True Companions

"As long as you have friends, you have family."

—Jeff, Community, "Basic Genealogy"

True Companions are just like a real family—they may not necessarily like each other, but they know they can depend upon each other in a crisis. It is a relationship considered to be deeper than mere friendship but more innocent than romance.

This sort of group dynamic appeals to younger audiences who are unfamiliar with romance, and appeals to older audiences who live in a world of complex relationships and convenience masqueraded as false friendship, who are feeling nostalgic about the times when friendship meant a lifelong bond.

A writer may use this to avoid writing romantic relationships, though this usually doesn't stop fans from making up their own.

This trope was originally known as Nakama, a Japanese word that many Westerners mistakenly think means a deep friendship with a dedication akin to family.

Subtropes:

Band of Brothers The group is formed by a shared dangerous circumstance, normally military.
Blood Brothers The group is formed by some pact, oath or ritual, occasionally as a tradition in response to someone saving your life.
Fire-Forged Friends People who specifically didn't care for each other but form a bond after a conflict forces them to work together.

Compare The Power of Friendship, A Friend in Need, Close-Knit Community. Contrast Enemy Mine, A House Divided, We ARE Struggling Together!, and occasionally Teeth-Clenched Teamwork.

Heterosexual Life Partners and Platonic Life Partners are this trope distilled down to a two-person group (same sex and opposite sex, respectively). Often, a group of characters become true companions after a Misfit Mobilization Moment. If the characters happen to be particularly Badass, you get a Badass Crew.

See also Apple of Discord. Related to I Just Want to Have Friends, where this is just a desire. See also: Like Brother and Sister, Honorary Uncle, Band of Brothers, The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry.

Examples of True Companions are listed on these subpages:

Examples of True Companions include:

Newspaper Comics

Flash Gordon, Dale Arden, Hans Zarkov, Barin, Thun, and Vultan. Any of them would die for any of the others. Aura eventually joins, too.
Alley Oop is part of two groups. In prehistoric Moo, he's got Foozy, Ooola, Dinny, Guz, Umpa and th' Grand Wizer. In modern times, he's got Doc Wonmug, Oscar Boom, and Ava (although Oscar has been stuck on the Heel Face Revolving Door for a few years now). Both groups have met and are friends, but they don't interact very much.
Even though they get on each other's nerves a lot, the core cast of Peanuts counts.

Professional Wrestling

The Four Horsemen: Specifically, the original iteration with Ric Flair, Arn and Ole Anderson, and Tully Blanchard. Arn Anderson said in Flair's autobiography that the Horsemen became a "full-blown shoot".
The Kliq: Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Sean Waltman/the 1-2-3 Kid, and Triple H. Probably the best-known True Companionship in wrestling after the Horsemen.
The OMEGA Clique: Matt and Jeff Hardy, Gregory Helms, Shannon Moore, and prior to her break-up with Matt, Lita. This also applies to Matt & Jeff's onscreen relationship in the WWE run. Obviously, because they're really brothers, but even when the two have had feuds (at one point, Matt was slated to reveal he started the Real Life fire that destroyed Jeff's home & killed his beloved dog, Jack), their issues have been resolved the moment someone tried to injure the other.
The WWE locker room as a whole - When one of them falls, such as Owen Hart or Eddie Guerrero, they can all be seen to be hurting and will put the storylines on hold to pay tribute to their fallen comrade.
The entire wrestling business has been described numerous times as "one of the largest fraternities in the world". There's a reason why "brother" is such a common epithet (and no, not just because of Hulk Hogan) and why wrestlers band together so tightly against outsiders.

Puppet Shows

In The Movie of Sesame Street (you heard me), Big Bird is pulled away from the neighborhood to be adopted by "his own kind" (other birds). The Aesop at the end is that his family isn't those related to him but those close to him, on Sesame Street... in other words, his true companions.
The Muppets, especially in the movies, as shown by the quote from Kermit in The Muppet Movie.
Jim, Rizzo, and Gonzo have one of these in Muppet Treasure Island, despite not even being the same species.

Web Original

If you have an account on GameFAQs, you have a chance to join the Yusketeers. Its members have become this.
Whateley Universe:
- The teenagers of the group Team Kimba, at the Super-Hero School Whateley Academy. Not only are they brought together by a common characteristic, but many of them have the classic family issues: Phase (disowned), Generator (mother dead, abusive father in prison), Bladedancer (orphaned), Lancer (his brother sicked an anti-mutant military force on him), Tennyo (forced to leave her family because of assassins and worse), Carmilla (mother dead, father a demon), Heyoka (orphaned)... Only a couple of them have a supportive family. This true-companion group ends up shifting quite a bit. Carmilla forms her own, loosely allied team. (Sara's Pack). Also, it is stated in Jade's stories that Poe is designed to specifically create this, and Whateley itself has some elements of it.
- There is a second team of true companions, who band together almost specifically because they are all ridiculously outcast from rest of the school due to bad fashion sense (on purpose) and severe GSD (they look like monsters).
- There is a villainous (sorta) version with the bad seeds, who all watch each others backs, as they are all the children of supervillains, more, they are KNOWN to be the children of supervillains, although some have not had their parents identities outed to the public.
The Saga of Tuck and the group of boys around its main character. At one point, one of them is attacked, and the rest—geeks all—immediately charge.
The four major characters of Broken Saints have a bond akin to this. Of course, they all immediately feel a connection because they "recognize" each other from their shared visions/dreams/nightmares. With Raimi and Oran, who spend half the series together (and who are the only heroes to survive the Grand Finale), this enters Heterosexual Life Partner territory. Kamimura does not have as much time to bond as the two of them, but after he joins the team, the three men become a Power Trio. Shandala only really interacts with the guys for about two chapters of time, but The Dulcinea Effect—plus her being The Empath—connects them all very quickly very fast.
ScrewAttack.com are this, to the point that they have been referred to as the ScrewAttack Family. Not just the people behind the website, but the community as well (to the point of a Broken Fanbase). Insult so much as one member of the SA crew, and the community will respond in kind, as will the other members of the SA crew; and this goes even further if you badmouth the team's only female member.
The team at That Guy With The Glasses/Channel Awesome - They've had three anniversary crossovers where they all met up to provide something for the fans, numerous members of the team frequently have appearances in other's videos, and behind the scenes footage would ascertain that they've become friends away from the cameras. They also tend to move with lightning speed to defend each other should anyone be so foolish as to submit nasty/trollish remarks in comments on the site, on Twitter, or anywhere else on the internet.
The eponymous Red and Blue teams from Red vs. Blue reach this point in their relationship with each other by the end of Revelation, when they realize that although their units suck, they fit in better with each other than anywhere else.
- This isn't just among each team, either—they're true companions with each other, too, even though they're all technically enemies. They even have welcomed Wash into their ranks, even after all he did to them.
In Atop the Fourth Wall, with the exception of 90's Kid, the core cast (Linkara, Pollo, Harvey Finevoice and Iron Liz) definitely show signs of this, especially when they all work together to rescue Linkara when he's kidnapped by Lord Vyce.
- And as of the revelations of the Silent Hill: Dead/Alive review, we can now add the Magic Gun to the team as well.
Generation X and, for some of them, the Crusaders of Marvels RPG.
It could easily be argued that the Titans South have become this as much as the other teams in their universe.
Us. I can tell you from experience, if you ever meet another troper in real life, you'll both know you two share something special. You could say we're Fire-Forged Friends from our livings having been ruined by this site, but there's definitely a bond.
Going from their forums, the guys of Turnabout Musical are pretty much this, sticking together since 2007 in their efforts to make the musical.
Xionic Madness; Omega and Askad had been true companions since before they became cyborgs, it was only ruined when Askad's cyborg-daughter based on his dead daughter starts going evil, so Askad can't decide whether to warn Omega and Xero, or protect his daughter. He decides to limit her abilities in case he dies before warning them. Omega and Xero then form an unbreakable bond escaping from Kari (Askad's daughter), the government, red and green spies, and their own clones.
- Also in Xionic Madness, in episode four, part two, Omega and Xero are helped by Omicron Squad, Omega's old crew from the military. They go up against a horde of zombies that have to be frozen and smashed to be defeated, simply because they would rather die alongside their former comrade than anything else. These soldiers even blow up a building being held back by Omega, so he'll be covered and protected when Kari removes Askad's limiters to increase her power output and makes a big badaboom destroying just about everything organic within range, except Xero, cuz he's just that badass.
Greek Ninja has "Sasha's group".
Simon and Lewis of the Yogscast Minecraft Series. Even more evident with Old/Knight_Peculiar.