"Sally M" smanton@hotmail.com wrote:

Fun topic though this is, it does raise a rather more serious point in the way Our Heroes' family bonds in the series seem to be almost completely absent, strangely sterile, or violently fractured. Yes, they are probably an atypical group - mostly criminals, misfits and outsiders - but it's still striking how rare the 'normal' bonds that make up families (both of blood and of choice) are ...

Deeta and Del Tarrant seem to be attached to one another, but at no stage during their long separation does it appear that either make the slightest effort to keep contact with or locate the other. This is echoed in Blake, who was fond enough of Inga to risk his life for her, but never tried to contact Ushton, for many years having thought he was dead (we don't find out why he thought this). His brother and sister, whom he cared about enough to break conditioning to get news of them, he believed to be on the Outer Planets and sending news a couple of times a year; he obviously lives alone (something that appears to be true for Avon, at least, as well).

Jenna's mother, Blake's siblings, Gan's partner, Avon's brother - none of them are mentioned more than once, not even mentioned by name *that* once. Chatterbox Vila never mentions a single family tie; in fact, from the admittedly-to-be-treated-with-caution evidence he gives, he seems to have been pretty much alone and involved in crime from a young age.

Then there is the violence. Blake's family was murdered, then falsely reincarnated by the state. Cally came from a background where cloning was combined with a family unit (she mentions her mother and father in Harvest of Kairos) but is isolated from them by her 'banishment', then loses her entire people in Children of Auron, including the one she was clearly closest to (Cally's reaction to Zelda's death is a small but beautifully understated moment). Then there are the two with families - Dayna and Soolin - who lose them in violence, as Blake unknowingly did. This trend is echoed in the number of broken families (the Tarrants being another one, with no mention of why they separated or what if anything happened to their parents) we see.

The combined image is one of an enclosed society of people living in isolation from others, without partners, children or families, or with fragile or broken ties to the families they do have. Which may impact on the question of what sort of parents/partners they would be - if they have lived all their lives in a society where normal family relationships are almost *ab*normal, would those they form themselves be somehow twisted by it?

One gets the feeling that perhaps the group would work as a family with someone saying to the children (preferrably old enough to be 'of use and practical with it.') 'just because they don't say they care doesn't mean that they do'

Jacqui