Basic Trope: The protagonist sets out to find his biological parents.
- Straight: Bob was raised by Ben his whole life and believed Ben to be his father. When he grew up he discovered that he and Ben are not biologically related. As a result, Bob goes to search for his biological parents.
- Exaggerate: Ben was driving by one snowy day when he found a baby boy, Bob, left to die in an icy ditch. Ben wrapped the child in his own cloak, drove him to the hospital, and later adopted the boy after the police failed to find his biological parents. Ben raised Bob as his own son for twenty years, feeding him and loving him and even going into debt to pay for Bob to get expensive reconstructive surgery after Bob got maimed in an accident. Later on, when Bob discovers that Ben isn't genetically realated to him, Bob tells Ben You're Not My Father and cuts off all contact. Bob tracks down his biological father, Alex, who openly admits that he abandoned the boy in an ice ditch to die. After learning the truth ... Bob still decides that Alex is his real father, and lives with him forevermore.
- Downplayed: Bob doesn't actually want to learn about his biological parents, and he sure as hell doesn't want to contact them. All Bob wants is medical information to make sure that his genes don't have any nasty surprises.
- Bob was concieved via a sperm donation and is on the hunt to find his biological father.
- Justified:
- Bob is curious as to his lineage, and he wants to know why he exists in the first place.
- Bob's adoptive parents were not kind to him growing up, so Bob things having biological parents might be a second chance to have good parents.
- Bob was never adopted; he spent his whole life in an orphanage. As a result, he wants to know if he has any real place in the world.
- Bob's biological parents didn't just abandon him, they buried him and his twin brother in the ground and as a result the latter was dead by the time police found the two. Now Bob is grown up and very much alive, and now he wants revenge.
- The first thing that Bob learns about his biological mother is that she refused to get an abortion when she was pregnant with Bob, despite her parents and her boyfriend attempting to pressure her into it. Bob wants to thank her for this, and his adoptive father Ben taught him that the best way to thank someone is to do so in person.
- Bob's adoptive father was a poor cobbler, so when he died Bob was equally poor. When he learned that his biological parents were really rich, he hoped that he could shame them into providing money for his own son (their grandson).
- Bob and his adoptive parents learned that the adoption agency was a fraud and he was a victim of kidnapping.
- Inverted: Bob discovers that he has a son he didn't know about, so he goes to find said son.
- Subverted: "Bob! Ben is not your biological father!" "Uh... OK."
- Double Subverted: ???
- Parodied: ???
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Bob couldn't care less who his biological parents are. As far as he is concerned, Ben is his only parent and the people whose genes he has are little more than sperm and egg donors.
- Implied: ???
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: ???
- Envoked: ???
- Exploited: Bob is by this time a rich oil baron, so when news gets out that he's looking for his biological parents, he is contacted by two con artists pretending to be them. The con artists bribe a doctor to falsify DNA tests, and proceed to mooch off Bob's wealth and status.
- Defied:
- The Adoption Agency hides parental information so that children can not track down their parents.
- Ben makes Bob promise not to find his biological parents.
- Ben has an Open Adoption, meaning that Bob stays in contact with his biological parents while being raised and cared for by Ben.
- A letter comes in the mail from the husband of Carol, a girl who Bob was friends with back in the orphanage. The letter is a funeral invitation, as Carol's biological mother murdered her when she tried to make contact. Bob decides that his desire to learn "where he comes from" is not worth inviting risk to himself and his real father. Just to be sure, Bob burns the information his private investigator found.
- Alice and Alex don't just leave their love child at the fire department; they fly to another country and leave their child at the fire department there. They REALLY don't want to ever see each other, or Bob, ever again.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed:
- Bob's adoptive father, Ben, is not happy about his son looking for his biological parents. In fact, Ben feels utterly betrayed and heartbroken over this. Ben is afraid that his son, the boy he raised from birth single-handedly, doesn't love him or consider him to be the "real" parent. When Ben talks to his son about it, Bob tells Ben You're Not My Father and cuts off all contact (proving that Ben's fears were well-founded). So while Bob and his biological father Alex have fun together, Ben falls into a horrible depression. Ben rents his home to some people, moves to another state (both his home and his hometown remind him of Bob too much), and tries to forget about the pain he feels. When this fails, Ben's depression becomes rapidly worse until he becomes catatonic and has to be hospitalized. He keeps muttering "I miss Bob, I miss Bob ..." sometimes, but the hospital staff can not figure out what that means or get him to say anything else.
- Bob locates his biological parents and is horrified beyond words by what he finds. His biological mother Alice is a war-criminal in prison for murdering hundreds of civilians while his biological father Alex was a Sadistic Warden who raped his prisoners, Alice especially. Bob is disgusted with himself because he feel that these things are In the Blood, and as such suspects he himself must be bad too.
- Played for Laughs: After finding his biological mother Alice, Bob now needs to find his biological father. The only problem is that Alice was a bit promiscuous around the time she conceived Bob, so as a result there is a really big list of men Bob needs to ask.
- Played for Drama: After being adopted by Ben, Bob grew up to be a successful man and had a child of his own. But now his daughter Bess is very sick and in need of a transplant. If Bob doesn't find some genetic relatives (and therefore compatible donors) within the next three months, his daughter will die.
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