Ineffectual Loner: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

He's [[Badass]]. He has cool clothes. He's a little less idealistic than the hero. He makes a grand entrance. And does it in half the time the hero does. Why's he a loner? Generally it turns out to be some kind of betrayal, or maybe they lost friends or family and now they just want to be alone.

 

A subtrope of [[The Stoic]]. See also [[Loners Are Freaks]], [[In the End You Are on Your Own]], [[The Complainer Is Always Wrong]]. Contrast [[The Aloner]], who is a Loner by (apocalyptic) force rather than choice.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* Played with in ''[[GaoGaiGar]]''. [[The Stoic|Soldato-J]] doesn't fight alone, but he doesn't have the same kind of camaraderie with his partners that [[The Hero|Guy]] and [[Kid Hero|Mamoru]] have with [[True Companions|theirs]]. Despite this, he's actually better at his job than Guy is, at least at first, and makes his entrance by curbstomping a trio of [[Robeast]]s moments after they'd beaten Guy to a pulp. He goes on to be Guy's [[The Rival|rival]] for the rest of the series before [[Not Quite Dead|apparently]] going out in a blaze of glory at the end of the tv series. FINAL plays this a bit straighter; while he remains as badass as he's ever been, J is also completely unable to do anything against the Sol Masters until the heroes show up (to be fair, [[Justified Trope|he was outnumbered eleven to one]]), and can't even challenge his own [[Evil Counterpart]] until he teams up with Renais and gains a new [[Super Mode]] / [[Combination Attack]] with her.

* Fakir in ''[[Princess Tutu]]'' certainly starts off this way. As soon as the main heroine figures out he's [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|not really that bad of a guy]] she tries to convince him to team up with her, but it takes until near the end of the season until he finally does, and even then it's reluctantly. In the second season he doesn't mind quite as much, but he still maintains a bad habit of trying to do things on his own.

** Natsuki Kuga from the same series is a by the numbers case of this. Pretty much every solo action we see her undertake onscreen doesn't work, or blows up in her face. Her attempt to dissuade any Hime from showing up to Fuuka in the first episode really sets the stage for this. From there, there's her plan to deal with the {{spoiler|panty thief orphan}}, her discovering and attacking {{spoiler|Alyssa Searrs}}, and her attempts to deal with {{spoiler|the seemingly traitorous Nao}}. Ironically, this all leads up to her final confrontation with {{spoiler|Shizuru}}, which she only wins because she acknowledges that she's not alone in the world, and thus {{spoiler|super-powers up Duran to the same level as Shizuru's Kiyohime}}, allowing her to carry out her plan: {{spoiler|eliminate Shizuru (and by extension, herself) in order to give Mai a clear shot at ending the entire Festival, thus sacrificing herself for the good of others.}} Quite the full circle of [[Character Development]]. Her special in the 25th episode even has her acknowledging the power of [[Power of Friendship|friendship]] and [[Power of Love|love]].

{{quote|"The feelings Shizuru had for me and the feelings Mai and Tate had for each other made me realize people can't live alone. It might seem obvious to anyone else, but it was an important truth I discovered only recently."}}

* In ''[[Saint Beast]]'', Kira's loner behaviour is largely due to [[Fantastic Racism]], but never became good with people even after meeting angels who accepted him. However, the heroes aren't the kind of angels to leave him alone and his aloof behaviour ''never'' helps him.

 

* [[The Punisher]] and [[Blade]], whenever they showed up alongside ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider Man]]'' or other more idealistic [[superhero]]es. (Note that, in their own series, their values were more [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism|"realistic"]] than those they considered naive.)

{{quote|'''Batman''': I need your help. I thought I could - [[I Work Alone|I thought I]]''[[I Work Alone|needed]]'' [[I Work Alone|to do this alone - a "back to basics" approach]]. I was ''wrong''. No ''one'' person can do this alone. No Man's Land is too big... too... ''dark''. The only way to bring light back to Gotham is [[The Power of Friendship|working together]]. [[True Companions|All of us]].}}

{{quote|'''Batman''': I want to thank you all for coming on such short notice... and... Before we get into ''why'' you're here, I wanted to say... well, I just... I... I ''know'' that I'm not an ''easy person'' to know. That's all.}}

* The titular [[Sandman]] gives off the impression that he's quite the loner, but he's often got a lover or a raven to keep him company.

 

== Literature ==

* Elizabeth Bathory in ''[[Count and Countess]]''.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* Dr. Foreman on ''[[House (TV series)|House]]''. He's quit and gone to work for other hospitals, and attempted to run a drug trial, but pretty much always gets kicked back to working under House.

** Arguably, Dr. House himself, at least in recent seasons where the focus has been shifting from him getting away with crazy stunts to stick it to the man to him getting away with crazy stunts to distract from his crippling emotional issues, while failing in any actual attempt to resolve them.

** Eric Myers, the Quantum Ranger of ''[[Power Rangers Time Force]]'' consistently thought himself superior to the other rangers (and, on paper, he ''was'') and never actually joined the team in any real sense. He only actively works with the others in the finale, and then it's only by giving his powers to the Red Ranger, Wes, when he is incapacitated. (In [[Mirai Sentai Timeranger|the parallel]] ''[[Super Sentai]]'', the equivalent character, Naoto Takizawa, actually experiences [[Redemption Equals Death]]).

** Will, the Black Ranger of ''[[Power Rangers Operation Overdrive]]'' also starts out this way, going to ridiculous extremes to keep the team from helping out. He learns his lesson early into the series, at the end of the third episode ("The Underwater World")... [[Aesop Amnesia|and spends the rest of the season acting on his own in many episodes with everyone's blessing and being quite successful at it]].

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'':

** Buffy falls into this, at least once a season, before coming back to her friends for support.

== Toys ==

* Kopaka starts out like this in ''[[Bionicle]]''. It doesn't last long, though because Destiny [[Because Destiny Says So|has other ideas]]. He's still [[The Stoic]], but he's not as opposed to teamwork as he once was.

 

== Video Games ==

* Subverted in ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]. Through Nils Daerden and Marina Wulfstan, who actually get stat bonuses for being alone and penalties for being with others. In short, they actually DO work better alone. The latter is also considered by many to be the best sniper in the game.

* Subverted in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' with the character Delita, who exhibits the philosophy and behavior of the Ineffectual Loner, but proves not to be ineffectual at all. This can be attributed to the title's uncharacteristically (for Final Fantasy) heavy emphasis on the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism|"cynical" end of the scale']] -- [[The Hero]] Ramza would be [[The Messiah]] if he could, but in Ivalice, it just doesn't work that way.

* Arlin, the loner swordsman from ''[[Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana]]'', leaves the party midgame to go hunting down his [[Evil Counterpart]] and [[Big Bad]] Mull on his own because the party doesn't make a quick progress in finding him. It doesn't go well. {{spoiler|He's turned in a stone by his nemesis, and he can't be cured until you beat the game once.}}

* Solo in the ''[[Mega Man Star Force]]'' games, thanks to his [[Freudian Excuse]], believes wholeheartedly that only weak people form groups and develop friendships. He maintains this belief despite a huge number of inconvenient facts, such as his homeland of Mu being destroyed because nobody trusted anyone else, or the way [[The Hero]] uses [[The Power of Friendship]] to kick him around like a soccer ball on a regular basis.

 

== Visual Novels ==

* Subversion: In ''[[Fate/stay night]]'', the Archer character is the Ineffectual Loner; this is a subversion as he is {{spoiler|actually the disillusioned future self of [[The Messiah]] who realized at the end of his life that trying to save everyone was an impossible goal. Plus he's far from ineffectual.}}

 

* Antimony from ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' used to be self-sufficient. She's apt to become good pals with any beings from [[psychopomp]]s to the Minotaur to a [[Trickster]] god, but didn't interact with living humans on her own initiative. Even Kat is her best friend only because she approached Annie first. From the chapter 19 or so she occasionally noticed the problem and tried to communicate. By 28 and 30 her failure to cooperate even with the teacher whose help she'd request when things gone wrong or fellow Mediums-in-training was an obvious crippling flaw.

 

== Web Original ==

* Peppermint Fizz from the 2002 ''[[Strawberry Shortcake]]'' series. She generally only shows up when the [[An Aesop|lesson of the day]] is something the nicer characters don't need to learn (like "don't be a xenophobe"), and is usually depicted as looking down on the others.

* Cera in the first ''[[Land Before Time]]'' movie nearly got herself killed by a Sharptooth and went hungry so that she wouldn't have to ask for help from the others. Eventually, she joined the rest of the group in a somewhat touching scene one night. She's pretty integrated into the group immediately after that.

 

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[[Category:Archetypal Character]]

[[Category:Character Flaw Index]]

[[Category:Introversion Tropes]]