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Fair-Weather Friend

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Friendship, n. A ship big enough to carry two in good weather, but only one in foul.
— The Devil's Dictionary

Someone who's your buddy when things are going well, but isn't when things go poorly.

Friends are good, especially when they are True Companions who will stick with you through thick and thin. But not all of your "friends" are reliable people. Some of them are fickle sorts who will abandon you the moment you get into trouble and actually need a friend to help. That's a Fair Weather Friend.

Sometimes a Fair Weather Friend will bookend a story, palling around with the protagonist at the beginning, disappearing when difficulties arise, then coming back as though nothing had happened when the trouble is over, attempting to regain their place.

Often a part of an Ineffectual Loner's backstory. Compare this to a False Friend. A False Friend is someone who is never actually your friend, but pretends to be because it will work to their advantage. A Fair Weather Friend is a genuine friend to you at first, but they'll abandon you as soon as it puts them at a disadvantage. Compare with Friendship Bribe, in which someone will agree to be your friend as long as you buy them things. Inverse of Power of Friendship. Contrast A Friend in Need. Do not confuse with Social Circle Filler, who are friends that drop out of the story because the main character got better, more plot-relevant ones (which would make the main character an unspoken one of these).

Sister Trope to Fair-Weather Foe. Platonic counterpart to Fair-Weather Ex. Compare this to With Friends Like These... and I Fight for the Strongest Side!, which often overlap with this trope. Contrast Financial Test of Friendship. See also Fair-Weather Mentor, for when it's a teacher who takes this attitude.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Ange's intramural teammates from Cross Ange turn on her after she is revealed to be a Norma, all of one day after she makes a heartwarming speech about teamwork.
  • Haruo from Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, a fair weather friend with an ever-present arrogant smirk on his face who enjoys getting Kenichi into trouble. He and Kenichi have even dubbed each other their "bad friends".
  • Rebuild World: Due to the survival of the fittest environment in the Wrong Side of the Tracks they both grew up in, both Akira and Sheryl divide most of the world into two categories, enemies, and this. Something Akira gradually makes exceptions for as a Defrosting Ice King. Nonetheless, Sheryl's Gang they both run, full of Street Urchin from the slums, has a cyclical exodus of members who are fair weather friends whenever Akira stirs up enough trouble, something that doesn't bother them too much since it fits their expectations.
  • Nanami's Girl Posse from Revolutionary Girl Utena is revealed to be this to one another in Episode 21 after Keiko is punished by Nanami for being caught sharing an umbrella with her brother, Touga, by banning her from all clubs and associations. When Keiko turns to Aiko and Yuuko for help, they simply look at her blankly before asking each other aloud if they had just heard something and then leave her behind. By the end of the episode though, after Keiko manages to make up with Nanami, the three are back together again on apparent good terms.
  • In A Silent Voice, when Shouya Ishida is scapegoated for all the horrible bullying of Shouko Nishimiya (he was the ringleader and the worst of them, but all the blame is placed on him) all of his friends abandon him, even Ueno, the girl who had a crush on him and largely bullied Shouko out of jealousy of the attention Shouya paid to her. His supposed best friends Shimada and Hirose even join the rest of the class in bullying Shouya in turn, suggesting they never really liked him in the first place and mainly hung around with him because he was cool.
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Team Gurren starts out with composed of Kamina, Simon and a few other nameless teenage boys. The latter few end up surrendering to the village chief so they won't be withheld food like Kamina. Kamina quickly disowns them as his "blood brothers" after this, leaving Simon as the only other member.
  • Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs: Leon's group of fellow Impoverished Patrician nobles in the Royal Academy present themselves as True Companions, only to look out for number one at the first sign of adversity, buckling under pressure to vandalize Leon's room (though at least Daniel and Raymond apologize). Leon works around this by using blackmail to push them to actually work together and help him, which results in their plight easing even if they complain.
  • In the soundtrack for season 1 of Yu-Gi-Oh!, the song "I'm Back", which plays during the show, has the lines "Now I see those close to me/They were just fair-weather friends". This is how Kaiba views anyone that claims to be loyal to him in the show as well.

    Comic Strips 
  • Peanuts:
    • Referenced in this strip.
      Linus: "It's fair weather today, Charlie Brown."
      Charlie Brown: "So where are all my friends?"
    • In this one Snoopy bemoans the loss of his snowman to a bright, sunny (if cold) day. "There's one thing for sure...he was no 'fair weather friend.'"
    • In the book I Need All the Friends I can Get, Charlie Brown says "I need all the friends I can get. I'd even settle for a fair-weather friend."

    Fan Works 
Crossovers
  • Bart Simpson and the Boy-Who-Lived: Ron initially gets along well with Bart, but immediately turns upon him once Bart gets Sorted into Slytherin, ignoring the fact that Bart is also Muggleborn and thusly faces Fantastic Racism from his new housemates. He gets extremely upset when Harry and Hermione don't share his seething hatred of the whole house, reducing Hermione to tears with some of his vicious accusations, and Harry warns him that he won't consider Ron to be his friend anymore if he doesn't knock it off. Ultimately, Ron then subverts this when he returns to help Bart, Harry and Hermione seize the Philosopher's Stone before Voldemort can obtain it.
  • Bridges Burned (Mama Always Told Me That I Should Play Nice. But She Never Met You): All of Marinette's classmates break off their friendship with her. While they claim that it's because she's supposedly bullying Lila, in reality, they just want to curry favor with Lila in hopes that she'll use all the big-name connections she claims to have to help their dreams come true. Unfortunately for them, it turns out Marinette is better connected than she'd ever let on before, and starts calling in favors to taunt her former friends with what she could have done for them.
  • A Divine (Romantic) Comedy (Hazbin Hotel and The Owl House):
    • During Vox's interview with Velvet in Chapter 4, she declares that she would've tried bagging Lucifer herself if the opportunity ever arose. While Vox laughs at the notion that she'd abandon her Villainous Friendship with the other Vees for a shot at becoming Lucifer's paramour, her casual, uncaring silence drives home that she'd do so without a second thought.
    • Stolas mentions in passing that Octavia used to have several friends, but they all stopped hanging out with her after his affair with Blitzø was exposed.
    • It's implied that the Archivists used to work under Lucifer's direction. After the incident with Eve that got him banished to Hell, they all turned their backs upon him.
  • Hanging Ten Saga: Heidi counts as this to Lo in Hanging Ten. While at first she seems nice enough, Heidi soon abandons Lo since she considers Lo a "surf nut". Lo then comes to the sad conclusion that all of her school friends are like that and that she never had any true friends before meeting the other surfers. Subverted in a sequel story, Hanging Ten: My Cyber-Sweet Sixteen, where another friend from Lo's school, Flor, shows up and immediately proves herself a true friend by making Heidi apologize for her behavior.
  • Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: Goh several times over:
    • While he claims that he's always been there for his Childhood Friend Chloe, in practice, the two of them never spend any time together. When she calls him out on this, he retorts that he's been busy chasing his dreams — adding that she can't possibly understand what that's like because she doesn't have any (due to the fact that she's not allowed to as all her classmates are pressuring her to be into Pokémon and he's never at school, unless it's for tests, for him to see it for himself). This serves as the catalyst for Chloe running away and boarding the Train.
    • Similarly, Goh didn't make any effort to find out why Tokio wasn't able to meet up with him like they'd planned — Tokio fell ill — leaping to the conclusion that he'd deliberately ditched him.
    • Over time, Goh convinces himself that Chloe was a fair-weather friend to him, since she stopped trying to reach out to him and repair their fraying friendship. The fact that HE didn't make any effort until after she boarded the Train, and has mainly concerned himself with 'saving' her so everything can go back to exactly how it was before, is completely lost upon him.
    • He also turns on Ash after learning that Ash has gotten together with Trip, getting incredibly jealous of the notion that HIS friend could be close to anybody else. He even considers outing Ash in hopes of hurting him and ruining his reputation; at one point, he's briefly giddy over the prospect that Delia might disown her son upon learning about it, unaware that she already knows about and accepts his relationship.
    • Eventually, Goh is confronted and called out on this so harshly that he suffers a massive breakdown — one so severe that he ends up boarding the Train himself.
  • The Rejuvenationverse: Final Curtain reveals that Jet Set and Upper Crust were both quite friendly with Baron Brittler Borax... right up until Candance brought him down, spurring them to drop him without a second thought.
  • A Song of Light and Dark: One of the Eorzean Alliance's biggest problems with Ishgard is that they're effectively this, unwilling to actually assist any of the other members when they need help. When the Dravanians sign up, Ishgard complains about their Arch-Enemies being accepted... so the city-states boot Ishgard out and replace them with Zenith.
  • In Two Kinds: Valerie gets unceremoniously booted out of the A-listers after her father is fired; now that she's no longer wealthy, the other members want nothing more to do with her. The only exception is fellow former member Adrien. When he calls her in order to check up on her and see how she's doing, Valerie realizes this is precisely why he left the group.

Amphibia

Arrowverse

  • What It Takes:
    • Felicity proves to be this to the extreme at the start of the story. When she finds out about what's happening in Starling, her heart "goes out" to Laurel and the others but she immediately decides not to help them, and to make sure Oliver doesn't find out what's going on so he can't leave to help them either, so that way he won't get himself killed. While it's justified by her disillusionment with Starling City due to all the chaos and suffering the city has gone through in the past three years, at the end of the day she's still abandoning her friends in their time of need to maintain her "perfect life" with Oliver. When they find out she abandoned them and kept Oliver away, they all implicitly end their friendships with her. Her actions also have the effect of making them assume Oliver is this as well, up until he makes it back to Starling to help and explains what really happened.
    • Dinah, Laurel and Sara's mother. She's lamenting Laurel's choices and blames herself for Laurel becoming a vigilante but doesn't actually do anything to help deal with the situation, like convincing Laurel to turn herself in peacefully. Then, after Laurel saves the world and is pardoned, she's all up for returning to Starling and reuniting their family despite clear disinterest in previous years, even after Sara came back home. Naturally, Laurel isn't having any of it, and disowns Dinah alongside Quentin.

Babylon 5

  • A Fighting Chance: Earth sees much of the League and the Centauri this way after the first few battles of the war, as most of their supposed allies effectively abandoned them when the Milbari attacked. The only exceptions to this are the Drazi, Hyach, Markab, Narn, and especially the Dilgar, as all of them stood by the EA and helped them out. When Londo attempts to negotiate with the EA in the wake of the Battle of the Line, he receives a far frostier response than before, and only gets anywhere by offering extremely crucial war-sensitive information in exchange.

Bleach

  • Wanderlust: Ichigo doesn't call his friends this, but the narrative implies they are after they abandon him when he loses his powers. It leads to Ichigo having to deal with the trauma of the Winter War by himself with nobody else to turn to for support.

Danny Phantom

  • Danny Phantom: Lost Episodes Series: In "Cursed at Caspar High", Kwan doesn't hesitate to cut his best friend Dash from the team when he's struggling with his bad karma's backlash.

Digimon

  • A Dragon in Shining Armour: When the Royal Knights discover the Black Pincer Company's operations in Saversburg, Bolgmon immediately throws GrandisKuwagamon under the bug, and Blitzmon is more than happy to let them be The Scapegoat.

Harry Potter

  • The Chosen Six: After Percy is permanently scarred by Fenrir, many of his friends and acquaintances start avoiding him.

Kim Possible

  • Buried Trilogy: In The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, many of the high-profile people Kim previously saved immediately denounce and turn upon her once she's declared a fugitive.

The Loud House

  • What is a Person Worth?: Lincoln decides that the only friends he's willing to trust are Clyde and Ronnie Anne, refusing to tell the rest what's been going on. When Liam, Rusty and Zach want answers anyway, he retorts that they've already shown themselves to be fickle "friends" in the past, having turned upon him during other incidents. While initially hurt, the trio later acknowledge that he's right; they really haven't given him much reason to trust them.

Love Hina

Miraculous Ladybug

  • Burning Bridges, Building Confidence paints most of Marinette's classmates as these; despite praising her as their 'Everyday Ladybug', they're quick to side with Lila and her exciting yarns, believing her Malicious Slander. This is especially true of Alya and Adrien. Alya is the loudest and most vicious about confronting Marinette with all of Lila's accusations, while Adrien is well aware of Lila's true nature, but chooses to blame Marinette and insist that she needs to stop trying to expose her, as her lies 'aren't hurting anyone'... aside from Marinette herself, who apparently doesn't count.
  • Couturiere: Having all of her classmates swallow Lila's Blatant Lies and turn against her — with Adrien, who knows the truth but opts to stand aside and not say anything against Lila — causes Marinette's akumatization into the titular akuma. Hawkmoth keeps her under his control by reminding her of how easily Alya and the rest turned, asking what would prevent them from doing so again the moment she wasn't powerful anymore.
  • Hey, You Broke Up With Me (What Can I Say Babe, You Broke Up With Me) has Juleka go through this treatment. Over the summer, she participates in several small movie projects; the day after getting into a huge argument with most of her classmates, the movies start debuting, and the very same people who were insulting and belittling her mere hours before abruptly act like they're her "best friends", trying to convince her to do favors for them for clout. Rose is especially eager to reclaim Juleka as her "super-famous girlfriend", only for Juleka to remind her that they'd broken up months ago and reveal that she'd already moved on.
  • I See What You Do Behind Closed Doors:
    • Not only does Adrien refuse to do anything about Lila's constant manipulation and Malicious Slander, he gets annoyed when Marinette calls him out on his continued Betrayal by Inaction after they start dating. After all, the only reason he's dating Marinette in the first place is so he can fantasize about being with Ladybug instead... unaware that she IS Ladybug.
    • After Lila's true nature is finally revealed, most of the class promptly attempts to mend fences with Marinette... while refusing to acknowledge that she warned them. Or rather, only acknowledging that little detail while trying to convince her that it was her fault that they didn't believe her. Naturally, Marinette is unimpressed, and she calls them out on their fickleness, making clear that while she might have been able to forgive them for wanting to believe things that were Too Good to Be True, their attempts to pin the blame on her have only convinced her that there's no point in doing so, as they haven't learned anything from their mistakes.
  • The Karma of Lies:
    • Most of Marinette's friends from class prove to be this, effectively abandoning their 'Everyday Ladybug' in favor of Lila's false promises. Notably, they expect Marinette to continue catering to their whims; even Lila notes that they're taking Mari's help completely for granted. Out of the entire class, only Juleka and Rose recognize how they wronged her; the rest expect to be instantly forgiven after learning her Secret Identity.
    • Alya acts particularly entitled; upon witnessing Ladybug being unmasked while taking down Hawkmoth, she squeals with delight at the notion that she's "Ladybug's best friend", while blithely ignoring how she'd been ignoring her existence in favor of Lila. She also expects Marinette to compensate her for all the time she spent Locked Out of the Loop with exclusive interviews, letting her and her boyfriend Nino become permanent heroes, and letting them reveal their own secret identities on her Ladyblog for the extra press.
    • Adrien also proves himself to be one; despite knowing that Lila's a Con Artist, he lets her keep scamming his friends because it might inconvenience him to call her out. He claims that Marinette can easily handle being shunned, despite how he himself doesn't want to deal with the others getting angry by telling them something they don't want to hear.
    • Chloé comes to recognize Adrien as one after her Jerkass Realization; while he was fully aware that her entitled, bratty behavior and bullying weren't doing her any favors, he never made any real effort to call her out or teach her the error of her ways. He simply avoided acknowledging that she was his Childhood Friend unless he saw some way that he might benefit from it, such as when he attempts to recruit her to help convince Marinette to let the class keep taking advantage of her.
    • Ironically, the class actually subverts this when it comes to Adrien. They're willing to stick by and support him when the rest of Paris suspects him of aiding his terrorist father, tarnishing their own reputations by defending him. But once they learn how he let Lila manipulate them, they all turn on him for his Betrayal by Inaction.
  • A Lady's Scout (and the Salt within her Soul) paints most of Marinette's classmates this way. After they ditch her in favor of Lila and her Celebrity Lies, Marinette subtly drops hints that she knows the secret identities of the temporary heroes, giving them various pieces of attire themed around their heroic counterparts... around the time that they're replaced. As rumors spread that she's some kind of 'hero scout', several of her former friends promptly abandon Lila and start vying for her favor, hoping that they can worm their way into Ladybug's good graces by buttering up Marinette.
  • Leave for Mendeleiev:
    • Adrien takes an interest in Marinette and her friends when he starts suspecting that they might be connected to Ladybug, zeroing in on her in particular. After seeing Future!Ladybug checking on Marinette during the Timebreaker incident, he decides he must have been wrong and immediately starts ignoring her, Aurore, and the rest. He then gets annoyed when Jean calls him out on this.
    • Nino also shows shades of this. While he promises Marinette that Chloé isn't involved in his movie-making project, he decides not to warn her when this changes, as he knows Marinette is trying to avoid her long-time bully and wouldn't want to come if she knew she was there. He blames Marinette for this, acting entitled to her help, and generally trampling over the boundaries of everyone involved with the project. The whole debacle leaves Marinette seriously questioning the nature of their friendship.
  • In Long Con, it's Lila who calls the whole class out on this when they finally confront her, pointing out that they refused to heed any of Marinette's warnings, then let her (seemingly) get roped into Lila's deception and let her continue to be strung along even as they each gradually figured out the truth for themselves:
    Lila: My point is, I told you all what you wanted to hear. You thought I was your ticket to stardom, and you thought Marinette would get in the way of that. So you pushed her away. The minute she became an inconvenience to you, you tossed her out like yesterday's garbage.
    Alya: That's not true!
    Lila: Isn't it? Tell me, why are you all just now confronting me? I saw how frustrated you all were, carrying my things and doing favors for me. But none of you said anything. Adrien, you knew for months that I was a fake, and you didn't say anything. So, again I ask, why now? I'll tell you why. Because all that time you were waiting for Marinette, your 'everyday Ladybug', to fix your mess for you. Just like you expected her to bring you pastries, or make clothes for you, or babysit, or host some stupid sports festival, or take the high road.
    (Adrien goes white upon hearing this, while she chuckles)
    Lila: Oh yes, I know all about that. Marinette told me how lucky she was that she listened to you, that she would have missed out on such a good friend otherwise. Admit it, Adrien. You didn't care about being 'the bigger person', or whatever bull you told her. You just didn't want to deal with the drama. You didn't say anything because you were afraid you would get caught in the crossfire. When Alya confronted me that day in class, she was only concerned about how she was affected, about her blog's reputation. I mean honestly, it's not my fault you guys are too stupid to look things up. But then you realized that Marinette couldn't help you this time, so you finally got off your butts and decided to deal with the problem. Not that it matters.
  • Of Patience and Pettiness: While Lila is quickly exposed here, Alya, Adrien, and the majority of Marinette's classmates refuse to admit their mistakes, pinning all the blame on Lila and expecting to be Easily Forgiven for how they turned on Marinette.
  • In Recommencer, Marinette transfers out of Collége Francoise Dupont after seeing how swiftly her classmates abandoned her in favor of Lila.
  • Tattered Remains of Broken Dreams (Yours, Not Mine) has most of the class participate in tearing apart Marinette's sketchbook, despite all of the favors she'd done for them. Or any of the ones she was currently working on, for that matter. Unfortunately for them, said sketchbook held all of the designs for said projects, and the incident convinces Marinette to step down as class president and cancel everything, declaring that she won't be doing free commissions anymore.
  • The Wolves in the Woods:
    • In this particular work, Lila didn't actually intend to turn Marinette's classmates against her so completely, having expected that all their years of growing up alongside Marinette and everything she'd done for them would amount to more. Alas, the majority are all too willing to ditch their 'Everyday Ladybug' and replace her with a better model: Lila herself, as she realizes that they expect her to step up and do whatever they want for free, just like Marinette before her. And given how they're openly bragging about being self-proclaimed Bully Hunters who drove Marinette away, she's naturally terrified at the potential consequences of them learning about how she lied.
    • Adrien claims that he just wants everyone to get along, but refuses to intervene even as he watches almost all of his friends turn upon Marinette. He only speaks up once he's personally inconvenienced, and blames Marinette for transferring out of the toxic, hostile environment their classroom had become.
    • Alya turns out to be the worst of the lot. While she insists that she was motivated by fear that Marinette's recent successes as a fashion designer would go to her head, she was actually Driven by Envy and chose to "cut her down to size" by supporting Lila's campaign against her and encouraging the whole class to turn on her. When Marinette transfers away, she's furious and hellbent upon getting her back, all while insisting that nobody should blame her for driving Marinette away in the first place. When Nino eventually learns about all of this, he's left wondering if she ever cared about him or anyone else at all.

My Hero Academia

  • Build Yourself Up (Don't Let Them Break You Down): The students and staff of Aldera Middle School attempt to invert this. After spending years bullying Izuku or turning a blind eye to said bullying, they attempt to kiss up to him once Hawks publicly defends him, hoping to ride his coattails or prevent him from exposing the way they treated him before.
  • In the Decrescente Series, Izuku himself abandons Katsuki after he punches one of their classmates.
  • Dekugate: The titular online community is extremely toxic, filled with Conspiracy Theorists who hate Izuku for existing and spinning insane theories about how he's not really All Might's son. When one of their number complains about how "Deku" ruined her chance to spend a few hours not just stalking All Might, but playing with him while disguised as a dog, the massive backlash she receives from members who don't agree with her methods makes her former friends scramble to delete any evidence that they'd ever supported her.
  • Failure to Explode: Once Katsuki fails to get into U.A., he promptly loses his Big Jerk on Campus status: none of his former lackeys are willing to follow him around anymore, and the teachers are no longer willing to turn a blind eye towards his Barbaric Bullying.
  • In A Sky Of A Million Stars: All of Bakugou Katsuki's lackeys prove to be this when he briefly returns to Aldera Junior High after Izuku's suicide attempt. Despite him clearly not being alright and still trying to cope with the situation, they avoid him and instead join in on the growing rumor mill. Obviously, after Katsuki hits his Rage Breaking Point and blows up the cafeteria, it's not hard for him to skip out on school altogether and enroll in Aldera's Correspondence Course a few months later. The situation ultimately feeds into Katsuki's Guilt Complex, as it proves an Awful Truth: despite Katsuki treating him like shit, Izuku really was his Only Friend.
  • Keep Your Friends Close revolves around an exercise where students are divided into "hero" and "villain" teams, with the twist that everyone on the villain team aside from Hatsune and Midoriya is a Double Agent. This takes a serious toll on Izuku's ability to trust anyone, as he comes to see them all as willing to compromise their ideals and betray him... for what? To do well on an exam...? As far as he's concerned, they failed the Secret Test of Character.
  • Goes both ways in Quirk: Sequencer. Once Izuku awakens the titular Quirk, many of his former bullies start cozying up to him. Izuku, for his part, takes advantage of this to get his hands on their DNA in order to make his ability stronger.
  • Waiting is worth it: Katsuki calls out his elementary school class for collectively being this. The class isolated and bullied Katsuki when rumors spread of him attacking a girl. Then the class turned their backs on the girl when it came out that she lied about the attack.

Naruto

  • your move, instigator (draw your weapon and hold your tongue): The Allied Mothers Force was founded in the name of protecting their children. Yet when Haruno Mebuki's four-year-old daughter is being forcibly enrolled in a special class at the Academy that will prepare her to become a Child Soldier at the tender age of five, the rest of the members refuse to help her fight back, kicking her out of the group. Note that most of the members come from Konoha's more powerful clans, giving them prestige that Mebuki lacks... and most of their children are protected by virtue of being clan heirs. But they're unwilling to use that clout to help her out.

One Piece

  • In Trapped In Eternity, Garp believes that the Spade Pirates abandoned Ace after he was captured and subjected to Cold-Blooded Torture by another crew, as they thought he was "weak" for being caught in the first place. In reality, the incident Ace described happened in one of Ace's past loops, ending with his death — he only told Garp about it in order to explain why his personality had changed.

Pokémon

  • At the beginning of Pokémon Strangled Red, Red's mom gushes to Steven about how her son looks up to him, but she won't talk to him at all after his Charizard dies, and he gives everything up out of grief.

RWBY

  • Can One Change Fix All of RWBY?: Leonardo Lionheart is no less cowardly and unreliable than his canon portrayal. He's a mole for Ozpin instead of Salem thanks to the switcheroo premise, but he's equally terrified of both of them. Ozpin and Salem both know that they can't truly rely on him for this reason.
  • Raise: While Pyrrha doesn't come from a Friendless Background, all of her friends either abandoned her during her gradual rise to fame because they weren't getting all the benefits they wanted to milk out of their relationship, or turned into mooching parasites she was forced to cut off herself. She finds her friendship with Jaune to be an immense relief due to their Commonality Connection: both of them have learned the hard way that Celebrity Is Overrated.
  • Service with a Smile: While Russell gets along well with Velvet, he stands by and watches whenever she gets bullied for being a Faunus. Eventually, he starts growing out of this.

Undertale

  • Picachuyou's Undertale (Fan Novelization) gives Frisk several of these. During the prologue, her friends agree to meet up with her and explore Mt. Ebott together, but nobody comes.

    Films — Animated 
  • Kaa accuses Mowgli's friends of this in the Disney version of The Jungle Book.
  • Derek in Monsters vs. Aliens breaks up with Susan when he thinks she'll overshadow him due to her transformation, but then tries to hook up with her again when the public opinion of her skyrockets and being her husband would give him extra fame.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In Battle Royale, two female students, Kaori and Mizuho, forced into the titular game give tearful goodbyes to each other before they're forced to enter the battlefield out on the island they've been put on. Later on, we see a shot of their dead bodies impaled with either a harpoon or spear and you see a lifesaver between them. And because they fought over who gets to escape the island as a matter of survival regarding the dangers of the ocean such as freezing temperatures, strong currents, etc. this is about as literal as this trope can get.
  • Taken to the nth degree in Brazil, where Michael Palin's character is willing to perform Cold-Blooded Torture on longtime friend Sam when circumstances turn against Sam.
  • Crash: Employed in one of this film's subplots as part of the anti-racism aesop. Sandra Bullock's character, a lonely woman married to a wealthy but frequently absent husband, has previously shown hostility to a Mexican repairman. Later on, she takes a fall in her home that leaves her unable to walk and she calls one of her white upper-class lady friends for help. Her "friend" ignores her plea, but her Mexican maid does come to her aid.
  • Creed II: The Russian elites are shown as this to Ivan Drago. In Rocky IV They praise Ivan as their champion, but after his loss at Rocky's hands, they abandon him, exile him to Ukraine and his wife Ludmilla abandons him and their son to remarry a wealthy man. His son Viktor even calls him out on this, upset he was desperate to earn the approval of the same people who threw him aside when he needed them most.
  • The Dark Crystal: When skekSil the Chamberlain makes his move to take the throne, many of the other Skeksis whisper that they're all with him. After losing the trial by stone, they all gleefully turn on skekSil on skekZok's command.
  • Defied in John Wick: Chapter 4. Even with the High Table gunning for John, Shimazu doesn't think twice about providing him shelter. When John apologizes for the trouble he's caused, Shimazu shrugs it off: "Friendship means little when it's convenient."
  • In San Andreas, it's more of "Fair Geology Friends" where the protagonist's daughter and her boyfriend part ways as soon as an earthquake hits and debris is trapping the girl in a parking garage while the boyfriend bolts for his own safety, refusing to go through another near-death experience.
  • In Trading Places when Winthorpe is framed for drug use and being with a hooker, he instantly is turned on by all his friends. He doesn't grasp it until he comes to the club to ask them to be character witnesses at his upcoming trial only to be coldly told by all of them (including his ex-fiance) that they want nothing to do with him anymore and just leave.
  • Dylan Gould in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. He at first seemed like a cool person to work for to the film's human protagonists Sam and Carly, but when the Decepticons take over, Dylan reveals that he defected to them out of cowardice. Dylan then sells out Sam to Soundwave, and kidnaps Carly to be his wife (or sex slave, if you'd call it).

    Literature 
  • The Bartimaeus Trilogy: Nick Drew abandons his friends when the going gets tough.
  • In Debt of Honor, China, who had earlier formed a secret alliance with Japan as part of their plot to seize the Northern Resource Area, are quick to throw Japan under the bus once Yamata's plan starts unraveling.
  • Oscar Wilde's The Devoted Friend: Hugh Miller visits Hans during the spring, summer, and autumn, but not during the winter when Hans is left to endure the cold weather. Lampshaded by Hugh:
    Hugh: There is no good in my going to see little Hans as long as the snow lasts, for when people are in trouble, they should be left alone, and not be bothered by visitors.
  • The Diabolic: Gladdic wants to have good relations with Sidonia (she says she expected them to marry eventually), but he's a coward who quickly buckles when someone more powerful is around. Notably, in his first appearance he tries to warn Nemesis that she's going to get date-raped... but shuts up because Elantra glares at him. Nemesis quickly decides he is not worthy of Sidonia.
  • Dragon Jousters: Alluded to in the Joust. After a new Jouster screws up big time, Ari comments that the Jouster's noble friends won't be hanging around to console him.
  • In Harriet the Spy, the titular character's inner thoughts are shared with her classmates when her diary is taken from her. Her close friends, offended by her unflattering (yet not intentionally harmful) thoughts, join a club devoted to ruining her life. (Unlike some other examples here, they learn better by the end.)
  • Harry Potter:
    • Many students follow public opinion when it comes to Harry, being friendly when he's popular and cold when he's unpopular. This is highlighted in the fifth and sixth books. During the fifth book, the Ministry of Magic actively attempt to discredit Harry, pressuring the wizard newspapers to portray him as a lunatic, causing many students to shun him. In the sixth book, the Ministry and newspapers portray Harry as some sort of hero and the only one able to defeat Voldemort. This resulted in Harry being swarmed by fangirls, one of whom even tried to poison him with love potion.
    • Peter Pettigrew is this very much, only befriending those he can get the most out of. In his youth, he was friends with James, Sirius and Lupin, the former two being among the most popular students of the school. When Voldemort starts his first reign of terror, Peter is quick to align himself with the dark wizard, as staying befriended with his schoolmates, who all actively fight against Voldemort, would almost certainly result in trouble.
    • Inverted with Ron and Hermione in the last few books. After Harry realizes he has a long and dangerous quest ahead of him to defeat Voldemort, he almost begs Ron and Hermione to leave his side, not wanting to drag them along with his troubles and endangering their lives. Both of them make perfectly clear Harry is stuck with them during his quest.
  • In The Hike, Helena accuses Joni of being this type of friend, saying she's only there for them when they're all having a good time, but when things are tough she bails; although Maggie and Liz don't explicitly back-up Helena and they even defend some of Joni's actions, privately they admit Helena isn't completely wrong. Joni didn't come to visit Helena's mother - who treated her like a daughter growing up - when she knew she was dying, nor did she come to the funeral, and the only comfort she offered Helena was sending her flowers (which Helena suspects was handled by her PR agent). She also wasn't there to support Maggie when her marriage to Adrian broke down while she had a young daughter to look after. Joni does care about her friends and feels guilty when Helena lays into her about her failings as a friend; she just tends to be so caught up in her own problems she's oblivious to her friends' struggles, while also having a bad habit of dealing with problems by avoiding rather than facing them.
  • The Lord of Bembibre: The Count of Lemos joined Queen María during the preceding Castilian civil war, was rewarded with lands for his support, and abandoned her to join her enemies when he realized who was obviously going to win the war.
  • The Lord of the Rings: Gimli expresses a dislike for these sorts of people during the Council of Elrond.
    "Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens"
  • In the book The Man in the Ceiling, the main character abandons his friends who need his help when the most popular boy in school takes an interest in him. He claims that all of them, being outcasts, would have done the same thing in his place.
  • In Jan Guillou's Ondskan, the protagonist Erik Ponti is at the start of the story running several fairly successful rackets at school, one of which includes stealing records from record stores with the aid of his friends. Erik is clever enough to lay down two rules for his gang: they rotate which stores they hit next so as to minimize suspicion, and if caught they will admit to nothing so as to minimize their punishment and not get each other in trouble. Unfortunately for Erik, while he's busy with something else his friends decide to target the same store several times, resulting in them getting caught, and they immediately blame Erik for making them go through with it in order to save their own hides.
  • A recurring motif in Olivia Goldsmith's books will be a character hitting low and quickly realizing who their real friends are.
    • The First Wives Club has each of the wives realizing how fast their society pals can turn on them once their husbands divorce them.
    • Marrying Mom reveals that the supposed con man who had been a Riches to Rags type is actually still very wealthy. It seems when he lost his money the first time, he quickly discovered how his wife and others were willing to desert him. Thus, he keeps his new wealth secret to know how folks truly feel about him.
    • In Young Wives, Michelle's husband is arrested for drug dealing. It takes Michelle a while to grasp how she's now a pariah at the PTA and other neighborhood events despite how she knew nothing of what her husband was up to.
  • Words of Radiance (second book of The Stormlight Archive): Adolin is disturbed to find that all his friends want nothing to do with him now that his family's political future is uncertain. Part of this is Adolin's fault, as he was friendly with pretty much everyone but didn't try to forge meaningful relationships with anyone besides his brother. Mostly, it's a sign of how shallow and corrupt the Alethi elite have become.

    Live-Action TV 
  • ER's Kerry Weaver repeatedly proved herself to be this the moment she realized that supporting someone would be detrimental to her—she screwed over Mark Greene to become ER chief, she ditched her girlfriend when the latter was falsely accused of sexual harassment, and she allowed her protegé to take the sole blame for a patient's death so that she herself would incur no punishment.
    • Mark himself had a bad habit of being unable to support anyone who needed it.
  • In the Season 6 finale of Game of Thrones, Lady Lyanna Mormont gives a dress-down of all her fellow northern lords assembled, all adult men, for being this to House Stark, and then reaffirms her own Undying Loyalty by becoming Jon Snow's kingmaker. The lords of the three strongest remaining houses contritely admit she's right. They all swear fealty again, joining Lady Mormont in declaring Jon the King In The North.
    • Jon's younger sister and regent Sansa Stark hangs a lampshade on the flip-flop nature of the Northern lords:
      Sansa Stark: Yes, they turned their backs on Jon when it was time to retake Winterfell, and then they named him their King, and now they're ready to turn their backs on him again. How far would you trust men like that? They're all bloody wind vanes.
  • On Mork & Mindy, Mindy's high school "friend" Susan Taylor (played by Morgan Fairchild) would show up occasionally. During the single Christmas show, Susan wangled an invitation to Mindy's, since her boyfriend insisted on spending the holiday with his wife. When she found out that the gift she thought was a picture was actually a thousand-dollar bill, she immediately abandoned the McConnells and rushed out to leave a present in her boyfriend's mailbox.
  • Our Miss Brooks: Sometimes, when the going gets tough, Walter Denton gets going, i.e. "Trial By Jury".
  • On a first-season episode of The West Wing, while dealing with the public fallout of his alcoholism and pill addiction coming to light, Leo invites Simon Blye, whom he regards as a friend, to meet with him at the White House. President Bartlet considers Simon a fair weather friend, and unfortunately for Leo, is proven right, as Simon basically tells Leo he needs to resign.
  • Young Sheldon: Pastor Jeff and all of Mary's friends prove to be these as they abandon her after finding out about Georgie impregnating Mandy, and the former also fires her from her job and kicks the entire family out of the church (he tries to rationalize it as "taking time off to reflect" but both he and Mary know that's a lie).

    Music 
    Theater 

    Video Games 
  • In Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, Tenko accuses Angie of this during the second trial, as Angie is the first person to point out that Himiko is suspicious because the Ryoma's body was discovered during her magic show, while failing to acknowledge that said show was her idea. Angie retorts that they have to question Himiko or they might end up getting killed, but Tenko's criticism still isn't exactly wrong - Angie is very quick to turn on the Blackened after Shuichi figures out who did it, asking if they were just pretending to be friends to gain everyone's trust, which is ironically something Angie does in the third chapter when she decides to set up a "Student Council" that answers to Atua, which conveniently means that she is in charge.
  • The protagonist of Double Homework was previously a fair weather boyfriend to Rachel when they previously dated. He bonded with her over their shared love of skiing, but broke up with her when she was upset about her family troubles. Somewhat deconstructed, with the protagonist exploring the reasons for his behavior and working to be a better person. And Rachel notices.
  • Drakengard 3: In the backstory, Zero's boyfriend tried to be as nice as possible until she came down with an incurable illness. Then he tried to sell her into slavery. Hence the homicidal insanity.
  • In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the trope is called by name and defied. Following the legionnaire Hadvar out of the bedlam of the Helgen attack all the way to Riverwood leads to meeting his Uncle Alvor, the village smith, and his family. Like his nephew, Alvor is pro-Empire and says that true Nords aren't just fair-weather friends to the beleaguered Empire.
  • Final Fantasy VII: In a flashback, Tifa once gathered a group together to venture out into the mountains. As she went further on her trip, she didn't notice most of the members had turned back out of fear, and Cloud was the only one who kept following her out of concern.
  • In Katawa Shoujo, Hisao has this opinion of his old friends and would-be girlfriend Iwanako. After he suffers his heart attack in the opening scene and is diagnosed with arrhythmia, his class initially visits him, but after a while, only his friends come, then only Iwanako, and finally, even she stops visiting him. However, in Shizune's route, he realizes that his gloomy demeanor pushed his friends away, and concludes that he is at least partially at fault.
  • Oddworld: The Mudokons are this to Abe. If you save over half of them, they're on your side, but if you don't they outright refuse to save you from the game's resident life threatening cituation. In Abe's Odyssey, they refuse to save you from being blended, and in Abe's Exoddus they outright hand you over to the Glukkons.
  • Otter Island: Jeremy gets along with the other two just fine, but when he learns about the monster, he refuses to help Zachary search for Connor out of fear for his own life and presses him to escape without Connor. Interestingly, Zachary doesn't hold it against him, saying he understands his fear. To Jeremy's credit, he also doesn't abandon Zachary if he chooses to stay and continue looking for Connor after the boat is set up.
  • Depending on the route, Makoto is this in Song of Memories. They can end up as either selfless, selfish but harmless, malicious, or downright reprehensible depending on who you romance.

    Web Comics 

    Western Animation 
  • Obsidian and Strika from Beast Machines say that they're loyal to Cybertron and its ideals above any one person. In practice, this means they devoutly serve Cybertron's current ruler, no matter who they are, only to ditch them the second things go south. When Megatron is seemingly defeated, they don't even last a day before trying to join the Maximals instead of trying to hold his empire together. Thrust calls them out on this, asking if they can really be loyal to anybody if they're loyal to everybody. His words strike a nerve and the two ultimately decide that he's right, standing with Megatron in the face of defeat.
  • Danny Phantom The A-Listers are shown to be willing to cut each other from their group without remorse.
    • In the Season 1 episode "10 Shades of Gray", when Valerie's father loses his job and her family becomes poor, Dash, Kwan, and Paulina are completely unfazed by the misfortune that befalls their friend and do not even pretend to care about what happened to her, just cutting her out for being poor when she need her friends' support.
      Valerie: Things are kinda tight now, ya' know?
      Dash: No.
      Paulina: Nuh-uh.
      Kwan: Not really.
    • In the Season 1 episode "Lucky in Love", when Danny temporarily becomes popular when he starts to date Paulina (who at the time was possessed by Kitty, who's using Danny to make Johnny jealous), he takes Kwan's place in the group, with Dash kicking Kwan out despite it appearing they are close friends.
  • DuckTales (1987): Referenced in the episode "Down and Out in Duckburg", when Scrooge loses his fortune. After the group walks out of the mansion, fed up with its new owner Fritter O'Way, the triplets propose that they should ask Launchpad or Gyro if they can stay with them. Scrooge refuses, saying that Launchpad and Gyro will treat him like he treated the regular citizens of Duckburg when he was wealthy. Of course, given either's characters, this trope is never demonstrated to have any basis in fact.
  • The Mighty B!: Penelope is Bessie's closest human friend, but will abandon her whenever that seems advantageous. Good thing Bessie's very tolerant.
  • In The New Scooby-Doo Movies, celebrity guest, Jerry Reed, accuses Shaggy and Scooby of this when they refuse to help him retrieve his guitar. Daphne and Velma join in as well.
  • On The Proud Family, Dijonay was frequently this towards Penny, though she did get called out on it at least once in the series' run, with Penny's takeaway at the end of one episode being that she can always trust Dijonay to be this trope.
    • For that matter, the rest of Penny's friends constantly ditch her when the going gets tough as well, just not as much as Dijonay. This is acknowledged in series, when Penny gets a new friend group in one episode and her grandmother remarks that these new people are "faker than [her] fake friends."
  • An somewhat odd example can be seen in the Rick and Morty episode, "Total Rickall." The Smith house has been invaded by alien parasites that tamper with everyone's memories, making Rick and his family believe that they're old friends of theirs. They multiply exponentially, overwhelming the Smiths, and even having them turn on each other. However, Morty eventually comes to the realization that their fake friends are only capable of creating good memories, while their real ones were there for the good and bad.
  • In The Simpsons' "Rear Window" Homage, Bart asks Milhouse to sign his leg cast after he's forced to stay inside due to his leg injury while the other kids play in the family's swimming pool, but he just writes "Milpool" and leaves for the pool.
    • In fact, throughout the series, Milhouse has been shown to be occasionally fickle towards Bart, as he often abandons him, sells him out to avoid trouble, or attacks whenever a dispute breaks out between them.
    • And this cuts both ways; when not friends with Milhouse, Bart is usually ignoring or outright bullying him. He once somehow got him set up as America's Most Wanted and turned him into a fugitive, seemingly all just for a cruel prank.
    • Bart of course isn't the only one with fickle friends: There is also Lisa's occasional one-off friend, Janey Powell, who is noted as "Lisa's fair-weather friend", and often laughs at her dilemmas.
      • Allison Taylor, who was Lisa's one-time friend, has also been reduced to this. Although she has no lines, she visibly does what Janey and other background children do.
    • In fact, the town of Springfield (consisting of all the major secondary and recurring characters) are like this to the Simpsons five, from Marge's gossiping acquaintances to Homer's beer buddies.
  • What If…? (2021): In the episode "What If…? S1E7 "What If… Thor Were an Only Child?"", with Odin in the Odinsleep and Frigga off visiting her sisters, Thor decides to go to Earth and throw a Wild Teen Party on a planetary-scale, inviting his "friends" from across the galaxy. Once his mother realizes he is on Earth though, instead of studying in his room, she announces she is coming to Earth to see if he is really doing a "cultural exchange class" with his "study group". When Thor tries to stop the party, everyone there begins to ditch him for being a "party pooper" and leave him to clean the mess up himself. They only stay to help once Thor announces that his mother is coming, with everyone wanting to avoid Frigga's wrath.

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