Fratricide

Fratricide (from the Latin words frater "brother" and cida "killer," or cidum "a killing," both from caedere "to kill, to cut down") is the act of a person killing his or her brother. Related concepts are sororicide (the killing of one's sister), child murder (the killing of an unrelated child), infanticide (the killing of a child under the age of one year), filicide (the killing of one's child), patricide (the killing of one's father), matricide (the killing of one's mother), mariticide (the killing of one's husband) and uxoricide (the killing of one's wife). See also siblicide.

Religion and mythology

According to the Bible and the Qur'an, fratricide was the first type of murder committed in human history (see Cain and Abel). In the mythology of ancient Rome, the city is founded as the result of a fratricide, when the twins Romulus and Remus quarrel over who has the favor of the gods, and Romulus become Rome's first king and namesake after killing his brother.^[2]

Military terminology

Fratricide may also be used to refer to friendly fire incidents. It also refers to the possible destruction of one MIRV warhead by another.

Ottoman Empire

In the Ottoman Empire a policy of judicial royal fratricide was introduced by Sultan Mehmet II whose grandfather Mehmed I had to fight a long and bloody civil war against his brothers (which brought the empire near to destruction) to take the throne. When a new Sultan ascended to the throne he would imprison all of his surviving brothers and kill them by strangulation with a silk cord as soon as he had produced his first male heir. The largest killing took place on the succession of Mehmed III when 19 of his brothers were killed and buried with their father. The aim was to prevent civil war. The practice was abandoned in the 17th century by Ahmed I, replaced by imprisonment in the Kafes.

Ashoka's Empire

Ashoka, also known as Chand-Ashoka (Cruel Ashoka) killed his real brothers as punishment for Kings's (his father) death and quarrel for kingdom. Later on Ashoka conquered entire Greater-India, before he adopted Buddhism and gave up Wars.

In fiction and culture

Comic books

In Code Geass, Lelouch kills his brother Clovis by shooting him in the head.
In the manga series Shaman King, the characters Yoh and Hao Asakura are shown as having a fratricidal rivalry.
In the comic book series Spawn, God and Satan are shown as twin brothers and supervillains who squander their powers in a constant struggle to kill each other.
In the manga series Trigun, Knives attempts to kill his brother Vash several times throughout the series.

Novels and plays

Rev. and Hon. Wilfred Bohun, in The Hammer of God by G. K. Chesterton
Eteocles and Polynices in Greek Mythology, as depicted in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes
Claudius, in Hamlet by William Shakespeare
In Stardust and its 2007 adaptation, the King of Stormhold's sons are fratricidal. They killed each other as to prevent their brothers from getting the crown.

TV and film

In the show Dexter, Dexter Morgan kills his long-lost brother Rudy Cooper who was the Ice Truck killer, in the episode "Born Free."
In the Disney film The Lion King, Scar kills his brother Mufasa in order to make himself king.
In the television series Lost, The Man in Black arranges the murder of his fraternal twin brother, Jacob. It is later revealed that when the Man in Black was a normal man, Jacob killed him.

Video games

In the Devil May Cry video game series, the twin brothers Vergil and Dante Sparda are shown to have an immense, fratricidal rivalry with one another.
In Dragon Age: Origins, If the main character is of a noble dwarf origin, then they will have the choice to either kill their older brother or not.
In The Force Unleashed II, Starkiller destroys his imperfect clone 'brothers'
In God of War, the protagonist Kratos is sent on a quest to kill Ares, the god of war; in God of War II, Kratos is told by a dying Athena that Zeus is his father, making Ares his half-brother.
In God of War III, Kratos is challenged by an angry Hercules for being supposedly Zeus' "favorite". He attempts to complete his "thirteenth labor": killing Kratos and becoming the god of war in his stead. Hercules is ultimately killed by Kratos using the Nemean Cestus stolen from Hercules to repeatedly smash his face.
In Grand Theft Auto IV, Niko Bellic is hired by Francis McReary to kill his brother, Derrick.
In Metal Gear Solid, Solid Snake, the main protagonist, is sent into Shadow Moses Island to kill his brother Liquid Snake, the main antagonist. When he encounters Liquid Snake, it is revealed to Solid Snake that all of the genome soldiers are his brothers, having been cloned from Big Boss DNA.

References

^ "Holy Bible 21-th Century King James Version -". BibleGateway.com. Retrieved 2009-04-07.
^ The political significance of the founding fratricide is discussed at length by T.P. Wiseman, Remus: A Roman Myth (Cambridge University Press, 1995) passim.

External links

Fratricide in Ottoman Law

[1] "Holy Bible 21-th Century King James Version -". BibleGateway.com. Retrieved 2009-04-07.

[2] The political significance of the founding fratricide is discussed at length by T.P. Wiseman, Remus: A Roman Myth (Cambridge University Press, 1995) passim.

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