Searching for characters with this backstory

July 14, 2023 10:04 PM

I'm creating a D&D character for fun and the backstory I'm working with involves an entitled kid who gets passed over for something they think is theirs by birth. I had to have gotten this idea from somewhere, because I am not nearly creative enough to have come up with it on my own. What characters from film or literature or myth have something similar going on?

For what it's worth, my character is going to be someone from a well-known group of clerics with a storied family tree. Rather than feel pressured to live up to the family name they instead feel like a shoe-in for cleric-hood by pedigree, so when they go to become an acolyte they don't apply themselves. The family god passes them over for their blessing, and enraged and ashamed my character instead makes a pact with an opportunistic entity and becomes a warlock. I'm trying to decide if they immediately become remorseful and want to break the pack or if they go scorched earth.

Anyway, that's not really relevant, I just wanted to share it because it's been fun digging into the idea. Thank you!

posted by The Adventure Begins to Writing & Language (35 answers total)

Would also love any examples of people who DO work super hard to earn a role and then are passed over despite believing they've really proved their worth and make a bad deal with someone as a result. Ideally fantasy, since there's magic involved.

I feel like this is the backstory for some Marvel villain????
posted by The Adventure Begins at 10:08 PM on July 14, 2023

Ken from Succession, who has no real awareness of how unqualified he is.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 10:10 PM on July 14, 2023

Feels very Boromir/Farimer . But it does feel like a longstanding trope. Bet Shakespeare wrote one.
posted by Windopaene at 10:12 PM on July 14, 2023

Faramir...

Oooh, didn't read the backstory. Cool concept. Makes me think of all the entitled douchebags in John Hughes movies, [James Spader} come to mind. Though none of them were clerics! I'd search for "familial revenge" and see what comes up.
posted by Windopaene at 10:26 PM on July 14, 2023

Kay, initially when Wart pulls the sword, in TH White's Once and Future King.
posted by fingersandtoes at 10:44 PM on July 14, 2023

the OG story is Jacob and Esau in the book of Genesis. In a literal sense Esau sells his birthright to Jacob. But in a broader sense, it is clear from the story that Jacob was the one that God (and their mother Rebecca) loved better, although Esau was the better hunter and the bigger, elder twin who was entitled to be the heir.
posted by fingersandtoes at 10:48 PM on July 14, 2023

also I feel like this is a very 80s movie classic trope, though I'm having a hard time coming up with a specific one! I feel like it'll come to me soon. It's not exactly the Karate Kid but there's some of that, right? The girl chooses the smaller guy, the bigger guy can't believe it, the smaller guy eventually beats the bigger guy?
posted by fingersandtoes at 11:08 PM on July 14, 2023

Kind Hearts and Coronets, a 1949 vehicle for Alec Guinness to play multiple relatives who get offed by The True Heir of the Dukes of Chalfont.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:51 AM on July 15, 2023

Scar from the Lion King?
Richard III?
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 1:23 AM on July 15, 2023

Tom Cruise’s character in Rain Man.
posted by snofoam at 4:16 AM on July 15, 2023

Many webnovel-based fantasy manga do something like this.

random example

In a world where Classes are belstowed by the gods upon everyone when they reach eighteen, the existence of Skills within these Classes tends to overshadow any hard work, setting one’s life path. Within this imbalanced system, Lythe, who trained in hopes of becoming a Holy Knight, was heartlessly classified as Jobless during the Class assignment, resulting in his expulsion from the town by his father, the Duke. As he scraped by as a luggage boy, there came a day when the merchant caravan he was with got attacked by bandits. Lythe, attempting to save the child, engaged in a battle with the skillful attackers, accepting his impending death. Yet, a mysterious voice echoed in his head when he punched a bandit in his last act of defiance…

posted by sebastienbailard at 5:09 AM on July 15, 2023

There's only seven stories, right? Or 44? Or maybe it's 1,000?

Either way, it's finite, and your remix is in a long and glorious tradition. Your second example feels "Rebirth"-y to me; the Beast in Beauty and the Beast? The frog in the Frog Prince? Heck, the princess in the Frog Prince?
posted by adekllny at 5:29 AM on July 15, 2023

If elite colleges stop favoring legacy admissions, there will be a whole bunch of new people experiencing this storyline. I know that's not itself an example in literature/film, but maybe it still provides a useful perspective on the pattern.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 5:45 AM on July 15, 2023

Middlemarch is long (and wonderful), but this is the subplot with Fred Vincy, who is completely irresponsible with money because he assumes he has a big inheritance coming.

I was also going to bring up Esau. Just to add to that, he not only sells his birthright, but Jacob and Rachel use subterfuge to cheat him out of his father's blessing. He eventually forgives Jacob though.
posted by FencingGal at 5:55 AM on July 15, 2023

It's not fully like but the first part is what happens in Encanto.
posted by Iteki at 5:57 AM on July 15, 2023

Maybe slightly less “they think is theirs” and more “they think should be theirs, except sexism made them ineligible”, but:

Ursula in the Disney version of The Little Mermaid
Christina Braithwhite in Lovecraft Country


It does seem like this is often paired with The Chosen One trope - eg. the recent Chilling Adventures of Sabrina tv series has the scions of Father Blackwood, including daughter and former top student Prudence, pitted against Sabrina for the first seasons.

If I recall correctly, this plays into at least one of the stories from The Thousand and One Nights, even.

The Cain characters in the various re-tellings of the Cain and Abel story through the three generations of family in Steinbeck’s East of Eden.

Not fantasy, but Carlos Cifuentes in the Spanish tv show Cable Girls.

There seem to be some elements of this (though not the familial part, exactly, at least from what I’ve seen so far) in the motivating backstory for the tv series American Born Chinese.
posted by eviemath at 6:06 AM on July 15, 2023

I just listened to a slow burn podcast about Clarence Thomas and he's some version of a horrible example of your second formulation (He goes scorched earth, obviously. Deeply, deeply scorched earth).

He *did* work super hard, both academically and in trying to live uprightly (he almost became a priest and was briefly a civil rights activist). He wasn't passed over, he was chosen. But over and over, despite his hard work and earned credentials, his patrons made clear to him and everyone around him that they chose him as a token diversity hire. He became deeply, deeply bitter, allied himself with conservatives whose racism was at least not cloaked as beneficence, and went fullllll evil.
posted by Ausamor at 6:32 AM on July 15, 2023

Wickham in Pride and Prejudice - because his dad got on with Darcy's dad, he assumes he's entitled to a clerical post even though he turned down the opportunity years ago in favour of money to study for another career. And the wider world can't see the broader story, just the fact that Darcy appears to have snubbed him for no reason.
posted by altolinguistic at 6:36 AM on July 15, 2023

The entire Thrombey family in the movie Knives Out.
posted by kimberussell at 6:42 AM on July 15, 2023

[ A couple comments removed.

Hi OP, please keep in mind that Ask Metafilter isn't for back and forth discussion on a topic, but to get answers to a specific question. It's fine to pop in to clarify if people want or need more info, but otherwise just take in the answers, and determine for yourself what is useful for your purposes.]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:36 AM on July 15, 2023

Iago from Othello? We're not really sure what his deal his, but clearly he thinks he's due more.

I like my villain psychology to be simple so I would go with whatever feels right. If you want this character to be a long time villain, I would watch a couple Matt Colville's videos on villains and minions.
posted by fiercekitten at 7:52 AM on July 15, 2023

I feel like this is the backstory for some Marvel villain????

Loki is the obvious example, passed over by his father in favor of his oafish brother. One could also make a case for the MCU version of Darren Cross/Yellowjacket, who, despite his brilliance, was abandoned by his mentor, Hank Pym/Ant-Man.
posted by SPrintF at 8:36 AM on July 15, 2023

Oh, and over on the DC Comics side, Lex Luthor should by rights be king of the world, but is undone by his inability to let go of his hatred and jealousy of Superman.
posted by SPrintF at 8:38 AM on July 15, 2023

Lilith from Warrior Nun.

She is Next in Line to receive the halo, and then... she doesn't.
posted by tuesdayschild at 10:30 AM on July 15, 2023

Theon Greyjoy in a Song of Ice of Fire, who expects to be welcomed on the Iron Isles as his father's heir, but finds himself much less respected than his sister Asha (Yara on GOT), because his father thinks he's become too much like a Stark. That's certainly a big part of his motivation to betray the Starks and ally with Ramsay Bolton.

Argueably also Stannis, Renly, Dany bascially everyone whose fighting for the Throne. It's woven in the blueprint of a feudalist setting; a lot of the players are somewhat motivated by some grievance about a stolen birthright, or birthright suddenly contested, and they often make more or less questionable alliances in their fight to reclaim it (eg. Stannis and Melisandre).

Most of these characters are also underdogs in some sense, hostages, exiles, bastards, disfavoured second sons - you might be looking for someone raised more securily in their privilege, for whom the ursupation of the birthright comes as a more shocking surprise.
posted by sohalt at 11:04 AM on July 15, 2023

Maybe a better example: The Winklevoss Twins claiming Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea, as depicted in Fincher's The Social Network.
posted by sohalt at 11:08 AM on July 15, 2023

it's part of Fredo and Michael's story in the Godfather trilogy. With Sonny gone, Fredo should have been next in line, and he admits this resentment when Michael eventually figures out Fredo's betrayal. (And I feel like there are whiffs of it earlier too, when Vito rebukes Sonny for being unsubtle -- it's been too many years since I read the books to cite exactly but I remember a foreshadowing that the younger, subtler brother is going to be the one to take the crown.)
posted by fingersandtoes at 11:33 AM on July 15, 2023

I seem to recall something like this going on in the family of William the Conqueror. His eldest son, Robert "Curthose", is the victim of a practical joke (involving poop dumped on his head) by his younger brothers. Curthose, feeling entitled to more deference, demands his father/king take his side and punish the brothers. Dad apparently prefers the brothers and does not punish them the way Curthose wants. Curthose rebels against the crown and causes lots of trouble. (But I think in the end he is not disinherited, the William's holdings are divided among his sons who then fight over them.)
posted by fingersandtoes at 11:45 AM on July 15, 2023

The "younger brother is most worthy and wins" story from Genesis happens a number of times in the Bible, though the example I gave above of Jacob and Esau is the most obvious. In the next generation it happens with Joseph. Joseph, the youngest (at the time of the story) son, is best beloved of his father. The older brothers, resentful, throw him in a pit and then sell him to a slave caravan and tell their father that he died.

Later in the Bible, both kings Saul and David are the youngest sons of their family. Oh, and then you have King Solomon, who is not the expected heir at all; but then the expected heirs (oldest Amnon, most-beloved Absalom, and then remaining Adonijah) behave like entitled assholes in various ways, so they get smote and Solomon inherits instead.
posted by fingersandtoes at 11:51 AM on July 15, 2023

I just finished reading The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang, which was awesome, and it's about this.
posted by EllaEm at 1:33 PM on July 15, 2023

I haven't seen anyone link to TV Tropes yet, so here's the Passed-Over Inheritance trope page, which I think most closely matches your description (although many of the stories listed here focus more on the unexpected heir than on the unexpected not-heir). And here's a list of other inheritance-adjacent tropes.
posted by confluency at 1:52 AM on July 16, 2023

Small addendum: those pages are mostly specific to the literal inheritance of wealth. There's a different page about the similar trope of being passed over for a promotion, which may be more appropriate.
posted by confluency at 2:03 AM on July 16, 2023

this was done incredibly well in "Planetary" where a boy stood to inherit incredible powers genetically, but his mother had an affair, so his real father was just some guy.
posted by evilmonk at 9:59 AM on July 16, 2023

Mordred.
posted by pompomtom at 6:37 PM on July 16, 2023

Barbara Tuchman’s book “A Distant Mirror”, a history of 14 th century Europe, has a lot of examples of nobility starting costly wars for this kind of reason. Edward III started the Hundred Years’ War over a claim on the French throne, Louis of Anjou inherited a claim of the throne of Naples (and Jerusalem) and died trying to seize it. There are others. Noble marriages seemed to create a lot of opportunities for this kind of conflict.
posted by mmc at 10:37 PM on July 16, 2023