*“You will pay for the sins of your forefathers!”* “I didn't have four fathers! I just had one father and I didn't know him that well!”

Red: Another option, blood feuds between families! Blue: _Sweats in War of the Roses_

This trope is literally: "You took everything from me.." "I don't even know who you are!"

So it’s another expansion on; “Cool motive, Still murder.”

Katara: how do i get vengence on those who wronged me? Aang: the best vengence is letting go and living well Katara: ... Katara: Zuko

the “my parent(s) has screw over a lot things and I’m basically the janitor” trope.

It's always nice to remember that MLK Jr. was a pastor and could also cite theological explanations *specifically* to fuck with the people who were trying to pull "God said it's okay" on him.

"Ok everyone, what did we learn today?" "Kill the bloodline..." "Kill the F***king bloodline!"

"You gotta end the bloodline and prevent any revenge killing; I mean that's just evil 101" Queen of Fables

"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die." I didn't see any Princess Bride references, so I had to add one.

Red, you talked about a vengeance plot harming an innocent child by killing their parent, perpetuating the cycle of harm and vengeance, without referencing the best example of this: Kill Bill! The Bride- a former assassin who was betrayed by her fellow assassins on her wedding night, losing her groom, her child, and several years of her life- goes on a revenge streak against the rest of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. The first of the other assassins we see on screen has, in the intervening years, also married and had a daughter, and is content to live quietly in the suburbs. This does little to stop the Bride from killing the mother, ultimately right in front of the four-year-old little girl. Rather than make excuses, or try to apologize or set things right, the Bride simply tells the little girl that, when she's grown up and if she wants to get even, the Bride will be waiting for her. The cycle continues.

There's another angle to the biblical 'sins of the father' deal; that it's not an instruction to punish children for their parents crimes, but a prediction of how your failings affect your children. For example, Jacob's mother favors him over his brother Esau and helps Jacob to Esau's detriment, so when Jacob has kids, he also picks a favorite, Joseph, treats him differently than his brothers, who are so upset that they sell him into slavery. The first parent does something bad, and their children copy them, and eventually it turns to evil. So, less vengeful god and more cycle of abuse.

I heard a story about a boy who cried when his village was burned down. He spent his entire life training, and building an army to get revenge on the people who did it. When he went to their village and burned it down, however, he saw a boy crying.

One of my favourite lines from the DiscWorld series is Death telling his granddaughter that Justice doesn't exist until humans make it so. "Grind the universe into the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and find me one atom of justice one molecule of mercy." It's a dope line.

"You want vengeance? Go out and find the man who did it, but I won't stand here and watch you kill thousands of innocents." "There are no innocents! Not anymore. Anyone one of them could have stood up and said 'We won't behave like animals anymore!'" -Castlevania, an amazing Netflix show

As someone who’s been dealing with heavy trauma, the moment I stopped wishing for some kind of justice and started just actively working to heal is a transformative one.

"vengeance frames itself as justice but will be satisfied with the illusion of justice" - YES

This is on the same grid as the "You Killed My Father Prepare to Die" trope. This is in the "Your Father Killed My Father, prepare to die" corner. Now we gotta fill out the other two corners.

I'm pretty sure that Spinel is unique among the individuals who follow the sins of the father trope on Steven Universe, since I'm pretty sure she's the only one who actually recognizes Steven as being a different person. Jasper, the Diamonds, they- like most gems- didn't understand that Steven was a different being entirely

Dio, this is basically Dio's grudge with the Joestar family. Literally almost everything that happens up until Part 6 was either directly or indirectly caused by him

There's an interesting instance of this in Kill Bill when The Bride kills the black lady in front of her daughter and says to the little girl "If you're still angry about this when you grow up, I'll be waiting for you". It's like she says "I'm executing my own vengeance, so I can't very well deny you yours against me"

Red: "This is the exact plot of six whole Greek tragedies." Me: "Only six? Huh..."

I remember reading a story where a young man meets a knight who his father wronged, after a while of talking it turns out the knight didn't come for revenge but rather to make sure the young man wouldn't cause anyone pain like his father. In the end character A decided to simply make sure no suffering of others would be caused by character C because they were related to character B who is now dead.

Someone once said, "The best revenge is a life well spent". I absolutely agree

Can't wait for Trope Talk: Words That Kill.

"The day I visited your village and raised it to the ground was the most important day of your life and started you on a revenge quest. But for me, it was a Tuesday."

2:17 a good example is professor Snape to Harry. Snape cannot unleash his anger upon James because he is dead, so the next best thing is Harry, who looks near identical to James.

Katara overcoming the urge to kill the man who killed her mother is just... Amazing. All this talk of vengeance just made me think of that. It's really the best moment in Avatar.

Now THIS is the "vengence is bad" trope I actually like. No weird "killing only that one specific person makes you exactly as bad as that same specific person who committed genocide" funky morals

I think this trope is actually the reason for "eye for an eye." What most people forget about it, is that it is a set of laws. Hamurabi was setting the *upper limits* of acceptable vengeance, not the lower ones as people seem to use it as today. It's purpose is to *prevent* blood feuds. If damage has been done, you can do this much in retaliation and no more. The fact that it's misrepresented probably tells about how hard that was to enforce, but it is good to remember.

I feel like the desire for revenge is a desire for someone else (usually the one who wronged you) to understand the pain that you've gone through.

You know, I've come across an interesting sociological explanation for vengeance before. So at its most basic, simple level, vengeance can be interpreted as a message: "Don't mess with me or you'll pay for it." Someone kills your wife and kids? You kill them, and then maybe people will be less likely to mess with you for it. The problem is your wife and kids will still be dead, and while any future wife and children might be thus made marginally safer, you're probably getting on in years and anyways they're not quite the same thing. So vengeance has a pretty poor payoff for the individual, considering. But what about for the community? Say Bob of the Berserker tribe goes on a roaring rampage of revenge after his family is killed, wreaking untold havoc on his attackers before dying in battle. The Berserker tribe could then start telling his story, and identifying with him, and above all, passing on the story to OTHER tribes and making sure THEY know them too. "Yeah, you heard of the Berserker tribe? Someone killed Bob's family once and in return he nearly wiped out an entire tribe. Berserkers are crazy, man, don't mess with them, it's not worth it." Thus, even though Bob doesn't benefit, the Berserkers DO, and thus encourage and cultivate an attitude of "I must have vengeance," lionizing Bob as a cultural hero because this helps protect the community at large. Of course, by cultivating such an attitude, they encourage others of the community to go on similar revenge rampages if they're wronged, thus growing the legend of "Those Berserkers you really don't want to mess with." There's two problems with this, though - first, if you keep encouraging generation after generation to take vengeance for slights, eventually you're very likely to end up with a culture that's caught up squabbling with each other over the slightest fault, making it hard for them to cooperate with either outsiders or each other. That leads into the second problem - that eventually, society develops in such a way that cooperating with each other on a scale larger than tribes and making sure such squabbles don't get out of hand is more beneficial to a community than the less sophisticated defense mechanisms of the past. It's HARD to run a modern society when everyone has a deep, emotional, and culturally-encouraged need to take personal vengeance on anyone who wrongs them. I'm extrapolating here, but this feels like where a lot of the "Revenge only harms everyone involved" stories come from - attempts to culturally push back against older narratives of "Revenge is totally awesome and everyone should do it" as societies get to the point where the costs start outweighing the benefits. It's interesting to note, however, that honor-based revenge cultures tend to be more common in societies without strong central authority, i.e. without someone they can turn to for impartial justice. That comes with a corollary - if ever a society comes to either lose the central authority, or come to believe in its inability to deliver justice for any reason (such as, say, massive corruption), we might very well find stories praising revenge becoming increasingly popular...

“Child of my enemy, why have you come? I offer no forgiveness... a father's sins, passed to his son.” This is my favorite quote related to this trope.

You know Kratos might actually be the only example of this that I can think of whose pulled just about every angle on this. He got angry and took revenge on pretty much everyone in range even after he ran out of people to target directly then eventually learned to break the cycle and let go of his anger.

“For you, the day M Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. For me, it was Tuesday”

"Then, it will happen this way: You make the kill; but you find that your pain doesn't die with [the man who murdered your family]. So you go off into the night to find another face... and another... and another... until vengeance has become your whole life. And you won't know why." -- Batman Forever

Can we talk about how this also happened in atla? Both Jet and Hama had reasons to hate the fire nation, like the gang, but they chose to harm innocent fire nation civilians. And the gang knows that this is bad despite their own personal grudges and those two characters become the villains of their episodes. Man this show is great.

I personally like hearing real-world examples of tropes, I like understanding WHY it’s important to tell stories like this.

Because it was not mentioned in this episode jet: Avatar actually had an episode concerning the sins of the father: in Chapter Eleven: The Great Divide there are two tribes that hated each other for centruies. So, Spoiler i guess, Aang resolves the situation by making up a complety harmless version of the inciting incident. And then everyone is kinda: okay no more reason to hate each other i guess, lets get along instead. And they do. And it is hillarius to me. Also Avatar is soo good you guys.

Think one of my favorite uses of this trope is the plot of Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward, which combines several different variants wonderfully. You've got an immortal dragon holding an entire KINGDOM responsible for the crimes of its first king and his court, even after millennia, since to an ageless being, it might as well have been yesterday. Meanwhile only a small portion of the kingdom's nobility ever benefited from the actions of their forefathers; fewer still are even aware of it, perpetuating the war they wage in self-defense as a holy crusade rather than admit any wrongdoing in their nation's history.

Person A: YOU SHALL PAY THE SINS OF YOUR FATHER Person B: My dad left me & hasn't paid child support for nearly 2 decades. Person A: Oh...

I really like how Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood handles this with Scar, who both becomes the person seeking vengance for the sins of others, and becomes the target of vengeance for his own sins, and how this forces his arc to change, espcially after meeting Major Miles.

1:00 Y'know, I'd like to see a "Sins of the Father" story where the villain doesn't even try to justify their actions morally, like: Hero: No you can't kill [innocent person] just because their dad did bad things to you, it is immoral. Villain: You think I don't know that. Hero: If you do that, you'll be just as bad as him! Villain: I DO NOT CARE!

I always loved the wink and nudge "Kill Bill" has to this. When the Bride kills Vernita and Vernita's daughter sees the Bride standing over her mother's body just afterward, the Bride acknowledges that, although she had hoped to leave the child out of this and minimize collateral damage, she has literally no defense if the daughter later chooses to seek revenge on her for the death of her mother. The resigned reaction of "I really can't blame you if you want to do the same to me one day," coupled with the fact that, at that point in the story, the Bride believes her own child paid the ultimate price for her "sins" always really stuck with me.

My favorite example(s) of this is for sure Teen Titans as Raven often has to deal with this and it shows that having to deal with the sins of her literal demon lord dad has caused her to feel that sometimes she is no better than him. It really shows the emotional toll on the person receiving the basically underserved punishments.

Vengeance is like a grenade. When you throw it at somebody, you have to be okay with anyone and everyone near that person getting hurt. Also if you don't do it properly, It will blow up in your face.

"Who are you?" "Your father killed my father" "Oh gosh, another one?"

5:14 I have a favorite example of this: ...Don't hunt 'em 'cause you been wronged. Hunt 'em 'cause what they did was wrong. There's a world of difference there, kid. One makes you selfish. The other makes you a hero. And I see a hero in you. And with this last good lesson, a gift. I know it feels right in your hand-its weight easy, its trigger smooth. Use it as you will-I know you'll use it right. It's yours now, 'til the last flame dies and all words've been spoken. 'Til that time. Safe journeys. Straight aim. And good huntin'. J. -A letter to Shin Malphur from his third father, Jaren Ward, written before Ward's ill-fated showdown with the infamous Dredgen Yor in the wooded hollow beyond Beggars' Gulch

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury. - Marcus Aurelius, Emperor, Philospher, Chad

It's funny how she talks about 'Only the villains really do that kind of undirected revenge and hurting everyone even tangentially related to the baddie' and I immediately think of the protagonist of every Chinese revenge novel or comic ever.

Character A: "You will PAY for the way your father betrayed me all those years ago!" Character C: "Betrayed!?" Character A: "YES!" Character C: "What are you talking about!?" Character A: "Don't you already know!?" Character C: "No! I don't even know who my father is! He has been unavailable my whole life!" Character A: "Well, sucks to be you. I'm still getting revenge on you though."

This episode made me realize I've never really felt pervasive, furious anger. Anything vaguely similar is gone after 10 minutes. And its not like I haven't had a reason to have this anger, I could totally justify being angry forever at a certain person who may or may not have been an immensely abusive significant other... but I dont feel it. That anger isn't there and it never has been. Its different than forgiveness, its more just... no desire for revenge, leaving the only path to be one of healing and self-improvement. Anyway, that's why I've always found revenge arcs strange. You'd think the anger would've subsided after any decent amount of time.

One of the best revenge stories that actually briefly touches on the Sins of the Father is Kill Bill. After finishing off one of the people that tried to kill her, the titular character tells the child of the person that she just killed that if they want to, at some point in the future they could come after her and she wouldn't judge them for it.

Absolutely love the imagery of "they might already have some complexes about that" with Steven Universe playing in the background.

you know how you can avoid accidentially hurting innocents? convincing said innocents that the character you do revenge on is bad and appealing with their emotions. And when the revenge target is alone and hated enough, go for the revenge

And don't forget the classic: Oh? Your parents are dead? Well they owed me and these other *fine* men a lot of money, get working.

I'm shocked that the Netflix Castlevania anime wasn't brought up here. Vengeance is the primary motivation of nearly every single character in that show, and each has a different model and circumstance. Notably, Dracula tries to wipe out the human race because a bishop killed his wife for witchcraft, which is a perfect example of villainous revenge.

Hera vs Children of Zeus Can''t hurt Zeus, can hurt them... He's not absent - just too powerful/important.

Beau: sometimes justice (vengeance) brings closure Cadeucus: the only thing I find that brings closure is when everyone is finally in the ground -Critical Role- 2x98 This scene always gets me in terms of revenge tropes.

My favorite version of this is "My parent did a bad thing so now **I** have to make it better", You know the Michael Afton/Audrey Drew/Steven Universe style protagonist, it's also pretty common among edgy hot demon princes with redemption arcs who's father is the main antagonist

They say “he who seeks revenge remember to dig two holes” for a reason. It’s a ultimately self-destructive objective, and will just leave you cold and empty on the inside. It’s why I love revenge stories, it’s not just about making someone pay, usually it’s about growing and learning a lesson, though usually too late.

obligatory “we must carry Madame Zeroni up a mountain” reference.

“N-No! Pink diamond made up for all the bad stuff as rose quartz!!!” Like bismuth? like repeatedly lying to her friends? Like being as cryptic and unhelpful as inhumanily possible? like letting her army get corrupted? Like condemning an entire generation of rose quartz’s to die because she hid among them? Like ordering her own lieutenant to lie and perpetuate her son’s anguish? Like still leaving spinel there in the garden? Like fostering an entire legion of mortal enemies for her son to deal with? Like lusting after Greg only to be as much of a deadbeat as possible and leave Steven’s only human parent as a homeless, emotionally broken husk?

As a wise man once said “we can’t except god to do all the work”

This actually reminds me of Snape's relationship with Harry in Harry Potter. The only reason Snape doesn't like harry is because he's James' son and looks exactly like him. And for this crime that Harry literally can't help, Snape treats him like garbage. While Snape is justified in not liking James and is under no obligation to forgive the person that made his life hell for like, 7 years, directing that anger at Harry is completely unjustified and uncalled for.

With the "You look like someone who wronged me" trope, it seems like there's often an opposite trope as well, where the villian thinks one of the heroes (usually a woman) looks like a loved one so they don't exact vengance on them. The 90s Dracula, Soultaker (that terrible Joe Estevez MST3K movie), the list goes on

“You gotta end the bloodline to prevent any revenge killings.” -Queen of Fables

This reminded me of when Kurapika killed Uvogin and how everyone everyone in the Phantom Troupe was devastated because of it. And later, when Gon confronted Nobunaga for being an hypocrite for mourning his friend, as it was hypocritical because he and the troupe assassin innocent people without caring about all the people they're hurting in the process. Using HxH as another example, we have when Gon got revenge on Neferpitou and not only hurt himself but was determined to go as hard to hurt Komugi, an innocent woman who didn't do anything, just so he could get his revenge. It's interesting because both cases are actually framed in a bad light. Kurapika's desire for revenge keeps getting him in dangerous situations and his new abilities end up causing him to keep losing time of his life. Gon loses his nen and his arc in Chimera Ant Arc is known to be his "corruption arc" He also ends up emotionally hurting Killua, his best friend.

The fact that this is a recurrent problem in real life is pretty telling of how easy it is to fall into this line of thought and escalate things to the point that they become all out wars

"Right here Luke, watch this video and make sure you take lots of notes!!!"

9:32 I'm not certain if there has been plays on the nuanced option where character C is actively keeping character A asleep/imprisoned/deceived b/c their _afraid_ what A might do when they wake/get out/find out.

The entire series of Attack on Titan definitely plays hard on the sins of the father, especially the passive version in regards to both the Eldians and Marlayan people. All in a pretty messed up way.

I clicked on this video expecting fun rundowns and analyses of a couple shows and got deep reflections on the morality of vengeance, the cause of wars and crimes against humanity, responsibility and much more. Man, I love this channel

Steven, the literal walking example of: "my mother did bad things and I'm paying for it."

aragorns ancestor only failed in the movies in the book the ring was unable to ever corrupt him it could only make him depressed due to his pure heart

Another good example of the “sins of the father” trope is the generational Yelnats-Zeroni curse in “Holes”. Madam Zeroni gave Elya a pig to raise to help him win his dream girl’s hand in marriage in exchange for him to carry Madam Zeroni up to the mountain and sing to her. When that plan backfired, he immediately left and immigrated to America. Madam Zeroni warned Elya that if he’d failed to take her to the mountain, she would curse Elya and his family “for always and eternity” with bad luck. The curse was broken when Stanley Yelnats IV (FIVE GENERATIONS LATER) found a descendant of Madam Zeroni (Hector “Zero” Zeroni) and carried him up to the river on “God’s Thumb” (a mountain) and sang to Hector.

Red: *starts talking about morality of vengeance and anger* Every human villain in a Marvel movie: And I took that as a personal attack

I love it how Red goes into the deep and dark subconscious of humanity and in the background you just have a casual, happy-go-lucky theme playing.

Yoooo stock hero motivation with a twist: villain killed a hero’s father and a hero is on a quest to find the villain. But when he finally gets to the villain he thanks him bc the father or parents were abusive

Revenge is like a sword on a pendulum. It just keeps going back and forth.

"Child of my enemy, why have you come? I offer no forgiveness, a father's sins, passed to his son."

Inigo Montoya: "You know, It's very strange. I have been in the revenge business for so long, that now that it's over, I don't know what to do with the rest of my life."

"really fun atrocities" is not a phrase I expected to hear today, and her it's hilarious for some reason.

As a real world example, someone once tried to explain to me how I, as a German, am responsible for the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. Now, granted, I actually do have ancestors who were part of the SS. BUT I also LOST relatives on the other side of the family to the Nazis and their crimes. Basically, I have as much perpetrator blood in my veins as I have victim blood. So I asked them: "So whose vengeance shall I expect? My own? Whom shall I take vengeance against? Myself?"

"it doesn't actually matter if the person the anger's taken out on deserves it, anger just demands an outlet" league of legends players be like

Hey, red! Trope talk suggestion for you; "The noodle incident" or "Noodle incidents" are a literary tool that gives more literary weight to an event or mcguffin than a description would, mostly by context and the reader's imagination. Named because of a short series of Calvin and Hobbes comics wherein everyone at school gives the eternally frustrated 6-year-old grief about something he did in the past that is now known only as "The noodle incident." It is hinted at vaguely many times, but the writer ultimately leaves it up to your imagination; which is a strength because whatever the audience dreams up will be way more literarily impactful (in this case funny) than anything he could write down. And that's not even the only time that comic uses a noodle incident, see, there's this kids book calvin always wants read called "Hampster Hewwy and the Gooey Kablooey" and Now I'm ranting. Another instance this trope is used is in an S.C.P. story wherein a certain slime MUST NEVER come into contact with a human corpse. Why? That's classified. A foundation researcher files the suggestion to test the slime on a human corpse because it's never listed what happens, only that it is a V E R Y bad idea, and the researcher is curious. He gets demoted and heavily scolded by an O-5, who states "Just don't." A "Noodle Incident" is a rare trope that involves telling the audience that something exists or happened, but not telling them what it was, in order to give the plot point more narrative weight than a description would give it, partly because of the imaginations of the audience. It is a great trope that I think you should cover.

This reminds me of the old saying “When you go on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

7:30 to quote Steven: "I can't believe my mom did that to you. Actually, no... I can totally believe it."

Whenever I hear the word “vengeance” I immediately think of full metal alchemist brotherhood. You know what I’m talking about

Red: Which flavor of Sins of the Father do you want? Steven Universe: Yes.

I am thinking of two, Ancient Mythic Greek revenge plots: 1. The Iliad, "Oh, Muses, help me to sing of the rage of Achilles!" 2. The Oresteia. The whole plot is about the Furies seeking revenge of Orestes for killing his Mother.

Naruto is also rife with this trope. The whole jinchūriki issue (Naruto’s whole struggle was centered around it), the fustercluck that is the Uchiha curse, Kakashi’s insecurities stemming from his family history (quite literally), the Hyūga clan’s minor feud between Hizashi and Hiashi, even Boruto’s daddy issues - the list goes on.

"Vengeance frames itself as justice but will be satisfied with the illusion of justice; an eye for an eye, no matter who it's from." - Red

The entire plot for first three seasons of “The Dragon Prince” is based on breaking the cycle of bearing the sins of the forefathers. It’s actually blatantly said by Callum in one of the first episodes that revenge creates an endless and pointless cycle that accomplishes nothing. It’s such a great show, 10/10.

"And if we win our independence, Is that a guarantee of freedom for our descendants, Or will the blood we shed begin a cycle of vengeance and death with no defendants?" - Hamilton, "My Shot"

Samson of the Bible comes to mind when talking about this trope. “REVENGE ON EVERYTHING!!!”

"The only thing I ever found that brought closure is when everyone's finally in the ground." -Caduceus Clay

You say the lookalike version is refreshingly fictional, but when I was in high school I got sucker punched by someone from a different school and broke my nose because they mistook me for someone else they actually had beef with. They were at least nice enough to go "sorry mate, I thought you were someone else" when they realised the person currently bleeding on the floor in front of them had no idea what was going on

Gon is an excellent example of a hero becoming basically a villain from allowing their dark impulse for revenge thrive in their heart.

My father in an act of trying to hurt my mom threw me and my younger brother into foster care, I was in for a short time but I went through horrible situations and fear. When I got out and went home I was expecting my father to apologize, well he didn't, in fact he acted like it wasn't his fault that it's my mom's. I was beyond angry, then he dies 3 years later, I was 17. He wasn't around after I got out so instead of seeking an apology I just decided to live my life however difficult it was, when he was diagnosed with cancer I had mixed feelings up until he died. I didn't cry, I felt guilty, confused and conflicted because I never wished harm on him but I was more angry than sad. I didn't want revenge but I did want him to try and fix things between us, when he left the first time I was oddly ok with it but when he died I felt like an opportunity was lost, something of the sort but I decided to let it all go. When he died so did my peace, so instead of being depressed I went out into the world to find love and promise myself to never do to my kids what my father did. It's the only thing I could do.