Watching a (non-SFF) Netflix series recently in which extended family plays an important role, it struck me that we don't see this very often in SFF, despite its enormous potential for complex relationship maps, rivalries etc, with all their dramatic possibilities. I'm talking about the kind of family with two-three generations and multiple children at each level. ASOIAF is the obvious one that builds on this, but apart from that, are there many I'm missing? Even LOTR seems to only include small families -- where are Boromir's cousins, for example? And if it isn't used often, why as writers don't we in SFF do more with it? Why is it left to literary fiction?
I think it hasn't occurred to me before because although I'm one of five children, and my mother was herself one of five, my family was and is pretty dull in terms of the kind of fireworks that make good storytelling. But I can't imagine that's more generally true of SFF writers than lit-fic ones. Obviously exploration-type stories aren't suited to the whole family traipsing along, but often the MCs don't even seem to have much in the way of family in their backstory.
I think it hasn't occurred to me before because although I'm one of five children, and my mother was herself one of five, my family was and is pretty dull in terms of the kind of fireworks that make good storytelling. But I can't imagine that's more generally true of SFF writers than lit-fic ones. Obviously exploration-type stories aren't suited to the whole family traipsing along, but often the MCs don't even seem to have much in the way of family in their backstory.