No Sympathy: Difference between revisions

More bewildering is when the friend/onlooker knows ''exactly'' what the hero's been through, because ''they were there too.'' They ''know'' that [[Diabolus Ex Machina]] has been rather busy in the hero's social circle, and that his buddy [[Deus Angst Machina]] covered a couple of Diabolus' shifts for him when he had the cold. Yet still they show absolutely no mercy, demanding that the hero "pull himself together" or "get over it!" [[With Friends Like These...|So much for friendship.]]

 

 

This is an odd trope; although often seen in comedies, it's not always comedic as far as the audience is concerned, and can be a real sucker punch if the protagonist undergoes tremendous hardship only to have his friends [[Et Tu, Brute?|berate him]].

Supertrope of [[Badly-Battered Babysitter]]. Contrast [[Ungrateful Bastard]]. If a character is deliberately stated to be ''incapable'' of sympathising with the feelings or viewpoints of others, that's [[Lack of Empathy]]. For when nobody seems to find women enacting random violence towards men for non-existent reasons at all unusual see [[Unprovoked Pervert Payback]]. [[Rashomon Style]] shows frequently have contrasting examples of this: someone who got hurt will usually report callousness and lack of sympathy from the other characters, while each one describes him or herself as the one who acted most effectively and compassionately to the injury.

 

* Deconstructed in ''[[Fruits Basket]]'', where failure to acknowledge the distress of others is a major character flaw, especially in brothers Yuki and Ayame.

* In ''[[Eureka Seven]]'', 14-year-old Renton's undying loyalty to the crew of the Gecko State is rewarded with a humiliating fake mission staged for their amusement. Told that it was of 'paramount importance', Renton ''doesn't even realize he's being mocked.'' As the 'mission' starts to fall apart, so does he. In tears, berating himself for his uselessness, the crew watches via secret camera as he delivers a lengthy speech about his admiration for them all, his happiness at being given this critical mission, and above all, ''his trust in them''. They stare, wide eyed, at the screen... and burst into laughter at how idiotic he is. Then they make the mission objectives more ridiculous, photograph him at the most humiliating point of his life, and publicize it on the cover of a globally read magazine. The entire mission is recorded. And shown to his girlfriend. It's actually meant to be amusing. [[Dude, Not Funny|It's not.]]

* Tends to happen in ''[[Slayers]]'', usually to anyone who isn't named [[Red Headed Heroine|Lina]] - she's generally the instigator. The most extreme cases range from [[Comedic Sociopathy]] (using the chimeric Zelgadis as a boat anchor to catch a dragon in a lake, where he nearly drowns, gets hurt, and nearly eaten) to [[Kafka Komedy]] (using Princess Amelia as a bride for fish bait in order to survive on an island in a [[Audio Adaptation|radio drama]]; before that she nearly died in the ocean, and in another drama Lina shows no concern for Amelia when she shoves her in a barrel to hide and forgets that she is drowning in a sewer) to genuinely sad moments (neither Lina or Zelgadis show care when [[Orphan's Ordeal|Sylphiel's father is killed]] or when Amelia's father is thought to have been assassinated). And there is plenty of [[Abuse Is Okay If Its Female On Male|abuse]] towards Gourry to go around. It's a wonder that Lina's three companions aren't [[Broken Bird|horribly broken]] after dealing with her across five TV series.

** Other adaptations, however, tone all of this down.

** Hey they're learning the meaning of feelings....well at least [[Character Development|some of them]]...[[My God, What Have I Done?|sort]] of

* [[Played for Drama]] in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]''. Fate Testarossa, only 9 years old, is told to collect magical artifacts of untold power by her mother, Precia. She throws herself at the task with reckless abandon, exhausting and injuring herself to dangerous levels. Her mother responds by whipping her until she collapses, furious at how slowly Fate's progress has been. It gets worse. {{spoiler|When it's found out that Fate is just a clone, Precia says something to the effect of "That's right. You're nothing but a fake. I never loved you ''once''. I ''despise you''." Fate STILL forgives her, and says that even if she's hated, she'll still protect her mother. Her mother smiles, and replies "How stupid."}}

* In ''[[Tail of the Moon]]'', Usagi is feeling rather depressed, as she's just learned Hanzo used to be engaged to Sara. Not only that, Sara and Hanzou have just split up over Hanzou's flirtatiousness, and Usagi feels responsible as Hanzou was helping her when he argued with Sara. Hanzo sees that she isn't training, and even though he can see she's got something on her mind, he proceeds to throw her put of the village and lock her out, refusing to let her in even though Sara and several others protest. When he finally ''does'' go to let Usagi in, it's started raining and she's heading back to her village. She's still upset when he catches up with her, but he never apologises even when she ''does'' return to his village.

 

* Poor [[Donald Duck]]. This trope is a big factor in making him [[The Chew Toy]]. Girlfriend Daisy is particularly prone to empathy failure. No matter what catastrophe befalls her beau, Daisy won't bother to staunch the bleeding before she sets in with a vicious rant-a-thon.

** It must run in the family: After Scrooge was accidentally pulled through a clothes shop by a hoverbike-thing gone mad, screaming in fear, he was arrested by the police because he got a few pieces of clothes stuck to him and people assumed he stole them.

** To make matters worse, he also gets it as Spider-Man as well; his motivations and actions are often genuinely noble, but the prevailing [[All of the Other Reindeer]] mood of the Marvel Universe (helped, of course, by J. Jonah Jameson's obsessive vendetta against him - and since Jonah owns and publishes a newspaper, it's not exactly difficult for him to get his viewpoint wide distribution) means that he's constantly subject to widespread public criticism, condemnation and fear, and even blatant acts of heroism on his part will usually trigger a loud public outcry accusing him of being a public menace. They get him coming and going.

 

* The story described in [http://community.livejournal.com/fanficrants/9759827.html this] fanficrant.

* ''[[Naruto]]'' in some NaruHina fanfictions his friends and the adults know that his childhood was hell but they're '''''constantly''''' mocking him and calling him dense for not noticing Hinata's feeling when she stutters and faints.

 

* Stories about the in-laws-from-hell usually feature the bride's parents (and many of her other associates, and in some cases ''the bride herself'') having No Sympathy for her husband. The [[Overprotective Dad]] in particular is ill-inclined to give his son-in-law an inch. ''[[Meet the Parents]]'' and ''[[The Worst Week of My Life]]'' are two examples.

* The biggest part of Mary Jane's [[The Scrappy|scrappydom]] in the ''[[Spider-Man (film)|Spider-Man]]'' movies is her performance in the second film. Even not knowing that Peter is a superhero, you'd think most people would understand that a full-time college student struggling to keep his studio apartment might not have as much free time as a retiree (Aunt May), a jobless loser (MJ's dad) or a wealthy heir (Harry) would to go and see her play, and yet she treats him very cruelly based on this fact alone and refuses to hear his legitimate reason for missing it (the usher refused to admit him, to say nothing of the fact that his motorscooter was ''destroyed in an accident.'') Yeah, yeah, he promised her he'd see it, but you know what? Sometimes circumstances prevent people from keeping their promises; [[It's All About Me|grown-ups understand that]].

* In ''[[The Time Traveler's Wife]]'' movie, Clare chews Henry out for disappearing for about two weeks. Which he cannot control how long he disappears or when he can come back. And he has to go apologize for her afterwards.

* ''Wonderfully'' subverted in ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]''. Charlotte plans on wooing Prince Naveen using Tiana's delicious food, but while she goes to find him, Tiana is informed that a better offer has been made on the mill she wanted to buy to make a restaurant. Her attempts to get the sellers to stay and hear her out end up with her knocking over the food table, which is right when Charlotte returns. And contrary to all expectations, her only reaction is to worry about whether Tiana's okay, and get her a new dress to wear.

 

* [[Jacqueline Wilson]]'s heroines usually have friends prone to this (and occasionally do it themselves). A blatant example is the ''Girls'' series heroine, Ellie. Throughout the series, Ellie has to bail out best friends Nadine and Magda when they pick up the [[Idiot Ball]] and run with it...and in gratitude, they're quick to abandon Ellie in favour of whichever boy they're pursuing at the time. However, when Ellie tells them she's thinking about going to her boyfriend's dance rather than to a concert with Nadine and Magda, they get ''very'' catty and accuse her of abandoning them, despite the fact that Ellie shows far more regard for their feelings when they do for hers. Occasionally, this can verge on (non-)[[Comedic Sociopathy]], as when they accuse Ellie of overreacting when {{spoiler|she finds a drunken Magda lip-locked with Russell, Ellie's boyfriend, at a party}}.

* Bernard [[Mac Laverty]]'s ''Father and Son'' has a pretty breathtaking example of this. A recently bereaved father struggles to care for his son after the mother of the family dies. Said son repays him by running away for two years until he gets ill and has to be rescued by the father, who nurses him back to health. Rather than being grateful for the rescue, and the subsequent sacrifices his father had to make for him, the stupid little twit cuts him no slack, whining constantly about his father's lack of masculinity (since it's now dad who does the housework), drawing violence and illegal activities into his dad's house, and throwing a fit whenever his dad asks him where he's going when he leaves the house. All right, the son was going throw his own mucked-up grieving process, and the theme of the short story was the isolation of grief and [[Poor Communication Kills]], but you may be left feeling that the son [[Downer Ending|deserved everything he got]], especially when you consider that the father constantly tries to bridge the gap between them.

 

* [[House (TV series)|House]] seems to go out of his way to invoke this in other people, just so he can protect his ego. For example, take the Tritter thing; being tripped was humiliating, sure, but the other characters might have had more sympathy for him if he had actually told them about that instead of keeping it to himself. (Of course, he also tends not to show sympathy for others; sometimes it's a [[Jerkass Facade]], and sometimes it's, well, [[Dr. Jerk|the premise]].)

** subverted in 97 Seconds when House asks for sympathy after electrocuting himself and being hospitalized....even though he electrocuted himself deliberately as part of a self-indulgent experiment involving [[Near-Death Experience|near death experiences]].

** In season four finale, he had been in an accident and had a head injury, but still Wilson asked him to do a potentially fatal test on himself to save Amber's life, since Wilson was dating her. When House did it anyway, and Amber died anyway, Wilson stopped being friends with him for a while (although this is suggested to be just Wilson dealing with the grief).

* JD and Turk both seem to be frequent victims of this on [[Scrubs]]. Carla, and most of the girls JD dates, seem ready to pounce on any perceived failure or flaw, regardless of the circumstances.

*** No one seemed to care, either, that when J.D. got the DUI, it was for pushing his scooter down the road (having recognized that he had too much to drink), with the keys in the ignition so he could listen to music as he did it. He was treated by his co-workers the same way he would have been treated if he'd driven an SUV after drinking half of a bottle of vodka.

* Bernard Black, the bookshop owner in ''[[Black Books]]'', has a deep contempt for Manny Bianco, his assistant, and responds to almost anything he does with anger.

* Kate from ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]'' spends a lot of time whining about her dead brother, who was killed by Guy of Gisborne after [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|her botched rescue attempt]]. She doesn't seem to care that she is surrounded by fellow outlaws who have ''also'' suffered at the hands of Gisborne: Little John had his wife and son tortured, Much lost the woman he loved, Allan had to watch his brother get executed, and Robin's ''own wife'' was ''murdered''. But, nooo, all Kate can moan is: "E keeled mah bruvvah!"

* The use of this trope is often detrimental to the characters of ''[[NCIS]]'' (making them occasionally come off as unlikeable sociopaths) because of the way the show shifts between comedy and drama, the tone determining whether there will be sympathy or not and the audience [[Your Mileage May Vary|disagreeing with the writers' sense of humor]].

 

** At the very least, if you romanced them in the previous game, said party member will E-Mail Shepherd after the event, and apologise for acting like they did, saying they really did miss Shephard, are happy that he/she is alive, and wish them luck in his/her mission. They will re-join in ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'' anyway.

* In ''[[Fate/stay night|Fate Stay Night]]'''s Heaven's Feel route, Sakura is accusing Rin of {{spoiler|living happily while Sakura herself.. um, [[Abusive Parents|was]] [[Rape as Backstory|not]]. [[Body Horror|At all]].}} [[Tsundere|Rin]] acknowledges that Sakura had it rough, but still shows her No Sympathy. Because Sakura has essentially turned into {{spoiler|a [[Super-Powered Evil Side|Super Powered]] [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]] on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]}}, this bites Rin in the ass in a certain bad ending. [[Nightmare Fuel|Very. Hard.]]

* ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius|Fire Emblem: Path Of Radiance]]'' and ''Radiant Dawn'' give us Soren most frequently but [[Super Smash Bros.|Ike most famously.]]<ref>Which is completely out of character for the man who would even show sympathy to his father's killer</ref>

 

* [[The Woobie|Nobody ever has sympathy for]] [[Warbot in Accounting|Warbot]]. At [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/07/07/warbot_009-the-yutani-account/ one point], he tries to [[Driven to Suicide|commit suicide,]] fails, and ends up chastised by his colleague for skipping work.

{{quote|Everyone pretty much thinks you're a jerk.}}

* [[Gunnerkrigg Court|Boxbot]] only wants to help, but is hampered by the fact that he's a badly programed box with arms. He is consequently terrible, a fact that the characters and author are extremely willing to share.

 

* In the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode "I Second That Emotion", the crew became so annoyed with Bender's lack of sympathy for anyone, that they installed an emotion chip to his head, which made him feel everything Leela (whose pet, Nibbler he flushed down the toilet) felt.

* Lucien from ''[[The Cramp Twins]]'' suffers an allergic reaction from the vest he's wearing while in class, and takes it off to reveal a huge red rash covering his torso. Miss Hissy, Lucien's teacher, responds by giving him a detention for removing his top.

* In one episode, [[Doug]] was goaded into throwing a rock at a house scheduled for demolition and this small rock ends up collapsing the entire house. Patti comes by and when Doug brags to her about the good shot she tells him he's "terrible" and walks off angry. For most of the episode Patti avoids Doug like the plague without giving an explanation and Doug is left wondering why she would be angry at him for wrecking a house that was going to be torn down soon anyway, even Bebe won't answer him when he asked her to find out why Patty is mad at him. He doesn't find out why until Skeeter off-handedly mentions that it was the house Patti lived in when her mother was alive, something which Doug would not have known since everybody knows he'd just moved to Bluffington. Subverted in that Patti actually apologises after Doug gives his side of the story.

 

* Donald Knuth discusses a [[wikipedia:TeX|TeX]] error in ''The TeXbook'':

{{quote|'''Interwoven alignment preambles are not allowed.'''

If you have been so devious as to get this message, you will understand it, and you will deserve no sympathy. }}

* In [[Real Life]], telling someone suffering from depression to "buck up" or "get over it already" are examples of this trope. In practice it's just as absurd as telling them to "just get over" a broken arm, although provided you've taken the right steps early on the broken arm will usually sort itself out in time, while the depression will probably be something they have to deal with their entire lives.

 

* Klaus of ''[[From Eroica with Love]]'' has no mercy for his alphabets...not even with regard to basic human needs like eating and sleeping. ''He'' can stay awake for two days straight, so he expects his team to do the same. Because Klaus' life is entirely based around his job, he's equally ruthless with their private lives, thinking nothing of exiling them to Alaska without taking into account the small matter that many of them have ''families...''

* Count D of ''[[Pet Shop of Horrors]]'' probably had a certain amount of [[Blue and Orange Morality]] as an excuse, but in certain stories he comes across as having the No Sympathy trait instead. T-chan is a straighter example, having no time for weakness.

 

* Most women in Robert Jordan's ''[[Wheel of Time]]'' are afflicted with this. Main hero Rand al'Thor is their typical [[Butt Monkey]]: He has a never-healing wound that causes him pain every waking moment, he is in danger of [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|going mad from the tainted magic he uses]](and in fact may have already done so), and, oh yeah, he has the responsibility of [[Saving the World]]. But most women around him for some reason feel that the most sensible way to help him save the world is by making his life as miserable as possible, and doing such things as criticizing him for being rude while trying to stop everyone else from being idiots and prepare for the last battle already. Being [[Wouldn't Hit a Girl|a total pussy]], Rand just accepts it. Possibly because practically all his male friends and allies give him shit if he does something like, for example, not kowtowing immediately to Aes Sedai demands for the very good reason that they are a bunch of manipulative Jerkasses in the midst of their own civil war, so it isn't as if he should know which ones advice to follow even were he so inclined.

** In short, the guy deserves a break even if he can be an idiot.

 

** Paradoxically and by contrast, Darth Bane in his own novels that tie in with the game and whose writer was involved in writing them bears no grudge over a failed attempt to ''assassinate him'', since that's what Sith are supposed to do.

 

* Collin Sri'Vastra and Fox Maharassa of ''[[Friendly Hostility]]'' are an odd case of both sides of No Sympathy. Fox was the sweeter natured partner, but was empathically useless, needing to have a person's problems spelled out for him before he realised there ''was'' a problem. After being made aware of a situation, he was quick to offer support - but if no-one bothered to explain things to him, he was cheerfully oblivious and steamrolllered their feelings. Collin, on the other hand, was more sensitive, but also crueller - appealing to his emotions was a lost cause if you weren't his nearest and dearest, and occasionally he [[Manipulative Bastard|actively targeted]] someone's weak spot to demoralise them, as he did to Kitty in the "Pirates!" storyline. The endgame of the story is brought about when these two sides of the same problem clash - {{spoiler|Collin becomes unhappy, and Fox moves from being the one person he opens up to, to just about the only person he refuses to voice his problems to, preferring to bitch to his friend, Arath, and flirt with newcomer Leon rather than do something sensible like ''talk to Fox''. Fox carries on oblivious, until even ''he'' can't deny something has gone badly wrong.}}

 

 

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[[Category:Character Flaw Index]]

[[Category:Plots]]

[[Category:Dude, Not Funny]]

[[Category:Example as a Thesis]]