History Main / SatelliteFamilyMember

** Rio[=/=]Pikario is a bit of a variation of this. While he gets to interact with other characters early on, Rio's whole arc revolves around his conflict with his sister Ciel[=/=]Kirarin, and this trope eventually becomes more apparent after [[spoiler: his comeback from his coma]], as almost all of his screentime since then has him being around his sister.

** Chiyo's father Hiro did everything in his power to pair up Rentarou and his daughter after Rentarou saved him from a truck as a young boy. Once they get together, he pops up either to cheer on whatever Chiyo's doing, or trying to push her to be the main girlfriend.

** The main role of Yaku's dead husband (Kusuri's grandfather) is to be the model Rentarou initially thinks he has to live up to in order to win Yaku over.

** Mai's grandmother used to be the head maid at the Hanazono estate. When little Mai tagged along with her one day, seeing Mei at work left [[BigSisterWorship a big impression on her]], inspiring her to become a maid in her own right.
** Rin's parents are strict MoralGuardians who forbade her from playing video games due to their belief that all games are MurderSimulators. She caught a brief glimpse of a ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' film as a young girl which, true to the trope of StrictParentsMakeSneakyKids, started her on the path to becoming a closet NightmareFetishist.
** Eira's father is a capoeira instructor who trained his daughter extensively in the art, and as such, she doesn't fear what she can deal with by kicking, but is deathly afraid of literally everything else.

* ''VideoGame/AnotherCode'': Jessica Robins, Ashley's aunt, [[{{Nephewism}} who has been raising the girl since she was a toddler]]. While she does receive some light characterization thanks to scattered comments and observations Ashley makes throughout the games, her principle role in both stories is to help push Ashley and Richard into fixing their rocky father-daughter relationship. Both games open with Ashley acknowledging that a major factor in her traveling to that game's given location is because Jessica either encouraged (''Two Memories'') or outright forced (''Journey into Lost Memories'') her to make the trip and see her dad.

** Billy and Jilly [=McGee=] are the satellites to their brother Pete, mostly because they make his life miserable even if they don't understand it most of the time.
** The Suksai family (Molly's relatives on her mother's side) only exists to make Molly feel that she is "not Thai enough" by comparison because she can't speak Thai fluently, play Makruk, or eat spicy food. Later her family reassures her that they've all felt the same way and she's fine just the way she is.

* ''VideoGame/AnotherCode'': Jessica Robins, Ashley's aunt, [[{{Nephewism}} who has been raising the girl since she was a toddler]]. While she does receive some light characterization thanks to scattered comments and observations Ashley makes throughout the games, her principle role in both ''Two Memories'' and ''Journey into Lost Memories'' is to help push Ashley and Richard (Ashley's father and Jessica's older brother) into fixing their rocky relationship, her encouragement being the reason why Ashley travels to the main locations of both games (Blood Edward Island and Lake Juliet, respectively) to meet with her dad.

* ''VideoGame/AnotherCode'': Jessica Robins, Ashley's aunt, who has been raising the girl since she was a toddler. While she does receive some light characterization thanks to scattered comments and observations Ashley makes throughout the games, her main role in both ''Two Memories'' and ''Journey into Lost Memories'' is to help push Ashley and Richard (Ashley's father and Jessica's older brother) into fixing their rocky father-daughter relationship. She's explicitly the reason why Ashley gained the confidence to go to Blood Edward Island in the first game, and she outright forced Ashley to accept her dad's request to go on a camping trip in the second game (while also badgering her brother about spending more time with his kid).
* ''VideoGame/LonelyWolfTreat'': Trick's human master who raised them since childhood. Because a lot of mystery surrounds him, you can't really talk about much regarding him outside of the ParentalSubstitute relationship he had with them. This changes in Chapter 8 where more depth is given to him and he's revealed to be more important than previously thought.

* ''VideoGame/AnotherCode'': Jessica Robbins, Ashley's aunt, who served to raise Ashley before the events of the games. Her role in them is to get Ashley's butt into gear and provide some exposition around the halfway point. She does get some characterization - works as a math teacher, decent cook, understanding parental substitute, [[spoiler:knew enough of the truth to try and help Richard out]] - but her only relationship outside the family is [[spoiler:she and the BigBad of the first game used to bang each other at some point]].

* ''VideoGame/LonelyWolfTreat'': Trick's human master who raised them since childhood. Because a lot of mystery surrounds him, you can't really talk about much regarding him outside of the ParentalSubstitute relationship he had with them. This changes in Chapter 8 where more depth is given to him and he's revealed to be more important than previous thought.

Oftentimes, writers will give the central character a family to depict them as family-orientated, making that character more likable or relatable to the audience. It is also very common for a satellite family member to be harmed or placed in peril to invoke angst in the central character, spur them into a rescue mission, or motivate them to get revenge. A dysfunctional relationship with a satellite family member may be used as a FreudianExcuse for the central character. If the central character is a villain, they can be shown [[PetTheDog treating their family member well to humanize them]] or [[KickTheDog treating their family member badly to make them look worse]].

* Pretty much all of Nanoha's relatives in the first two seasons of ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' exist pretty much to establish that the nine-year-old heroine is not living alone. Beyond that their plot relevance is minimal, and once Nanoha grows up and moves out, they stop being mentioned at all outside of supplimental material. In an interesting twist, ''MGLN' was a spinoff of another series centered around her older siblings Kyouya and Miyuki, and in that series, ''she'' was the SatelliteFamilyMember.

* Pretty much all of Nanoha's relatives in the first two seasons of ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' exist pretty much to establish that the nine-year-old heroine is not living alone. Beyond that their plot relevance is minimal, and once Nanoha grows up and moves out, they stop being mentioned at all. In an interesting twist, MGLN was a spinoff of another series centered around her older siblings Kyouya and Miyuki, and in that series, ''she'' was the SatelliteFamilyMember.

* ''VideoGame/LonelyWolfTreat'': Trick's human master who raised them since childhood. Because a lot of mystery surrounds him, you can't really talk about much regarding him outside of the ParentalSubstitute relationship he had with them.

* ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'': In the opening scene, Peter Quill meets his mother who is dying of cancer. His mother tells him that he'll be her Little Star Lord before she died. This causes the tearful Peter to run away from the hospital and his family. He was captured by the Ravagers and grew up to be the space outlaw named "Star-Lord".