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Benjamin is no-one's friend. If Benjamin were an ice cream flavor, he would be "Pralines and Dick!"
— Garth Algar, Wayne's World
The cheese stands alone,
The cheese stands alone,
Hi-ho,The derry-o,
The cheese stands alone.
— The Farmer In The Dell
He's badass. He has cool clothes. He's a little less idealistic than the hero. He makes a grand entrance. And does it in half the time the hero does.
Unfortunately, he'll win battles but never win the war. If he's lucky, he might not get killed by The Dragon. He's also obnoxiously condescending because all Loners Are Freaks, and, if written badly, has only an Informed Ability.
The Ineffectual Loner does not understand The Power Of Friendship, or just isn't concerned. The problem is this attitude makes someone pretty single-minded, and he's afraid to trust anyone as an ally or they'd be a liability/distraction. He's also extremely susceptible (if not outright gullible) to villains who know how to think this way. He may catch on eventually, but he'll be a tool (in several senses of the word) for a bit.
An Ineffectual Loner usually starts to catch on to their role the first time they get their ass handed to them, and the other heroes bail him out. This is often a tempting trap laid by the villain, who knows the loner has no friends to warn him about the obvious danger.
A forgiving lead hero will usually be sympathetic to his intentions, even if other characters regarded him as an annoyance. Indeed, sometimes there's a specific character who does that intently — sometimes a little too much.
In short, an isolationist kind of Grumpy Bear. If he's lucky, he'll be upgraded to Rival or Sixth Ranger. If not, he gets served as a testimonial to going against the series Aesop. Some writers take the middle ground to be more fair, but that usually results in conveniently being Put On A Bus until the writers need them again.
On the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism, these characters only appear in idealistic stories or when the main cast isn't a team. In a cynical story they might be the main character.
A subtrope of The Stoic. See also Loners Are Freaks, In The End You Are On Your Own. Contrast The Aloner, who is a Loner by (apocalyptic) force rather than choice.
Examples:
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- Played with in GaoGaiGar. Soldato-J doesn't fight alone, but he doesn't have the same kind of camaraderie with his partners that Guy and Mamoru have with theirs. Despite this, he's actually better at his job than Guy is, at least at first, and makes his entrance by curbstomping a trio of Robeasts moments after they'd beaten Guy to a pulp. He goes on to be Guy's rival for the rest of the series before apparently going out in a blaze of glory at the end of the tv series. FINAL plays this a bit straighter; while he remains as badass as he's ever been, J is also completely unable to do anything against the Sol Masters until the heroes show up (to be fair, he was outnumbered eleven to one), and can't even challenge his own Evil Counterpart until he teams up with Renais and gains a new Super Mode / Combination Attack with her.
- Fakir in Princess Tutu certainly starts off this way. As soon as the main heroine figures out he's not really that bad of a guy she tries to convince him to team up with her, but it takes until near the end of the season until he finally does, and even then it's reluctantly. In the second season he doesn't mind quite as much, but he still maintains a bad habit of trying to do things on his own.
- Nao Yuuki from Mai-Hime is mostly this, but not because she's ineffective. Rather, she's utterly disinterested in the battles the other Hi ME are involved in, preferring her own path of preying on creeps she lures to her via the internet. And when she works with the others to stop the Sears Foundation's invasion of Fuka Academy, she's just as effective there. However, almost immediately afterwards, she's framed for attacking another Hi ME and loses her eye in the ensuing battle, causing her naturally distrustful personality to blow into full on paranoia, leading her to take out her feelings of revenge on everyone she almost trusted until the events of the Grand Finale.
- Seto Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh.
- Yu-Gi-Oh GX: Former Idiot Hero Judai chooses to fully embrace this role right before his token female love interest feels like making her move. No one said Character Development was easy.
- He has every reason to stay away from other people though: He is a magnet for megalomaniacs who plot world domination and evil supernatural beings and holds both a Superpowered Evil Side and Season 3's main villain within his body. And after the hell he went through for three whole years, who can blame him for being a little more mopey than before?
- Or, more precisely, he has accepted that he can't go running around without a brain in his head, because he has the power of Good Darkness, and actually needs to start thinking before he acts. He spent most of the season trying to get his friends into positions where they'd be able to achieve the goals they wanted, as well as making up his own mind on his future: helping others instead of being a selfish brat.
- Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune from Sailor Moon have a consistently condescending view of many of the other characters, despite being surprisingly useless when combating actual Dragons or Big Bads.
- Subversion: In Fate/Stay Night, the Archer character is the Ineffectual Loner; this is a subversion as he is actually the disillusioned future self of The Messiah who realized at the end of his life that trying to save everyone was an impossible goal. Plus he's far from ineffectual.
- Caren in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch. Good Is Dumb eventually gets her.
- Jung Freud from Gunbuster is introduced early on as The Rival hot "foreign" mecha pilot. She hangs around the edges of the main two characters, never quite getting to be the big heroine, or to save the day. To her credit, she gives up her seat in Buster Machine, to allow the classic pair to team for the final mission. She is left behind near the climax, not even allowed to make the Heroic Sacrifice made by the two leads.
- Asuka Langley Soryuu from Neon Genesis Evangelion is introduced in a manner very similar to Jung Freud (same director, same company). This is soon subverted; instead of fading into the background after her first (slight) comeuppance, she is promoted to love interest (a much more dangerous position in a Gainax giant robot story) and then to central cast member. She still suffers like most Ineffectual Loners - it's just longer in coming and much nastier when it happens.
- Don't be the Ineffectual Loner in a Gainax story, or giant robot crow mecha will eat you alive.
- Or an ancient apocalyptic force will cause you to turn all of humanity into a vat of orange primoridal ooze. Let's face it, Shinji's also an effectual loner despite being the main character. He beats more Angels than Rei or Asuka, but just gets more traumatized each time.
- Gary in Pokemon until the Johto arc, and essentially all the rivals in the video games (up until the third generation, at least), are prime examples. They don't understand The Power Of Friendship and can't learn to love and respect their Pokemon. Butt kicking results.
- Also in the anime; Charizard, Sceptile, Buizel, and Croagunk. However, they've all proven at some point that they do care for their trainers...it just took a while to open up.
- In part 1, Uchiha Sasuke from Naruto starts out as The Rival, but quickly descends to Ineffectual Loner. He is introduced as a grim and solitary prodigy at the Ninja Academy with a special inherited power that should make him all but invincible. Other characters admire and are intimidated by his skill, while women swoon over his good looks. He then goes on to get bailed out of every major fight by Naruto. With the start of part 2, however, he has become something of a subversion - now that he really has split himself off from the protagonist he has become one of the most powerful ninja in the series, not through the power of friendship but through fighting alone.
- He heads back towards being a straight example from about his fight with Itachi onwards, as he only got out of that because the fight was thrown, he goes back to being bailed out by his new team in his next fight, and it generally seems as if he's never going to achieve anything he aims for.
- The X-Laws from Shaman King are an entire team of ineffectual loners. I know, it doesn't make sense at first, but they, as a group, have all the signs; unwillingness to work with anyone outside their own team, powers that look awesome at first glance but are totally useless against the Big Bad, and they're all dicks. By the end of the series, their total contribution to the forces of good have been to get slaughtered like cows and actually make the main villain stronger.
- Gareki from Karneval fits the first paragraph to a T, although he's a main character and too Badass to fail (so far; being rational and aware of his lacking strength next to a Circus fighter helps too). Also, he's a Type A Tsundere, which goes along charmingly with the personality trait (Badass; it's kept him from being Ineffectual thusfar).
- Digimon generally has at least one of these per season, or at least an otherwise main character who decides for no apparent reason that they need to be a Loner. Perhaps the most egregious offender is Ruki in Digimon Tamers: in the beginning of the season she actively tries to destroy the Digimon belonging to the main character. She lightens up later, thanks to her mother and digimon partner.
- Angel Salvia from Wedding Peach is this at first. Because of the nature of their powers and the enemies they fight, the four Love Angels aren't able to use the full power of the Saint Something Four until they all work together. Also, the part that made me think of this trope was where Salvia kept cutting a snow demon, and even though cutting it was making the demon grow more each time, she wouldn't stop cutting it until Peach made her stop.
- And how can we forget Katekyo Hitman Reborn? One of many interesting characters of this manga, Hibari Kyoya, is practically the definition of an Ineffectual Loner. Hibari, the ostentatious head of the Disciplinary Committee (Although he is only ever seen with one of its members at any given time), doesn't like groups. He hates groups, and people who group, to the point of beating them senseless with the only warning being a derogatory "I'll Bite You to Death." He's considered invincible by his peers in the manga (most of whom are afraid of getting on his bad side), and has only lost one battle total due to a cheap trick pulled by the resident Manipulative Bastard Rokudo Mukuro. Despite this completely ridiculous winning streak, when it comes to the appearance of the Big Bad, he doesn't even try to pull a stunt, leaving it to the hero. (He is also the reference image for this page.)
- The Punisher and Blade, whenever they showed up alongside SpiderMan or other more idealistic superheroes. (Note that, in their own series, their values were more "realistic" than those they considered naive.)
- During the No Man's Land storyline, Batman became this by cutting himself from all his allies and forbidding them to help. Finally, he realized this approach was counterproductive and recalled them all.
- It's a cycle he regularly goes through. Attempt to drive away all the people he cares about, go darker and grimmer than usual, then realize/give in to the fact that he needs them.
Batman: I want to thank you all for coming on such short notice... and... Before we get into why you're here, I wanted to say... well, I just... I... I know that I'm not an easy person to know. That's all.
- Short version: Batman is ineffectual at being a loner.
Live Action TV
- By the end of the series, Galen Tyrol has become this in Battlestar Galactica. But really, after discovering that he was a Cylon and never really picking whether he was going to identify as a human or a Cylon, then later finding out his half-Cylon son wasn't actually half-Cylon or his at all, then also that his wife was actually killed by a fellow Cylon, can you blame him for being disillusioned?
- Dr. Foreman on House. He's quit and gone to work for other hospitals, and attempted to run a drug trial, but pretty much always gets kicked back to working under House.
- The Quantum Ranger of Power Rangers Time Force consistently thought himself superior to the other rangers (and, on paper, he was) and never actually joined the team in any real sense. He only actively works with the others in the finale, and then it's only by giving his powers to another ranger when he is incapacitated. (In the parallel Super Sentai, the equivalent character actually experiences Redemption Equals Death).
- Will of Power Rangers Operation Overdrive also starts out this way, going to ridiculous extremes to keep the team from helping out. He learns his lesson at the end of that episode... and spends the rest of the season acting on his own in many episodes with everyone's blessing and being quite successful at it.
Video Games
- One of the best examples of this trope is Jet from Wild ARMS 3, not just because he is the Ineffectual Loner to a tee, but because Virginia calls him on it - asking him what he'd managed to accomplish on his lonesome. Considering that the four of them managed to save the world three times, and save villages and towns many times more than that, together, she has a point.
- Subverted in Valkyria Chronicles through Nils Daerden and Marina Wulfstan, who actually get stat bonuses for being alone and penalties for being with others. In short, they actually DO work better alone. The latter is also considered by many to be the best sniper in the game.
- Subverted in Final Fantasy Tactics with the character Delita, who exhibits the philosophy and behavior of the Ineffectual Loner, but proves not to be ineffectual at all. This can be attributed to the title's uncharacteristically (for Final Fantasy) heavy emphasis on the "cynical" end of the scale' — The Hero Ramza would be The Messiah if he could, but in Ivalice, it just doesn't work that way.
- The trope is borne out normally in Final Fantasy IX, where Amarant is the Ineffectual Loner, and Zidane tries to teach him The Power Of Friendship, or at least of discretion.
- Neku, main character of the video game The World Ends With You. He wants to find his way out of the Game by himself, however, the rules of the game make this extremely difficult if not impossible.
Web Original
- Wyn from the web fiction serial Dimension Heroes practically defines this trope, unwilling to join with the other Dimensional Guardians until he finds himself in over his head.
Western Animation
- Lord Bowler was an Ineffectual Loner in the early episodes of The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr. before entering into a profitable partnership with the protagonist. He then evolved into a Badass Longcoat.
- Prince Zuko from Avatar The Last Airbender.
- Depth Charge from Transformers: Beast Wars is this trope, but with enough firepower to back up most of his attitude.
- Same goes for Blurr in Transformers Armada.
- And Prowl from Transformers Animated. He's skilled enough, but often screws up due to a tendency to try to take on things that would require the entire team.
- Prowl rises out of this for a few episodes early in the first season, seeming to have no problems working with Bulkhead... but seems to have a case of Aesop Amnesia, probably brought on by having to put up with Bumblebee.
- Darkwing Duck starts off this way, with the title character spurning Launchpad's offers to team up, and disregarding Gosalyn's well-meant advice. By the end of the two-part pilot, he comes to accept the two as nakama, but the trope of rejecting assistance comes up again and again in the course of the show, in episodes like "Slime Okay, You're Okay" and "The Mystic Eye of Quaxicoto". The strongest manifestation was in the show's only other two-part episode, "Just Us Justice Ducks", where Darkwing's rejection of allies leads to his summary defeat, an Aesop about the importance of teamwork, and an immediate comedic subversion of the Aesop, after which the battle royale between the Justice Ducks and their collective raison d'etre, the Fearsome Five, can proceed.
- Raphael of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, during his Achilles In His Tent moments.
- Peppermint Fizz from the 2002 Strawberry Shortcake series. She generally only shows up when the lesson of the day is something the nicer characters don't need to learn (like "don't be a xenophobe"), and is usually depicted as looking down on the others.
- Sara in the first Land Before Time movie nearly got herself killed by a Sharptooth and went hungry so that she wouldn't have to ask for help from the others. Eventually, she joined the rest of the group in a somewhat touching scene one night. She's pretty integrated into the group immediately after that.
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