Why are heroes often orphans?

Lastly, non-mythical heroes are often orphans (Cinderella; Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire from the Lemony Snicket books) because parents function as powerful allies. Psychologically they can hinder a story about children discovering self-understanding, or they could make the challenges too easy to overcome. read more

Greek heroes are often half-gods, striving to combat the capriciousness of gods and their senseless actions on mankind. Moses was perhaps the flip-side of this, the orphan cared for by the ruling class; only to rise up against his parents for the sake of the Jews. read more

Making your heroes orphans makes it: 1) More believable that, if they are maintaining a 'secret identity', that they can do so. 2) Relieves the writers of having to script stories regarding the characters' interactions with parents. read more

Comics have to be read by new readers on a weekly basis, so the stories can’t be expected to have arcs that would move beyond the main character. And the heroes are expected to go on forever, basically. This is why superheroes don’t really have personal desires or dreams in the sense that Odysseus or Aeneas had. read more