What do you do with protagonist parents? (+poll)

[jwabeasley]

I think it makes a lot of sense to have at least one parent kick the bucket before the narrative begins - having two parents trying to constantly impose rules on the protagonist is just narratively redundant. If your story isn't about the family dynamic, then it easily gets in the way. Having one parent dead also provides a fast way to get some decent drama and have the readers feel empathy for the protagonist. You can get a lesser version by writing a divorce into the backstory, instead.

I appreciated Digimon Tamers for how much involvement and discussion it gave to parents whose children are engaging in giant battles that only they can do.

I also like Clannad for having so much focus on both Nagisa's present parents as Tomoya's dead/distant ones, especially in the after story where Tomoya realizes that he's become just like his detested father and resolves to change. That series was unusually good for representing the logistics of a high school romance and carrying it onwards into early adulthood.

I've felt that anime and anime-inspired works often just ignore the parents altogether for their high-school age casts. Since parents play a huge role in a teen's life at that age, I find that those settings feel artificial. If the parents aren't going to be important and the kids are going to spend all their time hanging out with each other, college would be a better setting, just like Ah My Goddess. That would have the added benefit of making everyone's adult-quality skills seem less absurd.

In Etherwood, I made the conscious decision to keep both parents alive and still together, which is unusual in my genre and took a good bit of work to ensure they are different characters with different narrative roles, while both being caring, reasonable parents.

====

====

====

What do you think, have I succeeded?

[agpatty]

Last story I wrote, brutally murdered one, made the other a villian with a redemption arc. It was epic.

This one? Both dead. Killed by the main villian who then abducted my protagonist. But, hey, childhood trauma provides great catalysts for character growth.

[powerplantanimations]

The Dad is a bit elusive, but the Mom we're like "EHHHHHHHH".

Originally she was an irresponsible jerk, then she became something emotional (with PANDA WHITE wanting her to be an important plotpoint), then we just ignored her, I wanted to make her a serial killer that pops-up in the background like the "Scranton Killer". Like a little gag where her face just casually shows up in a page where it's like "The Baby Eater dies by falling into woodchipper". Just the idea that people are probably expecting something with the Mom due to how descriptive everything is.

Finally, we came up with a graphic novel idea for the Mom.

Read Dream Goddess Chronicles | Tapas Web Community

[andypicopost]

While I haven't 'killed off' any parents in stories just yet, I have made my 'sudo' protagonist to be from a single-parent family. That said, in my current story, I don't refer to their parents directly at all. However, I am developing my character's backstory, and here I'm looking deeper at their parents' roles and influences on their characters. I've kept my protagonist's mother and made them a domineering figure to help 'define' or allow us to see why they have certain traits and flawed weaknesses.

That said, orphan protagonists have long been with us. Oliver Twist, Tarzan, Harry Potter, Superman, Batman, Snow White, James Bond... the list is endless. This trait (for want of a better word) allows characters to be driven to 'overcome' and 'define' their families, and when it's done well, it is a fantastic device.

Will I ever use a character as an orphan? I'm not sure.

[Leyelle]

Most of my mcs have living parents, but what that means is complicated for many of them. The only one fitting neatly into the dead parents trope is alicia. But she's also an adult so much of her life would be lived without parents regardless, it's just an integral part of her life that she had lost both parents by twenty. Kattar's mom, however, is the infamous, glamorous Mrs. Moon,and everyone who has read the story knows that she is VERY relevant. Everyone (readers included) adore her until the absolutely hate her.

Then in "A Dozen Morning Glories" all parents are alive, but one is a grouchy emotionally abusive mom, the other two are colorist emotionally abusive parents, and then there is a dead beat dad, however there is also a semi-step dad who adores the MCs little sister, his daughter, but does not act as a father figure for the MC herself. He's not cruel to her or anything, he just pays her no mind because she's not his kid. Again tho, these characters are all adults so parents aren't scene setting, they are actual characters for their own sake

[EncryptedWriting]

Evangeline doesnt know her parents. They never come into factor tbh.

Anastasia's parents, her dad is a POS and mom is a whimp. I hate both of them.

[AmysGames]

I've noticed I have a tendency of giving my characters one "regular" parent and one "special" parent, where the one just does regular parent stuff while the other is absent, dead, or otherwise has something weird going on with them. I guess single parents must have been common in the media I watched growing up, lol.

That said, while I don't think they're necessary for every story, I do enjoy seeing healthy parent-child dynamics explored in media, especially when the parents are given more than just a background role.

[misfitcrew04]

I uh... killed them off to drive the plot and character motivations...

[Amalockh1]

My comic version of Jack and the Beanstalk has three different continuities: In the first one (from ComicFury) Jack's dad John has an active role in the story, and he even was the main character in a couple of chapters.
In the Tapas version, has a very secondary role, and has yet to appear again since the beginning, but I hope to include him in a future chapter.
In the Duck Webcomic version, John has only appeared in a couple of pages so far.
Jack's mom, named Delia, has only appeared in the ComicFury continuity.
In my horror comic Armless Amy, neither of Amy's parents have ever appeared, but Amy says her father is dead in the interactive spin-off "Where is Dinah?"

I prefer parents to stay alive, but I concede missing parents could be a pretty effective plot device.

I guess it depends of the type of story.
Living parents work better for humorous and light-hearted stories, IMO.

[ArtGremlin]

Both the protagonists of the book I’m writing have relevant parents. Felix’s parents are both alive and provide substance to the plot. Actually, the plot wouldn’t be happening if not for them pushing him to go visit his grandfather. (that doesn’t go to plan) they both love him, despite his efforts to push them away, and I feel like the way he treats them later on helps show how he’s changed from who he was before his journey.
Axel only has one living parent, but that’s because her dad was literally the big evil villain of the prequel story and was defeated by the guy who happens to be Felix’s adopted uncle. Her mom is very relevant because they spend most of the book traveling to her mountain.
I feel like I almost can’t help giving the mc’s parents some kind of important lore. Only exception is Rigel because he never had parents. He just dropped out of the sky like a meteor.

[MelancholicOtaku]

For The Lost Forest I already knew that the Mc was going to lose her whole family, do plan on having flashbacks with them

Read The Lost Forest | Tapas Web Community

[ThunderChicken]

One of my MC’s parents was brutally murdered by the other parent, right in front of my MC. I’ve got plans for the remaining parent…

[bulgariansumo]

Most of my point of view characters have alive parents, but they're usually minor characters. Some of them are dead or out of the picture before the story starts. I guess that would count as something in between.

[abigaillmartin]

Right so…

Elsie is an orphan…

But her father is alive!
(Not ready to reveal yet)

Roy and Rosie lost their dad. He died of murder
And their mother is not a good one. To put it lightly. Probably the worst!
As of now, I wrote her to move far far away from them under Roy’s foot. He is now the man of the house.

Ernest’s parents ohhh booooy
His mom died of tuberculosis or consumption as they called it back then
His dad was murdered too

Jane’s parents abandoned her.

Yeah! Wow!

[LunarScyphozoa]

A bit biased in this regard due to a large theme of my comic being family and what exactly that means, but just about every main character’s parents are alive and/or relevant. Killing off parents to get them out of the way never really appealed to me that much from behind the script, I would always end up fleshing them out in my mind and then either make their absence important or change my mind and keep them alive. In Abysskeeper Suen just about the only important characters with dead parents are Suen’s father and aunt, and a spoiler character. Her mother is out of the picture, but she’s neither dead nor tossed away in the “I don’t need TWO responsible adults trying to stop the plot from happening” box. I just find I enjoy exploring characters’ relationships with their parents, and get too attached to get rid of them.

[dimsum_y]

I have one of my MC's parents (the mother) die due to childbirth (considering this was way before modern technology & medicine), then had her father be in the backdrop, doing his own thing while encouraging his daughter to find happiness elsewhere since his relatives don't treat her well. Either that, or in my other stories--the parents tend to be neglectful, distant and barely around, or maybe MC is sent elsewhere to stay with a relative, etc.

[kris_starlight]

I picked Use Them, but my MCs parents don't really come into play until Season 2.

What is known about them in Season 1 is that they are disappointed in their son because he didn't live up to their expectations.

His birth was hailed as so auspicious that both parents bestowed upon him their noble house name, an honor typically reserved for heirs of dynastic mergers. They produced no other children—an almost unheard-of choice among nobility—leaving Ravik the sole bearer of the family legacy and its crushing expectations.

Ravik's parents definitely shaped him, but now that he is serving in an elite black ops unit instead of holding a ceremonial post on the Emperor's flagship, will he have the courage to break the mold?

[riverskyebelrose]

So in my story, my MC's parents are alive, but they aren't on good terms with her, and by the end of the story, she will be estranged from them.

[DiegoPalacios]

In my case it depends a lot of the story i'm telling. So i voted for something in between.

In some stories i use them, in others i kill them, there's also the "use them for a while and then kill them so their deaths hit harder"

[Lane_Kalchik]

Kenny's parents don't play a huge role but always seem to have an underlying feeling of authority even when they are not in the scene, until at the middle of the story they disown him completely.

On the other hand, Lane's parents although written to seem scary by the different points of views are more present and openly supportive both he and Lane