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Dead Beat Dads


zambingo
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Except that he wasn't identical at all. This might require a lengthy conversation, but two things that Kylo is that Caedus is not are: 1) underdeveloped, and 2) whiny/emo.

 

My definitive of "deadbeat" is the same as the universally accepted definition: a parent who abandons his or her spouse and/or children for any length of time. From what I remember from watching The Force Awakens, Han does exactly that. He never does this in the EU.

I said nearly identical. But second thought, maybe not so similar. Where ST Han reached out to Kylo at the cost of his life, EU Han became a drunk after Chewie died, all but disowned Anakin Solo, and cut ties off with Jacen/Caedus. Not to mention, EU Han tried to straight up murder Luke in Dark Empire for appearing to fall to the dark side. So, EU Han was a deadbeat dad and a dick.

Personally if your kid goes to boarding school and while at that boarding school kills several people and burns the school down to the ground that as a parent you are allowed to lose contact with him and not be a dead beat.

Agreed, Choc. And in the EU, after Caedus killed Mara Jade, all the Solos and Skywalkers cut ties with Caedus. Jaina was pretty much the only one who tried to redeem him, and she ended up killing him.

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What you're describing still in no way fits the definition of deadbeat. It almost seems like you Googled "Han Solo's lowest EU moments."

 

If you're trying to claim that Han was a bad person for cutting ties with his adult son for turning to the dark side, becoming a Sith Lord, murdering Han's sister-in-law (Jacen's aunt), and turning the Galactic Alliance into a police state, or reluctantly trying to kill Luke when he thought he was a Sith Lord, I personally don't think it's any stretch to say that a normal person who not go to those ends. Dealing with alcoholism after the tragic and violent death of a lifelong friend is also a realistic response. Han snapped out of it after a while thanks to his friends.

The idea of EU Han as a deadbeat is pretty laughable; he defended and protected his wife and children. Disowning an adult son who becomes supernaturally-empowered military dictator is hardly a morally questionable act. As for your comment about "disowning" Anakin, that has absolutely no merit and is quite the stretch, though he did blame Anakin for Chewie's death for a while, which is also a realistic response considering Chewie died to save Anakin. Falling into depression and Alcoholism for a time are also realistic responses. As for Luke, he came to his senses once he discovered what was really going on: that Luke took a gamble and risked losing everything in order to save his friends in an unorthodox manner.

He never at any point abandoned his family. The important thing is that he came out of a downward spiral thanks to his family and friends. There are indirect things that point to his character, too: He helped Leia through finding out Darth Vader was her father. He defended what Anakin Skywalker did to the Sandpeople once he and Leia learned about it, not because he condoned it but because Anakin was just a kid with a mother who had just been murdered before his eyes. He didn't hesitate to take in Jacen's daughter, Allana, his granddaughter. Jaina nearly fell to the dark side but came out of it, and he forgave her. He didn't even raise a fuss about his son being named Anakin, despite the name's connection to Vader. And had Jacen come back to the light and repented of his evil deeds, all these signs and more indicate that he would have forgiven and accepted him.

Meanwhile, Disney Han--despite being acted by Harrison Ford in the only way that is consistent with his personality, unlike Leia and Luke--became a drunkard who turned his back on the New Republic, went back to his smuggling ways (after learning to do better in life), lost the Falcon, lost Leia, and lost track of his son for years.

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Personally if your kid goes to boarding school and while at that boarding school kills several people and burns the school down to the ground that as a parent you are allowed to lose contact with him and not be a dead beat.

Even more if the kid is in college.

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Also, Ben was born 5 ABY, Bloodline is 28 ABY and is when her parentage is made public. Ben is still with Luke during that book. So Ben is well into his twenties when he turns, so nobody abandoned a kid. This also matches the footage from TLJ - they didn’t try to make Adam Driver look young, and they could have.

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Tell me more about this "It Group" that has power over Hollywood.

 

I can actually tell you why it's a trope. I have a dead beat dad script. Want to know why? My dad was a dead beat.

 

Turns out that Gen Xers, whose dads were young in the free love, sexual revolution, and AIDS epidemic eras, had a very high rate of absentee fathers. In the 70s especially, courts almost always gave custody to mothers.

 

So basically you have a very high ratio of writers, directors, and execs who gree up in the 70s and 80s with crazy divorce rates that usually saw dad going away.

 

It's zeitgeist, not a conspiracy.

Hi, Gen-Xer vouching for this as the son of a deadbeat dad. Every time I watch a movie or TV show exacting vengeance upon a deadbeat dad, I gain 500 XP.

 

The easiest way to bypass this trope is just to write happy nuclear families, but they generally either turn out unwatchably saccharine or alienate a jaded audience that's been conditioned to equate "happy family" with "boring fantasy land".

 

Then there's the occasional brave soul who tries to flip the trope by giving their hero a deadbeat mom. American divorce laws being what they are, those are rarely sighted in the wild, but they're out there. My son's mom turned into one after about third grade or so. When done well, they're kinda painful to watch, yet reaffirming to know someone else has seen this happen. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Shazam! each handled their deadbeat moms pretty incisively. How to Train Your Dragon 2 tried to go there, but went sappy and idealistic instead of confrontational.

 

So results can vary. But at least it's a change of pace.

 

I suspect a lot of stories start with one or both of the protagonist's parents already dead because it's just less risky, and no family dynamics to think through means it's a lot less work to set up.

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Also, I just realized a 2019 discussion of deadbeat dads is glaringly incomplete if it doesn't mention Ad Astra, starring Tommy Lee Jones as the deadbeatingest deadbeat dad what ever done deadbeated. If you think your popular characters with (or being) deadbeat dads have been beating a dead horse, you'll feel dead tired watching Brad Pitt travel millions of miles to hunt down his deadbeat dad around Neptune, dead set on closing the wide gulf between them cosmically and emotionally, only to learn one of them is dead inside.

 

[insert .GIF of Simpsons characters singing "STREETCAR!" but instead the caption reads "DEADBEAT!"!

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Sure Darth Vader was a bad dad and all. And this could be some sort of radical leftist deconstruction of fatherhood as an institution or the like. On the other hand, it could also be a statement on the broader impact of fatherlessness in society. Anakin had no father, after all.

 

You know, certain point of view and all that.

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[insert .GIF of Simpsons characters singing "STREETCAR!"

 

I, too, remember that classic episode of the classic television show "Simpsons Family" wherein Herman, Sarge, Burt, Dana, & Baby Simpson all had their rambunctious adventures in the kooky town of Spoonfed! Season 4, Episode 12, "Sarge vs. the Streetcar", guest-starring Martin Short & never mind, I just remembered the episode where Marge is in a musical adaptation of "A Streetcar Named Desire" and the Simpsons characters sing "STREETCAR!", sorry, sorry for assuming someone else made an obvious mistake when it was clearly me

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