Parents in RPGs: Doomed to die?
 

Let's face it. If you are a character in an RPG, and are a parent of any character related to the main story, your life is officially forfeit. Either you're already dead, about to die, or will become evil and be slain by your own son/daughter. Or, failing that, you're just plain missing from the story. Completely.

This rule has plagued RPGs since the dawn of time.

Why do you think it is that parenting is more or less a death sentence in many of the classic RPGs?

Dragon Quest V follows this rule and then breaks it by not having the other father in the game die.

ZOMG spoilers.

Truth is, you don't see that many older men characters in JRPG's anymore because they're not young or pretty enough. You're not allowed to be an "old man" character in an RPG unless you are quirky, which extends to being a father I guess.

True for the most part, however Earthbound and Chrono Trigger seem to break this rule completely.

...You didn't play Mother 3, did you?

That's a different game though

I can think of a good number of RPGs where your parents are still alive.

In FF8, Squall's father is still alive and is even a playable character for much of the game. In FF10, Jecht is TECHNICALLY still alive. In Earthbound (as mentioned) both your parents are still around, and in Mother 3 (at least as far as I've gotten) Lucas' father survives. In FF6, Gau's father is alive but crazy (sure, he's not the main character, but he's ONE OF THE characters).

EDIT FOR BELOW: Fixed, though I'd like to point out that in some... well, okay, ONE of the above cases, the simple fact that you can see the name in this thread is spoiling it. Not sure what to do about that issue.

At least unspoiler the game names. How do I know if I can highlight this? How do I know which parts of it I can highlight?

Another example is Tales of Symphonia. Both of them. And that game's pretty cliche. Also see Tales of the Abyss.

Add that Kerensky's list.

I mean, enough examples are coming up to say that dying family members is a story methodology used by many RPG script writers, but it's not really intrinsically a norm like fighting dragons is.

Seriously now. There's got to be a point where people have to just deal with the fact that they're not going to remain completely unaware of how every story in the world goes except the ones they have read with their own eyes.

Aw c'mon... the bit about FF8, I dunno...