History Characters / DollangangerSeries

-->'''Corrine''': I'm going to tell you something now, Cathy, that I've never told you before. You look very much as I did at your age, but you are not like me in your personality. You are much more aggressive, and much more determined. Your father used to say that you were like his mother, and he loved his mother.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She's fairly whiny and can be especially hard on people when they anger her, but she thinks the world of those she cares about, and will go to any length to keep them safe.

* NeverMyFault: Cathy could have been a gymnast after all the mental gymnastics to blame ''everything'' on Corrine during Petals.

* NotSoSimilar: Cathy is a lot like her mother Corrine--she is TheIngenue, and then TheTease, and occasionally the FemmeFatale. Ultimately though, the key difference between them is that Cathy is proactive and driven, with an iron will. Corrine never gets a job, even after her husband dies. Cathy spends years pursuing a career as a professional ballet dancer, which is for the most part portrayed as a very grueling. While Corrine was spoiled (and emotionally abused) as a child, Cathy was abused far ''differently'', lighting a fire under her ass, making her determined as all hell, and left knowing that she can only rely on herself in the end.

* RedOniBlueOni: Cathy is the Red Oni and Chris is the Blue Oni. Chris is the stable to the point of complacency, while Cathy is mercurial to the point of reckless. Chris is TheIdealist and Cathy is TheCynic. We mostly hear the story from Cathy's POV, and she often thinks Chris is a "prisoner of hope," but she also loves him for this and depends on him as her counterbalance.

* BlondesAreEvil: Starting in his youth and holding even until his hair is silver.

* HistoryRepeats: Besides [[spoiler:falling in love with his sister and later living with her as her husband]] Chris is killed in a car crash, just as Chris sr. had in their childhoods.

* HeManWomanHater: Combined with a highly obvious OepidusComplex; he adored his mother but as a result of her abandonment of him, he hates beautiful women. This doesn't even stop when he's married, as he tries to rape his beautiful stepmother, Alicia.

* {{Hypocrite}}: He hates Christ and Cathy (especially Chris) for their incestuous union. Calling it sinful... but then has an affair with his brother's wife and tries to justify it. It gets even more egregious when he [[SlutShaming Slut Shames]] Cindy.
* ItsAllAboutMe / NeverMyFault: He demands to be the center of Cathy and Corinne's universes but the instant they don't love Bart precisely the way he wants he makes everyone around him miserable. He has an AmbiguousDisorder? Well, it's Chris's fault for being intimate with his sister. Doesn't matter if Bart had these problems long before he found out Chris and Cathy were siblings. Something doesn't go his way, then Barth has a screaming fit at the age of twenty-five. Cindy calls Bart out on his {{Jerkass}} behavior towards her? Well, it's her fault she was adopted. The rest of the family calls him out on his behavior? It's always someone else fault, never because of his own choices.

Carrie's twin brother, who is much more quiet.

--> '''Actors:''' Marshall Colt (1987 ''Flowers in the Attic'' film), Chad Willett (2014 ''Flowers'' TV film)

--> '''Actors:''' Leonard Mann (1987 ''Flowers in the Attic'' film), Dylan Bruce (2014 TV films of ''Flowers in the Attic'' and ''Petals on the Wind'')

* {{Hypocrite}}: He hates Christ and Cathy (especially Chris) for their incestuous union. Calling it sinful... but then has an affair with his brother's wife and tries to justify it.

* GoodAdulteryBadAdultery: Paul admits to cheating on his late wife, but excuses himself because she was mentally ill and sexually unresponsive and ImAManICantHelpIt.

** IncestSubtext: Even with his early death, this is still very much present through the books.

* NotSoSimilar: Cathy is a lot like her mother Corrine--she is TheIngenue, and then TheTease, and occasionally the FemmeFatale. Ultimately though, the key difference between them is that Cathy is proactive and driven, with an iron will. While Corrine was spoiled (and emotionally abused) as a child, Cathy was abused far ''differently'', lighting a fire under her ass, making her determined as all hell and left knowing that she can only rely on herself in the end. Corrine never gets a job, even after her husband dies. Cathy spends years pursuing a career as a professional ballet dancer, which is for the most part portrayed as a very grueling.
* OedipusComplex: DownplayedTrope and GenderInvertedTrope. Cathy very much wants to supplant her mother--her power over men, and her poise. She also wants to steal her mother's husband--who is not, by this point, Cathy's father. Although Cathy ''did'' adore her father, and feel jealous that--in his eyes--she came second after her mother. If he'd still been alive by this point, it totally could've gone that way.

-->'''Chris:''' During all those years I waited, I somehow knew eventually she'd be mine as long as I held fast to my faith, and kept the flame of my first love burning. It was so easy for her to love other men. It was impossible for me to find any woman who could compare. She took me for her own when I was about your age, Jory. [[FirstLove Be careful whom you love first, for that is the girl you will never forget.]]

** TheIdealist[=/=]HopeSpringsEternal: In the attic, Chris holds out hope that their mother will come through long after the evidence stops pointing that way. Even after they escape, he is always inclined to give their mother the benefit of the doubt, and believe the best of her. He carries a flame for Cathy for 15 years, all the while believing they are endgame. When Bart insists YoureNotMyFather and spurns him at every turn, Chris loves Bart as his own son and holds out hope they'll repair their relationship someday. In ''Flowers'', Chris says the following, which makes it seem like this is less his ''worldview'' and more that it's his ''coping mechanism'':

* DumbBlonde: About halfway between this and ObfuscatingStupidity. She plays up her helplessness to get what she wants, but is secretly very manipulative.

* ShedTheFamilyName: His birth name, as Corrine tells us, was Garland Christopher Foxworth the Fourth, though "We never called him anything but Chris." When they eloped, Chris and Corrine took the surname Dollanganger. He also appears to have swapped middle and first name at this point, because when the officers come to tell Corrine he has died, they call her "Mrs. Christopher Garland Dollanganger."

** He turns this up all the way, denying Cindy (AdoptionDiss) as his sister, and sometimes Jory (HalfSiblingAngst) as his siblings too.

* TheUnFavorite: Of his mother. She really did love him, but she also really did favor his siblings.

* GenerationXerox: Cindy takes pages on sexuality from her adopted mother Cathy. Her mother describes her as eager for love, but not mature enough to avoid decisions that will come back to bite her.

* DomesticAbuse: Julian is emotionally, physically and sexually abusive toward Cathy, including a memorable scene where, in a fit of rage, he breaks several of her toes. During their marriage, he follows the classic cycle of explosions, regret and apologies, honeymoon phase, growing tension, and then another explosion.

* LovingAShadow: We know that Julian put Cathy on a pedestal very early on, and that his conceptualization of her had little to do with who she really was. What did he imagine her to be? That's somewhat less clear. Cathy herself says she never really understood Julian's interiority. We know there's some inner conflict going on there, and we get parts of it, but we never get the full picture--and that's the point.

* MiniatureSeniorCitizens: Elderly and under 5 feet tall.
* TheNapoleon:

In keeping with general consensus of FanonDiscontinuity, anything from ''Literature/GardenOfShadows'' or the ''Christopher's Diary'' series should kept on those works' pages, not here.

** TheIdealist[=/=]HopeSpringsEternal: In the attic, Chris holds out hope that their mother will come through long after the evidence stops pointing that way. Even after they escape, he is always inclined to give their mother the benefit of the doubt and believe the best of her. He carries a flame for Cathy for 15 years, all the while believing they are endgame. Even when Bart insists YoureNotMyFather and spurns him at every turn, Chris loves Bart as his own son and holds out hope they'll repair their relationship someday. In ''Flowers'', Chris says the following, which makes it seem less like this is his ''worldview'', and more that it's his ''coping mechanism'':

* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Chris has always talked in a way that is sometimes flowery and sometimes just plain weird. Hilariously lampshaded in ''Thorns'', when--as a parent--he gives his sons a new word to learn each day, to expand their vocabularies.

* DaddysGirl: Used to be this, and aspires to be again to get his fortune.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Early in the 2014 film, Corrine tries to pass off a store bought apple pie for her husband as one she cooked herself, before Cathy reveals she forgot to take off the bakery label. This cleverly foreshadows how she is not as truthful or dedicated to her family's well-being as she seems.

* PlotTriggeringDeath: His death leaves the family without a source of income, driving Corrine to crawl back to parents and beg for forgiveness.

* SmallRoleBigImpact: He dies after the first chapter of the original book and roughly the first five minutes of both film adaptations, but if not for his death, the entire series never would have happened.
* ShedTheFamilyName: His birth name, as Corrine tells us, was Garland Christopher Foxworth the Fourth, though "We never called him anything but Chris." When they eloped, Chris and Corrine took the surname Dollanganger. He also appears to have swapped middle and first name at this point, for when the officers come to tell Corrine he has died, they call her "Mrs. Christopher Garland Dollanganger."

* HisStoryRepeatsItself: Jory's father committed suicide after a crippling accident meant he would never dance again, even knowing that his wife was pregnant with their firstborn child at the time. [[spoiler:Jory himself is in turn placed in the same situation, and must decide to live.]]

* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior
* CreepyChild
* DeadGuyJunior: Named for his father. (His middle name--Scott--is Paul's middle name, Paul didn't die until few years after Bart was born.)

* OedipusComplex: Hating a parent and having incestuous subtext with a parent are both common threads running throughout these books. But not until Bart are they combined in a single character to form an entirely classic example of this trope. Bart ''deeply'' resents his stepfather, and despite claiming YoureNotMyFather, he treads him as his father as far as this trope is concerned. He intermittently adores and wants to impress his mother, sometimes skirting into incestuous territory.

** He turns this up all the way, denying Cindy (who is [[AdoptionDiss adopted]]) as his sister, and sometimes Jory (his [[HalfSiblingAngst half-brother]]) as his siblings too.

* LoveFatherLoveSon: Married to Corrine, and then had an affair with her daughter--not that he knew she was her daughter. He HasAType. (Bart is 8 years Corrine's junior, making him roughly 13 years Cathy's senior.)

* NoGuyWantsToBeChased: Bart at times claims he's put off by Cathy's pointed pursuit of him. But--as she demonstrates--he's also annoyed when she makes no effort. Cathy claims this is born of misogyny and insecurity; Bart claims "I just don't like the feeling of being the victim of a huntress leading me into a trap." They're both right: what Cathy says about Bart being misogynistic is true, but Cathy is also very deliberately seducing Bart as part of a her scheme, and he's right to feel he's being led into a trap.

* PornStache: When she first sees him, he has a thick moustache, which Cathy is really into. She later encourages one of her other lovers to grow a mustache as well because of it. By the time she sees Bart again in ''Petals'', he has shaved it off.

* Flanderization: Also doubles as FaceHeelTurn. Corrine still has some traits of vanity and materialism at the start of the story, but is still a decent person and a loving mother to her children who only imprisons them in the attic because her mother has forced her to. However, once Corrine is reintroduced to high society, her selfish traits grow stronger while her redeeming qualities weaken, to the point where she is perfectly willing to poison her children as she cannot part with her money.

* OedipusComplex: DownplayedTrope and GenderInvertedTrope. Cathy very much wants to supplant her mother--her power over men, and her poise. She also wants to steal her mother's husband--who is not, by this point, Cathy's father. Although Cathy ''did'' adore her father, and feel jealous that--in his eyes--she came second after her mother. If he'd still been alive by this point, who knows.

** TheIdealist[=/=]HopeSpringsEternal: In the attic, Chris holds out hope that their mother will come through long after the evidence stops pointing that way. Even after they escape, he is always inclined to give their mother the benefit of the doubt and believe the best of her. He carries a flame for Cathy for 15 years, all the while believing they are endgame. Even when Bart insists YoureNotMyFather and spurns him at every turn, Chris loves Bart as his own son and holds out hope they'll repair their relationship someday. In ''Flowers'', Crhis says this, which makes it seem like this is less his ''worldview'' than it is his ''coping mechanism'':

* PracticallyDifferentGenerations: Malcolm was 28 when his father Garland (55) married Alicia (16). Garland and Alicia's son--Malcolm's half-brother--was born the following year, making him younger than Malcolm's older 2 children, and oldest than his youngest.

* PetTheDog: In a ''very'' rare show of kindness, in ''Flowers in the Attic'' Olivia gives the children real flowers after she learns that they're turning the attic into a playground.

* OedipusComplex: Hating your parent and having incestuous subtext with your parent are both common threads running throughout these books. But not until Bart are they combined in a single character to form a clear example of this trope. Bart ''deeply'' resents his stepfather, at once claiming YoureNotMyFather and treading him as his father as far as this trope is concerned. He intermittently adores and wants to impress his mother, sometimes skirting into incestuous territory.
* YoureNotMyFather: Bart pulls this frequently and aggressively with his Chris. Bart's [[GlorifiedSpermDonor biological father]] died before he was born, and Chris has been his stepfather since he was a toddler. He is the man who raised him, and the only father Bart can remember. Chris, for his part, unquestionably considers Bart his son, loves him, and holds out hope their relationship will improve someday. Bart [[CallingParentsByTheirName refuses to call Chris his father]], calling him by his name or simply not speaking to him at all.

* TheUnFavorite: Of his mother

* NoGuyWantsToBeChased: Bart at times claims he's put off by Cathy's pointed pursuit of him. But--as she demonstrates--he's also annoyed when she makes no effort. Cathy claims this is born of misogyny and insecurity; Bart claims it's because "I just don't like the feeling of being the victim of a huntress leading me into a trap." They're both right: what Cathy says about Bart being misogynistic is true, but Cathy also is very deliberately seducing Bart as part of a schemes of hers, and he's right to feel he's being led into a trap.

* MiniatureSeniorCitizens: Elderly and less than 5 feet tall.
* TheNapoleon: "She wasn't five feet tall, but radiated six feet of authority."

* PromotionToParent: Acts as Carrie and Cory's mother while trapped in Foxworth.

* PromotionToParent: Becomes the father figure of the children.

* PracticallyDifferentGenerations: Malcolm was 28 when his father Garland (55) married Alicia (16). Garland and Alicia's son--Malcolm's half-brother--was born the following year.

* PracticallyDifferentGenerations: Malcolm was 28 when his father Garland (55) married Alicia (16). Garland and Alicia's son--Malcolm's half-brother--was born the following year.

* AmbiguousDisorder: While there's never a named diagnosis is never given, Bart is canonically said to have some serious mental health troubles. This is shown to be debilitating, both for him personally and for his family. His parents and brother love him and want to help, but don't really know how.

* DeadGuyJunior: Named for his father. (His middle name, Scott, is Paul's middle name, and does not count. Paul didn't die until few years after Bart was born.)

* PornStache: When she first sees him, he has a thick moustache, which Cathy is really into. She later encourages one of her other lovers to grow a mustache because of it. By the time she sees Bart again in Petals, he has shaved it off.

* MiniatureSeniorCitizens: She stands less than 5 feet tall.