This trope is under discussion
in the Trope Repair Shop.
Owen: I'll make it up to him next year; I promise.
Beru: Luke's just not a farmer, Owen. He has too much of his father in him.
Owen: That's what I'm afraid of.
Widow Alice has gotten herself a nice home, and is raising her son Bob there, happy except for the loss of his father—but it has been years, and she has her son. Except one day, Bob comes running home burbling about someone telling him that his father killed the dragon and demands to know more.
And Widow Alice feels like she's been stabbed to the heart, envisioning her son lying before her, pale and bleeding, like his dying father had.
A character has charge of a child (usually her son) and is desperate to keep this child from imitating another relative (usually his father). This is a fear of history repeating itself for his fate, which may be turning evil and usually ends with being dead. Hereditary Suicide may be one cause.
Making this relative a secret is one technique; though, this usually makes the forbidden relative Forbidden Fruit. Another, as popular, is extracting a promise, which the child will usually try to keep until the pressure gets too high.
Trying to keep the child from evil has a fairly good success rate. Trying to keep him from his father's profession has a considerably poorer one, particularly when the reaction to the father's violent life is to try to make an Actual Pacifist; though the child may turn out less violent, there is usually something he must defend against. When the mother's motive is to keep him from being killed by the precise character who killed the father, this is generally a prequel to You Killed My Father.
Keeping the Ancestral Weapon out of the child's hand is often an element of it, and when he finally gets it, a sign that the struggle is over, and the child will be like his father—Take Up My Sword metaphorically as well as literally.
When the hero wants the child away from him, it's Give Him a Normal Life. When the villain wants to raise the kid to act differently, it's Evil Parents Want Good Kids. When the character hates his "condition" and doesn't want to pass it on, it's What If the Baby Is Like Me. See Turning Into Your Parent when the character realizes they have become like one of their parents.
See also Villainous Lineage, Generation Xerox, Follow in My Footsteps. Contrast Loser Son of Loser Dad, Raise Him Right This Time.
Examples:
- Choujin X: Ely's mother was a notorious bandit who stole from and killed various people for the sake of satiating her greed. In her dying moments, however, Ely's mother returned home and entrusted her parents with her infant child, Ely, asking them to raise raise so that she won't turn out like herself. Ely, knowing of her mother's criminal lifestyle, has always felt deeply insecure about being her child, fearing that she'd inevitably end up like her mother somehow. This very insecurity is ironically what gives birth to Ely's powers as a Thief Choujin, forcing her to become a "thief" in order to protect those around her.
- Gon of Hunter × Hunter was left in the care of his aunt when his father decided following his dreams as a Hunter were more important than raising Gon. It is constantly pointed out that Gon greatly resembles Ging. The plot kicks off when Gon sets out to become a hunter like Ging, both to meet his father and to find out what about being a hunter is so great that it would cause his father to leave
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- In Part II, Erina is very worried about her grandson Joseph getting wrapped up in the stone mask business, as that's what killed Jonathan Joestar, her husband and his grandfather (and, as revealed later, it also led to the death of her son George), and men in the Joestar family have a history of dying rather young in general. Unfortunately, the call knew Joseph was vacationing in New York. A bit ironically, Joseph ends up being the only JoJo to die of old age.
- Later on, in Part V, a big part of why Jotaro Kujo sent Koichi to Italy to investigate Haruno Shibana, who by then went by the name Giorno Giovanna, was that after learning that Giorno is the biological son of Dio Brando, Jotaro feared that if left unchecked, the young man might become another threat just like his father. Luckily for everyone, key factors in Giorno's childhood, namely the unknowing intervention of a gangster with a sense of justice inspired the son of DIO to become a kind-hearted, if quite coldly ruthless member of the Joestar bloodline.
- Batman: Villain The Penguin uses umbrellas because his father died of pneumonia, and his mother feared the same for him.
- In Bone, Gran'ma Ben shelters her granddaughter Thorn, hoping that the two of them could live an average life as an alternative to ruling the Valley after the rest of the royal family is betrayed and killed.
- Green Lantern Hal Jordan's father died on the job as a fighter pilot (in front of Hal's eyes). His mother made him swear to never join the Air Force, but he did so anyway.
- In The Sandman (1989), this trope is the reason why Shakespeare is opposed to young Thomas Quiney dating his daughter Judith, since he knows of his father's sordid reputation. The postscriptum at the very end of the comic clarifies that Shakespeare's fears were justified, and that Thomas Quiney and Judith Shakespeare did indeed end up together, and it wasn't a happy marriage.
- ComicBook.Spider Man 2099: The reason that Miguel is The Un-Favorite, as he always suspected. However, he's only half-right. As he later finds out, his mother doesn't dislike him because she fears he'll turn out like her husband, George O'Hara, but because she believes she sees him growing more and more like his real father everyday, Tyler Stone.
- Wanted reveals that Wesley's mother raised him to be a pacifistic loser because she realized that he had the potential to be like his father was. It doesn't help.
- The Bridge and its spin-off The Bridge: Humanity's Stand, some of humanity and the GDF worry that Godzilla Junior, although a force for good and benefactor of humanity, will eventually become more like his highly destructive father. Junior, himself, worries this may happen and is conscious he is in some ways like his predecessor.
- The Child of Love: Inverted during a Dream Sequence where a frightened and despaired Shinji cries out that he will turn out like his father because they are just too alike, and his mother reassures him that he will not be like Gendo when he grows up.
- The Crimson Garment: Ryuko as a child was very similar to Ragyo before her Split-Personality Takeover. Ambitious, driven, cheerful, and loves to look good in front of authority figures. Satsuki takes more to Soichirou. Inventive, thoughtful, docile, and has a strong moral compass. Both Ragyo and Ishin Matoi try to drive these personality traits out of them with mixed results.
- Dodged a Beetle: Lila's mother dislikes seeing her daughter acting like her father, not wanting her to follow in his footsteps. Lila is aware of this, and tries to adjust her behavior around her accordingly to put her mind at ease.
- Just an Unorthodox Thief: Fujiko worries her daughter Riko will grow up to inherit the Lupin family's love of thievery, and wants her to have a normal childhood unlike either of her parents did. She does join the new Lupin gang in the finale.
- Miraculous Ladybug fanfic Miraculous Ladybug: Rift Wars: Marinette's militant drive to keep Adrien in the dark about Hawk Moth being his father Gabriel Agreste, because she fears that the Sins of the Father would taint his life, ends up being Marinette's Fatal Flaw (alongside being Too Clever by Half), with her instantly agreeing to a Deal with the Devil after Hawk Moth pointed out the risk of exposing his identity to Adrien. This deal leads to Hawk Moth turning Marinette into a Manchurian Agent and the Miraculous wielders entering a civil war of those who gained a Broken Pedestal after discovering Marinette's treachery (among them being Adrien) and those who stand by Mari's belief she did nothing wrong.
- The Skystone Sword: Lauren tries to stop Jexel from becoming an adventurer, fearing he'll die in battle just as her husband, a Lumbridge castle guardsman, perished in a raid by the Skulls of Draynor, and she absolutely reads Xenia the riot act after Jexel returns safely from rescuing Ilona.
- Suffer: Keelie, who becomes increasingly disturbed when her son Ace cuts his hair, wears piercings, and tries rock music, and tries to drive him away from punk, fearing he would be like his abusive father. Defied by Gadget, who sees punk as harmless and lets his son stay this way.
- Creed (2015): Mary Anne is afraid that Adonis will suffer his father's fate, and has a very good reason to feel that way.
- George of the Jungle 2: Played with George Jr., who prefers vine surfing to vine swinging, which he finds dangerous. George isn't too thrilled, and comments about it to his wife Ursula.
George: Must be from your side of family.
- The Godfather:
- Kay confronts Michael to allow their son Anthony to abandon his law studies and pursue a musical career. Michael is legit by then and needs lawyers, but he graciously concedes.
- Michael explicitly mentors Vincent to avoid the mistakes of Santino, his father.
But his temper. Clouded his judgment. I don't want to see the same thing happen to you.Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.
- The Heavenly Kid: A greaser is killed when his car goes over a cliff in a game of "Chicken". He comes back to Earth years later to become guardian angel to his nerdy teenage son. Neither of them know that they are father and son. The son starts acting like the greaser and says his catchphrase "I got it covered." This freaks out his mom, who is afraid he's going to die just like his father.
- Johnny Dangerously: Ma Kelly doesn't want either of her kids turning out like their father, "Killer" Kelly.
- Matty from One-Trick Pony wants to be a songwriter and musician, like his absentee father. His mother desperately wishes he'd pick a better role model.
- Star Wars is probably the best-known example, and the efforts to keep Luke from being like his father (who, as we all know, went evil) occupy three separate characters: Owennote , Ben Kenobi, and Yoda. In Return of the Jedi, Luke realizes that he's dangerously close to invoking this trope after he cuts off Vader's cybernetic right hand and looks down at his own cybernetic right hand. This prompts him to deactivate and discard his lightsaber so he won't be further tempted.
- System Crasher: A sibling variation. Me. Klaas confesses to Mrs. Befané that she doesn't want Benni home so soon because she's scared that she'll rub off on Leo, who is starting to suffer from the same disorder as her.
- Top Gun: Maverick: Rooster holds a grudge against Maverick for blocking his application to the Naval Academy, delaying his career by several years. It turns out Maverick did it at the request of Rooster's mother, who wanted to prevent her son from becoming a pilot and dying as his father did.
- In The Waterboy, Mama Boucher has kept Bobby sheltered and at home well into his thirties because she fears him abandoning her just like her husband did.
- In some versions of Arthurian Legend, Percival (son of King Pellinore, known for his pursuit of the Questing Beast) was raised in the forest by his mother to keep him from hearing of knights. His first glimpse of a Knight in Shining Armor makes him long to be one.
- In the YA book, Banner In The Sky by James Ramsey Ullman, the widow of a famed mountain guide tries to keep her son from following in his father's footsteps as a guide.
- Discworld:
- Unseen Academicals. Trev promised his mother not to play football, like his father did.
- Making Money. In Mr Bent's Backstory, his father was one of the greatest clowns in history, but his mother—apparently in reaction to the circus moving on, taking his father with it—developed a disapproval of clowning and raised him very soberly,
- Raising Steam has Dick Simnel, whose dad Ned died in a cloud of superheated vapor trying to build a steam engine. His mother begged him not to play with steam, but he's determined to conquer where his father failed, through his knowing of the sine and the cosine, and the sliding rule.
- The Dursleys do not want Harry Potter to turn out magical like his mother. So, they don't tell him about her or his father, and do their best to keep him from Hogwarts. This notably isn't because his parents were evil or even because the Dursleys care about him; they just don't like magic and hate the idea of there being a wizard in their "normal" family.
- In Seanan McGuire's October Daye novel Ashes of Honor, despite her mother's frantic efforts to protect her, Chelsea in the end concludes that she is like her father.
- In Överenskommelser by Simona Ahrnstedt, it rather is "turn out like her grandmother". Beatrice reminds her uncle Wilhelm too much of his mother, who had left her family to study abroad. His treatment of his niece goes downhill from there.
- In the Popol Vuh of the Kiche Maya, the mother and grandmother of Hunter and Jaguar Deer hide their father's ball gear from them, as well as the truth that their father was a ball player. A rat reveals the truth and helps the two to find said ball gear.
- Averted in Prince Roger series, albeit in a convoluted way. Roger resembles his unknown-to-him father, whom everyone else knows is a condemned and unrepentant traitor, which makes him The Unfavourite. He responds by becoming a Royal Brat because it ticks his mother off, not knowing it makes him resemble his father even more, and makes his mother think he is emulating his father on purpose. After Roger learns what was really going on... well, the first time he meets his father he decides to behead him for torturing, raping, and mind-raping his mother—would have done it, if not for a timely intervention of Nimashet Despreaux.
- In Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer's Sorcery and Cecelia, Cecelia's great-aunt lost her fiancé to his magical studies, and is horrified at the thought of Cecelia learning from the same wizard. (Fortunately, it was a misunderstanding. Though she is not entirely pleased about any form of study, she accepts it.)
- Drina's grandparents in the Drina books by Jean Estoril don't want her to become a ballerina, because her secret famous ballerina mother died because of it.
- Achebe's Things Fall Apart features the character Okonkwo, who dedicates his life to proving that he is not his lazy father. It ends up being his fatal flaw.
- Gender-Inverted in Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191 books. When Canadian bomber Arthur MacGregor dies after losing at Grenade Hot Potato with George Custer, his wife Maude tries in vain to keep their younger daughter Mary from taking up his deadly work.
- In Warrior Cats, Firestar is awkward around Bramblepaw because he looks exactly like his father, Firestar's nemesis Tigerstar. Later on, when Bramblepaw (renamed Brambleclaw) starts receiving training from Tigerstar, he and his half-brother Hawkfrost are pushed towards being just as ambitious as their father was. Though Brambleclaw does manage to stop himself, Hawkfrost cannot, and does end up like Tigerstar.
- Ryan in The Boys (2019) is the Child by Rape of the Big Bad Homelander and Billy Butcher's wife Becca. Everyone involved wanted to prevent him from being a megalomaniac like his father (with Butcher intending to use him as a weapon against him), and attempted to keep his parentage a secret until Homelander himself showed up with the intent of giving him a happy childhood... and turning him into a Super Supremacist like himself.
- In an episode of Criminal Minds, the father is a Serial Killer and rapist. His wife found out and made sure he wouldn't hurt anyone ever again... Unfortunately, the son eventually discovers his parentage by himself and is fascinated by it, becoming his father's Jack the Ripoff. In an interesting twist, the father's original victim escaped and also had his child. He also finds out, but keeps it to himself out of respect for his mother and does not appear to display any homicidal tendencies.
- Game of Thrones: Daenerys Targaryen faces the stigma of being "The Mad King's Daughter", with both friends and allies worried that she will turn out to be another Aerys II. About the only thing she and her father have in common is using fire as a weapon. And then she decides to torch King's Landing in revenge for all Cersei has done to her and her own allies shutting her out, fulfilling her father's last order before his own death.
- JAG: This is Annie Pendry's biggest fear concerning her son Josh, after his father is killed in a plane crash in "Pilot Error." She points out that Harm became a fighter pilot after his own father went missing in Vietnam, further reinforcing her concern.
- In Legend of the Seeker, Richard accidentally time travels to a Bad Future. The flashbacks reveal that, after Richard's apparent death in his own time, Darken Rahl forced Kahlan to become his consort. She agreed, having found out from a witch that Richard is in the future and hoping that being Rahl's consort will allow her to survive long enough to provide Richard the necessary information in order to go back and change things. She ends up getting pregnant with a son and begs Rahl to allow her to kill him in accordance with Confessor custom, as male Confessors always turn out to be abusers of their abilities. Rahl refuses, excited at having a male heir, figuring that he ought to be able to mold a Confessor/sorcerer to his own ends. However, Nicholas Rahl turns out to be exactly like Rahl himself, killing his parents (just like Darken killed his father Panis) and becoming an even worse tyrant than his father, using his Confessor powers to force his people to adore him and attack anyone who doesn't. Fortunately, Richard is able to go back to the moment he left and stop it from happening.
- In Merlin, one of the titular hero's main tasks is to try and ensure that Prince Arthur doesn't grow up into a ruthless, tyrannical bigot like his father Uther. While he does succeed in curbing some of Arthur's more prominent Royal Brat tendencies, most of his attempts to show Arthur that magic can be a force for good end up spectacularly backfiring and making Arthur distrust magic more, even if he doesn't go around persecuting sorcerers as brutally as Uther did.
- OuterBanks, JJ and John B say this to each other about their respective fathers when John B gets caught up in the treasure hunt that is getting more and more dangerous, and JJ when he starts stealing from drug dealers and getting in deep with the law.
- Raising Hope: In "Killer Hope", Burt and Virginia get worried that Hope will turn out like her mother (a serial killer) when she hits a kid at daycare.
- Raven's Home: Chelsea hopes to avoid this with Levi ever since Garrett, her ex-husband, was sent to prison. Unfortunately, her method of sugar-coating everything about Garrett only serves to make Levi think it's okay to copy his father's crooked business schemes in one episode.
- Bobby Singer in Supernatural has a whole series of flashbacks in the episode where he dies where it eventually is revealed that he was never willing to have kids because he was sure he'd turn out just like his father.
- 3rd Rock from the Sun: From "Dick Solomon of the Indiana Solomons":
Aunt Florence: (after Dick gets into a fight with Jacob) You're sounding just like your father!Dick: Damn straight, Aunt Florence! Damn straight!
- War of the Worlds (2019): Chloe laments that her son's like his father, seeing a lot of similarity between them. It's also a darker example than most, since his father conceived him by raping Chloe. She's clearly afraid of Sacha becoming like him (especially since he already left his father to die).
- "Coward of the County":
- Happens when Tommy's father (who's dying in prison) is the one telling him not to be like his old man.
Promise me, Son, not to do the things I've done
Walk away from trouble if you can. - And then subverted at the end, when Tommy beats the crap out of three men who assaulted his girlfriend.
Now please don't think I'm weak,
I couldn't turn the other cheek
And, Papa, I sure hope you understand
Sometimes you have to fight when you're a man
- Happens when Tommy's father (who's dying in prison) is the one telling him not to be like his old man.
- Cat Stevens has this in "Father and Son".
I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy.
- This is the twist of "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin. In the first verses, the father is too busy for his son, who still loves him and swears "I'm gonna be like you, dad!" In the last verse, the son is too busy for his aged father, and the father observes that the son did turn out like him.
- The Flemish/Dutch singer Stef Bos had the song "Papa" ("Dad") which is about a man reminiscing how much he looks and acts like his father.
- Drake has mentioned similarities between himself and his father several times in his music. Although, in his song "Look What You've Done" he mentions that his mother, who got divorced from his father when he was five, sometimes makes negative comparisons between Drake and his father when she's upset with him.
"And you tell me I'm just like my father—my one button, you push it"
- Pulp's "A Little Soul" is about a deadbeat father offering his abandoned son the one useful piece of advice he can give him:
Everybody's telling me you look like me, but please don't turn into me,
You look like me, but you're not like me, I hope.
- Chris Jericho's second feud with CM Punk revolved around Jericho trying to make Punk into an alcoholic after discover CM Punk's father was one and coming to the conclusion Punk's Straight Edge lifestyle was the result of him trying to avoid the same fate.
- The central theme of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts is that history repeats, reflected in the title. The deceased Mr. Alving was beloved by the community, but most of it was thanks to his wife, whom he cheated on multiple times. After his death, Mrs. Alving wants to donate all her inheritance to charity to make sure her son doesn't inherit anything from dear old dad. It seems to be futile, however, as said son has inherited his father's attitude, and something else as well.
- In Street Scene, just before the police take Mr. Maurrant away, he tells his daughter Rose to take good care of her younger brother for this reason:
"Keep your eye on Willie, Rose. Don't let Willie grow up to be a murderer, like his Pop."
- In Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, Amanda Wingfield futilely attempts to persuade her son Tom not to abandon his family by becoming a sailor and travelling the world, just like his father before him, which he inevitably does by the conclusion.
- Gorion in Baldur's Gate must have had this worry, though it's never quite stated outright. Being the Lawful Good foster father of the protagonist, whose real father was Bhaal, a God of Evil, he can't have wanted them to follow in his footsteps in any sense, even though the prophecies made it likely they'd either do that or just die.
- Final Fantasy X: Wakka and Lulu tried to convince Yuna to not become a Summoner like her father, because she would die whether she defeated Sin or not. Auron plays this straight with Tidus and Yuna; he doesn't want them to become their fathers—he wants them to surpass them and break the cycle.
- In Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, Arvis has twin children, Julius and Julia. One of them has full Loptous blood (from both parents) and the other has full Naga blood (from their mother, Deirdre). So guess who Manfroy tries to remove to keep from emulating their other ancestor. That's right... Julia.
- Played with in Knights of the Old Republic, where the Jedi Council is trying to stop Revan from going down the same path he took last time around. It isn't the character's father, but the scene is played in the exact same manner down to the Council's reluctance to tell the player about Revan.
- Road 96: John is very hesitant to tell Alex about his birth parents. He worries knowing they built the bomb which the Brigade used in the Collapse of '86 would radicalize Alex. His worries are well-founded as without intervention by the player, Robert will successfully radicalize Alex, convincing him to build a bomb before getting killed during the riots at the Wall.
- Sunless Sea: The more time your Captain spends with their family back home in London, the more their child will want to go to sea, eventually provoking an encounter where you either allow it or try to convince them it's too dangerous. If you fail, the child leaves forever. If you succeed, they stay, but the Captain's own "Menaces: Nightmares" score increases from the memories they've dredged up.
- Ada Lovelace was taught mathematics to suppress the "fanciful poetic instinct" of her father, Lord Byron. It didn't quite work. She still had enough imagination to come up with what was likely the first computer programming language (for Babbage's mechanical computer).
- The early Christian theologian Origen. His father was martyred, and the teenage Origen wanted to follow him to glorious death, but his clever mother hid all his clothing. When Origen eventually died, it was late in life from broken health after a long period of imprisonment and torture.
