Comments I Made Elsewhere
Slacktivist has a post up about good fathers in literature, starting of course with Atticus Finch. And of course I had to add a few to the actually large number of people to say Sam Vimes. Of course with some of you can quibble, since you know this stuff as well or possibly better :)
Of course Sam Vimes, he can teach him to walk, he's good at that, having just been a father figure to himself in that book (Nightwatch). Carrot's adoptive parents, I can't remember if we know which was which(Guards! Guards!). Susan's father, Mort, Susan's grandfather, Ysabel's adoptive father, Death(Mort to start for Death, Soul Music to start for Mort). I think Esk's dad (Equal Rites) was a good dad in a hard situation.
You could make an argument that Count Magpyr (Carpe Jugulam) was a good father, in that he seemed to care about his kids but they don't seem to think so. Emberella's father (Witches Abroad) does his best, at least after his death, you get the feeling he wasn't quite that good a person before it. Oh, speaking about dead fathers, I suppose that the dead King in Wyrd Sisters also tries his best after his death. On the Discworld your thinking tends to be clearer after you die, at least for ghosts, and some zombies.
Oh, how could I forget, Tiffany's dad in the Tiffany Aching books (first one is Wee Free Men). And I just reread Nation (non-Discworld, alternate Victorian South Seas), which I love, and is the only Pratchett my mom and aunt have managed to like. I think Daphne's father is wonderful but flawed for good reason dad, he took her to meetings of the Royal Society as a kid! How cool is that?
Ok, I'll stop now, there's too many books, and I think they probably all, after the first few, have evidence of both good and bad fathering in them, but to say I think Terry Pratchett is probably a good dad. Only evidence I have is how little he let anyone on alt.fan.pratchett talk about her, and that she seems to have turned out to be an independent and interesting woman.
And then I had to quibble about Diana Wynne Jones, because her parents are very very rarely simply one thing, like good, especially good, actually.
Oh, and Diana Wynne Jones. The parents in her books are usually flawed in some way, and sometimes the growing up for kid is realizing that they are flawed but either they had good intentions and tried or decide that they were terrible parents and try and find some other way of dealing with things. Archer's Goon is pretty graphically that way, you have an instance where he realizes his dad is a passenger and content to be carried along and some other stuff, but then a few pages later his dad does something good and he comes to a conclusion that his parents are a mix of good and bad.
But some of the parents are just plain *bad* as parents, or even as people. Christopher Chant's parents are both bad parents, but seem to be weak but ok people if they aren't being ambitious.
One of the worst fathers is Himself in Time of the Ghost, he and their mother neglect the kids almost to the point of malnourishment and when he does notice them it's with anger, and hitting and calling them bitches, etc. What's interesting is this book is the most autobiographical of them all, her parents raised her and her sisters that way. At some point in her early adolescence her grandmother took custody of them, which may have saved their sanity. So I don't think you're going to find a thoroughly good father in a Diana Wynne Jones book, though there's a lot that try hard and do love their children.
If you're interested there's an autobiographical essay at her offical page and she also talks about being evacuated during WWII to a house near Arthur Ransome, and how he hated children. How her sister at age four or so got yelled at by Beatrix Potter for swinging on her gate. And when she went to Oxford: "However, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien were both
lecturing then, Lewis booming to crowded halls and Tolkien mumbling to
me and three others."
Of course Sam Vimes, he can teach him to walk, he's good at that, having just been a father figure to himself in that book (Nightwatch). Carrot's adoptive parents, I can't remember if we know which was which(Guards! Guards!). Susan's father, Mort, Susan's grandfather, Ysabel's adoptive father, Death(Mort to start for Death, Soul Music to start for Mort). I think Esk's dad (Equal Rites) was a good dad in a hard situation.
You could make an argument that Count Magpyr (Carpe Jugulam) was a good father, in that he seemed to care about his kids but they don't seem to think so. Emberella's father (Witches Abroad) does his best, at least after his death, you get the feeling he wasn't quite that good a person before it. Oh, speaking about dead fathers, I suppose that the dead King in Wyrd Sisters also tries his best after his death. On the Discworld your thinking tends to be clearer after you die, at least for ghosts, and some zombies.
Oh, how could I forget, Tiffany's dad in the Tiffany Aching books (first one is Wee Free Men). And I just reread Nation (non-Discworld, alternate Victorian South Seas), which I love, and is the only Pratchett my mom and aunt have managed to like. I think Daphne's father is wonderful but flawed for good reason dad, he took her to meetings of the Royal Society as a kid! How cool is that?
Ok, I'll stop now, there's too many books, and I think they probably all, after the first few, have evidence of both good and bad fathering in them, but to say I think Terry Pratchett is probably a good dad. Only evidence I have is how little he let anyone on alt.fan.pratchett talk about her, and that she seems to have turned out to be an independent and interesting woman.
And then I had to quibble about Diana Wynne Jones, because her parents are very very rarely simply one thing, like good, especially good, actually.
Oh, and Diana Wynne Jones. The parents in her books are usually flawed in some way, and sometimes the growing up for kid is realizing that they are flawed but either they had good intentions and tried or decide that they were terrible parents and try and find some other way of dealing with things. Archer's Goon is pretty graphically that way, you have an instance where he realizes his dad is a passenger and content to be carried along and some other stuff, but then a few pages later his dad does something good and he comes to a conclusion that his parents are a mix of good and bad.
But some of the parents are just plain *bad* as parents, or even as people. Christopher Chant's parents are both bad parents, but seem to be weak but ok people if they aren't being ambitious.
One of the worst fathers is Himself in Time of the Ghost, he and their mother neglect the kids almost to the point of malnourishment and when he does notice them it's with anger, and hitting and calling them bitches, etc. What's interesting is this book is the most autobiographical of them all, her parents raised her and her sisters that way. At some point in her early adolescence her grandmother took custody of them, which may have saved their sanity. So I don't think you're going to find a thoroughly good father in a Diana Wynne Jones book, though there's a lot that try hard and do love their children.
If you're interested there's an autobiographical essay at her offical page and she also talks about being evacuated during WWII to a house near Arthur Ransome, and how he hated children. How her sister at age four or so got yelled at by Beatrix Potter for swinging on her gate. And when she went to Oxford: "However, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien were both
lecturing then, Lewis booming to crowded halls and Tolkien mumbling to
me and three others."