Basic Trope: A character's parents treat them badly.
- Straight: Carl's mom Alice "forgets" to feed him and yells at him for everything.
- Exaggerated:
- Carl's kind's ancestors/gods were horrible people.
- Carl's parents take turns beating him and they enjoy it.
- Carl's parents lock him in a basement, starve him for several days, and try to frame him up for crimes he never did.
- Offing the Offspring
- Carl's parents lock him in the basement and take away the stairs... because he is grounded!
- Downplayed:
- Carl's parents are only abusive to him on certain occasions, but they are nice to him most of the time.
- Parental Neglect.
- Parents as People
- Justified:
- Social Services Does Not Exist
- Carl's parents suffer from a mental disorder that hinders them from treating Carl normally and being patient and nice with him.
- Carl has a mental disorder that twists the way he sees his parents. To him, even innocent remarks can feel like crushing criticism.
- Carl's parents were abused by their parents when they were children so they take all their anger out on him.
- Carl's parents are Child Haters. They gave birth to Carl for the sole purpose of making him miserable.
- Carl's parents are abusive to everyone, why should they leave him out?
- Inverted:
- Carl is an Abusive Offspring.
- Good Parents
- Subverted:
- Carl's parents are abusive towards their son... till it turns out that these are random thugs who bought him from the streets and not his actual parents.
- Or they are abusive towards their son... till it turns out that he's just a young servant and not their own son.
- Carl is an Unreliable Narrator who lied about his parents mistreating him for attention.
- Carl's parents angrily tell him to go to his room. They close the door and only Carl's screams can be heard from behind it. The door opens and it's revealed that they were just tickling him.
- Double Subverted:
- Then it's revealed that those thugs are Carl's true parents.
- But after doing a DNA test, it turns out that Carl is their own son, after all.
- While Carl's claims of physical abuse are false, psychological abuse and neglect are plentiful.
- Carl may have lied about the bruises and scars part; however, the psychological abuse part was true.
- Then it's revealed that those thugs are Carl's true parents.
- Parodied: Carl's parents use really complicated and expensive methods, such as setting Bear Traps on his way, using the The Ludovico Technique, or hiring a Torture Technician to torment him instead of just... hitting him or something because they think spanking and slapping are boring and outdated.
- Zig Zagged:
- Carl's parents are only nice to him when they are in good moods, though they have no problems repeatedly kicking him when their mood turns sour.
- Carl's parents are sometimes abusive and sometimes kind, depending on his manners; if he behaves well, they don't harm him and even praise him, but if he misbehaves, then they punch him.
- Averted:
- Carl's parents dote on and adore him to no end.
- Carl's parents died or disappeared after his birth.
- Enforced:
- The creators are trying to give Carl a Freudian Excuse for his murders so the audience would sympathize with him.
- The writer is trying to vent about his own abusive parents through his characters.
- Lampshaded: "Your parents are really awful, Carl, haven't you considered running away once?" "I did, many times before, and I tried but it didn't work."
- Invoked: "Hit Me, Dammit!"
- Exploited: Carl is a masochist. He does his best to make his parents mad so that they can hurt him as much as possible.
- Defied:
- Carl runs away from home immediately the moment his parents start behaving strangely.
- Carl calls child protective services before his parents do anything to him...
- Or, he murders them instead.
- Alternatively, Carl's parents had abusive parents of their own, and refusing to give Carl the same kind of life they had, they decide to raise him well instead.
- Discussed: "That villain must have been abused as a child."
- Conversed: "What is with all this stuff? If they did that to their son in Real Life, they'd be locked up!"
- Implied: Carl noticeably doesn't talk about his parents or avoids going home as much as possible. He's also prone to getting bruises and gets really uncomfortable when someone asks how he got them.
- Deconstructed:
- The constant abuse from his parents leads Carl to believe that life is meaningless and he is Driven to Suicide.
- Carl gets sick of his constant abuse, snaps, get Revenge and finally kill his parents.
- Because Carl only knows abuse from his parents, he ends up becoming just as abusive to his own children when he has a family of his own, and starts a cycle of abuse that will result in his children abusing their families as payback for his actions and this cycle will continue for future generations.
- Reconstructed:
- Carl's teachers notice how scrawny and sickly he became, so they take it upon themselves to investigate his home situation to find the cause and help him get away from this abusive household when they learn it's his parents' doing.
- He grows up to try to be different from his abusive parents and becomes a loving and caring father, raising/becoming the next hero.
- Carl runs away and goes to live with his distant relatives or his friend's house. He then moves on with his life and refuses to use his terrible parents as an excuse for anything. He remains kind and hardworking, he also goes to therapy.
- Played For Laughs: Hilariously Abusive Childhood.
- Played For Drama:
- One or both of Carl's parents were abused as children themselves, spurring them to abuse Carl in turn.
- Carl's Panicky Expectant Father antics take a turn for the dramatic when he voices concerns about hurting his child like his parents hurt him.
- Carl does end up being as bad a father as his parents.
- Carl ends up killing his parents when their abuse of him goes too far.
- Plot Foundation:
- Carl breaks under the abuse, and brutally murders his parents. He's acquitted, on the grounds of being an orphan who watched his parents get brutally murdered by a stark-raving madman.
- Or... Someone calls child protective services, and, while the parents are serving time (or whatever they do after CPS does their job), they see other parents treating their children right. After a while, they see the error of their ways, and do what they can to patch things up with their child, tearfully apologizing for what they've done and explaining why they did it.
No! Please don't hit me! I'm sorry...
