Who is (in your opinion) the best Villain OOTS has faced so far?

[Ruck]

I never found it lazy writing. It's natural that a parent would have some kind of formative influence on their child. And especially as our three human characters are all adults in their twenties, it also follows that they'd have to grow out of their learned dysfunctions and coping mechanisms to become the heroes the story needs. It's hard to tell a story about where your characters need to go as people without knowing where they came from.

Plus, I think all three of those stories are sufficiently different:

Haley's is probably the most clichéd "my upbringing screwed me up," but it also resolves the quickest-- when she gets together with Elan she starts consciously working to grow out of that.

Roy's relationship with his father is different than Haley's with hers. Ian, I think, sincerely tried his best but also passed on his dysfunctions to Haley; Eugene often treated Roy with disdain for having any interests outside of wizardry and could be purposely neglectful. Roy is definitely shaped by his upbringing-- certainly I think Eugene's negligence in Eric's death is a major factor in shaping Roy to be so committed to taking responsibility-- but he also has the ongoing relationship with ghost!Eugene and the Blood Oath, although he's made some big steps in not letting his frayed relationship with his father affect the kind of person he is.

And Elan and Tarquin are entirely different since Tarquin didn't raise Elan; that's a story of Elan having to grow up and face reality about who his family are instead of who he wants them to be and instead of what perspective would be the most fun or make the best story.

[KorvinStarmast]

I never found it lazy writing. It's natural that a parent would have some kind of formative influence on their child.

That's a charitable review.
On the bright side, Durkon has a mostly healthy relationship with his mom, we don't know who V's parents are but V's family issues arose as a plot point, and Belkar's references to Grandma Bitterleaf and Aunt Ruby are about all we'll ever know about his family situation.
IIRC, Rich is not inclined to write his back story since he's not interested in justifying Belkar's evolution into a murderhobo.

[Peelee]

On the bright side, Durkon has a mostly healthy relationship with his mom, we don't know who V's parents are, and Belkar's references to Grandma Bitterleaf and Aunt Ruby are about all we'll ever know about his family situation. IIRC, Rich is not inclined to write his back story since he's not interested in justifying Belkar's evolution into a murderhobo.

V is a parent, though, and not a particularly good one.

[Laurentio III]

V is a parent, though, and not a particularly good one.

Vaarsuvius IS the abusive parent. So it's four on six in the character's rooster.
Four disfuntional families, one fine one, and one is a mystery.
I'd say that is a weird statistic but come on, they are D&D heroes. It's on the par.

Belkar's references to Grandma Bitterleaf and Aunt Ruby are about all we'll ever know about his family situation.

So... Belkar is the Benjamin Grimm of the Fant... Order of the Stick. I like it.