When it comes to explaining the exact relationship between descendants and ancestors, you can either address the blood relation or never at all, except it gets awkward once you realize that the only way to accurately refer to them is a long string of "great-great-great-great-..."
Thankfully, there is a workaround.
The connection to a person and their great predecessors is typically emphasized through repeating a sequential string of family members like fathers, mothers, children, grandchildren, and grandparents.
One common variant is "my father, his father, and his father's father" to illustrate a pattern going all the way up to a great-grandfather or even older relatives, though other family members may be used instead. Conversely, "children's children" and other variants are usually used in regards to descendants, sometimes including birth order with things like "firstborn's firstborn".
Both are often included in speeches as a way to reinforce an emotional connection towards cherished family members, traditions, heirlooms, and memories even if you've never met or heard of them. Simply put, it's a little harder to empathize when most of us don't live to see our great-grandparents or even closer relatives like grandparents/grandkids given certain conditions, so reminding the audience of the roles they play (or will play) to others is a good shorthand way to induce sympathy and familiarity. Of course, advances in the medical field have made the experience a little more common, but for now, the three-generation cycle of child-parent-grandparent is still in effect.
It also works as a decent time measurement because it always conveys how long something or even someone has existed, or how far away something is in the past or future by using family as a reference point. However, expect it to be a vague estimate because the number of years between generations tend to fluctuate. Though regardless of the amount of time passed or how distant the blood relation is, expect Generation Xerox to be in full effect with characters inheriting narrative fates and not just appearance, personality, or morality.
While connected, bear in mind that a reference to ancestors and descendants tends to be handled a little bit differently. Referring to ancestors usually denotes a form of honor and pride that one must uphold, but referring to descendants denotes a sense of taking responsibility for future generations, which is why this particular speech pattern often gets invoked with Sins of Our Fathers. There was a great misdeed that was perpetrated by someone and it will continue through the family line unless it gets fixed. The names of future kin are no longer important, except maybe to their enemies since the focus is how things get passed down as far-reaching consequences. As a result, all forms of the ancestral pattern can also elicit a strong negative emotion like guilt or fear should someone not want to follow an established career path set by their family or avoid something bad befalling their family members even if they haven't been born yet.
If family members are ever named, that's usually in the form of I Am X, Son of Y or Try to Fit That on a Business Card since they're used as titles, introductions, or just a form of address. See Ancestral Name for cases where the name itself is passed down a family line.
The trope is called a "ladder" because the sequence can either go up or down the proverbial family tree, never across different branches like uncles, aunts, cousins, and siblings unless it's a deliberate subversion. Even if the pattern mentions gender differences like with "father's mother's father's mother" in The Princess and the Goblin, there's still a clear direction and repetition with the line of ancestry and trying to follow it would result in the audience's brain tracking it in a linear step-by-step process: father, then grandmother, then great-grandfather, and then finally stopping at great-great-grandmother.
Before adding any quotes as examples, please add some context to avoid them getting marked as a Zero-Context Example. Also, No Real Life Examples, Please!
Please don't list aversions either, otherwise there would be an endless list of "parent's parent" and the like for every grandparent and grandchild that exists in fiction.
Non-literal examples, such as a person being the "child" of someone when they're actually distantly-related or even unrelated, are not allowed since they don't always explain how they're connected.
See Knows a Guy Who Knows a Guy when the family member's relationship is explained in a non-sequential format, usually to the point of unbelieveability, like a person's relation to their third cousin's brother's wife's step-niece's great-aunt.
A Super-Trope to Magical Seventh Son, in which a descendant is considered special or inherits supernatural powers because they are the seventh son of a seventh son (who may also be a seventh son's seventh son's seventh's son...) due to the Rule of Seven.
Examples:
- Doom: after an unfortunate run-in with radioactive waste, Doomguy laments that even if he personally stops this alien invasion, what kind of planet will they be leaving to their children, and their children's children? And Oh, the Humanity! His big gun is out of bullets!
- An American Tail: Before passing on his hat to Fievel as a Hanukkah gift, Papa Mousekewitz notes that it belonged to him, his father, and his father's father before making its way down to the young mouse.
- The Angry Birds Movie: Subverted. As part of a grand announcement, King Mudbeard compares his success in stealing away the bird eggs to his predecessors. It's a familial line consisting of his father and then his father's father, which would ordinarily lead to mentioning father's father's father due to Rule of Three, but it's traded out with a mention to his aunt instead:
King Mudbeard: "My father, and my father's father, and my weird Aunt Chloe have all searched for the eggs, but only I, King Mudbeard, have found them. I present to you, the eggs!"
- A Bug's Life: When Flik realizes that he accidentally brought home a group of circus performers to his colony instead of heroes, he freaks out and pulls them aside to berate them for the confusion. When one suggests to simply tell the truth, he starts rambling over the consequences that could happen to him, with his reputation of becoming a public embarrassment reaching down the bloodline if he ever manages to have kids.
Flik: They can't know the truth, the truth you see is very bad. I will be branded with this mistake for the rest of my life! My children's children will walk down the street and people will point and say "Look! There goes the spawn of Flik the loser"!
- Chicken Run: When Mrs. Tweety shows her husband parts of a pie machine. Mr. Tweety objects the idea saying that he's an egg farmer, and his father and all their fathers. He changes his tune when his wife points out that they were all "Poor. Worthless. Nothings" and that she refuses to be the same.
Mr. Tweety: No more eggs? But we've always been egg farmers; me father, and his father, and all their fathers.
- Subverted in Kung Fu Panda. Mr. Ping hopes for Po to take over the noodle shop from him, "just as I took over from my father, who took it over from his father, who won it from a friend in a game of mahjong."
- FernGully: The Last Rainforest: At the end of the movie, there's a message that says, "For our children and our children's children" to promote environmental conservation.
- Avatar: While the Na'vi can connect their ponytails to any creature on Pandora to create Bond Creatures, the difficulty ramps up with larger predators, especially with the Toruk, a flying four-winged dragon-like creature that dwarfs the Na'vi and their Ikran mounts in the sky. Given its power, you'd think there would be more riders, but apparently it's only happened five times amongst the Na'vi total, with the last rider coming from Neytiri's ancestor, which is simplified to her "grandfather's grandfather". Jake actually becomes the sixth Toruk Macto in order to unite the Na'vi against the humans trying to take over the planet, deliberately invoking the story that Neytiri told him while they were looking over a Toruk skeleton earlier in the movie:
Jake: Our guys call it a Great Leonopteryx.Neytiri: It is Toruk. Last Shadow.Jake: Yeah right. Last one you'll ever see.Neytiri: My grandfather's grandfather was Toruk Macto. Rider of Last Shadow.Jake: He rode this?Neytiri: Toruk chose him. It has happened only five times since the time of the first songs.Jake: That's a very long time.Neytiri: Yes. Toruk Macto was mighty. He brought together the clans in a time of great sorrow. All Na'vi people know this story.
- The Boondock Saints has Rocco asking if Connor and Murphy will teach him the prayer that they always say when they're executing people after the killing of Vincenzo, Yakavetta's underboss. Connor refuses, making it clear that the prayer is strictly a family matter (and also foreshadowing the true identity of Il Duce):
Connor: Cool it, Roc. It's a family prayer. My father's father before him, so that's our shit.
- Go: Played for laughs when white guy Tiny assumes that since his "mother's mother's mother was black" it allows him N-Word Privileges. His black friend Marcus doesn't believe it.
Marcus: Your mother's mother —. You know what? Show me a picture. Let me see this Nubian princess!Tiny: I don't keep a picture of my mother's mother's mother in my wallet!
- Ronan from Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) decides not to forgive the Xandarians for taking the lives of his father, and his father and his father before him.
- Here Come the Co-Eds: Mr. Kirkland, the stuck-in-his-ways landlord of Bixby College, uses one of these to rebuke the newly appointed Dean's requests to modernize the school.
Dean Benson: But, if you'd just let me make this a real school—
Mr. Kirkland: Bixby was good enough for my mother. And her mother! And her mother's mother! And her mother's mother's mother! - Hook: Exploited. When Peter tries to return home with his children, Captain Hook threatens that if the score between them is never settled, he will keep chasing after him and his descendants. Given how time passes much more slowly in Neverland, this is a threat that could be easily carried out and it's enough to convince Peter to fight him. Hook's death to the crocodile clock tower prevents his threat from coming into fruition.
Hook: Peter! I swear to you, wherever you go, wherever you are, I vow there will always be daggers bearing notes signed James Hook. They will be flung at the doors of your children's children's children. Do you hear me?!
- Lampshaded in Monty Python's Life of Brian, Reg is hyping up the People's Front of Judea to mentally prepare them to discuss a plan to kidnap Pontius Pilate's wife and uses this to really drive home how long the Romans have been screwing them. Unfortunately, Loretta is a bit Literal-Minded and continues the gag.
Reg: They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we've had! And not just from us, but from our fathers, and from our fathers' fathers!Loretta: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers!Reg: *annoyed* Yeah.Loretta: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers!Reg: Yeah. All right, Stannote , don't labour the point.
- The Princess Bride: At the beginning of the movie, a grandfather explains why he gave his sick grandson a seemingly-boring book for a present, especially in the face of television and videogames being the then-new form of entertainment for kids. As he explains:
Grandfather: This is the book my father used to read to me when I was sick, and I used to read it to your father. And today I'm going to read it to you.
- There is a Russian joke about a little bird who wanted an eagle to teach it how to fly, so the eagle said "that's how it was done my father that's how it was done by my father's father, that's how it was done by my father's father's father...", and at the end of the speech, knocks the bird off a cliff. And for a long time, there were shouts from the abyss "I fucked your father, I fucked your father's father, I fucked your father's father's father!..."
- King Solomon's Mines: Witch Doctor Gagool insists at various times that she knew "your father, and your father's father's father." The oldest member of the tribe remembers her as an old woman when he was a child. If she is the same Gagool who Da Silvestri warned about in his letter, as is hinted many times, then that would make her over four hundred years old, and if anything she could add a few more "fathers".
- Pale: Historic practice works by focusing on patterns in groups over time, including families such as the first son of a first son of a first son and so on, to track rituals accidentally caused by non-practitioners, or people who aren't "Awakened".
- In The Princess and the Goblin, Princess Irene meets her great-great-grandmother, for whom she was named, but isn't quite sure what all the 'greats' mean. The elder Irene explains that "I'm your father's mother's father's mother."
- In Black Sails, Calico Jack Rackham starts his Motive Rant like so:
My father was a tailor, in Leeds. As was his father, and his father's father. Time was, if a man on the Avendale road asked where he might find the finest clothes in northern England, he was pointed towards the shop of a man named Rackham. Then, the men who sell wool decide they prefer not to compete with the men who import fine cotton, and as the men who sell wool have the ears of the men who make the laws, an embargo is enacted to increase profits, and calico disappears. And my father's business, that he inherited from his father, and his father's father, begins to wither and die.
- Dave Allen At Large featured the following conversation between a nun and a priest:
Nun: Father, do you think the clergy will ever be allowed to marry?Priest: Not in our time, nor in our children's time, but perhaps in our children's children's time.
- Forever (2014) has a flashback where Dr. Henry Morgan visits his father on his deathbed. Henry has cut all ties with his family and its fortune after learning his father has been engaging in the slave trade, and tells his father he will not accept any gifts from him, because it was all paid for with blood money. His father replies that what he wants to give Henry, his pocketwatch, was given to him by his father, who was given it by his father. Henry can thus accept the watch with a clear conscience.
- Ghost: In the lore video "Chapter Two: The Cardinal
", Papa Nihil is taken aback when Sister Imperator recommends Cardinal Copia to take over from the previous Papas, who were all Nihil's children, as the singer for Ghost.
Nihil: The bloodline has not been broken for nigh a millennium. My father was Papa. His father. His father's father. His father's father's father. His father's father's father's father's father. His father. - R.E.M.: The first verse of "Cuyahoga" calls the audience to "put our heads together and start a new country up," before immediately noting that "our father's father's father tried, erased the parts he didn't like," indicating the eternal cycle of change that has punctuated American history (in this case, shifting from the Native American genocide to the fight to create a better America).
- Used in the intro narration for the Mine of Cathuriges in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles:
Narrator: When the grandfather of my grandfather's grandfather was still a child, no one in this land could challenge the might of the Lilties. They forged weapons of iron to bring the world under their dominion. But eventually the mine was exhausted, and the Lilties' unstoppable conquest ground to a halt. The Lilties' ambition vanished along with the iron. They abandoned the mine, where monsters now thrive.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- Oracle of Ages. At the end of the game, Ralph is stated to be Queen Ambi's "grandson's grandson's ...grandson", which works as a relatively decent measurement that demonstrates to how far apart Labyrnna's past and present ages are in respect to each other, and further explains how the two were connected since earlier he tried to knowingly off his own ancestor to save Labyrnna even at the cost of ceasing to exist.
- Breath of the Wild:
- At Riverside Stable, Gotter noticeably describes his ancestor as his "grandfather's grandfather", who was a chef at the castle one hundred years ago when it was still in operation. Likewise, Gotter is also a cook, and he just loves to indulge himself in food to the point where he requests Link to look for the royal cookbook for recipes twice.
- After being bested in battle, Master Kohga resorts to summoning a particularly large spiked ball, bigger than the ones he used in the fight, explaining it as technique passed down by his great-grandfather but addresses him by a repetitive line of parents instead..
Kohga: I need to bust out my serious moves... A secret technique taught by my father's mother's father! It will... destroy you!
- Impa's family has guarded a shrine orb for several generations, and it's considered a sacred heirloom to the point where not even Link is allowed to touch it until they found out he is supposed to use it to unlock a shrine after he completes all sidequests in the Journal of Various Worries. Paya, who took over from her grandmother Impa, explains how long the orb has been in the family, though it's likely far longer than what it implies given how Long-Lived the Sheikah are compared to Hylians:
Paya: "The hero, as chosen by the Sheikah heirloom, will be gifted the blessing of antiquity". With these words as our guide, we here watched over this sacred artifact since my grandmother's grandmother's time... and even since HER grandmother's grandmother's time before that!
- Przygody Reksia: Near the end of the fifth game, Kretes and Nemo recite a poem they heard in their childhood, which turn out to be two verses of the same poem. Nemo says that he inherited the poem from his father, who inherited it from his grandfather, ditto his great-grandfather. It was composed by his ancestor, Chief Kukuryk, who was a friend of Amon Kretes.
- Quest for Glory I: Henry the Hermit comes from a family of hermits, including both his parents and all his siblings, as well as a long line of his male ancestors. Ask him about his name and he'll happily share the details of his lineage with you:
I'm 'Enry. 'Enry the eighth I is. Me farther was an 'Enry and 'is farther was an 'Enry and 'is farther was an 'Enry and 'is farther was an 'Enry and 'is farther was an 'Enry and 'is farther was an 'Enry and 'is farther was an 'Enry. And every one was an 'ermit.
- The Simpsons Game: At the end of the level Lisa The Treehugger, Lisa and Bart tries to talk to the loggers after destroying Mr. Burns' picktooth factory. One of the loggers said that his daddy was a logger and his daddy before him.
- Openly Gator from Queer Duck at one point states he is "A proud gay man, like my father, and his father before him."
- Count Duckula: Igor is fond of referring to the previous Count Duckulas in this manner during his many, many lamentations of the current Duckula's refusal to take up their legacy of bloodsucking and evildoing. Making this an interesting example is all the Counts are technically the same being, leading to quotes like:
Igor: Ahhh. Soon, very soon, I shall have the means to turn my master into the sort of master he was when he was his father, and his father's father.
- The Loud House: The family van, Vanzilla, is mentioned to have been Lynn Sr.'s first car, his dad Leonard's first car, and his dad's first car. And Lynn Sr. is planning on passing it down to his only son, Lincoln.
Lynn Sr.: "That was my first car! And my dad's first car! AND HIS DAD'S FIRST CAR!"
- Played for Laughs in the episode My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic "Over a Barrel", when Chief Thunderhooves describes the sacred buffalo trails to his pony visitors.
Chief Thunderhooves: We have a long and winding stampeding trail that we have run upon for many generations. My father stampeded upon these grounds, and his father before him. And his father before him, and his father before him, and his father before him...
- Mike, Lu & Og: At the beginning of "Yo, Ho, Who?", when Margery shows the kids an old map of their island.
Margery: Drawn by the right, honorable Wendell Joshua Albonquetine.Mike: Lu's father?Margery: Lu's father's father's father's father's father. He founded the island.Lu: He didn't "found" it, he crashed into it.Margery: (groan) Shipwrecked, yes. A great man, but not a great navigator.
- In the Phineas and Ferb episode "Unfair Science Fair", Baljeet has a musical number where he sings about his family's insistence about being a straight A+ student: "From the mountains of the Himalayas, to the valleys of Kashmir. My forefathers and their four fathers, knew one thing very clear..."
- The Simpsons:
- In "Lisa the Iconoclast", Lisa discovers that the founder of Springfield was actually a murderous pirate. When she fails to prove it, the curator of the Jebediah Springfield Museum isn't happy about the accusation:
"You are banned from this historical society! And your children! And your children's children! Beat ...for three months."
- When Homer Simpson has his name legally changed to "Max Power" in the episode "Homer to the Max", his father Abraham isn't happy.
Abraham: Oh, wait a minute! The family name is my legacy to you! I got it from my father, and he got it from his father. And he traded a mule for it. And that mule went on to save spring break.
- In the episode "Like Father, Like Clown", Krusty does this when he talks about his family's religious tradition:
Krusty: My father was a rabbi. His father was a rabbi. His father... Well, you get the idea.
- In "Lisa the Iconoclast", Lisa discovers that the founder of Springfield was actually a murderous pirate. When she fails to prove it, the curator of the Jebediah Springfield Museum isn't happy about the accusation:
