Markup View

Author: LordGro

Apr 8th 2014 at 12:40:47 PM

Right, averting WickedStepmother is not a trope.

I was actually thinking of a specific fairy tale type, in which stepmothers help their stepchildren to "make their fortune". These kind of stepmother always has some magic power or extraordinary knowledge, and her role resembles that of a FairyGodmother. There is often a subplot about the stepmother being unjustly accused of having bad intentions (like a WickedStepmother), but that is optional. The tale may be set up as a subversion of WickedStepmother, but a Good Stepmother is more than a subverted Wicked Stepmother. Her support of/care for her stepchild surpasses even that of an average mother and is a central plot point.

This is indeed the inversion of WickedStepmother, but inversions can be tropes in their own right. See OppositeTropes.

I was actually surprised by the examples I got; I didn't anticipate the draft going this direction. I feel it's hard to judge all the "modern non-magical setting" examples, as I don't know most of these shows. The description definitely needs a rewrite, but I'm somewhat uncertain about the range of this trope now. I tend to think that a "nice, loving stepmother" in itself is below the trope threshold; the point is more that the unusual bond between stepmother and stepchild is stronger than what their society would expect between people that are not blood-related, and plays an essential part in the plot.

I didn't include stepfathers, because I don't know of any such examples and because I expect this trope to be gender-specific, considering WickedStepmother is gender-specific too. Stepsiblings don't fill a parental position, so they fit even less.