The 2024 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents

It’s almost the end of the year, so we are proud to present to you, live from the Multiversal Nexus Ballroom, the 44th Annual Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents.

Let’s have a bit of background: I have been informally awarding the Darth Vader Parenthood Award since sometime in the 1980s with the earliest awards being retroactive. Over the years, the list of winners migrated from a handwritten page to various computer file formats, updated every year. Eventually, I decided to make the winners public on the Internet, because what’s an award without some publicity and a ceremony? The list of previous winners (in PDF format) up to 2017 may be found here, BTW, and the 2018 winner, the 2019 winner, the 2020 winner, the 2021 winner, the 2022 winner and the 2023 winner were announced right here on this blog.

The bar is open, the various assembled winners of yesteryear and this year’s hopefuls are plotting with each other, while enjoying delicacies from around the Multiverse, so without further ado, let’s start with the ceremony.

Warning: Spoilers for several things behind the cut!

2024 was an unusual year for the Darth Vader Parenthood Award, because a frontrunner emerged very early on, only to be superceded twice by members of the same extended family.

But before we get to the winners, let’s take a look at some of the other terrible parents of 2024, who didn’t quite make it, because they just weren’t horrible enough:

In the Fallout TV series, Hank MacLean, overseer of Vault 33 and father of Norm and Lucy, seems a good enough Dad in the 1950s nuclear family mold that the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout is patterned after. When Hank is abducted by wasteland raiders, including Lucy’s new husband, Lucy sets out into the post-apocalyptic wasteland to find him. In the process she learns that her father harbours several dark secrets such as the fact that he nuked an entire city in order to get back at his wife who dared to leave him. Even worse, Hank was also a junior executive at VaultTec, the company which built the vaults where people could live in 1950s style bliss after the nuclear apocalypse, and then triggered said apocalypse. Hank MacLean is certainly a nasty piece of work, but in the end there were parents who were even worse.

Oliver Queen a.k.a. Green Arrow is not normally a name you’d expect to find on the longlist for the Darth Vader Parenthood Award (suggested by Kris Vyas-Myall), but in the latest run written Joshua Williamson with art by Sean Itaakse Oliver is finally reunited with his extended family – son Connor Hawke, longtime girlfriend Black Canary, her protegee Red Canary, former sidekick Roy Harper and Roy’s son Liam – after vanishing during some DC crossover event. However, the joyful reunion is shortlived, because it turns out that Oliver has apparently lost his memory and is working for Amanda Waller now and has joined her crusade against metahumans, which leads Oliver to turning against his extended family, attacking and arresting them. In the end, Oliver regains his memories and it turns out that him joining Amanda Waller’s crusade against metahumans and turning against his own family was the result of a telepathic implant by the Martian Manhunter to allow Oliver to infiltrate Amanda Waller’s operations and take her down. So he didn’t really turn evil, but was just pretending to be. However, Oliver never told any of this to his family and did physically attack them, which is really shitty behaviour.

In season 2 of the delightful animated TV series My Adventures with Superman, Clark Kent a.k.a. Kal-El finally meets another Kryptonian survivor, his cousin Kara Zor-El, who keeps talking of her “father” who wants to restore the Kryptonian Empire. However, once Clark actually meets Kara’s “father”, it turns out to be none other than the robotic super-intelligence and former Kryptonian war computer Brainiac, who has brainwashed Kara into conquering and destroying planets for the glory of the Kryptonian Empire. Brainiac also nearly kills Clark and tries to possess his body and brainwashes poor Kara again and again, whenever she begins to question him. Oh yes, and he destroyed Krypton, too, when the Kryptonians entered peace talks and were about to shut him down. Brainiac would certainly be a most worthy winner, except that he’s not really Kara’s father, but only brainwashed her into believing he is.

Over at Marvel, the TV mini-series Echo debuted very early in the year and delved deeper into the complicated relationship of Maya Lopez a.k.a. with her otherwise loving father William, who also happened to be a gangster working for Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime, as well as her biological uncle Henry, who also happens to be a gangster working for Wilson Fisk (I’m beginning to sense a pattern here), as well as Fisk himself, who is a sort of adoptive uncle to Maya as well as the Kingpin of crime. Oh yes, and Fisk is directly responsible for getting Maya’s Dad killed. It’s certainly a tangle of ugly and complicated family relationships, but in the end there was a family that was even worse.

The closest thing to a Marvel movie we had this year – aside from those Sony Spider-Villain movies no one like or watched – was Deadpool and Wolverine, wherein a version of Logan encounters his daughter Laura, first seen in the 2017 movie Logan, again. Now Logan has always been one of my favourite Marvel characters and served as a gruff father figure for a succession of young X-Men such as Kitty Pryde, Rogue and Jubilee. However, he’s been something of a deadbeat Dad for Laura, who evem says as much in the movie itself. But even though Logan is a deadbeat Dad for his daughter, he’s not actively evil, just someone who could do better.

Meanwhile, the other Marvel TV-series of 2024, Agatha All Along delves into Agatha Harkness’ relationship with her biological son Nicholas Scratch as well as with Billy Maximoff, son of Wanda Maximoff and Vision, who becomes something of a surrogate son for Agatha. Now Agatha is very much a villainess, who spends centuries murdering witches, but she does care about Nicholas and tries to save him from Death – quite literally Marvel’s personified female Death – for as long as possible, though Death claims him anyway in the end. So while Agatha is undoubtedly an evil witch, as a mother she’s more the kind of gray not good, but not cartoonishly evil either parent, a type of parent we’ve seen more and more frequently in recent years.

Talking of witches, Wicked, the novel turned stage musical turned movie, claims to tell the true story of the Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz fame. Hereby, it turns out that Elphaba Thropp, the witch in question, isn’t so much wicked as the victim of negative propaganda by the Wizard of Oz who riles up the people of Oz against Elphaba for daring to oppose his rule. Oh yes, and it turns out that the Wizard is also Elphaba’s biological father, since he had an affair with her mother, while disguised as a travelling salesman. Now everyone who’s seen The Wizard of Oz knows that the Wizard is nothing but a fraud, but it turns out that he’s a terrible father, too. However, Elphaba’s parentage isn’t actually revealed in the Wicked movie that’s currently in theatres, since the film only covers act 1 of the stage musical (which means we will have to endure two more installments, I fear), so the Wizard isn’t a suitable Darth Vader Parenthood Award candidate for 2024.

Still talking of witches, the anime Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury features some pretty terrible parents (suggested by Juan Sanmiguel) with Elnora a.k.a. Prospera, the mother of protagonist Suletta Mercury and her sister Ericht, and Delling Rembran, father of Suletta’s love interest Miorine Rembran, who ordered the attack which killed Elnora’s husband and near killed Elnora and Ericht.

Yet still talking of witches, Evangeline, the titular sorceress from the novel A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher is a genuinely nasty piece of work, an abusive monster who controls every aspect of her daughter Cordelia’s life to the point that she actually control Cordelia’s body like a puppet, making her do things against her will. Evangeline is genuinely terrible and might well have won in any other year, but this year the competition was extremely stiff.

One show that provided stiff competition in terrible parenting was the live action Avatar: The Last Airbender, which debuted in February 2024. Largely adapting the plot of the beloved animated series, the show follows the adventures of Avatar Aang, the titular last Airbender and his friends Katara and Sokka. Hot on their heels – quite literally – is Zuko, Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, who has been tasked with capturing Aang by his father Fire Lord Ozai, who is such a genocidal tyrant and terrible parent that he has been compared to Darth Vader himself by Daniel Dae Kim, the actor who plays him in the live action series.

Fire Lord Ozai would indeed be a most worthy winner of the Darth Vader Parenthood Award. However, since pretty much everybody agrees that the live action TV-series – while better than the 2010 live action movie – is still a pale copy of the original animated series, Fire Lord Ozai would have been a much worthier winner back in 2005, when the animated series debuted. Alas, I never watched the series back in the day, because it was broadcast in Germany on some channel I couldn’t receive. In fact, I didn’t even become aware of the series until several years later.

As I’ve said before, the Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents and the Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award are handed out by a jury of one, namely me, so if I haven’t read or watched or heard of something, I cannot award it. That said, I’m always happy for suggestions for terrible or great parent figures I might have missed.

But since I already had a most worthy winner in mind for this year, I decided to give Fire Lord Ozai a retro award instead. Therefore I’m thrilled to announce that the winner of the 2024 Retro Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents is…

Drumroll

Fire Lord Ozai

As voiced by Mark Hamill in the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender and played by Daniel Dae Kim in the eponymous live action series, Fire Lord Ozai is the supreme ruler of the Fire Nation and a genocidal tyrant. His grandfather already wiped out the Air Nomads, while his father Fire Lord Azulon set his sights on the Earth Kingdom and Northern and Southern Water Tribes. Fire Lord Ozai, meanwhile, continues his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps and tries to conquer or wipe out all other nations. He succeeds, too, and – granted near unlimited power by a passing comet – crowns himself the Phoenix King, ruler of his entire world.

The ambitious Ozai was the second born son of Fire Lord Azulon, but murdered his own father and deposed his older brother Iroh to take the throne for himself. He also planned to kill his young son Zuko and banished his unwilling wife Ursa, after she interceded on behalf of her son. Ozai always favoured his daughter Azula, who shares his utter ruthlessness, over his son Zuko. When Zuko is thirteen years old, he is allowed to sit in on his father’s war council, but forbidden from speaking. Zuko, however, speaks out, when a general suggests using young recruits as cannon fodder. For this insolence, as Ozai sees it, he challenges Zuko to an Agni Kai, a firebending duel. When Zuko refuses to fight his own father, Ozai uses his fire powers to burn Zuko, giving him a facial scar that he will bear for the rest of his life. He then banishes Zuko from the palace and tells him not to bother returning until he has captured the Avatar, the one person who combines the powers of air, water, earth and fire. Hereby, Ozai clearly sends his son to die, since the last Avatar vanished a hundred years before…

This sort of villainy deserves an award and therefore I am pleased to name Fire Lord Ozai the winner of the 2024 Retro Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents.

Applause

Applause erupts around the auditorium. Only the 1985 winner Hans Beimer* boos heartily and we still have no idea why he even keeps attending these ceremonies. Most likely, he’s just here for the nibbles.

Meanwhile, Sam and Dean Winchester, sons of the actual 2005 winner John Winchester, look at each other and say, “Really? That guy lost out against Dad? Okay, so our Dad wasn’t the greatest Dad who ever lived and he did drag us into this whole demon hunting thing and got our Mom killed, but he’s not nearly as bad as this Ozai person.”

Unfortunately, Fire Lord Ozai was not able to accept his award in person due to being depowered and imprisoned in his own dungeon. Therefore, his son, the new Fire Lord Zuko, accepted on his behalf.

Prince Zuko with an ugly vase.

Zuko accepts the award on behalf of his father. Unfortunately, I was only able to find a season 1 Zuko figure.

When the name of the winner was announced, Zuko’s uncle General Iroh, who’s sitting next to him, gives him an encouraging pat on the shoulder. Then Zuko ascends to the stage, dressed in his Fire Lord robes, and accepts the award, an ugly vase, looking a little shell-shocked. Then he delivered the following speech:

My name is Zuko, Prince – well, I guess now Lord of the Fire Nation. When I received the invitation to attend this ceremony to honour my father, I initially refused, because my father has no honour. But then the messenger told me that’s exactly what this ceremony is for, to honour the dishonourable. So I agree to come.

For make no mistake, my father has no honour. He never did. He’s a tyrant and a monster. He murdered my grandfather, banished my mother and he would have murdered me, too – more than once. Yes, my father is a monster and I could see it, in his cruelty, in the way he treated his loyal servants, soldiers and generals, when they dared to question him. And yet I tried to win his approval, win his love, be the son he wanted me to be.

When I was thirteen years old, my father challenged me to an Agni Kai…

Noticing the confused looks on the faces of the audience, Zuko adds:

That’s a firebending duel, a tradition among my people. The greatest firebender on the planet challenged me to a firebending duel. His own son, a thirteen-year-old boy. And I refused to fight him, refused to fight my own father, he burned me and gave me this scar…

Zuko points to his facial scar.

…a scar I will bear for the rest of my days. He said it was to teach me a lesson. But in truth it was just cruel. Because my father is a monster.

“Children playing with fireworks and hurting themselves,” Hans Beimer exclaims, quite agitated, “That why we need a total fireworks ban. Once Habeck becomes chancellor…”

Zuko notices Hans Beimer and glares at him and there are tiny flames sparking from his fingers.

You there, shut up! You’re too old to be someone’s mistreated kid, so you’re here because you’re a parent. I don’t what you did to your children or if you were as cruel a father as mine, but you are here because you have no honour.

To all the parents here: I may not know what you did to your children, but I know exactly what you are. You’re monsters, one and all, and you have no honour.

To all the children here I say. I know how you feel, cause I’ve been there, too, trying to win the approval and the love of my father. I had to make my own mistakes, learn my own lessons, but you don’t have to. So I’m telling you. Don’t make the same mistakes I made. Because no matter what you do – capture the Avatar, conquer Ba Sing Se – it will never be enough. They will never ever love you, because they cannot.

So leave. Walk away. Find your own path. Find your own people, your own friends, your own family. Because I promise, there are people out there who will care for you, even if your own parents won’t.

Scattered applause can be heard around the auditorium from those audience members who accepted the award on behalf of their parents. Hans Beimer is about to boo again, but Luke Skywalker, who’s sitting in the front row in full Jedi robes, uses a mild Force choke on him, just enough to shut him up.

At the bar in the back, Tyrion Lannister, who’s already quite drunk, calls out, “Well spoken, lad. You tell ’em, kid.”

Zuko and Uncle Iroh

Uncle Iroh comforts Zuko.

Zuko descends from the stage, still holding his ugly vase. He returns to his seat and receives a warm hug from his Uncle Iroh. “You spoke well, Zuko. I’m proud of you, but then I’ve always been.” Iroh eyes the ugly vase. “If you don’t want that, I’d like to put it in my tea shop.”

“Why?”

“To honour and remember my brother.”

“It’s just an ugly vase.”

“Yes, and that’s exactly the honour my brother deserves.”

Zuko hands him the vase and waves at one of the waiters. “Excuse me, but could we have some of those dumplings? Cause I’m starving.”

***

While Lord Zuko is satisfying his teenage appetite with dumplings and sushi, it’s time to come to the main event, namely the winner and runners-up of the 2024 Darth Vader Parenthood Award.

This year, we have not one but two runners-up and they’re both from the same family. What is more, our first runner-up is a name we’ve heard on this stage before, as the 2023 Retro winner. However, when I announced last year’s Retro Darth Vader Parenthood Award winner, I had no idea that the same person or rather people would throw their hat in the ring for the 2024 award barely a month later.

Therefore, I’m pleased to anounce that the first runner-up for the 2024 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents is…

Drumroll

Miro and Amelia of the House of Rannen, High King and Queen of Eternia

To repeat what I said in last year’s eulogy, when he won the Retro Darth Vader Parenthood Award, King Miro is the father of 2021 honourable mention King Randor of Eternia and grandfather of Prince Adam and Princess Adora. He first appeared in the Filmation He-Man episode “Search for the Past”, where we learn that King Miro, voiced by Eric Gunden, went abruptly missing many years earlier, forcing his son Randor to take the throne. At the end of that episode, Miro is found again and reppaears in the She-Ra episode “King Miro’s Journey” where he and Adam travel to Etheria to meet Miro’s granddaughter Adora.

The two Filmation episodes portray King Miro as a loving father and grandfather and indeed, the moral sements of both episodes stress the importance of family and grandparents.

This positive image of Miro was somewhat tarnished by the 2002 He-Man cartoon. Miro himself only puts in a cameo appearance in that cartoon, but we learn that Randor isn’t his only or even his first-born son. There is another son, Keldor, the product of a dalliance between Miro and a Gar woman. As first-born son of Miro, Keldor should have become king. However, Keldor was passed over in favour of his younger brother Randor, because Keldor was a) illegitimate and b) had blue skin due to being half-Gar. In the 2002 continuity, this led to a bitter rivalry between the half-brothers which culminated in a duel at the Hall of Wisdom, where Keldor tried to throw a vial of acid at his own brother. But Randor managed to deflect the attack and the acid backfired on Keldor, burning off his face and eventually turning him into Skeletor.

So Miro first being unable to keep his dick to himself and then refusing to acknowledge his first-born son led to Keldor turning into Skeletor, which makes Miro at least partly responsible for all the terrible things Skeletor did, all the crimes he committed, including murdering a shitload of people in Masters of the Universe Revelation. This is what won Miro the Retro Darth Vader Parenthood Award last year.

However, at that time I had no idea that not only would Keldor appear in the flesh (and voiced by William Shatner) in Masters of the Universe Revolution barely a month later, crashing his brother’s funeral, but that Miro and his wife Amelia would appear as well in a flashback, voiced by Tim Sheridan and Harley Quinn Smith respectively.

In that flashback, which you can watch here, we see Keldor and Randor as children sneaking into Miro’s study. When Miro suddenly enters, the two brothers hide under his desk to avoid getting caught and making Miro angry and so chance to overhear an argument between Miro and Amelia (a character who only appeared in a single minicomic up to this point). Amelia reminds Miro that he promised Keldor’s mother to send the boy back to Anwat Gar, when he was of age. Note that Keldor is about ten years old at this point and Randor about eight. Miro counters that the Gar are isolationists who do not allow their people to leave Anwat Gar, so sending Keldor there means effectively banishing him. Amelia is well aware of this and tells Miro that Keldor could have a life on Anwat Gar, whereas in Eternos, he would always stand in the shadow of his younger brother, denied the crown. And once Randor his children, Keldor would move even further down in the line of succession. Miro points out that Keldor is denied the crown by law, whereupon Amelia tells Miro that he should change the law. Miro, however, insists that he cannot. We learn that he relented and shipped Keldor off to Anwat Gar, to a mother he has never met.

The flashback is short, not quite two minutes long, but we learn a lot about Miro and Amelia and about Keldor’s life in the palace. We learn even more about Keldor’s childhood at Eternos Palace in the Masters of the Universe Revolution prequel comics written by Tim Sheridan (yes, the same person who voiced Miro), Ted Biaselli and Rob David with art by Daniel HDR. We learn that Miro’s and Amelia’s relationship was not a love match, but an arranged marriage, that Keldor was already born when Amelia married Miro and that even though Keldor was just a baby at the time, he calls Amelia “madam” rather than mother. We also learn that Amelia would prefer Keldor gone and so would others at court. Meanwhile, Keldor displays very much the walking on eggshells behaviour common to abused kids. He does his best not to be noticed, is extremely deferential to Amelia, who doesn’t like him, and also clearly tries to shield his little brother Randor, whom he loves, from the truth about his parents. Even worse, we later learn that even though Keldor’s life at the royal palace wasn’t exactly great, it was still the happiest he ever was. As for Randor, he clearly loves and adores his older brother and yet has him taken away.

As for Miro, we learn that he’s a bully and a tyrant who has scholars who disagree with him and teachers who teach his sons unapproved knowledge thrown into the royal dungeon. Miro is also implied to have an alcohol and keeps a brandy flask in his desk, he has disdain for magic, wants to tear down Castle Grayskull, doesn’t want his sons to learn about the history of Eternia and doesn’t want them to learn swordfighting (which is ironic considering that both Keldor and Randor turn out to be excellent swordsmen). Miro also doesn’t want to give Keldor the chance to find a role for himself in Eternos, if he cannot be king. As for the law that keeps Keldor from ascending the throne, the law that Miro supposedly cannot change, Miro’s grandson Adam, who never even officially become King of Eternia, changes that law in the span of less than a day, allowing Keldor to take the throne that should have been his in the first place. And the citizens of Eternos, who would supposedly never accept an illegitimate half-Gar king, eagerly cheer him on.

In short, Miro and Amelia are terrible (step)parents. Amelia blames her unhappy marriage on an innocent little boy, while Miro is a classic bully – too weak to stand up to those he considers more powerful and too weak to stand up for his first-born son, while taking out his anger on those below like those unfortunate scholars he has thrown into the royal dungeon. Miro’s decision to ship Keldor off to Anwat Gar, egged on by Amelia, is what sets Keldor on the path to becoming Skeletor. So yes, Miro and Amelia are responsible for all the terrible things that will happen on Eternia in the next forty years or so.

So why are Miro and Amelia only the second runners-up? Well, because there is someone or rather someone(s) who are even worse. Because Miro, like many abusive bullies, is the son of an even worse abusive bully. Which brings us to the first runner-up for the 2024 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Oustandingly Horrible Fictional Parents, namely…

Drumroll

Rannen of the House of Niros, High King of Eternia

King Rannen is Miro’s father. We only briefly see him in a flashback in the Masters of the Universe Revolution prequel comics, where he has a fit, when Miro presents him with a surprise grandchild. Rannen absolutely refuses to accept a “half-blood and Gar bastard” (his words, not mine) and doesn’t even want to look at at his grandson, who at this point is just a baby. Rannen also orders Miro to marry Amelia and produce a more acceptable heir. And Miro, being the weakling that he is at heart, obeys.

In short, we have a classic cycle of abuse in the royal family of Eternia, a cycle which leads to the creation of Skeletor, a villain who comes close to enslaving and/or destroying the planet several times and who is responsible for countless deaths.

Meanwhile, King Randor, who was a runner-up for the Darth Parenthood Award in 2021 for his shitty treatment of his son Adam, not only redeemed himself, literally on his death bed, in Masters of the Universe Revolution, but we also learn that he, too, was a victim of an abusive upbringing, a child born into a loveless marriage with a bully for a father. Randor isn’t a perfect father by any means nor is he meant to be. His role in Masters of the Universe is to be the distant father who has problems expressing his feelings for his children, the sort of father that many of the original He-Man fans grew up with in the 1980s. However, compared to his father and grandfather, Randor is a huge improvement both as a father and king. Randor marries his unsuitable girlfriend – and an astronaut from another planet is clearly just as unsuitable, if not more so than an Eternian woman of a different race. Randor clearly loves his children, even if he has problems showing it at times. Randor is not a tyrant and values scholars and scientists and does not have them thrown in the dungeon. Randor even established some kind rudimentary democratic system with the Eternian Council seen in the 2002 cartoon. So in short, Randor is the one who breaks the cycle of abuse, while his brother Keldor is completely consumed by it.

So if King Rannen is even worse than King Miro and Queen Amelia, why is he still just a runner-up? Well, because in all the lengthy explanation of the soap drama of the royal family of Eternia, which directly led to the creation of one of the worst threats the planet ever faced, there’s one very important person we haven’t mentioned yet and that is Miro’s Gar lover and Keldor’s mother.

For the winner of the 2024 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents is none other than…

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Saryn of Anwat Gar, First Weaver, High Priestess of Ha’vok, Mother of Chaos and Shadow

Many of you will probably wonder why the woman who was abandoned by her lover after he got her pregnant, the woman whom Miro would not marry and Rannen would not accept as his daughter-in-law, why this woman is the winner rather than the two men who used and discarded her.

Well, because it turns out that Saryn is not an innocent victim in all this. She’s not just the abandoned lover and the woman Miro wouldn’t marry. No, she’s much, much more than that.

First introduced in the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe comic from DC in 2014, Saryn was created by Rob David and designed by Gabriel de la Torre. In the DC Comics, which are set in a different continuity than the Revelation/Revolution one, Saryn is a semi-tragic figure. A Gar servant girl at the court of King Grayskull. Saryn harbours an unrequited crush on King Grayskull, who is happily married and views her more as a daughter. Saryn is also really, really desperate for a baby. When the Gar councillor Adi stages an uprising against King Grayskull, he tricks Saryn into murdering him (which directly contradicts the 2002 cartoon, where Grayskull falls in battle with the Evil Horde). The murder sends the already mentally unstable Saryn over the edge. She steals the Sword of Protection and runs off to spend the next few centuries in a cave on Anwat Gar, turning into a withered old hag. Then one day, the shipwrecked King Miro washes up upon the shores of Anwat Gar. Saryn finds him and nurses him back to health. One thing leads to another and Saryn finally has the baby she wanted so much. But Anwat Gar is no place for a child, so she hands her baby to Miro to give him a better life in Eternos. Then she retreats to her cave again, before She-Ra puts her out of her misery.

Saryn is mentioned in the Masters of the Universe Revolution cartoon and she even puts in a cameo appearance on a mural in Castle Grayskull, marching into battle with King Grayskull and Tytus the Giant. She plays a much more active and sinister role in the Masters of the Universe Revolution prequel comics. Here Saryn is a skilled sorceress and leader of a coven of hooded witches who hang out in the Fright Zone, a place between dimensions, worship Ha’vok, the Eternian Ram God of chaos and disruption, and who foretell the future to anybody who seeks them out.

Now I wouldn’t want to condemn Saryn for her religious beliefs. If she wants to hang out in creepy caves, engage in dark magic and worship ram-headed chaos gods, that’s her good right. However, Saryn wants more than to just hang out in a cave, hand out fortunes and foretell the future. No, Saryn makes her own future and she has set her sight on no lesser goal than to take the throne of mighty Horde Empire and become Empress of the galaxy. You certainly can’t fault her ambition.

Of course, taking the throne of the Horde Empire means that Saryn has to eliminate at least two very powerful and dangerous men, Horde Prime and Hordak, first. Lucky for her, Hordak himself wanders into her cave seeking to have his future foretold. Saryn is only too happy not just to foretell Hordak’s future – to die at the hands of an heir of Grayskull yet unborn – but also to tell Hordak how to avoid that fate. She also promises Hordak the power of the Havoc Staff and points him into the direction of someone who able to wield that power, namely a young Gar sorcerer named Keldor. And when the other sisters of Ha’vok disagree with Saryn giving all their secrets away, Saryn just murders them.

For the first two issues of the comic, Saryn is a shadowy presence, a hooded female figure who manipulates both Hordak and Keldor and pits them against each other. In the third issue, she finally removes her hood and reveals herself to Keldor as none other than his mother, whom we only briefly saw in a flashback in a previous issue. She also tries to trick Keldor into killing Hordak – whom Keldor views as a mentor and father figure at this point. Indeed, she deliberately made sure that Hordak took on Keldor as an acolyte, so Keldor could get kill him and possibly Horde Prime (unless Hordak kills him first) for her.

But it gets worse. For Saryn knows that her havoc magic alone isn’t enough to win her the throne of the Horde Empire. In order to achieve that goal she needs more. She needs the power that resides deep underneath Castle Grayskull. However, the Castle’s jawbridge will never open to the Gar High Priestess of Ha’vok. So Saryn seduces Miro, who is a direct descendant of King Grayskull, to get some of that sweet Grayskull sperm and produce a child who will be able to get her into Castle Grayskull due to his Grayskull genes. So Keldor was conceived not out of love or even during a night of ill-advised passion, but out of pure calculation to be the key that will get Saryn into Castle Grayskull. And since Saryn isn’t the type to change diapers, she hands Keldor off to Miro to raise and later manipulates Hordak into taking Keldor on, so he can learn all there is to learn about the Horde and get close enough to take out Hordak and Horde Prime. Of course, Saryn has no intention to share the power she craves with Keldor. He’s only a tool for her, after all. And once he’s served his purpose, she will discard him, too.

Miro is a bully and a petty tyrant, his father Rannen is worse but neither of them are as bad as Saryn, the woman who conceives a child purely to use him as a tool and a key to get her the power she craves. Indeed, Saryn is so terrible that even Hordak, who after all is a Retro Darth Vader Parenthood Award winner himself, is shocked at the depth of her villainy. That sort of depravity deserves an award and therefore I name Saryn of Anwat Gar the winner of the 2024 Darth Vader Parenthood Awward for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents.

Applause

Applause erupts around the auditorium. Even Hordak, who’s attending the ceremony with several Horde members in tow, applauds approvingly, though Saryn did plan to kill him. Only Hans Beimer boos heartily, until Mantenna blasts him with a stun beam and shuts him up.

Unfortunately neither King Miro nor Queen Amelia nor King Rannen nor Saryn are able to accept their awards in person. Miro is lost at sea (at least that’s what Saryn said), Amelia had an unfortunately run-in with the business ends of a dual sword, Rannen expired of a heart attack, after seeing his his half-Gar grandson playing at the foot of his throne, and Saryn apparently did not survive an encounter with Hordak’s arm cannon. Therefore, the award will be accepted by the one person who is connected to and descended from all of the winners and runners-up, namely Keldor, Prince of Eternia.

Of course, Keldor is currently locked up in the dungeon of Castle Grayskull. However, his nephew Adam, who is not really King of Eternia, but still the person everybody defers to, while they try to figure out this whole democracy business, has agreed to let him out for the night to attend the ceremony – under guard of course.

“This Adam, whoever he is, is a fool to let that guy out of his dungeon,” Zuko, who has graduated to stuffing himself with petit fours by now, whispers to Iroh, “I would never let my father out of the dungeon.”

Keldor ascends the stage, clad in black trousers and a plain white shirt. His hands are manacled and he’s looking a little dishevelled – after all, he’s spent several months in a dungeon. The crown of Eternia sits somewhat lopsided on his head. Since Adam didn’t want it, he just tossed it into the dungeon.

Keldor is flanked by two guards: Duncan in his full Man-of-War armour, who has his arm cannon trained on Keldor, and newly minted Cosmic Enforcer Lyn, who is clad in a stunning blue and purple gown and is brandishing a very big Cosmic Enforcer blaster.

On the stage, Keldor is handed three ugly vases. “Why so three?” he asks, “Last year, there was just one”

“One for your father and stepmother, one for your grandfather and one for your mother.”

“It’s a joke,” Tyrion Lannister yells from the bar at the back of the room and he’s even more drunk now than he was a few minutes ago, “A cruel joke. I have four of the damned things. They make great target practice.”

Keldor accepts three 2024 Darth Vader Parenthood Awards, while manacled and guarded by Lyn, brandishing a very big gun, and Duncan in his Man-of-War armour.

I picked the Masters of the Universe Classics Keldor figure, because he is the closest to what Keldor looked like when thrown into a dungeon at the end of Masters of the Universe Revolution. Duncan is in his Man-of-War armour. I chose Movie Lyn, because she looks the most glamourous and because she has that zero fucks given expression on her face. Lyn’s blaster was borrowed from the Cosmic Enforcer Strobo and the three ugly vases are Playmobil accessories.

Keldor then steps up to the edge of the stage, awkwardly clutching his three ugly vases in his manacled hands, while trying to look like the king he always wanted to be and actually was for about five minutes, and delivered the following speech.

Thank you. Thank you so much. You cannot imagine what a relief it is that someone finally recognises that I, Keldor, am the victim in all of this. I was Miro’s first-born son. I should have been his heir, should have been king. But I was robbed of my birthright.

Lyn visibly rolls her eyes. “Oh Zoar, now we’re getting the ‘poor me’ monologue again.”

The eulogist has it right. For my father Miro was weak. A weakling and a bully. For ten years I watched as courtiers, servants, scholars and most of my teachers were taken away in chains, when they displeased him. Oh, today they call him “King Miro the Great”, “King Miro the Good” and “King Miro the Kind”, but let me tell you the truth. While he was alive, everybody in the palace was fucking terrified of my father, terrified of his rages, his outbursts, particularly when he’d gotten drunk… again. Including me.

But while my father was only too happy to bully his own subjects, did he ever stand up for me? No, he didn’t. Not once. Those guards who called me “blue-skinned bastard” behind my back, they were never thrown into the dungeon. Only the teachers who actually were kind to me, who taught me about magic and swordfighting and Eternia’s history and the Power of Grayskull and my birthright, they got thrown in the dungeon.

And then my own father banished from the palace, from the only home I’d ever known, when I was only ten years old, and shipped me off to Anwat Gar, a miserable island in the middle of nowhere. “You’re going home to your mother,” he told me. But Anwat Gar was never my home. I was a bastard there as much as in Eternos. And you know what? I fucking hate Anwat Gar. Those jerks weren’t even grateful when I used my magic to defend their miserable shithole of an island against the Horde.

That kid who spoke earlier was right. For years I wanted to make my father and the people of Eternos love me, accept me. I wanted to be their champion, their protector, their king. But like that kid earlier, I finally realised what a fool I was. My father would never love and the people of Eternos would never accept me. And do you know what my only regret is? That my father managed to get lost at sea – again – before I had the chance to kill him.

As for my stepmother, I guess I could say that at least she wasn’t as bad as my own mother. But that would be wrong, for in many ways she was. When she married my father, she fully well knew that he already had a kid by another woman. She didn’t have to marry him. She could have walked away, but she married him anyway, because she wanted to be queen. And yes, my mother used me as a tool, a ticket to ultimate power, but my stepmother was no better. She used Randor as her ticket to the throne, but she certainly never cared about him. Yes, my mother never changed diapers, but neither did Queen Amelia. And when Randy cried at night in his bed, it wasn’t her who got up to give him a bottle or just cuddle him. It was me. And later, whenever my father and stepmother argued loud enough that the entire palace could hear them and Randy was scared, he came to my room and crawled into my bed for comfort. So screw my stepmother. Running into a sword is exactly what she deserved.

As for my grandfather, I don’t what to say about him. After all, I was only two when he died. I only remember him as a scary, shouty man. In fact, as a kid I thought “grandfather” was a synonym for “shouty man”. Then, one day when I was playing on the floor of the throne room, he shouted so loud that he fell over and then he was finally silent.

Which brings me to my mother. My dear, dear mother, who talked of great power and glorious destiny, but only ever meant power and glorious destiny for herself. She never cared about me, never loved me and she even admitted it, that damned witch. There was no throne waiting for me at the end of the road. I was just a tool to her, to be used and discarded. She handed me off to my father, when I was little, and to Hordak when I was older, so I could enjoy his cruel teachings. And honestly, if my father, mother, stepmother and grandfather get one of those, Hordak deserves one, too.

In his seat in the second row, Hordak raises an eyebrow. “I already have one of those, Acolyte. Because of Despara.”

Well, you should get another for how you treated me. Because for a time, I looked up to you, you know? I wanted to impress you, wanted to be like you.  I conquered Zal-Kron for you, conquered so many other worlds, spread the power of the Horde far and wide. But did you ever have a single word of praise for me? No. Cause you’re no better than my father or my mother. You only ever used me as well. All you wanted from me was my magic and my ability to wield the Havoc Staff, cause you couldn’t.

And the one time I refused to go along with your harebrained plans – because there are some things that even I will not do, such as stealing the newborn babies of the one person in this misbegotten universe who ever cared about me – you erased my memories and my personality with your accursed machine and forced some other character into my head. And then you discarded me, left me behind, when your plan went awry.

“My plan was perfect, Acolyte. You ruined it.”

Keldor argues with Hordak, while Lyn and Duncan look on.

But the joke’s on you, Hordak, because the personality you created, Skeletor, was so much worse than I could ever be. I don’t think I could’ve killed you, but he could. And anyway, why aren’t you dead? I fucking killed you, ran you through. Does no one ever stay dead anymore?

“I got better, Acolyte. And so did Motherboard, thank you for asking.”

Oh yes, Motherboard. Your metal Mommy, you silicone teat, your sad substitute, cause your own mother no more loved you than mine did. Yes, maybe I am pathetic, but so are you, Hordak, would-be conqueror of the galaxy. And you know what? I’m actually grateful that you turned me into Skeletor. Cause Skeletor was strong. Skeletor was powerful. Skeletor never cared for anybody or anything except himself. Skeletor never felt pain, cause Skeletor didn’t remember what it was like to be Keldor, to be unloved and unwanted.

Lyn is rolling her eyes so hard to they threaten to fall out.

But now Skeletor is gone. My accursed nephew took him away along with my havoc powers and I’m just plain old Keldor, the royal by-blow, the blue-skinned bastard, again. And I can remember everything, not just what happened to Skeletor, but also what happened to Keldor, my whole miserable sad life…

Lyn pokes Keldor with her blaster. “That’s enough of your whining. Also, it’s really rich of you to whine about your terrible, terrible parents. May I remind you of ‘It’s blue. Did you cheat on me with Trap-Jaw?’ and ‘Get rid of it! I don’t care where or how, just get rid of it’?”

“Oh, I remember, my dear Lyn. Like I said, I remember everything now. But I’m pretty sure you never told your new boyfriend over there about that particular chapter of our history.”

“Just shut up and move,” Lyn says and pushed Keldor forward, until he descends from the stage.

At the bar, Tyrion hollers, “Hey, friend Keldor. Come over here. Let’s have a drink and commisserate over our terrible parents.”

Tyrion turns to Lyn and gives her a puppy dog look. “Scary guard lady, would you kindly allow me to share a drink with my friend Keldor here. I promise you I won’t let him escape.”

Lyn hesitates for a moment, then she cuffs Keldor to the bar. “All right. But if you escape, Keldor, believe me, the entire Cosmic Enforcer Corps will hunt you down and there’s nowhere you can hide from us.”

“Somehow, your scary lady guard reminds me of my sister,” Tyrion says, while Keldor climbs onto a barstool next to him and sets his three ugly vases down on the bar. “That’ freaky. So, friend Keldor, you wanted to assassinate your father? Not that I’m judging. Some fathers deserve it.”

Keldor nods, as a downs a shot of whiskey with his free hand. “I wanted to take him out with a crossbow, but the sea got him first.”

Tyrion nods and takes a gulp of his own drink. “Crossbows are excellent for taking out fathers. I shot mine with a crossbow, twice, while he was sitting on the privy.”

“You shot your father, while he was sitting on the privy? That’s just perfect. What did it feel like?”

While Keldor and Tyrion are chatting about assassinating their fathers, Lyn and Duncan walk away arm in arm.

“Is it safe to just leave him there?” Duncan asks.

“Well, you said those magic-neutralising corodite cuffs were unbreakable, so I guess it is. And if not, I have all the power of a Cosmic Enforcer and a very big blaster at my command.”

“I’d like to take a look at that blaster, if I may.”

Lyn smiles. “Oh, I’d like to take a closer look at your armour. Particularly what it looks like, when you take it off. I’ve heard there are some very comfortable suites on the upper floors, so what do you say we retreat up there with a bottle of champagne to examine our weaponry.”

Lyn and Duncan get cozy with each other, while Keldor is chained to a post.

My patented Friesian Blue “actually it’s a rum caraffe, but it’s also great for chaining up action figures” piece puts in another appearance. You’ll have to imagine Tyrion, since I don’t have a suitable figure.

As Duncan and Lyn retreat upstairs, Keldor and Tyrion are still commiserating at the bar.

“And not only did they throw me into the dungeon, no, I also have to listen to my accursed nephew and his girlfriend doing it all the bloody time. And they’re really, really loud.”

Tyrion raises an eyebrow. “All the time. Such admirable stamina.”

“Apparently, it’s the effect of the Power of Grayskull, though it sure as hell never did that for me. The one time I tried to get cozy with Lyn, she stole my sword and the power. And then later, she cut my arm off and stole my havoc staff.”

“Sounds like you’re better off without her, pal.”

***

And that’s it for the 2024 Darth Vader Parenthood Award and we say good night to all of you from the Multiversal Nexus Ballroom. The companion prize, the Jonathan and Martha Kent Award for the Fictional Parent of the Year will be handed out tomorrow, so be sure to tune in again.

Who will win next year? You’ll find out in this space.

***

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters, I just gave them an award and wrote an acceptance speech for them. All characters and properties are copyright and trademark their respective owners.

*Hans Beimer, a character from the German soap opera Lindenstraße, showing up at the ceremony to boo and get blasted by various villains is something of a running gag by now, but then I really, really hated Hans Beimer and the sort of person (“Green petit bourgeois Spießer”) he represents. I probably hate him more than many of the supervillains, because unlike them, he was not supposed to be a villain. Plus, my parents watching Lindenstraße for its entire thirty-five year run gave me plenty of reason to hate that guy.

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4 Responses to The 2024 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents

  1. Pingback: Pixel Scroll 12/30/24 Look My Friend, I Happen To Know This Is The Pixel Express | File 770

  2. David Hook says:

    Cora, thanks. I look forward to these every year, not the least because I learn things.

    • Cora says:

      Thank you. I’m glad you liked it and of course I’m happy if I managed to introduce you to some pop culture villains you may not be familiar with yet.

  3. Pingback: A handy guide to all SFF-related posts and works of 2024 | Cora Buhlert

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