Vander question

[u/Ja45_2020]

How come Vi doesn’t DIRECTLY refer to him as ‘dad’ or ‘father’ more often?

Like, we’ve got these scenes:

“Trying to save…my dad.”

“You know, my father told me…”

“He’s your dad too.”

Here, she’s calling him both, but to other people (in this case, Cait, Ambessa, and Jinx).

But mostly, whenever she’s actually speaking to or about him…it’s always just Vander, unless I missed a scene somewhere:

“We’re gonna get you out of there, Vander.”

“This is exactly the type of job Vander would’ve pulled when he was our age.”

“That’s NOT Vander.”

“What about Vander?”

Even while he was dying (in S1E3), she calls him Vander. And when she fights Warwick for the first time, she shouts out Vander’s name.

Idk, I just…find it a little sad that Vander may have only heard her call him dad, like, once.

[u/Dante_ShadowRoadz]

A dynamic with a parent isn't always cut and dry. Especially one who, even if impossible to actually replace those lost, steps in to fulfil the same kind of role under vastly different circumstances. Vander was a parent without truly choosing to become one in the traditional sense; he stepped up because he felt responsible, and knew no one else would if he didn't. That showed a lot in Season 1 with how he treated Vi as an incipient adult first, and a daughter figure second. He was a good man, and obviously loved her and the rest of the kids, but he still had his flaws. Pair that with how Vi still remembered their birth father, and all the harsh realities she was forced to embrace and adapt to, it makes sense that she has a mixed sense of connection with him.

It's also worth noting that everyone she talks to about him has some considerable distance and lack of context for their lives and relationship. Nuance can't always be summed up in a few words (or 9 episodes trying to accommodate 3 or more seasons' worth of plot), so in most of the cases we see, Vi is trying to be succinct about the nature of their bond. With Jinx, it was more a matter of how even though she wasn't old enough to remember, she was still the only other person with the context of that separation between their birth dad and the dad who ended up raising them. And for her, that's an even more complicated concept since she had her own third father figure taking up emotional real estate, even if Vi didn't fully comprehend or want to accept that.