— Stephen Stotch, South Park, as he's about to beat his son.
Parents are supposed to be the protectors of children, but these parents are either so damaged themselves that they can't do the job, greedy or villainous to the point that they never had any interest in doing the job properly, or would rather use the child as a means to an end.
And sometimes, unfortunately, they're just sadistic assholes.
This includes parents who are emotionally, physically, or mentally abusive, or who neglectfully allow their children to be abused by others if they don't abuse the child themselves; sexual abuse is typically treated as a special kind of evil and thus not entirely in the same category as the other types of abuse. Sometimes, the abuse at the hands of their parents or others end up as the Freudian Excuse for a villain (or even worse, generates a villain who has Mommy Issues), but sometimes, the character manages to not grow up broken, bitter, and hateful, and ends up being a different and better person than the upbringing would incline one to think.
Abusive Parents are commonplace in fairy tales and Classical Mythology which makes this trope Older Than Feudalism. Note that The Brothers Grimm, when they collected European fairy tales, were uncomfortable with the idea of Abusive Parents and so frequently changed the Abusive Parents in the traditional stories into abusive step parents.
Sometimes, a parent will go as far as to kill the child in question, in which case this is Offing the Offspring. In other cases, the parent's abuse occasionally drives the offspring to kill them, usually becoming a Self-Made Orphan in the process.
Do bear in mind, though, that while some acts are obviously abusive, not everyone agrees on the line between actual abuse and merely heavy-handed parenting (or even normal parenting). Some include spanking as abuse; others think it's appropriate given certain guidelines. Some believe it's okay to make a kid go without a meal (they won't starve that easily); others disagree. Making a kid miss a friend's birthday sleepover — is that emotional abuse? Raising a kid without exposure to TV? Telling your daughter she's getting fat? A little friendly name-calling? There's a line here somewhere, but not everyone agrees on where it is.
If a parent has just dumped the child, for whatever reason, that's Parental Abandonment; if they just aren't paying much attention, that's Parental Neglect. Contrast Mama Bear or Papa Wolf (where others abuse the children and the parents abuse the abusers). Also Contrast Good Parents. Abusive Precursors can be considered this on a metaphorical level. See Hilariously Abusive Childhood for when this is cranked up to absurd levels and played for laughs. See Evil Matriarch and Archnemesis Dad for characters who will take this trope Up to Eleven.
Unfortunately, Abusive Parents are often Truth in Television. It is horrible that children suffer cruelties at the hands of those who are supposed to be the most loving and trustworthy figures in their lives. And the damage can take years to undo, even with competent assistance (if it can be undone at all - often, the (emotional) scars will stay forever). If you are concerned this may describe you or someone you love, please take it very seriously. See this help guide for some Real Life information and organizations to contact. Also, Chiworld has an international list of hotlines and websites you can contact if you need to discuss abuse or other issues in your life.
You Are Not Alone.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Advertising
There's a series of Jell-o pudding commercials that feature parents punishing their children for stealing it for themselves in ways that can only be described as this. One of them has a mother telling her daughter a story which is a not-so-disguised threat that she'll take her daughter's favorite things (a bike, her teddy bear) and throw them away until the girl gives her the empty containers. Another is told in nursery-rhyme style, featuring a little girl who is sent to work at a coal mine for stealing a pudding. The later is ambiguous enough so one doesn't know if the child is merely being threatened or if she's already been sent away. There was another ad where two parents scare their children lifeless over the pudding, giving a campfire-story threat involving the "Chocobeast."
This ridiculously disturbing Skittles commercial. Makes you wonder what the suits who greenlighted this thought about what image it gave of their company...
Fun fact, the woman playing the mother there is notorious for playing abusive shrews on shows. Her most evil one? Anita from Criminal Minds episode Mosley Lane.
Anime & Manga
Hinata Hyuuga from Naruto has shades of this, what with being so constantly berated for her mild nature and natural compassion that she developed a severe inferiority complex and was veritably disowned by her father and clan. The anime hints that things may have turned a little better, though.
Luckily, and probably thanks to Naruto, Hiashi evened out and became supportive to his eldest daughter. Hell, by Part II, he now thinks she is as strong as Neji and gives her a personal bodyguard.Character Development, you do your work.
It's played VERY, VERY straight for Gaara, however. Oh, where to begin? First, he was only conceived to imprison the daemonic incarnation of sand in order to serve the expressed purpose of being a mindless tool. Hated and feared by all of the villagers, he grew up lonely, confused, and suicidal - his only loved one and confidant being his maternal uncle, Yashamaru. THEN, when he was six years old, Yashamaru attempts to kill him on orders from the Kazekage, Gaara's father. This is not, however, a matter of duty, as Yashamaru tells Gaara he could have refused the Kazekage. THEN, to pour salt in the poor kid's wounds, Yashamaru tells Gaara that he has always hated him, and is unable to think of him as his nephew, that Gaara killed his mother/Yashamaru's older sister Karura due to Death by Childbirth and that he is nothing more than a monster that should carry out the ambitions of Karura's hatred for her village. Oh, and that Karura never loved him. And evidently since then, the Kazekage has been sending assassins for his own son's head for seven years, from the time Gaara was six. And we all know how Gaara turns out. He gets better, though.
Then we learn that the deal with Yashamaru and Karura was a lie. Karura actually died blessing baby!Gaara and promising to love and protect him even from beyond the grave, and Yashamaru's own actions and words were a Jerk Ass Facade coming from the orders of the Kazekage. When did Gaara find out? As he called out the Edo-Tensei-revived!Kazekage out for all the shit that he pulled against him. Woooooow.
.hack//SIGN had Tsukasa's real life father, who apparently despised the fact that she was a girl, slapped her at a police station when she was caught trying to steal a bra, and killed a kitten that she was trying to raise in a box in an alley. Word Of God says that he's also the man who tried to turn off her life support system in the real world.
In the Baker's Dozen episodes of Baccano!, Huey's conversation with Elmer reveals that he's spent quite a good deal of time emotionally manipulating his daughter, Chane, for that wonderfully vague and questionable goal of Science! While he does show her something resembling affection, it's very clear that he sees and treats her more like a well trained guinea pig than a human being. He doesn't even consider her human.
Huey: Chane, my animal experiment... Guinea pigs often behave in ways you don't expect.
Reiji had an alcoholic father and a mother who refused to do anything about it. His hatred for them was so great that he didn't even cry when they died. To make thing worse, Reiji himself becomes an abusive stepfather, with Wife Husbandry intent towards Rin, the daughter of his deceased cousin and wife Aki.
Both Mimi and Kuro's mothers are implied to be neglectful, and after Mimi has a run-in with a chikan, her mother actually scolded her for dressing the way she did even though her clothes weren't risque at all.
Hiroko "Hiro-chan" Kaizuka's father in Narutaru constantly berates her for anything but a 100% in every class (despite pressure from bullies to do poorly to lower the grading curve), and cuts her ties to the only friends she ever had. That last one finally broke herenough to kill the bullies *and* both of her parents.
Gendo Ikari is cold, dismissive, and occasionally insulting toward his son, Shinji, who, for the most part, desperately craves his father's approval. This also overlaps with neglect over his treatment of his surrogate daughter Rei.
Asuka's parents and stepparents deserve special mention, though her mother's abuse was a result of her being completely insane and not recognizing Asuka as her daughter at all.
It's not clear what kind of relationship Misato had with her father, but there was lots of emotional neglect. He did save her life during the Second Impact, but she was still emotionally scarred enough for the rest of her life.
Kenzo Kabuto from Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger. He almost died cause a laboratory experiment gone wrong, but his father saved his life. However both of them thought it would be better not telling Kouji and Shiro -Kenzo's sons- he had survived. For YEARS Kouji and Shiro grew up mostly alone, thinking their father died alongside their mother while he was building a Humongous Mecha to defend humankind. When Kenzo revealed the truth to them, Kouji was too glad to hold a grudge, but Shiro took a long while until he could forgive him. Also, Kenzo had no troubles slapping his adoptive son when he thought Tetsuya was crossing the line. All of it finally bit everyone's butts at the end of the series.
Professor Gennosuke Yumi also counts. Along the series he quite neglected Sayaka. It was obvious his family was less important to him than his career, and often he was absent when her daughter needed him. Likewise, his niece Yuri is a conceited, cranky, brat, and he explains that is cause her parents never have time for her.
The Dark Magical Girl in Princess Tutu suffers from this — her father constantly tells her that she is "hideous" and that "no one could ever love you enough to die for you". He even tries to take her heart to feed his powers at one point. However, near the end, it's revealed that he isn't her true father at all, and kidnapped her as a baby — which frees her up to help the main characters kill him.
In Sailor Moon, parental trouble shows up often. Ami's mother is a well-meaning but workaholic doctor and her father is a wandering artist who never sees her. Rei's mother is dead and her father ignores her in favor of his career, to the point of missing her birthday dinners; at least Rei has her grandfather, but in the anime, despite his good intentions, he's a pervert. Hotaru's mother is dead and her father is either possessed or possessed and crazy (depending on the canon) and, in the anime, he lets his assistant Kaorinite psychologically abuse the girl. Chibi-Usa thinks of herself as neglected, which may or may not be true, since we only really see the future through her eyes; regardless, the perceived neglect is enough to give Wiseman the pull he needs to turn Chibi-Usa into Black Lady.
Actually, no. The memories that Wiseman manipulated were not of Usagi and Mamoru emotionally abusing Chibi-Usa, but of them telling her to stand on her own feet in case they weren't there for her. Chibi-Usa was stressed and depressed because of other deals (like showing emotional exhaustion from all of her trials, and how she was despairing because Usagi couldn't wake up her own future self from the coma she was in), and it wasn't helped by Wiseman using his powers to mind rape her.
There is something unsettling about Kyouko's mother in Skip Beat!!. The few scenes we see of her is when she is openly berating her then six-years-old daughter for not being academically perfect, and then ignoring her. Next we know, Kyouko is living most of her "family" life with Shou's family, the Fuwas, who are quite cold to her while planning to make her either marry Shou or shape her into the heiress to their ryokan but she still sees them as warmer than her mom. By the time Kyouko has snapped out her pathological search of affection and is trying to live in another city, it has become more than obvious that Mrs. Mogami just plainly doesn't care for her, not even to seek fame because of Kyouko's increasingly notoriety.
Chrona's Ambiguous Gender actually adds toward this, as it implies that to Medusa, it isn't even worth the trouble of giving Chrona a gender or acknowledging it. To Medusa, she's just a weaponized Guinea pig.
In True Tears, Shinichiro's mother hated the deceased mother of Hiromi, who has taken up residence with Shinchiro's family. She makes Hiromi very aware of this and is a driving factor in turning Hiromi into a very emotionally repressed girl.
Kohane's mother in xxxHoLic sees her daughter only as a financial asset, and maintains her as such. Afraid that anything "impure" would disrupt her powers as a medium, Mrs. Tsuyuri forbids Kohane from having any friends and even from talking to people. (This culminates in her throwing scalding hot coffee at Watanuki's face after she finds Kohane eating dinner with him.) Watanuki also notices that she refuses to call her daughter by her name or even touch her.
It goes into physical abuse after Kohane points out to her mother that the reason she never touched Kohane was because the mother thought of herself as unclean. She viciously slaps Kohane on live television and would have done it again if Watunaki hadn't protected Kohane.
In Bleach, Inoue Orihime's parents. By her brother's own words: "Our mother was a whore, our father a demon. If a child cried, they beat her until she stopped crying. That's the kind of people they were." Hence why he ran away right after turning 18, with toddler!Orihime in tow. Then the same brother tried to kill Orihime...though in his defense, it was only when he turned into a hollow.
Sherry Belmont's mother from Konjiki no Gash Bell. It's hinted in the backflashes that whenever she tried her best at something to please her (like playing the piano), she snapped at her for the slightest mistake. She abandons Sherry for stealing the family jewel (which she didn't) and hasn't seen her since. Sherry was about to kill herself because of the abuse before her friend Koko came along. Sherry needs a hug there, but at least some things get better for her later.
In the series Kannazukino Miko, flashbacks indicate that Himeko grew up in an abusive home.
Miyu's mother in Super Gals indicates her utter distaste for her daughter. With the exception of providing her with the bare necessities, she fails to provide any love and compassion.
Miyu dramatically demands her mother's attention in the first season only to continue getting the cold shoulder with a harsh response of "I see the man who left me in you".
Some conversations in Durarara!! imply that Masaomi Kida's parents are neglectful and uncaring towards him, and don't seem the least bit concerned about him, whether he ends up in the hospital due to gang activity or drops out of school and disappears almost entirely.
Emperor Charles zi Britannia from Code Geass, an extreme Social Darwinist who pushes his kids to take dangerous jobs... and subtly encourages them to war with and kill one another to secure their position in the line of succession. Lelouch gets the worst of it, getting disowned, screamed at, and used as a political hostage when he gets angry at Charles for not giving a damn about the assassination of Lelouch's mother or the crippling of his little sister in the same incident. Late in the series, we learn that Charles actually did love Lelouch's mother Marianne and considered her children to be his favorites; his abusive attitude, which Marianne supported and went along with, was intended to make Lelouch and Nunnally stronger people. The pair even wanted to get the two kids in on their Assimilation Plot, but Lelouch, having recently crossed over the Despair Event Horizon, was in no mood to hear that all the crap he'd been put through in the last decade was "because Mommy and Daddy love you very much".
And let's not forget that Nunnally's blindness was not the result of traumatic stress, but because Charles inflicted it upon her with his Geass, ostensibly to protect her by making people think she wasn't a threat (her paraplegia, however, was authentic). You better believe Lelouch wasn't happy about that.
In ...Virgin Love, Kaoru's mom neglected him for her relationships and then blamed him when they went sour. His emotional isolation and fear of relationships stem directly from not wanting to be her.
Hisoka Kurosaki of Yami No Matsuei got this as a result of his parents's fear of his ability and being a Replacement Goldfish for his dead sister. Not really helped by how his family was associated with a certain demon, which rapes his father and forcibly impregnates his mother.
Almost everything wrong in Ranma's life can be traced back to the actions of his father, Genma. Juusenkyo? Genma's idea. A crippling fear of cats? Genma didn't bother reading the page mentioning how utterly stupid a particular training regime was. Getting Ukyou and Shampoo dead set on killing them? Both due to Genma's short-sighted greed and gluttony, though Ranma was somewhat to blame in the latter case. Even separating Ranma from his mother at toddler age, thus ensuring the boy would get very limited social and emotional development, was Genma's idea, because she would have made him "weak"... and let's not even go into the bit about the seppuku vow Ranma was made to take without knowing. Although he may claim he did it all to make Ranma a peerless fighter and man among men, his actual motivation is mostly to provide him, Genma, with a carefree future where he doesn't have to work and can just while his days away with his best friend, Soun.
That's not his motivation. If all he wanted to do was lounge around, he could just as easily have let Ranma live a more normal life, brought him to Soun to make arrangements for uniting the two families (Contrary to popular belief, the engagement has nothing to do with uniting the two schools. If Genma and Soun wanted to unite the schools, they could simply train each other's families in their respective arts.), and then freeload off the Tendos, like he does now. It's not like Ranma pampers him or Genma gets financial gain from training his son to be a martial artist.
Ironically enough, he may be the less abusive parent compared to his wife, Nodoka. While Genma manipulates Ranma for his own personal gain, he still attempts to protect Ranma throughout his life. Nodoka, on the other hand, is completely determined to carry out the Seppuku contract she and Genma had Ranma sign when he was just a baby. Even though she wants to see her son, she will kill him if she doesn't find him manly. And even after she discovers Ranma's a GenderBender and determines that his actions are still manly enough for the contract, she is still perfectly willing to carry out the Seppeku ritual if she feels that his conduct isn't satisfactory... Yeah, Ranma's family is pretty screwed up.
In The Wallflower, Kyohei's mother repeatedly tells him that she wishes he'd never been born, and she wishes he'd never had his face. It's what causes him to be living with the other boys in the first place. This leads to a very poignant moment in the anime where Sunako witnesses the abuse, then repeats some of the words to him in a fit of rage. This causes Kyohei to run away and join a biker gang until he is lured home by Sunako's fried shrimp. In the live action version, this causes a Tear Jerker episode when Kyohei reconnects with his mother and makes her a special lunch from one of his fondest memories. The memory is not fond for her, however, and she snaps, screaming all of the abuses of his childhood at him as she breaks down. Later on, his father shows his abusive side, by demanding that Kyohei stay out of their lives for good.
Pokémon: Chimchar and Charmander were treated this way by their former trainers before Ash came to the rescue. Chimchar even had a bit of character development an episode after being adopted by its new trainer to get used to the drastic change.
Soichiro Arima from Kare Kano had very violent parents who beat him until he was abandoned and sent to live with his more generous aunt and uncle.
Note that in the manga, Arima's birth father, Reiji, actually realized this was wrong and directly asked his older brother to raise his kid so little Arima would have a normal life from then on. Also, several years later Reiji comes back and attempts to make things better (though, seriously, threatening him and Yukino at gunpoint to make sure your boy listens to you?). Arima's mother Ryouko, on the other hand, remains abusive — Reiji came back to Japan intending to kill her on behalf of their son.
Shiina's parents aren't together anymore in Narutaru, because her mother Misono strangled her once during an emotional breakdown. Shiina also gets emotional abuse from her, since Misono was so mentally damaged by the death of her older daughter Mishou that she convinced herself that Shiina, born some days before Misho's demise, was to blame. And when Mom actually redeems herself? She's almost immediately murdered.
Misaki Aoyagi, Ritsuka's mentally unstable mother in Loveless, abuses her remaining son after the eldest one, Seimei, dies in very odd circumstances. While the anime mostly implies the abuse, showing her screaming and throwing things and one brief silhouette of her strangling him, the manga goes into almost graphic detail with the maddened Misaki hitting, biting, stabbing (with a fork), and trying to drown her 12-year-old son, all the while screaming about how he's not her real child, how she wants the "true Ritsuka" to come back, and how she should have had him aborted. The best part is that his father is implied to live with them and yet does nothing to stop it.
Misaki actually starts beating Ritsuka before Seimei died. The reason Misaki started beating Ritsuka was because, at age 10, Ritsuka's personality changed completely, causing Misaki to claim that he wasn't her son. Actually, when he was alive (or rather, before he was thought to be dead), Seimei would protect Ritsuka from Misaki when she went into a rage, and would tend to his wounds when he wasn't there to protect him.
There's a shot of his father standing by the door while she's beating Ritsuka at one point.
Very early in the manga, there is an occasion where Ritsuka's father grabs Misaki and instructs Ritsuka to run while he holds her back. I thought it was implied that the father spent all his time at work, possibly because his home life was so unpleasant.
A recurring theme in the semi-autobiographical stories by horror manga author Hideshi Hino. Dad is an abusive alcoholic pig slaughterer while mom went violently insane the day the Author Avatar was born with a smile on his face and a blood clot/his dead twin's head in his hands — "Demon child!". Mom enjoys tying up lil' Hideshi and torturing him while Dad has to tie up mom in order to control her. Incidentally, Grandpa is a yakuza and/or a gambler while Grandma believes she's a chicken/is violently raped, murdered, and stuffed down a well, depending on what story you're reading.
Creed from Black Cat was physically and emotionally abused by his mother (a prostitute) when he was young, causing him to become a Draco in Leather Pants.
.hack//SIGN indicated that Tsukasa was physically beaten as well as neglected, such as when Krim just getting upset caused Tsukasa to have a flashback and start to cry "Please don't hit me, please don't hit me!". Tsukasa's father is also implied to be the "crazy man" who tried to kill Tsukasa's real body in the hospital bed. .hack//LINK: Twilight Knights has shown more delightful images from Tsukasa's real life childhood, showing multiple body-wide bruises.
In Kannazuki no Miko, Souma and Tsubasa were often beaten by their father, one flashback showing him holding a baseball bat. This drives Tsubasa to murder him, and is the main reason for Tsubasa joining Orochi.
Also, it's strongly implied that Himeko's adoptive parents were abusive.
Baccano's Fermet, mentioned above in Emotional Abuse as well, for Offing the Offspring for 200 years. Let's just hope he doesn't earn a spot in later novels for sexual abuse.
While really more of an Abusive Uncle, Complete Monster Teppei Hojo from Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni definitely fits this trope. He beats Satoko and forces her to do chores for him, threatening to burn down her beloved brother's room if she doesn't comply. It's revealed later on that he's also a pimp, and is engaged in a fraud scheme with one of his working girls (Rina Mamiya) to scam half a million yen out of Rena's father. Teppei's fate changes in each of the three arcs he appears in, and none of them are pretty. He is murdered by Keiichi in Tatarigoroshi-hen; murdered by Rena in Tsumihoroboshi-hen; murdered by Rena, Keiichi, and Shion (all together) in Tsukiotoshi-hen; and arrested by Child Services in Minagoroshi-hen.
Though she is rarely mentioned, Satoko's aunt behaved in a similar manner. It didn't end well for her.
Welcome to the NHK:It's revealed that Misaki was physically abused by her stepfather. The abuse ultimately caused her mother to commit suicide through falling off a cliff. The abuse also caused Misaki to find someone else she thought was more else worthless than herself as a result of the abuse, causing the plot of the show.
Similarly, in Umineko No Naku Koro Ni, Rosa Ushiromiya is this towards Maria. She is known to leave Maria at home for several days on end, often breaking promises she'd made to her beforehand for no reason other than to go on a vacation and leaving her very young daughter to buy dinner at the supermarket every day. And when people who notice the signs try to interfere on Maria's behalf, it...isn't nice. To say nothing of the times Rosa beats the shit out of her.
However, Rosa is somewhat unique in that she genuinly loves Maria and, in fact, is very much a Mama Bear when it's truly needed (in Episode 2, she makes a badass Last Stand against the goat butlers; in the game's Episode 8, she shoves a rifle down Erika's throat when she gives Maria a Hannibal Lecture). She frequently apologizes to Maria after beating her, and even spoils and pampers her in several scenes (buying her ice-cream, giving her the stuffed bear she'd call "Sakutaro", etc). In addition, she's portrayed quite sympathetically compared to other examples, though not in a way that justifies her actions, due to herincredibly screwed up life.
It doesn't help that Rosa herself comes from an abusive household, since Kinzo Ushiromiya wasn't exactly a model father, either to her or to her siblings Krauss, Eva and Rudolf. Worse, he also commits Parental Incest with his illegitimate daughter, Beatrice Ushiromiya.
In Durarara!!, Anri Sonohara's father started physically lashing out at her when his antique shop business started going sour. During one of these beatings, Anri's mother Sayaka went Mama Bear and grabbed an antique sword they recently came into possession of to protect her. Too bad it was anEvil Weapon named "Saika"...
And from the novels, Aoba was beaten regularly by his older brother, Izumi, just because his brother thought that he wasn't getting as much love as him, and the poor kid wouldn't fight back. His brother then stated that he went too far with something that is assumed not to be a physical beating but a sexual one and it finally caused Aoba to retaliate and set his room on fire. Even though they live separately now, Izumi (who has gotten out of jail because of the fight with Yellow Scarves) tells Izaya that he plans on killing hisbrother for making him suffer. Oh, and after all the abuse, his brotherdidn't really turn outthat sane.
Niki from Urotsukidoji was shown to have abusive alcoholic parents who beat him on a regular basis. This eventually causes him to kill them.
Bleach's Isshin Kurosaki is somewhat of a subversion. While he often physically attacks Ichigo, not only is it Played for Laughs, he usually winds up on the wrong end of an ass kicking for it (often with him praising Ichigo for curb stomping him), and neither of them gets hurt worse than a few bumps and bruises. They also seem to have a good relationship aside from this, despite it being a very unusual one. It also turns out that he's a Shinigami himself, and assumed Ichigo would become one, so he was actually making sure his son knew how to fight. And when Ichigo does truly need Isshin's emotional and fighting support, he promptly gives it to him.)
Misae Nohara from Crayon Shin Chan strikes his son Shinnosuke on his head most of the time he misbehaves or pokes fun at her. There are even times when she spanks him whenever he crosses the line. While most of the time it's Played for Laughs, some other times can be Disproportionate Retribution.
Played for Laughs in One Piece with Monkey D. Garp and Luffy. The former used many tricks to strengthen his grandson, including tossing him in a bottomless ravine, leave him in the jungle at night and tieing baloons at him and make him fly to the sky.
It is implied in Dragon Ball (specifically Goku and Frieza's fight) that Frieza's father, King Cold, and possibly his own mother, resorts to physical abuse on Frieza, as he mentions when fighting Goku that, besides Goku, the only people who ever managed to hurt him were "his loving parents". That might explain a few things about Frieza's nature.
In the manga version of Yu Yu Hakusho, Mukuro's stepfather had her outfitted at birth with cybernetics that allowed him to use her as his obedient Sex Slave. Which he did the moment it was finished. He raped her constantly throughout her childhood until she finally mutilated herself with acid so that he wouldn't want to touch her any more, whereupon he threw her out and abandoned her. And did we mention that he implanted an artifical memory of him having once treated her with kindness, so she would never be able to bring herself to kill him no matter how cruel he was? In the end, Hiei obtains a demonic plant called a "pseudocreature" from Kurama and uses it on him, turning him into an immobile half-plant thing that can still feel everything, but will regenerate any wound except for the destruction of its brain. He then gives him to her as a birthday present — and as well as telling her that her memory of his kindness was a fake, so she is now truly able to do whatever she wants to.
Mayu from Elfen Lied was raped by her stepfather, this being the reason why she ran away from home.
To add extreme insult to injury, her already-distant mother, when Mayu told of this abuse, did not disbelieve her or ask her to not say anything... she slapped and berated her out of jealousy, treating her violated daughter as a sexual competitor. While in the anime, she refers to Kouta and Yuka as the mother and father of the group, in the manga, she is understandably still phobic towards guys, and while she respects, admires, and is grateful to the pair, any overt parental associations are kind of shut out.
Ironically, she bonds the most with Bandou who generally treats her like crap (mostly verbally). Then again, Even Evil Has Standards in Bandou's case.
It is implied that Akira Sakura suffers this at the hand of her father in the Narutaru anime, and practically spelled out in the manga. And she calls him out by stabbing him to death.
The manga Bitter Virgin focuses on Hinako, age 16, who is revealed to have been a victim of sexual abuse from her stepfather. Made worse by the fact her mother refused to believe it was happening until this abuse got Hinako pregnant for the second time. The experience left her with a powerful phobia towards men.
Kira from the manga Marsis raped by her stepfather. That's how her shyness and fear of boys gets explained.
Soubi from Loveless suffered sexual abuse at the hands of his teacher Ritsu, who, though not technically his father, was the man responsible for raising him after he was orphaned and therefore as close to a parent as he had.
Hayate from Hayate the Combat Butler suffered this in spades. Not only they ran away from home and slapped their son with their debts, they even sold his organs to the Yakuza to pay it off!!!
Hinagiku and Yukiji's real parents did this to her and her sister, albeit not as severely.
Neither Hayate or the 'Katsura' sisters are hinted at being abused through the use of money. Hayate simply had to work for himself instead of being supported by them like normal parents. They had originally planned on training him to follow in their footsteps.
Hinagiku tells us that her parents simply dropped the debt on the children and disappeared. She still loves them, and loves her foster parents, it's implied that the love is the same for both, and the Katsura parents are implied to be very loving, so abuse is unlikely from the unknown parents.
Common plot element in Gunslinger Girl. Angelica in particular, since her father ran her over with his car to collect her insurance. She survived, but barely..
A one-shot manga by Rumiko Takahashi that opens with a son trying to escape from his parents, since they keep trying to use his bone marrow to create gold and thus solve their financial woes.
In the latest manga of Rumiko Takahashi, RIN-NE, Rinne's dad Sabato seems to have studied at the Genma Saotome Anything Goes School of Parenting... and then invented some more techniques of his own to enhance his massive jerkass status. Let's see...Daddy's been stealing Rinne's money for years, forced him to take on his debts, and is trying to get him married to take over his failing company... probably to force even more debt on him while he gets to go off skipping.
In Lucky Star this seemed to be the case for Akira Kogami, who works in the Lucky Channel segment. It's even implied in the first episode.
Gambino, Guts' adoptive father, is an asshole to Guts in Berserk. Berating him on a daily basis, attempting to murder him while telling him that it was his fault that his Ill Girl wife Sylph died, telling him that he's a demon child and that he should've died, putting him through extremely harsh training, selling him to a stranger for one night who rapes him, and putting him out on the battlefield at a young age.
And not to be outdone by the main character, a flashback reveals a very young Casca was sold to a noble who needed a new serving girl. Unfortunately, the noble wanted a different kind of service from her than cooking or cleaning. Saved by Griffith, Casca joined him as a mercenary in his band until the Day of the Eclipse when in a supreme act of tragic irony, Griffith, in his very first act upon becoming Femto, raped her in front of Guts. Princess Charlotte also suffered an attempt by her father after a confrontation with the still human Griffith forced The King to confront how he really felt toward her in addition to the cold emotional kind from her mother and Farnese had to suffer quite a bit of the emotional kind from her dad. Let's face it, it sucks to be a kid in the Berserk universe, except for the following example.
Averted with: Schierke, a young witch, raised by another witch named Flora, who was a kind, gentle, grandmotherly type, and one of the only characters in that world who could be called truly good.
Yuki is used by his parents as a tool for furthering their financial gain. His mother abandons him to live with the already screwed-up Akito, who starts out kind to Yuki but eventually becomes emotionally abusive toward him [and some say physically]. They show no affection toward him but have great interest in the value that his curse can bring to their household. They control every facet of his life and keep him locked away unless they stand to gain from it, pretending not to hear him when he protests. This leads Yuki to seek the mother he never had in Tohru rather than a romantic partner, in a non-squicky way. In a subversion, though, the manga hints that Yuki's mom may have had a Heel Realization, or had started working on it.
Kyo is feared by his own parents because of the volatile nature of his curse. His mother becomes obsessively overprotective of him, not out of love, but an attempt to learn to love him and protect her reputation, which Kyo sees through at a young age. The strain of the constant ruse and Kyo's temper drives her over the edge to suicide. At this point, Kyo's father goes completely loopy, abandons him and demands he be kept in solitary confinement, as is tradition for the rejected person who is possessed by the Cat. This is delayed by his later adoption by Kazuma, and definitely abolished when Akito has a Heel Face Turn.
Momiji is rejected straight from birth by his mentally-unstable mother. She was prone to screaming and throwing things in despair, eventually driving herself to madness and appealing to have her memories erased. She told the doctor, Hatori, that she rejected ever giving birth to such a creature... in front of Momiji. He then lived with Hatori and was visited by his father occasionally, but forbade to see his beloved younger sister Momo. It's hinted in the manga, though, that his dad is starting to ease up and may let him meet up with Momo some time later, when they're older.
Kisa's father is unaccounted for in the story, and her well-intentioned but very insecure mother is so overprotective of her that, after Kisa runs away from home due to bullying, she nearly reaches a breaking point and gives up on raising her. Things get better, though.
Isuzu aka Rin is raised lovingly by her parents until she expresses doubt that they could be happy all the time when the other families are experiencing such pain. It's then that they snap, and the happy days are revealed to be nothing but a facade they kept up to keep things stable in the house. After their true feelings come out, they ignore Rin entirely, occasionally yelling at or physically abusing her, leaving her with huge scars on her back. After she runs away from home and falls ill, her parents arrive at the hospital to officially disown her. She lives with Kagura from then on, and later with Kazuma.
Akito is raised as a man by her jealous mother, Ren, in order to separate the god-child from her husband Akira (Ren ever demanded this as a condition to not have her abort the unborn Akito, under the excuse that a female leader would "make the Sohma clan look bad".) After Akira's death, Akito is continually manipulated and demeaned by Ren, who tries to take the Zodiac members from her. In terms of emotionally abusive parents in Fruits Basket, Ren's is the worst case, making Akito into the delusional and violent monster s/he becomes as she grows older.
Not only members of the Zodiac are hurt by parental abuse in this story, though: Arisa Uotani is raised by a neglectful, alcoholic father who pays her so little mind that she joins a gang and rarely comes home, after her mom leaves them for someone else. Machi Kuragi is driven to compulsive acts of violence after being raised by a mother who forced her to be perfect. Nothing she did was ever good enough, and the incredible pressure drove Machi to insecurity and depression. After her baby brother was born, the mother's hopes were invested in him and she falsely accused Machi of being murderously jealous, separating the siblings and making poor Machi even more dysfunctional. Tohru's mother Kyoko was rejected by her parents after she joined a gang as well. Beforehand, her father only expressed contempt for her, and her mother sheepishly ignored the abuse and only worried about what others said about Kyouko's bad behavior. Even after her husband died, they only called to tell her not to come home with her child. Even normal people have terrible parents in this story!
Ranma ½: Genma Saotome manages both emotional and physical abuse (constantly insulting and demeaning him, stealing his food, the Neko-ken) of Ranma, and isn't much better towards his wife. Soun Tend? manages emotional neglect of his three daughters, due to the huge Values Dissonance: he does have good intentions, like his and Kasumi's Image Song "Otousan" reveals, but is just too backwards in regards to mentality. Finally, "grandfather" Happ?sai rounds off the sexual abuse with groping and molesting anything that looks even vaguely female. And somehow none of these people are considered examples of this trope!
Though she gets a lot of glossing over, both in the series and in reality, Nodoka Saotome, Ranma's mother, actually covers emotional abuse just as well as her husband, if not more so. While it was not her idea, and she is a traditional sort of woman, her dedication to a contract that Ranma "signed" when he was barely a toddler, incapable of understanding what was going on, is insane. Worse, the conditions of said contract are so vague as to be almost non-existent — the verbal part of the oath was "Ranma will become a Man among Men", while the written contract simply states "I will commit Seppuku", sealed with Genma's thumbprint and baby Ranma's handprint. Despite this, she is perfectly willing to consider it valid, and is so dedicated that she carries a sword whevere she goes, just in case she should meet Ranma and have to call him to go through with it. She even bathes and sleeps with it! Ranma is thusly forced to hide himself from her, masquerading as "Ranko Tend?", a fictious cousin of his fianc?Akane. Even when they do finally meet face to face, while she doesn't demand he go through with the oath for his Gender Bender curse, she doesn't call the contract fulfilled either. Even at the end of the series, it's still in application, meaning she can threaten him with a torturous death by disembowelment whenever she pleases.
In Kannazuki no Miko, Himeko lost her biological parents at a young age. Her foster parents' treatment left her with serious self-confidence issues.
Thankfully, no character in Glass Fleet suffers all four forms of abuse, but together the three main characters manage to combine all four. Vetti, the main antagonist, suffers extreme emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of his stepparents. Cleo suffers mildly from physical abuse, and Racine's father's neglect of her is minimized by her older brother's involvement in her life. As it turns out, Vetti and Cleo's abuse was for the sake of a prophecy.
Mr. Fujinami, of Urusei Yatsura, fulfills at least several of the types of abuse in regards to his daughter Ryuunosuke. Apparently solely because of his insane levels of chauvinism, he is convinced that a "mere" girl is unable to run his precious (run down) tea shop, and so he has forcibly raised her as a boy, despite her protests, since her mother Masako died probably left him. He refuses to allow her to buy any feminine clothes, both by refusing to give her money to do so and stealing/destroying any she does manage to get, demands she speak in masculine fashion, refers to her only as a male, frightens off any boys she acts interested in, encourages girls who are attracted to her, insults and mocks her femininity, and otherwise goes out of his way to thwart any attempt by her to discover her feminine side. He routinely enforces his desires with violence, and though she is quick to degrade him and beat the tar out of him in return, he always manages to beat her. For some insane reason he has dozens of pictures of himself, baby Ryuunosuke and women hired for that purpose posing, so many so that even he can't remember which one of them is the real Masako Fujinami, and so Ryuunosuke will never know what her mother looked like. Despite his daughter's extreme distaste and discomfort, he set up for her an Arranged Marriage with a male-to-female Wholesome Crossdresser, Nagisa.
General Cross from D. Gray-Man raised Allen Walker and sort of acted as a surrogate father, but it is implied and shown that he heavily abuses Allen (though it's usually shown comedically). When Allen was young, Cross would frequently gamble and get into debt, leaving young Allen to deal with the debt collectors (which is the contributing reason to why Allen became so good at cheating in cards). Cross is also shown later punching Allen (again, played for comedy), suggesting that he frequently did this even when Allen was young. He also left the poor kid to hunt down the Black Order headquarters by himself with no clues to go on, knocking Allen out so he could avoid reporting in. Basically, despite the fact that it's played for laughs, Cross's behavior spans emotional, physical, and financial abuse, with a side order of abandonment. Poor Allen.
In Hana Yori Dango, Tsukasa's violent and often sociopathic behavior is explained to be a result of his parents never being at home and leaving him to be raised mainly by his older sister Tsubaki, a Tsundere who despite her good heart, had a tendency to correct his arrogant behavior with violence. His mother Kaede is not above humiliating and threatening his girlfriend Tsukushi in order to get the both of them to do what she wants, and in the live-action drama she's even worse: while he's in New York studying to take over the family business, Tsukasa makes a remark that causes the company's stock to plummet, and many workers are laid off as a result. To keep her son in line, Kaede pays a man working for the company with, whom Tsukasa has become friends, to get laid off, pretend to become homeless, and commit suicide in front of Tsukasa. This affects Tsukasa so badly that for months he wakes up with nightmares about the man and is constantly wracked with guilt, which keeps him from breaking off an Arranged Marriage that he doesn't want. It does NOT help that Kaede is constantly making comments referring to the "dead" man to manipulate him.
Some mention should go to Tsukushi's parents. While they're generally flighty but loving, one chapter has her coming home from school to find them and her brother packing their things: they were moving out to the city, not taking Tsukushi, or planning to tell her until that very day. Keep in mind Tsukushi's is in school and has no job...Her parents promise to send money for her, but when she finally gets a letter from them, it says that they don't have money to send her yet, so here, have some strips of seaweed. Tsukushi honestly thought she'd starve, and probably would have if not for Tsukasa.
In Mirai Nikki Yuno had control-freak parents who measured everything she did from how many hours she got to sleep to how many calories she had a day. They also kept her in a cage and starved her in an effort to raise her to be a model person and ignored her whenever she begged them to let her out. She eventually trapped them in the cage and starved them to the point that they died.
In Bleach, Mayuri Kurotsuchi is horribly abusive towards his daughter/lieutenant Nemu; he's emotionally and physically abusive towards her.
Although Baron Julian Danglars from Gankutsuou maintains that he only wants his daughter Eugenie to be happy and that everything he does is for her sake, he clearly cares more about money than his own family. He is the most powerful banker in France and he seeks wealth above everything else, disregarding the feelings of those closest to him in the process. He sees the marriage of Eugénie (first to Albert and later to Andrea) as a way to enhance his family's wealth and prestige. The problem is his pushing Eugenie into marrying Andrea (against her wishes even) turns out bad because Andrea is actually insane, and is revealed to be her half-brother. Andrea routinely sexually harasses Eugenie and eventually tries to rape her as well. Not to mention Eugenie had started to warm up to the idea of marrying Albert and had fallen in love with him. Her father cancelled the engagement to Albert because of a bad rumor surrounding his family and gave Andrea permission to marry her, without even asking his daughter if she wanted to first or even informing her of his plans. And later refuses to let her out of the house, and slaps her when she attempts to go see Albert.
The backstory of Sugishita from Ooku, a senior page in the titular Inner Chambers of the Shogun's palace, hits both the sexual and financial versions of this trope hard. The setting and situation (Tokeguwa Japan after generations of an endemic man-killing plague) generates enough Deliberate Values Dissonance for the reader to swallow the idea of poor families with a healthy son collecting the occasional stud fee without choking (too much) but... Every. Single. Bloody. Night. From the age offourteen!?!?!
Ian's parents in Not Simple run the full gamut of this trope, from Ian's distant and verbally abusive father who also sexually abuses Ian's then teenaged sister, to his alcoholic mother who not only beats him, but even sells a young Ian's body to a pimp in order to fund her addiction.
In Speed Grapher, woobie heroine Kagura experiences a number of forms of abuse. Her mother, Shinzen underfeeds and generaly mistreats her, is cruelly insulting, and is shown slapping her on a couple of occasions, since she hates Kagura almost from birth because Shinzen's doctor and husband/Kagura's father ran out on them when Shinzen was still pregnant. Also, Suitengu having Kagura be the "goddess" at his club, with Shinzen's approval, is pretty close to sexual abuse, given that her role is to kiss a bunch of creepy pervs.
Two of Suitengu's debtors shown in the series committed Financial Abuse- the first smashed his son's piggy bank to try and pay part of the debt, and the latter was going to try to sell his daughter to Suitengu (also some sexual abuse, given that he did this because of a mistaken impression that Suitengu was a pedophile. Too bad he pressed Suitengu's biggest Berserk Button (sexual abuse of children) and ended up death).
Gregory, of Gregory Horror Show, has Gregory Mama, the only character that Gregory actually fears, and is a bigger villain than he is! Gregory Mama frequently shouts at her son, insults him, and can't seem to go a single conversation without striking him on the head with her staff. She's also a witch, and is most probably immortal...meaning Gregory will have to put up with her abuse for all eternity. The guy hates her so much that when a shelf falls on her and crushes her, he actually considers letting her die, or finishing her off himself. (She threw the shelf off of her, screaming at him for not helping, and Gregory broke down the door in his haste to get the hell away.)
In Yu-Gi-Oh!, emotional and implied physical abuse of Seto Kaiba by his adoptive father, Gozaburo. Also emotional neglect of his other sons, Noah and Mokuba. Backfired.
Ryuuji Otogi as well in the manga, where his father is a crazy clown who carries a whip and uses it on Ryuuji in front of his friends, as well as emotionally abusing him through the guilt-trip of telling Ryuuji he's the only one who can save his father. Cue issues and Ryuuji very cautiously telling his father that it's wrong to want revenge.
Katsuya Jounouchi has a drunken father who throws bottles at his friends when they try to visit, under the impression that they're Jounouchi.
Malik's father cuts scars/tattoos into his back as part of a coming-of-age ritual, ignores his eldest daugher Isis, and uses his adopted brother Riishid, as a whipping boy. Malik's alter-ego gets revenge.
Nah, Yugi's mum shows up for a few seconds in one episode of the original Japanese version. She smiles and waves. Yugi's not allowed to have a mum in America, but she's a parent with a clean record in Japan.
The Big Bad Gyokumen Kousho in Saiyuki, who uses her daughter Liriin and her stepson Kougaiji for her own devices, including experimenting on them. She also has an attraction/crush on Kougaiji, even brainwashing him at one point to become her mindless, obedient slave.
Gojyo's stepmother was both physically and emotionally abusive to him, beating him and berating him for the color of his hair, which was a constant reminder that he was a half-breed and therefore that her husband had had an affair with a human woman. She was also sexually abusive to her own blood-related son Jien - when she was so upset she might actually do serious harm to Gojyo, he would intervene and allow her to sleep with him, since he reminded her of her husband. It's clearly implied that this was her idea and not his, although he goes along with itfor his little brother's sake.
Seto no Hanayome has main character Nagasumi Michisio's parents. It's a lucky thing he's an Iron Butt Monkey, considering all the abuse he gets from everyone around him including his own parents, who regularly beat him up for all the trouble that's happened. They also explicitly say, even when Nagasumi's around, that he's a worthless disgrace to the family and rather have his girlfriend Sun for a daughter instead, to the point that they move him to the attic and move Sun to his room. And then when Sun leaves, they beg her to stay with them and forget about her boyfriend.
After his parents' death, Takashi Natsume of Natsume Yuujinchou was passed around from foster family to foster family. While most of the time they just tolerated him until they could push the responsibility on to someone else, chapter 31 confirms that some of them were physically or emotionally abusive.
In the manga Satou Kashi no Dangan wa Uchinukenai, self-proclaimed mermaid Umino's rockstar father clearly fits into the emotionally abusive category, often shouting at his teenaged daughter and once leaving her behind in a grocery store parking lot simply because a defective shopping cart made him angry. Later we see that she is also physically abused, and her father eventually beats her so badly that he kills her and tries to hide the body.
Oriko Magica: Yuma Chitose's dad was almost never around. Her mom blamed Yuma, constantly telling her she was useless and even burning her forehead with cigarettes. Watching her parents get eaten alive and being subsequently reduced to living on the streets was a step up for Yuma.
Gilbert has suffered emotional, physical and sexual abuse by his father (who poses as his uncle) Auguste. He first uses Gilbert to be "his pet" and later turns him to a "pure and artistic" individual by the way of neglect and manipulating his love for him. Gilbert's mother can also fall into the emotional and physical abuse category, since she went a little crazy and she tried to kill him, while he was still an infant. Little wonder why Gilbert is so thoroughly broken...
Auguste himself suffered both physical and sexual abuse at the hands of his much-older stepbrother and at one point he tried to kill Auguste by burning him after discovering that he was sleeping with his wife, but it left him with a rather nasty scar. and it's also revealed that that his stepbrother raped him when he was younger.
In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Fate's mother (technically creator as she was the mother of Alicia) Precia Testarossa regularly flogs Fate for any and all mistakes, and despises Fate because Fate didn't turn out to be as perfect a Replacement Goldfish as she had hoped.
Then there is Fermet. While not Czeslaw Meyer's blood relative, he was the guardian for the 10 year old when they all became immortal. This spawns 200 years of so of Offing the OffspringFor Science. Most of this abuse is physical but then you have to consider he made Czes believe for some time that this was NECESSARY and leading the kid to have some serious fuckingmentalissues. This has led Fermet to being considered by many in the fandom of being the most evil character in a show full of The Mafia, Torture Technician and Psycho for Hire types.
Dio Brando's father was a deadbeat alcoholic who emotionally abused his wife and son (along with implied physical abuse). Dio ends up killing his father and later becomes one of the most evil bastards in all of anime/manga.
His son, Giorno, also has a rather abusive step father and neglectful mother, but thanks to Giorno saving a gangster from death with his subconscious use of his stand ability, everything started to change and he went onto become a good man just like his biological father, Jonathan.
Mawaru-Penguindrum has Yuri Tokikago's father, as revealed in episode 15. A famous sculptor, He told Yuri that she's ugly and he carves her body with his chisels to make her look "more beautiful" and be worthy of her love. It is also heavily implied that he sexually abused Yuri as well. So it's no wonder Yuri is so utterly screwed up.
Comics
Batmansometimes dips into this, depending on the writer. All Star Batman and Robin is the worst offender (Batman forces twelve-years-old Dick Grayson to live in the cave and eat rats), but it's sometimes seen in the regular universe as well. Bruce can go from the world's best father to the cruelest monster imaginable within three issues.
DC comics, Deathstroke/Slade Wilson. Even putting aside how he was heavily involved in the deaths of both of his sons, you could make a case for this solely for Slade's youngest child. Rose Wilson has spent most of her life since her dad discovered her existence trying to deal with his epic-scale emotional manipulations. After rejecting her at first, he stormed back into her life by having her foster family killed and her kidnapped. Then he lured her into being his apprentice and injected her with the same super-soldier serum that gave him his meta-human fighting abilities (crossing over into Physical Abuse as such). Rose eventually had a psychotic break and carved outher own eye to prove her loyalty to him.
Again, crosses over into physical abuse when Deathstroke implants a chunk of kryptonite (which can still give humans cancer) in her eye socket so he could use her as a weapon against Superman.
Rorschach is subjected to this in Watchmen to quite some degree. In a flashback, we see his mother openly providing her services (she's a prostitute) in front of him, and when he wanders in by mistake, driving off her client, she slaps him across the face and says she should have had an abortion. Scarring stuff, indeed.
Wally West didn't exactly have the best parents. His father demanded to be given the love that he never got as a child from his family to the point where he (Rudolph West) became the abuser.
Wolfsbane's father helped a group of religious fanatics brainwash his daughter into a programmed killer to be sent after her teammate, Angel. It blows up in his face in an ironic way.
Given the level of emotional abuse he subjected her to growing up (his hiding the fact that it was he that sired her upon her supposed harlot of a mother being the least of it) and his leading the mob that shot her and tried to burn her at the stake when her powers kicked in, the above shows that he's nothing if not consistent.
When Harry Osborn got his first bike, some boys stole it from him. His father, Norman Osborn , took it back only to break it into pieces in front of his son and tell him that this is what happens to the things that he can't guard. Years after, because of his toxic father, Harry started to use drugs and it is part of the reason why he became the second Green Goblin. And what Norman is doing currently makes him king of this trope.
In the recent American Son Story, we learn Norman had sex and knocked up Harry's current girlfriend and made Harry think it was him. Worst father ever? You decide.
Norman's own father was also abusive to him. It must run in the family.
While Harry was going insane as Green Goblin II, it was heavily implied that he was grooming his son to be just as much of a maniac as him, but it never seemed to be physical.
Oh, and there's Black Tarantula, Spider-man's ex-enemy, who, in the '90s, tried to take his son from his ex-wife, both of whom were under the protection of another criminal. He attacked that criminal's headquarters alone and defeated everyone who got in his way, including Spider-man. However, when his ex-wife reminded him how his father had destroyed his childhood by forcing him into training and asked if he wanted the same for his son, he just walked away, leaving them alone.
Howard Stark, Tony Stark's father, was verbally and emotionally abusive. As a child, Tony respected his father greatly and wanted to please him. However, in spite of Tony's genius, Tony's reluctance (and inability) to assimilate his father's "ethics" caused Howard to resent and despise his son. Howard's rejection hurt Tony deeply, and although Tony has long since lost all respect for his father, he's never entirely gotten over it, as shown in Iron Man: Legacy of Doom:
(in Mephisto's Realm, Howard Stark's spirit appears before Tony)
Tony: Y-you?
Howard: Losing again, eh, boy? You always were a wimp. Never had the stones to do what had to be done.
Tony: I always tried to do what was right!
Howard: Brilliance isn't enough. You'll never reach your true potential worrying about consequences. You're weak.. [...] You're no son of mine.
Tony:I'd heard it all before. But the pain was still enough to distract me from the physical task at hand.
(Howard lunges; Tony flees, unable to attack his own father)
Howard:COWARD! You were my greatest shame, but I'll make a man of you yet! I'll beat it into you!
In Legacy of Doom, Howard is also physically abusive, but it's unclear whether or not Howard ever physically abused Tony in life. (Although Tony doesn't seem too surprised by Howard trying to kill him; but then again, Tony is in hell.)
Bruce Banner's father was horribly abusive, being the man responsible for his son's...anger management issues. He was an abusive spouse as well, culminating in him murdering his wife.
Chase is first introduced as his dad is hitting him. This also ties in with one of the best lines of the series:
When Knuckles was born, his parents soon begin arguing about the proper way to raise him. It eventually got so bad that his father Locke divorced his wife and took sole custody of the boy so he could raise him to be a guardian. Locke essentially abandoned his son when he was ten years old, forcing him to fend for himself for years with little or no contact with other people. Locke insists that all of this was done to build character and make Knuckles a better guardian by forcing him to do things himself. In truth, he had Knuckles under close observation the entire time he was "abandoned" and often expresses regret at causing his son so much grief, but he still insists he was only doing his job.
Squee's dad openly despises him and often talks about how Squee's birth ruined his life, Squee's mom is too drugged out to remember she has a son half the time (the other half she believes he's already grown up and moved out.) The series ends with them signing him over to a mental hospital for experimentation.
The most recent incarnation of the DCU's Firestorm was physically abused by his father.
The very first time we see Chase Stein of Runaways, his dad is punching him in the face for getting bad grades. It's implied that this sort of thing has been happening regularly for most of Chase's life.
Marvel Comics' Tabitha Smith/Boom-Boom was abused by her father until she ran away from home. This is a pretty commonplace trope for their mutant characters.
Cassandra Cain is an odd case. She received plenty of emotional support and positive reenforcement from the man who raised her from birth to around age eight (who was also eventually revealed to be her biological father), however shooting her until she learned to get out of the way and preventing her from learning language to so that segment of her brain would read bodies instead qualify as abuse under any definition imaginable.
Brenda from the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle comics. Her father reportedly knocked her around on a regular basis at first, but then upped the ante and put her in the hospital when the police questioned her about Jaime's disappearance, causing Brenda's crime boss aunt to have him killed.
Marvel Comics Bullseye possibly has an abusive father. Whether it's true or not, the guy is dead.
Psychologist: And you say your father beat you? Bullseye: Yes, until I was fourteen. Psychologist: Hmmm. I see. And what happened then. Bullseye: (kills psychologist with a voice recorder) I killed him.
His mom apparently wasn't too great of a woman either.
Bullseye: (as he becomes a Dark Avenger) Pity I killed my mom in high school- she would've loved this. (beat, as everyone stared at him) Kidding. She wouldn't've cared.
Carnage, another crazy supervillain from Marvel, has serious issues with this. At last one of his parents was abusive. He said once, that his mother tried to kill him, but his father saw this and killed her. However, another time he said, that his father killed his mother, when he was trying to kill him. Possibly his grandmother was that same kind of person. For both father and grandmother it didn't end well.
Darkdevil from Spider-Girl, by a gambling alcoholic uncle. Not to be confused with his other uncle.
Flash villains Captain Cold and his sister, the Golden Glider, were abused by their father. Years later, Cold had the chance to kill his dad, but couldn't bring himself to do it and let Heat Wave do the honors.
Funky Winkerbean — In a Back Story, Bull Bushka (the former school bully turned physical education teacher) reveals that he was physically beaten by his father ... hence, the reason why he tormented the strip's main protagonist Les Moore all these years.
Other storylines have seen Susan Smith (the girl who had a crush for her teacher, Les, and maintained it as she became his colleague) being beaten by her boyfriend while in high school; and Lisa Moore (who was beaten by her one-time boyfriend, the one that got her pregnant as a teen-ager).
The DCU's Damage was sexually abused by his foster father.
According to Elektra: Assassin, Elektra of Daredevil was sexually abused by her father at the age of five, after which she was told it had never happened until she more-or-less believed it.
Made worse in Spider-Girlof all universes, where it's implied that after turning herself in, Elizabeth spent the rest of her life in prison for killing the jerk. Oh, and her son ends up being (physically) abused by her family, too.
Meet Devin Irons, the father of four children, whom he severely abused and then offered as souls in a pact to a Plague Bringer Demon for the power to control human minds, turning all but one of them into soulless, vicious monstrosities intent on bringing death and destruction to the Old West. He killed Silas Irons only father figure after he came to confront him for tying his son onto a statue, bloody and beaten, and painting "sinner" onto his chest. His crowning moment of assholeness comes when he brings his own wife, now a mindless flesh-eating ghoul, back to life as a lure to bring his adult children back to complete a ritual that will make him immortal.
Rorschach from Watchmen was physically abused by his mother, as well as being exposed to things that are Harmful to Minors.
What he ended up seeing as a kid returns throughout the comic as a pattern on walls, in his childhood drawings, in various shapes (including the shape of his mask at times), and actually is echoed at the very end when Dan and Laurie make the same shadow in a far more peaceful situation. Additionally, Ozymandias ends up alone, casting a singular shadow on the wall in contrast to the double ones shown throughout the book.
Speaking of Laurie, her parents — all three of them — are... not very good at it either.
Then there's Bruce Banner's father, Brian. He'd been abused by his father, leading Brian to believe his father was a monster, that he had inherited the 'monster gene', and that any children he had would be monsters too. Brian initially chose to ignore Bruce, believing him to be a monster in the making. When it became apparent Bruce was a child genius, Brian saw his worst fears confirmed, and started beating both Bruce and his mother, Rebecca. After several years of abuse, Rebecca attempted to escape with Bruce, but Brian killed her and intimidated Bruce into saying Brian hadn't done anything to them. The truth only came out when Brian got drunk and boasted about what he'd done. Brian was locked up in a mental institution, dying shortly after release. End result? Bruce developed multiple personality syndrome - and after a certain accident with a gamma bomb, his personalities became the various Hulks.
And Bruce (accidentally) killed him of course.
In a recent story, Banner himself admits it might not have been accidental.
: He's back from the dead and in Devil Hulk form in the Chaos War tie-in.
Darkseid is all over this trope. He has three known sons, all of whom he treats badly to various degrees. He feels nothing but contempt for Kalibak, ignoring, mocking, and blasting him with Omega Beams whenever it suits him. His other son Grayven is pretty much an outcast. Oddly enough, the son Darkseid favors most is Orion, the one he sent away to be raised by his enemies. This didn't stop Darkseid from killing Orion in the opening of Final Crisis.
And even he isn't as bad as Felix Faust. Faust manages to be the worst father in comics with one act: selling his infant son's soul to a demon for power. Luckily (well, sorta), the demon Nebiros decided to screw over Felix and gave the kid the power instead — after taking the soul of course. Turning your own son into a soulless abomination of the universe in a selfish bid for more power takes abuse to a whole new level.
The Red Skull from Captain America may be the worst father in comics. When his daughter was born he tried to throw her into the ocean because he didn't want a female heir. He was convinced to allow her to live by one of his servants, but demanded she be raised without love. Skull treats her more like a servant then a daughter, heaping emotional and physical abuse whenever he can. Also when his daughter was injured on a mission, the Skull seemed not care about the welfare of his daughter, instead finding the situation amusing. Even worse he used a machine to Mind Rape his daughter, in order to "educate" her. Red Skull really does earn his Complete Monster status with this type of parenting.
Norbert Sykes, alias The Badger, was beaten, saw his dog shot and was eventually raped by his stepfather Larry. This left him with multiple personality disorder, a violent streak a mile wide and an obsession with the name Larry.
Jonah Hex's father Woodson Hex abused his son both emotionally and physically and ultimately sold him as a slave to the Apaches.
The retellings of Two-Face's (i.e. Harvey Dent's) origin have this present, largely being physical with an emotional element. The origins of the "Two-Face" persona come from a twisted game Dent's alcoholic father would play with him, based on a coin toss; heads, Dent's father would beat him senseless, tails, Dent would be off the hook. The catch was that the coin was a double-headed one, and Dent never won. The idealistic part that hoped the coin would land tails one day would go on to be Harvey, while the cynical part that knew it never would became Two-Face.
Fan Works
In bad fanfiction (especially of the Jerk Sue or Sympathetic Sue kind), one EXTREMELY common plot device is to make the parents of one of the characters physically, emotionally, sexually and/or mentally abusive, to throw said character in the arms of his/her True Love.
Heck, even doujinshi use this cliché. In one of NEGAHYST Circle's The Prince of Tennis dj, both Masaharu Niou and his mother are routinely abused by Niou's alcoholic father (with said alcohol problems being nwhere found in canon since we barely know about niou's parents), and it's used as a flimsy plot device to make Niou wangst and throw him in his partner Hiroshi Yagyuu's arms.
Son Of Apophis, a Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic, takes the abuse Marik experiences to a whole new level. His father actually attempts to mute him.
Pick any Naruto fan-fiction where Hiashi Hyuuga is a main or supporting character. In 90% of those works, he's shown as being verbally, psychologically, emotionally, and sometimes physically abusive toward Hinata; Team 8 is one example of all four types in action in the same story. (Ironically, the remaining 10% tend to portray him the way he was and currently is in canon—emotionally distant, but not such a bad guy once Character Development sets in.)
Nobody Dies, a Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfic, features Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu, who in this continuity was not driven insane by the contact experiments. She emotionally abuses Asuka, turning her into a Shrinking Violet, rather than the Jerkass that Asuka was in the series. In an interesting semi-aversion, Kyoko realizes her mistakes when the other NERV personnel nearly murder her for it, and resolves to try to become a better person. She and Asuka are now on at least amicable terms.
Films — Animated
Mother Gothel in Tangled delights in piling on the fear and doubt to keep Rapunzel locked in her tower; she excuses her cruel words with assurances that she's "just teasing," criticizes and diminishes everything Rapunzel does, and casts herself as a victim whenever there's a confrontation between them. This is disturbingly similar to how emotionally abusive mothers behave in real life.
In the song "Mother Knows Best," notice how she trips Rapunzel, then tells her she's clumsy (along with the other Jerk Ass things she says), only for Rapunzel to run into her arms for comfort at the end of the song. What makes it worse is that Mother Gothel has been doing this to Rapunzel for the past eighteen years.
Although not in the film itself, its heavily implied in the prequel novel to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, "Fairest of All", that Queen Grimhilde's father caused her to be extremely insecure of her beauty by refusing to acknowledge it, which ultimately drove her insane especially after her sisters created a magic mirror by fusing her father's spirit with it and become the vain maniac that she was in the film.
Films — Live Action
Bill Heslop in Muriel's Wedding degrades his children at every turn, including this little gem in the middle of a restaurant where he was supposed to be impressing a pair of Japanese Businessmen: "Useless. You're all useless! A bunch of useless no-hopes..."
Honorable mention to Mary Jane's father from the Spider-Man movie. We heard him yelling at her, and we hear him mentioned, but we never lay eyes on the man. Well, he's abusive so it's no great loss that we don't know anything more about him.
In House of Games, the main character Dr Margaret Ford has a patient whose father repeatedly called her a whore during her childhood.
Dawn Weiner has some of the worst parents in the history of film. Her mother is condescending, cruel and constantly talks down to her, while her father doesn't want to know/care she exists. When her little sister is kidnapped, she heroically runs away and tries to find her. Her sister is found, but Dawn's parents don't even care/know that she's gone. Someone call child services.
In the director's later film Palindromes, it is revealed Dawn committed suicide as a result of the abuse.
In The Alzheimers Case it's revealed that Laddo and his brother were physically and sexually abused by their father as children, which explains Laddo's hatred of harming children as an adult.
Frank Abagnale's parents in Catch Me If You Can are actually very supportive of their son, but his father engages in emotional abuse in one of his last scenes. Frank has been trying to stop his criminal lifestyle for a while now, but can't go through with it until his father tell him that it's alright to do so. Instead Frank Sr. refuses and tries to use his son as a weapon against the government because they didn't support him when his business went under. Note that this did not happen in real life.
UHF: R.J. Fletcher portrays this real well when he's first seen & heard abusing his son R.J Fletcher Jr. for not acting intelligent enough.
The Butterfly Effect has Kayleigh's father. In the first timeline, he often had her strip and filmed her. In another timeline, due to Evan's interference, he left her alone but shifted the abuse to her brother. It is implied that it was physical abuse rather than sexual.
Psycho: The monstrous Mrs Bates inflicted awful emotional abuse on her son, Norman. First of all, she cut him off from all other society throughout childhood, making him utterly dependent on her. All the while, she tells him that sex is evil and dirty, and that women are whores (except her). She then abandons him at age 12 when she finds a boyfriend. Unable to deal with the loss of his one companion, Norman murders them both. Wracked with guilt afterwards, he develops an identity disorder, occasionally taking on her personality to deal with his guilt and grief. Unfortunately, even the internalised Mrs Bates is emotionally abusive, and Norman is riddled with anxieties over his sexuality and still smothered by his domineering mother.
A bit of narration in Terminator 2: Judgment Day has Sarah Connor reflecting on the fact that every would-be father figure Sarah had chosen for John was abusive or in some way unfavorable... except the reprogrammed T-800 sent to protect John.
Also, John is tipped off about the T-1000's replacing his foster mother partly by the fact that "she" suddenly starts being nice to him.
It's nowhere near clear that his guardians are abusive. They're frustrated about his behavior, including refusing to do normal household chores and frequently getting into trouble with the police - but at no point are they shown being abusive.
Arnold seems to have a knack for being a better father figure in his movies. Kindergarten Cop gives us Zach, who, along with his mother who tries to make excuses for it, are victims of his drunken rage. When John Kimble finally meets him, he starts to kick his ass, but stops when he finds out that his class is watching.
Mommie Dearest, which is based on the infamous exploits of Joan Crawford. Faye Dunaway's Crawford is painful to listen to at times.
In Broken Blossoms Lucy Burrows is regularly beaten by her father, who eventually kills her.
In Radio Flyer Mikey and Bobby's stepdad "The King" is very abusive to them, but he treats Bobby the younger of the two much worse he beats him for the littlest things especially when he's drunk one of these beatings is enough to put him in the hospital, at one point it is explained that he picked on Bobby is that he was smaller, weaker, and couldn't defend himself, eventually the two invent a flying machine to escape from him in the ensuing struggle "The King" is knocked unconscious by the machine as Bobby flies off and he is finally locked up without bail.
In Mikey one of the reasons why Mikey was a psychopath was because his original parents were abusive he also refused to take off his shirt to cover his scars.
Mr. Deeds implies that the father of one of the characters was physically abusive, as Mr Deeds' character lectures the character about swearing in front of the ladies as well as skipping school. Although he does tell the dad about skipping school, he apparently didn't tell the dad about swearing in front of the ladies, to which when he found out from Deeds, he was implied to have beaten the son with a belt.
To provide a bit of context, it is done for laughs. With the character being an (adult) football player.
One of The Joker's "scar stories" in The Dark Knight has Joker claiming that he got at least one of the Glasgow Grin scars from his father in an effort to make him not so serious. His response to an unintimidated partygoer suggests that, at the very least, his having an a!
In the movie Natural Born Killers there is a flashback which shows Mickey as a deliveryman who came to the house where Mallory lived with her abusive father, her neglectful mother, and her younger brother Kevin. The flashback is portrayed as an All In The Family or Married... With Children-style sitcom with a canned laughter track, the "audience" laughing hardest when Mallory is subjected to lewd comments, being molested by her father, and threatened with rape. It's implied he's raped her before, when her mother notes that Kevin was only born because her father was drunk and didn't realize he was in his own bedroom, and not Mallory's.
This is a plot point in Chinatown, and is the source of one of Film Noir's most shockingreveals. To make a long story short, Noah Cross raped Mrs. Mulwray and she had a daughter by him. Mulwray's protectiveness toward her drives a good amount of the plot.
It is implied in the film adaptation of Forrest Gump that Jennie and her sisters were frequently sexually molested by her father during their childhood.
Sybil, starring Sally Field. A girl is abused so badly she splits into multiple personalities to protect herself. The psychology may be dubious, but the depictions of the abuse are harrowing.
Eastern Promises. Semyon is physically and verbally abusive well into Kirill's adulthood. It may have gotten worse now that Kirill's a grown man, and is also, at least implicitly, because Kirill is likely gay. It comes across as worse in contrast to how Semyon treats the little girls in their family, which seems genuinely avuncular. Well, maybe not all the little girls in his family — Semyon also orders Kirill to murder one of his illegitimate children, who would be Kirill's own infant half-sister.
Precious - Poor, poor Clareece "Precious" Jones. An illiterate and obese teenager, she has been raped by her father and impregnated twice, and endures constant and physical abuse from her unemployed mother, Mary. To escape from her grimy reality, she often tries to imagine a world where she's loved and appreciated.
Nearly every soap operas that are aired in Indonesian television stations. Especially if the protagonist is a child. There are always parents, usually women, who are greedy and abuses the hell out of their children. Almost come in parcel with abusive older sibling. And usually female too.
Literature
Roald Dahl's Matilda has this and neglect; they call her names and deride her for not being like them (she prefers to read, they watch endless, brainless television). At one point, her father rips up one of her library books while calling it trash. Also, her parents leave her (a five year old) alone on afternoons when they are at work or bingo. But even they take a back seat to the Trunchbull, who is a Complete Monster through and through.
William Marsh's father is a brute, though how much of one is only gradually made clear. Lewis is so shocked about it that the abuse is never, ever played for laughs.
In Tanith Lee's The Silver Metal Lover, Jane, the heroine, discovers that her mother futzed with her phenotype to make Jane plainer than she should have been because she didn't want the competition. The reader sees all along how her mother passively-aggressively manipulates and undermines Jane at every opportunity. She also arranges for the destruction of Jane's android sweetie because Jane was growing up: growing *away* from her.
Tywin Lannister of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. He treated his youngest son like crap for years, culminating in forcing him to watch — and in the end, participate in — the gang-rape of his new wife because she was a commoner.
Samwell Tarly's father takes Why Couldn't You Be Different? to extreme levels, openly despising his son for his bookishness and lack of badassitude. After years of trying to make him shape up through means such as forcing him to constantly wear chainmail and slaughtering a bull and making him bathe in its blood, he fathered a second son who he liked more. So he threatened Sam with a "hunting accident" if he didn't join the Night's Watch, thus giving up his inheritance to his younger brother.
Jaqueline Wilson's Lola Rose has Jayni talk about how her dad beats up her mum whenever he gets angry or suspicious, and constantly threatens her, and how he inevitably hits Jayni hard at the start of the book for the first time. Jayni repeatedly talks about how scared she is of her dad, even when he's miles away.
He treats her little brother Kenny 'okay', but his behaviour is slowly convincing him that it's okay to beat women, and it seems only a matter of time before either he starts hitting Kenny or Kenny starts hitting his mum and sister.
Micah E.F. Martin's Prophet's House Quintology has Lord John Blackwall, who despises his second son, Jonathan, for outliving Titus, his heir. Then there's Sen'Tan Alecad who engages in Offing the Offspring at every opportunity. Given, he has about eighty kids, so this may be justified.
Jess' father in Bridge to TerabithiaThe Movie was a borderline case. He was abjectly disrespectful of his son's creativity and constantly making sneering remarks about his son's kind heart and artistic ability. However, he'd started a Heel Face Turn by the end of the movie, brought on by Leslie's death. Jess retained his kindness and creativity, though.
Janice Avery from the same movie also had an abusive father. For her, it was a Freudian Excuse, in that she was the school bully.
Janice's abuse is from the book, however, Jess' father being abusive is not in the book at all.
Every single novel written by Katherine Paterson has at least one abusive parent. She claims that the reason is because it reflects her childhood.
Whether his father's actions constitute abuse is questionable, since he only seems to act in that manner at times when his temper might get the better of him, such as when Jess neglects his chores on the farm in favor of his art (and at one point loses the keys to the greenhouse, which would be deducted from his father's salary to replace). The fact that they live close to the poverty line might make his desire for his son to do something that he would see as more practical understandable, if not justified.
Coin, the Tykebomb from Sourcery was psychically dominated by (what was effectively the ghost of) his father almost from birth, leaving him with almost no personal identity after he was finally freed. May overlap with physical abuse, via Functional Magic; at one point, a bystander smells scorched flesh.
The Truth: William de Worde and his father are not, shall we say, on speaking terms.
In The Lord of the Rings, Denethor despises his more scholarly son Faramir, openly preferring the more war-geared Boromir. It's implied that that's one of the reasons Faramir doesn't try to wake up from a magical coma. This is played up very strongly in the movie, but it's there in the books too; Denethor does mourn Faramir when he's about to die, to the point of almost killing both of them in a murder-suicide, but he still says that he would've rather lost Faramir than Boromir.
Fanny Price of Mansfield Park suffers from neglect when she's adopted by her Aunt and Uncle Bertram and cruel emotional abuse from her Aunt Norris.
Justina from the Night Huntress books tells her daughter Cat about her rapist vampire father with the words "You have a monster inside of you". She convinces Cat that her rape and her ostracism for being a single mother is all Cat's fault. When Cat starts hunting vampires in high school, it's the first time that Justina ever shows pride or love for her daughter, not caring that her sixteen-year-old is risking her life to earn her mother's affection.
Trent, in Black Dogs, is forced by his sorcerer father to perform ritual bloodletting on unwilling women before killing them. If he refused, his father would do it instead, except more slowly and less mercifully. Trent even tried killing himself to avoid this a number of times, but he would be brought back to life using a sacrifice of one of the aforementioned women.
North Of Beautiful: The father. Exhibit A: One of his sons self harms. Exhibit B: Terra, the Main character, is almost anorexic, hates herself, is germophobic, and is in a mostly sexual relationship that she knows is unhealthy at the start of the story. Exhibit C: Her mother, a Binge eater, has nonexistent self esteem. Exhibit D: His eldest son has no healthy relationships at all. This book has the most realistic portrayal of abuse I have ever seen. May not be TOTALLY accurate, but again, THE MOST.
In Stephen King's IT, Eddie's mother takes him to the emergency room at least twice a month for imagined ills, bullies her doctor into prescribing unnecessary placebos for the psychosomatic asthma she caused, pressures his teachers into keeping him out of gym class, and tries to drive off the rest of the Loser's Club after Henry Bowers broke his arm, all because of her fears of him abandoning her.
Years later, when Eddie is middle-aged, his elderly mother is still treating him like a baby - despite the fact that he proves to be one of the bravest characters in the novel.
Not to mention Beverly, whose father beats her frequently. As if that weren't bad enough, she ends up marrying a carbon copy of him.
Korit, father of Seregil from Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunners - his mother died at childbirth and he could not expect much more than coldness from his father - Seregil believed that his father blamed him for the death of his mother, but it is later reveiled that Korit never got over losing his wife. That Seregil is the very image of his mother didn't help. Not that this would excuse him being a distant, cold bastard who imparted a major inferior complex on his son...
Alanna's father from Song of the Lioness neglects his two children, spending more time in his study reading books than raising them. And during the time Alanna was at the palace, all he did was send one letter and nothing more. Even other characters such as Jonathan and Duke Gareth knew it and were both happy that Alanna had found a Parental Substitute in her teacher Myles.
Crowfeather of Warrior Cats is neglectful and verbally abusive towards his son, Breezepelt. This is due to the fact that he only chose Nightcloud as his mate and had Breezepelt after he returned to prove that he was loyal to the Windclan after he had a secret relationship with the Thunderclan medicine cat and ran off with her, leaving their clans behind.
The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase sequence: Dido's parents are neglectful of her to the point of cruelty and her father, in particular, does not hesitate to imprison and endanger his daughter in the name of Hanovarian conspiracies. Worse off still, her half-sister, Is, is used by her mother as a drudge and treated with nothing but casual violence and verbal abuse by both her mother and father. It's never acknowledged outright by the pair that she is their child, probably since she is the product of an extramarital affair, a fact which might explain their disregard. An example of an abusive guardian is Miss. Slighcarp, to Bonnie and Sylvia in 'The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase', and to Dido and Dutiful Penitence in 'Nightbirds On Nantucket'.
Michael's father, in the Knight And Rogue Series, comes off as just a strict man with his sons. One who also told Michael that being honest was the only thing he could do right, and who was willing to let him go off as a man with no legal rights to try and take down a murder suspect to win favor with a higher authority figure, and who pernamently stripped away those legal rights to try and force a life on Michael that he knew his son didn't want.
In Time Scout, Skeeter's parents were so distant that five years after he went missing, his father's response was, "How much money can we make? Gotta be a TV movie in this." and his mother gave him a peck on the cheek for the cameras, started organizing his doctor's visits, and never said a word. Jenna Caddrick's father might never have hit her, but he was certainly a vile man.
Succubus, one of the characters from the Wild Cards series, was used as a sexual toy by her parents.
Harper and her stepbrother from the Grave Sight series by Charlaine Harris were nearly sold into prostitution as children by their drug-addicted parents.
In the book, film, and musical of Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Celie's adoptive father sexually and physically abuses her, not only impregnating her twice but taking the children away as soon as they are born and giving them to the local church. Celie believes that he drowns them.
Felice in the Pliocene Exile Saga by Julian May. Introduced as a sadist and violent sociopath, it's revealed that her parents sated their boredom and idle lust with her, and otherwise thoroughly neglected her. She later gains her all-consuming power after being sexually tortured, stripping her mind to a bare core of personality and conveniently also removing all her mental blocks. An attempt to heal her mind succeeds in making her sane, but it was far too little, far too late to save her soul. In the end, she's removed from the game via her mind being trapped in a crystal along with her torturer, condemned to torture each other forever.
Stephen King's Dolores Claiborne had a husband who, in addition to physically abusing the title character, had a decidedly unwholesome interest in their teenage daughter Selena, who suffered sexual abuse at his hands in addition to manipulation into being afraid of her mother in order to keep her from talking about it. It is this, along with the stealing of their children's college money in order to spite her, that would ultimately lead to Dolores's decision to murder him.
In another King novel, Gerald's Game, Jessie (the protagonist) was sexually molested by her father once. This was especially traumatizing to her because until then, they had a very close, loving relationship.
In Russell Banks's The Sweet Hereafter (and the critically acclaimed film adaptation by Atom Egoyan), 15-year-old Nicole Burnell is molested regularly by her father. Following the accident around which the plot of the book revolves, which leaves her paralysed, she even expresses some relief that he won't find her attractive any more.
Stormy Llewellyn from Odd Thomas lost both of her parents when she was little and was put in an orphanage. She was adopted by a couple who lived in Beverly Hills and didn't go three weeks before her adopted dad came into her room at night and molested her. She took it for three weeks before telling a visiting social worker what was happening and lived in the orphanage until she was 18, claiming she didn't want any parents except her biological ones.
Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsels features the teenaged Liga who is used as a replacement for her mother after her death when Liga was only a child. Because of this, Liga becomes pregnant by her father not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES. She later becomes pregnant a fourth time after she is assulted by some boys from the village.
This is central to the plot of Sapphire's novel Push, which was made into the film Precious. Precious is raped by her father from age seven. When she has her first baby at twelve, her father leaves, but later returns and impregnates her again at sixteen. Her mother fondles her and forces her into oral copulation, reasoning that since Precious was responsible for her husband's disappearance, she should provide sexual services in his place. Much of the plot revolves around Precious' love for her children and her determination to give them a better life.
Several of Zit's foster father's sexually abused him in Flight.
Mackie Messer from Wild Cards was physically abused by his mother. Possibly sexually as well.
Davy Rice from the Jumper book was physically abused by his father.
In fact, Davy's learning to deal with the emotional effects of the abuse he and his estranged mother suffered is a major subplot of the novel.
Count Olaf from A Series of Unfortunate Events was the Baudelaires' legal guardian, and, really, he covered all the abuses. He hit Klaus, called Sunny names, and was going to force Violet to marry him, all to get the family fortune. It was mainly played for dark comedy, but in The Movie, Olaf's abuse was a bit less comedic and a bit more shocking. The Baudelaires also managed to avoid the Freudian Excuse and grew up fairly well because they had each other to lean on despite the horrors plaguing them.
It's hard to tell if Henry's bat-shit craziness was a result of heredity or environment. There's also a whole chapter on the disappearance of a boy who turns out to be one of It's victims. Newspaper clippings chronicle an investigation revealing that the boy's stepfather killed another stepson with a hammer.
And the title character's mother from Stephen King's Carrie, Margaret White, whose insane religious fanaticism led to physical and emotional abuse upon her only daughter, whom she believed to be the spawn of the devil since poor Carrie actually was conceived through marital rape. Margaret tried to kill her once when she was a baby, and when the two had their showdown following Carrie's telekinetic rampage at the prom, she tried to kill her again, putting a knife through her daughter's shoulder before Carrie killed her by either stopping her heart telekinetically (book and tv film version) or using several knives to stab and pin her to a door (1976 film version).
In the book, it's unclear whether it was rape or just the twisted mind of Carrie'smother. She and her husband were devoutly religious and she actually didn't know that she was pregnant; she referred to her growing stomach as "a cancer of the womanly parts". Carrie's grandmother was not like this at all; this suggests that Margaret has some severe mental health issues.
In one of the most harrowing treatments of the subject in a children's book, Willie in Goodnight, Mister Tom is regularly beaten and starved by his religious maniac mother. He is eventually found locked in a cupboard after a week's incarceration, cradling his dead baby sister.
Terry Pratchett has used this a few times in Discworld. Young Nobby Nobbs fears prison because his father's in there, and he used to break Nobby's arms. And while the Grey House isn't exactly parental abuse, it's still... icky.
In the novel Hogfather, the criminal Catseye is famous in criminal underworld circles for being able to see in the dark. But as he admits he is actually scared of the dark and of old cellars, because when he was a boy his father regularly used to lock him up in their cellar without a light for hours as a punishment. He trained himself to see in the dark mainly as a way of compensation.
Most of the working-class, smalltime criminals in Hogfather turn out to have been abused, physically and/or emotionally, as children, although they're still sane... compared to the main villain, the psychotic, boyishly handsome assassin Mr. Jonathan Teatime, who is implied to have killed his own parents when he was still a child.
In Sunny Ella, a dark retelling of Cinderella, Ella's stepmother slaps her across the face twice the day they meet. Later she uses her cane as a weapon and at one point removes Ella's voicebox as punishment for talking back.
Sara Fitzgerald in My Sister's Keeper is of the well meaning variety in that she essentially forces Anna to go through various medical procedures so she can donate her organs to her sister with cancer. Any time anyone protests in Anna's favour, Sara shoots them down saying Kate needs whatever. She is even willing to force Anna to donate her kidney to Kate with no regard for how Anna's life would be afterwards.
This is part of Darth Bane'sFreudian Excuse. His father was a grade-A asshole who physically and emotionally abused his son. Said son went on to become one of the most Badass and evil Sith Lords to have ever lived.
In Time Scout, Margo grew up in a fairly crapsack home. Her father was a physically abusive drunk. Seven year olds are advised not to spill nail polish when playing dress up.
Sensei in the Japanese novel Kokoro, albeit through his uncle. It's one of the reasons why he crossed the Despair Event Horizon.
Wild Cards: The Amazing Bubbles was supposed to have had money from her modeling career put into trust for her until she was of legal age. But her parents instead funded their own decadent lifestyle. When she found out and sought legal help against her parents, they took the money and ran, leaving her with what they couldn't carry. And in a nasty parting shot, they also slashed open her beloved stuffed toys.
In Harry's case, the Dursleys were physically, emotionally and mentally abusive to Harry. Forcing him to live in the little room under the stairs of their house, hiding the letters from Hogwarts, telling people that he was a delinquent, lying to him about his deceased parents, boarding up/making doggy doors for Harry's new bedroom...
In Dudley's case, the Dursleys were an odd sort of mentally abusive because they raised Dudley to be a bully with an entitlement complex, not to mention that Petunia spoils him so much that he was morbidly obese up until Order of the Phoenix. This is made more obvious in the last book, where Dudley finally thanks Harry for saving his life in the fifth book and wishes him luck. His parents are horrified.
Although at the end of the day, it was implied that Petunia, despite the abuse, did somewhat care for Harry Potter. Vernon, on the other hand, absolutely hated Harry, and was perfectly willing to throw Harry out of the house with the excuse of Harry allegedly cursing Dudley (when in fact it was actually a Dementor), to which the only reason why he didn't was due to Petunia's (And Dumbledore's anonymous Howler's) interference. He's also the only one who doesn't attempt to say goodbye.
Severus Snape's backstory indicates his father, Tobias, was physically and emotionally abusive. For extra points on the tragedy meter, Snape spends much of his adult life handing out the same kind of emotional abuse he received from others.
It's also implied that Severus's mother, Eileen, was neglectful, although whether it was because she hated/didn't want/was indifferent towards him or because she was dealing with the effects of Tobias's abuse could be debated until the Earth falls into the sun.
Voldemort's mother, Merope Gaunt, also definitely suffered some level of parental abuse. Some fans interpret it as going even further.
In Cloud of Sparrows, Emily was raped by her evil stepfather, and her brothers were regularly whipped and beaten at the slightest pretext.
Eve Dallas of the In Death series. Eve's mother was a prostitute who resented Eve's very existence; her father beat, starved and raped her regularly, with plans to sell her to pedophiles, until she killed him at the tender age of eight. Hers is a Line-of-Sight Name, since her "parents" didn't see fit to give her one. This leads her to become a police officer, in order to never again be a victim.
If that wasn't enough in the long cutie break that was her childhood, she winds up with Trudy Lombard, who had a pattern of fostering girls, treating them like slaves, forcing them to take ice-cold showers (the reason Eve takes 100+ degree ones), and so on. It was bad enough that just seeing Lombard again (she had come to blackmail Eve and Roarke) hit her like a Shell-Shocked Veteran's flashback.
Roarke himself received regular physical and financial abuse from his father, and his hatred for the man is one of the things which motivated him on his way from being a petty street-thief to topping the Fiction 500.
In the Deepgate Codex series, the god Ulcis' abuse of his daughter Carnival lists so heavily on the holy shit meter that it might as well be breaking it. He only kept her mother alive so that he could rape her to his enjoyment, and was not pleased when she got pregnant, especially because as an angel's mother, she died in childbirth. Although he named his daughter Rebecca, he more commonly referred to her as a freak or with expletives—she calls herself Carnival as in carnival freak, and WILL NOT be referred to as anything else. He had his soldiers gang-rape her often and very brutally; when years of this treatment didn't break her, he executed a vicious Mind Rape on her and hanged her from Deepgate's chains. She got loose — as a rather psychotic amnesiac. It wasn't for 3000 years, until Carnival finally got acceptance and kinship from Dill and Rachel (and bloodily killed Ulcis), that she finally started to calm down a little.
In the How Not to Write a Novel section "A Novel Called It" (named for a Real Life account of this), the made-up "excerpt" serving as an example of this trope has a heroine who is beaten by and forced to toil for her emotionally abusive dad, valiantly hoping that her little brother Tiny Tim will be safe if she takes the brunt of his cruelty. The authors proceed to discourage the use of this trope in fiction, as it is both hackneyed and depressing.
Sybil Dorsett, subject of the book (and miniseries) Sybil, suffered domestic abuse at the hands of her mother so severe that she developed sixteen split personalities. Even worse? The story is based in truth.
Mommie Dearest. There's also a film adaptation.
Scott Westerfeld's Midnighters. Rex Greene's father would beat him occasionally, once pointed a loaded gun at him, and made him sit still while tarantulas crawled over him because he wanted Rex to be "a man instead of some book-reading pussy".
Mayella Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird. We know her dad beats her, and it is hinted that he also abuses her sexually.
Boo Radley as well. He was kept locked in his house for over thirty years by a man described as "the meanest man God ever blew breath into".
Ironman has a minor and a major example. The minor example is the main character's father, whose extremely strict discipline policies, while ultimately well intentioned, end up being a major contributor to the main character's anger issues and inferiority complex. He eventually gets better. The major example is Hudgie's father, a psychotic, inhuman sociopath who regularly tortured his son for even the most minor offenses. Thankfully, he's finally arrested for his atrocities towards the end of the book. Unfortunately, the semi-sequel Angry Management reveals that Hudgie killed himself shortly after Ironman.
Any Chris Crutcher novel will have at least one character go through this; it's damn near his trademark. Doesn't make it any less effective.
The novel The Nature of the Daughters by Elizadeth Hetherington features a female protagonist, Renata Savannah, that suffers all but sexual abuse at the hands of her mother, a woman who has repeatedly tried to kill her. Her mother even enlists her twin sister to aid in the murder. Of course, given that this is a coming-of-age novel about a teenage serial killer, the horrid abuse Renata suffers is the least disturbing thing in it.
In Mary Downing Hahn's Daphne's Book, the protagonist Jessica discovers that Daphne and her little sister are orphaned and live with their grandmother. Said grandmother is mentally unstable and unemployed—she feeds all the food in the house to her many, many cats instead of eating it herself or feeding her grand-daughters, she screams and throws tantrums in the grocery store when Daphne tries to buy a particular food item they need, is horribly neglectful, tells Daphne to her face that she "sent her father away" (in reality, he was killed in Vietnam), and terrifies the younger, kindergarten-aged girl by saying the ceiling will fall on them and kill them all. She also forbids the younger girl from going to school, calling it useless, and Daphne herself misses many days of school to take care of Grandma and her sister.
Shallan's father in The Stormlight Archive was violent, quick to anger, and got the entire family into debt with extremely powerful people. He also really screwed up his three sons, but left Shallan alone. Didn't stop her from killing him.
Odessa, the protagonist of the novel "The Fifth Born" by Zelda Lockhart, was physically abused by her mother while her father emotionally and sexually abused her. It doesn't help that she's the youngest of five kids and was three years at the start of the story.
Dwight from This Boy's Life was this. He would force Toby to spend hours shucking extremely spiky horse chestnuts bare-handed as a chore for no apparent reason other than to torment him, spent Toby's money on a dog that Toby himself didn't want, and tried to force Toby into the local boy scouts just to give him some work to do, and joined as the adult leader just to make sure he did. There's also the times where Dwight attacked Toby physically over some pretty minor offenses. In the climax of the film version, Dwight attacks Toby over something involving breakfast which a now fed-up Toby reacts to by fighting back. The two end up in a huge fight. Finally, Toby's mother helps him and the two decide to leave.
A favorite trope of V. C. Andrews. A particularly horrific example is found in the Casteel series, where not only does Jill Tatterton refuse to believe her daughter Leigh when she tells her that her stepfather Tony raped her (instead believing Tony's claim that the 14 year old Leigh attempted to seduce him), in a later book it's implied that Jill offered Leigh to Tony when she refused to continue having sex with him, believing that it would diminish her youth and beauty.
Danielle Steel likes this one too. Parents in her books are either perfect or display varying degrees of emotional abuse, although on book in particular does feature a physically abusive mother.
The French Sci Fi novel Malevil has Wahrwoorde, an Evil Poacher. He forced this family to live in backwards squalor in a swamp, without electricity or anything they can't produce themselves. He's cruel to his son (and mother-in-law), raped his step-daughters, and is willing to risk the young man's life for his gain.
In the Anne of Green Gables series, Anne goes through several homes and orphanages before being taken in by the Cuthberts, many of which were abusive and cold.
In Push by Sapphire, the main character Precious is sexually, emotionally and physically abused by both her mother and father. The sexual abuse led to two pregnancies before the age of 16.
In C. S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces, the king of Glome is physically and verbally abusive to his daughters, particularly Orual.
In the short story Parting Jane, a young girl is being harvested for parts to save her sick sister. Her parents don't seem to care about Jane at all, only the sick girl. Unfortunately this can be Truth in Television.
In Purple Hibiscus Kambili and her brother Jaja are often physically hurt by their father - whipped and scalded, but also forced into a strict, oppressive form of Catholicism. Kambili hardly speaks and never laughs - at least until her Aunt and Cousin get fed up with that.
The Night Circus has two prominent examples: Mr. Alexander H—, who isolates the orphan he plucks out of the street for uninterrupted study for about a decade and then, once the child has grown into a man, essentially vanishes from his life. There's also Hector Bowen, who never hesitates to tell his daughter how much of a disappointment/weakling/slut/whore she is while slashing her fingers open to teach her healing magic.
In Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs Dunphrey, the sixteen-year-old protagonist suffers abuse from both her parents. her father, who left the family years earlier, was emotionally abusive and tried to pass it off as just kidding around, and physically abusive—one of his last actions before running out on them was shoving his daughter so hard he knocked her out. The mother is neglectful, sitting around and being useless, letting her daughter parent her ten-year-old brother, and then finally just runs away from home without so much of a note, leaving her children to starve and freeze for a few weeks until the protagonist finally decides to tell someone what's happening.
Huckleberry Finn's alcoholic dad beats him, verbally abuses him, takes his money to buy whiskey, leaves him to live on the streets, and at one point kidnaps him and keeps him hidden in the woods. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer it's implied that he also abused Huck's late mother—"They used to fight all the time."
Live Action TV
Brenda's parents in Six Feet Under had sex in front of her during her childhood, threw orgies while she was in the house, and sent her to a psychiatrist who scrutinized her and played mindgames with her for a book. When she grew up, her mother constantly put her down and laughed at any attempts she made to improve her life and even told her that she would've aborted her if her father hadn't talked her out of it.
There are many abusive parents in Skins. Just in the first generation, we have Chris, whose mother left him without even saying goodbye and whose father rarely bothered to see him, Jal, whose mother abandoned her, Cassie, whose parents neglected her and were more concerned with their sex life than with their daughter's emotional health, and Sid, whose parents make it pretty obvious that they preferred his best friend and considered Sid a disappointment. The worst, though, is probably Cook (of gen 2), whose mother had loud sex with strangers while he was in the next room, drove drunk with her kids in the car, and went on drunken rages, including smashing furniture in front of them. His father also walked out on him, made a pass at his girlfriend, and finally threatened to throw him into the river. Charming family, all around.
American dark-comedy sitcom TV show Titus has Ken "Papa" Titus, who was emotionally abusive toward his sons. One of the Too Good to Last shows, canceled due to Executive Meddling.
One of the quotes from the show:
"Why abuse a child physically when emotional abuse is far more permanent?"
John Winchester might just own this part of the trope. Dean had an "obey or somebody gets killed" issue while Sam got completely disowned when he wanted to be normal, their tearful phone calls in both "Home" and "Faith" got ignored, Dean got used as an emotional punching bag when he was pissed off with Sam, and he gave them so little affection that when he acted like a "Well Done, Son" Guy, they thought he was possessed or that there was something incredibly wrong going on.
To add insult to injury, they were right: Daddy was possessed when he was handing out the congrats.
Lost: All the characters have Daddy issues, but Ben's father in particular is so nasty to him (blaming him for his mother's death in childbirth) that the viewer almost cheers when Ben kills him.
Ben's case really includes three types — emotional abuse, neglect, and physical abuse. Roger blames him for his mother's death, hits and manhandles him (breaking his glasses at one point), and always forgets his birthday. The only time he gives a damn about his son is when Sayid shoots little Ben.
Not to mention Locke's father, Anthony Cooper, who not only stole Locke's kidney and pushed him out of an eight story window, but was also the original Sawyer— you know, the man who ruined James Ford's father's life so badly that he murdered his wife and killed himself.
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Tara Maclay's father brainwashed Tara into believing that she's a demon.
And then there's Xander's implied difficulties with his parents. He was so worried he might turn out to be a horrible husband and father like his dad that he ended up leaving Anya at the altar, unable to commit to marriage.
Can anyone remember seeing Willow's dad ever? Was her mom ever around except when it was going to be unpleasant or dangerous for Willow? Great parents there.
This trope is so prevalent in this series and in Angel (and in any Joss Whedon work that mentions parents really) that only one major character, Fred, was shown to have a happy and loving relationship with both her parents (it came as a shock to the other characters too). Then she got her soul devoured by an Eldritch Abomination from beyond who then took over her body.
Buffy, Dawn and their mom had a good relationship...and thus the mother must die...of course, the mother and father were unhappy in marriage and their father left.
There was the one episode where Buffy's father and mother were a loving, caring couple and all they wanted was for Buffy to be OK [sigh]. Of course, in that one, it was Buffy who was INSANE!!!!
Angel's (Liam's) father was stern and demanding, but never portrayed as abusive.
Wes's dad was inferred to be abusive, especially with the 'locked him in the closet' thing.
Ziva's father. Dear Lord, Ziva's father. Descriptions of her childhood mention that the "fun" activities she enjoyed involved being taken blindfolded into the forest and left to find her own way out. After that, he raised her to be a killer, instructed her to kill her own brother, abused his position to spy on her, sent a drunken assassin to pretend to be in love with her, left her to be tortured to death in Somalia without a pang of guilt, and finally tried to frame her for murder. She cut off all contact with him recently. What a shocker.
House: Dr. House's father started out as just a harsh bastard who didn't see eye to eye with his son, but then, as is always, more than a few nasty things popped up about him. He doesn't believe in unconditional love, he apparently never told his son that he was right or did the right thing, he made him sleep outside and take ice baths when he was a child (trust the writers to go for things that are considered torture in some places), refused to speak to him for two months when a twelve-years-old Greg told him (truthfully) that Papa House wasn't his real father, and let him go without food if he was ever a tiny bit late for a meal. But, even after all this and in the last fifteen minutes of "Birthmarks", House (in his own guarded way) admits that his father's death has affected him more than he would care to admit.
Greg House hated his dad so much, he convinced himself that he wasn't his biological son. Not only was he right, but he made the deduction based on red flags spotted when he was fourteen, something that impresses even Wilson. He even deduced his actual father. The accuracy of the second part is never confirmed, though. Whatever kind of lesson this gives is rather ambiguous.
Scrubs: Dr. Cox's father was an abusive alcoholic while his mother simply stood by and let the abuse happen. He can't stand the sight of his own sister, because seeing her reminds him of their childhood.
Jordan used this as an excuse for why she's so mean once or twice, but later admits that her parents were both very supportive actually.
Tony Soprano is emotionally manipulated and terrorized by his difficult mother throughout his childhood and well into his adult life. One notable incident featured his mother threatening to stick a fork in his eye when he was only ten years old. Tony's father was outwardly friendly, yet also a manipulative sociopath who indoctrinated his son into violent crime and the mob. It's implied that the various degrees of emotional manipulation and terror Tony suffered under his parents is what turned him into the violent sociopath that heads the New Jersey crime families. Oddly enough, Tony manages to become a better father to his kids than his parents ever were to him (despite being an aforementioned violent sociopath), and his children turn out relatively nice and normal, even if they have a few issues of their own.
In Young Dracula, Dracula shows blatant favoritism for Vlad over his older sister Ingrid, even though Ingrid acts exactly the way he keeps pressuring Vlad to act. One could argue that he's also abusive to Vlad based on his inability to accept that Vlad isn't a younger copy of himself, but it's much less blatant than his abuse of Ingrid.
George Sr. and Lucille Bluth of Arrested Development treated all of their children with varying degrees of abuse, which continued (to an extent) well into their adulthood. Michael and Gob were constantly played against each other (and occasionally manipulated into physically fighting each other. Said fights were viedeotaped and sold later as Boyfights) because George believed it to be a way of preparing them for conflict in life. They were also constantly undermined to keep them working for George's approval (Gob' desire to pursue a career in magic is constantly mocked, and his parents make it clear that he is The Unfavorite; Michael had a ridiculously extreme work ethic instilled in him, and George would often shoot down his ideas for the family business, regardless of what he thought of them). Lindsey is often reminded of the fact that she has never really achieved anything, and Lucille has made cracks about her weight (when Lindsey doesn't really have any weight problems) since she was very young. Buster was made to have a crippling overdependence on his mother, only for her to discard him whenever she considers him to be an inconvenience or imposition; George is also highly disdainful of his lack of independence and maturity. George would also traumatise his children by making them associate certain unwanted behaviors with severe mutilation, in order to teach them "lessons" (such as leaving a note when they run out of milk). Lindsey's abuse is probably the darkest when it is learned that she is adopted, and Lucille admits they didn't want her and only adopted her to spite Stan Sitwell, who had been trying to adopt her himself. They also spoiled all of their children except Michael to the point that they had virtually no work ethic, which many would consider a form of abuse.
The second season of the new Doctor Who gave us Eddie Connolly, a 1950s patriarch who was a product of his time, treating his son like dirt.
Season 4 also had a somewhat milder example in Sylvia Noble, who didn't seem to realize that her daughter had an inferiority complex, and that her jabs were legitimately hurtful to Donna. The Doctor calls her out on this during the finale, and Sylvia becomes much nicer in subsequent appearances.
These kinds of parents came up a few times in the original Twilight Zone. Specifically, the stepfather in "Living Doll" and Jenny's aunt in "The Fugitive". Although the latter really did love Jenny, as she was clearly distressed when Jenny was near death, and the former was mostly antagonistic because a doll was trying to kill him.
On Star Trek: Voyager, what kind of parents did Annika Hansen have? They kept her with them when they flew into the most dangerous area of the galaxy, ignoring the danger while searching of the most dangerous species anyone in the Federation knew of. And we all know how well that turned out. Annika Hansen is the birth name of Seven of Nine. She says herself how irresponsible this was, in conjunction with denouncing Icheb's parents for using him as a biological weapon against the Borg.
They were more neglectful than abusive, really; they had no idea what the Borg were capable of when they started researching them, only that they came from far away and nobody knew anything about them. This tracks back to the TNG argument about keeping families on board the Enterprise, though.
In The West Wing, the only Jed Bartlet´s flashback about his past portrayed his father as a emotionally, and sometimes physically, abusive parent toward the young Jed. In a battle with his subconscious, personified by the "ghost" of Mrs. Landingham, his father is described as "a prick who could never get over the fact that he wasn't as smart as his brothers". Sorkin says that Bartlet's tirade against God in the episode "Two Cathedrals" is directed just as much at his own father.
Bones' parents abandoned her and her brother when she was fifteen. She goes into the foster care system where, at one point, she was locked in a truck for two days because she broke a plate. Sweets was physically abused as a child by his parents. He was removed from them by social services and adopted by another family when he was six. Booth and his brother, Jared, were physically abused by their father before their grandfather took them in.
Practically every single parent in Gossip Girl, but especially Bart Bass.
There was a Texas Runaway HotlinePublic Service Announcement that aired for a time that had two boys discussing how badly things were at home, cutting twice from the boys to a Jerk Ass father from one of the boy's point of view:
Boy's Father: You live in my house, you live under MY rules!
(After a while...)
Boy's Father: If you don't like living here, you can pack your stuff and LEAVE!!
Celia in Weeds, who constantly berates and belittles her Hollywood Pudgy daughter, Isabelle.
On the 1970s situation comedy Good Times, the Evans family (the main protagonists), Wilnona Woods (their neighbor) and building superintendent Bookman intervene when a little girl living in their building is physically abused by her mother. The story arc plays out over four episodes to open the 1977-1978 season. The little girl (played by a young Janet Jackson) eventually becomes a regular character on the series.
It was implied that Horatio and Ray had a level of angst with their father in CSI: Miami
Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica. We learn all of her fingers were once broken at the exact same place - due to her mother putting Kara's hand in the doorframe and closing the door shut. This being a show of Grey and Grey Morality, Kara's mother is not portrayed as pure evil despite this. She knew from oracles that Kara had a special destiny in store, and her way of trying to toughen her up and prepare her was really warped.
Of course, she was also a Colonial Marine and a really bitter one for not having made officer (remember that OCS rejection letter?).
Scrubs: It was revealed in Season Five and referred to in later seasons that Dr. Cox's (and his sister's) father was a violently abusive alcoholic who showed love by throwing bottles at his head and missing on purpose.
And let's not forget The Janitor's parents who kept him in a "Baby Cage" (which was actually a pet carrier). One would assume this was just another one of his many Blatant Lies if he weren't so distraught by the fact that no one else had ever heard of a Baby Cage and were so horribly disturbed when he gave one as a present for a baby shower.
Don't forget the overheard phone conversation with his mother, "no mom, playpen/baby cage is not like tomayto/tomahto."
The Janitor also has occasional flashbacks in the show to his mother cheerfully assigning him bizarre and rather cruel punishments when he was messy. One example that springs to mind was making him eat his dinner off the floor (with no plates), because he got crumbs everywhere. "Soup night was the worst..."
Character Aaron Echolls, father of Logan Echolls in Veronica Mars, is notably one of the worst dads in television - among other things he has been shown to physically abuse his son, hitting him and striking him with a belt. Logan's mother could be said to be neglectful, in the least, due to her drinking with the intention of ignoring her son being beaten in the next room.
It should probably be said that Aaron's "among other things" includes having sex with his son's girlfriend and then murdering her with an ashtray.
In Supernatural's "Nightmare", the first psychic child Sam and Dean meet is Max Miller. Max is a slightly deranged, telekinetic, abused child who was beaten by his father and uncle almost daily. He killed them both and, instead of killing his mother (before shooting Dean dead) like he was going to, he ends up tragically killing himself.
While Sam Winchester's childhood sucked ass, he openly and gratefully acknowledged that it hadn't been nearly as bad as Max's and he has his father to thank for it. Also of interest in that scene is while Sam is obvious in his relief, his older brother's subdued and twisted sounding agreement rings as considerably more hollow and forced.
In a flashback, Jane himself was shown to have had an emotionally abusive father who brought him up to think of all other people as people to be lied to, stolen from, and thrown away when no longer required.
Not quite true parentage, but in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Doctor Mora Pol was the scientist that was supposed to figure out what Odo was initially, subjecting him to a lot of probings and unpleasantness (though he was under pressure from the Cardassians at the time). Eventually he figured out that Odo was sentient, but didn't quite realize just how much Odo resented being subjected to the crap that he was. Even years later, Doctor Mora didn't realize how much of an ass he was to Odo, constantly interrupting him and telling him that he was responsible for Odo becoming the man that he was and educating him in interacting in society (which would make him the closest thing to a parent Odo would have), leaving out the parts where also he electrified him, subjected him to vacuum, and used a "protein decompiler" on him. Eventually, it took Odo trying to maul/kill him while under the Changeling equivalent of a mind altering substance for him to realize that a lot of what Dr. Mora did was not appreciated, and he became somewhat less an ass to Odo in subsequent episodes. They do eventually reconcile fully.
Arnold Rimmer and his three brothers were abused by their father in various ways; the most severe of them was the use of a rack to try to accelerate their growth. Rimmer's father had been refused entry to the Space Corps for being an inch below regulation height. Indeed, all of the abuse they suffered was to make them succeed where Rimmer Snr. had failed; unfortunately, Arnold continually tries to use this as a Freudian Excuse for his constant failures and annoying behaviour, whilst his brothers each become successful in their own Space Corps specialty.
Ironically, a deleted scene from the series six episode Rimmerworld reveals that Arnold might be the best adjusted of his brothers: at some point before the accident that left Red Dwarf without a crew, Rimmer's three brothers suffered long-delayed psychotic breakdowns, each one resulting in a significant body count.
The Freudian Excuse even worked once: when asked to justify his existence to the Inquisitor, Arnold notes that yeah, he may have squandered his life, but compared to his childhood, it's an improvement. It works.
Part of Michael Westen's backstory is that his father physically abused Michael and his younger brother Nate. It's never mentioned if Mr. Westen beat Madeline as well (though good luck with that, considering the woman carries around a shotgun), but 3x07 "Shot in the Dark" has Michael, Sam, and Fiona helping a mother and two boys on the run from an abusive stepfather.
It also confirms the abuse is the reason why Michael is taking such a "domestic" situation so seriously:
Madeline: For two little boys getting kicked around by their father? Michael would take on the entire Chinese army.
Michael's background with his father was used in an episode overtly, when he was hired by a mother to get her son back from his father. The character's narration mentions that it's a bad idea to get involved with causes that have emotional impact, since they can lead you to make bad decisions. The mother who hired him turns out to be an assassin, after the father of the boy. After Michael and the target escape, the assassin tells Michael that she has been following his progress for the last decade (after he nearly managed to catch her following one of her hits, without knowing who she was), and she used the 'father kidnaps son' story specifically because he has problems with thinking clearly in such scenarios.
In one of the last episodes of All in the Family before the Stivics move to California, Mike and Archie get locked in the unheated bar's basement during a cold spell. Both drink to keep warm, and in this altered state Archie tells Mike about how his father would beat him and lock him in a closet to "teach me to do good".
A M* A* S* H episode has Frank Burns telling Trapper, "I'm from a very strict family. We weren't allowed to talk at meals. We couldn't even hum. Anybody who hummed got a punch in the throat."
Penny's mom on Good Times. She hits Penny numerous times, breaks her arm, and in one of the most infamous scenes in the show, she burns Penny with a HOT IRON. This troper still will not watch the last 5 minutes of that episode. Thankfully, Penny's life changes when her mom abandons her and Willona adopts her.
A Very Special Episode of Major Dad dealt with this, with Robin's new boyfriend being beaten by his father (another USMC major). Major McGillis eventually confronts his fellow major (leading to a Crowning Moment of Awesome), and the episode's stinger featured actors Gerald McRaney and Nicole Dubuc providing a hotline number for domestic abuse victims.
Francis implies that Lois in Malcolm in the Middle was physically abusive in addition to the more well known abuses in finance: For instance, when listing all of the punishments that they should make themselves immune to after she thinks they burned her red dress and is interrogating them as to which ones ruined it (which turns out to be neither of them, as it was actually Hal, the father, who did the deed), he lists them as crushing their toys, making them spin around with their heads on baseball bats to make themselves dizzy, corner standing, laying under a dusty couch, single interrogations, loud children's songs, and threatening to smash the TV, and in another episode was also implied that her punishments towards Francis actually made a cult trying to haze Francis completely incapable of humiliating him, and after learning his secret, actually adopts Lois's punishments on new recruitees as their new method of hazing. It's also implied that Lois's mother, Ima, was even worse.
Francis technically isn't a parent (yet, anyways), but he did abuse his brothers (IE, Malcolm and Reese) rather physically (such as locking them up in a closet, stealing their toys, frequently torturing them, and scarring Reese on the shoulder with a bayonette).
The NCIS episode "Restless" had the foster daughter claiming that she ran away from home because her birth parents in a commune were abusive. Although her parents living in a commune wasn't true and in fact part of a scam (although the episode itself implies that she genuinely believed her identity and the part about her parents was true due to mental brainwashing and subsequent reprogrammings), the part about her having an abusive parent (more specifically, an abusive uncle, as her actual birthparents were killed in a car crash and he received custody) was actually true, as her uncle, a person working as a chef in the second-chance shelter, and also the person who masteminded the foster child scam that she was unknowingly/unwillingly involved in, often physically abused her (one example is a burn mark on her shoulder that was revealed to be from tongs used for handling taco shells), not to mention had her reprogrammed at least twice beforehand.
Beverly Hills 90210 character Valerie Malone was repeatedly raped by her father as a child.
Child abuse of all flavors is one of the specialties of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, but since rape is the other, sexual abuse against minors is one of their most frequent case types. Female circumcision is one plot that shows up more than it in all likelihood would.
Supernatural implied heavily that Bela Talbot was abused by her father in this way when she was fourteen. In that case, can you blame the poor woman for wanting to make a deal with the devil?
In Twin Peaks, murder victim Laura Palmer, repeatedly raped over several years and later killed by her father Leland. Of course, Leland is supposedly not entirely responsible because of possession by BOB, an evil spirit.
Particularly when you realized that Bob doesn't forcibly taken over a person. In traditional "possession" fashion, he has to be invited or allowed in; either through an active desire, or by exploiting the posessee's fear and weakness of character (referred to by Deputy Hawk as "imperfect courage"). In Leland's case, it was strongly hinted that he started out lusting after Laura, making him an example of the former. In Dale Cooper's case, he allowed his fear for Annie Blackburn's fate, combined with guilt over his affair with Windom Earle's wife, to push him over into the latter.
Ricky Underwood in The Secret Life of the American Teenager who was abused by his father at a young age, leading him to be placed in a foster home. Sets him up for this rebellious womanizing attitude that the high school girls are oogling over.
In Law & Order: Criminal Intent, in "Crazy", the team found out that the victim had molested his young daughter. He didn't. It was because his ex-wife was becoming desperate and accused her husband as such, despite knowing what really happened.
In the series finale of Malcolm in the Middle, Lois actively made sure Malcom didn't get that high paying job which he EARNED by sole virtue of merit. Yeah, she did it because she wanted Malcolm to become president, someone who will know how people like them live and would be able to do something about it. However, Malcolm's family's problems largely are their own fault. She's also said at one point that she'll happily throw Malcolm's future away to save Reese (the family failure).
Hal kept a $10,000 grant Malcolm earned a secret from him. He also charged an expensive Christmas vacation on Malcolm's credit card; Malcolm wasn't completely innocent here, seeing as though he was responsible with it he got the card illegally, but still....
Lois takes 3/4 of Malcolm's paycheck from Lucky Aid with no reason given.
Malcolm was offered a full scholarship to a prestigious boarding school and knowing they wouldn't let him go under normal conditions, he makes a very rational argument that with him away, the family could actually afford a coming baby without being drowned in debt. Rather than let him go, Hal chastises him by telling him "you don't get to leave", with only the rationale that something will come up to keep the family afloat.
An episode of Law and Order Special Victims Unit had a set of white parents set their black adopted child to be killed by white supremacists to collect the insurance money.
Another episode had a family poison their granddaughter in a way to make it look like she had cancer so they could collect insurance money and sympathy.
Gilmore Girls: Paris's parents decide to evade their tax responsibilities and leave the country, leaving her high and dry when the IRS moved in, and was forced to take work and move into a skeevy apartment featuring a "doo-wop group" on the front steps in order to get through the last two years of Yale.
Married with Children: Bud Bundy has had his scholarship money stolen by his parents.
Dark Angel: Max was fostered by a family shortly after her escape from Manticore, the father of which was a drunk, and he smacked both her and her foster-sister around and molested the latter. This scenario is replayed in episode 3 of season one, when she is imprisoned in the Warden's house. However, it ended differently in the fact that Max ended up splattering him by ramming a jeep into the car he was hiding behind.
And, of course, because Max was a Tyke Bomb, she endured plenty of abuse from the adults at Project Manticore. It's a wonder more of her group didn't go crazy like her brother Ben.
Both Niki Sanders and Elle Bishop in Heroes were abused by their fathers, though neither actually remember it. In Niki's case, her alter ego due to Split Personality does remember and also suggests that her father killed her deceased sister. Elle's father is alleged to have performed invasive experiments on her when she was very young, with the memories of this being removed through the use of another character's ability, and is shown to be generally cold and manipulative toward her.
It's heavily suggested that Faith of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a victim of parental abuse. Her mother was a neglectful alcoholic who was likely physically and mentally abusive. As well, Faith's rather twisted relationship with sex hints at possible sexual abuse. The Big Bad who took her in as a Dragon and surrogate daughter was a better parent! Even after his death, Faith still remembers him fondly while still acknowledging that he was an evil man.
Over on Angel Wesley's father is obviously incredibly emotionally abusive, and used to lock him under the stairs. Any time Wesley speaks to him it's nearly possible to see his self-esteem draining away. When he finally showed up in person this continued, until Wesley actually managed to impress him. Except that no, this was all a ploy to gain access to a mystical artifact to use against Wesley's friend and employer. Also the father turned out to be an illusion-clad cyborg impostor, but Wesley was perfectly willing to believe that his father would actually do this. After shooting the cyborg while still believing it to be his father, he called home to make sure the real one was alright, and was promptly told off for calling at that hour.
Connor's relationship with Holtz started when he kidnapped him as a baby and fled to "the darkest of dark worlds". Apart from that he raised him to hate his biological father and tied him to a tree and abandoned him for weeks at a time to teach him how to track. From the age of about six. Given that this is a man who decided to teach someone else "loyalty" by nailing their hand to a table there's presumably a lot more.
One case dealt with a telekinetic teen named Bethany who had been sexually abused by her father. Wolfram and Hart's attempt to turn her into a killer amounted to putting her father in the same room, on the basis that she'd be unable not to kill him with her new powers.
Despite his outwardly sunny, joking exterior, Tony DiNozzo implies that his parents were physically and emotionally abusive, in addition to being alcoholics.
That's not even mentioning the fact that Tony's dad went on a buisiness trip with child!Tony to Maui, but then he forgot him there!
It should also be mentioned that Tony was left there for a week. That's right folks, Tony's dad went home from Maui, and forgot his son was there until a week later!
In bits and pieces over the course of his run on MASH, Frank Burns revealed (usually while drunk) a litany of things his parents would do to him. Both of his parents were emotionally abusive, though it was his father who would do things like punching him in the throat if he so much as hummed during dinner.
Don Draper's father abused him physically (partially explaining how he got so messed up). On the other hand, messed-up as he is, he isn't half as abusive to his children as Betty, whose ice-cold and often oblivious parenting has given way to physical abuse; Don tends towards well-meaning cluelessness, and even his all-too-frequent forgetting of important events doesn't seem to get to the level of neglect. Betty's second husband, Henry Francis, is more understanding, but he doesn't seem to be able to make Betty get that she's making things worse.
Given how he was born, Don was probably also emotionally abused by his father's wife. "I'm a whoreson, didn't you know?"
Smallville: Lex's dad, Lionel witholds affection and approval from his son in the warped belief that it will make him stronger. Their tortured relationship is one of the keystones of the series, and ends very badly when Lex kills his dad. It is revealed in Season 3 that Lionel himself suffered physical absue from his drunken, alcholic parents, who sought to keep him down in the gutter with them, and prevent him from succeeding at anything; this is one of the reasons he's so oblivious to his abuse of Lex, as he thinks he has a firm grasp of what abuse looks like. And then there's Tess Mercer, who's real parents abandoned her and who's foster father broke her eardrums and arm through physical violence.
In Season 4, we meet Jason Teague, who's parents were also less than loving. His father, Edward, subjects him to Financial Abuse, disinheriting him when he sets off on his own. His mother, Evil Matriarch Genevieve is even worse, being more or less Lionel's Distaff Counterpart. She's emotionally manipulative of Jason and his girlfriend, whom she plans to murder in order to fullfill a prophecy; her control of Jason is so extreme that by the end of the season he's unwilling to do anything without seeking her permission first. Then in Season 10, we meet Earth-2 Lionel, who takes this Up to Eleven, encouraging his kids to plot against one another for the privilege of being his Bastard Understudy, and eventually tries to have them all killed off at one point or another. Archnemesis Dad indeed.
Benny Lopez was pretty bad to George as a kid, but it was more due to George's dad walking out on her and not having the money herself to afford it. The real abusive parents are hers, who took this to Complete Monster level and make her look like a decent mother compared to them.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation has Sara as a main character, and possibly Ray,plus all the CS Is have quite a few criminals with such pasts.
Michael on Roswell has this problem with his foster dad, until he emancipates himself.
Music
Suzanne Vega's "Luka".
Jason Michael Carroll's "Alyssa Lies".
Martina McBride's "Independence Day" and "Concrete Angel".
Disturbed's "Down With The Sickness".
John Michael Montgomery's "The Little Girl," where the title character witnesses her father beating her mother ... and then one day witnessing his murdering her before turning the gun on himself.
Red Jump Suit Apparatus' "Face Down", where the singer observes an abusive relationship where the girl is physically beaten by her boyfriend and has to apply makeup to hide the bruises. By the end of the song it is implied she listens to the singer and leaves her abuser.
"Kristy, Are You Doing Okay?" by The Offspring. The song is meant to be an apology to a girl that lead singer Dexter Holland, as well as his friends, knew was sexually abused during her youth by her father, yet no one ever brought it up.
"Amy in the White Coat" by Bright Eyes is about the life of a girl who is being sexually abused by her father. The song is told through the point-of-view of her father, and some of* her classmates.
"Janie's Got a Gun" by Aerosmith is about a girl who murders her father because he sexually abused her.
Pearl Jam's "Alive" tells the story of a young man raped by his mother. Although the story is very much a grim one, it was seen as a survivor's anthem among victims of parental incest, as fans commonly interpreted the chorus "I'm still alive, hey, I'm still alive" as being a triumphant declaration of survival, rather than what Eddie Vedder called a curse. In 2006, though, stated that the fan response changed his view of the song, and that the "curse" had been lifted from it.
Take a song by Korn. Any song. Usually it's more about neglect than direct abuse, but to the children in the songs, it feels just the same.
Voltaire's song "The Chosen". The protagonist says "First time I had sex I was three/ First time consenting was thirteen", and claims that his mother "once left me in a supermarket".
Alanis Morissette's "Perfect" is about parents who live vicariously through their kids and humiliate and berate them for not meeting expectations.
We love you just the way you are / If you're perfect.
Mythology
Greek Mythology is full of child abuse. Ouranos and Cronos both made a practice of imprisoning their children at birth: Ouranos threw them in Tartaros or shoved them back in the womb, while Cronos swallowed them whole. According to Homer, Zeus once flung his son Hephaestus off of Olympus, breaking his legs.
Greek mortals abuse their children just as often in myth. For example, Echetus gouged out his daughter's eyes, chained her in a cellar, and made her grind iron chunks to dust. Acrisius locked his daughter Danae in solitary confinement to prevent her from having children, and then threw her in a box and dumped her in the sea when she got pregnant from Zeus. Mythical women suffer various physical punishments and sometime death for getting pregnant out of wedlock, even when they were raped. Beating kids barely even gets mentioned in Classical Greece, except i.e. when comedian Aristophanes mocks moral relativists by depicting them as opposed to beating.
Theatre
One of the characters in Voices From The High School is abused by his father, and he eventually talks to a friend about it.
Another example is Millie's mother, who gave her alcohol as a young child to "help with naps."
Spring Awakening has Martha and Ilse, who both suffer from this sort of abuse. The song "The Dark I Know Well" is all about sexual abuse.
In Electra, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus verbally abuse Electra, confine her to the house, prevent her from marrying, and leave her in neglect. This crosses over into physical abuse with their plan to seal her up in a cave to die.
Professional Wrestling
During his initial heel run in the World Wrestling Federation, Randy "Macho Man" Savage would often publicly belittle or demean his valet, Miss Elizabeth, often for minor mistakes (such as not holding the ropes wide enough, not taking proper care of his robe and sunglasses, etc.). This was abandoned during the summer of 1987, as Savage was being primed for his run as a good guy wrestler.
Prior to awareness campaigns of the late 1980s and early 1990s, a child "physical abuse"-type promo was often played for laughs. More common with regional promotions that had their own syndicated TV programs, a heel wrestler or tag team will seriously and in a normal but concerned tone of voice deliver a promo (a pre-taped inteview that usually airs between matches) recounting a supposed meeting with a sad-eyed boy or girl, who is crying because (s)he can no longer take his/her father's physical abuse, the wrestler then asking the child if he'd go live with his/her mother to which the boy claims she beats him/her also, then asking who he'd like to live with, to which the kid says, "I wanna go live with (whatever face wrestler/tag team said heels are currently feuding, usually a babyface) ... because they don't beat nobody!" (with the heel wrestler's demeanor suddenly turning from somber to mocking as he delivers the punch line.
Toward the end of 2005, Raw wrestler Shelton Benjamin began losing most of his matches. It wasn't long before his overbearing "Momma" (actually a middle-aged black woman in "granny" glasses and a muumuu) showed up on television to reprimand him, threatening to beat him (just as she supposedly did when he was a boy) if he didn't start winning matches. Benjamin began cheating to win or allowing Momma Benjamin to cheat for him, thus turning heel.
Video Games
King Desmond in Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken makes no bones about the fact that he loathes his son Zephiel and even tries to kill him twice. Is it any wonder this wise, gentle boy grows up to be such a bastard in Fuuin no Tsurugi?
Ashnard's treatment of his son is more a case of Parental Abandonment, but the fact that he used his son to lure a dragon to his side, and the fact that he kept the boy separated from his mother even after abandoning them both, probably falls into the "abusive" category. Strangely, while the son turned out to be just as good a strategist as the father, he was also fiercely loyal to Ike.
It's heavily implied in the Ace Attorney series that Manfred von Karma was, at the very least, emotionally abusive toward his adoptive son and biological daughter. Both had breakdowns in adulthood as a result of the pressure he put on them growing up, and let's just say he was famous for having... very stiff penalties for people who would accept anything less than complete perfection. That's not even getting into what the guy is shown actually doing in-game to said adoptive son...
Pearl's mother, Morgan Fey, also screwed up the little girl horribly. To make a long story short, she essentially tried to use Pearl as a receptacle for the spirit of Morgan's other daughter, a sociopath named Dahlia, who was supposed to kill Morgan's niece Maya as a way of catering to a childish, spiteful sibling rivalry. Standard procedure for the Fey clan.
Matsuri, Aoba and Jun's parents in Family Project. Jun's are probably the worst. Her father molested her and her sister since they were small children for years until a neighbor noticed and they got taken away. Their mother? Envious. So she starved them for days on end and then would feed them horrible things. Like flat out poison to Jun, which nearly killed her and prevents her from eating anything but snack bars and drinks.
In Final Fantasy X, Tidus's father often insulted and berated his son for being a crybaby. After believing Jecht had died at sea, Tidus's mother also pined and eventually died. As a result, Tidus harbored bitterness towards his father and never quite forgave him for it. While it's made clear Jecht actually did love his son, the man never, at any point in his life, tell him such - throughout both that game and Dissidia, Jecht only admits his love for Tidus when the younger man is either absent or unconscious (or when he himself is dying).
Braska comes off as a close second. Before he set off on his pilgrimage he apparantly hadn't arranged any kind of carer for his 7 year old daughter. We know this because during her video will (the sphere that Tidus stole) she explains that whilst coming to terms with the fact she was now orphaned; she just kind of wandered off until Kimarhi found her and took her to Besaid. Firstly, if Braska had arranged for a carer they were oblivious to her walking off and apparantly couldn't care less that she was commandeered by a hulking 6ft Ronso. Secondly, this situation proves exactly why Yuna needed a babysitter; shes the most trusting girl in the world - replace Kimahri with paedophile and Braska's stole the Dad of the Year Award from Jecht.
That's a severe twisting of the situation. Braska most likely tried to get a caretaker and couldn't get one with Yuna being half-Al Bhed and his own status as "the heretic summoner who everyone should avoid." Then he sent Auron to go back and take care of her which only went wrong because Auron died for a little while,]] and he in turn sent Kimahri. Besides, Yuna remembers him very positively—hispilgrimage is a definite example of Despair Event Horizon rather than intentional neglect.
Cyrus, the Big Bad of the Pokemon Diamond And Pearl games, is revealed in the postgame to have been under severe parental pressure as a child. Specifics are never given, but it was apparently bad enough to make his grandfather consider taking him away from his parents. And, you know, bad enough to make him snap and want to take controlthe only way he could think of...
And the cycle continued. In one of the spin-off series, Cyrus is, for all intents and purposes, father figure to an orphan girl. Who he raised as a war machine, constantly telling her that everyone is alone in the world. It's implied later that she didn't realize that kindness existed, basically because he didn't either. Fortunately for her, she got better, and later, so did he.
Cyrus' parents were horrid perfectionists, true, but they were consistent. In Pokemon Black And White Ghetsis goes Up to Eleven in the manner with which he raised N, teaching the boy values that directly opposed what he (Ghetsis, that is) believed in and exploiting N for his own personal gain. The revelation at the end that the boy was merely a tool to those ends is the icing on the cake, the capper to his Garchomp flight across the Moral Event Horizon. You won't find anyone in the know who isn't ready to accept Ghetsis as possibly being the prime exemplar of this trope.
Pokémon is full of terrible, terrible parents, isn't it? Pokemon Ranger gives us Gordor, who forced his four kids into joining his criminal gang and brainwashing Pokémon. When they finally wise up and leave to embark on their music careers, he basically just scoffs and goes about his merry evil way. He doesn't give two craps about them and saw them as just more goons.
In ZHP, it's eventually revealed that the Main Character's parents constantly insulted and belittled him ever since he let himself and his sister get kidnapped 8 years ago. However, soon after this is learned it is revealed that the kidnapping was not Main Character's fault (he actually tried to stop it, but his sister was unable to vouch for him due to Trauma Induced Amnesia). Once this is learned, the parents quickly clean up their act.
Hell, not just the Main Character was abused, in fact. The trauma of the incident caused the mother and father to constantly argue with each other when they're not busy insulting the Main Character, while his sister lashed out all everyone else because, due to her amnesia, she has no idea why everyone in her family was made at each other.
In Tales Of Symphonia, Zelos never had the nicest relationship with his mother, as she was forced into a loveless marriage, even though she "probably loved someone else". When she's killed in an attack that was intended to kill Zelos, her last words to him were "You should never have been born". It's shown in the manga that even before this, she was cold and dismissive of her son, often making the excuse that she's ill or has a headache to get out of having to see him. No wonder he's so messedup...
In Guilty Gear X, Sol Badguy takes part in bounty hunting after Dizzy. He finds her and beats the hell out of her. And it's possible not only that he is her father, but also that he already knew it, when he went after her.
Baek Doosan's backstory in Tekken 2 involves him having to put up with a decidedly unpleasant and abusive father, a result of alcoholism after a crippling injury forced him to leave Tae Kwon Do. How bad did it get? To the point where a sparring session degenerated into a fight in which Baek killed his father by accident.
Becomes a recurring theme in Grand Theft Auto IV, as the main character, Niko Bellic, and his cousin, Roman's, fathers were violent alcoholics who would regularly beat up both their children and their wifes. Dwayne Forge and Packie McReary had similar childhoods, and while the first comments how he felt "nothing" when his father was murdered, the second will at one point open up to Niko and tell that his violent father at one point even attempted and would have succeeded at molesting him, if his older brother, Gerry, had not intervened at the last minute.
In the Japanese version of Earthbound, when Porky and Picky get back home at the beginning of the game, their father chases them offscreen, and can be heard spanking them. In the American version, this is changed to the sound made when enemies in battle use "word attacks," implying that their father was only scolding them.
In a scene near the end of No More Heroes, it's revealed that Travis' father constantly molested his sister. She eventually gets revenge by killing him, his wife, and attempting to kill his son. Although, having a sexually abusive father is quite possibly the most normal thing about her story...
In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty, Emma was stated to have been sexually assaulted by her second stepfather, to which she injured him in self defense shortly before graduating from High School. The game itself doesn't specify what kind of assault it was, but the script included in the Document of Metal Gear Solid 2 had in brackets "sexual" right before "assault."
Also in Sons of Liberty, there's Otacon, who was sexually abused by his stepmother. The fact that this was only now added is a lovely demonstration of the Double Standard surrounding rape victims: when a man in a position of power makes sexual advances on a female minor, it's sexual assault, but when a woman in a position of power makes sexual advances on a male minor, it's a relationship.
Bioshock has Sofia Lamb. An incredible list of abuse, mostly of the mental variety-though a degree of neglect etc. Attempting to condition your child in to the 'Peoples Daughter' (an individual who knows everything, or more accurately a conduit for everything), using a serum that reduced a fellow researcher to a sentient tumour, does not a good parent make.
Sofia Lamb may not even be Eleanor's mother, an audio log from her alludes that she did as little to be involved in raising her as possible, possibly even using a surrogate.
Silent Hill. Let's count: Dahlia Gillespie, Leonard Wolf, Thomas Orosco, the unnamed Mrs. Orosco, Walter's parents, Helen Grady, Adam Shepherd, and those are just off the top of my head. There's been, what, one good parent in the series?
At least Harry Mason, the protagonist of the first game, is a Papa Wolf to the max.
RELIUS CLOVER. This is the guy who experiments the hell out of his wife, turning her into his personal doll Ignis; and then turned to his daughter Ada; killed, and turned her into an incomplete doll, Nirvanna, so his son Carl Clover can clean up the mess he left behind while he goes jittering and crossing over Moral Event Horizon happily; leaving the poor little boy completely traumatized, having to show a lack of compassion and fend for himself as a Vigilante at such a young age. That's an abuse of mental, emotional and financial... and he went straight to physical (as in, attempted homicide) when Carl tried to get an explanation.
"You've been a very naughty boy... spare the crook, spoil the child."
We learn very early into Blaze Union that Gulcasa's father beat and neglected him when he was a young child; his father blamed him for his mother's disappearance. We later learn that said mother is also neglectful and emotionally abusive; the last thing she ever did to her child was Mind Rape him into believing himself to be human while sealing his demon blood without his consent. While her reasons for doing so were arguably well-intentioned, it still left Gulcasa with residual brain damage that prevents him from being able to realize that Emilia is his sister when they first meet. And if that isn't enough, she also reveals that she was aware that Gulcasa's father was abusing him, but chose not to come back and do something about it. All of this started from Fantastic Racism, which was also the reason that no one tried to do anything about the abuse. Luckily for Gulcasa, his childhood friends were willing to become parental surrogates, and lovingly helped him grow up mostly undamaged by all this.
Hojo and Lucrecia from Final Fantasy VII did genetic experiments on their son while he was still in the womb in the name of science. The child, Sephiroth, did not take this well.
Lucrecia at least harbored some regret for her part in the genetic experiments, even causing her to nearly commit suicide. Hojo, on the other hand, had absolutely no regret for what he did. In fact, he enjoyed every single moment of it even afterwards, and was heavily implied to have manipulated all of Sephiroth's actions and pretty much everything in Sephiroth's life/lives.
Although not technically her parents, the Gestahlian Empire from Final Fantasy VI was the closest that Terra Branford could call her parents due to Gestahl murdering her birthmother and then kidnapping her child, not to mention subjecting her father to various experiments. And, sure enough, their raising her was very much abusive in terms of emotional and possibly other forms of abuse. She was raised in a loveless environment for most of her life, Kefka placed the Slave Crown on Terra to manipulate all of her actions, including burning fifty of their finest soldiers alive, and even the one person who was even relatively decent to her, General Leo Cristolph, nonetheless placed the mind control device back on her when they finish training.
Embric Of Wulfhammers Castle. He's the Duchess' uncle, not her father, and the gory details aren't given, but Bad King Greyghast was not above imprisoning, drugging, killing animals, spying on, and sexually abusing his favorite niece to control her.
All of the above happened to Alma Wade, in FEAR thanks to her father, Harlan Wade, and the Armacham Technology Corporation. (Save financial abuse, and that was because she was never old enough to have money in the first place.) Psychic Powers that made her susceptible to emotions, particularly negative ones and especially her fathers', coupled with physical and mental abuse due to being constantly experimented on, ultimately culminated in her being dragged away at her father's orders to be sealed in the Vault in an induced coma. Sexual abuse followed when Harlan Wade and Armacham used her unconscious body as a testing ground for psychic Super Soldiers, impregnating her twice and removing her from her prison only to give birth to the two prototypes. And worse still, she never got to hold her children. Needless to say, when Alma gets loose, hell follows her. So great is his abuse of her that her uber-powerful psychic ghost gets reduced into a scared, crying child whenever she feels The Creep, his psychic remnant, is around. After that, he goes and abuses his grandkids, For Science. Swell guy.
In Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Paz Ortega Andrade, real name Pacifica Ocean, according to her diary tapes, was an orphan, and was apparently adopted by Cipher (in other words, the Patriots faction run by Zero after the split), and she intends to obey Cipher's command, not simply due to her loyalty to the organization, but because she feels as though she has to obey them even if she doesn't agree with their goals because she'll otherwise suffer a fate worse than death if she doesn't.
There's also the fact that they created the clones of Big Boss. The fact that they were created without Big Boss's consent would make this a form of sexual abuse. Oh, and the project that created them also had six of their brothers essentially murdered during development so they could gain strong fetal growth. Then there is the fact that they kidnapped Olga's child, Sunny, after birth, and put her life on the line by having her life being connected to Raiden's vital nanomachines, meaning if he dies, they kill her, and it is heavily implied that even after Raiden defeated Solidus Snake, they still are placing her life on the line as a threat to Raiden, and she grew up completely withdrawn from people. Yeah.
Where to even start with Fei from Xenogears? After she got possessed by Miang, Fei's mother started experimenting on him, thus creating his Superpowered Evil Side Id, who then was used by his father possesed by the personality of one of Fei's former Incarnations as a Person of Mass Destruction, and that's not even all of it.
Adam Malkovich's treatment of Samus Aran in Metroid: Other M has been construed by some reviewers as romanticizing an abusive relationship between an otherwise capable bounty hunter and her surrogate father figure.
Visual Novels
Ah, Tsukihime, what form of angst don't you have. One of the characters is the seemingly cheerful and carefree maid Kohaku. Spending her childhood locked in a room and being raped daily by her master, Shiki's adoptive father Makihisa Tohno, and doing so to protect her twin sister Hisui from being raped as well, made her a literal Emotionless Girl: she put on on a horrible cheery mask to hide her (lack of) feelings (while Hisui became a melancholic Shrinking Violet who feigned emotionlessness to not perturb her further), and in some routes of the game, she plots to kill every member of the Tohno Family as revenge.
Some? Just because you never see the effects in the other routes doesn't mean she wasn't doing it. As a VN, it makes the most sense to assume that everything's exactly the same in all the routes except for those things which are changed by the player's choices.
Things aren't exactly the same in all the routes, though. The Near Side and Far Side routes seem to be almost completely separate, as shown by the differences displayed by SHIKI. In the Near Side routes he is the vampire Roa reincarnated and does not seem to have a psychic link with Shiki, where in the Far Side routes he is evil/crazy because of the Tohno inversion impulse and has a mind link with Shiki. Not to mention he looks completely different in the two scenarios.
Also, Fate Stay Night has Sakura Matou, who has a very similar backstory to Kohaku. While Zouken subjects her "only" to Training from Hell and the Matou crest worms, her stepbrother Shinji rapes her repeteadly.
Webcomics
Oasis' (adoptive) father in Sluggy Freelance uses mind control technology to turn her into his slave and personal assassin, who he plans to use to fulfill various fantasies.
To a lesser extent, it's heavily implied that Riff's mom, Dr. Lorna, deeply screwed him up when he was a kid. If she treated him anything like how she treats every other human being on the planet, then it's amazing he's not an even madder scientist than he is now.
Leeza's father, Admiral Blake, in Terinu is implied to have merely been an Absent Parent when she was growing up. Now that she's an adult he's rebounded into a Manipulative Bastard, getting her fired when she thwarted his plans for Teri, sticking her with the boy's guardianship so he could still keep an eye on them both, culminating in arresting her and sending her to prison when she threatened to go public with the news that humanity wiped out Terinu's race.
The Order of the Stick: The only way in which Roy's father seems to care at all for either of his children is the extent to which they follow in his footsteps as a wizard. He has nothing but scorn for his eldest son Roy, who elected to take up the family Ancestral Weapon as a Fighter, and favors his spoiled Libby of a daughter instead. Oh, and his second son? The fact that he ignored Roy's pleading led to his death.
So much so that when Roy dies, he offers his father a bargain: Roy will only cooperate if his father agrees to go away and leave the entire family alone for eternity. For double points, Daddy jumps on the bargain and scoffs that Roy made his price so low.
Roy Greenhilt: I don't know what's more depressing: That you agreed to that so easily, or that I knew that you would when I proposed it.
Haley's father seems to have crippled her ability to interact with others honestly due to the paranoia that came as a result of living as a member of the Thieves' Guild. Whereas Roy seems to have risen above his father's abuse except for his habit of insulting people, Haley is still pretty messed up.
Ian meant well, but had different, rather family unfriendly values he tried to teach to his daughter. From what little we know of him, it seems they love each other very much.
In Dreamkeepers, there's two variations going on: one is physically abusive, the other shuts his daughter in and isolates her from the outside world.
What Birds Know: Dores' parents are both pretty bad, but her mother is an outright Jerkass who shows absolutely No Sympathy for her daughter. As far as she's concerned, Dores is an utterly worthless waste of space while Ian is her pride and joy. While the other parents are concerned by the girls' prolonged absence, Dores' mother just harps on about how she's going to punish her once she gets back and tries to shoot down everyone else's attempts to put together a search party.
In Kagerou, Kano's father was this. Though only a few details have been given, it's been revealed that Kano's father shoved him into a morgue box with a dead body in it, which is likely the cause for a large part of Kano's mental trauma.
In Voodoo Walrus, it's been suggested that Creep Knight's father has basically disowned him and refused to respect his choice to become a writer over being part of the Liechtensteinian royal family. Yet his father regularly sends mercenaries to test his son's mental and physical mettle and attempts to drag him back home.
Poor, poor Kieri Suizahn. The comic here shows that her mother was more than someone who simply chastised her (as seen in an earlier comic), although one can argue this also crosses over with Emotional Abuse in some areas. [1]
Jared's father, and possibly his mother as well beat him throughout his life. All pictures of him as a child show him with bruises and scars all over his face. He ended up as a Self-Made Orphan.
Quain'tana from Drowtales has a virtual laundry list of all the horrible things she's done to her children:
Syphile: physically beating her, verbally berating her and handing her over as a plaything to Sil'lice.
Mel'arnach: Imprisoning her and having her beaten for disobeying, and it's also implied that she had her men rape her in an attempt to conceive an heir. She also took Mel's child, Ariel, to raise as her own daughter.
Laelle'aell: No apparent abuse besides being raised The Spartan Way, and she was actually considered the pride of the family until she was possessed by a demon, at which point she was discarded except for use as a mass killing machine.
Kel'noz: No apparent abuse, but was witness to all of the above and admits that she's a terrible mother, also seems to be a Manipulative Bastard with his own agenda.
Koil'dorath: No apparent abuse, but being and adult and one of the few people capable of having a chance of fighting back when she was adopted probably helped.
Ariel: Being taken away from Mel, her mother and handed over to Syphile to raise (unsurprisingly Syphile did a terrible job and gave Ariel much the same treatment she had received) and not seeing her for 10 years, rejecting her as a suitable heir until she killed a boy who had tried to kill her in a Sadistic Choice between him and one of her few allies.
Luna Travoria from Dominic Deegan was emotionally abused by her mother in hopes that she would commit suicide while a knight was visiting, ensuring a hefty payout from the government.
Marena from Keychain of Creation had a mother with... interesting ideas on parenting. Marena a long list of things to forgive her for.
Kenta Fujiwara in Red String is a domneering force in his son's life, he has called Kazuo useless on more that one occasion, which has let deep scars on Kazuo's pschye. He has also hit Kazuo at leasttwice. Kazuo has been shown taking some sort of medication in some comics, which are widely believed to be self proscribed anti-depressents and Kazuo uses them to attempt suicide at the end of Chapter 43.
El Goonish Shive: Damien ended up making himself a sort of twisted father figure to Grace and her brothers, but there is nothing "fatherly" about him at all. He is an abuser pure and simple, able to control his "children" through fear and constantly hitting them whenever they displease him. And like any parent whose children are young enough, he's too powerful for them to do anything about it.
Also, he intended to use Grace for breeding so he would have been a sexual abuser as well.
Homestuck has a few variations on this theme; the most extreme is probably Vriska Serket's guardian, which forces her to capture hundreds of other children to feed it, but others include Dave's Bro (regularly beats the crap out of him and fills the apartment with creepy puppet porn) and Gamzee's lusus (just never there). It's unclear whether Rose's mom is actually the master of Passive Aggressive Kombat that Rose makes her out to be or if she's honestly trying to connect with her, but either way she's perpetually drunk and on the negligent side.
Later, someone managed to beat Vriska's lusus to the "Worst Parent of the Year" award: Doc Scratch, in caring for Aradia's ancestor the Handmaid. He keeps her locked in a tiny room, and when she gets out of line, he teleports her to outer space.
Aryan Nation, a white supremacist "superhero" from the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, admits that the reason he took to crimefighting was to repudiate the abuse his trailer-trash, redneck father heaped upon him while growing up, and is actually proud of the fact that he's not "some drunken Klansman in a bedsheet burning crosses", despite still being a racist Jerkass. The fact that he's doing the very same thing to his own kids that his father did to him hasn't occurred to Aryan Nation yet.
Occurs so frequently in Survival of the Fittest that it isn't even funny. A good example would be Mariavel Varella (V2's favourite Villain Sue), although a large majority of V1 characters seem to have them too, and the trope is also strongly evident in V2. Fortunately, it has apparently dried up in the third game,, being far less common. Not rare enough, however, for a majority of handlers not to be thoroughly sick of the trope though.
Elsdon's father in The Eternal Dungeon series for no apparent reason at first and then in a strange, backfired attempt to "fix" Elsdon of his own sadism. Elsdon is understandably self-hating and mostly Ax Crazy at the beginning of the series until he's given a chance to channel his own desires productively.
MSF High Forum: Destiny's mom wanted to possess her daughter to avoid growing old and dying, she killed destiny's father to do this followed by being killed herself along with Destiny.
And that's not getting into Casey's folks....
In Touhou: a Glimmer of an Outside World, Marisa's father. Amongst other things, he threw her out—despite Marisa's being sixteen or seventeen at the most—and hit her when she tried to get back in.
In Nameless, it's heavily implied that Miller's mom molested him, which could possibly be the reason why he's so screwed up.
Generator's dad, in the Whateley Universe. Physically and emotionally abusive, especially after Generator's mother was killed (which may have been dad's fault). Generator would have been beaten to death if she hadn't manifested her mutant power right then. Money? All gone now that dad's on the run from the police for other crimes. The only reason dad didn't rape her is probably because she wasn't a girl back when she was living with her father.
Ask That Guy and the Nostalgia Critic; Ask That Guy seems to think that he was never good enough and they told him that he would have go to back in the dumpster where they found him, while the Critic portrayed them as monsters ripping him apart in a kindergarten drawing. And Ask That Guy's response to "Why does Daddy hit Mommy?" and the Critic apparently hiding in the cupboard when he was scared seem pretty suspect, as are Critic's rants on dreams not coming true and parents putting pressure on their kids.. Also, with Critic being a weepy Psychopathic Manchild and Ask That Guy having twisted views on sex and women, it was pretty obvious from the start.
Also treated for laughs was the The Nostalgia Chick's childhood. Her mother made her feel inadequate, her uncle sexually abused her and her father never gave her any love. Word Of Lindsay is that she retreated into always watching television to escape her parents yelling.
Western Animation
In The Spectacular Spider-man, Norman Osborn barely conceals his contempt for his son, Harry. This manifests in snide criticisms about his son's issues, hobbies and successes, and also in blatant, stunningly passive-aggressive displays of Parental Favoritism towards Harry's best friend, Peter Parker, when both boys are present. This is. of course, when Norman isn't dismissing Harry and ignoring him entirely in favor of his job. Harry's mother does this too, not even verbally acknowledging him when he greets her. As a result, Harry has...issues.
In King of the Hill, Hank's father Cotton is an abusive jerkass of the highest order, who has considered Hank to be a horrific failure ever since, quite literally, the day he was born (it is said in one episode that this is because he was born in New York instead of Texas). While there are incremental moves towards a better relationship between the two, they always backslide by the end of the episode due to Cotton's aforementioned jerkass nature and Hank's difficulty with and distaste for anything emotional. When Cotton is finally called out on his deathbed, it made for one of the best scenes in the show's entire 12-year run. Despite this abuse, Hank is one of the most well adjusted characters on the show.
You know what Cotton's idea of complimenting his son is? He tells Hank that he's better at being a father because "You made Bobby, all I made was you."
Of course, a few episodes later we're introduced to Kahn's father-in-law, who has implied that he would have Kahn killed if he could get away with it.
Hank's kind of abusive towards Bobby too, he's nowhere near as bad as most of the examples on the page in any way, but his entire relationship with Bobby is an attempt to make him a mini-Hank, and he doesn't allow his son anything he doesn't agree with (fantasy books, clouds on his wall, video games, generally stuff that could make people see him as a nerd). In the Grand Finale, he finally accepts his son and shows joy in what he's doing...because he's doing something Hank's been pressuring him to get into probably since he got into propane.
Bill's father was also said to be abusive (we only ever see him once in a flashback, he's dead in the present). It has been said that he spanked Bill consistently everyday for 8 years, he often humiliated him and made him wear dresses, he also said he was worthless and would never amount to anything. As a result, Bill is not the most stable person, and whenever the subject of his father comes up, he either calls him a bastard or begins to cry.
Bill: My dad spanked me every day for eight years and I turned out alright. (beat) Bastard.
Abe Simpson of The Simpsons would waver between being a decent parent that Homer liked and a distant and condescending jerk toward him. Homer himself often does inconsiderate Jerk Ass things, including calling Bart an accident to his face ("But it's cute when I do it.") and putting a cell phone tower in his daughter's room.
In one of the episodes where they are telling fairy tale stories, the Hansel and Gretel story has the kids stumble past their older siblings (skeletons of Bart, Lisa, and Maggie), who have long since died of exposure.
Parodied in The Simpsons, in which an orphan is glad he doesn't have parents because of this trope.
Homer took all the money Bart earned as a baby in another episode. It's justified, however, in that he had to do it in order to buy back incriminating photos taken of him where he accidentially dropped Bart from a balcony. Bart sues for emancipation and wins.
Homer also nearly burned Lisa's college fund in another episode, although in this case, it was purely unintentional (he was actually intending to burn a bag full of dog feces and place it at Mr. Burns' office doorstep in retribution for the latter not only refusing to read his list of problems within the power plant, but also being dunked into a pool full of electric eels, but took Lisa's college fund bag by mistake.), and attempted to stamp it out as soon as he discovered his mistake.
Although it's Played for Laughs, Homer chokes Bart on a semi-regular basis.
In The Movie, after Bart loses Ned Flanders' fishing pole, he starts gagging in anticipation of being strangled, then is shocked when Ned doesn't.
It's also implied a few times that Homer picked up his strangling habit towards Bart from experiences with his own father.
Ulrich Stern's father in Code Lyoko. It's little wonder why Ulrich grew up so withdrawn...
His mom isn't any better. In the Christmas Episode, while the Stern family is driving home, Ulrich's dad is berating him (I've forgotten what for) while Mrs. Stern just sits there and lets it happen. I'm pretty sure if Ulrich ever takes them to court, she'll be as legally liable as her husband.
In the G.I. Joe cartoon, Low Light's father not only openly mocked him as a child for his "cowardice", he forced the kid to prove himself by dumping him in a junkyard at night and telling him not to come home until he had killed twenty rats. Even as an adult, this gives Low Light recurring nightmares.
Teen Titans: Arguably, the best thing Trigon ever did for his daughter was staying out of her life for as long as he did, and while he never actually lays a finger on her, he is Genre Savvy enough to threaten her friends instead. Thus, Raven's dad convinces her to essentially commit suicide in a ritual that will let him break out of his prison dimension and turn the planet into slag and lava. It works. For a staggering three episodes, even!
One Batman Beyond episode featured a student whose mother had unbelievable standards for him. When he got a 2391 out of 2400 on the annual exam, second best in the entire school, she told him flat out he was a horrendous failure who would never get ahead in life. Any sympathy is lost, however, when he's revealed to be a rather psychotic leader of a gang of Jokerz. Then again, his mother may have caused his psychosis, as evidenced by the fact that many of his acts as gang leader are to try and get rid of the one person who is academically better than him.
There's also Willie Watt, who consistently suffers ridicule from his father for being a "wimp" who can't physically stand up to the bullies at school. Then, Willie gets a hold of his father's construction golem, develops a psychic link to it, and uses it to trash a party after one more humiliation causes him to snap. When his father, tracking the golem's disappearance, finds Willy and berates him once again, Willy proceeds to turn the golem on him. Of course, Batman saves the day, but the end result shows that the father is still a major Jerk Ass.
Mr. Watt: Well, at least he ain't a wimp no more. (Batman gives him a disgusted glare before leaving)
Meg Griffin from Family Guy has been treated very poorly by her father Peter since the revival. He slaps her, beats her, throws things at her, sits on her head and farts on her, and on one occasion he greets her by shooting her in the face at point blank range. At a few points she is also frequently belittled by both her parents, at one point even implying that Meg should commit suicide, and Peter also exhibited an odd attraction to her, forcing her to kiss him on the lips when tucking her in bed, and once implied when going through a redneck stage that he wants to have sex with her. This is all Played for Laughs.
In the episode "Brian Griffin's House of Payne" Peter reveals to Meg and Chris that he has knocked both of them out plenty of times when they were younger and would hide their subsequent injuries, and is willing to continue hiding Stewie's unconsciousness from Lois until he can frame her for causing the injury. The next day, noticing Lois pulling out of the driveway, Peter throws Stewie behind her rear tire, making it appear that Lois has run him over. Lois suggests they frame someone else, but Peter only professes his love for her, finally suggesting they take Stewie to the hospital.
In the episode "Go Stewie Go!" Peter is shown to suddenly exhibit an attraction towards his daughter Meg. In one scene when she kisses him goodnight on his cheek he scolds her and makes her kiss him on the lips despite her extreme discomfort at having to do so. In the episode "Airport 07" Peter briefly becomes a redneck and tries to have sex with Meg.
Quagmire says when asked why he is wearing a diaper, "As you can see, my family's here. It's game night. We're playing... sex." Interpret that as you will. Another episode has him attempting to have a 3-way with his mother and a girl he's dating (with his mom apparently already on board). It's not known how far back this goes, but if he was sexually abused as a kid, it might explain a few things. He has also suggested that he himself wouldn't mind having sex with his own daughter once she turned 18.
In the later episodes of Family Guy Peter and Lois frequently steal money from their children.
Additional neglect and emotional abuse for Meg includes Peter telling her "Who let you back in the house!" and grabbing her by the seat of the pants and kicking her out the door, once when James Woods tied up Brian outside Peter told him "Why are you tied to Meg's pole?", and another shows him locking her out in the winter while she's cold and hungry and gets buried under a pile of snow.
They also sometimes make fun of Chris. but not as bad as they do Meg.
That's because Chris is so thick-headed, it bounces off.
The Fairly Odd Parents: Timmy Turner's parents are arguably this. While they are generally neglectful, they have occasionally crossed into emotional abuse of Timmy by letting him know that they were much happier before he was born. They also let him know frequently that they wish he'd been a girl. In recent seasons you have acting like a complete JerkAss to Timmy to the point where they were jumping on a trampoline on hearing Timmy was going to military school (so that they could use his bedroom for extra space). And Timmy's mother has openly spent Timmy's college fund on stuff for herself several times.
For a kids' show, Three Friends And Jerry has quite a frightening example in Jerry's dad.
In Moral Orel, Doughy Latchkey has extremely immature parents who still act like teenagers. They frequently kick him out of the house so they can have sex and sometimes threaten him with violence if he doesn't stop bothering them.
In Batman The Animated Series, before he became Robin, Tim Drake's father worked for Two-Face and often left his son (who was under thirteen years old) alone to fend for himself for long periods of time. When he double-crossed Two-Face, he abandoned his son to run away, only to be found killed outside of Gotham.
Toki Wartooth in Metalocalypse was brutally beaten at the hands of his father, reverend Aslaug Wartooth. His offenses include whipping him heavily, leaving him (mostly) unclothed and out in the bitter Norwegian cold, and chaining his wrists together and letting him hang from the ceiling.
Clay Puppington in Moral Orel often takes his son into his den and belts him whenever his exploits causes Hilarity to Ensue before giving out a Spoof Moral based off of bigoted 1950's beliefs. He gets even worse as time goes on.
The show gives him a particularly disturbing Freudian Excuse for being the person he is by showing how as a kid he accidentally caused his mother to die of a stroke, at which point his father became so emotionally distant that him slapping Clay was his only form of emotional acknowledgment to the point that he provoked his father whenever he can. Clay himself states in a drunken rant that he believes that the true meaning of "family" is constant and total suffering for people you despise for the sake of being a "good person".
This knowledge is required to fully understand why he cries in "sacrifice" after giving a massive Reason You Suck Speech to everyone in the bar and failing to provoke a violent reaction.
The abuse gets very horrifying without being sexual. Just watch the two-part episode "Nature". It speaks for itself.
In the most recent episode of The Boondocks, it's revealed Uncle Ruckus was beaten by his father on a fairly regular basis for even the littlest offenses and threw him out of the house at a young age, it caused severe psychological damage to him and was also responsible for his deformities and his hatred for other black people, it is later revealed that he beat him because he wanted to take out the stress of being beaten himself by his racist employers.
The Mouse King from the 1990 animated movie, The Nutcracker Prince, is physically abused by his mother when she scolds him about her plan (along with some neglect she sometimes gives).
Inverted in the South Park episode "World Wide Recorder Concert": Mr. Garrison feels he has been neglected because his father never molested him.
It is implied in Drawn Together that Princess Clara is placed in this manner by her father, the King, when he is not neglecting her. For one thing, he once kissed her that was more passionate than familial, and also had her strip for him.
According to the backstory, Murdoc Niccals of Gorillaz was, as a child, forced to participate in talent contests to win his father money, the most humiliating incident involving a performance of the Pinocchio song "I've Got No Strings" in costume, complete with false nose. Adding insult to injury, the prize for that one was only "£2.50 and the chance to humiliate yourself further in the biannual county finals". Murdoc also claims to have hit puberty at eight and lost his virginity at nine, so if he's telling the truth this may fall under the sexual abuse heading as well.
There's also the implication of physical abuse, since Murdoc's father is shown kicking the young boy onto the stage and threatening to smash his teeth in. It's widely known that Murdoc's wonky nose is the result of getting it broken and mended numerous times, but the artwork of him as a ten year old child suggests his face was already pretty wrecked by then. Fridge Horror anyone?
Found in X-Men Evolution one episode, where we learn that Tabitha/Boom Boom's father was a con man who routinely pressured her into using her powers to help rob banks and/or run scams.
Orel Puppington from Moral Orel whose abusive alcoholic father beats the hell out of him in almost every episode, and in one of those, he instinctively reaches for his belt even though Orel hadn't done anything wrong and had to (innocently) have this pointed out.
Also his best friend Doughy Latchkey who is paid his "allowance" by his neglectful parents to not come home.
Poor Butters manages to hit every single instance of this trope and then some — he's frequently punished by his parents for every little thing (even if he didn't do anything at all!), yelled at by them, and all-around belittled and humiliated. In "Jared Has Aides", he's alluded to being physically beaten by them; Comedy Central later yanked it off the air for this reason, though it can still be seen on the South Park Studios site. It's even implied that one of his other family members performed anilingus on him at one point. And in "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset", his parents sell him to Paris Hilton.
While Butters may be the most blatant example, all the main characters suffer from some form of abuse (I.E: Cartman's made subtle hints to having been sexually abused, Stan is regularly beaten by his violent elder sister while his painfully stupid parents fail to notice no matter how many times he has bruises or cuts, Kyle is belittled and put down by his aggressive and assertive mother who, as a running theme, won’t even listen to what he says (despite him being the smartest character on the show), and Kenny’s poverty-stricken parents seem fine with physically fighting in the presence of their son and don’t mind letting their alcoholism show in front of him). Played for Laughs, of course.
Tweek also has the same fate, even though it may be unintentional on his parents' part. Their overprotectiveness, the fact that they constanly tell him horrible things that might happen to him and put him through various tests to see how he would react in dangerous situations, aggravate his paranoia to such an extent that he cannot even walk normally on the street without thinking that someone is out to get him.
One episode turns the formula on its head, revealing that Mr. Garrison is estranged from his father because he wasn't sexually molested as a child. Everybody else agrees with this, including Mrs. Garrison and Mr. Mackey the school counselor) and they try to convince Garrison Sr. to molest his 41-year-old son (prompting him to ask if he's the Only Sane Man in town). Eventually, he gives in hires a sex-offender to molest his son while making him think it's his father, which mends the relationship between father and son.
Dr. Doofenschmirtz of Phineas and Ferb had these, played for laughs. He was the Unfavorite of both his parents, his mother preferring his younger brother Rodger while his dad preferred a dog, which he named "Only Son". His father made him replace the family lawn gnome after it was repossessed, forcing him to stand still for hours and through the night. Another episode revealed that his parents failed to show up at all of his birthdays, including the actual day of his birth. Yet another has him saying he was disowned by his parents and grew up with a family of ocelots. He often uses this as his Freudian Excuse for his EvilPlans.
Interestingly, he himself is not an example. He's over-pretective, if anything, to his daughter, Vanessa. It's the combination of this and his abusive parents that often gives him the Draco in Leather Pants label.
It's been hinted that Ed from Ed, Edd n' Eddy suffers from both emotional abuse and neglect. His mom treats him like The Unfavorite in contrast to his spoiled sister Sarah, while his father seems largely apathetic to both his children:
Ed: It's Sarah! We are so doomed! Help me, guys! She'll tell Mom and Mom will tell Dad and he'll say "Not now, I just got home from work!"
Probably best seen when Ed unconsciously sublimates the abuse to Johnny Twobyfour in an All Just a Dream episode.
Avatar The Last Airbender: Ozai fits three of the five (emotional, physical, and neglect), four if you assume being head of an entire nation counts for financial. He not only had a favorite and an unfavorite child, but he brutally scarred the latter, Zuko, and has attempted to kill him multiple times. Zuko found a better father figure in his uncle and mentor Iroh and eventually outgrew the need for Ozai's approval.
Ozai exiled and disowned Zuko when he was thirteen, for... speaking out of turn in a war meeting (the kid was not supposed to be there in the first place, but the level of punishment was overkill). In addition to burning a good fourth of his face off, Ozai loudly and publicly called Zuko an embarrassing failure and a traitor without honor, for the high crimes of idealism, a degree of rudeness and reluctance to face his father in a duel to the death. Good parenting? I think not.
One line says all you need to know about how Ozai treated Zuko.
"You shall learn respect and suffering will be your teacher"
Ozai isn't a very good parent to Azula, either. He encourages her aggressive and murderous tendencies in order to make her his puppet, while her mother, by contrast, tried to help her be more compassionate and fit in with others. This is what brings her her eventual downfall.
Technically, Ozai's abuse of Zuko is also abusive to Azula, in a "this is what will happen to you if you don't live up to my expectations" kind of way.
"You can't do this to me! You can't treat me like Zuko!"
There is some debate on whether or not Ursa was a good mother to Azula. Since the only depictions we have of Ursa are Zuko's somewhat biased and idealistic memories and Azula’s hallucination, it’s hard to determine. At best, she was a caring mother who, through no fault of her own, failed to protect her daughter from Ozai. At worst, she was emotionally abusive and neglectful.
Ozai probably learned to be such a schmuck from his dad, Azulon, who at one point orders Ozai to kill Zuko so he would know what it is like to lose a son. However, it should be noted that Azulon would never have done this if not for Ozai, since Ozai tried to use the death of Iroh's son as a way to get Iroh disowned (no heir to carry on the line). Furthermore, Ozai would have done it.
Toph's parents are in continual conflict with her. They basically locked her in the house, ostensibly to "protect" their helpless littleblind girl. It's mostly just neglect and overprotective behavior, but verges into pure stupidity when they continue this behavior after she proves how badass she is. Then becomes downright idiotic when she runs away; they assume the Avatar kidnapped her and send two of her earlier kidnappers as bounty hunters to get her back.
Mai's parents too. Though not as bad as Zuko or Toph's cases, it's revealed that she couldn't do much of anything except sit still and be quiet. If she made a comment at a dinner party, she got in trouble, if she fidgeted, she got in trouble. Heck, if she hugged her dad in public, she probably got in trouble. All because her parents just wanted to get higher and higher on the social ladder... and then they pretty much put her aside when her little brother Tom-Tom was born.
Dr.MarLondo from the Legion of Superheroes cartoon series manages to be physically and emotionally abusive towards his only son Timber Wolf. For starters he performed illegal genetic experiments on his son transforming him into a werewolf-like monster and he turns it up to eleven in Season 2 where he implants nanites into his son's brain, driving him insane and using him to kill a clone of his just so he can get Timber Wolf to work with him again. The sad thing is judging by the photo Dr. Londo showed to the Legion of Superheroes in Timber Wolf's debut episode seemed to imply that he wasn't always abusive.
The entire Heinous line on Jimmy Two-Shoes is like this to the next generation. A flashback shows Lucius VI denying Lucius VII cake on his birthday for no other reason than For the Evulz. In another episode, Lucius VII notes he keeps Beezy "nice and miserable". In series, he has given him the necktie variant of Buried Alive and forced him into a Shotgun Wedding.
It's difficult to pin-point where to put the dads of Venture Brothers, but a mixture of neglect and emotional abuse likely puts all of them here.
Rusty Venture has almost no interest in his sons, particularly Hank, and barely shows any concern for them. He appears to love them deep down, as he kept making clones of them after they died upwards of twelve times, but he shrugs all his parenting duties off to the much-more-attentive Brock Samson. After his cloning facility got trashed, he showed a bit more concern for the boys, but is very verbally abusive to Hank and his "guidance" of Dean is likely screwing the boy up even worse.
Professor Richard Impossible is a Jerkass to his entire family, which eventually drove Sally to marry another man. At one point, when his infant child went missing and he decided to stay and work on an invention rather then look for him, Sally asked him what could be more important than his own son. Richard replied, "Science?"
Rusty's own father, Dr. Jonas Venture, manages to somehow top them both. In spite of having the outward image of a God-like scientist, he was secretly an immense Jerkass who treated his son as little more then a prop. Particular instances of abuse include him forcing Rusty to kill a man with a housekey at age ten, acting as Rusty's "therapist" by way of sneaking out of the room when Rusty was talking about his problems and then calling him ungrateful and whiney when he came back, and throwing him a birthday party and then inviting only supermodels, playboy bunnies, and prostitutes who were all much older then Rusty himself (this ended with Rusty having his swim trunks pulled down by other members of Team Venture and having his penis shot with a shrink ray). Aside from Rusty himself, no one seems to know about what a terrible person Jonas really was, to the point that there's a museum devoted to how awesome he was (which contains no reference to Rusty).
The museum was built by Jonas' other son, Jonas Jr., who was born (in an extremely unusual way) long after Jonas himself died. JJ goes by his father's public image that he was some kind of godlike figure and doesn't believe Rusty when he tries to tell him what an ass he was. However, the episode where this museum opened featured an old clip of Jonas being interviewed, where he did say that Rusty was the most important thing to him....which played after Rusty left the opening party. Although there's possibly an implication that Jonas said this for publicity.
In Futurama, there's Mom, who treats her three sons like punching bags, regularly insulting and hitting them (and once said she flipped a coin to decide whether to keep Igner or the afterbirth which comes with a truly wonderful helping of Fridge Horror when the viewer remembers the parallel universe where all coinflips have the opposite outcome).
Bender adopted kids for child support, then neglected them, which also qualifies under neglect unto abuse. In the second movie, he punts his own son into a vat of molten metal as trade for the Robot Devil's army. Even the Robot Devil was impressed.
Stephen Sondheim's mother once told him "My one regret is giving you life".
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was forced to tour and perform as child from a very early age. Even as an adult, his father was a dominant force in Mozart's life.
Pop singer Michael Jackson was physically and mentally abused by his father. He would threaten, discipline and beat Michael and his other children if they disobeyed him or did something that went against his wishes. Apart from forcing the children to perform and tour to international audiences from an early age, there have also been (unproved) suggestions that Michael was sexually abused as a child, which might have caused his own confused sexual behaviour as an adult.
SinéadO'Connor was emotionally, sexually and physically abused by her parents.
Composer Johannes Brahms was sexually abused by prostitutes in a bar, which his parents used as his "child care" facility. He performed piano in the bar and was molested there in a years-long pattern of abuse. Late in life, he confessed his inability to relate to women or to perform sexually.
Fyodor Dostoevsky's father was an alcoholic who frequently beat his children.
Charlize Theron was physically abused by her alcoholic father as a child. When Charlize was sixteen, her father went into an alcoholic rage and started violently attacking and threatening his wife and children, eventually forcing Charlize's mother to shoot and kill him. The shooting was legally adjudged to have been self-defense and her mother faced no charges.
Comedian Buster Keaton was forced to perform on stage together with his parents, who were vaudeville actors. Part of their act was a slapstick number where the little boy was beaten and thrown from the stage into the public. His parents told him to show no emotions because this made the act "funnier". Thus, Keaton kept a straight, expressionless face, despite the numerous beatings and often dangerous accidents that happened during these stage performances. Keaton grew up to become an entertainer and a world famous comedian, and he always kept his poker face, never laughing on screen. Despite the obvious effect his upbringing had on his personality, Keaton never said anything negative about his parents.
In an interview, Keaton revealed that he actually had a lot of fun doing many of the stunts, but it was true that the audience laughed more if he didn't.
Several dictators were the target of parental abuse: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Nikolae Ceausescu, Saddam Hussein, Mao...The numerous beatings and absence of real empathy from their parents made them very narcissistic and unable to feel empathy for their own victims.
A lot of serial killers had abusive parents:
Richard Chase
Marc Dutroux
John Wayne Gacy
Ed Gein
Gary Heidnik
Henry Lee Lucas' mother was a prostitute who beat her son and forced him to watch her having sex with her clients. Later, she would become his first victim.
Charles Manson
Fred West and Rose West
Aileen Wuornos
Lindsay Lohan's father Michael is said to have blackmailed her into working almost every single day by beating her mother in front of her when she was little.
Gary Crosby, son of Bing Crosby wrote in his memoir, "Going My Own Way" that his father was a strict and physically and psychologically abusive parent. Two of his other children, Lindsay and Dennis also claimed that Crosby abused them. According to them Crosby would name them "Satchel Ass", "Bucket Butt" or "My Fat-assed Kid" in the company of others. He even beat them with his belt on a weekly basis if they weighed more than they should have. The youngest son, Philip, vociferously disputed these claims, although even he didn't deny that their father believed in corporal punishment. Both Lindsay and Dennis Crosby later commited suicide with a shotgun.
Christina Crawford, daughter of actress Joan Crawford wrote a notorious memoir about her mom called "Mommie Dearest", which was also filmed. She claimed that her mom was an alcoholic who was more interested in her career and numerous affairs with men than her four children. According to her Joan's behavior could be unbalanced and at least one time she even tried to strangle her. Another time she discovered Christina's clothes hanging in a closet on wire hangers, instead of higher-quality padded hangers and launched into a violent tirade on the subject.
Plumber and Neo-Nazi leader Jeff Hall often beat his wife and son, sometimes losing self-control and kicking his son in the back. He punished his children to varying extremes on a daily basis and the family house was often a filthy mess, with a floor littered with clothes and the odor of urine. Many weapons were accessible to the children and one day in 2011 Jeffery Hall was shot by his own 10 year old son, Joseph.
Christina Aguilera frequently witnessed her father physically and emotionally abuse her mother as a young child. As they grew older, her sister and herself eventually became victims as well, which led to Christina using music as an outlet and release from her turbulent home life. She also admits to suffering from severe bouts of depression, a direct result of the domestic abuse she lived through as a child.
Mackenzie Phillips, daughter of John Phillips, lead singer of The Mamas and The Papas claimed in her 2009 autobiography that her father often raped her as a child, usually while being stoned. He eventually stopped after she became pregnant and he had to pay for an abortion.
"Genie" was a child that spent the first 12 years of her life locked in a bedroom. During the day she was tied to a child's toilet in diapers. Most of the times she was neglected. Her father often beat her with a large stick if she made any vocal sounds and barked and growled at her to keep her quiet. He rarely allowed his wife and son to leave his house or speak and expressly forbade them to talk to Genie. Eventually, when she was 13 years old, Genie was discovered by the police. Her father committed suicide. Genie lived on, but had developed severe problems as a result of this "upbringing". She had trouble with speaking, communicating and adapting social skills, which only slightly improved over the years.
Child actress Judith Barsi, best known for voicing Anne-Marie in All Dogs Go to Heaven and Ducky in The Land Before Time was physically abused by her father, who also beat her mother. He was an unemployed plumber who suffered from alcoholism and suicide attempts. Some of his gruesome behaviour included trying to strangle her mother, threatening to "cut Judith's throat if she decided to run away from home" and pulling out all her eyelashes and her cat's whiskers. When Judith was 10 her father shot her in the head while she was sleeping. When her mother ran in he killed her as well. Then he poured the bodies with gasoline and set them on fire. After that he committed suicide.
The children of notorious criminal Jozef Fritzl. Fritzl kept several of his offspring inside a small basement for over 24 years. There they were neglected, enslaved, deprived of any medical help and sexually abused.
