I Just Want to Be Loved

"A-and Hannah, she just- she needs to be loved. She deserves it. Don't we all? You? Me? We deserve to be loved. [shouting emotionally] I deserve to be loved! [softly, almost whispering] I just want to be loved."

— Crowley, Supernatural, "The Sacrifice"

A character motivation trope. A very fundamental thing that people want out of life is to feel loved, in fiction as in real life — whether by a specific person, an unspecified but worthy "Mr. Right"... or by as many people as possible.

Wish-Fulfillment is an undeniable part of all fiction, and there is nothing at all wrong with it, in and of itself. I Just Want To Be Loved is a specific wish that some members of the audience would like to have fulfilled by the fiction they consume.

This wish is usually (but definitely not exclusively) expressed by females. Because men are more likely to be judged on specific actions and accomplishments and women are more likely to be judged on characteristics like personality and appearance, men are more likely to be focused on personal achievements and women are more likely to be focused on general lovability. This trope is seen as having its share of Unfortunate Implications about what women should aim for in life, or how men are judged (though not always).

Contrast I Just Want to Be Badass. Related to I Just Want to Be Beautiful.

See Also: Wish-Fulfillment, I Just Want to Have Friends, I Just Want to Be Normal, I Just Want to Be Special, Desperately Craves Affection.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Guts from Berserk. Having lived a life full of struggle, blood and battle, and trauma, Guts more than anything just wants to be loved, having been denied it for so long along with being sexually abused as a kid. He eventually finds it with his teammate Casca — who also yearned for the same — but their union is tragically abrupted when the Eclipse happens and Casca is driven insane, amnesiac, and mute. This pretty much sent Guts over the edge himself and he tried to wash the pain away by feeding his bloodlust and hatred, but in the end, it didn't compare to the feelings and memories he had with Casca. Now, Guts desperately wants to find a cure for Casca's insanity so that they can mend their fragmented relationship, and it's made all the more difficult since Guts' Enemy Within constantly goads him to take advantage of his mentally and sexually traumatized lover — which he almost did at one point — and as a result Guts has clashing feelings of wanting to be with Casca and feeling shame for wanting her since it puts her in danger.
• Alois from Black Butler. It gets so bad that eventually he doesn't care whether it's Claude who (ostensibly) cares for him, and he sells his soul to Hannah instead because she was pretty much the first person since Luka to earnestly say "I love you".
• In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, a place to belong with people who wish good things upon him, that’s what Zenitsu wanted as he laments never having a place to himself by being orphaned, possibly abandoned at birth, and no one ever expecting anything out of him, labeling him as worthless; Zenitsu fell prey to people in the past who took advantage of his need to belong by faking a bond with him, using and abusing the guy, however that’s all in the past as Zenitsu realizes that meeting with his master, Jigoro, changed that situation. With his master, he found a place to belong and someone who honestly wished him good, and that extends even more when Zenitsu finds Tanjiro, Nezuko, and Inosuke, his honest friends.
• Miyako Miyamura's goal in ef - a fairy tale of the two. is this, ever since her parents' messy divorce that had them ignoring her completely.
• This, coupled with I Just Want to Be Normal and I Just Want to Have Friends, and besides her wish to Kill All Humans, is what moved Elfen Lied's Lucy all her life. In fact, this is what moves most main characters in this series.
• Despite what he'll tell you, this and I Just Want to Have Friends are the primary driving forces for Greed in Fullmetal Alchemist. By extension, Father and Envy also want this.
• Kaguya-sama: Love Is War:
  • Kaguya was starved of affection her entire life due to her family's Social Darwinist philosophy and emotional neglect from her father, so the things that motivate her the most are a desire for both romantic and familial love. Unfortunately, her desire for the former is hampered by her inability to confess to the boy she likes due to conditioning from the environment she grew up in.
  • Hayasaka has this to a lesser degree (since her parents actually are a part of her life despite their busy work schedules). She mentions at several points that she wants to be able to fall in love just like Kaguya has, though she doesn't have anyone that she's interested in.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Fate Testarossa just wanted to be loved by her dearest mother who tortures her on a regular basis because she hates how Fate (who is a clone) resembles her deceased daughter. She gets everything she wished, though: she gets a new family (the Harlaowns) and later becomes one of Vivio's two mommies with Nanoha. People even call the three of them "the Takamachi family".
  • On a non-eros(?) note, Hayate Yagami. From an orphan to being one of the aces, adored by her immediate underlings who are also her surrogate family.
• Midori Days: Seiji "Mad Dog" Sawamura is a tough delinquent with a heart of gold who is lonely in love because girls reject him as being too scary. One day he begs heaven to send him a girlfriend, no matter who she is, and a girl named Midori, who—unbeknownst to him—was in love with him but too shy to confess, is inexplicably transformed into a miniature hand-puppet-like replacement for his right hand. Thus begins an unusual love story.
• Naruto:
  • Naruto only wishes to be loved and approved of, which is why he pulled pranks and acted like the class clown. This was also his (initial) reason he wanted to be the Hokage.
  • Hinata has always wanted to be loved and acknowledged by her family, who were abusive to her to the point where they stripped her of her rightful birthright as heiress to the Hyuga clan because they perceived her kind, gentle nature for weakness and even disowned her for a time, during which she had to live with her sensei Kurenai.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: This is the modus operandi of virtually every character that isn't an Angel or a member of Seele. One of the primary themes of the series revolves around how desperately people want to be loved and understood by others, how incapable we are of expressing this outright, and how much Love Hurts when our internal frustrations reveal themselves in other ways.
• Spy X Family: Anya was abused and exploited in a laboratory that performed experimentations on her, resulting in her becoming a telepath, and eventually escape and landed in an orphange. After being abused like this, her social skills are lacking and her odd powers, which she tries to keep hidden, have resulted in her being adopted four times and always returned to the orphanage. She desperately wants a stable homelife and family and she can go to desperate means to retain it, even if this means exploiting her mind-reading powers to manipulate people a bit. Her adoption by Twilight under the guise of Loid Forger gives her the home she wants right now, with the excitement of having a spy father and assassin mother, but she still shows an incredible fear of being abandoned again over tiny mistakes.

Comic Books

• In Dork Tower, Matt McLimore's ongoing desire to be involved with someone repeatedly pushes him back to his ex-girlfriend, Kayleigh... even while his dream girl, Gilly the Perky Goth, hovers nearby.
• Invincible reveals this to be inherent to the Viltrumites. Their culture demands they be ruthless and bloodthirsty to their lessers, but many of those who infiltrate the societies of intended targets of invasion and end up raising a family end up Going Native because, after being free from Viltrumite culture's Emotion Suppression, they find that they really like being liked by their would-be victims. Nolan, in particular, was hit with this so hard that it would later become an inciting incident in the Viltrumite civil war.
• Irredeemable. This is the Plutonian's motivation for being a superhero after spending years in several foster homes with people who were afraid of him. Despite being a respected champion, he's so obsessed with the negative comments and constant demands people give him that it drives him over the edge.
• The Ultimates: Wolverine opines that Quicksilver's incestuous attachment to his sister stems from his Missing Mom and abusive father rendering him desperate for any kind of love and affection. Quicksilver later confirms this.

Fan Works

• There are probably too many fanfics to list that appeal to this wish. The appeal of the Relationship Sue is arguably derived from this wish (as well as the specific desire to be loved by a particular character).
• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): San very much has a case of this, having never gotten anything but abuse and the scarcest shred of respect from his two former brothers when he was part of Ghidorah for eons, leading to him seeking affection from his new sister Vivienne which he never got from Ichi and Ni. San-2/Youngest Brother also has this, being a clone of the main San as the latter's personality was at the story's start.
• Adrien’s reason to agree to be akumatized in Brokenhearted. He’s already blown his chances with Marinette and taken every route he could to avoid her to try to get over her, but the pain still remains. So when his father offers him a chance to bring back his mother, the only person who has ever loved him unconditionally, Adrien decides it’s the best chance for him to be happy again without Marinette.
• Due to her dream, Tenten in Eroninja has a hard time understanding that Tsunade would want a romantic (and sexual) relationship with Naruto, citing that Tsunade is a Living Legend whom Naruto should worship. Tsunade retorts that she's been worshiped for decades, but being loved is something far more important and rare.
• In It All Started with an OSHA Violation, all Pump wanted was his parents affection. They barely pay attention to him, if at all, and Pump's father signed him up for a dangerous experiment. The only two people he had been able to form a positive relationship with are Skid and Lila.
• In Dodger And Company, after Annie is fatally inured, Dodger tearfully breaks down, confessing that all he wanted was his mother's love, which resulted from his abandonment issues.
• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines has the local Knight of Cerebus, Belladonna Tyrian. In her case, while she has clearly found romantic love, her horrible childhood has left her desperate for having a loving family, which is why as soon as she finds out she and Ash might be half-siblings, she's quick to try and form a familiar bond with him, despite having tried to kill him in their first encounter.
• Through the Looking Glass (My Next Life as a Villainess):
  • The motivation of Keith Claes from the world of Fortune Lover. Having grown up with the cold and abusive Claes family, he is surprised but pleased to have a loving sister and mother in the Isekai world. This leads him to damage the rune to keep himself from switching back with Isekai!Keith.
  • This is also the inner desire of his world's Katarina even though she hates to admit it. When everything she does brings her hate and unpopularity, all she has is her status and engagement, the latter very loose when Geord has no interest in her. All she knew was loathing, insecurity, self-hatred, and cynicism.
• White Sheep (RWBY): It was implied in canon, but made explicit here. The God of Darkness lived out in the middle of a monster-infested wasteland, so when a woman came to him and offered to be his first worshiper in exchange for resurrecting her husband, he did so happily. Thousands of years later, Yang manages to get the God of Darkness on their side not only by pointing out how the God of Light has rigged the deck in his favor (where he gets all the love and credit while the God of Darkness gets nothing despite doing half the work), but also by promising humans will worship him forever if he defeats the God of Light and saves the world from annihilation. After the God of Darkness defeats his brother, the humans make good on their promise and dedicate a yearly Festival of Darkness in his honor.
• In Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail all Chloe Cerise wants is someone to love her as who she is. Not as the Professor's daughter, not as someone who is going to be see into Pokémon. Just herself. It gets to the point that she leaves for the Infinity Train and decides to stay there because that is where people love and appreciate her...while back in Vermillion City the end of Arc 1 has her family create an online campaign to show how much they did care about her, giving her that love and support that she needed. However, Chloe finds the sentiment too late at this point.
  • In contrast, Grace Monroe's only wish was to be "noticed" by her parents. So much so that when she enters the Infinity Train, she creates a cult of children worshipping her because they would believe anything she says.
• Heart Baker, the akumatized villain of There's Something About Marinette, desires to be loved by others. This is because she was akumatized when her crush seemingly rejected her.
• The Soulmate Timeline has Homura truly desire this, born from a history of isolation and neglect from her underfunded orphanage and exasperated by many, many time loops trying to save the first person to ever truly treat her as important. A very different timeloop was not how she expected to get it, but her hesitations are quickly overcome just by her Soulmates wanting to love her for being her, and Homura starts dropping some of her built-up walls to reciprocate the caring and love she gets back she gets a result.

Films — Animation

• The sequels to Disney's Cinderella do this with Anastasia, one of the "wicked stepsisters." It's revealed that she's not wicked at all, just absolutely desperate for someone to love her. Her mother and sister Drizella have convinced her that the only way to find that love is to woo a rich prince, and she follows their ideas without question to do it. With Cinderella's help, Anastasia eventually learns that love can take other forms, too, and becomes much nicer as a result.
• In the film version of Coraline, the title character believes that her parents don't love her anymore because of the stresses of their recent move and new jobs. As such, she wishes for a family that would love her no matter what — and gets one in the form of the "Other Mother" and the Other World she had created. The movie soon deconstructs the trope, though, as Coraline realizes that a world where everyone dotes on her and gives her everything she wants isn't real love — but by that point, the Other Mother has kidnapped her real parents and forces Coraline into a deadly game to win them back. Be Careful What You Wish For indeed...
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie: Bowser's entire motivation from stealing the Super Star to nearly sacrificing his prisoners is all part of a genuine desire for Peach to marry him, with his Villainous Breakdown having him rant to Mario about him ruining his chance at happiness. It's deconstructed because this does nothing to excuse how petty, entitled, and villainous he is, with Peach hating him to the core and calling him a psycho at least once. It's also made worse increasing clear that Bowser only sees her as a prize rather than a person, given he immediately attempts to incinerate her when she crashes her forced wedding.
• The second, third, and fourth films of the Toy Story films are all about this.
  • The recurring theme in Toy Story 2 is this. Woody fears that Andy doesn't want him anymore because he's broken, so he considers auctioning himself to a museum in Tokyo to be "loved by millions forever". Jessie is traumatized by her previous owner abandoning her. The villain, Prospector Stinky Pete, has never been opened from his box and has been corrupted by the isolation. Even the second Buzz Lightyear's arc ends with him reconciling with his father Zurg.
  • In Toy Story 3, the villainous Lots-o-Huggin' Bear offers a new take on this trope. He was loved by Daisy, a little girl who cherished him dearly... until one day where she accidentally left him and her other toys behind after a picnic. They struggled to get back to her, only to discover that Daisy's parents bought her a new Lots-o-Huggin' Bear. Lotso was so furious at what he saw as "betrayal" (even though it was clear that Daisy cared about him so much that she couldn't stand being without him) that he decided that children were incapable of truly loving toys, and took over Sunnyside Day Care as a ruthless despot to enforce his twisted belief — but deep down, he just wants Daisy back.
  • The Big Bad of Toy Story 4's entire goal is based on this. She was designed as a talking doll, but her voicebox doesn't work, which she thinks is the reason she was never adopted by a child. As such, her plan is to get Woody's voicebox for herself, hoping it will make her more lovable.
• All of the misfit toys from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) want to be loved by children like any other regular toy.
• In Turning Red, the climax reveals that Ming just wants to be loved unconditionally by her mother without having to be a "perfect" daughter.

Films — Live-Action

• In Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane is a total bastard who manipulates everyone around him with no interest in or respect for their feelings, but all he really wants is to be loved. He gets yelled at for this by many other characters, but the real problem is Kane's inability to love anyone back.
• Fire Island: In contrast to his best friend Noah, who is more cynical about relationships and seeks sex over love, Howie wants the frills and softness of a romance and despairs that he's never had a boyfriend. Noah keeps trying to get Howie to have sex with Charlie and get over him, but Howie forms an emotional connection with Charlie anyway.
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 surprisingly gives this as an underlying motive of Nebula. She was the Un Favorite of Thanos compared with her "sister" Gamora, eventually turned into a near cyborg to try and keep up. However, underneath her many lost flesh/brains/nervous system, what Nebula really wanted was Gamora to support her in their struggles since Thanos was never going to love her—in other words...
  Nebula: You were the one who wanted to win, and I JUST WANTED A SISTER!!
• Alice in Ready or Not (2019) confesses to Becky that while her various foster parents weren't bad, she's always wanted to have a real family of her own.

Literature

• Ayn Rand, in her novel Atlas Shrugged, deconstructs the trope as well as gender-flips it via the character of James Taggart. James wants to be loved, but not for anything he actually does. Rather, he wants to be loved for himself. Not for the benefits he might bring into the life of the person that loves him. Not for any of his virtues or good qualities. He says that he wants to be loved for himself. Ultimately, what he truly wants is to be loved for absolutely no reason at all, i.e. loved in spite of his own worthlessness.
• As an adolescent, the St. Augustine of the Confessions (Saint Augustine) was solely driven by a desire to love and be loved by someone else. Problem is, without real friends to restrain him, our hero's search for love quickly turned into an exercise in habitual lust, an empty and miserable existence where he became increasingly distant from any real relationship.
• In A Cry in the Night, Jenny has always wanted the love and support of a family like everyone else seems to have. She wants it so much it borders on Desperately Craves Affection, as it drives her disastrous decision to rush into marriage with Erich. It's understandable considering her backstory; she never knew her birth family or her adoptive parents either, as the latter died in an accident when she was a year old. Jenny recalls feeling sad at school because all the other kids could celebrate Mother's and Father's Day while she didn't have parents, although her Nana assured her she was still loved. Jenny married her first husband young and didn't mind that they had children so quickly, but he wasn't keen on being a family man and left her. When Jenny meets Erich, she has recently lost Nana and lacks close friends, which Erich fully exploits.
• Shelly from the first Disney Chills book is desperate to make her friends and parents happy and be popular, so she makes a deal with Ursula to become champion of the swim team in the hopes of granting all her wishes at once.
• The final page of Gone Girl implies that this is Amy's motivation behind hiding her true self to Nick before they were married, eventually feeling comfortable with him enough to show him that she's a Sociopath, and staying with him after framing him for murder and killing Desi to get him off the hook once she realized that she still loved him. She's put on masks and personas her whole life and felt incredibly hurt when she showed Nick, who she believes is her soulmate, what she was really like and discovered that he didn't love her true self the same way he loved her while she was pretending to be a "Cool Girl." In the last two pages, while they're laying together in bed, Nick doting on her a day before she gives birth, this exchange shows Amy's desire to be loved for who she is by the only person in the world who understands her:
  Amy: This morning he was stroking my hair and asking what else he could do for me, and I said, "My gosh, Nick, why are you so wonderful to me?" He was supposed to say: You deserve it. I love you.
• In Hair made of Starlight, (think Rapunzel meets "Arabian Nights" Days), this is what drives Alya. She takes Saffron from her parents as a baby, isolates her from the world since age ten, wipes her memories whenever she gets loose, and tries to kill Rashid (the "prince" character) all to make Saffron love her and only her. As it happens, there is a Freudian Excuse: Alya is the daughter of a human and a jinn and was the victim of Half-Breed Discrimination all her life. She believes only a fellow half-jinn can love her, and engineered Saffron's pregnant mother eating magic spices to give Saffron jinn powers in utero before making the bargain for her.
• Subverted in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Poor Merope Gaunt thought that after keeping Tom Riddle with her via regular love potions, he'd still love her. Instead he dumped her, heavily pregnant, and went back home, refusing to explain why he'd run off with a tramp's daughter, though it should be pointed out that had Tom Riddle explained that he’d been under an enchantment which had now been lifted, Muggles would have thought he was crazy. Small wonder that her son Voldemort thinks of love as a weakness.
• In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Ford and Arthur try to flatter their Vogon captor's poetry to avoid being thrown out of the airlock. The Captain asks them if they're saying that he writes poetry because "Underneath my callous exterior, deep down, I just want to be loved?" Subverted when he announces that he actually writes poetry to throw his callous exterior into sharp relief, and they're going to be thrown out the airlock anyway.
• A male version in Over the Wine-Dark Sea. Sostratos never keeps a Heitaira because he wants one that will really love him and can't quite believe it of a hireling.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • One of the driving motivations of Tyrion Lannister is a desire to be loved. Born a dwarf in a highly prejudiced society and with an abusive father and cruel older sister who blame him for the death of his mother, Tyrion craves acceptance and love from a society that views him as a monster while at the same time being convinced that his family will never respect him (which is only partially true) and that no woman can ever truly love him for who he is (which proves to be tragically false). He is put through a Trauma Conga Line in A Storm of Swords that well and truly breaks him by the end and causes him to slip into Then Let Me Be Evil.
  • Sansa Stark, who is So Beautiful, It's a Curse. She is lusted by pretty much every men she meets, meaning very few attempt to truly understand her. Sansa dreams of living in a castle as a Proper Lady with a Knight in Shining Armor as her husband. Instead, she is subjected to months of horrific abuse as a prisoner in King's Landing. By A Feast for Crows, when Littlefinger trades her to marry the heir apparent of the Vale, she has resigned to the idea that no one will ever marry her for love.
• Twilight fulfills this wish. The whole point of Bella being an Audience Surrogate is so the audience can indulge their wish to be loved by Edward Cullen.

Live-Action TV

• Homelander in The Boys is a very very dark take on this. The need to be loved by people effectively drives all of his actions be they right or wrong, keeps him in line and taking orders from Madelyne Stillwell, allows him to be manipulated by Stormfront, and even drives him to do terrible things like murdering the mayor of Baltimore or kidnapping Ryan, all of which is implied to stem from the loveless and abusive upbringing he had in a Vought laboratory. Season 2 ends with him being cowed into submission and losing everything he as in spite of all of his power simply by Queen Maeve threatening to make the world stop loving him by showing the video of him leaving a planeload of people to die, and ends with him pathetically masturbating on a rooftop while repeating "I can do what I want" over and over.
• Phoebe of Charmed made it her personal mission to find love during the last few seasons. In the end, she got a Cupid. Yay?
• Game of Thrones: Jack Gleeson mentions in Inside HBO's Game of Thrones that deep down, Joffrey wants his (step)father's acknowledgment and the people's love. But obviously, between his wanton sadism, entitlement issues, his mother's rearing, his (step)father's less-than-stellar example as King, and the little fact that everyone hates him, his chances of ever getting his wish are somewhat slim.
• Mad Men: Multiple characters of the show ache for love they never knew they wanted. Don exemplifies this almost perfectly. Almost everyone knows him at face value as the suave, handsome advertising executive. Only a few characters like Anna know about his real backstory and allow him to drop the persona and make him feel truly appreciated.
• Once Upon a Time: At the end of the day, for all of her posturing, Zelena is desperate to find someone who can love her in order to fill the hole in her heart left after Cora abandoned her and most, if not all, of her plans revolve around finding that love. She eventually does find that love through her daughter.
  • Her half-sister Regina has a similar problem, ironically because she was raised by Cora, who had rendered herself incapable of love and showed Regina none in return. She's particularly hung up on the idea of having a child and being able to be the doting mother that Cora wasn't, even if she screwed up the first chance she had with Snow White.
• Red Dwarf: In "Thanks for the Memories", an incredibly hammered Rimmer admits to Lister that what he'd actually like most in all the world is just to love and be loved in return. He's horrified when he sobers up and remembers this. Then it turns out Lister gave him some memories of a failed romance of his own to help with this.
• Jon Lovitz of Saturday Night Live did an impression of Harvey Fierstein (playwright of Torch Song Trilogy). The parody version of Fierstein had a variant of this as his catchphrase. "I just want to be loved. Is that so wrong?"
• The Sopranos:
  • With the overall poor parenting of his father and mother, Tony has one chip on his shoulder when it comes to parental figures. He tries to bond with his uncle Junior, but the latter's increasing dementia makes it hard for them to make a full connection.
    Tony: I mean, don't you love me?
  • Having lost his father at a very young age, Christopher always tries to find a surrogate. The most obvious choice being Tony, but given their line of work, their chain of command, and their respective mental situations, the relationship slowly sours until it's rotten.
• Harald Finehair in Vikings seem to run on this. He originally set out to conquer Norway as a mean to get married to the woman he was in love with, and generally seems to want the crown of Norway to be loved in general and his attitude to rejections, romantic and non-romantic.
• Word of Honor: All the Scorpion King wants is Zhao Jing's love. He doesn't react well when he realises Zhao Jing will never love him.

Music

• Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" is addressed to a woman whose heart has been aching in its hunger for love, a hunger the singer is eager to satisfy.
• Queen's "Somebody To Love" is about a man exhausted from years of work asking God^note Freddy Mercury was a devout practitioner of Zoroastrianism to reward him with a beloved.
• Muse's The Globalist ends with the protagonist proclaiming that, after destroying the planet, they only wanted to be loved.
  The Globalist: I just wanted, I just needed to be loved!

Theater

• Subverted and deconstructed in Black Friday. Linda says that she does what she does so people will love her, but Wiley laughs this off. As he points out, real love is a reciprocal relationship, and Linda is utterly incapable of feeling genuine affection or empathy towards another person, let alone even considering putting their needs ahead of her own. What she really wants is to be adored; an All Take and No Give relationship in which she is the Taker, and she wants this relationship with every other person she comes into contact with. Once she's made divine prophet of the cult in the second act, she drops all pretense about her desires and even has a whole Villain Song titled "Adore Me."
  I demand your love,
  and worship, too.
  If I don't get it,
  I will end you,
  'cause I will be adored...
• Chrysothemis in Richard Strauss's opera Elektra does not share her sister Elektra's thirst for revenge, and just wants to be a simple wife and mother — and this wish is what sustains her in her dark, fearful time as a prisoner. (Note: this is not her characterization in the original Sophocles play.)
• Natalie in Next to Normal has spent her whole life being The Un-Favourite compared to her big brother, Gabe. This is particularly irksome because her brother died before she was born, and her mother has just been hallucinating him for over a decade.

Video Games

• Baldur's Gate III has Karlach, a tiefling who had been forced to serve The Legions of Avernus as a youth, during which time her heart was replaced with an Infernal Engine that made her a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, but also too hot to touch. After escaping from Avernus to the Sword Coast, she continues to deal with the fact that even a light casual touch would leave someone with burns. Years of fighting as a slave soldier, combined with being touch-starved due to her Engine, has left her yearning for affection and desperate for a way to cool her engine down to safer temperatures.
• The motivation — and a frequent line of dialogue — of the fallen hero Flambeaux in City of Heroes.
• In Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly, Riona constantly faces people who hate her because she's a "scary" banshee, so during the appeal period, she tried to make herself look less "frightening" so that she can feel loved.
• Fate/Grand Order: Mata Hari's wish is just to have a loving family. However, she's painfully aware she's an In-Universe Low-Tier Letdown and is never going to have the chance to make that wish.
• The Collector in LittleBigPlanet, and Liquid Ocelot in the Metal Gear level pack.
• In Mortal Kombat, this is the crux of Mileena's motivations. She was a clone of Kitana, mixed with Tarkatan DNA to make her more vicious, but it only deformed her face with a Tarkatan jaw and made her insane. Being raised as Kitana's "twin sister", she ultimately wanted to feel mutual love between her sibling, but Kitana (and many others) simply would never see her as anything more than an abomination. The closest thing she got to mutual love was with Tanya.
  • By the time she's killed in MKX and brought back as DLC for MK11 she's still hell bent on earning Kitana's love. Her Friendship, which are usually silly and hilarious, has her hosting a tea party and dressing up teddy bear guests as herself, Jade, and Kitana.
  • Her arcade ending shows that she realized Kitana would never love her, so she killed her, revived her parents, and took her place. With her time powers she earned her mother and father's respect, and pretty much everyone else loved her out of fear. The final scene shows her in a loving embrace with Tanya, while she holds her newborn daughter, and smiling at her while saying that her baby truly loves her unconditionally and doesn't look at her like a monster, but as perfection; as her mother.
  • Mortal Kombat 1 demonstrates how, in a truly loving environment, Mileena truly thrives: in Liu Kang's New Era, Mileena is not a deformed clone of Kitana, but her elder twin sister and thus rightful heir to Outworld. She has her mother's support, her sister's loyalty, and the love of a good woman with Tanya. Even when afflicted with Tarkat, her family and girlfriend continue to love and look out for her, giving her an overall better outlook on life.
• The Pokémon Mimikyu wears a Pikachu disguise in hopes that people will love it the same way that they love the Series Mascot.
• At the climax of TimeSplitters Future Perfect, Robot Buddy R-110 is fatally wounded by the Big Bad and in his last moments he laments, "I only wanted to be loved..." This runs contrary to his recent activities throughout the last act.
• Mandatory Touhou Project example: Koishi Komeiji, the Optional Boss of Touhou Chireiden ~ Subterranean Animism and the little sister of Satori Komeiji. Her kind are mind readers, and sometimes A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read, leading her to close her evil eye and shut down her conscious mind entirely, leaving only an Empty Shell driven by her subconscious. When you fight her, her spellcards are all themed with Freudian psychology, including one that looks phallic.
• Bloody Mary from Twisted Metal: Black just wants a husband who will love her and will go to any lengths to get her wish. This desire was likely sparked by being rejected by her crush as a child.
• This is Cecilia's main issue in Wild ARMs. Throughout the game, she worries that, because she's a princess, people only care about her because of what she represents or the role she plays, not about her as a person. It's deconstructed when Cecilia realises that loving and caring about others is the best way to ensure people will care about you.
• The Witch's House: This is the major motivation and indeed Start of Darkness for the titular witch, Ellen. As detailed in a prequel, she grew up in a family where her alcoholic and drug-using father ignored her and her mother was going to leave the family for a rich man because she couldn't take the pressure of living with said alcoholic and caring for a terminally-ill daughter. Ellen killed her mother after finding out about the latter and hoped that it would finally cause her father to pay her attention, even if it was fury, but when he still didn't she snapped again and killed him too. Then she made a Deal with the Devil where the demon raised her as a tool to feed him the souls of others in return for giving her the means to deal with her illness. This left her craving love from anyone and being willing to murder either for it or because she views others as abandoning her. A big part of her motivation to steal Viola's body, aside from having one that doesn't constantly hurt, is because she knows Viola's father loves her unconditionally and she wants that for herself.

Visual Novels

• In Amnesia: Memories, Spade World reveals this to be something Ikki wants. He used to be ridiculed as a child, until he wished to be popular and gained his hypnotic eyes, which cause any woman that looks into them to fall for him. Now he's sick and tired of the shallow affection of the fangirls his eyes have brought him and wants to find someone he can have a meaningful, long-lasting relationship with.
• Miu Iruma from Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. She may act like a crude perverted loudmouth, but she is also very lonely at heart. She clearly wants people to like her because of her beauty and genius, but her attempts to get people to like her very frequently backfire, leading Miu to shrink back to her meek self. There are also hints that in spite of generally acting like a slut, Miu is actually a virgin who wants actual love and not just sex, as she would insist, even jokingly, that she be offered a romantic gesture before going further. Her Love Suite Event with Shuichi is a Childhood Friend Romance; he has cared for her and been by her side since they were kids, and he is the only one who can see past her loudmouthed persona. Lastly, her fourth Free Time Event shows Miu becoming lovesick for Shuichi because he stopped her from disembowelling herself and returned to check on her, suggesting that Miu would fall in love with anyone who is at least somewhat affectionate towards her.
  Shuichi: You should get some rest. You're clearly not feeling well.
  Miu: Huh...? D-Don't spring that on me all of a sudden...
  Shuichi: What do you mean?
  Miu: C-Cuz, I mean, y'know...we should at least go on a date before we hit the sheets...
  Shuichi: What?
• In Diabolik Lovers, the Token Mini-Moe love interest Kanato is a complete terror - emotionally volatile and unreasonable to the point of violence. True to form for this series, his issues are rooted in a Freudian Excuse. When Kanato was little, his mother doled out affection on a transactional basis, and treated him like a songbird or an ornament when she bothered to remember he existed at all. Kanato went so far as to Self-Harm to get her attention to no avail. This left him unbearably lonely, and that loneliness morphed into rage that he takes out on everyone around him. His psychological knots are perhaps the most time-consuming ones to unpick in the series.

Web Animation

• RWBY: The God of Darkness has a terrible reputation among humanity. His domain is lifeless and eternally night, spawning only the Creatures of Grimm and death for anyone who travels there. As a result, he receives no worshipers; no-one seeks his blessing, asks for his help or leaves him votive offerings — they always seek out his brother, the God of Light, instead. So when a mortal woman comes to him seeking his help to save her lost love, he's thrilled to have the opportunity to prove he's just as worthy of human faith as his brother. He therefore does exactly what the woman asks of him with no strings attached. When his brother shows up to chastise him and undo the resurrection, the God of Darkness bitterly claims that the rules they live by are stacked in the God of Light's favor, leaving him jealous and angry with the adoration and reverence and power that his brother receives compared to him.

Web Original

• YouTuber Jreg makes this point about the unfortunate online trend of "incel shaming" from this video. He points out how bullying, shaming and constantly blaming men who are suicidally depressed over being alone might not be the best long-term idea...

Western Animation

• 101 Dalmatian Street, Hunter Devil is shown to be this. Being alone in the world, with his abusive Great-Aunt Cruella as his only family, he is desperate to try and please her just to get her to notice him. Realizing what a monster Cruella truly is, on top of the Dalmatians offering what is possibly the first piece of affection that Hunter has ever had, leads to his Heel–Face Turn.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Despite her talk, cruelty, and narcissism, Azula is a young girl who wanted to be loved by her mother and be trusted by her friends and family. But her upbringing, narcissism, and cruel side kept emerging more than not making her very difficult to approach. Also, her ideologies (her being born into a fourth generation of Fire Nation propaganda) fly in direct opposition to her desires.
• Family Guy: Meg Griffin is treated horribly by her family and most of Quahog for her supposed ugliness. She is desperate for affection to the point of mental instability. One cutaway gag shows her "dating" a corpse. In another episode, Meg accepts a pity date from Brian, her family's talking dog, and becomes obsessed with him after he insults another girl in her defense and kisses her while drunk. Fans debate whether Meg is a Woobie, Broken Bird, or comical Butt-Monkey.
• Harley Quinn (2019): At her core, all Harley Quinn wants is someone who sees her value as a person and acknowledges her accomplishments after her own parents constantly demeaned her efforts and goals. What attracted her to the Joker was him recognizing her thesis on him and spunk during their first meeting and stayed with him for so long because he convinced her that she was loved and needed by him when all he really wanted was to control her. Eventually, Harley realizes she wants her best friend Ivy's love and is heartbroken by Ivy rejecting her and choosing to go through with marrying Kite Man. Harley putting Ivy's happiness ahead of her own to protect Ivy's wedding helps convince Ivy that Harley has become reliable enough to trust with her heart.
• The Owl House: This is the underlying goal of many of the characters in The Owl House, both protagonists and antagonists.
  • Luz Noceda, as revealed in "For the Future", has had this as an underlying/subconscious goal the entire series. Specifically, she wanted to be loved and understood by the people in her life. All of her actions leading up to the finale have been searching for that acceptance, which she's craved her entire life.
  Luz: I think I just... realized something. I don't know why it took me so long to figure out... the only thing I've ever really wanted... was to be understood.
  • Hunter begins the series just wanting to be appreciated by his "Uncle," Emperor Belos. Once he's defected from the Emperor's Coven, his new goal becomes forging a life with his friends. In "Thanks to Them", Luz telling him that he's part of her family is enough to bring him to tears.
  • Amity Blight's motivations at the beginning of the series are for acclaim, power, and status. And then Luz entered her life. This burgeoning romance helps her realize that what she's really wanted has been freedom from the expectations set by her mother, and to be with people who love her for who she is, not as a tool for their own gain.
  • The Collector's goals are largely the same, reinforced when it's discovered that they are the last of their kind. All he wants are people to play with him and enjoy his company, he just fails to understand why using his godlike powers to force people into submission is wrong.
  • Emperor Belos, shockingly, is implied to have shades of this. After all, he first became a witch hunter because he wanted to fit into his new home, Gravesfield. When he's preparing to return to the human realm, his goals accomplished, he even admits that he wants fame and praise from the human world for what he's done. Shame that obsession led him to attempted genocide.
• A later episode of The Powerpuff Girls (1998) had the Gangreen Gang become good at thieving working for Sedusa. The whole episode comes off as her playing on the teenagers' sexual attraction to her, but a double-cross reveals the Gang was looking for more parental love.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Unusually, most of the people driven by this motivation are villains.
  • Catra's core problem is that she is this trope, but doesn't realise it. As a result, she keeps betraying and exploiting the people she wants affection from in pursuit of power she doesn't realise that she doesn't actually want. Alienating her last friend drives her second Villainous Breakdown, where she alternates between frantically trying to crush the heroes, and collapsing into an emotional abyss.
  • Hordak, the Big Bad, is chasing the acceptance and approval of his father-figure, Horde Prime - seeking to conquer Etheria to prove to Horde Prime that he isn't defective. It's heavily implied that when Entrapta is with him, as either his girlfriend or his Only Friend depending on how you interpret their relationship, he would on some level rather stay with her than summon Horde Prime...and it's one of the things that leads Horde Prime to Mind Rape him when they do finally meet.
  • Deep down, Scorpia only wants to feel accepted; she's with the Horde because she doesn't think the other princesses would accept her, and is complicit in a lot of bad stuff in the hope of getting Catra to finally notice her and return her feelings. When she's compelled to switch sides anyway in order to save her Only Friend, she's actually accepted really quickly - she tears up when Frosta thinks her pincers are the coolest thing ever.
• This is the defining motivation of Sgt. Hatred (ironically) in The Venture Bros.. Prior to his Heel–Face Turn, he went through a very messy breakup with his wife, and thanks to his tumultuous lifestyle as a secret agent turned supervillain, he lacks any kind of support structure outside of the Venture family. Because of this, after being assigned as their bodyguard, he throws himself into the job and does his best to project the image of a big loveable teddy bear of a man who will do anything the family asks of him, casting himself as the family's surrogate uncle. Unfortunately for him, he has very little charisma, a shoddy fighting record, and a tendency to humiliate himself. On top of all that, he's also a former pedophile, and though it's implied to be a result of a botched science experiment and he controls his urges (which he despises) through medication, it leaves a near-perpetual cloud hanging over any social interaction he has. In short, he has quite an uphill battle before anyone in the family is willing to respect him, much less actually like him, and he knows it.

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