Genealogy and Ancestry are really popular tropes in fiction. It makes a great Secret Legacy, a source of fraternal conflict, adds drama with an unexpected family reunion, and can set up a host of different conflicts and relationships. Just like in real life, a person's ancestry can determine their genes and, to a lesser extent, their personality and even their talents; but in fiction this extends to skills, superpowers, and even moral alignment.
Sometimes even The Messiah and the most valiant Knight in Shining Armor are at risk of going insane, or over to The Dark Side, if a parent or grandparent was a Villain by Default or member of an Evil Race. This inevitably leads said character into a Wangstyexistential crisis that comes completely out of left field, since they rarely ever struggled against villainous impulses before this revelation.
The reverse is not always true though. A Card-Carrying Villain with a good family is rarely compelled towards good — though it does inform a possible Heel Face Turn later on thanks to The Power of Love from their family.
The hero's fear in this situation is that their "evil genes" will inevitably doom them to become as evil as their ancestors Because Destiny Says So, it's written In the Blood — despite the fact that up to the point before The Reveal they had a solid reputation, moral compass, and personality, capable of using Heroic Willpower to resist just about any evil supernatural coercion. It seems heroes are as insecure about their ancestry as their reputation.
The inevitable conclusion to all this navel gazing is either the character going "Screw Destiny!" or a friend slapping some sense into them; if he has been raised in ignorance so that he would not Turn Out Like His Father, it is quite likely to actually work. On the other hand, this can end up being a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, in that the angst leads to fear, then hate, then evil, as the character either does a full Face Heel Turn or becomes Necessarily Evil. For a comparison, the Reluctant Monster bypasses this nonsense entirely and is simply "themselves," albeit with a healthy heaping of introspection.
Now, get an Evilutionary Biologist who thinks the same thing, and they'll try and splice together a cloneSuper Soldierof the hero using such donors as Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Scrappy Doo, under the logic that their creation will be "the most powerful and evil creature alive! Bwahahahaha!" Which, of course, should only produce a clone with a penchant for mustaches and Scooby snacks, but invariably is pretty evil.
A pretty common twist for heroes with Muggle Foster Parents is that they are the child of the Big Bad who has been spirited away and raised like an Ordinary High School Student in the hopes that Nurture can beat out their inherently evil Nature. Amazingly, sometimes it's because Evil Parents Want Good Kids. In extreme cases, this "Nature" can manifest as an Enemy Within or a Super Powered Evil Side. Again, this twist can lead to a Shower of Angst. For some reason, the parent they get the bad blood from is usually the dad. Another twist is the son of a mighty warrior becoming a mighty warrior themselves, even if they were orphaned as a baby.
Sub-trope of Not so Different. See Freudian Excuse for when the Nurture position applies. Compare Lamarck Was Right for children inheriting non-moral traits that shouldn't even be genetic. A big issue for anyone with a Mad ScientistTruly Single Parent. Creates numerous problems if the blood it is in is Royal Blood. The more light-hearted version is It Runs in the Family. Compare Raised by Orcs, where someone raised by evil people/racesturns out good due to not actually being related to them and Heroic Lineage from their true parents. Compare Loser Son of Loser Dad, where everyone else thinks this will be the case. Contrast Sibling Yin-Yang, when the same blood give very different results.
Examples
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Anime
In Code Geass, Lelouch vi Britannia has become a rebel trying to overthrow his tyrannical father, Emperor Charles. However, his methods rely heavily on manipulation and XanatosGambits and Xanatos Roulette ... just like his old man's own actions. Also, Charles himself seems to mirror his trope in regards to his twin brother, cult leader V.V. And let's not forget that Marianne purposely hid herself from Lelouch and make Nunnally suffer just so they can use Lelouch to draw C.C. out for the Assimilation Plot and create the perfect world where their kids would "live in happiness". Receiving, scheming blood from both his parents definitely helps.
In Princess Tutu, Fakir is a descendant of Drosselmeyer. It follows that he has the same story-spinning powers as Drosselmeyer, and this ends up being crucial to the plot.
Not to mention that the blood of the Raven will turn people towards evil and give them dark magical powers if it's somehow absorbed by their body, even if they're not related to him.
The goddess Urd of Ah! My Goddess is a near expy of her mother, the demon and ruler of Hell, Hild. Even though she identifies as a goddess and it is her affiliation, people have told her more than once her temperament is closer to demon - or rather, nearly exactly like her mother, which is the same for all intents and purposes. This even though she was only raised by Hild for a few early years, and has been a goddess as long as she can remember. Her power is also in the leagues of her mother.
Being connected to a criminal by blood seems to be quite a stigma in the One Piece world, mainly from the World Government who are afraid that it really is In the Blood. Nico Olvia separated herself as much as she could from her daughter Robin when she set off to be an illegal Adventurer Archaeologist to try and keep Robin from being the "child of a criminal." When the Franky Family are trying to convince the Straw Hats to take Franky with them, one of the reasons used is "he's the son of a pirate, anyway." Most recently, when Vice-Admiral Garp tells Ace that he'd wanted him and his brother Luffy to become great Marines, Ace tells Garp that their fathers' blood assured they could never be Marines. Ace himself was hunted by the Marines even before his birth because they wanted to nip the potential danger of his father's continuing bloodline in the bud. Only an extreme Mama Bear act by his mother prevented him from being found.
Averted in Whitebeard's beliefs, though. Upon being informed that Ace was the son of Gold Roger(a major rival of Whitebeard), the pirate captain didn't care in the least, saying it was an inconsequential detail. During the war with the World Government, he is stabbed by one of his allies, who's crew had previously been wiped out by Roger and felt betrayed upon finding out that they were going to such lengths to save Ace. Whitebeard simply tells him that Ace himself had done nothing to the guy, and that it was ridiculous to blame Ace for his father's actions.
Actually in spite of the rather crazy lineage of Luffy's family (The marine's hero, the most wanted man in the world, The future pirate king), one of the major themes of One Piece (confirmed by Word Of God) is that heredity doesn't matter, and family is who you choose. Of the strawhats, only Usopp grew up with a parent related by blood, and she died when he was quite young. Of Sanji, Zoro, Nami, Chopper and Franky, none had significant blood relative parental figures, Robin only met her mother briefly, We don't know about Brook, and Luffy was raised by his grandfather until he was shipped off to stay with his grandfather's friend. Luffy also rather significantly had a brother unrelated by blood.
The Nakama theme becomes much more evident in the Fishman/Mermaid heredity. Either species can give birth to an species each other with no qualms as it just means they must have had some ancestor to inherit it from.
The Uchiha Clan from Naruto is the embodiment of this trope with the clan founder, Madara, even saying that revenge is the destiny of each and every Uchiha.
However, there are two subversions: First off, and most notably, Obito, Kakashi's Unlucky Childhood Friend. He acts pretty normal and even clumsy, and the usual Uchiha-appearance is toned down with a ridiculous pair of goggles. Secondly, though not to the same extent as Obito, Itachi was easily one of the strongest Uchiha and possessed many typical Uchiha-traits, but by all appearances attempted to avoid going too far overboard in the pursuit of his revenge.
Somewhat arguably, Yusuke from Yu Yu Hakusho. Though it's not dwelt on much, partly because by the point in the series it comes up things have gotten to be semi-pure action, far far away from the series' roots as a chronicle of the reflective character-building experiences a delinquent can have while a ghost, probably because Togashi had gone mad with power by this point, a while after our hero has come back from the dead as a demon because of Mazoku ancestry, he has become relatively okay with the less uncivilized gradations of human-eating, and when Raizen is about to die due to self-imposed starvation offers insistently to go find him someone to eat right away. Earlier in the series he got incredibly angry about any cannibalistic tendencies, and drew huge lines between 'killing demons,' which he had done a good deal of, and 'killing humans,' which he really really did not want to have to do. Could just be an implicit redrawing of the Fantastic Racism lines, with demons no longer suffering from What Measure Is a Non-Human?. So it might just be a really strange form of a perfectly reasonable Aesop, and/or Reverse Getting Crap Past the Radar due to not treating it like it's important. Intended to cause Fridge Logic, probably. Altogether weird.
Hiei, on the other hand, turns out to be the victim of the idea of this in his back story: being male shows he has outcross blood, which among the Ice Maidens means (precedents apparently show) that if they keep him around he will grow up to kill everyone. So they throw him over the side of their Floating City, the woman doing the throwing whispering that she expects him to come back and please kill her first. They may or may not have been correct: yes, he is a psychopath from childhood, and actually mellows out the more grown-up he gets, and yes, judging by his facial expressions he was one evil baby, but that could be a combination of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (though come to think of it, it doesn't), the trauma, and the fact that all babies are extremely selfish little creatures and if they were sapient they probably would be kind of evil. He understood everything. (Of course, the 'source of evil' here is either 'every race except our own' or 'the male sex,' or both, because they don't have males. They clone themselves every hundred years.)
Jury is out on Yukina. She may or may not share Hiei's father's blood, and has been known to express genocidal sentiments toward her own kind. Hiei told her that if she wanted them dead she should do it herself, not rely on some imaginary brother who might be dead. Since he'd decided it was crueler to let them live, and all.
This is part of the reason why it was feared Soul Eater's Black Star would end up on the 'path of a Kishin'; his father ended up destroying himself and his clan. A comparison between father and son is made by Sid, who raised Black Star and played a part in killing the rest of the Star Clan.
This is very likely to become a problem for Death the Kid, thanks in part to Shinigami being a Truly Single Parent. Kid has his father's example in his favour, but the experience and habits of his 'family' does not bode well, as he discovered in the Salvage arc.
In Eureka Seven, the Thurston family (especially the males) are all well-respected and loved people. Axel Thurston was respected by the military for his design and contributions for the LF Os, Adrock Thurston was remembered by the people for his Heroic Sacrifice to save the world, and Renton Thurston was also known by all for saving the world and became a hero (his name is displayed on the moon for all to see, as well as a street named after him in the ending).
Axis Powers Hetalia: insanity certainly seems to be In the Blood for the Soviet family. Also, North Italy and Romano are both weak when it comes to warfare and share their love of food and women with Grandpa Rome. Germany and Prussia both have ambition and a love of power. Ironically, it's never clear how countries reproduce or whether they are actually related, and it's implied that they might actually not be related in the traditional sense, but those who call themselves family do seem to have a lot of traits in common.
In the Detective ConanThe Phantom of Baker StreetNon-Serial Movie, it begins with a social commentary about Japan's hereditary culture but this trope comes around with the revelation that the bad guy is a descendant of Jack the Ripper and he feared the bad reputation it would cause if the public got word of it. At one point his panic overruled his common sense, leading him to murder. Basically it could be about how concentrating on erasing mistakes of one's ancestors can make you repeat them.
Comic Books
Orion, son of Darkseid. Orion's a good guy, but he inherited Darkseid's inherent rage and bloodlust, and requires a Mother Box to keep his temper in check.
In Teen Titans, Superboy fears this after discovering Lex Luthor is one of his genetic fathers. It worsens to the point of a Heroic BSOD when it turns out that Luthor had implanted the ability to control him, and forced him to attack his friends.
Robin points out an even worse possibility than becoming evil: "You could go bald!"
Titans also has an actual example in Raven, who spends much of the 90s evil, due to her demonic heritage.
This is a legitimate worry for the Runaways at first, before they decide to Screw Destiny and stick it to their parents. Most of them anyway.
The comic version of Wanted features the character Shithead (a Captain Ersatz of Batman villain Clayface), made of the feces of the 666 most evil people in history. Also, Complete Monsterhood runs in Wesley's family, since his father was an equally depraved supervillain.
Used in Spider-Man and Spider Girl, with the "Osborn Legacy" ending up twisting three generations of Osborns. There's no evidence that any of them were evil before Norman, and even if his formula affected his genes, Harry was already a teen at that point.
One story suggested Norman's father wasn't a terribly nice man; he may not have worn a funny costume, but he had the same obsession with "a strong heir" that Norm inflicted on Harry.
In X-Men, the Lensherr/Eisenhart/Maximoff/Da— Oh, hell, Magneto's family seems to have a lot of issues with this. The man himself tends to go mad fairly regularly, Scarlet Witch was responsible for Avengers Disassembled and House of M, Polaris also seems to spend half her time as an evil lunatic, and Quicksilver (getting off more lightly than the others) went kind of crazy after getting his powers back following the decimation.
Still not the first time Quicksilver's gone crazy.
This trope often serves as an explanation for why the children of established superheroes and villains inherit their parents' powers, as the abilities are, quite literally, In the Blood. Spider-Man and the Flash are perhaps two of the most famous examples of heroes passing their abilities on to their kids, although there have been numerous other examples.
For an example of someone who doesn't give a second thought to their villainous ancestry, look no further than Bart Allen — better known as Impulse/Kid Flash II. It's common knowledge that he's the grandson of the Silver Age Flash. What isn't common knowledge *
I think only about a dozen or so people in-universe know this
is that he's also descended from Barry's psychotic Evil Counterpart, Professor Zoom. He's long known this fact *
Impulse #25. He's more upset that Meloni didn't spill the truth earlier.
, but doesn't really think about it, let alone talk about it, unless someone explicitly brings it up, and more-or-less laughs off Zoom's accusation of "bloodline betrayal":
Professor Zoom: Your mother may be a Thawne, but your father was an Allen. Your blood is polluted.
Bart: Look on the bright side, Professor Plum. We're only half related!
Captain America has two examples. Helmut Zemo, son of Heinric Zemo and Sin, son of The Red Skull.
Doctor Strange's girlfriend Clea has avoided this. She's the daughter of Umar and the niece of Dormammu and she's still on the side of good.
Vandal Savage's daughter, Scandal, usually seesaws between Anti-Villain and Anti-Hero, though that's a lot better than her father, who's pretty much a fulltime villain. It's plausible that without her father's interference, she could have become a normal young woman or a heroine.
In Hellboy, Hellboy himself is the son of a demon prince but is a good guy in spite of his pedigree. The various other demons he meets are all convinced that he should be allied with them, and will make a Face Heel Turn eventually. Hellboy himself is initially dismissive of the idea, but has become increasingly worried that there may be some truth to this. It's also played rather more literally than most examples: in "The Island", a man drains HB's blood and uses it to reanimate himself, and the blood causes the man to transform into the demon Hellboy "should have been".
Film
Star Wars plays with this, Luke's Final Temptation to join The Dark Side hinges on him being his father's son and heir to his evil. Luckily, he inherited a few traits from his mom too.
Dark Empire has him turn to The Dark Side when the Emperor returns, in an attempt to bring him down from within. It doesn't exactly work. The parallels with Anakin are made blindingly obvious, though the comic came long before the prequel trilogy. Luke guides a ship far too large and damaged to land into a survivable landing on Coruscant. He constantly ruminates on his father's legacy, wondering why he had turned - ultimately it's the threat to his family that gets him to claim "My father's destiny is my own." The Emperor proceeds to replace his mechanical right hand with a different prosthetic, a "better" one speculated by some fans to be of a model Vader used, and dresses Luke in outfits clearly inspired by his fathers', as can be seen in the page image. Ultimately it's the love of his sister, and his refusal to hurt her or allow her to be killed, that brings Luke back.
In the Expanded Universe, his GRANDSON turns for this reason, more or less.
Luke: And when someone asks you to talk to her among the Trees of Imminent Doom?
Ben: I say yes, and close my eyes and pucker up for a big kiss.
Luke: There, that's the Skywalker survival instinct at work.
A History of Violence uses this when Tom's son, upon discovering his father was a brutal hitman, abandons his earlier pacifist stance and brutally beats up a bully (who he'd previously handled with wit), having "inherited" his father's violent fighting style.
Used for comedic effect in Children of the Revolution, a black comedy about the illegitimate son of Joseph Stalin, who ends up starting a totalitarian communist revolution in Australia without ever being informed of who his real father was — even going so far as to grow the "Stalin mustache."
In Young Frankenstein, the titular Dr. "Fronkensteen" tries to avoid following in the footstepsvootshtaps of his famous relative. He can't, if only because the servants won't let him.
The Doom movie uses Genetic Engineering is the New Nuke this way. The Precursors of humanity living on Mars developed a new chromosome that wiped out disease and made them super human... or super evil (You can guess what wiped them out). Apparently the chromosome reacted to the something in the "unmapped 10% of the human genome" that unlocked a person's latent "evil" and mutated them into a monster; the best these gentically evil people can hope for is a Heroic Sacrifice before they fully mutate. So Rousseau was wrong, technically people are genetically evil, and all it takes is a little help from The Virus to bring it out.
The forever brutish Tannen bloodline in the Back to the Future movies. The line goes back to "Mad Dog" Tannen, a murderous Wild West outlaw who kills Doc Brown in one timeline. In 1955, Biff Tannen is a bully who tries to rape Marty's mother. In various timelines, he matures into an abusive boss, a crime lord, and a bitter old man. Biff's grandson is a monstrous thug.
Jack Sparrow tells Will Turner in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie that "Piracy is in your blood," since his father was also the pirate "Bootstrap Bill" Turner. Later on it turns out to be an important plot point, and Will embraces his pirate heritage. Of course, no mention is made of whether Bootstrap Bill's father was a pirate. One pirate parent is apparently enough to turn his heirs into pirates as well.
Aragorn in the film version of Lord of the Rings has deep seated fear he will prove to have "the blood of Isildur" and choose to use the One Ring, which extends to him being fearful of taking up his mantle as king. Still, the Ring has a rather good track record on the whole evil tempting and corruption thing, so it's not like he's inheriting weakness so much as not inheriting super resistance to its influence.
Detective Conan: The Phantom of Baker Street starts out with sensible social commentary on Japan's hereditary culture but hits this trope around the revelation that Schneider is a descendant of Jack the Ripper and thus couldn't stop the murderous nature in his genes.
Actually, it's more of a case of faithfully projecting the Japanese way of thinking — which was what they were criticizing — onto a foreign character! Every true American would be boisterous of having Jack the ripper as an ancestor! No way he would be killimg to hide it!
In Repo! The Genetic Opera, this is used in a more literal sense — Marni died from a rare blood disease, which her daughter, Shilo, inherited. 'Genetic Emancipation' is also based on this trope, Shilo sings it after realising that she hasn't inherited her mother's disease after all, but that her father was keeping her sick.
Also played with in a figurative sense when Rotti is trying to get Shilo to kill her father. She claims she's not a murderer to which Rotti responds, "But you share your dad's genetics. What if he passed this to you?" Making reference to his murderous occupation.
In The Bad Seed, Rhoda is the granddaughter of a serial killer and has genetically inherited the inability to feel guilt.
The work of H.P. Lovecraft. From Shadow Over Innsmouth's Deep One-blooded protagonist to the protagonist of The Rats in the Walls having a predisposition toward cannibalism and insanity; this is not to mention The Tomb's family links between the dead and living, it's completely pervasive.
Also check out the late Arthur Jermyn. His family is interbred with an ape.
Imriel in the Kushiel's Legacy books is the son of the biggest traitors to his country, and despite him being a good-hearted person (and raised by other goodhearted people), everyone around him suspects that someday he might take after his mother. Later on, a group of people have a psychic prediction that Imriel's son would take after his mother and destroy their nation, and kill his pregnant wife to make sure this doesn't happen. This editor presumes that evil skipped a generation.
Played with in A Song of Ice and Fire: The Targaryen royal family line is known to be "tainted" with madness; one character says that every time a new Targaryen was born, the country would hold its breath to see if the new Targaryen would be one of the good ones or one of the bad ones. However, this is justified. The Targaryens are seriously inbred due to repeated Brother-Sister Incest; the inbreeding results in many of this line having physical problems and/or serious mental and emotional instability, while the luckier ones inherit the family strong points and manage to miss the damaging recessives.
Also, Sansa being told she has "traitor's blood", because of her father's actions.
They address this trope directly at one point, with Crowley pointing out that Lucifer was originally an angel, so the idea that Adam is destined to become evil due to demonic genetics is absurd. Incidentally, in this story demons and angels even have identical wings; falling from grace just changes what team you're playing for.
All over the place in The Kite Runner, as: Hassan's son is said to be very much like him, which plays this straight. Seemingly subverted with Amir and Baba, as Amir believes Baba hates him for not being the image of a man as he was, but played straight and noted by Amir when his hatred of him may have stemmed his guilt from how Baba was Hassan's actual father with an affair with Hassan's mother, and they both had past shames. Averted with Hassan, as he is a much more kindly person than his biological father, and said to be near-impossible to anger as opposed to Baba, which is much like Hassan's perceived father.
Played straight in the Redwall series, where certain species are always designated as "good" or "bad." Even when a ferret (one of the "vermin" species) named Veil is raised from infancy in the abbey, he ultimately turns out to be evil. "The goodies are good and the baddies are BAD, no grey areas." (Weirdly, cats are one of the few species that's an exception to this rule, being good or evil — in a series where mice are the standard heroes.) There are occasional exceptions, with good-aligned "vermin species" or evil-aligned "good species" but they are few and far between.
In Discworld, things like scars, charismatic royalty and skills as a clown can be hereditary. As Death explains to his adopted granddaughter, not all that is hereditary is genetic.
The original meaning of "charisma" is "favour of God", and the idea that it was hereditary was the reason/justification for hereditary titles at least in Europe (don't know about elsewhere).
The entire plot of Wilkie Collins' 19th-century thriller Armadale revolves around this trope; a young man who has (for unrelated reasons) adopted a pseudonym meets another young man who shares his birth name of Allan Armadale. They become fast friends, until the first young man discovers that his father had murdered the father of the other Allan Armadale. He spends much of the rest of the novel haunted by his father's conviction that the sons are destined to repeat the fathers' fatal feud.
In The Count of Monte Cristo, Benedetto is supposed to be a bad guy because of the evil inclinations of his father Vilefort. Adding to the Unfortunate Implications is that like Oliver Twist (and likely many other orphans in 19th century novels), he is naturally educated and well-spoken, despite receiving little schooling, simply because his father is an aristocrat.
In Arthurian literature, Mordred, the born-by-incest, sometimes-tragic nephew-son of the King, is a villain BECAUSE his parents consummated in sin. This is often the reason for the fall of Camelot as well. And Despite that in the original Welsh legends had Medrawd as a hero and unrelated enemy of Arthur's, with Arthur as the villain, and the incest originated in the Vulgate Lancelot-Grail Cycle, this still makes the trope Older Than Print.
In P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath series, Shanir (magic) powers are inherited genetically among the Highborn race. Incestuous breeding programs in the past to breed stronger Shanir have led to some very damaged bloodlines, exacerbated by dwindling numbers (and probably causing them, too, due to impacts on fertility). Heroine Jame and her twin brother Torisen are of the "royal" house of Knorth, inheriting both powerful abilities and the possibility of insanity; Torisen constantly worries that he carries the Knorth madness and worries he'll become his father. One of those abilities is also In the Blood; blood-binding. Anyone who consumes their blood will be bound to them mind, body and soul until death and beyond. Creepy stuff.
In L.J. Smith's ''Night World'', lost witches, called psychics, don't know about their powers until somebody tells them their descended from the witches.
Drizzt Do'Urden seems to get a break from the drow characteristic of being Always Chaotic Evil because his father is an exception, too. Of course, this also affected his upbringing, but there's a sense a "biological" excuse is seen as necessary.
Interestingly, some other drow are implied to have had the potential to be good, but to have lost it due to the lives they've lived. Drizzt's sister turned evil due to their mother's influence, and Jarlaxle (who isn't even from Drizzt's family!) demonstrates what Drizzt observes as an odd sort of sanity for a drow, despite being a ruthless mercenary. Given Mooshi's comment that the children of evil species often demonstrate "not-so-subtle differences" from good races, a mutation is looking more and more probable, albeit a mutation that's struck more than one family line.
In the Middle English romance Sir Gowther, the title character is the son of a devil (the same devil who begot Merlin). He kills several nursemaids by suckling them to death, then grows up as a naturally horrible person who eventually goes so far as to lead a gang rape of a convent full of nuns whom he then locks up and sets on fire. However, when someone actually tells him that he is the son of the devil, he repents immediately, goes to the Pope for penance, and eventually becomes more or less a saint.
Merlin himself is alternately an example and an aversion of this trope. In some medieval texts, he inherits his incubus-father's powers and his evil or amoral nature; in others, he inherents the powers but not the evil, and he receives some powers from God as well.
Played horribly straight in the 1904 novel Freckles, in which it's accepted by everyone — including, too obviously, the author — that an abused child must be unworthy of compassion, because it is the offspring of abusers. The hero turns out to be a good and decent and upright man, of course — precisely and specifically because his parents were all those things.
Sherlock Holmes speculates that the reason Colonel Moran from "The Adventure of the Empty House" started out as a fine, upstanding soldier of the Empire and then suddenly joined the Moriarty gang might be because "the individual represents in his development the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of the history of his own family." Watson calls this "rather fanciful".
In another case, Holmes deduced that a nice-seeming man was a closet Complete Monster because his young son was cruel to animals. While this isn't an implausible deduction, Holmes attributed the boy's misbehavior to this trope rather than to the trauma of abuse at his father's hands.
Captain Pausert in The Witches Of Karres had to listen to Councilor Onswud saying he'd known Pausert would go bad (as Onswud saw it), "Just like his great-uncle Threbus! It's in the blood, I always say!" And then Threbus' daughter told Pausert her father had predicted Pausert would break with his home planet — and he said it was in the blood.
This is implied with the Rahl family in The Sword Of Truth, where it's explained that from his Rahl blood Richard got the "rage of anger" and capacity for violence, while he got forgivness and love and understanding from his Zorander blood. You'd think that unless the Rahls were really into inbreeding this mixed blood thing would apply to all of them, but maybe only wizard blood carries personality traits.
Inverted in Mark Billingham's novel "Bloodline", in which the descendants of a notorious serial killer's victims are being killed off one by one, then later played straight when it is revealed that the illegitimate son of the original killer is committing the murders, after discovering his father's identity.
In The Belgariad, Urgit, King of the Murgos, believes he will go insane like his father Taur Urgas did because the Urgas dynasty is plagued by hereditary insanity. His father, however, was not Taur Urgas but a Drasnian diplomat, making Urgit more a Drasnian than a Murgo.
Played with in Edward Rutherford's multi-generational historical novels, in which particular families keep producing similar personality-types. Occasionally subverted, as when a poor man engineers a better life for his boy by having him pose as the illegitimate son of a noble, who adopts him; the fake "son''s unsuspecting descendents act exactly like nobles, and children of the real son, never knowing the truth, behave like anyone else raised in poverty.
Near the end of the North and South trilogy, the recurring villain (and increasingly Ax Crazy Elkanah Bent is revealed to have been conceived when his mother's father raped her. Upon learning this, another character freaks out and ends an inner monologue with ".,his blood, his brain poisoned by his birth."
Played straight and averted in The Bible. All humans end up inheriting sin and death from their ancestors Adam and Eve. Averted with Abraham and David, where God makes a covenant with them to set up a nation and monarchy, respectively, with their descendants hoping that they will be as faithful as their ancestors. Save for a few notable exceptions, he turns out to be dead wrong.
In After The Golden Agesupervillainy seems to be hereditary, since, though Mayor Paulson never met his father (Dr. Simon Sito, a.k.a. The Destructor) or knew of their relationship, he still ends up emulating many of his megalomaniacal tendencies. Justified since Simon Sito became evil after some radiation messed up the wiring in his brain, and the condition appears to extend to the genetic level.
Live Action TV
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: A recurring fear for OliviaBenson is that deep inside her is a violent, sadistic criminal spawned by her rapist father. John Munch has also voiced concern at least once that he may end up committing suicide like his father. There was also an episode where a man who was violently molested by his father worries about becoming just like him and his felon brother — and does so.
Note that Munch's fear isn't entirely unreasonable: his uncle Andrew (played by Jerry Lewis in an episode) had mental problems, and that sort of thing, which can result in suicide, can be heritable. Goren on Law & Order: Criminal Intent has the same concerns due to a family history of schizophrenia.
Also, Olivia went through a very complicated situation where it seemed her fears her coming true... and not through her, but through her half-brother Simon, who was accused of raping a handicapped woman who later killed herself. He was framed by the victim's sister, though.
There's an episode of the original Law & Order ("Born Bad") where a teenager on trial for murder has his parents put this forward as a legal defense - due to a unique genetic condition, the teen is predisposed to a life of violence, and thus not wholly responsible for his actions. This backfires in the most spectacular way possible, as the teen himself decides to plea guilty after hearing his own defense talk about how he's destined to be a violent criminal.
Supernatural's Sam Winchester, upon learning that he has demon blood in his veins becomes obsessed with the possibility that he may go "darkside". Prior to this, his father told his brother Dean that if he couldn't save Sam from turning darkside, he would find it necessary to kill him. Sam fights valiantly against this, but nonetheless eventually succumbs to his heritage by shacking up with a demon and exploring his paranormal abilities, via drinking demon blood. However, he turns back from the brink and eventually screws destiny very epically ( trapping the Devil himself)
Holling from Northern Exposure didn't feel he should ever have children because every Vincoeur from the cruel French aristocrats down to Holling's foul-tempered father had been some sort of sadistic monster. Holling himself was a perfectly sweet and kind person, and didn't seem to fear turning into a jerk himself — but at the same time was convinced that the vileness would carry over to his kids should he ever have any. (In fact, one child of his did turn out to be a money-grubbing con woman.)
Chouseishin Gransazer has a lot of hand-wringing wangst near the end when it is revealed that some of the heroes, and possibly all humans, are descended from the Bosquito, an evil race of monsters that feed on the life force of others. But in the end it turns out that they aren't related to the Bosquito at all; it was just evil propaganda. A rather nasty Warped Aesop.
Also conveniently ignores the fact that humans are descended from creatures that feed on the "life force" of others, and still do. It's called "eating meat"...
A more realistic version of this was done in Smallville, where Chloe is afraid she'll end up like her mother. But it's not evil, it's insanity, which often is genetic. Lex on the other hand, has evil genes, although the nurture side isn't helping either.
Clark himself believed this of "Luthor blood", until the episode "Luthor" where he discovers that his alternate self, raised by Lionel Luthor, was monstrous as an actual Luthor even without the blood relation. This realisation allows him to accept that Tess Luthor, the biological daughter of Lionel Luther, can be trusted to be a subversion of the trope.
One of the main sources of dramatic tension in American Gothic is the question of Caleb's parentage — not just whether he really is Buck's son, but whether he can actively resist becoming corrupt and evil just like his father. And it seems he and Merlyn are right to worry, since the more time he spends with Buck, and the more he learns from him, the more cruel, amoral, callous, and sadistic he becomes. Of course this is likely helped along by his near-death experience, Buck's powers, and being possessed by Buck but the simple fact is after ten or so years of showing no signs of evil, once he learns of his (possible) heritage, Caleb's fall into darkness is somehow inevitable.
Towards the end of the epic miniseries Centennial, the evil Wendell clan comes along. Perhaps we can blame them for how the quality of the series really started to deteriorate around that point.
The Avatara in Carnivāle get their powers and Dark or Light natures genetically. Siblings of the Avatara, called Vectori, are said to have minor abilities of their own and tend toward insanity.
On Criminal Minds, the profilers always debate the possibility of a serial killer's offspring growing up to be like their parent whenever one of them is revealed to have kids. Justifiable discussion, since Psychopathy is suspected to have mainly genetic predispositions, whereas Sociopathy mainly environmental. Of course, not all people predisposed to become Psychopaths become such, and not every Psychopath becomes a Complete Monster and/or Serial Killer.
Spencer Reid worries a lot about becoming a paranoid schizophrenic- like his mother, as there is a higher chance of it occurring in him if a family member also has had it.
In "Birthright", a man who never knew his father found his journal detailing his killings and decided to become his copycat.
Averted by the wife of a serial killer who was on death row for killing her infant son to prevent him from growing up with the Awful Truth about his father except she secretly gave him up for adoption as a baby to a loving family and was willing to face execution because the truth would exonerate her but also burden her son with the knowledge of his parentage. Even the BAU decides she did the right thing in the end even if they wouldn't have made the same choice.
Langston in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation assures the adopted step-son of Serial Killer Paul Milander that In The Blood doesn't exist (especially since they aren't blood relatives and Milander never acted like a serial killer to his family) and that there is no record of a serial killer's children becoming killers themselves in Real Life. Meanwhile, Langston himself is worried that he might have inherited a violent streak from his father.
In the Bones Season One finale, The Woman in Limbo, upon learning that his parents were bank robbers who were part of a strong-arm crew, Russ Brennan, a felon on parole, says "Guess a criminal nature runs in the family."
Booth is in a sensitive position; he's both a crack sniper for the government and related to Lincoln assassin John Wilkes-Booth. This is brought up when he (thinks he) proves that one person could've done the JFK assassination. When the others point out that A: he's a professional, B: the experiment was indoors and evidence suggests a cover-up, his confidence in himself and his government almost goes to pieces.
Inverted humorously on Top Gear, in an episode featuring the presenters' mothers. While some personality influences are obviously present, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond's mothers are slow, careful drivers, and James May's is remarkably aggressive and fast.
Justified does not state this trope but is highly influenced by it. Raylan shares a lot of character traits with his father Arlo and does not want to be an angry, violent manipulative bastard like him. The show likes to show how much alike the two of them are even though one of them is a good guy and the other a bad guy.
This trope is twisted all around with the Crowder family. The patriarch Bo is a brutal career criminal who easily steps into Complete Monster territory. Boyd is a villain from the beginning but is revealed to operate on very different motives then his father and does an actual Heel Face Turn after Raylan shoots him in the series premiere although it takes an entire season for the other main characters to believe that he changed. Bo Jr was a star football player and thought to have a great future but ended his life as a wife beating brute whose own family did not feel like avenging. Cousin Johnny is first shown to be the one who has gone straight but in the end is just as bad as his uncle Bo.
The Dukes of Hazzard has a number of examples in relation to the Dukes: They've been making moonshine ever since before their ancestors came to America. They've been "fighting the system" for as long as the Duke Clan and corrupt politics have coexisted. In the old west, the Duke's ancestors displayed an affection for fast horses; in modern times, they prefer fast cars. The Dukes' ancestors have also been allied with some other clans as far back as those clans have coexisted; this sometimes leads to Uncle Jesse recruiting the descendants of those clans as modern day allies by reminding them of that fact.
Boss Hogg and Rosco's ancestors in the old west were also shown to be corrupt.
Knight Rider has this with the newer series being a continuation of the old series, and the new Michael Knight being the son of the old Michael Knight. The fact that "Knight" is an alias used after each was supposedly killed also qualifies.
The new KITT and KARR also qualify, having been built by the same man as the originals. They reprise the rolls of their namesakes, with KARR being psychopathic and having killed people before being deactivated and supposedly destroyed (but actually just put into storage).
Jeff Buckley was raised as Scotty Moorhead by his mother and stepfather. He hardly knew his father Tim Buckley, only having met him once when he was eight. When Tim died in 1975, Jeff found out who he really was and decided to go by his real name. Not only do Jeff and Tim look similar, they both played folk music (to some degree) and died young. Although their music isn't really similar, Jeff's success has been enough to make Tim Buckley much more popular than he was when he was alive.
This is the whole point of Amanda Palmer's song "Runs In The Family."
Professional Wrestling
Just try to find a second- or third-generation wrestler whose gimmick doesn't center around wrestling being In the Blood, face or heel. Probably the best example is WWE's Randy Orton, a third-generation wrestler who believes that his lineage automatically makes him the greatest wrestler ever (never mind that dad, grandpa, and uncle Barry were all midcarders at best...). Orton went on to found a Power Stable called Legacy, where the biggest entrance requirement was that you must be at least a second-generation wrestler. Their motto? "Born better."
The Rock's first gimmick in the-then WWF was of Rocky Maivia, the name being a combination of his father, Rocky Johnson's name and his grandfather Peter Maivia's surname. Initially he was pushed as a face but people hated him. After he joined the Nation Of Domination and later became The Rock, he became one of the most popular wrestlers of all time, so popular that he was able to retire from wrestling and has had a successful movie career. His ancestry has paled in comparison to his success.
Though not directly descended from a professional wrestler, Rey Misterio started off as Rey Misterio Jr. He is a second-generation wrestler as his uncle (Rey Misterio Sr.) was a successful luchador. This is rarely brought up other than mentioning that Rey is a Mexican icon.
This example is a little more successful in Mexican Wrestling, where second generation wrestlers like Hijo del Santo and Perro Aguayo Jr. are huge idols in their own right. They do play this trope straight, with Santo always trying to be the "hero" his father was and Perro Aguayo having many of the same [[Heel Face Revolving Door storylines as
his father]]
Tabletop Games
Used extensively in Warhammer 40,000. The God-Emperor of Man created the twenty Primarchs, and when each wound up being raised on an alien planet by whoever happened to stumble across them, each become an immensely skilled warrior, and most of them ruled a planet or ten. The modern-day Space Marines are all genetically modified with gene-seed based on one of the Primarchs, and all exhibit behavior similar to that Primarch-the Blood Angels and their descendants, for example, all tend to be pious, noble, and prone to turning into [literally] bloodthirsty kamikaze maniacs intent on ripping the enemy limb from limb and drinking their blood.
The Tyranid genestealers use this trope as their means of infiltrating other races. They implant their victims with Tyranid genetic material which subverts the genes of the victims. The victim's children are born as hybrids and become genestealer cultists by default.
The Space Marines, however, are subjected to extreme hypnosis and mild brainwashing at the same time as they receive the gene-seed. This is mostly to make sure all their implants work, but the result is that they end up more like their Primarchs than when they started — and they were selected in the first place due to their similarity.
The descendants of extra-planar creatures in Dungeons & Dragons tend towards the alignments of their forebears. Thus, half-celestials and half-fiends are almost guaranteed to be good and evil. Their descendants, aasimar/deva and tieflings, are also predisposed (though not guaranteed) to maintain their ancestors' alignment.
Half-orcs, no matter how civilized their upbringing, favor the barbarian class (especially in 3rd Edition), apparently inheriting the Orc's wild nature.
Always Chaotic Evil is at least slightly subverted however because "Always" doesn't actually mean "Always". Even a demon, who has pure Evil as part of their very substance, has a non-zero chance of not actually being evil. We're talking maybe 1% who are Neutral, and 0.1% who are good, but it does explicitly happen (though they are still made of Evil, and can be affected as such by spells). This has led to endless debate among players over whether or not this makes beings who the books say are "always evil" okay to kill on sight, even with the slight chance that they don't live up to their stat-blocks.
The Book of Exalted Deeds (basically a handbook for being Good) says that killing them is wrong, but also points out that if the DM pulls a bait-and-switch too often by having monsters the players have been merciful to betray them, its understandable that they will be upset and less trusting in the future.
Birthright all rotates around bloodlines (duh) carryng little portions of lost godly powers.
Champions supplement The Blood and Dr. McQuark. The Blood have a hereditary tendency to both superpowers and insanity, the result of a bargain one of their ancestors made with a demon.
In Hunter The Vigil, the Lucifuge all believe they are descended from Satan/Lucifer/Beelzebub/whatever name you want to tag the Devil with today. They've decided to Screw Destiny and fight against the creatures of the night... using the powers of Hell. Problem: the later World of Darkness book Inferno introduce their cousins, Les Enfants Diabloque, who also believe they're descended from the Devil and like it. The two groups are at odds.
The Shadows of Mexico setting for Vampire: The Requiem portray the Daeva native to that region, called Xoxocti, as priests of the gods. Thanks to centuries of foreign influence, their present day childer don't care about the old ways anymore. Instead, they use their vampiric powers to becomesexyLatin pop stars, forcing their ancestors to view them as the children of kings who've been screwing whores. This Cultural Posturing is actually a large part of the setting's plot.
Theater
One of the dramatic tension elements in Arsenic and Old Lace is the hereditary insanity suffered by every single member of the Brewster family, and the protagonist's fear that he will eventually succumb to the same madness. Fortunately, it turns out in the end that he was adopted.
Cyrano de Bergerac: Even When Cyrano reacts with shock at Roxane's intention to remain with them during the battle, and she responds, "Monsieur de Bergerac, I am your cousin." lampshades this in a positive context, Cyrano and Roxane'sobsessions and denialof reality fit them better with the sinister implications of this trope.
If the sequel D2 in any indication, though, she took it pretty well.
This trope is played straight in the Baldur's Gate series in regards to the main character and several of the villains, who are Bhaalspawn; children of the now-dead god of murder.
This could just be selection bias, though; the evil Bhaalspawn have been busily killing off the good ones, and the good ones are less likely to appear on the PC's radar in any case. The PC him/herself can be a solidly Lawful GoodKnight in Shining Armor if the player so chooses.
Tohno Shiki of Tsukihime lived most of his life normally, yet can somehow instinctually remember all the assassination techniques of the Nanaya clan through his blood, which conveniently powers him up whenever something serious happens. Judging by appearance, you might as well call it his Superpowered Evil Side. Explained in Canon by the fact that the Nanaya were incestuous and grounded in tradition to hold onto their supernatural powers, which are only supposed to last one generation.
Being another member of the Demon Hunter's Association, the Ryogi family's daughter also received powers from supernatural blood.
Agent 47 from the Hitman series is a genetically engineered assassin, created from the DNA of 5 of the world's most dangerous criminal masterminds. Except he's a cold-blooded assassin, not a power-hungry megalomaniac, so the analogy doesn't seem to quite work out.
The plot of the Assassin's Creed series run on this trope — the gameplay is literallyIn The DNA, a lineage going from Altaīr Ibn La'Ahad ("Eagle, Son of No One") to Ezio Auditore da Firenze (Ezio derived from a Greek word for Eagle) to Desmond Miles. Later implied to be literal, as Altaīr's bloodline may all be descendants of a past human-Those Who Came Before hybrid, partially since Altaīr's bloodline are the only Assassins known to use the ability of Eagle Vision in the games, though Project Legacy revealed that Giovanni Borgia — whose father was an Assassin also had it too.
The Overlord's son in Overlord2 has the same tendency towards magic and creepiness as his father even before the minions show up.
It probably has as much to do with nurture (or lack thereof) as nature, but Dahlia Hawthorne is at least as great a petty, murderous Complete Monster as her mother Morgan Fey in Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations. Fortunately it seems to have passed over Pearl and Iris.
And in Investigations it's all over the place. Both Ernest Amano and his son Lance are no strangers to crime and for Kay Faraday it's noble thievery that runs in the blood. Granted it's also a Take Up My Sword situation, but Faraday was dead before Kay even found out he was the Yatagarasu.
Rock Howard from Mark of the Wolves seems to suffer from this. He struggles with his "evil side" inherited from Geese Howard, despite being raised almost entirely by Terry.
The evil influence is not from his father but from his mother's side of the family.
Very subtle in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, but present nonetheless: One of the most amoral members of the Greil Mercenaries turned out to be the son of the Big Bad from the previous game. Possibly averted in that despite being amoral, he is also fiercely loyal (ahem) to Ike, and for lack of a conscience of his own, he often follows Ike's.
In Fire Emblem Blazing Sword we have minor villain Erik, son of the corrupt Marquess Darin. In the next game in the continuity Erik has grown up to be exact same tyrannical ruler his father was, and repeats his predecessors mistakes step by step even going so far as to kidnap a little girl(for different reasons but still). This is bothersome as Darin wasn't truly evil until he met Ephidel and Erik seemed repentant after being defeated by Eliwood and Hector.
Gotha's family in Dragon Quest V starts from a masculine Pankraz, having a son who has as much masculinity as him when he grows up and pretty much suffers very similar fates as him when he's married. While this guy's not as strong as his father, he has an ability to use healing spells, which carries onto his son, who can even cast a better multi healing and revival spells while still being a hard hitter. Also in the game he wonders if he can catch and train monsters like his daddy does.
Web Comics
Ada Lovelace from The Thrilling Adventures Of Lovelace And Babbage inherited a poetical disposition from her father, Lord Byron. Ada's mother taught her mathematics to hold back this pernicious influence.
In Misfile the main reason Cassiel is treated as being dangerous and untrustworthy is because her uncle is Lucifer. One wonders how much of her Jerk Ass nature is precisely because of this treatment, certainly both Vashiel and Rumisiel bring up her family tree at every opportunity.
Agatha of Girl Genius has seemingly inherited much of her father and uncle's heroism, despite having been raised in secret away from anything that would particularly require her to be heroic. Othar even lampshades this when he mentions that she ran straight at danger without thinking twice, despite her claims that she wants to stay normal and hidden.
Various other characters speculate about which lot of relatives she's going to take after.
Sometimes she's just as crazy, even though in more benign way:
Cited by name, then later justified in Narbonic: Helen notes that she didn't always want to be a mad scientist, but then notes the trope name. Justified later in that Helen is a clone of her mother — so it wasn't just in the blood, but likely during the whole child-making process.
This is the whole plot behind Sire. Each character is descended from a literary character. Anna and Susan are descended from Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emile is descended from Javert from Les Miserables, and more are soon to follow.
In the Whateley Universe Whateley Academy has an official 'club' known commonly as The Bad Seeds. Admission? One or both of your parents must be a supervillain. Some kids take to this like ducks to water, some resist, some don't know what the heck to do, some are pretty clueless even for teenagers. Nacht has a supervillain mother who is constantly trying to get Nacht to use her powers to help mommy commit crimes; Nacht doesn't mind the crime part, but she really doesn't want to spend time with her mother. Jobe is a ruthless, amoral genius bio-devisor who even looks like his supervillain dad; his dad hates that junior doesn't have a flair for mechanical devises instead. Carmilla has Deep Ones in her mother's ancestry, and is the grandchild of Cosmic Horror Shub-Niggurath on her father's side; she's taking the Screw Destiny approach right now. And so on...
Western Animation
Teen Titans: Robin actually told Raven he admired her Screw Destiny response to the prophecy she would help her demon father destroy the world.
G.I. Joe's Serpentor, made with the DNA of Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Attila the Hun, Philip II of Macedon, Alexander the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler, Hannibal, Genghis Khan, and Grigori Rasputin to be the world's most evil and effective military leader. So naturally, his plans fail.
They didn't manage to get one target's DNA, so they replaced it with Sergeant Slaughter's, whose strategic abilities can be resumed to punching people in the face while insulting them. Hilarity(and failure)Ensues.
Zuko of Avatar: The Last Airbender is a painfully complicated (as usual) case — according to Iroh, his inner conflict and confusion in Season 3 is revealed to be due to inheriting the blemish on his soul from Fire Lord Sozin through his father and a purity of soul from Avatar Roku through his mother: "...[U]nderstanding the struggle between your two great-grandfathers can help you better understand the battle within yourself. Evil and good are always at war inside you, Zuko. It is your nature, your legacy."What else would you expect from someone related toMark Hamill?
However, this is averted with the rest of the family. Ozai and Iroh are Sibling Yin-Yang, as are Zuko and Azula. If good comes from Zuko's mother, how do you explain Iroh being the nicest of the family?
Iroh's good side is suggested, by Fanon at least, to have something to do with his trip to the spirit realm after Lu-Ten's death.
The Lion King II: Simba's Pride used this with Nuka, the only son of Scar. He is evil, veryugly, and receives a Disney Villain Death. Ironic, as the film was supposed to be subverting In the Blood. The film was supposed to have Scar's son as a protagonist, but that wasn't possible because it would've made its Romeo and Juliet cousins.
Real Life
Psychological research shows that alot of our personality traits are partly inherited from our relatives. For example, a child born from parents with deficient levels of Monoamine oxidase A (a neurotransmitter that helps to control aggression and impulsivity) is likely to be more aggressive than a child with normal levels of the "warrior gene". However environmental factors are just as likely to inhibit those chances they will be exhibited in behavior if the child was born in a supportive household rather than a abusive one, the latter which makes the likelihood of them exhibiting aggression 10 times more likely.
There's a suprising (maybe) amount of porn stars who followed in the family footsteps with sisters Whitney and BritneyStevens,IceLa Fox being the daughter of Angela D'Angela (even referring to herself at one time as Ice D'Angelo,) half-sisters Delilah and Daisy Strong being the daughters of Deborah Coxxx and even the Bartok Twinbrothers.
