
    You know the story it's sad but true
    An angry man gets drunk and beats his kids
    The same old way his drunken father did
    What comes around, well it goes around...
  • Harry Chapin's song The cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon.
    And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
    He'd grown up just like me
    My boy was just like me

Radio
  • Subverted in the Stanley Baxter's Playhouse episode "The King's Kilt", when Miss MacEvoy, descendent of the kindly landlady from Walter Scott's The Chronicles of Canongate, turns out to be a nasty, bad-tempered woman, who is insanely suspicious of the guests at her B&B. However, it's double subverted when it's revealed the original Janet MacEvoy was just as bad, but was blackmailing Sir Walter into his portrayal.

Theatre
  • Prior Walter, the protagonist of Angels In America has an extensive family history; the Walters go back for centuries, and Prior is an old family name. Not too long after discovering he is suffering from AIDS, Prior is visited by the ghosts of two of his ancestors, both of whom were also named Prior, and both of whom also suffered from fatal diseases and (as is implied might happen to Prior) died alone.

Video Games
  • An interesting example happens in Deus Ex: Invisible War, where the lead character turns out to be the descendent of the character from the first game, kind of, and he/she faces some similar obstacles and decisions as JC Denton did the first time around.
  • Subverted, deconstructed and generally hashed into pieces by Metal Gear Solid 2. The new player character seems to experience a sequence of events extremely similar to ones experienced by the previous player character in the previous game, with note-for-note character analogues and extremely similar level design. The character noticed this, too, and began to get pretty existentialist about it, wondering if he was somehow insane and imagining the whole thing. It turned out it was all deliberately orchestrated to have precisely that effect on him. The game was a satire of reiterated sequels, hence the dark use of this trope.
    • An agent, codenamed Snake goes on a solo mission to rescue somebody. There he finds out plans to build a nuclear-armed tank. Eventually, he discovers that his mentor is part of the plot, and after a battle, kills the mentor in combat. Now, are we talking about Big Boss or Solid Snake (or even Raiden)?
      • Made obvious by the end of Metal Gear Solid 4 when both are standing next to each other.
      • Of course the point of 4 was that Snake isn't exactly like Big Boss after all. At the end he's the only one to be able to live his own life. Big Boss even acknowledges this saying "If you were in my place back then, perhaps you wouldn't have made the same mistakes I dd..."
    • He was a child soldier in a 3rd world country, he was taken under the wing of a skilled soldier who wears a eyepatch, and later on his body was destroyed which led to him becoming a cyborg Now am I talking about Frank Jaeger aka Gray Fox or Jack more commonly known as Raiden?
    • Of course the most important fact in the entire timeline of the game. It all began when Naked Snake/Big Boss (was forced into) killed The Boss. The conflicts finally ended when Solid/Old Snake (who is literally a a copy of Big Boss) killed (his FOXDIE did anyway) The Boss' son Ocelot.
  • The Belmont family from Castlevania. For hundreds of years, each generation's males (and many of the females) had to fight Dracula (or his offspring) at least once. This is due to some vague "curse" in the family (which also carried over to other family lines).
    • The Sorrow games go even further. The six main protagonists are Soma (the reincarnation of Dracula), his "friend" Mina, vampire hunter Julius Belmont, witch Yoko Belnades, Genya Arikado (aka Alucard), and Hammer (who was originally going to be playable in Julius Mode in Dawn of Sorrow, and fanon suggests would have played like Grant DaNasty). Everyone is essentially a counterpart to someone from the story behind Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, except that Mina (the Lisa counterpart) isn't dead.
  • Played rather more literally with Cloud and Zack in Final Fantasy VII. after Zack's death, Cloud has a Heroic BSOD and reconstructs his own personality based on the memories of his dead friend, turning himself into Zack's Expy. However, there are other, more random, events that just so happen to play out the same way in both of their stories - especially those relating to Aerith.
  • In Final Fantasy VIII, Laguna Loire had a long-time crush on Julia Heartilly. When the two got to know each other more, Julia fell for Laguna. However, he is given a mission and never returned leaving Julia waiting to meet him again. When Julia became an Idol Singer, she married General Caraway and had a daughter named Rinoa. Laguna on the other hand was injured and nursed back to health in Winhill village. He fell in-love with Raine, the woman who took care of him and they had a child named Squall. Seventeen years later, Squall and Rinoa meet and as the story progresses, they fell for each other.
  • Played with in Valkyria Chronicles. Everyone thinks Welkin is following in his war-hero father's footsteps, while what he really wants is to become a teacher.
  • In Harvest Moon DS (or Cute), all the characters are descendants of the characters from A Wonderful Life and Friends of Mineral Town. They look the same (and most of them even have the same names), except for a few minor details in some of the characters (like eye color), act the same and fall in love with the same people.
    • Tree of Tranquility takes this to an absurd point. If you start a New Game Plus,you get to play as your son,or daughter,who looks exactly like you,or your opposite gender counterpart. Also,the villagers revert back to their original statuses.
    • What about Elli And to an even greater extent (especially in HM:64, though it's never been confirmed she's Nina's granddaughter, Popuri in HM: 64/Back To Nature/Friends of Mineral Town, who is very similar to her grandmother, Ellen (yes, the old lady!) who was an eligible bachelorette in the original game for the Super Nintendo
    • It's quite loose, whether Ellen is the Ellen from SNES. She could be Ellen and Pete's daughter who shares her moms name, for all we know. They have different jobs, for example.
    • Even worse in the case of DS/Cute and AWL is their wedding clothing. They wear similar clothing to their (great?) grandparents. For example, Celia. DS◊ and AWL◊. Not that we see either on screen, but still..
  • Despite not being related by blood, in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations 3 case 4, when a young Edgeworth appears in a flashback, he looks disturbingly similar to his mentor, Manfred Von Karma, even copying a few of his trademark gestures (like the finger wave).
  • The Yakras in Chrono Trigger. The original posed as the chancellor of Guardia to get closer to the Queen so that he could kill her and sever the royal bloodline (which includes Marle, a.k.a. the present-day Princess Nadia). All of his descendants followed a similar pattern, but you only get to kick the butts of Yakra I (600 A.D.) and Yakra XIII (1000 A.D., much later in the game).
  • Sort of used in Mega Man Star Force, where Geo and all of his friends directly parallel Lan and company from Mega Man Battle Network. In fact, Echo Ridge looks almost exactly like AC/DC. Though in this case there's no biological connection, but it's still one hell of a coincidence that many of the same events played out between two very similar groups of people two hundred years apart.
  • In the World Of Mana games, the Vandole family suffers from this. It's vaguely established that the original Vandole was a young adventurer who stumbled upon and absorbed the power of the Mana Tree, which drove him insane and altered his body composition so that he was no longer quite human. His descendants (or at least the notable ones) are all addicted to Mana and eventually fall prey to their bloodline's need to seek it, which leads them to duplicate their infamous ancestor's empire and/or gambit for the Mana Tree. At this point they all usually choose to go by their surname or start being referred to as it by those opposing them. Every one of them also seems to have bright red hair and very dark green eyes, and they may or may not be the reincarnations of the original.
    • This is a large part of the You Cant Fight Fate theme in Sword Of Mana, where many of the heroes have similar roles to the Gemma Knights, and Vandole's only living descendant literally gets possessed by his ancestor (or something) and tries to carry out the same kind of plan Vandole did.
  • Golden Sun DS fell into this trope hard and subverted it at the same time. Of the three known characters, two are virtually identical to previous protagonists. The third protagonist, a green haired girl, is driving the fandom insane from trying to figure out who she is. Then again, they are being marketed as the descendents of the main characters in the previous games.
  • The Legend Of Zelda series does this as well, to the point of being Lampshaded by the opening cutscene of The Wind Waker.

Web Comics
  • Better Days Actually has a chapter called "Father's Footsteps" Reveals that the stories told to Fisk of his father's life were a lie. Instead of the honorable war hero he had believed his father to be, Jim was actually a hitman working for a secret underground operation who fought terrorist on a "more direct front" to defend the U.S., using Vietnam as his cover. One of the characters who explain this met Fisk in his adolescence ealier in the comic and was Jim's friend. Aside from one question accompanied by a frown, Fisk doesn't seem at all angered, dismayed, or even shocked by this ground breaking discovery. He of course hastily agrees to begin training for this new venture eventhough Beth was expecting him to come live with her and lead a more domestic life once his army contract expired.
  • Surma sends her daughter Antimony to the same school as she herself attended — Gunnerkrigg Court. It seems as if Annie's parents were the only members of that generation who moved away from the court, since Annie runs into most of her parents' social circle (who are now teachers), befriending the daughter (Kat) of Surma's friends. She also meets another acquaintance of Surma's — Reynardine. Instead of walking up to her and saying "Hello, I knew your mum," however, Reynardine comes crashing through Annie's ceiling — and she's the only student in the entire dorm to see him.
    • Given her Secret Legacy, it also appears that Annie is destined to acquire Surma's role in the Court, as well as her powers.
      • A recent flashback has shown that Surma, who looks exactly like an older Annie, appeared to have had an almost identical relationship to Kat's mother as Annie has to Kat.
  • In Girl Genius, Agatha's guardian had to give her an apparently magical (or at least sufficiently advanced beyond what the setting usually has—not that the series has stayed entirely away from magical effects) necklace specifically to prevent her from inheriting her hereditary position as the apparent center of the universe—within a week of losing it, she's escaped from the ruler of Europe's airship after his son fell in love with her, in tow with a talking cat and a legendary hero who then tries to kill her, after having defeated a hive of body horrors and having her foster parents ripped to shreds by a construct made by her mother. And it only picks up speed from there.
  • Riff of Sluggy Freelance seems to be following in his father's footsteps of reckless science, exploration and demonism. This is impressive because they last saw eachother when he was in kindergarten. Meanwhile he's dating a woman as controlling and evil as his mother (slightly less cruel, but more interested in exterminating humanity).

Western Animation
  • A subversion of the "replay with last minute change" occurs in Hey Arnold, where Helga is a finalist in the same spelling bee as her sister before her... and gets the same last word, "qualm". Like her sister Olga, Helga does know how to spell the word... but deliberately mis-spells it, in order to defy her father and step out of Olga's shadow.
    • Don't forget a different episode of the same show where Grandpa tells Arnold about his childhood and the girl that bullied him. Although it skips a generation, we learn that Pookie picked on Phil the same way Helga picks on Arnold.
      • Or the one where Arnold and Gerald get in a fight. Phil and his best friend had a similar argument in their youth..
      • And then there was the episode where it was revealed that every man from his granpa's line dies at midnight of his 91st birthday. Arnold's granfather thought that he was going to die but then he realised that he did a miscalculation and he has 10 more years to live.
  • In one episode of Rugrats, Tommy's grand-aunt visits; at the end of the episode, we find out that, as a child, she had the same relationship with Grandpa that Angelica has with Tommy, and even mentions "those two kids from down the street, Bill and Jill".
  • Transformers: Optimus and his crew crash-land in the distant past on Earth, and must fend off attacks from Megatron and his band of miscreants while defending the planet and attempting to return to Cybertron. Now, are we talking about Prime or Primal? To further draw parallels, Cheetor takes up Bumblebee's mantle, and Terrorsaur makes a good Starscream Expy.
    • In Transformers: Mosaic, Optimus Primal notes the symmetry.
      • Except, of course, that's fanfic; therefore, kinda sorta, well... something that never happened.
  • In the Western, Identical Grandson episode of Jackie Chan Adventures, Valmont's ancestor is trying to release Shendu, and ends up being defeated by Jackie's ancestor.
    • Lampshaded when Jade insists that one character was her counterpart, and a sudden dustcloud hides the character's replacement by Old West!Jade.
  • Subverted quite a bit in Batman Beyond. As the Distant Finale shows Terry was a Tyke Bomb that was designed to follow the path to becoming Batman almost exactly, but despite this he ends up being somewhat different. For instance Terry is not afraid to kill his enemies if he has to, and as he demonstrated to the Joker himself, he's not afraid of fighting dirty or turning someone's mind games around on them.
    • Another instance is that while by the time of Batman Beyond Bruce is just a reclusive old man, Waller tells Terry that he doesn't have to be a loner to be Batman, and he's still seeing his high school girlfriend.
  • In the What If Flash Forward episode Ken 10, Ben's nearly-identical son Ken (he has darker skin, like his mother, and slightly darker brown hair, but is otherwise a Ben clone) is given an Omnitrix by his father on his tenth birthday because he got his when he was ten. It also has the same limitations as his original (time limit, limited number of aliens), and then Ken goes on to meet Devlin, the transforming, superpowered son of Ben's formal rival Kevin (Theme Naming, anyone? Oh yes). Ken also offers Devlin the opportunity to join the Tennyson family, the same offer Ben made Kevin as a child. However, Devlin actually accepts the offer, unlike his father.
    • This troper also thinks that Ken's name is a mushed-up version of his parents' names, Ben and Kai, and giving Gwen a brother with the same name was done after the fact...
      • Actually, in the annotations of the first series, Ken is actually mentioned, Ben idolized him.
  • Famous Five On The Case. This troper can't help feeling it would have been more interesting if George's daughter had been the girly girl, and Anne's the tomboy.
  • One episode of Totally Spies features the team that cam before Sam, Alex and Clover: Pam, Alice and Crimson.
    • Heh...Crimson and Clover, over and over...
  • An episode of Kim Possible shows her 19th century ancestor as an adventurous reporter in the vein of Tintin, Ron's ancestor as her partner, and the ancestors of Shego and Drakken as her archenemies. (Of course that turns out to be All Just A Dream... Or Is It?)
    • Naturally, Ron spends half the episode Lampshading the trope.
  • In an episode of The Powerpuff Girls, the 19th century ancestor of Professor Utonium creates his own version of the Powerpuff Girls using steampunk technology.
  • In The Fairly Oddparents, Timmy's 19th century ancestor has Cosmo and Wanda as his fairy godparents. And his sucessor from the far beyod future will also have them. And his future kids.
  • An episode of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective shows Ace Ventura's medieval ancestor as a pet detective, Guado's ancestor as a corrupt sheriff and Woodstock's ancestor as the informer of Ace's ancestor (complete with a steampunk computer).
  • One time-traveling (of sorts) episode of Danny Phantom revealed Jack's obsession with ghost hunting isn't self-contained; his pilgrim ancestor John Fenton Nightingale did it, too!
  • The French cartoon called Once Upon A Time... Mankind is about the history of humanity, and features the same five characters from prehistoric times until Twenty Minutes Into The Future.
  • The Venture Bros episode "ORB" shows a flashback of victorian era adventurers who all seem conspicuosly similar to modern characters. (Granted, the modern equivilants aren't a team anymore)

Real Life
  • Both Bruce Lee and his son, Brandon Lee, died under mysterious circumstances, leaving half-finished films behind that would later be completed posthumously (Bruce Game of Death, and Brandon The Crow). The similarities between their deaths led to a number of conspiracy theories involving the Triads and other Asian organized crime associations.
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