h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If each Blackadder is a direct descendant of the previous one (and we assume the same for each Baldrick, Percy, Darling, Melchett, etc.) then doesn't that mean that every one of them has... had relations? The most improbable person to be a father is Baldrick. I highly doubt that anyone from the first series had productive affairs. So what do you think?

It's possible that the introduction we see in the very first episode happens in each subsequent generation off-screen. So each version of Edmund decides to take on the name of Blackadder.

That's a much more pleasant way of thinking about it than the alternative. Eurgh!

...and Baldrick?

Now there you probably do have a direct line of Baldricks. You don't have to be clever / attractive / clean to breed.

Oh look, there's my breakfast again...

is it so hard to believe that they would have had relations?

as the song goes...

"his great grandfather was a king,
although for only thirty seconds..."

Which seems more or less conclusive. If disturbing.

Well, we know Lord Blackadder at least has been involved with prostitutes - this would be a much saner way to explain everything than any of these characters actually managing to construct a relationship...

Also if you listen to the Madrigal at the end of one episode of Blackadder two we learn that Black Adder's great-grandfater was a king, If but for all of 30 seconds. Thus linking this Edmund to the first Edmund.

Lord Blackadder as said above does have relations.

At the end of the first series Edmund was married. Though at the time she was ten, I imagen she grew up.

This makes decendants possible.