This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Fly: Riku doesn't seem to fit the trope to me. The games always portrayed him as absolutely adoring his friends - even when he turned to the Darkness he tried to get Sora to come with him, not because of any old come-to-the-dark-side thing, but because he loved Sora and wanted to travel with him. Also, I don't remember him being ineffectual at any point.
The result? I'm cutting him out of the article. Sorry!
Kilyle: Hrm, it says they're particularly vulnerable to enemies who know they're not on the same page as the team. Is the Ineffectual Loner particularly prone to the "They are not like you and I" ploy, or am I chasing down the wrong character trope? I threw this trope up on YKTTW a few weeks ago but I'm guessing (without investigating in the slightest) that it got destroyed in the database failure. Anyway, the ploy tries to separate a loner type or hanger-back from the group by pulling the Not So Different card only kinda twisted. The bad guy might try "We are refined and they are animals" or, conversely, "Unlike us, they are unwilling to accept that sacrifices must be made" or the like. And this kind of thing only works because the Loner lets it eat at him and starts looking at things from that point of view. I'm particularly thinking Windkin from Elf Quest, but I've seen the trope enough in my time.
Masami Phoenix: In Sasuke's article, replaced the term "The Scrappy underdog Main Character" with Naruto, because whether he is or is not a scrappy is (at best) debatable, and has nothing to do with this article.
- Xenon: In relation to this, I completely removed Sasuke, because while he'd like to think that he's a loner, he's just emo. He works with Kakashi and team seven while he's in Konoha, is trained by Kakashi before the tournament (not on his own), fights to save Sakura against Gaara, works with Orochimaru's underlings to escape, and once he disposes of that group IMMEDIATELY creates a new group to fight with him. At no point in the series is he ever unaffiliated with some group, nor does he ever really take on a mission on his own. He's anti-social, but he's never alone. So out he goes.
