Discussion Main / TheNotLoveInterest

I don't understand how this trope works. This just seems to be slapped onto the Fan-Preferred Couple to justify the official couple if any. If two characters are extremely close, then wouldn't that mean they would be under Heterosexual Life-Partners: Or Platonic Life-Partners? I just find it rather annoying how most of the examples lists are mainly yaoi/yuri pairings that happen to be popular even though they are all already written under Heterosexual Life-Partners.

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Honestly, direct family members such as siblings or cousins should not be included as an example, as they are obviously never intended to fulfill a role similar to love interests.

Can Denji and Power be placed here or not? I mean, there are the boob-touching scene (after which Denji decides he doesn't want to grope boobs anymore and doesn't want to ask Power for nasty stuff) and the dubious content when Power is afraid to bathe or sleep by herself, but Denji makes it explicitly clear in his thoughts that he isn't attracted to her.

I myself am also confused by this definition. I'm interpreting it as more "narratively speaking, the character considered most important to another one, like a family member or a best friend". So, for me it sounds like it may be the deuteragonist, Heterosexual/Platonic Life Partners, or morality pet. Yet the definition makes it sound like it was almost going to turn into a romantic relationship and it didn't.

I treat all living things equally. That is to say, I eat all living things

A lot of the examples here are "Someone is introduced as if they were going to be a love interest for the main character, but they never get together."

The Heat is a good example of what I mean: there's a secondary character who flirts a bit with Ashburn, they get a couple of minor Will They or Won't They? moments, and in the end, They Don't, and nothing much is made of this. It's just an office flirtation that didn't go anywhere.

Is that what this trope is supposed to be about? There are problems with that concept in itself, but most of the examples seem instead to be any sort of close relationship between two characters that isn't a romantic relationship. I'm not sure either of these things are tropeable, but I'm also not sure which this page is supposed to be about — or if it's something else entirely.

I have to say I don't really understand this one. Is it merely that a character is used, in a Characters as Device way, the way one would use a love interest, or does it also require that the characters are Like Brother and Sister, The Straight Will And Grace, or something similar? If there is Ho Yay between the two characters, one has a minor implied crush on the other, or their relationship is in some other way shown to be not purely nonsexual and nonromantic, does it cease to be this trope?

For example, Withnail And I is a bit like a romantic comedy between two Heterosexual Life-Partners. Their relationship is quite explicitly nonsexual and nonromantic. However, Withnail has a line implying that he might harbor a crush on the titular "I". Does that make it not this trope?

Edited by Lullabee Hide / Show Replies

Can we give this trope a different name? Or how about make this trope an index instead of a trope? That way, rather than listing examples, we can just put "Romantic" Two-Girl Friendship etc. under this and not have all the confusion about what exactly this trope entails.

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Is this line really essential to the trope?

The Hero may have an actual love interest, but they will usually be less significant than this character.

It seems like it's artificially narrowing the trope by saying that if there's a love interest, they will usually be less important than the Not Love Interest.

Edited by ccoa Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

Removing bad examples, disputed examples, and Zero Context Examples (that may not be bad, but certainly need clarifying):

Zero or Confusing Context:

• Soul Eater: Pick a meister-weapon combo. Any meister-weapon combo. Especially Black Star and Tsubaki.
• xxxHolic's Watanuki and Yuuko, with Yuuko as the Alice and Watanuki as the Bob.
  • Watanuki and Doumeki might fall into this; Watanuki is definitely the Alice in Doumeki's life, but unlike in the more straightforward example above, the former does not seem to appreciate (or even notice) the role he plays in his friend's life.
• Opinion is divided on whether this describes Jinto and Lafiel from Banner of the Stars.
• Tasha and his little-sister-turned-evil in Witch Hunter.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Anime only — Ed and Winry.
• The Lord Of The Rings' Frodo and Samwise.
  • Merry and Pippin.
• For Sherlock Holmes, it's Watson. See the QuotesWiki for one particularly noteworthy instance. Some adaptations have Irene Adler fulfill this role instead. This is Lampshaded remorselessly in the 2010 TV Sherlock series, along with a liberal dose of Ho Yay.
• Bunny Manders (who despite the name is male) for AJ Raffles in the novels of E.W Hornung.
• In Septimus Heap, Septimus and Jenna.
• For Lieutenant Bush, Horatio Hornblower is his Not Love Interest. It sort of works both ways, but Hornblower is too neurotic to ever admit it.
• Laurence and Temeraire in Temeraire. Note that they're not even of the same species.
• Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin of Patrick O'Brian's Master And Commander novel series. Oh, yes.
• Ivanhoe and Rebecca.
• Life On Mars pretty much just is the love story of Sam and Gene. Well, when it's not being a Time Travel Police Procedural Fish out of Water Mind Screw about Police Brutality...
  • According to Ashes to Ashes 3x04, "Gene <3 Sam", or so says the graffiti Alex spies on a wall.
• Ando fills this role for Hiro on Heroes.
  • Nathan and Peter Petrelli. Oh my God, Nathan and Peter Petrelli.
• Quite a few of them on Lost, particularly Claire for Kate and the Man In Black and Jacob for each other.
• Lorelei and Rory are this to each other in Gilmore Girls.
• Similarly, but with a dollop of dysfunction, Veronica Mars and her father, Keith.
  • A stronger Veronica Mars example would be Veronica and Wallace.
• Reno and Billy in Anything Goes.
• Most male/female partnerships in the Resident Evil fit this to a T. The ones that do develop a romantic element usually don't end well.
• Justified for Sophie in Tales of Graces because even thought she is not Asbel's love interest she is still the heroine.
• Yuri and Flynn of Tales of Vesperia fame.

Debated Examples:

• Code Geass: Suzaku and Lelouch. They alternate between being Heterosexual Life-Partners and Foe Yay-tastic Rivals, have epic amounts of Ho Yay, and the show's plot is basically driven by their relationship. Nunnally could also be seen to take this role to Lelouch, though she's much less active in terms of plot.

  • Debatable as Lelouch and Suzaku are meant to fullfill Rival Turned Evil and while initially it means they care for each other, in the end Suzaku hates Lelouch. Their care for one another also never reaches how much they care for others in the story, or for their respective causes.

  • Cornelia feels this way about Euhpie.
• Delenn and Lennier in Babylon Five.
  • Well sort of. Sheridan isn't "much less significant." But in many ways Lennier might qualify as Delenn's Not Love Interest. Also, Lennier would prefer that "Not" to not be there. But then, this was the show that gave us the Trope Namer for All Love Is Unrequited.

Just Bad:

Seems more like Homoerotic Subtext or some other trope (no indication he fulfills other Love Interest type roles):

• Robin in the Batman comics. Lampshaded in an issue of Justice League Of America where the other Justice League members think of their girlfriends and Batman thinks of Robin◊.

Not a love interest role:

• In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Short Round is Indy's real emotional center.

Edited by ccoa Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

As written, this is not a good example. This is a specific character with a special and specific relationship with the hero. They would be the hero's lover, normally, but that's not the way the story works. Here we seem to have something else: any and all relationships including strong loyalty and dedication. If there is an example in here, the whole section needs to be re-written, and re-written as per Example Indentation: strong suggestion of Thread Mode.

• In One Piece, Zoro is perfectly willing to sacrifice his life and his dreams of becoming the world's greatest swordsman to save Luffy. He almost does it at one point and by sheer will, he manages to stay alive.
  • Luffy's relationship with his female crew members also applies. He attacked Arlong for the sole reason for making Nami cry, despite not knowing about her tragic backstory because he would have done it either way. He invaded Enies Lobby to save Robin, declaring war on essentially the whole world. Even with Vivi, he went through hell and more to defeat Crocodile and save her country.
    • Knowing Luffy, he'd probably do that for any one of his True Companions.
    • It also helps that, according to Oda, there will be no romance in One Piece at all, so basically every action that would be romantic in any other show would fall under this.
  • Luffy also goes through a ridiculous amount of pain, punishment and general suffering in the name of his older brother, Ace. Let's put it this way, the shippers were probably overjoyed at the revelation that the two aren't blood relatives.

Edited by Camacan

• Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson are becoming/have been/are this for each other. Your Mileage Is Guaranteed To Vary.

Examples Are Not Arguable

It seems like a lot of these examples are Male/Male but without Ho Yay, and thus not true examples of a Not Love Interest. A protagonists buddy is NOT an example.

Wow. Using Alex and Justin as names? Subtle.

Edited by piearty

Two items:

1. The description: Is it meant to say that Alex is supposed to be <pick one of: Little Sister, Foxhole Buddy, The Rival>?

2. Given that the page on The Other Wiki is "Romantic Friendship", is "Romantic" Two-Girl Friendship a Sub-Trope, or just a similar one?

Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck. Hide / Show Replies