Parental Abandonment/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A character is missing one or both parents.

  • Straight: Bob either has no idea what happened to his parents - or they're dead.
  • Exaggerated: Bob has no idea where any family whatsoever lives, and is entirely on his own.
  • Justified: Bob has grown up in a war zone - parents abandoning children and dying would be a common sight there.
  • Inverted: Bob's parents are the clingiest people you can imagine - they won't let Bob go anywhere.
    • Bob abandons his parents.
  • Subverted: Bob's parents show up halfway through the story.
  • Double Subverted: Those were just impostors. Bob's parents are dead.
  • Parodied: Bob, now a grown man, walks around every few seconds going "Mommy! Daddy!" before remembering that he's an adult now.
  • Deconstructed: Bob grows up without the love and affection that comes from a parent. This ultimately warps him and defines every relationship he has, as since he can't trust his parents, he has trouble trusting anybody.
  • Reconstructed: Bob may have grown up without the love of a parent, but it goes a long way in defining the man he ultimately becomes.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob's parents show up halfway through the story, but those were just impostors. But they do know where Bob's real parents are...
  • Averted: Bob's parents are still around.
  • Enforced: "There's no way Bob's parents would let him on an adventure like this!" "So we'll rewrite the character a bit. Make him an orphan. Problem solved, and two fewer actors to hire."
  • Lampshaded: "Yeah, ever since I was a young boy, I've never known where my parents are."
  • Invoked: Emperor Evulz decides to kill Bob's parents in order to dishearten him.
  • Defied: The first thing Bob sets out to do is find his parents.
  • Discussed: "He kept asking me if I'd seen his parents. What is he, a lost child?"
  • Conversed: "Missing parents? Oldest one in the book!"

Mom? Dad? Where are you? Maybe I'll find them back at Parental Abandonment.