Parental Abandonment/Playing With

Basic Trope: A character is missing one or both parents.

• Straight: Bob either has no idea what happened to his parents - or they're dead.
• Exaggerated: Bob has no idea where any family whatsoever lives, and is entirely on his own.
• Justified: Bob has grown up in a war zone - parents abandoning children and dying would be a common sight there.
  • Bob is really a Ridiculously Human Robot and such a personality would need for Bob to remember some parental unit.
• Inverted: Bob's parents are the clingiest people you can imagine - they won't let Bob go anywhere.
  • Bob abandons his parents.
• Subverted: Bob's parents show up halfway through the story.
• Double Subverted: Those were just impostors. Bob's parents are dead.
• Parodied: Bob, now a grown man, walks around every few seconds going "Mommy! Daddy!" before remembering that he's an adult now.
• Deconstructed: Bob grows up without the love and affection that comes from a parent. This ultimately warps him and defines every relationship he has, as since he can't trust his parents, he has trouble trusting anybody.
• Reconstructed: Bob may have grown up without the love of a parent, but it goes a long way in defining the man he ultimately becomes.
• Zig Zagged: Bob's parents show up halfway through the story, but those were just impostors. But they do know where Bob's real parents are...
• Averted: Bob's parents are still around.
• Enforced: "There's no way Bob's parents would let him on an adventure like this!" "So we'll rewrite the character a bit. Make him an orphan. Problem solved, and two fewer actors to hire."
• Lampshaded: "Yeah, ever since I was a young boy, I've never known where my parents are."
• Invoked: Emperor Evulz decides to kill Bob's parents in order to dishearten him.
• Defied: The first thing Bob sets out to do is find his parents.
• Discussed: "He kept asking me if I'd seen his parents. What is he, a lost child?"
• Conversed: "Missing parents? Oldest one in the book!"

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Mom? Dad? Where are you? Maybe I'll find them back at Parental Abandonment.