Basic Trope: Parent (or parents) favor some of their children considerably more than others.
- Straight:
- Alice and Bob show much affection for their son Charlie, while his sisters Diana and Emma get a more lukewarm treatment.
- Bob and Alice dote on Diana while being stricter with Charlie and Emma.
- Bob favors Charlie and Alice favors Diana. Emma is more or less left out.
- Exaggerated: Bob and Alice treat Charlie like royalty and give the others up for adoption.
- Downplayed:
- Sometimes, Bob and Alice tend to be more forgiving towards Charlie than to Diana and Emma.
- The favoritism isn't usually noticeable, but in any really serious arguments, you can expect Bob to back Charlie, Alice to back Diana, and nobody to back Emma.
- Bob and Alice love all their children, but for whatever reason, Charlie gets the most of their love.
- Justified:
- Heir Club for Men: Charlie is the heir to his parents' estates and businesses.
- Generation Xerox: Charlie resembles his father and Diana her mother, while Emma is the wild child difficult to get along with.
- Diana is the baby of the family, so not only her parents but her older siblings spoil her.
- Emma is the daughter of Bob but not Alice. Alice doesn't like her and Bob resents her because she reminds him of his failed first marriage.
- Emma is a victim of Middle Child Syndrome.
- Charlie, Diana and Emma's parents are narcissists. Narcissistic parents often treat one child as "the golden child" and another child as The Scapegoat.
- Inverted:
- Charlie favors his mother over his father. Or vice versa.
- Alice and Bob treat all their children equally except for Charlie.
- Subverted: Bob dotes on his daughters and is rather cold with his son Charlie. Then it turns out that it's simply a case of Real Men Hate Affection. He loves Charlie very much.
- Double Subverted: Or at least pretends to do so.
- Parodied: Alice and Bob's respective favoritism for Diana and Emma has caused them to forget they even have other children.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Bob and Alice seem to love their children equally, but it turns out that the aloof and rebellious Emma is The Unfavorite. Then she nearly sacrifices herself for the family, becomes an invalid, and all the attention turns to her, leaving Charlie and Diana abandoned.
- Bob discovers that Charlie is not his son, and demands that he may be allowed to give his lover a child and adopt her daughter Diana. Alice and Bob treat Charlie and Diana better due to them being their real children. Then Emma is born and she gets treated better in public due to being the legitimate child, but both Alice and Bob still favor Charlie and Diana in private.
- Averted:
- Bob and Alice love their children equally.
- Alice and Bob have one or fewer children.
- Enforced: Charlie is both the Creator's Pet and the Ensemble Dark Horse, and the writers wanted to express that in the show.
- Lampshaded: “Why do Mom and Dad favor Charlie over me?”
- Invoked: Before Charlie was born, Alice and Bob decided to dote excessively on him.
- Exploited:
- Charlie uses his parents' favoritism to get whatever he wants from them.
- The Big Bad uses Emma's resentment of her family to recruit her into his legions.
- Defied: Alice and Bob love their children equally.
- Discussed: "How come Mom and Dad treat Charlie better than us?"
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: One of the children rarely appears in the family photos.
- Deconstructed: Diana and Emma get fed up with the treatment Charlie is receiving, and they both abandon the house.
- Reconstructed:
- Diana and Emma's experiences helps them how to avoid this mentality once they become mothers.
- Diana and Emma realize that they still need their parents, while Alice and Bob realize how poorly they’ve been treating their daughters. The family eventually makes up, and all of them learn a lesson.
- Played for Drama:
- Emma and Diana are always neglected, while Charlie gets everything he wants. The former two get unbearably jealous of their brother, while the latter holds unbearable sympathy for the treatment his sisters are receiving.
- Charlie is shown to struggle to live up to his parents so he can remain in their good graces and more importantly avoid their potential wrath.
- Charlie know how badly his parents' bias hurts his sisters and tries to persuade them to warm up to them... but doing so makes Alice and Bob angry enough to turn against him and treat him as bad as his sisters, suggesting their favoritism was ever only skin deep.
- Played for Horror: A Serial Killer takes Bob and Alice's children hostage, and gives Bob and Alice the Sadistic Choice of only sparing one of them, only for the parents to choose Charlie with zero hesitation. Even the attacker is briefly surprised.
- Played for Laughs: Alice and Bob are hilariously unconvincing in their attempts to convince others that they love all their children equally.
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