Father/son relationship?

[Ireth]

Two of the characters in my latest WIP, Eirikr and Ardghal, are in a sort of father/son relationship that grows throughout the story, and I'm wondering how to write that most effectively. The background of these two is this: Eirikr and his family (brother, sister-in-law, wife and daughter) live at the human settlement of Þorpstein, in Faerie. Six years after their arrival, Ardghal arrived and befriended them; he had been cast out by his own family for having magic, but Eirikr, being a mage himself, gladly took him in.

Over the past four years prior to the start of the novel, Eirikr has grown to love Ardghal and view him as a son, though he has not said so yet. Only at the resolution of the story will he slip up and call Ardghal "my son". Ardghal initially had a few reservations about viewing Eirikr as a father, since his own father was not very loving to him at all, but by that point he has come to accept Eirikr as a foster-father. They do not go on to address each other as "father and "son", though their relationship is still very familial.

My question is, how can I portray this father/son type relationship with the subtlety I really want? These two are not the protagonists of the story, though they have important roles throughout. I'm slightly afraid that they won't get enough screentime to get across that they have that kind of relationship, given that the story will of course be focused mostly on the MC, and he often interacts with other people besides Eirikr and Ardghal. Other characters do get their own POV sections, which is where I'm hoping to develop this relationship, without being too ham-fisted about it, or detracting from the main storyline. Any thoughts or advice on how to do that?

NB: To be clear, Ardghal is a young adult at the time of the story (21-22 years old), and he first arrived at Þorpstein at 17. Eirikr's daughter is a couple of years younger than Ardghal (19-20). Eirikr himself is 42-43 when the story takes place.

 

[Ankari]

If you want it to be subtle, never refer to either as father or son. Don't have your character say to the younger male "My son". You need to show Eirikr mentoring Ardghal, advising him when he is asked, and protecting when necessary. Have Eirikr smile with pride when Adghal does what he would approve, or frown if he does something he doesn't.

I would suggest you have this become a mentor-apprentice relationship. If Eirikr cares more than a mentor should, a reader can attribute it to pride of handiwork (an apprentice is the handiwork of a mentor).

PS: How do you pronounce Þorpstein?

 

[Ireth]

If you want it to be subtle, never refer to either as father or son. Don't have your character say to the younger male "My son".

That's my intention, at least until the end of the story when Eirikr slips. It catches both of them rather off-guard, and they have a nice chat about it later. Or so the plan is.

You need to show Eirikr mentoring Ardghal, advising him when he is asked, and protecting when necessary. Have Eirikr smile with pride when Adghal does what he would approve, or frown if he does something he doesn't.

I would suggest you have this become a mentor-apprentice relationship. If Eirikr cares more than a mentor should, a reader can attribute it to pride of handiwork (an apprentice is the handiwork of a mentor).

I'm not entirely sure how to do the mentoring in a hands-on sense, as their vocations are quite different. Ardghal is a healer, and Eirikr is a warrior. Their magics are also quite different, so no chance of either of them teaching the other about their respective powers. Ardghal, prior to the story, is apprenticed to Þorpstein's main healer (who has the same magic as he does) before becoming the main healer himself.

PS: How do you pronounce Þorpstein?

The Þ is pronounced as a hard 'th', so Thorp-stine.

 

[Ankari]

By mentoring, I'm referring to morals and wisdom, not profession. Situations will arise in Ardghal's life where he will need advice. This is when Eirikr switches to mentor. To the reader, they will pick up on the relationship. Show Eirikr responding like a father would, and trust your readers to understand that Eirikr reactions are fatherly.

At one point, you can have Ardghal compare the relationship between his biological father and Eirikr. You can even have Ardghal get uncomfortable with Eirikr's presumption, or have him embrace it. Just stay away from Eirikr saying to Ardghal "my son". I can't think of any man who would do so only after a four or six year relationship. It would be odd, I think, and make the younger man uncomfortable.

Men at Ardghal's age are trying to forge their own identity. For another man to pigeonhole him into a role he may not want, feels weird.

 

[Ireth]

By mentoring, I'm referring to morals and wisdom, not profession. Situations will arise in Ardghal's life where he will need advice. This is when Eirikr switches to mentor. To the reader, they will pick up on the relationship. Show Eirikr responding like a father would, and trust your readers to understand that Eirikr reactions are fatherly.

True, true.

At one point, you can have Ardghal compare the relationship between his biological father and Eirikr. You can even have Ardghal get uncomfortable with Eirikr's presumption, or have him embrace it. Just stay away from Eirikr saying to Ardghal "my son". I can't think of any man who would do so only after a four or six year relationship. It would be odd, I think, and make the younger man uncomfortable.

Men at Ardghal's age are trying to forge their own identity. For another man to pigeonhole him into a role he may not want, feels weird.

Well, I did say it catches both of them off-guard, as Eirikr doesn't really mean to call him "my son"; it just sort of slips out in an emotional moment when Ardghal has had an encounter with the villain and narrowly avoided being horribly tortured (thanks to a protective spell that Eirikr cast on him the moment he realized something was wrong). And Ardghal really doesn't mind, since his relationship with his own father wasn't all that great to begin with, and it's nice to have someone who cares about him that way.

 

[Ankari]

Well, I did say it catches both of them off-guard, as Eirikr doesn't really mean to call him "my son"; it just sort of slips out in an emotional moment when Ardghal has had an encounter with the villain and narrowly avoided being horribly tortured (thanks to a protective spell that Eirikr cast on him the moment he realized something was wrong). And Ardghal really doesn't mind, since his relationship with his own father wasn't all that great to begin with, and it's nice to have someone who cares about him that way.

I can understand that, but a young man usually doesn't overtly expose his needs to such emotional scars. He may like the fatherly attention, but he will not want such feelings brought out into the open. Also, he would want to be treated as an equal as much as possible. Again, the age in question is the time when a man discovers his own identity. Even if her came from a whole family, he would want to make a name for himself.

 

[Ireth]

I can understand that, but a young man usually doesn't overtly expose his needs to such emotional scars. He may like the fatherly attention, but he will not want such feelings brought out into the open. Also, he would want to be treated as an equal as much as possible. Again, the age in question is the time when a man discovers his own identity. Even if her came from a whole family, he would want to make a name for himself.

Well, of course. In his later discussion with Eirikr, Ardghal will state that while he does appreciate Eirkir's paternal affection, and Eirikr has indeed been a better father to him than his real father ever was, he's not going to start calling him Father, Dad or what have you. Eirikr is perfectly happy to accept that, and that'll be the end of it.

 

[wordwalker]

Hmm. It seems like the relationship's already there on both sides, you just want to cap it by putting the label on it without making it happen too early.

If making this point is important to you, it seems like it calls for a small subplot. Probably some point of disagreement between the two, that makes one or both (and the main characters and reader who are observing) think they aren't quite as close after all as compared to the outside pressures involved, and then it leads into the moment you described and it turns out of course they always were. Also, how does this "conflict" and its resolution reflect on the MC's own beliefs, would he be discouraged to see these two at odds or telling one to let it go or what, and how would their reconciliation affect him?

 

[Ireth]

Hmm. It seems like the relationship's already there on both sides, you just want to cap it by putting the label on it without making it happen too early.

Yeah, pretty much. In the very long-running RP the WIP is based on, these characters have had years' worth of development as far as their relationship goes (and that's years of real time as well as RP time), but the WIP is only an adaptation of one arc of the RP, in which they don't feature quite as strongly (mainly because the guy I originally created as a minor villain went and turned himself into the hero/MC, thus stealing the story out from under the others. XD).

If making this point is important to you, it seems like it calls for a small subplot. Probably some point of disagreement between the two, that makes one or both (and the main characters and reader who are observing) think they aren't quite as close after all as compared to the outside pressures involved, and then it leads into the moment you described and it turns out of course they always were. Also, how does this "conflict" and its resolution reflect on the MC's own beliefs, would he be discouraged to see these two at odds or telling one to let it go or what, and how would their reconciliation affect him?

That's possible, though the MC, Cadell, isn't privy to a lot of the relationship between Eirikr and Ardghal (which mostly happens prior to the start of the story, as I said above). I'm not a huge fan of flashbacks, or I might use that as a way to show their relationship in greater detail. The core of the story isn't Eirikr's and Ardghal's, it's Cadell's, and he has his own issues to deal with without worrying about whether these two men are as close as people say or think.

 

[skip.knox]

Ankari has given good advice on this one. I'll only add that there's good psychology research that says men in their early to mid 20s look for a mentor. It is the stage of life when they make their decisions about their morality, sense of honor, duty, comradeship, fidelity. They do tend to look for a mentor somewhat in their field, but not necessarily. This is not usually a conscious thing, just a natural part of the maturation process.

In other words, you have your two characters at the right age for this sort of thing. All you need do is to have the mentor speak and act (especially act) in ways that will be important and formative to the younger man, and then to show him developing into that. That can be anything from a turn of phrase to some heroic action.

But if the story is really about others, I'm not sure you can really show this development much. How important is it to the overall story? Maybe you have a side-story going here.

 

[Scribble]

There are some interesting dynamics between men of those ages. Some considerations:

At 21-22, a young man's rational brain is almost done developing. He starts to think more rationally about things, and thus it is natural to turn to older men for information, wisdom. He is regaining the seriousness he may have had as a child of say 9-11. He may find himself coming back to some of the things that enchanted him before the fluctuating emotions and aggression of adolescence. His rational brain wants information, he wants to develop strategies, but this is a new mode for him. He's developed an ego, and a strong sense of self. He may struggle with lessons, he may balk at guidance.

At 43, the older man has spent many years finding his place in society. He has likely become quite regular in his patterns, and finds a kind of wisdom in these patterns. He's got a storehouse of knowledge from all his years, and a perspective on life that he feels a need to share. Part of this is a sense of mortality. He sees what lies ahead, infirmity, old age. In older times, he'd be close to death, but if the ages of your characters mirror the modern health of the past 100 years, let's call him "middle aged". Passing on his wisdom and knowledge is a kind of immortality, a kind of reverence for the cycles of life.

The older man will have a more relative perspective on life. He will have seen that things are not as black and white as the young man will. The older man has developed more patience. He will understand that wisdom and skill comes from cycles of failure and learning. The young man may be impatient at this. He may see that the older man has knowledge, and he wants it transferred. Knowledge can be transferred, but wisdom must be realized personally. The young man mistakes knowledge for wisdom.

The older man may become set in ways that actually are harmful. The younger man may challenge him to reconsider some of his ways. The older man may resent being told anything by the younger man, and through that relationship, he may achieve his final maturation.

Through interacting with the older man, the younger man can learn some humility, gain knowledge, achieve some wisdom, and arrive at a better self-understanding.

There is also the element of "mid life crisis". The older man may be on the edge of a major change in his life. He may abandon what he has been doing, or he may find new meaning in it. He may find his inhibitions leaving him, he may act erratically. He may be ready to revolt. He may look at things and decide they need to change. That can be an interesting dynamic in the relationship.

 

[Ireth]

Thanks for your feedback, skip and Scribble. I don't have time for a detailed response right now, but I will comment on a few things. Skip has a good point about the story really being about others, which is why I'm finding it hard to get this relationship across in the adaptation. Maybe I'm worrying about it too much, I don't know.

Good points from you too, Scribble. Ardghal is wise in his own way, but he doesn't have the life experience that Eirikr has. Eirikr is also a very paternally-minded person to begin with, having had to raise his only daughter by himself following his first wife's death in childbirth. He's incredibly protective of those he holds dear, whether or not they're actually family; this factors into the plot in a big way, when he even volunteers to rescue Cadell from kidnapping and torture by the villain's mooks, when Cadell had previously kidnapped and tortured HIM out of anger and a misguided sense of justice. And Eirikr isn't even all that close to Cadell at that point; he rationalizes it as a service to the queen Cadell serves, but their friendship really starts to germinate when Cadell asks Eirikr's forgiveness for his previous actions. Eirikr. understandably, doesn't forgive him right away, but things are different between them from that moment on.

/end tangent

I think I've rambled long enough for now. I'll just add that I've heard the lifespan of a medieval person wasn't all that different than a modern one (60-80 years as opposed to 80-100); it was just the incredibly high infant mortality rate that skewed the "average" lifespan to about 40 years.

Thanks again for your feedback, everyone. It's very helpful. ^^

 

[skip.knox]

On the matter of average age: you hear correctly. The problem is that people have confused "average lifespan" with "average age at death". The misunderstand persists because it accords with how moderns tend to think of the Middle Ages (as being in most regards somehow less than modern times).

-= Skip =-

 

[Scribble]

On the matter of average age: you hear correctly. The problem is that people have confused "average lifespan" with "average age at death". The misunderstand persists because it accords with how moderns tend to think of the Middle Ages (as being in most regards somehow less than modern times).

-= Skip =-

Good point, life expectancy is not the same as life span. This usually considers that most people died in the first four years of life.

Certainly, without modern medicine, the odds of living to 70 were very slim. Odds for aristocracy were far better. From what I understand, people living to 50 or 60 was not unheard of while living to 70 and beyond was rare. I am talking about medieval Europe where getting sick was about the worst thing that could happen to you. In Japan and China, they had a diet that was stable and conducive to healthy living, as well as medicine that was far advanced of Europe. In Europe, anemia and many other ailments were early killers. People would die of infections, STDs, abscessed teeth, diseases, etc...

The remedies for many ailments were terrifyingly toxic. The cure was often more deadly than the disease. Of course there were some barbers and herbalists who had actual functioning remedies. When Constantinople's libraries became available to Christians again, all manner of old knowledge flowed into Europe.

The pillars of modern longevity are nutrition, vaccines, anti-biotics, sterilization of surgical tools, scientific knowledge of anatomy and biological systems, and pharmaceuticals. All of these were missing in medieval days.

I think the best way to interpret the historical data is to say that some people lived to 50 or 60 with luck, but most didn't get that far. I had a hernia when I was 33. Surgery was no problem. I had high blood pressure, I changed my diet and started a daily exercise regime. Wisdom teeth problems. Taken care of. I'm fit as a fiddle 7 years later. If this was 500 years ago, I would likely be one dead scribe!

The Wikipedia article does a fair job of outlining this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy

 

[Ireth]

Well, as far as the life expectancy of those in my story, I do have a few with magical healing powers, so they'll obviously help out with that sort of thing. They may not be able to extend people's lifespans by much (except for healing dire wounds sustained in battle, for instance), but they can keep people healthy while they're alive.