Abusive Parents/Video Games

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Examples of Abusive Parents in Video Games include:

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  • King Desmond in Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken makes no bones about the fact that he loathes his son Zephiel and tries to kill him twice. Is it any wonder this wise, gentle boy grows up to be such a bastard in Fuuin no Tsurugi?
    • Ashnard's treatment of his son is more a case of Parental Abandonment, but the fact that he used his son to lure a dragon to his side, and the fact that he kept the boy separated from his mother even after abandoning them both, probably falls into the "abusive" category. Strangely, while the son turned out to be just as good a strategist as the father, he was also fiercely loyal to Ike.
  • It's heavily implied in the Ace Attorney series that Manfred von Karma was, at the very least, emotionally abusive toward his adoptive son and biological daughter. Both had breakdowns in adulthood as a result of the pressure he put on them growing up, and let's just say he was famous for having... very stiff penalties for people who would accept anything less than complete perfection. That's not even getting into what the guy is shown actually doing in-game to said adoptive son...
  • Matsuri, Aoba and Jun's parents in Family Project. Jun's are probably the worst. Her father molested her and her sister since they were small children for years until a neighbor noticed and they got taken away. Their mother? Envious. So she starved them for days on end and then would feed them horrible things. Like flat out poison to Jun, which nearly killed her and prevents her from eating anything but snack bars and drinks.
  • In Final Fantasy X, Tidus's father often insulted and berated his son for being a crybaby. After believing Jecht had died at sea, Tidus's mother also pined and eventually died. As a result, Tidus harbored bitterness towards his father and never quite forgave him for it. While it's made clear Jecht actually did love his son, the man never, at any point in his life, tell him such - throughout both that game and Dissidia, Jecht only admits his love for Tidus when the younger man is either absent or unconscious (or when he himself is dying).
    • Braska comes off as a close second. Before he set off on his pilgrimage he apparantly hadn't arranged any kind of carer for his 7 year old daughter. We know this because during her video will (the sphere that Tidus stole) she explains that whilst coming to terms with the fact she was now orphaned; she just kind of wandered off until Kimarhi found her and took her to Besaid. Firstly, if Braska had arranged for a carer they were oblivious to her walking off and apparantly couldn't care less that she was commandeered by a hulking 6ft Ronso. Secondly, this situation proves exactly why Yuna needed a babysitter; shes the most trusting girl in the world - replace Kimahri with paedophile and Braska's stole the Dad of the Year Award from Jecht.
      • That's a severe twisting of the situation. Braska most likely tried to get a caretaker and couldn't get one with Yuna being half-Al Bhed and his own status as "the heretic summoner who everyone should avoid." Then he sent Auron to go back and take care of her which only went wrong because Auron died for a little while,]] and he in turn sent Kimahri. Besides, Yuna remembers him very positively--his pilgrimage is a definite example of Despair Event Horizon rather than intentional neglect.
  • Cyrus, the Big Bad of the Pokémon Diamond and Pearl games, is revealed in the postgame to have been under severe parental pressure as a child. Specifics are never given, but it was apparently bad enough to make his grandfather consider taking him away from his parents. And, you know, bad enough to make him snap and want to take control the only way he could think of...
    • And the cycle continued. In one of the spin-off series, Cyrus is, for all intents and purposes, father figure to an orphan girl. Who he raised as a war machine, constantly telling her that everyone is alone in the world. It's implied later that she didn't realize that kindness existed, because he didn't either. Fortunately for her, she got better, and later, so did he.
    • Cyrus' parents were horrid perfectionists, true, but they were consistent. In Pokémon Black and White Ghetsis goes Up to Eleven in the manner with which he raised N, teaching the boy values that directly opposed what he (Ghetsis, that is) believed in and exploiting N for his own personal gain. The revelation at the end that the boy was merely a tool to those ends is the icing on the cake, the capper to his Garchomp flight across the Moral Event Horizon. You won't find anyone in the know who isn't ready to accept Ghetsis as possibly being the prime exemplar of this trope.
      • Even moreso if you take a cold eye to Ghetsis's Pokemon lineup when he battles you. It's blatantly designed to counter everything N has, including Zoroark (by baiting for uncharacteristic Dark attacks with Cofagrigus) and his legendary Dragon (via his hacked Hydreigon). N wasn't just a tool, he was a disposable tool.
    • Pokémon is full of terrible, terrible parents, isn't it? Pokémon Ranger gives us Gordor, who forced his four kids into joining his criminal gang and brainwashing Pokémon. When they finally wise up and leave to embark on their music careers, he just scoffs and goes about his merry evil way. He doesn't give two craps about them and saw them as just more goons.
  • ZHP. It's eventually revealed that the Main Character's parents constantly insulted and belittled him ever since he let himself and his sister get kidnapped 8 years ago. However, soon after this is learned it is revealed that the kidnapping was not Main Character's fault (he actually tried to stop it, but his sister was unable to vouch for him due to Trauma-Induced Amnesia). Once this is learned, the parents quickly clean up their act. The trauma of the incident caused the mother and father to constantly argue with each other when they're not busy insulting the Main Character, while his sister lashed out all everyone else because, due to her amnesia, she has no idea why everyone in her family was made at each other.
  • In Tales of Symphonia, Zelos never had the nicest relationship with his mother, as she was forced into a loveless marriage, even though she "probably loved someone else". When she's killed in an attack that was intended to kill Zelos, her last words to him were "You should never have been born". It's shown in the manga that even before this, she was cold and dismissive of her son, often making the excuse that she's ill or has a headache to get out of having to see him. No wonder he's so messed up...
  • In Guilty Gear X, Sol Badguy takes part in bounty hunting after Dizzy. He finds her and beats her. And it's possible not only that he is her father, but also that he already knew it, when he went after her.
  • Baek Doosan's backstory in Tekken 2 involves him having to put up with a decidedly unpleasant and abusive father, a result of alcoholism after a crippling injury forced him to leave Tae Kwon Do. How bad did it get? To the point where a sparring session degenerated into a fight in which Baek killed his father by accident.
  • Becomes a recurring theme in Grand Theft Auto IV, as the main character, Niko Bellic, and his cousin, Roman's, fathers were violent alcoholics who would regularly beat up both their children and their wifes. Dwayne Forge and Packie McReary had similar childhoods, and while the first comments how he felt "nothing" when his father was murdered, the second will at one point open up to Niko and tell that his violent father at one point even attempted and would have succeeded at molesting him, if his older brother, Gerry, had not intervened at the last minute.
  • In the Japanese version of EarthBound, when Porky and Picky get back home at the beginning of the game, their father chases them offscreen, and can be heard spanking them. In the American version, this is changed to the sound made when enemies in battle use "word attacks," implying that their father was only scolding them.
    • Then again though; this happens so early in the game people can easily assume it's not supposed to be a "word attack".
  • Pachacamac from Sonic Adventure was this to Tikal.
  • In a scene near the end of No More Heroes, it's revealed that Travis' father constantly molested his sister. She eventually gets revenge by killing him, his wife, and attempting to kill his son. Although, having a sexually abusive father is quite possibly the most normal thing about her story...
  • In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Emma was stated to have been sexually assaulted by her second stepfather, to which she injured him in self defense shortly before graduating from High School. The game itself doesn't specify what kind of assault it was, but the script included in the Document of Metal Gear Solid 2 had in brackets "sexual" right before "assault."
  • BioShock 2 has Sofia Lamb. An incredible list of abuse, mostly of the mental variety-though a degree of neglect etc. Attempting to condition your child in to the 'Peoples Daughter' (an individual who knows everything, or more accurately a conduit for everything), using a serum that reduced a fellow researcher to a sentient tumour, does not a good parent make.
    • Sofia Lamb may not even be Eleanor's mother: an audio log from her alludes that she did as little to be involved in raising her as possible, possibly even using a surrogate.
  • Vega, a recurring antagonist from the Street Fighter series, is known for being flamboyant, egotistical, and narcissistic, wearing a mask not to hide his identity but to protect his - admittedly handsome - face. All of these traits, whoever, hide deep-seated resentment of his father. His mother was, by his own account, incredibly beautiful, but his father was an ugly and violent beast who abused Vega and his mother, eventually killing his mother. Vega thus grew up to be a shallow man who only respects physical beauty and despises anything ugly.
  • Silent Hill. Let's count: Dahlia Gillespie, Leonard Wolf, Thomas Orosco, the unnamed Mrs. Orosco, Walter's parents, Helen Grady, Adam Shepherd, and those are just off the top of my head. There's been, what, one good parent in the series?
    • At least Harry Mason, the protagonist of the first game, is a Papa Wolf to the max.
      • In Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, depending on what ending you get, Cheryl will recall that Harry was an alcoholic abusive father, an unfaithful philandering father, or a genuinely loving father.
      • Additionally, one of the endings reveals Cheryl's mother Dahlia to be a spouse abuser. It's debatable whether she physically abuses her daughter as well, but the fact that she degrades and beats Harry in front of Cheryl at least stands as emotional abuse.
  • RELIUS CLOVER. This is the guy who experimented his daughter, Ada, For Science!, turning her into a weaponized doll, Nirvana. However, he lost interest in the project about halfway through and happily turned to his wife instead, turning her into a much better and accomplished puppet, Ignis, after which he left his family's home and never came back. Meanwhile, his son, Carl, had been forced to finish the experiments he was conducting on Ada, leaving the poor little boy completely traumatized, having to show a lack of compassion and fend for himself as a Vigilante at such a young age. That's an abuse on mental, emotional and financial levles... and he went straight to physical (as in, attempted homicide) when Carl tried to get an explanation.

"You've been a very naughty boy... spare the rod, spoil the child."

  • We learn very early into Blaze Union that Gulcasa's father beat and neglected him when he was a young child; his father blamed him for his mother's disappearance. We later learn that said mother is also neglectful and emotionally abusive; the last thing she ever did to her child was Mind Rape him into believing himself to be human while sealing his demon blood without his consent. While her reasons for doing so were arguably well-intentioned, it still left Gulcasa with residual brain damage that prevents him from being able to realize that Emilia is his sister when they first meet. And if that isn't enough, she also reveals that she was aware that Gulcasa's father was abusing him, but chose not to come back and do something about it. All of this started from Fantastic Racism, which was also the reason that no one tried to do anything about the abuse. Luckily for Gulcasa, his childhood friends were willing to become parental surrogates, and lovingly helped him grow up mostly undamaged by all this.
  • Hojo and Lucrecia from Final Fantasy VII did genetic experiments on their son while he was still in the womb in the name of science. The child, Sephiroth, did not take this well.
    • Lucrecia at least harbored some regret for her part in the genetic experiments, even causing her to nearly commit suicide. Hojo, on the other hand, had absolutely no regret for what he did. In fact, he enjoyed every single moment of it even afterwards, and was heavily implied to have manipulated all of Sephiroth's actions and everything in Sephiroth's life/lives.
    • Hojo actually did come to "regret" his actions near the end of his life, but not in the way one would expect. When he confronts the party at the Sister Ray, he acknowledges that he's "even beginning to hate himself" for his actions. He also explicitly states that he's helping Sephiroth because he's his son, not to see his experiment come to fruition. In the end, he's become something of a Papa Wolf, if only because Sephiroth, in his eyes, has surpassed science.
  • Not technically her parents, but the Gestahlian Empire from Final Fantasy VI was the closest that Terra Branford could call her parents due to Gestahl murdering her birthmother and then kidnapping her child, and subjecting her father to various experiments. And, sure enough, their raising her was very much abusive in terms of emotional and possibly other forms of abuse. She was raised in a loveless environment for most of her life, Kefka placed the Slave Crown on Terra to manipulate all of her actions, including burning 50 of their finest soldiers alive, and the one person who was even relatively decent to her, General Leo Cristolph, nonetheless placed the mind control device back on her when they finish training.
  • Embric of Wulfhammers Castle. He's the Duchess' uncle, not her father, and the gory details aren't given, but Bad King Greyghast was not above imprisoning, drugging, killing animals, spying on, and sexually abusing his favorite niece to control her.
  • All of the above happened to Alma Wade, in F.E.A.R. thanks to her father, Harlan Wade, and the Armacham Technology Corporation. (Save financial abuse, and that was because she was never old enough to have money in the first place.) Psychic Powers that made her susceptible to emotions, particularly negative ones and especially her fathers', coupled with physical and mental abuse due to being constantly experimented on, ultimately culminated in her being dragged away at her father's orders to be sealed in the Vault in an induced coma. Sexual abuse followed when Harlan Wade and Armacham used her unconscious body as a testing ground for psychic Super Soldiers, impregnating her twice and removing her from her prison only to give birth to the two prototypes. And worse still, she never got to hold her children. Needless to say, when Alma gets loose, hell follows her. So great is his abuse of her that her uber-powerful psychic ghost gets reduced into a scared, crying child whenever she feels The Creep, his psychic remnant, is around. After that, he goes and abuses his grandkids, For Science!. Swell guy.
  • In Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, Paz Ortega Andrade, real name Pacifica Ocean, according to her diary tapes, was an orphan, and was apparently adopted by Cipher (in other words, the Patriots faction run by Zero after the split), and she intends to obey Cipher's command, not simply due to her loyalty to the organization, but because she feels as though she has to obey them even if she doesn't agree with their goals because she'll otherwise suffer a fate worse than death if she doesn't.
    • There's also the fact that they created the clones of Big Boss. The fact that they were created without Big Boss's consent would make this a form of sexual abuse. Oh, and the project that created them also had six of their brothers essentially murdered during development so they could gain strong fetal growth. Then there is the fact that they kidnapped Olga's child, Sunny, after birth, and put her life on the line by having her life being connected to Raiden's vital nanomachines, meaning if he dies, they kill her, and it is heavily implied that even after Raiden defeated Solidus Snake, they still are placing her life on the line as a threat to Raiden, and she grew up completely withdrawn from people. Yeah.
  • Where to even start with Fei from Xenogears? After she got possessed by Miang, Fei's mother started experimenting on him, thus creating his Super-Powered Evil Side Id, who then was used by his father possesed by the personality of one of Fei's former Incarnations as a Person of Mass Destruction, and that's not even all of it.
  • Adam Malkovich's treatment of Samus Aran in Metroid: Other M has been construed by some reviewers as romanticizing an abusive relationship between an otherwise capable bounty hunter and her surrogate father figure.
  • Lucien from RuneScape was already notorious for being cruel, but the newest Fremminik Saga has confirmed rumors of him having a daughter. Specifically, a half human, half Mahjarrat daughter whom he abuses severely. Every time he speaks to her, he calls her a failure, finally declaring that when he next sees her, he will strangle her. And she just takes it.
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