Mother Nature, Father Science: Difference between revisions

* In ''[[Spider-Man (Film)|Spider-Man 2]]'', Doctor Octavius (later Octopus) and his wife Rosalie are both college professors, but whereas Otto specializes in nuclear physics, Rosalie teaches literature.

* Inverted in ''[[Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs]]'': Flint Lockwood's mother was supportive of his scientific endeavors, while his father is mostly confused by anything more complicated than a fishing line.

* ''[[Discworld]]'' is very complex and goes back and forth about this. ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Equal Rites|Equal Rites]]'' brought these ideas to the fore.

** Wizards are urban and associate with the Unseen University, thus are some variety of academia parody. They are often silly old duffers or giant nerds, but this does give the luster of hard science to their magic, and were more powerful once in Disc politics. The leading wizard, Ridcully, is pretty pompous but macho too (and ironically was thought to be [[Closer to Earth]], but was actually an [[Egomaniac Hunter]]). In earlier stories they tended to assassinate each other a lot. [[A Man Is Not a Virgin|They're also celibate]] because of the possibility of [[Discworld (Literature)/Sourcery|Sourcerors]].

* Diane Duane's [[Young Wizards]] series follows this. Nita's magic relates to nature and living things. Her male partner Kit tends to do better with technology and inanimate objects like rocks. However, later on Nita's sister subverts the whole thing by being a computer wiz with a magical affinity for technology and silicon-based lifeforms, and both Nita and Kit eventually grow out of their original specialties into others, which is apparently common for wizards. It's left open whether their initial foci came from awareness of the trope, but newcomers to magic in the books do tend to get it in a form which behaves as much the way they expect it to as is practical (without breaking [[Magic A Is Magic A]]).

* A notable early aversion of this trope is [[ETA Hoffmann (Creator)|ETA Hoffmann]]'s 1816 story "The Sandman" ([[The Sandman|no relation]]), about the superstitious, (over)sensitive proto-[[Emo Teen]] Nathanael and his hardheaded rationalist girlfriend Clara.

* ''[[I Carly]]'': Expect Carly and Sam to solve problems in the natural (or the brawn) way and Freddie to resort to geeky gadgets and tech stuff.

* ''[[3rd Rock From the Sun]]'': Dick is a physicist and his love interest and co-worker Mary is an anthropologist. On the other hand, Dick is a [[Cloudcuckoolander]] alien while Mary is a cynical [[Grumpy Bear]].

* In the initial cast of ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'', there is Crichton, a scientist (if one given to explosiveness under pressure), and Zhaan, a priestess. However, this might also count as an inversion, because Crichton is very emotional, and Zhaan at least tries to be calm and logical.

* ''[[House (TV)|House]]'' is Father Science in contrast to Cameron/Cuddy/Thirteen/Adams/Wilson as Mother Nature.

* In ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court (Webcomic)|Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', Surma Carver could [[I See Dead People|speak with]] [[The Grim Reaper|the Guides]], and she served as the mediator between the Court and the magical Gillitie Wood. Her husband, Anthony, was a surgeon and, according to Jones:

* This trope is pretty much epitomized by [[Dexters Laboratory|Dexter and his sister Dee Dee]].

* [[Zig Zagging Trope|Zigzags a bit in]] ''[[Xenozoic Tales]]'', featuring the very science-minded Hannah Dundee and the Earth <s>mother</s> father Jack Tenrec. Both of them have leanings for the opposite side. Jack, despite his undying devotion to the natural order, loves working on cars and other machines. Hannah, more subtly, believes in the mystic underpinnings of the world, but she considers they will be scientifically explicable, once they are better understood. There's also the indication that she's been {{spoiler|chosen by the Grith}} for... wouldn't it be nice if the series had lasted long enough to tell us?

* [[Agent Mulder]] and [[Agent Scully]] of ''[[The X Files]]'' are classic inversions. Mulder is a [[The Profiler|psychologist]], a believer in the paranormal, and relies heavily on [[Gut Feeling|intuition]] in his investigations. Scully is a [[The Coroner|forensic pathologist]] with an undergrad degree in physics, a [[Scully Syndrome|total skeptic]] about paranormal phenomena, and works from logic and hard evidence. Furthermore, Mulder is usually the one who's unafraid to show his feelings, while Scully is [[The Stoic]]. Mulder gets to be right more often, at least about the existence of the paranormal, but the show suggests very strongly that he'd be a failure without Scully there to keep him grounded. This was all done very deliberately by the writers.

* ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'' also this: D'Argo, the [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]] of deep feeling, and Aeryn, [[Emotionless Girl|stone-cold]] [[Badass]] soldier. Over time, both become less and less like this, Aeryn's emotional growth (while not losing her self-control) a key part of the story, while D'Argo becomes more and more self-aware and almost meta in his thinking: "John, I'm going to tell you something I've never put into words. I ''really'' like shooting stuff. And I'm very good at it."

* Chakotay and Seven of Nine of ''[[Star Trek Voyager]]''. Chakotay is a [[Magical Native American]] who likes going on vision quests. Seven is an [[Emotionless Girl]] who was raised by the Borg who refuses to go back to her human name. Her emotional growth is explored throughout the series. The romance actually happens in the final season.

* Averted in ''[[Portal (Video Game)|Portal]]'', where the science-loving [[G La DOS]] is clearly female.

* Subverted in ''[[Freefall (Webcomic)|Freefall]]'': The closest we get to a [[Nature Hero]] is the [[Ambiguous Gender|"male"]] [[Stupid Good]] [[Ridiculously Human Robot]]; OTOH, Team Science has the female [[Big Badass Wolf|red wolf]] engineer. Who [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1200/fv01162.htm shows signs] of [[Science Madness|SRMD]].