Unadoptable Orphan

"You're never gonna get adopted, Edith. You know that, don't you?"

— Miss Hattie, Despicable Me

We all know what an orphan is: a child with no parents. They live in orphanages, where they must stay until someone adopts them and becomes their new parents. However, most orphans usually grow up without being adopted, which could be for a number of reasons. There are many types of orphans shown in forms of media that delve into these certain reasons and why they don't find themselves adopted.

Sometimes, the orphan could be considered unadoptable because they're too difficult to to deal with: they could be obnoxious or spoiled or even outright evil, while more benign examples may simply have an unshakeable quirk to them that may cause them to be more trouble than they're worth.

Alternately, the orphan could be a perfectly decent person, but either face extraordinary circumstances that prevent them from finding a family, or be passed aside due to lack of interest from potential parents. A common reason for this lack of interest may be their age, as younger children are generally perceived to be more adoptable than older ones, or that they have a medical condition or disability that causes them to require extra care, which potential parents may not be able to afford on top of adopting a child in general.

Then there's also orphans who don't want to be adopted in the first place, for whatever reason, preferring to live life parentless.

Another possible reason for not being adopted is the orphan has one or more siblings and they insist on being adopted together or not at all.

Oftentimes, the nicer orphans do end up getting adopted by the end of the story. Alternately, getting adopted after years of failure is the premise of the story. Sometimes, this involves mentions of the child being "returned" repeatedly by parents who couldn't stand them.

A variant of this trope gives the orphan a biological relative from whom they are separated through varying circumstances. Note that this type of orphan isn't necessarily unadoptable, but most of their story arcs often involve finding their biological relative.

Compare the Street Urchin, who is often an orphan who lives on the streets rather than an orphanage, and would not be adoptable due to a lack of documentation.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Earwig and the Witch: The titular Earwig is very much against adoption and tries to alienate any potential parent who comes her way. That is until she meets Baba Yaga and the Mandrake.
• In SPY×FAMILY, Anya was adopted and returned by four foster families in the past, implicitly due to her Telepathy.

Comic Books

• Batman: This is part of Garfield Lynns / Firefly's Freudian Excuse. He and his sister were sent to an orphanage after their abusive parents were deemed unfit, but the young boy's pyromania and delinquency scared off anyone willing to adopt him. It led to him spiraling further into insanity as he grew up, and instilled a lifelong bitterness and misanthropy that motivated his supervillain career.
• X-Men: Scott Summers lost not only his parents but his little brother Alex when the family was flying one day and an accident caused the plane to catch fire. His parents gave Scott and Alex the only parachute, and shortly after the boys were thrown out of the plane the plane exploded. Worse, the parachute caught fire and the boys were separated both by the fall and landing in a fast-moving river. Scott was put in an orphanage, but even when people expressed interest in adopting him they met with fatal accidents before even meeting him, leading him to start thinking he was cursed. One day, his mutant powers triggered and in a panic he went on the run before finally meeting Professor Charles Xavier, who became a surrogate father to him.

Fan Works

• In the My Hero Academia fan series The Aizawa-Yamada Family, Hitoshi sees himself as unadoptable because his brainwash quirk is seen as villainous and all of his prior foster parents returned him to the group home when they found out his quirk. He is in disbelief when Aizawa and Yamada say they want to adopt him.
• Homura Akemi is this in The Soulmate Timeline, being an orphan who was never adopted and eventually would end up living on her own in most timelines, it only differing in this one because she ends up in one that's very different from usual. Homura recounts she was never adopted because she was a 'different' child. While she doesn't have a term for it beyond that, subtext and comments by the author imply this was because of her autism.

Films — Animated

• Anastasia: Anya, the titular character, is the granddaughter of the living Dowager Empress, but most of her family were killed by the movie's villain Rasputin, and she ended up at a rural orphanage after hitting her head badly and losing her memories. Most of the movie is based around her reuniting with her grandmother.
• Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas reveals that Daffy Duck grew up in an orphanage but was always passed over when potential adopters arrived. The resulting heartbreak caused him to grow up to be a greedy and family-averse businessman.
• Christmas is Here Again: The main character, Sophiana, is an unlucky orphan unable to walk without a cane and often bullied for it, and according to Miss Dowdy's remarks toward making Sophiana stay in her room on adoption day, Sophiana has failed to be adopted on adoption day multiple times. It also seems that at the ending, she has failed to be adopted again. It then turns out that after returning Christmas to the world again, Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus arrive themselves to adopt her.
• In Eight Crazy Nights, Whitey mentions that after his parents died in a tragic accident, Davey was repeatedly sent to many foster-homes until he turned 18, which was very much because he Took a Level in Jerkass due to the emotional turmoil he was feeling following his mother and father's death.
• Despicable Me: The three girls, Margo, Edith and Agnes, were variously abandoned by their respective parents at an Orphanage of Fear, where they are mistreated by their caretaker. Gru does adopt them, but for a Secretly Selfish purpose and when he grows a bond with them, his assistant sees the girls as a diversion for Gru's plans and sends them back to the orphanage. Thankfully, Gru manages to re-adopt them by the end of the film.
• Luck:
  • Sam being Born Unlucky ended up causing her to go through multiple foster homes throughout her life and failing find a permanent family, with her visits either being cancelled or resulting in her getting sent back. Eventually, she ages out of the system, which kickstarts the plot to the entire movie.
  • Sam's fellow orphan, Hazel also initially counts, with her first weekend visit getting cancelled. It almost happens again to her next planned visit, stemming from Sam messing around in the land of Luck, though this was accidental. By the end of the movie, she ends up getting Happily Adopted.
• Meet the Robinsons:
  • Lewis' inventive personality has alienated 124 potential parents by the start of the film since his inventions tend to blow up. To cope with the rejection, he decides his biological mother might be the only one who could possibly want him, spending the rest of his character arc focused on finding her until he discovers his future with the Robinsons. It remains unknown if his mother is even alive to this day.
  • When Goob (the future Bowler Hat Guy) ended up costing his baseball team a game and was beat up for it, the resulting trauma embittered him to become bratty to the point of unadoptable; the orphanage was shut down, but he remained in it and grew up to be the Bowler Hat Guy.
• The Rescuers: Penny is a little girl in an orphanage who wants to be adopted but hasn't been adopted yet. She thinks that it's because the other girls are prettier than her, which the main villain, Madame Medusa, exploits by saying that no one would want a "homely little girl" like her. Luckily, a couple does adopt her at the end.
• The Willoughbys: After calling Child Services, Tim finds himself, his sister, and brothers split up and sent to foster homes. While Jane and the Barnabys end up in homes that more-or-less suit their interests, Tim doesn't want to be adopted and keeps running away from potential foster homes out of a desperation to go back to his old life... and when that fails, he ends up in what's basically a cell at Child Services HQ.

Films — Live-Action

• 12 Dog Days Till Christmas: Jack was given up for adoption by his biological parents, and his angst over being unwanted drives his sometimes violent and angry behavior. He's contrasted by his beloved foster brothers, who are younger and sweet and are adopted before Christmas. He manages to use his angst regarding being unwanted to place the dogs in the animal shelter he is performing community service at into homes before the shelter is closed down permanently.
• Abbott And Costello Go To Mars: Implied with Orville, a Manchild who's thirty-eight but somehow still living in the Hideaway Orphans Home and, despite his age and his responsibilities there^note he's shown watching out for the other kids and one of the supervisors is heard asking him to take care of the lawn shortly before the main plot kicks off, is still considered one of the orphans waiting to be adopted.
• In It Takes Two, Amanda Lemmon has been passed over for adoption for years because everyone assumes that an orphan her age must have something wrong with her. She'd really like to be adopted by her loving caseworker Diane (who would also like to adopt her), but Diane doesn't make enough money to be considered a suitable parent, and so at the start of the movie, Amanda faces the prospect of being handed off to the Butkises, an abusive foster family.
• In Like Mike, this is the big hurdle Calvin and his friends at the orphanage have trouble clearing for most of the movie. Because they're teenagers, they're constantly looked over by potential parents in favor of the younger children at the orphanage. When Calvin later becomes an overnight media sensation due to his magic sneakers and NBA contract, Bittleman, the orphanage's owner, attempts to prevent Calvin from getting adopted, ostensibly because he knows most potential adopters only want Calvin for his NBA money, but he's not much better either. Tracy ultimately adopts Calvin and Murph at the end, and Reg gets taken in by another family.
• Junior from Problem Child starts off as decidedly bratty and obnoxious, being turned away from one family after another after his antics prove less than endearing. He spends some years at an orphanage with nuns who he also proceeds to drive up the wall. It is only when the Healys adopt him and Ben makes an honest effort to reach out to him that he starts to change for the better. Only a smidge, mind you, since bratty antics are what the Problem Child movies are all about.
• The Three Stooges: The titular Stooges' clumsy and idiotic nature kept them from finding a decent home. Moe was originally adopted, but he wanted Larry and Curly to come with him but was instead returned to the orphanage while a friend of theirs, Teddy, was adopted in Moe's place.

Jokes

• In "Purple Passion", the protagonist is disowned by her family for asking what purple passion is. No one will adopt her after they learn why she was disowned, so she stays in the orphanage until she turns eighteen.

Literature

• Daddy-Long-Legs:
  • Jerusha "Judy" Abbott has spent her entire childhood at the John Grier Home, never getting adopted. At the start of the story, she is seventeen (one year above the general maximum age) and basically working as a servant for the orphanage in exchange for food, clothing, and permission to attend school. She feels like an utter Fish out of Water for a long while after going to college, since she never knew any life except at the orphanage, and when the superintendent offers her to come back for the summer holidays, Judy feels she'd rather die. Several years later, by the time of the sequel, Nostalgia Filter has kicked in, however, and Judy's memories of the John Grier Home have become much rosier.
  • In the sequel Dear Enemy, the majority of which takes place at the John Grier Home with Judy's friend Sallie as the new superintendent, there are many heartbreaking stories about orphans who long for a home but don't get adopted. Some particularly tear-jerking cases are:
    • Hattie, a sweet Proper Lady in the making whom Sallie thought an ideal candidate for legal adoption, is unadopted and returned to the orphanage due to taking a Communion cup from the church, naively thinking it was a toy. Later, another potential adoptive parent rejects her because another girl is prettier. Thankfully, Hattie does end up adopted around Christmastime — by a minister's family, no less — who make it clear that the Communion cup disaster wasn't her fault.
    • Sallie recounts how she searches for a child for the Bretlands, potential adoptive parents with incredibly high standards, and must reject many sweet children because of foreign origins, bad heredity, illegitimacy, or the existence of a living parent.
    • Sophie is the only girl in the orphanage who meets the Bretlands' high standards. However, she whimpers and cries when Mr. Bretland comes to see her, and he refuses to even consider adopting her, instead deciding to adopt adorable, vivacious Allegra. However...
    • Allegra's brothers Don and Clifford beg "Don't Split Us Up", while he refuses to take them too, and Sallie is torn between letting him adopt Allegra and make sure at least she gets a good life and keeping the siblings together for an uncertain future at the orphanage. She chooses the latter, and Allegra isn't adopted. After there is a fire at the orphanage and Allegra narrowly escapes, the Bretlands have a change of heart and adopt all three children.
• Dustbin Baby: Due to various incidents across her childhood, such as the suicide of her first adoptive mother and her pushing a bully down the stairs, April is sent to various foster homes and orphanages until being adopted at 15 by her history teacher.
• In The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, a prequel book in The Mysterious Benedict Society series, Nicholas Benedict is 9 years old and still not adopted. This is down to a combination of two factors. The first is that he is an Insufferable Genius and doesn't try to hide it, an undesirable quality in a society that very much feels that children should be seen and not heard. Most adults also innately disregard his intelligence, not wanting to believe he could be smarter than him, even though he most likely is. The second is that he suffers from narcolepsy as well as fits of sleep paralysis, so generally anyone that might even be prepared to adopt him is immediately put off once they learn of this.
• Harry Potter: Tom Riddle/Voldemort's backstory makes him considered bratty and a weirdo to the extreme. Before Hogwarts, Riddle already showed sociopathic tendencies, stealing from and manipulating the other children, plus showing signs of being a wizard. After getting accepted to Hogwarts, he spends most of the year there and doesn't seem to make an effort to get adopted in between, waiting to age out and enter the wizarding world as an adult.
• The titular Oliver Twist is born in a workhouse, i.e. into poverty in a time period where relief towards them was discouraged, starts out being under the brutal employment of authority figures and is plagued by many misfortunes throughout the story, even after fleeing his original circumstances after the first few chapters.
• Red Thread Sisters: Played for Drama.
  • After being abandoned by her family after the birth of her younger brother (due to the One Child Policy in China), the 11-year-old protagonist Wen spent many years of her childhood in an orphanage as a "waiting child" before being adopted at the start of the story. The story itself is interspersed with flashbacks to her childhood, where Wen recalls children being sent back to the orphanage for being "bad" and ungrateful, and trying to be the best daughter she can so the same fate wouldn't befall upon her.
  • Meanwhile, there are repeated mentions to how older children are less likely to be adopted than babies, and the main plot revolves around Wen trying to ensure her disabled best friend from the orphanage, Shu Ling, is adopted and brought to America like herself before she ages out of being adoptable at all under the orphanage's policy.
• A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Baudelaire Orphans are basically the epitome of the unlucky variant. Whenever they are placed in a home, the cruel Count Olaf comes and does away with their guardian to gain their vast fortune. The only reason why Olaf hasn't been properly dealt with in all of the books is due to every other moral adult being too naive, distracted, or unhelpful.
• Stray Cat Strut: Cat and her "kittens" are unadoptable because of their physical disabilities.

Live-Action TV

• Cold Case: The Victim of the Week in "The Boy in the Box" was a boy who lived in an orphanage. Every time a family expressed interest in adopting him, he would misbehave until they got fed up and returned him. The nun in charge of the orphanage believed that somewhere deep down inside, he realized that one of the nuns was his biological mother.
• Lux in Life Unexpected has been passed over for adoption because she has a heart defect that needs to be surgically fixed.
• Once Upon a Time: This is part of Emma Swan's backstory: she is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming from the Enchanted Forest realm, who is brought to the Land Without Magic to escape the Dark Curse. Baby Emma is found with young Pinocchio near the road in Maine, and both are taken to an orphanage. Emma grows up in the orphanage and watches with sadness as other kids are adopted, but not her. This leads her to run away from the orphanage when she is a teenager.
• Jolene from The Queen's Gambit is an older black girl who befriends Beth when she arrives at Methuen. For both her race and age, Jolene has resigned herself to the expectation that she will not get adopted out of the orphanage, and instead will just age out and have to find a job once she comes of age.
• Saturday Night Live: Parodied in the "Little Orphan Cassidy" sketch. After Cassidy (Chloe Troast) is passed over for adoption again, she sings a song to Mr. Moon (Timothee Chalamet), where she wonders why no one wants to adopt her. It soon emerges that there are several legitimate reasons why, starting with the fact Cassidy is actually 27 years old.
• Scorpion: Happy Quinn was placed in foster care after her mother's Death by Childbirth and her father becoming The Alcoholic through grief. Happy was never adopted due to her traditionally unfeminine interests and difficult personality, and has serious issues around rejection because of it.
• A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017): At the end of Season 1, Mr. Poe informs the Baudelaires, who lost their parents at the start of the series, that all remaining eligible guardians have decided not to adopt them, as they bring misfortune and death everywhere they go. With the exception of "The Ersatz Elevator", much like the book series this was adapted from, the Baudelaire Orphans spend the rest of the series either with non-traditional guardians (wards of a boarding school in "The Austere Academy" and a village in "The Vile Village") or fending for themselves as fugitives, after Count Olaf frames them for the murder of Jacques Snicket.

Theatre

• Annie:
  • Annie thinks she's an orphan with living relatives, since she has a letter from her parents saying they will come back for her. When Warbucks first offers to adopt her, she sadly refuses because of this. However, her parents actually died years before in an accident, something Miss Hannigan, Rooster, and Lily take advantage of by having Rooster and Lily pose as her parents to get Warbucks' reward. Once the truth comes out, she gets Happily Adopted by Warbucks.
  • The other kids seem to be of the unlucky variant, since they are stuck with Miss Hannigan making them clean all the time; otherwise, there is nothing indicating why they have not been adopted. It could be in part be because during the Great Depression, when the show is set, few could afford to take in a child.
• In the musical adaptation of Daddy-Long-Legs, like in the original book, Jerusha is stuck at the orphanage and desperately miserable about it.
  Poor Jerusha Abbott, never breaking free of this place,
  Poor Jerusha Abbott, the oldest orphan in the John Grier Home.

Video Games

• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Honorhall Orphanage is run by Grelod the Kind, an abusive matron who waters down the milk and refuses to let any of her charges get adopted. Zig-zagged with the DLC "Hearthfire" — the PC may adopt a child from Honorhall, but only if they kill Grelod so a more reasonable matron can take over.
  Grelod: None of you riff-raff is getting adopted. Ever! Nobody needs you, nobody wants you. That, my darlings, is why you're here. Why you will always be here, until you come of age and get thrown into that wide, horrible world.
• Life Is Strange: True Colors: Chapter 5 reveals Alex to have been one of these while in foster care, primarily due to her empathy powers surfacing as she grew up. These powers led to her often getting into fights (due to her inadvertently absorbing other children's extreme emotions), lashing out at her friends causing them to not want to talk to her, and being repeatedly rejected by prospective parents due to being perceived as emotionally unstable.

Visual Novels

• Katawa Shoujo: Hanako Ikezawa lost her parents in a fire as a child and ended up with severe scarring. At her orphanage, she was likely passed over by potential adopters due to her scarring and her extreme anxiety due to her traumas from the fire, and the bullying she suffered.

Web Videos

• Pop Cross Studios: In "What if SPIDERMAN & BATMAN VILLAINS were COMBINED?! Part 3", Garfield Toomes (a Composite Character of Firefly and the Vulture) and his sister were orphans living on the streets of New Gotham who desperately hoped to be adopted together. Sadly, most parents were put off after spending a few moments getting to know Garfield, due to his slightly erratic behaviour and obsession with fire. Eventually, in a platonic case of I Want My Beloved to Be Happy, Garfield decided to convince his sister to get adopted without him, so that her reputation wouldn't be tainted by association with him. This was one of the steps in a Trauma Conga Line in Garfield's life that eventually led to him becoming the flame-throwing supervillain known as the Fire Buzzard.

Western Animation

• Family Guy: In "Boston Stewie", Stewie finds out that he has a bratty Boston-born half-brother who can't get adopted due to being a textbook example of a crazy Boston local.
• The Spectacular Spider-Man: Part of Eddie Brock's jealousy towards Peter is that, after his parents died (in the same accident that killed Eddie's parents, no less), he still had his Aunt May and Uncle Ben. Eddie had no family, and was put into the foster care system. He was never adopted and aged out of the system. While he seems more-or-less okay with his life at the start of the series, his Character Development over the course of the first season shows his pent-up jealousy and anger at Peter for seemingly having everything Eddie wants.
• Superman: The Animated Series: Toyman's Start of Darkness is that his father got to jail and died there because he was conned by Bruno Mannheim and was constantly moving from one orphanage to another because he was constantly returned as "a doll nobody wanted".
• Time Squad:
  • A majority of the kids from Otto's old orphanage were quite bratty, but the place is still an Orphanage of Fear run by a Nun Too Holy matron, Sister Thornly, who took them to various places across America just to commit some petty theft. It's likely that his orphanage doesn't allow the children there to be adopted.
  • Otto himself is closer to the unlucky variant due to Thornly repeatedly making him do backbreaking labor for reading books. He averts the unlucky part when Tuddrussel and Larry come into his life.

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