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Technically, it both Incest and Beastility. And the fans love it.
There once lived a man named Oedipus Rex
You may have heard about his odd complex
His name appears in Freud's index
Cause he loved his mother!
His rivals used to say quite a bit
That as a monarch he was most unfit
But still in all they had to admit
That he loved his mother!
That play... that Oedipus thing? Man, I thought I had problems!
The Oedipal archetype deals with any conflict between father and son, particularly where the son must supplant the father or must extricate himself from his father's shadow and find his own place in the world. This archetype shares some themes with both the Messianic Archetype (rebirth and renewal) and Tricksters (out with the old, in with the new). The female equivalent is called the Electra complex.
It's fairly difficult to use this trope explicitly, since the psychological aspects of the mother figure involved are usually lost to cruder imaginations.
Compare Well Done Son Guy and Calling The Old Man Out. See also Self Made Orphan.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Two Words: Shinji Ikari.
- Baki from Baki The Grappler starts off wanting to beat his father to make his mother happy, then because he figures out his father is out of his damn mind after he does crap like getting one step from killing a important governmental figure just to prove he can and killing his mother.
- This is the entirety of the backstory we get for William Will Wo in Gun X Sword. We didn't need what we got, either.
- In Fullmetal Alchemist, although Ed and Al both have crushes on mother figures, Ed is the one who seems afflicted with the full Oedipal syndrome complete with a love-hate relationship with his father, whom he emulated to become an alchemist (originally to please his mom) but also repeatedly insults and beats up (the fact that he also suffers from a bad case of parental abandonment only makes matters worse for him... and for Hohenheim).
- In the anime, the homunculus Envy's goal in life is killing Hohenheim. At the same time, he's immensely jealous of Edward because he is Hohenheim's real son -and, presumably, because he is the most similar to Hohenheim and Hoju in appearance and personality. In the movie, he even succeeds not only in killing Hohenheim before Ed's very shocked eyes, but also in not crying "Daddy, why don't you love me?". Interestingly, Ed looks absolutely shell-shocked for about two minutes and he later doesn't seem to care much, which might or might not mean a lot about how he really feels towards his old man. Then again, he doesn't seem to care much about Alfons's death either and maybe the movie never happened.
- In the manga, Greed also has issues with his dad and seems complacent about his role as 'daddy's rebellious son', even going as far as to tell him something along the lines of "Father should be the one who understands best, ain't I the manifestation of his greed?". To be honest, though, Father is one hell of a tyrannical father.
- Seishiro Sakurazuka of X 1999 had an... interesting relationship with his mother, Setsuka, who was one disturbed woman. Setsuka implies that her soulmate was her own son. The relationship, however, was one-sided, as Seishiro's soulmate was very obviously (and reciprocally) Subaru. The non-reciprocated soulmate theme also appears with Tomoyo and Sakura in Cardcaptor Sakura. Oh, and he killed her. At her request.
- Dr. Black Jack has some issues to work out concerning his parents. For example: when his estranged father contacts and hires him to conduct reconstructive plastic surgery on his second wife Renka to make her the "most beautiful woman in the world," Black Jack decides to makes her look exactly like his mother — Half because he wanted to constantly torment his father with the face of the woman he ran out on, and half because he actually did think his mother was most beautiful woman in the world.
- "Syaoran" of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle has been recently revealed to have this, being in love with what appears to be an alternate universe clone of his mother. Played with a bit in that instead of wanting to kill his father, he wants to be him. To the point that he's been going by his father's name since he was seven (we still don't know the real one), and for several years (until it was revealed that he was the son of Syaoran) he was thought to be his father by most of the fandom, as he looks exactly like him, acts similarly, has identical abilities, etc.
- The problem has later been justified or muddled, its hard to tell, by the fact that his father is aparently his clone, and his mother is a clone of his own Sakura.
- At precisely which point in the either 4-man or 2-man loop (which one it is depends on perspective) this trope sets in is a matter best left to philosophers on illegal substances with mental disorders. The philosophers have the mental disorders. Probably.
- The Lancer of Digimon Savers, Touma, is very cool to his father, Franz Norstein, but is endlessly devoted to Relena, his younger half-sister, and clearly adores his deceased mother. This is both made obvious and foreshadowed by his almost instant "crush" on Masaru's mother and younger sister. While it's never stated outright, it is heavily implied that Touma was born out of wedlock, and his mother was a foreign exchange student who had an affair with his father. Touma's hatred of his father stems from Franz's weakness of character: his inability to defend his son from his judgmental mother, and to do what is right to save his daughter, rather than what is there and easy.
- Wolfwood from Trigun has one big, big problem with his adopted dad / tyrannical father figure. Interestingly, he has a different father figure in the anime and in the manga. Also note that there are indications that unlike his manga equivalent, anime Chapel has genuine affection for his young 'charge', albeit in a completely twisted way.
- I can think of two of these from Pocket Monsters. In the manga Pokemon Adventures, Ruby runs away from home to escape his father Norman and prove to him that he can live his dreams. In the end, he sees that everything Norman did was really out of love for Ruby. Later, Silver finds out that his father is Giovanni. He refuses to accept this at first, but Blue talks him out of it eventually. In the games, the implication of Giovanni being Silver's dad remains.
- Lelouch Lamperouge, the protagonist of Code Geass, has the ultimate goal of learning who killed his mother, and then killing his father the Emperor, whether or not he's responsible. Of course, since momma Marianne is portrayed as only two steps short of sainthood, and poppa Charles is a Darwinist Jerkass, his attitude may be justified.
- Episode 21 of R2 plays it straight: His mother Marianne, who wasn't really dead, doesn't give a damn about either Lelouch or his sister, who in turn was actually crippled by their dad Charles, all because she was Charles' co-conspirator the whole time. In fact she spins around giddily while talking about their shared plans, not even greeting Lelouch. Talk about Abusive Parents.
- Somewhat twisted in that Marianne and Charles did love their children. Said love, however, turned both of them into horrendously extreme Knight Templar Parents: their plans were about bringing Instrumentality to create a new world full of lies, where Lelouch and Nunnally would be "happy". Only they were willing to detroy the world as they did so and never ever bothered to ask their kids what they thought of, even going as far as doing... well, what they did to Nunners and Lulu. So Yeah
- Especially ironic since the whole plan was based on lying to and tormenting the children they loved, with Charles altering his daughter's memories and crippling her as well as traumatizing them for life in an attempt to keep V.V. from going after them and killing them too. Lelouch also calls them out for abandoning him and Nunnally in Japan and not bothering to look for them, instead focusing on finding C.C. and going forward with the plan, on the basis Lulu and Nunners didn't need to be ALIVE to be reuinited with their parents in Instrumentality. Big Screwed Up Family, indeed.
- The main theme of the manga Kamisama Kazoku, as main character Samataro wants to prove that he doesn't need his father, a god, doing everything in his omnipotent (and bumbling) power to make Samataro's life easier. Samataro's goddess mother self-admittedly adores her son like a lover, and repeatedly shocks and embarrasses him with her Innocent Fanservice Girl ways.
- Female example from Iono The Fanatics, the titular character's love of black hair was because of her mother. Made rarer by the fact that there is no father in the equation.
- Mahou Sensei Negima may very well have this is the basis for lead Negi's need to chase his father (or it could just be a traumatic need for love) Also if you want to take the hints seriously, Negi may very well be getting paired with all of his mother/big sister figures.
- And on the subject of people who love their parents, almost disturbingly, we have Yuuna and her feelings for her father. This is taken to a disturbing level in the most recent chapter; when Haruna brings up the subject of "deep, passionate kissing" (supposedly for Pactio purposes), Yuuna remarks that she wouldn't mind if it were her dad.
 The other girls are quite Squicked by this revelation.
- Andrei Smirnov.
- Nataku of Houshin Engi has some serious daddy-issues surrounding the nature of his existence, and his mother is more or less his Morality Chain.
- Tsuna from Katekyo Hitman Reborn. He develops a huge crush on Kyoko, whom he hardly interacts with or knows much about. One thing is very noticeable about her, however: she looks exactly like his mother. Even their personalities are very much alike. In addition to that, he's very uncomfortable with talking with his father (who was pretty much a Disappeared Dad for a lot of his life).
Comic Books
- The 2000 Comic Book run of Captain Marvel has said hero destroy the universe at the behest of Entropy and Epiphany, actually Anthropomorphic Personification children of the Anthropomorphic Personification of the universe. Later he dies and beats up his own dad on the other side.
- Ultron, the killer robot nemesis of the Avengers, hates his 'father' Hank Pym, and loves his 'mother' Janet Van Dyne.
- Ultron at one point created a sexy fem-bot using Janet Van Dyne's psyche as the template for her robotic intelligence. As a shout-out to the Trope Namer, he named this fem-bot Jocasta, which is the name of Oedipus' mother.
- The obsession has gone far enough that in a more recent appearance, Ultron made himself into a herself,using Tony Stark's body/armor in order to form a biomechanical clone body of Janet.
- The DCU is full of this also it is strictly subtext.There are Batman-the first Robin-Catwoman Batman-the second Robin-Talia Batman-the first Robin-Batgirl Aquaman-Tempest-Dolphin Green Arrow-Arsenal-Black Canary Superman-Superboy-Lana/Lois.
- To simplify it somewhat, anyone who's A: a sidekick or B: a younger/alternate version of a hero has had iffy subtext with someone they shouldn't have had it with. This goes double (triple?) for Batman and the Robins (even after they've stopped being Robin).
- And you thought Ultron was sick.
- AGAIN with DC Comics: Each Brother Blood, the leader of the Church of Blood, has ascended to his position by killing his father (the previous "Brother Blood") and making his mother the new High Priestess.
Film
Literature
- Tywin and Tyrion Lannister from A Song Of Ice And Fire. Tywin blames Tyrion for killing his mother Joanna in childbirth only to be born as a deformed dwarf and consorting with prostitutes, refusing to recognize him as the rightful heir of House Lannister (and being as cunning and wise as him). The life-long hatred between the two leads culminates Tyrion killing his father, and possibly sending House Lannister to its downfall.
- In Harry Potter, Voldemort killed his Disappeared Muggle Dad. Barty Crouch was also killed by his son, although you'd never figure it by watching the ''Goblet of Fire'' movie.
- Adding to this, it is also apparent in his later years that Voldemort at least respected his mother for giving birth to him, while still despising his father. Even more interesting is that Severus Snape also hated his father enough for fans to speculate that's where his muggle prejudice stemmed from while attaching himself the the name "Prince", taken from his mother, and being fond of Lily Evans who had maternal attributes. Then there's Harry Potter who practically married Lily 2.0, minus the green eyes. Not to mention he has showed much devotion to her memory throughout the series, a great deal more than his father. And although Harry never hated his father, he was disgusted with James's behavior in Snape's memory enough to wonder why Lily ever married him in the first place.
- William de Worde from The Truth hates his father, but his mother is a complete nonentity.
- The Oedipal conflict between King Arthur and Mordred is what brings down the Round Table, making this Older Than Print.
- The main character's son in Boris Johnson's Seventy Two Virgins is referred to as having an Oedipus complex; the book opens with a number of examples of his sinister behaviour towards the protagonist.
- Nicholas Harpole and Alec Checkerfield from The Company Novels have a real doozy of a situation: Once upon a time three guys were cloned, two died and became virtually undead, sharing the third body. Deciding to (a) claim their mutual girlfriend for himself, and (b) make sure that the two extra guys got bodies of their own, Edward takes over the body and arranges for Mendoza to bear twin sons and sticks digital Nick and Alec inside them. They grow up, again, with Edward and Mendoza as their parents. Remembering the whole time that "Mommy" is really their girlfriend. Yeah, issues much?
Live Action TV
- Lee Adama on Battlestar Galactica is presented as forever looking for a way out from under his father's influence. As Lee is a fighter pilot and his father is his commanding officer, this is more than a little difficult. He gets a bit closer to actually doing so in Season Four when he resigns from the military to become a politician.
- And Cavil on the Cylon side, complete with frakking his humanoid Cylon "mother".
- Lost is chock-full of this. Nearly every character has some sort of paternal baggage, and Ben kills his father; Kate kills her father; Locke gets Sawyer to kill his father for him
- Jim Profit, on Profit, takes this archetype to the logical extreme — by murdering his father and having sex with his (step)mother.
- Possibly Matt McNamera on Nip/Tuck.
- Connor on Angel, paralleling Oedipus to an unusually large extent — to many viewers' disgust. No, Cordelia wasn't Connor's mother, but she did change his diapers. The previous year.
- It's lampshaded by the captured Angelus: "Doing your mom and trying to kill your dad. Hmm. There should be a play."
- In a rare maternal case, in Two And A Half Men Charlie and Alan loathe their mother, Evelyn.
- Merlin - Arthur in Sins of the Father borders on this. He meets a (young an beautiful) ghost of his mother, who tells him that his father is to blame for her death. So he tries to kill Uther.
Theater
- The Trope Namer, the Greek Tragedy "Oedipus Rex", was dramatized in 429 BC by Sophocles, and had been a legend long before that. It's actually not a real example, as Oedipus never knew who his mother and father were until it was too late. Sophocles' original audience already knew the story, so it was hardly a twist ending.
- The story of Phaedra, however, is considerably more Oedipal. Kinda. Phaedra, wife of Theseus, is in love with her stepson, Hippolytus. He is appropriately squicked out, and this drives her crazy so she tells Theseus that Hippolytus raped her. It all ends with Hippolytus being eaten by a sea monster in the middle of the grassland, and Phaedra drinks some poison to kill herself.
- In the version this myth buff remembers, Hippolytus is killed in a chariot crash and Phaedra hangs herself. Of course, it also has Artemis saving Hippolytus' life, making him a minor deity, and transporting him to another country, all of which is just plain weird.
- Harold Pinter's plays. Though, to be honest, everybody hates everybody in the Pinter verse.
- Hamlet. Although the title character ostensibly wants to kill his stepfather/uncle in order to avenge his father, generations of Shakespeare scholars, directors and actors have seen a deeper, less conscious motive. Let's just say that Hamlet may have more than the normal filial affection for Gertrude. (Mel Gibson's 1990 film version especially plays up this aspect of their relationship.)
- Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra adapts a classic Greek tragic trilogy, the Orestia, relocating it to New England after the end of the Civil War. Incestuous undertones are a major motivation of the murderous actions of the characters—at the least, both of the children display unhealthy obsession with the parent of the opposite gender, and deep-seated dislike of the parent of the same gender.
Video Games
- Final Fantasy X is the most Oedipal game this troper has ever played. Tidus, The Hero, hates his father, Jecht, with a passion. Not only has his entire blitzball career played out in the shadow of his famous father, as a child he was also constantly competing with him for the mother's attention. The fact that his father was basically an insensitive, alcoholic bastard might also have had something to do with it, though... and of course, Tidus ends up killing his father in the semi-final boss-fight - in the very best Oedipal tradition. Compounding the Freudian
subtext is one of the game's primary antagonists, Maester Seymour Guado. To sum up: He loved his mother deeply, but she out of misguided love for him felt that the only way for him to be accepted in a xenophobic world would be for him to become a High Summoner and use her as his Final Aeon. The end result was Mommy dearest becoming this◊. As for his father, Jyscal, Seymour kills him before the game even starts to gain his position as Maester (think fantasy!pope, or maybe just a cardinal) as part of a long and convoluted Evil Plan to Mercy Kill the entire planet. In addition to the practical gains made by removing Jyscal, the backstory hints at how Jyscal was not a loving parent—nor even a presence in his life, really, as he spent his childhood in seclusion with his mother—hence Seymour grew to resent and hate him. And none of this is going into Yuna's ...relationship with her father. Truly, the issues of the characters in this Final Fantasy iteration are staggering.
- Of course, by the end Tidus' mother is long since dead and he does manage to reconcile with his father. It's more explicit in Dissidia, where Tidus is explicit about his feelings. "I'd always thought I'd prefer if you weren't there, but honestly... I only became strong so you would approve of me. ... That's all I ever wanted."
- Hinted at with Sephiroth, but completely exaggerated in the fandom. That said, he is obsessed with what he perceives as his "mother" and he absolutely hates his father, (even if he doesn't know who his father is) Professor Hojo...
- Like Luke Skywalker, it goes for Lloyd Irving from Tales Of Symphonia (although, of course, considerably less famously).
- Devil May Cry bleeds Oedipal subtext, no shortness of thanks going to Dante's love interest who looks exactly like his mother. The new game looks poised to continue this tradition with the new main character's non-blood mother-figure.
- Update: It did. Nero wanted that nun bad.
- Well, as it turns out Nero and Kyrie were actually raised together (she's the same age as him), it doesn't quite fit the trope here. Even if they do get together in the end.
- Laharl wanting to step out of his old man's shadow in Disgaea. Let's just say it gets much weirder from there.
- Sasha Nein of Psychonauts has no mother, as the player finds out when accessing his memories. He remembers her death, and as a child practised his unfamiliar psychic abilities on his father, who was tight-lipped about his mother. His father unknowingly supplies many of his own memories of Sasha's mother via psychic means, including one nearly-explicit memory that makes Sasha retreat like a bat out of hell.
- Raz himself also has this going on, since he states that his father has him train constantly as an acrobat and rejects his attempts to use his psychic powers, as well as psychic gypsies cursing his family with Super Drowning Skills, which leads to Raz's mental image of his father as a psychic-hating sadist. Turns out at the end that his father is actually a psychic himself and was merely trying to help train Raz to control his powers, even helping him combat his Freudian Excuse incarnate.
- Coach Oleander, as a child was traumatized by the fact that his father was a butcher who chopped up any bunnies that he kept as pets, which along with the fact that he's never been able to get into the military leads him to try and Take Over The World. Both his and Raz's mental images of their fathers end up mixing together at the end and when defeated Oleander apologizes to everyone at the camp, thanking Raz for his efforts.
- Basically deconstructed as Raziel's entire character arc in Legacy of Kain. His entire motivation initially seems to be to exact revenge on his father Kain after an apparently very Oedipal preventive attempted infanticide. However, it turns out that the entire chain of events was set into motion by Kain himself as a very complex Xanatos Gambit involving Time Travel to induce a Screw Destiny to actually, in the end, save Nosgoth from corruption and Raziel himself from becoming a soul attached to a sword, meaning that Kain more or less killed Raziel out of love to prevent him from suffering a Fate Worse Than Death. So Yeah...
- In Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Rock Howard is pretty much defined by his hate of his Disappeared Dad, Geese.
- The simplest way of describing the entire plot of the Metal Gear saga is this trope. For every major character in it. Yes, all of them.
Web Comics
Web Original
Western Animation
- While not biologically his dad, this is pretty much textbook example of this trope between Danny Phantom and Vlad Masters/Plasmius. The fandom couldn't be happier.
- Another Two Words: Prince Zuko.
- Thailog of Gargoyles is an Evil Twin of Goliath, cloned by Doctor Sevarius and trained by Xanatos; his goal in life is to upstage all three fathers (or at least Goliath and Xanatos, Sevarius not so much). Taken to unsettling extremes concerning the women in Goliath's clan, as he has seduced Goliath's ex-mate Demona and made a pass at his daughter. At one point, he cloned Evil Twins of the rest of the clan, and while he was at it he cloned a concubine, Delilah, for himself, made from a combination of DNA from both Demona and Goliath's current love interest, Elisa Maza. Creepy...
- The latter was one of Thailog's major Kick The Dog moments, since Demona had no idea he would create Delilah (she was involved with the cloning of the others), and he more or less stated outright that Delilah was her replacement.
- Tai Lung and Shifu of Kung Fu Panda. Though never explicitly stated in the film (par for the course for this trope), both the Subtext and information revealed elsewhere imply that by naming Tai Lung "Dragon" and filling the snow leopard's head with dreams and fantasies about becoming the Dragon Warrior, Shifu was living vicariously through his son — trying to turn the foundling into what he was not and could never be. By the same token, it's fairly clear that aside from wanting to earn the red panda's pride and approval, Tai Lung fully intended to prove himself Shifu's better and replace him, both at the Jade Palace and as the ultimate kung fu warrior in the valley.
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