"The Devil is real, but he doesn't turn up in a red suit with hooves. You have to imagine him as like a disease that you get you pass it on and you don't even know it. Educated people don't call it the devil; they call it "trauma". It rewires your brain and tries to spread itself down to the next generation and the one after that, the pain rolling down through time... But if you want to fight him, the way you do it is by making sure you don't pass on the trauma. That's how you kill the devil. The only way."
One of the reasons why the concept of legacy is such a big deal in fiction is that our actions can and often do impact our descendants' lives. We call it Generational Trauma when these consequences are negative. Make no mistake, however, it doesn't need to involve psychological trauma. Anyone has four things to their name: patrimony, reputation, beliefs, and lifestyle. Either of them going haywire has the potential of wreaking havoc generations down.
Yes, being an overly restrictive parent might cause the children to be so hands-off that they neglect the grandchildren, who, without a guide, might end up in bad company. However, there are many more possible causes of generational conflict. Vainly spending all of the family's money, for example, will leave them all poor, therefore limiting the following generations' financial security. Going to a war that is ultimately lost could mark that soldier's offspring as traitors to the new system. They may even be politically persecuted.
Following down that line we get nasty stuff like systematic discrimination. The law might say otherwise but the descendants of slaves (and marginalized groups in general) find themselves in far worse standing than those whose ancestors were from the privileged class, both because they can't access the same educational/job opportunities and because the initial rationalizations of why it was okay to own slaves linger.
This, in turn, fosters resentment and causes the whole situation to feedback on itself. This results in historical trauma, the social variant of this trope, when it's so pervasive that it becomes an ingrained dynamic in society. In academic circles, this is called Transgenerational Trauma
.
A Sister Trope of Trouble from the Past. The difference is that this one explores a different perspective. The children of slaves are the ones who get generational trauma. If they decide to get retribution, then it's the children of the slavers who get trouble from the past. Likewise, it's very similar to Sins of the Father but different in that it applies regardless of whether the ancestor was the one to slight or the one who was slighted.
Contrast Freudian Excuse and Big, Screwed-Up Family. Those tropes focus on the presence of issues, with the former specifically concerning how they explain a character's current behavior. On the other hand, generational trauma examines the origin and transmission of issues: how the root cause came to be, how it relates to its negative impacts, and how it becomes the breeding ground for more trauma.
Depending on the type of trauma, this might be a factor in Hereditary Suicide. See also An Immigrant's Tale as migration is a root cause of trauma.
Note: When listing examples, please remember to focus on how issues originate and are transmitted.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Boy's Abyss: Protagonist Reiji Kurose's mother, Yuko, hides a rather toxic personality underneath her legitimate suffering. A big part of that personality was formed from the abuse she suffered in her childhood and teenage years, where she was beaten by her father and prostituted by her mother to raise the family out of debt. While she didn't like what was being done to herself, she felt like she couldn't—or rather, shouldn't— leave because even the notion of leaving was discouraged by her great grandmother, who was implied to have been taught the same thing; and her brother, before running away from home, demanding that she not leave with him since she'd be a liability. That and other events in her life cause her to desire the ones she love to stay in town with her and share in her misery, with her biggest focus being Reiji; she groomed him from a young age to be desensitized to their own toxic circumstances and never think about leaving town, which works up until his favorite idol Nagi Aoe moves in. It's telling that when Reiji dreams about talking with his mother, he visualizes her grabbing onto him while the shades of older and older women grab onto her and each other.
- Gundam:
- From the Universal Century that began with Mobile Suit Gundam:
- Most famously the effects of the devastating One Year War reverberate throughout the decades. Part of this is due to the sheer loss of life (5.8 billion people lost their lives, over half the entire population of the entire Earth Sphere), part of this is due to the horrific destruction unleashed (many of the destroyed colonies and Sides are simply left as haunted ruins, with little interest and attempts at rebuilding and recolonising them), and partly due to the Lensman Arms Race begun by the creation of the titular Gundam as well as the development of Psyco (Psychic Communication) technology. There are still stubborn Zeon remnants from the One Year War active as late as 0096, almost 20 years after the war ended. Worse, many of these remnants have raised families and their children have inherited their hatred of the Earth Federation, despite not even being born when the War took place.
- The ideas (and assassination) of Zeon Zum Deikun likewise haunt the Universal Century for decades. Zeon developed the ideas of Ere-ism (i.e. Earth is sacred as the origin of mankind, and mankind ought to leave it to recover and take to the stars) and Side-ism (i.e. the space colonies have the right to be independent of the Earth Federation rather than be second class citizens), and also put forth the theory of Newtypes (i.e. by expanding into space, humanity would evolve into a "new type" of mankind). His ideas continue to be utilised by various factions as justification for all sorts of atrocities, such as the Titans accusing anyone sympathetic to his ideas as rebels to be killed on sight, to numerous Spacenoid organisations invoking his name, to his own son Casval Rem Deikun (aka Red Comet Char Aznable) attempting to drop the asteroid Axis on Earth to cause a nuclear winter and force humanity to leave Earth for good. Even as late as UC 0149, almost 70 years after Zeon's death, the Zanscare Empire adopt part of his ideals during their own brutal grab for power.
- The Zabi Family, who ruled Side 3 and the Principality of Zeon during the One Year War era, likewise cast a long shadow. Several antagonist factions continued to fight on in their name note . Sole Survivor Mineva Lao Zabi, daughter of Dozle Zabi, is painfully aware of the power of her family name, as she was propped up as the figurehead of Axis Zeon during both the Gryps and First Neo Zeon Wars. When she becomes involved in the Laplace Box incident, simply the fact she was being held aboard a Federation ship was enough to cause the Zeon loyalists to retreat rather than risk her being harmed. She eventually resolves to use her family name to actually do some good but also laments that she would've much rather been allowed to be a normal girl.
- Mobile Fighter G Gundam: The wars that left Earth devastated and prompted the development of the various space colonies left their legacy in the form of the Gundam Fight: instead of full-fledged wars that would wind up destroying the very planet they want to rule, the Space Colonies instead send representatives to fight in a tournament with the victor's colony becoming ruler of Earth until the next Gundam Fight. However, Master Asia's FaceHeel Turn is triggered by his realisation that the Gundam Fight is generally just as destructive as a full war since the Gundam Fighters representing their colonies are cutting edge with all sorts of powerful weapons and techniques, meaning any fights can wind up devastating the surrounding area. Likewise, Gundam Fighters are generally feared and hated by inhabitants of Earth who get caught up in their Fights.
- From the Universal Century that began with Mobile Suit Gundam:
- Inuyasha: An ongoing Running Gag from Miroku is that he asks any unfortunate woman to cross his path to "bear his child". The reason for this is because his grandfather was given the Wind Tunnel curse by Naraku who claims that the curse will pass on to the men of his family line and will consume every user after a certain amount of time. With both his grandfather and father falling victim to the curse, and under the assumption that he won't kill Naraku in time, Miroku hopes to find a girl to bear his child so that they could possibly avenge the family.
- My Hero Academia:
- The legacy of One For All can be considered an ongoing passage of generational trauma as many Past Holders gave up their lives and endured multiple hardships in the war against All For One. Examining the recent three, Nana Shimura had to give up her child to social services after losing her husband to the monster only to die by his hands a short time later. Her successor All Might was forced to train at an early age while becoming the best hero he can be to honor his master's sacrifice. And while he did create an Era of Peace after "killing" All For One, this ultimately resulted in a failing body and his friendships stifled. And when it was Izuku's time, not only did he have to deal with breaking his body every time he uses One For All but he also picked up on the same self-sacrificing tendencies as All Might.
- Shigaraki Tomura's origin also counts after he's revealed to be Nana Shimura's grandson. After Nana gave up her son (Kotaro) to child services, Kotaro developed a strong hatred for heroes and made a strict rule for his family to never bring up heroism in his household. He'd even go as far as to beat his son Tenko (Shigaraki) who openly expressed a desire in becoming a hero. But the ongoing abuse he endured mixed with the development of his Decay Quirk would result in Tenko killing everyone in his household, including his father. This led to him becoming homeless, ignored by everyone around him, and then groomed by All For One into becoming a Symbol of Fear to terrorize modern hero society.
- Symphogear:
- The central conflict is essentially generational trauma that spans the entirety of human history and then some.
- The Custodians are aliens with extremely advanced technology who create life on Earth. Shem-ha, in particular, is the one responsible for the existence of human beings. When she conceived them, they all share the same language but are very prone to infighting. She also programs them to be a biological supercomputer with which take over the other Custodians. When Enkidu discovers this, she defeats her and creates the Curse of Balal, condemning humans to not understand each other anymore and spurning endless wars and suffering. This culminates in the Noise, monstrosities that kill on touch.
- Enkidu's lover, the priestess Finé, isn't aware of the reason and devotes her life to breaking the Curse to end all conflicts. She goes as far as encoding her consciousness in her descendants' DNA, allowing her to overtake those most compatible and carry one with her purpose even if immoral means are needed. Her intrusions and knowledge of Custodian technology have triggered both great innovations and even more suffering. She's behind the creation of the Symphogears, the only counter to the Noise, but used countless kids as test subjects in the process and kidnaps and abuses Chris. The FIS organization originally came to be to discover one of her descendants.
- Fudou Kazanari is an overzealous Japanese patriot who regards his offspring as tools for him to use and discard. He ensures both of his sons, Genjuro and Yatsuhiro, end up in high-raking positions related to the government's Defense Department. Yatsuhiro inherits this worldview and when his daughter Tsubasa is revealed to be a Symphogear candidate, he lets the government turn her into a Child Soldier and makes her believe she's nothing but a sword. Genjuro rejects this mentality and even though he doesn't have kids, he becomes the Symphogear wielders' supportive paternal figure. More horrifying truths about the family are later revealed. He's not actually Tsubasa's father but her half-brother, because Fudou raped Yatsuhiro's wife to preserve the purity of the Kazanari bloodline.
- The central conflict is essentially generational trauma that spans the entirety of human history and then some.
- Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms: Japan is so traumatized by the atomic bombings that most people marginalize the survivors and the survivors (and their children) suffer the long-term effects of radiation exposure or have to see their loved ones die. This affects Nanami's childhood in several ways —she has painful memories of her mother and grandmother's radiation-induced illness, her father has flashbacks of the tragedy causing him to wander off without telling his family, and her friend Toko's parents demanded she stop spending time with her because they think Nanami's brother's asthma is a consequence of the radiation. There's also Kyoka Ota (Asahi's neighbor and eventual wife), who was thought by everyone to be stupid because of the exposure. Heck, even Fujimi, a survivor herself, forbids Asahi from dating her because of that.
Art
- Marriage A-la-Mode: The paintings criticize the then tendency of the upper class to marry out of financial interest and not out of love, and how this negatively impacts everyone involved. The Earl of Squanderfield has been unwise with his family fortune, so he betroths his son to the daughter of a rich, corrupt merchant. It's implied that the son looks down on his fiancée, which combined with the hedonistic lifestyle he learned from his father — hence, the bankruptcy — leads to him having frequenting brothels and contracting syphilis. Likewise, the merchant's daughter shares her father's lack of scruples. Seeing the sorry state her husband is in, she decides to engage in a more sexually rewarding extramarital affair with an Amoral Attorney. Consequently, both spouses neglect their daughter, leaving her to be raised by their servants. In the end, it all ends in tragedy, as their mutual unfaithfulness causes them to orphan the little girl, who herself inherited her father's syphilis, implying that the cycle will continue again in a more destructive form.
Comic Books
- Maus: It's on the surface about the memories of Holocaust survivor Vladek Spiegelman and his late wife Anja, but it also delves into what it was like for his son, author Art Spiegelman, to grow up as the son of two Holocaust survivors, and the mental health issues it caused in him, especially as he had to grow up in the shadow of an older brother who was killed by a relative to prevent him from ending up in the camps. At one point, Vladek finds an old underground comic that Art published, "Prisoner of the Hell Planet", in which he vents his resentment and bitterness at his mother for dying of suicide three months after Art left a mental hospital, forcing him to deal with his father's grief and paranoia at a time when he was very poorly equipped to do so.
"You murdered me, Mommy, and left me here to take the rap!"
- Moon Knight: Marc Spector's dissociative identity disorder can be traced back to his upbringing as the son of a Jewish Holocaust survivor. In particular, it's triggered by facing antisemitism himself as a little kid when he discovers that a close family friend is a Nazi who still gleefully murders Jews.
Fan Works
- The Black Sheep Dog Series explores how the Black clan's Big, Screwed-Up Family dynamics impacts the members at various levels. Sirius hates their parents because they constantly disapprove of his views, his friendships, etc., which conflict with their closed-minded and bigoted view of social status and blood purity, and has a chip on his shoulder because of his repressed upbringing. However, Orion and Walburga do love their wayward son despite their borderline abusive behaviour towards him, but due to their own dysfunctional upbringing, they are unable to express their love properly. Even Arcturus, Sirius's paternal grandfather, who is shown to be by far the worst abuser of the lot, is implied to have been a victim of a similar cycle, since Alphard described Arcturus's father (Orion's paternal grandfather) as someone with "ice in his veins in place of blood".
- Child of the Storm: The House of Odin is discussed by a somewhat narked Harry with Buri. The source of it (or at least, the circumstances) is somewhat unexpected and rightly on the nightmare fuel page. Bor Used to Be a Sweet Kid, but took the brunt of Malekith's Reality Stone fuelled the corruption of Asgard, and decided he liked it.
- The Owl and The Frog: It may be subtle, but it holds a great influence on one's home life. Anne and Luz want to live up to their Immigrant Parents' expectations due to how hard they have earned their life in the US. Sasha develops controlling behaviors due to her neglectful home life. Amara also realizes her past actions stemmed from her classist parents. Its one of the fic's Central Themes.
- Paradoxus: Sky's parents have a loveless marriage, in which Samara was forced to marry Erendor because he was Eraklyon's soon-to-be king and Erendor only ever saw her as a prize and a way to strengthen the crown's ties with her aristocrat family. This kind of thinking — that people are only valuable depending on their nobility rank — is so ingrained in Erakli culture and the royal family that Samara and Erendor don't really care about Sky. They raise him believing that he's only worthy of love and attention when he's fulfilling his royal duties and ignoring his own wishes. Then Sky meets Bloom, who cares about him for being him and not a crown prince. He rebels against his parents and latches onto her to the point that his self-worth is dependent on Bloom. When Bloom dies, he falls into a deep depression and dissociates from the world, only going on autopilot and severely neglecting his daughters. They are literally sent into war zones to train and he doesn't bat an eye. Altalune, his eldest daughter and the crown princess, finally explodes when their first conversation in years is about how she has to marry the heir of this Erakli nobleman. She and her little sister Trisha spent their teenage years yearning for the affectionate father they once knew but now they have stopped loving Sky. Even then, both of them believe themselves superior to others because they are royalty.
- The Sun Will Come Up And The Seasons Will Change: The main conflict stems from generational trauma and abuse. Mary, the main protagonist, is abused by her mother Dana for being autistic. Dana herself was abused for years by Irene, her hyper-controlling misogynistic mother, for not wanting to be a perfect housewife à la The '50s. Dana refuses to get help from the trauma of her abusive mother and ends up ruining several things in her life, including her relationship with the rest of her family.
Films — Animation
- Coco: Miguel aspires to be a musician but is strictly forbidden to by Abuela Elena who hates music with a passion. The reason is that her mother, Mamá Coco, and grandmother, Mamá Imelda, were abandoned by the latter's husband when he became a musician, went on tour, and never came back. This started the family tradition of avoiding anything music related.
- Elemental (2023): All her life, Ember has been set up to inherit her father's convenience store even though she finds it very difficult to manage the shop because of her explosive temper. Later on, she learns from her parents that Bernie lost his original store in Fire Land to a great storm and came to Element City to start a new life. But before he left, his own father refused to return a ceremonial bow and renounced him for his decisions. Realizing how much her father sacrificed to provide for her and her mother mixed with his failing health, Ember resigns herself to accepting ownership even if she isn't cut out for it.
- Encanto: Alma Madrigal is inadvertently abusive to her familia due to her Detrimental Determination, making them feel like their worth is tied entirely to how they can use their gifts in service to the community. Mirabel gets it the worst, being seen as a burden by Alma for not having a gift at all. The reasoning behind her harsh treatment is that the miracle was born from the sacrifice of her husband's life, so Alma believes that she must protect it by being selfless with its many benefits, not realizing that the miracle is literally just a gift, something given without expecting anything else back in return, and not something they must earn it to deserve it.
- Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken: Ruby's Grandmamah is a Giant Kraken who took pride in fighting sea monsters to protect the seven seas and loved fighting. She loved it so much that she pressured her own daughter Agatha to embrace the lifestyle so she can continue as her heir; this disgusted Agatha who ultimately fled to the surface world to start a new life. To her tragedy, she committed the same mistakes by forcing Ruby to live her life as secretly as possible to avoid drawing attention to their kraken lineage. This in turn causes Ruby to go behind her back to learn about her kraken roots while also falling prey to the mermaid Chelsea.
- Shrek the Third: It's implied to be a common custom among new ogre parents to try and toughen up their children from an early age so they can survive — this is later expanded in the musical. Shrek tells Arthur that his father attempted to eat him as a child. As a consequence, Shrek is terrified to pass the tradition on to his children, and so he flees to search for a successor to Far Away's throne.
- Strange World: When Searcher Clade was an adolescent, his father Jaeger tried to make him a tough, adventurous explorer. Searcher has tried to distance himself from his father since, but he unknowingly replicates his father's rearing by trying to make his son Ethan a farmer regardless of his son's wishes.
- Turning Red: Sun Yee is the Lee family's most revered ancestor. A widowed mother in times of war who was granted the Red Panda form by the gods so she could protect her village and daughters. For generations, the Red Panda was seen as a blessing, however, the advent of modern times and migration to Canada turned it into an "inconvenience." Metaphorically, it can be seen as containing a warrior's soul inside one's genetic memory even if peaceful times render its destructiveness dangerous. This caused Grandmother Wu to teach her daughters and granddaughter that the Panda must be restrained at all costs. If you couple that with her overly strict and demanding parenting, then you get Ming— a subservient, perfectionist daughter who feels as if she's not enough and that only family matters. Ming is a loving mother but unwittingly emulates Wu's child-rearing style and causes Mei to inherit her own insecurities. In Ming's case, the "repress the Panda" is even stronger, as her Red Panda form is truly gigantic and accidentally scarred her mother's face out of anger. That and her eventual breaking out with Wu prompt Ming to be an overprotective mother.
Films — Live-Action
- Crazy Rich Asians: Rachel faces conflict from Eleanor Young, her fiancé Nick's influential and overbearing mother, who refuses to accept her because she's too "American" and unfit to be part of the prestigious family. It's later revealed that Eleanor faced her own criticisms from her mother-in-law Shang Su Yi who also didn't approve of her because of her own background.
- Everything Everywhere All at Once: Evelyn had a very strained relationship with her father Gong Gong growing up, to the point that he disowned her after she decided to immigrate to America with a man he didn't approve of. Years later, she would develop her own strained relationship with her daughter Joy, even expressing disapproval over her having a girlfriend. A major part in her Character Development is her standing up to her father while assuring her daughter that she will respect her choices and still be there to love her as her mother.
Alpha Gong Gong: Evelyn, let her go.Evelyn: I can't, Father. I'm no longer willing to do to my daughter what you did to me. How did you let me go? How on Earth did you do it so easily? [...] I spend most of her childhood praying she would not end up like me. But she turned out to be stubborn, aimless, a mess. Just like her mother. But now I see, it's okay to be a mess.
- Hereditary: Annies deceased mother Ellen was emotionally manipulative towards Annie and her brother when she was alive, forcing Annie to have children in hopes of getting a grandson and driving her brother to suicide. This causes Annie to have an estranged relationship with her own children, Peter and Charlie, but especially with Peter, who she feels resentful towards due to not even wanting to have children in the first place. This gets even worse when Charlie is killed in a car accident where Peter was the driver, and Annie later finds out that her mother was part of a demonic cult and planned to sacrifice her entire family to summon their demon lord Paimon.
Literature
- Discworld: The Battle of Koom Valley is a recurring Noodle Incident throughout the series to explain why dwarfs hate trolls and vice versa. It's occasionally described as being so chaotic that both sides ambushed themselves. Every fight between the two species since then uses "Remember Koom Valley" as a rallying cry. It's finally resolved in Thud! when it turns out it was meant to be a peace conference, but the fog that fell made everyone twitchy, and no one knows who attacked first until there was a cave-in that trapped the fighters underground. There, both sides managed to Fling a Light into the Future to explain what had really happened. The cultural implications are so staggering that a dwarf grag attempts to destroy the recording despite the destruction of recorded knowledge being anathema to dwarfs.
- East of Eden: The Trask family's hat is always displaying a Cain and Abel relationship of some sort. Adam and his brother Sam have a relationship so tense that Sam has once attempted to murder Adam. Sam also sleeps with Cathy, Adam's wife, on some occasions. Adam's sons, Caleb and Aaron, have a vicious rivalry that leads the former to reveal to the latter that their mother was a brothel madam, leading him to enlist in the military and die in war. Adam's last conscious words to his surviving son Caleb was to tell him "timshel", wishing him to overcome their family curse.
- Harry Potter: The Witch Hunts of the Middle Ages and the Salem Trials have left the wizarding community very wary of associating with muggles —hence, the Statue Of Secrecy. However, this gets mixed up with the superiority prejudice already existing: Not only are muggles seen as lower beings but also as brutish and narrow-minded. As a consequence, muggle-borns (muggle parents) and half-bloods (one magical parent) are systematically discriminated against. (Although the latter to a lesser extent.) The blood superiority rhetoric gets perpetuated mostly by the pureblood families, causing quite an inequality gap. Two of the nastiest dark wizards (aka terrorists) share this belief too and are intent on enslaving or massacring muggles, which proves to be the main conflict of the saga and explains several of the character's actions and the consequences they suffer. On the purebloods side, both Regulus Black and Draco Malfoy proudly spout the narrative but are in for a rude awakening when they start serving the most radical branch. The former dies and the latter is sent on an impossible mission to punish his father. Meanwhile, Neville is believed to be a squib as a kid, so his relatives force him into dangerous situations in the hopes of triggering accidental magic, which ended up shaping Neville into a Nervous Wreck that he had to fight to overcome during his formative years. Muggleborns like Lily Evans and Hermione Granger are called mudbloods and treated with disdain —both (the former only implied) endeavor to shut them all up by being brilliant witches on their own. Half-bloods are generally in better standing unless they are sorted into Slytherin. If one of their parents is a muggle, then it's possible they were not told about the wizarding world by their spouse or they disdain magic. Examples of this are Dean Thomas and Severus Snape.
- Kate Daniels:
- The fact that all of Roland's kids before Kate went bad, as well as the powers he passed down to her and the fact that he killed her mother influences their relationship and the way he treats her.
- Arguably also the case for Hugh, since he's actually Erra's biological son and therefore Roland's nephew.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: Despite being the nominal villain house, House Lannister is steeped in 5 generations of trauma. It started with Lord Gerold Lannister: a decent lord who was shadowed by accusations of kinslaying due to being a second son who ended up taking over the lordship due to mishaps from the rest of his family. He also played favorites with his sons, but lost the first 2 before they could properly become the lord. Leaving him with just his 3rd son Tytos as the only remaining option. Tytos in turn, having so much unexpected responsibility thrust upon him, was considered "weak" with a good sense of humor but no command as a lord Paramount. With a wife who died before all the family could reach maturity, his apathy and seemed cowardice made is eldest son Tywin overcorrect. Tywin became obsessed with showing strength and authority, and became seen as a strong, powerful man but one without the kindness of his father to make him beloved as well. When HIS wife died giving birth to their youngest, it made Tywin hateful and cold to all his kids, messing all of them up in various ways too. Which in turn would screw up a final generation of the kids as Tywin's daughter Cersei's own insecurities and faults were never properly addressed, leading to all kinds of problems for her kids as well.
Live-Action TV
- Ms. Marvel (2022): Back during the Partition of India, Aisha became separated from her family in the chaos of thousands of future Pakistani citizens scrambling to find space on the trains. Her daughter Sana almost became lost as well, but was led back to her father by a mysterious "trail of stars". Sana spent the next seven decades obsessively trying to prove that the trail of stars actually existed, and consequently alienated her own daughter, Muneeba, who viewed her as a flighty and unreliable parent. Eventually, Muneeba and her husband Yusuf, seeking a better life for themselves and their newborn son Aamir, left for America, where they eventually had a second child, Kamala. In the present, Muneeba's disdain for the supernatural puts her at odds with the now-teenage Kamala, who has grown up in a world of superheroes, but her guilt about abandoning her mother has filled her with a fear that Kamala will eventually abandon her, causing her to try and stop Kamala from becoming more independent.
- Russian Doll: Nadia is a troubled woman with self-destructive tendencies who ends up in a "Groundhog Day" Loop after dying on her 36th birthday. In the process of getting out of the loop, she's forced the confront the impact that her mother's mental illness and suicide had on her life. In the first season, it's hinted that all these issues ultimately stem from her grandparents' trauma and paranoia after surviving the Holocaust. This is elaborated on further in the second season when Nadia is able to time travel by taking over her mother's and grandmother's bodies. She desperately tries to alter the past to change her family's fate, only to realize that her actions created a Stable Time Loop.
- Somewhere Boy: Danny is a 18 year old man that was locked up by his dad for all his life, during the entire show he is forced to confront that his father abused him and forced him to live a life he was clearly not prepared for. During the Flashback B-Plot that we see of Steve and Danny by each episode Danny's memories of Steve get worse signifying he is starting to accept the abuse he put him through. Steve takes such extreme measures after his wife is killed by a driver.
- Under the Banner of Heaven: The series is based on the notorious Lafferty murders of The '80s in which a pair of fanatical Mormons murdered the wife and daughter of their estranged brother. It aims to examine how the two killers were shaped by their abusive religious family and how the entire Latter-Day Saints movement has never really gotten over the death of its first prophet, Joseph Smith. The causes of that are the turbulent power struggle that followed and the 1890 capitulation to the US government, which made Mormons subject to the laws of the United States, even when those laws conflicted with their religious beliefs. They officially ended the practices of plural marriage and blood atonement within the main church, causing the schism that produced most of the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints sects. It's also relevant to the Lafferty case, as Ron and Dan Lafferty kill their sister-in-law Brenda as "blood atonement" after she "fornicated" by helping their wives leave them after she found out that Ron and Dan were planning to take children as other wives. Note that "fornication" — one of the sins for which blood atonement is prescribed — is obviously misused in this case.
Mythology & Religion
- Classical Mythology has its roots in generational trauma, as the cruel Ouranos was deposed and castrated by his son Cronus, who took to ruling the Earth, sea, and sky as an equally cruel ruler. When Cronus was told of a prophecy that one of his own children would depose him in the same way, he swallowed every baby Rhea had except Zeus, who was safely hidden and would return to overthrow him. Zeus himself later heard of a similar prophecy and was seemingly able to avoid it, but between the Titanomachy, the Gigantomachy, and Gaia sending monsters to attack the Olympians, the entire Greek Pantheon has some form of generational trauma and a Freudian Excuse for their petty infighting and other behavior.
Tabletop Games
- Betrayal at House on the Hill: The legacy version of Betrayal at the House on the Hill is set over 14 playthroughs representing generations of the same family exploring the titular house. It begins with a frantic witch hunt and fight for control of the house, and the "deed" to it passes regularly between the families over the centuries of the plot. The characters who die in the house will appear in many of the haunts' later chapters as allies or antagonists, and it's implied that the repeated horrors have totally scarred the entire family lines.
Video Games
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: Kiyotaka Ishimaru explains that his grandfather was once the Prime Minister of Japan. But after his involvement in a horrific scandal, he was forced to resign and the Ishimaru family name has been in disgrace ever since. To restore honor to his family name, Kiyotaka has placed all his time and energy into becoming a model student while refusing any opportunities of living like a regular teenager, thus tarnishing his social skills and leaving him without any friends.
- Fate Series: Zoken is the centuries-old, patriarch of the Matou family. Throughout his life, his ideals become corrupted until he only cares about power. Unfortunately for him, the Matous' magic has been slowly dying out for decades. If you combine this with that in magus culture the strength and lineage of one's magical crests are everything, then you get an unforgiving, immoral grandfather who disdains and abuses his offspring —his son Byakuya and his grandson Shinji for having been born with crests too weak to be trained as magi. Byakuya tries to be a supportive, loving father, however, Zoken's insults are overwhelming enough that Shinji grows a bitter, arrogant, sexual abuser. To add salt to the wound, Zoken adopts the daughter of another family, Sakura, in the hopes of passing down the family magic to her. In Fate/stay night, Shinji shows no compunctions to venting out his frustrations on Sakura and letting his Servant drain people's souls. The Matous who have indeed strong crests aren't treated any better. Zoken disowns his other son Kariya after the latter rejects his family's traditions out of repulsion. Even then, Shinji and Kariya are similar in that they are possessive and abusive toward their Love Interests. As Fate/Zero shows, Kariya only accepts the magic to save his crush's daughter Sakura from being adopted by Zoken. Both of them are subjected to what amounts to rape by magical worms and become living hives for the wretched things in exchange for a powerful magic boost.
- God of War:
- The Cycle of Patricide is the hidden mechanism that set in motion both the beginning and the end of the Greek world: the cycle began when the Titan Cronos overthrew his father Uranus, only to be defeated by his son Zeus after a failed attempt to eat him as a baby (an oracle foretold the end of the Titan era at the hands of Cronos' children). This generational conflict is passed down onto Kratos, whose thirst for vengeance brings the destruction of Olympus and Zeus' demise. After becoming a father himself, Kratos was afraid to become the next victim of the cycle, but both he and his son Atreus learn to become the gods that they want to be and, as shown in God of War Ragnarök, they succeed in ending the patricide curse once and for all.
- Ragnarok reveals that Odin abused Thor for most of his life by telling him he's a Dumb Muscle only good for drinking and killing Giants and anyone else Odin tells him to kill. This in turn leads Thor to abuse his sons Magni and Modi to cope with his own self-loathing. After Kratos and Atreus kill them, Thor starts trying to sober up and become a better parent for his only surviving child: his daughter Thrud. Unfortunately, he's clueless as to how to go about it because he doesn't have any references for what a positive parental role is to go on.
- Horizon Zero Dawn: The game shows a world heavily impacted by this. One of the most powerful kingdoms, the Carja, committed genocide against several other tribes (called 'Red Raids' within the story). Although their king has been overthrown by his son, the relationship between the Carja and other tribes is still often dominated by resentment and trauma, more so because reconciliation efforts have been going very slowly.
Webcomics
- Muted: The Severins hand down emotional damage and trauma from generation to generation like most families hand down heirlooms. Alette (Camille's grandmother) was convinced that Abrielle was perfect and that Athalie was evil and not to be trusted and encouraged their sibling rivalry, which led to Athalie murdering her sister. Abrielle tried her best to break the cycle, but ended up dead, leaving Camille at the mercy of her aunt Athalie. Athalie tried her best to get her mother to love her, but she didn't no matter what she did; even rejecting Athalie on her deathbed. Athalie is then convinced that love is pointless; only power and control are worthy of her time, and raised Camille and Avaline accordingly. Camille grew up thinking that she should have died along with her mother and sister in the fire that killed them, and is actually surprised when she is told that wanting to be happy isn't selfish at all. Athalie also forcefully changes Avaline's hair color back to its natural brown and straightens it, to make her more attractive to suitors. Avaline's dyed blonde hair was the only bit of individuality she had left. Avaline grew up thinking that what she feels doesn't matter; she is simply a vessel for the Severins to get what they want, until she snaps and smashes a vase over her mother's head. Luckily both Camille and Avaline break the cycle together, and after Avaline becomes Matriarch, she leads the Severins in a new, less toxic direction.
Western Animation
- Bojack Horseman: Beatrice Sugarman is an absolutely abysmal mother to Bojack, neglecting him and making him feel worthless and talentless. Most of it can be blamed on her father's warped and awful worldviews. Joseph Sugarman has his wife lobotomized in order to repress the trauma of her son's death, burns all of Beatrice's things upon learning she has scarlet fever, and constantly sews fear into her over becoming fat and ugly.
- As a result of her reckless parenting, neglect and hedonistic lifestyle, Bojack himself would pass the trauma onto his TV daughter Sarah Lynn by teaching her that attention of any variety will earn her love. Additionally, he encouraged her drug and alcohol addictions which led to her overdosing under his watch. He even went as far as to sleep with her (when she was 30).
- DuckTales (2017): The Mcduck/Duck clan's generational trauma originates with "Dirty Dingus" Mcduck who is an impossible-to-please father who can't hold the family wealth together. Then his son Fergus feels he needs to instill a sense of self-reliance on his son Scrooge in order to survive with their diminished finances. Unfortunately, it's A Lesson Learned Too Well for Scrooge, so he decides to get everything in life only on his own terms; therefore leaving home and causing a rift to form between himself and his family. While Scrooge improves once his sister Hortense entrusts guardianship of his nephew and niece to him, everything goes sideways when Della gets lost on the moon. Blaming Scrooge for building the Rocket that caused it, Donald then becomes an overprotective uncle for Della's kids, which they all inevitably rebel against. This ends up creating even more problems once they have to come back into Scrooge's life. Thankfully, as the family begins to reunite, they begin to properly address these issues one episode at a time.
- Moral Orel: Clay Puppington is a monster in every regard. He takes no responsibility for the actions of his son, grooms him to be the model image of himself, and shoots him in the leg then forces him to say he did it to himself. The only care he expresses towards Orel is that he's willing to spank him with his belt. This is because after he accidentally killed his own mother with a prank, his father gestures to smack him, but stops himself saying "You're not worth it." From then on, he internalizes this as people only being "worth it" when they receive capital punishment.
- The Simpsons:
- This comes up occasionally in the show where it's noted that Homer's abusive treatment of Bart stems in part from his own father Abe's abusive treatment of him.
- In "Bart Star", Homer is initially critical of Bart's peewee football abilities, until he realises how Abe was similarly critical of his gymnastics talent, which ended up sabotaging one of his routines. He therefore resolves to be more supportive and encouraging towards Bart. Not only does this sudden change of behaviour immediately cause Bart to panic, assuming it's a "trap", but Homer takes it too far in the other direction, ignoring Bart's obvious lack of talent (and his own protests about said lack of talent) in favour of making the team's new quarterback. All things told, things go worse for Bart than they would have if Homer had remained his usual Jerkass self.
- Steven Universe: A recurring theme in the series is unresolved emotional baggage being taken out on one's family, particularly those they raise.
- Steven is initially raised with a reverential image of his late mother Rose Quartz. Gradually, though, Rose's old enemies begin to surface and Steven becomes familiar with her more morally questionable actions. Her son thus begins to wonder if Rose was less of a messianic savior and more someone who was too scared to deal with her mistakes and preferred to bury and forget about them, leaving them a problem for future generations.
- Pearl's devotion to Rose and guilt about being unable to prevent her death, leads her to be very protective of Steven. This culminates in "Sworn to the Sword", where Pearl teaches Steven's girlfriend Connie to be his bodyguard but takes it to an overly self-sacrificial extreme, to the point that Steven intervenes to get them both to stop.
- Pearl, Rose, and Garnet adopted the wandering Gem Amethyst but were prone to speak poorly about the past Gem war on Earth which they fought in. This causes Amethyst to form a guilty complex from learning that she was created to be a soldier in said war, as it feels as though the others are saying she should've never been born.
- In the Future episode "Mr. Universe", Steven learns that his father is estranged from his own parents, having resented their stifling upbringing and going his own way as a musician. Greg thus raised Steven in a loose manner where his son could do anything he wanted, not having to attend school or visit the doctor or other responsibilities distracting from his Gem heritage. However, Steven resents this discovery as he feels he was robbed of the chance to live a normal life instead of one constantly in peril from Gem threats.
