Basic Trope: All good parents are killed off.
- Straight: Alice's father Bob died when she was nine, and she remembers him fondly. Meanwhile, her living mother, Claire, is neglectful and shows no affection for her.
- Exaggerated: In Alice's backstory, her parents were murdered by the Big Bad while trying to save the world. Her living foster parents are abusive and only see her as a maid.
- Downplayed:
- Alice's father gets killed off fairly late in the story.
- Alice's father was far from perfect, but loved his daughter and did his best to support her.
- Bob isn't dead, but is in the military and is frequently away from home.
- Alice only thinks her dead father would have been a perfect parent because her mother doesn't want to speak ill of him.
- Justified:
- Bob's heroic nature prompted him to go on a dangerous mission that would end in the world being saved.
- Bob strived to be as big a part of Alice's life as he can, and give her a father she could love and appreciate no matter what. By contrast, Clair wanted nothing to do with Alice, and so purposely tried everything she can to maintain distance, resulting in Alice having the worst bond with her.
- Inverted: Bob was extremely abusive before he died, leaving Alice with her loving mother Claire.
- Subverted:
- Alice eventually discovers her father took morally questionable actions while he was fighting in The Great Off Screen War, making her question whether or not he was a good person.
- Alice's mother really does love her; she's just horrible at showing it.
- Double Subverted: She decides that in spite of his flaws, he was still a fundamentally good man and a wonderful father.
- Parodied: Every time any parent tells their child that they love them, a flying axe materializes into existence and kills them.
- Zig Zagged: Alice's good father Bob is dead, and her mother Claire is neglectful but loves her. Dan's perfect mother is dead, leaving him with a cruel father and stepmother. Eli killed his abusive parents. Felice has two loving (and living) parents. Greg loves his adoptive parents, but also misses his real ones.
- Averted: Good Parents live.
- Enforced: Bob is killed off early on to motivate Alice.
- Lampshaded: "If only Bob were here to see my graduation."
- Invoked: The dystopian government systematically murders parents they perceive as being too soft on their children.
- Exploited: Whenever Claire fails as a parent in some way, Alice makes her feel bad by saying "I bet Dad would have done that right!"
- Defied: Bob, while fighting in the war, is determined to stay alive so his daughter won't be orphaned.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "Man, why can't we have a good parent who ISN'T dead?"
- Implied:
- Alice rarely mentions her dead father, but when she does she only says good things.
- Due to Never Say "Die", she always refers to him in past tense but never flat-out says he died.
- Deconstructed: Alice is projecting her own grief onto the deceased Bob; she wants to think that Bob would have been the perfect parent, and that her childhood could have been much happier had he still been alive. Bob died before Alice could form any memories of who he really was, and that he may have been (or become) neglectful or even abusive.
- Reconstructed: Alice comes to terms with the fact that she never actually knew Bob while he was still alive, but nonetheless cherishes the memories she's formed of him.
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