Parents As People / Video Games

• Despite the Heartwarming Moment at the end of the first game, poor Ashley Robbins suffered this between the first and second Another Code games. While it's forgivable in that Richard still had a ton of issues to sort out after coming back into his daughter's life and his social skills probably atrophied during ten years of self-imposed isolation, the two flubbed the initial bonding effort and had to work through another game to patch things up.
• The Binding of Isaac: the Jigsaw Puzzle Plot suggests that Isaac's father was one of these, in contrast to his abusive, fundamentalist mother. One item, "Dad's Lost Coin", is an Alcoholics Anonymous sobriety coin. Overheard dialogue suggests it's "lost" because he suffered from the same mental disorder as Isaac himself, fell back into his alcoholism, and stole money to pay for it, leading to the divorce that removed him from Isaac's life. However, he tried to be a good parent to Isaac, doing his best to encourage his young son's artistic talents and curiosity, despite how troublingly dark and morbid Isaac's imagination was.
• In Coffee Talk, Jorji is a father to three girls but is more defined by his job and his relationships with the other Coffee Talk patrons. According to him, he argues frequently with his daughter, especially his eldest, but still manages a good relationship with them by using their fights to understand each other better. He even admits bribery is a viable option for parents.
  
  In Episode 2, he reveals that he hasn't spoken to his youngest daughter Missy for over a month after their fallout regarding her neglected schoolwork. He admits that it's hard for a parent to balance between supporting their child's dreams and stepping in if they take things too far.
• Crusader Kings: This is a game where Necessarily Evil dynastic realpolitik is the key to survival. You might really love your charitable, brave, gregarious daughter who happens to be a genius, but that won't stop you from setting up an Arranged Marriage to a man she hardly knows in order to help secure your borders from invasion.
• Dead by Daylight has an example in the backstory for Claudette, whose mother insists that she should be more "normal" while lamenting Claudette's lack of friends as a child. Her husband calls her out on this one night while Claudette (who'd snuck out of bed) listened in.
  Her mother goes silent. She suddenly releases a cry and says she doesn't want her to be bullied like she was bullied throughout school. Claudette's eyes widen. For the first time in her life... she realizes... her mother's wired differently, too.
• An obscure example in Evolve is Ida Lennox. She's an engineering genius who vastly prefers designing space stations and colonies to interacting with people, has an (admittedly deserved) ego, and admits to switching men out every once in a while. Her performance as a parent is described by Word of God as being a hands-off affair, allowing the child to find their own way, to the point where there's only a single line of dialogue mentioning she's a parent. The line in question comes from her son: Jack.
• Tidus' father Jecht and Tidus' mom from Final Fantasy X. From the one scene we see of them together the two are Sickening Sweethearts. When it comes to their son, Jecht is an emotionally abusive jerkass (and a drunk to boot). Tidus' mom actually cares for her son, but outright ignores him whenever Jecht is around and when he disappears, she dies of a broken heart, essentially abandoning poor Tidus.
• Fire Emblem has many of these:
  • Greil from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance was a loving father who cared not just for his own kids but for his entire mercenary company, but kept a lot of secrets from Ike and Mist. For example, the fact that he killed their mother Elena in a berserk rage, due to the effects of a cursed medallion that only Elena (and later Mist) was able to handle without going crazy. Or that Ike had witnessed the entire thing and had the memory magically sealed and repressed by Sephiran.
  • The entire first generation of Fire Emblem Fates. Because birth control was harder to come by in those days and several of the First Generations are either Blue Blood or members of a Legacy of Service (so they're in desperate need of heirs), any couple married during the war produced a child or two and in order to protect those children, their parents had to send them to the Deeprealms. They visit the kids but not too frequently as they keep fighting, so they eventually do reunite with their children (whose ages range from pre-teens to older teenagers, as the Deeprealms have different time flows) for real, the parents are aware that maybe sending them away wasn't the perfect choice due to some of the kids having abandonment issues or being pissed. The resulting support conversations delve into the troubled relationships and ultimately prove that even if circumstances weren't ideal, the parents do very much care about their children and want to keep them safe above all else. And in the end, the kids do recognize that they're loved even if their parents aren't perfect.
  • In Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Emperor Rudolf truly wanted the best for his son Albein/Alm and his nephew/adoptive son Berkut. Problem is, he had a huge Zero-Approval Gambit to play for the sake of the Valentian continent as a whole, so he first sent a pretty much newborn Alm away and made sure that he wouldn't learn the truth of his origins, then some time later adopted a very young Berkut as his heir without telling him about Alm or his plans. While Alm was more or less fine thanks to being raised by Rudolf's advisor Mycen, Berkut's already present obsession with strength (as already taught by his now dead parents) became even stronger, and Rudolf's lack of a coherent plan to help him cope bites everyone in the ass later when Berkut learns the truth, goes completely insane, and dies trying to murder Alm.
• Ghost of Tsushima:
  • Shimura loves his nephew Jin who came under his care when he was young and sees him as the son he never had and Jin returns the same devotion to his uncle. He even wanted to formally adopt Jin as his heir but his Honor Before Reason attitude, fanatical devotion to the samurai code, and classism towards the lower class damage his and Jin's relationship over the course of the game. When the Shogun ordered Shimura to kill Jin, he is visibly conflicted and is seen in tears just prior to the confrontation but continues to stay his course. And should the player choose to kill Shimura, he still calls Jin his son.
  • It's implied that Jin has a distant relationship with his biological father Kazumasa, with him having more fond memories of his uncle and Shimura being the one to teach Jin how to ride and use a sword instead of Kazumasa. It's implied that Kazumasa changed after the death of his wife. Yuriko tells Jin that his father did love Jin in his own way, something Jin seems to have a hard time believing.
  • Ishikawa did grow to care for his former student Tomoe and offered to formally adopt her - a grand gesture considering her gender and commoner status. However, his Sink or Swim Mentor actions would drive Tomoe to snap completely and betray him and join the Monguls. Before their falling out, he ignored the mounting signs of her betrayal because he wanted her as his heir too much.
• In God of War (PS4), while Kratos loves his son Atreus enough to literally go to Hel for him (and pick up the Blades of Chaos once again despite being clearly uneasy with them), he's also gruff, distant, and asocial, something that clearly frustrates Atreus and damages their relationship. Kratos's hatred of the gods and attempts to distance himself from his Dark and Troubled Past also cause him to keep secrets from Atreus that cause Atreus physical harm (for example, he can't handle his own Spartan Rage and collapses into a coma). Kratos even admits that he's not ready to be a father again after the traumatic loss of his first family, and he's utterly terrified of failing Atreus.
  • Come God of War Ragnarök, and Kratos is doing a lot better as a father; while he may not always agree with Atreus, he makes an effort to trust his son's judgement, hoping that Atreus will be prepared to survive without him one day. In the same game, we get Thor, who was implied to be a terrible father (he beat his son Modi almost to death for failing in the previous game), but is shown to be a broken man with no idea how to improve himself; he's a recovering alcoholic in a near constant state of melancholy over the death of his sons, making him distant from his remaining daughter Thrud. Unfortunately, the true cause of his dejected state is his own father; Odin cares so little for his son that Thor doesn't have a great frame of reference for how to be a good parent himself.
• In Hades, it's revealed that while Persephone is more caring towards their child compared to their spouse, they are still not without their flaws. While Persephone had legitimate reasons for not being in Zagreus's life (namely Zagreus was stillborn and she left not knowing he was brought back to life), Persephone was still so overcome by grief that they left the Underworld and was very reluctant to return even though Zagreus wished them to. It takes some time for Zagreus to convince them that Persephone shouldn't keep running from their family problems and they need to work together to resolve them sooner than later.
• King Rhoam in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a stern and harsh father towards his daughter Zelda, admonishing her for not being able to awaken the divine power of Hylia and forbidding her from pursuing other interests and studies. He had good intentions, but his methods only made things worse and it was after his death, Zelda sacrificing herself to seal Calamity Ganon and the fall of Hyrule that he realized his mistake. What's worse, in his journal he expresses regret for treating Zelda so harshly and planned to apologize to her once she returned from training on her birthday. And then the Calamity struck...
  • In Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, this is shown once again as King Rhoam is abrasive regarding Zelda's powers, and a flashback even shows him taking away something that meant so much to Zelda in a misguided attempt to make her change and focus on the powers of the Goddess. It isn't until she finds her father survived his apparent death that he reveals the device Zelda gave him was a Guardian Shield (activating on reflex to deflect the Guardians surrounding him and giving him precious time to escape), and this made him realize he was pushing her far too hard and should have acknowledged her technical knowledge. Rhoam then joins Zelda and the others to retake the castle, and lets her lead the army into the final battle.
• Life Is Strange 2: Karen is an interesting example since she actively chose to leave her children and is still treated with some sympathy (by the narrative, if not necessarily by Sean). If allowed to explain herself, she says that she does care for Daniel and Sean and is deeply sorry for the pain she's caused them, but she's still adamant that leaving was the right thing for her to do since the alternative was a lifetime of being dead inside. In Episode 5, shortly before she turns herself in to the police to buy Sean and Daniel time to escape, she admits that leaving was a selfish decision, and that she wants to put their needs ahead of her own for once.
• In Mass Effect, Tali relates that while she didn't doubt her father Rael'Zorah loved her, he wasn't a particularly big presence in her childhood, since as one of the Quarian Admiralty Board, he was very much devoted to his work in ensuring the survival and prosperity of the quarian people, and according to Tali, that tendency only got worse after her mother died because losing himself in his work was the only way her father could cope with his grief. And while he could be overprotective at times, he wasn't above having his daughter acquire research material for his work from active warzones which in Mass Effect 2 ends up with Tali facing a charge of treason when the nature of her father's work gets out following an experiment gone wrong.
• Mortal Kombat
  • Sonya Blade does care for her daughter Cassie but is Married to the Job and has high, strict expectations of Cassie which caused a lot of strain between them. Her job as a General Commander of the Special Forces is a demanding one, a decision Sonya isn't happy about, causing her to give up Cassie's childhood to make her world safe. She is also aware that Cassie prefers Johnny over her, which explains her source of animosity towards Johnny in Mortal Kombat X.
  • Kenshi had well-meaning intentions when he left Takeda with Scorpion to hunt down his wife's killers and did not return for many years but this left Takeda feeling resentful and bitter against his father for this perceived abandonment.
  • Jax is an overprotective dad who is strongly against Jacqui enlisting in the Special Forces, having known what kinds of dangers and threats Earthrealm was up against. When offered a chance to change the past (so Jacqui would not enlist) by Kronika, due to his crippling fear and despair for Jacqui, Jax accepted, thinking this would keep Jacqui safe. He did not realize he was essentially doing this without taking Jacqui's own freedom of choice into consideration and that Jacqui legitimately wanted to follow her father's steps into the army.
• My Child Lebensborn: The titular child doesn't catch much of a break when it comes to this trope:
  • Their German soldier father has long returned to Germany and has a family of his own. He doesn't want to risk having his wife find out he fathered a child in Norway during World War II. He will, however, send money his parents saved for the child in exchange for a promise of not getting visits or being asked for child support.
  • Norwegian women who had been in relationships with German soldiers were publicly humiliated and stigmatized to the point of not being able to make a living on their own after the war, so the child's mother put them up for adoption. She does, however, come around just enough to tell the Player Character that her parents have the information about the child's father that they are looking for.
  • The child's adoptive parent, the Player Character, is also a Struggling Single Parent who sometimes has to be absent in times in which their presence is needed on an emotional level to be able to put food on the table and afford the occasional gift. The child getting a little entertainment out of watching the parent craft/cook and one of the "doing something fun" options being having a walk in one of the food scavenging sites are easily abused to delay the point where actual play is needed to keep the child sufficiently entertained.
• Lorraine Maillard of The Park is this in spades. A Struggling Single Mother, she genuinely wants to care for her son Callum, but given that she has no support, no experience with kids, and a possible case of chronic depression, she often ends up leaving the poor kid alone in situations where he shouldn't be left unattended. For good measure, it becomes clear that her feelings towards Callum are rather... complicated. While under the influence of Atlantic Island Park's brain-warping atmosphere, Lorraine expresses almost every single emotion she feels around him: nostalgia, confusion of self-image, self-doubt, self-loathing, irrational hatred, and even unchecked Mama Bear tendencies. For good measure, after finally realizing that Callum would never have ended up in this predicament if it wasn't for her, Lorraine is consumed with guilt and spends the rest of the game tearfully cursing herself for her failings. The Secret World reveals that she never recovered from Callum's murder, and spent the next thirty years committing suicide.
• In the Persona series:
  • Persona 4:
    • Ryotaro Dojima, the protagonist's uncle and guardian for the events of the game. While he's a hardworking, honest cop and genuinely loves his daughter Nanako, he often neglects her thanks to lingering issues regarding his wife's unsolved hit-and-run death and his fear that he alone is inadequate as a parent, which he hides from by avoiding Nanako and burying himself in his work. Fortunately, it's possible to help parent and child overcome their problems and become a true family again.
    • Eri Minami, a young woman who has become a stepmother to a young boy named Yuuta, whom the main character can tutor. She has difficulty bonding with her new stepson, and in return, Yuuta mistakenly thinks she hates him. Her social link allows the main character to help the two bond as well.
  • Persona 5:
    • Futaba's mother loved her dearly but tended to prioritize her work over her private life and therefore had little time for her daughter. After her death, this attitude coupled with her forged suicide note led Futaba to mistakenly believe her mother died hating her.
    • Sojiro also falls under this trope. While he also deeply loves Futaba, the trauma of what happened to her mother meant that she was distant from him; for a long while, all he could do for her was make sure she didn't starve and fulfill any requests she made of him. The latter part of his confidant has him confess that he isn't sure he's good enough to be her father; they end up having an argument since she interprets this as him not wanting to look after her anymore, although they both reconcile.
    • Ann's parents aren't abusive, but as celebrities in the fashion industry, they're often gone for months at a time due to work. Ann doesn't dislike them for it, but it contributed to her fairly lonely childhood.
  • Persona 5 Strikers:
    • Zenkichi does care for his daughter Akane but clearly struggles with connecting with her and trying to care for her after the death of his wife, viewing himself as a failure of a father. It's made all the more harder because Akane deeply resents him for not bringing justice to her mother's death, even if he had legitimate reasons not to, since he was being blackmailed that if he did continue to investigate, Akane's life would be threatened. At one point in the past, Zenkichi referred to her as a "burden", though that was done in part to distance himself to keep her safe but regardless, it only estranged their relationship further.
• Psychonauts: Augustus Aquato loves his son, Raz, but he knows the kind of danger Raz's psychic powers could attract, which led him to exhaustively training Raz so that Raz would be prepared in mind and body. However, his inability to communicate this with his son led to Raz believing that he was being punished for being psychic and that his father wanted to kill him, leading to Raz running away from home. When Augustus comes face to face to Raz's distorted mental construct of him, he's horrified by how his son sees him.
• Quantum Protocol: Despite her strictness towards her daughter, Maya does want Aurora to succeed and eventually supports the latter's activities in Quantum. She also allows Aurora and her friends to hack Neskara's Dungeon Network and covers for them when Omega tries to investigate.
• John Marston, from Red Dead Redemption, is an outlaw who wants to leave his checkered past behind so he can raise his family in peace. Throughout the game, federal agents are holding his son Jack and his wife Abigail in custody with the threat of harm befalling them unless he helps the government hunt down his old gang. John dutifully carries through in his part of the job and, when he finally reunites with his family, makes an active effort in reconnecting with Jack. The two are never quite able to see eye to eye, given John's violent past and Jack's gentler demeanor and preference for academic ventures, but the fact remains that John cares deeply for his son enough that he makes the ultimate sacrifice to ensure he and Abigail survive when the government comes to silence them. In the prequel, it is shown that it takes a while for John to warm up to the idea of being a father, being loyal to the increasingly unstable Dutch van der Linde and initially unwilling to believe that Jack is his son. In time, however, he comes around and begins to care for Jack as his son. Jack's mother, Abigail, also ran with the gang, but also wanted a better life for Jack, and was instrumental in helping John put Dutch's gang behind them. While she Never Learned to Read, she enthusiastically encourages Jack's education.
• The Resident Evil 2 (Remake) showcases the Birkins' relationship with their daughter Sherry. While their only redeeming trait is their love for Sherry, they are obsessed with their work and often leave Sherry alone by herself. All poor Sherry wanted was for her parents to be home more. Annette manages to find Sherry in the sewers in her surveillance equipment but scolds Sherry for leaving the police station (even though it was overrun with zombies). And after Sherry becomes infected, Annette writes her daughter off as a lost cause and would rather leave to stop William. While her justification is that millions of lives are at risk, that was just cold to say that to her own daughter.
• A spoilerrifc example — coming to terms with this is actually the crux of Cheryl's issues in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Harry and his wife Dahlia did seem to have a happy relationship at some point in the past, but they also had plenty of issues that made getting married basically out of high school and raising a kid pretty tough. (Depending on the player's actions, the ending can also reveal that the couple ended up going through a divorce, that either one of them was abusive, or that Harry cheated on his wife.) Then Harry dies in a car crash, causing Cheryl—who was seven at the time—to grow up obsessing over her few rose-tinted memories of him, while also viewing her mother as a bitter, washed-up tramp; Kaufmann's Wham Line and accompanying speech at the end of the game break down exactly how harmful such an unrealistic worldview is for the psyche.
• Parents in The Sims do very little to raise their children. Babies and toddlers will need constant attention, but older children only really need homework help and food cooked for them and teenagers can live in total independence. Later versions of the game encourage parents to be more proactive: the child/toddler is more likely to get positive traits if they're well looked after. Parents and children also receive a boost to their relationship score at family-creation but this can go up and down like any other relationship.
• Starfield: If one chooses the appropriate perk, the parents of the Player Character will be generated and will do all kinds of things around the world, going on tourist trips, giving you gifts, and the number of possible interactions with them is huge.
• Tales Series:
  • Tales of Symphonia has Lloyd's Parental Substitute Dirk, who once hits him in a case of Anger Born of Worry: Lloyd had just been in quite the danger - plus he had an Exsphere with him...
  • Tales of the Abyss has Luke's father. Duke Fabre has a high standing in Kimlasca and is very hands-off and incredibly cold, almost harsh, to his son. He eventually admits why he remains distant. Since the Score predicted that Luke would die at the age of 17, Duke Fabre felt that it was better to just not get to know a son, who was destined to die so soon, at all, so that he wouldn't be sad or regret anything when the time came. But as Luke survives and the two talk, Duke Fabre admits that he feels like he missed out on Luke and tries to rectify things.
• In The Walking Dead (Telltale), Clementine became AJ's guardian and adoptive mother after the deaths of his parents. Since she was only eleven at the time, she had trouble being his guardian and she can admit in The Final Season that she was never taught how to be a parent in the first place. Although she loved A.J, she just didn't know how to handle the responsibilities of parenthood.
• A few cases in World of Warcraft.
  • Magni Bronzebeard was quite disappointed that he was unable to get a male heir, leading to some distance between him and Moira. Anduin has great respect for Magni but notes that it was partly his fault that Moira turned out the way she did, joining the Dark Irons out of love for their emperor, Dagran Thaurissan.
  • Varian Wrynn toward his son, Anduin. Varian's Lo'gosh side and his more warlike ways cause a rift between him and his pacifistic son Anduin, leading him to send Anduin to stay in Ironforge while he works through his issues. Later on, Anduin goes to study under Velen, rather than Archbishop Benedictus as Varian suggests, but Benedictus brings the two together to help them reconcile. Varian openly admits on a few occasions that he is a less-than-perfect father.
• Frequently in Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
  • The catalyst for the story, Guernica Vandham, is a legendary soldier that led the Lost Numbers against the forces of Moebius for years, a respected figure even among the conservative factions of the City. However, his daughter Monica was neglected as a result of his dedication, making it hard for her to have a relationship with him, and when she joined the Lost Numbers he apparently stopped treating her as family all together. She doesn't resent him at all, understanding that the work he did was essential to the survival of the world, but she was only ever really connect with him on the level of a soldier rather than as father and daughter.
  • Monica herself has a strained relationship with her own daughter Ghondor. She's clearly making an effort to avoid the pitfalls of her own father, but as a widowed mother and the City's Elder she has to prioritise the greater good of the City over her own family, not helped by the fact that Ghondor is a confrontational young lady who's favourite pass times are picking fights and trashing her mother, who she lovingly refers to as "the Bitch Queen". When Monica has the chance she'll happily make Ghondor's favourite meal and it's clear that underneath it all Ghondor really does love her back, but those moments are few and far between when running a war.
  • N, The Dragon of Moebius and previous incarnation of protagonist Noah, suffers from this hard. As someone trapped in Aionios' cycle of life and death he only has 10 years to live before dying at the physical age of 20. Despite this he tried to make the most of his time with the woman he loved Mio and having a child together. However due to this cycle they would inevitably die before their son Ghondor reached age 5 if they had him as early as possible, which they didn't. As a result, Ghondor loses his parents at a very young age, and takes his fathers final lessons to heart to continue the fight against Moebius well into his old age. Given the circumstances, N had the most amount of time he could have had with his son given the circumstances, but he was still unable to give Ghondor the childhood he deserved. Unfortunately, his regret and pain over losing Mio left him open to being manipulated by Z, turning him into the very thing he and his family sought to destroy.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 protagonists Shulk and Rex also have their struggles. After their adventures both of them settled down and started families with their respective love interests Fiora for Shulk and Pyra, Mythra, and Nia for Rex until their worlds colided to form Aionios. While they were spared, their families were trapped in Origin and forced to fight in a Forever War against each other to feed Moebius. Fast forward to Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed and they meet incarnations of their children trapped in the cycle, Nikol and Glimmer respectively, and have to struggle with the fact that the children they lost untold centuries ago are right in front of them, but completely unaware of who they are, what a parent even is, or of life outside of war. Shulk has an easier time reconnecting with Nikol as they have similar mindsets and interests in machines, but Rex has to contend with the much more hostile and stubborn Glimmer, whose life of war has made it hard for him to connect with her as someone that spent his early years taking care of himself as a Working-Class Hero. Over time, and with Shulk's guidance, they're able to slowly form a new connection that reflects the Bumbling Dad and Bratty Teenage Daughter they may have been if things had turned out differently.
• Yes, Your Grace: King Eryk is a father who loves his children, but also a King with very limited resources at his disposal who is expected to provide for the general population in times of need. The easiest solution to that involves Arranged Marriage and his two oldest daughters, twelve and thirteen years old respectively.

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