Kill the Parent, Raise the Child

"What they don't realise is this: Yes, they frighten me, but I have always been scared, since the day I got here. I was raised by the man who murdered my parents, reared in a land of monsters. I live with that fear, let it settle in to my bones, and ignore it."

— Jude Duarte, The Folk of the Air

When a parent is murdered, the last person one would expect to take in their newly orphaned child is the murderer. But sometimes that's exactly what happens. It creates an interesting juxtaposition regarding the killer: the same person who took one life is now nurturing another. It also inverts the expectation that a victim's family member will naturally become an enemy of the killer since they instead become the killer's family member. There is a lot of potential for complicated and conflicting emotions within the relationship between the adoptive parent and the child.

This trope often serves as a Pet the Dog moment for the adoptive parent by demonstrating that even though they're willing to kill another person, they still Wouldn't Hurt a Child. If the adoptive parent is a villain, this can be used to demonstrate that Even Evil Has Standards. They may even regret depriving an innocent child of their caretaker and step into that role themselves as a form of recompense. Sometimes the adoptive parent is a Hitman with a Heart who was hired to kill the biological parent but refused to harm a child or leave them to fend for themself. In some cases, the killer was misinformed about their target; either their target had them pegged wrong, or they were given details that are either false or omitted certain facts—including the fact that their target has a kid. Even worse is if the biological parent was someone the killer knew personally and was tricked/decieved into killing them. There is also the scenario where the biological parent is actually abusive and/or neglectful leading to the murderer both actually saving the child (intentionally or not) and possibly becoming the parent the child deserves in the process.

However, there are cases where the adoptive parent has sinister intentions for the child. While the child is usually orphaned due to a conflict with their parents, the killer may occasionally be specifically after the child, especially if they are of Royal Blood, and thus could either be married into the killer's bloodline or manipulated by a Regent for Life, has Superpowerful Genetics from their parents that would make them an excellent Tyke-Bomb, is foretold by prophecy to be a Chosen One, or otherwise has some unique feature that makes them worth seeking out even at a young age. In some cases this may be caused if the new guardian murdered the child's parent so that they could marry the surviving parent, thus becoming the child's stepparent, and usually a wicked one at that.

The child's reaction to this situation may vary, depending on circumstances behind it. They may be willing to accept their adoptive parent despite the murder (especially if their biological parent was abusive or absent), or they may understandably want revenge for their biological parent's death. In some cases, the child doesn't even know that their adoptive parent killed their biological parent, potentially leading to a Broken Pedestal if they learn the truth.

Compare Raised by Rival, where there was an ongoing rivalry or conflict (murder optional) between the biological and adoptive parents before the adoption. This trope does not necessitate an adversarial relationship between the biological and adoptive parents, as cases of Accidental Murder, Murder by Mistake, Mercy Kill, and Kill the Ones You Love would also qualify. Also see I Have a Family, where a character pleads for mercy because they have to take care of their family. This is a sister trope to Baby Be Mine and would overlap if the adoptive parent kills the biological parent specifically because they want a baby.

As this is a Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• Assassination Classroom: As a child, The Reaper witnessed the assassin who would later be known as Koro-sensei kill his father, but was not the least bit upset or horrified and instead impressed, eagerly asking the assassin to train him, which he agrees to. A rare case where the child requests this while knowing full well what the killer has done.
• Buddy Daddies: The story centers on Kazuki and Rei, two friends and assassins, taking in a 4-year-old girl named Miri after she wanders into one of their assassinations — and their target happens to be her father. Having been raised solely by her mother before being sent away, Miri mistakes Kazuki for her dad and doesn't realize that he and Rei killed her biological father. After Miri's mother refuses to take her back, Kazuki and Rei decide to raise her themselves while also continuing their bloody line of work.
• Dragon Ball Z: After Piccolo indirectly kills Goku (the latter was keeping Raditz immobile so Piccolo could defeat him with a deadly projectile but at the cost of both targets' lives), he picks Gohan and begins to ruthlessly train him for the incoming battle against Nappa and Vegeta. Though their relationship is very rocky at first, the two do develop a family-like bond.
• Giant Robo: The third Gaiden Ginrei special follows an ex-Big Fire soldier raising a child he orphaned as a baby out of guilt. After pulling a Heel–Face Turn, his own life is brought to an end when his former coworker remains loyal to Big Fire and holds the kid hostage.
• Jujutsu Kaisen: Satoru Gojo battles and mortally wounds Toji Fushiguro. With his last breaths, Toji informs Gojo that his son Megumi will be sent to the Zenin clan, promoting Gojo to look after Megumi and his step-sister Tsumiki. He also becomes Megumi's teacher at Tokyo Jujutsu High. Although he contemplated talking to Megumi about his father, Gojo dies before going through with it.
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (2005) introduces Ghanti, raised by bandits who told her Knights of Hyrule murdered her parents. She becomes an enemy after learning that Link is a Knight's son, until Zelda reveals that the Silver Arrow Ghanti wears as an earring is proof that she is descended from Knights and the bandits lied to her.
• Monster: Tenma meets a mercenary who fought in Burma to obtain weapons training. The mercenary has a Burmese daughter, whose parents he killed — he brought her back to Germany, as she had no surviving family. While the girl is polite, she doesn't speak, and the mercenary says he thinks she will hate him for the rest of her life.
• My Hero Academia: After he murdered the seventh wielder of One For All, Big Bad All For One found her grandson and raised him to be his successor, knowing that the next wielder of One For All would be offended and hurt by the fate of the grandson of his beloved mentor.
• Photon: The Idiot Adventures: If the wicked and capricious Emperor is telling the truth, then he and another man discovered the secret of aho energy. The greedy fellow killed his partner, then pulled a Switched at Birth trick, raising Lashara Moon as his own while leaving his rightful daughter Keyne Aqua to be raised by a rebel faction. This proves to be a Batman Gambit since Keyne became a living key that unlocks the aho generator, which can grant its user godlike powers.

Comic Books

• The Flintstones: In DC's comic book adaptation, Barney and Betty Rubble adopt Bam-Bam, of the Tree People, after Fred and Barney participate in the genocide of his tribe.
• Hound (2014): Morrigan causes the death of Setanta's mother when she kidnaps him to raise him as her "War Hound". King Connor manages to bring him back home but Morrigan looks after him to make sure he grows up into a vicious killer in her name.
• The Mighty Thor: Loki's backstory is that he was the son of Laufey, king of the Frost Giants, who was slain in combat by Odin. Afterwards, Odin found the child Loki hidden away because of his small size and decides to adopt him out of pity.
• No Hero: Josh Carver was raised by the serial killer that murdered his parents. He learned all sorts of... interesting skills from his new family. Which is why the government considers him a suitable Evil vs. Evil when it comes to The Front Line.
• Şerafettin the Bad Cat: In one issue, Şerafettin kills a couple during a fit of rage, only to find out that they had an infant son who is now orphaned. While Shero is a remorseless Jerkass, even he seems torn up about what he did. For a while, he debates killing the boy as an act of Mercy Kill, but finds himself unable to do so and brings him back home instead, seemingly with the intent of raising him (at least until he can find a more permanent solution). Eventually the boy is taken in by someone with much better parental instincts.

Fan Works

• Another Way: In the Yet Another Way spin-off, when Marquis put himself at risk to protect a closet, instead of taking advantage of it to subdue and arrest him, Brandish simply attacked the closet — killing his 6-year-old daughter Amelia. Marquis' fury sees him cast aside his personal rule against harming women, killing Brandish and turning all the other adults into living pieces of modern art by warping their skeletons into grotesque shapes. He then adopts all three of their children under a false name, seeking to raise them better than their own parents would have done, and not leave them to suffer for their parents' actions. Crystal eventually learns about it when she sees Amelia's photo and starts asking questions.
  Marquis: I took you in from duty, but it has become more than that. You children are more important than anything else in the world to me. I will never allow any of you to come to harm. I promise.
• Destiny Intertwined: In Chapter 3, when discussing Hayze's possible origins, he mentions that he had been told that Lynerius, his guardian and primary caretaker, killed his original family before taking him to Warfang. Arcadier concedes that this is probable.
  Hayze: Others say he must have killed my family...
  Arcadier: ... that is more probable. He always struck me as a man of many regrets.
• Inter Nos: Downplayed. When the Himean forces and Otomeian reserves come across a circus caravan that had been overturned by a landslide, the owners and performers killed by the big cats, with all the animals loose, General Shizuru Fujino orders that the animals be recaptured so that they can sell them in the port city of Argus and add the funds to their war chest. They ended up having to kill one animal, a black panther. The panther, it turns out, had been guarding a cub, which Shizuru presents to Natsuki as a gift. Natsuki raises the cub, naming it Shizuki (a portmanteau of the two lovers' names), and the creature then proceeds to treat Natsuki as her mother from then on. Although Natsuki didn't personally kill the cub's parent, she was part of the collective effort to subdue the animals.
• Obsessed, a Fairy Tail fanfic: Unable to bear children due to an accident and having grown increasingly jealous of other successful female mages who have children, Elena endeavors to kidnap children to make her own guild and kill their mothers. By the time she starts targeting the Fairy Tail and Sabertooth guilds, she has already taken a number of children. When she is later defeated it is revealed that she used a spell to steal an unborn child to impregnate herself and killed the mother. While in captivity she gives birth, and Natsu and Lucy secretly adopt the child and hide her away as a twin of their own newborn child.
• The Simpsons: Team L.A.S.H.: In "A Trip Down Memory Lane", it’s revealed that, instead of adopting a child through legal means, Mr. Burns ordered a hitman to kill a couple from Shelbyville and steal their baby for him to raise as his own. This is how he acquired his adoptive daughter Anastasia. He’s kept this fact a secret from everyone except for his husband Waylon.
• Triptych Continuum: It's mentioned in "Naked Lunch" that griffins take parenthood very seriously, and view bringing a new life into the world as coming with an essentially sacred duty to guide and protect that new life as it grows. Should a parent be prevented from fulfilling that duty — such as, for instance, by being killed — this is passed on to the person who prevented them. As a result, there is a fairly large population of ponies living in Protocera, the griffin nation, descended from orphans adopted during the various Protoceran-Equestrian border conflicts by the griffin warriors who slew their birth parents in battle.

Films — Animation

• Brother Bear: Kenai, as a human, killed a bear that he blamed for his older brother's death. The Great Spirits transformed him into a bear as punishment for his actions, although he didn't know what he'd done wrong. He soon meets the bear cub Koda, and bonds with him throughout the film. Eventually, it's revealed that Koda's mother, from whom he's been separated for a while, was the bear that Kenai killed. This revelation horrifies them both, though Koda comes to forgive Kenai (mostly because the latter regrets his actions). In the end, he becomes the older brother/foster parent of Koda, choosing to stay a bear.
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney) (although not the original novel or the Disney stage version), Frollo raises Quasimodo out of fear of being eternally damned for having murdered his mother and is verbally and emotionally abusive toward him.

Films — Live-Action

• Birds of Prey (2020): Helena Bertinelli was the daughter of the don of the Bertinelli mafia, but her whole family was assassinated by a rival mob. One of the goons who committed the hit discovered she was still alive and, remorseful, secretly took her to live with his family. There, Helena trained to be an assassin and became the superhero Huntress seeking revenge on those who killed her family.
• The Book of Henry: Played with. Henry comes up with an elaborate plan to rescue his neighbor Christina from her abusive stepfather Glenn by having his mother Susan kill Glenn and adopt Christina into the family. After Henry's sudden death, Susan, driven by grief, almost goes through with killing Glenn. At the last minute, she realizes that this is something only a child would think is a good idea. Glenn kills himself after the school principle reports the abuse, leaving Susan free to adopt Christina.
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Early in the film, Forge Fitzwilliam attempts to do this. He's become accustomed to Edgin's daughter Kira treating him as a father figure, and part of his motivation (or at least a bonus) for having Edgin and his Platonic Life Partner Holga (who's effectively a mother to Kira) killed is to avoid returning her to his custody (instead of letting Edgin take the tablet, bring his wife Back from the Dead, and leave with them both).
• Face/Off: A heroic example after Sean Archer kills Castor Troy, he adopts Troy's son, who is approximately the same age as Archer's son was when Troy killed him.
• Gunpowder Milkshake: Sam is sent to assassinate a man who stole money from the Firm, but right after she fatally shoots him, she discovers that he stole the money to pay the ransom for his kidnapped young daughter, Emily. He begs her to save Emily as he dies, and Sam spends the rest of the film trying to protect her. After defeating the villains, Sam and Emily run off to start a new life together, along with Sam's mother and her mother's friends.
• The Jade Faced Assassin: This is the backstory of the heroine, Lu-erh. She was supposed to be raised by an elderly martial artist, but her adoptive father was attacked by the martial world's "Ten Deadliest Villains" and subsequently killed, but then the villains closes in on the then-infant Lu-erh... and realize they're incapable of killing a month-old infant despite being supposedly ruthless marauders. So they decide to raise Lu-erh as one of their members, each of them passing one of their skills to her.
• A Killer's Blues : This is what kicks off the plot— Wai, a Hitman with a Heart, killed an informant in the opening scene, only to discover the informant has a 4-year-old daughter and decides to take her back to his girlfriend (instead of, say, finishing off the child like other ruthless hitmen). Unfortunately for Wai, he was double-crossed weeks later and sentenced to 14 years in prison, and when he gets out and returns to his girlfriend and the now-teenaged girl, the girl finds out the truth.
• Lone Wolf and Cub: Subverted in Baby Cart To Hades. Kanabe Magomura, the samurai Itto duels near the start of the film, offers to take his son Daigoro in and raise him should he cut Itto down. Itto denies the offer. He declares the duel a draw and wins their later re-match handily, making the offer irrelevant.
• Lucky Number Slevin: A variation on this trope in the backstory is a twist that recontextualizes the entire movie. Years ago, a man bet big on a fixed horse race, and wound up deep in debt to the mob when his "sure thing" backfired. To make an example of him, the mob sent a trio of hitmen to murder the man, his wife, and his young son. Goodkat, the specialist hitman brought from out-of-town specifically to kill the boy, still finds he can't go through with it and adopts the boy instead. In the present day, the boy Slevin is now a young adult, working as Goodkat's apprentice. And the two of them are running a long con to avenge Slevin's parents by hunting down everyone else involved in the hit.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe: Thanos massacred half of Gamora's home planet, including her family, before adopting her as his daughter and training her to be a ruthless assassin. Although he loves Gamora, Thanos was an Abusive Parent and as an adult she completely hates him.
• The Mask of Zorro: Don Rafael Montero, the Governor of Spanish California, notices that the host of the party he's attending, Diego de la Vega, sports a wound similar to one that was given to Zorro earlier that day. During the fight that ends with Diego's capture, Diego's wife Esperanza is shot by one of Rafael's men. Since Rafael brought his men there to kill Diego, and Esperanza died taking the bullet for Diego, Rafael is sufficiently responsible that he can be considered the killer even if he didn't do it with his own hands. Don Rafael then takes Elena, Diego and Esperanza's daughter, and raises her as his own daughter back in Spain.
• News of the World (2020): A group of Kiowa Native Americans raised Johanna Leonburger, the daughter of German immigrants, after they raided her homestead and murdered the rest of her family.
• Pan's Labyrinth: In the closing scene, the fascist Vidal realizes that his infant son will be raised by the rebels who have just captured him. Knowing his time is up, Vidal tries to Face Death with Dignity and instructs the rebels to tell his son about his noble death. Mercedes retorts, "He won't even know your name," and fires.
• A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) outright confirms that Count Olaf is responsible for the fire at the Baudelaire Mansion that kicked off the series (the novels and the TV series only imply this fact); Olaf subsequently adopted Violet, Klaus and Sunny by posing as a cousin.
• Snowpiercer: Curtis raised Edgar. Later, Curtis reveals that, during a famine in the Tail, he had murdered Edgar's mother to eat her and planned to eat her baby until Gilliam offered his arm.
• Speak No Evil plays this trope for horror with the seemingly friendly Dutch couple, Patrick and Karin, and their mute son Abel. It turns out Patrick and Karin are serial killers who murdered Abel's parents, abduct Abel and severs his tongue before forcing Abel into playing their fake son so they can lure another family to their dooms. An Evidence Dungeon scene near the end reveals Abel to be the 50th or so abducted, maimed child victims kidnapped by Patrick and Karin after murdering the parents.
• This is what kicked off the very plot of The Warrior's Way. Yang, a Master Swordsman and Professional Killer descended from a clan of ninja from the East was tasked with wiping out an enemy clan, but realize the last survivor of his massacre to be a baby girl whose parents are likely Yang's victims. Yang decides to flee with the baby as a surrogate child, but then his clan comes after him and the baby for betraying their code.
• War for the Planet of the Apes: Caesar's group kills Nova's father in self-defense, then decides to take her with them.
• Willy's Wonderland: While she doesn't physically kill them herself, Sheriff Lund is responsible for the deaths of Liv's parents by sending them to the titular restaurant to be killed by its animatronic mascots. After her parents are killed, Sheriff Lund adopts and raises Liv as her own daughter.

Literature

• Animorphs: Tobias, a human locked in hawk default, struggles with his animal instincts to hunt when he would rather not kill to eat. In The Pretender, Tobias searches for food during a drought and spotting a rabbit family, he notes that it would be more practical to eat the babies, as eating the mother would cause the whole litter to starve. In the end, he settles for killing the mother but morphing her form in order to raise her babies himself.
• Earth's Children: There are two occasions where Ayla adopts and raises a baby animal after killing their mothers.
  • In The Valley of Horses, she kills a mare for food and then realises she had a foal. Ayla feels guilty for making the foal an orphan and knows she won't survive alone, while Ayla herself is extremely lonely, so she coaxes the foal back to her cave and adopts her, naming her Whinney.
  • In The Mammoth Hunters Ayla kills a lone female wolf who was stealing food from her friend's snares and getting too close to a nearby camp. She realises the wolf was nursing and finds her cub in a den, whose eyes are barely open yet. Having raised animals before and feeling sorry for the pup, Ayla asks for and is granted permission to raise him, naming him Wolf.
• The Folk of the Air: The protagonist, Jude, and her sisters Taryn and Vivienne were raised by Madoc, their mother Eva's first husband and Vivienne's biological father. Madoc killed Eva and Justin (Jude and Taryn's biological father), brought all three girls home with him, and raised them with his wife Oriana. He sincerely loves Jude and Taryn and treats them like they are his own. Although the sisters eventually come to love him as well, they can never forget what he did.
• Foundation and Earth: After confronting Bander, the Solarian, and having to kill him/her rather than be killed, Trevize and his companions come across Bander's child, Fallom, on their way out. When it turns out that Fallom wasn't officially registered anywhere and will simply be executed, they take the child with them.
• Junior Jedi Knights: Tahiri Veila is a human raised by Tuskens, in penitence for having killed her birth parents under mistaken assumptions. Her father and mother had rescued the injured Tusken Sliven, who thanked them by teaching them how to fight with a gaderffii staff, but Sliven's tribe witnessed their sparring and mistook it for their tribesman being attacked.
• Matilda: Magnus Honey invited his late wife's sister Agatha Trunchbull to move in with him and help raise his daughter Jenny, but the sister was cruel to the girl and eventually took over raising her full-time after her brother-in-law's apparent "suicide". Even after Jenny grows up, Trunchbull continues to force her to live in a bare-bones cottage while she stays in her father's opulent house and robs her of her inheritance, and it takes a plucky 6-year-old girl with telekinetic powers to set things right.
• Redwall: In The Taggerung, Sawney Rath and his vermin clan raise a young otter as their own after they kill his father. However, it's not a Pet the Dog moment, as they only kill the father so they can kidnap the son; he is prophecised to be a mighty warrior and they want him on their side.
• The Riftwar Cycle: Defied. In her attempt to block her enemy Tasaio from becoming the Warlord, with the power to finish off his vendetta against her, Mara's machinations result in the magicians forcing Tasaio to kill himself. Though she didn't intend for this outcome, it suited her aims. Mara offers to adopt Tasaio's children and care for them, rather than let them die in the purge of their house. However, their father would rather kill them just to spite her.
• The Silmarillion: In pursuit of a Silmaril, Maedhros and Maglor kill Elwing's parents during the Second Kinslaying, and drive Elwing to suicide during the Third Kinslaying. (Elwing technically survives this thanks to some help from Ulmo, but goes to the Undying Lands and is separated from the world.) Out of guilt for his part in the murders, Maglor insists on adopting Elwing's infant children Elros and Elrond. Surprisingly, this apparently turns out well, with love growing between father and adoptive sons despite the circumstances.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • After Joffrey has Sansa's father executed, he and his family hold her hostage with the paper-thin excuse that she's a ward of the crown. Joffrey even adopts the role of Sansa's father during her forced wedding to Tyrion, despite being about the same age as her. After Sansa escapes and is suspected of Joffrey's murder, Cersei complains to her advisors that Sansa is an Ungrateful Bitch for not appreciating that Cersei took care of her like her own daughter, when in fact Cersei cruelly tormented her.
  • After being held hostage for months by Lord Denys Darklyn, the first thing King Aerys II did was order the extermination of House Darklyn and their close ally House Hollard. Only young Dontos Hollard was spared at the request of Ser Barristan, who had rescued the king, and he was brought to the royal court where he would spend the rest of his life. Dontos grows up to be a sad, pathetic alcoholic.
• Warrior Cats: In the Dawn of the Clans book Thunder Rising, Clear Sky kills a rogue while he and some of his cats are expanding their territory, and only afterward realizes that she had kits. While Clear Sky initially just thought it would be best to Mercy Kill them since they wouldn't survive without their mother, one of his cats insisted their group raise the kits, and Clear Sky allowed it, despite his stance on not supporting "weak" cats (e.g. exiling members of the group for having survivable injuries, including his own younger brother).

Live-Action TV

• CSI: Downplayed. After a murder suspect dies in custody trying to assault Grissom, the investigation into the man reveals that years earlier, he'd murdered a pregnant woman for disturbing him, then cut the baby from her womb, giving the child to his sister to raise. His sister didn't know how he came by the child, but she knew it was no legitimate means. She didn't report him, however, because she lived in mortal terror of her brother.
• CSI: NY: In "The Box," a young woman's body is found in a car, and it's quickly discovered that she was pregnant. Turns out she'd agreed to sell her baby to an infertile couple who couldn't adopt legally, but she'd changed her mind. When she told the couple she was keeping the baby, they confronted her and she fell down the stairs, hitting her head and dying. Realizing the baby could still be saved, but that an ambulance would take too long (and they wouldn't be allowed to adopt him anyway), the couple cut out the baby and dumped his mother's body so they could keep him. Ultimately subverted because the episode ends with the baby being given to his grandparents to raise.
• Damnation: On her quest to get revenge for her husband's murder, Connie kills three striking workers. To her surprise, a little girl named Brittany then comes looking for her father and screams at the sight of his body. Brittany is unaware that Connie is her father's killer because she fled from the room just before Brittany arrived. Upon seeing Brittany, Connie decides to take her along as her new daughter and apprentice. Connie tries to raise Brittany with her anti-union views and tells the little girl that "the world" came after her father for disrupting order.
• Fate: The Winx Saga: Silva killed his best friend Andreas in a futile bid to prevent the destruction of Aster Dell. A distraught Silva then raised Andreas' infant son, Sky. When Sky learns the truth years later, he feels utterly betrayed and it tears a gaping rift in his relationship with Silva. Later subverted when it's revealed that Andreas was secretly alive the entire time and had raised Beatrix, who was orphaned when Aster Dell was destroyed. Much of Sky's arc in season 2 is about him coming to terms with Silva lying to him and Andreas faking his death.
• Characters on The Gates include Dylan and Claire Radcliff, husband and wife vampires, who have an adopted daughter named Emily. It's later revealed that Dylan and Claire killed Emily's birth parents while feeding on them and adopted her out of remorse.
• House of Anubis: Subverted. It's first believed that Victor Rodenmaar Sr. killed the Frobisher-Smythe parents before becoming Sarah Frobisher-Smythe's new guardian. This wasn't helped by his abusive nature to both Sarah and his son, with him only raising the girl as a means to find her father's treasure. Sarah herself outright suspected his involvement. In a School Play about these events, Nina even went with this interpretation, portraying him as a murderer. However, the claims were never actually proven true; Victor Rodenmaar Jr. is appalled by the accusation, and we eventually learn that Robert Frobisher-Smythe was actually cursed and sent into a sleep state for decades.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit:
  • In one episode, Martin Short plays the Perp Of The Week, a rapist and murderer obsessed with virgins. He has a devoted wife and a little boy, but as the episode progresses, it's discovered that the wife actually can't have children because her husband refuses to have sex with her; he's obsessed with virgins and she wasn't one. She assaulted a woman who was near the end of her pregnancy and cut the unborn child from her womb in order to give her husband a son. She goes to prison at the end of the episode, with Stabler informing her, to her complete surprise, that the boy is being returned "to his real father, the grieving husband of the woman you butchered."
  • Another episode had Sharon Lawrence play an Aileen Wuornos-inspired character who was also a loving mother. Her "son" was actually a little boy she had abducted from a supermarket after strangling his mother and leaving her widower to believe that he was dead, too.
• Manifest: In the season 3 finale, Angelina, having come to see baby Eden Stone as her "guardian angel", decides to kidnap the infant and raise her as her own. She even kills Eden's mother, Grace, in the process.
• Nikita: Deuteragonist Alexandra Udinov is the daughter of a Russian oligarch who was rescued by Nikita against orders when Division killed her family. After rescuing her again from drug dealers after the man Nikita left her with sold her into sex slavery, Nikita trains her to infiltrate Division as her spy. In "Betrayals", Percy reveals that Nikita was on the hit squad and only rescued Alexandra after killing her father Nikolai. Nikita later admits to this, though she says she tried to get them both out: Nikolai drew on her before she could explain and she had to shoot first.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: "Suddenly Human" involves a human boy who was raised by members of a culture who had previously fought a war against the Federation in which his parents were killed. Adopting young war orphans is apparently a common practice in that culture and is viewed as a moral obligation.
• The Umbrella Academy (2019): Invoked. The Handler had Lila's parents murdered so she could turn her into a Tyke-Bomb.

Music

• Evillious Chronicles: During the Lucifenian Expansion War, Leonhart Avadonia killed a family (The Beelzenian Imperial Family) except for a 2-year-old girl called Zita C. Beelzenia, thinking he would keep her as a hostage while pretending to be her father. He would latter change his mind, changed her name to Germaine Avadonia, and started acting genuinely like a father to her.

Mythology & Religion

• Celtic Mythology: When the Viking lord Colgan and his sons came to raid Ireland, Fionn Mac Cumhaill and his warriors defeated his vast army, killing Colgan and his sons. That is, all except his youngest, Midac. Feeling he was too young, and taking pity on the boy, Fionn took in Midac and raised him as if he were his own son. Unfortunately, Midac always harbored a grudge against Fionn, and when the young eventually left The Fianna, Midac allied himself with some of Fionn's enemies in an (ultimately failed) plot to kill him and conquer Ireland.

Tabletop Games

• A common meme in Dungeons & Dragons is "what does The Paladin do with the children of the Always Chaotic Evil orcs he's just killed?" Serena the Pious in Red Dragon Inn is an answer to that question — she's a Token Heroic Orc raised by the paladins who destroyed her village and who struggles to balance her orcish instincts with her Lawful path.

Theatre

• Matilda: Miss Honey's backstory in the musical adaptation is just like the book and the movie, except that Trunchbull much more explicitly kills both of Miss Honey's parents rather than just her father.
• Judge Turpin thinks he's doing this when he adopts Johanna after unjustly sending her father to a penal colony in Australia and raping her mother, driving her to suicide by poison. What he doesn't realize is that her father survived, returned to London, adopted the name of Sweeney Todd, and is out for blood. What neither Sweeney nor Turpin realize is that Johanna's mother is alive too, having survived her suicide attempt, but the poison having affected her mental state to the point that she roams the streets as an insane beggar woman.

Video Games

• Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties: In the Japan campaign, we're introduced to Sakuma Kichiro, a general and protegé on Ieyasu Tokugawa's army and the campaign's main character. Halfway through the game, after the events of "Clearing the Road", he's faced with a stranger who tells him that Kichiro's actual loyalty should go to his actual clan, whom Tokugawa murdered, only sparing their son in order to raise him as his own. The opening cutscene for "Last Stand at Fushimi" has Kichiro confronting Daimyo Mototada about his past, leading to Mototada telling the Awful Truth to him. However, My Master, Right or Wrong applies, so Kichiro remains loyal to Tokugawa in spite of learning this truth until the battle of Sekigahara and the unification of Japan, after which, he departs from Tokugawa's army.
• Assassin's Creed: Reginald Birch arranges for the murder of Edward Kenway, taking in his son, Haytham, and raising him as a Templar, while selling his daughter, Jennifer, into slavery. Haytham eventually learns what happened to his father, and kills Birch, although he remains a Templar.
• Dinosaur Planet: Randorn killed everyone in a Vixon camp, including Krystal's parents. Upon finding the orphaned Krystal, his guilt drove him to adopt her and raise her.
• Dragalia Lost: Gauld was once part of a criminal organization known as the Burly Boys in order to financially support himself, where he was known as "Bloodfist." One day, another member named Girard killed another member, Gauld retaliated by killing him. However, it didn't take long for Gauld to find out that Girard had a daughter named Angie. Having a Heel Realization, Gauld decided to raise Angie himself, with her believing that he is her grandfather. When Angie eventually found out the truth, it was hard, but she eventually accepted Gauld as her grandfather again.
• Dungeons 3: Tanos adopted the Dark Elf Thalya after killing her parents, in order to prove he could raise her to be Good. It did not go well.
• Fallout 4 opens with The Institute killing your spouse and kidnapping your baby, as his genes are uniquely uncorrupted by radiation, and then raising him as one of their own until he eventually becomes the Big Bad. Unfortunately for them, as your own genetics make you a decent backup in case of his death, they leave you alive, leading to a Roaring Rampage of Rescue.
• Far Cry Primal: Takkar is a heroic case. After rescuing the last survivors of the Wenja tribe, Takkar, using his seemingly mystical ability to tame Ice Age megafauna like the saber-tooth cats and cave bears, begins waging a one-man war on the rival Udam and Izila tribes in revenge for the slaughter of his people. He completely succeeds, but comes to sympathize with the Udam, as he discovers their acts of cannibalism weren't driven by malicious sadism, but because they believed it would save them from a plague ravaging them. In his final moments, the Udam warchief Ull pleads with Takkar to spare his young daughter and newborn and care for them, which Takkar agrees to do before killing Ull. The game ends with a final cutscene between Takkar and Ull's daughter taking a cave bear, implying that not only is Takkar raising Ull's children as if they were his own, but that the daughter has picked up the same ability that Takkar wields.
• Fatal Fury: Terry adopted Rock after killing his father, Geese Howard.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War: After ambushing and slaughtering the Lance Ritter, Travant plucks Quan and Ethlyn's daughter Altena from her murdered mother's arms and decides to raise her as his own so he can have the power of the legendary lance Gáe Bolg for himself. Altena only learns her true heritage 17 years later, at which point she's so devastated and furious that the only reason she doesn't kill him on the spot is Arion's intervention.
  • Fire Emblem Fates: Corrin is revealed to have been abducted and raised by Garon after he murdered Corrin's stepfather Sumeragi during a fake truce.
  • Fire Emblem Heroes: Hel killed the king and queen of Ymir and took their daughter Eir so she could feed off the many lives the princess had. She wiped Eir's memories to make her believe Hel was her mother, knowing the trust a child tends to have for their parent was what she needed to ensure Eir's loyalty and obedience. She only eventually confessed because she was planning to kill her adopted daughter immediately afterward.
• The Force Unleashed: Galen "Starkiller" Marek is the son of a Jedi Knight whom Darth Vader discovered and killed when the Empire invaded Kashyyyk. Vader found the young Galen after killing his father and took him as his Sith apprentice for his planned coup against Emperor Palpatine.
• Honkai Impact 3rd: In the past, some of Fu Hua's disciples were orphans she took in after she killed their parents because they were corrupted by the Honkai. One of said disciples, Su Mei, refused to call Fu Hua her new "mother", but she acknowledged her as her master.
• Like a Dragon: Shintaro Kazama worked as a ruthless and efficient hitman in the criminal underworld, whose work left many orphaned children. Out of guilt, he started Sunflower Orphanage, where he would take in the children of his victims and raise them as best he could. This includes the trio of Childhood Friends Yumi Sawamura, Kazuma Kiryu, and Akira Nishikiyama, the latter two serving as The Hero of the series and the first game's Big Bad respectively.
• Jade Empire: Sun Li The Glorious Strategist took part in the massacre of the Spirit Monk monastery orchestrated by his brother, Emperor Sun Hai. Leaving the monastery, he killed a Spirit Monk who was fleeing across the mountains with a baby, then took the baby into the backwoods of the empire and raised them, training them in martial arts so they would grow up to become a Tyke Bomb, assassinate Sun Hai for him and allow him to claim the empire for himself.
• Love of Magic: The dragon that killed Erec and was killed by Owyn and Chloe left behind an egg, which is raised by Owyn and the Chosen.
• Metal Gear
  • Metal Gear Solid: Frank Jaeger aka Gray Fox aka The Cyborg Ninja reveals to Snake right before he's killed that he killed Naomi Hunter's parents and adopted her as his sister due to his guilt. He begs Snake to tell Naomi the turth, but Snake can't bring himself to do this.
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: At the end of the game, just before his duel with his adopted son, Raiden, Solidus Snake reveals that he was the one who killed Raiden's parents in Liberia.
• Mortal Kombat 1: In his backstory, it's revealed that Tomas Vrbada (Smoke) was a member of a family who trespassed the Lin Kuei's property while hunting. The Lin Kuei warriors killed Tomas's parents, but the Lin Kuei grandmaster was so ashamed of his subordinates' actions that he took the boy under his tutelage in order to make amends. In the present, Tomas is number three in the Lin Kuei's hierarchy, right behind Bi-Han and Kuai Liang at least until Bi-Han's betrayal led to Kuai Liang and Tomas leaving the Lin Kuei.
• Octopath Traveler II: Throné is introduced to the player as a member of the Blacksnakes Thieves' Guild, answerable to the guild's two leaders, Father and Mother, who aren't her biological parents but act as abusive parent substitutes to her. It's eventually revealed that her birth mother, Marietta, was once a Blacksnake leader herself, and was murdered by the pair so they could seize control of the guild for themselves.
• Persona 5: A Murder by Inaction example occurs when Ichiryuusai Madarame lets Yusuke's mother die from a seizure, both to claim her final painting she intended to leave for Yusuke and announce it under his name, and to also adopt Yusuke to keep him from finding out the truth. The fact that Yusuke is also a good artist he can exploit ended up being an unexpected bonus to Madarame.
• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor: A heroic version. At the end of the game, after killing Bode Akuna after his betrayal, Cal Kestis and the crew of the Stinger Mantis adopt Bode's daughter, Kata.
• Triangle Strategy: Anna discovers at the end of their Character Story that her adoptive father, Benedict had killed her biological family the Jackes Clan — opponents in the Saltiron War — and while burying everyone single-handed discovered her as an infant hidden away with a letter revealing her name; he then raised Anna as his own best he could. When Erador asks if Anna would want revenge on him or Benedict, she affirms that there’s no reason to, as knowledge of the truth was all she was after and Benedict is her father in every way that matters.

Visual Novels

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: When the defense attorney Gregory Edgeworth was murdered, Manfred von Karma, a prosecutor he faced in court, took his son under his wing and trained him to become a ruthless prosecutor like himself. Manfred murdered Gregory for coming close to defeating him in court and giving him a penalty, but his revenge didn't stop there. By raising Miles to be more like himself than his own father, he almost twisted him into everything his father would have hated. Then to rub salt in the wound, Von Karma tried to frame Edgeworth for two murders he didn't commit, including that of his own father.

Web Animation

• Trouble Busters: In "My sister and her husband died so I took their children in but..." Theo and his sister Megan were raised by their aunt and uncle, who they simply refer to as their mom and dad after their biological parents died in a car accident. Twenty years after Megan and her husband allegedly killed themselves, Theo's adoptive parents drunkenly confess that they hired a gang member to kill Megan and her husband after Megan found out that they had killed the biological parents for the inheritance money.

Web Comics

• Goblins: The Orc merchant Hawl killed a dwarf about a year before the comic started, but took it upon himself to adopt his son Targoth because he couldn't bring himself to leave the child to starve in the snow, and the two appear to have a fairly functional father/adopted son relationship. Unfortunately, when the pair have a run in with the Knight Templar Kore, he first kills Hawl for being an orc, then decides that letting Targoth live after being Raised by Orcs could lead to him growing up with misplaced sympathy for the monstrous races, so he needs to die too.
• In the animated comic Heart in the Stone~Medusa and the Blind Boy, Medusa breaks into a house and turns the couple who lives there into stone statues. She approaches a crib in the corner and prepares to do the same to their child, but the baby is blind, which prevents him from being petrified when he looks at her. He happily giggles and touches her face when she picks him up, and she is so touched that instead of killing him, she takes him away to raise as her own.
• The Order of the Stick: This is how Serini found herself adopting Sunny. The beholder she was trying to recruit attacked her and she killed it in self-defense, but it was budding at the time. Given how beholders usually treat their offspring, being raised by a strict but caring halfling is definitely an improvement.

Web Video

• Fanscription: "What if Scar Raised Simba?" has Scar raising Simba to mold in his image after killing Mufasa.
• Sponge Bob Conspiracy: In "The Evolution Theory", Alex claims that during the war between evolved and unevolved fish, Mr. Krabs killed Pearl's unevolved mother, but then took pity on the evolved child and raised her as his own. At first this seems like a Pet the Dog moment, but then he describes how Krabs needs a source of krabby patty meat, and reveals that it's Pearl's mother — now being desecrated and sold to the masses. He also hints that this is what Krabs eventually has in mind for Pearl herself, subverting any chance he may be a good father despite it all.

Western Animation

• Arcane:
  • Vander led a rebellion that resulted in the deaths of Vi and Powder's parents. When he sees them crying at the sight of their parents' bodies, it's clear from his reaction that Vander blames himself for making them orphans. He opts to take them to safety over continuing the uprising and raises them as his own daughters.
  • Played with in regards to Silco. He intended to kill Vander, but Vander ends up being killed by an explosion that Powder caused. After Vander's death, Silco intends to kill Powder. But after she throws herself into his arms, believing her sister abandoned her, he sees himself in her and decides to take her in and raises her like a daughter.
• Final Space: "The Ventrexian" reveals that Avocato is not in fact the father of Little Cato — Avocato had found Little Cato after being manipulated into killing the latter's monarch parents by the Lord Commander and had decided to adopt him.
• The Simpsons: In "Bart the Mother", Bart Simpson accidentally shoots a mother bird and takes it upon himself to care for the eggs she left behind. It turns out that the eggs were actually left there by an invasive species of lizards, but Bart still cares for them after they hatch.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): In this version, Karai is Splinter's daughter Miwa, who he believed was killed as a baby. In actuality, Shredder raised her as his own daughter and told her that Splinter was the one who killed her mother, when in fact it was the other way around. This also applies to the Shredder himself, who was similarly raised by the head of the Hamato clan after the latter had killed Shredder's true father, the head of the Foot clan.

Real Life

• Following the 1976 Argentine coup, the military dictatorship routinely murdered political dissidents and illegally placed their children for adoption with couples aligned with the regime. It is estimated that 30,000 people were killed or disappeared, and at least 500 newborns were taken from their parents. For decades efforts have been made to reunite the now-adult adoptees with their biological families, often led by the mothers of murdered dissidents searching for their missing grandchildren. Some of these adoptees have been open about the complex emotions that come with learning that their adoptive parents were at best complicit, or at worst directly involved, in the torture and murder of their biological parents, as well as reuniting with surviving biological relatives who understandably have a very dim view of their adoptive parents.
• There have been occasional sightings of lionesses who have taken to raising juvenile antelopes, sometimes after killing their mother (or having kidnapped the calf.) Such relationships tend to be disadvantageous for both animals, as the lioness cannot hunt or approach other lions while having to keep an eye on the calf, while the calf is unable to feed without its birth mother. Researchers dispute whether such incidents are caused by misaimed parental instincts, such as the lioness having lost a cub and thus seeking a replacement, or if it is just an extended game of playing with their food.

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