arkness! No parents! The orphan is a storytelling fixture extending back to fairy-tale lore and early literature. Those dead parents ground their children in a recognisable moment of trauma, latching onto a universal tragedy that touches us all in some way. This gives the heroic orphan plenty of unresolved issues to unpack, stranded in a world ripe for exploration, adventure and horror - no safety net, no boundaries. While no superhero would be complete without a dead parental figure (in Spider-Man’s case, a multiverse full of them), Disney has become a wholesale parent-killing factory, ever since the Evil Queen took her fair stepdaughter under her cape in . Meanwhile, modern orphans Harry Potter and the Baudelaire children keep the tradition going long after the Victorian orphanages have as it mourns the mums and dads who died to keep their children motivated and sad.
