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Aww.
"Just because she's rich, doesn't mean she doesn't have problems."
"It's my parents."
"What about your parents? Do they beat you?"
"No! They're just... never around."
A type of Sour Grapes Trope in which wealthy kids are not allowed to have happy lives without the assistance of the plot, instead being made miserable for no particular reason other than having been born to rich parents. The reason being, of course, to show that it sucks to be rich anyway, by demonstrating how rich kids suffer for various reasons that have nothing in particular to do with being rich. That being said, the easiest way for a writer to justify this one is simple: no one gets rich without a good measure of hard work, and this means a rich parent cuts back on time with the family. Plus, rich/ white people are inhumanely cold anyway.
If you're under the age of about 20 or so and your parents have a lot of money, it's very likely that you have both of the following problems:
This one-two punch serves to ensure that you are isolated. Depending on how much of the first point is your own fault, this may make you evil. Most likely, though, you just end up being lonely.
If you have entered this state during the course of the series, you are probably the victim of An Aesop. The writers probably had "appreciate what you have" or " Be Careful What You Wish For" in mind, but the end result is probably a Warped Aesop along the lines of "money makes people jerks" or something. Don't worry, it'll all be over by the end of the episode.
If you've been this character from the moment you were introduced, however, you're probably stuck. But fear not! If this is you, then you exist for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to eventually become close friends with The Hero. At a minimum, the audience will be assured that you're buddies now and that this makes it all better. You're likely to be brought into the Nakama, you stand a reasonably good chance of becoming someone's love interest, and if the Five Man Band has an opening for a Lancer or Smart Guy, consider yourself promoted. WARNING: This may require you to become a Fallen Princess.
In the event that you are The Hero, that's even better—not only will you get the girl and your very own Nakama, but your parental problems will probably be solved as well.
If you'd prefer a more proactive method of escaping this situation, you could always try becoming The Libby, although this has been known to fail.
Examples
Anime and Manga
- Karen of Yes! Pretty Cure 5, pictured above. Her parents are always traveling abroad, and she doesn't even get to see them in the Christmas Episode, despite that being the only time they come home. She does have one friend, Komachi, but manages to isolate herself anyway by being resolutely determined not to open up to her or anyone else.
- Karen's Futari Wa Pretty Cure predecessor, Honoka, has a nearly identical backstory, but it takes long enough for the series to get into her head that it's hard to say whether she actually fits the trope.
- Minto Aizawa from Tokyo Mew Mew, who initially Jumped At The Call but refused the built-in Nakama out of snobbery. She gets better, though, especially when Zakuro shows up and her fangirl side kicks in.
- Christopher "Chris" Thorndyke in Sonic X, even though his grandfather is around most of the time and he has several friends at school.
- Aversion: Mihama Chiyo out of Azumanga Daioh is shown as by far the richest of the girls, and has other reasons that she'd be isolated ... and is of course one of the happiest and most well-liked of her class. Not insanely happy, but generally cheerful. Granted, the audience never sees her parents, but they're never implied to be gone, just offscreen.
- Her dad seems to enjoy his life as an extradimensional talking cat secret agent.
- Extra points for Great Teacher Onizuka. Nanako's parents started out poor and nice and became less pleasant as they got rich. The protagonist solves the family problem without bankrupting them, however.
- Murasaki Kujoin from Kure-nai is born into a very rich family, but at the cost of being locked away from the outside world for the rest of her life.
- Kaito Doumoto of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch is popular at school and has an Instant Fanclub, and hides his lonely brooding behind the mask of a carefree joker instead of a standoffish loner like most of these examples. His parents died in a storm at sea, leaving him with a vast amount of money, and he doesn't like to talk about it. It's only Lucia's perseverance and his growing suspicion that she might be the mermaid he's looking for that allows him to eventually open up to her.
- Mawata Awayuki from the anime Pretear is a subversion of sorts, in that at first she seems to be lonely for no particular reason: her family is with her, but she distances herself from them; she is popular at school, but doesn't seem to have close friends. It's only later in the series that the real reasons for her loneliness are revealed — not only she was quite affected by her father's demise when she was a little girl, she just doesn't think people can understand her true feelings, and so is unwilling to open up to anyone. Of course, her issues remain unnoticed long enough to turn into a real problem, when the Big Bad seizes her and turns her into a Dark Magical Girl.
- Tianzi from Code Geass. Being the figurehead Empress of China meant that she was like a bird in a gilded cage, except the cage was the Imperial Palace and she couldn't properly rule over her country, which was oppressed by her Evil Chancellors (who also wanted to either marry her off to a much older man or get her killed and replaced. Still, she had a devoted protector in The Ace of the series whom she once saved from execution, so...
- Both Ami Mizuno and Rei Hino in the Sailor Moon manga, until they join the Senshi.
- The entire main cast of the anime Special A qualifies thanks to various relationship traumas during their childhood.
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED's Ace Pilot and Big Brother Mentor Mu La Flaga was one of these as a child, courtesy of being rejected and disowned by his father, who had himself cloned in order to produce a more worthy heir. Also, Flay Alster starts as one of these.
- Ai Shinozaki, the Tall Dark And Bishoujo Ojou from Hell Teacher Nube. Lampshaded when she reveals her loneliness that led her to be possessed by a demon to Makoto and Nuubee and one of the reasons is how she can't make true friends.
- Hazuki Fujiwara from Ojamajo Doremi. Her father is a famous movie director and her mother is a popular fashion designer, but as much as they do genuinely care for her, they're so absorbed in their work that Hazuki's more usual companions are her landlady and the other Ojamajo.
- The local Libby, Reika Tamaki, also hits this trope to some degree. Her dad spoils her because he doesn't want to make her cry, but that shapes her into a spoiled Libby who has quite the breakdown when she starts doubting if her dad really loves her.
- But averted with Onpu Segawa, who, when confronted with an empty house and a cold plate of plastic-wrapped food(on Christmas!) just went out to have fun with the other girls.
- Eri from School Rumble is an archetypical example (as well as an archetypical Tsundere, and The Ojou.)
- Nagi Sanzennin from Hayate The Combat Butler pretty much gets hit full force by all aspects of this trope. Her parents are mentioned sometimes, but are practically nonexistent (both of them died when she was little). She's hesitant to even go outside her own house because every time she does, somebody tries to kidnap her for her wealth. Pretty much her only friends are fellow Lonely Rich Kids, the servants she keeps around (including Hayate), and her pet tiger Tama.
- Amy from IGPX, although later her parents manage to make time for her.
- The F4 boys from Hana Yori Dango display this trope in very different ways.
- Domyoji Tsukasa's parents live in New York where their Corporate Empire is headquartered and at the beginning of the plot he states that he hasn't seen them in years. His older sister Tsubaki, who had been largely responsible for his upbringing, leaves Japan to get married sometime before we meet him, leaving him alone in his Big Fancy House, besides the legions of servants whom he regularly abuses. His Parental Abandonment is cited by other characters as his Freudian Excuse for bullying/complete lack of respect for anyone/borderline psychopathic fits of rage.
- Hanazawa Rui is referred to as having an extremely strict childhood that left him prone to fits of near-catatonia as a child. This was eventually "cured" by The Power Of Friendship in the form of his old friend and later girlfriend, Cool Big Sis Shizuka Todou, but it left him emotionally dependent on her.
- Nishikado Sohjirou seems at first to be immune from this, but as more of his home life is revealed, he is shown to have parents who are highly emotionally distant and a brother who abandoned the family business, leaving him to be The Dutiful Son. This is assumed to be the cause of his inability to develop lasting relationships.
- Mimasaka Akira seems to be the only member immune from this despite that, at least in the j-Drama, his father is a Yakuza boss. In all incarnations, having a mother who acts almost like an Adult Child seems to be the cause of his Cake Eater tendences.
- Kanzaki Sumire in Sakura Taisen. Her father and grandfather were so absorbed into work that she was left emotionally scarred and doubtful about their love for her. Reversed later, when her dad appears and is revealed to be a rather decent guy otherwise, and even apologizes to Sumire for not being able to spend more time with her. She forgives him..
- However, there's a rich kid who's even more lonely in the group: Vicomtesse Iris Chateaubriand. Her parents were so scared of her enormous Psychic Powers that they locked her in her fancy bedroom and her only constant company were her dolls and teddies. The anime episode where her backstory is revealed is one of the biggest Tear Jerkers in the Sakura Taisen series.
- In Captain Tsubasa, El Si Pierre is the son of a French nobleman and tycoon who is not willing to have others treating him like a a frail White Prince. So, to prove to others that he's just like them and doesn't want any privileges, he starts practising soccer.
- Similarly, Mark Owairan is a real Arabian prince who spent several years in the palace and discovered soccer only when he went out of his gilded cage with his bodyguards and saw a bunch of children playing in the streets. He's so fascinated that he begins training and playing, rising to the top thanks to his own merits and not to his family's influences.
- Tatsuki Iizuka from Hyakko.
- This is Rich Bitch Mayu Miyuki's Freudian Excuse in Ai Yori Aoshi.
- Kunugi-tan from Binchou-tan.
- Isabella from Paradise Kiss was raised by her butler, and also had the issues you'd expect from a little Ojou trapped in a little rich boy's body.
- Relena Darlian from Gundam Wing is quite popular at her high school but doesn't seem to have any real friends at first, just admirers and would-be suitors. She seems to be aware of their condition, too, and while she's polite to the other kids she doesn't approach them either. Even her beloved father is (unwillingly) distant due to his extremely demanding job. At first, her only friend seems to be her grandfatherly butler/chauffeur Pagan... until she meets The Stoic Hitman With A Heart protagonist and her life starts changing.
- The truth is that most to all of the cousins from Umineko No Naku Koro Ni probably could qualify for this - they all (except for George) seem to have rather strained relationships with their parents. However, as far as outright Parental Abandonment is concerned, Ange probably gets the truckload - by the time we meet her, her entire family save one is dead.
- Serge Battour in Kaze To Ki No Uta, who is also a Heartwarming Orphan. His love intrest Gilbert is also one of these, but thats the least of his problems.
- In Tona Gura, Nina Isokawa is a sweet but annoying example, and as a result is very devoted to her friends, the Arisakas and Kaguras. Her extreme early-bloomer bustiness freaks Yuuji out, but at no time does he try and exploit her obvious crush on him. Her Genki Girl nature always freaks Marie out.
Comic Books
- Several comic book characters, including but not limited to Bruce Wayne and Charles Xavier.
- And in Smallville, Lex Luthor.
- But not Tony Stark, who grew up surrounded by social types and was quite the unrepentant ladies' man once grown to adulthood.
- DC Comics example — Tim Drake, the third Robin, had exactly this kind of 'rich kid abandoned' childhood, at least up until the part where his father died and Bruce Wayne finally adopted him. But even before that, it took 125 issues of his solo title before his father finally noticed that his son was leading a double life, and even then he practically had to be handed the revelation on a silver platter by the plot.
- And that was after their relationship improved. Initially Tim's parents paid him so little attention that he focused on Batman (who he had seen exactly once, to boot) as a parental substitute.
- Cecilia from Yoko Tsuno.
Film
- Ridley in Diary Of The Dead - when the rest of the group gets to him, he's alone, and he talks about how Cook got his parents, then they got the Butler and the Maid and so on. Part of it was trauma, but the rest was the naturally snobby way one talks about one's staff when one is rich. He doesn't bother to learn their names — he just refers to them by their job title.
- The movie version of Richie Rich.
- In the movie Arthur, Arthur Bach is a Lonely Rich Kid despite not physically being a kid.
- Lucas in the film of the same name paints himself as this, explaining that his parents are "superficial" people who take no interest in him, don't meet with other parents, and don't want him inviting friends over or giving out his phone number. At the end, one of his friends reveals that he lives in a trailer with an alcoholic father.
- In The Last Emperor, Pu Yi who has the eponymous title cannot leave the Forbidden City despite being curious about the outside world; his tutor R.J. said, "I think the Emperor is the loneliest boy on earth."
Literature
- Teen Genius Villain Protagonist Artemis Fowl fits this quite well, though his lack of friends seems to be by choice, and his Parental Abandonment is actually remedied as the series goes on.
- Played straight in the beginning of the Artemis Fowl series, but increasingly averted as the series progresses. Oh yes, and the reason he was hunting fairies in the first place was to rebuild the lost family fortune.
- The rebuilding for the expressed purpose of locating his missing father. Which he finally succeeds at in the Arctic Incident.
- Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye.
- Prince Brat in the novel The Whipping Boy.
- Chance The Gardener in Being There is a variation. He was raised by a wealthy man but was forcibly confined to the townhouse all his life due to his mental retardation. So as the story opens, Chance is middle-aged but otherwise he fits the trope: he's attended to by a maid; he spends his days eating, sleeping, tending to a garden, and watching television; and he has no friends. Perhaps luckily, the poor guy doesn't know he's not living a normal life. When he's forced to leave the house after the master's death, he winds up befriending and enriching the lives of Eve and Ben Rand, a married couple who also serve as adult versions of this trope.
- In 'Hating Alison Ashley' Erica, already dissatisfied with her middle-class family, is very jealous of the rich new girl, Alison Ashley. It takes her the whole book to realise that maybe having parents that bother to turn up to the school play you are staring in is more important than a fancy house and your own room.
- Terisa Morgan in Mordant's Need.
Live Action TV
Truth In Television
- Barbara "Poor Little Rich Girl" Hutton
 .
- Christina Onassis, daughter and heiress of the Onassis fortune. Brother died early, mother killed herself, dad married Jackie Kennedy (whom she hated) and later died. In the end, she became a succesful businesswoman but her lonely childhood made her horribly love starved, and died at age 37 because of drug abuse.
Video Games
- Ijuuin Enzan (Eugene Chaud) of Mega Man Battle Network gets this treatment in the third game, where his heartfelt, touching moment at the end was... being allowed to eat with his father. Actually, he rarely mentions any angst over it and, normally, is seemingly himself too busy to care that his father is wrapped up being the CEO of the biggest technology corporation ever, and the game makes it perfectly clear that his lack of friends is due more to his being a combination of The Rival, Aloof Big Brother and Serious Business. Ayanokouji Yaito aka Yai, likewise, seems to have an army of young maids (and her Navi) as her only company and we never see her parents once in three fairly long-running forms of media. She seems well adjusted enough, if a bit bratty and spoiled, and indeed is part of the original Nakama. So there's two aversions, "I can eat with you?" notwithstanding.
- For all her academic and Shadow-fighting prowess, Mitsuru Kirijo of Persona 3 seems to be somewhat cursed socially. She and her father rarely talk, she rarely has any free time whatsoever, she takes the burden of guilt for her grandfather's creation of the Shadow threat, and her sheltered upbringing means she's often lost in everyday situations others take for granted. It's no wonder she collapses after her father is murdered by Ikutsuki.
- Nanjou Kei in Persona — the only person in his household who ever paid attention to him was his butler, Yamaoka who dies while protecting him very early on in the game.
Web Original
Web Original
- Jonas from lonelygirl15. He lives in a big house, which he has all to himself, because his parents vanished at sea. He has no close friends prior to meeting the protagonists, and you get the impression that he's very lonely. He soon joins their circle of friends and becomes both a central character and a love interest for another central character.
- Seiki from Sailor Nothing lost his parents at an early age, and is now pathologically afraid of being alone. He isn't a loner, but otherwise fits the trope to a tee.
Western Animation
- Remy Buxaplenty from The Fairly Oddparents counts. In fact, his workaholic and billionaire parents's EXTREME neglection of him is Remy's Freudian Excuse as well as the reason why he's got a fairy godfather in the first place.
- In The Simpsons, Mr. Burns is shown in flashbacks to have been offered the choice between warm, loving parents or a heartless billionaire. He chose the billionaire, making him a Lonely Rich Kid by choice.
- Admittedly, he didn't take long to make his mind up (the entire sequence is a Shout Out to a very famous classic film).
- In the episode "Burns' Heir," Bart went through the temporary version.
- Whitney Stane from Iron Man Armored Adventures fits both main types perfectly. She has a terrible relationship with her busy CEO father (commenting she has to now make appointments just to see him) and being an outcast at the school she goes to. Her only real friend is Tony Stark, who would often brush her off until he found out just how bad her home life was.
- Mai from Avatar The Last Airbender, whose dark view of the world and emotional repression are results of a combination of this, her mother's obsession with etiquette and respectability, and becoming an Unfavorite after her brother Tom Tom is born. One of her few close friends is the horrifically evil Azula. At least, until she turns her back on her.
- Fortunately, one benefit of a Heel Face Turn is acquiring lots of new friends.
- Supplementary information indicates that not only Toph Bei Fong was kept hidden from the world and confined to her parent's estate, but her parents left the bulk of her actual care/interaction to servants. No wonder she sneaked out enough to become defending champion at the local pitfights.
- Alexis on Legion Of Super Heroes is an unapologetically spoiled Rich Bitch celebrity who seems to hate other kids as much as they hate her. Still, she confesses to Superman that she just wants to have friends and be normal, not the richest girl in the galaxy. It turns out she really never learned to take 'no' for an answer, though: When Superman makes it clear he can't just drop everything and spend time with her whenever she wants, she figures the solution is donning a suit of Powered Armor to kill all of Superman's friends in the Legion to eliminate the competition. And then, in the end, she realizes that she doesn't want to be normal after all, and that being a supervillain is her true calling. Er, yay for a happy ending?
- In one episode of Jimmy Neutron, Jimmy changed the past so that his parents became rich, but it turned out they never paid any attention to him once they had money, so he went back to the past and undid the change.
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