Orphan's Plot Trinket: Difference between revisions
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[[File:orphansplottrincket.jpg|link=Candy Candy|frame|Gift from my prince...]]
{{quote|''I know these don't mean anything to you, but they're everything to me. They're proof I got parents.''
Orphans get a disproportionate amount of attention from the plot of any given story, and is it any wonder why? [[Parental Abandonment|Orphanhood]] is a plot ''gold mine''.
Right up there with a propensity to stare wistfully out windows, orphans collect an alarming number of plot-relevant knick-knacks.
Why living families are so lacking in portrait lockets and the like may forever remain a mystery.
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* Pictured above: [[Plucky Girl|Candace "Candy" White Andree]]'s locket in [[Candy Candy]], given to her by "her Mountain Prince". {{spoiler|Who reappears several years later... and turns out to be Albert, her protector and the leader of the Andree clan.}}
* Sheeta's pendant in the anime ''[[Laputa:
** Pazu's photograph of Laputa, also.
*** That's part plot trinket, part metagag: the Joke is that in the English version, Pazu's father is strongly implied to be Gulliver. Yes,
* The similarly inspired Blue Water held by Nadia in ''[[Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water]]''
* Sara's musical necklace from ''[[Soukou no Strain]]''.
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* ''[[Bunny Drop]]'' provides the somewhat mundane example of the plot trinket being a baby book with Rin's early medical information. It contains the first clue towards Rin's mother (the name "Masako") and is discovered to be where Daikichi's late grandfather hid his will.
* Eris' bracelet in ''[[Night Wizard]]''.
* The reason why Cleao Everlasting tagged along with Orphen in ''[[Sorcerer Stabber Orphen]]'' was because the sword he intended to use in the spell that would {{spoiler|bring Azalie back to human form after having been Bloody August the dragon for years}} is actually ''her'' Orphan's Plot Trinket. More exactly, a family heirloom that belonged to Cleao's recently deceased father.
** Also, toyed with in regards to Lycoris Nielsen's headband. {{spoiler|She can't remember who gave it to her due to her [[Fake Memories]], but it's later shwon that her older sister Esperanza did so. It doesn't become a 100% Orphan's Plot Trinket, since Esperanza still lives ([[Came Back Wrong|sorta]], until she is killed and Lycoris's dad Marco Reika performs an [[Heroic Sacrifice]] in the [[Grand Finale]].}}
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Blassreiter]]'', one of the protagonists is an orphan. When he met his sister, she recognized him by {{spoiler|the cross}} he wore, the only thing left from his dead parents.
* [[Gundam Seed Destiny]] - Shinn Asuka and his sister Mayu's handphone. It even parallels the music-playing-locket trope with his sister's last voice mail.
* [[Kannazuki no Miko]] - Himeko's pink clam shell necklace, although not until [[The Stinger]].
* [[Revolutionary Girl Utena]] - After Utena becomes orphaned, she receives a rose-crested ring from a prince and decides to become a prince herself.
* In ''[[Space Carrier Blue Noah]]'' Collin's father gives him a pendant to unlock the "Thundersub".
* Thus far{{when}} averted in ''[[Naruto]]''. Naruto's knick-knack, a swirl talisman always worn on his shoulder, has drawn fan attention but has never even been mentioned in the story, let alone give a purpose.
** Actually, it is not averted at all. The spiral pattern that Naruto wears (which is echoed in the emblem on the chuunin/jounin vests and some other outfits) is a relic of Leaf's association with the former Whirlpool, which is where Naruto's mother is from.
* The ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' series has Goku's [[Gratuitous Foreign Language|Si Xing Qiu]], or [[You Are the Translated Foreign Word|Four Star Ball]], which he inherited from his deceased grandfather Son Gohan.
* [[Legend of Himiko]]: Himiko Himejima's pendant, given to her by the Boza when she was a newborn... right before the realm of Yamatai got invaded and she was spirited away to Earth.
* [[Played With]] in the first season of ''[[A Certain Scientific Railgun]]'', where it's the missing ''orphan's'' photo in the plot-relevant locket.
== Comic Books ==
* [[Captain Marvel|Billy and Mary Batson]], separated as children, each had half of a locket; they realized they were siblings when they found that the halves matched.
* In [[Marvel Comics]], Kevin and Parnival Plunder were each given half of a silver medal while they were young. Kevin would soon after go missing. As adults, they met again as Ka-Zar and the Plunderer, realizing their identities after putting the two halves together. It turns out it's actually
== Film ==
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** To a lesser extent, the necklace she wears bearing the quote from Abraham Lincoln, which makes the reverend see the error of his ways.
* In ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]] and the King of Thieves'', Aladdin's only real heirloom is a dagger his [[Disappeared Dad]] Cassim left with his mother before leaving to seek a fortune for the family. Said dagger is what proves he is who he says he is when he meets his dad again.
* In ''[[Wonka]]'', there are two characters who have one, Wonka himself and his friend Noodle:
** Noodle's is a signet ring she wears on a necklace, with an N on it, the reason behind the name she gave herself - or so she thinks. {{spoiler|The "N" is actually a "Z" (she was holding it sideways) the revelation at the end helping Wonka discover that she is ''not'' an orphan and how she had been abanoned by her cruel uncle - the [[Big Bad]] of the movie.}}
** Wonka himself tells Noodle that he and his mother were poverty-stricken, and the last thing she gave him was a chocolate bar that she made herself, taking years to scrounge the ingredients she needed to make it. He's never eaten it, choosing to save it for a special occasion. {{spoiler|At the end of the movie - when Wonka is now big and successful, and has helped Noodle find her mother - he decides this is the occasion and opens it, finding [[Ironic Echo| a Golden Ticket]] inside with a note from his mother saying that chocolate is better shared. [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming| Naturally, he shares it with Noodle]] and the other four friends who have helped him.}}
== Literature ==
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* Subverted in Esther Forbes' ''[[Johnny Tremain]]''—Johnny knows what the Orphan's Plot Trinket does, but when he tries to use it to reconnect with his relatives, they refuse to see him. {{spoiler|They change their minds eventually.}}
* Tia's box in Alexander Key's ''[[Escape to Witch Mountain]]''.
* Subverted in [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[
** Well, except
** Also, {{spoiler|Carrot Ironfoundersson}} is a) an orphan, b) has an old sword (beat up and completely nonmagical, but by Discworld logic this makes it an [[Infinity+1 Sword
*** Of course, given The Machiavellian Patrician, claiming to be the true heir is a good way to end up dead.
* [[J. K. Rowling]] uses this in the ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' stories:
** ''[[Harry Potter and
** Considering all these necklaces, it's only fitting that the cruelest twist on the trope should come in locket form. It fits the letter of the trope exactly, but the spirit is a different matter altogether. Slytherin's Locket belonged to Voldemort's mother, Merope Gaunt, who sold it for a few galleons while pregnant, {{spoiler|and which her son later stole and turned into one of his [[Soul Jar|Horcruxes]].}} Voldemort also used to "collect" (that is, steal, after harming or killing their owners) "trophies," some of which were later {{spoiler|turned into [[Soul Jar|Horcruxes]] as well.}}
* In {{spoiler|Tombs of Atuan, the second}} [[Earthsea Trilogy]] {{spoiler|book, Ged finds the [[MacGuffin]] on an island inhabited only by an orphaned brother and sister who turn out to be of royal descent}}.
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{{quote|Mothers who love and want their babies don't buy little rough, ready-made things, and they don't run up what they make on an old sewing machine. They make fine seams, and tucks, and put on lace and trimming by hand. They sit and stitch, and stitch—little, even stitches, every one just as careful. Their eyes shine and their faces glow. When they have to quit to do something else, they look sorry, and fold up their work so particularly. There isn't much worth knowing about your mother that those little clothes won't tell. I can see her putting the little stitches into them and smiling with shining eyes over your coming. Freckles, I'll wager you a dollar those little clothes of yours are just alive with the dearest, tiny handmade stitches.}}
* ''[[Forgotten Realms|Swords and Songs]]'' by Elaine Cunningham had a subtle deconstruction of this, wyhich the author more explicitly [[Word of God|elaborated]] later. Elaith as the [[Last of His Kind]] with a very demanding [[Ancestral Weapon]] had a big problem in that being an ''orphan'', he didn't have anyone who would prepare him to deal with it properly - tell him the family Moonblade lore, train to meet its standards, help to decide whether to claim it at all or politely refuse. He took it for granted, assuming that being a proper "elfy elf" is enough - but it was enough only for the first wielder, after which the bar raised every time and long after fulfilling their purpose many Moonblades already have stuck at "near-impossible" level. So he failed, had his sense of self worth broken and ended up carrying the sword that rejected him as a brand of self-exile. Arilyn didn't know any better either, but she was raised and trained to high enough standards for long enough that she passed the blade-rite test as such, not even understanding its most basic implications, and it took her many years to discover just how deep she is and in exactly what.
== Live-Action TV ==
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* The [[Separated at Birth]] twins from ''The Gemini Factor'' had yin-yang rings.
* Emma's baby blanket on ''[[Once Upon a Time (TV series)|Once Upon a Time]]''
== Tabletop Games ==
* In the ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]'' board game ''[[Arkham Horror]]'', the Orphan starts with an Elder Sign.
▲== Theater ==
* ''[[Oliver!]]'' is an adaptation of ''[[Oliver Twist]]'', so naturally this trope occurs in the musical.
* Likewise ''[[Annie]]'''s locket.
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** Which gets it from the [[Plautus]] and Terence plays it was based on, who got it from the works of Menander and other Hellenistic comedies, [[Older Than Feudalism|who got it from...]]
* Joanna insists on bringing her reticule with her when she an Antony plan to run away during the song "Kiss Me" in ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (theatre)|Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]''. He tells her he'll buy her a new one but she tells him it was "the only thing my mother gave me".
== Video Games ==
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* [[Invoked Trope|Invoked]] by Elh in ''[[Solatorobo]]'' to get into the canals in Spinon, telling the worker that they dropped a pendant from Elh's dead mother in there. Of course, as soon as the worker opens the sewers for them, [[Mood Swinger|the waterworks immediately stop and it's back to business as usual]], causing Red to comment on how creepy it is for someone to be able to turn their emotions on and off like that.
== Web Comics ==
* Parodied in ''[[Guttersnipe]]'', wherein Lil' Ragamuffin, the proud street urchin, admits to her pet rat that she wishes she could find her parents one day, and produces a locket with their pictures in it: her only clue to finding them. Rat then informs her that those are just the placeholder photos that come with the locket.▼
* ''[[Archipelago]]'': Credenza was given a hairband with a skull on it, from the one person who had been a friend to her, while both were bound as a slave to the world's most psychotic submarine pirate, the same one who's raid killed her parents...▼
▲** More recently, the locket serves to {{spoiler|suppress the mind control abilities of her not-so-dead mother, Lucrezia Mongfish.}} You have to wonder if that wasn't really what it was made for in the first place, and the other thing just a side effect.
▲* Parodied in [[Guttersnipe]], wherein Lil' Ragamuffin, the proud street urchin, admits to her pet rat that she wishes she could find her parents one day, and produces a locket with their pictures in it: her only clue to finding them. Rat then informs her that those are just the placeholder photos that come with the locket.
▲* [[Archipelago]]: Credenza was given a hairband with a skull on it, from the one person who had been a friend to her, while both were bound as a slave to the world's most psychotic submarine pirate, the same one who's raid killed her parents...
== Western Animation ==
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* Although she's technically only ''half'' an orphan (her father Hakoda is still alive, but off fighting a war in another part of the world), Katara's grandmother's necklace functions as this on a couple of occasions in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'': {{spoiler|lost on a prison platform, found by Zuko, used to track the band by scent, retrieved by Aang; revealed Gran-Gran Kanna's history with the Northern Water Tribe and the man who becomes Katara's waterbending master, Master Pakku... who is actually the one who ''made'' that necklace with his own hands, as a gift for Kanna when they were arranged to be married.}}.
* In ''[[An American Tail]]'' Fievel's hat serves as one, which is a family heirloom that he inherits shortly before becoming separated from his family.
* In the Netflix cartoon, [[Carmen Sandiego]] was discovered abandoned in Argentina as a baby, and the only thing in her possession was a Russian matryoshka doll. She still keeps it with her, calling it her "longest traveling companion", and it seems the only clue to her true origins.
== Real Life ==
* The [[wikipedia:Foundling Hospital|Foundling Hospital]] in London has cabinets of these tokens, left by mothers surrendering their children in the 1700s. [[Tear Jerker|Particularly heartbreaking]], as the tokens were never returned to the children, thus none of the children could actually trace their heritage.
**
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Narrative Devices]]
[[Category:Older Than Radio]]
[[Category:This Index Will Be Important Later]]
[[Category:Orphaned Index]]
▲[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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