Disappeared Dad: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

A subtrope of [[Parental Abandonment]]: The father of a character or characters is missing or absent.

 

Compare and contrast this with [[Missing Mom]]. Combine the two, and you get [[Parental Abandonment]]. Sometimes, though, [[Daddy Had a Good Reason For Abandoning You]]. If Dad is dead, we may see a [[Happier Home Movie]]. If he is simply too busy to be with his child, it's [[When You Coming Home, Dad?]]. See also: [[Tell Me About My Father]], [[So Proud of You]], [[Turn Out Like His Father]]. Contrast [["Well Done, Son" Guy]].

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[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.]]

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

{{quote|'''Sam''': Yeah, and my dad told my mom he was coming back.}}

** Late in the series, we learn what happened to him. When Kara was young, her mother forced him to [[Sadistic Choice|choose between his family or his music]]. He chose music ( {{spoiler|some of which was written two thousand years ago by Sam Anders (or possibly Bob Dylan) on Earth}}), leaving Kara with a woman who thought [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]] was a valid parenting method.

** Not to mention the original (male) Starbuck of the original series. He grew up without a father, then one day a con artist shows up and hints at possibly being his father as part of a scam. Surprise-surprise, the con artist was really his father (which shocked the heck out of him). In the end, Starbuck's dad pretends that he is NOT Starbuck's father so he won't drag his son down. (That and the part was played by expensive and elderly actor Fred Astaire)

* ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'': A Disappeared Dad was in its [[Backstory]] before the show's timeline begins officially and Carol married Mike.

** Creator Sherwood Schwartz's original concept for the show had been for Carol to be a divorcee, but the network deemed this too controversial for the era and demanded a script change. One description of the pilot (a result of this change) has Carol being a widow (the reason why Carol's first husband apparently has no contact with his daughters), although her actual background is never explicitly stated in any of the scripts.

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'':

** Buffy's dad pretty much disappears after the second season premiere, even when Buffy's kicked out of her mother's house she doesn't go to him and she tells Angel that he never even came to Joyce's funeral. Further, attempts to replace him were disastrous as well.