Disappeared Dad: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]]'' runs on this trope. If you're a main character in this series, it's guaranteed that you're going to barely know your father, if at all. Part 1's Jonathon Joestar's father is killed by Jonathon's adoptive brother [[Complete Monster|Dio Brando]]; Part 2's Joseph Joestar didn't even know his father, since he died before he was born; Part 3's Jotaro Kujo's father is a career musician who is frequently away on tour; Part 4's Josuke Higashikata was conceived during a one-night stand between an elderly Joseph and a young woman he met; Part 5's Giorno Giovanna's father, Dio Brando, was killed by Jotaro during the events of Part 3; Part 6's Jolyne Kujo suffers from the same daddy issues that her father Jotaro did in his youth, although in this case it's slightly subverted as [[Daddy Had a Good Reason For Abandoning You|Jotaro distanced himself from his daughter for her own good]]; and Part 7's Johnny Joestar's father actually DOES happen to be present in his life, but he resents Johnny due to him {{spoiler|accidentally killing his older brother.}} [[Long List|Whew.]]

* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''. The whole awful mess started when the Disappeared Dad ''came back''.

* Ayumu and her sister from ''[[Life (manga)|Life]]'' only seem to live with their mother.

 

* [[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]] became a crime fighter after his uncle Ben, who acted as a father, was killed by a burglar.

* Shaman of ''[[Alpha Flight]]'' abandoned his daughter to learn magic. Technically, she kicked him out of her life (angry that he'd failed to save her mother / his wife as promised); but given she was maybe 12 at the time, most of the blame lies with him.

* ''[[Wanted]]'' starts with Wesley Gibson discovering his disappeared father was a recently killed assassin. {{spoiler|In the movie, the one the "supposed dad"'s killer was Wesley's actual father.}}

 

* As with [[Missing Mom]], the [[Disney Animated Canon]] has more than a few examples:

** Both [[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney film)|Snow White]]'s and [[Cinderella (Disney film)|Cinderella]]'s fathers are dead. Luckily, they still have their stepmothers. [[Wicked Stepmother|Oh, wait...]]

* Camille's father in ''[[Therese Raquin]]''. There's pretty much no mention of him.

* The twins' father in ''[[The Thirteenth Tale]]''. Isabelle returns home without her husband and informs the servants that he died. Of course, he also might not be the twins' father.

* In ''[[The Little Shop of Horrors]]'' (the original 1960 dark comedy), Seymour lives with his hypochondriac mother, who explains to Audrey at dinner that Seymour's father ran out on her.

* In ''[[Psycho]]'', Norman's dead father plays a pivotal role in his absence. Mrs Bates' unhealthy behaviour begins after her husband's death. Norman might have had a shot at a normal childhood if he had lived. Sadly, though, this didn't happen

* ''[[The Poker House]]'': The family moves away from the abusive priest father and never hears from him again.

 

* In ''[[The Halfblood Chronicles]]'' by [[Mercedes Lackey]] and [[Andre Norton]]:

** ''The Elvenbane'': The titular character's foster mother is a single parent.

* In [[Michael Flynn]]'s ''[[Spiral Arm|Up Jim River]]'', the harper was raised by her mother alone, with only some information about her father. When her mother disappears, her quest for her also has the unspoken desire to find her father.

 

* ''[[iCarly]]'': Carly/Spencer's father is in the military. Freddie's father is never mentioned and his mother seems to have raised him on her own.

** Sam's father's abandonment is finally addressed in "iParty With Victorious":

** Sam, Paige's father, had to abandon Paige because of his fears of what the Elders would do to her because she's half whitelighter.

** Chris from the future had suffered from this in his childhood. Leo, in his time, had Elder duties that kept him away from his family. He has issues with that.

* An episode of ''[[According to Jim]]'' had Jim look after a karate classmate of his daughters (on whom both girls have a crush) whose father is hours late. When the boy's parents arrive at Jim's home to pick up their son, Jim makes the startling realization that the boy's Dad is his own, who left when Jim was 10, 35 years prior. No mention is made of Jim's daughters unknowingly crushing on their half-uncle, possibly to avoid the [[Squick]]iness of the concept.

* ''[[Wings (TV series)|Wings]]'' started with the Brothers Hackett reuniting thanks to the posthumous machinations of their prankster father. {{spoiler|Ended in a similar fashion, as well.}}

* ''[[CSI]]'''s Morgan Brody-Ecklie left when she was 14.

* Wataru of ''[[Kamen Rider Kiva]]'' has a missing father. Part of the show focuses on the events that led to his father's disappearance and any other event that resulted in what is happening presently.

 

* In [[Ayreon]]: [[The Human Equation]] the protagonist's father is a womanizing jerk who left his mother long ago. He appears in his comatose hallucination to mock him (''"Day sixteen: Loser"''), the grudge the protagonist held on him was essential in igniting his rage and letting him wake up four days later.

* A Disappeared Dad is among the [[Wangst]] ([[Played for Laughs]]) of [[The Offspring]]'s "She's Got Issues":

* And let us not forget Johnny Cash's 'A Boy Named Sue' in which the abandoned son hunts down his father for giving him that name.

* Cat's In The Cradle by [[Harry Chapin]] is this trope told from the ''dad's'' perspective. It's also a bit of a [[Tear Jerker]].

* [[Backstreet Boys|AJ McLean]]'s "Sincerely Yours," a case of [[Calling the Old Man Out]].

 

* In ''[[Dilbert]]'', the title character's father, who never appears in the comic, has been living in an all-you-can-eat restaurant in the mall since Christmas 1992; he won't leave until he's literally had all he can eat. When Dilbert's girlfriend Liz expresses astonishment that neither he nor his mother have so much as visited him in all this time, Dilbert replies, "We're waiting for a sale." The joke is recycled for the [[Dilbert (animation)|animated series]], where the father, still living in the restaurant (since [[Exaggerated Trope|1979]] in this version), does appear, but [[The Faceless|his face isn't shown]].

** No, they were originally waiting for a sale to go to the mall to look for him. When his mom finally found him, Dilbert decided not to go to the restaurant to visit until they were serving a special he liked.

 

* In William Inge's ''Picnic'' (as well as in the 1955 film adaptation), the father of the Owens family has long since abandoned them.

** Cosette's father in the novel is Felix Tholomyes. His three friends are paired up with Fantine' three friends, and men abandon their women as a joke of sorts; Fantine either doesn't have a chance to tell him or finds out just afterwards that she's pregnant.

*** Actually, Cosette was two years old when Tholomyès abandoned them. It says in the novel that only ten months after he left, Fantine drops off the nearly-three Cosette to live with the Thénardiers. Fantine had three letters written pleading for him to come back, but he didn't.

 

* This is ''also'' the main plot hook in ''[[Mega Man Star Force]]''.

* As with similarities to its anime adaptation, all the ''[[Pokémon]]'' games in the main series seems to suffer from this, with the rival's included. The only games that seems to avert it is Sapphire/Ruby/Emerald in the Hoenn generation, where it was solely because your father was a major figure in the game, and Diamond/Pearl/Platinum in the Sinnoh generation, where your rival's father is the champion of the Battle Tower. The most mention of a father in the original games is a mention that "dad would like this" about a TV program.

* Jecht from ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' messed up his kid by disappearing for ten years, then messes him up even more by not being quite the same upon resurfacing. {{spoiler|It turns out that Jecht became the Final Aeon for the last Final Summoning, resulting in him becoming the current Sin because of the [[Vicious Cycle]] perpetuated by Yu Yevon}}.

* An interesting take on this trope occurs in ''[[Harvest Moon|Rune Factory 2]]'' where the missing dad is ''the main character''. Instead of the game following him when he leaves his family, player control switches over to his son/daughter who embarks on a quest to find out what happened to his/her father.

** Lest we forget, her father was in [[The Legend of Zelda CDI Games|the dreaded CD-I games]].

** Link himself is even worse off. His mother is mentioned in about one game (Ocarina of Time, again) and his father never. The closest relatives he ever lived with was [[The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past|an uncle,]] [[The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker|a grandma and a little sister.]] He even played [[Knight Templar Big Brother]] to the later.

* ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star Fox]]'': James McCloud, Fox' father, disappears in the backstory. He has been on-screen a few times, but likely as a hallucination every time.

* Ritz from ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance]]'' has mentioned her mother before, but never her father.

* In ''[[Car Battler Joe]]'', Joe's father has been missing for years, and Joe sets out to find him.

 

* ''[[Ever 17|Ever 17: The Out of Infinity]]:'' You's father was a researcher at Leiblich Pharmaceutical, and disappeared under mysterious circumstances a year after You was born.

** {{spoiler|Rare protagonist example: Takeshi becomes one to Hokuto and Sara, though in his case, at least he had [[Heroic Sacrifice|his]] [[Human Popsicle|reasons]] (not to mention he didn't know they existed.}}

** {{spoiler|Lilly Satou}}'s father lives abroads, [[Parental Abandonment|and so does her mother.]] {{spoiler|Lilly's sister Akira [[Promotion to Parent|pretty much raised her]], and she's not exactly happy about it; she loves Lilly very much but clearly knows that she cannot replace their parents.}}

** {{spoiler|Hanako Ikezawa}}'s father {{spoiler|died in the fire that left her scarred and fully orphaned.}}

 

* ''[[Count Your Sheep]]'' has a Disappeared Dad in the form of Marty who we only ever hear about in flashbacks or wistful reminiscences. He's explicitly dead, though.

* ''[[Narbonic]]'' both inverts and averts the trope, as the first time we hear about Helen's father {{spoiler|it's implied Helen's mother served him for dinner}}, and then once the truth is revealed, {{spoiler|we discover there never was a dad -- Helen is a clone;}} it turns out to be a Should've Seen That Coming due to the fact that Helen's mother is a [[Mad Scientist]].

* In ''[[Out There]]'', Miriam's mother makes occasional appearances, but [http://outthere.keenspot.com/d/20091218.html the first time Miriam mentions her father], she implies she hasn't seen him for awhile, if ever.

** Turns out [http://outthere.keenspot.com/d/20110712.html there's a pretty good reason].

** Eugene is an interesting case. It seems that he wasn't active in Roy's life ''until'' he died; prior to that he seems to have been [[Parental Neglect|quite neglectful]], was bitter that Roy became a fighter [[Follow in My Footsteps|instead of a wizard]] and showed clear [[Parental Favoritism]] to Julia. However, he specifically passed up a chance to defeat Xykon because it would have involved abandoning the family and possibly putting them in danger, but [[Hidden Heart of Gold|specifically lied]] to Roy saying he would have left them if given the chance.

** {{spoiler|Haley's reunited with Ian but unfortunately they no longer get along, since she's abandoned the paranoia-happy way he tried to raise her.}}

* In ''[[No Rest for The Wicked (webcomic)|No Rest for The Wicked]]'', The Boy's father threw him out—as he did in the [[Fairy Tale]]. [http://www.forthewicked.net/archive/04i-13.html Even his sunshiny nature can't ignore it entirely; he's wistful seeing how much November's father loves her.]

 

* In ''[[The Gamers Alliance]]'', Omaroch vanished from the lives of his sons Refan and Kareth but later returned to guide them. It turns out he was kidnapped by his brothers who then tortured and brainwashed him to serve the dark god Mardük, and he returned only to use the sons for fulfilling an ancient prophecy about Mardük. He eventually snaps out of it, but by that time it's too late; the damage has already been done, and he has not only lost the trust of his sons but also indirectly causes the Cataclysm and the birth of the Godslayer.

* While what actually went on is unclear, [[The Nostalgia Critic]] still lives with his abusive mother. His Dad, who Critic still appears to have scary memories of, is implied to have left the family a while ago and it's also likely that he died before the ''[[Alaska]]'' review. (This is all in-character, of course, Doug's parents are lovely and helpful.)

 

* ''[[As Told by Ginger]]'': Ginger's dad is divorced. And he's been making promises to Ginger and letting her down for years. By the end of the series, he's only visited Ginger a few times, and most of those meetings weren't exactly Kodak moments.

* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'':

** ''[[Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures|Jonny Quest the Real Adventures]]'' provides a backstory where Hadji's father was a sickly man and died young. His [[The Evil Prince|uncle and cousin]] force his mother to flee and attempt to have Hadji assassinated. His would-be assassin took pity on the kid instead and later handed him over to Dr. Quest to be given a new life in America.

* In ''[[Hurricanes]]'', the main female character is a teenage girl who inherited a soccer team from her deceased Dad.

** Jessica's parents are divorced. [[Visit by Divorced Dad|He only appeared once]].