Noir cliches

[moon_custafer]

Rewatched some of the Spawn animated series last night. Does TV Tropes have a name for the serial-killer-with-family-connections? because I’ve noticed that premise in a lot of shows (usually it leaves me wondering why a politician with the ability to have crime scenes scrubbed/cops bought off/honest cops killed doesn’t just have his murderous relative put under lock and key, or at least followed by people with orders to prevent him from indulging his hobby.)

Comments

[crankydon.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Yes, this goes all the way back to the crazy sister in "The Big Sleep". In the most famous case in the real world the Unabomber's brother turned him in.

I think that the scenario is much more realistic in the "Birds of Prey" comic where the seemingly non-functional autistic kid who's obsessed with his handheld game console is actually the world's most fearsome hacker; controlling large hunks of cyberspace through said console. His parents aren't terribly tech-savy (not to mention that the interface metaphor going from "Donkey Kong" to invading Oracle's systems is pretty complex ;-) so they just don't notice.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

I was thinking a better real-life parallel was the guy-who-was-probably-the-Cleveland-Torso-Killer (you told me about) - his family were pretty high-up, but this eventually seems to have worked against him, i.e. the cops finally went to them and said "we don't have enough evidence to convict, but we have enough to cause a scandal - unless you put him on a leash."