Luke, *I* am your father...overused?

[arianne]

Hi, I was just wondering if it is becoming overused and cliched to have the villian of a piece be the main character's dad/mom/uncle/grandpa/sister etc etc? (Luke, who's your daddy? ) Or is it pretty much okay? Is it more annoying to have the author string you along for the whole book and then tell you the bad guy is the dad, or is it more annoying to have the fact that baddie is the dad out there in the open around the first or second chapter?

My friend mentioned that making the baddie a relative gives the reader more of a "shock factor", which brings with it a certain amount of emotional impact. I'm not sure I agree with him, as most of the dads-as-baddies are people teh main character has never known.

Anyway, thoughts?

[Starbeam]

My opinion is that unless it's done very well, it tends to be overused.  Even worse when it's done badly, and obviously.  Or when it's done to try to make the reader think one of the villains is the characters father only to later find out that the father actually is the character you thought it was all along.  Eragon, for that one.


And just a sort of tangental pet peeve of mine, the actual line is never has Luke in it.

[arianne]

Could I get more examples of "done badly"? I've never read Eagorn since a few of my friends hated it so much.

Sorry about the Luke But I'm pretty sure people would go "huh?" if I just typed "*I* am your father...overused?"

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Hi, I was just wondering if it is becoming overused and cliched to have the villian of a piece be the main character's dad/mom/uncle/grandpa/sister etc etc?

I wouldn't say overused, I'd say it's an easy option.  Because a family connection is generally thought of as coming with strong emotional weight - good, or bad - and many of the less well done ways of doing this come with the assumption that, for the reader, "X is related to Y" automatically gets "X has strong emotional connection with Y" so the writer does not actually have to depict the strong emotional connection or how and why it forms.

I think that in the Dresden Files Jim is subtly commenting on this in the ways that Harry assumes that being related to someone automatically gives a strong emotional connection with them of a particular and predictable shape; things like Murphy's family do seem to me to make it clear that we are not expected to read Harry's assumptions about the way the world works as how the world in the DF actually works, as it's clearly a different shape of set of relationships that does not work in ways Harry intuitively grasps, by comparison with the Carpenter family dynamic, which he mostly grasps (and somewhat idealises.)

[arianne]

Would it be accurate to say that Harry Potter's Voldemort is an anti-Luke, then? "He killed my parents, therefore he is the bad guy".

Actually, that one does seem to be a lot more overused!

[Apocrypha]

Would it be accurate to say that Harry Potter's Voldemort is an anti-Luke, then? "He killed my parents, therefore he is the bad guy".

Actually, that one does seem to be a lot more overused!

True.  Everyone swears vengeance against the person(s) who killed their parents/family.

Let's write a story where the character's parents are killed and the main character just celebrates  

[meg_evonne]

What is your reason for the father angle and how will you employ it? Wait bad idea to describe if its a good one.  I'd say it depends on the fundamental structure if it works but I'd worry it will be too common and not a surprise at the end.  How about it being his mother or grandfather?

[Apocrypha]

How about it being his mother or grandfather?

Or the main character him/herself come back from the future 

[arianne]

Hard to say anything without details, but basically my bad guy is the main character's dad, and they've never even met, so when said main character hears a rumor that "random dude" may be his dad, he goes off to look for the dad and...[insert adventure]

I know, cliche, cliche, cliche. 

The point is, the relationship "tug" has to be strong enough that the main character would go looking for the bad guy. Pretty much everything stems from that point.

[Jaeh]

Let's write a story where the character's parents are killed and the main character just celebrates 

know what, that's twisted enough that I want to write a story about it. When I read that my head just sprouted complicated ideas. :p


for the OP, if you do it well and great, it would work. I guess you could distract people from the "cliche" factor. Although, I'd think that it would be interesting if the main char. knows his dad's the bad guy, and he still has this tug that he really really wants to get to bad dad and stuff, but main char knows that he *HAS* to stop the bad guy anyway. but that's just me.
maybe that's even more cliched, I wouldn't know, lol.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Let's write a story where the character's parents are killed and the main character just celebrates 

That one is unforutnately easy; write a character with viciously abusive parents.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

for the OP, if you do it well and great, it would work. I guess you could distract people from the "cliche" factor.

This statement is true for any idea ever.

[belial.1980]

That one is unforutnately easy; write a character with viciously abusive parents.

Or maybe the child is spoiled and psychotic. Or extremely selfish and has a lot to gain in terms of money/power, etc. Could hook up with Mom or Dad's extramarital partner once all is said and done. There are a lot of fun, twisted possibilities for that idea.

[LizW65]

On a somewhat related subject, would the following scenario be considered overused?:

Protagonist who was viciously abused as a child discovers that his biological father was, in fact, someone he has only recently met, which explains his father's antipathy and his mother's insistence that he was a "mistake" and unwanted.

(I'm flirting with this idea as a subplot for a mystery story I have in mind, just in case you're wondering.

[meg_evonne]

On a somewhat related subject, would the following...

both these ideas are universal structures.  I think it's how you frame it, the uniqueness of your characters, how they interact that let's it sink or swim, don't you?  And the all important reveals and twists...