Monday DE

[bjornwilde]

How well does/did your character know their parents/parental figure(s)? What do they think of them? 

Comments

[student_of_impossibility]

*fit of hysterical laughter*

Eriond: Uh...sort of very well, sort of not. He thinks UL is pretty good, all told, and of course the universe is beautiful and wonderful.

Lois: Knew her mom only somewhat--she was very young--and respects and loves and misses her every day. knows the General very well, and... well. She actually respects him quite deeply, and does love him, but they do not get along in the slightest.

Evelyn: Doesn't really, at least not since leaving for the Circle.

R2-D2: I doubt he has any idea who made him.

Anakin: *rolls around laughing* Uh. Loved Shmi unhealthily. Went on a murderous rampage when she died.

Tavi: For parental figures you get Bernard thrown in there, who he really respects and certainly takes as a model for how to be a father. For a long time he thought Alia was his mother; he doesn't know anything about her at all. Now that he knows how she died, there's a lot of regret and respect. As for his actual parents, the easy one is his father. He never actually knew Septimus, although he's getting a far more concrete picture from what everyone says about him. Tavi doesn't realize it, but there is a Septimus-shaped hole in his life--in everyone's lives--and he is hurting. He thinks his father was an idealist, potentially a little too reckless (yes, Tavi of all people thinks that), and doesn't voice his concerns about how his father would have been as First Lord--but it's not relevant, and he'll try to make his father proud. Isana is not quite a house full of bees for him, but it's close. He loves her, and respects her mind and heart and power, but he also no longer trusts her, not completely. What she did to him to keep him hidden may have saved his life, but it was arguably abuse. Still, she is brave and loves him and even though she lied and he thought for years she was his aunt, she is still the only mother he knows, and he loves her.

(okay the icon is a preview of his future but post on family seems relevant)

[sdelmonte]

Knox: Sees his parents every three years or so. Never was close to either, but his dad is a first class grump. (Given how long I've played Knox and how it's been since I revisited his parents, I think his father has probably passed away by now.)

Kirk: His father is his role model. His mother was his mother, loving and caring but smart enough to let her youngest son follow her husband's path. Jim loved and admired both, and misses both.

Cyborg: One of these days, I am going to write that OOOM exploring the complicated relationship between Cy and Silas Stone this continuity. Unlike in the current DC, they don't talk much. Unlike in the original continuity, they haven't made peace. But in all realities, it was Silas who saved his son's life, and that means Cy should be a lot more grateful than he is. Cy's late mother, however, was everything to him. He misses her desperately.

Swamp Thing: I think his parents died a long time ago, and that he wasn't really close to them. No one has ever explored that.

CharlieQuestion: Ah, the big question. Charlie is an orphan, as I have noted often. And not having a clue who his parents were is part of his big messy life.

[camwyn]

Ellen's can be summed up with "If I ever find out what the Enclave did with your body I'm going to dig it up so I can scream at it properly, you idiot!!".

[bcgphoenix]

Curtis and Gaeta both had good relationships with their parents, but they also both lost them in their respective apocalypses. Curtis barely remembers them by this point; they exist only in impressionistic flashes he sometimes gets of his pre-freeze life. Gaeta, having lost his parents more recently, remembers them much better -- though the concept of "missing them" often gets lumped into mourning for, and missing, his entire family/civilization, not just them specifically.

(He does, however, still have the photo Roslin gave him in his personal effects, and he'll keep it there for the rest of his afterlife.)

Alistair...ahahaha WELL. The story he knows is that King Maric got a bit too friendly with a servant girl and Alistair was the result; she died while giving birth to him, and Maric shunted him off to Redcliffe to keep him out of the court's eye. He met Maric the barest handful of times, and never for very long. Arl Eamon -- one of Maric's most trusted advisors -- took on the business of raising him instead.

Which worked out...mostly okay? (Up until Eamon's wife was like, "THIS KID'S YOUR BASTARD, ISN'T HE, OFF TO THE CHANTRY WITH HIM," anyway.) Alistair wasn't doted on, but he carries affection for Eamon and firmly believes he did the best he could for him. Despite some issues, his childhood wasn't particularly traumatic, which, really, in Thedas? That's the best you can hope for.

Anyway, Maric went missing some time in Alistair's teenage years and is presumed dead, but, SPOILERY PLOT TWIST (if you take the comics as canon), he's actually still alive! AND SO IS ALISTAIR'S MOTHER, because his mom's actually an Orlesian elven mage named Fiona who's currently serving as the Grand Enchanter. I still haven't decided whether to do anything with comics canon, but he definitely won't find out about Fiona any time soon.

~Join us next week on As The World Turns...~

[freedom_is_grey]

Did you read the book after The Stolen Throne? Because EXTRA AOFUDSOPIFU FIONA STUFF. (Also I think it might come up briefly in Inquisition, but I forget if you have to know about it to get it or if it's clear from the game.)

[bcgphoenix]

I haven't yet! (I...actually haven't read anything but The Silent Grove and copious amounts of the wiki. *sheepish* But it'll happen soon!) So far the only Fiona stuff I've encountered in my DAI playthrough is "she's the first Grey Warden to un-Join" and her asking after Alistair at Skyhold. But I also just got to Skyhold like two days ago, so.

[crabbycustomer]

Karkat was raised by a giant crab monster, who he loved dearly. It died, and it was his fault, because of course it was.

Karkat is only dimly aware of his genetically similar ancestor descendant predecessor, the Signless Sufferer, who was a messianic revolutionary in ancient Alternia. He is unimpressed with the Signless's (thoroughly ineffective) self-sacrifice, and resentful about inheriting the genetic destiny of reforming troll society.

He also thoroughly despises the Signless's sassy teen incarnation from another timeline, Kankri. In his defense, Kankri really is insufferable.

In another sense, Karkat is his own parent, both because he is a perfect clone of himself and because he is the one who pushed the button on that clone. And obviously he hates himself.

[miss_yt]

Seimei's father did not live with him and his mother (for various reasons), but he feels he has gotten to know his father well through letters and such. Although Seimei did not grow up with an ideal family situation, he feels that he grew up in a loving home, that he's fortunate to have had the parents he did, and that they did the best they could in a difficult situation.

YT's relationship with her mother is...complicated. YT loves her mom and is very protective of her, but also underestimates her mom and has trouble being honest and emotionally open with her. Post-canon, their relationship has improved but is still evolving in ways that both of them find challenging. As for YT's dad, he walked out on the family a few years ago. If anyone ever convinces YT to talk about him, she will say "He was an asshole. He never hit Mom or anything, but he wasn't nice to her." She thinks her family is (on balance) better off without her dad in the picture, and has no interest in seeing him again, even to kick him in the nuts.

[freedom_is_grey]

Ysalwen has some vague good memories of her mother, the stories she remembers her mother telling her about her father, and some really excellently well-retained memories of the day her mom got killed by some drunken human noblemen running through the alienage and she brought the house down on them! In the Tower she had Irving as a mentor, and that was good, but because all of her magic is destructive and death magic with zero capability of healing or buffing allies -- a lot of people were afraid of her or afraid of what she could turn into, so a lot of that atmosphere was bound up in it too. Even with Irving. It's probably why he arranged that stupid test with Blood Mage Jowan, honestly. *sigh*

X has no father. Logan is her older brother, and Daken is her nephew. She remembers her mother, Dr. Sarah Kinney, very well, as this was the woman that actually created her and then bore her to term. There are some hints of good memories in there -- see the book Pinocchio as a touchstone-- and she has her last letter to her (sans bloodstains courtesy of Wolverine, who had his own copy). But she will never forgive her for smuggling her out to save her cousin and then TAKING HER BACK, so. That well is pretty poisoned, even if X had not also been made to kill her by Zander Rice marking Sarah with the trigger scent. So. Yeah. Complicated feelings.

[harryhotspur]

Harry's mother died when he was around eight; and as he spent most of his time up to that age with nurses or tutors, he doesn't remember her very well. He was raised by his father and his uncle, and spent all of his life, basically, in the company of one or the other of them. He loved them unwaveringly and was desperate to please both of them-- though since dying/coming to Milliways, he has learned that they were not quite as loyal to him.

Segundus, per my headcanon, was orphaned at a young age and raised by an elderly uncle. Maybe he was a great-uncle. In any case, he was an Oxford don, and a sort of doddering, kindly little man not entirely unlike Segundus himself. He was very gentle and supportive, but also distractible and not super parental, so Segundus thought he was totally great, but also ended up spending a lot of time just by himself in libraries. Which was fine by him!

...more later if i can think of anything interestiiiiing

[likeroaringlions]

as usual, sorry about harry's father and uncle sucking so much :/

[just_cant_lose]

Gene - knows his parents well on one level. He knows what they are/were like - violent father, crushed mother who didn't/couldn't stop him hitting his sons - whether that means he knows them as people is another matter. He doesn't think about it beyond the superficial. It is what it is, and he doesn't dwell on these things.

Javert - only ever knew his mother, and Did Not Approve of her. Hate of his parents is probably not far from the truth. He doesn't know either of them well, and doesn't care to.

Valjean - doesn't remember his.

Courfeyrac - nothing's said in canon, but I headcanon that he had a perfectly civil relationship with them, to a point. The brick does state that he dropped the 'de' particle from his name, which I imagine his father was displeased with. He sees his parents as typically noble, stuck in the past, and while he does also see them as people, they're also sort of...not part of the future. So, they're probably all polite and cheerful to each other, but don't enquire too strongly into each other lives.

Bruce Wayne - looooooool.

Bruce Banner - does not know his parents well, at least if we take comic canon as applying to the MCU (which I am holding off on doing). Father crazy, killed his mother, TRAUMA etc.

Jack Aubrey - uhhhh, he knows his father well enough on a superficial level. They don't get on particularly well. His dad is a big deal in politics, landowner etc, and expects his son to uphold the good name and be respectable. Jack can't afford to annoy him too much and wants to inherit the estate, but there's residual bad feeling that's been around for years so they're not close.

Jim - canon has not given any info on his family yet. If it follows the original ACD stories, he'll be from a respectable background but I'm not going to specify much in case some blanks get filled in in the next season. What with speculation about a possible brother (or sister! Entirely possible!) appearing on the scene, to also fit with ACD canon, there's a chance more info will turn up. My personal headcanon at the moment is that his parents are fairly ordinary - smart, but not crazy - and he started growing away from them at a young age because they bored him, and couldn't teach him much he was interested in learning. And then contributed to his general rage at the world, because he made himself act normal around them and it was an exhausting charade that he had to keep up for years. So he knows them well as a collection of personality features, because he's good at reading people, but he doesn't value their qualities. They're just parents. Could be anyones.

[bjornwilde]

Hank - Canon gives us nothing, so I've head canonned that he knows them and had a decent enough relationship with them. They loved him and tried their best to raise him but didn't quite understand him. They had no idea how far his mutation went but would've accepted him; further pushing the tragedy of him as all being his fault. Aren't I nice to my pup?

Ahsoka - Has the barest of memories of her biological parents. She was taken to the Jedi Temple when see was 2 or 3, if the flashback is anything to go on. As to jedi she sees as parents, that would be Plo Koon and she likely sees him as the best jedi. I wouldn't be surprised if she had wished he had taken her as a padawan (sorry Anakin). In the future, she'll see Obi-Wan as an uncle, Anakin as a older brother, and Padme as an older sister.

Sabine - Not much has been revealed about her parents, and what we have centers on her mother, and those feelings are like a bag of wet lothcats. On one hand, Sabine is fiercely proud of being Mandalorian and her families history. On the other, her mother was Death Watch and was a traitor to Mandalore. There is a reason Sabine paints her helmet with the Nite Owl and not Deathwatch symbolism.

Rollo - Knew his father and mother, and loved them deeply. I think he also worshiped his father and was deeply wounded when Ragnar came along and stole his father's attentions. The Vikings comics show the father but not the mother, so I am guessing here.

More later maybe.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Starting with Gabumon because he's the easiest: He doesn't have any parents, because Digimon don't. We're told in the Big But Somehow Massively Incomplete Expository Talk late in the series that he and the other seven original partners (and - maybe Wormmon, as well? Idek) are made from their human partners' data, which would make Yamato the closest thing he has to a parent - but their relationship isn't remotely like that, and really, it'd be truer to say that they're two independent expressions of the same person.

Yamato has a reeeaaaally complicated relationship with his parents, both in terms of how well he knows them and what he thinks of them.

It's a pretty major part of his backstory that when he was eight, his parents divorced, each taking one of their two kids with visitation consisting entirely of 'One visit per year, which is also the only time the kids will be able to see each other,' and that Yamato was given the choice of which kid should go with which parent. He decides that it'd be best for Takeru to stay with their mother, and the implication is that he thought their mother was a more caring, involved, and competent parent.

He's probably not wrong about that either, because while Hiroaki Ishida is a very loving father for both of his sons, he's noted to be pretty emotionally distant, usually busy with work (we know he works late nights and weekends, so Yamato doesn't see him very often), and we see that he's not actually entirely sure how to raise a child. Even when Yamato's eleven (and, it's implied, even when Yamato's eight), Hiroaki treats him less like a child and more like a grown adult - the comparison of 'two men who are roommates' is made a few times. So Yamato does love his father, and Hiroaki clearly adores both his sons and tries his best, but fatherhood really doesn't come naturally to him, and Yamato knows that.

It'd be fair to say that Yamato barely knows his mother, as well, because he refuses to see her after the divorce - at all, it would seem, because 01 has them eventually encountering each other and Natsuko actually having to take a moment before she recognises him. The reason why Yamato's so adamant about never seeing his mother seems to be partly rooted in loyalty towards his father - in that he thinks Hiroaki would be hurt by it - and partly out of pride, because having had the choice of which parent to stay with kind of forced on him, it's important to him to follow that choice through to its logical extreme. Extra materials for Tri allude to the idea that after Natsuko and Takeru move back to Odaiba, Yamato's maybe cautiously getting to know his mother again?

Hawke clearly adores his mother, and the feeling's mutual. Leandra Hawke's been a pretty constant presence in his life, and was definitely a massive influence on him growing up. One of Hawke's primary motivations is seeing Leandra safe, housed, and well-fed. I'd argue he's definitely as close to her as he is to Carver and Bethany, albeit in a different way.

(I'm slightly irritated, because I went and browsed TVtropes and there's a lot of 'Leandra's so materialistic', like no shit she wants to not live in a hovel with her douchebag brother while her children are in indentured servitude. Shocker.)

As far as Hawke's father goes - well, he's been dead a few years, but he was the one who taught Hawke magic. DA2 will adjust what people will say about Malcolm Hawke based on how you play Hawke, with the end result being that Hawke is very similar to Malcolm in personality.

It's brought up a few times that Hawke may have something of a rosy-tinged view of his father, but he does seem to have been a genuinely good person.


Prrrobably the others later.

[onceaviking]

Eric's father had high hopes for his son, and Eric cheerfully ignored that, right up till his parents and his baby sister were killed by werewolves under Edgington's command. That removed the cheerfulness.
He loved his mother.

And then there was Godric who is something so far more complex than simply a parent and yet was the first who looked at Eric in a way that made him see himself.
(Not big on introspective reflection, Eric).


Elrond love his parents. His memories of them are the memories of a small child. An Elven child, but still a small child. In his mind's eye they are radiant as gods, tall and beautiful and wise.
He loves them. He misses them.

And he is so angry with them that he has had to bury that anger so deep down that hardly anyone realizes it is there, deep, deep, deep below the serene surface.

[ceitfianna]

For some of mine this is a complicated question. I'll see how many I do.

Will has a good relationship with his parents, they run a stall in Nottingham market and lost a lot of children since medieval England. He's often worried about what his being an outlaw put on them but they made it clear they supported him and knew being involved with Robin would only help Nottingham.

Quentin's parents are living elsewhere and spoilery about who they are but from canon, he seems to care for them and not have any major issues with being sent away on a blind fosterage. So clearly there's love there but within the complicated structure of the Fae world, children are really important.

Charles' father died when he was younger and his mother remarried. From XMFC, I've read it that both his parents cared but weren't close with him, he was a lonely kid until Raven came along. As he's starting to come into being a teacher/father figure himself, he's trying to go the other way and be present as much as possible.

Sameth's parents were always busy with their duties as king and Abhorsen, Sabriel more than Touchstone. He knows they love him and care for him, but their relationship isn't close though they're trying to work on it after the end of canon.

William's father died at the end of canon and appears in Milliways. Dan's death was a turning point for them as William saw that his father was doing everything he could for their family and he understood all that was truly against him. Now they interact sometimes in Milliways but they're both stubborn and angry at the world and it comes out in canon as them being angry at each other. He loves his mother and protects her but he's also at a point of being a man in their world so the level of closeness isn't the same.

Ivan's father was killed the day he was born and he was raised by his mother and as basically a member of Aral and Cordelia's household along with Gregor and Elena. He loves his mother dearly and they're both very alike in how they understand how to move through Barrayaran society, but he doesn't want to follow the path she sees for him. He knows that many of his choices disappoint her but he's trying to be safe and stay away from having anyone consider him for a political role. It takes them both a long time to truly see each other.

Moist's parents died in a carriage accident when he was very young and he was raised by his grandparents who were landed gentry and raised Lipwigzers, a fancy kind of dog. He cared for them but was bored with that world and left it.

Jane adores her father who made sure that she and her sister were educated but butts heads with mother who worries about Jane's choices.

Demeter, hm, Greek gods are tricky and I imagine that there's some care for her parents especially her mother but they're not present and haven't been for a long time.

Tumnus' father was killed by the White Witch which terrified Tumnus because he loved his father, they were each other's lives. I have no idea about his mother though I've read some interesting fanfic speculations about her.

[i_am_your_host]

Emcee has no recollection of his parents but harbors no real resentment toward them, despite the reaction he had to the CWDP-ish hallucination he had. His feelings for them are buried deep and covered over with layers and layers of apathy. He does however think fondly of all the people who had a hand in raising him.

Pam's parents were Victorian aristocrats and raised her to be a proper young lady in London high society. Trololol. They disowned her and threw her out when she started having sex for the fun of it (at least that is my headcanon reason). Pam probably did love her parents as a small child, but she grew out of that soon enough. She always was a daddy's girl, though. Eric is all she needs and she thinks he is the bestest most awesomest Maker a vampire could have. (Happy Maker's Day!)

Floki loved and respected his parents. I don't imagine them being 'different' like he is, but being very patient with him and protective of him, especially his mother. He cherishes the knowledge his father gave him and still invokes his memory (for example, going to his grave to get his sword to use in his marriage ceremony).

[have_no_mercy]

Tess has too many parents and she doesn't like any of them. Aside from her adoptive mother who she doesn't remember.

Kylo. LOL.

[likeroaringlions]

where to start

Feuilly never knew his parents. For RP purposes I've gone with him being a hospital foundling, since there was a well-documented system for that in France at the time; he went out to a woman who was a professional wet-nurse/foster-mother. She took her job seriously and took good care for him given limited means, and he respects her very much, but he never thought of her as a parent. They mostly fell out of touch once he left for Paris--she can't really read or write beyond her own name, and it's expensive to hire someone to do it for you on market-day.

We hear a little bit canonically about Lesgle's father: he humbly petitioned the returning Bourbon king for a place, and got a nice civil-service job out of it which bumped the family solidly up into the middle class. And Lesgle lost the house and land in speculation as soon as he inherited, and largely rejected his father's middle-class aspirations. For my backstory, I've gone with a fond-enough relationship between a 19th-c father and son who didn't particularly have much in common but had a strong sense of affectionate loyalty. His mother died when he was in his teens and she was a SAINT don't you try to say otherwise or he'll fight you.

Hal has like two plays devoted to his father issues, lol.

The Chief tells an anecdote about wisdom passed down by her mother when she was "just a little Chieflet." If that isn't the cutest thing, I don't know what is.

William Douglas knows his father as a controlling old man, grasping for wealth. He's desperate to please him, while being only grudgingly aware of the power-plays; I don't think he's really absorbed his father's role in killing his young nephews, William's cousins, to take over the earldom. His mother is always pregnant or burdened with a new baby, because God forbid his father should give things a rest and decide he has enough children to marry off strategically; William's not close to his mother, because he is A Man and does Man Things now, but he tries to stick up for her a bit when he can. His father still beats him.

[pierregringoire]

Joly loves his parents in a general familial way, and doesn't think badly of them. But he's always been aware that they had Expectations and Standards for their children (as pretty much any family of the time would), and while older brothers and childhood health problems shielded him from the most demanding of those a bit, they're still definitely there, and he definitely doesn't meet all of them. So there's been in a lot in his life he just hasn't told them about (He's just about at the point of realizing that perhaps there's more to them than they told him, too, but that bridge is pretty well burnt.) .

Bahorel never had much Mystery in his relationship with his parents-- he grew up surrounded by people they'd known all their lives who knew him all his life, so he's heard Many Stories, and his folks aren't exactly silent stoic types either. He's one of the lucky ones who actually likes his parents as people, besides loving them as parents. They've always gotten along pretty well, for Bahorelic definitions of Getting Along that include lots of yelling and dramatic threats while you arrange holiday plans. Family stuff, right?

Gringoire's been an orphan since he was six, and doesn't really remember his parents--he remembers their occupation and the way they died, without much feeling about either. Probably the closest thing to a parental figure he actually remembers is Claude Frollo. Probably this explains a lot about Gringoire.