Like I’ve mentioned before, I love reading reviews and
comments on movies/books that I’ve recently read and enjoyed. Okay, even the ones that I don’t enjoy. But it’s something that I do to see other
people’s point of view. I know what I
liked about it, but I want to see both sides of it. What didn’t work for other people? Maybe it’s my way of leaning more about the
audience, since usually I read books similar to what I write.
But there’s one comment I’ve been noticing more and more
that almost makes me laugh. There’s the
complaint that in YA, there are too many stories where parents are ‘killed off,’
and that it gives children and teens the wrong idea that their lives would be infinitely
better without their parents.
I’m sure we’ve all seen the complaints out there. Harry Potter was orphaned as a baby, Tarzan
was left in the forest when his parents died, Luke Skywalker was raised by his
uncle and aunt… there are hundreds and hundreds of stories where the parents
are dead or nonexistent.
And there’s a very good reason for that. YA (Young Adult) writing is focusing on a
teen (or young adult) as they mature and find themselves. It’s about ‘coming of age.’ That’s usually the main premise of these
stories. The problem is, it’s very
difficult to ‘come of age,’ or become independent and find oneself when they’re
still treated like a child, or in the situation where someone does all the hard
stuff for them. Parents are the
providers. They’re going to protect and
shield their children from the hard stuff as long as they’re there. And that’s going to kill the story.
I’m not saying that the parents have to die, though that is
the most convenient because it adds the emotional baggage of dealing with their
death. (And yes, I know how terribly
morbid that last sentence sounds.) There
are other ways to do it. Parents who are
so involved in their careers that the young adult is practically independent
already. Or parents who have to travel
so much that they’re never home. There’s
parents who are used as bait for the children to save (as in the Red Pyramid.)
So though it's not beneficial in real life, in many YA stories,
the parents need to be nonexistent so that the main characters can grow and
develop.
Don’t worry, I’ll come back to this thought later.
I don't know... I think it can be equally effective (though it's more difficult) to have parents who are very much a part of the teen's life. The character has to push and struggle to define himself (or herself) against the overprotective parent, which can cause just as much emotional baggage, if done well, as dealing with a parent's death or abandonment. Of course, that's just my opinion, as a writer who has written characters on both ends of the spectrum (and everywhere in between).
ReplyDelete(crossposted from G+)
ReplyDeleteI think killing them off is lazy. Especially since it brings so many questions:
- How to they provide for themselves?
- If they don't live with their parents who are the adults or parent figures in their lives?
- Who makes sure these kids go to school and don't just make a mess out of their lives?
Kids need adult figures in their lives, killing them off for trauma or because they would get in the way of character growth is lazy.
All the examples you named in the article have valid background reasons, and aren't just about trauma and depression. HP's parents are dead because they tried to protect HP and it sets HP and V up to be lifelong arch enemies. Tarzan is about growing up between the apes, growing up wild. Tarzan does have parents, just not human parents. Luke S. lives with his uncle and aunt because his real parents can't care for him, because he has to be hidden to be safe.
What all these characters have in common is that they have parental figures, who might not be their birth parents but are still parents to the character.
This is different from the huge amount of foster care kids and other trauma kids I've seen in YA fiction because someone thought it was cool to kill the parents.
Teens often have a life none of their parents know about, they have friends who are closer to them than their own family and they stand on their own feet because of that.
Teens don't need dead parents to be able to grow up. If real kids can have lives their parents know nothing about and if even tv series can have teens with parents who go through all sorts of crap that the parents are oblivious to.
Why can't YA just keep them alive too?
I personally just think it's lazy writing when the only trauma you can think of to make your character "grow up" is to kill their parents.
But that is just me.
Thanks for your response! And you bring up some good points that I'm going to have to think about. :)
DeleteJust because the parents actively prevent the protagonist from accepting the call to adventure, they might not have a choice. Teens are rebellious in nature and depending on the setting people may not bat an eye to a teen out on their own.
ReplyDeleteA war torn country may have a large number of orphans and as such a rebellious teen could run away and just *say* their parents are dead. Along the way they may find the truth in their parent's words of caution but save the world anyway.
Then you can do a turn around where the parents support the teen's new lifestyle but the teen values their warnings at the same time.
Killing off characters potentially closes doors. If you're doing it just to do it and because under one scenario the parents are in the way that's short sighted. By having them alive they can be used in countless ways. (Heck the big bad can even use them as a bargaining chip against the hero)
Young readers fail to realize that parents aren't tyrants. They're protectors. And as a Thirty-something person I can say my relationship with my mother is much better now than it was when I was 15. And my father died when I was young. Looking back I can't think of a scenario where I wouldn't have loved to have my dad alive right now.