Line #9 Main/BondBreaker


1	As great a group of friends as you are, if a situation is particularly dire for the group, and/or if something has a strongly negative effect on a particular character, that same group of TrueCompanions might not be able to stick together anymore. If you want the story to become DarkerAndEdgier, have a main character drive the others apart. Have that character drive a wedge between the protagonists, dividing the FiveManBand to a near-irreparable state.
2
3	This brings a great tragedy for a FiveManBand, as well. For any group of TrueCompanions, actually. Circumstances develop so badly that one character simply had enough, choosing a FaceHeelTurn so devastating that the rest of the group won't be able to function from the shock. In other cases, TheResenter might take a few jabs at TheHero, on account of the former being AlwaysSecondBest. If they can't resolve the feud peacefully, friends of both are forced to take sides. Maybe the one that brought them together starts facing problems with their friends' personality flaws or psychological hang-ups; peer pressure kicks in, and {{The Heart}}s' attempts to resolve their friends' issues leads to more problems (maybe even more psychological distress on the part of TheHeart) and broken bonds because of those problems.
4
5	Maybe [[TheHeart the one that keeps them together]] starts hating his/her designated role as the DamselInDistress or TheLoad, and their resentment leads to AHouseDivided, or they decide to leave the FiveManBand, which [[BreakingTheFellowship falls apart]] because the one balancing them isn't there. In another scenario, TheHeroDies, and the rest of the characters fight over whether or not to revive him, despite the great risks involving such an act. In another scenario, the ImpliedLoveInterest goes through so much UnresolvedSexualTension, or BelligerentSexualTension, that they turn into the {{Yandere}} and take every step needed to keep the rest of their friends from influencing their love interest.
6
7	Whatever the case, good luck trying to bring the group back together after these depressing turn of events.
8
9	See also BreakingTheFellowship. In some cases, this may overlap with ItsAWonderfulPlot. Absolutely not related to an evil interrogator trying to break Film/JamesBond.
10	----
11	!!Examples:
12
13	[[foldercontrol]]
14
15	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
16	* This is what happens in ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' after Sasuke meets again his long lost and hated big brother Itachi, whom he swore to kill after the latter slaughtered every single member of their clan, save for Sasuke. The meeting can be resumed as NoHoldsBarredBeatdown meets MindRape. When he recovers (physically), Sasuke becomes obsessed with revenge while reporting his frustration upon [[TheHero Naruto]] (because of the latter's progress). Meanwhile [[TheHeart Sakura]] cannot do much but witness this. Sasuke leaves the Leaf not long after, to be taught by the current BigBad. Bringing him back becomes his former TrueCompanions' goal for the second part of the tale.
17	* ''Franchise/OnePiece'':
18	** This was threatening to happen to the Straw Hat Pirates in the Water 7 Saga of ''Manga/OnePiece''. Robin disappeared for reasons unknown to any of her crewmates, and Usopp had a falling out with Luffy and left on his own accord. The rest of the time he was there, Luffy was trying his hardest not to let the rest of the crew disband. Averted in that he succeeded in keeping the crew together [[spoiler: and eventually got Robin and Usopp back too, which were the main driving forces of that part of the series]].
19	** This also forms part of the plot of the [[Anime/BaronOmatsuriAndTheSecretIsland sixth movie]]. The bad guys manipulate the crew members into distrusting each other and eventually absorbs all of them except Luffy.
20	* In ''Manga/AirGear'', the old Sleeping Forest was shattered when Kilik and Sora had a falling out over the Sky Regalia. Since then, Kilik severed all contact with his former teammates with the exception of the only one who remained neutral, and the rest of the team members scattered: Spitfire decided to reclaim his title, Rika retired, Sora was crippled, Falco became a recluse, Black Burn became a drunk and never involved himself with A-Ts without a disguise, and Dauntless seems to have disappeared.
21	[[/folder]]
22
23	[[folder:FanWorks]]
24	* ''Fanfic/ColdReception'': Nigel's promotion to the GKND ''shattered'' the rest of Sector V. According to Rachel, after he was gone all his team did was mope around their treehouse barely doing any missions. To make them productive operatives again, she broke the team up and forced promotions on all of them, much to their protest. When speaking of it to Nigel, Abby admits that as much she might resent Rachel for her decision, it was the right choice and did a lot of good for the organization.
25	* ''Fanfic/WhatItTakes'': Sara's supposed death on the ''Gambit'' is this for the Lance family, according to Laurel. That's when the family completely fell apart, and even Sara coming back the first time didn't really bring them back together, as proven when Sara died for real. [[spoiler:When Sara comes BackFromTheDead again and tries to fix things between Laurel and Quentin, Laurel lets her go but sadly and correctly notes that her sister isn't going to succeed: their family is permanently broken, and it doesn't matter how many times Sara comes back -- nothing is ever going to fix it]].
26	* ''Fanfic/UsWitheringUnderTheSun'': Woo-jin moves away, first to Seoul, and then to the United States, after he is outed and horribly bullied. From the trauma of this, he cuts himself off from all of his friends, who stood by him, only rarely speaking with Joon-yeong. The rest of the friend group remained good friends, but they missed him very much and felt his absence greatly.
27	[[/folder]]
28
29	[[folder:Film]]
30	* In ''[[{{Film/Bratz}} Bratz: The Movie]]'', head girl Meredith is set upon driving the Bratz girls apart; after two years, she has succeeded in making them part of her pre-defined cliques, and they can barely speak to each other anymore.
31	* Such a case could be argued for Andrew Detmer in ''Film/{{Chronicle}}'', though the fault also lies on his father for Andrew's StartOfDarkness.
32	* It's very common for animated films to have this happen shortly before the climax, particularly the works of Creator/{{Pixar}} and Creator/{{DreamWorks\|Animation}}. Either the personality conflicts that drove the tension earlier in the film will be reignited, or a lie one of the characters had told the other will be revealed, making them go their separate ways. Of course, the protagonists will always remember the value of their friendship in time to reunite and stop the BigBad.
33	* In ''WesternAnimation/EquestriaGirls'', the reason the human counterparts of Twilight's friends hate each other when they used to be friends is that [[spoiler:Sunset Shimmer drove them apart.]]
34	[[/folder]]
35
36	[[folder:Literature]]
37	* In book seven of the ''Literature/HIVESeries'', the betrayal of [[spoiler:Laura]] leads to the [[spoiler:capture of Nigel, Laura, Tom, and Penny.]] The rest return to the H.I.V.E., but are split again when [[spoiler:Otto is expelled.]] At the end, the main cast is within three groups: [[spoiler:Nigel, Tom, Penny, and Laura]] at the [[spoiler:Glasshouse, Otto, Raven, and [=H.I.V.E.mind=] out in the world]], and [[spoiler:Shelby, Franz, Wing, and Nero still on the island.]]
38	* A lot of the ''Literature/HorusHeresy'' consists of this happening to everyone from random line troops to Adepts of Mars to the eighteen remaining sons of a PhysicalGod. Most notable is the Mournival, the FourTemperamentEnsemble Horus has as advisors, which breaks like fine china when everything goes to hell and leaves Garviel Loken and Tarik Torgaddon on one side and "Little Horus" Aximand and [[ForegoneConclusion Ezekyle]] [[DoomedByCanon Abaddon]] on the other; they do ''not'' get back together, and in fact end up some of the most passionate enemies of the entire civil war, culminating in an entirely sincere effort to kill each other.
39	[[/folder]]
40
41	[[folder:Live Action TV]]
42	* Spike in ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' calls [[DividedWeFall his role]] in the Scooby Gang's decomposition the "Yoko factor". He didn't create the problems they were facing but made them likelier to anger and alienate each other.
43	[[/folder]]
44
45	[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
46	* Wrestling/SethRollins's betrayal of Wrestling/RomanReigns and Wrestling/DeanAmbrose to join Wrestling/TheAuthority, causing the initial dissolution of Wrestling/TheShield. That very act left a scar on the team that never fully healed, despite the fact that all three honestly and genuinely do love each other. After Seth's HeelFaceTurn, they manage well-enough with reunions when it's all three of them together on the same show. But when they're ''not'', things fall apart immediately: when Roman had to take a break from WWE to have his leukemia treated, Dean snapped ''that very same night'' and turned on Seth. Later, after Dean left the company, Roman and Seth gradually drifted apart, and their subsequent feud in 2022 revealed that despite acting otherwise for years, Roman ''never'' forgave Seth for what he did and explicitly hates him for it. It seems that no matter how much they try, no matter how much they truly care for each other, all three of them are always going to be at a distance because of what Seth did.
47
48	[[/folder]]
49
50	[[folder:Video Games]]
51	* ''VideoGame/MagiaRecordPuellaMagiMadokaMagicaSideStory'', Iroha and her FiveManBand becomes a victim of this midway in the main story. [[spoiler:Yachiyo's former friend drives a wedge between the group and was involved in brainwashing three of them to join the Magius]] While they didn't manage to do the same to [[spoiler:Yachiyo]], she caused her to revert back to her distant self from the beginning of the story.
52	* In ''The Answer'' for ''VideoGame/Persona3'', after the protagonist dies, Yukari grows adamant about reviving him/her by going back in time. This was so risky that it would've prevented the BigBad from getting sealed, risking the entire world once again to another battle that the team wouldn't have won in any other way than if the protagonist hadn't died. ''Thankfully'', it doesn't come to that, and Yukari gets better, but only after a fight with the rest of the team (Mitsuru sided with her, though).
53	* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'', in the beginning, your party of 4 are Main/TrueCompanions. By the end, they all have drastically opposing views and at [[spoiler:least 2 of them will be killed in the fighting.]]
54	* In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', [[spoiler:Bastila Shan]] gets tortured into serving the BigBad, and she confronts you in the Ancient Temple on Lehon. If you choose to side with [[spoiler:Bastila]], Jolee, Juhani, Mission, and Zaalbar get killed, while Carth runs away into the Lehon Temple. The droids and Canderous are the only ones that remain with you, while [[spoiler:Bastila]] becomes your apprentice. Contrast with the alternate path, in which [[EverybodyLives all the above characters survive]], [[spoiler: and even Bastila can be redeemed if the player character is in a relationship with her or has high enough Persuasion]]. Note that [[spoiler:Bastila]] ''isn't'' the BondBreaker; it's ''[[YouBastard you]]''.
55	* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' has [[spoiler: Anders, who is gradually corrupted by the demon of Vengeance until he blows up the Kirkwall Chantry,]] triggering the events of the endgame and driving apart the TrueCompanions who have been together for six years.
56	** Note that in the optimum ending, only two characters are mutually exclusive. [[spoiler: Sebastian and Anders himself can NEVER be on the same side. Either Anders dies, or Sebastian threatens to raze Kirkwall.]]
57	* The Cooper Gang in the ''VideoGame/SlyCooper'' franchise composed of Sly, Bentley, and Murray in the modern day, with [[VideoGame/Sly3HonorAmongThieves the third game]] adding The Guru, Penelope, Panda King, and Dimitri to the gang. As it turned out, recruiting [[spoiler:Penelope]] was the ''worst'' mistake the gang had ever done, as [[spoiler:[[EvilAllAlong she]] turned out to be a [[TheSociopath sociopath]] who sold them all out (along with Sly's ancestors) to a rival faction because she was [[GreenEyedMonster jealous]], [[MoneyFetish greedy]], and had a [[{{Lust}} lust for power]]]]. This directly leads to [[spoiler:Sly]] being [[TrappedInThePast involuntarily separated]] from his friends at the end of ''VideoGame/SlyCooperThievesInTime''.
58	[[/folder]]
59
60	[[folder:Web Comics]]
61	* Shows up in the backstory of ''WebComic/TheOrderOfTheStick''. The Order of the Scribble, united mostly by their goal of closing down all of the rips that allowed the Scribble to enter the world, are able to stick together long enough to accomplish it. Unfortunately, pre-existing issues, the death of one of their own, and disagreements on how to best guard the gates lead to a VERY ugly argument, causing them to split up and watch over one of the gates individually. We see that for some of them, even years later, the feelings haven't died down and some of them would never be able to trust the others ever again.
62	[[/folder]]
63
64	[[folder:Western Animation]]
65	* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003''
66	** An impressively realistic example comes from the episode "How Long Is Forever". After [[Characters/TeenTitans2003Starfire Starfire]] goes through time while fighting the token villain of the week, she disappears from the rest of the Titans' lives. What was a few seconds for her, were ''twenty years'' for the rest of the team, and ''none'' of them handled her absence well, since she balanced them out.
67	** [[Characters/TeenTitans2003Slade Slade]] is very much adept at getting the Titans to turn on each other.
68	*** Manipulated Terra's insecurity over her powers by training her himself. Once she got her powers under control, she goes back to the Titans and reaffirmed her friendship with them, but with a catch - she was sent as TheMole.
69	*** He left a chemical reagent in a mask that Robin kept. Once Robin picked it up, it infiltrated Robin's brain, implanting an illusion of himself into Robin's mind. The more Robin fought, the more realistic and harmful the hallucination became. The other Titans couldn't see Slade, so they thought Robin turned paranoid, and it prompted Robin to alienate his friends before all was said and done. All that physical and psychological damage nearly led to the Titans losing their leader and their friendship falling apart, the closest Slade's ever come to victory.
70	* In the 2003 ''WesternAnimation/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles\|2003}}'' show, Donatello was warped into an alternate future where he had disappeared for 20 years. The Turtles were disbanded, which led to the Shredder succeeding in world domination, and Michelangelo flat-out tells Don it's because he wasn't there to balance them out. Both this and the ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' episode are also variations on ItsAWonderfulPlot.
71	[[/folder]]

Context Main / BondBreaker