Gotcha, Mrs Tangent Woman
I think we're on the same page. And I think physical presence is what the OP was talking about, i.e. avoiding cliches involving orphans, young people with a destiny, etc.
I guess along the same subject, I think the young person with a destiny looks back at (at least in western Europe) our old idea of nobility. I remember reading some Shakespeare with my youngest about a year ago. I've not read a lot of his work on my own, and these stories were adapted for children. Mr. and Mrs. Lamb I think were the authors of the adaptations, if memory serves me.
Anyway, I remember being surprised at how relevant bloodlines were to the stories. A girl born of noble blood, could spend her life living in a cave surrounded by hermits, and still end up with a certain beauty, a certain intelligence that always showed through. Whereas a girl of low birth could grow up in the palace of the current ruler, and yet always seem homely in some way, dimwitted, just lacking in some fundamental quality that eventually revealed her low birth. (I guess along the same lines, it used to surprise me when, in old stories, a woman's beauty was so often defined by the amount of jewelry she wore.)
At least in America, though, being a product of it myself, I would hope around the world, with our ideals of meritocracy, I think our romantic ideas of nobility have evolved beyond the realm of the bloodline and toward the realm of the individual. We're growing out of the romance with the young boy with a destiny, and toward a romantic ideal of the anybody's man who makes his own destiny.
Of course, there are plenty of people who still cling to the old ideas of nobility, which I think is indicated by electing people to office who are related to people who served well enough in the past. But to avoid cliches of the past involving the parents of our MCs, I think it's important to look to the individual, the influences on his life beyond his bloodline. The orphan is reminiscent of Arthur, the boy who would be king, but who knew nothing of it.
The heroes of the present and future, I think, can be anybody. In fact, in a way, the new cliche could be to introduce the MC who is the opposite of the old, e.g. female, black, handicapped, past his prime, too young to be respected, etc. I think to truly avoid the cliche, the hero has to be whoever fits the part, ignoring cliches of the past and our newer cliches. His parents can be anybody, from farmers to stockbrokers, divorced and emotionally broken to married for thirty years and dedicated members of some well-respected group (church, business group, team, whatever), old and decrepit to young and pregnant too early.
Avoiding the cliches is just building characters that fit the story, or building a story that fits the characters may be a better way to say it. The only way to do it is to ignore the things that are out there and your natural drive to imitate what you adore, i.e. make them real according to their circumstances or make the circumstances real according to them. If your MC is exactly like King Arthur that's fine, as long as he's exactly what the story needed, and you're not just trying to squeeze King Arthur into your story because he's succeeded in the past.
