5 best (and 5 worst) dads from sci-fi and fantasy

Third Worst Dad: Dr. Frankenstein, from Frankenstein

Dr. Victor Frankenstein appears in a lot of different books, movies, and TV shows, and he’s always a sucky parent. We’re talking about a guy who decides to use his genius to create life, real life, and when he succeeds, he’s so terrified by what he’s done, so disturbed by the fact that his artificial human stitched together from spare parts from corpses isn’t pleasant to look upon, that he flees, leaving his Creature all alone.

So basically, we’re talking about a deadbeat dad. Frankenstein has all the energy in the world for creating the creature, but when it comes to raising it, teaching it, guiding it, he’s out. Not for him. Mostly, he’s embarrassed that he ever considered creating the thing in the first place.

But his actions have consequences. Left alone, the Creature tries to connect to people, but they are horrified by his visage and run him out of town. The Creature comes to think that he has no value, and like any spurned child with no self-esteem, he acts out, killing those close to Frankenstein unless he makes him a mate.

In Mary Shelley’s original novel, the two come to loathe each other, but after Frankenstein dies, the Monster is still seen mourning over his body, because as bitter as their relationship became, Frankenstein was still his dad. He was just an awful dad who abandoned him as an infant and took absolutely no responsibility for what he’d done, making the lives of everyone he knew, including the Creature, worse.