Tough Traveling – Fathers

Nathan over at Fantasy Review Barn is the mastermind of Tough Traveling. What’s Tough Traveling? Pretty much, it’s a weekly feature on Thursdays where we dig around to come up with examples of common tropes in fantasy, using Diana Wynne Jones’ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland as our inspiration and guide. Nathan has invited one and all to join in the fun, so feel free to come up with your own lists and add the link on Nathan’s weekly post, which will also contain (unleash) the next weeks theme. So let the fun begin …

This weeks theme? FATHERS

Comes in two types in fantasyland. Either a semi-mystical figure proving impossible to live up to or the overbearing type who doesn’t understand why his daughter doesn’t accept the traditional princess role. He may be tough to get along with but usually does think he has his kids interests in mind.

I had one father I *really* wanted to include, but I felt like it was super-spoilery, so I didn’t 🙁  But here’s the others:

Father Chains from The Gentleman Bastard series by Scott Lynch

He may not be the actual father of this group, but he is rather like an adoptive father. I mean, the word ‘Father’ is right there in his name. And he definitely guides and teaches them. He forever alters the course of all these kids lives and gives them so much more than they could have dreamt of anywhere else. Plus, he’s just a blast to read. You can’t help but love Father Chains for just putting it out there as it is.

“When you don’t know everything that you could know, it’s a fine time to shut your fucking noisemaker and be polite.”
~Father Chains

“Someday, Locke Lamora, someday you’re going to fuck up so magnificently, so ambitiously, so overwhelmingly that they sky will light up and the moons will spin and the gods themselves will shit comets with glee. And I just hope I’m still around to see it.”
~Father Chains

Marko from Saga by Brian K. Vaughan

Graphic novels can be wonderful because sometimes images speak better than words. So, here’s Marko

Roen from The Rebirths of Tao by Wesley Chu

Roen might not always seem like the most together guy, there are times when his family may have questioned his priorities, but you as the reader can definitely never doubt his love for his family.

So, I could find a great quote between Roen and Cameron, although I am sure there is. But, here’s a general one about his family:

Roen clocked him in the face. “That’s my family, you bastard!”

and one from The Lives of Tao, before he had a family, showing he does have some sense of responsibility 🙂

“I can’t quit. I have rent, and a cat to support.”

Samwell Tarly from from ASoIaF

OK, he might not technically be the father of Gilly’s baby but he sure does act like it with how he watches over and protects that baby (and his mother). She even named the kid after him

I didn’t know I was going to kill it, but I had to do something. I didn’t have any choice, he was going to kill Gilly, he was going to take the baby. If someone had asked me my name right there, I wouldn’t have known. I wasn’t Samwell Tarly anymore. I wasn’t a steward in the Night’s Watch or son of Randall Tarly or any of that. I was nothing at all. And when you’re nothing at all, there’s no reason to be afraid. — Samwell Tarly

“I can’t steal her. She’s a person, not a goat.”
―Samwell Tarly referring to Gilly