A number of the characters in Bone are explicitly identified as orphans, including Thorn, the Bone Cousins, Roderick, and the woodland children. Most of these characters were orphaned by rat creatures, who consumed their parents as either acts of war or acts of survival. The Valley is plagued by war, political unrest, and scarcity, all of which naturally result in the mass orphaning of children in the real world.

Another echelon of Bone characters includes those who are implied to be orphans or otherwise linked with orphanhood. In a broader sense, Bartleby is orphaned from rat creature society. Rat creatures travel in packs, but Bartleby was abandoned in his infancy, and he failed to reintegrate. Taneal and her brother are apparently street urchins who fend for themselves; no mention is made of their family. The loosest example of implicit orphanhood is Jon Oaks: He is a young man, roughly Thorn’s age, and his bond with Lucius is described as that of a father and son, implying that they mutually fill familial roles for each other that would be empty otherwise.

Although we don’t know what killed the Bone Cousins’ parents, their status as orphans allows them to bond with Thorn over a shared traumatic experience.