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One-Drop Rule
- 139 statements
- 25 feature instances
- 13 referencing feature instances
| One-Drop Rule | type |
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OneDropRule | |
| One-Drop Rule | comment |
Interbreeding between ethnic groups within a race, or between multiple races in fantasy or science fiction, is a popular activity. But what happens when the resulting babies grow up and start breeding themselves? You might end up with a Heinz Hybrid, or just someone who's mostly A with a little bit of B. Historically, the One-Drop Rule assigned these people to the lower-status group. Someone in the American South who looked Caucasian but had a distant Negro ancestor would be classed as "black." On this wiki, the One-Drop Rule expands to cover interracial and interspecies as well as inter-ethnic lines of descent. There are two features that must be present for a character to fall under the One-Drop Rule: The character's "other" ancestry should be distant — a grandparent at the most recent. The character should be the target of bigotry/discrimination as a result of the "other" ancestry. For example, Spock gets a lot of grief from Vulcans due to his 50% human family tree. But he's a Half-Human Hybrid, and would stay on that page instead of moving here. If Spock were to marry another Vulcan, his children and grandchildren note assuming the Vulcans don't get their heads out of their collective butts would fall prey to the One-Drop Rule. Compare to Half-Breed Discrimination (when there's more than just one drop) and Uneven Hybrid (when the one drop doesn't result in any discrimination) . Contrast to But Not Too Black. Revealing that a character falls under the One-Drop Rule can result in a Pass Fail. Examples |
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Dropped link to DeathByChildbirth: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to DragonAncestry: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to PlayedForLaughs: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to Sarny: Not an Item - UNKNOWN | |
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Dropped link to WordOfGod: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to invokedtrope: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Sarny | |
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DBTropes | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_1aacbbc9 | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_1aacbbc9 | comment |
In the Dragon Age universe, the offspring of an Elf and a Human is always a human. There is absolutely no difference between an "Elf-blooded" human and any other human being, but being Elf-Blooded is considered a major shame. So much so that when it's discovered that an Empress's personal Champion is Elf-Blooded, she exiles him before the scandal can damage her political career. And as revealed in one of the novels, this is also one of the reasons it was considered important enough to cover up Alistair's maternity. His real mother is not only an elf but Mage and a Grey Warden, none of whom are liked in Ferelden, so he was raised to believe his mother was a castle servant who suffered Death by Childbirth. Especially since he can potentially become the King of the entire country, since his father was none other than King Maric. |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_1aacbbc9 | featureApplicability |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_1aacbbc9 | featureConfidence |
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| Dragon Age (Franchise) | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_1aacbbc9 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_20e955d2 | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_20e955d2 | comment |
Leviathan: The Tempest: A single Leviathan in your ancestry, even many generations back, can be enough to make you a Hybrid or even a full Leviathan. The heritage can even pop up along a line of descent which has produced completely normal humans for the past couple of generations, which quite often means a full Leviathan being born to parents who are completely ignorant of their monstrous heritage. | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_20e955d2 | featureApplicability |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_20e955d2 | featureConfidence |
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| Leviathan: The Tempest (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_20e955d2 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_32c541e6 | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_32c541e6 | comment |
In Fullmetal Alchemist, Major Miles is one-quarter Ishvalan from his maternal grandfather's side. During the Ishvalan Civil War, when Executive Order Number 3066 came down, stripping any soldiers of Ishvalan ancestry of their commission and imprisoning them, his superior officer Major General Olivier Armstrong disobeyed and kept him with her at Fort Briggs specifically because he offered that perspective. And despite only being a quarter Ishvalan, Miles has the two most distinct physical markers of the ethnicity in his white hair and red eyes, the latter of which he usually hides with tinted glasses. | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_32c541e6 | featureApplicability |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_32c541e6 | featureConfidence |
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| Fullmetal Alchemist (Manga) | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_32c541e6 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_4bcaa9d6 | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_4bcaa9d6 | comment |
Triptych Continuum: As per My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic canon, "An earth pony and an earth pony make an earth pony, a unicorn with a unicorn is a baby unicorn, pegasus plus pegasus equals pegasus — but add any other, even once, and even if it takes generations, that other will come again..." Unfortunately, there are more than a few ponies who are unwilling to accept that. Some refuse to produce foals with any pony who cannot produce a complete family tree stretching back sufficient generations to ensure their racial purity, and should the other surface anyway, they either send the cross-tribe foal into the foster system, or else "send it on" to the shadowlands. And some ponies do even worse things than that... | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_4bcaa9d6 | featureApplicability |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_4bcaa9d6 | featureConfidence |
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| Triptych Continuum / Fan Fic | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_4bcaa9d6 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_5f7aea6d | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_5f7aea6d | comment |
C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America: After annexing the Union, the CSA passed the 'One Drop Statute' that decreed that if a person had any degree of black ancestry-regardless of if they were pale skinned or even if they had gotten their freedom-they were to be forced back into the slave stock. This would have consequences for John Ambrose Fauntroy V decades later as a result of the 'One Drop Scandal' in which his slave Horace accused him of having black ancestry, telling of how Fauntroy's great-grandfather had sexual relations with Horace's great-grandmother, then took the light skinned children away and 'made them white' while the dark skinned ones were left to be slaves. The resulting accusations and scandal cost Fauntroy the presidency, and he shot himself not long after the election. DNA testing done after his death proved 'negative' but the Mockumentary doesn't clarify what 'negative' means in this context. |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_5f7aea6d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_5f7aea6d | featureConfidence |
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| C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_5f7aea6d | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_6ac55ec7 | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_6ac55ec7 | comment |
Dungeons & Dragons: AD&D 2nd Edition went there with half-elves right in the Player's Handbook, where the children of a half-elf could only ever be a half-elf themselves or else essentially human with some cosmetic elvish features depending on the other parent, but never an actual 'proper' elf. This isn't even presented as prejudice (which could vary by setting), but just as biological fact. In 4th Edition lore, the ancient, decadent Empire of Bael Turath became the first Tieflings through a collective Deal with the Devil. While tieflings can interbreed normally with humanoids, the children are always tieflings, no matter how small a fraction of Turathi blood is in their ancestry; and those children get to experience the full gamut of distrust and prejudice that their "devil-tainted" pedigree attracts. In a more positive example, the sorcerer class. It requires some sort of magical ancestry (dragons being a popular explanation), but not necessarily to a degree of being a distinct "race" such as dragonblooded or aforementioned tieflings. One drop is enough to grant magical powers. |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_6ac55ec7 | featureApplicability |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_6ac55ec7 | featureConfidence |
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| Dungeons & Dragons (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_6ac55ec7 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_6d27b424 | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_6d27b424 | comment |
This would have consequences for John Ambrose Fauntroy V decades later as a result of the 'One Drop Scandal' in which his slave Horace accused him of having black ancestry, telling of how Fauntroy's great-grandfather had sexual relations with Horace's great-grandmother, then took the light skinned children away and 'made them white' while the dark skinned ones were left to be slaves. The resulting accusations and scandal cost Fauntroy the presidency, and he shot himself not long after the election. DNA testing done after his death proved 'negative' but the Mockumentary doesn't clarify what 'negative' means in this context. | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_6d27b424 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_6d27b424 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Mockumentary | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_6d27b424 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_6e23c42 | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_6e23c42 | comment |
She's Gotta Have It: Greer, who's biracial (with a black father and white mother), mentions to Nola once how he hates this, preferring France (his mom's a Frenchwoman) because there it isn't assumed someone's just black like is the case in the US. Doing that feels like denying his mother to him, causing his dislike of it. | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_6e23c42 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_6e23c42 | featureConfidence |
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| She's Gotta Have It | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_6e23c42 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_6f1bcb62 | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_6f1bcb62 | comment |
In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, anyone with even a single Beorc/Laguz relation in their ancestry can be born a Branded, who are looked down on by both races. | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_6f1bcb62 | featureApplicability |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_6f1bcb62 | featureConfidence |
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| Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (Video Game) | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_6f1bcb62 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_765f9dcc | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_765f9dcc | comment |
Mixed-race Bette and fully black Yolanda on The L Word discuss racial politics, and at one point Yolanda brings this up to tell Bette why Bette is still considered 'black'. Bette retaliates by asking if she's going to let White America define her identity. Bette notes that she could pass, but never does, consciously embracing having black heritage and always calling herself biracial rather than to deny either of her parents implicitly. | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_765f9dcc | featureApplicability |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_765f9dcc | featureConfidence |
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| The L Word | hasFeature |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_7c48915b | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_7c48915b | comment |
In Gunnerkrigg Court, Antimony Carver stopped being considered a human when it was revealed she had a fire elemental in her ancient ancestry. Subverted, though, since both "sides" want to claim her instead of rejecting her. Furthermore, the waters are a bit muddied between this trope and Half-Human Hybrid as that ancestry doesn't get diluted - the fire passes wholesale from the mother to the (always only one) child. | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_7c48915b | featureApplicability |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_7c48915b | featureConfidence |
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| Gunnerkrigg Court (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_7c48915b | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_93df96 | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_93df96 | comment |
Discussed in To Kill a Mockingbird. At one point, Jem points out a mixed-race child (the son of Dolphus Raymond and his "coloured woman") to Scout and Dill, who think the child looks black and ask Jem how he can tell the difference. Jem says you can't always tell if someone is mixed-race unless you know who their parents are, prompting Scout to ask her brother how he knows they "ain't Negroes." Jem replies that there is no trace of African blood in the Finch family as far as Uncle Jack knows, but they might have come out of Ethiopia in Old Testament times. Scout thinks this means it was "too long ago to matter," but Jem says that, in the eyes of their segregation era Deep South community, having even a single drop of African blood "makes you all black." | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_93df96 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_93df96 | featureConfidence |
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| To Kill a Mockingbird | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_93df96 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_97135500 | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_97135500 | comment |
Lampshaded and made a plot point in Sidhe Devil. The story kicks off with Doc being abducted for his seed because he's pure-blooded Daoine Sidhe and his half brother and step-mother, who are in on the plot, secretly aren't due to the one-drop rule. | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_97135500 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_97135500 | featureConfidence |
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| Doc Sidhe | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_97135500 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_a72b33c6 | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_a72b33c6 | comment |
Invoked in Show Boat. Steve is white, and his wife Julie is mixed-race, passing for white — their marriage was a crime in the South at the time. When someone tips the local sheriff off and he comes to arrest them, Steve quickly cuts Julie's hand and swallows her blood; when the sheriff arrives, he asks, "You wouldn't call a man a white man that's got Negro blood in him, would you?" He swears to having that blood in him, letting the sheriff assume this trope is in effect and Steve has been passing for white; the two are able to leave the boat, and the South, in peace. | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_a72b33c6 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_a72b33c6 | featureConfidence |
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| Showboat (Theatre) | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_a72b33c6 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_a7b231a4 | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_a7b231a4 | comment |
Jazmine DuBois from The Boondocks, who's the daughter of a white mom and a black dad. She feels very confused and insecure about her biracial heritage, and so she's really annoyed by Huey Freeman immediately labeling her as only being "black." Later when her teacher and principal learn that she's mixed-race and they inquire further about it, they eventually come to the same conclusion as Huey. | |
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| The Boondocks (Comic Strip) | hasFeature |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_aff9ab9f | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_aff9ab9f | comment |
"Talma Gordon": Though Isabel is only one-16th black and her daughters one-32nd, it's enough for them to be discriminated against by those who know the truth. | |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_aff9ab9f | featureConfidence |
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| Talma Gordon | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_aff9ab9f | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_b90cbebd | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_b90cbebd | comment |
In 4th Edition lore, the ancient, decadent Empire of Bael Turath became the first Tieflings through a collective Deal with the Devil. While tieflings can interbreed normally with humanoids, the children are always tieflings, no matter how small a fraction of Turathi blood is in their ancestry; and those children get to experience the full gamut of distrust and prejudice that their "devil-tainted" pedigree attracts. | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_b90cbebd | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_b90cbebd | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_b90cbebd | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_bd54ba07 | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_bd54ba07 | comment |
A parodic inversion in Blazing Saddles. When the foreman of the railroad gang says he wants "a couple of niggers" to check for quicksand, Bart points out that his grandmother was Dutch and therefore he wasn't entirely Black. | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_bd54ba07 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_bd54ba07 | featureConfidence |
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| Blazing Saddles | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_bd54ba07 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_bdb947ab | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_bdb947ab | comment |
In Agent Carter, the very white Jarvis is not allowed into a whites only social club because "[his] father was 1/8 Turkish." | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_bdb947ab | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_bdb947ab | featureConfidence |
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| Agent Carter | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_bdb947ab | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_c811f17f | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_c811f17f | comment |
AD&D 2nd Edition went there with half-elves right in the Player's Handbook, where the children of a half-elf could only ever be a half-elf themselves or else essentially human with some cosmetic elvish features depending on the other parent, but never an actual 'proper' elf. This isn't even presented as prejudice (which could vary by setting), but just as biological fact. | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_c811f17f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_c811f17f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_c811f17f | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_d49478d5 | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_d49478d5 | comment |
Free State of Jones: Rachel is mixed-race. It becomes an issue at Davis Knight's trial as to whether his great-great grandmother was Rachel or Serena Knight. Assuming the former, he would be "colored" under Mississippi state law and thus forbidden to marry a white woman. If the latter, he would be white and thus freed. The prosecutor lampshades how unusual this is, as generally it would be the father whose identity isn't clear. Eventually the Knight family Bible is uncovered, revealing that it was Rachel. | |
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| Free State of Jones | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_d49478d5 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_e018087d | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_e018087d | comment |
In Not Tonight, Britain is under the rule of a xenophobic far-right nationalist party, and large portions of the population have had their UK citizenship revoked because they have at least one non-British citizen as their parent or grandparent. | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_e018087d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_e018087d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Not Tonight (Video Game) | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_e018087d | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_ea4f62db | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_ea4f62db | comment |
An episode of Family Guy has Peter discovering that he had a very distant ancestor that was black. Immediately afterwards he is harassed and mistreated by everybody in Quahog that is racist (including the police and Peter's father-in-law). | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_ea4f62db | featureApplicability |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_ea4f62db | featureConfidence |
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| Family Guy | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_ea4f62db | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_f5ef58aa | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_f5ef58aa | comment |
mixed•ish: This trope is discussed by Bo with her voiceover, noting that in the US anyone with (visible, at least) black ancestry gets classified as black. She's not comfortable with that, however, preferring to embrace both sides of her heritage and call herself mixed, while her siblings "pick a side" based on their looks. | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_f5ef58aa | featureApplicability |
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| One-Drop Rule / int_f5ef58aa | featureConfidence |
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| mixed•ish | hasFeature |
One-Drop Rule / int_f5ef58aa | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_f61ea51b | type |
One-Drop Rule | |
| One-Drop Rule / int_f61ea51b | comment |
Interview with the Vampire (2022): "In Throes of Increasing Wonder...": Louis de Pointe du Lac mentions to Daniel Molloy that his family is mixed-race, and in former times were somewhat more privileged as free people of color. With Jim Crow, however, racist state laws apply no matter what, even when only one of his grandparents was entirely black. Louis just calls himself "Negro," the term used then, and the laws would have classified him as such. "...After the Phantoms of Your Former Self": However, it's worth noting that in the presence of his French boyfriend, Louis identifies himself as "Creole". He makes a point about how he and Lestat de Lioncourt are labelled in America ("Colored. White.") and France ("Creole. French.") based on their race. While America's one-drop rule means that Louis' French ancestry is completely ignored, in France, he is more likely to be recognized as biracial, and thus he would be called Créole rather than Nègre. Lestat certainly views Louis as Creole because the latter's mixed heritage is a turn-on for him. |
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| Interview with the Vampire (2022) | hasFeature |
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