Secretly Selfish motivations (or accusations thereof) in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- Makoto Nanaya admits to having been this in the past during Chapter 52 of BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant. While she claimed to want to be a Huntress to make money to support her family, she came to realize years later that she really just wanted the chance to stand above the people who treated her like crap.
- brilliant lights will cease to burn (by my hand i'll reignite them): Part of the reason why Izuku suffers from Chronic Hero Syndrome is because of how it gives him a sense of purpose. Normally, he's all too used to being the Quirkless, "worthless deku"; helping others helps him feel like he's more than what Katsuki and others make him out to be.
- Dost Thou Even Steal Hearts?: Downplayed; After All For One is dealt with, Izuku is secretly relieved that he didn't have to fight the supervillain himself. Toshinori and the Torch Bearers are similarly relieved that Izuku has been spared the burden, and that the villain was finally taken down.
- Ned Stark in A Dovahkiin Spreads His Wings. He did protect and raise his nephew to the personal cost of dirtying his reputation and ruining his marriage, but he tends to consider the boy more as an extension of his dead sister and as such struggles with the fact that Jon would have dreams and wishes very different from what Ned wants for him.
- Fate: Hero and Sword: One of the reasons why Arturia is so devoted to addressing the various problems in the New World is because she doesn't want Shirou to risk himself trying to fix everything.
- In Shinobi's Creed, Kakashi and Jiraiya both have ulterior motives for wanting to teach Naruto:
- Kakashi wishes to recreate his old team, with Naruto as a stand-in for Obito, so that he can convince himself that he's making up for his past mistakes and handling things better this time around.
- Jiraiya, meanwhile, only cares about fulfilling the toads' prophecy, suspecting that Naruto might be The Chosen One and intent upon molding him into an All-Loving Ideal Hero... regardless of what Naruto himself actually wants.
- Transformers: MHA: Izuku starts to wonder if he is this when he learns that Snake Eyes doesn't have a Quirk and is capable of fighting Quirkless and that him gaining One For All let him take the easy way out.
- A Complete Turnabout: Iris accuses Phoenix of having ulterior motives for offering to help get her sister out of prison. Namely, she believes he's just trying to win her back. When he insists that the only thing he wants is to help her be happy again, she doesn't know what to make of it.
- moral of the story (Nyame): A talk with Raisa forces Oliver to acknowledge that he's this. Somewhere down the line, he made reconciling with Laurel after the Gambit less about making amends with her and helping her through her pain and more about redeeming himself and making himself feel better about how he wronged her. Likewise, his crusade as the Arrow has become less about helping the city and more about making himself into a hero everyone will admire. That's the real reason he lashed out at Laurel — her depressed and belligerent state made it clear that despite all his efforts, he was still failing at his goals, and with him not knowing what was bothering her, his frustration boiled over and he ended up blaming her for it instead.
- Danny Phantom: Stranded: In Mistaken, Poindexter masks his resentment of Danny behind various complaints and criticisms, ignoring all of Danny's good traits while amplifying the bad. Eventually, after he rants about how unfair it is that his own life and afterlife "wasn't like a comic book", Star realizes that he's Driven by Envy and calls him out on this.
- Savior of Demons: Frieza interprets Goku this way, as he assumes that Goku only spared him in order to enslave his former adversary.
- BURN THE WITCH: Lila firmly believes that everyone is inherently selfish, and repeatedly scoffs at Marinette's assertations that she sincerely wants to save her from being murdered by Witch Hunter and her angry mob. While Marinette mostly dismisses her claims, she does feel that her Moment of Weakness helped cause the whole mess, privately berating herself for letting Lila get under her skin in the first place.
- Couturiere: Marinette's classmates exploit her generous nature in order to get free pastries, babysitting, clothes and other perks, never bothering to repay her for her services. They then turn against her on Lila's say-so in hopes of earning Lila's favor so that she'd use her supposed connections to help them achieve their dreams. After getting akumatized, Marinette/Couturiere calls the whole lot out. After the dust settles, Marinette makes clear that she won't be doing any more favors for free, and that she won't be trusting them any time soon.
- In Dread String of Fate, Luka is trying to help Marinette avoid being literally Strangled by the Red String, as hers is wound around her neck. When he learns that she's falling for him instead, he frets that he was trying to free her from Fate entirely, not tie her to him instead. Sass reassures him about this, affirming that Marinette is choosing him entirely out of her own free will, no strings attached.
- I See What You Do Behind Closed Doors: Adrien only accepts Marinette's Love Confession because he notices that she looks an awful lot like Ladybug, letting him fantasize that he's actually dating the object of his affections... while blissfully unaware that she IS Ladybug. Since he's only using her as a substitute for "the real deal", he continues to turn a blind eye to the Lila situation, getting frustrated when Marinette calls him out on his inaction.
- The Karma of Lies:
- One of the reasons that Lila is able to con her classmates so effectively is because she exploits this tendency. By convincing them that she has 'connections', she leads them to believe that if they donate generously to her various Fake Charities, they'll be able to impress her famous friends and earn more advantages for themselves.
- Adrien also proves to be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. For all his moralizing, ultimately he simply doesn't care about how others are impacted by anything Lila, Chloé, he or anyone else does so long as he doesn't suffer himself. Lila naturally turns this to her advantage as well, convincing him to help her out with the notion that he'd be able to prove he was right to 'take the high road' with her.
- Played With in Long Con, a Recursive Fanfiction of the high road.
- While Marinette acknowledges that her classmates are likely trying to cozy up to Lila in order to take advantage of her supposed celebrity connections, she also admits to herself that part of the reason she does so many favors for everyone is out of the hope that doing so will help her get closer to Adrien in various ways. This subsequently contributes to her cross-examining her crush, realizing just how much she let it dominate her life and deciding she doesn't like that aspect of herself, ultimately giving up her pursuit of Adrien entirely.
- Lila also invokes this. When the class finally comes together to confront her, she delivers a blistering "The Reason You Suck" Speech where she takes them all to task for being secretly selfish, revealing that she knew Adrien knew about her lying and had advised Marinette against exposing her because he didn't want to risk that disrupting his life. She also accuses Alya for only caring about the damage done to her reputation and her Ladyblog.
- The One to Make It Stay: At one point, Alya attempts to set Lila up with Adrien as part of an Operation: Jealousy ploy, trying to bait Marinette into having a Green-Eyed Epiphany and break up with Luka. When Lila discovers this, she takes it as further proof of her belief that everyone is just as self-absorbed and manipulative as her.
- Truth and Consequences: After learning that Gabriel Agreste is Hawkmoth, Marinette makes a deal with him in order to spare Adrien the pain of having his father exposed as a supervillain. She also argues that exposing him would also leave all of the thousands of people working for him without jobs. Tikki isn't impressed by her reasoning; if Hawkmoth had turned out to be anyone else, she knows Marinette would have brought him to justice first, then done everything she could to mitigate the fallout to others afterwards.
- Weight Off Your Shoulder: Future!Alix claims to be concerned about how Marinette's decision to give up her Guardianship and pass on the Earrings to a new Ladybug will change the future, insisting that they need to preserve the original timeline. Turns out she's a Time-Traveling Jerkass that has been manipulating the timeline herself in an effort to force Marinette and Adrien together, not caring one whit about any of the consequences so long as she gets what she wants.
- The Wolves in the Woods has this as a Running Theme:
- Caline Bustier presents herself as a compassionate and caring teacher who believes that school bullies are just misguided children who need a little help getting on the right path. However, she puts the onus of 'guiding' those troubled students on their targets, Blaming The Victims and pressuring them to Turn the Other Cheek and cope with the torment while she refuses to punish the bullies. She also turned a blind eye towards how most of the class was turning on Marinette, hoping they would break her down so that she'd remain an Extreme Doormat and they could all keep taking advantage of her generosity.
- The majority of Marinette's classmates turn out to be Fair-Weather Friends who were only nice to her because they expected stuff in return. When Lila falsely claimed she was bullying her, they immediately turn on her... while still expecting Marinette to keep giving them things whenever they asked.
- Kim and Alix escalate the 'payback' into physically abusing and beating Marinette, claiming that they're Bully Hunters... while secretly hoping that Lila will reward them for their help by using her supposed connections to help them secure sports sponsorships.
- Alya secretly knew all along that Lila wasn't telling the truth, but championed her false claims and turned the rest of the class against Marinette for two reasons. One was that they wanted to 'knock Marinette down a few pegs' out of jealousy over her recent successes as a fashion designer. The other was that she thought Lila's stories would help draw more attention and traffic to the Ladyblog.
- While calling Alya out on her plan to maliciously slander Marinette's new classmates as part of a Missing Steps Plan to force Marinette to forgive them all, Nino asks her if she'd helped her out with Chloé on her first day because it was the right thing to do... or if she just wanted to 'play the hero'. Alya's reaction implies that the latter is truer than she cares to admit.
- Adrien claimed to be 'taking the high road' with Lila, but in reality, he just didn't want to deal with the potential fallout of her being exposed, especially if she got akumatized. Lila herself is aghast to hear him proclaim that that meant less work for Ladybug and Chat Noir, pointing out that dealing with akuma is literally their job - unaware that she's talking to Chat Noir himself.
- As Chat Noir, Adrien is secretly a Nominal Hero. He Jumped at the Call not out of a desire to help people, but because it gave him a chance to escape being 'Gabriel Agreste's model son' for a while. He's more concerned with forcing Ladybug into a Relationship Upgrade on the grounds that they are supposedly 'meant to be together'.
- Principal Nedzu declares that Aizawa is this in Coyote, while brutally deconstructing his harsh teaching methods. Aizawa claims that he only expels students who wouldn't be able to cut it as Pro Heroes; Nedzu, however, asserts that his real motivation is making less work for himself, keeping only the most talented and naturally skilled students around so that he gets credit for turning out such strong graduates.
- Origin of a Non-Hero: Shikinori is the son of Izuku and Ochaco, and grew up seeing how their family was torn apart by their struggles to balance Family Versus Career. Deep down, he fears that his desire to enjoy a healthier, happier relationship with them both is actually selfish of him, leading to him pleading with Inko near the end:Shikinori: Is that too much, Grandma? Is it selfish of me to want that... and to want Mom and Dad to still love me, too? Is it too selfish to just want them to be proud of me?
- In We're Not Friends Kacchan, it's revealed that the real reason why Aizuwa handled the conflict between Katsuki and Izuku the way that he had was due to his own bad experiences. In the past, he faced terrible discrimination for having a 'villainous Quirk', with several of his peers pretending to have been victimized by him. Aizawa incorrectly assumed that Izuku was a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing pulling the same stunt, and was effectively using him as a proxy for revenge upon all the bullies he dealt with. He's completely horrified to learn he was enabling an actual bully the whole time.
- Nickelodeon Heroes: The only reason why Dib joins the titular group is to prove that he's not crazy.
- In Luz Clawthorne, Luz's efforts as a Bully Hunter end up triggering several Cycles of Revenge between her and her targets, with her friends caught in the crossfire. When she attempts to defend this as her way of protecting her friends, it winds up severely damaging her bond with Willow, who sees this as self-serving on Luz's end — she's using their friendship as an excuse to ignore their wishes or how they're being hurt by her actions.
- Black Star (Persona 5): Discussed when Ryuji blames the rise of Paranoia Syndrome on the Phantom Thieves' failure to do anything to stop it. Makoto points out that they'd promised to leave this sort of thing to the adults; however, Ryuji counters that they knew the adults weren't equipped to handle anything dealing with Mementos, and if they'd investigated back when the first incidents arose, they might have been able to fix things before they got so bad. Instead, they only got involved after Akira fell ill himself (having poked into things after one of Futaba's friends got sick). Yusuke then notes that this has always been the modus operandi of the Phantom Thieves: getting involved when things got personal. This ties into a larger Running Theme of people only noticing the problems of others once they're personally affected, and how deterimental this can be.
- Hours 'Verse:
- Minato's Shadow admits that if he was forced to choose between saving the Investigation Team or Ryoji, he would pick the latter.
- Akira internally acknowledges that his proposal to let Akechi join the Phantom Thieves at Okumura's Palace was self-serving.
- Royalty-free Rerun: This is why Sumire wished to become Kasumi herself rather than wishing for her sister to be brought back to life. After being constantly stuck in her shadow as the "lesser" Yoshizawa twin, she dreamed of being more than Always Second Best.
- Knight of Salem:
- Everything Lionheart does is motivated by one thing alone: to save himself from Salem's wrath. However, his nominal allies see all of his decisions and actions as evidence of how impressively brave he is, much to his annoyance.
- When Sienna insists that Salem should stay in Menagerie in order to hide from Atlas, Winter spells out to Jaune that Sienna isn't really trying to protect her. She just sees Salem as a useful weapon.
- Midnight Divergence: While Amarill sincerely regrets how she treated her stepsister Cinder, and is legitimately trying to become a better person, her efforts are somewhat undercut by how she mostly wants to feel better about herself.
- Relic Of The Future: During Jaune's confrontation with Professor Ozma, the latter admits that they already believe the group is capable of defeating Salem, and that their insistence that doing so would doom the world was mostly an excuse. Ultimately, their real reason for opposing them is that once Salem is dead, his gods-given mission will be completed as well, and despite how his experiences have broken him, he still doesn't want to die. Even they were surprised to realize this about themself, having long expected to welcome the end of his immortality with open arms when it came.
- Doctor Ghemor, I Presume?: The Bashirs chose to secretly and illegally enhance their son, ostensibly to provide him with a better life. In reality, however, Richard Bashir was Vicariously Ambitious, hoping to live out his dreams of achieving fame and success through his son, and was furious when Julius opted not to play along.
- The Desert Storm: After an Armor-Piercing Question from Obi-Wan, Ben starts to wonder whether he is actually this, realizing that he had several chances to assist others, but only intervened if he could personally gain something in the process. For instance, while he knew that Master Ky Narac had been stranded on Rattatak the moment it happened, he waited three years before intervening... and only did so because he needed their help finding Ventress so that he could use her as a bargaining chip with the Nightsisters. He was also willing to let the people of Rattataki be enslaved, only dealing with the Sinteen warlords responsible because Narec and Ventress refused to leave until the planet was liberated.
- The Judgement of the World (5Ds): When Asuka begs Kara, a female Yugi from an alternate reality, to help Momoe and Junko, both of whom were grievously injured by Yubel, Kara immediately points out how Asuka has lived in relative comfort while countless people suffered from disease, poverty, crime, and more despite the unlimited energy produced by Momentum making a better quality of life possible for everyone. Thus, Asuka's prayer to help her friends really just reveals how she believes she has priority over those who have lived far more difficult lives and are more deserving of a boon.
- Wally West in Our Own League. He tells his teachers and peers that he boards at Titans Tower instead of living with his mom because she recently divorced her abusive husband, and needs to focus on picking herself up and getting steady work. There is truth to this, but he's also avoiding her (and most elements from his life pre-Kid Flash) to avoid remembering his father's abuse.
