Villainous Lineage

"I am the guilty one
Ball and chain around my leg
I am the cursed one
Black cloud hangin' overhead
Fill the heart that pumps bad blood
All inside of me."

— Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, "Killer Wolf"

Sometimes, fictional characters inherit their evilness or immorality from their parents. Even initially good characters like the All-Loving Hero can eventually turn evil thanks to this trope. A Knight in Shining Armor is at risk of going insane or over to The Dark Side, if a parent or grandparent was a Villain by Default or member of an Evil Race. Usually, up until The Reveal (which might be delivered in the form of I Am Your Father), the character had a solid reputation, moral compass, and personality, capable of using Heroic Willpower to resist just about any evil supernatural coercion.

If it is the hero in fear after this revelation, it may cause an existential crisis as they start to struggle against villainous impulses because they believe that their "evil genes" will inevitably doom them to become as evil as their ancestors. Sometimes, however, it is the other characters that shrink away in fear and begin treating the hero as if they're already as evil as their ancestor, sometimes provoking a Then Let Me Be Evil response. The inevitable conclusion to all this introspection is either the character going "Screw Destiny!" or a friend slapping or speechifying some sense into them.

Now, get an Evilutionary Biologist who thinks the same thing, and they'll try and splice together a clone using such donors as Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, under the logic that their creation will be "the most evil person alive! Bwahahahaha!" Which, of course, should only produce a clone with a penchant for mustaches, but invariably is pretty evil.

A pretty common twist for heroes with Muggle Foster Parents is that they are the child of the Big Bad who has been spirited away and raised like an Ordinary High-School Student in the hopes that Nurture can beat out their inherently evil Nature and that the child doesn't Turn Out Like His Father. Amazingly, sometimes it's because Evil Parents Want Good Kids. In extreme cases, this "Nature" can manifest as an Enemy Within or a Superpowered Evil Side. Naturally, this twist can lead to a Shower of Angst. The parent they get the bad blood from is usually the dad.

A Sub-Trope of In the Blood.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Defied in Black Clover. Gordon Agrippa comes from a lineage of curse mages infamous for bringing misfortune on others, with one of his ancestors making a deal with the devil Megicula, so he ran away from home to avoid falling into this. However, after he returns to learn more about the devils' curses, he finds out his father Nathan is changing the family legacy to use their knowledge for curing curses and healing. This leads him to study under his father during the six-month time skip.
• In the Case Closed Non-Serial Movie The Phantom of Baker Street, it begins with a social commentary about Japan's hereditary culture but this trope comes around with the revelation that the bad guy is a descendant of Jack the Ripper and he feared the bad reputation it would cause if the public got word of it. At one point his panic overruled his common sense, leading him to murder. It could be about how concentrating on erasing mistakes of one's ancestors can make you repeat them.
• In Code Geass, Lelouch vi Britannia has become a rebel trying to overthrow his tyrannical father, Emperor Charles. However, his methods rely heavily on manipulation and devious plans, just like his old man's own actions. Also, Charles himself seems to mirror his trope in regards to his twin brother, cult leader V.V. Marianne purposely hid herself from Lelouch and made Nunnally suffer just so they could use Lelouch to draw C.C. out for the Assimilation Plot and create the perfect world where their kids would "live in happiness". Receiving scheming blood from both his parents definitely helps.
• Actively invoked by the criminal organization "Lucifer" in the Dirty Pair franchise: all of its members are blood relatives, some by an absurdly high degree. Regardless, a regular step in their recruitment drives is to invoke "I Am Your Father" on some poor guy and smooth-talk him into coming aboard while they're reeling from the surprise.
• Not everyone in The Irregular at Magic High School's Yotsuba Clan is evil as such, but they all share a certain pragmatism. Heroic Yotsuba such as Miyuki 'only' torture their enemies to get information. Villainous Yotsuba Mind Rape children and make Tykebombs out of whatever is left over. This is the main reason the clan hasn't fractured yet; its members all recognize and fear their similarities.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, the protagonist of Part V, Giorno Giovanna, is the son of Dio Brando. However, since Dio conceived Giorno after he had stolen Jonathan Joestar's body, Giorno carries Jonathan's DNA and thus is also part of the heroic Joestar bloodline. Joseph and Jotaro are initially concerned that he'll turn out like Dio. Fortunately, Giorno is much better than his father, even though he takes over a massive criminal organization and carries on Dio's "WRRRRYYYY!" battle cry and gorgeous blond locks.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: The Zabi Family plays with this trope. Degwin Zabi may have at one point been an ambitious dictator, but by the time the series begins he's old and decrepit and lacks the will he once had. His eldest son Gihren fully embraces his father's worst attributes, to the point of being more dangerous than he is, while lacking whatever redeeming qualities Degwin has. His only daughter Kycilia is similar to Gihren, but at the very least is more pragmatic and has some, if middling, human qualities about her. While we don't ever see what Sasro was like, Degwin's other two children vary on this. Dozle is an honorable commander who, while blindly loyal to Zeon's cause, likely wouldn't be as evil if not for his eldest brother's influence. And Garma, his youngest son, would be a wholly good person if not for the cause he's fighting for.
• Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ has a subversion. Axis Zeon is centered around Mineva Zabi, Dozle's daughter and the last surviving Zabi, but Mineva is a kind-hearted little girl who is no more than a figurehead for Haman Karn. It's played straighter with Glemmy Toto who, while either being the illegitimate son or clone of Gihren Zabi, has his blood in him and is determined to follow in his footsteps.
• My Hero Academia: Mr. Compress, of all people, is revealed to be the descendant of the legendary Robin Hood-esque Super Villain Oji Harima, "The Peerless Thief." This revelation caught everyone off guard, in-universe and out. All According to Plan.
• Being connected to a criminal by blood seems to be quite a stigma in the One Piece world, mainly from the World Government who are afraid that it really is hereditary. Nico Olvia separated herself as much as she could from her daughter Robin when she set off to be an illegal Adventurer Archaeologist to try and keep Robin from being the "child of a criminal." When the Franky Family are trying to convince the Straw Hats to take Franky with them, one of the reasons used is "he's the son of a pirate, anyway." Most recently, when Vice-Admiral Garp tells Ace that he'd wanted him and his brother Luffy to become great Marines, Ace tells Garp that their fathers' blood (Ace's being Gol D. Roger, the infamous Pirate King, and Luffy's being Dragon "The Revolutionary", the Most Wanted and dangerous man in the world) assured they could never be Marines though it could have been argued in Luffy's case since Garp is his grandfather (and Dragon's father). Ace himself was hunted by the Marines even before his birth because they wanted to nip the potential danger of his father's continuing bloodline in the bud. Only an extreme Mama Bear act by his mother prevented him from being found.
• Jessie from Pokémon: The Series ended up involved in Team Rocket, a criminal organization, just like her mother, despite the fact Miyamoto wasn't in her life due to giving her up at a young age.
• This is one of Fate's biggest fears in StrikerS, the idea that she'd turn out like Precia. Her fears aren't misplaced since she's incredibly similar to her mother pre-insanity (Married to the Job and never has as much time as she'd like to spend with her kids), but the chance of her ending up that way are incredibly slim since the franchise practically runs on Rousseau Was Right and The Power of Friendship.
• Voltes V: The Grand Finale's Plot Twist is that Kentaro Go, the father of the Go brothers, is also the father of Prince Heinel, Prince Gohl....which also means that Emperor Zambajil is the paternal uncle of Kenichi, Daijiro and Hiyoshi. Heinel has a My God What Have I Done Moment upon realizing he's been fighting his own family, but Zambajil (who knew the truth) feels no such remorse.

Comic Books

• Batgirl: Stephanie Brown and, to a lesser extent, Cassandra Cain sometimes get this treatment from Batman because of their parents being supervillains. While Cassandra occasionally struggled with this thinking early on due to some issues she had, Stephanie never has, likely because the impetus for her superheroics was to spoil her father's criminal ambitions.
• DC One Million: Farris Knight, the Starman of the 843rd century, claims that the Knight family has had as many villains as heroes, and believes that this is because they're descended from Kyle Knight, the son of Jack Knight and his archenemy Nash, the third Mist.
• The Flash: Raised by an abusive family of con artists, Malcolm Thawne resents his Separated at Birth twin brother Barry Allen (The Flash II), becoming the supervillain Cobalt Blue. He's also the distant ancestor of Eobard Thawne/Professor Zoom/Reverse-Flash and Captain Boomerang II. (the lineage also includes Impulse/Bart Allen, the latter's half-brother, but Bart chose to follow the Flash Heroic Lineage instead.) Furthermore, Malcolm inspired a legacy of multiple Cobalt Blues that would oppose the Flashes of each generation for a whole millennium.
• Legends of Baldur's Gate: Coran the thief has apparently reformed and ended up a member of parliament, but his son Krydle is a thief following in his footsteps. They both think they're the one who's right.
• Teen Titans: The usually happy-go-lucky Superboy (Conner Kent) fears he will be evil after discovering Lex Luthor is one of his genetic fathers. It worsens to the point of a breakdown when it turns out that Luthor had implanted the ability to control him, and forced him to attack his friends. Robin points out an even worse possibility than becoming evil: "You could go bald!"
• Tom Strong: Played with when Tom learned that one of his earliest foes, Nazi Ingrid Weiss, had procured semen from him once when she had held him hostage and inseminated herself, producing a son named Albrecht, whom she had raised as a full-fledged Nazi. In a story set in a possible future, Strong defeated Albrecht in a fierce fight, but refused the idea that he could not be made to see the error of his ways. When his daughter Tesla suggested that "Nazism is in his veins", Tom answered, "So am I."
• Wanted: The comic version features the character Shithead (a Captain Ersatz of Batman villain Clayface), made of the feces of the 666 most evil people in history. Also, Wesley's father was an equally depraved supervillain.
• X-Men: Sabretooth's family seems to have this going, at least with the men. Victor's father is noted in all recaps of Creed's past to be an abusive asshole, chaining Creed to the basement and ripping out his teeth. Victor himself, of course, is just as bad if not worse, delighting in every evil thing he does (and he once ate a baby!). Victor's brother Saul is basically Victor but without as much muscle to back him up. Victor's son Graydon despised his parents for abandoning him and became an anti-mutant activist who also had ties to murderous youth gangs. The only exceptions we've seen to the "Creed = asshole" law is Victor's brother Luther who we barely saw (and who was just a bratty kid when he was killed), his mother who we don't see much of, and Clara, Sabretooth's sister who doesn't demonstrate any of the evil tendencies of her family.

Fan Works

• In All For Luz Tyler Wittebane is a (unknowing) descendant of Emperor Belos, and part of a family of witch hunters during Salem Times. After the Mass Super-Empowering Event, he's trying to get all the families in Gravesfield who were once families of witch hunters too, together to start "hunting those who were cursed by the devil." Unfortunately, Token Good Teammates like Julia and Caleb don't last long which him makes an Arch-Enemy to Luz.
• Jen Black in Black Princess Ascendant might have this problem after she uses a magic ritual to make Bellatrix into her mother. When she starts acting differently than normal, she worries that her new mother's insanity really is hereditary.
• The Bridge: Not played literally as Godzilla III a.k.a "Junior" is the adoptive son of the second Godzilla, but he did inherit identical powers and is even more powerful than his father was. While heroic in contrast to his father, Junior nonetheless has an existential crisis when he goes so berserk in rage at someone he activates the same Burning form that killed his father. Powering down, it takes introspective and words by his human adoptive mother to help convince him being his father's successor doesn't mean he's doomed to the same fate.
• Chaldea Evil Incorporated!: Discussed by Major Monogram to Perry the Platypus after they find out that Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz has been hired by the Chaldea Security Organization as an emergency engineer. Monogram reveals that Doofenshmirtz is a potential descendant of Malifishmertz, a rogue magus that terrorized Drusselstein in the 1800s. Fearing that Doofenshmirtz will be tempted to use magic for evil like his ancestor even after his Heel–Face Turn, Monogram assigns Perry to go undercover as Olga Marie's pet to keep an eye on his Friendly Enemy.
• The Heart Trilogy: It's revealed that all dragons are born with a link to Morgoth due to his meddling and augmentations to their ancestors, which is heavily implied to be the root of their Always Chaotic Evil tendencies. Gandalf wants to see these chains broken in the third story, and Kolstros and Vervenia turn out to be devoid of the other dragons' links to Morgoth.
• In fics set in the universe of Kingdom Hearts 3: Final Stand, several characters in Radiant Garden believe that bloodlines carry traits such as cruelty. The Insurgos were determined to wipe out the royal family of Radiant Garden because they believed that somewhere along the line, Ansem's descendants would become just as cruel and despotic as his tyrannical parents. On the flip side, which proves that the Insurgos aren't that different from his parents, Ansem's Jerkass mother Hanako lambasted Ansem for allowing Rimi, his niece and Kairi's birth mother, for allowing her to become engaged to Kaname, explicitly stating that Kaname should be locked up simply for being the son of an Insurgo. As a whole, it's largely subverted, as it's repeatedly shown that Kaname and Ansem are nothing like their parents.
• Mega Man Reawakened plays this straight with Quentin Emerald, whose father was a terrorist, but subverts it with Dr. Regal, who isn't evil despite his father being Dr. Wily.
• A Moth to a Flame: It's discovered that Marcy is descended from the Wu Clan, an Ancient Conspiracy that ruled Eurasia from the shadows for thousands of years, and also aided the Newts in their rule of Amphibia and Multiversal conquests after they created the Calamity Box. Thanks to King Andrias and the Core's emotional and psychological manipulation, Marcy actually sees this as a Heroic Lineage, and is determined to live up to their legacy no matter what.
  Sasha: I told you, Anne! She's in on it!
  Grime: Her whole family's been in on it!
• Gloria from Pokemon Light AU internalized this feeling. She was Driven to Suicide in part because she felt she was abusive like her father.
• Remnants: This is one of Yang's main worries. She went looking for her deadbeat biological mother and found out that Raven is the most-wanted woman on the entire planet. Her younger half-sister Ruby has a Heroic Lineage through her mother, so Yang worries that she'll take after her own mother. This trope is subverted as Yang's heroic and nice, unlike Raven.
• There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton: Unbeknownst to Adrien, not only is his father Hawk Moth, but his grandfather and great-grandfather were collaborators during WWII who worked for HYDRA in exchange for protection for the family.
• The Wolves in the Woods:
  • Lila's father Matteo was a selfish, Manipulative Bastard who served as her Cynicism Catalyst. While her mother successfully divorced him, he still managed to destroy her relationship with her family and friends, forcing them to start over after moving. Following her Heel Realization, Lila breaks down over her fears that she's turned out just like her father.
  • Mireya notes that Adrien and Gabriel share many of the same negative traits. Both are incredibly arrogant and self-centered, expecting the world to conform precisely to how they see it and what they desire from it, such as Adrien's insistence that Ladybug is meant to be HIS whether she wants to be or not or Gabriel denying the existence of werewolves or fae even while trying to akumatize them. While she doesn't believe Adrien is doomed to follow in his father's footsteps, she notes that he has to be willing to accept that the world doesn't revolve around his wishes in order to change his ways.

Films — Animation

• The Lion King II: Simba's Pride used this with Nuka, the only son of Scar. He is evil, very ugly, and receives a Disney Villain Death. Ironic, as the film was supposed to be subverting this trope. The film was supposed to have Scar's son as a protagonist, but that wasn't possible for American social standards because it would've made its Romeo and Juliet cousins. Though Nuka is a lot more sympathetic than Scar since he just wants his mother to be proud of him. A last crazed attempt to earn her pride even gets him killed.

Films — Live-Action

• In The Bad Seed adaptations, Rhoda is the granddaughter of a serial killer and has genetically inherited the inability to feel guilt.
• Serial Killer Mr. Brooks worries that his daughter has inherited his homicidal urges.
• In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Aragorn worries about giving in to the Ring's temptation, given that his ancestor Isildur claimed it rather than destroying it after cutting it off Sauron's hand. His love interest Arwen insists that just because he's Isildur's heir doesn't mean he's doomed to act the same way, but Aragorn says that the same blood and weakness runs in his own veins. Aragorn ends up proving Arwen right when he sends Frodo away on his quest without making the slightest effort to take the Ring.
• Star Wars plays with this, Luke's Final Temptation to join The Dark Side hinges on him being his father's son and heir to his evil. Luckily, he inherited a few traits from his mom too.
  • It was also implied, in A New Hope, as being his aunt and uncle's reason for never discussing his father with him... or at the very least telling Blatant Lies. They feared that Luke would become a Jedi, like his father before him, and go gallivanting across the galaxy to turn evil. That, or just get killed. It's never stated just how much Obi-Wan told them about Anakin. The two always told Luke he'd died offworld.
  • Dark Empire has him turn to The Dark Side when the Emperor returns, in an attempt to bring him down from within. It doesn't exactly work. The parallels with Anakin are made blindingly obvious, though the comic came long before the prequel trilogy. Luke guides a ship far too large and damaged to land into a survivable landing on Coruscant. He constantly ruminates on his father's legacy, wondering why he had turned - ultimately it's the threat to his family that gets him to claim "My father's destiny is my own." The Emperor proceeds to replace his mechanical right hand with a different prosthetic, a "better" one speculated by some fans to be of a model Vader used, and dresses Luke in outfits clearly inspired by his father's, as can be seen on the page image. Ultimately it's the love of his sister, and his refusal to hurt her or allow her to be killed, that brings Luke back. And unlike his father, Luke manages to remain just good enough not to do anything actively evil; he merely spends time as Palpatine's slave, and indeed does succeed in sabotaging his plans on one occasion.
  • In the pre-Disney Expanded Universe books, his GRANDSON turns for this reason, more or less.
  • In The Force Awakens, we find out that just like in the novels, Anakin's grandson has fallen to the Dark Side. In a twist on the standard good versus evil arc that Anakin and Luke went through, he struggles against the pull of the Light Side of the Force, constantly fighting the heroic urges he inherited from his Skywalker heritage. He rejects an offer of redemption and cements his evil by killing Han.
  • His struggle continues after he forms a Force Bond with Rey in The Last Jedi, which allows them to share their deepest thoughts and conflicts with each other. Ultimately, in The Rise of Skywalker, this enables his mother to use the last of her life force to turn him back to the light, fully cemented when he sacrifices his own life force to bring Rey back to life and becomes one with the Force.
  • In The Rise of Skywalker, the trope is played straight with Rey, who discovers that she is the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine. While retrieving the Sith Wayfinder from the second Death Star's vault, she's attacked by a Sith version of herself in a vision, who urges her to embrace her heritage. In her final confrontation with Palpatine, she is tempted by the prospect of taking the Sith throne and ordering the fleet to spare the Resistance, but she ends up refusing him and calls on the spirits of all past Jedi to defeat him for good. Those spirits, regardless of Rey's true parentage, immediately come to her aide and lend their power through the Force. Going one step further, she ultimately adopts the name Skywalker as the spirits of Luke and Leia look on approvingly.

Literature

• The Neanderthal Parallax: Neanderthals strongly believe that violent urges are genetic, and the punishment for crimes of violence is castration. They sterilize the offender's close relatives along with them so it won't be passed on, though it's never made clear if these urges were hereditary. In any case, they admit castration has the second effect of lowering aggression when testosterone has dropped.
• Jherek, one of the protagonists of the Threat From The Sea trilogy, is so convinced that his pirate father's evil has stained him as a villain-in-the-making that he doesn't even catch on that he's actually developing the powers of a Lawful Good paladin until the third book.
• Christian and Tasha Ozera from Vampire Academy, are thought to be tainted due to Lucas and Moira Ozera being Strigoi. They were respectively Christian's parents and Tasha's brother and sister-in-law. Tasha turns out to be a villain after all.
• In the Warrior Cats books, Brambleclaw struggles a lot with being the son of the Big Bad Tigerstar: some cats are prejudiced against him and mistrust him for it, and Brambleclaw himself is later tempted when Tigerstar plots a way for him to seize power.

Live-Action TV

• This has, curiously enough, shown up as a plot point in all three Chouseishin Series:
  • Chouseishin Gransazer features a subversion. Brighton claims that humans are descended from the Bosquito and therefore pose a threat to the rest of the universe, but this is only a trick by him and Belzeus to snuff out the Communicator and gain the justification they need to conquer Earth.
  • Genseishin Justiriser: Kaiser Hades is revealed midway through to have an older brother, who like him is a demonic Evil Overlord bent on conquering the universe. He comes to Earth after Hades is defeated to try his own hand at conquering the planet.
  • Chousei Kantai Sazer X: The Neo Descal are the descendants of the Descal, a group of Space Pirates who conquered the Earth in 2005, leading to the Bad Future where the Neo Descal are on the verge of completely conquering the universe. Every space pirate in Neo Descal is therefore descended from one of Descal's Three Shoguns and as such when they travel back in time to stop Sazer-X, they need to keep all of the Shoguns alive to prevent the timeline from being changed.
• Cobra Kai: Both Johnny Lawrence and his son (Robby Keene) were top students at Cobra Kai, courtesy of John Kreese.
• Kamen Rider:
  • Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: Both Kuroto Dan and his father Masamune Dan are massive egotists with god complexes and Killer Game Masters.
  • Kamen Rider Build: Similar to the example above, it's revealed in a post series movie that Evolt has an older brother, who has his flamboyant, hedonistic, Ax-Crazy and destructive traits ramped up a dozen or so ties.
• Power Rangers Operation Overdrive: In the "Once a Ranger" two-part episode, Thrax, son of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers villains Rita and Zedd, arrives to destroy the newest rangers.
• Smallville: The Luthors have this, with Lionel fathering multiple children with... issues. His legitimate son, Lex, is a Tragic Villain who kills his father, illegitimate son Lucas is The Sociopath, and while illegitimate daughter Tess eventually joins the heroes, she starts out as a Corrupt Corporate Executive.
• The X-Files: In the episode "Aubrey", a young woman starts emulating her Serial Killer grandfather. He's still alive, but had nothing to do with her upbringing.

Theatre

• In Dorothy L. Sayers' The Emperor Constantine, Livia, rejoicing in her husband's death, tells Constantine that her husband was evil, his father was evil, and his daughter, Constantine's wife, ought to be watched.

Video Games

• Final Fantasy VII: Poor Sephiroth. His career in supervillainy was pretty much cut out for him. Sephiroth, who was directly infused with Jenova's cells in fetal stage, was not told of his origins. His biological father, Professor Hojo, told the young Sephiroth his mother's name was "Jenova" and that she died from giving birth to him. In reality, Jenova was the terminology for an excavated alien being who had tried to destroy the planet thousands of years earlier. Of course, Hojo is a few fries short of a happy meal, himself.
• Loptrian blood is seen as this in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War and anyone of known or suspected Loptrian descendant is liable to get the Burn the Witch! treatment. This is because any major descendant of the bloodline can become a vessel for the titular evil dragon and all his terrifying power—which is the plot that the villains successfully carry out, resurrecting the empire with Prince Julius as the new vessel. (Though in point of fact, his parents and grandparents were not themselves wicked and were descended not from the emperor but rather the White Sheep Prince Maera, who fought against his family's evil.)
• Rock Howard from Garou: Mark of the Wolves seems to suffer from this. He struggles with his "evil side" inherited from Geese Howard, despite being raised almost entirely by Terry. It is later revealed that the evil influence is not from his father but from his mother's side of the family.
• Even in the good ending, something sinister happens in Mad Father. Despite getting away from her homicidal father, Aya takes after him in the future. She runs a clinic in the middle of the forest and turns unsuspecting innocent women and teenagers into dolls with Maria by her side. One of the reasons her father wanted to make her into a doll was to keep her from turning out like him when he discovered that she was mutilating small animals like he did in his youth. Her mother was arguably even crazier since she admired her husband's madness and was happy that Aya was following in his footsteps.
• In the backstory of Nox, the world of Nox's Legendary Hero wipes out every member of the Always Chaotic Evil Necromancers, but spares the last Necromancer, a mere baby, sending her off to be raised by the primitive but morally neutral Trolls without any knowledge of her true heritage. She grows up to be the game's Big Bad and inherits not only her ancestors' total evil but also their raging Goth-ness. (Although the Wizard ending implies she was possessed by the evil spirits of all her evil ancestors, and without being indwelt by them she's actually a pretty decent lady).
• Played with in Resident Evil 6. After discovering his relationship to the series' previous Big Bad, Jake becomes moody and snappish, certain that he's destined to follow in his father's footsteps. There's some evidence to support it; Jake has an incredibly similar fighting style to his father, instinctively seeks out combat, doesn't really believe in anything bigger than himself, and even inherited Wesker's viral immunity. In the end, it's subverted; despite his affinities, Jake ultimately uses them to pursue a completely different path.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney:
  • It probably has as much to do with nurture (or lack thereof) as nature, but Dahlia Hawthorne is at least as petty and murderous as her mother Morgan Fey in Trials and Tribulations. Fortunately it seems to have passed over Pearl and Iris.
  • And in Investigations it's all over the place. Both Ernest Amano and his son Lance are no strangers to crime and for Kay Faraday it's noble thievery that runs in the blood. Granted it's also a Take Up My Sword situation, but Faraday was dead before Kay even found out he was the Yatagarasu.
  • The Big Bad of Investigations 2, Simon Keyes, is not only a killer just like his father, Dane Gustavia but even uses the same method of freezing the body to throw off the time of death without knowing that Gustavia did the same thing in the past. This is despite him suffering from some memory loss which made him grow up mistakenly thinking that the man Gustavia had killed was his father and despising Gustavia as a result of that.

Webcomics

• Agatha Heterodyne from Girl Genius has a serious case of this from multiple angles. Her paternal descent from a particularly fearsome Mad Scientist warlord dynasty is mitigated somewhat by how strongly the surviving members of the prior generation went against type (although at least one of the Super Soldiers who serve her as they served the Heterodynes in the bad old days suspect she may be like "The Fun Ones"). However her mother either is or was the most recent host for the the Other, who laid the continent waste before vanishing of her own accord and whose remaining creations tend to obey Agatha. The man who pulled Europa back together under his own rule, Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, proved suspicious of the teenage girl almost to the point of paranoia even before she got bodyjacked by Mommy Dearest.

Web Original

• In the Whateley Universe, Whateley Academy has an official "club" known commonly as The Bad Seeds. Admission? One or both of your parents must be a supervillain. Some kids take to this like ducks to water, some resist, some don't know what to do, some are pretty clueless even for teenagers. Nacht has a supervillain mother who is constantly trying to get Nacht to use her powers to help mommy commit crimes; Nacht doesn't mind the crime part, but she really doesn't want to spend time with her mother. Jobe is a ruthless, amoral genius bio-devisor who even looks like his supervillain dad; his dad hates that junior doesn't have a flair for mechanical devises instead. Carmilla has Deep Ones in her mother's ancestry, and is the grandchild of Shub-Niggurath on her father's side; she's taking the Screw Destiny approach right now. And so on... It's worth noting that membership in the Bad Seeds does not in itself infer an intention to become a supervillain (some do, some don't, and the setting makes plain that either is no more likely than any other high school career ambition) they're just more-or-less stuck together for mutual protection because everyone else fears that evil is in their blood.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Zuko is a painfully complicated (as usual) case — according to Iroh, his inner conflict and confusion in Season 3 is revealed to be due to inheriting the blemish on his soul from Fire Lord Sozin through his father and a purity of soul from Avatar Roku through his mother: "...[U]nderstanding the struggle between your two great-grandfathers can help you better understand the battle within yourself. Evil and good are always at war inside you, Zuko. It is your nature, your legacy."
  • Azula also shares this trope with her brother but adopts the more merciless traits of the previous Fire Lords (I.E. Azulon and Ozai). Whereas Zuko's banishment from the Fire Nation led him to grow and develop and learn more of the world beyond the Fire Nation, Azula pretty much absorbed all of the propaganda from the past, lies and all and is essentially the fourth generation of the Fire Nation's toxic mentality and bloody history. By "Smoke and Shadow", one can see a theme between past and future changes for the Fire Nation between them: With Zuko representing the change for the Fire Nation whereas Azula wants it to stay the same as it was during Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai's reigns. However, it's worth noting a potential underlying fear of change in her as well; as it seems like Azula had never fathomed a different path the world would take.
• Harley Quinn (2019): Harley Quinn father is a mobster and her mother is completely supportive of it. It's debatable if Harley's turn to villainy and terrible taste in men was a result of this or them just being terrible parents, however. And that's not going into the Troubling Unchildlike Behavior she exhibited on her own.
• Jade Armor: Kai's family is said to be "corrupt" and "sinister". They are also related to Big Bad the Crimson Lord.
• In The Simpsons, Sideshow Bob's son Gino very quickly develops his father's psychotic hatred of the Simpsons family as well as a penchant for waving knives around despite being a toddler.
• Tangled: The Series: It is revealed in Season 3 that Cassandra, Rapunzel's Lady-In-Waiting, is actually the biological daughter of Mother Gothel, the Big Bad of the animated film. Although she was initially unaware (or rather, had Repressed Memories) of her true parentage due to being adopted by the guard captain of Corona at an early age, Zhan Tiri would utilize Cassandra's past to manipulate her into betraying Rapunzel under the pretense that she stole all of her mother's love for her on the night Gothel kidnapped Rapunzel and abandoned Cassandra, even though in reality, she had little to no love for her own daughter and treats her as a glorified servant.
• Yogi's Space Race: Phantom Phink was described in a Space Race Biography as a descendant of Dr. Jekyll. The narrator said it explains Phink being a bad guy. (And that's because he doesn't know (or knows but refuses to believe) Captain Good and Phantom Phink are one and the same.)

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