Discussion Main / OnlyChildSyndrome

I meant to put this on the World of Only Children discussion page. Oops.

Edited by NitroIndigo

Trope was redefined to be about traits of only children here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1581133049099388900

I don't see how this isn't People Sit On Chairs. Only children aren't unusual. All the stuff in the introductory paragraph about how "an only child wouldn't learn to deal with people the same age/ opposite sex/etc." is ridiculous - even if they don't go to school, there are other people with kids around them. Also, it's sort of silly to expect writers to add in a whole character whose presence would have a major effect on the main character's development, just for some statistical balance. I feel like this was written by someone in some really old-fashioned place where every family has more than five kids or something. If the trope is, as "syndrome" would imply, when the author attributes personality traits to their being only children, then it would be a trope, but that doesn't seem like what it was written as.

Edited by lavendermintrose I made this Idolized Julius Kingsley icon back when Akito first came out, and now that the crossover is actually happening, I don't care. Hide / Show Replies

You know if you roll over "Some don't want to do it at all." in the intro it comes up with Child Hater? Well I don't think we should really go around calling people with no child bearing instincts Child Haters so could someone name a trope that describes that? If not we really should just leave it without a link.

• Endemic in the Harry Potter universe - almost all of the main characters are either an only child or a Weasley.
  • That depends on how far you stretch 'main character'. Albus Dumbledore has a brother and a sister, Lily and Petunia are sisters, Sirius Black had a brother, Narcissa Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange and Andromeda Tonks are all sisters, Molly Weasley has two deceased brothers (Gideon & Fabian Prewett), Fleur Delacour has a sister, Uncle Vernon has a sister and there are the Patil twins too.
    • Not much stretching given that most of those characters are major characters, but not main characters.
  • Every descendant of Salazar Slytherin must have had only one child for Tom Riddle to have been the only living descendant after a thousand years.
    • The Gaunt family had a habit of marrying their own cousins. It is possible for the other lines to have died out. Or perhaps non-purebloods weren't considered true Gaunts, so those who married outside the family were excluded from it.
      • This has actually been seen often in history with royal lines. This is usually caused by overt inbreeding which leads to premature deaths due to disease and congenital conditions and/or an inability to find anyone. It is also possible with the Gaunts that any branch families, especially ones resulting from Muggle pairings, were disowned and therefore not acknowledged. It never said that Voldemort was the only descendant of Slytherin, just that he was the heir, likely due to the similar aptitudes and ambitions he shared with his ancestor.
        • Royal lines in Real Life also died out if there were actual descendants left - children conceived out of wedlock didn't count after all, only legitimate ones could inherit.
  • Groups such as the Klan and Nazis, which inspired the Death Eaters, greatly encourage women to have atleast three or four children (seeing as they feel that they blood-superior and surrounded by inferiors who use larger numbers to suppress their greatness). Instead, Death Eaters only have one child if any—just enough to satisfy plot needs: Nott, Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Rosier, Mulciber, and Avery all have only one son. And these lines never go into three generations like real life would suggest. None of the original Death Eaters (Tom's era) have grandchildren in Harry's era, while none of the younger Death Eaters (Lily's era) have fathers who were Death Eaters.
    • Which may make some sense, since most of the Death Eaters are from older, richer families, who tend to have relatively few kids in modern times.