Tell Me About My Father: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|'''Will Turner''': You knew my father.

 

A [[Stock Phrase]] that strikes terror in the hearts of single parents and [[Parental Substitute]]s the world 'round. (Can be [[Gender Flip]]ped, but usually is the father.)

 

Not to be confused with [[All Psychology Is Freudian|Tell Me About Your Mother]].

 

* Negi Springfield, titular character of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' sort of counts. He thought his father the [[Sobriquet|Thousand Master]] really was a man of a thousand powerful spells, when really he only knew five or six and had to look through a cheat sheet of complex incantations (of course his romanticizing son was rightfully disturbed). Despite all that, Nagi ''was'' a talented hand-to-hand fighter and his sheer power could more than accommodate for his lack of spells; for the spells he ''could'' do, they were often over-powered (including basics) or his natural ability made complicated magic a cinch for him. [[World's Strongest Man|There's a reason they called him an invincible hero]].

** Also, Negi's recently started asking old allies of his dad's to "Tell me about my ''mother''."

 

 

* In ''[http://percyjacksonfanfiction.wikia.com/wiki/Whispers_in_the_Dark Whispers in the Dark]'', Taylor was told all her life that her father drowned when she was a baby and that's why she doesn't remember him. But when [[Daddy Had a Good Reason For Abandoning You|she actually meets him]], she's pretty pissed to find out that he's {{spoiler|the one and only [[Percy Jackson and The Olympians|Luke Castellan]], who betrayed the gods to join Kronos}}.

 

== Film ==

* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s [[Gaunt's Ghosts]] novel ''First & Only'', in many flashbacks, Gaunt is trying to learn how his father died, which is classified. {{spoiler|He is finally told by a Chaos-tainted witch.}}

** In ''Only In Death'', Dalin Criid, who vaguely remembers Kolea from Vervunhive, asks him about his parents. Kolea assures him that his parents would have been glad that he and his sister were taken under the wing of the two Ghosts who act as their parents, and proud of how he turned out, and that they were died. (He's lying. In fact, he is their father, but he learned that they had lived only after the two Ghosts had raised them for some time. Thinking their lives had been disrupted enough, he did not tell even their adoptive parents the truth.)

** Plus, it excellently paralleled Harry's being self-centered, [[Wangst]]y, and nasty to his friends all through his fifth year due to all of his conclicts, although Harry probably didn't really understand until after his behavior caused massive consequences. The context made the scene where Harry asks Sirius and Remus about it, and can't understand why they chuckle with fond embarrassment through the whole exchange, ("He kept messing up his hair."/"I'd forgotten he used to do that!" and "...he was only fifteen—" "''I'''''m'' fifteen!") very humorous to readers who actually had personal experience with such people.

** Earlier, Hagrid and others tell him about ''both'' of his parents to counteract what his aunt and uncle had said.

* Charon McKay in ''[[Shadowgirls]]'' is very uncomfortable when her daughter Rebecka finally gets around to asking because she doesn't know and that can only serve to remind Becca of her reputation as the bastard daughter of the town slut.

* Isheil of ''[[Juathuur]]'' loved to hear the story of how her mother became a fish.

* Gastro in ''[[Gastrophobia]]''. Usually, his mother evades the question by telling him a story about Zeus descending from Olympus in the form of a handsome animal, but {{spoiler|later it is revealed that she doesn't even know, herself}}.

* In ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', Mr. Donlan [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=1022 regales the fascinated Antimony with such stories while they wait.]