Calling The Old Man Out / Literature

Calling the Old Man Out in literature:

• In the short story "On Stage" from the North Korean anthology The Accusation, Kyeong-hun lashes out at his father for not realizing the nation's mourning for Kim Il-Sung comes from fear rather than sorrow. The realization ultimately drives the latter to suicide.
• Animorphs: In book #41, Jake meets what he thinks is Elfangor, and calls him out for putting the fate of the planet on the shoulders of five teenagers. "Elfangor" turns out to be Tobias in an aged-up Ax morph, and the whole book ends up being All Just a Dream in the end.
• Happens at the end of Gifts, the first book in Annals of the Western Shore. Orrec confronts his father on faking Orrec's supposed "wild gift" to give Caspromant a fearsome reputation when Orrec really has no gift at all. His father can't even answer, having convinced himself that Orrec really did have a wild gift.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • The unfairly despised but worthy youngest son Tyrion Lannister finally tells off his father, Lord Tywin Lannister. And then kills him. Tywin deserved it.
  • After his father slaps him and goes on a rant about now being the King of the Iron Islands with a crown of iron and so on, Theon angrily reminds him that he's just a joke to his enemies, who will clean him up shortly after the true threats are dealt with. Balon admits that it's a bold move on Theon's part, but beyond that dismisses him. Ultimately Theon is proven correct: the only real blow the Iron Islands deal out has nothing to do with Balon, and only after Balon has been killed in a gloriously anticlimactic way do the islands begin to rise as a credible threat under Euron.
  • Princess Arianne Martell calls out on her father for being unresponsive to her Uncle Oberyn's death, for locking up her cousins, the Sand Snakes and for passing off her rights to her younger brother, Quentyn. She got the third one wrong when Doran revealed that she's supposed to marry Viserys Targaryen which was one of his plans to return the Targaryens to power and to destroy the Lannisters..
• In The Brothers Karamazov, Dmitri Karamazov calls his father out and ends up beating the everliving crap out of him in a fit of rage. It's part inheritance money and part Love Triangle which spurs him.
• In The Canary Prince, an Italian Fairy Tale, the heroine calls out her father for his neglect of her, locking her in a tower for years. Somehow, the fact that she wasn't happy cut off from all society is new information to him, After asking for forgiveness, he punishes the queen, but he himself is not held accountable for his mistreatment of his daughter.
• Coin of the Realm: Rosalind calls out her father, The Ruling Monarch and The Man Who Thought He Knew More About Everything Than Anyone Else, upon assassinating her newly-wed husband at the wedding itself, in front of everyone, and boldly claiming her prize as his new royal assassin.
• In The Corrections, all three of Alfred and Enid's children try to call them out on their various issues and problems. It does not take.
• Caging Skies: A definitely not positive example. When Wilhelm Betzler, who's part of the anti-Nazi resistance, tries to make excuses for not sending his son to the Hitlerjugend, little Josef Rittenhouse contests him.
• Count and Countess tells the story of Vlad Tepes and Elizabeth Bathory, who, though living 100+ years apart, start writing to each other in childhood. At the start of the story, Vlad's father, Vlad II Drakul, has surrendered his three sons to the Ottoman Empire as war hostages. Vlad and his brothers endure unspeakable cruelty while there, and only Vlad survives it seemingly. When Vlad escapes life as a Janissary and walks all the way home to Wallachia, he calls the old man out by murdering him.
• Senna Wales, when she finally meets up with her mother during her Villain Episode book, Inside the Illusion. Apparently, she's been imagining the moment since she was a small child.
  Senna: How have I been? For the last ten years after you dumped me off? How have I been, the only one like me stuck in a world full of deaf, dumb, and blind fools? Fine, Mom. Fine. How have you been?!

• The Dresden Files:
  • In Proven Guilty, Carlos Ramirez confirms his brass-balls-itude by calling out the Merlin himself — the single most powerful wizard in the world — on how much of a hypocritical Jerkass of a bastard he's being. It's also done movingly by Molly, to her mother Charity, pointing out that Harry has been bending over backwards to help them, risking his life, giving up powerful assets, and the like, and Charity is still acting like Harry is some kind of craven, self-serving bastard. Charity detectably warms up to Harry in the aftermath, even referring to him as part of the family within a few books.
  • Harry himself calls out his de facto father, Ebenezar McCoy, several times in the series. He later finds out that McCoy is his grandfather, making it "Calling the Even Older Man Out."
  • In Peace Talks, Harry finally calls out his grandfather on his abandoning Harry to the foster care system instead of raising him himself, and on the fact that Susan doing something similar with their daughter had not prevented her being kidnapped, watching her whole foster family die horribly in the process, and nearly being killed in a ritual meant to take out Harry and Ebenezer. The resulting fight lasts the rest of the book, off and on.
• Ferals Series:
  • When Caw meets the spirits of his parents in the Land of the Dead, he calls them out for abandoning him when he was only five and making him believe that they didn't love him. However, he forgives them shortly afterwards.
  • Selina delivers a more deserved one to her mother, Cynthia Davenport, near the end of The Swarm Descends.
  Selina: All this time, you used me. You pretended to care. You used my love for you and twisted it for your own ends. Well, now I've got new friends who I really care about, and you're not going to hurt them anymore.
• Tash and Zak Arranda, in Galaxy of Fear: Army of Terror, finally tire enough of their uncle's standoffishness and stubborn secrecy to call him out. Turns out he's The Atoner. It works out well for them in the end.
• A Girl of the Limberlost: All-Loving Hero Elnora is infinitely patient towards her cold-hearted mother, returning aloofness and nastiness and neglect with love and dependability and courtesy, refusing to say an unkind word to her or hold anything against her in all her 20 years of life. But after Mrs. Comstock crushes the last, rare moth Elnora needed for a collection worth an incredible amount of money, despite Elnora's repeated pleas to stop, Elnora finally loses it:
  Mrs. Comstock: If I had known it was a moth——
  Elnora: You did know! I told you! I begged you to stop! It meant just three hundred dollars to me.
  Mrs. Comstock: Bah! Three hundred fiddlesticks!
  Elnora: They are what have paid for books, tuition, and clothes for the past four years. They are what I could have started on to college. You've ruined the very one I needed. You never made any pretence of loving me. At last I'll be equally frank with you. I hate you! You are a selfish, wicked woman! I hate you!
• In John C. Wright's The Golden Transcedence, Ungannis declares that Humans Are Bastards because her father didn't give her everything she wanted when she was a child. It does not go over well.
• In The Gunslinger, Roland calls out Cort for the ritual coming-of-age challenge of every gunslinger. Due to a plot by Walter, Roland is only 14 when he issues the challenge. Walter expects Roland to be disgraced and exiled. Some creative thinking on Roland's part plays a key role in the outcome of the challenge.
• In the Harry Potter series:
  • Percy had himself a distinctly unheroic version between Goblet and Order when Percy got into a shouting match with his father during the hiatus between the books. During the fight, Percy blames his father for their family's poverty and a lousy reputation he's had to fight against since joining the Ministry. He vows to end his association with their family in order to protect himself from what he views as their foolish support of Dumbledore.
  • Harry himself throws a Grand Mal fit in Dumbledore's office at the end of Order Of The Phoenix over a combination of the shock of Sirius' death, Dumbledore's misguided avoidance of him for the entire book, and the revelation that Dumbledore had been hiding even more information from him than he suspected (information that might have helped avert the aforementioned death). To his credit, Dumbledore does let him vent his rage before apologizing and promising to tell Harry the whole truth. (It still wasn't ''the whole'' truth, but still things he admits he should've told Harry from the start.) In fact, he thinks Harry deserved to be even angrier than he was at the time.
  • In Deathly Hallows:
    • Harry gets to confront Lupin, who just abandoned his wife and unborn child. To his credit, Lupin realises he's being an idiot and, next time he sees Harry, asks him to be godfather to his newly born son.
    • Harry gets to call out Dumbledore again, when they meet in Harry's dreamworld limbo train station, towards the end of the book. Though he does it with a lot less hostility this time around.
• Dee of The Hearts We Sold puts up with a lot of her dad's crap, but after years of abuse and negligence, the discovery that he stole her inheritance from behind her back proves to be the straw that broke the camel's back. She finally calls him out and only returns home one more time after that: to get everything she needs to get a job, meaning she can move out for good.
• In the Honor Harrington series, Honor makes an enemy of industrialist Klaus Hauptman when she confiscates one of his freighters with contraband aboard. He continues to sabotage her career for several books, and when Honor saves his life and that of his only daughter, Stacey, in Honor Among Enemies, he still won't bury the hatchet. At that point, his daughter calls him out, threatening to never speak to him again unless he makes peace. He does, and the Hauptmans go on to become two of Honor's most powerful allies on Manticore.
• I, Lucifer has many instances of Lucifer calling out "The Old Man" on a few of his perceived jerkass qualities and actions.
• While still a child, Jane Eyre eventually calls out her aunt and caretaker for being abusive and unfair towards her, and it actually seems to have some effect.
• Journey to Chaos: The Noble Family of Esrah is supposed to serve the Royal Family of Ataidar, but Duke Selen stages both a kidnapping of the princess and then a coup against the king in order place himself or his son, Siron, in charge. He tells Siron that he's doing this for his sake and so Siron goes along with it. Eventually, he's had enough and calls out his evil dad for his treachery.
• In the Jumper novel, the Abusive Parents subplot culminates in an epic Calling Out. Davy jumps his father to his mother's grave and then subjects him to a Breaking Speech. While using Daddy Dearest's whipping belt as a prop to emphasize just how horrific and wrong the abuse was.
• In Kristy's Big News, the title character — founder of The Babysitters Club — and her older brothers get to finally do this to the father who walked out on them six years earlier, letting him know exactly how difficult he made life for them by abandoning the family.
• Inverted in Leven Thumps when Elton calls out his son Leven for killing his wife Maria in childbirth. Then they fight. Afterwards, it's played straight as Leven gets to call Elton out.
• In Jane Austen's Love and Freindship, Edward does this in face of a marriage to a lovely and agreeable woman.
  "No, never," exclaimed I. "Lady Dorothea is lovely and Engaging; I prefer no woman to her; but know, Sir, that I scorn to marry her in compliance with your Wishes. No! Never shall it be said that I obliged my Father."
• Mercedes Lackey's Heralds of Valdemar series:
  • Magic's Pawn: After a series of traumatic experience that include the death of his first love, a failed attempt at suicide, and the sudden acquisition of a massive array of powers that he doesn't really want, Vanyel is drugged to the gills and barely conscious but still able to pull a mild Carrie on his abusive father for spending his entire childhood trying to have the "weakness" beaten out of him and make sure that he became a "real man." He repeatedly uses his new telekinetic powers to knock his father to the ground, demanding to know if he's finally "strong enough" and how his father likes being pushed around by someone bigger and stronger than he is. (His father gets the message, and by the third book of the trilogy, the two of them manage to reconcile.)
  • The "calling the mentor out" version happens in Winds of Fate, when Elspeth realizes that her companion Gwena is herding her, fat, dumb and happy, toward a Glorious Destiny while trying to foist Skif on her as an ideal mate. Her response, paraphrased: Screw Destiny, stop manipulating me, and if you don't like it, you can go back to Haven without me! Gwena is so shocked at Elspeth's behavior that she actually acquiesces (more or less). It turns out pretty well for all involved.
  • Bear calls his father out by proxy in Changes. He goes all-out on the spy his father planted in Haven to keep an eye on him, knowing the spy will send a full report home. He gets to do it face to face in Redoubt.
• In "The Man Who Came Early", Thorgunna calls her father Ospak a coward and a perjurer when their houseguest Gerald kills a man in self defense, and Ospak will not pay the weregild out of fear for a blood feud.
• Monster of the Month Club: Woman, in this case, since Rilla has it out with her mother in book 2 when she finally gets tired and frustrated with her over a variety of things, including Sparrow embarrassing her in front of her friends. Sparrow is somewhat taken aback, but she and Rilla do sit down and talk over things as a result, including asking Rilla to tell her if Sparrow is embarrassing her so she'll stop doing it.
• The Mortal Instruments: For the entire duration of Jocelyn's kidnapping and subsequent coma, Clary is completely devoted to bringing her back. When Jocelyn finally is cured and returned, the very first thing Clary does is tear into her for depriving Clary of her Sight and not preparing her for the Shadowhunters' world.

• In the second Night Huntress book, Cat tries to call her father out. Unfortunately, vampire politics get in the way.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians:
  • Luke is...very ticked with his father.
  • And in The Last Olympian, Percy does this to all the gods, telling them they should accept all demigods (including checking in time and time on their children) and take responsibility for their actions. And he even extends it to telling them that even the minor gods and their children should have a place at the camp.
  • Also in The Last Olympian, Hades calls out his father.
    "And if there is one thing we agree on - it's that you were a TERRIBLE father."
    • Leo does this to his dad, Hephaestus, in the sequel series, The Heroes of Olympus, to a degree that not even Percy would have.
• In Prince Roger, near the end of March Upcountry Prince Roger is told that his father tried to pull off a coup before Roger was born. Roger, unfortunately, looks almost identical to the man. Worse, no one ever told Roger what happened, or why his father was banished - or even why his mother seemed to hate and distrust him. The resulting spoiled-lonely-brat-who-wants-some-loving-attention behaviour did nothing to improve anyone's attitude towards him. And to top it all off, once he finally finds all this out...he can't even Call Out his mother for her actions, because she's several solar systems away — so he has to settle for throwing a tantrum of epic proportions, ending up trashing his room and mistreating his sword badly.
• In Rock of Ages by Walter Jon Williams, Drake tries this after discovering just how convoluted some of the plots his legally-dead father has gotten involved with are. Unfortunately, his father is not merely a Brain in a Jar but is getting rather senile, and manages to completely miss the point of Drake's angry lecture.
• Not sure if this was included in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but Cao Pi (son of Magnificent Bastard Cao Cao) ordered one of his concubines (Zhen Ji, for those of you familiar with Dynasty Warriors) to commit suicide on the pretext that she was too jealous of his other wives. One day he takes his heir apparent (and Zhen Ji's son) out for a hunt and manages to bag himself a nice doe; in high spirits, he tells his son to capture the fawn as well, at which point the son answers: "You have already killed the mother; I see no need to murder its child as well".
• Jenna from Septimus Heap does this to Milo Banda, her father who's always absent, in Syren:
  Jenna Heap: And you are not my father. Dad is.
• Carmen in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Her dad definitely deserved it, seeing as he didn't tell her he was engaged, living with his fiancée and her two kids, and getting married that August before she came to spend the summer with him for the first time since the separation.
• Something to Talk About: Jo and her father get on poorly. He's always disapproved of her Hollywood career, unlike her late mother. When he insults Emma, Jo's assistant and suggests she be fired, Jo finally snaps. She tells him off angrily and orders her father out. Her best friend Evelyn notes it was a long time in coming for her to do this.
• Zacharias in Sorcerer to the Crown finally is able to stand his ground against his adoptive father Stephen, after Stephen is dead. And a ghost. Zacharias finds his appearing in the midst of conversations with living people most annoying, and says so.
• In Sourcery, Coin has spent his whole life as his father Ipslore's mindslave, being forced to kill people and magically tortured if he disobeys. At the end of the book, he finally calls Ipslore out. It's epic and involves a magical battle.
  • To put things in perspective, Coin is nine.
• The Star Trek Expanded Universe novel The Captain's Daughter has Admiral John "Blackjack" Harriman, father of Enterprise-B captain John Harriman, and heavily implied to be the reason such a young, inexperienced officer is in command of the Enterprise, accompany his son's ship. He spends the entire time boasting about how he got his son such a prestigious command, complaining about James Kirk, and overriding the captain at critical moments. When Captain Harriman finally stands up to him, the admiral unloads on him, calling him names and saying he's worse than Kirk ever was, before sitting in the command chair. The captain's response is to beam him to the brig.
• Paul in Tangerine:
  • Over not realizing the severity of Eirc's treatment of Paul.
  • Over lying to Paul about the damage to his vision, which was actually caused intentionally by Eric and his friend, but they told him it was from looking at the sun during an eclipse.
  • Over not noticing that Antoine Thomas doesn't live in Windsor Downs.
• In one of the Teenage Worrier books, Letty mistakenly believes her father is planning to leave his family for a male lover. She imagines confronting him in a humorous scenario, finishing with:
  And the great noble Hand of God will wag its finger at Dad and say "Look after your kids, punk."
• Mark does this to the Emperor, his biological father, when he finally meets him in the Third Book of Swords by Fred Saberhagen. Since the Emperor is really God, it is not very surprising that His response is, in effect, when you're as old as I am and know as much as I do, you can question what I do and why I do it.
• In Warrior Cats:
  • Crookedstar eventually stands up to his abusive mother Rainflower, telling her that she'll never make him ashamed of who he is or what he looks like.
  • Brambleclaw defies his father, Tigerstar, in The Darkest Hour when Tigerstar invites him to join him.
• Both played straight and subverted by Zephyr in The Windwater Pack: His father Stone Voice is at the top of his list and he never hesitates to let him know it. However, when he has the chance to really put him in his place, he simply says “Good-bye” and walks away.
• In the third book of The Witchlands, Vivia finally gets angry at her father, a Manipulative Bastard who moulded her into a "Well Done, Son" Guy, calling him out on his megalomania, his lies and the way he constantly dismisses her and treats her like a child to prop himself up. Years of mental abuse being rather hard to cast off, she still feels horrid about it.
• Wonder Woman: Warbringer: Jason is Alia's brother, not her father, but he's essentially raised her since their parent's death, and Alia delivers a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to him after he reveals his true allegiances.

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