Something I have realised in the past few days, I have a major thing for broken friendships as a result of betrayal, and father issues in stories. You'll be surprised how often the two can be linked together. Mother issues in plots tend to bore me, and I can't decide if it is because I'm female and the whole deal is kind of boring, or if it is because mother/daughter issues are hardly ever depicted as vicious and violent in stories. Judgemental and indifferent; yes, but never the full scale anger/hate/violence that literature/media tend to depict the father/son issues. And it is the latter that is damn fascinating (to me at least). What's interesting about the father-issue stories that gets to me (in a, 'Oh, this is so cool, in a rip-my-heart sort of way,') is that the father does love his son dearly, it is just that circumstances (Anakin turning to the Dark Side, or Connor being completely screwed up in the head because of every other person in his life) that forces the son to have major problems. Based on series of events, father-issues often results in a screaming/death match, which will leave one (most often both of them) in a pit of dark angst, and the other dead/maimed/insert your form of bad.
And yes, by now you should have realised I’m using Star Wars and Angel as prime examples, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other examples of father-issues that ends badly. I just can’t seem to think of any at the present time.
But back to the point; most mother/daughter issues get resolved through some form of ‘soul searching’ or ‘talking’ (screaming match works too), but hardly ever reach the level of violence’ of that of father/son issues. And I find myself being much more affected (emotionally and visually) by the father/son issues. It hit me on a basic level that makes me sit at the edge of my seat, eyes glued to the screen. Damn good drama (or melodrama, depending how you want to interpret it.)
Hmm. Just how differently do the w-media and the j-media depict father/son issues? It is too early for me to think in that direction. Not enough coffee and mind can’t change track.
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chasethestars
chasethestars
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I think what is interesting is that more often than not the absent father figure seem to expect to be forgiven for their absence, or at the very least they are stuck in a mind frame where they assume everything they had left behind would stay exactly the same. It is as if they think the four-yr-olds they left behind would stay four, and the wife they left behind will still be alive (hardly ever), and still unmarried (always true.) But it is always a shock for them to see that everything they had left behind had changed, and that in a way is sad. So very sad. As for the son… well, the amount of, ‘How could you?!’ and the ‘Mum died because of you,” etc., would contribute a lot to their hate and their anger.
Itachi-Sasuke. Exactly what I have been saying (and ranting, and screaming about) for the past year. It makes me want to throw something at people when they start to say, ‘Get over it,’ or ‘Sasuke is such a whiner,’ etc. I mean WTF? Hello, boy’s family got murdered by his OWN brother here. The person who was closest to him, the person he admired, trusted, and probably more of a father figure than his own damn father. Not exactly a great start for functional, stable character. Yet, Sasuke still grew up, still managed to have a sense of humour (earlier chapters), and was developing attachments. And really, you can’t blame him for losing completely when Itachi came back and broke him. And… uhm, I’ll stop now. Sorry about the rant *koffs*.
See, that’s what pisses me off. My mother loves me I have never doubted that in my entire life. I know I’m the most important thing in her life. She has done a hell of a lot of things for me, but that does not mean she’s perfect. She has gotten angry at me, she has screamed at me, and at times she’ll take out her anger at me (and everyone in the house -_-;;) But she never let me doubt she loved me. The ideal mother-figure is complete bullshit. My mother is no saint, but that does not mean she loves me any less. And to tell the truth I rather have a mother that I can perceive as human, that I can get angry with (screaming matches), but we’ll mend everything up in half an hour with no hard feelings than have a card-board cut-out. Your family is the closest thing you’ll ever have, and that means knowing their faults and loving them despite it.
Completely boring. Probably why I can’t identify with most mother figures in anime, though I admit I liked Trisha (from FMA) but I suspect that was because there was so little of her, and I can assume that might have thrown a few temper tantrums here and there. It is alright, you can dislike Joyce, I still love you despite your deficiency :p
I have seen that frozen-family thing, so much. I guess it's understandable, too, because I always assume that nothing at home will have changed in the months I'm in Australia. And it's so selfish; it makes me want to hit the character, because what is he thinking, that the sun stops rising when he's not around? His fatal mistake, egocentricity.
That Sasuke thing! I went off on a major tangent on him, and had to stick it in a post in my journal. :D
Motherhood in fiction isn't often very complicated--there are so few failings that society as a whole seems to be willing to forgive mothers, which really limits what's shown and how it's shown. My mum wouldn't really fit in the mother-pattern, either (although my dad does fit in the absent-father role); I think it would be really creepy to meet a mother who did, because, dude. What is she hiding, why is she pretending to be that way? No real person could naturally be what we have the cultural expectation that mothers are, surely. The ideal mother portayed seems to be what we assume a parent should be, but lacking anything else--she's given away her personality, her self, so that she can be Mother, a totally devoted figure of first femininity. (And if she's not, she's unforgivably flawed.) Like Sasuke's mother, dude. She freaks me out. :/
And when they're not that freaky, unrealistic, boring type, anime mother figures often piss me off in a completely different way--Hatsumi's mother in 'Hot Gimmick', for one. ARGH. She told her daughter off for refusing to go out with a boy who had pushed her down the stairs in childhood! Because it might lower their status in their apartment building! >:| (See, you forgive me for Joyce. Can you forgive me for Joyce and Sasuke?)
But I really don’t have much to say to this one mainly because I pretty much do agree with everything say here. Epiphany! Yes! ^_^ Exactly, it is really hard to say I dislike the parents who abandon their family because 9 out of 10, they have a reason and are really nice people, but at the same time… ‘HELLO! FAMILY HERE!’ So, uh, yeah, parental issues definitely get to me in fiction.
Frozen-family thing. Stupid, selfish, and sad. It does make me all teary when I see a father learning what have been happening when he wasn’t there. Dead wife, a child who hates you, oh, the woe.
Ideal-mother figures do freak me out; it is the continual calm and the blend smile that gets to me. It is a POD-PERSON! ARGH! And then it is the evil bitch from hell. What, so, nice to see how forgiving out literature is to the female maternal role *rolls eyes*