Orphan

[LOCOFOOL]

I'm reading a book called The Writing Handbook 2004 which I bought for a dollar at a place that sold good, seemingly new used books really cheap (I also got the hardcover of Dean Koontz The Taking, a book I have not read by him yet). Reading this writing guide I got to page 135 to a section titled "10 Secrets of Fantasy Writing" so I felt compelled to read it. At about 138, fantasy secret number four was "make your hero an orphan." One point they made was that orphans can venture out on their own and discover the world without parents; their big example was Harry Potter (duh).
That leads me to my question, how do you feel about that?
Do you orphan all of your protagonists?
Do you just not mention parents? (I can catch myself doing this)
Maybe even something else?

 

[Chilari]

I prefer to give my characters families, though the amount of family varies, as does the average age in relation to the protagonist. It gives them something to come back to at the end of the day, it gives them responsibilities, and it gives them something important to lose. Additionally, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles make good characters who the protagonist can ask advice of, get into arguments with, or have something to prove to. And they create an anchor, a way to establish the protagonist as part of a community or society and establish what part they have in that society. Even dead relatives, like great grandfathers or whatever. Older relatives, particularly parents and grandparents, are people whose reputations the protagonist might be expected to live up to, both by the reader and by other members of society (that includes bad reputations - "Pah! What could we expect from the son of a coward?")

Younger relatives, including younger siblings, nephews and neices, children and younger cousins, give you someone for the protagonist to be a mentor to. That's useful for a number of reasons. First, for things your protagonist does or should know about the world that the reader doesn't, you've got someone your protag can explain to. You've also got something the protagonist has a responsibility (or the sense of it) to protect, educate and look out for. With younger siblings in particular, or for teenage or older children of the protag, you've got a great source of potential conflict - or a spanner in the works. Younger sister wants to know what the protagonist is up to? So she follows, finds out her older brother is consorting with revolutionaries and brings this up when they are later arguing over something trivial, landing protag in deep trouble because Uncle Chief Justice is listening in. The film Atonement is a great example of a younger sibling totally misinterpretting a situation and messing things up as a result (but be warned if you've not seen it, that film will make you cry).

I enable the protagonist to be fairly free to do what they want in spite of having living parents simply by making them old enough to have that kind of freedom. In my WIP my protagonist is in her mid to late twenties, her mother died years ago, her father is aging and not particularly well and her step mother, otherwise controlling towards her own teenage daughter, recognises my protag's freedom. My protag as a result has responsibilities towards her family and because of it, and when her father dies she has a funeral to arrange.

 

[SeverinR]

Unless the parents are part of the story, I never mention them.

Sometimes its easier to orphan a character so they have no back up, no ties to hold them to an area, etc. Parents and family tend to hold people in an area, telling them not to venture away, be safe.

Also orphaning a character might also give them a sub plot or a character flaw to deal with, in losing their parents.

I have:
orphaned one, alienated another from the surviving parent, and had the parents take the MC to the story.

 

[srcroft]

Depends. Fairytale / Quest structure lend itself to orphans and disconnected people. Outcasts. Look at "A Knights Tale", "Harry Potter", etc. But also it can be orphan but not orphan. Example, Peter Pan's Wendy had parents but were so busy they were being raised by their dog nanna. It was satirical and a type of orphaning through bad parenting. Some stories need family, close encounters of the third kind, The shining etc.

 

[Ghost]

I've noticed the absent parent trend before. Even outside of fantasy, young MCs are often missing at least one parent. The parents divorced, one parent is dead, one parent skipped out on the family, the parents are workaholics who don't pay attention to the kid, the MC decided to live on his own, etc.

I don't like having teenage MCs. My main characters range in age from 12 to 80, but most of them are in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties. I like for my characters to have worked out what they want to do with their lives. and to have established themselves in their communities. They might struggle to accept their roles, but the roles help me figure the characters out. They've worked out what they should do even if it isn't what they want to do. I do have dead parents in my stories, but all of the character's family members and friends are also fair game. Mwahaha!

Young protagonists are like a fresh start. Not quite a blank slate, but closer to it than adult characters are. There's a sense of discovery as the character forms values and learns about the world. There's freedom since the character isn't as tightly bound by responsibilities. When the character doesn't have family, he's free to explore the world without the need to return home or worry about them. Bonds like that can be distracting to a character's mission and the author's story, especially if they don't encourage character growth.

I don't make a point about a character being anchorless unless it helped form her personality or it's relevant to the story. It's easy enough to leave out those details in short stories.

BTW, who wrote that article, LOCOFOOL?

 

[J. S. Elliot]

Orphaning a character without forethought to how it may impact the entire story can actually cheat it's potential, in my opinion. The way that information is delivered also takes a serious toll on the reader's empathy for the character. I'll use one of my characters as a brief example, simply to outline my point.

The reader will have met Lord Damien's father on more than one occasion, and despite the fact that Damien himself is 22, when he is later addressed as "Lord Baldur", it makes is painfully clear that he is now the head of his House. Although he doesn't fit the age 'requirement' for the typical orphan set-up, with war all-but declared, it may be out of the blue, but it's not unbelievable (or numbing to the reader, as in comparison of the orphan-status happening early).

Not trying to toot my own horn, though. Just illustrating my opinion on why I think it works more effectively, since connections make characters.

 

[Ireth]

I dislike the idea of completely orphaning a protagonist, unless they come from a culture where it's commonplace. Relationships are important; even protags with no parents have other relationships both positive and negative. Harry Potter, for example, has the Dursleys as a negative relationship, and later the Weasleys as a positive one, as well as Sirius Black. Frodo had his uncle/cousin Bilbo and the rest of his presumably large extended family, but no parents.

I can think of only one example of a protagonist in my works who is missing a parent. Ariel Hawk's mother died in childbirth, but her father and paternal uncle are very close to her. Ariel's mother's side of the family more or less cut Vincent and Ariel out of their lives after the death, but they're never mentioned in-story. Olan Stewart has both of his parents, and even a couple of siblings, though he does have one dead little sister. The majority of the Fae in my novels have limited familial bonds, but that's completely normal to them; they're not considered outcasts in their society.

 

[Zero Angel]

Unless you're very unlucky, everyone is eventually an orphan.

I typically find myself showing the orphaning in different stories. Although, also frequently do not mention family.

 

[Amanita]

My own young main character is a half-orphan. Her father's dead but her mother is still alive. I don't really see this getting in the way of the story, the father still living wouldn't either, he's dead for other reasons. She's already close to the age where a girl in her society is likely to leave her family and live with her husband. She's leaving for other reasons, but the fact that she's leaving is expected.

To me, the orphaned main character is one of the things on the cliché list. It can work well if it's important to the story in more ways beyond convenience or if there's something interesting to be found out about the parent but it's in no way necessary. As others have mentioned before, the parents and the character's relationships with them or their secrets can be interesting too. I don't think it should be difficult to find reasons for main characters to run away from home or be allowed to leave and do what they have to, at least, if they're not that young anymore.

 

[Steerpike]

You are more likely to run into this the younger the character is. At some point, if you have characters haring off on dangerous adventures, the obvious question is: where are the parents? Orphaned or some other technique is an easy way to dispense with the problem (consider, Narnia, for example, where the kids are sent away during the war to live with an old guy who isn't really keeping close tabs on them).

 

[wordwalker]

Orphaning may come down to two effects:

In general, it's just one of many ways to define the character's past and current situation. Common effects are to give the MC sympathy, but maybe also to distance him just a little from what his life's become (Harry Potter isn't being locked away by his "real" parents; Spider-Man's mistake didn't get his "real" father killed-- on the other hand Luke Skywalker wanted to follow his father's footsteps, and the galaxy may owe the late Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen some thanks that he didn't). It can also put some distance and extra challenge from a heritage that may relate to his destiny-- Arthur reclaiming his throne, Superman being a Kansas boy before an alien. Then again plenty of folk tales don't tie the MC's destiny to his past, they just use orphaning to make him more sympathetic and also more used to living by his wits, an instant low-key origin story.

But of course, if an orphan is sympathetic, there are other sympathies in having parents to lose before your eyes, or having really abusive ones, and all kinds of other plots and effects. The question is just, is this the right thing for this story?

(My WIP has a young hero with a dead mother and a jailbird father, and a heroine with a devoted father the hero would gladly trade his own for-- even if it meant including her mother who abandoned them for Unknown Reasons.)

Agreed, though, among younger characters, orphans may have it easier for getting away to adventure. (Or it may make it even harder; see Cinderella.) So again, how much is the tale about what's "out there" and how much is it about how home complicates it?

All in all, orphaning's a nice one-stop-shop to half-close some doors and open a few others. Decisions, decisions...

 

[Alva]

Hmm. I guess in this kind of a discussion it would be interesting to know how different people actually define "orphan" and “orphanity”. I even tried to find an (English) definition for the word and for instance my "Oxford Illustrated" stated:

"orphan: (n.) a child whose parents are dead" or "(vt.r.) to bereave a child of its parents".

"The Free Dictionary" had a bit more lengthy definition:

"or•phan (n.)
1. a. A child whose parents are dead.
1. b. A child who has been deprived of parental care and has not been adopted.
2. A young animal without a mother.
3. One that lacks support, supervision, or care"
…also:
"(adj.)
1. Deprived of parents - -
3. Lacking support, supervision, or care."


And finally, "Wikipedia" (and, yes I know. Poor source but I wasn'texactly looking for the “right” answer but for the variety of definitions, and Wikipedia included a quite interesting one):

“An orphan - - is a child permanently bereaved of or abandoned by his or her parents. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents is called an orphan. When referring to animals, only the mother's condition is usually relevant. If she has gone, the offspring is an orphan, regardless of the father's condition. Adults can also be referred to as orphans, or ‘adult orphans’.”

- - -

So, my problem is: I find all of these definitions a bit vague - even when added together. Does "parent" refer to biological parent only? Thus meaning that any child who has lost their biological parent(s) is an orphan? Yes? Or is being an orphan more likely referring to a situation where the child has no parent(s) and no caretaker(s) whatsoever and is therefore “alone” in the vast world?

Harry Potter is quite an extreme example of orphanity, as many of the literary orphans are. Oliver Twist comes to mind as well (although, for the sake of content audience, was revealed of having his biological parents alive and wealthy in the end). In everyday “real” world, though, orphans can lead complete and full lives as members of their families and children to their adopted parents. Being orphan doesn’t necessarily imply the lack of family relations and lack of caretakers of any sort. Or miserable life with abusive step-parents. I’d say the only sure thing word “orphan” clearly communicates is the case of the person in question having (most likely) permanently lost one or two of his/her biological parent(s) due to any reason.

I guess it’s partly due to my personal experience of having close relationship with both of my two adopted cousins that I have also considered orphanity quite a lot in my writing. My long time project has several orphan characters in it – though the cast is quite huge so the percentage isn’t still striking. Two of them can be considered as main characters (an adult and a child) and even though it really hasn’t been a conscious choice, they represent two very different approaches on orphanity:

The young one barely recognizes himself as an orphan. He’s very attached to his caretaker and has formed strong emotional bonds with several other characters as well. Personally, he thinks he has a large and loving family, and his surroundings try to enhance this feeling of belonging. At times he thinks of his biological parents (or the idea of them as he carries them in his mind) and poses a lot of questions concerning on the topic, but in the end of the day, he’s just as any other child. As long as his everyday life goes on without major catastrophes (e.g. losing his only parent), he’s fine and able to adapt. And even if the catastrophe were to take place, there would be a supporting net of meaningful people doing their everything to take care of him. Likewise, were he to run a way, break social rules or do anything other “free-bird-like”, his family would react the exact same as any other “normal” family unit would. And he’s aware of it.

My older, adult character also remembers his (non-biological) caretaker with more or less warmth, although due to the different time period and cultural context, he never had the chance to have a proper childhood of any-year old. Being completely alone for a period is his early life plays a role in this, but by no means is it the only reason. Nonetheless, he’s not resentful or saddened by his early past. Even as a child he was surrounded by a society that expected children to grow up quickly. Many of the things for instance my own culture would resent, were regarded as norm. He was no more than a child when he was married through arranged marriage and, little by little, even really grew quite fond of his partner. So, in the end, even he doesn’t fulfill the typical trope of a free-bird orphan.

The reasons behind the lack of biological parents also vary. There may have been an unlucky accident, an illness or even poverty. Unfortunately, orphanity is not something that only black magic causes. Even if a culture is highly developed, there are usually many complications present that can lead to one being orphaned. The parent(s) may have been unable to take care for the child and thus have given the child away rather than tried to cope with the situation. My Adult character has formed a strong opinion that he never had any real parents in the first place. “: D But for the story and the characters telling it, even more important than the dilemma of lacking biological parents are the meaningful persons in their lives who they still have by their side.

- - -

I’m not saying there wouldn’t be sad or even miserable orphan life stories. I'm not saying being an orphan wouldn't be complicated, especially when one is growing up and realizing there might be something different about them (e.g. hue/colour of the skin, anything). I’m more into simply questioning the canon assumptions concerning on the concept of orphanity. The idea of the orphan freedom is as relative and complicated as the freedom of any other character. Even the orphan characters on a run (usually) form meaningful relationships and are forced to learn responsibility. Readers like character interaction after all, don’t they? And not all the orphans are the same! Even the personality of an orphaned character and his living conditions play a role onto how a person feels about their orphanity – or if they hardly consider it at all. Thus, the reasoning behind creating an orphan character just to give them more freedom in their hands is quite absurd. I'd pay my energy to the social side and especially social exchange.

Last example: the main character in Ursula Le Guin’s "Earthsea" Quartet, Ged, leaves his home and childhood town for good in the early few pages of the first book. And he has a biological father and siblings = he has a family. He just wants to lead a different life.

(Agh. Sorry for the long answer. But I've been thinking about this topic a lot.)

 

[Alva]

...and, just as a side note, my above mentioned two characters would regard it strange if complete strangers came and sympathized with them just because they're orphans. It's a personal issue to them and they deal with it in their own ways when they need to. Many of their acquintaces aren't even aware of that part of their personal history and past. ": )

Though of course, showing sympathy is a natural and very, very humane reaction. It's understandable to feel sympathy towards characters who have gone trough a lot... but somehow it is a different thing to ask for sympathy. That so many orphan character are presented in such a light that they're more or less clearly asking for the sympathies of their audience is a bit off-putting to me. And this is of course a personal opinion and likely affected by my own solitary personality and even cultural things.

 

[LOCOFOOL]

I love all the responses here everyone, seems like this was on a few minds and just not mine! I can agree with all of them. Though I do prefer giving my protagonist parents. I have in the pasted just not mentioned parents at all.
To answer Ghost's question it was Philip Martin who wrote that small part in the book. He made some other great points; that one just made me tilt my head some.

 

[Ghost]

It makes me tilt my head as well. I'm not sure why someone give that as general advice. Of course, I'm not one to include something just because it occurs frequently in fantasy.

I realize I wasn't clear in my other post (damn you, missing edit function!), but the paragraph starting with "Young protagonists are like a fresh start" was me speculating about why so many orphan their characters. I wasn't excusing or supporting it, just thinking about why it's done.

I suspect another reason many writers do it is because their YA characters won't have to answer to someone. A lot of young MCs don't have someone watching over them. They can go haring off to do whatever they want.

There's also instant angst. I've read stories where a character mourns a mother or father yet never has memories or specific wishes about the dead parent(s). For me, it's not enough that someone died, it should have meaning for the character. Otherwise, why mention it more than once?

And where have all those dead or missing parents have gone? That sounds like another story altogether.

 

[Zero Angel]

Then you have stories like Earthbound where the Mother and Father are perfectly fine with their young child adventuring and getting into danger the world over.

 

[Ankari]

I put my MC in a tough situation. His father is dead, his mother is a whore, and the "new man" is also her pimp. The only thing that is keeping him home is that one sister is still innocent and he aims to keep her that way.

 

[wordwalker]

I suspect another reason many writers do it is because their YA characters won't have to answer to someone. A lot of young MCs don't have someone watching over them. They can go haring off to do whatever they want.

There's also instant angst. I've read stories where a character mourns a mother or father yet never has memories or specific wishes about the dead parent(s). For me, it's not enough that someone died, it should have meaning for the character. Otherwise, why mention it more than once?

And where have all those dead or missing parents have gone? That sounds like another story altogether.

These may be the three biggest points. The last one can be the most important, that orphaning and also what happens as a result of it can go any number of ways, defining the plot about those parents or at any rate the MC's situation. It might be as simple as the way to let the MC meet the plot very early in life.

Instant angst is also there, but in different ways. For Oliver Twist or Harry Potter, orphaning is just the start of specific suffering; for Spider-Man it's a throwaway, letting Ben and May be parents in every sense that matters but adding that touch that he's already lost once. (As for "asking for sympathy," I think half of making any sympathetic character is the ways that they get by without asking for it-- even Oliver Twist tried to cope.)

But there's no denying, "letting them hare off" can be a key to letting a young-hero story happen at all. There are always other ways to justify it, plus being orphaned does create its own complications, but the less the story is about how family mixes with adventure the more appealing that setup is.

 

[Steerpike]

Personally, if I'm reading a story about a protagonist who is of an age that their parents should still be closely watching them (particularly if set in the modern day), and they have parents but they're just running around unhindered as though they don't have parents, the book will seem rather silly to me. If you're going to allow the protagonist to behave as though they don't have parents, you might as well make it so that they don't have them.

One thing I liked about the TV show Buffy is that she did have a mom who at least tried to do the things a parent might do. So while she was off on adventures or in mortal danger every night, to the extent her mom realized something was wrong (staying out, trouble at school, and so on) she tried to intervene.

 

[Kit]

Personally, if I'm reading a story about a protagonist who is of an age that their parents should still be closely watching them (particularly if set in the modern day), and they have parents but they're just running around unhindered as though they don't have parents, the book will seem rather silly to me.
.

Really? It is quite common these days to have parents who don't take very good care of their kids. I had two parents, but I ran wild and they never knew (or cared) where I was or what I was doing.