Toxic Family Influence

A person's behavior is often shaped by their families; as a result, people who come from toxic families sometimes become toxic themselves because of their family's influence. A good person in a rotten family might end up committing evil actions or becoming evil themselves because of their relative's influence or a desire to be accepted. A person who looks up to a relative might emulate said relative's bad behavior out of blind admiration or naïvety. It's also possible for someone's relatives to directly raise them to be terrible people.

There are a number of character types that this trope can be applied to; a school bully might be a bully because their own parents are bullies who directly or indirectly taught them to bully others. A person who's bad with relationships might be so because they are emulating the romantic choices of their relatives. A person who's addicted to drugs, alcohol, or smoking might have learned the habit from their families.

Works will often have this trope act as a Freudian Excuse for younger characters under the reasoning that they learned their behavior from the adults around them. Said works will often have the influenced character's caretaker losing custody and the influenced youngster becoming a better person due to having positive influences. See also Children Are Innocent.

Sub-Trope of Inappropriate Role Model. Familial counterpart to Toxic Friend Influence. See also Taught to Hate for when the family's toxic influence results in moments of prejudice, conscious or otherwise. Compare Spoiled Brat and Pushover Parents in how toxic behavior is enabled by parenting. Also compare The Chain of Harm and Shared Family Quirks. Contrast Upbringing Makes the Hero, where a person's good nature is the result of being positively influenced by their family, and In the Blood where someone's evil nature is the result of genetics rather than familial influence. Also contrast Evil Parents Want Good Kids and Like Father, Unlike Son.

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Examples:

Advertising

• The anti-drug PSA "I Learned It By Watching You," has a father becoming furious when he finds out his son is using drugs. When he asks his son who taught him, the son responds by saying he learned it by watching his father.
  Narrator: Parents who use drugs, have children who use drugs.

Anime & Manga

• Adolf: Adolf Kaufman is the son of a Nazi official in Kobe, Japan. Initially friendly with Adolf Kamil, the son of a Jewish German couple, Adolf Kaufman is sent by his father to an Adolf-Hitler-Schule where he receives heavy Nazi indoctrination until he volunteers to kill "enemies of the Reich" during The Holocaust.
• Quite a few Candy♡Candy episodes show that Neil doesn't hate Candy, but is put up to it by his bitchy sister Eliza. He eventually realizes he has feelings for Candy and tries to date her, much to her disgust.
• Hello! Sandybell: After Sandybell moves in with the Ronwoods, Honor goes out of her way to make her feel unwelcome and her daughter Eva follows suit. However, when Eva actually gets to know Sandybell, she realizes that she's a Nice Girl and decided to be her friend.
• Subverted in Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Phantom Blood. When Dio is caught trying to murder George Joestar, he tries to use his abusive biological father as a reason for his bad deeds. Speedwagon, however, refuses to accept this as an excuse and insists that Dio has been evil since the day he was born. Dio is quick to agree with Speedwagon and immediately rejects his humanity.
• Lady!!: Sophie Montgomery was deliberately put up by her mother Jeanne to con out Isabelle's inheritance by making her other potential heirs look bad; however Sophie can't do it and eventually breaks down, confessing this to her.
• My Hero Academia:
  • Shoto Todoroki was physically and emotionally abused by his Vicariously Ambitious father, the hero Endeavor. Endeavor isolated Shoto from his family and prevented him from befriending others in school in favor of training to surpass All Might. This stunted Shoto's social skills and left him bitter and single-mindedly focused on hero work. Inasa Yoarashi went so far as to refuse to attend U.A. after meeting Shoto, who left an awful impression that reminded Inasa of Shoto's Jerkass father.
  • Kotaro Shimura was abusive toward his two children for wanting to be heroes because of his Abandonment-Induced Animosity toward his mother, Nana, the seventh wielder of One For All. This eventually led his son Tenko to snap and accidentally kill his family using his newly awakened Quirk, Decay, setting him on the path to becoming Tomura Shigaraki.
  • Eri's horrible self-esteem came about when her Quirk accidentally rewinded her father out of existence. This led her mother to abandon her, calling her a "cursed child", leaving Eri in the care of her maternal grandfather, the former boss of the Shie Hassaikai. This put her in the crosshairs of Chisaki, who objectified her as a tool while disassembling and reassembling her to create his Quirk-erasing bullets. This leaves Eri a Broken Bird who has forgotten how to smile by the time the heroes meet her.
• One Piece: Big Mom's Big, Screwed-Up Family she is the matriarch of is the result of this: she fancies herself a Family-Values Villain who genuinely wishes to build a land of equality, but because she tends to discard the husbands she marries for the sake of giving birth to each of her children, they're only left with a Psychopathic Womanchild who only sees her children as an army at best or pieces of collection (those conceived with non-human races) at worst. Worse, she has no empathy for any of them, except for how useful they are to her, and would rather lose one of her children than some candies, to the point she was abusive to Chiffon just because she was the identical twin of Lola — who put a wedge on her plan to secure the allegiance of the Giants and did nothing to stop the bullying on Bruleé and Pudding. Even when she acts somewhat motherly, she's still terrible because she enables their bad habits, which results in several of them sharing her hedonistic mindset. Given that both of her Parental Substitutes, Mother Carmel and Streusen, enabled her bad habits for their ulterior purposes, her mindset on parenting is clearly warped.
• Revolutionary Girl Utena: Played for Drama. Granted, it's a family of one, but (MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING) basically every crime that Anthy commits is at the behest of Akio, her elder brother. Her reasons — and their shared history — are both complicated and Shrouded in Myth, but the more supernatural elements are blatently a paper-thin metaphor for how thoroughly Domestic Abuse can condition someone to accept the worst possible treatment and even become complicit in additional abuses themselves. It's not even love that keeps her with him either — Anthy has crossed the Despair Event Horizon long ago, and cannot imagine things getting better because she believes herself irredeemable; the closest thing she has to hope is that, if Akio regains the Power Of Dios, he'll become the kind elder brother she remembers (something that will clearly never happen). Her Character Development during the Grand Finale is realizing (via Utena's Heroic Sacrifice) that no matter what Akio says or how she feels, she can still love and still BE loved, empowering her to leave her toxic family and past behind forever to become her own person.

Comic Books

• American Born Chinese: Timmy is a white boy in Jin's class with racist parents. The first thing he says when Jin is introduced to the class is, "My momma says Chinese people eat dogs."
• In Batman, Damian Wayne was raised by his mother and grandfather, Talia and Ra's, to believe that the world was his by right while teaching him to be a cold-blooded killer. This leaves Damian an Insufferable Genius and a volatile Tyke Bomb with an unsettling propensity for violence. Much of his early character arc revolves around Bruce's and Dick's attempts to rehabilitate Damian and teach him things like "empathy" and "social skills" that Ra's had deemed unnecessary for Damian to learn.

Fan Works

• Aftermath of a Fallen Star: Prince Blueblood used to be Princess Cadence's childhood friend and a sweet, kind, playful colt, until his parents taught him that because they were nobility, everypony of lower class was beneath them. He became a rude, selfish, stuck-up stallion, leading Cadence to stop associating with him. Even so, she still remembers and mourns for the good pony he used to be, even if she has no illusions about who he is now. After his execution for murdering Twilight, she secretly claims his body and buries it in a private grave that only she ever visits, marked with the nickname she used to call him, "Bluey," as a token of their former friendship.
• Blackbird: Dinah Lance to her daughter Sara Lance. Between letting her believe it was a good idea to go on the Gambit to sleep with her older sister Laurel's boyfriend because she was 'in love,' to manipulating her using her trauma to go along with trading Laurel to the League in exchange for her freedom, everything that's gone wrong in Sara's life can ultimately be traced back to Dinah's terrible parenting. On some level, Sara is aware of it too but has been unable to leave Dinah for the past three years because she would have to tell the truth about Laurel's disappearance to her father Quentin, the only other person that would be willing to take her in. Unsurprisingly, the moment Laurel is freed and that is no longer a concern, Sara ditches Dinah for Quentin almost immediately.
• The Dogfather: Explored regarding Draco Malfoy. As in Harry Potter, he inherits his Blue Blood family's classism and bigotry. Unlike the books, he becomes part of Harry's social circle and is influenced by them too, causing him to question his family's prejudices over the years and ultimately realize how terrible his father is.
• The Many Dates of Danny Fenton: Most of the children of the various bullies are just as bad as their parents were as teenagers due to the fact that they were raised to be just like them. One of the notable exceptions is Paola, the daughter of Dash and Paulina, who was raised mostly by her grandparents, who, unlike their children, are decent people.

Films — Animated

• Kung Fu Panda: The main reason why Tai Lung is such a violent Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy is because Master Shifu (his martial arts trainer and adoptive father) taught him a lot about fighting and strength, but he neglected to teach him humility as well, telling his son that he was destined for greatness. Then, when Tai Lung's ego had been inflated enough that he now believed himself destined to be the Dragon Warrior, only to have his hopes dashed by Oogway sensing darkness in his heart and refusing to give him the Dragon Scroll, Shifu's decision not to stand up for his son and challenge Oogway was seen by the snow leopard as a Betrayal by Inaction, after which he went on a rampage through the Valley of Peace, tried stealing the Dragon Scroll, and seriously injured Shifu in the process. By the climax of the film, while being subjected to a vicious Calling the Old Man Out/Rage Against the Mentor combined with a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, Shifu finally comes to realize that he is just as much to blame for his son's atrocities as Tai Lung himself is:
  Tai Lung: WHO FILLED MY HEAD WITH DREAMS?! WHO DROVE ME TO TRAIN UNTIL MY BONES CRACKED?! WHO DENIED ME MY DESTINY?!! (...) All I did, I did to make you PROUD!! Tell me how proud you are, Shifu! Tell me!! TEEEEELL MEEEEEEEEE!!!
  Shifu: I have... I have always been proud of you. From the first moment, I've been... proud of you. And it was my pride... that blinded me. I loved you too much to see what you were becoming... What I... was turning you into. I... I'm sorry.
• The Lorax (2012): When the Once-ler started his business, he initially agreed to pick the tuffs of the Truffula trees without chopping them down in order to sustain them. He ends up going back on his word when his family pressures him into engaging in environmentally unsustainable business practices.
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: The main reason that Miles's father Jefferson wants him to stay away from his uncle Aaron is due to the fact that Jeff believes he's a bad influence on Miles, as Aaron has a criminal record. Miles genuinely looks up to his uncle, but this view becomes shattered after he realizes that Aaron is the Prowler, a supervillain who was partially responsible for the death of his universe's Peter Parker, and who has hunted him down several times. Nonetheless, he serves the same role to Miles that Uncle Ben served to Peter, down to getting murdered in cold blood by a criminal. The sequel ultimately shows that Jefferson is right to be cautious of Miles' interactions with Aaron; the spider that bit Miles to give him his powers comes from a dimension where Jefferson was killed but Aaron is still alive, and Miles has succeeded the latter as The Prowler..

Films — Live-Action

• The Football Factory: Billy Bright's sons are vicious little tykes who like being rude to foreigners and throwing darts at people to help their father interrogate them. Seeing as Billy himself is a violent, racist Football Hooligan, it's no surprise he'd raise his sons to be just like him.

Literature

• The Berenstain Bears: In The Berenstain Bears and the Bully, Sister Bear has a bully named Tuffy. After a fight with Sister Bear, Tuffy reveals that the reason she's a bully is because her parents spank her.
• The Berenstain Bears Big Chapter Books: Zig-zagged in The Berenstain Bears and the Big Date. Ronald Grizzington III acts highly stuck-up towards most of his classmates because his parents always discouraged him from interacting with what they call "ordinary" cubs, and pursues Bonnie romantically because it's what his parents expect of him due to their similar social status and their families' business connections. At heart though, he's really a nice guy who only behaved that way so as not to disappoint his parents, and tones down the act after Bonnie has a talk with him about it.
• Dune: Glouss Rabban and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen are shown to be cruel and have a penchant for violence. That's because their Evil Uncle Vladimir Hakonnen raised them to be like that.
• The Famous Five: This is very prominent in Five Run Away Together, with the Stick family. Their son Edgar is a vile bully, with unscrupulous parents, who calls George names when she is upset by her mother going into hospital. Julian retaliates by calling Edgar Spotty-Face, and pulling his nose. Later, when Edgar is unexpectedly captured by the Five, Julian takes great delight in teasing Edgar, and gives him a The Reason You Suck speech just before locking him in a dungeon, for his parents to find. When the family is arrested by the police, Edgar imagines his parents in prison, and himself separated from them for a long time.
• Harry Potter:
  • Vernon and Petunia Dursley spoil and coddle their son Dudley to an absurd degree. This, combined with their cruel treatment of Harry, makes Dudley petulant, demanding, mean to Harry, and a schoolyard bully in general. However, being exposed to the effect of Dementors in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix causes him to start reforming himself, and by the time of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows he and Harry are at least on civil enough terms that he wishes Harry well when the Dursleys abandon their home.
  • Draco Malfoy is a pureblood elitist who's racist towards muggles and muggle-born (aka "mudblood") wizards, just like his parents. After Voldemort returns, he joins the Death Eaters like his father but finds out the hard way that it's not as cool as he thought.
• Like Water for Chocolate: De La Garza family tradition is that the youngest daughter is forbidden from getting married, having to care for her mother until her death. Tita must act like this for Mama Elena. After Mama Elena's death, Tita's sister Rosaura also intends on having her own daughter, Esperanza, uphold the tradition as well. Tita protests against this, fervently. Once Rosaura dies, however, Esperanza gets Happily Married to Dr. Brown's son Alex.
• Ratburger: Zoe has a bully named Tina Trotts, who drools on her head from her balcony and insults her. Later on in the book, it's revealed that she does this due to being pushed around by her mean father.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades: The series leans hard on Children Are Innocent: as mage culture prioritizes the advancement of the study of magic above all other concerns, antagonistic students at Kimberly Magic Academy were almost invariably made that way by toxic relatives who took advantage of a child's desire to please their authority figures, and their redemption — usually accomplished through a fight with the Sword Roses — takes the form of a realization that they don't have to be defined by their family legacy.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Joffrey Baratheon is a Royal Brat who has shown a lot of sociopathic behavior such as bullying his little brother Tommen and cutting open the belly of a pregnant cat to see its kittens. When he inherits the Iron Throne after his father's passing, he orders the arrest and execution of Ned Stark, which kickstart the War of the Five Kings, and abuses Ned's daughter, Sansa, by ordering his guards to beat her up. His mother, Cersei Lannister, is the one who encourages his vile behavior and doesn't bother that her son became the most despised king in all of Westeros since Aerys II Targaryen, the Mad King.

Live-Action TV

• The Brittas Empire: "Mums and Dads" is focused on how the parents of some of the characters helped influence them into the flawed and neurotic individuals that they become by the present day.
  • Jim Brittas told his son Gordon that he could achieve anything he wanted if he put his heart into it and gave him constant praise from an early age. This gave Gordon an unshakable belief in his abilities, which unfortunately leads to Gordon concluding that he is the right man for situations such as running a leisure centre (or replacing an incapacitated pianist) that he isn't actually any good at.
  • Helen's parents saw her as a disappointment, as she had not been born the son her father had needed to inherit a jam factory, and didn't give her much praise when she was growing up. The result is that she has become indecisive, anxious, and constantly dosing herself up with antidepressants.
  • Carole's parents felt that it was more important for her to get a man than to have a career and forced her to give up piano playing in favour of doing more domestic science, even putting her through a beauty course. The result is that Carole becomes an Extreme Doormat with low self-esteem who has ended up in relationships that end poorly for her.
• Grimm: Implied with Adalind after her Heel–Face Turn. Her mother certainly raised her with some cut-throat, pragmatic views of the world that guide some of her worst behaviour pre-turn, and moving on from those views makes her a better person. At the time of her turn, she visits her mother's grave and vows to raise her own children better.
• Kamen Rider Zero-One: Gai Amatsu's perfectionism (and his "one thousand percent" Catchphrase) is the result of his Fantasy-Forbidding Father's own. His dad was a perfectionist who wouldn't accept any grade or result less than beyond perfection; wanting 1000-percent grades out of a 100-percent system and treating anything less as inadequate. Years of impossible expectations caused Gai to mentally retreat inward and begin his Start of Darkness; warping him into a Corrupt Corporate Executive by the present.
• Played for Drama in the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Diamond Dogs", where poor Johnny Feist desperately wants a normal, respectable life, but he's loyal to his abusive, drug-addicted mother, who forces him to rob jewelry stores to feed her habit.
• The Sopranos: The Soprano family is a Big, Screwed-Up Family where nearly every member has emotional baggage, not helped by most of its male members participating in organized crime. Johnny and Livia Soprano were both Abusive Parents to Tony, which led to him becoming a mob boss who is nearly as screwed up as they were as an adult.
• Ted Lasso: Jamie Tartt starts the series as an arrogant prick who never lets anyone else have the spotlight. It's later revealed his father would bully him and call him "soft" if he didn't play aggressively and score the winning goal. Ted's influence and realizing how far he's fallen from how his mother would want him to act starts his journey to become more of a team player.
• Namond Brice in The Wire is the son of a famous drug dealer and gang enforced Wee-Bay Brice, and his mother De'Londa wants the son to follow in his father's footsteps, while also buying him all the fancy clothes and gadgets he wants. When Namond is taken out of the classroom for a special education program for troublemakers, he soon shows some Hidden Depths, while it also becomes clear that he is not cut out for the tough life on the streets. When he is arrested and the police call De'Londa about picking him up, she just tells them he can go to Baby Booking to toughen up. Namond does end up getting adopted by Colvin, and we later see he excels on the debate team in High School.

Theatre

• Death of a Salesman: Biff and Happy Loman are both products of their father Willy's destructive daydreaming. Willy believes Biff is exceptional, so he never learns to play by the rules, and after Biff realizes Willy is not the hero he thought, Biff becomes a complete washout. Meanwhile, Happy is so desperate for Willy's approval that after his death, despite knowing Willy was a failure who died for nothing, he vows to continue his legacy.
• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Played with. In spite of the family's reputation, Scorpius Malfoy, as a result of his father Draco not raising him with the Pureblood supremacy Lucius did, is a much kinder and dorkier person, subverting the trope. Played straight in the timeline where Voldemort won the Second Wizarding War and Draco never repented, where that reality's Scorpius is implied to be a ruthless bully, showing how much Draco's parenting influenced Scorpius.

Video Games

• Dishonored: Corvo can become this to Emily in a High Chaos playthrough of the game, as she grows more and more ruthless and sees her father as a murderous masked figure, as opposed to the kindly, smiling gentleman she draws in a Low Chaos playthrough.
• Final Fantasy XIV:
  • Echo flashbacks reveal that Vauthry was raised to have a severe god complex by his parents, who told him that he was righteousness itself and that the world was his to command. As an adult, he became a petty, childish tyrant who built a Cult of Personality around himself and his ability to control sin eaters while responding to any perceived threats with extreme violence.
  • Barbariccia was once an ordinary, but beautiful woman kept in a Gilded Cage by her parents, who planned to marry her off for political gain. Her father murdered anyone who dared to befriend her, leaving her lonely and desperate for freedom. One day, she snapped, grabbing a nearby hatchet and revisiting the same violence she showed her onto him by swinging over and over until his skull had been completely caved in. This gave Barbariccia a taste for blood, making her a savage warrior who became The Dreaded for her wanton cruelty.
• The two Norse entries of the God of War series make it clear that a lot of the villains are the product of negative familial influences:
  • Baldur, The Heavy of the first game, is a Psychopathic Manchild who repeatedly attacks and antagonises Kratos and Atreus, and spends the last act of the game trying to kill his mother Freya. His backstory throughout the game makes it clear what his Freudian Excuse is: Long ago, the over-protective Freya put a spell on her son to prevent him from "dying a needless death", which made him Feel No Pain, but also made him unable to feel ANYTHING. Being sensually deprived like this made Baldur miserable enough that he eventually went mad and disowned his mother, and once she left Asgard, he only had his sociopathic Control Freak of a father, Odin, to raise him into a glorified tracker/attack dog.
  • Magni and Modi, Thor's sons, follow their uncle in hunting Kratos and Atreus, and while Magni is for the most part a Blood Knight with some standards (namely, he only fights Kratos after trying, and failing, to convince him to surrender), Modi is a straight-up bully, a Jerkass, and a Dirty Coward who viciously insults Atreus and his mother, and keeps trying dirty tactics to beat the boy and his father. It's mentioned by Mimir and Modi himself that Thor is guilty of abusing his sons and Parental Favoritism towards Magni, which leaves them both deeply afraid of earning his anger. While Kratos bluntly states that "They are no longer children. They have no excuse," he later comes to feel some pity for Modi after Thor mistakenly blames him for abandoning Magni to die and gives him an offscreen No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, which leaves him weak enough for Atreus to stab him to death with a small knife, against Kratos' orders. He later calls out Thor for his poor parenting when Thor includes Modi last in his And This Is for... rant during their boss fight at the start of Ragnarok.
  • Finally, Thor himself. While absent throughout the entire first game, the lore depicts him as a violent Dumb Muscle who enjoyed near-single-handedly murdering the peaceful Giants on Odin's orders, killed a mortal woman in a moment of drunken anger, and is abusive towards his sons. Then Ragnarok deconstructs this apparent moment of Adaptational Villainy and reveals the true tragedy of Thor's life — his Giant mother died shortly after giving birth to him, which Odin blamed him for, and raised him under a ton of physical, verbal, and emotional abuse, drilling it into his head that he was violent and stupid and only good for killing people, along with forcing him into alcoholism to keep him compliant. This, combined with the fact that Thor and his wife Sif were still young and unready for parenthood, meant they passed down that abusiveness onto Magni and Modi, especially onto Modi, given his Strong Family Resemblance to the self-loathing Thor. Magni and Modi's deaths were the wake-up call Thor and Sif needed to start improving their attitude as parents to their only surviving child, their daughter Thrud. Ultimately, Thor is not truly a villain — more a broken, sad man trapped in a bad situation he sees no way out of, who wants to be a good parent, but thanks to his own cruel upbringing, doesn't have a healthy frame of reference for how to do that.
• Heavenly Sword: Roach, the gigantic son of King Bohan, is an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, but a large reason why he's a villain at all is that his father is constantly insulting his ugliness and stupidity, putting him down every time he's feeling happy, and reacting with scorn when his son calls him "daddy" in front of Bohan's forces. At one point, Bohan forces Roach to fight Nariko, despite his reluctance, by threatening to kill his pets if he doesn't. Ultimately, though, Roach is not evil enough for Nariko to kill him, and his desperation to please his father is rewarded by him being allowed to take King Bohan away to care for him after the final battle leaves Bohan broken, powerless, blinded, and dependant on his son's mercy to stay alive.
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: The memories show that the pressure that King Rhoam Hyrule put on his daughter Princess Zelda and basically crippled her self-esteem when Zelda was unable to awaken the sacred power of Hylia, no matter how hard she tried, and felt that it was her fault for being unable to do so, on top of him forbidding her from attempting to study the ancient Sheikah technology that would hopefully form the basis for Hyrule's defense once Calamity Ganon arose once more.
• Night in the Woods:
  • Mae's mental illness might be congenital, if the fact that her mother displays symptoms of bipolar disorder is any indication, at one point guilt-tripping Mae for dropping out of college due to her mental illness. In addition, her father used to be an Alcoholic Parent and a Violent Drunk to boot.
  • Bea's mother died during high school, and her father has been in the midst of a mental breakdown for years as a result; he's allegedly the owner and operator of the Ol' Pickaxe, but in reality, Bea has to do all of the work at the store because he's unfit to cook for himself some days, let alone run a business. Bea seriously resents that this has resulted in her being stuck in Possum Springs instead of being able to go to college, and resents Mae for throwing away said opportunity.

Web Animation

• ATTACK on MIKA: Airi became a Spoiled Brat who disrespects her father Yutaka because her mother Konomi raised her to be that way. After Konomi loses custody of her, Airi is re-educated by her new caretaker in order to make her a better person.
• Helluva Boss:
  • It's heavily implied that Blitzø turned out the way he did because his father Cash actively prevented him from forming healthy relationships with other demons, including his fellow circus performer Fizzaroli, one-time playmate and later love interest Stolas, and even his own sister Barb. Cash also tried to make Blitz steal from Stolas and the Goetia family directly as a child. Both of these have had a major impact on Blitz's desperate craving for affection, attitudes towards the rich and powerful, and general devil-may-care attitude as a defense mechanism toward others.
  • Moxxie Knolastname is the son of a feared and terrifying gangster named Crimson, who physically and emotionally abused Moxxie as a child, including drowning Moxxie's mother for defying him. Crimson also tried to raise Moxxie to be a ruthless thug like himself, which Moxxie didn't take to. As a result, Moxxie as an adult, while still a Nice Guy, did end up becoming a professional assassin to use what Crimson taught him.
• Monirobo: Satoshi, unlike his sister Yukari, who listened to her mother Riona's advice about eating healthy, took after his father, who resented Riona for trying to get them to eat healthy. Satoshi's father's influence is so great that when he decides to leave Riona for another woman who lets him eat whatever they want, Satoshi is eager to leave and goes along with his father. Their habits come back to bite them years later when Satoshi and his father's unhealthy diets result in them becoming obese and suffering from health problems.

Web Videos

• Multiverse Tales: Quite a few villains of the series became villains due to the negative influences of their families.
  • Harold the Herald, a former enemy turned ally of the Sharp Gang, is an Affably Evil Amusing Alien, but he's still evil. A large part of that is because his father, Kahorgoth, was an evil alien warlord, who is mentioned to have trained children to be serial killers. Among Harold's list of crimes are: working for Elloise Ludum, an Overseer who kidnaps people and creatures from across the Multiverse to force them to compete in Gladiator Games; destroying entire cities: and killing children, including his own nephew and an entire bus full of children that he locked in a cage with a rabid gorilla. Indeed, Harold's child-murdering is regarded as especially heinous by those who know him, including his adoptive brother Bustar Terminax, who cut off both his arms the second time he did it. That said, his recent Heel–Face Turn proves he's not irredeemable, and even he has moral lines that his father would cross, but he wouldn't.
  • Astra, the Overseer of Dimension A-016, was raised by her mother Tarsa, a sociopathic Narcissist of an Overseer who had long since grown apathetic to humanity and treated them merely as a means of entertainment. Tarsa was cruel to her daughter and raised her to not care about other beings, which is in direct contrast to an Overseer's job being to watch over and protect their world. Because of this, Astra had no problem partnering up with her mother's former friend Lucifer and helping him create a demonic army with which he could overrun the world to make sure Tarsa wouldn't get to retire peacefully on it after all the bad things she'd done to her. Luckily, Astra's eventual friendship with the Agency of Supernatural Protection made her realize how what she was doing made her no better than her mother and do a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Zamrzalak, the Starter Villain of spin-off series Mythal-Lethal, is the daughter of Morana and Anubis, who is a proud enforcer of the Imperium Pantheon (a pantheon of Jerkass Gods to end all Jerkass Gods — with a few Overseers thrown in), forces the unlucky mortal Ortis Filimo to track down demigods and gods who the Pantheon want to kill before they can grow powerful enough to challenge their rule — even if those demigods aren't genuinely powerful or dangerous — and, after sending her pet monster Mrzawa to kill an innocent demigod father in front of Ortis, scars his arm with the word "Godslave" as a permanent reminder for him to know his place. The narrator speculates that, perhaps if Anubis had raised Zamrzalak instead of her mother, she might have turned out more compassionate towards humanity.
  • Finally, there is Fear Herself/Arava, the Overseer of Dimension D-667. 700 years ago, Arava was a little Polynesian girl whose mother would constantly force her to go and work with the other villagers, so that she could "be of value" to her. When Arava was chosen as the successor of her world's Overseer, and first used her powers to dispel a raging storm over her island, her mother appeared to show actual affection for her for the first time — but ultimately, she just saw her daughter's powers as a way to continue forcing her to serve her and the village. As the years went on, and Arava's powers brought prosperity to first her island, and then the rest of the world, her mother became increasingly complacent, greedy, and entitled, berating Arava every time the good fortunes she brought started to dip, and forcing her to keep giving them more and more, while giving her nothing in return. Eventually, Arava snapped and decided that her mother — and humanity as a whole — didn't deserve her help. Now, Arava has become a tyrannical ruler of her dimension, creating increasingly powerful and dangerous demons to torment people with, and while she claims it's to force them to face their fears, conquer them, and change into better people with better lives, ultimately it's because she's still caught in a loop of alternating between trying to be of value to her long-dead mother, and trying to torture her, seeing her cruelty and laziness in every human alive — basically, she just wants the rest of the Multiverse to be as miserable as her mother made her.
• Orange Texts: Aurora's mother-in-law Josie is an incredibly judgemental and snooty Rich Bitch; according to Josie's son Oscar, Josie's parents were the same and raised her to be the way she is.

Western Animation

• Allen Gregory: Allen Gregory is just as bad as his father Richard, having been raised by the latter to be that way.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: In the first season, Prince Zuko's primary motivation for capturing Aang is wanting to get into his father's good graces and not be seen as a failure after he refused to engage his father in Agni Kai, resulting in his iconic scar. By the third season, he sees his Uncle Iroh as a true father figure, and defects from the Fire Nation to join Team Avatar in order to take down both the Fire Lord and his half-insane sister Azula.
• BoJack Horseman:
  • BoJack's parents Beatrice and Butterscotch were cruel parents during his early life, spending more time arguing with one another than caring for him. Because of this, BoJack develops into smoking and alcoholism to connect to his parents, and picks up dark morals regarding prioritizing his entertainment legacy.
  • Sarah Lynn's mom Carol pushed her daughter into fame at a very early age and denied her any chance to do things outside of entertainment, like "college", and "architecture", thus putting her into stressful stardom.
• In Courage the Cowardly Dog it's revealed over the course of the series that the reason Eustace Bagge is so mean is because of his horrific family. His mother acts just as mean to him as he does towards Courage, is incredibly greedy and has Parental Favoritism towards his older brother Horace, who always derided him as useless. This has given him a complex about being able to do things as a provider, becoming territorial if he feels anyone else is taking his place and caused him to be just as greedy as his mother, if not more so. Even Muriel, who loves just about everyone, can't stand Eustace's mom.
• The Dragon Prince: Claudia's descent into villainy in The Mystery of Aaravos arc is largely owed to her father's "ends justify the means" outlook on dark magic, and unlike her brother who realized he had to get away from the monster his dad had become, Claudia stuck by him, unable to choose between family members again just as she had when her parents split-up. In an interesting development, Viren himself realizes how badly his actions have influenced Claudia as he witnesses her go further in her methods than he ever did.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: A lot of Eddy's beliefs and actions (such as scamming people, believing that women are easily wooed by money, and pushing around his friends) are a result of him emulating his older brother, who he respects. Big Picture Show reveals that Eddy's behavior throughout the series was out of a misguided desire to be respected like his brother.
• Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids: One episode had a teen smoker who picked up his smoking habit from his father; said father was furious to find his son smoking, with his wife calling him out for his hypocrisy.
• Gravity Falls:
  • Played for Laughs. Grunkle Stan is shown repeatedly attempting to get Dipper and Mabel to engage in illegal activities, ranging from counterfeiting to false advertising.
  • In "Northwest Mansion Mystery", Pacifica Northwest is revealed to be so mean throughout the series because her parents have literally conditioned her to do as they say, crushing her opinions and making her afraid to even get dirt on a nice rug. She is devastated to learn all of the horrible things her family has done, giving her the push to finally rebel against them.
  • Later on, it's Played for Drama, as Mabel sees Grunkle Ford as this, due to his favoritism towards Dipper resulting in the latter becoming more and more distant from his sister. This eventually culminates in a rift forming between the twins as Ford asks Dipper to stay in Gravity Falls full-time in order to investigate its oddities; due to Poor Communication Kills, this event leads to Mabel accidentally letting Bill Cipher into reality and kickstarting Weirdmageddon.
• Hero Inside: Lucy's father considered his brother Scott to be a bad influence on her due to the latter's comic book writing getting himself into various kinds of trouble. This led to Lucy and Scott deciding to see each other in secret under the respective aliases "X" and "Super Scott" until Scott was eventually kicked out and later disappeared telling his niece in a letter to protect the hero books from those who would abuse their power. Since then, Lucy has been searching for any possible leads to her uncle's whereabouts.
• Miraculous Ladybug:
  • Played with in the case of Alpha Bitch Chloé Bourgeois. A significant amount of her toxic behavior can be traced back to the terrible combination of her overly indulgent father and her absolutely awful mother. On the other hand, her half-sister Zoé had the same mother and isn't cruel, and her relationship with her stepfather ends up having positive effects for both of them, so it's unclear how much of Chloé's behavior stems from her parents.
  • Played straight for Félix Fathom. Between his abusive father and his Ambiguously Evil mother, Félix has ended up with a warped moral code that prizes his own freedom over everything else, even the well-being of those he loves.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Diamond Tiara was a snobbish bully to the Cutie Mark Crusaders for five seasons. Then in "Crusaders of the Lost Mark", the audience is introduced to her mother, Spoiled Rich, who is even worse than her daughter and dictates that her daughter has to be better than those of lower social standing, including "blank flanks" like the CMC. When the CMC eavesdrop on their conversation, they actually start feeling bad for Diamond Tiara and help her realize she doesn't have to be like her mom, giving her a Heel–Face Turn at the end.
• The Pied Piper: Defied by the titular character; after the townsfolk cheat him out of his rightful payment, he decides to take away their children specifically so they don't grow up to be like their parents.
• The Real Ghostbusters: Implied with Peter Venkman. His father, Jim Venkman, is a Con Man, and Peter has played fast-and-loose with the law before (e.g. weaselling out of paying a hospital fee in "Doctor, Doctor").
• Regular Show: In one episode, it's revealed that Benson's habit of yelling whenever he gets agitated comes from the fact that he used to be a quiet child in a family of loud, aggressive people. He learned to yell like his family after his father told him he'd never get his way in life unless he made himself heard. This worked too well, making Benson into the Bad Boss that he is. The end of the episode, however, shows that, unlike his father, Benson has a chance to change his ways. This is a turning point in Benson's Character Development, as after this he starts listening to his employees more and managing to curb his anger.
• Implied with Gargamel from The Smurfs. While he's not given a backstory that explains the way he is, what little is seen of his closest family — namely his mother and, in the '80s cartoon, godfather Balthazar — are shown to be just as if not even more cruel than he is. He also very rarely shows a hint of emotion, in one episode outright breaking down and crying when he's told by Sassette that she loves him and proclaiming that no one ever said that to him before, and in another saying that nobody respects him (not even his own mother). So while not explicitly stated or shown, it can be inferred that Gargamel is evil because he grew up in an evil family that never loved or respected him.

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