From now on a household of five will be divided,
three against two and two against three;
a father will be divided against his son
and a son against his father,
a mother against her daughter
and a daughter against her mother,
a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
three against two and two against three;
a father will be divided against his son
and a son against his father,
a mother against her daughter
and a daughter against her mother,
a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
Tropes about family members who just really can't get along with each other too well.
Obviously, this is a subcategory of Family Tropes.
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General Family Mess
Main trope:
See also:
- Abusive Personality Shift: A previously caring person becomes abusive to their loved ones.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: A big family with all sorts of issues surrounding it.
- Black Sheep: The one member of the family who is met with disdain by their relatives for being different from the rest of the bloodline.
- Blended Family Drama: A family including children from previous relationships struggles to get along.
- Cannibal Clan: A family who eats other people.
- The Chain of Harm: A family's bad treatment of one of their own has a chance of making the mistreated character mistreat others.
- Coattail-Riding Relative: Relatives trying to take advantage of a another family member's wealth and/or success.
- Creepy Family: A family that's weird and creepy.
- Custody Battle: Conflict ensues when a couple gets divorced and can't agree on who should get custody of the children.
- Deceased Estate Conflict: Beneficiaries of an estate disputing over who gets what.
- Dinner and a Show: When a dysfunctional family sits down together for dinner, something's bound to go wrong.
- Dissatisfied Family Man: A miserable family man with a job he hates and poor relations with his wife and kids.
- Divine–Infernal Family: Cosmic opposites as family. Sometimes not dysfunctional, but that's usually the exception to the rule.
- Divorce? Blame the Offspring: A couple divorces and blames their child for it.
- Domestic Abuse: Someone physically and/or psychologically abuses another family member.
- Don't Tell Mama: Wanting to keep a family member, such as a parent, in the dark about behaviour that might not be considered okay by society or approved by family.
- Elder Abandonment: An elderly person is abandoned by their relatives.
- Elder Abuse: Someone abuses their parents or other older family members.
- Enemy Becomes Family: Enemies end up becoming related to each other.
- Estranged Soap Family: In a Soap Opera or serial drama, relatives don't reappear even for special events happening in their family.
- Familial Body Snatcher: A Body Snatcher who only possesses members of their own family and/or descendants.
- Familial Fame Frustrations: When a family member or members are negatively impacted as a direct result of one or more of their relatives being famous.
- Family Disunion: Dinner and a Show taken to the next level (involving big events among extended family, such as weddings or funerals).
- Family Pillar Death: The death of a parental figure causes the rest of their family to break apart, often times ending in them disliking, if not outright hating each other.
- The Family That Slays Together: An evil family comprised of murderous criminals.
- Feuding Families: Families that won't stop fighting and hating each other.
- Financial Abuse: Abusing a family member by controlling their money.
- Formerly Friendly Family: Family members were once close, but grew to hate each other.
- Fractured Family: A family, for whatever reason, splits into factions, usually oppositional ones.
- Freudian Excuse: It's established that a villain (or a Jerkass) is the way they are because of something bad that happened to them when they were younger. Examples commonly involve domestic abuse or a beloved family member dying in front of them.
- Guinea Pig Family: A scientist uses their relatives for (usually unethical) experiments.
- Hereditary Suicide: Suicide runs in families.
- Honor-Related Abuse: Abuse that is committed in order to enforce a twisted code of personal honor/pride, and to punish those who are perceived to be violating it.
- Honor Thy Abuser: A character learns to forgive and respect their abusive relatives, usually their Abusive Parents.
- Inbred and Evil: Being born of incest leads to immorality.
- Incest-ant Admirer: When incestuous attraction is not reciprocated in the slightest.
- Intrafamilial Class Conflict: Class conflict between relatives.
- It Runs in the Family: Craziness or weirdness runs in the family.
- Kidnapped by Family: When family has no qualms about kidnapping each other.
- Kids Versus Adults: A well-known conflict in many families, either between siblings, between parents and kids, or with extended family.
- Kinslaying Is a Special Kind of Evil: Killing a family member is seen as particularly heinous.
- Lonely Rich Kid: Someone under 18 comes from a rich family, but feels lonely and neglected.
- Loving Parent, Cruel Parent: One parent is loving, the other is abusive or violent. This can result in negative drama between the spouses as well as between the parent and child.
- Mama Didn't Raise No Criminal: A criminal's family, upon finding out what they've been doing, deny that they're a criminal or defend what they did.
- Mother's Little Helpers: A woman is driven to a prescription pill addiction due to stresses of her family.
- Not Blood, Not Family: A character is denied as being family due to a lack of biological relation.
- One Normal Night: A character's eccentric family tries to be normal to make a good impression for the character's love interest, emphasis on tries.
- Only Cares About Inheritance: A character only cares about a family member's death because it will get them an inheritance.
- Parental Love Triangle: A Love Triangle featuring a parent and child, usually as rivals in love.
- Playing the Family Card: A character uses family ties to manipulate someone into helping them.
- Prodigal Family: Estranged family members show up to complicate a character's life.
- Refused Reunion: A character that was missing is revealed to be alive, but refuses to reunite with their family for whatever reason.
- Relative Ridicule: A character is ridiculed because of who they're related to, or their relatives are made fun of.
- Royal Inbreeding: When royalty and nobility only marry within their class, it may eventually lead to a smaller gene pool and twisted family trees.
- Royally Screwed Up: Dysfunctional dynasties; royal families who don't get along well.
- Sins of Our Fathers: Someone is treated badly, not because of them doing anything bad themselves but because of what their ancestors did.
- Step Servant: The character is made a servant/slave to the rest of the family.
- Toxic Family Influence: Someone is influenced by their family member to commit toxic acts.
- Treated Worse than the Pet: Someone's status in their family is so low that even animals are treated better or valued more than they are.
- Troubled Abuser: The abuser bullies their family members because they were also abused themselves.
- Titanomachy, Round Two: Someone's trying to free Cronus, Zeus's dad, to take Zeus out. Regular culprits tend to be Zeus's brothers, his wife, or a son.
- Vicarious Gold Digger: A character pushes their relative to marry for money instead of respecting the relative's wishes.
- Villainous Incest: A villain has sex with a blood relative to show how evil and disgusting they are.
- Villainous Lineage: Villainy runs in the family.
- White Sheep: The one decent member of a family otherwise composed of scoundrels.
Lovers and Spouses
- Abduction Is Love: You abducting someone to make them love you.
- Alliance of Women Scorned: Every single woman that a man mistreated and dumped join forces to get revenge on him.
- And Now You Must Marry Me: Forcing someone to marry another person whom they'd rather not want to spend the rest of their lives with.
- Antics-Enabling Wife: A wife who lets her husband work out his plans despite telling him they won't do so well.
- Awful Wedded Life: Both spouses are miserable together.
- Black Widow: A woman who marries men so she can eventually kill them.
- Blame the Paramour: Someone who's been cheated on only gets angry with the person their partner had an affair with.
- Business Trip Adultery: Businessman and businesswomen having affairs when they're on their business trips, whether actual or faked.
- The Bluebeard: A man who marries women so he can eventually kill them.
- Callously Casual Cheating: When someone doesn't care enough to hide when they're cheating on their romantic partners.
- Cheating with the Milkman: When a woman cheats on her husband with someone whose job involves making rounds to houses, such as her own, and delivering things, such as a milkman or postman.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: When a girlfriend or wife doesn't like anyone, especially other women, making moves and eyes on her man.
- Contraception Deception: One partner deceives the other about their ability to conceive children. Can be considered rape by fraud.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: A guy who's paranoid and jealous over his girlfriend/wife.
- Crusading Widow: Someone becomes hardened and vengeful because their partner died.
- Cuckold: A man who is being cheated on by his partner and probably knows, but can't/won't do much about it.
- A Deadly Affair: An extramarital affair results in the murder of one or more person(s) involved or affected by it.
- Dead Sparks: The couple loved each other once, but now just stay together out of complacency.
- Destructive Romance: A romantic relationship is unambiguously toxic for the people involved (not always outright abusive but still unhealthy).
- Divorce Assets Conflict: A divorcing couple fight over their property.
- Divorce Requires Death: Someone tries to end their marriage by either killing their spouse, or themselves (or both).
- Doesn't Know Their Lover: Someone doesn't know anything about their romantic interest.
- Do-Nothing Housewife: A "housewife" who doesn't actually do any housework and just loafs around.
- Embarrassing Relative Teacher: Embarrassing parents or relatives are bad enough at home, but are even worse when they work at the same school you attend.
- The Ex's New Jerkass: An ex gets a new partner who's a total Jerkass.
- A Family Affair: A character cheats on their spouse with someone their spouse is related to (such as their spouse's sibling).
- Fetishized Abuser: A person abuses their lover and is made to look good doing it.
- Foolish Husband, Responsible Wife: A wife is smarter than her husband.
- Foot-Dragging Divorcee: One spouse doesn't want a divorce.
- Gold Digger: Marrying someone just to gain access to their wealth rather than love.
- Happy Marriage Charade: The married couple pretends that they're happy together to throw other people off.
- Henpecked Husband: A submissive husband allows his bossy wife to constantly nag at and order him around.
- If I Can't Have You…: Someone who resorts to murdering their object of affection if they don't return their feelings, just to stop others from loving them romantically.
- Kichiku: Anime Fanspeak for a male Fetishized Abuser.
- Kichiku Megane: Anime Fanspeak for a male Fetishized Abuser who wears glasses to indicate that he is smart, sophisticated, and successful.
- Lazy Husband: The husband is very reluctant to do anything his wife asks of him.
- Love Triangle: Someone who has to choose between two people who love them.
- Marital Rape License: The belief that it is okay to force one's wife or husband into having sex, regardless of whether they consent or not.
- Marriage of Convenience: Couples getting married for their own reasons instead of love.
- Married Too Young: A couple gets married young and faces relationship problems as a consequence of not waiting until they've matured enough.
- The Masochism Tango: A couple who frequently alternate between being affectionate and fighting (essentially Belligerent Sexual Tension, but with the tension already resolved).
- A Match Made in Stockholm: Someone who's been abducted befriends or falls in love with their kidnapper.
- The Mistress: The woman that a man is cheating on his wife for.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Someone murdering those who pose a threat to their romantic relationship.
- No Accounting for Taste: A marriage where both parties are completely miserable but for some reason still remain together.
- Old Man Marrying a Child: An elderly man marries a young girl.
- Parenting the Husband: The wife caters to every whim of her immature husband, treating him like he was her child.
- Plot-Inciting Infidelity: A plot kicks off with someone being cheated on and finding out about it.
- Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: A crazy former girlfriend/wife (or boyfriend/husband) out for revenge.
- Remarried to the Mistress: A man marries his mistress after leaving or divorcing his wife.
- Romanticized Abuse: Domestic abuse is made to look more attractive than it really is.
- Secret Other Family: A character has a secret second family the other family knew nothing about.
- Serial Adulterer: A person who has multiple affairs with different people.
- Serial Spouse: A person has married and divorced multiple times.
- Sexless Marriage: A married couple who don't have sex, which often causes problems in their marriage.
- Sex with the Ex: People having sex with each other after they broke up or got divorced.
- Shotgun Wedding: When an accidental pregnancy leads to a reluctant (if not forced) marriage.
- Stepping Stone Spouse: A partner sacrifices for their spouse only to be left behind when fortunes increase
- Taking the Kids: Someone taking the children they had with their spouse after a fight the couple had.
- Til Murder Do Us Part: Someone plans to kill or has killed their spouse.
- Toilet Seat Divorce: A couple divorce over a trivial reason.
- Toxic Lover Influence: Someone is influenced by their lover to commit toxic acts
- Unholy Matrimony: Marriage between two evil people.
- Unwanted Spouse: Their spouse is stuck being married to them even though they don't love or necessarily even like them.
- Widow Mistreatment: When someone dies, their spouse is treated worse by their family.
- Woman Scorned: Someone does not take being dumped, cheated on, or mistreated by their significant other well at all.
- Yandere: A person who's obsessed with their romantic interest and wants them all to themselves, even being aggressive towards those they feel their object of affection is paying attention to.
Parents and Offspring
See also:
- Abandoned War Child: Children who were fathered by a disappeared soldier during wartime. They either live with a single mother or perhaps they have become orphaned by her as well.
- Abusive Alien Parents: Extraterrestrials are shown to be worse at raising their offspring than humans are.
- Abusive Offspring: Children who are abusive towards their own parents.
- Abusive Parents: Parents who act cold and cruel towards their children.
- Pimping the Offspring: Parents who allow their children to be sexually exploited for personal gain.
- Adoption Angst: A character has issues with their parents because they were adopted.
- Adults Are Useless: Parents are too stupid, apathetic, or oblivious to do anything helpful when their children are in trouble.
- Affair? Blame the Bastard: Taking out your anger from your spouse's infidelity on the bastard child born of said infidelity.
- Alcoholic Parent: People don't tend to be good parents if they are drunk on booze most of the time.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Parents who have a tendency to (accidentally) humiliate their kids in public.
- Ambiguously Absent Parent: When it's not exactly obvious if someone's parent(s) are around or not.
- Antagonistic Offspring: A person who antagonizes their parents.
- Anti-Education Mama: Parents who disapprove of their children having educations.
- Archnemesis Dad: Abusive fathers.
- Awkward Father-Son Bonding Activity: A father tries to bond with his son, but it doesn't end well (often because the father forces the son into an activity he has no interest in).
- Baby as Payment: A parent outright gives their child away.
- Bastard Angst: Children born to unmarried parents can suffer difficult lives for various reasons. May sometimes overlap with Parental Abandonment.
- Bastard Bastard: A person who is a bastard in both senses of the word (i.e. he was born out of wedlock and he's a jerk).
- Betrayal by Offspring: Someone backstabs their parents.
- Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: A father who is overly controlling of his daughter's love life.
- Bratty Half-Pint: An obnoxious child who may act rude or ungrateful towards their parents (and also their siblings or other family members).
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: A teenage girl who acts rude or ungrateful towards her parents.
- Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Someone tries to avoid making the same mistakes that their parents made while raising their own children.
- Bumbling Dad: The father of the family is a complete moron.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: A child addresses their parents by their given names, often as a sign of disrespect.
- Calling the Old Man Out: When children call out their parents for their actions.
- Calling the Young Man Out: When parents call out their children for their actions.
- Child by Rape: A child from forced conception.
- Child Supplants Parent: A child intends to supplant their parent.
- Chocolate Baby: A child doesn't quite look like one or both of their parents, suggesting that their real parent is someone their other parent cheated with.
- Daddy Didn't Show: A parent fails to show up for a child's special event.
- Dad's Off Fighting in the War: A parent's fighting a war, which means they can't be around for their family much.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: Someone's parents were genuinely Good Parents but they're dead and gone now.
- Delusions of Parental Love: A child is abused, abandoned, or neglected by their parents, but insist that their parents really do love them despite their mistreatment.
- Denying the Dead Parent's Sins: Refusing to accept that a deceased parent did bad things while they were alive.
- Disappeared Dad: A character's mother is present, but not their father.
- Disinherited Child: A parent leaves their child out of their will, ensuring that their child doesn't inherit jack squat when they die.
- Disneyland Dad: Type II; absentee parent tries to buy their offspring's love with expensive gifts rather than show them actual affection.
- Disowned Parent: A child disowns their parent.
- Divine Parental Issues: Gods and their children never have a good relationship.
- Divorce? Blame the Offspring: Someone who's getting divorced from their spouse blames their child for the divorce.
- Doesn't Know Their Own Child: A parent barely understands anything about their kid's personality.
- Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: A character (usually a parent) spanks a kid.
- Dumbass Teenage Son: A teenage boy who acts stupid or ungrateful towards his parents.
- Education Mama: Parents who are obsessed with their children getting the best grades they can.
- Emancipated Child: A child legally "divorces" themselves from their parents.
- Evil Matriarch: Abusive mothers.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: The parents frown upon their children pursuing interests and goals that they do not see as matching their idea of a proper future.
- Felon's Failson: A criminal's offspring who is nowhere near as respected or competent as their parent.
- Follow in My Footsteps: A parent insists that their child follow their footsteps and do what they do, while the child has dreams of their own they'd rather pursue.
- Fostering for Profit: When foster parents only care about getting the money fostering a child gives them.
- Grandparent Favoritism: These grandparents love their grandchildren... because they're more likable or superior to their own children.
- Gruesome Grandparent: Parental abuse, but it skips a generation.
- Hands-Off Parenting: Parents who are very irresponsible when it comes to raising their kids.
- Hates Their Parent: When a child hates or dislikes their parents for some reason.
- Helicopter Parents: When a parent is overly involved in their children's lives, often micromanaging their activities and social life, to the detriment of the child.
- Hilariously Abusive Childhood: A character is shown to have a ludicrously rough childhood for Black Comedy purposes.
- Humble Parent, Spoiled Kids: Rich parents are humble while their kids are spoiled.
- I Am Not My Father: A character does everything they can to not turn out like their parent.
- I Hate You, Vampire Dad: An angsty vampire hates the person who turned them into one (who may be a parental figure, or even their actual parent).
- I Have No Son!: A child gets disowned by their parents.
- Illegal Guardian: A parental figure/guardian with not-so-benevolent intentions towards the child they're looking after.
- Inadequate Inheritor: A child's or heir's worthiness of inheritance is questioned by their elders.
- Jealous Parent: A parent competes with their child for their spouse's attention.
- Junkie Parent: Parents who are addicted to recreational drugs are often shown as being irresponsible.
- Knight Templar Parent: Parents who go to ridiculous extremes to defend their offspring from people and situations that they believe to be harming them.
- Love-Obstructing Parents: The parents disapprove of their child's choice of romantic partner, and so they try to split them up.
- Luke, I Might Be Your Father: It's never confirmed if someone is another character's biological child or not.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: A woman is pregnant and she doesn't know who the father is.
- Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: A child is blamed for their mother's Death by Childbirth.
- Matricide: Killing one's mother.
- Middle Child Syndrome: The middle child is unable to get as much affection or attention as their older and younger siblings.
- Missing Mom: A character's father is present, but not their mother.
- A Mistake Is Born: A child is regarded as a "mistake" (i.e. accidentally and/or regretfully conceived) by one or both parents.
- My Beloved Smother: A mother who is clingy, controlling, and overbearing to their children.
- New Parent Nomenclature Problem: A child is unsure what to call their new step/adoptive/newly discovered parent.
- Not Actually His Child: A man finds out his child is not biologically his.
- Notorious Parent: A parent runs away from their offspring because they are a fugitive criminal wanted by law enforcement.
- Offing the Offspring: A parent kills their own child or children.
- Parental Abandonment: One or both of a character's parents are absent from their kid's life, whether due to that parent being deceased, missing, divorced, separated, or even having intentionally abandoned their family. May sometimes overlap with Bastard Angst.
- Parental Betrayal: A character is betrayed by their parent/parental figure.
- Parental Denial: A character denies being a child's parent.
- Parental Favoritism: Parents have one child they like more than the others.
- Parental Incest: Sex or romantic relationship between a parent and a child.
- Parental Marriage Veto: They try to discourage their kid from marrying a fiancé(e) whom they dislike.
- Parental Neglect: Parents who tend to ignore their kids' emotional needs, and don't seem to care much about whatever happens to them.
- Parental Savings Splurge: A character's parent uses up all or most of the money that was supposed to be for their child (e.g. college fund).
- Parental Title Characterization: What you call your parents indicates your relationship with them.
- Pater Familicide: Someone kills their entire immediate family (spouse and children) and then themselves in a Murder-Suicide.
- Patricide: Killing one's father.
- Pervert Dad: A father who is sexually abusive towards his daughter (or son).
- Pushover Parents: Parents who are easily manipulated into letting their children have their way.
- Racist Grandma: An elderly relative (often, though not always, a grandparent) who causes drama by spouting bigoted views, especially with the younger generations.
- Replacement Sibling: When losing a child, these parents will try replacing them with another child of theirs.
- Resentful Guardian: They really regret having to raise a kid.
- Royally Bad Parent: Parent(s) within a line of royalty/nobility are abusive to their children.
- Safety Worst: Parents go overboard keeping their child safe, stopping them from having fun or being independent.
- Self-Made Orphan: Someone murders their own parents.
- Shed the Family Name: A character stops going by their family name, usually because they're disowned by their family.
- Sinister Serial Adopter: Someone who adopts multiple children to abuse or exploit.
- Single Mom Stripper: A prostitute, stripper, or other sex worker does this job in order to feed her child(ren).
- Son of a Whore: Someone born from a prostitute.
- Spoiled Brat: A child who is rude and obnoxious because their parents give them whatever they want, whenever they want.
- Sports Dad: A father who forces his kids to play sports, never mind where his kids' passions lie.
- Stage Mom: A mother forcing her children into show business for her own sake.
- Staying Together for the Kids: A couple want to break up, but stay together for their children.
- Strict Parents Make Sneaky Kids: Parents who are over-protective or too strict with their children simply make them better at hiding secrets.
- Struggling Single Mother: It's much more difficult to raise a child without their father.
- Switched at Birth: Someone's baby is switched with another at birth.
- That Thing Is Not My Child!: A parent rejects a child because of what was involved in creating the child.
- Tough Love: Parents treating their children harshly in order to make them better.
- Trophy Child: A child who is treated as a status symbol by their parents more so than a person.
- Troubled Child: Abuse and/or neglect doesn't do wonders for a kid's well-being.
- The Un-Favourite: A child who is ignored and neglected by their parents in favor of their siblings.
- Unpleasant Parent Reveal: Discovering an Awful Truth about a parent or parents.
- Useless Bystander Parent: A parent who does little or nothing to protect their child from abuse by the other parent.
- Wanted a Gender-Conforming Child: Parents take issue with their son or daughter not conforming to traditional gender stereotypes.
- Wanted a Son Instead: A parent is disappointed when their new child isn't a boy (or more rarely, a girl).
- "Well Done, Dad!" Guy: A father who wishes his son would respect him.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: A son who wishes his father would respect him.
- When You Coming Home, Dad?: Jobs of parents leave them unable to spend as much time with their kids as they would like.
- Where Did We Go Wrong?: Parents wonder if their child turned out poorly (or poorly in their eyes) because of the way they raised them.
- Who's Your Daddy?: A character's biological father is unknown.
- Why Are You Not My Son?: When a parent (unfavorably) compares their own child not to their sibling, but to that child's friend.
- Why Couldn't You Be Different?: When parents are disappointed that their kids failed to live up to their expectations of them.
- Wicked Stepmother: Abusive stepmothers (or stepfathers) mistreating their spouse's biological children from another marriage.
- Wife Husbandry: Adopting a child for the purpose of marrying them when they're old enough.
- Your Son All Along: Someone is revealed to be a character's biological child rather than someone else's, like it was assumed.
- You're Not My Father: A character tells a parent/parental figure that they're not their parent.
Brothers and Sisters
- Angsty Surviving Twin: A twin grieves for the death of their twin.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: A younger sibling who bothers their older sibling by being annoying.
- Big Brother Attraction: A girl is attracted to her older brother.
- Big Brother Bully: An older sibling who picks on their younger siblings.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Sex or romantic relationship between siblings.
- Cain and Abel: Siblings who don't get along well.
- Cain and Abel and Seth: An sibling introduced later in canon complicates a sibling dynamic that was already established.
- Disappointing Older Sibling: A character who is seen as a letdown by their younger sibling, often for being a bully, irresponsible, etc.
- Disowned Sibling: One sibling disowns the other.
- Evil Brunette Twin: An Evil Twin who is dark-haired while the good twin is light-haired.
- Evil Twin: A wicked twin sibling who antagonizes their brother or sister.
- Flirty Stepsiblings: Stepsiblings who've gone through puberty feel sexually/romantically attracted to each other.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: One sibling is responsible and cares about doing the right thing, while the other one is a lazy slacker who gets into trouble.
- The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Sisters, one smart and one pretty, who don't get along well.
- Half-Sibling Angst: The fact that you only share one parent with them makes it more difficult to get along with them.
- Infant Sibling Jealousy: Feeling annoyed that your cute baby brother/sister gets all of your parents' attention.
- Knight Templar Big Brother: Older siblings who go to extreme lengths to protect their younger siblings.
- Little Sister Heroine: A female character whose relationship with her older brother (or a brother-figure) has incestuous undertones.
- Resentful Outnumbered Sibling: Someone dislikes that they are the only brother or sister in the family.
- Separated at Birth: Babies from multiple births, such as twins, are separated soon after birth.
- Sibling Murder: Killing one's own brother or sister.
- Sibling Rivalry: Siblings who don't get along well.
- Spartan Sibling: This family believes in neglectful/harmful love as a way of toughening up.
- Successful Sibling Syndrome: Someone feels overshadowed by their sibling's achievements.
- Twincest: Twins have sex or they are romantically related.
Extended Family and Other Relatives
- Clashing Cousins: A conflict between cousins from different sides of the family. May overlap with Feuding Families if the families are big enough.
- Creepy Uncle: An uncle who has an incestuous interest in his niece or nephew.
- Evil Nephew: A wicked nephew/niece who antagonizes their uncle/aunt.
- Evil Uncle: A wicked uncle/aunt who antagonizes their nephew/niece.
- Kissing Cousins: Incest between cousins.
- Meet the In-Laws: Drama and conflict arising from having to meet your significant other's family.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: Hostility between a married person and their spouse's relatives.