Basic Trope: A person is an orphan so that they don't have to deal with responsibilities that come with family.
- Straight: Alice is orphaned, allowing her to leave home to collect the Power Crystals without having to deal with family.
- Exaggerated:
- Both of Alice's parents died the moment she was born, and Alice was Raised by Wolves which also pass away, allowing her to do whatever she wants throughout her entire life without familial responsibilities.
- Both of Alice's parents died years before she was born and her adoptive parents die when she's 5.
- Alice loses her entire family as soon as she's born.
- Alice doesn't even have a living family to speak of.
- Downplayed: Alice's parents are Put on a Bus or made useless. They're still alive but unable to truly interfere in Alice's adventures.
- Justified:
- This is a Crapsack World, Alice lost her father in war. And her mother was kidnapped when group of bandits raid her poor village.
- Alice was too young to remember her parents when they died, or at least she didn't know them well enough to feel bothered.
- Inverted:
- Alice's parents are still alive, and she can't go on an adventure to collect the Power Crystals because her parent's say she can't.
- Alice's parents are still alive, and the only reason she can go on an adventure is because they raised her to be the hero. If they'd died at any time before the quest, she could never succeed.
- Alice has a very large family so she can angst over missing them while she's away on adventures.
- Alice is an adult, she can do what she wants.
- Alice is an orphan, but damn it sucks to be one.
- Subverted:
- Alice's parents are still alive, but they are Abusive Parents who never care about her. So Alice going for adventure, promise them that she will bring back some money.
- Bob is an orphan. The Hero adopts him and takes him on adventuring.
- Alice’s parents aren’t dead, just missing.
- Alice’s parents aren’t dead, they just couldn’t take care of her.
- Alice’s parents faked their deaths.
- Double Subverted:
- Parodied: Everyone is an orphan. Everyone in town? They're orphans. The Big Bad? Orphan. The protagonist and her friends? Orphans.
- Zig Zagged: Alice has been led to believe her parents have been killed, and goes on an adventure to avenge them. During the course of her adventure, she discovers one or both of her parents alive and well and suspends her quest for vengeance. Shortly thereafter, her parent(s) are actually killed and she must resume her quest.
- Averted: Alice is not restricted to go on an adventure by her parents, who are alive.
- Enforced: "Her parents would never let her go on such a suicidal journey. We're going to have to kill them off."
- Lampshaded:
- "My parents are dead. Bye friends, I'm off to have a parental free adventure!"
- "It's not as bad as you think, being an orphan. It's actually quite convenient."
- Invoked: Self-Made Orphan.
- Exploited: Madame Malicious realizes that the best way to tempt the heroes isn't her seductive abilities, bribery, or offers of power but familial love they desperately crave. She is able to turn Alice forever loyal just through exploiting her abandonment and mother issues.
- Defied: Orphans are not allowed to go off to wherever they please, they have to be taken care of through foster care or placed in an orphanage, where they can grow up safely with proper supervision.
- Discussed: "Shouldn't someone be supervising you, even if you don't have parents?"
- Conversed: "She's an orphan because the writers couldn't think of any other way the kid could get around authority this blatantly."
- Deconstructed: The suffering of her parents' deaths, and the emotional neglect of the orphanage, have left Alice so emotionally traumatized that she can not form healthy relationships; she compensates by having a severe case of Chronic Hero Syndrome and Walking the Earth so no one gets too attached to her.
- Reconstructed: Looking back on it though, she eventually concludes that this was a good thing, because of what it allowed her to do, and what it allowed her to become.
Back to Conveniently an Orphan.
