Loners Are Freaks: Difference between revisions

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

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]].

 

Compare [[The Complainer Is Always Wrong]] and perhaps [[Intelligence Equals Isolation]]. Contrast [[You Are Not Alone]]. See also [[No Social Skills]].

 

== 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.

* 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 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.

** 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.}}

* 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.

** 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.}}

* 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.

* 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.

* [[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]].

** 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 ==

* 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.

** 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.}}

*** 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]].

* ''[[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.

* ''[[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.

{{quote|It was said later that he came under bad influences at this stage. But the secret of the history of Edward d'Eath was that he came under no outside influences at all, unless you count all those dead kings. He just came under the influence of himself.

* [[Sherlock Holmes]], arguably embodies the loner trope, with the exception of Dr. John Watson.

* [[Frankenstein's Monster]]. Obviously.

* 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.

 

* ''[[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.

** 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.

** 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.

** 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.}}

** 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).

* 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.]]

* [[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 ==

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 ==

** 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|'''Kopaka''': [[I Work Alone]].

 

== Video Games ==

** ...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]]'')

* 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.

** 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]]".

** 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.

** 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]].

* 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 Original ==

** 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.

* [[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]]''.

 

== 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]]!"

* 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.

* 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 ==

*** 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.

* 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.

** 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.

** 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 [[Columbine|Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris]] were a pair of whacked-out loners who were part of a pseudo-gang called "The Trench-Coat Mafia" and maybe, just maybe, if someone reached out to them (somebody else of course), the tragedy at Columbine High could've been averted. It's so much easier to write off the mass murderers as lone freaks with no sense of community when the reality is that psychopathy can manifest in just about anybody... turns out that the pair were pretty much accepted and liked amongst their peers. In spite of this Harris was a stone-cold sociopath - he wasn't a loner and actually considered quite charismatic. Klebold however suffered from depression and Harris was one of his only friends. Harris was the one who was largely behind the killing, with Klebold mostly just following him. As it turns out, psychopathy and sociopathy generally mean said people are actually very very social, if only to avoid appearing 'different' and to better blend in. Thus they learn how to project the illusion of emotion and how to use emotion to manipulate people even if they never feel these emotions themselves.

* [[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.

 

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[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]

[[Category:Popularity Food Chain]]

[[Category:Stock Aesops]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]