Truly Single Parent: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

[[Mad Scientist]]s, being the rampant egotists that they are, tend to [[Cloning Blues|clone]] themselves when they want children. Inevitably the children in question are as [[In the Blood|brilliant as their parent]], though there seems to be only about a 50% chance of their brilliance being [[Lamarck Was Right|of the same sort]]. The clone's childhood, if [[Younger Than They Look|portrayed at all]], is frequently awful as they're forced to live up to their parent's seemingly-[[Why Couldn't You Be Different?|impossible expectations]]. Often, there's some attempt to subject them to the [[Compassionate Critic|same childhood traumas]] as their parent had, in order to further force them on an identical path.

 

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''.}}

** Kira was {{spoiler|initially a natural son of Ulen and Via Hibiki, but his [[Mad Scientist]] father tampered with his genome so much (up to including parts of his employer Al da Fraga's genome, which is where Kira got his [[Psychic Powers|Newtype powers]], and which makes him sort of Mwu's half-brother), that he should count as his Truly Single Parent, albeit in more of a ''custom-made'' light.}}

* ''[[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.}}

* Appears in Hiroyuki Morioka's ''[[Crest of the Stars|Seikai]]'' series. The Abh, though they are aloof, arrogant and imperialistic, are not as much evil, as they are ''odd'' by the standards of the most of the Galaxy, including even their own subjects. One of their oddities is that all their babies are essentially custom-made for the person who just happened to want to reproduce. As they generally do not practice marriage, this makes that person a Truly Single Parent for the said child.

** 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 ''[[Aeon Natum Engel]]'' a ''truly'' Truly Single Parent's child appears on a talkshow. It's not nice; gender-swap-magic combined with artificial impregnation which makes it possible for parents to impregnate themselves and get children with horrible genetic diseases.

* 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.}}

* [[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]]}}.

* [[Tad Williams]]' ''[[Otherland]]'' features a character who attempted this as part of an [[Immortality]] scheme. He commissioned ''two'' clones of himself—one of each sex—and had one of them raised in the same manner as his mother, intending for her to "give birth" to his male clone and raise it as he himself was raised, thus providing personal continuity as a form of [[Legacy Character]]. When the program suffers a catastrophe, he gives it up in favor of [[Brain Uploading]].

* 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.

* ''[[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).

* 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]].

'''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]]