the main heroes are always orphans...

[shamguy4]

Seriously I have noticed this in every childrens book.
I figured its because if the parent is still alive, the young hero can't go on his great and crazy adventures!

Unfortunately the same thing may happen in my book. Except it happens in the middle as opposed to before the book even begins, which makes my book a bit sad and dark and now I'm starting to wonder if it's for children.

Has anyone else ever thought of this and what do you do with those 'annoying' parents that are just in the way! Lol...

 

[Warren_Paul]

People like to read about tragic moments. Orphan children are one of those plot devices that tugs on our heartstrings so well that people have reused it.

Interesting, because both my protagonists are also orphans. Although one isn't truly an orphan but just thinks she is.

 

[hopewrites]

I've seen it done where the parents are alive. Most cases have them as absentee parents (when I was a kid the kids were called Latch Key Children because their parents gave them a key to the house and they had to let themselves in after school, and were utterly unsupervised till the parents got home 2-3hrs later) or indulgently supportive, I think the term is Permissive now.

I dont particularly like any of these cases, which might be why all my protagonists are not given an age. Then their parentage doesn't come into question unless it has something to do with the plot.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Mine have parents, but just work around them. It's easier when you're time-traveling and aren't really gone from your own time for long.

 

[Warren_Paul]

Well to be fair, one of my protagonists is 22, so even though her parents died when she was a kid, being an 'orphan' is kind of in the past. But it's what makes her form a connection with the secondary protagonist.

 

[A. S. Behsam]

My Michael is an adopted child and very satisfied with his foster parents, he doesn't even tell his parents that he knows because he doesn't believe it's a big deal.

 

[Gumboot]

My main character's relationship with their parents, particularly their father, is central to the narrative, so it wouldn't really work if they were an orphan.

 

[Hex]

shamguy -- it's really common, I agree. I think, like you said, it's because parents get in the way and if the characters have parents you have to come up with a sensible reason why they wouldn't take the terrible problem to them and get the grown-ups to handle it. I sometimes wonder how much child-independence is a genuine thing and how much is made up for the purpose of an interesting narrative.

Classics that spring to mind: A Series of Unfortunate Events and James and the Giant Peach (and Harry Potter, of course, but she really uses it well whereas in a lot of books it feels like more of a convenient plot device). But others (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) do have living parents.

In a similar way, how many parents with young children get involved in adventures? I can only think of one (in A Sudden Wild Magic, where there's a two-year-old who behaves very much like a normal toddler).

In my stories so far, no one has been an orphan but their parents have been taken out of the picture in some way, meaning the kids have to make the decisions etc. for themselves. I think maybe for the 12+ market there's less of an issue with going-straight-to-Mum when you find an enormous man-eating cabbage rolling down the high street.

 

[Perpetual Man]

My main character in one WiP (Beneath Elysium's Light) is in his thirties so being an orphan is not really an issue, but it made me think about things and it might be interesting to bring his parents into it.

In Mercenary - a really, really old piece of work I'm looking at every now and then the main character is an adult and parent don't come up - he doesn't have any though... (Well he did at one point obviously...)

In the other WiP The Magpie Mage all the characters are adults, and their parents have not be mentioned yet, but from the setting the chances are as they are doing what they are doing, their parents are not likely to be around.

The thread has made me think, not just about what I have written but what I have read and funnily enough in the reading side of things I can see the orphans clearly, in most books that I have read the characters are orphans or become orphans during the course of the story. This seems to be more true for fantasy, but it seems to be one of the fundamental principles of the genre.

Strangely in all my own material - the stuff I have not mentioned here I seem to have gone in the opposite direction, possibly because I tend to write characters who are a little older, so their parentage does not come up.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

This is one aspect where my old world, Morcalia, had actually been unique. The main character, a fifteen-year-old girl, had not only both parents living, they were just about behind her in importance and interaction. Well, her mother was, anyway. The girl killed her father after he had beaten and raped her.


Not only that, but her grandfather was still alive and kicking as well, as well as two uncles and cousins.


In a current story I'm writing, it IS where they are orphaned, but that is central to the story, as their parents' murder evolves around the entire plot. The way it's meant to go is that after their murder and usurping of their throne-the two in question were twins of opposite gender-they are forced on the run and can truly rely on nobody but each other. A little cliche? Perhaps, but if I can tweak it-and damn it, I hope I can-it'll have enough twists to it that it'll work.

 

[Abernovo]

The orphan has been a literary figure for some time (Dickens, Thackeray), but I think it's unfair to say the heroes of children's adventures are always orphans. Blyton's characters came from reasonably happy families, although they were often upper class boarding schoolers, perhaps fostering a detachment from familial attention.

Alan Garner's books (if I remember correctly) featured a range, mainly kids with family support, though. Hexwood, by Diana Wynne Jones has the main character possessed of two parents.

Maybe, as Hope says, it has something to do with the phenomenon of latchkey kids, something which seems to be frowned upon these days. When I was one, I thought nothing of reading about kids going off, even some distance, on their own, because, for me, it seemed natural.

However, you do raise a good point. Is the orphaned child character a literary device to facilitate a lack of parental guidance and protection? Possibly, and if so, I'm not sure I like the idea. A cliche to be avoided?

 

[David Evil Overlord]

An old (and maybe one day revisited WIP) had an orphaned protagonist. This was done mainly to provide a huge contrast to the girl he falls for (she's rich and comes from a huge extended family, while he's poor and alone).

By the time the reader meets him, he's in his early twenties, so while it matters, he doesn't ever exactly need to escape parental supervision to go off on adventures.

My current WIP has a teenage super hero whose parents are very much alive, and very much obstacles to adventuring. The story works better that way.

 

[HareBrain]

I think maybe for the 12+ market there's less of an issue with going-straight-to-Mum when you find an enormous man-eating cabbage rolling down the high street.

Even at my age I'd still take that problem straight to Mum, but only because she knows how to destroy cabbage -- boil it for three hours.

I hadn't realised till this thread how few of my characters have both parents still on the scene. In at least one case I can't remember why I removed them; it's as if I have parentlessness as the default, which is interesting.

 

[Juliana]

My 12 yo MC has parents, but they are off in Africa on a research trip.
So he gets to stay with his young, single aunt who is happy to go off and fight ghosts, vampires and other beasties with him.

I didn't want him to be an orphan, but its definitely handy having the parents tucked away safely and, um, NOT parenting!!

 

[Warren_Paul]

Now that I think about it, there were no orphans at all in my first novel. The parents played just as much a role in the story as the children did. At one point two of my characters didn't know whether their father still lived or not - he did, so they aren't orphans.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Even at my age I'd still take that problem straight to Mum, but only because she knows how to destroy cabbage -- boil it for three hours.

I hadn't realised till this thread how few of my characters have both parents still on the scene. In at least one case I can't remember why I removed them; it's as if I have parentlessness as the default, which is interesting.

Hmm, yes, me too. One protagonist is an orphan, one has been adopted at birth, one has a mother, but no relationship with her. Although in later books I have kids where the relationship with the parent is central, but the parent is the protagonist.

Good thread; well worth musing on.

I think there is an element that if we take it the book starts at a pivotal point, perhaps for kids if that pivotal point can be coped with by handing it back to dad/mum, then it becomes difficult to make a book from it.

One I can think of that did it quite well without making the young protagonists orphans is King's IT, where the kids lived in a world that was almost removed from the adults in terms of belief.

 

[Reivax26]

One of the heroes in my book is an orphan. I didn't think about it at the time but you are right, a lot of heroes in novels are orphans. To be honest I had never really thought about it much until you mentioned it here...

 

[paranoid marvin]

As most children know, parents are there to stop them from having adventures; the fact that they are just protecting them from danger goes unnoticed and unappreciated!

Until a few years ago it was very unusual for (at least the mother) to not be a constant companion for their children, so making them orphans was a convenient way to get around this. In today's society it is far more commonplace for parents to be at work, allowing more latitude for adventure without the need to kill them off. But old habits die hard, and probably having been fed on a diet of orphaned kids from their own reading as children, authors may subconciously continue to use it.

 

[Mouse]

I don't think I have any orphan characters in anything I've ever written. Even have grandparents hanging around in some stuff. Hmm.

Trying to think of things I've read with orphans in and can't either. Mind, I can't remember any parents either.

 

[Hex]

As most children know, parents are there to stop them from having adventures; the fact that they are just protecting them from danger goes unnoticed and unappreciated!

Too right. I spend a fair amount of time thwarting adventures. There was that time I caught them them halfway through the back of the wardrobe, and the week I had to lock them in the house to squash their obsession with following a unicorn. And then that time a giant hand reached into their bedroom at night. A woman's work, and all that.