Alternatives to the "Orphan Farmboy"

[The Mayan]

The Orphan Farmboy is considered to be one of the most overused character types in Fantasy literature, especially YA Fantasy. I theorize that it is such a common role because 1: in order to get a child or young adult involved in any adventure, you have to get the parents out of the way, because no responsible parent is going to let their child off on some dangerous mission, and 2: being a farmboy tends to represent the underdog status many young people view themselves as being trapped in, and makes it easy for younger readers to relate to the character.

Now, in this topic I'm hoping for some discussion on how we can creatively create alternatives to the Orphan Farmboy. We'll have to figure out ways to get the parents out of the way, and to make the character easy to relate to.

[CMTheAuthor]

I think you're half off on the first reason there (although you're completely right on the second).

The real issue is attachment; most people realistically wouldn't want to leave home to face the dangers of the unknown (just ask anyone who ever went off to college). So either you give them a background that denies someone that kind of attachment, or give them an extremely powerful motivation to leave home. Or both, which is the normal basis behind the "orphan farmboy".

One idea I haven't seen a lot of (and would be interesting, I think), is the "draftee". Basically, a young man (or woman, if you are so inclined) who is drafted to go off and fight in a war, and then gets involved in the adventure from there. Attachment isn't an issue, and neither are parents. As a bonus, it gives a better justification for having better combat skills than your typical farmboy would have.

[The Mayan]

The real issue is attachment; most people realistically wouldn't want to leave home to face the dangers of the unknown (just ask anyone who ever went off to college). So either you give them a background that denies someone that kind of attachment, or give them an extremely powerful motivation to leave home. Or both, which is the normal basis behind the "orphan farmboy".

100% right.

One idea I haven't seen a lot of (and would be interesting, I think), is the "draftee".

That is a good idea, actually. Certainly takes care of the main issues.

[JangoLee]

The good old "Orphan Farm-boy", gotta love the little guy. I have often wondered why there aren't more little heroes who just honestly don't care about family, the urge to fortune and glory is all consuming, blah, blah, blah. Or the good, honest "comes in contact with a strange artifact", or accidentally comes in contact with an agent of blah-blah and gets conscripted into whatever is going on. I would really like to see the little semi-sociopath hero who does right in a series of fits of whimsy, all the while having a great time and never once calling mom or dad to say "I'm okay, just saving the world."
Ancient blood-lines are good reasons to get drafted into a magical struggle. This is a good topic, thanks for posting it.

[N.S. Barrett]

Good-natured assassin/soldier is the new orphan farmboy. It's all the rage.

In YA tho, yeah, you probably want to deal with at-home attachments somehow. Though, you don't need to draw the character as an orphan. Too many opportunities lost there, I think.

Starving family who has to send the teenagers out to forage, and then Alice falls down the rabbit hole? Mommy or Daddy are thrown into debtor's prison and Billy is recruited by some local con-artist for a get rick quick scheme? Conniving uncle sends an overly trusting nephew on a fool's errand?

Sounds like they accomplish the same effect, to me.

[Igor]

The only question is what happens to that farmboy?
Is the story plausible enough to believe?

If you look at our history, some of the great persons were of humble birth - and by great I mean influential, not necessarily good-natured and benevolent:

Stalin
Mao Zedong
Charles Martel
Peter The Hermit
And so forth

So it can be done, not much, but it happens. The only problem is that there are many books who tell the "parallel" story of the same improbable event and when you read 100 books, you get 64% orphanage success But if you look at each book as a whole as a retelling of a history then it's fine.

Imagine if you had Oliver Cromwell come to life every 50 years. It would be corny, but you can't call history corny.

Igor

[Princeroth]

I'm writing a new book at the moment with three young protagonists
- boy street orphan taken in by an order of templars/holy warriors
- girl outcast to the order(above) because she is a taboo union of two species
- boy aristocrat who is heir to a powerful family

When I think of who I want the character to be I often approach it like an RPG character creator.
Who are their parents (or who raised them)?
What was their upbringing like?
Where did they come from?
When were the major events in their life (the earlier the event the stronger the impact on the character)? (Ie. Parent's getting killed when you are 5 = big effect, wife dying after of natural causes after many years of happy marriage = small effect)
Why do they stumble into the adventure (motives)?
How do they stumble into the adventure?

This gives you an overall picture of the character, and many opportunities to design something other than 'orphan farmboy'.

Orphans are great because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain, but that being said, attachments like family, lover, and children, are great leverage tools for antagonists.

[KatG]

The Orphan Farmboy is considered to be one of the most overused character types in Fantasy literature,

That's mostly because the definition of "orphan farmboy" is usually extended through a huge range of characters that are often not exactly orphans, not children or teens, and not farmboys or even boys. Basically, the term has come to mean "young protagonist" ranging from children to twenties. And it is true that a large number of fantasy novels feature such young protagonists. In SF, they are less common obviously.

especially YA Fantasy.

No, it's not an issue in YA fantasy because they don't worry about overuse of anything. That's a "we must be cool" adult preoccupation. Occasionally a YA writer may express concern or criticism about various things like dragons or orphans, but that's a preoccupation of the writer. The teen readers of YA have no interest. The protagonist of a YA story must be between 11-25 years old, so essentially YA has nothing but young protagonists, which to many people means that all YA fantasy novels are about orphan farmboys (see above.)

Additionally, in numerous YA novels, the protagonist is not an orphan. Some are, but quite often the central story or part of the story deals with the teen's relationship to his parents or parent (there are quite a few single parents in YA.) The point of YA fiction is to deal with issues of relevance to teens. This includes growing up and having to forge your own identity, but it also includes things like dealing with your family and friends. Hence, there are actually less orphans in YA than there is in adult fantasy with young protagonists.

In film and t.v., however, orphans are going to be more common. That's because if you don't make the kid an orphan, then you have to pay more actors to play the parents and spend time on them. It's easier if you're doing a fantasy T.V. movie, then, to make the character an orphan. But that's not what's going on in print.

I theorize that it is such a common role because 1: in order to get a child or young adult involved in any adventure, you have to get the parents out of the way, because no responsible parent is going to let their child off on some dangerous mission,

Again, it's not really an issue in YA. However, getting rid of the parents does increase the danger factor for the protagonist for certain kinds of stories and allows for the possibility of substitute parent figures in the story which can often be what the story is about. In adult fantasy, if you're doing a young, orphan protagonist, the idea is usually to show that the character is less protected to whatever fate might occur and more importantly, does not know much about his or her real origins. That's kind of a key theme.

2: being a farmboy tends to represent the underdog status many young people view themselves as being trapped in, and makes it easy for younger readers to relate to the character.

No, there are other ways to do underdog status. (Many YA fantasy novels take place in high schools where the underdog issue is what you'd expect in any teen tale.) The farm factor in fantasy in general comes out of the rural tradition of folklore. Folktales are usually set out in the country, fairy folk have their elven rings in the country hills, adventures are done out in mountain ranges and isolated, low populated locales, and you can also do a contrast between country (mouse) and city (mouse) which is useful for some stories.

The orphan aspect, whether the orphan is in city or country or is an orphan but in his twenties and therefore it's not really an issue, comes again from mythology and the issues of identity used in so many folklore and myth stories. The prince or princess (or noble or famous person) who is hidden away, the identity unknown, is utterly central to storytelling, fantasy or no. (See Shakespeare.) It's a matter of the reveal, especially for fantasy -- something that seemed to be one thing (real world,) turns out to be something else entirely (fantastic.)

So if you're doing a prophecy story, for instance, or a prophecy Chosen One story, making that person as mundane and non-famous, rich, cultured, etc. as possible basically sets up for a big reveal. Jesus was a carpenter. Buddha sat by the side of the road. In ancient Greek mythology, the gods would disguise themselves as beggars and see who was nice to them, etc. So the kindly old guy in the non-descript village ends up being a powerful wizard. The miller's cat turns out to be able to talk and wants to wear boots. The large wardrobe in the strange old house turns out to be a portal to another world. And the rube with no prospects saves the world. You don't have to do those stories and many fantasy authors don't. The prophecy or prophecy Chosen One is common in YA, because the usual reveal there is a teen who thinks he or she is ordinary finding out they're not or becoming extraordinary. Or being ordinary and falling into an extraordinary situation. Or being extraordinary and having to deal with an ordinary situation you don't know how to handle, such as the fallen exiled prince, etc.

Now, in this topic I'm hoping for some discussion on how we can creatively create alternatives to the Orphan Farmboy.

You mean as opposed to the dozens of way there are now? Are we just talking about YA fiction, where you have to have a young protagonist or fantasy in general?

We'll have to figure out ways to get the parents out of the way, and to make the character easy to relate to.

Again, I think you're looking at problems that aren't there. If you don't want the kid to be an orphan in a YA novel, there are lots of ways to get the parents out of the way that have been used. Rescuing the parents is a popular one. Simply having the parents be also superpowered and showing the kid how to deal with the superpower is another popular one. Relating to the protagonist in YA fiction is a matter of covering issues that are important to teens in a way they can identify with, which since we've been doing teen stories a long time, isn't that much of a mystery for YA fiction.

Good-natured assassin/soldier is the new orphan farmboy.

It's not now the rage. It's always been the second most popular one in fantasy fiction. Doesn't have to be good-natured though. And you can combine that with orphan farmboy if you like -- orphan farmboy becomes good-natured assassin/soldier or really dark, nasty assassin/soldier. Depends what you want. Elric is a good one. And I am fond of Glen Cook's Croaker in Black Company.

[DailyRich]

There's always the third son/daughter of a noble family. First child usually gets the title, second usually gets command or the business, third child gets ... well, not much. They could go out of boredom, or out of wanting to belong, or to prove themselves.

[The Mayan]

When I refer to an "orphan farmboy," I am not encompassing every possible young protagonist. I am also very much aware that there is a large variety of protagonists out there, but that doesn't mean I can't say something when I think one kind is being used very often.

I may be misinterpreting your post, but it's as if, say, I were to notice that someone drank Coke on a near daily basis, and I were to mention to them "hey, I notice you drink a lot of Coke." and they were to say, "I also drink Sprite sometimes, and Fanta, and Pepsi, and Sierra Mist, and Root Beer! You can't say I only drink Coke!" when that's not at all what I said.

When I say something is used a lot, I'm not trying to say that's all there is.

[Sarunus]

I would contend that if you can get your reader to care about the characters, they might not care so much if their archetype is a common trope.

As for finding alternatives to the Orphan Farmboy, they are as many as you can imagine. Igor brings up a great point. Many famous people throughout history have a life-course that would be very interesting to most readers, and I am sometimes inspired by the stories I encounter from historical figures.

I'll add Ibn Battuta to Igor's list.

[tmso]

Make the orphan farmboy an orphan farmgirl?

[KatG]

When I refer to an "orphan farmboy," I am not encompassing every possible young protagonist. I am also very much aware that there is a large variety of protagonists out there, but that doesn't mean I can't say something when I think one kind is being used very often.

I may be misinterpreting your post, but it's as if, say, I were to notice that someone drank Coke on a near daily basis, and I were to mention to them "hey, I notice you drink a lot of Coke." and they were to say, "I also drink Sprite sometimes, and Fanta, and Pepsi, and Sierra Mist, and Root Beer! You can't say I only drink Coke!" when that's not at all what I said.

When I say something is used a lot, I'm not trying to say that's all there is.

I didn't say you were saying it's all orphan farmboys. But if you're saying lets talk about a creative way not to drink Coke, wouldn't writers who are not drinking Coke be relevant?

What I said was, people talk a lot about how there are tons of orphan farmboys in fantasy, but they don't necessarily actually mean orphan farmboys when they do that. They may be actually talking about root beer and you think it's Coke because they're calling it Coke. What I also said was that in YA, there are actually fewerorphan characters than in adult fantasy with young protagonists because of what writers are trying to do in the YA market for teen readers. I also disagreed with your reasoning as to why writers might make their protagonist an orphan, based on the story mythologies that fantasy writers typically use, and agreed with N.S. that broody and/or sarcastic assassin/soldiers are essentially Pepsi. Actually, though, given the lack of frequency of orphan farmboys in contemporary fantasy, historical fantasy, dark fantasy, horror fantasy, portal and multiverse fantasy, and to some extent comic fantasy, assassin/soldiers are probably Coke and orphans (farmboy not necessarily included,) are likely the Pepsi.

If you look at specifically YA fantasy, there is not a ton of Coke drinking going on. There's some, but it's not really an issue that's difficult to avoid. Most of it is not secondary world. A good portion is, but contemporary fantasy is more popular in YA. A suburban setting, usually high school (with the protagonist being 14-18) is most common, but if the setting is important to the story, then it'll likely be either a small town (rural) or a city. You're likely to find a lot of orphans in post-apocalyptic YA fantasy, and this is a popular sub-category, but not dominant. So if you don't want to drink Coke, there's plenty of framework in YA to just not drink Coke and still have a protagonist who does dangerous things and is relatable.

For instance, in the bestselling Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare, the protagonist has a mother and that mother is kidnapped. In the bestselling Percy and the Olympians series, Percy has both a mother and a father who is a god but wasn't around for him. In Rachel Hartman's bestselling Seraphina, a secondary world fantasy, the protagonist has a father and stepmother and goes to work in the palace. Holly Black's Curse Workers series has a male protagonist who is not an orphan (or farmboy.)

If your protagonist is the Chosen One, there's not much parents can do when the Chosen One has to go. If the parents are away, kidnapped, or don't know where to find the teen, there's not much parents can do. If the parents are also special, then the parents are usually either training the teen or farming the teen out to other trainers like The Vampire Academy series, or may not be allowed to interfere with the teen's training and challenges. Or the parents simply don't know what's going on, which is often the metaphor used to reflect the fact that parents in our real world often don't know what is going on with their teens. In The Hunger Games (SF but not irrelevant as it's post-apoc,) a key theme of the series is the protagonist dealing with her mother who checked out mentally for awhile after her father's death, leaving the protagonist to take care of the family. In the Twilight series, Bella has both her parents who are divorced and a key theme is her difficulty in dealing with both parents, hiding the vampire stuff from them and protecting them. (In the first book, Bella goes alone to face a vampire who wants to kill her in order to rescue her mother, for instance.) In a secondary world fantasy with a teen protagonist that is pre-industrial, teens were considered adult and often left their families to participate in the world as adults, so writers often do that in fantasy novels as well.

Outside of YA, teen protagonists are often avoided. So creative avoidance is not really an issue. There are other issues, like how do you do a fantasy novel for the adult audience with a teen protagonist and not have them view it as YA. Or, how do you write a YA fantasy novel featuring a female protagonist and not have it automatically assumed to be a romance novel. Or how much graphic violence can you employ in a YA story, etc.