abstract
| - Losing your parents is no fun. Depending on your circumstances (and the relative benevolence of your creator), you may end up with some clueless but good-natured Muggle Foster Parents, or you could be Raised by Wolves. If you're really unlucky, though -- or if you need an appropriately tragic backstory -- you'll end up in an Orphanage of Fear. No one cares for you a smidge when you're living in an Orphanage of Fear. You will usually presided over by gaunt, dour women with nasty sneers. Your chores are long, gruelling and mandatory; toys and other amusements are strictly forbidden. You can expect to be spanked, smacked, and otherwise "punished" frequently; no matter what you do, you can't please the lady in charge. The food is usually unidentifiable, mushy, and foul-smelling if it's solid at all; you may have nothing to eat but thin, probably cold vegetable broth. You will be in bed by 8 and up by 5, and you will never, ever, ever be allowed to have any fun. Your only hope of escaping is either to get adopted, find your real parents (after all, they're probably only hiding), or simply run away. Or kill everyone/destroy the place. The opposite of an Orphanage of Fear is the Orphanage of Love -- a place where you will be cuddled, given plenty of toys, read to before bed, and have all your boo-boos kissed, even if you never get adopted. Although you will rarely find the series' Kid Hero thrust into one of these -- right off the bat, anyway -- a good way to make a character seem kind or loving is to put them in charge of an Orphanage of Love. Compare Boarding School of Horrors. Sadly, both institutions are still Truth in Television. Read up on conditions in Victorian orphanages some time; current ones are not always significantly better. Also compare Department of Child Disservices. Examples of Orphanage of Fear include:
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