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alt title(s): Disappeared Father "Father, Father, where you been?
I've been out in the world since I was only ten.
Father, Father, where you been?
I've been out in the world since I was only ten."
"Don't worry 'bout me
I'm about to die of pleurisy."
— Jack Kerouac, "Home I'll Never Be" (recorded as a song by Tom Waits)
"What you taught me was that I was less important to you than people who had been dead for five hundred years in another country. And I learned it so well that we've hardly spoken for twenty years."
A subtrope of Parental Abandonment: The father of a character or characters is missing or absent.
Perhaps he's died. Perhaps he's left and there's bitterness involved. Perhaps he's off fighting evil. Or maybe it's psychological absence — he's physically there, he's completely negligent in his fatherly duties. Regardless of what happened — and regardless of whether or not the viewers find out what happened — Mom seems to have raised her son or daughter (or multiple children) on her own, or with the help of a father substitute.
Dad's absence is sometimes ignored altogether; other times, his absence is a significant factor in the life of the remaining family. An absent father is less likely to be ignored than a Missing Mom, though his absence tends to affect his child/children less severely. He is also more likely to either return and reconcile, or to be a now-you-see-him, now-you-don't entity who comes and goes, or to be a psychologically absent figure from the beginning. While the Missing Mom is usually, as they say, dead or left them, the Disappeared Dad likely really isn't.
Happens most frequently in animated series, but other media are not immune.
Compare and contrast this with Missing Mom. Combine the two, and you get Parental Abandonment — and if Dad remarried before vanishing, Wicked Stepmother. Sometimes, though, Daddy Had A Good Reason For Abandoning You.
See also Tell Me About My Father, So Proud Of You.
Examples:
Anime
- Neon Genesis Evangelion. The whole awful mess started when the Disappeared Dad came back.
- Inu Yasha, Kagome's lack of father has sprouted some Epileptic Trees (He's really a demon, he's really Sesshomaru, he's really InuYasha, etc.) The truth? The Novel Shutetsu Inuyasha reveals that Papa Higurashi is actually dead as a doornail, and that happened in a car crash when Kagome was a little girl.
- Science Ninja Team Gatchaman: Ken Washio's Dad was another case of Disappeared Dad who was actually right there all along as the leader of Red Impulse. And then he makes an Heroic Sacrifice and Ken is left dad-less again..
- Ash's father in Pokemon.
- This affects Dawn as well in the recent Diamond and Pearl season. It's even more troublesome as it seems that Dawn's father never existed at all considering the information we are shown of her mother always traveling in contests. Then again she's some what of a girl version of pre-Johto Ash.
- No, not really. She is very different from Ash.
- Yu-Gi-Oh, Word Of God is that he's always traveling on business, but this is never referenced in the manga or anime.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. The only characters who still have dads are Nanoha and the Nakajima sisters.
- The closest thing to a parent figure in the Yagami household would be Hayate. There's Hayate's mysterious uncle who supported her financially when she was young, but they only found out who he was when Hayate was around her teens, and even then, they rarely contact each other.
- We only find out what happened to Chrono's dad when the artifact that killed him becomes a plot point. His family also adopts Fate, Erio and Caro, extending the Disappeared Dad trope to them.
- Speaking of Fate, where's Precia's husband anyway? We don't even see a father in the flashbacks to before she lost her mind.
- Vivio's situation would get conservatives' knickers in a twist since she Has Two Mommies. In this case, it's less of a 'Disappeared Dad', and more of a 'Dad? What Dad?'. Yuuno/Nanoha shippers, however, find evidence that he acts as a third parent; Fate/Nanoha shippers are just glad for the two.
- Lutecia's plot revolves around her trying to make her mom wake up again. As for her dad... well, we don't even know what he looks like or if he even exists since he's never mentioned. She does temporarily get a father figure in Zest though.
- If all THAT isn't enough, in Triangle Heart 3 Sweet Songs Forever, we have Fiasse (dad murdered by terrorists), Shinobu (pretty much abandoned with her maid), Miyuki (dad murdered by terrorists, adopted by relatives, new dad also murdered by terrorists)... yup, that means Nanoha's dad, one of the few in Nanoha, is dead here too.
- In Cardcaptor Sakura, Tomoyo's father doesn't seem to exist, and Sakura muses to herself that it seems to be a "complicated matter". Also, Syaoran's father passed away when he was very young.
- With Tomoyo, it's at least hinted at the manga that Tomoyo's mother Sonomi may be a lesbian like her daughter... and likewise with a crush on a cousin (Sakura's mother). If that's the case, it's not surprising that the marriage would involve separate households. There are quite a few theories on how Tomoyo was born, however.
- Many jokes have been made about the non-existent father of Kanon's Nayuki. Could he have been the secret ingredient of Akiko's jam? Also, Mai has a plot-important mother, but her father isn't seen anywhere.
- The weirdest example I can think of is in Loveless. Ritsuka's dad is still in the vicinity, but you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise. We seldom see him, and after Seimei's departure he doesn't do much to protect his son from his mentally unhinged mother. This is dismissed by Ritsuka as "he's working all the time," but he basically leaves his child in mortal danger. Mind you, very few people in the Loveless universe seem to give a damn about child abuse.
- All There In The Manual with Magic Knight Rayearth. Hikaru's home life is made up of herself, her mother, her three older brothers, and the dog. (With a very anime reason for why he's not there. She beat him in kendo. When she was younger.)
- Same thing, except with Judo, was the reason for the titular character's dad leaving in {{Yawara!}}
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Hohenheim left the family when Ed and Al were very young. Ed is still bitter about it.
- Guyver has one of the most brutal subversions ever. Sho's father was turned into a Guyver-killing Zoanoid who damaged Guyver 1's brain. The Guyver, on autopilot, killed Mr. Fukamachi, but Sho didn't remember it. He eventually found out and developed a psychosomatic block against activating the Guyver, until Aptom threatened Mizuki and forced him to change. What's even more painful is that while this all happened in the manga (and the most recent anime repeats it all, sometimes panel for panel), the anime specifically spent much more time on strengthening Sho's relationship to his father.
- In Captain Tsubasa, Tsubasa's father works abroads (though he makes efforts to keep contact through letters and visits) so Tsubasa is raised mostly by his mother and later by both her and Roberto Hongo, Dad's best friend. Additionally, Kojiro Hyuuga lost his father at an early age (in an accident, the manga says; of illness, the old anime says) and runs part-time works to help the mother and siblings he adores.
- Bu-ling's father in Tokyo Mew Mew is off training in the mountains, leaving her to raise her five younger siblings alone — kind of... cruel, considering she is eight years old and her mother is dead. Also, in a flashback, Kisshu's family is seen — him and probably a mother and a sister, but no dad.
- Sailor Moon *loves* this trope.
- Ami's parents are divorced and she lives with her mother; her father is a painter, and apparently spends time travelling through the world.
- Rei lives with her maternal grandfather in both the anime and manga, but it is only explained in the manga why she does. Rei's mother died of an illness when Rei was little and her father spent all his time at work instead of being with his dying wife, which Rei never forgave him for. Rei was left with her grandfather after her mother's death because her father was too wrapped up in his work to care for Rei; Rei only sees him once a year on her birthday. Her father is a major part of the reason Rei distrusts men so much, though her distrust is shown only in the manga because anime Rei is boy crazy.
- Makoto's mother and father died in a plane crash when she was little, which caused her fear of airplanes. Makoto lives alone and is supported by an unknown relative.
- Similarly, Mamoru's parents were killed in a car crash when he was little. Mamoru lived in an orphanage for most of his life until he was old enough to support himself.
- Haruka and Michiru's parents are never seen or mentioned and Haruka and Michiru live together (at least in the anime). Setsuna's parents (if she has any) are most likely dead because, as the Guardian of Time, Setsuna is over 1,0000 years old and was never reborn on Earth.
- Negi Springfield's ultimate goal in Mahou Sensei Negima is to follow in the footsteps of his legendary father Nagi, known as the Thousand Master. Nagi disappeared ten years prior to the series start and was assumed dead, but various characters and events have stated that he is very much alive, although his whereabouts are still unknown.
- Subverted humorously in Yotsuba&!. When Asagi says "Dad isn't here any more", melodrama included, in the second volume of the manga, the reader's left to assume he's gone for good, but it turns out he's just at work, and Asagi is being facetious.
- Shobu's father from Duel Masters seems to have disappeared into thin air before the series started, which is given a Lampshade Hanging or two in the dub.
- In Hunter X Hunter Gon's primary goal in becoming a hunter is finding his vagabond father Ging.
- In Digimon Savers, Masaru's father Suguru is notably absent. It turns out that he was left behind on the first expedition to the Digital World and, after being imprisoned and supposedly executed by Yggdrasil, ends up sharing a body with Banchouleomon
- The kids' relationships with their families tend to be important in Digimon. Sora's dad, Haruhiko, is never referenced in the first season, and her ultra-traditional mother Toshiko is emotionally distant (although she gets an awesome moment of Mama Bear when pushed); a lot of Sora's character development plays into mending their relationship, but Dad isn't mentioned until halfway through the second season: he's a famous researcher who spends a lot of time away from home. (Ironically, according to the drama track A Letter To My Father, in his wife's hometown.)
- Jou's dad is The Ghost until the CD drama Michi e no Armor Shinka. He's emotionally distant, wants his three sons to all be doctors like him, and this causes some friction. The anime gave very little resolution to this, having Jou's decision to be a doctor seem rather sudden, but Armor Shinka and another drama track, Telephone, show that Jou decided to become a doctor because the Digital World didn't have any of its own and that his father did eventually rethink his positions and told Jou that it was okay if he made his own choices. So basically, Jou did become a doctor, but it was the way he wanted and not because of Dad forcing him anymore.
- Iori's father, Hiroki, was a police officer who was killed protecting a political official when Iori was very young. Wanting to live up to and missing his father is implied to be the reason Iori is so serious and level-headed. Hiroki turns out to be very important to the series' back story, as it was his death that spiraled The Man Behind The Man, Hiroki's Forgotten Childhood Friend Yukio Oikawa, into the utter depression that made him easy prey for Vamdemon.
- Juri's father isn't a bad person per se but is very emotionally distant for reasons described under Missing Mom, and Ruki's father is nonexistent. Her mother, Rumiko, is a supermodel who had her at a very young age and they both use the father's surname, but whether he's missing because of divorce or death is contested. In the English dub, at least, Rika compares her situation to Jeri's, saying that she doesn't see her father very often, but at least she can and implies that's mostly her own choice, but the movie Runaway Digimon Express shows her to remember him fondly and might imply he's dead. Of course, that movie is also Canon Discontinuity.
- In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, the basis for Kamina wanting to leave his hometown so badly is because his disappeared dad left for the surface years ago. His father is dead, his skeleton is found, and latter Kamina dies too.
- While we know what happens to his mother, Black Jack's father is initially unaccounted for...Until the man has the balls to call up his son to work some plastic surgery magic on his new wife, Renka — The woman he ditched Black Jack and his mother for. While they were both hospitalized, no less.
- You could argue this for most of the dads in the Dragon Ball Z canon. Goku's father Bardock and adoptive grandfather Gohan are both dead before the series begins and seems to be this a fair amount himself what with spending on year dead, a year training in space, dead for seven more years, and abandoning his family ten years after that to train the reincarnation of the last Big Bad. Vegeta's father, King Vegeta, was also killed off when he was a child; in the alternate timeline has himself been killed so that version of his son grew up without a father. In the main timeline, he's shown to be present but extremely distant on both an emotional and psychological level with his son, at least until his Final First Hug. His relationship with his daughter Bra is more difficult to evaluate due to matters of Fanon and DisContinuity.
- One Piece: Luffy didn't even know he had a father, Dragon the Revolutionary, until informed by his grandfather. In typical Shounen fashion, he takes this in stride while his older brother Ace is revealed to be much more bitter about his own father's abandonment and says his only father is his captain, Whitebeard.
- Most of the characters in Air either have some sort of issue with their mother, is a mother or is playing the part of one, but only one father is shown. Subverted later on, when Misuzu's father returns for her... way too late.
- Used straight and subverted in Soul Eater: Mad Scientist Medusa is Chrona's mother but no father is mentioned. Maka's dad is supposed to be the Disappeared Dad, having been kicked out by Maka's mom for his constant womanizing, but we've yet to see Maka's mom.
- Iemetsu Sawada of Katekyo Hitman Reborn pretty much fits this trope; he had been away from home for over two years, according to Tsuna, who once expressed the thought that he was actualy dead.
- Several School Rumble characters (The Tsukamoto sisters, Masatsugu & Haruna Tougo, Eri Sawachika, Mai Otsuka) have absentee fathers
- Ryuuji and Taiga in Toradora. Ryuuji's dad is dead Although it is later revealed he just abandoned Ryuuji and his mother. He was a yakuza, and is where Ryuuji gets his dangerous looks from. Taiga is estranged from her father, since he's treated her like crap her whole life. He pretty much just sends her money and shows up once in a while to screw with her feelings. At the end, though Taiga leaves to again live with her parents, feeling she has to fix her own broken family before she deserves to start one with Ryuuji.
- Miyuki from Lucky Star is shown to only live with her mother. Though on the Valentines Day episode (or clip..whatever..) she said she would be giving chocolate to her father. So he's either out traveling or divorced. (Though, Miyukis mother never talks about him either)
- Maria from Umineko No Naku Koro Ni has to have a father, but we're never shown him - Rosa claims that he's on a "business trip." Later on, she makes comments about Maria that seem to imply that she was born out of wedlock, but nothing's been outright stated yet.
- Initially played for laughs with Teen Genius Susumu's father on Wandaba Style. The girls went back in time and thought that he died in the ill-fated mission to the moon, but it turns out he's alive and well...in Canada. Later in the series, though, he decides to check in on his son, but does so without letting his son know he's back in Japan, mentally asking Ichirin to watch over his boy.
- The apparent death of Nagisa's father in Satou Kashi No Dangan Wa Uchinukenai has led to her obsession with joining the military, her brother's withdrawal from the world, and her mother's struggles to keep the family from becoming destitute.
Comic Books
- I suppose Spider-Man might count. His parents died when he was a baby; he later became a crime fighter when his uncle Ben, who acted as a father, was killed.
- He counts again in a truly messed up example, because of the odious One More Day Ret Con, in which he unravelled from ever having existed his Alternate Universe daughter, May Parker, aka Spider-Girl. The baby's fate was never determined in main continuity, but that didn't stop Mephisto from using it as a Kick The Dog after he'd sealed the deal with Peter and MJ. He disappeared himself from becoming a dad, theoretically.
- Shaman of Alpha Flight abandoned his daughter to learn magic. Technically, she kicked him out of her life (angry that he'd failed to save her mother / his wife as promised); but given she was maybe 12 at the time, most of the blame lies with him.
- Elissa Megan 'Emp' Powers knows exactly what happened to her father. She watched him drop dead of an brain hemmorrage one fine morning while she was eating her favorite breakfast cereal.
- Amulet has an extreme version: we actually see Emily's father die before our eyes, and his death is a large part of her current personality.
Film
- Terminator 2: Judgement Day, We know why the dad is absent: Kyle was John's father and didn't survive the first movie. We also know Sarah tried the substitute dad treatment. It never took. You'd think after, like, 6 or 7 times...
- This troper was under the impression that she was only shacking up with them in order to learn the skills that helped her take those levels in badass.
- 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. Plus, he's abusive so it's no great loss that we don't know anything more about him.
- Director Steven Spielberg seems to use this trope a lot, played straight, averted and subverted.
- Mr Magoriums Wonder Emporium has Eric, whose father's absence is never explained.
- Son Of The Mask, Tim is a Disappeared Dad in the fatherly duty sense of the trope. He's present and Going Through The Motions of being a father to his newborn baby, but he wasn't prepared for the kid, and finds the kid an obstacle to his career path. Since the kid's magical, he torments his father for his inattention, and finds another father figure in Loki, creator of The Mask, forcing Tim to fight for his child's affection, and learning An Aesop about being an attentive and responsible father. Just in time for baby number two to be on the way!...
- As with Missing Mom, the Disney Animated Canon has more than a few examples:
- The Iron Giant: Hogarth's father was a fighter pilot, and is assumed to have been killed during a mission.
- The Spiderwick Chronicles: The children's father is audible over a phone conversation and seen on a photo. His absence is explained to Jared by his exasperated older sister. But the one time he does show up it's the ogre Mulgarath in disguise as him.
- Independence Day: Jasmine's son Dylan's father is not Steve Hiller, but Jasmine hopes he wants the job. We're not informed specifically what the deal is with Dylan, but given Jazz is a stripper, the potential exists that he ran out on her.
- The Shaggy Dog (2006) features Dave as the psychologically absent father.
- The Land Before Time has several in the main cast: Littlefoot's father left (we find out in Longneck Migration that he's the leader of a herd; and makes a cameo in the cartoon series), and Petrie's father is never shown. Spike was abandoned before he even hatched, and Ducky's family adopts him. Ducky's father is seen but is deliberetly kept silent and in the background because of what happened to Judith Barsi.
- The Boondock Saints had a father who was in prison for the last twenty-five to thirty years because he was a deadly mafia assassin known as Il Duce. He gets sprung from prison by Yakavetta to take on the job of killing Rocco, who Yakavetta believes is behind the killings that the two protagonists are doing, and he ends up fighting both of his sons and Rocco in an explosive shootout. It is only when Yakavetta guns down Rocco himself and the Duke walks in on the brothers delivering the family prayer to him that he realizes exactly who the two men are and finishes the prayer himself, thus revealing to them that he is their father.
- Star Wars: Luke's father is mentioned in the first movie, and in the second one... Well, you know.
- Anakin doesn't have a father, unless you believe the theory that Palpatine's former master Darth Plagueis created him by use of the Force.
- We could also say that his father left them and his mother lied to cover it up.
- If Star Wars isn't a straight example, George Lucas did a big one later in Indiana Jones (as noted in the page quote).
- Done again in Kingdom Of the Crystal Skull, Indiana himself is Mutt's Disappeared Dad
- Two Words: Inigo Montoya
- Okuribito (Departures): Daigo's father left so long ago he can't remember what he looks like. At the end of the film Daigo claims his father's body and lovingly prepares him for his coffin. Daigo finds something that shows that his father still loved him despite leaving and finally remembers his face.
- In the rebooted Star Trek film, the point of divergence includes, among other things, the death of Lt. George Kirk, James T. Kirk's father. As a result, the fatherless James grows up to be rebellious, self-destructive, cocky, and an all-around Jerk Ass, rather than just being a bit impetuous and unconventional.
- Sophie wanting to determine which of three men is her father drives the plot of the film and musical Mamma Mia.
Literature
- In The Halfblood Chronicles by Mercedes Lackey and Andre Norton:
- The Elvenbane: The titular character's foster mother is a single parent.
- Elvenblood: The sympathetic elf lord's father disappeared when he was a child.
- The disappearance of Meg Murray's father years ago becomes a central part of the plot in Madeleine L'Engle's novel A Wrinkle In Time. Working as a physicist on a top-secret project for the government, he'd accidentally teleported himself to another planet, where he was held captive. Meg and companions end up rescuing him.
- The absence of Daine's father in The Immortals led to Daine being branded as a Heroic Bastard and earned her much ridicule, but in the last book, she and the readers find out he was actually a god.
- Alanna and Thom in Pierce's related The Song of the Lioness series have the psychologically absent version; their father has never gotten over the death of their mother and more or less ignores them. They manage to pull a Twin Switch for years despite being of different genders.
- Terry Pratchett's Sourcery has it in a really twisted, really weird form.
- Specific cases in Harry Potter, where if you're not missing one or both parents you will be soon enough. (Unless you're a Weasley. Lucky them.)
- Dean Thomas' father, as revealed by Word Of God, is a wizard who left his Muggle wife and unborn child because he feared they would be targeted by the Death Eaters. He was later killed, and his family never learned the truth.
- Seamus' father apparently left his wife after she revealed she was a witch ("He wasn't too happy about that.").
- Tom Riddle senior fled from his wife Merope after she took him off the love potion she'd been feeding him. She thought after all this time and with a baby on the way he'd feel the real thing. He didn't. This led to Oedipus Rex years later...
- The Dumbledore family lost their father after he went to Azkaban prison after attacking some Muggle boys who attacked his daughter.
- And of course BOTH of Teddy Lupin's parents are killed in the Battle of Hogwarts when he was only a few months old. He at least gets to be raised by his grandmother, and is practically a surrogate son to his godfather Harry.
- Doc Savage's father leaves him in the care of teachers while he travels around the world big game hunting and searching for lost treasure until Doc becomes a man. Then he dies of the plague.
- Pretty much all of Jacqueline Wilson's teen books contain this. Parents are almost always divorced and the father has usually vanished into the ether (occasionally to be replaced with a Wicked Stepfather)
- Ella Enchanted - being a literal Cinderella story, it places Ella's father as a frequently-travelling merchant. He also has little to no interest in what goes on around his house in his absence.
- Any books based on the life of Julius Caesar will include this trope, as he had to leave his daughter behind when he was off being a badass in Spain and Gaul. Actually subverted in Conn Iggulden's Emperor series where Julia, Caesar's daughter, goes through a teenaged phase of anger and resentment towards him, but otherwise pretty much worships her father. This is attributed to her growing up hearing the stories about her father's accomplishments but never seeing him do things like hurt his slaves, get himself drunk or punishing his soldiers. She even goes so far as to helping her father in the civil war, despite the fact that it means betraying her own husband, who is Caesar's opponent.
- Roger Zelazny liked this one. In the Book Of Amber, the absence and possible death of Corwin's father, King Oberon, drives much of the action. Turns out he's not so disappeared after all, but concealing his identity.
- John Cleaver's father in I Am Not A Serial Killer is absent from the book except when he sends John a letter and an iPod at Christmas.
- The father of the titular character in Gregor the Overlander. They find him though.
- The first two books of Artemis Fowl.
- In Jim Butcher's Dresden Files novel Summer Knight, Harry is offered a chance at this: the Winter Lady offers him the information if he will only sleep with one of her court and ignore the ensuing pregnancy. He rejects it. Strongly.
- In Blood Rites, Harry presupposes this after Emma's death, when he laments that her children are orphans. Jake reveals that, in fact, she had not wanted to settle down with him, but he will raise their children.
- In Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Gods Of Mars, John Carter meets a young man whose father died before he was born. Three guesses as to who his father was and whether that info was accurate.
"With drawn swords they made for me, but before I went down beneath them they had tasted of the steel of my father's sword, and I had given such an account of myself as I know would have pleased my sire had he lived to witness it."
"Your father is dead?" I asked.
"He died before the shell broke to let me step out into a world that has been very good to me. But for the sorrow that I had never the honour to know my father, I have been very happy. My only sorrow now is that my mother must mourn me as she has for ten long years mourned my father."
Live Action TV
- Animorphs, another case of parental divorce, and the dad's first appearance in the series is purely to say he's moving far, far away.
- Battlestar Galactica: Does Kara "Starbuck" Thrace even have a dad? All we know is that he was a piano player. There's no mention of him when she talks about her abusive mother.
- Not to mention the original (male) Starbuck of the original series. He grew up without a father, then one day a con artist shows up and hints at possibly being his father as part of a scam. Surprise-surprise, the con artist was really his father (which shocked the heck out of him). In the end, Starbuck's dad pretends that he is NOT Starbuck's father so he won't drag his son down. (That and the part was played by expensive and elderly actor Fred Astaire)
- Late in the series, we learn what happened to him. When Kara was young, her mother forced him to choose between his family or his music. He chose music ( some of which was written two thousand years ago by Sam Anders (or possibly Bob Dylan) on Earth), leaving Kara with a woman who thought Drill Sergeant Nasty was a valid parenting method.
- The Brady Bunch: A Disappeared Dad was in its Back Story before the show's timeline begins officially and Carol married Mike.
- It's stated in the pilot (when Mike and Carol get married) that both of their first spouses have died, giving the series a case of Disappeared Mom as well as Dad.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer:
- Buffy's dad pretty much disappears after the second season premiere, even when Buffy's kicked out of her mother's house she doesn't go to him and she tells Angel that he never even came to Joyce's funeral. Further, attempts to replace him were disastrous as well.
- This is particularly galling in that in his first appearances Buffy's father seemed like a perfectly decent and caring man whose primary reason for not being a big part of Buffy's life was that he lived in a different city and that her parents were divorced, and his later degeneration into absentee deadbeat dad who was more interested in his mistress than his family seemed bolted on to make Buffy's family life seem ever more dysfunctional and to add to the Wangsty pile of misery that her life was.
- We never see Willow's father (and her mother is only in one episode, at that). Xander's parents are occasionally mentioned and do make one appearance, although it's pretty evident that Xander wishes they had disappeared.
- Spike's mother is important in one episode, but his father isn't mentioned.
- Angel himself was absent from his son's life for most of it due a Plot Relevant Age Up in another dimension, and wavered a bit over his involvement when he was there. Like when he threw him onto the street and then went to Vegas.
- In fact, when we finally see a character (Fred) with a healthy paternal relationship in season 3 of Angel, it really takes the viewer by surprise. Perhaps this trope got a little overused?
- Heroes
- The Big Bad Sylar's dad walked out on him and his mother when he was very small. This may be what made his mother quite so obsessed, and contributed to his Freudian Excuse and Mommas Boy issues.
- The mother he killed wasn't even his real mother, who happens to NOT be Angela Petrelli...who also abandoned him.
- It also turns out that he was abondoned by two fathers. His birth father (a taxidermist) sold him to his uncle (the watchmaker), who only wanted him so that he could abandon his annoying wife with a clear conscience. Birth daddy also killed birth mommy while young Gabriel watched.
- Micah's dad was a now-you-see-him-now-you-don't sort of disappeared dad. He was in jail, then came back, then died, then faux-returned in flashbacks before being gone altogether.
- Claire is a weird twisty aversion. She was a complete Parental Abandonment case with both Missing Mom and Disappeared Dad, but she has since been adopted by loving parents. And she knows now who her Missing Mom and Disappeared Dad are.
- Hiro is a particularly tragic example. He began with Missing Mom, but his father Kaito was murdered by a vengeful Adam Monroe just as Hiro and Kaito had finally found common ground after a lifetime of Hiro never measuring up to his father's standards, and right after they'd finally begun bonding. This completes the loss of his parents and makes Hiro an adult onset Parental Abandonment case.
- Matt Parkman is a triple-sided example.
- His own father disappeared when he was 13 only to show up later as a villain, whom Matt defeats.
- Matt is technically the Disappeared Dad of his own child when his wife left him, only he's not the biological father of the baby as his wife was cheating on him.
- "Fugitives" has confirmed Matt as the baby's father, making him a genuine Disappeared Dad. Now that he know's the truth, it appears he'll stop being one as he protects his son from The Government.
- And Matt is not the Disappeared Dad, having adopted Molly Walker, who is an orphan thanks to Sylar killing and freezing her parents early in Season 1.
- Mohinder Suresh's father abandoned his family after the death of Mohinder's girl sister Shanti to pursue his research into weird genetic superpowers. (Not quite directly afterwards, as Mohinder was the second child and was born some months after his sister died.)
- Then only days prior to the start of the pilot episode, Chandra Suresh is murdered by Sylar.
- Arthur Petrelli, the father of Peter and Nathan, committed suicide six months before the start of the series.
- As it turns out, not so much. He's the Big Bad of Season 3.
- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has the same Disappeared Dad as The Movie from which it spawned.
- I'm not sure it qualifies, but the cast of Lost seems to have an inordinate amount of father issues — usually resulting in an absence from the character's life at one point in time. The only problem is that they don't stay absent and quite often appear in flashbacks.
- Jack — turns his alcoholic dad in for malpractice, dad vanishes to Australia
- Kate — she murders her stepfather and runs to her dad for help; her dad refuses and we have yet to see him again
- Locke — He doesn't know his biological father until he appears and steals a kidney from Locke (don't ask), when confronted about this, pushes Locke out the window.
- Sawyer — His father kills his mother and then commits suicide
- Hurley — His dad is completely absent from his life until he wins the lottery (and then only appears for the money). To be fair, both Hurley and his mother forgive his father and his father formed a strong bond after Hurley came back from the island.
- Claire — Her father was absent. And considering he was Jack's dad as well...
- Walt — His mom raised him away from his biological father, Michael. His step-father then gave Walt's custody to Michael. And let's not mention all things Michael did for his son after the crash...
- Miles—Never knew his father and was told by his mother that his father hated him. Miles eventually discovers that Pierre Chang is his father and that his father always loved him. Miles eventually convinces his father to abandon his mother and his infant self in order to save them...time travel is weird like that.
- Daniel —He never had any idea who his father was and was raised entirely by his mother. His dad turns out to be Charles Widdemore, so this may have been for the best...kinda.
- Monk's father was, until recently, a Disappeared Dad. He is still not the greatest at fatherhood, but he's trying.
- Pushing Daisies has a recursive one that starts out messed up, and just keeps getting worse:
- Ned, not knowing how his power worked, revived his mother from her death, causing the permanent death of Chuck's father.
- Only to dig him and bring him back to life. Soon after, the father departed again, this time in Ned's stolen car.
- Still not knowing how the power worked, Ned didn't stop his mother from kissing him goodnight, causing her second and permanent death.
- Ned's father abandons Ned in boarding school, and ran off to start an entirely new life (complete with new wife and new sons), ignoring his eldest son entirely from that point on.
- He later abandons those sons as well. At a magic show.
- In one of the last episodes of the show, Ned's father has reappeared, and is evidently supplying Ned with covert assistance.
- Emerson Cod is an involuntary Disappeared Dad; he and his daughter became separated while she was still an infant. He is writing a book hoping to get it published and lead her to him.
- Supernatural: Sam and Dean's father John raised them, but for most of Season 1 he's missing — in this case, the absence is of the "off fighting evil" variety. But still, he doesn't come when Dean is dying or even when Dean leaves him a tearful "Please help me" message when they're having problems with their old house. He does apologize for most of it in the last few episodes of season 1, and admits that his sons are right to resent him.
- Power Rangers Mystic Force starts off with Nick as a total Parental Abandonment case (sort of, he does have a foster family somewhere), which morphs [ahem] into a subverted Missing Mom case, and then, a Disappeared Dad case before the family is happily reunited, subverting all three tropes.
- In VR Troopers Tyler Steele,Ryan's dad,was turned into Dark Heart by Grimlord.
- Reba kicks off with Dad running off with his secretary; the two later show up and become regulars (much to Reba's annoyance).
- The Middle Man begins with Wendy playing with a Zippo that's the last memento from the dad who vanished when she was 14. It turns out to be something of a sticking point with Wendy.
- Sam Tyler in Life On Mars winds up being responsible for his dad's Disappearance; turns out, the guy was a murderous criminal, and Sam decided that, given the choice between two terrible alternatives, he didn't want his mother and his younger self to go through the public shame of an arrest.
- Criminal Minds loves playing with this trope. Morgan and Elle's fathers are both dead; Reid's ran out on him and his mentally-ill mother; Garcia apparently got her last name after being adopted by her stepdad; Prentiss's has gone significantly unmentioned in comparison to her overbearing mother; meanwhile, Gideon's implied to be a Disappeared Dad to his son and becomes Disappeared Dad to the team when he leaves the series (because face it, Gideon is Dad, Hotch is Mom), and Hotch is trying desperately not to become one. (JJ apparently sprung full-grown from the forehead of Zeus.)
- Reid gets a Reappeared Dad when a case triggers disturbing memories. Reid starts to suspect his dad was a pedophile. When they're reunited (along with Reid's mom) it turns out he left because he thought his wife killed a pedophile when in fact she had unwittingly identified him to the leader of a vigilante mob. It was really just a case of poor communication kills.
- The titular character of Merlin would seem to have been raised by his mother. There's yet to be a single mention of his father, which, due to the legends about him has led to endless speculation amongst the fans.
Music
- In Ayreon: The Human Equation the protagonist's father is a womanizing jerk who left his mother long ago. He appears in his comatose hallucination to mock him ("Day sixteen: Loser"), the grudge the protagonist held on him was essential in igniting his rage and letting him wake up four days later.
Video Games
- This is a main plot hook in Fallout 3.
- This is also the main plot hook in Mega Man Star Force.
- As with similarities to its anime adaptation, all the Pokemon games in the main series seems to suffer from this, with the rival's included. The only games that seems so subvert it is Sapphire/Ruby/Emerald in the Hoenn generation, where it was solely because your father was a major figure in the game, and Diamond/Pearl/Platinum in the Sinnoh generation, where your rival's father is implied to be the champion of the Battle Tower of sorts.
- Yeah because literally running into Palmer (said rival's father) when you enter the Battle Frontier and having the chance to battle him repeatedly MUST mean he's disappeared!
- In Neverwinter Nights 2, the protagonist's father is mentioned exactly once, to establish that nobody in West Harbor has ever met him. Of course, seeing as their mother is only mentioned a handful of times and they are raised by a friend of their mother that is understandable.
- We see the mother of Final Fantasy VII's Cloud in a flashback, but never his father.
- Maybe it's just me, but I don't remember seeing Crono's father in Chrono Trigger.
- Not only Crono's, but Magus's father never appears during the game, either. It is vaguely stated by an NPC that Queen Zeal (Janus' mother) hasn't been the same since the King died, at which point she started neglecting her children and unwittingly turned Janus' sister Schala into his mother figure.
- Wild ARMs 4's Jude lost his father before he was even born. He later finds out what happened to him when he fights him to save the world, and later convinces him to finally let his spirit rest after the battle.
- This seems to be a pretty common trope for Wild ARMs protagonists, Virginia from Wild ARMs 3 was abandoned by the father who taught her to use her ARMs. This is doubled when we later find out that her absent father was also a substitute father figure for fellow playable character Jet. Then, after he seemingly comes back, it's revealed that he's actually a "recording" of sorts of her real father made by a electronic library, a mere projection. Virginia then has to "kill" him when she destroys the library. Abandoned again.
- The prologue to Dragon Quest III shows the hero's father, Ortega, fighting a dragon on the rim of a pit. They both fall in, and are never seen again. Until you get to near the end of the game, where the dragon kills him, and then you finish it off for him.
- Which totally inspires Fridge Logic when you realize Ortega's been missing/presumed dead for about ten years. In all that time in, presumably, the Dark World, he not only managed to reach the Charlock Castle without the rainbow bridge, but failed to become stronger than his son/daughter, despite the fact that he was already much, much stronger than that, considering the fact that he's on the final floor of the last dungeon in the game? What the hell?
- An inversion of this trope occurs in Dragon Quest V. You are the Dissapeared Dad to your son and daughter, having been turned to stone along with your wife by the villains shortly after they were born. Eight years later, however, they manage to find you and turn you back to normal.
- True to the trope, Lloyd's father isn't really gone. He's one of three millennia-old beings running counteracting Xanatos Gambits. And his having a family was the major reason he broke off his alliance with the Big Bad.
- In the Purple Moon games, Sharla's father walked out on her and refuses to take her to a father-daughter function previous to her teenage rebellion, which is implied to be partially caused by this. Nobody knows where Dana's father is, either, but she certainly doesn't like her stepfather much.
- In Earthbound, Ness's father is always away, and can only be contacted by telephone. In fact, in the ending credits his sprite is the telephone.
- Same goes for MOTHER. MOTHER 3 is the only game in the series with a father that's present, though he does disappear for about half of the game while searching in the mountains for Claus.
- Because of the strong female influence on the Fey clan in the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney games, the fathers of prominent characters, sisters Mia and Maya, and Pearl are never mentioned, and explained to have grown into obscurity either by death no one cares about, or that they left the family for financial or personal reasons.
- This also seems to be the case with the Apollo Justice game on Apollo himself after Lamiroir is revealed to be his birth mother, with only a passing mention that his father died in an accident a long time ago.
- In Seiken Densetsu 3, Duran's father died while on a quest to defeat the Dragon Emperor. This becomes an important plot point for Duran's story later on, as a setup for a Luke I Am Your Father scene with the Darkshine Knight.
- In Sam And Max Season 2, it is revealed that Bosco was a test tube baby (courtesy of an instant-baby-generating contraption that extracts DNA from saliva samples), due to the fact that his mother was a feminist who wanted total independence from men. The source of Bosco's paternal DNA (and thus his biological father) is revealed to be then-president John F. Kennedy, who his mother met (but apparently did not recognize) about two and a half months before his death.
- Sparda from the Devil May Cry series. He's treated as gone, but what exactly happened to him hasn't been elaborated on.
- Jecht from Final Fantasy X messed up his kid by disappearing for ten years, then messes him up even more by not being quite the same upon resurfacing. It turns out that Jecht became the Final Aeon for the last Final Summoning, resulting in him becoming the current Sin because of the Vicious Cycle perpetuated by Yu Yevon.
- An interesting take on this trope occurs in Rune Factory 2 where the missing dad is the main character. Instead of the game following him when he leaves his family, player control switches over to his son/daughter who embarks on a quest to find out what happened to his/her father.
- Princess Zelda's father is ostensibly the King of Hyrule, but he's missing from almost every game in the entire series, leaving his underaged daughter to run the kingdom. And in one of the only two games where he is seen (Ocarina of Time), he's murdered by the Big Bad.
- He isn't even seen, but present offscreen when Link first gets a glimpse of Ganondorf while he's pretending loyalty to the king.
- Link himself is even worse off. His mother is mentioned in about one game (Ocarina of Time, again) and his father never. The closest relative he ever lived with was an uncle.
- Lest we forget (and Zelda fans will hate me for mentioning this), her father was in the dreaded CD-I games, mah boi.
- Star Fox: James McCloud, Fox' father, disappears in the backstory. He has been on-screen a few times, but likely as a hallucination every time.
- Ritz from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has mentioned her mother before, but never her father.
- Emiya Kiritsugu in Fate Stay Night for Shirou and also Ilya. Tohsaka's father died in the last holy grail war. Both are fairly important due to their absence, the former more so than the latter.
- It is never explained what happened to Lara's parents in the first Tomb Raider series, although according to the backstory of Legend, Richard Croft died/disappeared during an expedition in Cambodia. She has a Missing Mom too, so that's Parental Abandonment.
- In the Pokémon games, it's traditionally only your mother that lives at home. Ruby and Sapphire actually have the player's dad as a Gym Leader, but other than that, none of the other games' player characters' fathers are seen.
Web Comics
- Count Your Sheep has a Disappeared Dad in the form of Marty who we only ever hear about in flashbacks or wistful reminiscences.
- Narbonic both inverts and averts the trope, as the first time we hear about Helen's father it's implied Helen's mother served him for dinner, and then once the truth is revealed, we discover there never was a dad — Helen is a clone; it turns out to be a Should've Seen That Coming due to the fact that Helen's mother is a Mad Scientist.
- In Fans!, many of neurotic Ice Queen Shanna's issues stem from the fact that her father abandoned her and her insane mother when she was just a child. Unlike many of the fathers on this page, however, when he does finally appear he's treated somewhat sympathetically; whilst his abandonment of his wife and daughter isn't condoned he's depicted as an uptight-but-decent man who just snapped under the pressure of his life and later genuinely regretted his actions, but felt too ashamed of himself to return.
- Jodie's father (from Loserz) is missing, as told here
 .
- In Misfile, Emily's father disappeared before she was born, never to return. His only contribution to the plot (apart from Emily obviously) was to ensure Emily's mother became the education mama we all know and...er...know. A fan theory has been advanced that Rumisiel could even be her father. We pray that it gets Jossed quickly.
- In The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob, the first time Molly ever hit anybody was when Galatea taunted her for not having a "real" daddy. (Molly felt very guilty afterwards for hitting her.)
- In Gunnerkrigg Court Annie's father left her and don't even told her so. She found out about this, after she tries to contact him. It is stated, that this behaviour isn't exactly new for him.
- Kimiko's father hasn't really been around much in her life in Dresden Codak, aside from giving her a bunch of money when her mother died.
Web Original
- Erika's New Perfume: So far there has been no mention of the patriarch of the Swanson family in the original story or in any of the sequels or related comics.
- This Troper recently came out and straight-up asked the author where Mr. Swanson is. Lance claims (find it on his page's older comments) that there was an ugly divorce, which is why he hasn't been shown up; Veronica (Mrs. Swanson) is likely deliberately avoiding talking about him. Lance has stated that Mr. Swanson may make an appearance in a future story.
- Fey, in the Whateley Universe, has a dad who's a bigshot for DARPA and has been forced by the government to work in another state. Oddly enough, now that Fey has turned into a mutant, her dad is back in the picture and may be reconciling with her mom.
Western Animation
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