Basic Trope: Taking your anger out on the child born from a spouse’s infidelity.
- Straight:
- Alice hates Charles because he was born from her husband Bob’s infidelity with Charles’ mother Dana.
- Bob hates Charles because he was the result of his wife Alice’s affair.
- Exaggerated: Alice blames Charles for everything wrong with not only her marriage, but her life.
- Downplayed: Alice doesn’t enjoy the fact that Charles was born from an affair Bob had, but doesn’t treat him terribly as a result of this.
- Justified:
- Alice is a reputation-obsessed woman who believes that the son from Bob’s infidelity reflects badly on her, leading her to lash out at Charles.
- Alice is not is position to take out her anger of the affair on the one who actually committed it.
- Charles openly prefers his biological mother despite her lack of involvement in his life.
- Subverted: Alice rightfully blames Bob for his cheating and not the innocent child who was conceived from it.
- Double Subverted: However, since Bob cheated on Alice with her friend Dana, she despises Charles for being a constant reminder of being the result of the affair her husband had with her own best friend.
- Parodied: Alice sincerely believes Charles is the Anti-Christ simply because he's the product of her husband's affair, and treats him akin to a Sitcom Archnemesis.
- Zig Zagged: Alice initially has contempt for Charles when she learns that he’s Bob’s son from the affair he had with Dana. Gradually however, Alice starts to realize how terrible she’s been when she gets called out on it by her children since it’s their father she should be mad at and not the boy who couldn’t control being born.
- Averted: Alice doesn’t treat Charles poorly despite his origins.
- Inverted: Alice likes Charles over her own children, Freddie and Georgia, and blames them/herself for the affair.
- Charles is the one who hates any of his parents for how he was conceived.
- Enforced: Alice isn’t particularly well-liked by the writers, so they amp up her negative traits by including a storyline where Bob had a child out of an affair in order to get the fans to hate her and write her out faster.
- Lampshaded: “Are you seriously blaming little Charlie for Bob’s affair?”
- Invoked: Dana claims that her son Charles is Bob’s son from an affair she had with him (whether or not that’s true) to get a bad reaction out of the traditional Alice.
- Exploited: Dana, who’s in love with Bob and can’t see why he loves Alice, uses Alice’s dislike of their son Charles as a reason why Bob should leave Alice for her.
- Defied: When Alice and her children learn that Charles is Bob’s son from an affair, Alice makes it clear to Charles that he’s no different from her other children. This is the result of Alice herself being the result of an affair and being held in contempt for it, and she doesn’t want Charles to feel terrible because of how he was conceived.
- Discussed: Alice’s friend Elaine asks her if it’s really worth punishing Charles for simply being born of Bob’s affair, something he had no control over.
- Conversed: “Why the hell would Alice want to blame that baby? It’s her husband that had the affair!”
- Deconstructed: Alice blaming Charles for Bob’s infidelity is seen as an unhealthy way of dealing with the actual issues that are actually destroying her marriage, which causes people to think that she’s just looking for a scapegoat instead of really confronting Bob about his constant cheating.
- Played For Drama:
- Charles feels that he shouldn’t have been born because Alice hates him, which causes him to have very low self-esteem — ultimately leading him to take his own life.
- Alice disparages Charles for being the product of her husband's infidelity, and Charles gives her an epic "The Reason You Suck" Speech for treating him like crap over something he had no responsibility for. This causes Alice to have a Heel Realization.
- Alice's own children decide they want nothing to do with someone who Would Hurt a Child and leave her.
Go back to Affair? Blame the Bastard.
