Tin Man: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

Refers to the character in ''[[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Literature)|The Wonderful Wizard of Oz]]''. Who, in fact, was prone to [[Tender Tears]], to give the game away entirely. Other unconscious tics, such as destroying whatever is in the character's hands while denying anger, can betray other Tin Men.

The dark flipside of the trope is especially common in [[Science Fiction]] or [[Fantasy]], where whole races may be introduced as [[Straw Vulcan|"logical" and beyond base emotions]]; and then turns out to be arrogant, harsh, hateful, merciless or borderline unstable, as if they've lost the key to their positive emotions but kept all the negative ones. Apparently, many authors confuse "controlling one's emotions" with "suppressing one's emotions", and the suppressed emotions invariably seem to be those considered "weak", like mercy, empathy, humility, compassion and the ability to see someone else's point of view. Or basic politeness. So instead of a peaceful race that rests comfortably in itself, what we get is a race that can justify extermination of anyone without blinking, because they feel neither shame nor horror.

== Anime and Manga ==

** On the opposite side, Fate Averruncus would like to remind you that he's an emotionless doll. [[Psycho Lesbian|Tsukuyomi]] is not fooled, and manages to trigger a fit of destructive jealousy by threatening to [[The Only One Allowed to Defeat You|kill Negi herself]].

* ''[[Darker Than Black]]'': made of this trope. Several theories about how Contractors think are brandied about, but the truth seems to be that though they are still able to ''feel'' emotions, they do not ''act'' on them, instead operating according to logic and without guilt.

** On the other hand, ''The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya'' has {{spoiler|Yuki becoming so internally frustrated and fatigued at her life - and at Haruhi - that she ''re-writes reality'', removing Haruhi from the picture and giving herself a normal human life as a quiet bookworm with a crush on Kyon. A key plot point is that Yuki never realises that her own emotions are the cause of her actions: she attributes it to "erroneous files accumulated in [her] memory database"}}.

* Sai in ''[[Naruto (Anime)|Naruto]]'' considers himself to be without emotions. He's one of the better portrayals too, since he doesn't show negative emotions like anger either.

** Maybe? {{spoiler|In the single episode I can recall him being a major part of, he was ordered to kill the mind controlling little girl(or whatever she did to peoples heads), near the end he points his gun at her and clicks it stating he is out of ammunitions. Cue the villain of the episode lunging from the pile of collapsed tower that fell on her. Tres Iqus then unloads what appears to be hundreds of round of ammunition into the stupidest vampire in the series. If it wasn't emotions, the it was some contrived loophole logic that kept him from turning the kid into swiss cheese.}}

* R. Dorothy Wayneright of ''[[The Big O (Anime)|The Big O]]''. She's certainly [[The Stoic]], but adopting a lost kitten and issuing [[Deadpan Snarker|smartass comments]] about the [[Belligerent Sexual Tension|fashion sense of her employer Roger Smith]] don't look like core parts of base robot programming now, eh?

== Live Action TV ==

* Data on ''[[Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' was more often a [[Tin Man]], much to the curiosity of his friends (and viewers), who often contested the point. In one episode, he sacrificed his emotion chip because it had threatened his friends by making him do some pretty damn nasty stuff. In an instance of him telling the Doctor that he was incapable of giving his child love, she looked skeptical and said she found that hard to believe. The series also notes at other points that while he doesn't have a precisely emotional response, his systems do react in ways that mimic emotional response--for example, he cannot "miss" people, but his subroutines become used to the presence of certain persons and their absence can affect him.

** Doctor Soong himself put it best.

[[Category:Emotion Tropes]]

[[Category:Tin Man]]