History Main / LackOfEmpathy

* ''WesternAnimation/PussInBootsTheLastWish'': Jack Horner cares nothing about anyone, including his men who were all killed by him accidentally. He is ungrateful towards his own parents and desires to have all the magic in the world. Even Perrito's cuteness stare fails to work on him, as he admits he's dead inside.

* ''WesternAnimation/PussInBootsTheLastWish'': Jack Horner, in ''spades'':
** He couldn't care less about who or how many people got killed by the Serpent Sisters in their mission to obtain the map to the Wishing Star, [[HatesSmallTalk to the point where he shouts down every attempt by Jo to mention it]].
** He is so careless with his men that even the ones he kills by accident don't faze him. When the Ethical Bug tries getting Jack to help them, he blatantly states he's not concerned due to all the magical artifacts he took with him. His ignoring his last baker's pleas for help is probably the worst example.
** The Ethical Bug tries to find any empathy or sympathy in Jack's personality and is disappointed to see he has none. After showing how ungrateful he is towards his own parents, he shows the bug via a crystal ball that his only desire for happiness is to have all the magic in the world while everyone else has nothing, and seeing how it could destroy a lot of people and things doesn't concern him at all.
** This is also why Perrito's cuteness stare failed to work on him, since he says it himself that he's dead inside. Unfortunately for him, pausing to gloat about this means he ''did'' get distracted like Perrito intended, which led to his end.

** Arguably, this was [[GodEmperor The God-Emperor of Mankind's]] FatalFlaw (or at least among one of the more dangerous ones). For all that he did to ensure human supremacy and prosperity, he didn't seem capable of actually connecting with most humans on a personal level, even his own Primarchs. This ultimately brought ruin to everything and everyone around him, including himself, when said Lack Of empathy became one of the [[DaddyIssues major reasons]] half his sons betrayed the Imperium to Chaos and set off the events that made the Imperium a theocratic hell-hole upon which the Emperor can only watch his dream burn and die by inches for ''millennia''.

** [[BigBad Salem]] clearly feels ''none'' of the pain she causes others. [[spoiler:When Yang angrily calls her out for failing to handle one bad thing happening in her life as a comparison to how much Salem has taken away from her, Salem's response is to ask in a [[ButForMeItWasTuesday bored tone]] who she took from her. The minute Yang clarifies it was Summer Rose, Salem's demeanor changes to a sadistic smile.]]
** [[LadyOfBlackMagic Cinder Fall]] has absolutely no compassion for anyone. If she even acknowledges people, they are merely tools pushing her plans further or obstacles that need to be crushed. She looks onto the carnage of Vale by the Grimm and calmly says it's "horrendous" as if it is something to be admired. Jaune even calls her out on it, demanding to know how she could be proud of all the suffering she's caused. The only acknowledgement she has for people's feeling is how she can use them to manipulate or hurt them.

** Zig-zagged for General Ironwood. Ironwood ''can'' act caring and considerate- but only for those who are or could be useful to him. If you aren't, then Ironwood won't hesitate to throw you aside without hesitation and NoSympathy. The members of Ozpin's BenevolentConspiracy share a ''Franchise/LandOfOz'' theme; Ironwood is the Tin Woodsman, who believed he had no heart.

** This is also why Perrito's cuteness stare failed to work on him, since he says it himself that he's dead inside. Unfortunately for him, he ''did'' get distracted like Perrito intended, which led to his end.

** This was part of Saber's FatalFlaw when she was alive: she adhered to the belief that a perfect king [[TheStoic must feel no emotion]], allowing them to be impartial and perfectly just. While this allowed her to rule effectively it also alienated her people and contributed to the kingdom's collapse. Granted, she ''can'' feel empathy, but she "discarded her own humanity" in order to become the "perfect king". When she actually reconnects with her humanity, she doesn't take it well. The fact that her reign ended so tragically made her come to the conclusion that she simply was not meant to be king, and someone else should've taken her place.

*** Rin is actually a subversion, as while she herself thinks and believes she doesn't have any empathy, in truth Rin has a fairly strong sense of empathy (especially for a Magus). This is best shown in the prologue when she finds a mortally wounded Shirou and her thoughts immediately drift to [[spoiler: her sister]] Sakura and how heartbroken she would be, prompting her to sacrifice her trump card in a desperate (but successful) attempt to save him.

* ''Literature/{{Inkmistress}}'': The king is utterly unsympathetic to Asra's concerns when she raised them to her. She's shocked by this, realizing that she has been wrong to support him as a result.

On the flip side, just because a character has empathy does not mean that they possess one ounce of compassion or sympathy, though the lack of either usually coincides with at least a diminished sense of empathy. For instance, someone with {{narcissist}}ic or [[Analysis/TheSociopath antisocial personality disorder]] should not be confused with someone with UsefulNotes/{{Asperger|Syndrome}}'s or another form of [[UsefulNotes/{{Autism}} autism]]. Narcissists and sociopaths usually have perfect cognitive empathy, but utterly lack the affective empathy necessary for genuine compassion. Those with Asperger's or Autism sometimes have defective cognitive empathy, but normal or even hyper-effective emotional or compassionate empathy. In short: narcissists and sociopaths are generally superficially charming and polite, but their pretense of empathy is simply that, a mere ruse to attain a tangible end. Autistic people, on the other hand, more or less {{invert|edTrope}} this: they're perfectly capable of feeling other people's triumphs and tribulations -- [[HotBlooded often quite intensely]] -- but you wouldn't necessarily know it from their face or tone of voice, and that's assuming they've learned to identify them in the first place.

--> '''Megatron''': Such heroic nonsense. ''[blam]''

* ''WesternAnimation/ParaNorman'': The film's whole plot happens in the first place because the seven Puritans being this trope very much. They took [[spoiler:Agatha Prenderghast, a sweet little girl who shared Norman's gift of speaking to ghosts, away from her mother,]] and as Judge Hopkins told her [[spoiler:how she was to be hanged by the neck until she dies]], they were [[DissonantSerenity eerily calm]] when [[spoiler:the little girl was sobbing out of fear]]. [[spoiler:They later subvert this after they had a HeelRealization.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfKells'': When the leader of [[HornyVikings the Northmen]] reads the Book of Iona (a.k.a the Book of Kells), the book that has touched everyone who's read it (even [[ControlFreak Cellach]]), his response was to tear out the pages, throw said pages in Aidan's and Brendan's faces and walk off with the gold cover. [[LanguageBarrier While it’s entirely possible that this is simply because he could not read Latin,]] the fact that he regularly leads [[RapePillageAndBurn destructive raids of abbeys and monasteries]] without any hint of remorse doesn’t give the impression of a compassionate individual.

* ''WebVideo/CriticalRole: Taken to its LogicalExtreme with Trent Ikithon, an EvilSorcerer who indoctrinates children into his elite assassin corps, and who has no qualms about torturing or killing the loved ones of the people he's trying to hurt. When Caduceus casts a Command spell on him to ''force'' him to empathize with the pain he feels after Trent and his lackeys [[spoiler:burned down his home and holy temple in the Blooming Grove]], the spell does take hold, but has no effect, because Command can't force someone to do something if they are incapable of it.

* ''WebVideo/CriticalRole: Wildemount'': Taken to its LogicalExtreme with Trent Ikithon, an EvilSorcerer who indoctrinates children into his elite assassin corps. He can't even show empathy for his victims when placed under magical compulsion to do so, revealing that he's completely incapable of it.

* Most of the villains in ''Literature/TheBelgariad'' and ''Literature/TheMalloreon'', including [[AxeCrazy Taur Urgas]], Zandramas, [[ProfessionalKiller Brill]], and [[EvilSorcerer Ctuchik]]. Demons have a Lack Of empathy as a race trait, with both [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils Nahaz and Mordja]] having nothing but contempt for one another, their fellow demons, and the entire human race.

* In ''WebOriginal/HamstersParadise'', the [[AlwaysChaoticEvil harmsters]] instinctively prioritise survival of the fittest and see altruism as a waste of resources.

* ''ComicBook/EightbillionGenies'': As cheery, friendly, and helpful the genies are, they don't really care what happens as a result of people's wishes. A woman accidentally igniting all of downtown Detroit is met with a shrug. The fact that 2 billion people have died directly or indirectly as a result of the wishes the genies granted in a mere eight days doesn't register to them in the slightest.

* Wizard from ''WebAnimation/DeathBattle'': He's often incredulous at a fighter's {{backstory}}, especially if they do something that avoids gaining power, like [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} Pikachu]]'s refusal to evolve via Thunder Stone.

** [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Gilbert Huph]], Bob Parr's MeanBoss, is willing to scam people out of the insurance claims they're rightfully entitled to so he can earn more money. When Bob informs him a man is getting mugged across the street from his window, he coldly responds they shouldn't cover him, and then threatens to fire Bob if he goes out to help.

* Caine from ''Literature/{{Gone}}'', almost to a humorous extent, especially when contrasted with his [[DarkChick love interest]], who, although a bit of a [[ManipulativeBastard Manipulative Bitch]], [[EvenEvilHasStandards has her limits]]. He's honestly puzzled as to why she wouldn't want to watch coyotes feeding on young children when there was no good reason not to stop them, and a bit annoyed that she objects to crashing a helicopter with a toddler inside. [[spoiler: And in Book 4, he thinks that, rather than being upset that he used her for sex, lied to her, and dragged her into plans of world domination, she'll be happy to be his queen.]] [[HighHeelFaceTurn Yeah...]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'':

* ''Literature/TheWitchOfKnightcharm'': Perhaps unsurprisingly, many students at the dark magic school known as Myth/TheScholomance have this. The protagonist finds herself in a class of fifty-two rookies, two of whom are killed just a few minutes after orientation starts, and yet several students in the group make it clear they couldn't care less about the two witches who just died.