Line #62 Main/PlugNPlayFriends


1	->'''The Gamemaster:''' Guys, please! I want you to roleplay this. Remember you've never met this guy before, the last guys you met tried to kill you, and you're standing in the ruins of an evil, cursed castle. Just act appropriately.\
2	'''Magellan:''' Hello, I'm Magellan, a traveling mage. I notice your group has no wizard.\
3	'''Rogar:''' You seem trustworthy. Would you care to join us in our noble quest?\
4	'''Magellan:''' Yes. Yes I would.
5	-->-- ''Film/TheGamers''
6
7	When a new character permanently joins an EnsembleCast or group of TrueCompanions, it takes an astonishingly short time for them to get to the same level of rapport with the other characters as they already had with each other. Expect one FishOutOfWater episode, and then they'll be flirting, sharing intimate secrets, and in on all the jokes. Can overlap conceptually with ReplacementGoldfish, when the new "fish" is immediately treated and acts as a beloved friend.
8
9	In an action series or video game, they'll be willing to die for everyone else, and vice versa, with a passion nobody ever shows for the one-episode [[TheMillstone Millstone]] character. Of course, the outsider status could be resurrected [[CompressedVice for a one-episode conflict]] later, or they could turn out to be TheMole (if so, and then they regret their actions, they will be EasilyForgiven.)
10
11	Especially jarring in HeelFaceTurn scenarios.
12
13	Compare to MagneticHero and HonoraryTrueCompanion. Contrast ForgottenFallenFriend and SocialCircleFiller. See also RememberTheNewGuy.
14
15	----
16	!!Examples:
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18	[[foldercontrol]]
19
20	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
21	* In ''Manga/BlackLagoon'', Rock integrates rather quickly with the crew of the Lagoon, insofar he goes from being their hostage to being, at least superficially, "one of them" in the space of ''about a day''. He does gain some respect in that day by saving all of their asses with the most [[RefugeInAudacity balls-to-the-wall insane method of killing an attack helicopter ever]]. Rock himself {{lampshades}} this at one point and starts to wonder if he's developed StockholmSyndrome because of how calm he is over his newfound familiarity with the crooks. Revy is the exception: it takes her about six episodes to properly accept him once he has actually joined them.
22	* One of many reasons that Shirayuki Berii of ''Manga/TokyoMewMew a la mode'' is marked as a CanonSue. The TrueCompanions are generally inclusive and friendly, but Berii makes them practically worship her before they even ''speak'' to her.
23	* This is a frequent occurrence with new members of the Strawhat Pirates in ''Manga/OnePiece'', although Luffy ''is'' [[MagneticHero the kind of guy]] who'd be quick to be friendly with anyone he meets unless they do something to get on his bad side. The only noticeable exception is Robin in how she never refers to any of her fellow crew mates by name until the end of the Enies Lobby Arc. It is implied that Luffy can somehow sense the true intentions of people he meets even if they act the other way (like Blackbeard on Jaya).
24	* This is the case in-character for Bakura in the Monster World arc of ''Manga/YuGiOh''. Although Bakura has met Yugi and the gang before, his White Wizard character piece on a tabletop RPG has not. The White Wizard readily joins the players' party and tries to sacrifice his life for them all within a few turns.
25	[[/folder]]
26
27	[[folder:LARP]]
28	* Even worse in LARP than in [=RPGs=], as the "new guy" is remarkable similar to the recently lost one. Possibly because ''it's the same player with a different costume'' (and not always). Worth noting that when players try to play it straight and to build a new relation from zero, it staggers the game a lot, and often kills it outright. In that case, for LARP games, this is an AcceptableBreakFromReality. In systems that don't have level gating (and hence a player can bring any character to any game, this also tends to discourage "alting", as it's too much trouble to keep track of which of your characters knows details about other peoples' characters and what's happened to them, and vice versa. One way of getting around this problem for both scenarios is to have drastically different looking and acting characters, which tends to result in people having one "straight" character and one "wacky" character, and seldom more than two.
29	[[/folder]]
30
31	[[folder:Literature]]
32	* David from ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' could almost be considered a [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruction]] of this; the Animorphs (except Marco and Ax) expect a relative stranger to join their team, cooperate with them, and go along with their tactics. However, the Animorphs play their hand poorly, and David is a bit too selfish for their tastes. It doesn't end well.
33	* Played for drama in ''Literature/TheMysteriousIsland''. When the colonists recover Ayrton from the Isle of Tabor, they're all too happy to welcome him into the team, thinking he's a shipwreck survivor just like them, and are surprised when he initially distances himself from them and prefers to be left alone. Of course, they don't know that Ayrton [[TheAtoner is burdened by his past misdeeds]] as a former mutineer and pirate, originally marooned on the island as punishment at the end of ''Literature/InSearchOfTheCastaways''. Later, however, Ayrton warms up to the colonists after helping them defeat his old pirate crewmates.
34	[[/folder]]
35
36	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
37	* Oliver in the final six episodes of ''Series/{{Coupling}}''. In his debut he goes on a blind date with one of the main characters and it doesn't work out. In subsequent episodes he gets involved in the six-way phone call, and Jane later invites him to Sally's dinner party and Susan's antenatal class. By his fifth episode he's having regular drinks with Steve and Patrick, in [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Jeff's old seat]].
38	** This trope is also employed in the second episode, when Patrick befriends then-strangers Steve and Jeff, although Jane takes until the third episode to make friends with Susan. Played straighter with Jane and Sally, though.
39	* Averted in ''Series/{{Farscape}}''. The original cast takes most of the first season to warm up to each other, new characters are in for a rough time until they prove themselves, and some (notably, Sikozu) never quite get the all-around seal of approval.
40	* Rachel in ''Series/{{Friends}}'', although she does have some prior connections. According to her backstory, she was Monica's best friend during their adolescence, and had briefly interacted with both Ross and Chandler. However, she had lost touch with them for several years. At the start of the series, Rachel has run away from her own family and has no place to stay. She needs help, so she decides to search for Monica. She both rekindles their relationship, and quickly befriends all of Monica's close friends.
41	* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Davos with Jon Snow, who he becomes staunchly supportive of after Stannis is killed, despite prior interactions being limited and not overly friendly.
42	* ''Series/TheInbetweeners'': In the pilot, Simon is assigned to show new student Will around, and while he and his friends can barely stand him, they accept him as the [[FourManBand fourth member of their group]] by the second episode, with later episodes establishing that Will and Simon are best friends. The entire premise of the show is that the four are such misfits that no other group in the school will hang out with them.
43	* Franchise/StargateVerse:
44	** ''Series/StargateSG1''[='s=] introduction of Teal'c, in which he betrays his ''god'' in a HeelFaceTurn, makes it seem odd that O'Neill trusts him so quickly, to the point of sternly insisting on his inclusion into SG-1. Jonas Quinn [[AvertedTrope averted]] it, however.
45	** Averted in ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' when Ronon was added to the cast as a replacement. It takes Ronon a few episodes to become comfortable with the team and start forming deep relationships with them. (A dead girlfriend and several years of being unable to stay in any one place for very long without endangering lives will do that to you.) He definitely takes a little longer to mesh with the team than most examples on this page, but they're all pretty tight fairly quickly.
46	* Robin in ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' mainly due to Ted's [[LoveAtFirstSight instant interest in her]] in the series' pilot. She and Lily almost immediately become best friends, later episodes establishing that Lily and Robin have few other female friends.
47	* Common in ''Franchise/PowerRangers'', each time one of the rangers is replaced. Or each time the rangers meet someone who's not obviously a MonsterOfTheWeek.
48	* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''.
49	** All the Maquis characters on the ship. By halfway through the first season (once they get rid of Seska), none of the Starfleet personnel seem to care they're working with terrorists, and none of the Maquis seem to remember that they believe Starfleet and the Federation sold them down the river. Granted, they've got more important things to worry about, but still, you'd think it rated an occasional mention.
50	** It got [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] when they finally established contact with Starfleet, when it turned out that their superiors had been extremely concerned about it, while they had mostly just forgotten about it.
51	** It was referenced in the episode ''Worst Case Scenario'', which centered around a training program based on the idea of a Maquis rebellion. [[spoiler: Seska was involved in that one, too, [[MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning despite being dead.]]]]
52	** There was an episode when Tuvok had to deal with some discipline problems among low-ranking Maquis. When they complained to Chakotay that they prefer the Maquis way, he punches one of them in the face and tells them to go give the Starfleet way another try. By the end of the episode, they all trust Tuvok and he trusts them.
53	** The crew accepts Neelix, Kes, and even Seven remarkably quickly, considering two of them were strangers from previously unknown alien races and the third was an enemy combatant. Neelix's first act was actually to use their help under false pretenses to rescue Kes.
54	* One episode after B.J. was introduced in ''Series/{{MASH}}'', he was inexplicably Hawkeye's best bud and the incoming Colonel Potter, looking over their records, berated them for how much goofing off they did together. This after B.J. had been introduced as a straight arrow in the previous episode. One has to wonder if the episode was written before Wayne Rogers left and they just crossed out "Trapper" and wrote in "B.J." without changing anything else. According to a "behind the scenes" show on the Biography Channel, this is exactly what they did.
55	* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'':
56	** This happens in season 3 of after the character of Caitlin Todd is killed off, her replacement is Mossad Officer Ziva David, who joins the team only a couple of episodes after her half-brother (the terrorist Ari Haswari) murdered Caitlin. However, this could be seen as an aversion, since they show the other members of the team being fairly open to her, but commenting on how it is odd for their boss, Agent Gibbs, to do the same. This is explained as Ziva having saved Gibbs' life when Ari came to kill him in his basement (by shooting her half-brother), forming a bond of trust that otherwise would not have occurred nearly as fast.
57	** And again with Eleanor Bishop, who joins the team after [[spoiler: Ziva leaves, following the death of her father and subsequent revenge]]. Every member of the Team Gibbs takes to her very quickly, including Gibbs himself (justified, as he was suffering a minor HeroicBSOD at the time, and was thus more vulnerable). Of particular note, is Tony Dinozzo who took [[spoiler: Ziva's departure]] harder than anyone, but still was just as welcoming to Ellie as all the others. Interesting in that Ellie actually realizes this, and is rather upset that everyone is going so easy on her.
58	* H.G. Wells in the last episodes of season two on ''Series/Warehouse13''. She joins the team suddenly in one episode, treated as family the next, before she betrays them in the season finale.
59	* Averted in ''Series/DeadLikeMe'' with Daisy. It takes the rest of the reapers quite a while to get used to her, though the audience had only known her predecessor for 5 episodes.
60	[[/folder]]
61
62	[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]
63	* In pro-wrestling, {{Heel}}s are generally friends with Heels, {{Face}}s with Faces. When a Face turns Heel, it is often quite strange, as they become friends with wrestlers who have done various despicable things to them in the past. On one memorable occasion, Stone Cold Steve Austin turned heel and teamed up with Triple H... who had previously ordered Stone Cold be ''run down with a car''. Often the whole thing comes with copious amounts of LampshadeHanging, whether immediately (the "I don't like you and you don't like me, but let's team against our common enemies" speech) or down the road as a ContinuityNod (witness the interview with Triple H's team at ''Survivor Series'' 2007, where Kane and Jeff Hardy call in their receipts for the various heinous behaviors that HHH has subjected them to over the years when he was a heel).
64	[[/folder]]
65
66	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
67	* Common in tabletop {{RPG}}s when a PC gets killed and the player has to make a replacement character. It ''can'' be fun to make the "new" guy win your character's trust somehow, but most of the time, everyone just wants to get back to the adventure as soon as possible.
68	[[/folder]]
69
70	[[folder:Video Games]]
71	* Pick a role-playing game that doesn't involve the player creating the entire party from the start. Odds are, this trope will show up in it.
72	* ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' was particularly bad about this. Sheena fights the group twice before joining up and just a few scenes later she's giving advice to Colette (which she takes to heart). Then you have characters like Zelos and Presea who they just meet, but are already talking to as if they are "one of the guys."
73	** Though Lloyd ''does'' spend about... Ten minutes somewhat miffed over the level of familiarity Zelos presumes with the rest of the party. After which he seems to have resigned himself to it -- Zelos is, to put it mildly, easygoing. Presea never really integrates until her exsphere is brought under control, at which point the party are already well familiar with her.
74	** And this IS [[AllLovingHero Colette]] we're talking about. She would have taken advice from Sheena to heart if the woman was still actively trying to kill her!
75	*** Not to mention that, even as Sheena was trying to kill her, Colette was more then happy to try to make friends with her and held her in high regard (see: pre-battle conversations and post-battle Z-skits). The speed at which the ''rest'' of the party accepted here tended to be a bit more reasonable, though by the time they reached the Tower of Salvation (either very soon after Sheena joined or quite a time later depending on which route you took), even Raine was willing to trust her. (see: No real questions about her summoning skill and [[spoiler: everyone trusting her information about getting to Tethe'alla.]])
76	* ''Franchise/FireEmblem'': This happens so much, it is a wonder that the hero's group doesn't pick up any spies. Reports are, the only spies in the series ([[spoiler:Nasir]] and [[spoiler:Orson]]) are the few characters that don't meet the heroes this way.
77	** Justified in ''Shadow Dragon''; the people you recruit from the enemy are either conscripts forced to fight against you (and thus willing to join you given even the vaguest excuse), prisoners (who have no reason to bite the hand that saved them), or friends/family of the people who recruit them (who have someone to vouch for their trustworthiness). The people who join you ''without'' being recruited, meanwhile, were either hired by people backing the heroes or FireForgedFriends.
78	* Played quite straight in ''VideoGame/YggdraUnion: We'll Never Fight Alone'', except the joining enemy was trying to kill you for 26 maps, and it takes less than 1 map to try and risk the male lead's life to save her. Either they're too confident, or too idiotic.
79	** On that note, she's probably the only one who actually makes any attempt to prove her trustworthiness. Everyone else is all, "Okay, we trust you already, stop trying so hard." Oh, and don't forget [[spoiler:Russell]], although he had an excuse, [[spoiler:he was only fighting for the Empire because Gulcasa was holding his fiance hostage]].
80	* Happens a lot in ''VideoGame/ExitFate'', as the game has ''75'' recruitable party members.
81	** Petra just joins the army because she doesn't think you respect a woman's strength. Shin is almost literally an incarnation of evil and tried to turn Soth into something similar ''and'' you have to fight them, but then Soth joins up to redeem himself and Shin joins because you seem interesting. The vampire Vanrushal takes the cake though -- after you and the exorcist Luther confront and fight him in his evil mansion (after killing dozens of evil minions) he claims that he's weakened down to near-human levels and can't stay here, so he joins your army. Without your approval. Against Luther's loud protests. (Luther joins too, to keep an eye on Vanrushal.) Granted, [[LampshadeHanging as Vanrushal points out]], he was keeping to himself and it was your party that tried to kill ''him'', and he wasn't even an ''evil'' vampire -- Luther's just a (fairly benign) zealot when it comes to vampire hunting.
82	** Implied by the way the RelationshipValues work in the game -- while some characters are obviously friends with each other from onscreen interaction, other characters instantly gain a relationship bonus with other characters offscreen. Why a cat and a dog are friends with each other, and why two {{Cool Old Guy}}s happen to be buddies, is completely up to speculation.
83	* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', when Shinra seems to know where you're headed after the Gold Saucer, Cloud has a scene where he forcefully refuses to consider that anyone on his party could be a traitor, saying that he doesn't want to suspect any of his friends. Keep in mind that you just met Cait Sith ''five minutes ago'', and he's only known Aeris and Red XIII for a week at most. It's possible to literally have met Yuffie thirty seconds before this cutscene happens. And while Cloud has bonded rapidly with Aeris, Yuffie and Cait Sith's initial introduction to the party don't involve any sort of bonding -- they basically elbow their way in even though it's clear nobody likes them. [[spoiler:Cloud's insistence that they're all his close friends becomes extra-hilarious when you consider the fact that Cait Sith is, in fact, the traitor in question, while Yuffie is a thief out to take them for all they're worth.]]
84	* Subverted in ''VideoGame/WingsOfLiberty'': Matt Horner and Tychus Findlay continuously clash with each other throughout the game, as the former has been Raynor's {{Lancer}} for four years and the latter his BigGuy best friend years ago before being thrown into prison. Raynor trusts both, [[spoiler:but Matt was right: Tychus was only released from prison to get close to Raynor and kill Kerrigan.]]
85	* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'', you can kidnap enemy soldiers by force to recruit for your mercenary army. They're immediately put to work in the home base, display nothing but respect and admiration for you, and if you assign them to the Combat Unit, they'll even carry out attacks against their former comrades.
86	* Brookes in ''VideoGame/{{Breakout}}'' - going from pretty much nobody to an integral member of the crew within all of about 10 minutes. [[spoiler: Though the fact that he is pretty much ''TheChosenOne'' does somewhat account for this.]]
87	[[/folder]]
88
89	[[folder:Visual Novels]]
90	* Mostly played straight in ''VisualNovel/DaughterForDessert'', but the are a couple of exceptions:
91	** Subverted with Lily. Although she gets along perfectly well with the protagonist and most of the staff (and even with Mortelli) from the moment she arrives at the diner, Amanda is the one exception. Amanda goes so far as to say that Lily should be fired.
92	** Double subverted with Heidi. It looks like Kathy has stopped coming to work becausr Heidi is running the diner in the absence of the protagonist and Amanda, but in fact, Kathy has no issue with Heidi at all. There’s something completely different on her mind which is driving her to stay home.
93	[[/folder]]
94
95	[[folder:Web Comics]]
96	* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'':
97	** The Trolls and Kids to each other, considering they've known each other for all of a day on positive terms, although the Trolls harassed them previously. Averted however with some of the Trolls who outright refuse or seem disinterested in getting to know the Kids [[spoiler: somewhat justifiably given that they unleashed a PhysicalGod on the Trolls who started killing them]].
98	** Deconstructed in the case of [[spoiler: John and Vriska]] -- they show romantic interest in each other during the 24 hours of contact, but when they meet up again much later, it becomes apparent that it was never going to work out between them.
99	* ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'': Inverted with Reynir. On his first morning with the crew, he gets sent back to bed half because he was disturbing Tuuri's work, half because he hadn't gotten much sleep the previous night. Soon after falling asleep, he stumbles upon Tuuri's older bother Onni via the mage TalkingInYourDreams system. Onni asks Reynir how Tuuri is doing when he finds out he's travelling with her, which causes Reynir to call himself "a lousy friend" for not having asked Tuuri (and at least one other person, as he used the word "them") how she's feeling about the expedition so far. The straighter version gets averted as the official crew had only existed as a group for only about two days when Reynir arrived, which made him an extra person to get used to having around for everyone else rather than an intruder in an established group of TrueCompanions.
100	[[/folder]]
101
102	[[folder:Western Animation]]
103	* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'':
104	** Terra meets the main cast in one episode, becomes best buds with them in a minute, then leaves in a fit of rage after (mistakenly) thinking they had betrayed her at the end of that same episode. Later, she comes back with a big smile on her face, offering her unending services to the team. They take her in, they throw her a big old welcome party (with the exception of [[DeadpanSnarker Raven]], who dryly tells Terra to help herself to the fridge and to make sure she cleans up after herself before she inevitably leaves), and then she attempts to murder them all. This is over-simplified; not only is the Plug 'n' Play Friends aspect ginormous here, Terra herself is actually very well developed as a character and the reasons for her actions are not hard to discern.
105	** Another episode has Blackfire, Starfire's older sister. Very jarring in that she compliments each character (except Starfire, obviously) and instantly has their friendship, even Raven. By acting buddy-buddy with Cyborg, laughing at Beastboy's jokes, noting Raven's forehead chakra, and ''flirting with Robin''. Then she turns out to be a thief and tries to kill Starfire. Oops.
106	[[/folder]]

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