In fiction, it's all too common to see parents play favorites. This is, to some degree, a reflection of real life--as impartial as we try to be, we all have biases, and sometimes those biases sprinkle down to color what we think of our children. Whether they try to or not, parents think of all their children in different ways, which doesn't mean that they don't love them equally--it's often equal, just different, much like the children themselves.
A lot of the time when we see this trope, it's our protagonist who is most affected. Either they're the favorite (like Thor from Thor) and deserve to be because their siblings are all such prats, or (far more common) they're the least favorite, like Loki, or pretty much any character that has siblings, in which case they either deserve it (usually retroactively) or they don't, which is where most protagonists seem to end up.
Nine times out of ten, this is done poorly; everything is painted in stark lines of black and white, the sibling(s) are shitheads, there's no reason why the protagonist should be treated the way they are, and when playing the part of the punching bag, it's either as the abused True Heir (ala Cinderella) or as the kid who has to do chores because God forbid they help out around the house a little.
An easy solution is to just not bother with the favoritism dynamic, but it can be done well, and completely leaving out the reality of favoritism is like leaving out the reality of all the -isms in life; nice to see, but ultimately dishonest. You can only run from the truth for so long.
Anywho. here are 3 ways you can make your favoritism dynamic more interesting.
1. Let there be subtlety
In real life, favoritism is most often displayed in the small things. It's not typically the grand, showy, "My sister got a car for her birthday and I got six months hard labor" that it's often made out to be. Parents don't try to let their children know if they do have a favorite--they try very hard to hide it, but when it leaks out it's usually in the form of extra praise or admonishment for one party or the other, or they give slightly more lavish gifts to one than to the other--or, yes, maybe they sympathize more with character A's need to get homework done than they do with character B's, so they make character B do character A's chores for a night, or something like that.
Your character's parents are people, and most people don't try to be mean or unfair "just because." Which reminds me--
2. There has to be a reason for the favoritism
One of the best portrayals of "Least Favorite Child Syndrome" I've seen to date was in a book I read quite some time ago, but whose title I have, unfortunately, forgotten. The basic plot was that this little girl was an outcast--her siblings were mean, her mother favored them above her, and she was bad at English and art but good at math. She adopts a puppy at one point but doesn't want her family to know about it, her art teacher tries to help her get extra credit by taking her to the zoo, the dog almost gets eaten by a lion at some point.... The details are kind of hazy. Like I said, it's been a while. (If anyone knows the title of this book, let me know so I can cite it, it's a great book and I greatly recommend it)
But like all children who think themselves unfairly treated, this little girl believes herself to be adopted, and daydreams about her "real family" finding her and stealing her away from her kidnappers in order to give her a better life. This is, of course, bullshit, and the sister even points out as much while they're looking at old pictures of their mother, because little miss protagonist looks just like Mommy used to, which becomes extremely relevant towards the end of the book, when Miss Protag confronts Mommy Dearest and straight up asks why her sister is the favorite.
Instead of denying it or telling Miss Protag to go to her room or burn in hell, Mommy Dearest starts to cry. She admits that she's been playing favorites, and apologizes, and tells Miss Protag exactly why--because Miss Protag is exactly the same as Mommy Dearest was as a child, and Mom has a lot of pent up self-loathing that she's concentrated into the toxic chemical storm she rains down on her youngest child.
This isn't right by any means, but it was an amazing moment that has (obviously) stuck with me ever since--you never see parents admitting to playing favorites, and you certainly never get to hear the story from their perspective, which means a lot of the time the favoritism is just this thing that happens for no discernible reason rather than something real that is the cause of an effect.
Maybe your character's parents hate him because he's like them, or love him for the same reason--maybe he's favored or disfavored because he's the more able, or the less, or because he has interests that mesh with/conflict with his parents', or they dislike him because he's an asshole.
Maybe, if he's the favorite, it's because he works the hardest, and doesn't ask for gifts, and does what he's told, and behaves himself, etc. etc. Maybe he's earned every facet of that favoritism to such a degree that he doesn't feel he's the favorite even if he is; remember that your character's perceptions of reality will not always be in tune with the actuality of reality.
3. Explore it from the parents' POV
As I mentioned above, this, as with most things, is a nuanced issue. Parents are just people, and all people are flawed; there are different sides to every story, and we have a tendency to focus inordinately on the part of the story that's written by the child--and if we're being honest, children have a pretty bad track record for understanding the way the world works.
Let the parents tell their side of the story. Maybe it's a horrible side to the story and they really are assholes, but at least give them the chance to try to make us understand--it could be that their intentions really are noble! Or that they have no idea what they're doing and it's all just the subconscious effects of reproductive narcissism. Maybe they don't really have favorites at all, but the sickly child needs more attention than the child who's perfectly healthy, or the problem child gets more attention because the parents feel the need to straighten her out. A lot of the time, the more capable and trusted a child, the more likely they are to end up on the back burner while parents are distracted--they can have an infinite capacity for love, but they will always have a limited amount of time and energy.
Maybe the parent is just reacting to the vibes they're getting from their kids--when I was growing up, my mother and my baby brother were upset with each other a good half of the time because my mother and I would go and have "Girls' Nights Out" while he stayed in the trailer park. My brother might have thought it was a result of favoritism, but every time my mother would spring an unexpected event on us, I would be eager to go and John would insist that he would rather stay home and hang out with his friends. My mother would argue, John would argue back, my mother would relent and then complain about it in the car (because she wanted to spend time with both of us, and he did this quite often), and then later, when we came home and told him about the movie we'd seen or the park we'd gone to, John would be upset that he "didn't get to go" when I "always did."
It wasn't a matter of love or affection or favorites; it was just that he chose to use his time differently (and, to be perfectly honest, he had more friends than I did with whom to while his time), and then, being a kid, upon regretting the use of his time, blamed it on the person who had wanted him to use it differently in the first place.
That rambling anecdote is to say, parenting is hard, and parents deserve the chance to have their stories told, too.
Whether you explore it from their actual POV or in an honest (or semi-honest or just honest-as-they-see-it) confrontation with a child (or children), or if you write an entire book about it from the parents' perspective, make sure that the parent either sees it as a reasonable way to act, or that they struggle with the guilt of their actions--the Evil Stepmother trope is all well and good in fairytales, but we've stepped well past the battles of Static Good versus Static Evil in the modern age; all things are agathokakological.
I have more to say, but this post is fairly long, so I think I'll end it here and pick up with number four on Wednesday. In the meantime, what are your thoughts? What do you look for in your favoritism subplots? Are there any particularly good/bad portrayals you've come across recently? Let us know!
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