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Friends are great. Which is why having friends is often what separates the hero from the villain. An inevitable side-effect of [[The Power of Friendship]] is [[Friendless Background|if you don't have friends]], there's something wrong with you. Similarly, if a writer is going to create a sympathetic [[Anti-Hero]], they often choose to make the character a brooding loner. Although there are many other ways to make a flawed character--[[Pride]], addiction, and lust are all sympathetic, epic flaws. No, no, instead, writers opt for just plain asocial.
In fiction, introversion usually includes a raft of other problems: [[Lack of Empathy|apathy]], [[It's All About Me|arrogance, selfishness,]] mental instability, inhumanity, or plain old evil. Loners will be shown as insulting others by implying, through their refusal to socialize, that others are not worthy of their presence. [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|Right]]? This perception stems from the belief that being a loner is not a natural thing. There is something "wrong" with them.
There's also the association with [[The Sociopath|serial killers]] who tend to be loners. In Japan, [[Hikikomori]] are seen as either [[NEET
Even more unfortunately, there is ''some'' [[Truth in Television|historic basis]] for this; humans are social animals. Cooperation along with the invention of language is how we survived and those who were alone often weren't able to reproduce or hand over their innovations to the next guy. Through most of human history collective action was the only practical means of survival; being extremely selfish, hiding all the time, or being shunned/banned/exiled/cast out was very often a precursor to slow death by starvation, predation, etc. Thus a person condemned to [[Dying Alone]] was almost certainly alone because of a problem he'd had in another group and so to be avoided.
A loner can also become a freak through isolation. Humans learn how to be human through social interaction. And there are many social skills that can only be learnt in
Of course, this trope could just be the inversion of the idea that nobody could like a freak, so those freaks are loners. But this doesn't logically translate to ''all'' loners are freaks, but [[You Fail Logic Forever|a lot of fiction doesn't follow logic]].
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[[The Messiah]] will often effect a [[Heel Face Turn]] on an antagonist by trying to be their friend. Often this will work by itself, hammering home the idea that what's wrong with the villain isn't the need for revenge or a severely unbalanced psyche, it's a lack of friends. Even if [[The Messiah]] eventually accepts the Loner ''as'' a Loner, the Loner will often appreciate the effort, and begin making token attempts to be sociable with the [[True Companions]].
It's hard to determine whether this trope originated from assumptions about loners in the real world or helped cause it...or whether that's ''another'' vicious cycle.
There are exceptions, as with all other tropes: [[The Hermit|the crusty old hermit]] or [[Witch Doctor]] who rebuffs the villains and helps out the heroes is a fairly popular stock character. And both of those are frequently portrayed at the very least as eccentric. The [[Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold]] is a subversion. [[The Snark Knight]] [[Genre Savvy|deliberately]] seeks to defy this trope.
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And, as ''[[Freaks]]'' proved, loners may be freaks, but freaks aren't loners.
Compare [[The Complainer Is Always Wrong]] and perhaps [[Intelligence Equals Isolation]]. Contrast [[You Are Not Alone]]. See also [[No Social Skills]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]!'': The protagonist has an ever-growing [[Team Spirit|team of friends to support him]], and not do much else. [[The Rival]] doesn't have any, doesn't want any, and consistently fluctuates between bona fide antagonist and intolerable rich snob.
* In ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', ''everyone'' is a loner to some degree, and it does none of them the least bit of good. Shinji is the most lonely, because of all the [[Butt Monkey|depressing, horrible, and just plain sad things]] that happen to him. Watching his mother die, being forced to pilot EVA-01 by his father, getting little respect from his peers and/or being bullied, {{spoiler|watching EVA-01 tear a rogue EVA to shreds beyond his control, and later finding out that the pilot was one of his friends who is now crippled as a result, being forced to kill the only person who truly understood him, and being forced to activate an apocalyptic event, leaving him and Asuka the only two people on Earth.}}
** [[Rebuild of Evangelion|Rebuild]] has an aversion in the form of {{spoiler|Mari, who outright states that she doesn't like involving others in her plans, deliberately cuts off the intercom when she [[Gundamjack|hijacks]] EVA 02, and is hardly shown talking with anyone but the protagonist. She still manages to be a very positive, badass character who teaches said protagonist an important lesson.}}
* Sara in ''[[Soukou no Strain]]'', the [[New Transfer Student]] loner, is assumed to be an evil one by the Gambee pilots who need a [[Butt Monkey|scapegoat]].
* One of Ash's rivals, Paul, from ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'', seems to be taking this route. He doesn't even seem to form proper friendships with his own Pokémon. He's only interested in them for their power.
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** Though it could be argue that he never considered anyone his "friend."
** The closest things he has to friends are Tenma and his own sister Nina, the people whose lives he made hell and whom he tries to mindrape into killing him over the course of the series.
* While the heroes of ''[[
** A more direct example is Part 4 [[Big Bad]] Yoshikage Kira.
* Sagara Sousuke from ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]'' ''specifically'' tries not to get too attached to people, mainly because he wants to maintain his business-like, cold way of following orders. Unfortunately for him, people just seem to be [[Magnetic Hero|so attracted to him]] that, even if he doesn't want to, he constantly ends up with groups of [[True Companions]]. [[Stalker with a Crush|Gauron]] becomes rather angry when he finds out that Sousuke is constantly surrounded by friends, and actually [[Hannibal Lecture|lectures]] Sousuke about how being a loner is a ''good thing'' that makes him strong and unique. Funniest part about it is that Gauron himself kept two [[Wife Husbandry|very loyal girls]] by his side, making it more likely that his grand speech had more [[Green-Eyed Monster|shallow reasons]].
* Pretty much the entire plot of ''[[Welcome to The NHK]]'' is how the protagonist Satou attempts to get over his social anxiety and connect with people after he realizes how unhappy he is as a loner.
* Averted in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', oddly enough. The hero himself is [[The Messiah|a very kind person]], but is also formal and uses Keigo with almost everyone. He tends to be rather distant otherwise. As it's an aversion and not a subversion, he's a loner but has no pathological case of avoiding people, he just doesn't socialize.
** He actively tries not to socialize, because he's a teacher and would like to avoid [[Hot for Student]] situations. [[Chick Magnet|Not that it helps.]] He also tries to keep his distance because he [[Adventure Rebuff|doesn't want them getting caught in any dangerous situations because of him]]. [[Jumped At the Call|That didn't help either.]]
** He also doesn't have a lot of time to socialize because he's constantly going through [[Training
** He probably uses [[Keigo]] because Japanese is not his first language, and the more formal ways of speaking are generally taught first when someone is trying to learn. Keigo being the first way of speaking Japanese that he learned, he's probably most comfortable using it.
*** This isn't true actually, he knows how to speak in an informal manner and does it with the Kotaro, Takahata-sensei and Anya, as pointed by one of the students.
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** Being a lone Weapon is one of the fandom theories regarding {{spoiler|Justin Law's}} Face Heel Turn, especially considering he appears to have encountered the {{spoiler|Clown whom Maka and Soul 'defeated' through epic team-work.}} In fact, teamwork forms the basis for all of the significant victories of that pair (if not ''all'' of the meister/weapon groups) in the manga.
** {{spoiler|While Stein does get on with people to an extent, he does not exactly seek out company. Marie leaves Death City with Stein because "he is always alone". Spirit was told by Shinigami to keep an eye on Stein, something which he has apparently been doing since childhood.}}
* Shizuka of ''[[Bakuman｡]]'' is a basement-dweller who writes truly messed-up plotlines, barely acknowledges his beleaguered, well-meaning editor, and regularly sports truly ''terrifying'' facial expressions. When this boy snaps, it'll be something on the order of the [[Dungeons
* Ichise of ''[[Texhnolyze]]''.
* Yukiteru Amano of ''[[Mirai Nikki]]'' is very much a loner at school. This is due to his own anti-social personality. However, he does try to get better and make friends. Unfortunately, Yuno exists.
** Then later on he {{spoiler|kills his friends in his quest for Godhood. To be fair, they did intentionally get in his way, try to tell him the truth that he couldn't bring people back to life (not a bad thing in its self, but considering his reasoning of 'I can bring everyone I've killed back, so it doesn't matter', it pretty much broke him) when it wouldn't have even mattered, they were kind of stupid.}} He was a freaky loner who got better, but it was too late for entirely other reasons.
* Konata from ''[[Lucky Star]]'', while not being a true loner, often gets berated for her love of solitary activities, like playing video games or watching anime shows.
** Kagami in particular sees Konata as the stereotypical [[Otaku]] and/or [[Hikikomori]], and considers Konata as a ''potential criminal''. (To be fair, Konata lacks most stereotypical otaku and hikikomori traits.)
* Tenshi/{{spoiler|Kanade Tachibana}} of ''[[Angel Beats!]]'' is placed in this category, but is rather a [[Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold|Boo Radley]]. She's seen as a freak because she doesn't have any friends, but that's only because {{spoiler|She's ''actively'' trying to ''graduate'' those around her, and thus is never really seen with anyone for any length of time.}}
* Averted in ''[[Amanchu!]]''
* In ''[[The Weatherman Is My Lover]]'' the cheerful but [[Stepford Smiler|emotionally detached]] Amasawa considers himself to fall under this. His lover [[Lonely Together|Koganei]] convinces him neither of them needs to be that way.
* All over the place in ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]''. Homura doesn't have any friends because {{spoiler|she was hospitalized for a long time}}, Mami doesn't have any friends because she must distance herself from others due to her job, Kyouko doesn't give a damn about humans after all she went through, and Sayaka actually become freaks, {{spoiler|[[And Then John Was a Zombie|in so many ways]],}} when she decides to be a loner. In contrast, Madoka try to connect with them all.
* A major plot point in [[
* In ''[[Saint Beast]]'', [[Stalker with a Crush|Shiva]] doesn't want to get close to anyone except Judas and also has a habit of putting down others. He gets treated with suspicion by other angels for his lack of community values.
* Anthy of ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]''.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Averted in ''[[Asterix]] and the Roman Agent'': while everyone else is bickering thanks to the titular spy's influence, the bard Cacofonix isn't, since he, besides being aphonic at the time, usually keeps to himself and thus keeps away from the agent's jealousy- and paranoia-inducing influence.
** This isn't necessarily a personal
* [[Depending on the Writer]], [[Batman]].
** This trope is one of the reasons many heroes are uncomfortable with him, being unaware that [[Papa Wolf|Batman]] has [[Badass Family|the biggest extended family of the DCU]].
* Both Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan of ''[[Watchmen]]''. Rorschach has difficulty relating to people on a social level, being paranoid, violent, and insulting. Dr. Manhattan pushes away from humanity due to his god-like powers.
** It's implied in his back-story that Dr Manhattan wasn't the most gregarious man in the world even before becoming omnipotent, omniscient and probably omnipresent if he felt like it.
* In many [[Legion of Super-Heroes]] continuities, [[Psycho Electro|Lightning Lord]]'s misanthropy is at least partially attributed to this. His homeowrld, Winath, has a population composed mostly of twins. As a single birth, he was apparently treated with pity, disdain and suspicion, and didn't take it well.
== Film ==
* ''[[
* Brendan Frye in ''[[Brick]]'' is cool, and badass, and a perfect example of ''Determinator'', but he eats lunch alone and the only two people who could possibly be called his friends are his ex-girlfriend and Brain, who serves as a sort of information broker. Brendan plays many sides against each other, and is not very well liked for it.
* ''He Was A Quiet Man''
* The Joker from ''[[The Dark Knight]]''.
{{quote|
'''Maroni:''' Friends? Have you ''met'' this guy? }}
* Somewhat averted in ''[[Silent Running]]'' - protagonist [[Significant Name|Freeman]] Lowell is a loner who is more at home with plants and animals than with people, but he's also the good guy in comparison to his uncaring, mercenary crewmates.
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* In the film version of ''[[How the Grinch Stole Christmas (film)|How the Grinch Stole Christmas]]'', the Grinch complains about this trope: "[[Santa Claus|Fat Boy]] should be finishing up anytime now. Talk about a recluse. He only comes out once a year, and ''HE'' never catches any flak for it!"
* ''[[About a Boy]]'' features Hugh Grant in the loner role. Over the course of the film he learns {{spoiler|how to be a decent human being by making some friends. (starting with a 12 year old boy, no less!)}}
* ''[[
== Literature ==
* [[Solomon Kane]] is the poster child for this trope, spending almost every story tramping around [[Darkest Africa]] all alone except for the [[Witch Doctor]] N'Longa, who he sees very infrequently, and various other characters whose main function, generally speaking, is to die violently.
* [[Chronicles of Thomas Covenant|Thomas Covenant]] - [[Stephen R Donaldson]]'s entry for least likeable main character. Something of a [[Jerkass]] hero.
* Roland Deschain, the protagonist of [[Stephen King]]'s magnum opus ''[[The Dark Tower]]'', suffers from this trope: he has been alone for so long in his quest to reach the titular Dark Tower that it is his only reason for living. In the first book he goes so far as to [[Anti-Hero|let a twelve-year-old boy he rescued and bonded with to fall to his death]], just to because his nemesis said it was the only way he'd ever allow himself to be caught. Roland's character softens into something a great deal more sympathetic after he forms a traveling party that helps him in his
** Not exactly. {{spoiler|The Dark Tower is the nexus of all existence. Saving it at the price of a thousand lives would be a bargain.}}
*** But remember, Roland's goal is not to save the Dark Tower, but to reach it. He goes out of his way to save it because if it falls he could never reach it. {{spoiler|If given the hypothetical choice of saving but never being able to get there, or reaching and climbing to the top at the cost of its destruction along with all of reality, he'd choose the second option.}}
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*** JK Rowling says on Pottermore that Albus Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall were quite close, bonding over similarities in their childhoods. Albus and Aberforth Dumbledore were also reported to be relatively close before everything went wrong.
** Luna Lovegood [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] it when she says she has no friends because everyone thinks she's [[Cloudcuckoolander|weird]].
* This is made into a point in [[David Eddings|David and Leigh Eddings]]'s ''[[Malloreon]]'' series: The heroic Child of Light is surrounded by his friends and family (who also have the luck to be part of a prophetic [[Plot Tailored to the Party]]), whereas the Child of Dark is almost completely
* ''[[Ender's Game]]'' [[Double Subversion|doubly subverts]] the heck out of this. Pretty much everyone intentionally isolates Ender to make him a more efficient commander. Which also makes him an asocial freak that he never really gets over. But useful!
** ''[[
*** The subsequent ''Shadow'' books do this even more clearly, though. Who's the villain? Achillies, who seems to be able to make everyone, except some of the battleschoolers, love him. He feels no attachment to them and is noted by Bean near the end as being empty and unable to understand true bonds. Who're the heroes? Bean, Mr. Antisocial himself, although {{spoiler|it is revealed that his detachment from humanity is more about him caring too much than too little}}. And Peter Wiggin, the terror of his brother's life and the ultimate "I can do it myself" loner. {{spoiler|Until he realizes just how good his parents are to talk to and after he marries Petra.}}
* Harry Dresden of ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' is a loner of the harmless variety. He has a small circle of friends, but he's more or less antisocial, only being immediately nice to pretty girls (not because he's a pervert, he's just the chivalrous type). People treat him as a freak, but not because he's a loner. It's because he publicly advertises his being a wizard and people think he's nuts.
** Note that this is only really an issue in the first four books. During and following ''Summer Knight,'' Harry finally accumulates enough [[True Companions]] that he can no longer really be considered a loner.
* Played with extensively in [[Gordon R. Dickson]]'s ''[[Childe Cycle]]'' series of novels. The "main character" of the series, Donal Graeme, finds he cannot accomplish his goal of uniting humanity alone; he not only has to travel in time (though not in the same body) to not only set historical events in motion, but ''to change their significance in history'' so that not only events but people are in place for a [[Final Battle]]. The trope listed here is also subverted in ''Soldier, Ask Not'' where a newspaperman with the power to influence people is thwarted in his attempts to bring down a entire race by one person of Faith, acting as he sees fit; and played to a extreme in the short story ''Brothers'' - about a set of twins that embody this trope, literally. When one is killed, the story follows thew other in his pursuit of the murderers, and leads to one of the most powerful scenes I have ever read, at the end.
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* ''[[Speak]]'': This is the reason Melinda is spurned by her classmates at school, other than the police-calling incident.
* [[Everworld|Senna Wales]]. The first book, ''Search for Senna'' notes that she "[[Understatement|was not the most popular girl at school.]]" She doesn't allow anyone to know anything about her personality or motives at first, not even her <s> minion</s> boyfriend, David Levin. Later in the book it becomes apparent that she is an antisocial, scheming [[Witch Species|witch]] who is running her own plans. And that's the ''first'' thing we learn about her.
*
** Edward D'Eath in ''[[Men at Arms]]'':
{{quote|
That's where people get it wrong. Individuals aren't naturally paid-up members of the human race, except biologically. They need to be bounced around by the Brownian motion of society, which is a mechanism by which human beings constantly remind one another that they are ... well ... human beings. He was also
** Another ''Discworld'' example, played with ''[[
* Boo Radley, of ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]]'', is seen as this by the rest of the town. He is a [[Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold]]
* [[Sherlock Holmes]], arguably embodies the loner trope, with the exception of Dr. John Watson.
* [[Frankenstein's Monster]]. Obviously.
** In fact, an [[Alternate Character Interpretation]] is that ''Victor'' Frankenstein is the villain and the "monster" his victim. The monster himself points out that Victor created him and then immediately abandoned him, never allowing him to know love or affection. It poses a sort of chicken-or-egg question: is the monster a loner because he's a freak or is he a freak because he's a loner?
* In [[Gene Stratton Porter]]'s ''[[Freckles]]'', Mrs. Duncan worries about Freckles's solitude, appeased only by his friendliness with animals.
{{quote|
* In [[Gene Stratton Porter]]'s ''The Song of the Cardinal'', the young cardinal, for all his [[Pride]], is wistful about a mate.
{{quote|
* Tobias has a lot of this in ''[[Animorphs]]'' after he gets [[Shapeshifter Mode Lock|trapped in morph]]. He does spend a lot of time with the other Animorphs, but he also has periods as a loner because he struggles with his triple hawk/human/Andalite nature and figuring out where he fits in in the world. It gets taken [[Up to Eleven]] at least twice when he retreats from everyone and sometimes even lets the hawk take over-right after he gets trapped and after Rachel's death.
▲== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[7th Heaven]]'': When Lucy Camden tells her mother about a girl in Habitat For Humanity who's a loner, Annie actually says she believes nobody really enjoys being "alone," and that there always must be some problem behind it. Sure enough, the withdrawn girl had been molested by her mother's ex-boyfriend.
* An interesting inversion of the trope can be found in the British spy series ''[[The Prisoner]]'', which features an unrepentant, mildly misanthropic loner as its protagonist. Instead of being seen as a liability, the character's "loner-ness" and drive towards individualism is the ''only'' thing keeping him sane. It's also the only weapon he has against the shady government officials who want to brainwash him and turn him into an obedient and conformist government servant.
** It's played straight in one episode, however, in which Number Six manages to make contact with other subversives within the prison; however, because they're all confident-but-intensely-secretive and insular types, they all think each of them is a double agent and end up scuttling their own escape. If they'd just trusted each other, they'd have gotten away.
* Dr. Cox from ''[[Scrubs]]'' applies to this trope as well, but a subversion occurs in the second episode of the first season. JD reaches out to the curmudgeonly doctor with pizza and beer, and just when it appears he's on the brink of a breakthrough, Dr. Cox replies, "I can braid your hair. I know the couch isn't very deep, but we could move the back cushion and spoon." Not only has he been sarcastic this whole time, he's got friends coming over to watch the
** It's notable that this is the only time we see Doctor Cox with friends over - an episode later in the show sets up the same premise, but closes on Cox alone in his apartment with a six-pack...
* Averted in ''[[Veronica Mars]]'', where the titular heroine is basically a loner in the first season. Later seasons acknowledge the trope's effect, however, as Veronica sporadically feels guilty about the fact that she really operates better alone.
* Similarly, in the first season of ''[[Gilmore Girls]]'', Rory is criticized by her headmaster for being too much of a loner.
* ''[[Smallville]]'', obviously, where all loners turn out to be crazed mutants, though a fair number of popular kids in that show turned out to be evil too.
** ''[[Smallville]]'' lacks even the tiniest bit of sympathy for anyone who isn't attractive and outgoing. While popular party-going types do sometimes go bad, the show has never featured a real geek or nerd or loner as anything other than a hideous loser with serious issues or hideous deranged monster.(Chloe does not count, due to her failing the "unattractive" test by a country mile)
* Parodied in a sketch on ''[[Jam]]'', in which a desperately lonely woman goes to increasingly sinister lengths to make friends (from setting traps for cyclists to dressing as a police officer, telling a woman that her son died in an accident, then inviting the grieving mother to the theatre that evening)
* Ned from ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' walls himself off from contact, both because of [[Parental Abandonment]] in his past and because his [[Blessed with Suck|freakish ability]] is based on touch.
** Played with in the episode "Frescorts" where Ned insists that just because these people are lonely it doesn't mean that they're freaks. Emerson thinks it does.
*** In the same episode, a visible inversion occurs: {{spoiler|1=Buddy killed Joe because he (Joe) decided to quit to be with his girlfriend, which Buddy saw as abandonment. [[Ho Yay]] + [[Clingy Jealous Girl|Clingy Jealous Boy]] = Uh oh.}} Also, in the end, Randy tells Ned that Joe had taught him that there's nothing wrong with being by yourself.
* Various examples in ''[[Star Trek]]'', for example Soran and Khan are loners. Also the [[Evil Twin
** Soran is not the best example, considering it was the loss of his family and desire to get back to them that made him go la-la.
** Khan wasn't really a loner; more so just the burden of being a [[Magnificent Bastard]] caused him to always be just slightly above everyone else. He had his wife on Ceti Alpha V for a while, and throughout the movie, he's seen conversing with Joachim as a good friend, {{spoiler|even promising to avenge his death.}}
** Thomas Riker's kind of a questionable example as well. Most of the conflict in the episode he appears in comes not from having been alone for so long, but from his resentment of Will for having lived those years while he was trapped. (Speaking of which, it's awfully dramatically convenient that the Enterprise happened to be the ship that found Tom Riker.) Neither is he really "evil" when he appears in ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]''; he's working for the Maquis, sure, but that's morally ambiguous; and again, he doesn't seem to have joined them because of his time alone so much as to differentiate himself from Will.
*** Actually it's not dramatically convenient but rather logically convenient. The reason the Enterprise was assigned to attempt to retrieve the computer core is that Riker had been assigned to the planet and given his rank at the time he was would be the officer on a star ship to most likely be familiar with the computer systems. It was a time saving measure rather than training someone new on an undoubtedly outdated system.
** Reginald Barclay might be a better example. In his first appearance, he is shown as very much the Loner and his re-creation of members of the crew in the Holo-Deck is regarded as somewhat freakish. During the show, as he gains respect from his colleagues, he becomes less of a loner and deletes almost all of his Holo-Deck programs.
** But on the other side, the power of collective is often described as evil as well, like Borg Collective and the Great Founder Link.
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* ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' plays with this trope in just about every permutation. Sometimes the unsubs are revealed to be loners or anti-social people, sometimes they're perfectly sociable. In one episode, the BAU investigate a triple murder that seems to be perpetrated by a Satanic cult {{spoiler|and turns out to be one of the popular kids at the high school framing the Satanists.}}
** Played with in one scene where Elle is profiling an arsonist:
{{quote|
''(The team's socially awkward [[Badass Bookworm]], Reid, gives Elle a strange look.)''
'''Elle:''' ''(quickly)'' And of course he's a total psychopath.
'''Reid:''' Of course. }}
** Given an interesting twist in "Solitary Man" where the killer essentially went crazy from loneliness, and that's what turned him murderous.
* Simon Bellamy from ''[[Misfits]]'' has no friends, and he's portrayed as mentally unstable, obsessive, nerdy, and a bit of a pervert. To be fair, he does actually ''want'' friends and genuinely tries to reach out to people, it's just that [[Dark and Troubled Past|years of bullying and isolation]] have left him painfully shy and socially inept. Plus he's actually shown to be far more kind, sensitive and empathic than most of the show's more extroverted characters, and his [[Sanity Slippage]] is mostly due to the [[The Woobie|traumatic things that happen to him]] and the fact that no one really offers him emotional support (or even acknowledges his existence most of the time).
* [[House (TV series)|House]] and Foreman are sometimes accused of this, especially by [[The Chick
* As a result of [[Genre Savvy|his father's training]], [[Dexter|Dexter Morgan]] is aware of this, and goes out of his way to cultivate a "reserved but sociable" persona to keep from being thought of as an emotionally withdrawn loner. It works on everyone but [[Only Sane Man|Sgt. Doakes]].
* A case of "Loners become freaks" in ''[[Life]]'', where Charlie is clearly a well adjusted guy with a job and a wife and friends until he spends an ungodly amount of time (unspecified, but measured in years) in solitary confinement. When they let him out again, [[Cloudcuckoolander|he's kind of crazy.]]
{{quote|
* Parodied in the Buckwheat assassination episode of ''[[SNL]]''. A series of people who knew the assassin, John David Stutts, all say the same thing about him--"He was a quiet guy, a bit of a loner, but he always talked about wanting to kill Buckwheat." The caption under his high school yearbook photo reads, "Most Likely to Kill Buckwheat."
* Ranger Gord on ''[[The Red Green Show]]'' is a tragicomic example, in that being posted to a lonely tower to watch for forest fires and then forgotten by his head office has meant that he's lived all alone in the woods since about 1979. Being all alone out there has pretty much made him into a full-blown [[Cloudcuckoolander]], something [[Lampshaded]] by Red on multiple occasions.
* [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]] had an episode called ''Out of Mind, Out of Sight'' about a girl who'd magically turned invisible from social ostracization and set out to take violent revenge on everyone she deemed responsible.
** Also implied to be why Buffy is such an effective Slayer. Her ties to the world give her something to fight for, while other, more isolated, Slayers tend to have far shorter lifespans.
* Also in ''[[Angel]]'', the titular character has a lot of this in his backstory, due to his guilt and not wanting to risk attackming anyone. He came out of it for most of the series, though he sank back into it in season 2 in an attempt to protect everyone from his darkness like before.
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** It got a better example with Connor, who suffered from Aspergers. Once his violent outbursts were explained, even Ally stood up for him. In fact, the amount of suffering he got from the principal was made public, and got Shepard fired.
* In ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'', the Winchester boys (Sam in particular) often had trouble fitting in due to having to move around so often. This led to a great deal of [[I Just Want to Be Normal]] on Sam's part that eventually caused him to have a falling out with his father. The fact that being called a freak is his [[Berserk Button]] is just icing on the cake.
* [[The X-Files|Mulder]] is a loner, due to his crazy ideas about aliens and government conspiracy. He's a joke to the FBI and is mocked by his peers, nicknamed "Spooky". He doesn't seem to mind too much, though. He doesn't go out of his way to make friends and likes to work alone; the first half of the first season is him just messing with Scully to try and annoy her enough to get her to leave. It doesn't work, and she ends up being his defender of sorts to others in the FBI. He has exactly four friends, including her, three of which are just as odd as he is. His loner tendency may stem back to his childhood, in which his parents emotionally abandoned him after the abduction of his sister. He noted that it "tore the family apart", and he is never seen to have a close relationship with his parents, who divorced soon after the incident.
* Toyed with in ''[[Dark Oracle]]''. Lance is an antisocial gaming geek, but is one of the main protagonists. His [[Cloudcuckoolander]] girlfriend Sage is similarly weird and isolated, but a very pleasant girl. [[Big Bad Wannabe|Vern]], [[Evil Counterpart|Blaze]], and [[Evil Twin|comic!Sage]] on the other hand, cross in [[Psycho Loner]] territory and stay there.
== Music ==
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* "A Most Peculiar Man" by [[Simon and Garfunkel]].
* John Cale's "Half Past France":
{{quote|
And many mountains now are molehills
Back in Berlin they're all well-fed
I don't care
People always bored me anyway }}
* [[Harry Chapin]]'s "Sniper". The titular sniper is described throughout the song as a strange loner, according to those who knew him. [[Deconstruction|Deconstructed]] as, according to the sniper's thoughts, everyone treating him as a freak is what sent him on his rampage.
== Tabletop Games ==
* In ''[[Unknown Armies]]'', spending three days alone is the sample Rank 3 Isolation stress checks, while spending seven days alone is the sample Rank 5 Isolation stress check. This means that the average character and average rolls will reach a permanent insanity from being alone, and even beating the odds leaves said character more than a little weird.
* In ''[[Genius: The Transgression]]'', Geniuses of high Obligation (Morality) might transgress just from avoiding people for too long.
** Same with [[Changeling: The Lost|changelings]], but that's because they have ''issues''.
* A [[Discussed Trope]] in ''[[GURPS]] [[Transhuman Space]]: High Frontier'': In describing "Virts", people who do all their interaction through virtuality, it notes "Many Virts are somewhat secretive about their true nature,especially since several popular InVids depict Virts as either [[Lack of Empathy|dangerous sociopaths]], [[The Cracker|criminal hackers]], or as pathetic and terrified losers.
== Toys ==
* From [[Bionicle]]:
{{quote|
'''Pohatu''': What, by choice?
== Video Games ==
* The protagonists of so many video games, especially older ones (i.e. before the dawn of multiplayer), are fully portrayed as
** ...fight a [[One-Man Army|one-man war]] against [[The Legions of Hell|Hell's armies]], eventually killing the big bad daddy of all demons, whose death throes destroy ''Hell itself''. (''[[Doom]]'')
** ...single-handedly face the seemingly inexhaustible resources of a [[Mega Corp|globe-spanning corporate hegemony]], with only a rag-tag group of ill-equipped, ungrateful [[La Résistance|Rebels]] backing you up on occasion. (''[[Crusader: No Remorse|Crusader]]'')
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* Other games, particularly Japanese RPGs, frequently highlight either a [[Ineffectual Loner|brooding loner hero]] who gradually gets better through the support of his [[True Companions]], or a kindly, happy-go-lucky hero who instead gathers people to him (including at least one Loner, usually [[The Sixth Ranger]] or [[The Lancer]]) and teaches them [[The Power of Friendship]].
** ''[[Final Fantasy|Final Fantasies VII and VIII]]'' are stellar examples of the first, while ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' provides an example of the second (who lapses briefly into being the first type and is then snapped back out of it). Almost all of the other games in the series feature at least one brooding loner learning that he needs to come out of his shell and join the hero crowd.
*** Then ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'' goes and turns the trope on its ear, setting Squall up in the same "brooding loner" role he occupied in [[Final Fantasy VIII|his own game]], only to then reveal that he chooses to [[I Work Alone|travel alone]] because he believes in the [[The Power of Trust]] and feels he can support the others from a distance. His explanation of his reasons is enough to convince the [[The Cape (trope)|Warrior of Light]]... not that it prevents everyone else from continuing to pick on him about it, even after he ends up joining forces with [[Final Fantasy IX|Zidane]] and [[Final Fantasy V|Bartz]] after all.
** In ''[[The World Ends With You]]'' Neku's [[Character Development]] a pure example of the first tendency.
*** And Sho Minamimoto is the classic "evil (or at least crazy) loner that becomes an [[Ensemble Darkhorse]]".
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* In ''[[Pokémon Diamond and Pearl]]'' and ''Platinum'', a woman in Sunyshore mentions that [[Big Bad|Cyrus]] used to prefer the company of machines to other people.
** Continued in Platinum where the player encounters Cyrus's grandfather, who tells you about how his grandson snapped at a young age due to parental pressure. Grandpa himself is quite a loner, holed up in a cabin in an eternal sandstorm that you have to pull off an impressive bike trick to even get to.
* ''[[Touhou]]'' features several characters noted for shunning most human (or monster) contact most of the time. How much they are portrayed as "freaks" for this varies widely, however.
** Marisa isolates herself most of the time so that she can [[Training
*** However in ''Strange and Bright Nature Deity'' we usually see her hanging out with Reimu at the Hakurei Shrine.
** Alice Margatroid being regarded by people as an unnerving weirdo is canon. She live alone in the same forest and spends her time making and controlling dolls and researching magic. According to Aya (in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense), Alice says she cheerfully allows lost strangers to spend the night. Aya also says what Alice really does is let them inside, but she doesn't make conversation with them and mainly does her research and control her dolls. Which, while unsettling, is safer to just put up with than take your chances, at night, in the forest where Alice lives. Also Alice talks to her mindless dolls (although we don't see her talk to dolls while other people are around in Strange and Bright Nature Deity).
** Fujiwara no Mokou likewise isolates herself, apparently feeling more connection to humans than [[Youkai]] society, she protects people who wander into the bamboo forest, but isolates herself from them otherwise. Her [[Bifauxnen]] appearance, and [[Les Yay]] relationship with Keine prevent anyone from calling her a freak, however.
** Kaguya Houraisan, [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Immortal Enemy]] of Mokou, however, in spite of living with a friend and servants, is portrayed as a [[NEET]] and [[Fan Girl]].
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* In an old commercial for [[Zelda II: The Adventure of Link]], Link apparently goes through the dungeons yelling for Zelda like he's looking for her. Despite the fact that the first thing you see in the game is the ancient sleeping Zelda, and the point of the dungeons is to ultimately get the third Triforce.
== Web Comics ==
** [http://mag-isa.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/119657 Kyle], [http://mag-isa.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/119669 Alice], and [http://mag-isa.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/119663 Chu] were loners in school. That is why they joined some crazy cult and shoot up a school.▼
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130809170120/http://ozyandmillie.org/1999/12/02/ozy-and-millie-262/ This strip] of ''[[Ozy and Millie]]'' pretty much sums up this trope.▼
* ''[[No Rest for The Wicked (webcomic)|No Rest for The Wicked]]'': Red, who's [[Ax Crazy]], and the Witch, who's worse. At one point, Perrault suggests to November that they might want to leave Red: the years alone in the woods might have been what drove the Witch crazy, and Red might be well down the same path.▼
* Abel Rewanz from ''[[DMFA]]'' is pretty much this trope personified.▼
== Web Original ==
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** And, as Dr. Horrible works on his Death Ray, he also stops meeting with Penny or Moist.
* For some reason, a good portion of [[Survival of the Fittest]]'s version 4 are loners. Whether or not it is played straight, though, varies from character to character.
* Parodied in [https://web.archive.org/web/20130724165641/http://www.theonion.com/video/potential-school-shooter-gunned-down-by-popular-jo,20877/ this] video of [[The Onion|Onion News]].
* [[The Nostalgia Chick]] has often admitted to being lonely, and her well-meaning but clueless friends believe her causticness is a result of her hating ''[[The Little Mermaid]]''.
▲* [[MAG ISA]] -- This trope applies to a lot of the characters in the webcomic.
▲** [http://mag-isa.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/119657 Kyle], [http://mag-isa.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/119669 Alice], and [http://mag-isa.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/119663 Chu] were loners in school. That is why they joined some crazy cult and shoot up a school.
▲* [http://ozyandmillie.org/1999/12/02/ozy-and-millie-262/ This strip] of ''[[Ozy and Millie]]'' pretty much sums up this trope.
▲* ''[[No Rest for The Wicked (webcomic)|No Rest for The Wicked]]'': Red, who's [[Ax Crazy]], and the Witch, who's worse. At one point, Perrault suggests to November that they might want to leave Red: the years alone in the woods might have been what drove the Witch crazy, and Red might be well down the same path.
▲* Abel Rewanz from ''[[DMFA]]'' is pretty much this trope personified.
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[The Smurfs]]'' was sometimes accused of this, along with a number of children's shows accused of preaching conformity (ruthlessly parodied by the "Buddy Bears" on ''[[Garfield and Friends]]''). Smurfs often got in trouble for either working independently from the others or ignoring their informed warnings, depending on who you asked. This is a milder version of [[The Smurfs/WMG|where some people took it]]...
* One episode of ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' had Spongebob trying to make friends with Plankton, to try to help him become a better person. It hilariously didn't work: "[[Evil Feels Good|Being evil is just too much fun]]!"
* Eric, the loner in ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (animation)|Dungeons and Dragons]]'' who always messed up, was included [[Executive Meddling|specifically]] to reinforce a [https://web.archive.org/web/20120701184254/http://povonline.com/cols/COL145.htm "The group is always right"] [[The Complainer Is Always Wrong|mentality]] in the show.
* Prince Zuko in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''. As he would [[Character Development|later]] say to Jet "I've realized lately that being on your own isn't always the best path."
* The Ice King in ''[[Adventure Time]].'' He rules the Ice Kingdom, which is totally uninhabited (except for snow creatures he creates occasionally, and penguins.) He gets a LITTLE better once he becomes friendlier with Finn and Jake.
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* Mentioned in ''[[Daria]]'', especially "Boxing Daria", where the title character's parents have a fight over her lack of ability to get along in pre-school. (Daria herself managed to avoid this mostly by her friendship with Jane, and to a lesser extent [[Beavis and Butthead]].)
* Played straight and subverted in the first episode of ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]''. Twilight Sparkle, the main character, is seen this way by the denizens of Canterlot, but on the other hand, the overly friendly ponies of Ponyville strike Twilight Sparkle as rather crazy.
** Loners barely even seem to exist in the show; friendship is, quite literally, one of the fundamental forces of that universe. The biggest loner so far shown is Zecora (a [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|faux-African]] witch doctor living alone in the dark woods), and she's a very sympathetic character - the first episode featuring her is all about how she's ''not'' a freak. On the other hand, even she is not a complete loner, as she keeps friendly relations with the main characters, doesn't mind visits to her hut and sometimes helps out with celebrations in Ponyville.
* Mr Freeze from ''[[Batman: The Animated Series|Batman the Animated Series]]'' is another example: where Batman has Robin, who he treats as a teammate, Mr Freeze is completely ruthless when one of his henchmen gets accidentally frozen. This is also true of The Joker, and especially evident in how he treats Harley Quinn. It's subtle, but Batman isn't really a true loner. It's okay to be a loner when you cooperate with the system and have a sidekick!
* ''[[Gargoyles]]'' live in a clan structure, and gargoyles within a clan are very close and protective of each other. Losing her clan and being alone for centuries is part of what drove [[Big Bad|Demona]] to go from disliking humans to actively trying to wipe out the species.
== Real Life ==
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* Seung-Hui Cho, the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech massacre was described as a loner by many students. He would apparently spend some days just sitting in a wooden rocker staring out his window at nothing in particular and had stalked several female students. Even after being diagnosed as having mental problems, the only help his parents sought for him was from churches who insisted that he was being "afflicted by demonic powers and needed deliverance".
** Both Churches that have an established exorcism ritual (Catholic and Orthodox) virtually ''always'' have, as the first step, "see a psychologist and see if that helps". "Consult a physician" (psychology as a separate discipline being comparatively new) has been the first step in exorcisms since at least the time of Augustine—contrary to popular belief, the ancient and medieval worlds didn't automatically attribute all mental illness to demons.
** This trope often comes up in media news to describe a perpetrator in a major shooting massacre. It's usually the first headline about the shooter whether it's actually true or not.
* According to some psychiatric researchers, there is are a number of '[[wikipedia:Personality disorder|personality disorders]]' such as '[[wikipedia:Avoidant personality disorder|avoidant personality disorder]]', [[wikipedia:Social anxiety|social anxiety]] and '[[wikipedia:Love shy|love shyness]]' that cause victims to be severe introverts. Naturally, there is increased risk of other mental disorders, but these people are rarely dangerous. Sadly, these people are often mistaken for '[[wikipedia:Antisocial personality disorder|antisocial]]' individuals who can be harmful to society.
** In the examples above, the person deep down still desires friendship and intimacy, they just have problems obtaining them. For natural loners, who really couldn't care less if they have any friends or not, the personality disorder is called [[wikipedia:Schizoid personality disorder|schizoid]]
*** Some psychiatrists don't even think schizoid personality disorder ''is'' a disorder, since those affected may not actually suffer in any way. One calls the disorder "the medicalization of non-conformity".
** Also note that antisocial personality disorder has nothing to do with socialization. A psychopath can have a rather active social life when he's not shoplifting or torturing people.
* In a real-life inversion, crimes are more likely to be committed by extroverts, not introverts. The researchers who discovered this theorize that it doesn't have much to do with any relationship between morality and the desire to
* The 19th century poet Emily Dickinson, who gradually withdrew from human society and lived alone for the rest of her life, communicating with the outside world primarily through letters. There is no definite answer as to ''why'' she decided to become a recluse. Some of her poems appear to imply that everyone else thought her to be pretty weird for choosing to live alone in a house instead of getting married and pumping out babies like all the proper, decent girls were doing. (Going into seclusion was one of the very few alternatives to marriage and childbearing in Dickinson's era. Women who did so - and it was only really possible for women who had money of their own - were often considered little better than freaks of nature.)
* "He was quiet; kept to himself a lot" tends to pop up a lot when news outlets interview relatives and colleagues of murderers and other psychologically driven criminals, no matter how social they actually were.
** This trope is so commonly used in the News media that it has become a [https://web.archive.org/web/20090517105419/http://spectator.org/archives/2009/05/14/a-defense-of-quiet-loners journalistic] [http://www.slate.com/id/2162373 cliché].
** A man was recently accused of selling US secrets to Israel, and surprise surprise, his neighbor said that she hadn't noticed it before, but he was unsocial and weird.
** The reason for this is that being sociable is the norm, especially for criminals, so people rarely consider it worth mentioning if the criminal in question had a lot of friends. However, if a criminal is asocial it is considered out of the ordinary and therefore news worthy.
* Dane Cook has a joke about this trope in which he states he'll try to befriend the guy at work that people would find creepy with [[Tastes Like Friendship|a chocolate bar]]. In return, he'll be spared from the latter's eventual homicidal rampage through the workspace.
{{quote|
** When the first reported instances of postal workers "[[Going Postal]]" came about, in one instance an employee survivor actually lived because she was the only person that was friendly to the killer. No candy was involved, though.
* Thoroughly averted in [http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch this] article by Jonathan Rauch.
* Averted with some of the greatest killers in history, including Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, Andrei Chikatilo, and John Wayne Gacy. Those guys were anything but loners. And let's not forget that Charlie Manson.
** Ed Gein was actually a severely disturbed individual who almost perfectly fits this trope, while he was not entirely cut off from the outside world he spent the majority of his spare time alone at home crafting furnishings out of human body parts. JW Gacy and Ted Bundy on the other hand are complete aversions of this trope.
* We'd ''like'' to think that [[
** The "
* [[Cats Are Mean]] is a product of this, because domestic cats are by nature loners, especially in contrast to pack-minded dogs.
** This is also why loners and cats often get along so well, and both tend to prefer each others company to that of obnoxious sociophiles.
* Spree killer [[wikipedia:Howard Unruh|Howard Unruh]].
* Tucson, AZ shooter [[wikipedia:Jared Lee Loughner|Jared Lee Loughner]] who became increasingly withdrawn and mentally unstable after high school.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Solitary Tropes]]▼
[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]
[[Category:Did Not Do the Research]]
[[Category:Ice Queen Characters]]▼
[[Category:Introversion Tropes]]
[[Category:Popularity Food Chain]]
▲[[Category:Solitary Tropes]]
[[Category:Stock Aesops]]
[[Category:Truth in Television]]
▲[[Category:Ice Queen]]
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