Parent Abandonment

[Guest]

Illuka's portrait has the sad one when she tells you to stay away from the sea during a typhoon (because you may never come back) had me thinking, maybe the typhoon got their parents?

[Guest]

The whole their-parents-left-them-with-Tototala-and-disappeared-to-nowhere thing is probably just for the sake of simplicity and cheap backstory tbh (that sea and typhoon thing is probably because their own shipwreck story or because just common sense...they live near sea and able to see what it can do). It barely mentioned or expanded in the game and doesn't affect those Lulukoko characters as much as it affects Wayne (he became Postman because of his travelling parents inspired him to unite people like himself through letters) or Ford (he became OCD about cleanliness and doesn't want to marry because of his parents' divorce and hoarding habit).

Even Yuzuki's parental abandonment feels just like some passing wind sometimes despite that it should have bothered him more imo, even if he also has said that he doesn't really care about them at all.

But honestly it doesn't necessarily to be a bad thing, because everyone doesn't always need backstory that involves their parent.

[princesszelda]

I'm trying to think of instances where characters talk about their parents.

Spoiler:

Komari mentions that her mother travels the world a lot; it's actually the main topic of her pink love event, (which reminds me that it's been weeks since I updated the romantic transcripts thread. I really gotta get back to that...). One line in the text dump from Komari did stick out to me, though:

Spoiler:

"For better an' for worse, my mom's what people
call a "free spirit."

She'll go off travelin' for years an' then
suddenly show up back at home. She'll stick
around for a while, an' then she'll be off again.

Years an' years ago, I got in a big fight with her
over that, but we've long since made up."

And then there's this line, which is... um, okay. I feel like this could be interpreted very badly even though it wasn't intended that way:

Spoiler:

Mom is a real nice person, but she has a mean
competitive streak in her.

Even when I was little, when she'd play tag or
stick-fight with me, she'd go all out. I'd be
bruised all over the next day.

I learned just how cruel an' cold the world of
competition can be from my mom!

We don't know a whole lot about Kasumi's parents. We can, however, presume that she wasn't too fond of her father (her regular conversations only has one line mentioning him as opposed to the several lines where she talks about her mother, and that one line about her father is her talking about how he kept her from learning kanji because of her gender), and that she did like her mother a lot as noted by her multiple positive lines where she talks about her.

Aaaand I think that's about it for her. Although I'm probably one of the biggest Kasumi fans on this board I'm only going to look through so many parts of the text dump before moving on, sorry. I think I remember hearing some line about her parents getting her into an arranged marriage before Shizu stepped in and--okay I'm sorry to go off topic here but this is something that really confused me for awhile.

Starlight night dialogue when married to Kasumi:

Spoiler:

When I came to this town, a partner for an
arranged marriage reached out.

It was not something I could refuse, so I wished
it would at least be a good person.

In the end, Shizu stepped in and the match was
precluded.

The fact that I was able to meet you means that
maybe my wish came true in the end.

And a random piece of dialogue when talking to Kasumi:

Spoiler:

Why did I choose to begin working as a teacher
at the schoolhouse?

I may have told this to you before, but the
founder of the schoolhouse is none other than
my former governess.

When it came time for my family to choose my
future husband through a matchmaker, my
governess spoke up for me.

She convinced my family to allow me to
succeed her as the teacher at that schoolhouse.

I owe a debt of gratitude to my governess that I
do not believe I will ever fully repay.

Yeah, so was it Shizu or Kasumi's governess that got rid of the arranged marriage? Is Shizu secretly living a double life as Kasumi's governess and we just never knew it? Am I looking way too deep into this and it was probably just a mistranslation?

...I'm pretty sure it's the last one.

Okay, sorry about that. I'm terrible with this. Anyway, how about Ford? Ford's a cool dude. Lemme see what I can find about his parents.

Well, not a whole lot about his parents is in his daily conversation lines. Except this.

Spoiler:

Why am I so fond of cleanliness? You truly do
ask the most inane questions, don't you? But if
you truly wish to know...

My mother was a person who simply couldn't
stay organized. One day, thanks to the clutter
she left about, our house caught fire.

From that day since, I find I cannot be
comfortable in a room that's not clean and tidy.

Yeah. So that line's a thing I guess.

Oh yeah, after going through the depths of a Ford Tumblr blog (why can't there be this much Kasumi fan-art /shot), I found an interesting line that got changed during the localization. It's really long so I'll just link the post

---

Oh. I made another wall of text. Half of it didn't even talk about their parents. Sorry about that. Maybe I'll do more candidates later, idk. Hope you enjoyed.

This was super interesting to read, thanks for posting! I didn't know about Kasumi's arranged marriage or Ford's parents house burning down.

[MageDragonfire]

Tigre wasn't abandoned by his parents, at least! Haulani wanted to move to Lulukoko, where he'd originally met his wife, and Tigre's mom was all 'nah, brah, you're an old dude and you're not going all the way out to the boonies by yourself, take Tigre along with you for company'. Presumably Tigre, who looks up to Grandpa so much, was okay with this suggestion.

(Might be a bit paraphrased, but that's basically the story.)

For the others who really were abandoned, I suppose the writers were going for variety in family makeup and backstories, and didn't want everyone to have either just all moved away or had their parents die when they were young. It's kind of funny that what would seem really kind of a downer in actual life is handled in the same kind of rose-coloured glasses and kid-gloves way that everything else in these games are.

[Getaris]

"You're too old to take care of yourself, take my pre-teen son with you".

Somehow I don't think that's great parenting.

[Kam]

let's not forget the MCs family, who only come to visit twice and never return :'(

the mc is an adult who made an informed decision to leave home, and their dad arranged for them to live in a place where they have an uncle living very close by. that's not any sort of abandonment. if anything, their dad is a bit overprotective

Most of the characters who don't have parents and whose parents' absence isn't explained are grown adults, and in most cases it's stated that they either left home for work, or their parents are dead/travelling.

The only one with no suggestions as to their parents' whereabouts of any kind is Ludus, but the fact that he never provides one suggests that whatever the reason is, he doesn't consider it noteworthy, so they probably just live somewhere else for work (which up until the past 50 years or so was pretty common in the real world, and it wouldn't be considered abandonment because they left him in the care of his grandmother).

It's stated that the twins were raised alongside Ludus, but since they have the same job Tototara used to have, it's probable that they were sent to live with her at a young age for training.

With Yuzuki, it's stated that his parents left him in the care of his grandparents because he was sick, and since his grandparents work from home, they presumably have more time to care for him and are more likely to be nearby in case of an emergency.

[Celestrian]

"You're too old to take care of yourself, take my pre-teen son with you".

Somehow I don't think that's great parenting.

If it had been me, I'd either send someone older or go with them myself.