The Father-Daughter Relationship

[Blackrook]

Of all family relationships, the father-daughter relationship is the most prominently featured in science fiction and fantasy.

Less often we see a father and son.

Almost never do we see a mother and son or a mother and daughter.

The mother is almost always dead or absent.

The father is almost always a powerful or wealthy man, giving the daughter "princess" status even if that's not her official title.

As a father of two daughters and one son I think I know why.

The father/son relationship has some drama potential, but not much. Fathers and sons usually get along pretty well.

The mother/son relationship has almost no drama potential. Mothers love their sons no matter what. Mother will be the only person in the room crying as her mass murderer son is put to death in the electric chair. There's no drama in unconditional love and approval.

The mother/daugher relationship can be very dramatic but such a story would be shunted into the female fiction ghetto.

The father/daugher relationship is the most dramatic of all family relationships and makes a great story, just by itself. Add a few wrinkles like world destroying space stations and evil dark lords and its even better. Father and daughter will constantly be on each other's case even while the forces of evil plot against them.

There's all kinds of combinations:

The authoritative father and the rebellious daughter.

The doting father and the spoiled daughter.

The over-protective father and the boy-crazy daughter.

The neglectful father and the sullen daughter.

I'm sure there are many more.

The iron-clad rule is mother is never around. I think the reason is that mother's influence would make the situation less dramatic. Without a mother, there is no one to soften the blows of father's authoritative commands. Without a mother, there is no one to talk daughter out of acting out her rebellious schemes against father.

Any thoughts?

[reiver33]

Electra complex, anyone?

Or is that still taboo in SF?

[mygoditsraining]

Originally Posted by Blackrook

Of all family relationships, the father-daughter relationship is the most prominently featured in science fiction and fantasy.

Is it? Do you mean as the central premise, or as a plot device to cover slow points or what?

I just took a wander through to the other room and had a browse of my bookshelves. I can't see any that are particularly memorable for the use of a father-daughter relationship; even moreso, I can't see any that do it with the concomitant exclusion of all else.

Certainly you can hypothesise that there are stereotypical female characters that are prevalent in fantasy, but likewise you can do the same with males, heroes, villains, monsters, settings, technological levels and descriptions of roadside inns. Is there a point, or are we just chewing the fat about how genres tend to share common factors (although I'm not sure the OP covers one of them)?

[The Pelagic Argosy]

When I took a class about the early British novel in college, there was a striking theme. Every single one featured a female protagonist whose parents were dead, and she was being raised by a male friend of the family. Or she was a servant, and the master of the house occupied the father-figure role. And the conflict in these novels was always resolved by the protagonist getting married. Moll Flanders, Pamela, Betsy Thoughtless. Oh, and everything by Jane Austen. [Cue the obligatory feminist snit: her sexuality needed to be neutralized, blah blah blah...]

Feminist theories aside, there are some historical factors that could explain some of this. Absent mothers could be explained, in part, by the fact that a lot of women did, in fact, die in childbirth. Lower class daughters were sent away to be servants, because the families couldn't afford to raise them, etc.

I notice, Blackrook, that you haven't offered a single SF/F title as an example of your theory.

I'm not qualified to talk about the SF genre in this regard. Unless you want me to go off on Starbuck from BSG for awhile.

And I can only scratch the fantasy surface. The thing is, if you want to write about mothers and daughters, you have to write about women. And then you might get cooties.

This brings me to Tolkien. Frodo's parents were dead. Check. But he had all kinds of father figures: Bilbo, Aragorn, Gandalf. And Merry had Theodin. Pippin had, if not a father figure, a master standin in Denethor. (Mothers all dead, dead, dead.) If you ask me, LOTR is a big father-and-son picnic. Arwen and Eowyn were both "neutralized" by the end. (Eowyn's character follows the early British novel model to a T.) But Frodo had, possibly, something akin to a mother-figure in Galadriel. (Thoughts???)

The only other fantasy franchise I can comment on is Harry Potter. Harry's parents *sigh*...dead. (Here's a health tip: don't have kids.) The Dursleys. Boo hiss. But Harry had all kinds of parental stand ins. Some of them were actually women: Mrs. Weasley and McGonagall. (Hermoine??) The most notable father figure Harry had was Dumbledore. And, even though his parents were dead, they were still present in his life and an enormous influence.

But so far I'm coming up empty on a father/daughter relationship.

[Blackrook]

Well, I didn't give a list of father/daughter stories because I thought it would be too obvious.

Forbidden Planet is a classic example, a scientist alone on an alien planet, with only his daughter to keep him company.

In Star Wars, Princess Leia has a father but never mentions her mother.

In the TV show Alias, Sydney Bristow has a father and she believes her mother is dead.

There's countless episodes of Star Trek where Captain Kirk romances a young lady who has a father-figure but no mother.

And then there's Arwen and Eowyn in LOTR, who had father-figures but no mothers.

I'm not much into feminist theories so I have no clue what you're talking about when you say female characters are "neutralized" by marriage. The stories you mentioned are written by female authors for female readers, and are written to appeal to what women and girls like to see in stories.

[HareBrain]

The traditional fantasy story is to some extent a descendant of the primordial "hero-myth", which is, partly at least, about a male on the verge of adulthood discovering the feminine. He has already been initiated into the world of men (ie been removed from the sphere of the mother, hence her pretty much always being dead) and now has to journey beyond the men's world - ie the sphere of his father, if still alive - and discover something about the world that is of benefit to everyone, overcoming the challenge of the Gorgon to discover the goddess that waits beyond.

For these reasons, the "classic" parent/child relationship in this kind of story is father/son, revolving around the tensions that result from the boy's desire to be taught by his father, and also to surpass him - and conflicting with the alpha-male's wish not to be supplanted. I really can't think of many SFF stories where the father/daughter relationship is prominent.

*Waits for randomly constructed theory to be utterly destroyed*

[Parson]

Dear Blackrook:

I think what you are on to is the bias in modern SF and F to have female protagonists. I read very, very, little Fantasy, which might be different, but I doubt it. But I read a lot of SF and the preponderance of Female leads is staggering. Some have strong mother figures, some don't. My favorite SF series "Honor Harrington" has a female protagonist, and almost shockingly she has strong and capable parents. Another series to the contrary is CyTeen by C.J. Cheryth. Here we have both an absent, but also a very strong mother with the female lead.


The issue is likely financial. Who buys and reads books? Women by a large and growing majority. Witness how Romances blow every other category of novels out of the water in terms of sales.

[The Pelagic Argosy]

HareBrain: I think you're on to something with the hero myth thing. Fantasy and SF seem to be occupied with "male" pursuits: war and travel - whether in space ships or on horseback. They aren't about the mothers and daughters who are left behind.

Originally Posted by Blackrook

In Star Wars, Princess Leia has a father but never mentions her mother.

But Star Wars isn't about Princess Leia. It's about Luke and his complicated relationship with his father and his relationship with his father-figure mentors, Obi Wan and Yoda. It's about Anakin and Luke. It's a quintessential father/son story.

Her role as a "daughter" is far behind her roles as love interest and sex symbol.

And then there's Arwen and Eowyn in LOTR, who had father-figures but no mothers.

Again, they are minor characters. Their relationships with their fathers are hardly central to the story. They are greatly overshadowed by all the male relationships.

When Aragorn wins the war, Arwen is the prize. She is the symbol of what he's won. Elrond gives her to Aragorn and leaves her - and Middle Earth - under his protection. It doesn't have anything to do with her at all. It's about Aragorn and Elrond's father/son mentor/protege relationship.

Eowyn is more interesting and complicated. She makes her own choices. Still, Theodin's relationship with Merry takes up more space in the book than his relationship with Eowyn.

Originally Posted by Parson

The issue is likely financial. Who buys and reads books? Women by a large and growing majority. Witness how Romances blow every other category of novels out of the water in terms of sales.

Romances are female dominated. I was under the impression that SF was still dominated by men, both in authorship and readership.

[Parson]

Originally Posted by The Pelagic Argosy

Romances are female dominated. I was under the impression that SF was still dominated by men, both in authorship and readership.

SF was dominated by men in terms of authorship and readership through perhaps the 70's. I am quite convinced that it no longer is, and while I am not positive about readership, I am positive that women authors outnumber men by about 60/40. Now if you were to make a category for famous or full time authors, that might come out some different.

[chopper]

randomly wandering thru the sf section at waterstones the other week, i saw 3 - count em, three - young women excitedly discussing the virtues of Reynolds over Banks. so perhaps Parson has a point. factor in the fantasy authors - off the top of my head, Canavan, Novik, Miller etc etc - and there seems to be quite a swing happening.

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by Blackrook

In Star Wars, Princess Leia has a father but never mentions her mother.

And then there's Arwen and Eowyn in LOTR, who had father-figures but no mothers.

I agree with The Pelagic Argosy here. These are bad examples. In Star Wars, the Vader/Luke relationship is far more important than the Vader/Leia or Organa/Leia relationship.

In Lord of the Rings, the Denethor/Faramir/Boromir relationship is just as important as the Théoden/Éowyn and the Elrond/Arwen relationships put together. (In the books at least, where Arwen has practically zero importance.)

[dustinzgirl]

Father-son relationships are very unexplored in fiction and should be, there are lots of areas for explosive drama. Heck, I can think of several just in my own family.

Mother-daughter and mother-son relationships are also important and can have lots of drama, just haven't seen it so much in sff. But, there's The Good Son, The Bad Seed, VC Andrews, Danielle Steele, even Scream 2 and Shakespeare, lots of Stephen King/Bachman.

I think that sff is, and please don't burn me at the stake, a male dominated writing genre, and that (again, off with the pitchforks) men tend to view daughters, or women in general, as needing some form of protection (esp from other men and themselves), and especially in classical fantasy worlds based on our middle/dark ages where women were essentially property.

I do not think it is for a lack of dramatic potential, but for an overabundance of male instinctual dominance (and yes, I think it is a natural instinct, ingrained memories from when us women folk were powerless cave mammas all the big bad boys had to protect us from other tribes and sabertooth tigers.)

Um---Princess Leia does so mention her mother.

[Kissmequick]

Originally Posted by reiver33

Electra complex, anyone?

Or is that still taboo in SF?

I have penis envy? Errrr...no. Really.


I must admit I've seen way more father / son ( or son / father-substitute) stuff than father / daughter. Although I'm writing a father / daughter and father / mentoree thingy right now.

But the thing is, given only a certain number of combos ( F/S, F/D, M/S, M/D) then I'd say they've probably all been done rather a lot.

[The Judge]

Originally Posted by Kissmequick

I have penis envy? Errrr...no. Really.

But such a handy thing to take on a picnic**

I don't read enough SFF to comment on overall trends, but I thought 'Forbidden Planet' was simply a SF take on 'The Tempest' - it's not so much the father-daughter relationship which is explored as the father-rest of the world/universe.

And perhaps the lack of mothers in literature is simply a reflection of the reason PG Wodehouse gives Bertie Wooster formidable aunts - mothers are good, kind, wonderful people, but that isn't what a good story needs. There has to be conflict. And since all mothers are saints, ther's no conflict there!

J

** In case the joke isn't universally known. Group of young children having a picnic in the woods. Too much lemonade drunk. Two little girls retreat behind a large shrub and much consternation ensues because of nettles etc. Little boy comes along, stands near a tree, unzips his fly and pees with ease. One little girl turns to the other: 'My. That's a handy thing to bring on a picnic.'

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by Blackrook

. The stories you mentioned are written by female authors for female readers, and are written to appeal to what women and girls like to see in stories.

Of the stories TPA mentioned, half of the authors were male, half were women.

Unless Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, and J. R. R. Tolkien were cross-dressing.

The mother/son relationship has almost no drama potential. Mothers love their sons no matter what. Mother will be the only person in the room crying as her mass murderer son is put to death in the electric chair. There's no drama in unconditional love and approval.

Well, not true. In real life, there are plenty of poisonous relationships between mothers and sons. There are neglectful mothers, abusive mothers, mothers who smother and manipulate and come to be hated by their sons, mothers who take out their hatred of the absent father on their sons ... etc. Plenty of room for drama between mothers and sons.

(As an aside, thinking of all the male characters in my own books, the mothers tend to be absent, barely mentioned, or horrible. I'll have to think about what that says about me.)