Five Dead Movie Mothers

[mothwing]

If I was a heroine in a story in whatever medium I'd never, ever want to have children. That seems to be the safest way to either be disposed unceremoniously before the story even starts, or to die for my offspring, while, or shortly after my offspring are born. While having a daughter has mothers dying in childbirth to make way for the evil stepmother (especially in fairy tales), having sons seems to doom mothers to tear-jerky demises saving said sons from their future nemises.

These are the five dead movie mothers that drove home this point to me most in chronological order.

1. Bambi's Mother (Mother)

Cause of death: bullet.

Reason: tries to divert some hunter's attention from her son.
Role: I don't think she's more than an end-of-innocence boost for the story, really.


2. Littlefoot's Mother ("Mother")

Cause of death: dino bites. 

Reason: saves her son from his nemesis-to-be.
Role: again, she seems to be little more than a reason to kick off the plot, and an extremely tear-jerky red-shirt to show how very very dangerous Sharptooth is.


3. Quasimodo's mother (nameless)

Cause of death: brained on the stairs of Notre Dame.

Reason: wants to save her son, instead gets wrongly accused of her son's nemesis-to-be and killed by him, though by accident.
Role: underlines how very heartless Frollo is and to show that our hero's mother, whom he never met, didn't abandon him but really cared for him. Another pointless tear-jerk moment.


4. Harry's mother (Lily Potter, née Evans)

Cause of death: killing curse.

Reason: dying instead of her son, who is about to be killed by his nemsis.
Role:  supplier of backstory, subplot and hero's special superpowers. And secondary villains' love interest, much like: 


5. Leia and Luke's mother (Padmé Amidala)

Cause of death: a... broken heart? Having been chocked by her recently converted husband? I never figured that out, and I'm not sure I want to.

Reason: underlines how truly evil her husband is?
Role: dead love interest, mostly - and she's still better of than Shmi, who, in terms of plot, seems to be Reason for Revenge as well as tear-jerker.

Who is your favourite dead movie mother?

Comments

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Seriously! I think she's the first Disney mother to do so, even, if I remember correctly.

Fathers do seem to make some kind of return more often than mothers, at least - they're more prone to just be absent rather than dead.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

*thinks*

Yesss, I think you're right. Mulan's mother and father were both alive, but that was after TLK.