Parental Favoritism: Difference between revisions

This is all too often [[Truth in Television]].

 

 

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* Why Ken partially resented his older brother in ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]''. Not only was he the younger sibling, and thus overlooked for the firstborn, Osamu was also a child prodigy and a media darling. This ensured that Ken never got the kind of attention he desperately wanted from his parents. It didn't help matters much when {{spoiler|Osamu died in an accident}}, and his parents were too caught up in {{spoiler|their grief to notice Ken even after that}}. After he's manipulated into more or less selling his soul in the Digital World, he gains the prodigy aspect his brother had, and his parents apparently begin to love him... {{spoiler|but only as a shadow of what they once had with Osamu. It took him vanishing into the Digital World with the intent to stay there permanently, then returning in the midst of a complete mental breakdown, for them to finally begin loving him as Ken.}}

* Ootori Kyouya is victim of a subtle version in ''[[Ouran High School Host Club]]''. As the youngest of three sons in a rich family, he is expected by his father to perform at respectable standards, but never to do anything to one-up his brothers, who will inherit the Ootori business empire.

** Likewise, Hiashi Hyuuga preferred his younger daughter Hanabi, as he believed Hinata lacked any real talent, especially when compared to her genius cousin Neji. After Neji loses his fight against Naruto, Hiashi's attitude starts to change and he softens up to both Hinata and Neji.

* Something that plagues [[Monster (Anime)|Johan]] very intently. Which one of them was the unwanted one?

** In the [[Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime)|2003 anime version]], this is the reason for Envy's hatred of the Elric brothers; he is the homunculus created by their father in an attempt to revive his firstborn son, and he was cast aside when he came back as a "monster".

* Part of [[Aloof Big Brother|Sesshomaru]]'s backstory in [[Inuyasha]] is that he resented his father for being disappointed in his heartless son Sesshomaru, while giving his life to save the infant Inuyasha (and his mother).

** More specifically, the daughter of his former protégé and his ex-fiancée.

* In ''[[AI Artificial Intelligence]]'', the robot child a couple uses to replace their comatose son becomes [[The Unfavorite]] when their real child wakes up from his coma.

* ''[[Walk Hard]]: The Dewey Cox Story'': The fact that Dewey Cox's father is fond of reminding Dewey that "the wrong kid died" when discussing Dewey's deceased older brother is a pretty good indication of where Dewey stands on the pecking order.

* John feels like this in ''[[The Lion in Winter]]'' as well:

* The Bennet sisters, in [[Jane Austen]]'s ''[[Pride and Prejudice]].'' Tearaway Lydia is Mrs. Bennett's favorite daughter; sensible and witty Elizabeth is Mr. Bennett's. Oldest sister Jane, however, is loved by everyone thanks to her sweet nature, but bookish Mary and second-to-youngest Kitty get the short end of the stick. (You will notice that Kitty doesn't even get a character trait; she's just 'second-to-youngest'. That's favoritism for you.)

* Mrs. Dashwood does that in ''[[Sense and Sensibility (Literature)|Sense and Sensibility]]''. She is kind and affectionate to her three daughters, but she has a particularly close relationship with Marianne, who strikingly resembles her and is constantly referred to as being her darling child, doted upon or something of the sort. Meanwhile, she generally finds [[Kuudere|Elinor]] incomprehensible and fails to take her feelings into account, possibly because she often doesn't realise they exist. When the sisters have similar love problems, Mrs Dashwood leaves Elinor to shift for herself while giving Marianne her unlimited support. While some of this could be explained by [[The Stoic|Elinor's]] and [[Teen Drama|Marianne's]] respective attitudes, Mrs Dashwood continues to be inconsiderate to Elinor even when it is revealed that {{spoiler|her love interest is engaged to another woman}}. Completely inverts the [[Middle Child Syndrome]].

** In the latest book in the series, ''Double Fudge'', Fudge's latest "phase" is that he's obsessed with money. His parents are actually somewhat worried about this, and Anne, the mother, is positively mortified when Fudge's excessive greed results in him getting evaluated by the counselor and she's told that maybe she should try to stress that "the best things in life are free," etc. The problem is never solved, per se, in order to allow for hijinks and because Warren and Anne really have no idea what to do about it, but it does seem to lessen. Slightly. Fudge books are only published once every ten years, so we might have a bit of wait to find out what happens next, if anything.

** His parents ''do'' get fed up with Fudge and punish him when warranted. In ''Tales Of A Fourth Grade Nothing'' Fudge is throwing a tantrum and not eating his cornflakes and his dad makes him stand in the bathtub while he dumps the bowl of cereal on his head, and in ''Superfudge'' he was occasionally scolded (and spanked once) by his mother over his misdeeds and at the end was punished by his parents for riding his bike to town without telling anyone.

* The gods in [[Percy Jackson]] are guilty of this. In fact, Poseidon openly admitted that {{spoiler|Percy was his favourite son, which is a [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]].}}

* In ''[[Jane Eyre]]'', Jane is treated only like another mouth to feed for her spiteful aunt (whose husband treated Jane more kindly before he died) and her cousins, especially John, take delight in bullying her, even in front of their mother who does nothing to stop them.

* In ''[[Beyond the Western Sea]]'', Lord Kirkle favors Laurence, while Lady Kirkle favors Albert, leading to a [[Cain and Abel]] situation.

* Laurence in the ''[[Temeraire]]'' books. He's the unnecessary third son of a minor aristocratic family, and his father, who'd never paid him any attention, expected him to go into the priesthood, but instead he ran away and joined the Navy. And just when he thought he might have been in a position to make his way back into his father's good graces with his accumulated military honors, he experiences the local equivalent of [[Falling Into the Cockpit]] and finds himself recruited to the socially unacceptable [[Dragon Rider|Aerial Corps]] instead, and his father almost disowns him. Their relationship only gets worse from there.

* On ''[[The X-Files]]'', Scully is her father's favorite. They share a love of the book Moby Dick; he calls her "Starbuck", and she calls him "Ahab". Following that tradition, she eventually ends up naming her dog "Queequeg".

** Mulder's situation is a bit trickier. While both his parents hold some resentment over his not having stopped his sister's abduction, the favoritism of his parents is a little blurrier. At one point, it seems that his mother was given a choice of which child she would rather give up, and Samantha was that child.

* Pam Puckett on ''[[I Carly]]''. It's obvious to everyone that out of the twins, she prefers Melanie over Sam. She even outright asks Sam once why she can't be more like Melanie.

* Mostly averted in ''[[Wonderfalls]]'', where they do treat all three of their children well. Nevertheless there was this:

*** This also inverts the standard "adopted vs. biological" relationship, as Aaron adopted Trina with his first wife, while Logan is his biological son.

** Dick Casablancas Sr. is pretty blatant about favoring his eldest - which ends badly.

* [[Smallville|Lionel Luthor]] only cares about his male line. Granted, he doesn't seem to care much about them either, but [[Alternate Universe|Earth-2 Lionel]] certainly cares more about his Earth-1 counterpart's son Lex than his daughter Tess, since he declares that her only purpose as a Luthor is to {{spoiler|[[Offing the Offspring|die]] so that Lionel can take her heart and use it to bring Lex back to life.}}

 

** Fandom either assumes Bowser put Jr. in charge, supporting the whole favored son concept; or that the older Koopalings are either sucking up to him. Some extremists trying to pander this as proof that Bowser Jr. is Bowser's 'true' son and that the other kids are adopted.

* An interesting case occurs in ''[[Kana Little Sister]]''. At the beginning of the story, Taka (the main character) is resentful towards Kana because their parents tend to favor her (due to her terminal illness). This position is reversed towards the end of the game (which takes place almost a decade later). {{spoiler|When Taka offers to donate one of his kidneys to Kana, his parents are opposed to it, because they don't want Taka (their true son) to take risks for Kana's sake (because [[Not Blood Siblings|Kana is adopted]])}}

* This is actually a game mechanic in ''[[FEAR]] 3'''s cooperative campaign. Whichever brother has the highest score at the end of the campaign is deemed Alma's favorite, and {{spoiler|will kill/consume the other}}.

 

* In ''[[Awesome Video Games (Web Video)|Awesome Video Games]]'', Dad obviously prefers Chet over Ace. Whether this has any lasting effects is yet to be seen.

* In ''[[Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]]'', Eugene Greenhilt favored his daughter Julia over his son Roy, because Julia became a wizard like him, while Roy became a fighter. ("I can tell because you never use the phrase, "crashing depression" when talking about her.")

* An unusual case in ''[[Misfile]]'', Ash Upton manages to be on both sides of the [[Parental Favoritism]] divide thanks to Rumisiel's little [[Ret Gone|filing mishap]]. As a [[Gender Bender|boy, she]] had no contact with her mother and her relationship with her father was distant at best (his plans for Ash's summer vacation apparently involved re-roofing the house). As a girl she has a close relationship with both parents who are much more involved in her life. [[Cursed With Awesome|For some reason]] [[Wangst|she feels this sucks]].

** Also a subversion, as the change was due completely to Ash's actions. {{spoiler|In Ash's past (s)he wrote a letter to his/her mom. As a boy, masculine pride made him throw it away. As a girl, the letter was sent.}}