Parental Favoritism

"Mom always liked you the best!"

— The Smothers Brothers

It is tough being a kid in Fiction Land. Bad enough when you're an only child, but if you're among a pack of siblings, this particular trope is nearly guaranteed to raise its head at some point in order to make life even more difficult.

Parental Favoritism is just what it sounds like — one child is given preference over their siblings. In order to qualify, this has to be consistent. One child being asked to do the other's chores because their sibling is sick is not favoritism, although that won't stop the kid lumbered with the extra work from grumbling. But one child having to do all the chores on a daily basis, while their sibling sits and plays video games, is definitely favoritism.

It may show itself in a variety of ways. If there is an argument or fight, the parent(s) (or parent(s) of parent(s)) will always take the side of one particular sibling, and the other(s) will be the ones being scolded/punished. The parents may brag about one child in particular and be admonishing or dismissive of the others for their faults, regardless of the achievements of the brothers and sisters. A regular line that may be entailed with this is a variant of, "Honestly, (insert name), why can't you be more like (insert favorite's name)?" There may always be one particular kid who gets out of doing their chores, even if the other kids get pulled up for forgetting to tidy their room.

Sometimes, there may be more than one "favorite", or the mother and father will have different "favorites", making life even more of a headache for their siblings.

There are a few different versions of the trope and a few different "explanations" as to why one child is preferred over the other. These divisions can be by birth order, gender, personality, looks, gender identity, biological origin or inherited ability. See the Analysis page details on these aspects. Any of these criteria can backfire. For example, one child might be the favorite because they look and act just like their saintly, deceased mother. Another might be just the opposite — The Un-Favorite — because of their resemblance to the mother that walked out on the father — or even because they remind the father of the saintly mother. If the saintly mother died in childbirth, then the poor kid who was birthed this way usually has a hell of a lot of resentment to get over, no matter what the physical similarities, often due to the father, consciously or unconsciously, blaming them for the mother's death.

Occasionally, parents have a child that naturally requires more care and attention than the others, because they're very young, disabled, or psychologically damaged. This will still seem unfair to the other kids who get less of their parents' time, but it's a necessity rather than favoritism... usually. This is a favorite plot for children's books and television, where the lead character is jealous of a new baby sister or brother only to be reassured that "we love you just as much". On the other hand, if the favorite is Too Good for This Sinful Earth, the parents may never learn to appreciate their living children.

Sometimes, the parents are reasonably handing out the privileges and responsibilities with age. When the older child looks only at the responsibilities and the younger at the privileges, both can come to the view that they are The Un-Favorite. Or they may responsibly differentiate, but the musically untalented child may resent the lessons as favoritism, and the talented one, the other's free time as favoritism; or the child who must do all the chores resents the sickly child's confinement to his bedroom and inability to play. Cue Sibling Rivalry.

Of course, it is common that the parents are not aware of their favoritism and may be appalled at themselves upon realizing it. Very few parents would actually pursue favoritism with the knowledge of the other children's hurt feelings.

In fact, the obligatory "talk with the parents" is normally part of a Parental Favoritism plot...but that does not guarantee it will solve anything. If the writer is trying to Hand Wave the glaring bias of the parents, there will be a scene where mum and dad will give a long speech on how they value all their kids equally and will tell The Un-Favorite child that making them live in the basement and forcing them to bow whenever their sibling enters a room is really a mark of their esteem. The words "you're the responsible one" will be mentioned in some form. A more realistic version is where the big talk is honest, and the parent doesn't bother trying to justify their actions but do realise they were wrong and attempt to make amends. This is regularly done to "humanise" the hitherto parents — but it's too late. By the time of the talk, most of the audience will already be set against the parents, and it'll take a hell of a lot of good writing to redeem them. If the parents have clearly realized their foolishness and have shown to be really sorry, then this may take a lot of weight off them.

Parental Favoritism can have a huge impact on characters even when they become adults. The Favorite will either be spoiled and throw a tantrum if they don't get their own way, feel that they were a sort of "experimental" child and develop insecurities, or be a Nervous Wreck who permanently fears that they won't meet their parents' expectations; kids at the bottom of the pecking order will usually be bitter and cynical about relationships and family life (and often blame the favorite children alongside the parents), or have serious self-esteem issues, leading to self-deprecation or clinginess as ways to compensate.

This is all too often Truth in Television. The friendship version of this trope is Friendship Favoritism. Compare Grandparent Favoritism, which refers to when grandparents prefer their grandchildren in general over their own children (their grandchildren's parents); if they specifically favor one grandchild over their other grandchildren, that still falls under this trope, but the two are not mutually exclusive. Can overlap with Nice to One if someone acts nice towards one of their kids and is rude in general. A Fair-Weather Family will switch who is the favorite and unfavorite is when convenient.

Example subpages:

Other examples:

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Advertising

Implied in an ad for Invisalign Teen. Twin teenagers both need braces; however, their parents get Invisalign for one daughter and regular braces for the other. The Un-Favourite spends the commercial complaining about all the limitations of her headgear, while the favored daughter gloats and rubs her face in how she doesn't have to deal with all those issues. Someone then takes a picture of the twins and makes a smart remark about finally being able to tell them apart.
The 2011 Mackenzie Foy - AT&T commercial television commercial. In this commercial, the son and daughter are sitting in front of a TV and only one more show can be recorded. They decide which child is going to get it, and they pick why they choose, the father then asks to say which child they favor the most, and both pick the daughter, of course, neither child actually cares, but then the father says to give it to the son instead, because that is all he going to get.
Another commercial for Guinness uses the same premise; two parents tell their adult son he's their least favorite child, to the point that he's not only under his siblings but also the dog and their fine china. But they buy him a case of Guinness to make up for it.
One pizza chain had an ad where the children ask their father about his preference for dinner, and he protests that trying to choose would be like trying to decide which of them was his favorite child. They persist, wanting to know what he wants for dinner, and he finally relents and declares, "Bobby."

Anime & Manga

In Blue Reflection Ray, Miyako Shirakaba is largely overlooked in favor of her older brother, whom is quite accomplished having several awards that line the shelves of her family's entryhall. The only thing of her's that was displayed was a family photo in a picture frame that she custom bedazzled. When her mother throws away th frame, it causes her emotions to start going rampant, leaving her open to attack by Uta and Niina.
Downplayed in Bokurano, as Jun and Kana Ushiro's father unintentionally favors the latter, his biological daughter, over the former, his adoptive son. He does love both his children, but he stays relatively distant from Jun, afraid that if he tries to get close and Jun rejects him, their relationship will never be the same. Mr. Ushiro is portrayed somewhat sympathetically for this trope, though, because he doesn't realize he's doing this until it's too late- namely, when he realizes that he took the news that Kana would have to pilot(which would end with her death even if she won), much worse than the news of the same thing happening with Jun, being devastated by the news and horrified by his own reaction. When Jun apologizes for being such "a bad son" all this time in his final conversation with his father, Mr. Ushiro replies that he's sorry for being a bad father.
Claudine: Auguste favored his youngest son among his three children because Claude was the one most similar to himself. Claude is said to be pretty much the "second coming" of Auguste.
Code Geass: Lelouch perceives himself and Nunnally as The Unfavourites to their father, The Emperor Charles zi Britannia, because their mother was a commoner. In reality, they're actually his favorite children because Marianne was the only woman he ever truly loved. He sent the kids to Japan to protect them from Marianne's "killer", their uncle V.V., and intended to have them be a part of the Assimilation Plot he, Marianne, and C.C. had devised. When Lelouch finds out about all this, he lets them have it.
The emperor and empress of the Misurugi Empire really set their eyes on their middle daughter, the titular character of Cross Ange. Which bites them in the ass in the very first episode.
Death Note: A minor example, but still there. Light's father Soichiro doesn't completely dismiss the possibility that Light could be Kira (which he is, but Soichiro goes to his grave without ever finding this out), but is adamantly certain that Light's little sister Sayu couldn't possibly be the killer.
Why Ken partially resented his older brother in Digimon Adventure 02. Not only was he the younger sibling, and thus overlooked for the firstborn, Osamu was also a child prodigy and a media darling. This ensured that Ken never got the kind of attention he desperately wanted from his parents. It didn't help matters much when Osamu died in an accident, and his parents were too caught up in their grief to notice Ken even after that. After he's manipulated into more or less selling his soul in the Digital World, he gains the prodigy aspect his brother had, and his parents apparently begin to love him... but only as a shadow of what they once had with Osamu. It took him vanishing into the Digital World with the intent to stay there permanently, then returning in the midst of a complete mental breakdown, for them to finally begin loving him as Ken.
Dragon Ball:
- In all media where Frieza's elder brother Cooler appears, it's made clear that King Cold favors Frieza over him. Cold never once mentions Cooler, even in passing, and in Cooler's Revenge, Cooler bitterly reflects that Frieza was a "little brat" and that Cold always spoiled him rotten.
- It's heavily implied that Bardock and Gine, Goku's parents, favored Goku over his older brother Raditz. In his debut special, Bardock never once thinks of Raditz, even in his dying moments, and in Minus and Broly, when they realize Frieza's plan to wipe out the Saiyans, their sole concern is ensuring Goku's escape and survival. The closest they show to any concern or regard for Raditz is Bardock asking where Raditz is when he arrived back on Vegeta on Frieza's orders, telling Goku that he'd also tell Raditz not to look at the moon, and lamenting that Raditz has to put up with "The Prince". Word of God reveals Gine at least was proud of Raditz being assigned to invade planets alongside Vegeta. Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 sadly confirms Bardock’s preference to Goku over Raditz as upon reuniting in a special event, Bardock is very cold towards his eldest son even telling him to shut up and Raditz being upset that his father didn’t even let him know that he was alive. Although Bardock does say he respects Raditz’s stubbornness.
Part of the backstory of Big Bad King of Gallia in The Familiar of Zero; his elder brother was the favorite for being better at everything. Then, in the old King's last moments, he named the younger his successor, due to the old king's insanity. Ecstatic, even knowing the true reason he was chosen, he went to rub it in his older brother's face. Unfortunately, the elder was honestly happy for his younger brother's success. This drove Joseph mad, and he ended up killing his older brother. So begins the tale of the mad king.
Fruits Basket:
- Played with in regards to Yuki and Ayame's mother. She openly favors Yuki over Ayame, but that's only because as the Rat of the Zodiac, Yuki is the closest to God and worth a lot of money and prestige whereas Ayame, the Snake, is much lower on the scale; she cares nothing for Yuki as a person and openly admits she only sees him as a Meal Ticket she can use to boost her wealth and social status. A rare case where being The Un-Favorite works in one's favor, as Ayame can enjoy far more freedom than Yuki.
- Even though Momiji's father had promised to love him even more to compensate for his mother forgetting him, he apparently changed his mind after Momiji's little sister Momo was born and seems to ignore Momiji in favor of his wife and daughter. Momo even got into the violin lessons she wanted at the cost of Momiji being forced to quit by their father, even though Momo wants to learn violin to play with Momiji.
- Machi was constantly pressured to be perfect by her mother, who largely viewed her as a Trophy Child who could inherit her husband's fortune... only to cast Machi out of the house once her younger son was born. Mrs. Kuragi openly tells a friend that Machi is "dull" and that she prefers her new baby boy because a male heir has better chances at getting the fortune.
Very messed-up example with the Homunculi of Fullmetal Alchemist, where Pride has that name in part, being the oldest, and the one whose personality represents Father in his purest form. Continuing the metaphor, the Anti-Villain Greed has a sort of "Well Done, Son" Guy relationship to Father and turned Defector from Decadence because he couldn't stand being second to anyone (being the least evil of the bunch also helped).
- In Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), this is the reason for Envy's hatred of the Elric brothers; he is the homunculus created by their father in an attempt to revive his firstborn son, and he was cast aside when he came back as a "monster".
- In the manga, a side story reveals that this existed between the Elric brothers themselves when they were quite small, as Edward was very jealous of his mother Trisha's love for the baby Alphonse. A neatly-delivered lesson from father Hohenheim changed his mind, however, and by the time of the main story they are absolutely devoted to one another.
Inverted in Gakuen Babysitters where it is the toddlers who prefer one parent over the other. Kirin prefers her mother as her father is often away on business trips (she calls him Papa-san, something she does not do with her mother). Kazuma and Takuma prefer their mother as they tend to get scared of their father's acting roles on television as they cannot tell the difference between reality and fiction. Taka exclusively interacts with his mother and doesn't even know he has a father (who left shortly after Taka was born).
In Girls und Panzer, Shiho Nishizumi favors Maho, her elder daughter and heir, over Miho, her younger daughter and the main character. A good example of this is when, in Little Army, she arrives after Miho and Maho's training battle and offhandedly says, "So Miho's here as well," before congratulating Maho on her tournament victory. Shiho disapproves of Miho so much that after hearing of her going to the semifinals against Pravda, she considers disowning her. However, once Miho defeats Maho in the finals, Shiho sighs, then smiles and starts clapping, which could indicate that her attitude is shifting.
Shui Long from Haou Airen is the most talented member of a very famous family of doctors, but his father passed him up in the family hierarchy despite his talent. He ended up allied with The Triads and the Tongs and as one of Hakuron's True Companions.
Hello Sandybelle: Honor hates Sandybelle because she never wanted to take care of someone else's child, but her husband made a promise to his best friend Leslie (Sandybelle's father). She favours her daughter Eva, and both team up to torment Sandybell knowing she has no one, being an orphan.
Played with in Hetalia: Axis Powers:
- At first, it looks like Grandpa Rome likes only his youngest grandson Veneziano and completely neglects older grandson Romano due to Veneziano having more talent than his brother, but it later turns out that he does visit Romano from the afterlife too. In fact, a Himaruya sketch shows Romano crying Tears of Joy... and then hiding because he doesn't want his Grandpa to see him cry.
- America also seems to be England's favorite ex-colony, especially compared to America's brother Canada. Though on the other hand, Canada is seen as The Reliable One and England asks him for advice rather than America.
Hunter × Hunter:
- Despite being the White Sheep of the Zoldyck family, Killua is the most beloved child of the family. His mother and his eldest brother love him too much, his relationship with his father is the best father-son-relationship in the whole family that is known, his younger sister and younger brother admire him, and the servants love him because Killua is nice to them. The only one who doesn't like him is the second eldest son, Milluki, who is a Fat Bastard, but even he admits that Killua is the best candidate to be the next heir of the family.
- 7th Queen Sevanti is more concerned about the safety of her youngest child 13th Prince Marayam than about her oldest child 12th Prince Momoze, which is why she never leaves Marayam's side. Two hours after the contest of succession has started, Sevanti assigns all of the bodyguards hired for Momoze to Marayam instead, stating that those bodyguards are meant for Marayam anyway, and she seems to think that Momoze could take care of herself, so she leaves her alone with only the six bodyguards that are assigned by the other queens. This ends tragically, thanks to Tuffdy, a bodyguard and spy working for 5th Queen Swinko-Swinko, strangling Momoze to death while she's completely alone in her bedroom, who on top of that has not enough aura left to keep her Guardian Spirit Beast manifested to protect her. When Sevanti learns about the attack on Momoze and her death, she accuses the six bodyguards who were supposed to protect her at that time of conspiracy of murder and wants them executed. We later see Sevanti looking devastated and mourning on multiple occasions while she continues to watch over her son Marayam.
Imaizumi Brings All the Gals to His House: Imaizumi's father has little hopes for him, compared to his brother Keichiro, because Keita needs to learn to be a man.
Inuyasha: The chip on Sesshoumaru's shoulder stems from the belief that he was The Un-Favourite to Inuyasha, to the extent where he actually believes his father was grooming Inuyasha to kill him. The situation between the brothers is eventually resolved when it becomes clear that their father understood the vulnerabilities of being half-human and just how powerful Sesshoumaru would one day become. His real desire was for Sesshoumaru to become a source of support and guidance for Inuyasha.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Phantom Blood: When Dio Brando comes to live with him, George Joestar I falls into this, punishing Jonathan harshly for every little mistake while essentially letting Dio do as he pleased. At the end of his life, he acknowledges that this was a mistake- in fact, he was stricter on Jonathan due to having higher standards for his biological son- and had he been tougher on Dio, perhaps he wouldn't have turned out as bad as he did.
- Stone Ocean: In Donatello Versus's backstory, his parents loved his sisters more than him, and didn't attempt to help him when he got arrested.
- Steel Ball Run: George favored Nicholas over Johnny for much of his life, something that became more blatant after Nicholas' death, culminating in him indirectly saying that Johnny should've died instead after a nasty fight between the two. He realizes just how unfair his treatment of Johnny was sometime before the final stretch of the race and publicly apologizes for his poor treatment him, declaring that he's proud of Johnny.
Ren Gyokuen in Magi: Labyrinth of Magic openly said that first prince Kouen (in actuality her nephew/stepson) was her "most loved son" while flirtatiously embracing him in front of the rest of her children, including her two biological children. Kouha disgustedly remarked how she used to fawn over Kouen and now wanted him to "replace" her recently dead husband.
Lady!!:
- Grandparent example: Duke Woburn prefers Sarah and lets her live at his castle because unlike Lynn (half-Japanese), she's fully white. Lynn instead has to live with her distant aunt, Isabelle Montgomery.
- Madeleine deliberately makes sure to give preferential treatment to Sarah, the Duke's favourite, to get into his good books. This is even though her plan is to send Sarah away to boarding school once she's married to her dad.
Maid-Sama!: Takumi Usui's half-brother, Gerald Walker, resents him because he thought that their deceased mother favored the former over the latter. Gerald was born to Patricia's arranged marriage with a British guy, while Takumi was born to an affair she had with her Japanese butler. However, the flashbacks made it clear that she loved both sons, even if she didn't love her husband. Also, Patricia's father very clearly favored Gerald over Takumi, seeing as how he refused to even recognize the latter as his grandson (he was conceived by adultery, after all).
March Comes in Like a Lion provides a rather interesting case. Rei's adoptive father, Kouda, leads a very shogi-centered life that extends even to his home. As such, his children's skill in shogi more-or-less determines the kind of attention he gives them. Unfortunately for Rei, he ends up as the most skilled, creating strained relationships between him and the biological children of the household, who became something of The Unfavourites.
Monster (1994): It is something that plagues Johan very intently. Which one of them was the unwanted one?
My Girlfriend Gives Me Goosebumps!: Downplayed. Kisaki and Airi's parents loved both of them equally, but unconsciously judged them as "number two" and "number one" respectively, since Airi was better than her sister in everyway. This is what caused Kisaki's obssession with being number one.
In the case of My Hero Academia's Shoto Todoroki, being the Favorite wasn't a good thing, as it led to Training from Hell by his father. Meanwhile, his older siblings were more or less discarded for not turning out how he wanted, but it also means they missed out on the horrible "training".
My Little Sister Stole My Fiancé: For whatever reason, Eliana's younger sister, Luna, was always favored by their parents. She never had to undertake training like Eliana did, and after Luna throws a fit for not getting to marry the prince, her father eventually swaps fiancées.
In Naruto:
- We see in the flashbacks that Fugaku Uchiha preferred his older, genius son Itachi to the younger Sasuke, saying several times to Sasuke that he wanted Sasuke to become a shinobi like Itachi.
  - The situation eventually turns around completely after Itachi is suspected of murdering Shisui which he did (except that he really didn't; Shisui really did commit suicide, albeit it, with Itachi's help). After Sasuke masters the fireball technique, Fugaku tells him not to follow Itachi's footsteps.
  - Turned around even earlier when Sasuke's mother Mikoto, who was rather close to Sasuke, told him that in public Itachi was the shining star, and Fugaku, in his capacity as head of the clan, was naturally concerned about him, due to his importance to the clan. In private, the only thing Fugaku talked about was Sasuke.
  - It's revealed in Chapter 590 that despite all this, they loved both their children. When Itachi came to kill them the night of the massacre, Mikoto assured him that his parents still loved him and that they fully understood his decision, while Fugaku asked Itachi to take care of Sasuke, and that regardless of their differences in beliefs and the paths they both took, he was still proud of him.
- Hiashi Hyuga preferred his younger daughter Hanabi, as he believed Hinata lacked any real talent, especially when compared to her genius cousin Neji (the son of Hiashi's twin brother). After Neji loses his fight against Naruto, Hiashi's attitude starts to change and he softens up to both Hinata and Neji.
- The Sage of Six Paths, Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, had two sons who served as potential successors. He initially favored his oldest son, Indra, since he initially showed more talent and aptitude for Ninshu (the predecessor to ninjutsu). However, he eventually chose his younger son, Ashura, to be his successor after his Magnetic Hero traits proved to be more supportive of Ninshu's purpose—bringing people together to achieve peace. In the present day, his spirit openly acknowledges that his favoritism was a mistake, one he refuses to repeat by passing on both his blessing and his powers to his sons' respective reincarnations: Sasuke and Naruto.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Gendo shows no love or affection to Shinji, but is almost uncharacteristically fond of Rei, who he treats as an adoptive daughter. The reason he's fond of Rei, however, is because she is a clone of his dead wife, and in the end, both the children are little more than pawns to him toward resurrecting her. Before his death, however, Gendo admits that he secretly held great love for Shinji in his heart but was simply too afraid to face it, and in his last words he says that he's sorry.
One Piece:
- Charlotte "Big Mom" Linlin's favorite child is one of her youngest daughters, the teenage Charlotte Pudding. Though Big Mom seems to only do so because of Pudding's Third Eye ^note since she thinks that, once it opens, it'll lead her to Laugh Tale and be her key to becoming the Pirate King. While Pud ding enjoys the perks of being spoiled rotten by her Evil Matriarch, she is annoyed of Big Mom constantly asking about if the third eye has opened yet. Plus a flashback shows that Big Mom was psychologically abusive to Pudding when she was a little girl, also for the Third Eye which she found disgusting.
- Squard accuses Whitebeard of this in the Marineford Arc. Due to his hatred of Gol D. Roger for killing his old crew, he was susceptible to Admiral Akainu's lie that Whitebeard was planning to sell out his allies in exchange for Ace's life. When Squard stabbed Whitebeard, he did so because he believed Whitebeard was willing to betray the rest of his "family" just to save his "precious" Ace. Squard is wrong, however, and Whitebeard proves that he loves all of his family to the point of hugging and forgiving Squard for stabbing him in the chest.
- Vinsmoke Judge is an exceptionally cruel example as he heavily favors his daughter Reiju and 3/4 of his sons Ichiji, Niji and Yonji over his third son Sanji. This mainly due to Bio-Augmentation failing to turn Sanji into a Super-Soldier due his mother's Sora interference as she wished for her sons to keep their humanity instead being ruthless killing machines. After Sora dies over keeping Sanji's humanity, Judge treats Sanji like absolute shit and doesn't lift a finger to protect him from his brothers. Judge even imprisons Sanji and acts like he doesn't exist while adoring his other children◊. He doesn't care in the slightest when Sanji escapes to East Blue. Thankfully this all comes back to bite Judge in the ass as when Big Mom is about to have Judge along with his super children assassinated he breaks down in blubbering tears and sees Ichiji, Niji, and Yonji unable to share his sorrow at their imminent demise all because of him. Ironically Sanji is the only child Judge can connect to, as they're both normal human beings (Sanji being albeit a Badass Normal) though this just makes Judge despise his third son more.
  - On the flip side Sora favors Sanji over her other sons (due to the reasons above), even when Reiju her daughter whom Sora clearly also cares about comes to her on her sickbed, Sora just talks to Reiju about how much she loves Sanji.
Imposed by the premise of Ōoku: The Inner Chambers, in which 17th-century Japan is ravaged by a plague that only targets men, leaving only one man for every four women. Thus sons can expect better treatment than daughters since the plague only stops hitting men who reach forty, and die very frequently. And in the more unhinged families, can result in Parental Incest as well.
Ouran High School Host Club:
- Ootori Kyouya is a victim of a subtle version. As the youngest of three sons in a rich family, he is expected by his father to perform at respectable standards, but never to do anything to one-up his brothers, who will inherit the Ootori business empire.
- Kyouya's sister, Fuyumi, seems to get this treatment to some extent. She's admonished for returning home when she is happily married and has no real business to be there. This has the Ootori family fulfill two of the criteria. She, however, seems to ignore it and act cheery nonetheless, going out with Tamaki on occasion to explore the world of commoner cuisine.
In +Anima, the Royal Family of Sailand is a perfect example of Favoritism. In fact, it's most likely why Husky was named Crown Prince out of birth order.
Ranma ½: Kasumi is clearly Soun Tendo's favourite child. This is because she helped him raise her little sisters, and the image song Otousan (Father) performed by Soun and Kasumi's seiyuu states that he feels rather guilty about it.
Rosario + Vampire:
- Akasha and Gyokuro love their own respective blood-related daughters more than the other daughters. While Akasha loves her stepdaughters, too, Gyokuro loves only Kahlua; she distrusts Akua because Akua is adopted and only keeps her around because Akua is useful to her plans, and hates both Moka and Kokoa, the latter being her other blood-related daughter, to the extent that she tried to murder them.
- Among the Shuzen sisters, Moka is the most beloved one. Akua is a Yandere for her, Kahlua loves all of her sisters, and Kokoa loves her because Moka is the only one in the family who treats her with respect.
Taken to extremes in Saiyuki. Gojyo is a 'child of taboo,' raised by his stepmother and half-brother. She eventually attempted to kill him, but her biological son killed her first.
Sakura Discord has a strange and pretty disturbing example with Mebuki Sakura. Being a Child Prodigy for piano, her parents put way too much pressure on her, which resulted in her hating piano and said parents feeling incredibly guilty for it. So they started to unreasonably spoil her and forgive all of her mistakes and whims, but their introduction scene shows that this is not a healthy relationship by any means. She considers herself dead inside. To make it worse, her big brother Shin'ya tries to isolate her even more so that they will finally give up on her and focus their attention on him.
She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat: Kasuga was always underfed based on gender alone. Her relatives always gave her the scraps and dregs of meals, with the bigger food portions for her brother.
In Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, Gozaburo favored his biological son Noah than his adoptive son Seto, at first. But Noah, whose body is dead and his mind is copied in a virtual world, was later ignored by his father, and Gozaburo furthered Seto who had more natural talent than Noah ever had. And of course, Noah's childish personality made it impossible to become an heir of Gozaburo. Well, after being betrayed by Seto, he doesn't give a crap for any of his sons. The other adoptive son Mokuba was always ignored by Gozaburo.

Asian Animation

Lamput: Inverted. In the episode "Boss'stache", it's shown that the Boss's dad didn't pay attention to him when he was a child, giving all the love to his two siblings due to them having mustaches when the Boss didn't.

Audio Play

The Morgue Files: Evelyn Adams never made it ambiguous which of her two children she loved the most, doting on her oldest child Millie to the point where she nearly neglects Tobias. It gets worse after she marries Frank.

Comic Books

Batman: Not originally, with Batman being equally amicable to his wards around the Silver to Bronze ages, but due to Flanderization, this has since become part of his character trait.
- Dick Grayson (Robin I/Nightwing) has been noted to be Batman's favored son, being the first Robin, the easiest to get along with, and, as Batman himself notes, possessing the qualities none of the other Robins will ever have. He understands Bruce's teachings the most, came into his own as a hero, and, while sometimes as skilled as Bruce, can still make friends and keep them, something Bruce can struggle with. It's to the point that Bruce has shown an absolute willingness to kill for him multiple times, something writers rarely depict Bruce attempting to do for his other allies. After Bruce "died" in Final Crisis, Dick became Batman against his wishes. When he returned, he reacted pretty well to it, to the point that it's just common knowledge among the Batfamily that Dick will take over when Bruce is unable to be Batman. Although Bruce tries to hide it, it's basic knowledge in the modern DCU that Dick is Bruce's favorite child.
- Bruce also treats his sometimes adopted daughter, Cassandra Cain, with some favoritism. He gives Cassandra her own Batcave, expects her to eventually take his place as Gotham's protector, and generally showers her with praise. The favoritism gets to a point that when Damian, Bruce's biological son, meets her, he is immediately hostile (even though, having been raised as a League of Assassins member, he knows that she's supposed to be their chosen one) because Bruce chose her over him. It's heavily implied that this treatment is because he is projecting onto Cassandra, treating her more like a miniature version of himself rather than her own person, which Barbara Gordon (the first Batgirl) calls him out on several times.
Black Panther has T'Chaka clearly display favoritism for T'Challa, his heir and a biological son. He didn't seem to really care about Shuri and began to ignore Hunter (his adopted, white son) as soon as T'Challa was born.
Darkseid treats all his children terribly, but the one he actually respects and "likes'' is Orion. While he is on the side of good and serving Highfather, putting in opposition to Darkseid, Orion is the strongest and most competent out of his offspring. Because of this, Darkseid respects him as a Worthy Opponent.
The Flash:
- Barry Allen (the second Flash) became the adoptive father of Wally West (the first Kid Flash and third Flash). He essentially raised Wally alongside Iris West, after Wally's parents divorced. After Barry marries Iris, they have two twins, the Tornado Twins, who they raise in the future. The twins have a tense relationship with Wally because they feel like Barry always considered Wally his "real" son. They're actually not far off — Wally is Barry's Berserk Button and he's gone to great lengths for Wally whenever he felt Wally needed him. Knowing that he was going to die and his mantle would pass on to Wally, Barry found three days in Wally's life when he would need Barry, and time-travelled to those times to help his protégé before his own death. When Wally was forgotten by the world and returned, Barry outright threatens Aquaman when he doubts Wally's sincerity. When Barry thinks Wally may have been killed by Booster Gold, he mercilessly beats the shit out of Booster, then runs across time and into the Speed Force to try to find Wally. Finally, when Barry finds out that Wally's heinous actions at the superhero therapy centre Sanctuary were the result of Eobard Thawne hypnotising Wally into doing these things — and Thawne had corrupted the Tornado Twins in the same story without this reaction from Barry — he chases Thawne across the timeline, screaming that he'll murder him.
- Jai West, the son of the aforementioned Wally West, thinks that Wally feels this way towards Irey West. When both siblings had incomplete connections to the Speed Force, this wasn't an issue for Jai — he had temporary super strength, while Irey could phase. Both would be teleported to their dad if he thought of them hard enough, and basically be "tethered" to him if he used his superspeed. However, after their Speed Force connections were sabotaged and threatened to kill them, Irey stole Jai's share thinking she was pulling a Heroic Sacrifice. Instead, the connection was repaired and resulted in Irey gaining full access to the Speed Force, while Jai was left depowered. As a result, he began to resent Irey for getting more attention from Wally — while Wally didn't intend to display favouritism, having to help Irey with her powers just meant spending more time with her. There were even hints and plans for Jai to become a villain and the second Turtle, likely as a result of this. However, those plans never materialised, and although Jai still sometimes feels this way even after his super strength powers were restored, he's learned to manage it better.
In The Kingdom, Wally West has two kids: Barry and Iris West. Both inherited his superspeed, but are vastly different in how they use them. Barry is a slacker who uses them for petty reasons, though not anything illegal. Meanwhile, Iris took up Wally's old identity of Kid Flash and is actively a superhero. However, Wally clearly favours Barry and constantly drives him to be the next Flash. It takes its toll on Iris, and Barry knows it. It may have something to do with his name even, since Barry Allen, the second Flash and Wally's mentor is someone Wally has never stopped looking up to.
In Lucky Luke, Ma Dalton constantly dotes on her youngest son, Averell, while just as constantly giving her oldest, Joe, a hard time. She later admits that Joe is actually her favorite; he's the smartest and reminds her so much of their father, and Ma is only hard on him because she expects so very much of him. Averell, however, will always be her baby.
The Mighty Thor: Thor is clearly his father's Odin's favorite, to the point that in Fear Itself, he is willing to destroy the entire Earth for Thor's sake. He never goes that far for Loki, Tyr or even Baldur. His wife Freyja consistently seems to ignore most of their (from her perspective mostly adopted) children not named Thor, save for Aldrif/Angela (her long believed dead biological daughter), and in the 2010s she becomes emotionally abusive towards Loki in his books (though she does come to regret it). It's worth noting, however, that being Odin's favourite is a considerable burden on Thor as he also bears the weight of a) his father's expectations, b) his emotional constipation and Generational Trauma, and the two have tried quite hard to kill each other in the past.
Robin (1993): Mary Quintas eventually decided the best way to win her deranged family's serial killer competition was to kill her brothers and their families since her mom continued to favor them even after they'd been caught and incarcerated while she continued to get away with her murders.
Rogue Sun has one from a serial absentee father. Marcus Bell, the superhero Rogue Sun, was married to a woman named Gwen Siegel and had a son with her, Dylan. He abandoned them when Dylan was 2-years-old, just long enough for Dylan to remember having Marcus in his life, the result being that, when Dylan is 17 when Marcus dies, he still severely resents him. Marcus married another woman, Juliette, and had two children with her: Aurie and Brock, who he didn't parent very much, either, but was still in their lives. In his will, he leaves his powers and mantle to Dylan specifically because he doesn't care about his safety compared to Aurie and Brock. Marcus' spirit also tells Dylan that he believes Brock could've played a hand in his death, and tells Dylan that Brock always unsettled him a bit. With Aurie, when she stopped talking to him for weeks because he missed one of her birthdays, Marcus revealed his identity to her and explained why he was so absent, and even let her help him with his work. This makes Aurie Marcus' favourite by default, but his favourite nonetheless, since he didn't completely ignore her like the others and did care about her feelings.
Supergirl story The Battle of the Super-Pets!: Variant. When Supergirl's pet cat Streaky sees Kara petting Superman's pet dog Krypto, Streaky assumes Kara likes Krypto the most, becomes jealous and picks a fight with Krypto.
Ultimate Spider-Man (2000): Harry Osborn, despite being an only child. His father Norman Osborn sees Harry's friend Peter as being more gifted, intelligent, and hardworking, often chiding Harry for not being as successful as Peter. This dynamic wasn't present in the original comics, but was put in afterwards after the success of the other iterations. It gets even worse for Harry, as not only does Norman favor his Arch-Enemy over him, but he also cares more about his grandson Normie. Norman even chooses to infect Normie with the Carnage symbiote and tries to get him to kill his own parents before Harry and Peter stop them. The reason why Norman prefers others over his own son is likely due to Norman's own twisted Might Makes Right philosophy that is at odds with Harry, who is all-around meek Nice Guy with no superpowers or gifted intellect, so naturally he doesn't fit Norman's evil values.
In The Technopriests, Panepha openly favors Almagro over his siblings Albino and Onyx, mainly because Albino is, as his name suggests, an albino and Onxy has red skin and four arms.
Wonder Woman Vol 1: Out of her one surviving biological son and three adopted daughters "Grandma" Heyday clearly favors Tillie, as she is the most practical and kind of her children, and is even leaving everything to her in her will though she expects Tillie to look after her irresponsible sisters with the money. When her son, who lost his mother's favor due to his criminal behavior, learns of this he decides to kidnap Tillie and force her to sign over her inheritance at gunpoint before trying to kill all three of his sister/nieces.
X-Men:
- Usually averted with Charles Xavier and his students, with him displaying equal affection to all of them, even the rebellious ones. However, it is clear that he has some favorites. The foremost being Jean Grey, who is a telepath like himself and the one who he particularly dotes on and helps with her psychic powers. Cyclops is his second favorite student and his favorite male X-Man, given he chose Scott to be The Leader of the team, sometimes such as in Secret Wars (1984) the professor will elect Scott to lead the X-Men even though Storm was technically the leader at that point, causing Storm to accuse him of favoritism. Overall Xavier seems to partially prefer his original five X-Men (Cyclops, Jean, Beast, Iceman, and Angel) over his other students, though this did come back to bite him as 4/5 of his favorite five have turned evil: Jean and Scott due to being driven mad by trauma and the burden of the Phoenix Force, Angel due to Apocalypse, and Beast suffered steady Sanity Slippage and declining morals from approximately the New X-Men era, that got turbo-charged after House of M when he started chucking all his morals to try and get results. This is made even worse by the fact that Scott killed him.
- Magneto cares more about Scarlet Witch than Quicksilver as he never truly gives Pietro praise and considers him foolish and arrogant. While he sets a high standard for his son, he is more affectionate with Wanda and blames Pietro if they go against him, even if it was her choice. However, Magneto may actually equally favour his biological daughter Lorna Dane aka Polaris, due to Lorna inheriting his magnetism powers. Magneto even displays outright physical affection to Lorna (including forehead kissing), something Pietro and Wanda rarely get from him. Still, X-Men Red (2022) suggests neither Wanda or Lorna are actually his favourite daughter, an honour that goes to Anya, Magneto's deceased first child, despite her being completely human. However, the emphasis on her may be because of the reveal just beforehand via the creation of the Waiting Room by Wanda at the end of The Trial Of Magneto that she was human and therefore can't be resurrected.
- Mystique zigzags this trope with her children, on the surface it seems she cares for her adoptive daughter Rogue more than her biological son Nightcrawler, often going to great lengths to get Rogue back on her side when she defects from the Brotherhood to the X-Men and later on willing to kill a baby (Hope Summers) so long as it revives Rogue. However, at other times Mystique treats Rogue the worst out of her children, having slapped, stabbed, and shot her adoptive daughter on multiple occasions. While neglecting Nightcrawler, having abandoned him to be raised by other people, and apart from dropping him as a baby, she rarely physically hurts Nightcrawler, especially in modern comics, and was happy to see him alive after his resurrection. In AXIS where Mystique, thanks to Red Skull and Professor X, is completely good, she does everything in her power to protect Nightcrawler, which is interesting considering she does the exact opposite normally. Overall she tries harder to be affectionate to Rogue but appears to respect Kurt as an individual more while treating Rogue in comparison like personal property alongside her other mother Destiny. It is it’s safe to say she prefers both her mutant children over her other human son, Graydon Creed, who was born a normal human and whom she ruthlessly killed without regret when he became an Anti-Mutant activist. Even Sabretooth was appalled at Mystique's treatment of their son. In the case of Nightcrawler, this behaviour is explained by her having had Xavier partially remove some of the memories to protect her and him, but wanting to keep some of them so as to remember him - he even warned her about how badly this could go, but she was adamant.
- An odd case is Thomas Logan, the biological father of Wolverine. When he was alive, he didn't care about James (it's unclear if he knew Wolverine was his child) or Dog, but when Wolverine ends up in Hell, he meets Thomas for the first time. Thomas gives him, of all things, a "Well Done, Son" Guy moment, because Logan has become a violent bastard who's killed thousands, and Thomas can respect that. He makes zero mention of Dog.
- Jean Grey loves all three of her children dearly (Stryfe was neither raised by her nor, technically, biologically her child, since he's a clone of Cable who was the son of her clone). She's affectionate, motherly, supportive, and where necessary, violently protective of them. However, she has a consistently stronger rapport with Cable and Nate Grey than Rachel Summers. This is partially justified, since she actually raised Cable, and Rachel first turned up when she was dead - once she came back, the two had complicated feelings for each other. ^note They eventually reconciled, though by that point, Rachel generally needed less mothering. Nate, by contrast, turned up when she was alive and was actively (albeit subconsciously) seeking out his mother, and more open to developing a relationship with her, but also more than willing to give her space. Plus, her experience with Rachel had probably done a great deal to help her adjust to the appearance of unexpected children.
- In X-Men: Forever (2024), it was revealed that Hope was conceived as part of a Stable Time Loop by Jean via the medium of the Phoenix Force - "by the Phoenix Force and my love." While she generally hasn't had too much to do with Hope, she is very fond of her and treats her as family, given that she's also her adopted granddaughter, including comforting her over Cable's death. However, child number four already has parental figures and is generally less in need of mothering.
In Y: The Last Man, Yorick and his sister Hero both think their father preferred the other sibling. It's unclear whether either of them is right.
Spider-Man 2099: Of course the Big, Screwed-Up Family has favouritism in spades.
- George's favourite son was Miguel because Miguel is good at science while Gabriel is an artist, which George thought to be a useless profession. So he pushed Miguel towards his interests while being neglectful towards Gabriel, but at the same time he used to beat Miguel (his favourite) if he did anything that George didn't like. This was out of selfishness as he thought that Miguel's genius intellect would be George's key to promotion. Pretty ironic considering George's boss is Miguel's biological father. Both sons completely loathe their father, and even with his death the resentment hasn't faded.
- Conchata's favourite son is Gabriel who she sees as a more sensitive soul, while she repeatedly tells Miguel that he's too similar to his father, and keeps beating him even as an adult. Though even if she likes Gabriel more it's not clear if she's really good at being a mother.
- Out of his two sons, Tyler Stone's favourite is Miguel; yes, the same Miguel as above. Even though he views Miguel as a tool at best, at least he treats him better than his legitimate son Kron, who received the full Ashes to Crashes treatment from him. Among other things. Not that Miguel likes Stone in any capacity.

Fairy Tales

"Cinderella": The stepmother's ill-treatment stems from her desire to elevate her daughters above Cinderella.
Franz Xaver von Schönwerth's "Follow Me, Jodel!": The old farmer has two sons, Michael and Jodel. He is fonder of Jodel because he has a good heart, even though he is less bright than his brother, to the point he hopes to leave his farm to Jodel, even though he is the younger son. Michael is understandably not happy about it.
In "Mother Holle", the widow favors her lazy daughter over the hard-working one because the former is her own offspring.
In "Morozko", the old woman pampers her biological daughter and mistreats her stepdaughter.
In "The Three Little Men in the Wood", the stepmother has her birth daughter completely pampered and spoiled whereas she hates her stepsister to death.

Fan Works

Advice and Trust: Subverted. Rei is Gendo's favorite. However, Asuka realizes that it does not stop him from treating her like crap. Finding out what Rei's life is like helps Asuka to get over her jealousy.
Asuka didn't say anything for a minute. "She's the Commander's pet, his favorite," she said in a low voice. "Not you, his own son. Not me, the top scorer. Her. She's the one he likes. And they've got her taking so many tranquilizers and dissociatives I'm amazed she was even able to get angry enough to slap you. That amount of drugs has to be making her nearly a robot. That's the kind of cocktail you give to someone you want to keep totally pliable, un-argumentative, too doped up to care about anything... someone you want to make into a doll." Asuka shuddered. "If they can do that to the Pilot they like, what do they think of us?"
Auditors, Contracts, and Social Worker: Kobeni's father dotes on her brother as the "heir", but dismisses her and her sisters as worthless. At her high school graduation, she was informed that they wouldn't be sending her to college so that they could save for her little brother. Nobana, however, isn't quite sure he actually wants the path that their father is laying out for him, but is clearly well aware that his father's favor is fickle, and is terrified of defying him.
Better Bones AU:
- Tigerstar favors his children by Goldenflower over his younger litter, as shown when he intervenes to spare the life of Flametail, his grandson through Tawnypelt, despite him knowing about the Dark Forest's plans and threatening to take the knowledge with him to StarClan. Hawkfrost realizes he would never do this with Mothwing, a realization that helps trigger his Heel–Face Turn.
- Graystripe favors his older litter Feathertail and Stormfur over his kits with Millie despite the former two being respectively dead and living far away, alienating his younger children with how he is always comparing them to his older kits.
Child of the Storm:
- Carol's father favours his youngest child, Joe junior, over his quiet and artistic middle child, Stevie, and his tomboyish daughter, Carol, because Joe is The All-American Boy and thus fits his heavily gendered expectations for how his children should behave. Stevie wilts under this treatment, while Carol straight up hates him. However, neither has any real issues with Joe junior, because he's nine and a textbook case of Children Are Innocent.
- As for Marie, Carol's mother, she loves all her children equally even with her initial difficulties with Carol, but it's hinted that she has the strongest rapport with Stevie, who's quieter, more mild-mannered, and the odd one out - much like Marie is in her family.
- After Hermione figures out that she's Wanda's biological daughter in the sequel, she strongly suspects that Harry - her best friend and Wanda's godson - is her mother's favourite. She's got good reasons for believing this: Wanda avoids her as much as possible, treats her with distant politeness, and has to be visibly arm-twisted by Strange into teaching Hermione how to master chaos magic, while showering attention and affection on Harry. However, the situation is a bit more complicated than it seems.
  - In a nutshell: Hermione was Happily Adopted and Wanda avoided her for the same reason she gave her up, to stop her from becoming a target - and giving her up hurt. Harry, meanwhile, needed a Parental Substitute, and when his dad turned out to be an incarnation of Thor, was such a target that her involvement made no difference.
  - However, there is indicated to be some truth to it; a few characters muse that while Wanda probably loves both equally, Hermione's startling resemblance to her mother and shared powers remind Wanda of two extremely painful periods in her life (when her powers came through and nearly drove her mad, and when she had to give up Hermione). This plus her relatively uncomplicated relationship with Harry makes him easier to love. To Wanda's credit, she comes to acknowledge and is ashamed of her unintentional Double Standard, apologizing to Hermione for letting her fears get in the way of doing right by her daughter.
Children Of Evangelion: Yosuke and Mai are convinced that their little sister Miya is their parents' favorite, even if Shinji and Asuka will never admit it out loud.
Danny Phantom: Stranded: Stella seems guilty of preferring Colette over Star, which makes it even more tragic since Star is her biological child. Thankfully, it's subverted later on, as she becomes more aware of Colette's cruel deeds and begins punishing her accordingly. Stella also makes an effort to repair her relationship with Star.
Doing It Right This Time: Subverted. Gendo loves Rei more than Shinji... However, Gendo being Gendo, it only means he treats her in a slightly less crappy fashion.
Subverted in For His Own Sake, where Naru thinks her mother and stepfather prefer her stepsister Mei over her. The truth is Naru's such an extremely Spoiled Brat who grew accustomed to people doing everything for her when she was a sick little girl that she can't handle having to share affection in her family. Mei simply existing in their household is enough for Naru to think her parents don't love her enough. Naru proclaims no one cares about her even as her family tries to bail her out of jail and beg her to come home with them, finding it offensive that her parents would try to console Mei after Naru lashes out at the girl and calls her pushy and rude. This ends up becoming true for real as Naru's behavior disgusts her mother and stepfather so much they refuse to let her come back when she shamelessly expects them to welcome her home after's arrested for kidnapping Keitaro, with Mei herself turning her back on her sister after the terrible things she said and did.
First Hoof Account: Celestia has two fillies under her care, Sunset Shimmer and Cadance, and it's incredibly obvious that she favours the alicorn Cadance over Sunset. In fairness, part of it can be blamed on Sunset's incredibly distrusting and rebellious attitude, but Celestia isn't exactly making it better by showering Cadance in praise and affection while outright telling Sunset she's a distraction.
Gaz Dreams of Genie: Professor Membrane thinks Dib is insane, but he still favors him over Gaz. While Dib is obsessed with the paranormal, he's also intelligent, driven, and well-intentioned, which are all traits Gaz lacks. When Gaz wishes to a genie that Dib was never born, only having Gaz as a child caused Membrane to lose faith in humanity entirely and sell Earth out to Zim.
Ghosts of Evangelion: Misato took Shinji and Asuka in. Shinji was Misato's favorite and she favored him blatantly. Asuka is quite resentful about it. After Third Impact Misato admits that she made a mistake.
Difficult to Endure, Sweet to Remember: After going back to the past and talking to Misato, Asuka seethes about Misato fawning over Shinji, wondering where their guardian's concern and caring attitude went when Asuka was spiraling down into committing suicide.
Innocent (MarauderLover7): Petunia is sitting nearby, pointedly ignoring Dudley pulling Harry's hair while Harry shouts for him to stop (which gains a momentary glance from her before she returns to her magazine). Then Harry pinches Dudley's arm to make him let go, and suddenly Petunia is running over in response to Dudley's howls, kissing it better, chastising Harry for having hair long enough for Dudley to pull, and telling him that he can't come home "until you've thought about what you've done." Harry doesn't get particularly worked up about this, as it's typical behaviour for her.
In Your Wildest Dreams: Played with; Ruby and Yang have a great relationship with each other, but they're both convinced that the other one is the favorite of their parents, in no small part due to having different mothers. Yang insists that while Summer was a good mother to her, she clearly doted on Ruby more. Meanwhile, Ruby thinks of herself as a poor substitute for her mother, who herself was a replacement for Yang's mother, and that Yang can do no wrong. Since one of the key themes of the story is how people's self-image is heavily distorted, it's very difficult to get a clear read on what actually happened. None of their parents appear in the story, so there are no more objective sources than two girls and their self-loathing.
The King Nobody Wanted: Garth Tyrell is more fond of his Otherys daughters in Braavos than his Flowers sons in Highgarden, and makes no particular effort to hide this fact.
Garth: [in front of his son Garse] Daughters are such a treasure, I find, even if sons are so often a burden and a disappointment.
The Palaververse: When talking about Zebrican religion:
Mother Neighle['s] three children[:] The spirits of Sun, Sand, and Sweet Water. [...] Sweet Water, Mother Neighle’s favoured child and only daughter.
Remnant's Blonde Bard: Discussed. Juniper Arc doesn't pick favorites, but notes that Jaune feels special as her only son.
Shigeko Kageyama AKA Mob Ritsu is the obvious favorite in the family. He resents his status as the favorite because it means that he has expectations his sister, (genderswapped) Mob, will never have to live up to and he isn't free to make a single choice for himself.
Star Trek: Phoenix: Discussed and deconstructed. One of the root issues for Twilight's conflict with Sunset in the second season is that Twilight believes that their adoptive mothers favored Sunset over her.
The Third Coffin: Adam is the favorite child of Renee, and despite that, she still doesn't treat him any better than the other two. She at least doesn't force Andrew to take care of him, but she doesn't try to actually give Adam anything he likes, have some good time with him or even let him communicate with his other siblings.
Tokyo Mew Mew No Hope Left has this trope in spades at the beginning. The protagonist's parents are described as preening her older sister and sending her to a fancy school while forgetting that our heroine exists.
When She Smiles (Fresh C): Deconstructed. When Misato tries to stop Shinji from looking for a missing Asuka, Shinji calls her out on always favoring him over her...which, as far as he is concerned, means she did not really care for any of them.
Subverted in X-Men: The Early Years. Scott is convinced that Jean is Xavier's favorite student. In fact, when Jean's father expresses his concerns as to the presence of a kid with a criminal record in the school, Xavier replies if he had to choose between keeping Scott and taking Jean in... Well, he is the only father figure Scott has left.
Played with in Empath: The Luckiest Smurf. The other Smurfs think Papa Smurf treats Empath as the favorite son. It helps that Empath is Papa Smurf's only biological son. Empath, however, feels that he is more The Un-Favourite, as Papa Smurf does nothing to get him out of living a life away from his fellow Smurfs in Psychelia.
In a Harry Potter fanfic where Sirius Black has two children, a boy and a girl to be more precise, their mother favors the girl over the boy because he looks like Sirius and she thinks Sirius is guilty.
In Imaginary Seas, this is weaponized in the form of Percy's Noble Phantasm: Poseidon Asphalios: An Ocean of Blessings for the Most Beloved. As Poseidon's favorite son, he has his full blessings on top of the skills of all of the other sons of Poseidon but better. This is why he has an A+ Rank in Stout Arm of Brutality, his father's armor, Divine Core, and trident, and the same invulnerability as Caenis.
In the Soul Eater fanfic Oblivion, Medusa claims that when she and her sisters were children, she was their mother's favorite, Arachne was their father's favorite, and Shaula was The Un-Favourite. Based on their mother's behavior in Shaula's flashback (where she treated Shaula kindly and intended to punish Medusa for bullying her), this is likely not true. That doesn't stop the claim from being Shaula's Berserk Button.
Subverted in The Second Try. Asuka used to believe that Shinji was their caretaker Misato's favorite, but during a heart-to-heart talk she admits that maybe she misunderstood Misato's behavior.
In How the Light Gets In, Laurel knows that her parents do love her, but between her mother's actions (see Arrow below) and her father's drunken rants making it clear he wishes she died instead of Sara, realizes that they both love Sara more. Her mother, Dinah, takes it to extremes. Laurel recalls Dinah has only come to one of Mary's (Laurel's daughter, and her granddaughter) birthdays... and it was only because she thought Sara would be there. To the point that Laurel is hesitant to have more than one child because she's terrified she'll do this too. Notably, this doesn't affect her relationship with Sara (whom she still loves dearly), and Sara herself seems to be unaware of it.
In the Drake & Josh fanfic Into the Darkness, Drake and Meghan's biological father shows this to extreme levels. He clearly has adored Meghan since she was born and uses pet names like "sweetie" or "angel" whenever he talks about her. Drake on the other hand he hates for being born, among other nonsensical reasons such as "got me sent to jail for killing my boss" and "looking like me", and wants him dead, even being willing to take matters into his own hands, spending nearly a week torturing Drake until he breaks emotionally and comes within an inch of death.
Misty suffered a lot of this in Pokémon Reset Bloodlines. Her parents constantly pampered her older sisters, while they treated her as little more than a servant, as she had been an unplanned child and had no interest in the performing arts like the rest of her family. Things just got worse for her after she was revealed as a bloodliner, and the only reason they didn't get rid of her was to avoid bad press.
SAO: Mother's Reconciliation: Asuna ends up believing her mother favors Kouichirou over her, especially after Kyouko makes the mistake of comparing the siblings' accomplishments. This ends up spurring on her decision to run away from home.
Asuna: You already have your perfect son who's the very definition of success himself! So why don't you stop wasting your time on a failure like me and focus all your attention on him?!
In RWBY Alternate, Taiyang began favoring Ruby over Yang after Summer died due to Ruby's Strong Family Resemblance to her mother. As a result, Yang and Ruby have a distant relationship (mainly on Yang's side).
In Blackbird (Arrow):
- Even before the Gambit sank, Laurel was aware that both of her parents favored Sara, even if she (Laurel) was the one they were proud of. Quentin because she was the baby of the family, Dinah because Sara reminded her of herself when she was younger. Her mother, however, takes it to extremes. She goes as far as to blame Laurel for what happened to Sara just because she was the one who was dating Oliver and brought him into their lives, and uses it to justify trading Laurel for Sara to the League of Assassins. Dinah refuses to admit that Sara's choices were her own and she only has herself (and unbeknownst to everyone, Malcolm Merlyn) to blame for what happened. She's also a deconstruction of this trope because it becomes clear that Dinah is a terrible parent in general, and Sara being her favorite does not exclude her from her mother's emotional abuse, no matter how unintentional it is.
- Nyssa tries to comfort Laurel by commenting that she also knows what it is like to be the unfavorite child. Presumably, she has too much of a soul to be a "good" heir.
The Bloods of Bolton:
- It could not be more clear that Roose heavily favors Drucilla over her other siblings. He dotes on her, encourages her sadistic tendencies, and refuses to punish her for her actions. He also treats her with more fairness than most fathers in Westeros society would by letting her attend his council meetings.
- Bethany tends to have more favor for Domeric. Granted, she's tried being a loving mother to her daughter, but Drucilla's growing hatred for her mother and her psychotic tendencies put a lid on all her attempts.
In Junior Officers, Deborah's father favours her brother David over her and her sister Margaret because of his gender.
One step backwards and Three forwards: Gabriel prefers Felix over Adrien, treating the elder brother as his heir apparent while largely ignoring his second son. What's particularly twisted about this is that Felix is Adrien, in a sense — reality was rewritten by the villains' Wishes, and Adrien's memories ended up in Felix while the 'new' Adrien remained as Lila's trophy boyfriend. It's implied that part of the reason he favors Felix is because he's written his other son off as nothing more than an Unwitting Pawn to keep Lila happy.
In Three Can Keep a Secret, it turns out that the Pines parents tended to prioritize Mabel's feelings and were largely dismissive of Dipper's throughout the twins' childhood, and this had a significant negative effect on both children's development, contributing to both Mabel's obliviously self-centered perspective and Dipper's deep insecurities.
In Njal Gets Burned, Njal openly favours his foster-son Hoskuld over any of his biological sons, even going so far as to state this out loud in court. Obviously, his sons resent this.
moral of the story (Nyame): Both Quentin and Dinah heavily favor Sara over Laurel, to the point of using Sara's fate to actively abuse and neglect her. After the poor handling of Sara's return helps drive Laurel to suicide, a drunken Quentin guiltily switches his favoritism to Laurel and begins disparaging Sara instead. That does absolutely nothing to improve their relationship as Laurel still loves Sara, and she instead takes it as a sign that she needs to cut ties with him.
Syngenesophobia
- Rita admits that she holds Lincoln close to her heart. Partly because she considers having a son to be a pleasant change with having so many daughters, and partly because she doesn't want him to feel lonely being her only son. She also admits that out of her daughters she is closest to Lori and Leni, since as her two eldest she needs to prepare them for when they will soon be adults.
- Lynn Sr. originally thought he was closer to his son than his daughters since they were the only men in the house. A few pointed questions from Dr. Lopez however and he realizes he really isn't as close to his only boy as he'd like to be. He admits to Dr. Lopez that he feels closer to his more "tomboyish" daughters (Luna^notebecause of their shared love of music, Luan^notebecause they share the same humor, Lynn Jr.^notebecause of their shared love of sports and Lana^noteas he teaches her how to fix things). Lincoln later shares the sentiment that he and his father don't really do much together.

Film — Animated

Cinderella:
- Lady Tremaine favors her biological daughters far more than Cinderella, to the point of treating Cinderella like a lowly servant.
- Between her biological daughters, she seems to favor Anastasia more than Drizella, but at the end of the day, they're both just tools to her.
Encanto: A grandparent example. Matriarch Alma enforces this trope over two generations, both with her own children and grandchildren. In both cases, her favoritism is based on the gifts they received from the Encanto which quickly made her granddaughter Mirabel into The Un-Favorite since she's the only one who didn't get one while clearly favoring her eldest granddaughter Isabela. Alma’s daughters and their husbands avert this, loving their children and each other’s equally. The deconstruction of Alma’s favoritism is that it disturbs the family dynamic; Isabela feels under constant pressure to keep her grandmother happy while her sisters and cousins feel lesser than her, with some of them resenting her for it.
The Lion King:
- In The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, Nuka is neglected by his mother, Zira, in favor of the younger son, Kovu, whom Scar chose as his heir. Nuka is also implied to be Scar's son, but this isn't confirmed in the movie.
- In the semi-canon sequel book series The Lion King: Six New Adventures, Scar was originally named "Taka" by his parents, which means "to want", but can also translate roughly as "trash". His father, Ahadi, always preferred Mufasa due to his dependability.
The Little Mermaid:
- In The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea, Morgana revealed that her older sister Ursula was favored over her and that she was always compared to Ursula, and in the climax of the movie, it's shown that Morgana had Mommy Issues over it.
- Word of God states that Ariel has always been Triton's favorite daughter. He sees much of himself in her; she has red hair like him when he was younger and she is strong-willed and independent personality-wise. Her almost uncanny resemblance to her late mother may also play a role in this favoritism.
Played for Laughs in Disney's Robin Hood (1973) by the childish Prince John.
Prince John: Mother always did like Richard best...
- This is believed to have been Truth in Television; it's been suggested by many historians that Richard was the favorite child of their mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, while John was the favorite of their father, Henry II.
Ratatouille: Implied. Django seems to slightly prefer Émile a bit over Rémy due to his agreeable, non-rebellious nature and more rat-like behavior. Nonetheless, he dearly loves both of his sons.
Unicorn Wars: Downplayed. When Bluey and Tubby unit stop by a town to see their family and friends before leaving to go to war, their father expresses pride in them, saying that their mother would be proud of them, and gives each of his sons a pie that was made from their mother's recipe. Bluey received almost the whole pie while Tubby just received a slice, and he was shown not to be happy about this. However, Bluey and Tubby's father was showing love to both of his sons and aside from that moment, doesn't seem to particularly favor either of them. It's possible he just gave Tubby the smaller piece because he was concerned with his weight problems, as others pointed out that Tubby is overweight.

Film — Live-Action

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence: The robot child a couple uses to replace their comatose son becomes The Un-Favourite when their real child wakes up from his coma.
This is the Red Queen's Freudian Excuse in Alice in Wonderland (2010), as she claims (with some accuracy) that her parents and the rest of the kingdom favored her little sister, the White Queen, more than her.
In Beast (2017), Hilary clearly favors Polly over Moll, as Polly was a well-behaved girl who is now married to a successful man and expecting children, and generally fits into the family a lot better than Moll, who is often at odds with how Hilary wants her to live her life and brought a scandal upon them as a teen by getting expelled for violent behavior. Interestingly, Hilary tends to pay more attention to Moll, though it's because she feels the need to closely monitor Moll's every move so she won't screw up again and constantly criticize her, while Hilary usually has nothing but praise for Polly.
In Boyz n the Hood, Darrin "Doughboy" Baker is obviously The Un-Favourite of his single mother, Brenda, compared to his brother Ricky, who has a different father. This may partially explain why Doughboy is a gangbanger and Ricky is a college-bound high school football player. The favoritism is implied throughout the movie and is outright stated by Doughboy after Ricky's death in a drive-by shooting. In fact, the first question their mother asks after Doughboy and Tre bring Ricky's body to the house is, "What did you do to him?"
An interesting example in Cool Hand Luke. Luke's mother tells him that she's leaving everything to his brother, because she'd always loved Luke more, and wanted to make up for it. She's not proud of her favoritism but sees it as beyond her control.
"Way it is, sometimes, you just have a feelin' for a child or you don't, and with John, I just didn't."
Zach from the Quebecois film C.R.A.Z.Y is the fourth son of five and manages to be a case of both Parental Favoritism AND The Un-Favourite — his religious mother believes he has the power of healing and defends him from his father's scorn. Meanwhile, his dad, having suspected him of being gay from an early age, lavishes most of his praise on the three older brothers, who are respectively a genius, a jock, and a macho lady's man. Meanwhile, the youngest just seems to get ignored.
Cries and Whispers: By Agnes' account, the younger sister Maria was their mother's favorite child. This made Agnes jealous as she was terribly fond of their mother, who in turn tended to be distant towards Agnes. The screenplay also indicates the eldest sister, Karin, was The Un-Favourite.
In Dead Poets Society, Todd receives a birthday present from his parents — a replica of what they sent him the previous year. It comes out that his brother's birthdays are a big deal, but his own are clearly an afterthought. One of his friends helps him throw the present off a balcony and jokingly tells him to cheer up: he'll get another one next year.
In Deewaar, Sumitra admits to her son Ravi that she always loved his brother Vijay more.
Ramsey Hogan in Desert Heat clearly favors one child over the other two.
Matt: Why are you ridin' me and Jesse so much and never Petey?
Ramsey: I love Petey 'cause I loved his mother. She died giving him birth. He's our love child.
Matt: What about me and Jess?
Ramsey: You two are the unfortunate results of some recreational fucking back when fucking was fun.
Matt: ... geez.
Ramsey: Get over it.
In Ever After, Rodmilla de Ghent favors her eldest daughter Marguerite, who is beautiful and behaves the same way as her mother, compared to her stepdaughter Danielle and her younger daughter Jacqueline, who has a much sweeter, kinder personality.
Played painfully straight in The Feast of All Saints, where Cecile overtly favors her son Marcel and barely tolerates her daughter Marie, largely because she is jealous of Marie's beauty. This culminates with Cecile attacking Marie when the latter comes home after being gang raped. Near the end of the movie, Cecile even says she wishes Marie were dead and asks Marcel to pass along the message.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off: Ferris's sister complains that her brother can get away with anything, and their parents will believe him. Since her brother is Ferris Bueller, she's right. On the other hand, Ferris wanted a car, which she got.
In The Godfather, Vito favors Michael, his youngest son, wanting him to have a better life. The expression on his face when he's told that Michael killed Sollozzo and McCluskey and thus becoming involved with the mafia business is one of heartbreak.
The Grudge 2: Mrs. Davis blatantly favors her older daughter Karen over the younger one, Aubrey, and in all of her scenes, she never stops reminding Aubrey that she is a worthless piece of shit compared to Karen.
Halloweentown (1998): Given her fixation with being "normal" by human standards, Gwen favors her son Dylan over her daughters Marnie and Sophie. Dylan is a bit of a Mama's Boy; he shares Gwen's dislike of Halloween and magic and backs Gwen in her disagreements with Marnie, making Dylan his mom's sole ally in the family, especially after the husband/father William's passing made Dylan the man of the house. Dylan is also more obedient than his headstrong sisters, and, unlike them, he seemingly never showed signs of having magical powers when he was younger. Gwen may secretly wish her daughters were more like Dylan, seeing him as the most ordinary and least troublesome of her children.
In Hobo with a Shotgun, the villain Drake clearly favors his son Slick over his other son Ivan. When Slick dies, Ivan tries to assume his place in his father's eyes, without much success. Ultimately, Drake tells him that he'll never measure up and shoots him.
The Iron Claw: Fritz Von Erich openly ranks his four sons by who his favorites are. Though he does say that "the rankings can always change", he's still telling each of his sons who he likes the best and who he doesn't.
Our Lives 2015: While they're having dinner, Lin's parents compare her to her brother and ask why she can't be like him. When Lin points out that it took him 7 years to complete a 5-year program, her father screams at her for talking back. Lin even lampshades it.
Lin: I know what you all are thinking: "Am I really my parent's child?"
Kapoor & Sons: Between their two sons, Harsh and especially Sunita like Rahul more because he found success in his writing career (unlike Arjun). Somewhat deconstructed, as he's reluctant to come out as gay to them, since they think so highly of him but it wears on him throughout the film.
In Knives Out, Linda appears to be her father Harlan's favourite out of all his descendants and extended family. He speaks to her more respectfully and does not single her out for a telling-off like all the others. She is also the closest to becoming a Self-Made Woman in the way Harlan values. They had a secret way of communication and Linda is the only one openly grieving his death. It's strongly implied that during the will reading, Linda simply wanted to inherit the house for sentimental reason as she isn't shown getting excited over the money or publishing house like the rest of her family is.
The Lord Of The Rings: Denethor clearly favors his eldest son Boromir over his youngest son Faramir, to the point of telling the latter You Should Have Died Instead. Of course, when it looks like Faramir has actually died (he wasn't), Denethor loses what sanity he had left and tries to burn himself alive and his son's (apparent) corpse with him out of despair. A scene entitled "Sons of the Steward" from the Extended Edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers further elaborates on Denethor's preference for Boromir and his emotional abuse of Faramir. It's noticeable that Boromir clearly hates being the favorite and doesn't hesitate to call out his father on such abuse; it's also made very clear that the brothers love each other dearly, and Faramir doesn't resent Boromir for the favoritism.
Faramir: [Trying Not to Cry] You wish now that our places had been exchanged. That I had died and Boromir had lived.
Denethor: [hesitates a moment] Yes. I wish that.
In Madea's Family Reunion, Victoria Breaux favors and pampers her younger daughter, Lisa, and despises her older daughter, Vanessa. This is because Vanessa's father was a musician who dumped her and left her broke, while Lisa's father was a rich man who gave her a luxurious lifestyle. She even allowed her second husband to rape Vanessa to stop him from leaving her. However, the film makes it clear that Victoria's favoritism didn't do Lisa any favors; while Victoria favors her, she also controls her entire life, which has left her unable to fight for herself, and has been stealing from her trust fund for years, leaving it virtually empty. She also pushed Lisa to marry Carlos, the very banker who's been helping her steal from the trust fund, because he's rich and he'd be able to keep them in luxury, despite the fact that he's horribly abusive. By the end of the movie, Lisa has broken free from her mother's control and her abusive fiancé while Victoria and Vanessa appear to be on the path of mending their relationship.
Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Thor (2011): Odin paid more attention to Thor, as he was heir to the throne (as well as Odin's true-born son), while Loki (whom Odin adopted) was more of a tool to unify the Asgardians and Ice Giants. Odin's preference for Thor initially made him blind to the latter's faults and ended up setting Loki on his path to villainy. Subverted by the time of Thor: Ragnarok, as Odin says he loves both his sons and gives a Loki So Proud of You moment. Both Thor and Loki have gone against his wishes and become better people for it. Odin still holds his sons in greater regard than Hela, his first child, and strove to make both of them better rulers.
- Played with in regards to Frigga. Loki, being In Touch with His Feminine Side, shares a lot more in common with her than Thor does (though Thor resembles his mother more than Loki). Thor: The Dark World reveals that Frigga was Loki's instructor in magic, so they once had a mentor-pupil relationship in addition to a mother-son one; she would've naturally grown close to him after spending so much time together. Meanwhile, Thor's fighting style was much more similar to Odin's. Tom Hiddleston confirms this in this interview (as quoted below). However, Avengers: Endgame makes it clear that Frigga nonetheless loved Thor just as much as she did Loki and even accepts her future son's presence without question. Thor is overjoyed to see her again and is more emotionally open with her than he was with Odin.
  Hiddleston: Rene Russo and I, always, from the very first film, part of the backstory we created was that Frigga was really the most attentive to Loki when he was a child. And Odin didn't really know how to connect. He connected much more with Thor. They were sort of cut from the same cloth. And Frigga and Loki had this kind of beautiful, sensitive, more artistic relationship. And it was actually her who taught him all his magic.
- Yondu from Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) as A Father to His Men, in particular, cared for Peter aka Star-Lord more than other Ravagers, though Yondo had trouble admitting it to him. First Mate Kraglin Obfonteri in Vol. 2 is not fooled and calls out the favoritism Yondu shows Peter when the Ravagers were hunting the Guardians down on behalf of Ayesha.
- Thanos doesn’t try to deny that he considers Gamora the best of his adoptive children and says as much in front of his other kids. She gets preferential treatment from him and is the one he relates to the most. He continues to feel this way even after she does a Heel–Face Turn and disowns him. This comes back to bite both of them in Avengers: Infinity War; to get the Soul Stone, Thanos must sacrifice what he loves most... which he quickly realizes means killing his favorite daughter. He reluctantly does and is inconsolable afterward.
Meet Joe Black: William favors Susan over Allison and strangely enough, Allison is okay with it.
Nope: Otis Haywood Senior groomed OJ as his successor, completely shutting out Emerald from the business and taking her horse away from her for a movie he was working on. Emerald still holds a grudge even after his passing and her relationship with OJ is tense at the start of the film. OJ suggests that this was because she and their father were too similar, causing them to butt heads.
Rags: Arthur plays favorites quite a bit. In addition to Charlie suffering from forced servitude as the stepson, he also plays favorites among his own sons, treating Andrew with far more respect than he does Lloyd.
Smooth Talk: June, Connie's older sister, appears to be the favorite daughter. Connie's mother, who frequently clashes with Connie, emphasizes June is an angel to a friend right in front of Connie.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024): Gerald Robotnik initially appears to be an aversion, as he quickly bonds with his grandson Ivo and seems to love him just as much as Maria. However, Gerald eventually unveils his plan to destroy Earth with the Eclipse Cannon, and when Ivo expresses horror over it, Gerald coldly tells him that he's not Maria.
Gordie is most definitely The Un-Favourite in Stand by Me, and believes his father would rather he have died than his charming, athletic older brother. The only thing keeping Gordie from feeling worse than he does is the fact that he and his brother had a great relationship, and his brother used to praise and encourage him in his writing.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story: The fact that Dewey Cox's father is fond of reminding Dewey that "the wrong kid died" when discussing Dewey's deceased older brother is a pretty good indication of where Dewey stands on the pecking order.
Welcome to the Dollhouse: The mother obviously favors the cute youngest daughter Missy over the plain middle daughter Dawn, to the point where Mom and Missy cuddle on the couch while watching television and Dawn has to sit on the floor.
Wicked: Governor Thropp is incredibly emotionally abusive towards Elphaba while simultaneously spoiling and coddling Nessarose.
X-Men (Film Series): Downplayed with Professor X, since he never neglects any of his students whether as a teacher or as a Parental Substitute, but he is closer to those who are Birds of a Feather, like Hank McCoy in X-Men: First Class and Jean Grey in X-Men: Apocalypse. Hank and Jean do receive a bit more of Xavier's time and care.

Mythology and Religion

The Bible:
- The story of Joseph and his brothers. Jacob had twelve sons by four wives; his favorite, Joseph, was the elder of his two sons by his deceased favorite wife, Rachel. Not only did Jacob give Joseph a special gift (traditionally a colorful coat, though translations vary), Joseph had prophetic dreams that the others would one day bow to him. In anger, the ten older brothers sold Joseph into slavery and faked his death; Jacob mourned for the next twenty-two years, while Rachel's other son, Benjamin, got promoted to favorite. Ultimately, the repentant brothers get into trouble with the Vizier of Egypt, and when he wants Benjamin as a slave, they come to his defense. It's at that point that the Vizier reveals that he's actually Joseph, and his attempt to get Benjamin was a Secret Test of Character.
- Jacob himself had been his mother's favorite, though that was a case of Jacob and Esau.
- Then there's Isaac, who was born to Abraham and Sarah very late, and after Sarah (in despair at a total lack of children) had told Abraham to have a child by her maid Hagar. Once Isaac was born, Ishmael did something that made Sarah upset, and she (with God's backing) told Abraham to send Ishmael and Hagar away.
- However, Deuteronomy 21:15-17 prevents this in the case of a man having two wives, that, if he has sons of those two wives, and his first is from that of his unloved wife, then he cannot allow the firstborn of his loved wife to have the firstborn rights of inheritance in preference over his actual firstborn from his unloved wife, since that firstborn is considered "the first fruit of his vigor".
Classical Mythology: Zeus infamously left a lot of spawn all over the map, not all of which he was really all that involved with, but Athena was certainly his favorite, to the point of getting to borrow his trademark attributes and weapons whenever she pleased, closely followed by Heracles, Hermes, and Dionysus. None of these are children of his legitimate wife, which infuriated her to no end. Closer to the bottom of that list, we find Ares. Also Hephaestus, who actually got thrown off Olympus (literally, which is why the Smith God has a bad leg) for a while—in one version, by Zeus for siding with Hera in a fight, and in another by Hera because he was born ugly.

Podcasts

Wooden Overcoats: Antigone says that her late father favored her twin brother Rudyard, and scarcely even remembered her name. Given that Rudyard himself never disputes this, and their father left him and only him in charge of the Family Business, even though Antigone has also worked there her whole life and is in general the more competent of the two, these claims probably do have some merit.

Radio

The News Quiz, Season 83, Episode 1:
Susan Calman: It's absolutely untrue to say you love all your children equally. I have no children, but I am a child of someone, and if you have children you do love one of them more than the others. Now if you're a child thinking "It's not me", you're right. Because you know if you're the favorite. It's usually the youngest, the cutest, the one that's on Radio 4. Hi, Mum and Dad!
Sandi Toksvig: No, that's not true. I have three children and I say to all of them "You're my favorite, don't tell the others."

Stand-up Comedy

Discussed and parodied by Greg Giraldo in his stand-up special, Midlife Vices, when talking about how much he enjoyed being a father to his three little boys, then explaining that he has his "main son" and his "other sons".

Tabletop Games

Dungeons & Dragons: On a species-wide scale, the draconic god Bahamut has made it abundantly clear that the silver dragons are his favored creation.
Fighting Fantasy: The wealthy ruler of the city of Fang blatantly favors his elder son Sukumvit over his younger son Carnuss, making Carnuss develop a searing hatred for his brother. When Sukumvit becomes ruler of Fang on his father's death, he constructs the deadly Deathtrap Dungeon as a private hobby, challenging adventurers to try and survive going through it for a 10,000 gold piece prize. An embittered Carnuss sees a chance at getting revenge on his hated brother and begins kidnapping people to test them until he can find someone tough enough to send as his champion to penetrate the dungeon and humiliate his brother. He eventually succeeds in the book Trial of Champions (where the dungeon had been remade after someone had beaten it once), only for his hated brother to turn the tables on him, offering the champion anything he wished on top of the gold, correctly guessing that what the champion wanted was revenge against Carnuss, and promptly killed him.
Warhammer 40,000 backstory has Horus being the first son found by the Emperor, who was later made Warmaster above his nineteen brothers and generally treated as the Emperor's eldest son. Ironically, he went on to betray the Emperor and lead The Unfavourites in what would become the bloodiest war in human history.

Theater

In Death of a Salesman, Willy favors Biff over Happy.
In King Lear, Lear favors Cordelia over his other daughters, until she refuses to praise him as lavishly as her sisters. Given Goneril and Regan's behavior, he had good reason to like Cordelia best.
The Lion in Winter:
- John feels like this:
  John: Who says poor John? Don't everybody sob at once! My God, if I went up in flames there's not a living soul who'd pee on me to put the fire out!
  Richard: Let's strike a flint and see!
- Geoffrey, in turn, has a bad case of Middle Child Syndrome:
  Geoffrey: It's not the power I feel deprived of... it's the mention I miss. There's no affection for me here: You wouldn't think I'd want that, would you?
In Next to Normal, Diane shows favoritism toward Gabe over Natalie. This is an especially sore point, as Gabe has been dead since before Natalie was born. Natalie brings this up in her song "Superboy and the Invisible Girl."
In Wicked, Elphaba's father or at least, the father who raised her clearly prefers her sister Nessarose. It's heavily implied to be because she was born green, and that that is the only reason. This indirectly led to the death of Elphaba and Nessarose's mother after their father made her drink poppy milk (or some liquid like that) to keep from having another green child. This led to Nessa's legs being crippled and their mother dying in childbirth.
- The book suggests he might just blame Elphaba for that just a bit. And the fact that she can't bathe in water is a real pain in the twees too. Oh! And the sharp teeth. The deck's just kind of stacked against Elphaba here.
- In the book, there's another reason. Nessa shares his religious zeal, more than Elphaba or their brother, Shell. That may be a chicken and egg situation.
- The book also provides a third reason; Frex didn't know for certain whether Nessarose was his biological daughter (the third book reveals she was, but he had no way of knowing) or if she had really been fathered by the glassblower Turtle Heart, his and his wife Melena's mutual lover. As such, he saw her as all of their daughter and so he loves her more because she is the symbol of the love the three of them shared or perhaps to overcompensate for her possibly not being his child.

Video Games

Class of '09: While it is never outright pointed out, Nicole feels like her mother favours her Basement Dweller older brother. Nicole's mother often yells at her for the smallest of things, is very dismissive of her at best, and outright abusive at worst, something that she never does with her son, at least not on-screen, Notably, she will kick Nicole out of the house, or threaten to do so, in several routes, but she will never kick her son out. While Nicole isn't exactly the nicest person on Earth and her mother rightfully calls her out on it on several occassions, her brother is even worse, as he mooches off of them and there is always at least one route where he gets arrested for possesing child pornography, yet Nicole's mother never calls him out on this nor is she mentioned to be abusive towards him like she is with Nicole. Granted, one could interpret this as Nicole's mother essentially having given up on her son and merely tolerating him because he is easier to deal with than Nicole, and to her credit, she explicitly tells him to get a job on-screen and Nicole mentions that she has told him to "move the fuck out" in the past, and whether or not she is aware of the fact that he is a pedophile seems to be kept ambiguous.
In Code:Realize, Finis frequently bemoans and is envious that their father Isaac clearly favors Cardia over him, despite his usefulness and loyalty in comparison to his sister. The reality is a lot more complicated. Isaac considers both of them disposable tools and his affection extends to Cardia only because she is designed to look like his deceased daughter. He initially tried to love the homunculi versions of his children but the fact they weren't truly his children and the hundreds of failed attempts to resurrect them caused Isaac to become bitter and to dismiss them as dolls. Regardless, Finis never got any of the "my beloved child" treatment that Cardia does.
This befalls Azuma Yunoki in La Corda d'Oro. He is forced to give up playing piano by his grandmother because he's better at it than his two older brothers; as he says, "My place is always below my brothers." Most a result of Japanese cultural values, and seems wildly unfair to Western readers. Azuma develops a bit of a psychological problem as a result (which means it's supposed to seem unfair to the original audience, as well).
Subverted in Devil May Cry. Vergil believed that Eva abandoned him and left him behind to prioritize Dante's safety over his, which is the catalyst for his Start of Darkness and resentment towards Dante. However, Devil May Cry 5 reveals that Eva's last words were calling out for Vergil, trying to find him after she secured Dante's safety.
Dragon Age:
- In Dragon Age: Origins, both the Human Noble Warden and the Dwarven Noble Warden are implied (or outright stated) to be the favorite child of their respective fathers.
- Dragon Age II:
- It's implied that this was the case with Hawke's deceased father Malcolm. Since he was a mage, he spent a lot of time with Hawke's sister Bethany to teach her to control her magic. If Hawke is a mage as well, then Malcolm will spend time with both of them for the same reason. Regardless to both cases, this makes the Muggle Carver feel like The Un-Favorite. Similar to a family with a disabled child, this was due to necessity rather than malice. Power Incontinence and Demonic Possession are very real dangers for untrained mages, and the only alternative to training his children directly was to lose them to the Circle of Magi, which Malcom himself had run away from shortly before Hawke was born. The irony of the situation was that Malcom resented his own magic and hoped that none of them would be mages which will make Carver, the only non-mage child of the family, being his most ideal child, who takes this particular revelation with considerable surprise. On the flipside, Bethany (who is clearly sensitive of her status as a mage unlike mage Hawke) wonders if her father secretly resents her for being born as a mage. Her oldest sibling is quick to shut down that line of thought; Malcom adored Bethany and only resented that she carried a burden the rest of their family couldn't comprehend.
- In the backstory of the family, Hawke's mother Leandra was vastly preferred by both of her parents over her younger brother Gamlen. Gamlen mostly took this in stride growing up because he and his sister were extremely close; as an adult, however, he has issues with having been The Un-Favorite, not least because he was the one who took care of his parents as they died from cholera and they still preferred Leandra, even though they had formally disowned her for eloping with an apostate mage. At least part of this is implied to be guilt over rejecting Leandra and concern over Gamlen's financial ineptitude.
The DS version of Dragon Quest V has this with the Briscolettis. Elder daughter Debora is a self-absorbed Rich Bitch, while her sister Nera is sweet and adored by everyone. While Debora is still able to get all the material goods she wants from her parents, Rodrigo clearly favors Nera and appears to have simply given up on trying to rein her sister in. Should the player choose to marry Debora, the father reacts with surprise, but throws his full support behind the wedding, and afterward confesses that you've made him very happy as he'd given up hope of Debora getting married a long time ago.
This is a game mechanic in F.E.A.R. 3's cooperative campaign. Whichever brother has the highest score at the end of the campaign is deemed Alma's favorite, and will kill/consume the other.
Fire Emblem:
- A huge plot point in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade. King Desmond favors his daughter Guinevere and hates his son Zephiel because Guinevere is the child of his beloved old girlfriend while Zephiel is born from an unhappy marriage to Queen Helene. To make things worse, Zephiel is The Ace and insists on pleasing his father out of love, while Guinevere loves her brother but is condemned to be in Zephiel's shadow since, well, she's a girl and a bastard. This becomes so bad that Desmond hires the Black Fang to murder Zephiel right before his coming of age ceremony so Guinevere can become the heir apparent instead. This ends up backfiring horribly. If anything, Desmond would be glad to know that Guinevere became queen of Bern in the end, nevermind the reign of terror the kingdom was forced to endure because of how he treated Zephiel.
- Also plays a part in Fire Emblem Fates:
  - With the maid twins, Flora and Felicia. Flora mentions in her supports with her sister that growing up, Felicia was naturally adept at handling weapons and so their father, Kilma, only praised her during training sessions, leading Flora to become very jealous of her sister and train excessively to make up for her own lack of talent. Ironically, Felicia envies Flora because Flora is a much more competent maid than she is. Thanks to Kilma's treatment, Flora has some massive insecurities and is obsessed with her duties towards the Ice Clan and the events of the games do not help - in Birthright Flora is so torn over her decision to betray the Avatar to protect the Ice Tribe that she sets herself on fire due to shame and guilt.
  - Xander is clearly Garon's favourite child in Conquest, as he is the only one of his children he fathered with the late Queen - Camilla, Leo and Elise were all the result of trysts with Garon's various concubines and Xander is the only one capable of reasoning with Garon without immediately attracting his ire, but even this goes out the window when it turns out Garon died years ago and he's been possessed by Anankos, who is hellbent on the destruction of both Hoshido and Nohr and doesn't really give a damn about any of Garon's heirs.
- This comes up a few times in Fire Emblem: Three Houses:
  - With Ingrid and Sylvain, who are both the favourite of their respective families because they have Crests. However, this is shown to be a case of Cursed with Awesome, as Ingrid is repeatedly put into Arranged Marriages by her well-meaning father, as her family are Impoverished Patricians who need Ingrid to marry well to improve the family's finances, since she is the only one of her siblings to have a Crest, yet she longs to become a knight. Meanwhile because Sylvain was born with a Crest, his older brother Miklan lost the position of heir of House Gautier and became pathologically jealous of Sylvain, bullying him throughout his entire childhood and even once shoving him down a well and leaving him there before he was eventually disinherited and kicked out. Sylvain's relationship with his parents is left ambiguous, as he comments he was given a lot of freedom to do as he pleased as a child, but he developed some serious psychological issues because of his ingrained belief that people only want him for his Crest, leading him to become a cynical Handsome Lech.
  - Mercedes reveals in her backstory that her younger brother Emile was the favourite to her stepfather, as he was born with a Crest, to the point where her mother and Mercedes herself were treated like they didn't exist once her brother was born and they eventually fled House Bartels when it turned out her stepfather was planning on marrying Mercedes to try and produce more Crest-bearing children once her mother became past the age she could conceive.
  - It is strongly implied that Edelgard is the favourite child of the sickly Emperor Ionius IX, though being his sole surviving heir makes it impossible to verify it one way or the other.
  - Caspar is the younger son of Count Bergliez and he outright states his older brother got all the attention because he was born with a Crest and is the successor to House Bergliez. Though he is remarkably better adjusted than some of the other students thanks to his simplistic outlook on life and without the pressure of living up to his family name, he does admit to being intimidated by his father and his extremely competitive nature might be due to compensating for being ignored so much at home.
  - Somewhat zigzagged in Hilda's case - her older brother Holst is The Ace of the Leicester Alliance and heir to House Goneril, with Hilda remarking he's strong, kind and honorable. However, it is also strongly implied that Holst is so dedicated as a warrior because of the harsh expectations set for him by his parents, which terrified Hilda that she'd never be able to meet the same, so she downplays her own abilities so nobody expects anything of her. However, far from being neglected, Hilda is very much doted on and spoiled by her father and older brother (especially since her mother is never mentioned), so who exactly is the favourite child is up in the air.
  - It's all but stated Glenn was Lord Rodrigue's favourite child and Felix confirms he was never able to beat his brother when they would spar together, though Felix adored his big brother as well and it is Glenn's death that was Felix's Cynicism Catalyst and caused an enormous rift between father and son, to the point where Rodrigue seems to prefer Dimitri to Felix.
In God of War, Ares accuses Zeus of favoring Athena over him. Meanwhile, Hercules thinks Zeus favors Kratos over him since Kratos was chosen to be the next God of War while Hercules was left doing "mundane" tasks. The truth is that Zeus only cares about himself and is quick to abandon his so-called favorite Athena to die.
Kratos: The air on Olympus affects your thinking, brother. Zeus has no favorites.
Goodbye Volcano High: After Fang came out as nonbinary and chose to pursue a career in music instead of a more "respectable" profession, their parents began to show favoritism towards Naser, Fang's younger brother, in hopes that he'll grow up to be the "normal" one. In chapter 7, Naser admits to Fang that he's chafing under the pressure, made worse by him watching Fang live their life freely, without caring what their parents think.
The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty: Sui's mother prefers her brother over her because as a girl, she couldn't carry on the family name. Worse, at a desperate time, the mother suggested selling Sui. The father objects to this kind of thinking because he loves both of his children. From Sui's perspective, this is also a reason why she's a Daddy's Girl.
In the backstory of Kameo: Elements of Power, Queen Theena spent more time with Kameo than with Kalus as they grew up. This is because Kalus' Strong Family Resemblance to her deceased father was too painful a reminder for Theena of her loss. Kalus grew up neglected and resentful of both Theena and Kameo as a result, and clung to her birthright of the Element of Power for validation. So when Theena decided to pass on the Element of Power to Kameo instead, Kalus snapped at this final apparent snub by her mother.
An interesting case occurs in Kana: Little Sister. At the beginning of the story, Taka (the main character) is resentful towards Kana because their parents tend to favor her (due to her terminal illness). This position is reversed towards the end of the game (which takes place almost a decade later). When Taka offers to donate one of his kidneys to Kana, his parents are opposed to it, because they don't want Taka (their true son) to take risks for Kana's sake (because Kana is adopted)
King's Quest (2015) plays around with this in regards to King Graham's twin children. His son Alexander was kidnapped as a baby and Graham spent the next 18 years trying to find him, apparently neglecting his daughter Rosella to an extent. However, it doesn't play out as one would expect because Graham and Rosella get along quite well thanks to their similar personalities, but he had a hard time connecting with Alexander at first because of how dissimilar they are; in effect, each child is half of what Graham wanted (a son who shares his love of adventure and puzzles). Eventually, he realizes that he has been wrongly blaming Alexander for not being the "perfect son" he wanted, and accepts him for who he is. However, the favoritism is played much straighter with Graham's grandchildren: he blatantly favors Alexander's daughter Gwendolyn over Rosella's son Gart, doting on her and telling her stories from his youth and rewriting Daventry's laws so she could inherit the throne after his death.
Odin Sphere: Early in the game, it becomes painfully obvious that Odin shows more love to Velvet (who resents him for very good reasons) than to his other children (who absolutely revere him or, in the case of Ingway, despise him). This still doesn't stop him from allowing her to be executed to save face in front of his vassals. Odin's not exactly Father of the Year. He eventually admits this and starts to regret it.
In Red Dead Redemption II, it's noted that John is Dutch's favorite over Arthur and several other members. Arthur outright states this is the reason why Dutch allowed John to rejoin the gang after a year's absence, stating no one else would be let back in as easily. In a drunken conversation, Bill even tells John how everyone thinks John is "Dutch's pet". However once John starts taking his role as husband and father seriously, Dutch starts treating John with hostility, hinting he thinks John is having Conflicting Loyalty and it's threatening Dutch's power over John. It's worth noting that Dutch and John's relationship deteriorates the more John becomes a better husband and father. Eventually, for all his favoritism, Dutch would abandon John more than once and John no longer stays loyal to Dutch.
In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, Nemora's parents prefer to raise her older sister to become the new heir of their Rotom Phone company rather than even trying to see how Nemona is doing. She's not really bothered by their actions, though, because that means she's free to be a trainer, which she obviously loves being with all her soul.
Silent Hill: Homecoming: Alex Shepherd's parents blatantly favored his younger brother, Josh, over him. It's revealed that his parents had designated Alex, their firstborn, to be sacrificed to the Order, and deliberately distanced themselves from him so the loss would be less painful. But then Alex accidentally killed Josh, and, not wanting to lose their remaining son, they broke the pact by sending him away. The Order then invaded the town, setting off the events of the game.
The Sims 2 has a couple of examples:
- The meaningfully named Pleasant Twins of Pleasantview. Angela Pleasant, who's a straight-A student and implied to be a dutiful daughter, is favored by her parents over her twin sister, the Gothic D-student Lilith. Their family bio pictures imply that this goes back to their childhood, as we see Angela celebrating their birthday with a cake and party, while Lilith sits in the other room alone. Lilith has such a terrible relationship with her family that she and Angela will autonomously pick fights with each other, and the same will happen with her parents when she ages up if their relationship is not fixed. Ironically, Angela is going steady with Dustin Broke, a budding criminal from a poor family whom her father hates, while Lilith dates good student Dirk Dreamer.
- The Grunt Family in Strangetown is a perfect demonstration of the Golden Child/Problem Child/Lost Child dynamic. Eldest son Tank is favored by his father, General Buzz, due to having a similar personality and interests and sharing his love for the military and hatred for the Smith family. Middle son Ripp has a bad relationship with both his father, implied to be because of his lack of interest in the military and laziness. Similar to Lilith Pleasant, he and Tank autonomously pick fights and the same will happen with his father if their relationship is not fixed before he ages up. He also is close to Johnny Smith, whose father is an enemy of General Buzz. Meanwhile, youngest son Buck is implied by his bio to be ignored by his father. Ironically, General Buzz actually has a higher lifetime relationship with his enemy, Pollination Tech#9 Smith than his does with any of his sons.
Sonic Frontiers:
- Applied to a whole family in this case; one of Dr. Eggman's Egg Memos delves a bit into his backstory and has him admit that he was always had a seething jealousy of his cousin Maria Robotnik (who died when he was a kid). Between her kindhearted nature and illness, Maria was the family favorite and tended to suck up all their attention without really meaning to, even after she died, leaving Ivo feeling like he spent his childhood competing with a ghost for his family's affections.
- Sage notes that for all effective purposes she is Eggman's daughter and Orbot and Cubot are her older brothers. Eggman often dotes on Sage and complains about Orbot and Cubot's general incompetence. Considering The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog and the Sonic Colors promotional short, this trope seems to also apply to Metal Sonic due to his siblings seeing him as one of them.
In Spiritfarer, Alice favors one granddaughter over the others, but will never tell which one.
In Stardew Valley, Demetrius dotes on Maru, who is a scientist just like her dad and they bond over their nerdy hobbies, while he ignores his stepson Sebastian so much that he never even mentions him in conversation.
In the Super Mario Bros. series, once Bowser Jr. appeared on the scene, it appeared that Bowser Jr. was Bowser's favorite child, preferring him over his other seven children, the Koopalings. However, it became clear that this wasn't the case as Junior was Bowser's only child, with the Koopalings being relegated to high ranking members of the Koopa Troop instead.
In To the Moon it is revealed that Johnny's mother always favored his twin brother, Joey, over him; which is the reason why, after Joey was accidentally run over and killed by his mother, she made Johnny take the beta-blockers which made him forget everything up to the accident, in order to mold Johnny into Joey's Replacement Goldfish in her mind.
In Wild ARMs 1 Mother clearly favours Ziekfried, to the point he's the only Quarter Knight she addresses in the Photosphere. Unfortunately for him, this is one parent you don't want favouring you as she uses his body as the next vessel for her existence for when she moves onto the next world to destroy.

Visual Novels

Pre-Odyssey: Love at First Quack: Penelope is openly regarded as her father's most favorite daughter. Her sisters never show up and are rarely brought up, even by their own father, to the point that not even their own names are revealed.

Web Animation

Dayum:
- A woman in “Types of People on Christmas Portrayed by Minecraft” gives one of her sons a Nintendo Switch for Christmas, but gives the other one, Milo, a book on how to be smarter, telling him to his face that he’s dumb.
- In “Types of Parents Portrayed by Minecraft # 2”, one woman consoles her daughter for failing her test but grounds her son (Sean) for failing his own.
- In “Types of Kids Portrayed by Minecraft”, Jeff’s mother buys his brother an Xbox but doesn’t let Jeff get a book.
Epithet Erased: It becomes clear in Epithet Erased: Prison of Plastic that whenever Lorelai and Molly have a dispute, Martin will take Lorelai's side, even though Molly is usually in the right. With more detail, however, it turns out that this is purely superficial, presumably a result of their similar personalities; ultimately, Martin doesn't seem to care that much about either of his children, with his favouritism for Lorelai not preventing him from carelessly breaking things in her dream bubbles while exploiting her ideas for creative inspiration.
Hazbin Hotel according to Word of God, Angel Dust is The Un-Favorite to his father, who preferred his older brother over him.
In If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, the Emperor spends entire one episode badmouthing all of his sons... except for Sanguinus, who, in canon, is described as most similar to him. When Custodian lampshades it, the Emperor gets angry at him.
Don't you talk shit about my fabulous fucking hawk-boy. He died for me, so be grateful.
Discussed in the Overly Sarcastic Productions episode "Ares' Abduction:"
Red: Zeus is definitely the kind of parent who like, conspicuously brags about only some of his children. Like at the family reunion he'll be all like "Hey Athena! How's my favorite War God doing?" and Ares is just like, one chair over.
RWBY: Weiss's father, Jacques, is heavily implied to prefer her little brother Whitley over her and her sister. During a shot showing his work desk, Whitley's is the only picture that he keeps there. Halfway through Season 4, Weiss causes a scene and Jacques takes her off his will and reveals that Whitley is the only one that will inherit his company and fortune. It's implied he has taken Winter out of the will when she joined the military against his will and Whitley is the only one to never have challenged him.

Webcomics

In Batman and Sons, Batman obviously favors Terry over Dick, Jason, or Tim. Most likely due to him being Batman's only biological son (and thus, another Batman). This might not be biological favoritism so much as Terry (being a baby) not having the ability to backtalk yet like the older boys. The kids can be very blunt about how messed up Batman is (much to his annoyance) but Terry's the only one who can't say it yet.
This trope initiates The Cloud Maker's plot. The creator-god tells his three children-gods to maintain the Earth while he leaves to do vague plot things. When he comes back, the sky-goddess and sea-god have done well, but the land-god has neglected parts of his territory and left it to wither. So the creator-god rewards the sea-god by giving the ocean life, as in animals. (The sky-goddess would have been given the same, but she was "too young and inexperienced" for it.) Then the creator-god leaves again, and the land-god starts getting very resentful of his siblings...
Crimson Knights: Nevio was perfectly aware that his elder brother was their father's favorite and the primary heir, and as a result left Natish at the first opportunity to find his own life.
In Dumbing of Age Sal and Walky's mother blatantly favors Walky, to the point of not even acknowledging that Sal's in the room when she visits. Walky thinks it's because of Sal robbing a convenience store in her youth, but Sal argues it's because Walky acts more traditionally white than she does. (both are mixed race) When Walky remembers that he was in a Christian children's show as a child-and Sal wasn't-he starts realizing she may have a point.
Played for Laughs via Unreliable Narrator in Least I Could Do. Ryan is describing how he was kept in a cage and fed older newspapers by his family while his big brother got extravagant meals. In reality, his parents were loving to both of their kids.
John: You know he's making this up right?
Mick: I know but his stories amuse me.
An unusual case in Misfile, Ash Upton manages to be on both sides of the Parental Favoritism divide thanks to Rumisiel's little filing mishap. As a boy, she had no contact with her mother and her relationship with her father was distant at best (his plans for Ash's summer vacation apparently involved re-roofing the house). As a girl, she has a close relationship with both parents who are much more involved in her life. For some reason she feels this sucks. Also a subversion, as the change was due completely to Ash's actions. In Ash's past (s)he wrote a letter to his/her mom. As a boy, masculine pride made him throw it away. As a girl, the letter was sent.
In the Nuzlocke Comics, Norman shows favoritism to "Good-Ruby", a Vigoroth that he dresses in a hat similar to Ruby's, over Ruby.
The Order of the Stick:
- Eugene Greenhilt favored his daughter Julia over his son Roy, because Julia became a wizard like him, while Roy became a fighter. ("I can tell because you almost never use the phrase, 'crushing depression' when talking about her.")
- In a later example, Elan's father Tarquin favors Elan over his other son Nale, even though Elan is a hero. But at least he's good at being a hero (...kind of) while Nale is too short-sighted and egotistical to be an effective villain.
A humorous variant is found in Something*Positive. Fred MacIntire has two (living) biological children, Davan and Dahlia, and an adopted daughter, Monette. His fourth "child" is Davan's friend PeeJee, who lives with them for a long time; one strip has him admitting that she's his favorite. It's Played for Laughs, of course, as it's made remarkably clear through all the Deadpan Snarker dialogue that Fred's actually a damn good father.
SrGrafo: Comic #24 has the main character's sister ask their mother who her favorite child is between them. She assures them that she loves them both equally, but after the sister leaves, the mother tells her son that "it's [him]... and by A LOT."
Sticky Dilly Buns invokes the trope a couple of times:
- Ruby claims that Amber is their parents' favourite. However, Amber denies this, and it's possible that Ruby exaggerates the problem, because she knows about Amber's porn career but this is a secret from their parents, making the contrast between what their parents say and the truth as Ruby knows it glaring and painful.
- Jacob's mother won't allow her stepson Richie to fire Jacob from his job in the pet shop, without even asking about Richie's side of the story. Of course, favoring a biological child over a stepchild may not be that unusual, but she's still in a more or less maternal position with regard to both of them, and playing favorites.
When Winter Comes, So Does Karma: Rex's mother hates him for having brown fur, while doting on her "bestest babbeh", a yellow foal with a pink mane and tail. When the family (minus Rex, who is adopted by a loving owner) is struggling to survive during the winter, Rex's mother prioritizes the welfare of her bestest babbeh and keeps it alive while its siblings succumb to cold, hunger or predators. Her efforts still aren't enough, and when it's finally fed up with its mother being completely unable to find food or shelter for it, it poops on her and runs away before getting hit by a car.

Web Video

One of the staple cliches of Apple Texts and similar videos. Expect the favored golden child to be spoiled, useless and vile while their sibling (typically the protagonist) is accomplished and smart, yet the parents will heap praise and accolades on the former while abusing and underestimating the latter.
In Awesome Video Games, Dad obviously prefers Chet over Ace. Whether this has any lasting effects is yet to be seen.
In Dragon Ball Z Abridged, King Cold clearly favored Freeza over Cooler, something that the latter seemed to develop a complex over and Freeza was all too willing to hold over his head.

Western Animation

50/50 Heroes: Mo believes Sam to be their mother's favorite when he finds two tickets to a show he wants to watch. It turns out a client of hers gave her the tickets and she later bought a third one so she can take both Mo and Sam. She has no favorites.
The Amazing World of Gumball: In "The Goons", Richard states that Darwin is his favorite child. Nicole, Anais, and Gumball shoot him an angry glare, causing him to hastily add that Darwin is his favorite fish.
American Dad!:
- One episode has Stan trying to insist that Mah Mah and Bah Bah, Francine's (adoptive) parents did not love her as much as they loved their biological daughter Gwen. Francine starts to believe it when Stan finds her parents' will leaving all their stuff to Gwen. But later, Bah Bah reveals that they only left everything to Gwen because she's apparently a moron and needed all the help she could get, while they knew Francine was already well taken care of because she's smart and married a good man.
- For the Smiths themselves, they by far treat Steve better than their adult daughter Hayley. It's more straightforward with Francine, doting on Steve since he is technically still a child and thus "her baby". Stan doesn't really care for Steve, but because Hayley opposes him in every ideological way, Steve is his favorite by default.
Arthur's parents tend to heavily favor his sister DW over him. However, they favor baby Kate over DW.
Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Fire Nation Royal Family has this as a multi-generational problem.
- A major part of Zuko and Azula's Backstory and the viewer's first exposure to it. Azula was daddy's little girl, while Zuko (the eldest son and heir) was hated by his father just for being alive (and possibly compassionate). The finale makes it clear that this was not due to Ozai loving Azula more; Azula's cruelty against Zuko's kindheartedness meant that she was simply a more useful tool for him, one that he cruelly tosses aside the instant he can't think of more uses for her. Azula's realization of this leads to an utterly spectacular meltdown.
- Also, Azula, due to her upbringing by Ozai (whose favoritism toward Azula means he hates Zuko), believes that her mother favored Zuko and that she didn't love her. From what we see, both in the show and the comics, Ursa does love Azula, worried about her , and often attempted to discourage Azula's bad behavior and discipline her for things like burning the flowers in the royal garden or hoping that her uncle would die and her father would inherit the throne instead but overall ignored Azula in favor of Zuko since he was more like Ursa herself.
- Fire Lord Azulon wasn't much better. He seemed to greatly favor Iroh over Ozai and was greatly angered when the latter suggested that Iroh's birthright be revoked. This favoritism extends to his grandchildren as well, as shown by his sympathy over the death of Iroh's son (and lack of anger toward Iroh for abandoning the siege as a result of it), and by his disinterest in Azula's impressive firebending display and his sentencing Zuko to death in order to punish Ozai.
- Expanded universe material such as Avatar: The Last Airbender: Legacy of the Fire Nation, Chronicles of the Avatar, and Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game shows this problem going back farther and farther. Azulon was favored by his father Sozin over another, unnamed relative, while Sozin himself was the unfavorite of his father, Fire Lord Taiso, and was only the heir because the favored daughter was a non-bender and thus disqualified from succession, a sole factor that his father made Sozin well aware of. And several generations prior in the early years of Avatar Kyoshi's reign, civil war in the Fire Nation nearly broke out due to favoritism of Fire Lord Zoryu's father among his legitimate heir and his illegitimate brother.
- Beyond the Fire Nation Royal Family, Aang didn't technically have parents (given that Airbending Air Nomad children were sent off to live with the monks) but it was fairly obvious that he was Monk Gyatso's favorite.
- The rough counterpart to the Fire Nation royals, Hakoda's family, doesn't seem to have this problem. Hakoda doesn't show any favoritism for his son or daughter. And while Ozai and favored child Azula came to share certain traits, Hakoda and Sokka are similar without this affecting Katara negatively.
The Legend of Korra:
- The trend continues with Noatok being favored by his father over Tarrlok. However, Noatok hates his father for this just as much or more than Tarrlok does.
- In Season 2, it is revealed that Aang himself favored Tenzin over his two other children, Kya and Bumi. Mostly due to Tenzin being the only airbender among them and thus, the only one able to carry on the burden of restoring an almost wiped out culture, forcing Aang to invest a lot of time in Tenzin's training and teaching. Which is sad but at least a little understandable, but then Aang would take Tenzin to places just to goof off but still left Kya and Bumi behind. This favoritism even extended to the Air Acolytes, who seem to almost worship Tenzin and his Air bending children while having no idea that Kya and Bumi even existed. This favoritism had some negative consequences for Tenzin as he felt he needed to live up to his father's legacy and viewed himself as "The son of Avatar Aang and the hope for future airbenders" rather than just as "Tenzin".
Bob's Burgers:
- Inverted example with the Belcher kids—while Tina is more indifferent, Gene prefers Linda and Louise prefers Bob.
- Gayle claims she's the favourite between her and Linda, but she is an enormously Unreliable Narrator. We don’t see Gayle interacting with their parents until Season 10 while they regularly visited Linda and Bob in early seasons. Just about the only hint that Gayle is right is that Gloria and Al are generally not good to Linda.
- For the Belcher parents, this trope is Zigzagged and oddly reflective of complex real-life family dynamics. Bob readily admits that Tina is his most docile and supportive child, Linda calls Tina her BFF, and the entire family goes to great lengths to please her. However, Bob also has trouble keeping up with her more atypical interests and actually gets along best with Louise (the two spend time alone bonding over old movies and TV), while his relationship with Gene isn't as strong. In contrast, Linda dotes on Gene the most since he is her most affectionate child and fellow showman, though she's desperate to have a better relationship with Louise and is hurt when Tina wants to spend time with a new friend instead of her mom. In general, Bob and Linda love their kids equally, but if it came down to it Bob would choose Louise and Linda would choose Gene.
In BoJack Horseman:
- Beatrice's flashbacks show that her parents vastly preferred her older brother Crackerjack to her, since it was the 1940s and Crackerjack was a boy though she didn't mind too much because she adored her big brother as well. It ends very badly.
- Diane was mocked, bullied and ignored by her family while her mother dotes on and coddles her four brothers.
In The Buzz on Maggie first Maggie and then Pupert becomes their uncle's favorite. Aldrin, who has been The Un-Favorite for years, takes this in stride until Maggie suggests a scheme that could benefit both of them. She doesn't hesitate to throw Aldrin under the bus later in the episode, wanting the glory all to herself even though Aldrin had helped her.
In Codename: Kids Next Door — Operation: Z.E.R.O., it was stated by Grandfather himself that he favored Monty Uno over Benedict, who became Father and came to idolize Grandfather. Even after being revived by Benedict, Grandfather wished that Monty was on his side because he saw more potential in him and, unlike Benedict, Monty actually had the spine to stand up to him, becoming Numbuh Zero and founder of the current generation of the KND. When he realizes that Monty remembers the past and is ready to fight him, he actually takes a moment to sincerely offer him a place by his side, though he doesn't hesitate to get ready and try and zombify him after he refuses.
Daria has two cases that begin with this trope and then become more nuanced as Characterization Marches On:
- In early episodes Daria's parents (especially Helen) were pretty open about wanting her to be like Quinn, which fit the theme of her and Jane as standouts among the conformists around them. As time goes on Daria's own anti-social tendencies get Deconstructed it becomes more a case of Helen knowing both of her daughter's faults and wanting them to learn from each other's strengths.
- Helen's own family. "I Don't" paints the dynamic of Rita as their unseen mother's favorite, with Helen constantly bitter about this and Amy just done with them all. "Aunt Nauseam" muddled the issue a bit: Rita always saw Helen as the favorite growing up and claims that the others' strained relationship with their mother is self-inflicted. Ultimately it's left up to the audience to determine who's right and to what extent.
In the DC Animated Universe, Darkseid shows rather blatant partental favoritism towards his younger son Orion... Who is also his Arch-Enemy and wants him dead. Not only is his other son, Kalibak, incompetent (despite being a devoted servant to Darkseid), but Orion absolutely hates having Darkseid's approval.
The Dragon Prince:
- Subverted with King Harrow and his two sons. Older brother Callum is his stepson, while younger brother Ezran is his biological son. While the relationship is somewhat strained, Harrow reveals posthumously that he simply didn't know how to react to having a stepson and felt that Callum needed his space, which resulted in a distance between them. This resulted in Callum's own reluctance to refer to Harrow as his father, calling him 'your majesty' or 'my king', and not helped by the likes of Viren and Soren who seem to feel that Callum has no right to be where he is. In reality, Harrow loved Callum every bit as much as Ezran and is very proud of him, something he makes clear in the letter he writes to Callum in preparation for his death.
- Played straight with Viren who clearly favors his daughter Claudia over his son Soren, because Claudia is more intelligent and shares her father's talent for dark magic.
Sarah is blatantly the favorite child in Ed, Edd n Eddy, being spoiled rotten by her mother, who ignores and neglects Ed, despite Ed being much nicer than his little sister. It's implied that their mother always wanted a daughter and never wanted a son. Their mom favors girls over boys to the point where she forbids Ed to hit girls (even in self-defense), but seemingly has no problem with her daughter beating up boys (including Ed).
Pete on Goof Troop habitually puts PJ through all manner of psychological torment and holds him to ridiculous standards while letting Pistol do as she pleases and giving her everything she wants. Resultantly, Pistol is a Spoiled Brat and a Daddy's Girl, while PJ is an Extreme Doormat who has some issues with his dad. Weirdly, though, there are some episodes where Pete treats them equally but in those episodes, PJ and Pistol are played as Satellite Characters; and sometimes it's implied that Pistol is given free reign compared to PJ due to Pete's apathy towards her as opposed to him doting on her, and the fact that he gives the majority of his attention to PJ in his attempts to improve him may mean that the roles are actually reversed. Peg on the other hand talks nice to PJ and acts like a mother should but yells at Pistol for every little thing.
In Hercules: The Animated Series, Phil and Hercules go visit Phil's mother, where she openly calls Phil's brother her favorite, going on about how he's a successful salesman, which Phil resents. However, when the brother comes to visit, he bemoans to Phil that their mother goes on about Phil's accomplishments to him. The mother admits that she did this to make sure neither would grow a big head and then proceeds to gab to both about their sister's accomplishments.
In Hey Arnold!:
- Favoritism seems strong in the Pataki family; Olga is praised for her accomplishments and is given more attention than Helga, which causes a one-sided strain between the two. However, Olga actually wishes she could be treated like Helga, without all the fussing and attention.
  Olga: You must think I'm lucky, all the attention I get from them. I have to perform for them all the time like some kind of wind-up doll. I get really sick of it. You're lucky they don't even notice you.
- Averted with Gerald's family, as his parents don't show any particular preference for any of their children, it's just Gerald tends to think so since Jamie O is the oldest while Timberly is the baby, leaving him with some mild Middle Child Syndrome.
In Invader Zim, Professor Membrane seems to favor his daughter Gaz to his "poor, insane son" Dib. The comics and the movie make him into a better parent, though.
Kaeloo: Mr. Cat was apparently his mother's favorite child, to the chagrin of his two older brothers.
Kick Buttowski plays this for comedy. Kick, Brad, and Harold all know Brianna is number one in the house, so they all compete for number 2. A later episode revealed that Kick was actually Honey's favorite, not Brianna due to being so much like her (secretly being a water sports daredevil herself). This drives her other kids crazy.
On King of the Hill, Hank's father Cotton has another son in his old age and tries to name him Hank, saying he "always wanted a boy named Hank" and telling the original Hank to get a new name because his old one belongs to the baby now. Hank protests that you can't just take a grown man's name away from him, so Cotton names the baby Good Hank instead (or "GH" for short).
Hank: Dad, this isn't right. You call him Good Hank, it's gonna make it sound like I'm Bad Hank.
Cotton: Well, ya burnt my burger, didn't ya, BH?!
The Loud House:
- In "Home of the Fave", it's revealed when Lynn Sr. was a kid, his dad, Leonard, apparently played favorites and gave him the short end of the stick. This drives him to give all eleven of his kids equal attention, fearing he himself may be playing favorites.
- In "Appetite for Destruction", Rita is implied to favor Lily (the youngest Loud kid) the most, considering her "the sweet one". The other kids aren't pleased when they find out.
Any time Pickles' parents get any screen time in Metalocalypse, it's made abundantly clear that Seth, Pickles' older brother, is the favorite child. To put it into perspective: Seth is an ex-con who lives with his wife (of questionable virtue) in an attic above their garage in Wisconsin. Pickles is the drummer for the most successful band in the world, whose annual income is so huge that it makes them the seventh largest economy on the planet.
Moral Orel: Bloberta's mother clearly prefers her older sister and younger brother over her, as they're much better singers than she is and are able to perform in a choir. Although not the best father, Clay prefers Orel over Shapey, as he suspects the latter might not actually be his son. He's right.
In Ninjago, Lord Garmadon points out to his brother, Sensei Wu, that the latter was always their father's favorite before escaping the Underworld.
Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero: Rippen’s Freudian Excuse for why he wants to become a full-time villain is because he was raised by evil parents who saw him as a disappointment and always preferred his older sister, Vlurgen, for being a successful villainess. Their parents gave Vlurgen everything Rippen ever wanted: a really evil car, a different magical scepter for every day of the week, and competent evil minions.
Dr. Doofenshmirtz on Phineas and Ferb grew up resenting his "goody-two-shoes brother, the favorite of my mother", Roger. Even worse, his father preferred the dog, naming it "Only Son", and the only reason his mother liked his brother more was that said brother was better at kickball.
The Proud Family: Suga Mama prefers her eldest son Bobby over Oscar. However, it's a deconstruction since Suga Mama's doting resulted in Bobby not doing anything with his life, being unemployed (though trying and failing to become a singer), unmarried, and still living with his mama while Oscar, though he may be a Butt-Monkey, at least has a job, his own house, a wife and children.
Ready Jet Go!: In "A Kid's Guide to Mars", Face 9001 tries to invoke this. He convinces his brother Face 9000 that 9001 is their mom's favorite child. He even "quotes" their mother as saying "[Face 9001] knows everything".
On Robot and Monster, Robot and Gart's mother prefers the latter because he's successful at life and not an embarrassment to the family name.
In the Rocket Power movie "Race Across New Zealand," Ray suffers an episode of this when memories of his defeat in the same competition that his kids are competing in resurface at the sight of his former rival, whose son is also competing. When the phrase "Like father, like son" comes up, Ray then focuses all of his attention on Otto to make sure he beats his rival's son for revenge, leaving Reggie out in the cold.
Rugrats: In "The Unfair Pair", Angelica convinced Phil and Lil that every family had one favorite, and that their sibling was it, making both of them The Un-Favorite.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Shadow Weaver raised both Adora and Catra from when they were babies. She heaped physical abuse on Catra while giving Adora more subtle psychological abuse. When Adora defects, Shadow Weaver spends an absurd amount of time and effort trying to get her back and keeps blaming Catra for her own failures. In fact, it's implied that she saw Catra as Adora's pet rather than a daughter in her own right. Ironically, Shadow Weaver proudly claims that Adora is an "ambitious, cutthroat, ruthless warrior," when that actually describes Catra far more than Adora.
Shadow Weaver: Catra has been nothing but a disappointment to me!
The Simpsons: Not originally, with Homer and Marge loving their kids equally, even if each of the three can be a handful in their own separate ways. Over time though, this has definitely become a thing from Flanderization, with Bart clearly The Un-Favorite, not helped by his increasingly destructive actions.
- Separate episodes have confirmed that Lisa is Homer's Daddy's Girl of a favorite kid and Maggie is Marge's, leaving Bart as The Un-Favorite. Ironically, despite this, Lisa suffers from massive Middle Child Syndrome anyway, due to Bart requiring so much energy to deal with.
  Marge: Bart's such a handful, and Maggie needs attention. But all the while, our little Lisa's becoming a young woman.
- She also feels like The Un-Favorite because Bart gets far more attention the few times he actually does something right instead of his usual bratty hijinks, which she ascribes to him being both the oldest child and the only boy.
  Lisa: Bart gets everything because he's the oldest and he's a boy. And Maggie gets whatever's left over because she's the youngest and she's a baby.
- Double so for Homer, as his reasons for choosing Lisa as his favourite are that he considers Bart the bane of his existance and that he often forgets that Maggie even exists.
- Homer’s relationships with Bart and Lisa are an interesting example of this because, while Homer clearly prefers Lisa to Bart, he spends more time with Bart because he is the child with whom he has the most in common and is the most willing to go along with whatever ill-advised thing he's doing that week, whereas he has very little in common with Lisa and doesn't actually know her that well. It's probably also worth noting that his favoritism is subject to change depending on his mood at the moment, with "Lisa on Ice" being an extreme example as he flipped back and forth from Bart to Lisa depending on who was giving the best performance from second to second of a hockey game.
- Marge does sometimes refer to Bart as her "Special Little Guy", but she is often too busy with Maggie to spend time with him, and while Bart loves Marge, more often than not he is embarrassed to be seen with her. It's also been noted that she is emotionally closest to Maggie.
- Given how much of a jerk he became after the first four seasons or so, all three children unanimously prefer their mother Marge over their short-tempered Bumbling Dad, to the point of sometimes showing very little concern for his well-being, depending on the episode.
  Bart: I'm afraid that we don't want to be with anyone but Mom and whoever she chooses to be with.
The Venture Bros.: Rusty makes it abundantly clear how much he favors Dean over Hank, who he wants to embrace the super-science lifestyle.
The Year Without a Santa Claus: Even though both of the Miser Brothers are petty bickerers with each other, it's stated by Heat Miser that their Mother liked Snow Miser more than him.

Parental Favoritism
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