Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- Discussed and averted in Chapter 48 of BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant. When Weiss and Pyrrha confront Yang on how she's been far more bitter as of late, she goes off and lashes out in self-loathing on how she tried to look for reasons to justify her mother's absence, only to learn that she was actually a cruel bandit leader, making her entire search for her, and the time Ruby almost died during one of her hunts for answers, mean nothing.Yang: I spent years looking for her. Whenever I got free time from everything, I spent it looking for her. I tried to convince myself she ran away for some good reason. That she ditched our family to go do some deep cover shit or something. Just...just something to justify it all! And you know what happened?
Pyrrha: Yang. You need to calm down no-
Yang: Years later I learn she's just some fucking bandit who kills and robs people! Not someone with a good reason, no, but a fucking monster! - Child of the Storm:
- Daddy had an excellent reason for abandoning Harry — he was Thor, incarnated as a mortal, whose violent death and grief had driven him stark raving mad, and Odin had to block off his memories to ensure that he stayed sane and Britain (and possibly the world) remained in one piece. As soon as he remembers, however, he comes in like the cavalry. It's also later implied that Odin chose to keep him with the Dursleys, since Harry, being in line to the throne of Asgard, would be prime target material for any number of malevolent beings — something that later events prove to be entirely correct.
- Wanda had an excellent reason for abandoning Harry (her godson) and her daughter, Hermione. She was Doctor Strange's apprentice and her Rogues Gallery was the stuff of nightmares, simultaneously having made some very dangerous enemies as part of the Order. As for her daughter, the situation was even worse. It was about two years before, the good guys were losing and Voldemort was at the height of his power. Plus, Hermione's father happens to be John Constantine, who is a) not exactly prime father material, b) totally untrustworthy (and had recently proved it), c) public enemy number one for just about every hell dimension in existence. And in both cases, one has to take into account her father's enemies... Also, Doctor Strange said so and people tend to do as Strange says, if only because not doing it tends to make you wish that you had (not because of anything he does, but because the consequences of not doing it tend to be pretty horrible). None of the above stops her being wracked with guilt, or Harry for being - initially - extremely displeased but mellows out fairly quickly. Hermione, by contrast, does not take it at all well.
- Jean Grey's family, Harry's maternal cousins, tried to adopt Harry when he was about seven or eight, and were stymied by a certain person who was very interested in keeping Harry at Privet Drive. This person, as it turns out, was Mister Sinister.
- Subverted in Children of an Elder God. When Shinji suggests that maybe his father had a good reason for ditching him, Asuka replies that that's dumb:"I guess he just lost interest after your Mom died. The bastard."
"Don't call him that," Shinji said. "He's doing his best to save the world. I guess that has to take priority."
"That is NO excuse for how he treats you. I'd beat him down if he was my father and treated me like that. He wouldn't even let you live with him!"
"Maybe he knew I'd be better off here," Shinji said faintly.
Asuka started to reply, then wondered for a moment if Shinji was right. "You are better off here," she said. "With people who actually care if you live or die." - In Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls, Firefly claims she had good reason for abandoning Rainbow Dash and her father, though it's still unclear what said reason is or even if it was a good one. Regardless, Rainbow is too angry at her to care. Firefly later reveals that the reason she left was to protect Rainbow and her father from the Zero Division.
- Harry Potter and the Boiling Isles: Harry's conception was an accident that happened when Lilith was demonstrating a Mystical Pregnancy spell to James, who had been rendered sterile by normal means thanks to a Death Eater curse, while not realizing that she had already inadvertently met all the conditions for the spell to actually go into affect. When she gave birth to Harry and saw that his ears were round, she decided that it would be safest for him if she gave him to James to raise in the Human Realm. Despite having convinced herself it was for the best, she was crying when she left him, and she's clearly floored and regretful when she learns that James and Lily were killed.
- Kaleidoscope: Rather than simply walking out on his pregnant wife, Mikhail was killed in action, made an Un-person afterwards.
- In the My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! canon, Maria's father left her and her mother thanks to rumors of Maria's mother having an affair with a noble due to Maria possessing light magic. In Maria Campbell of the Astral Clocktower, it's revealed that Maria's father was killed by a deranged Yandere who was jealous of Maria's mother having his love and affection.
- No Need For Destiny:
- Chibi-Ranma was born with massive amounts of power due to being the child of an active goddess. In order to ensure he wouldn't accidentally injure any innocents, Tokimi chose not to tell Ranma about him while secretly overseeing his training.
- Minaho was pulled off of Edo due to her injuries, and couldn't return due to its status as a sealed system.
- Michio wasn't aware that Ikue was pregnant at the time she got lost; it took nineteen years for him to track her down.
- Played With; while Ranma was always part of the lives of the children he had with Queen Venus, Setsuna, and Queen Serenity, he wasn't allowed to publicly claim them as his own, as that could be seen as a political power play, with Seniwa attempting to gain more influence or control over the Sol System.
- In Ah! Archfall!, Lind's farther is actually the Almighty One. She was never told who her father was though, and thinks that she was disowned by her mother for having just one wing. The actual reason for the abandonment was that she was his BASTARD daughter via one of his bodyguards but being a little older than Belldandy and a pure goddess unlike Urd, Lind was set to become the next Almighty One. To have the bastard daughter as the Almighty would have been a major embarrassment for Heaven and so the Almighty was sworn to secrecy or he would have been stripped of his title and powers, while Lind and Valmeyar would both have been killed.
- Everyday Life with Ultimate Girls: Fuhito, Kyoko's grandfather and Jin's father, used his influence to effectively steal her away from her father, deciding to raise her as his heir after Jin broke away from tradition. He refused to let her go and see her mother on her deathbed, and when Jin tried to retrieve his daughter, declared that he'd convince the courts that he was an unfit father. With no other recourse, Jin was forced to let his father take her away; all he could manage was to convince him to let her meet her maternal grandparents so she could get some proper love.
- Dodger And Company: Dodger's mother Annie abandoned him when he was a puppy as a means to protect him from her mate and his father, Duke. She was clearly heartbroken to do so, and was forced to lie that Dodger had died to throw Duke off; Dodger later calls her out for it.
- Family Sticks Together: It's eventually revealed that Alex's parents knew that Kakuzawa was hunting for them. In order to protect their infant son, they left him in his uncle's care.
- Subverted in Golden Threads Tie Us. Morgan and Severa's father has been missing for years. Morgan wants to believe he's alive and there's a good reason for him never returning. Severa counters she cannot think of one: if he's alive, he chose to abandon his children.Morgan: I told you, I'm going to look for Father!
Severa: Father's gone. Father's been gone for years.
Morgan: That doesn't mean anything! Believe me, if we can just find Father, then we'll be able to— If it's him, everything will be fine. I promise you!
Severa: Are you— Are you insane!? He's definitely gone!
Morgan: There was no body! They only found Chrom's— you can't take these things for granted with Father! If they couldn't find it, then he surely must be—
Severa: Don't finish that! If Father's really alive, then he abandoned his best friend and left him for dead. If he's alive, then he chose not to come back for us, even though we've been waiting here for years!
Morgan: Not abandoned. Surely there was something— extenuating circumstances, or -
Severa: Believe me, if Plegia got their hands on Father, they would make no short time in letting everyone know that Ylisse's genius tactician was at their mercy! He either escaped or died, and to be honest, I wouldn't— If it's between the two, I'd rather he be dead.
- This idea is discussed in the AU fic “An Alternate Life
”, where the Manhattan Clan and Demona are all human; Goliath Mason joined the army after 9/11 and returned to find that his wife Dominique had moved away and never got back in touch with him. Some years later, Goliath is contacted by the teenage Angela, who reveals that she is the daughter of him and Dominique, but she was left in a group home years ago. When Goliath runs into Dominique by chance and Dominique admits that she left Angela in the home so she could focus on her own career, Angela declares that at least Goliath left the family to protect people and had the valid reason of not looking for Angela earlier as he didn’t even know she existed, whereas Dominique chose to abandon her daughter just because family wasn’t convenient for her plans.
- In The Chronicles Of Ohu, Akame reunites with his oldest son, who wants nothing more to do with Akame, believing that his father abandoned him and his littermates. Akame reveals that during the war of the Iga ninja clan vs. the Koga ninja clan, he takes his puppies to another part of the country, hoping to keep them safe and well away from the bloody war. When the chapter ends, his oldest son makes up with Akame once he understands what's happened and looks forward to seeing him again after his travels.
- All too often handwaved in the "Adopted Hermione" subgenre: Hermione learns that she's not only adopted, but "really" a Pureblood. In roughly nine such stories out of ten, no reason is ever given for her birth parents' relinquishing her — except possibly a vague assertion that it was "for her own protection".
- In Another Prisoner, Another Professor, Sirius is revealed to have a blood condition that prevented him from taking physical custody of his godson.
- Blizzard of the Red Castle: Fubuki's parents knew that an active military base was no place to raise an infant, especially when they were constantly under attack.
- One More Time, One More Chance plays this with Soichiro, as, from what we can hear, Ryuuko wouldn't have survived otherwise.
- In Breath of the Wild, a downplayed and a straight version occurs between Link and the daughter he had with Mipha, Lochlia. It's downplayed because Link wasn't there for her as much as she would have liked. This was because Link and Mipha ended their relationship because Link would never live as long as they would, and because Zora aren't fond of Hylians. The straight version occurs because of Link being put in the Shrine of Resurrection for a century to save his life.
- born of hell('s kitchen): Both of Peter's birth parents had an excellent reason for being utterly absent from his first seven years of life—Matt was totally unaware that the hot girl he had a one night stand with in a school closet fell pregnant, and Jessica was submitted to a Traumatic C-Section and forced to waive her parental rights off because Kilgrave mind-controlled her into doing it.
- All Might left his family behind in Are you my dad? to protect them from All for One, which Inko agrees was valid; however, she points out that he didn't come back even after he thought he killed All for One.
- Deconstructed in Conversations with a Cryptid. Hisashi Midoriya really did have a good reason for being so absent his son Izuku can't even remember his face. His disappearance still devastated his family and Izuku still holds a grudge against him for it. He stayed away because he was a supervillain and didn't want his family associated with that part of his life. He was trying to have his cake and eat it too by having a civilian life and family. It didn't work, partially because of All Might and partially because of his terrible luck.
- One for All and Eight for the Ninth: Hisashi actually left Inko and Izuku before they learned that their son was Quirkless. His own upbringing had been so messed up that he feared repeating the cycle with his own family, deciding they'd be better off without him. When he learns that All Might has become a Parental Substitute, Hisashi declares that he's glad they found somebody better than him, wishing them all well.
- Played with in the Personality Swap AU. Izuku believes that his father deliberately abandoned him and his mother. Inko remembers her husband being incredibly loving and supportive, and is convinced that the only reason her husband disappeared from their lives is that he must have been killed, which she can't bring herself to admit to her son. Then it turns out that Hisashi wasn't dead, but couldn't return due to how All Might had wounded him in a way that would've blown his cover wide open.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- In Change, Queen Chrysalis had to leave her newborn daughter, Twilight, at the door of a loving pony family because the Badlands Hive had a shortage of love energy and all changelings (especially royalty) need love to survive as they grow up.
- The Differentverse: Scootaloo's mother entrusted her only child to her younger sister Derpy because she couldn’t give up her work and felt that Scootaloo deserved to have an actual mother figure rather than an absentee one. Scootaloo is aware of this pre-series, though it doesn’t come up until later.
- The Foal In The Basket has Chrysalis leave her daughter, Honeydew Wisp, on Twilight's doorstep, as the changelings are slowly starving to death and she realizes this is the best way to ensure Wisp gets the love she needs to stay alive.
- Averted in How I Lost My Mother: While Princess Celestia went to extreme lengths to prevent an unsettling prophecy, she comes to realize that her actions might have ensured it will come to pass. Rather than taking any measures to address her mistakes, however, Celestia instead focuses on hiding what little evidence remained that Cozy Glow; the daughter she'd Unpersoned had ever existed in order to save face with the public: knowing they'd no longer trust her should the truth come to light.
- In Little Sun, Princess Celestia had to abandon her newborn foal Sunset Shimmer so she wouldn't be negatively influenced by Canterlot nobles (like her nephew Prince Blueblood) and to keep her safe from the Nightmare Cult, an underground group dedicated to destroying Celestia in the name of Nightmare Moon.
- In Mirror's Image, Queen Chrysalis left her daughter Twilight Sparkle in the care of a foster family due to the large amounts of love it takes to feed a Changeling Princess. She learned how much love it takes the hard way, at the cost of her first daughter's life.
- In the Pony POV Series, Scootaloo is an orphan as in many stories. In this case, it's because one of her parents is a Changeling. As under Chrysalis breeding with ponies was punishable by death (so as not to reveal the fact Changelings are actually a lost tribe of ponies), they had to abandon her because she'd have been killed if the family had been discovered. After Cadence overthrows Chrysalis, they've began looking for her now that it's safe to do so.
- RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse: Princess Luna gave Cadence to a kindly farming couple, after first hiding her alicorn powers, because she felt she'd be unable to raise an alicorn foal and knit Equestria back together all on her own. She took it pretty badly, spending the next eleven years getting utterly wasted, and holds it as one of the three greatest failures of her life.
- your move, instigator (draw your weapon and hold your tongue): Mebuki and Kizashi refused to let their five-year-old daughter be drafted and trained as a Child Soldier. In order to get them out of the way, both were sent on a series of long-term missions, allowing the recruiters to sweep in and get Sakura into those special classes at the Academy. When Mebuki is confronted with the results during Kumo's Chuunin Exams, she has a breakdown, crying about how she failed to protect her daughter and raging at Inoichi for letting this happen.
- A Crown of Stars: During a conversation with Shinji, Daniel explains to Shinji that his father Gendo had a good reason for leaving him alone. Not a good enough reason, mind you, but Gendo had a reason: he was afraid of Shinji and thought he would screw his son if he tried to raise him because he considered that he was an awful human being; in addition, he did not want to get Shinji involved in the War (although it happened anyway), and he was actually sorry for everything. Shinji is surprised when he hears about it, but he feels his father's reasons were not good enough.
- Evangelion 303: According to Dr. Akagi, Gendo sent his son away from him to protect him, but she will not say why, and Shinji seems dubious about Akagi's explanation.
- Played with in Ghosts of Evangelion. Shinji and Asuka were terrified when she got pregnant because they didn't think they could be good parents, but they didn't want to abandon their child either. So they came to an agreement with Misato and Kaji, setting things up to where the latter would raise their daughter until she was a few years older and from that point on, Shinji and Asuka would take care of her.
- Gendo Ikari in Going Another Way. After Yui was absorbed into Unit-01, Gendo left Shinji behind to the care of Yui's relatives (instead of an apathetic guardian as he did in canon). He tries to justify himself on the grounds that his work needed his full focus and that he couldn't raise his son by himself while mourning Yui's "death", but no one buys it, least of all Shinji (who's less of an Extreme Doormat this time around thanks to being raised in a more loving and supportive environment) and Yui herself, who is absolutely livid to learn of how her husband Took a Level in Jerkass and betrayed her own memory the way he did. It takes a great deal of hard work on his part, as well as pulling a Big Damn Heroes by saving Shinji and his friends' lives when SEELE tries to initiate the Third Impact, to redeem himself of this.
- My Enemy My Friend shows Gendo's canon motivations for abandoning Shinji to the reader, and doesn't let them forget it.
- ADAM as well for the Angels. You know, considering he's been kidnapped and is held hostage by SEELE and all.
- In Nobody Dies, Mommy had a good reason for abandoning Shinji... a basement full of Eldritch Abominations out to kill him.
- The One I Love Is...: In the side-story "Let the World Burn/One Dream at a Time" Gendo explains to Yui he cared about Shinji but abandoned his son because Shinji scared him: his son loved him and he could not understand why and didn't believe he deserved it. Moreover, Gendo was convinced he would only hurt Shinji if he stayed around.Gendo: If all I did was hurt him, it was better that I wasn't there.
Yui: Shinji didn't think so. Or at least up till a certain point.
- Natural enough subject matter for fanfiction, where two generations of Turner fathers accidentally abandon their sons. Bill Turner was (at least supposedly) working away and never came back, whereas Will eventually finds himself in a Her Heart Will Go On situation, though with a twist that he may be able to come back eventually. It's a good source of Issues.
- The fic The Mists of Time, based on the premise that Carina is the daughter of Jack Sparrow rather than Barbossa, has Carina reflecting that, from what she has gathered about Jack's history, he had every legitimate reason to believe that her mother was dead after he was nearly killed by Cutler Beckett and began his career as a pirate, so she doesn't blame Jack for having other lovers after he began his career.
- Accidental Apotheosis has Daelia state that Ash's father simply was ready to be a dad, and that while he stayed in Pallet Town to wrap up his affairs, he left before Ash was born after making sure Daelia would be able to support herself and Ash. This wouldn't seem to fit this trope, except that it's implied that Ash's father was Arceus, which means he also had several responsibilities that would conflict with parenting.
- In The Ash Connection, Paul and Reggie's father left his family behind in hopes of protecting them from Team Rocket. They didn't take it well.
- Ashes of the Past: Ash's father wound up not coming home from his Pokemon journey due to a Heroic Sacrifice to save the town of Pacifidlog from a tidal wave.
- In For as Long as We Have, Ash's father returns to reveal that the reason he left him and Delia was because he learned he had a terminal illness, and feared he'd passed it down to Ash. While thankfully that's not the case, he has returned to clean up his loose ends with his son, because he's unsure how long he has left to live.
- In Whispers in the Dark, Taylor is told that her father is dead only to find out that all this time, he's been alive and on Kronos' side. Somewhat justified in the fact that Luke didn't even know that he had a daughter until he saw Taylor and noticed that she had his blue eyes.
- Linked in Life and Love: Raven was forced to abandon her daughter Yang because assassins were after Raven. They had been after her for years, but she finally drew the line when a child gave her a toy on a mission, Raven brought it home, and it blew up in Yang's face. Yang was four at the time. Yang had fantasized about something like this for years, so she's happy to know that she really was wanted. She's significantly less happy to discover that her "father" was actually just the donor for Raven and Summer, and that her half-sister Ruby is also Raven's daughter, and also abandoned. Raven asked Tai to lie to make sure the girls never slipped up and accidentally alerted the assassins. This all contrasts canon, where Raven's reasons for abandoning Yang are blatantly hypocritical and amount to little more than cowardice dressed up in social Darwinism.
- In Empath: The Luckiest Smurf, Papa Smurf was forced to abandon his only begotten son Empath in Psychelia when the Psyche Master decided to take Empath by force as his adopted child, then made it sound like Empath was killed by the Psyche Master when in reality he merely subjected the child to a Mind Rape that erased his memories. As Empath would later find out from the Psyche Master himself, the Psyche Master wanted Empath to be his successor, and so planned to do this right from the start so that Papa Smurf would believe that Empath had died. Nevertheless, it did cost Papa Smurf his marriage.
- Heis'he Ri'nanovai has Morgan t'Thavrau discover that her father was Senator Merken tr'Vreenak. Of course, tr'Vreenak was married at the time and Morgan surmises that her mother kept her paternity secret to protect their clans from the blood feud that could've resulted from the affair.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Yusho Sakaki explains that he left on that fateful day he had to duel Strong Ishijima so that he could go stop Professor Akaba from conducting his plan to attack the other dimensions. In Between My Brother and Me: Mors Omnibus, this gets deconstructed; Yusho did not think he'd take so long to get to the Fusion Dimension (he accidentally landed in Carroll City before he was thrown into Heartland, where he stayed for three years) and didn't consider the psychological damage this would to do Yuya, or how his wife would be affected by all of this, and his Duel School is now close to being shut down. Everyone — from Yvonne, to Ruri to Zarc — states that he made an utterly stupid move, and that this is the reason why Yuya was easy pickings to be corrupted by Zarc himself.
