History Main / ObliviousAdoption

** A farm cat in Ireland adopted some baby ducks that happened to have hatched simultaneously with her birthing kittens in the same barn. The ducklings that snuggled with the real kittens for warmth were groomed by the mama cat and even learned to suckle milk from her.

* ''Fanfic/{{Alicorn}}'': As far as Rainbow knows, she was born and raised by a pair of pegasi, and is herself an awesome but otherwise normal pegasus. Then one day she grows a horn and is visited by her biological mother; Princess Celestia.

* ''Fanfic/{{Alicorn}'': As far as Rainbow knows, she was born and raised by a pair of pegasi, and is herself an awesome but otherwise normal pegasus. Then one day she grows a horn and is visited by her biological mother; Princess Celestia.

** Dealt with in the sequel. It turns out that [[ElephantInTheLivingRoom no-one bothered to talk about it despite it being so obvious]] because Mr. Ping is afraid of Po leaving him to find his true parents. Ultimately, Mr. Ping should have had more faith in his adopted son's love.

** Inverted in the third film; Po meets his biological father [[spoiler:who was revealed at the end of the second movie]] and doesn't recognize him. At all. Even after his father says the only reason he's in town was that he was looking for his son. Instead of realizing the obvious, Po just wishes him good luck and the two part ways. ''Everyone else around them {{facepalm}}s''. When the Furious Five meet Li-Shen, they immediately guess that he's Po's father.

* Thank goodness for ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeTheMeltdown''. The directors had a grand old time with their subplot about a woolly mammoth who had been raised by opossums -- and who played dead and clambered up trees. Somehow. She spends most of the movie trying to sort out her species identity crisis with fellow mammoth Manny's help. The situation is awkward because Manny had, up 'til then, believed he was the LastOfHisKind, and his motives for helping the only female mammoth he knows come to terms with her species aren't exactly altruistic. Made still ''more'' awkward when one re-watches the original ''WesternAnimation/IceAge'' film and realizes that Manny is so conflicted about the whole thing because his wife and son were murdered quite recently. It does explain his extreme over-protectiveness in ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeDawnOfTheDinosaurs'', though. Speaking of the third movie, this trope gets played surprisingly straight with Sid and the baby dinos, since he's the first thing they see when they're hatched.
* ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'':

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' has Hermione, who has no reason to believe that she's adopted, not even when she starts manifesting chaos magic, an ability largely confined to her magically famous biological mother, [[ComicBook/ScarletWitch Wanda Maximoff]]. It helps that her MuggleFosterParents were chosen at least partly for a passing physical resemblance to her biological parents. She figures it out in chapter 66 of the sequel, after she also manifests [[spoiler:an Omega class mutation]]. A combination of not liking the former ability at all, recent traumas, and a lifetime of being lied mean that saying that she's "unhappy" would be a truly ''epic'' {{understatement}}.

* In some productions of ''Theatre/EvilDeadTheMusical'' Ash's sister Cheryl is Syed by a black actress. If this is the case, her last words will be to tell Ash that he's adopted.

** In the [[WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda1 first movie]] it's unclear whether Po is meant to be the [[RandomSpeciesOffspring biological father of Mr. Ping the goose]] or [[InterspeciesAdoption adopted]]. On the one hand Mr. Ping shows pictures of his father and grandfather, who are also geese, implying adoption, but then he also says "We are noodle folk. Broth runs through our veins!", suggesting Po is his own. It's humorously lampshaded at one point, and an [[CaptainObviousReveal adoption reveal]] subverted:

** In the [[WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda1 first movie]] it's ambiguous whether Po is meant to be the [[RandomSpeciesOffspring biological father of Mr. Ping the goose]] or [[InterspeciesAdoption adopted]]. On the one hand Mr. Ping shows pictures of his father and grandfather, who are also geese, implying adoption, but then he also says "We are noodle folk. Broth runs through our veins!", suggesting Po is his own. It's humorously lampshaded at one point, and an [[CaptainObviousReveal adoption reveal]] subverted:

** In the [[WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda1 first movie]] it's ambiguous whether Po is meant to be the [[RandomSpeciesOffspring biological father of Mr. Ping the goose]] or [[InterspeciesAdoption adopted]]. On the one hand Mr. Ping shows pictures of his father and grandfather, who are also geese, but then he also says "We are noodle folk. Broth runs through our veins!". It's humorously lampshaded at one point, and an [[CaptainObviousReveal adoption reveal]] subverted:

** Hilariously dealt with, and {{lampshade|Hanging}}d. Quite obviously, there is no way Po the panda could be the biological son of Mr. Ping the goose, but the issue is never addressed. However, just after the valley is evacuated, and Mr. Ping again impresses on Po that he is meant to be a noodle-maker, this exchange occurs:

''[a long pause]''\\
'''Mr. Ping:''' The secret ingredient of my Secret Ingredient Soup!\\
''[another long pause]''\\
'''Po:''' Oh.

-->-- ''Literature/GuardsGuards'' on InterspeciesAdoption (a human adopted by dwarfs)

* Played rather straight in the French comic book ''Les 5 Mondes de Sylfeline''. The human heroine, Sylfeline, is reared by Douniais (basically [[{{Hobbits}} pudgy gnomes]]) and believes herself to be one of them until told the truth on her [[DangerousSixteenthBirthday sixteenth birthday]]... despite being twice as tall as her adoptive parents (and five-fingered unlike the [[FourFingeredHands four-fingered]] Douniais).

* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14190500/1/Blood-Sisters Blood Sisters]]'' opens with [[Literature/{{Twilight}} Bella Swan]] learning that she's a [[Series/LostGirl fae]] rather than a human and the Swans aren't her biological parents. The Cullens' research soon confirms that Charlie and Renee's actual child was stillborn, but an unknown person left Bella with them shortly after the death (it's speculated that the person was a fae who subtly influenced Charlie and Renee not to question the situation).

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[[quoteright:350:[[Literature/TheUglyDuckling https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/duckling.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Duck, duck, duck, duck... GOOSE!"[[note]]Well, swan, actually, but you get the point.[[/note]]]]

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* Subverted in Creator/RumikoTakahashi's ''Fire Tripper'': a flashback shows that the female lead Suzuko realized on her own that she was adopted (as her parents had no baby photos of her) and, when Mom and Dad came to her with the intention to tell her, she told them that she already knew, and thanked them for [[GoodParents raising her lovingly]]. [[spoiler:She's actually a little girl from MedievalJapan [[TimeTravel who was thrown in time and space]], alongside a boy from the modern era who was tossed into Feudal Japan and grew into the male lead Shukumaru. [[IChooseToStay They stay in Medieval Japan and get married there]].]]

* In ''Anime/HungryHeartWildStriker'', protagonist Kyosuke Kanou was this during his early childhood, as his biological parents died in a car crash when he was a baby. His discovery of this, coupled with the fact that people constantly put him in the shadow of his BigBrotherMentor [[TheAce Seisuke]], led him to become heavily estranged from his family, and to quit soccer altogether. He eventually gets better.
* ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'': [[spoiler:It turns out that Yuya and Yuzu were adopted by their respective parents they were living with and they had no real birth parents to begin with. The two and their respective counterparts are split fragments of Zarc and Ray, a result of the Original Dimension being divided into four others. This would also explain why Yugo and Rin are orphans.]]
** Curiously, [[spoiler:this seems to be a rare double example, as their parents weren’t completely aware that they were adopted either. They don’t remember ever adopting the kids, but apparently a PerceptionFilter kept them from thinking about it too much until one of the villains specifically brought attention to it]].

* Played rather straight in the French comic book ''Les 5 Mondes de Sylfeline''. The human heroine, Sylfeline, is reared by Douniais (basically [[{{Hobbits}} pudgy gnomes]]) and believes herself to be one of them until told the truth on her [[DangerousSixteenthBirthday sixteenth birthday]]...despite being twice as tall as her adoptive parents (and five-fingered unlike the [[FourFingeredHands four-fingered]] Douniais).

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' has Hermione, who has no reason to believe that she's adopted, not even when she starts manifesting chaos magic, an ability largely confined to her magically famous biological mother, [[ComicBook/ScarletWitch Wanda Maximoff]]. It helps that her MuggleFosterParents were chosen at least partly for a passing physical resemblance to her biological parents. She figures it out in chapter 66 of the sequel, after she also manifests [[spoiler: an Omega class mutation]]. A combination of not liking the former ability at all, recent traumas, and a lifetime of being lied mean that saying that she's 'unhappy' would be a truly ''epic'' {{understatement}}.

* ''Fanfic/NotCompletelyAltogetherHere'': Rora never knew she was adopted. Her mother is a short Munchkinlander while she's Gilikin tall (as in, her mother barely reaches her elbow), but it was thought just to be genetics. Turns out that she's [[ReallyRoyaltyReveal the heir to the Ozian throne, the next Ozma]].

[[folder:Films — Animation]]

* Barry in ''Film/TheCountryBears'' was raised by humans since he was a cub, though his human brother seems to be [[OnlySaneMan the only one]] who finds having a bear in the family ridiculous. Also invoked by this exchange:

* It's sort of noticeable in ''Film/{{Thor}}'' that Loki doesn't quite look like his parents or his brother, and doesn't question it even though it's assumed that he's lived for over a thousand years. And even when he discovers his true heritage, he kills his true father and tries to annihilate his own race.
** [[spoiler:The reveal of an older, non-adopted sister that looks very similar to Loki in ''Film/ThorRagnarok'' provides a partial explanation about why. Perhaps they inherited their looks from a grandparent?]]
* In a particularly heartwarming example, in the film, ''Film/LosingIsaiah'' the African-American child is adopted by a white family from birth and doesn't seem to suspect anything. So when his white older sister tries to call attention to it when he is 4 years old, she asks him "Isaiah look at our hands, what is different about them?" He responds, "My hand's smaller!" and then goes back to playing.

** In ''Literature/{{Snuff}}'', children's book author Miss Beedle relates how her mother was raised by goblins and was quite happy being one until some humans decided to "rescue" her from the only family she'd ever known.

* ''Series/TheRiseOfPhoenixes'': Zhi Wei isn't Ming Ying's daughter. [[spoiler: She's the last princess of Dacheng.]] Ming Ying did give birth to twins, but one of them died and she was given Zhi Wei to raise instead.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E9NightTerrors Night Terrors]]" inverts it in a frightening way. The Doctor visits a little boy that's scared of everything with a mysterious cupboard giving him off-the-scale readings on his sonic screwdriver. When asked about his birth, the father reveals his wife [[spoiler:can't have kids.]] The Doctor reveals [[spoiler:the kid is an alien and is using a perception filter to make it seem like they always had him. This is how his species normally reproduces. They find a childless couple who have an unfulfilled desire for children and leave them with one of their young. They're pretty much alien cuckoos, albeit less malicious than cuckoos (who find parents that already have eggs and displace them).]]

* PlayedForLaughs in an episode of ''Series/ParksAndRecreation''. Everyone in the department except for Jerry (who tells everyone multiple times that he doesn’t want to play) plays a game where they try to find as much dirt as possible on each other. Jerry eventually gives in, but all the dirt he finds is that Mark has one unpaid parking ticket. Mark fires back with “I found out your adoptive mother was arrested for marijuana possession”, at which point Jerry (who’s in his 50s) says he never knew that he was even adopted and leaves the room with an “I really didn’t wanna play…”
* One episode of the Israeli sitcom ''Shemesh'' shows [[TheDitz Sasi]]’s parents, who turn out to be very wealthy, educated, and look nothing like him. He discusses with fellow [[TheDitz Ditz]] [[DumbBlonde 'Ogen]] the possibility that he might be adopted, and when he finally goes to ask his mother, it turns out they've actually told him that he is, several times, only he never bothered to listen. (Of course, [[ContinuitySnarl that's just one explanation]] of [[MultipleChoicePast Sasi’s origins]].)
* ''Series/TalesOfTheCity2019'': Shawna doesn't know she's not Brian and Mary Ann's biological daughter until [[spoiler: she finds her birth certificate in a box of documents, which lists Connie Bradshaw as the mother]].

[[folder:Theater]]

* Ozy from ''Webcomic/OzyAndMillie'', a fox, knows he's adopted but still sees the Llewellyns (dragons) as his "real" family. However, he does seem to have odd ideas about what normal family activities actually are, given his loopy relatives. And the Llewellyn family curse seems to regard him as one of the family; in fact, he's the only family member it has any noticeable effect on since he's the only "dragon" with fur. Ozy did meet the person who was quite probably his biological father once. Upon learning this, Ozy decided to spend the day with the father who raised him, rather than the father he had never met before (and as far as we know, never saw again).
* ''Webcomic/LoveMeNice'': Carolina was somewhat taken aback to discover that she was a toon. At first, it's not established whether they deliberately didn't tell her because they thought the inevitable conversation would be awkward, or if they assumed she'd take a look in a mirror now and again and figure it out. A later flashback shows Carolina's mother dodging the question of why she had weird ears, and apparently allowing her to believe she was deformed, which strongly suggests the former.
* Diane in ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' [[http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2186 didn't realize she and her sister were adopted]] despite them being different races. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that she was only six at the time so was too young to understand ethnicity and presumably just assumed that sisters generally had different skin colors. WordOfGod said he originally was going to have Diane always know about her adoption but realized he was looking at it from an informed adult perspective.
* ''Webcomic/TheBirdFeeder'':
** Inverted with Darryl and Edna, two cardinals, and their adopted children, who, in [[http://thebirdfeeder.com/comic/1 the very first strip]] are revealed to be an adopted bluejay and titmouse, and were only adopted because Edna is colorblind.
** Done more traditionally with Tina, a hummingbird. In [[http://thebirdfeeder.com/comic/163 #163]], "Bunnies," she tries to find her real parents, as she herself was [[RaisedByWolves raised by rabbits]], and accidentally adopts a rabbit.

* The eighth ''WebAnimation/ASDFMovie'' has [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBpW_Y4n8AU a bit]] where an owner surprises his dog by telling it it's adopted.

* A [[http://tylerkungpao.tumblr.com/post/35365952684 cut scene]] from the ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' episode "The Lich" was going to reveal that [[KidHero Finn]] didn't realize he was adopted, despite being raised by talking dogs. It was presumably cut for being a blatant [[SeriesContinuityError continuity error]]: Finn had shown he specifically knew he was human ([[LastOfHisKind it makes him soul-searchy]]) and "Memories of Boom-Boom Mountain" shows that he [[NoInfantileAmnesia apparently remembers]] his adoptive parents finding him in the woods.

* Technobear from ''WesternAnimation/HarveyBeaks'' was raised by turtles, and he thought he was one as well until the end of "Terrybear".

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheJungleBunch'', Maurice is a penguin who was raised by a tiger, and now thinks he is one. The same applies to his adopted son, who's a fish.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/FoghornLeghorn'' short "Mother Was a Rooster", Barnyard Dawg, as a joke, hides an egg under Foghorn, making him think he'd laid the egg, even though he is male. It turns out to be an ostrich egg, but Foghorn still thinks he gave birth to the ostrich, without question.

* PlayedForDrama in ''WesternAnimation/FinalSpace'': [[spoiler: Little Cato grows up believing that Avocato is his biological father, and is completely horrified when he learns that Avocato killed his biological parents.]]

* ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'' plays with this. First, we meet a kid who claims to be the runt of his giant family when he was about the same size as a normal human. Then later it turns out he's adopted. Which he knew, but he'd always assumed he'd been adopted from other giants Despite the fact he was a wizard.

* In ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' series, Rand al'Thor is eighteen years old before he discovers that [[MuggleFosterParents farmers]] [[GoodParents Tam and Kari al'Thor]] are not his birth parents. This revelation doesn't change the fact that Rand still [[HappilyAdopted loves them just the same]] and resolutely refers to them as his ''real'' parents, even after uncovering the identities of his biological parents (an Aiel chieftain and the [[BlueBlood former crown princess of Andor]] who [[GoingNative Went Native]]). Justified somewhat despite his flaming red hair being a common trait of his biological father's people, the Aiel, which is often remarked on by others as making him look like an Aielman. There are no other redheads in the Two Rivers, but it's not completely exclusive to Aiel and his deceased adoptive mother was born elsewhere and had red hair herself despite no known Aiel ancestry.

* ''Film/DumbAndDumberTo'': When Harry (who’s white) learns that he needs a new kidney, he visits his parents (who live just down the street) to ask them for one. He is astounded that his Asian-American mother and father aren't his blood relatives.
* Inverted in ''Film/EasyA''; the son (who is black in an otherwise all white family) is fully aware that he is adopted. When he nonchalantly mentions it, his father is (jokingly) shocked and demands to know who told him.

And sometimes, they don't notice anything at all and are perfectly content with living their lives with their families, no matter how obvious it is that said family isn't their "real" family. This is taken to extreme measures in FunnyAnimal cartoons, where the species is very different but the adoptee doesn't notice.

* In the Fairy Tail fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13085832/1/Obsessed Obsessed]]'' Lucy and Natsu plan to advert this with a baby girl they've adopted. [[spoiler: Said girl was stolen before she was even born by a psychopathic woman who used a spell to impregnate herself with her and killed the real mother and suspected of killing the woman's boyfriend as well. Months after being caught the woman gave birth to the child.]] Due to the status the child would end up having in the public eye, they had Mest take the child in secret. [[spoiler: [[ContrivedCoincidence Luckily, Lucy had been pregnant during the same time period and gave birth on the same day. During a solar eclipse no less.]] They are able to play it up to the rest of the world that Lucy had twins.]] Most of the guild, for the time being, believes this as well. However, they make it clear that they will tell her, and the rest of their kids, the truth and why they are keeping it a secret as they grow up.

** Inverted in the third film; Po meets his biological father [[spoiler:who was revealed at the end of the second movie]] and doesn't recognize him. At all. Even after said father says the only reason he's in town was that he was looking for his son. Instead of realizing the obvious, Po just wishes him good luck and the two part ways. ''Everyone else around them {{facepalm}}s''. When the Furious Five meet Li-Shen, they immediately guess that he's Po's father.

* {{Averted}} in ''Literature/TeamHuman:'' Kit makes a passing comment about his vampire mom wanting him to hang out with other humans, and Mel, who is still confused about [[InterspeciesAdoption this situation]], is silently relieved that he at least realizes that he's not a vampire himself.

* Invoked and averted in season 8 of ''Series/RuPaulsDragRace''. Naomi mentions that she's adopted, and another contestant asks her if her parents ever had to have an awkward heart-to-heart with her. Naomi says that since she's black and her parents are white (and her twelve siblings are similarly a mix of ethnicities), that was never really necessary. Also a case of HappilyAdopted - Naomi openly gushes about how much she loves her MassiveNumberedSiblings and especially her mom.

* "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14190500/1/Blood-Sisters Blood Sisters]]" opens with Bella Swan (''Literature/{{Twilight}}'') learning that she's fae (''Series/LostGirl'') rather than human and the Swans aren't her biological parents. The Cullens' research soon confirms that Charlie and Renee's actual child was stillborn, but an unknown person left Bella with them shortly after the death (it's speculated that the person was a fae who subtly influence Charlie and Renee not to question the situation).

'''Mom:''' [[DudeNotFunny No,]] [[BlatantLies of course not, honey.]]

* One gag in the German comic ''Webcomic/NichtLustig'' has a [[EverythingsBetterWithPenguins penguin mother]] tell her adopted giraffe son the harsh, yet so very obvious, truth. In the background, a naked human man can be seen thinking, "Wow, poor guy."

* ''Series/{{Haven}}'': Nathan finds out in season one that he was adopted by the Chief as a small child, after his mother left his physically abusive biological father. He only finds out by accident, when his biological father, having been imprisoned for murdering an entire family (not his), returns to Haven. They have the same FeelNoPain [[DifferentlyPoweredIndividual Trouble]], and Nathan works out that they're related. However, he is blindsided when Garland reveals just how they're related. Nathan doesn't really have any AdoptionAngst, though, he's just upset he wasn't told and feels that Garland keeping something like that from him is emblematic of their strained relationship.