Truly Single Parent: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

This applies particularly to mad scientists of the [[Evilutionary Biologist|Evilutionary]] variety, and appears to be a primarily literary trope, probably because of the difficulty in finding plausible-looking pairs of actors.

 

Compare [[Replacement Goldfish]] and [[Homosexual Reproduction]]. Not related to normal single parenthood: normal single parents have one parent (or more, depending on how many you start with) leaving for whatever reason.

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', Father created his "children", the homunculi by splitting off various facets of his personality - specifically, the [[Seven Deadly Sins]].

** There's an unusual case of this; the cloning was done without the parent's knowledge and {{spoiler|when Quint Nakajima discovered Subaru and Ginga, she raised them as her daughters in a normal, loving environment with her husband since she couldn't have children anyway.}}

* In ''[[Gundam Seed]]'':

** {{spoiler|Rau le Creuset is the clone-son of Al da Flaga, who was such an egotist that he despised his naturally-born son Mwu because he felt that the child was "impure" thanks to the genes he got from his mother. Two other Al da Flaga clones turn up in other parts of the series: Rey za Burrell in ''Gundam SEED Destiny,'' and Prayer Reverie in ''[[Gundam SEED Astray]]'', although some evidence points to the possibility that Prayer is instead a clone of ''Mwu''.}}

* ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'' has {{spoiler|Shura, who's a clone of his father, Yomi. He doesn't act exactly as his father does, but that's because he's still a kid, and it's stated that Yomi used to be more impetuous before he got blinded.}}

* Although the audience doesn't get to see much of the [[Sailor Moon|Silver Millennium]], Queen Serenity may well qualify for this trope, albeit an unusually benevolent example. She has no husband, no one ever asks who or where Princess Serenity's father is, and she and her daughter look exactly alike. This is more obvious in the manga, where Princess Serenity is frequently drawn with silver hair, and much of the Moon Kingdom's resources include advanced technology.

** There's a panel in the manga that shows Queen Serenity bringing the shell of a star to the Galaxy Cauldron, then Princess Serenity's birth.

* The ''[[Soul Eater]]'' manga suggests this might be the case for {{spoiler|Shinigami to Death the Kid. Kid is described by the Great Old One and the Book of Eibon's Index as a "fragment of Shinigami".}}

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

 

 

* In the Harry Potter fanfic one-shot [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4746187/13/What_a_Bunch_of_Nonjon I Got Soul But I'm Not A Soldier], Harry {{spoiler|creates his son Marvin in order to remove the piece of horcurx stuck in his head, which after Voldemort's defeat is effectively inert metaphysical goop that is slowly killing him, so both Harry and Marvin are part Harry, part horcrux.}}

 

 

== [[Film]] ==

** Also Schmi Skywalker, as Anakin is conceived through the Force, and thus has no father.

** The novelization of ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]'' movie makes it clear that Rotta is Jabba's son - and his alone: Hutts are hermaphrodites.

* Two examples from [[John Varley]]:

** {{spoiler|Kenneth "Sparky" Valentine}} from John Varley's ''The Golden Globe'' turns out to be an (illegal) clone of his father.

* The Ullerans from [[H. Beam Piper]]'s ''Uller Uprising'' are a hermaphroditic race. Self-impregnation is difficult but not impossible though it is generally considered taboo. The chief of the one Ulleran tribe that practices it refers to his offspring as "little me".

* In the [[Backstory]] of [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[The Golden Oecumene|The Golden Age]]'', main character Phaethon was "born" when a computer simulation of his father Helion's personality became self-aware. [[My God, What Have I Done?|After causing an]] [[Earthshattering Kaboom]].

* Not a cloning scenario, but in ''The Bad Place'', by [[Dean Koontz]], {{spoiler|hermaphroditic Roselle, who is the product of brother-on-sister rape and fully reproductively functional as both male and female, self-impregnates three times, resulting in two sons (one the villain, the other a co-protagonist) and a pair of twin daughters}}.

* "When It Changed" by Joanna Russ subverts this: in spite of being a [[One-Gender Race]], the women had discovered how to replace cloning with merging ova.

* [[Robert A. Heinlein]] provides several examples in his works.

** "[[All You Zombies]]" features a character that, through some truly amazing feats of [[Time Travel]], is simultaneously {{spoiler|[[My Own Grampa|his own mother, father, daughter, and son]]}}.

* This has been mentioned as having happened in the ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' series. There are even laws in place stating that a clone is legally the child of the tissue donor and can legally inherit from them - so long as the cloning was authorized by the donor or the donor's estate. That caveat is to prevent cases where someone clones a rich man, kills the rich man, and then has the clone claim his 'father's' fortune on behalf of his creator.

* In [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]'s ''[[The Monster Men]]'', Professor Maxon to the men he created. (He also wants to create a perfect one to marry to his own daughter.)

{{quote|''"Though there are twelve more," continued Professor Maxon, "you were my first born son and I loved you most, dear child."

* ''[[Power Rangers Operation Overdrive]]'' has Mack Hartford, [[Ridiculously Human Robot]] son of [[Adventurer Archaeologist]] Andrew Hartford, whose [[My Biological Clock Is Ticking|biological clock was ticking]].

* ''[[So Weird]]'': Fi dates a boy who discovers himself to be a clone of his scientist father.

* Henry Warnimont. He adopts an abandoned little girl named [[Punky Brewster]].

 

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* Halaster Blackcloak in [[Forgotten Realms]] makes a number of clones of himself (all of which were as crazy or worse than he was) before he died. Whenever two of them meet (like in the ending of the first chapter of Hordes of the Underdark) they hold a rather amusing argument over which is the original and which is the clone.

* Finder Wyvernspur attempted something similar, feeling that his music was too perfect to be trusted to mere bards who would change them to suit their interests at the time and wanted them to exist unchanged by time. So he created what was in essence a clone of himself to use as an immortal repository of his music but his abuses of the newly created creature as it was developing left it with a burning and eternal hatred of its creator and it refused to ever sing a note of his 'father/mother's' music and killed one of the apprentices that was part of its creation. Later he teamed with an alliance of evil creating a daughter feeling she would be more pliable (and unbeknownst to him one of them created dozens on the side) to try and prove he was right and ended up with a raft of daughters all different in personality and crafted backgrounds (none knowing off of their created past outside of Alias).

* Arceus from [[Pokémon]]. In one event you can see Arceus create an egg for you ([[Mind Screw|using a ritual that apparently involves Google images]]). Said egg becomes a level 1 legendary, which can double as a [[Disc One Nuke]].

* In ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]'', somewhat in the original series and especially in [[Fanon]], Mega Man, Roll, and to a lesser extent Proto Man are all treated as Dr. Light's children, despite merely being [[Ridiculously-Human Robots]] created by him. (Though this may be partly because he simply has more regard for his creations than the series's [[Big Bad|other major robotics genius]].)

* {{spoiler|Kuchiki Toko}} in ''[[Kara no Shoujo]]'' has no father, though her mother didn't realize because she had been having sex with someone. However, this man was completely sterile.

* ''[[Ever 17]]'' has {{spoiler|You'haru}}, whose daughter is a clone of herself.

* Professor Farnsworth of ''[[Futurama]]'', a true Mad Scientist, clones himself a son from a growth on his back. Instead of having a birthday, his clone ends up celebrating his growth-scraping day.

* Subverted in an episode of ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]''. The Brain attempts to take over the world by cloning himself, which he hopes will lead to a chain reaction where his clone will clone itself, and that clone will clone itself, etc. He would be a Truly Single Parent...until one of Pinky's toenail clippings accidentally gets in the cloning device, making the resulting "clone" essentially [[Homosexual Reproduction|the son of the two title characters.]]

* While they're not clones, ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' father, Professor Utonium, could still qualify as a Truly Single Parent by adoption if nothing else. At least if you consider "Made in a lab out of sugar and spice and everything nice, plus Chemical X" to be adoption.

* Dr. Von Reichter from ''[[Cybersix]]'' creates his "son" José with science. Von Reichter doesn't seem to consider José his son so much as José thinks of [["Well Done, Son" Guy|him as a father]].

* The ''[[Transformers]]'' continuities in general do this a lot with their robot characters, given that they only need a single set of hands (or even no hands, in some cases) to build them.

* In ''[[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' Dr. Robotnik creates a [[Ridiculously Human Robot]] son in the form of Robotnik Jr.

* On ''[[Invader Zim]],'' [[Hero Antagonist|Dib]] may well have been created by his father Membrane as an experiment, according to [[Word of Saint Paul|Eric Trueheart]]. (Technically he only says that he was created as an experiment, but [[Fanon]] holds cloning because the two look basically identical. Fans are left to their own guesses where [[Creepy Child|Gaz]] came from.)

'''Milhouse:''' Yeah, I guess... }}

* Chan of [[The Amazing Chan and The Chan Clan]]. It's never told whatever happened to the mother unless giving birth to ten children sent her off the deep end.

 

== Real Life ==

* This can happen in some species of animals (and plants) through the various means of [[wikipedia:Asexual reproduction|asexual reproduction]], including [[wikipedia:Parthenogenesis|Parthenogenesis]].

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]

[[Category:Creation Tropes]]