I Work Alone/Playing With

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Basic Trope: A character declines to work with others when offered.

  • Straight: Captain Lonerguy is offered to join the team, but declines because he always works alone.
  • Exagerrated:
    • Captain Lonerguy refuses to save the people from the Evil Overlord because it might attract the attention of other good guys who might try to help him.
    • Captain Lonerguy takes on an entire army all by himself, while not having the required qualifications.
  • Downplayed: Captain Lonerguy sometimes works with the group, but usually works alone.
  • Justified:
    • Captain Lonerguy always works alone because everyone else is incompetent.
    • Or Captain Lonerguy is a Jerkass who hates working with other people.
    • Or he just prefers doing things alone, no malice involved.
  • Inverted: Captain Lonerguy suggests that the team should disband and their members should each go off on their seperate paths, but they decline because they always work together.
  • Subverted: Captain Lonerguy declines to join the team when offered, but later it turns out that he had been working with a different team all along.
  • Double Subverted: ...But this is actually a ruse to get the original team off his back by continually pestering him about the benefits of working together.
  • Parodied: Captain Lonerguy has invented a special radar that will alert him to the presence of anyone in the vicinity who might be of help to him so he can avoid working with them at all times.
  • Deconstructed: Captain Lonerguy ends up failing more often than not due his insistence on always working alone.
  • Reconstructed: ...But all those missions were nigh-impossible to accomplish with a team. Those he did he only succeeded at specifically because he was working alone.
  • Averted: Everyone works in groups.
  • Zig Zagged : ...
  • Enforced: ...
  • Invoked: Having pledged to always work alone, Captain Lonerguy recognizes that he can't break tradition just because the situation is grim.
  • Defied: Captain Lonerguy normally works alone, but recognizes that continuing to do this may cost him his life, and joins the team.
  • Lampshaded: "Looks like Captain Lonerguy is going off on the mission on his own again."
  • Discussed: "Why does the brooding loner in these types of situations always refuse help even though he’d beat the bad guy in five minutes flat if he did?"
  • Conversed: ...
  • Played for Laughs: Captain Lonerguy always works alone because in reality he's a bumbling idiot.
  • Played for Drama: Captain Lonerguy always works alone because he can't connect to other people.

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