In C++ you have an implicit this pointer passed to methods, so for a start, something like this: instance.Method(foo); .... SomeClass::Method(int x

In C++ you have an implicit this pointer passed to methods, so for a start, something like this: instance.Method(foo); .... SomeClass::Method(int x) { y += x; } more or less translates to something like this (using a pseudo C level here, rather than assembly): Method(&instance, foo); .... Method(SomeClass *this, int x) { this->y += x; } it gets more interesting if "SomeClass::Method" is virtual, in which case the call looks more like this: (((BaseClass *)&instance)->vtable.Method)(&instance, foo); Where "vtable" is a compiler generated struct with function pointers. So here's your "pointery mess", neatly abstracted away by the syntax in the first example. With multiple inheritance, it gets a bit more hairy than this, because the compiler has to do some offset adjustments on the casted pointer to get at the right vtable.