Are the authors riffing on folk-tales, whose heroes, if not princesses, tend to be clever thieves, disadvantaged or displaced innocents and so on?
I think you may be hitting the nail on the head here. The strong tradition of fairy tales is one that includes a lot of sympathy for society's rejects, whether the youngest child who might be disinherited on the death of a parent of moderate to high means, the only child of a poor widow, or the simpleton.
But, I also think that most, if not all, of the authors whose urban fantasy looks at this population have a genuine interest in the homeless and dispossessed. The homelessness is just one of several themes you'll frequently see in urban fantasy. Some characters are of middle class or higher means, but find their lives trite and limiting; the encounter with magic helps to engage them in the real world again. Another very common trope is that of the abused child. The story may center around the child at any age and, depending upon the age, the issue may be one of several different tropes. For infants or children, the focus may be rescue or punishment of abusers (typically by someone from outside, or possibly by another family member), or of the child's discovering his or her own ability to extricate themselves from an intolerable situation. For older teens or adults who are no longer trapped in the original abusive situation, the focus may be on learning how not to reengage with abusers, on forgiving the abuser, or of protecting someone left behind who is still in the relationship.
Okay, I guess I strayed rather far away from the main topic here. In this subgenre magic is often used as a metaphor for things in the real world. So, the magical outsider may be the thought or insight you've rejected, but they are also a homeless person you may have treated kindly or unkindly last week. There's a lot going on in these stories and they're not easy to categorize.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
I think you may be hitting the nail on the head here. The strong tradition of fairy tales is one that includes a lot of sympathy for society's rejects, whether the youngest child who might be disinherited on the death of a parent of moderate to high means, the only child of a poor widow, or the simpleton.
But, I also think that most, if not all, of the authors whose urban fantasy looks at this population have a genuine interest in the homeless and dispossessed. The homelessness is just one of several themes you'll frequently see in urban fantasy. Some characters are of middle class or higher means, but find their lives trite and limiting; the encounter with magic helps to engage them in the real world again. Another very common trope is that of the abused child. The story may center around the child at any age and, depending upon the age, the issue may be one of several different tropes. For infants or children, the focus may be rescue or punishment of abusers (typically by someone from outside, or possibly by another family member), or of the child's discovering his or her own ability to extricate themselves from an intolerable situation. For older teens or adults who are no longer trapped in the original abusive situation, the focus may be on learning how not to reengage with abusers, on forgiving the abuser, or of protecting someone left behind who is still in the relationship.
Okay, I guess I strayed rather far away from the main topic here. In this subgenre magic is often used as a metaphor for things in the real world. So, the magical outsider may be the thought or insight you've rejected, but they are also a homeless person you may have treated kindly or unkindly last week. There's a lot going on in these stories and they're not easy to categorize.