Nepoticide

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]

Avunculicide in history

• The mythological founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, accidentally killed their grand-uncle, Amulius.
• 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]

Avunculicide in fiction

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In gaming

• In God of War III (2010), Kratos brutally murders his uncle Helios by tearing his head off his shoulders. Kratos later goes on to kill his uncles Hades, Poseidon, and Hephaestus later in the game in equally brutal, but different methods.
• In Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, Huang avenges his father's death by killing his Uncle Kenny Lee, as he killed his father, and tries to kill him.
• In the video game The Darkness, Jackie Estacado, the game's main 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 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 music

• Kill Uncle (1991), Morrissey's second solo album

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]

See also

• Avunculism
• Suicide, the killing of one's self

Familial killing terms:

• Avunculicide, the killing of one's uncle
• 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
• Nepoticide, the killing of one's nephew
• Parricide, the killing of one's parents or another close relative
• Patricide, the killing of one's father
• Prolicide, is 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 is the killing of a god
• Genocide is the killing of a large group of people, usually a specific and entire ethnic, racial, religious or national group
• Homicide is the killing of any human
• Infanticide, the killing of an infant from birth to 12 months
• Regicide is the killing of a monarch (king or ruler)
• Tyrannicide is the killing of a tyrant

References