Oblivious To Love / Video Games

• In the Backyard Sports series, Marky Dubois is in love with Billy Jean Blackwood. Billy Jean is oblivious to Marky because she believes he has cooties.
• Played with hilariously in Bugsnax. All through the game, it seems that lovable jock Chandlo is completely oblivious that his best friend Snorpy is head-over-heels in love with him, and Snorpy is too nervous to tell him. When Snorpy finally works up the nerve to admit it, Chandlo bluntly points out they've been dating for years. Turns out Snorpy was the oblivious one to an absurd degree, apparently never piecing together that them making out, moving in together and possibly consummating their relationship meant anything.
• In Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Hammer makes hints about having feelings for Yoko, but she never picks up on them, mistakenly thinking that he's "glaring" at her when he looks her way.
• Deadly Premonition: Subverted by Ushah. It seems like a straight example initially, when he asks York for help with solving a riddle from Fiona that turns out to be a Love Confession. However, afterwards he says that she's been sending him signals like this for a while, and he wasn't sure how to respond because he's never had a girlfriend before.
• Deltarune: It becomes increasingly obvious that bashful A-student Noelle has a crush on rowdy delinquent Susie. But at the start of Chapter 2, Noelle awkwardly invites Susie and Kris to come study with her and Berdly at the library, then offers Susie a box that turns out to contain chalk (after Susie was revealed to have a habit of eating chalk). Susie notes Noelle's odd behavior, but seem to believe that it means she's on to the adventures Susie and Kris have been having in the Dark World.
  • It's not as explicit, but there are various hints that Kris also has some romantic feelings towards Susie, most obviously at the end of a secret boss fight, where Kris asks either for a hug from her or jacket, both of which she refuses, and at the very end of chapter 2. Susie asks Kris who they would take to the festival coming up; only answering by saying Susie offers a genuine reaction, and answering that they would take her leaves her confused, before muttering that of course she'd go with them.
• Dragon Age II:
  • Aveline is completely oblivious to Hawke's advances during her romance quest chain, even though s/he flat out says it at one point. In fact, she only seems to pick up on it after hooking up with Donnic.
  • Merrill is incapable of picking up on the advances of Hawke's brother, Carver. However, the Mark of the Assassin DLC later implies that she was Obfuscating Stupidity to spare his feelings, since she's infatuated with Hawke instead.
  • As the player, you can also choose to have Hawke be oblivious to Merrill's obvious infatuation with Hawke, if you're a heartless bastard. Of course, it works both ways, since Hawke has to explicitly state they are interested in Merrill before she finally gets the hint. It could also be interpreted as sparing Merrill's feelings in a similar way to how she tries to spare Carver's. Telling her that she's like a sister to you before she manages to confess may cause her disappointment, but at least she isn't humiliated.
• Dragon Age: Inquisition:
  • Ambassador Josephine Montilyet from initially displays this trope in regards to the Inquisitor's attempts at flirting. When the Inquisitor suggests they take a stroll around Skyhold's battlements, she interprets it as a request to inspect the structure of the fortress. She only clues in to the Inquisitor's intentions when Leliana brings up the issue and warns the Inquisitor not to break her heart.
  • Subverted with the Iron Bull. Before the first romance scene, nearly all the Inquisitor's attempts to flirt with Bull seem to go right over his head. He eventually admits that he knew exactly what was going on, but played dumb because he was worried that the Inquisitor didn't know what they were getting into.
• Dragon Quest IV: Kiryl's hopelessly in love with Princess Alena, yet she doesn't seem to notice.
• Final Fantasy:
  • It's implied with Rosa from Final Fantasy IV. She never realized Kain felt that way about her until he admits it directly atop the Tower of Zot in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years.
  • Cloud in Final Fantasy VII is officially unaware either Aerith or Tifa have feelings for him while both are alive.
    • Add in the fact that Cloud himself was unaware he had feelings for Tifa until the Lifestream event.
    • Until the Lifestream event, he's a partial amnesiac with major identity issues, brought on by recovering (badly) from poisoning just in time to watch the guy who was protecting him get cruelly gunned down within sight of their destination, after both of them had been experimented on in an induced coma for four years. Oh, and the Big Bad mind controls him repeatedly for kicks until then too. The Big Bad he had already beaten. To say that Cloud's mind was not ready to even recognize romantic feelings is an understatement.
  • In Final Fantasy X, Yuna develops a crush on Tidus pretty quickly. While some of it is open to interpretation (whether she's infatuated or whether she's seeking a connection to the late Jecht and Braska, or both), it is clear that she likes him, a lot, going so far as to say she wants him on her pilgrimage even if he's not a guardian. It takes Tidus himself a while to realize "what if she comes onto me" is not hypothetical.
• Fire Emblem uses this trope frequently with its lords:
  • Both Roy from Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade and Ephraim from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones are fairly oblivious to the affection of their various possible love interests.
  • Ike from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, however, takes this obliviousness to entirely new levels and never quite gets it despite all the women who have expressed interest in him. The only time he remotely catches on is with Aimee, and that's only because she's so awfully blatant and open about it even he can see it. Strangely enough, this doesn't seem to be the case with other people, being well aware of Titania's feelings for his father, giving the impression that he's only oblivious when it's directed at him. There are, of course, other explanations.
  • Marth from Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light is a prime example, as shown by this Awkward Zombie comic.
  • Non-lord example in Fire Emblem: Three Houses with Caspar. He is so focused on his training that some girls have to spell it out and yet he doesn't understand Bernadetta or Hilda want to have something more intimate with him. In his Goddess Tower cutscene, he mentions there was a girl that wanted to meet him in the tower (as it is a romantic symbol for some people) and that she got angry when he said he was too busy and doesn't understand why.
• Goodbye Volcano High: Fang is so caught up in their pursuit of a music career that they're oblivious to Naomi's obvious crush on them. Naser calls them out on this during Chapter 7. Fang can then choose whether to date her or offer to just be good friends.
• In Indivisible. Baozhai falls head-over-heels in love with Thorani on sight, the usually hardened, salty pirate reduced to blushing and stammering. It also takes Thorani a while to figure out why Baozhai is being so polite to her, though she does eventually ask Baozhai out. Ajna is similarly confused by Baozhai's reaction; if she figures it out later, she never comments on it.
• In The King of Fighters series King has long nursed a crush on Ryo. Pretty much everyone knows about this except for Ryo himself.
• Rean Schwarzer in The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel has no idea that there are women who would like to pursue a romantic relationship with him. Same thing with Lloyd Bannings in his arc where there are also quite a number of women who are interested in him. By Cold Steel IV, people pick on the two of them for being dense with women.
  • Rean is aware of Musse's feelings for him, though, due to her being an utterly shameless flirt.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Link in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is completely unaware of the fact that Princess Ruto believes them to be engaged. Of course, he's completely unaware of the interest of just about every other female character in the game too.
  • He's not much more observant in Twilight Princess, either, where both childhood pal Ilia and pint-sized Deadpan Snarker Midna have a thing for him. The closest he gets to catching on with anyone is when he shares a brief hand-holding scene with Princess Zelda... and she doesn't seem to have any real romantic feelings for him in this game. However, due to the Heroic Mime nature of Link, one cannot be completely sure about this.
  • The Wind Waker Link seems to be a bit less dense, which may make sense, as he's the first Link (in that timeline) to have actually seen normal, functioning couples, and returns Tetra/Zelda's affection about as well as a Heroic Mime can. Also judging by the embarrassed look on his face, Link immediately picked up what the Fairy Queen meant when she said that he was "just her type."
• In Life Is Strange it is extremely obvious Warren has a crush on Max. Obvious to everyone except Max, that is. Though given the Stalker Shrine she hallucinates later on, Max is aware of Warren's feelings on some level, but is intimidated by his moments of skeeviness towards her.
• In MARDEK RPG, Chapter 3, Elwyen is obviously head-over-heels for Mardek, but Mardek doesn't notice because he's a moron.
• Mass Effect:
  • If Shepard woos Tali in Mass Effect 2, she'll confess that she's been in love with him since the first game. Since she wasn't originally intended to be a love interest, she obviously didn't drop any hints of her feelings during the first game. Then again, Shepard is the point of view character.
  • Friend Zone Turian is pretty obviously into the quarian on Ilium, but she has so far failed to notice. Until the end of that conversation, anyway... there had to be a reason for her mentioning her "nerve stimulation package" — aside from Fanservice, anyway. Unless she thinks he's gay.
  • Garrus with Dr. Michel. In the first game, he pulls a Big Damn Heroes move and suffice to say, she likes it. In Mass Effect 2, her letter intended to be written for Shepard almost immediately segues into checking how Garrus is doing instead. Finally, in Mass Effect 3, she buys him turian chocolates because she "saw it and thought of him"... and he still doesn't get it!
  • Possibly Fem!Shep with Garrus. In the second game he'll make a comment about some women finding scars attractive while staring at her. Averted if you take the Relationship Upgrade, during which she'll be very aware (and considerate) of his feelings. Considering that Male!Shep gets a completely different line from Garrus and that the second game reveals his exclusive attraction to Fem!Shep, this seems highly likely.
  • This is the in-universe reason why Male!Shep and an unromanced Fem!Shep couldn't romance Kaidan until the third game. Shepard was too focused on work to notice Kaidan's feelings.
    Kaidan: You were always so focused on work back then. The mission was everything.
    Shepard: It's true. I'll never know what I missed.
  • Potentially Female Shepard and Samantha Traynor in 3. Despite their interaction oozing with subtext, Shepard can not notice Samantha's flirting with her even when she's in her underwear, in Shepard's shower. Which is up to the player. In this case Sam will realise Shepard's not interested in her, ending the romance.
• In Matchington Mansion Tiffany is attracted to Jack, the local carpenter. In addition to completely ignoring her attempts at flirting, he constantly makes suggestive comments that actually refer to the beauty of the house. It probably doesn't help that he calls his favorite hammer "Claudia."
• Lan Hikari of Mega Man Battle Network remains oblivious to his best friend Mayl's crush on him, even as she makes it obvious in the very first game as she gets very close to him after he saves her. They do hook up and marry offscreen at the end of the series at least.
• Naked Snake in Metal Gear. In Metal Gear Solid 3, he's very oblivious to Ocelot's infatuation with him. EVA teases Snake about how dense he is about it. He's also clueless about Para-Medic's attraction to him and unable to understand about what's going on between Volgin and Raikov. Gene from Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops remarks on how Snake "caught Ocelot's eye," prompting Snake to ask confusedly what Ocelot has to do with anything.
• Depending on your choices in Neverwinter Nights, Aribeth may lament at the end that she never noticed how the player character felt about her until it was too late.
• Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 presents Shikamaru as this towards Temari. Several of his friends point out his and Temari's relationship but he is utterly oblivious. Shikamaru doesn't take much notice to her reaction when he carries her to the village after she sprained her ankle either.
• Cyrus from Octopath Traveler constantly fails to notice when women fall in love with him. He doesn't realize that Therese has a crush on him, despite how blatant it its (much to her disappointment). Even when Odette tries to spell it out for him by directly saying that women are flustered by his looks and language, Cyrus is just confused and still doesn't get it.
• Hinata of Omega Labyrinth Life quickly gains the attention and the romantic affections of her classmates, but due to her all-loving, somewhat dimwitted nature, she fails to notice that her best friend Berune, and later, Mei, are both aggressively vying for her heart.
• Akihiko Sanada of Persona 3 "seems to be completely incapable of recognizing female emotion," as the PSP version of the game states. He honestly has no idea why all those girls follow him around, and is similarly oblivious to the advances of the female protagonist if she pursues a relationship with him. He's not that great at understanding his own feelings, either; at the culmination of his Romance Sidequest, the protagonist herself must flat-out tell him that the feelings he just described having mean he's in love with her. This despite the fact that, if he is in the party during the July Full Moon event, he comes close to actually having sex with her under the Shadow's influence.
  • Hilariously, it seems like Akihiko is just the Cool Loner type, until the inevitable Beach Episode, where you discover that he is completely and totally useless in romantic situations.
  • Although really that's a component, albeit a large one, of the fact that he has the social skills of a brick; a result of having a grand total of one friend, himself a Cool Loner, for the first fifteen years of his life and having no time for anyone less dedicated than him.
  • Mitsuru provides a female example, as while she is slightly more in tune to emotions than Akihiko she still seems rather oblivious to the sheer amount of people of both genders who have crushes on her.
• Played as a game mechanic in Pokémon; some Mons have the trait Oblivious, which prevents the "infatuated" status condition. It's mostly held by dim-witted Pokémon, like Slowpoke and Whiscash.
  • For human characters, this is implied with Carmine in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. The Paldean student she's paired up with for the exploration assignment gets jealous of how much time she spends with the player character, and grumbles about how they're hogging all her time. However, the only time she's seen directly talking to or about him is when she apologizes to everyone for assuming that they were a bunch of ignorant tourists.
• Raz during the first half of Psychonauts is a bit like this. Then again, he is ten years old. Heck, after Lili blatantly states that she wants to make out with him, he spends the rest of the cutscene trying to comprehend what she was saying.
• Quantum Protocol: Leo tries to help his friend, Luke, flirt with Aurora, but Luke realizes that Aurora already has a crush on Leo. Unfortunately for Aurora, Leo only sees her as a childhood friend and is too dense to notice her feelings.
• Downplayed with John Marston in Red Dead Redemption and its prequel. Bonnie McFarlane is implied to have a crush on him and many prostitutes will go over to him if he enters a bar. John is aware of their interest in him but he ignores it because he is Happily Married. However, at one point, Mrs Geddes invites him over to her house for a drink and John is completely oblivious to her intentions, even as he casually reveals to her that his wife is expecting him back soon.
• In the Star Fox series, Falco is this way towards his former associate Katt Monroe.
• Played for laughs in the Smuggler questline on Tatooine in Star Wars: The Old Republic with a female Jedi who is completely oblivious to any flirting done by the smuggler, leading to this possible gem in the storyline climax:
  Smuggler: (to Risha): Oh, I've got a Jedi and a Sith fighting over me, but I only have eyes for you.
  Jedi: Nothing you say makes any sense.
  Sith woman: Poor girl, she's never been kissed.
• Chrodechild from Suikoden Tierkreis remains oblivious to Asad's affection to her. Poor guy.
• Super Robot Wars V: Velt's grateful towards Lotte, as she is the only person who willingly sits through his long speeches about machines, but he doesn't seem to get that she's interested in him. In the special scenario "New Strength", he specifically asks to go on patrol alone with Lotte, and tells her that he's going to give her a present, causing Lotte to think that he's going to confess or even propose to her... Then it's revealed that said present is the completion of Grungust and Huckebein's strongest weapons. When the two return, everyone chews out Velt for this, including Sagara Sousuke, who is a textbook example of a Book Dumb Idiot Hero; even he can see it.
• In Tales of Monkey Island, Guybrush is oblivious to Morgan's feelings for him, especially noticeable in Chapter Three when they talk about how to calm the female manatee. Of course, this is due in large part to his unbreakable devotion to Elaine. (Even though he was more of a flirt in Escape From Monkey Island.)
• In the Tales Series it's fairly common to have at least one character be completely clueless to how someone else feels about them. Oftentimes, this will be The Hero:
  • In Tales of Symphonia, Sheena practically confesses her feelings to Lloyd in one possible scene, telling him "I want to be with you." Lloyd doesn't catch the romantic undertone at all, figuring she just wants to journey with him around the world.
    • The only reason Colette gets off easier in this department is that she’s less open about her feelings for Lloyd than Sheena (Sheena directly drops hints about her feelings, all of which go completely unnoticed, whereas Colette mostly hints to the player about them when she’s talking to herself, along with saying things to and about Lloyd that, while not directly romantic, are things people generally don’t say to someone they consider just a friend). However, on the occasions she does directly try to assert herself, her luck is about as good as Sheena’s; in one skit, she nervously asks Lloyd if girls like Princess Hilda are his type. Lloyd says Hilda is pretty, then tells Colette he thinks she’s cuter than her, then proceeds to compliment every other girl in the party.
  • Tales of the Abyss, Tear falls in love with Luke, and he's the only character in the party that doesn't pick up on it. Tear finally just outright says "Luke, I love you!" right before he performs a Heroic Sacrifice after beating the final boss, which he finally seems to notice.
    • Of course, Tear is not very good at voicing her emotions due to being raised as a soldier her entire life. The fact that Luke is a Replica with only 7 years of life experience (most of that sheltered) doesn't help things.
  • In Tales of Legendia, Chloe has a crush on Senel (which even the game's big idiot Norma notices), and he doesn't notice in the slightest. While Senel is pretty dense, he's also a Chaste Hero due to his rather troubled past, and it's implied that he'll probably never get to the point where he's capable of being romantically interested in someone. Chloe eventually comes to terms with this, realizing that Senel thinks of her as a combat buddy, and that's okay.
  • In Tales of Phantasia, this is largely averted; none of the characters have too much difficulty recognizing each other's affections, but just about all of them refuse to assert themselves romantically before the last act of the game, probably because most of them are teenagers.
  • In Tales of Vesperia there's Karol, towards Nan. Hammered home when she's his final foe in the 100-Man Melee — Nan explicitly says that she can't have the man she marries be weak. Karol, being too young and too stupid to know better, then asks why she's attacking him, then. Cue standard Tsundere reaction.
  • Pascal of Tales of Graces might be the biggest example in the whole series. When Hubert flat-out tells her that he likes her, she misinterprets it as him telling her that he's getting married. She cheerfully promises him that she'll be at the wedding, and will take a bath with soap as well. He slinks off, defeated.
    • Hubert's brother Asbel fits this trope due to not noticing Cheria's feelings. Although their case is a deconstruction as Cheria ends up bitter and angry at Asbel for not noticing even after the Time Skip, whereas Asbel had a lot on his plate. To elaborate: he couldn't protect his friends and brother from a monster, one of said friends pulled a Heroic Sacrifice for them to live (instilling a lot of Survivor Guilt) and his brother is sent off to another country to avoid a messy Succession Crisis. Factor in that Asbel was eleven years old when Cheria's crush first manifested, and all this trauma was piled on all at once. He ends up leaving home for seven years to get stronger. Then after the time-skip he finds out that his dad is dead... Love was the last thing on his mind.
    • Asbel plays this trope straight in the "Future" arc that takes place six months after the main story. Having dealt with issues that plagued him in the main game, Asbel has finally gotten to the point where he's ready to think about such things. His mother has even started putting pressure on him to get married. And he's shown to be utterly clueless when it comes to romance. He apparently spent all his time at the Academy absorbed in his training, so it's safe to say he doesn't have a lot of dating experience.
      Cheria: "So were there any girls at the (Knight) academy?"
      Asbel: "Oh yeah sure. We even used to stay up and talk about what we'd do if we became knights."
      Cheria: "What!?"
      Asbel: "Yeah. Me, a couple of the other guys and some of the girls."
      Cheria: "Did you do anything else?"
      Asbel: "Nah. We just talked."
      Cheria: (visible relieved sigh) "Oh. Okay"
• Oh dear, oh dear, Hamil in Tears to Tiara 2. Supreme tactician, strategist, and an incredibly charismatic leader who can't understand that the resident Goddess of War Tart is absolutely in love with him. After she 1) let him sleep on her lap 2) sing for him 3) hugs him tearily and emotionally 4) cheers him up and calms him down 5) states in no uncertain terms she'll follow him everywhere and do what he wants 6) become angry and jealous when he talks about other females. And he still doesn't get it.
• Terranigma has Meilin, who eventually decides that she's in love with Ark. She then proceeds to make overtures to him, only to get (albeit amusingly) shot down because Ark is too busy worrying about Elle.
  Meilin: You know, Ark... I have stories to tell, too.
  Ark: Look! This is Elle's house!
• In the Tokimeki Memorial series, the main protagonist suffering a terminal case of this trope is a tradition. Every single one of them (be they a boy or a girl) is affected by this, but the severity of it depends from game to game. One of the worst is the protagonist of Tokimeki Memorial 2: every single main heroine, and both of his male best friends lampshade his total obliviousness at one point or another in the saga, and even several minor characters do it as well.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Played for comedy after an emotional realization at the end of the Spirit Crucible Elpys dungeon. Nia confesses to Rex just after revealing her true form. He responds with a resounding amount of obliviousness that is somehow still played as a heroic moment.
  Rex: Nia, I love you too! I love you, and all you guys!
  Xenoblade 3 revealed that when Rex said this, he was being literal.
• Milanor from Yggdra Union has no idea that Kylier has feelings for him. He eventually does find out, but tragically, only after Kylier gives her life to save the party.

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