Feral Child: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

Characters who are [[Raised by Wolves|raised by fictional animals]] are usually much better off than these kids: If A Wild Child was literally raised by animals, it will be painfully obvious that those animals were no substitute for real parents, with the child showing markedly animalistic behavior, such as a tendency to bite anyone who crosses their gaze wrong or who intrudes into their personal space, or never having learned to walk upright. Sometimes this can be [[Played for Laughs|played for comedy]], with less harmful behaviors like inappropriate sniffing or choosing to "mark" territory.

 

{{examples}}

* There was an ad for cheese that had three men staring at the last cube of cheese on a party tray. The first two had [[Floating Advice Reminder|little versions of their mothers]] appear on their shoulders and demand that they be polite and leave the cheese for somebody else, with the second mother asking, "were you raised by wolves?" The third guy had a wolf appear and howl at him. He happily ate the cheese and walked off, prompting the mothers to call him an animal.

 

* Keenan (Ikuto) from ''[[Digimon Savers]]'' is a type of this... Only he slightly knows how to act around humans because Digimon act sociable to each other. He still uses Tarzan-like language though (even though Digimon speak flawless English/Japanese)).

* The feral girl Sapphire from ''[[Pokémon Special]]'' fights wild Pokemon with her bare hands, has refined senses of sight, smell, and hearing, is a bit socially awkward (though she does have regular human contact), and even has ''[[Cute Little Fangs|fangs]] and claws''. When she was introduced she actually had clothing [http://www.serebii.net/manga/characters-new/pics/Sapphire_Design.jpg she made out of leaves].

* Age of ''[[Heroic Age]]'' is a subversion: he acts a lot like a wild child, having no comprehension of manners, personal hygiene, ''numbers'', etc. and spends a great deal of his time goofing off in the garden or finger painting. However, as it turns out, he was raised by none other than the [[Precursors|Golden Tribe themselves]], is one of the few characters who fully grasps the situation of the war, and makes some astonishingly mature decisions (given his usual behavior) throughout the series.

 

* Karu-Sil, a member of the enemy Sinestro Corps in ''[[Green Lantern]]'', qualifies for this trope, since she wound up with a pack of predators after her parents were killed in a minor tribal conflict. She assimilated to her new companions a little '''too''' well.

* The French [[Graphic Novel]] ''Pyrénée'' is about a girl raised in the mountains by a bear.

* Another French comic series, ''[[Sillage]]'' (''Wake'' in English) begins with its heroine Nävis (Navee in English), the sole survivor from a wrecked spaceship, growing up wild with a big tiger-like companion on a jungle planet. The spinoff series ''Nävis'' (not yet translated into English) tells of her early childhood, when she was also being looked after by the ship's only surviving robot.

* The Amphibian from ''[[Supreme Power]]''. Her mother tried to drown the both of them after seeing her malformed baby, but the Amphibian took to life underwater pretty well, living there into her early 20s before ever being discovered. She's incapable of speech, but can communicate telepathically. She also responds to anything she preceives as threatening with violence. Oh, and, as you might've guessed, she doesn't wear any clothes.

* The Black Condor is a human man who was raised by condors. Who taught him to fly (yes, without wings). And then he became a US Senator. [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?|I swear I'm not making this up]].

* Subverted by Teon AKA Primal from ''Generation Hope''. He acts as if he's Hope's pet dog most of the time, rarely says anything but "fight", "flight", "eat", "mate", and "woof", and does horribly on intelligence tests, but then he aces them when she offers him a snack, and when his parents sue the X-Men for custody of him, he takes the stand and gives an eloquent speech convincing them to drop the suit. It turns out he had a normal human upbringing and was actually a computer geek before his mutation turned him into a being of pure instinct concerned primarily with survival and mating.

 

* François Truffaut's... ''The Wild Child''.

* The Feral Kid (credited as such) in ''[[Mad Max]] II.''

* The live action adaptation of ''[[The Flintstones]]'': Bamm-Bamm Rubble was one of these, raised by wild mastadons.

* The titular feral woman in ''[[The Woman]]'', who gets kidnapped by a suburban family in an attempt to make her more "civilized".

 

* Hendrika the Baboon Woman from the [[Allan Quatermain]] novella ''Allan's Wife'' by [[H. Rider Haggard]].

* To a degree, Rickon Stark from ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', as a consequence of {{spoiler|losing his whole family, forming a mental bond with a borderline-feral [[Big Badass Wolf]] and having a amazon Wildling for a nanny}}.

* Parodied in ''How to Be a Superhero'', in which being raised by wild animals is given as one of the possible origins. The authors then present the story of a child raised by oysters, then reveal at the end that he drowned 20 years ago and the oysters never noticed.

* The titular character from the short story ''[[Wolf Alice]]'' by Angela Carter. She is raised from infancy by wolves and captured by a hunter who kills her "mother", then given to a group of nuns who attempt to domesticate her. They eventually decide she cannot be integrated into society and instead send her to live with a mysterious werewolf/vampire called the Duke. Though she performs some basic human behaviour, she never learns to speak.

* In the short novel ''The Pack'', the mysterious new kid at the school was raised by wolves from a young age (note: not from birth. He had a human mother for several years prior to living with the wolves). He's learned to adapt well enough, but he can be extremely quirky and eccentric at times, and was a textbook example when he was first found.

 

* ''[[The Six Million Dollar Man]]'' episode ''The Wolf Boy''.

* ''[[Manimal]]'' (being about well... a man who can change into animals) naturally played with this trope, though the Wild Child is an adult. The feral woman only speaks in wolf-like noises, including howling in distress when the cell she was locked in caught on fire, and at one point looked as though she's deciding between eating the food she stole, or the animal she just stole it from. [[Fridge Logic|Her hair had some real stylish bangs for someone raised by wolves]].

* There was a made-for-TV movie that became a short-lived TV series called ''Lucan,'' in the late seventies that was about a boy raised by wolves for the first ten years of his life, then by research scientists for the next ten. He struck out on his own and had to deal with human society while using and controlling his wolfen instincts and physical gifts.

 

* The song "Wild Child" by [[The Doors]].

 

* In a few ''[[Garfield]]'' strips, Jon Arbuckle dates a woman who was raised by wolves. Although she usually seems to have assimilated well into human society, she does occasionally exhibit such behaviors as trying to gnaw off her own leg because her shoe is pinching her foot.

** Garfield played with this trope at least one more time. The titular tabby climbed a tree and met a cat that had been raised by squirrels.

* There is [http://www.p-synd.com/wild/squigli.jpg a GahanWilson cartoon] about a boy abandoned by summer people and raised by squirrels.

 

 

** The primarch of the [[Night Lords]], Konrad Curze a.k.a. Night Haunter, wasn't raised by anything. He was not the most stable primarch, though, and grew up into a terrifying hybrid of [[Heart of Darkness|his namesake]] and [[Batman]].

** Dark Angel primarch Lion El'Jonson spent the first ten years of his life alone in a jungle before being discovered by humans. He turned out as well-adjusted as the setting allows, if a bit taciturn and secretive. He never spoke of his experiences in the wild.

*** Though it was suggested in Gav Thorpe's ''Angel of Darkness'' that he grew paranoid from the experience.

 

* In RATZ, a reimagining of the Pied Piper fairytale, the town's problem is not actual rats but a whole gang of feral children, who communicate in their own language and hiss when startled. They also steal other children.

 

** [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot|Unfortunately]], Gau's wild nature only really comes up in three places: his dialogue ("Gau! Gau!"), his in-battle specialty (Rage, which allows him to [[Power Copying|copy monsters' skills and abilities]]), and an optional cutscene where {{spoiler|his father is finally found}} and the party does their best to clean up his manners and appearance. {{spoiler|Gau's father}} doesn't recognize Gau, but does compliment him (he must have [[She Cleans Up Nicely|cleaned up nicely]]) and say that his "father must be proud". A [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]] ensues outside.

 

 

 

* Donnie from ''[[The Wild Thornberrys]]''.

* Aqualad of ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' was orphaned and basically fended for himself until he was about 12. Only through the intervention and guidance of a god-like figure kept him from going completely feral. He was also an Ichtyphobe: not a good thing to be when you spend your entire childhood in the ocean.

 

* [[wikipedia:Victor of Aveyron|Victor of Aveyron, France]]. Some people think he may have been autistic, though.

* [[wikipedia:Amala and Kamala|Amala and Kamala]] are possibly the most famous account, despite being ultimately revealed as a con.

* [[wikipedia:Genie (feral child)|Genie the Wild Child]]

* [[wikipedia:Oxana Malaya|Oxana Malaya]] Potentially qualifies for [[The Woobie|Woobie]] status as well.

* There is a story that Frederick the Great wanted to find out if he could raise soldiers from birth, without motherly care. So he took some infants from their families and gave them to caretakers who were instructed not to cuddle or talk to them. All the babies died.

** The term "environmental autism" has been proposed for what happens to these children, particularly in Danielle Crockett's case. I don't think it's accepted medically though, partially due to the once-common practice of throwing out/abandoning family members who might be showing signs of mental illness.

* The 18th century medical literature discussed several such feral children, most of whom never learned to speak, wear clothes or adapt to society and ended up in mental asylums. There are a few such "wolf children" in existence even today, ranging in age from a man in his 40s to a teenage girl. Most of them were orphaned children in Eastern European states which were part of the ''Union of Soviet Socialist Republics'' prior to its collapse in the 1990s. Some claim to have actually been raised by wild dogs or wolves in the woods. The good news is, the modern-day wolf children have learned language and adapted to life among people, even though the girl still refers to herself as a wolf not a human.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters As Device]]

[[Category:Youngsters]]

[[Category:Adopt an Index]]

[[Category:Sublime Rhyme]]

[[Category:Tropes of Nature]]