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Adaptational Friendship

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/glinda_and_the_wicked_witch_7.png
Top: The Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good as enemies in 1939.
Bottom: The same characters as best friends in 2003.
"In Fire & Blood, Alicent and Rhaenyra's relationship sours on the basis of politics. They're both vying for the Iron Throne and, therefore, become enemies — simple. There's likely more to the story, beyond the purview of the in-book narrators who can only observe so much. But at its core, the fissure is straightforward: It's about power. In House of the Dragon, showrunners Miguel Sapochnik and Ryan Condal elaborate on that source material by imagining what the pair's intimate relationship was like, inserting an array of personal clashes into the story."
— Polygon on the friendship between Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower in House of the Dragon.
Some characters in a work are just not friends. Sometimes it is because they are enemies, just not close, or have never met. They might run in different social circles or have different tastes. They might just not get along, or they might just outright hate each other.

However, when adapting said work, some writers decide to make them friends for multiple reasons. So, characters who have never met before in their source material are constantly hanging out. Enemies who hated each other are now best friends. People who run through different circles are now inseparable. These friendships don't have to last forever, but the point is that the context of their dynamic is changed from non-friends to friends.

This can be done to catch those who knew the original work off-guard with the change. It might be to add depth to their dynamic that wasn't there before. Sometimes it can just be because the writer thinks it would be an interesting dynamic. This can also be for plot necessity, i.e., for when the story needs the 2 characters to be close in some scenes when in the original there was little to no justification on why they're together. Adaptational Nice Guy can be another reason why this happens. If a character is much more pleasant in an adaptation, it can seem strange why the characters aren't friends.

This is not just about characters who are made part of the same group but aren't necessarily close friends in an adaptation. This is about an adaptation adding a close friendship between characters that was not there before. Also note that characters must come from the same work to count.

A Sub-Trope of Adaptation Relationship Overhaul. Compare Promoted to Love Interest, where two characters are made love interests in an adaptation but don't necessarily have to be friends in either version, or Team Member in the Adaptation, which has a character made part of a team in an adaptation that wasn't before. Compare and contrast Adaptational Romance Downgrade, which often takes the form of a romantic couple being portrayed as just friends. Also compare/contrast Related in the Adaptation and Related Differently in the Adaptation. This may also overlap with We Used to Be Friends and/or Adaptational Angst Upgrade if the characters are made friends in order to set up a betrayal between them.

Might be part of a Pragmatic Adaptation or either an Adaptational Explanation or an Adaptation Explanation Extrication if the characters need a reason to do something (potentially because the original reason has been replaced in adaptation).

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • In Ace Attorney, the expanded backstory presents Manfred von Karma as a stern but reasonable father figure for Miles Edgeworth in addition to being his teacher, even defending him at one point from a woman who wanted to steal a missing dog from him. He's still responsible for killing Edgeworth's father.
  • In the original The Bushbabies story by William Stevenson, Tembo was an African servant for the Rhodes Family. The Bush Baby rewrites this as Tembo being Mr. Rhodes' assistant, and main character Jackie's Cool Big Bro-like best friend.
  • In the original A Dog of Flanders story by Marie Louise de la Ramée, Alois was a beautiful woman Nello fell in love with when out one day. In A Dog of Flanders (1975), Nello and Alois are already best friends, and all of Baas' Dating What Daddy Hates traits are portrayed as a hatred towards their platonic relationship. That's not to say the romance doesn't exist (it absolutely does), but the anime focuses on their friendship aspect more than anything.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Trinexx is a demon hydra that Link has to fight before gaining entrance to Ganon's Tower. In the 2005 manga, Ghanti is a bandit girl who helps Link throughout her journey, and unwillingly has Trinexx as a One-Winged Angel form.
  • Little Witch Academia (2017): In the 2013 short film and its sequel, Akko and Diana hold a mutual disdain for each other and never go past being antagonistic rivals. While Akko and Diana initially dislike each other in the 2017 series as well, the two eventually become friends by Episode 20 after the two come to better understand and respect each other, while working together to save each other and stop Daryl from taking over the Cavendish household.
  • Moriarty the Patriot: In the original canon, Professor James Moriarty is Sherlock Holmes' Arch-Enemy who tries to kill him several times until their showdown in Reichenbach Falls where Sherlock finally defeats the evil mastermind. In the manga, Sherlock sees William James Moriarty as his friend but he is not pleased that William attempts to manipulate him into becoming a hero as part of his plans. When he learns that William plans to die by forcing him to kill him, Sherlock saves William, convincing him to live and atone for his crimes instead.
  • In My-HiME Natsuki and Nao are hostile to one another and frequently spoiling for a fight, until the end of the series, when a remark by Nao about never trusting anyone causes Natsuki to make a "Not So Different" Remark and causes her to save Nao from her Violently Protective Girlfriend, Shizuru. Come the Spiritual Successor My-Otome, the Natsuki and Nao are Vitriolic Best Buds, so as Natsuki is telling Nao she's been a "real pain in [her] ass", she also awards her a position in the powerful Columns of Garderobe Academy.
    • Similarly, there's Shizuru and Haruka. In Hime, Shizuru is outwardly polite to Haruka but dumps work on her, while Haruka can't stand Shizuru, and, after learning that Shizuru did something to Natsuki in her sleep, claims that people like Shizuru and Natsuki disgust her(although earlier in that scene, Yukino claims that Haruka wanted Shizuru to acknowledge her as an equal). In Otome, the two have a more Friendly Rivalry, and in the audio dramas, Haruka helps Shizuru work through Natsuki's initial refusal to serve as Shizuru's room attendant during their days as students at Garderobe.
  • Pokémon: The Series: In the games, Red travelled around Kanto exclusively, and retreated to the mountains to a life of solitude. His anime counterpart, Ash, would travel through several regions and become close friends with other player characters and gym leaders Red never even met in the games.
  • Project A-Ko: A-ko and B-ko are enemies in the movie continuity. In the Uncivil Wars OVAs, they work together as Vitriolic Best Buds bounty hunters.
  • In the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, Miho is a one-shot character. In the first anime series, Miho is a ditzy but recurring member of Yugi's circle of friends.

    Comic Books 
  • Batman: Pre-Crisis Batman didn't meet Harvey Dent until he became Two-Face. Post-Crisis incarnations usually depict them as having been allies and friends, making Harv's fall from grace all the more tragic.
  • Jem and the Holograms (IDW): Roxy and Jetta hate each other in the cartoon. In the comics, they disliked each other originally but bonded over a mutual interest in boxing, and became best friends and roommates.
  • Ultimate Spider Man: Eddie Brock Jr., the first host of the Venom symbiote, is depicted as Peter Parker's childhood friend, in sharp contrast to the original Spider-Man comics where they don't meet before they're both adults. In addition, their fathers are also shown to be former collagues and friends while they didn't have anything to do with each other in the main continuity.
  • Wild Cards had a comic book adaptation published by Epic Comics in 1990. In the comics, the protagonist is Private Investigator Jay Ackroyd, and for Pragmatic Adaptation purposes he is portrayed as being friends or at least buddies with lots of the heavyweights of the Wild Cards universe. In the chronology of the novels, Ackroyd was, by that time, still a street-level hero and a loner, mostly having met most of the other characters only in passing, or not at all. However, the novels eventually caught up with the comic book adaptation, when Ackroyd grew in prominence as a protagonist.
  • Wonder Woman (Rebirth) depicts Barbara Minerva as having been friends with Diana before turning into the Cheetah (in her original introduction, she was a fairly transparent Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who didn't develop any friendly moments with Diana until after they'd been enemies for several years.)

    Comic Strips 
  • The '90s Batman newspaper strip established Harvey Dent as a personal friend of Bruce Wayne's before becoming Two-Face.

    Fan Works 
  • Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Dr. Vivienne Graham has more explicitly close friendships with several of her Godzilla: King of the Monsters colleagues in Monarch's top brass than anything shown in MonsterVerse canon. She's shown to be friends with Drs. Chen, Stanton, and Coleman, and Colonel Diane Foster, whereas in the movie she never has any interactions to indicate they're especially close.
  • As Fate Would Have It:
    • In Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, the Player Character not chosen simply serves as the Subway Battle partner for players in the Battle Subway on the Multi Battle Train. In this story, Rosa is Nate's childhood friend, confidant, and advisor in all matters relating to love and relationships.
    • On the topic of Rosa, in the games proper, she never meets nor interacts with Yancy. Here, she ends up becoming a close friend of Yancy, while also being a Shipper on Deck for her and Nate.
  • Cast Swap: In canon, Dave detests Beardo due to viewing his sound effects as being immensely annoying. Here, because Beardo is not eliminated first and eventually starts talking, Dave instead becomes one of his best friends.
  • Total Drama fanfic Change of Plans: Cody became friends with Ezekiel during their time at Playa des Losers, and is very upset about his Sanity Slippage and the way that Chris takes advantage of it.
  • Coeur Al'Aran:
    • Professor Bartholomew Oobleck and Roman Torchwick, two characters who never shared a single scene in RWBY canon, have an Adaptation Origin Connection: they're portrayed in the universal mythology of Coeur's works as former huntsman-in-training teammates, but they tragically fell out completely after Oobleck sacrificed the rest of their team on the Vale Secret Service's orders during the fall of Mountain Glenn, and his betrayal led to Roman losing faith in humanity.
    • In Your Wildest Dreams: Whereas Jaune and Amber the Fall Maiden in canon didn't know each other at all on account of Amber's coma, Jaune's dream-walking Semblance in this fic leads him to repeatedly enter Amber's coma dreams and make them easier for her. Amber in the dreams becomes extremely close to Jaune as a result, and Jaune in turn is devastated when Amber finally passes. Getting justice for Amber's death is Jaune's main motivation for helping Ozpin's group find Amber's attackers.
    • Null:
      • Whereas the canon version of Adam Taurus was an enemy to Jaune's friends and he never even shared a single scene with Jaune; in this fic, Adam is responsible for rescuing Jaune from Chivalric Arms' human experimentation and helping him to rescue his remaining sisters. Due to this, Jaune considers Adam a friend and a brother-in-arms to whom he'll always feel gratitude, and the feeling is quite mutual on Adam's end.
      • Likewise, Neopolitan, who was also never a friend to Jaune canonically, is in this fic a fellow victim of Chivalric Arms' experiments who bonded with Jaune's mother, and in turn, she becomes a combat ally to Jaune and remains partnered with him at the fic's end. Due to all the above, Jaune personally comes to consider Neo an eighth sister.
    • A Rabbit Among Wolves: In this fic, Jaune is part of a close-knit, ragtag group formed of White Fang operatives whom he barely or never interacted with in canon: Ilia, Trifa, and Yuma.
    • Raise: Jaune, after being exploited, held down and relentlessly hounded by every kingdom on Remnant looking to exploit his celebrity status, ends up disturbingly making friends in Cinder and Mercury of all people (both of whom, the former especially, were his hated enemies in canon), partly because they're among the few people whom are both honest about wanting to use him for their own ends and are willing to meet him halfway instead of slave-driving him and breeding resentment on his end, and also because they both to some degrees share his world cynicism. Jaune also forms a very close friendship with Elm, who's assigned to be his bodyguard in this AU, whereas the two barely interacted directly in canon.
  • Danganronpa Class Swap: In Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, Kazuichi and Gundham were rivals for Sonia's affection. In Danganronpa Class Swap - Hope's Peak Academy, while their relationship here starts out the same with it initially getting even worse in the immediate aftermath of Sonia's execution, after being set up for a fight in Chapter 3, they essentially become the fic's version of Taka and Mondo, becoming good friends and working together to undermine Monokuma's authority. Unfortunately, it ends up going the same way as Taka and Mondo's friendship with Kazuichi ending up getting executed as the technical blackened of the fourth trial.
  • Disney Mirrorverse: Meet the Guardians (and Villains): This fanfic, based on the Disney Mirrorverse, focuses on alternative versions of famous Disney or Disney-owned characters, many of whom would be enemies in their canon stories of origin, but are friends in this one. For instance:
  • The Dragon and the Bow: In the film, Young Macguffin, Young Macintosh, and Wee Dingwall are Merida's potential suitors. Here, they're her Childhood Friends.
  • In the Ghostbusters (1984) fanfic Egon's Day Off, Winston and Egon are portrayed as friends, with Winston being concerned about a sick Egon and bringing him gumbo. In canon, Winston and Egon barely even interact.
  • Fixing RWBY:
    • Fixing Volume 2 alters the train tunnel episode so that several of the White Fang mooks whom Team RWBY have to fight through personally remember Blake from when she'd been one of them, and they express their feelings about her defection.
    • In stark contrast to Yang and Neo's canon portrayal where they remained enemies after the Fall of Beacon; starting in Fixing Volume 4, a post-Fall Yang and Neo end up bonding over a shared sense of loss, being cast adrift and having to find their own ways again without their previous emotional supports. In the next volume, Neo loyally accompanies Yang to Mistral.
  • The Greatest of Them All:
    • Peter is Childhood Friends with MJ, Susan, and Johnny, and has been close to Felicia and Silver since he was at least a tween. In the comics, he doesn't meet any of them until much later in life.
    • Jessica is friends with Liz and Sally rather than being a social outcast who never interacted with them.
  • Guardians, Wizards, and Kung-Fu Fighters: In canon, there's no evidence that Lothar and Tynar knew each other canonically, as Lothar seemingly dies (at the very least, he never shows up again) before Tynar's introduction. Here, Lothar and Tynar are close friends.
  • Hakumei:
    • In the Naruto canon, Sasuke was close friends with both Naruto and Sakura (with the latter even becoming his wife by the end of the series), but the other ninjas from their generation were acquaintances to him at best. In Hakumei, Hinata, Neji, Sai, and Gaara are all among Sasuke's True Companions as part of the titular group.
    • Haku and Kimimaro were anti-villains who never managed to become friends with any of the good guys before they died (besides Haku having a friendly conversation with Naruto when the latter was unaware that the former was also the masked boy working for Zabuza and thus his enemy). In this fanfic, they're part of Hakumei and thus are friends with seven of those good guys.
  • Harbinger (Finmonster): In the film, Courtney had a crush on Mitch and it was their first time meeting. Here, they're childhood friends and she doesn't have a crush on him.
  • I Rewrote RWBY Volume 8: Unlike their canon counterparts, who were never anything more than villainous colleagues with often Teeth-Clenched Teamwork; Emerald and Neo in this rewrite end up forming an odd friendship when they're together during Salem's siege of Atlas, and they remain close when they defect to the heroes at the midway point. Neo in this version is disgusted by Cinder's vicious emotional manipulation and mistreatment of Emerald and becomes protective of her.
  • In The Loud House fanfics by jgodzilla1212, Lincoln is portrayed as having a Like Brother and Sister type relationship with Carol Pingrey, who, in canon, barely knows him.
  • JL8: While Power Girl and Wonder Woman have sometimes been allies in the DC Comics, in this Lighter and Softer webcomic their younger selves are best friends.
  • In The Loud House fanfic Literally Batty, Lori makes friends (albeit slowly and hesitantly) with Fangs the bat, who, in canon, usually only interacts with Lucy.
  • Masako X - Dragon Ball What-If: Due to the premise of changing the course of the story with a single event, new friendships strike between characters that rarely interacted in the series.
  • Pop Cross Studios: This video depicting Spider-Man villains as the Wall-Crawler himself includes Norman Osborn — normally Peter's Arch-Enemy the Green Goblin — being an old friend of Peter's father Richard Parker (a Posthumous Character in Marvel canon with no relationship with Norman), and they both started the Oscorp company together. Their friendship was somewhat strained thanks to Norman convincing the board to fire Richard, seeing his devotion to his family as preventing him from committing to their work, but after Norman and his wife went through a Grief-Induced Split caused by the death of their son Harry in a Freak Lab Accident (one that had been caused by Norman himself), Richard still put aside his bitterness and consoled Norman. Afterwards, their friendship became renewed, Richard encouraged Norman to use the new superpowers he'd gained from the accident to make up for neglecting his son while he was alive, and Norman even became closer to Richard's family, to the point of becoming an Honorary Uncle to young Peter.
  • In misakiyu's illustrations of SlifofinaDragon's Sengoku Basara fanfics, Date Masamune and Sanada Yukimura's son Masa is friends with Hitomi Kira, who's actually Toyotomi Hideyoshi's daughter (and main villainess) Kagehime, posing as a friend, which Masa and some others are unaware of, whereas in the fanfics, they are already aware of her identity.
  • Son of the Sannin:
    • Shizune forms a close friendship with Itachi early in the story thanks to him being one of the first people to not be afraid of her little brother having the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed in him, and it continues well into their adult years. The two of them never even met in canon and almost certainly wouldn't have been friends if they had due to Itachi spending the entire series either undercover or dead.
    • Inverted with Itachi and Kisame, as the fact that Itachi never goes undercover in Akatsuki means that the two don't form a Villainous Friendship.
    • Fu becomes friends with Kiba and Tamaki, thanks in part to them being the teammates of her crush and later boyfriend Shino. She also bonds with Naruto post Time Skip due to their shared status as Jinchuriki.
  • A Special Kind of Magic: Due to Mirellia revealing Malty's duplicity earlier than in The Rising of the Shield Hero, Ren and Itsuki gradually end up becoming friends with Naofumi.
  • Spider-Ninja:
    • In canon, it isn't established how close the Agents Parker and Logan were. In this fic, Logan was one of the Parkers' friends, enough so that they invited him over for Christmas once or twice and introduced him to baby Petra. He tells Petra as much when he meets her, and tells her stories about her parents when she asks.
    • In canon, Doctor Octopus, Doctor Curt Connors, and Doctor Baxter Stockman never meet (the latter because Stockman's from a different franchise than the former two). Here, the three were college friends (although the friendship fell apart after Ock had his lab accident and Stockman was fired).
    • When the Hamato family visits X-Manor, they each strike up a friendship with a member of the X-Men: Leo and Cyborg, Raph and Gambit, Donnie and Doctors Gray and Mc Coy, Mikey with Iceman, Petra with Logan (see above), and Splinter with Professor X. It's noted that the Professor hoped that the Turtles and Petra would make friends with his students, as he knows how important it is for young mutants to meet others like them (he knows that the Hamatos weren't mutated by the X-factor gene, but in his eyes it's close enough).
    • Chapter 33 reveals that Phil Coulson is a long-time friend of George Stacy, while in canon the two never meet.
  • Riding a Sunset: Because of how many characters in the fic are Canon Foreigners, there are several characters who become friends here despite never meeting/being close in their respective canons (i.e. Charlie and the rest of the Autobots, Chip and Memo, Bulkhead and Hot Rod, etc).
  • Unity: Due to belonging to different studios, Mr. Incredible and General W. R. Monger never met in any canon film. In this fic, Monger was the military official overseeing the government experiment that gave Mr. Incredible his powers (which is told in a familiar-sounding backstory). When the procedure failed with further test subjects, Monger learned that Bob would possibly be subjected to painful experimentation so they could learn how to repeat the process. As such, he helped him escape and ended up given a backwater assignment (watching the Monsters at Area 51) as punishment... though he ended up becoming one of the military's most celebrated officers when he led those same monsters in defeating Gallaxhar. Though Bob and Monger didn't see each other for a few decades as a result, they remained on good terms and Bob was overjoyed to see him when he and his family were assigned to the government-sanctioned super team.

    Films — Animation 
  • Todd and Copper aren't even friends in the original The Fox and the Hound book. The Disney film of The Fox and the Hound plays them as a tragic friendship.
  • In The Prince of Egypt, Moses and Rameses were raised as brothers, leading to some We Used to Be Friends drama when Moses has to ask Rameses to free the Hebrews. The Bible does not mention the name of the Pharaoh of the Exodus or say anything about the nature of his relationship with Moses prior to the events of the Exodus.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion: In the original anime, Sayaka and Kyoko got off to a rather rocky start, with Kyoko stealing a kill from Sayaka, leading to the both of them dueling each other (twice). It took time for them to actually become friends. In Rebellion, the two of them get along much better, and Kyoko is a lot less aggressive towards Sayaka than she was in the original anime.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Most Garfield comics and adaptations depict Nermal as Garfield's biggest archrival; the 2004 movie has Nermal become one of his closest friends.
  • Mortal Engines:
    • In the books, there's no indication that Pandora Rae a.k.a Pandora Shaw — Hester Shaw's mother and Anna Fang knew each other or had even met. In the movie, they were close friends and allies to the point that Anna spent years trying to find Hester after Pandora's death.
    • In the book, Tom and Bevis don't know each other and have no interactions with one another. In the film, they appear to be casual acquaintances on a first-name basis.
  • Spider-Man: Home Trilogy: In the original comics, Ned Leeds and Peter Parker were originally not friends and, in fact, competed for the affection of Betty Brant. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they are best friends and Ned acts as Peter's Mission Control. The Ned of the comics is also not close to Mary Jane Watson, but the film version is close to her MCU adaptation, Michelle Jones-Watson.
  • Watchmen: Nite Owl and Ozymandias are close friends in the movie, while in the comics Ozymandias isn't particularly close to any of the other heroes. This was probably done to make Veidt's "betrayal" seem more personal.
  • Young Sherlock Holmes: With a We Used to Be Friends slant as well, Holmes is initially good friends with the school's fencing instructor Rathe, until the reveal that "Rathe" is actually Ehtar, a vengeful cultist who when defeated by Holmes then takes on the identity of his Archenemy "Moriarty" in the Sequel Hook.
  • In the X-Men Film Series, Wolverine and Rogue are very close. They join the X-Men together, and she is more or less his protegé. In the comics, they're not particularly close, even though they have had a few memorable moments together. This is largely because comic book Rogue had a prior career as a villain and she is responsible for causing Carol Danvers (a close friend of Wolverine) to become powerless and amnesiac. Movie Rogue is a completely innocent girl who never had a prior career as a villain and is actually a composite of comic book Rogue and other inexperienced characters like Kitty Pryde and Jubilee, who actually were protegés of Wolverine in the comics.

    Literature 

    Live-Action TV 
  • 10 Things I Hate About You: Joey Donner being an Adaptational Nice Guy, despite also being a Dumb Blonde, means that starting out as Chastity Church's boyfriend, he becomes friends with Bianca Stratford and then they develop a legit romantic relationship of their own as well. This being opposed sharply to the film version of Joey who only wanted to sleep with Bianca as part of a bet with a friend, who also was tricked by Cameron James into paying Patrick Verona into asking out Bianca's sister Kat so Cameron could go out with Bianca. In the show, Joey gets along pretty well with Cameron and had a first meeting with Patrick as well.
  • Arrowverse:
    • In the comics, Barry and Oliver weren't very close and, at times, the two actually had quite an antagonistic relationship due to their contrasting political ideologies. In this franchise, however, the two are incredibly close friends and Oliver even inspires Barry's code-name, The Flash.
    • The Flash (2014): Barry barely has any interactions with Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow in the comics, but the three are best friends in this series. Barry also has never interacted with Chester Runk in the comics — where Chester was a close friend of Wally West — but in the TV show, he basically takes Cisco's place when Cisco leaves Star Labs, including becoming Barry's close friend. On the inverse, Chester barely knows Wally there, since Wally was no longer a regular in the show by that point.
  • Doom Patrol draws heavily from Grant Morrison and Rachel Pollack's runs on Doom Patrol, but uses the original core Doom Patrol lineup, with Cyborg and Crazy Jane added for Adaptational Diversity. Consequently, Rita, who in the comics was dead for several decades and didn't meet anyone from the Morrison era until John Byrne's run that infamously ignored prior continuity to start over from scratch brought her back and Infinite Crisis caused a Cosmic Retcon where the events of the previous Doom Patrol comics were restored to continuity (albeit with the implication that John Byrne's run was still canon in some form), has ties to Jane, who was introduced after her death, plus has a backstory as a former member of the Brotherhood of Dada, which again was introduced long after her death. The show also gives her a We Used to Be Friends background with Madame Rouge, who in the comics was her bitter enemy. The show also has Dorothy Spinner having close friendships with Jane and Casey Brinke, the former of whom barely interacted with her in the comics and the latter of whom wasn't introduced until Gerard Way's run, which started publication years after Dorothy was rendered comatose and subsequently killed off in John Arcudi's run as part of the comic's tradition of cleaning house for every new roster of the team.
  • Feud: Capote vs. the Swans portrays Truman Capote and James Baldwin spending a day together and even sharing a kiss, implying that they are good friends. In real life, Capote hated Baldwin's writing and the two were never more than casual acquaintances. One of the writers for the show admitted that he exaggerated the relationship because he'd been reading about Baldwin's life and thought he'd work better for the kind of episode they were writing than Capote's actual rivals, like Tennessee Williams or Gore Vidal.
  • In House of the Dragon, Alicent and Rhaenyra start the series as best friends, making the war more emotional and dramatic, while in the original book Fire & Blood they were nine years apart in age and never particularly close.
  • The Leftovers: In the book, Kevin knows Matt in their respective capacities as cop and pastor but they're not friends. Even their acquaintance is strained since Matt underwent Sanity Slippage post-Departure. In the series, they are mentioned as having been old friends and Matt is a close friend of Kevin Sr (Kevin's father): Matt goes to Kevin Jr.'s birthday party, regularly visits Kevin Sr., and at the end of Series 1, he becomes Kevin's Secret-Keeper that he killed Patty.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
    • The show presents a unique friendship bordering on Ship Tease between Sauron, disguised as Halbrand, and Galadriel. This portrayal marks a significant departure from established lore. In J.R.R. Tolkien's original works, Sauron and Galadriel never formed any sort of friendly or trusting relationship in the 2000 years he spent in Eregion as Annatar, the Lords of Gifts.
    • While the books establish Elrond fostering positive relations with Dwarves, there's no mention of him befriending Durin IV specifically.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Jessica Jones: Her close friendship with Hellcat (Patsy Walker) is exclusive to the series. In the comics, the characters have never met, and Jessica was friends with Carol Danvers instead. This was probably done because Carol Danvers was tied up with the movie portion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It arguably expanded the dramatic possibilities of the Jessica Jones character, as Patsy is almost like a stepsister to her, while comic book Jessica was not as close even with her best friend Carol.
    • The Punisher: Karen Page is a friend and ally of Frank Castle in the TV show (with a few hints of romantic interest). In the comics, the characters have barely interacted, and Karen remained almost solely associated with Daredevil.
  • Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: Colonel Lee Shaw is adapted from the Godzilla (2014) tie-in graphic novel Godzilla: Awakening, which the series otherwise unambiguously renders Canon Discontinuity. Unlike Shaw's Awakening portrayal who had no known connection to Bill Randa from Kong: Skull Island, Shaw and Randa in the show's version were explicitly close-knit friends who built up Monarch together.
  • Poirot: The series occasionally did this to facilitate Poirot getting involved in the adaptations earlier than in the original stories. For example, Poirot is now good friends with Sir Charles in the adaptation of Three Act Tragedy, which makes The Reveal that Sir Charles is the murderer more personal for Poirot.
  • The Sandman: Lyta Hall and Rose Walker are close friends in the TV show. In the original comics, they meet each other in a later story but aren't really friends. This is one of the many changes done because the TV show removed the superhero elements and Sandman's connection to the larger DC Universe. In the comics, Lyta and her husband were superheroes and got involved with the Sandman's realm of dreams due to their superpowered adventures. In the TV show, Lyta is a normal woman, but the show still tried to keep her role in the story broadly similar: she is now Rose Walker's friend and happens to be close by when Rose's nature as a vortex throws the people close to her into uncontrolled dreamscapes.
  • You (2018):
    • In You (Kepnes), Beck and Blythe are acquaintances doing the same MFA, but Beck despises Blythe (at least partly out of jealousy). Because both Beck and Blythe receive Adaptational Nice Guy treatment in the series, they are good friends and Blythe is shown actively supporting Beck (especially with her writing) after Peach's death.
    • Delilah and Joe have a casual hookup in both the book and Season 2. However, in Hidden Bodies, Delilah is treated with contempt and even nicknamed "Don't Fuck Delilah." In the series, Delilah and Joe develop a genuinely warm friendship (in the book, it was just sex), and Delilah confides in Joe about being raped by Henderson.
    • In Hidden Bodies, Forty and Henderson don't know each other. In the series, they are friends (albeit not close friends) and Henderson gets a small Pet the Dog moment when he calms down the high and embarrassing Forty at his party. This sets up the series' addition that Joe and Love frame Forty for killing Henderson by claiming that he found out Henderson was a serial predator and dispensed some vigilante justice due to Forty's own Rape as Backstory.

    Theatre 
  • Les Misérables: Marius is a full-fledged member of the revolutionary group and close friends with all the others, while in the novel he isn't a member and is only really close friends with Courfeyrac. He also treats Éponine as a close friend and is distraught as she dies in his arms, while in the novel he only pities her, can be very cold to her when he's in a bad mood or distracted by Cosette, and doesn't particularly mourn her death.
  • Wicked: In the original novel and movie, the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good are enemies and there is no hint that they were once friends. In this play, despite starting out as rivals, the two are best friends before the war and reconcile before Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) fakes her death at the end of the play.

    Video Games 
  • Injustice: Gods Among Us: Aside from the iconic Point of Divergence between the Injustice universe and the mainstream DC universe, another major divergence is that in this version, Superman and Lex Luthor are and have always been good friends instead of mortal enemies. However, the more heroic Lex takes issue with his friend's descent into evil and becomes a mole aiding Batman's group.

    Webcomics 
  • Dumbing of Age: Becky and Joyce are childhood friends, instead of meeting well into adulthood as they do in the original Walkyverse. They both later form friendships with Dorothy, who in the original was Joyce's love rival, and nothing to Becky at all. Dorothy also grew up with Danny and Joe, even dating Danny, which wasn't the case in the Walkyverse. And Amber, Mike and Ethan were all childhood friends, rather than only meeting when they started working at the same toystore.

    Web Animation 
  • In Final Fantasy VII, while Barrett and Red XIII were friends, they weren't any closer to each other than to any other member of the party. In Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged, they quickly become A Boy And His X-type best buddies and the show's Those Two Guys. Their character-focused episodes will usually strongly involve each other as a double act, while in the original, Red is not mandatory for Barret's story, and vice versa.

    Western Animation 
  • Baby Looney Tunes: Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird are portrayed as friends here, despite the main Looney Tunes show having Sylvester seeing Tweety Bird as prey.
  • The Batman: Barbara Gordon (AKA Batgirl) and Pamela Isley (AKA Poison Ivy) are introduced as activist friends who would team up to protest corporations involved in genetic experimentation and harm to the environment, unlike the comics where the two never met before they became supers.
  • Batman: The Animated Series established Harvey Dent as a personal friend of Bruce Wayne's before becoming Two-Face.
  • Despite their non-friendly relationship in the film, Beetlejuice and Lydia share an Intergenerational Friendship in the cartoon Beetlejuice. This influenced the musical, which also shows them getting along briefly, despite following the movie's framework.
  • Bugs Bunny Builders does this with many of the characters from Looney Tunes, who often have fractious relationships in the original series and many of its spin-offs. Because Builders is an Edutainment Show with themes such as cooperation and getting along, they never argue or become angry with each other or anyone else:
    • Similar to their infant counterparts in Baby Looney Tunes, Sylvester and Tweety get along fine, with the latter helping the former overcome his fear of heights in "Stories", and the former willingly spitting out the latter when he accidentally sucks him into his mouth while yawning in "Cheddar Days".
    • In most Looney Tunes media, Wile E. Coyote is portrayed as an Insufferable Genius villain, especially in the shorts where he's paired with Bugs Bunny. Here, he uses his inventions to help the Looney Builders with their construction projects. And while he still has an ego, he keeps it under control.
    • Instead of trying to take over the Earth or destroy it and thus causing him to oppose the other Tuns, Marvin the Martian is a space traveler who crash lands on it due to an accident. He is initially wary about the Earth but gets over it after the Looney Builders help him fix his spaceship genuinely befriending them.
    • While Taz the Tasmanian devil is still ravenous and has destructive tendencies, he is much less of a Volatile Tasmanian Devil and never tries to eat anyone thus being a close friend rather than a barely-tolerated nuisance. When he throws a fit in "Taz Recycle", it is quite tame.
    • Cecil Turtle, who is usually depicted as Bugs' rival, is a friendly client of the Looney Builders.
    • In other works, such as The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, Hector's relationship with Sylvester is defined by the former beating up the latter for attempting to eat Tweety, annoying him, or just because. In "Game Time", Sylvester is one of the customers of Hector's fast-food stand, which later gets upgraded to a restaurant by the Looney Builders.
  • DC Super Hero Girls (2019): Barbara Gordon is best friends with an Age-Lifted Harleen Quinzel, neither of whom knows the other's secret identity as heroic Batgirl and villainous Harley Quinn respectively ... at least, at first. When Harley does learn of this, it starts her Heel–Face Turn arc, though she remains The Friend Nobody Likes in later appearances.
  • The Real Ghostbusters:
    • In the movie, Winston was Only in It for the Money and saw the other three Ghostbusters as simply colleagues. Here, he's just as much their best friend as they are to each other.
    • In the movie, Janine didn't see her employers as friends in any way, except Egon, on whom she had a crush. In the cartoon, while she's still a bit unamused to their antics, she still sees them as her friends, and in fact, in "Janine, You've Changed", they're said to love her.
    • Overlapping with Adaptational Heroism, in the movie, Slimer was just a nuisance and was trapped by the Ghostbusters. Here, he's their pet, and while he does annoy them sometimes (especially Peter), they also see him as a beloved pet (especially Ray). This includes Janine, who, in the movie, never even met him. Justified by the episode "Citizen Ghost", a Whole Episode Flashback that explains, by means of an interview Peter is giving to a reporter, how the team decided to let Slimer stay with them after he helped them defeat some spectral copies of themselves.
  • She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: In the original '80s, the Princesses and Horde were simply enemies. The line between friend and foe is much more ambiguous in the reboot. Catra starts out as Adora’s closest friend, becomes a bitter enemy, then after her Heel–Face Turn in season 5, become lovers by the end; Entrapta begins as an ally of the princesses before going over to the Horde, though she never shows any real animosity towards the princesses and is more in it For Science!, eventually returning to the Alliance when she’s rescued from Beast Island; Scorpia starts as an enemy but a surprisingly cordial one before being driven away from the Horde and joining the Princesses when Horde Prime invades.
  • The Spectacular Spider-Man: In most adaptations, Eddie Brock was an enemy of both Peter Parker (as they were rivals at the Daily Bugle) and Spider-Man (as Spidey would sometimes prevent him from getting a scoop that could potentially ruin someone's life). Here, however, Peter, Eddie, and Gwen are childhood friends who all love science, with Eddie acting as an older brother figure for Peter (to the point that they refer to each other as "bro"). Unfortunately, Eddie Brock still becomes Venom, with him steadily beginning to hate Peter over the course of the series, until he bonds with the symbiote in the season one finale.
  • What If…? (2021):
    • "What If... T'Challa Became a Star Lord?": Several characters whose morally dubious or outright evil counterparts in the Sacred Timeline opposed T'Challa as enemies or never met him at all, are members of his reformed Ravager crew and close friends with him and each other here. These include Yondu (his adoptive father figure), Thanos, Nebula, Korath, and Taserface.
    • "What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?": Whereas Tony Stark and Erik Killmonger never met in the Sacred Timeline, in this timeline, Tony becomes good friends with Erik after the latter saves him from the Ten Rings. Unfortunately, Killmonger is just using Tony to get what he wants, and Tony is pissed when he finds out after Erik kills Rhodes. Despite his ruthlessness and treachery, Killmonger is still genuinely sorry about having to kill Tony when the latter becomes a threat.
  • Young Justice: In the original comic, in an attempt to strike out against the older heroes, Superboy helps found the titular group alongside Impulse and Robin (Tim Drake), with the trio all being close friends. In the cartoon, Superboy ends up befriending a completely different speedster and Batman sidekick — Kid Flash and Robin (Dick Grayson), both of whom were part of the adults the team was seeking independence from in the comic. Impulse and Tim Drake are also eventually introduced in the second season, but neither has much of a relationship with Superboy.

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