Yeah the absence of mothers or making them complete bitches in these manwahs is starting to creep me out. What was that greek myth that is used by psychologists to explain this phenomena? another reason why monster duchess is the best child rearing manwha out there. Claude could never In shonen the dad is thought to be dead, but surpise hes the last boss or another hurdle to cross
With single dads the kid is more likely to grow up a murderer or rapist. Yeah I can cite studies from 1966 too
I don't know, most people I know seem to like their mothers over their fathers, so a kid without a mother is more pitiful? Besides, it is me putting stereotypes on people, but children raised just by their fathers give more independent of a feel to me than those with just a mother.
Is the writer male? If so its probably easier to write with thar point of view of a father. And being honest I have read more stories about single mothers than fathers.
fro male MCs: an alive father are often stronger than the MC which would lead either: 1. father being a mentor to MC in fighting or 2. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArchnemesisDad https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LukeIAmYourFather for female MCs: the lack of maternal care can lead to girl to be more tomboyish: because princesses that are too prissy/proper can often alienate the target demographic. For MCs of boths genders: alive mom would likely be more nagging: caring more about child's safety which would likely impede the MC's likely more dangerous adventures. Also, as other have mentioned; most writers are male, it's easier for them to characterize a male (father) than female (mother)
Moms are our emotional backbone, dads are our rational backbone. Either one missing, we end up incomplete. Since we are primarily emotional creatures - even as babies we have emotions, but not reasoning - having just moms raise us is more natural to us, since we dont miss what we dont have. Having dads raise us is a whole another dimension. Odds are, we will grow up to resent our fathers, since we are likely emotionally crippled. Its a big plan and its in progress. A couple more generations of single or no parents(work etc), and we can only imagine the resulting dysfunctionality eheheh. LGBTQHSGSJ anyone? Edit: Back on topic haha.. Regarding dead or nonexistant mothers in stories.. Its a play with our subconsciousness and sleeping emotions. Like having a story with no sun. When something essential is missing, it makes us anxious. And isnt that a good thing, having woken and consequently feeding fear, to grow big and strong? Isnt it interesting, that in Bible, the first thing Adam and Eve said to Creator, after eating from the fruit of ‘knowledge’, as to why they hid, that they were afraid?
Well I read the threads comments till now few of them are in the way I also think like mother is the role model that care for the child etc But if you go from an Historical /Language/Literature teacher aspect it is probably because of World War one and two later on as WW 1 or 2. Most people that grew up in the western world before WW 2 live in a normal one father one mother family. But because of WW 2 there was a big hole of males / husbands that did die in war. A big group of population grow up with one parent you might guess which one? Right the mother so you have lets say for argument’s sake 20% of a countries population that grow up without a father either the writer of that time wanted to fill that hole or as the children grow up begun to write about how it would be if it was the father and no mother.
easy (lazy) way to give the MC a traumatic past experience which makes the MC "flawed" and makes the target audience more sympathetic. a cheap way to yank at your readers emotions.
My avatar is of a 1921 yearbook photo of film producer William Fox (1/1/1879-5/8/1952), founder of the Fox movie empire and Fox News. When his dad died, he cursed his dad (something like "You bastard!") at the funeral. Mr. Fox did have daddy issues.
Plot device, i believe. Some readers might found the single hot dad + child combo to be more.. "cuter", in a not-so-in-touch-with-reality, wish fullfilment kind of way. But then again, i mostly found this type of troupe in fluffs that targets female audiences. In another type of genre (xianxias, etc), single dad might become a plot device for revenge-ish troupe, characterized by a dead mother, a living, single father that would only meet with the child after the said child racks up accomplishment higher than the kilimanjaro, and a strained, if not outright hate between them. "Luke...i am your FATHERR!!!"
I agree with most people, most of the time, having a mother is what gives you that warm, empathetic side of your personality, and nobody wants that do they? Cause normal people are boring apparently hahaha~
This is actually the closest thing to the correct answer here. The real reason is distance. If your story features a teenage protagonist then you sort of need a reason for why he's allowed to go on adventures and make major life decisions. If his parents are still around then it's pretty hard to imagine them not having a huge hand in that. One of the traditional ways to do this is to separate the protagonist from her parents in old school isekai stories like "Alice in Wonderland" or "the Wizard of Oz". If you allow the protagonist to stay home then you still have to find a way to get rid of the parents. There are other popular like having a parent be sick or having them go on vacation, but these solutions aren't as certain as killing them off. So why is killing the mother more popular than the father? The biggest reason is that it's more socially acceptable for the father to be absentee because fathers are the traditional bread winner so it's easier for them to be absorbed in their work. This being especially true in cultures with obsessive work cultures like Japan. The other big reason is that mother-child relationships are generally pretty static, while father-child relationships are seen to offer more opportunity for growth and change. And finally, it's often just the writer's fault: writers write what they know so if they read a lot of stories where the mother is dead then it might just put it in their own stories without giving it much thought.
First time reading heroic stories? Rule no. 1 in heroic or villain stories. Kill the parents pre-transformation or post-transformation characterization. Not the first time parents dying in the protagonist's story. Originally in the West, then in the East, with their own variations of the trope.