What's Up With The Buffyverse Dads?

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Billy_Blood

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Anya- Her father is never mentioned

Buffy and Dawn- Their father apparently only came to see them once in seven years after divorcing their mom, and would rather be in Spain with his secretary than come home to his daughters after their mother died.

Xander- Is father seems like a real jerk.

Cordelia- Never seen, but doesn't sound too nice.

Oz - His father is never mentioned.

Riley- His father is never mentioned

Willow- Never seen, but doesn't sound too nice.

Rupert- Never seen, but doesn't sound too nice.

Spike- His father is never mentioned.
 
S
Summers Blood
Oooo! Good topic theme.
I have never thought of this before! The absence of dads is huge on the show. You are right, we haven't seen or been given a lot of information about the dads on the show. But, we also haven't seen a lot of mothers also, just a select few. And even those select few were very insignificant (except for Joyce).

Maybe it was made so that the focus just was on the characters. Nuts to the parents. 🙂
 
I think it's because Joss grew up without a proper father figure so maybe the show was meant to reflect his life in that aspect.
 
Like SpikedBuffy said they decided to focus on other characters.

At first they didn't want any parents at all in the show, but apparently Joss fell inlove with the Joyce character and kept writing for her, but that was all a big exception.

The Buffyverse focuses on the world of the gang and how it is to grow up and to be honest parents aren't really that invloved in that process.

Besides you do got both Giles and the Mayor as father figures on the show, so there isn't a complete lack of them.
 
didn't Riley mention his parents once? as in, having two of them? to me, it seemed that he had a pretty ok family life.

and has anyone else noticed that almost all of the characters on both shows were only children? no one had any brothers or sisters with the possible exceptions of Gunn and Angel, and their sisters both died.
 
It always seemed strange to me that a character like Xander wasn't the runt of a large litter.

That seems like what he was, how he behaved. Like, maybe he had much older, super successful sibs and he felt insecure about that.

He definitely had mom and dad issues...who wouldn't with his parents?
 
I always found the whole parents thing weird. But what I found even weirder was that almost everyone was an only child. I mean if they didn't want to make a bro/sis character they didn't have to but they could at least mention them in like one ep or something. I also didn't like how Buffy's dad never came to visit. In the episodes he was in,Nightmares and When She Was Bad,
he didn't look like a bad dad. But as soon as season 5 and 6 hit, he was a deadbeat.
 
I know it's been said that the lack of sibs, parentals in the "˜verse relates to Joss wanting to focus on school, friendships, growing up, but...

...if you look at shows from the 90s, a lot of them seemed to be about unconventional families. Mulder and Scully became very close, like family, not truly like a couple"”'til the very end. Seinfeld, the four misfits form a griping, complaining family unit.

And "Friends" was actually a depiction of a fairly common lifestyle in the 90s. That was certainly me and my friends for several years after college"”sharing apartments together, males and females"”a tight, family-like unit.

Buffy had that 90s friend-as-family thing as well. Her Scoobs were her family, truly"”Joyce and Dawn notwithstanding.

But the traditional family unit"”with fathers"”has started to come back full force now with sitcoms and many dramas. Also, the idea of longing to reconnect with family. With "Lost" for instance, there's Michael and his son, Jack and his dad, Kate and her mom, Locke and his dad, etc...

I wonder if Joss noticed the family/sibling angle so sorely underexplored in the 'verse, and added Dawn for that reason?
 
JollyApe said:
Like SpikedBuffy said they decided to focus on other characters.

At first they didn't want any parents at all in the show, but apparently Joss fell inlove with the Joyce character and kept writing for her, but that was all a big exception.

The Buffyverse focuses on the world of the gang and how it is to grow up and to be honest parents aren't really that invloved in that process.

Besides you do got both Giles and the Mayor as father figures on the show, so there isn't a complete lack of them.
Click to expand...

I'm glad he kept Joyce because I think that she was a really great addition to the show.

I have to disagree COMPLETELY though with your assertion that parents aren't involved in the growing up process.
 
Kimm said:
I have to disagree COMPLETELY though with your assertion that parents aren't involved in the growing up process.
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Okay I know I put it a but wrong, but what I mean was that the problems the Scoobies were facing were metaphor monsters for the problems of adolescence and the entire confusin process of understanding who you are. And even though parents might be there to guide you and help you and sometimes just be a pain in your ass there is nothing they can do to help you through that, it's something you have to manage on your own. No matter all the advice or support you get, you have to become one with who you are without the interference of parents or anyone else for that matter.

Still sounds way wrong?
 
K
Kimm
I get what you mean now!
I never really noticed the lack of father figures in Buffy. Maybe because I didn't really have a father figure growing up, so I don't identify with the presence/lack thereof, or maybe it's because I always attributed that role to Giles, I don't know. It is passing strange, tho, now that you mention it. I have noticed that there aren't a lot of siblings in Buffyverse, tho...other than Dawn, and she came along later. goldenboy, Xander does seem like he's the baby of the family...or maybe a middle child? Someone starved for attention.

VG mentions Nightmares and When She Was Bad, but Buffy's dad appeared in Normal Again, too, altho that was in an alternate reality capacity.

JollyApe, I get what you're saying now.....at first I was like, "huh?" because I have kids and I'm as involved as they let me be, I think that leads to good communication and a strong sense of self-worth. That's especially important to me now, as my oldest is heading in to the teens soon and my younger is not far behind.
 
JollyApe said:
Okay I know I put it a but wrong, but what I mean was that the problems the Scoobies were facing were metaphor monsters for the problems of adolescence and the entire confusin process of understanding who you are. And even though parents might be there to guide you and help you and sometimes just be a pain in your ass there is nothing they can do to help you through that, it's something you have to manage on your own. No matter all the advice or support you get, you have to become one with who you are without the interference of parents or anyone else for that matter.

Still sounds way wrong?
Click to expand...
Like the taking a step away from you family thing. "Klippa banden." Etc.. ?
I get what you're saying. And I agree. Joyce was very important for the show and for Buffy as a character, but this show isn't really about that family thing.

And yeah I never thought about the dads in BtVS much. Most of them seem pretty creepy (Tara's, Wesley's, Xander's) but then again, so did the moms, some of them.. Like Willow's and of course Amy's..
 
LOL! i think Fred and Riley were the only ones with parents that were considered even remotly 'normal'
tara seemed to have a good relationship with her mom.
and to Miffed67, i always thought of Giles as the father-type figure too.
 
I think it just has to do with Joss not wanting his show overrun with parents and siblings. It's all about the Scooby Gang, the core. When you get too beyond that, the show begins to lose direction. I think that's why the show is as good as it is: It never lost it's premise.
 
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