It’s probably fair to have issues with your dad when your dad is the Big Bad.

image from ilona-andrews.com

This week’s pick for Daddy Issues in Urban Fantasy is Kate Daniels, the protagonist of Ilona Andrews’s urban fantasy series of the same name.

Kate’s a kick-ass bounty hunter who, when we meet her, works informally for the Order of Knights of Merciful Aid. It’s a gig that sounds more benevolent than it is, since the Order is just as likely to kill you as it is to help you. Kate’s job is to clean up magical messes by killing things, and she does it well.

As we learn about Kate, we realize that she’s in hiding. Her blood links her back to her father, Roland, a Very Bad Man who is the world’s oldest necromancer and may or may not want to take over the world.

Kate was raised by her foster-father, Greg, whose death she is investigating at the beginning of the series. Greg rescued her as a child from Roland, who would kill to keep her from destroying his plans and, well, to keep her from existing. Greg raised her to hide and to fight, knowing that eventually it would fall to her to take Roland down.

Okay, I’m a little fuzzy on the details at this stage, but it’s been something like two years since I’ve read the early books. Cut me some slack.

Because of her background—and the knowledge that any of her blood left unattended could bring assassins down on her in an instant—Kate does not let people into her life. When we meet her, she has no friends and terrible taste in men. Part of her journey is learning to trust others and to accept her own power. She eventually falls into a meaningful relationship with the were-lion head of the Pack in Atlanta, she makes friends, and she “adopts” a motherless young girl.

While she does have a bit of a Harry Potter-esque martyr streak, that comes from being the only one to have the power to stop the biggest evil. And the fact that she’s willing to sacrifice herself for those she comes to love indicates that her isolation and hard childhood have not corrupted her: she can still love, and she’s not always willing to say that the end justifies the means. Some things are worth throwing it all away for.

Kate is an example of how Freud isn’t always right, at least in urban fantasy. Yes, she wants to take her dad down, but it’s difficult to say she has penis envy when she already has her father’s powers. She’s just as powerful as he is, only younger, prettier, and with a cause she’s willing to die for.

What do you think, readers? Does taking the metaphor out of an Electa complex completely reshape the meaning of daddy issues? Or is it all still metaphor, just an indication that girls need to overcome a father’s influence in order to develop fully?

For the record, I don’t think that last one is true.