Avunculicide

Avunculicide is the act of killing an uncle.^[1] The word can also refer to someone who commits such an act. The term is derived from the Latin words avunculus meaning "maternal uncle" and caedere meaning "to cut or kill". Edmunds suggests that in mythology avunculicide is a substitute for parricide.^[2] The killing of a nephew is a nepoticide.^[1][2]

In history

• The mythological founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, accidentally killed their grand-uncle, Amulius.
• In 51, Rhadamistus killed his uncle Mithridates of Armenia.
• In 685, Hlothhere of Kent succumbed to his wounds after his nephew Eadric of Kent led the South-Saxons to take his throne.^[3]
• In 1385, Bernabò Visconti died after his nephew Gian Galeazzo Visconti had him imprisoned and presumably poisoned.^[4]
• In 1975, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was assassinated by his nephew, Faisal bin Musa'id.^[5]
• In 2001, Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal killed his uncle Dhirendra during the Nepalese royal massacre.^[6]
• In 2013, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un ordered the execution of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek.

In fiction

In gaming

• In God of War III (2010), Kratos brutally murders his uncle Helios by tearing his head off his shoulders and later in equally brutal and different methods kills his uncles Hades, Poseidon, and Hephaestus.
• In Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, Huang avenges his father's death by killing his Uncle Kenny Lee because Lee killed Hunag's father and tries to kill Huang.
• In the video game The Darkness, Jackie Estacado, the game's protagonist, kills his "uncle" Paulie in revenge over the death of his girlfriend Jenny Romano which Paulie himself was responsible for.

In literature

• Hamlet kills his uncle, King Claudius, in revenge for his father King Hamlet, whom Claudius murdered to seize the throne of Denmark.
• In Vladimir Nabokov's 1928 novel King, Queen, Knave, Franz intends to murder his uncle; the narrator tells us that later on he will be "guilty of worse sins than avunculicide".^[7]
• In the Hellsing (1997–2008) manga series, Integra kills her uncle, who wanted the Hellsing organization for his own selfish purposes, in self-defense after unintentionally reviving the vampire Alucard with blood from a gunshot wound.
• In A Song of Ice and Fire, Tyrion Lannister is accused of committing nepoticide and regicide.

Onscreen

• Louis Mazzini commits avunculicide in the 1949 movie, Kind Hearts and Coronets
• In the 1966 horror movie, Let's Kill Uncle, the evil uncle is to be killed in self-defense.^[1]
• mass murderer Jason Voorhees is actually stabbed by his previously unmentioned niece Jessica Kimble with a special knife before being dragged to hell in the last official film of the Friday the 13th franchise Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.
• In Lion King Simba cause his uncle, Scar death by pushing him and the hyenas maul Scar to death.

In Fanfiction

• In Dark Realms, Barrel cause her uncle, Top Gun by let go of him which led to his death because he committed terrible sins.

See also

• Avunculism
• Suicide, the killing of oneself

Familial killing terms:

• Filicide, the killing of one's child
• Fratricide, the killing of one's brother
• Mariticide, the killing of one's husband
• Matricide, the killing of one's mother
• Parricide, the killing of one's parents or another close relative
• Patricide, the killing of one's father
• Prolicide, the killing of one's offspring
• Sororicide, the killing of one's sister
• Uxoricide, the killing of one's wife

Non-familial killing terms from the same root:

• Deicide, the killing of a god
• Genocide, the systematic killing of a large group of people, usually an entire ethnic, racial, religious or national group
• Homicide, the killing of a human
• Infanticide, the killing of an infant from birth to 12 months
• Regicide, the killing of a monarch (king or ruler)
• Tyrannicide, the killing of a tyrant

References

1. Time Magazine: Nepoticide v. Avunculicide Retrieved 2009-06-06
2. Edmunds L. Oedipus: a folklore casebook. Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1995. p. 64. ISBN 0-299-14854-8.
3. Bede (2008). The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Oxford University Press: J. McClure and R. Collins. p. 222.
4. Barbara Tuchman (1978). A Distant Mirror. New York: A.A.Knopf. p. 418.
5. "1975: Saudi's King Faisal assassinated, BBC On this Day". BBC News. March 25, 1975.
6. "The Royal Ark". royalark.net.
7. Leona Toker. Nabokov. The Mystery of Literary Structure. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1989. Page 63. ISBN 0-8014-2211-6