The film addresses the poem's plot point of Beowulf not having a wife or an heir, as it reveals Beowulf to be the same kind of creature the monsters themselves, making him refraining from wanting to produce offspring. The poem's emphasis on genealogy is represented by humans and monsters mating among them, with Grendel being the son of Hrothgar and Beowulf being the result of a god of darkness inseminating a woman. Beowulf and Grendel are shown as mirror images of each other, as the former harbors an internal struggle to contain his monstrous nature, while the latter was conceived by her mother as a revenge of an external oppression.