No Love for the Wicked

Media that features characters with psychopathic traits often try to play up their inhuman nature as much as possible. Many decide a good way to hammer the point home is to have the character reject all forms of sexuality, and possibly other kinds of love. It's considered the norm for humans to feel sexual (or at least romantic) attraction, so something must be fundamentally wrong when someone rejects such basic instincts. This trope can fall under Unfortunate Implications because it also enforces the idea of heteronormativity, alongside similar tropes like Depraved Bisexual, Depraved Homosexual, and Psycho Lesbian. Additionally, it may also be used to vilify those who are asexual or aromantic due to their lack of interest in sex and romance respectively.

These characters often also dismiss friendships, familial relationships, and other human relationships as well. This usually means the villain Hates Everyone Equally. They tend to have a Lack of Empathy as well. Characters might be interested in nothing but their work or might have a near-sexual interest in sadism. If they ever have sex, it's only to further some agenda they have.

A character must fit at least one of the following criteria, in addition to being portrayed as freakish because of it:

• They feel neither sexual desire nor love of any kind
• They lack the ability to feel any kind of love, not specific to romance, but might still have sex

If the subject of a villain's romantic or sexual interests is simply not brought up, or if it is but they aren't portrayed as freakish because of it, then they do not count.

Compare with Depraved Homosexual, Psycho Lesbian, and Depraved Bisexual for other villainous takes on non-heterosexual orientations. Contrast with Celibate Hero and Chaste Hero for positive examples of lack of sex, Sexual Karma, Sex Is Good, Even Evil Has Loved Ones (for romantic relationships) for positive portrayals of sex, and Sex Is Evil, Unholy Matrimony, and Serial Rapist for negative portrayals of sex. For villains who, in addition to sex, abstain from other "vices", see Straight Edge Evil. When a villain is asexual due to lacking some or all sexual organs, see Eunuchs Are Evil. Related to Loners Are Freaks.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Ayakashi Triangle: The Gogyosen are a villainous group of reclusive magic users who think Love Is a Weakness. This trait is Played for Laughs when part of their plan involves having their People Puppet seduce someone, so they have to go off fiction and advice books in lieu of personal experience.
• In Death Note, Light Yagami turns down women left and right, including a major supermodel. He only seems to ever date women when they're useful to his schemes. He uses a Porn Stash to distract people who are surveilling him, but he describes porn as boring. It's pretty clear his disinterest in such things is part of his disconnection from people in general.
• Kars from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency is asexual, having a fondness for only nature. Upon evolving into the Ultimate Life Form, his asexuality is also taken to new heights where it's explicitly stated that for Kars, "SEX = USELESS". He disdains humanity and anything alongside it, like romantic or sexual relationships, and seeks to be above them.
• Johan Liebert from Monster is completely uninterested in women or men, either emotionally or physically, and his obsessive relationships with Tenma and Nina are completely asexual. In fact, pretty much the only crime he doesn't commit is rape—he's so twisted he can't seem to bring himself to care.
• Jack Vessallius from PandoraHearts. The only woman who ever had all of his attention was Lacie, but he never pursued nor wished for a romantic or sexual relationship with her even though he wants to drop the world into the Abyss in her name. Out of curiosity, Lacie once tested how Jack reacted to physical intimacy with her and she got nothing. Furthermore, Jack confessed that his feelings for Lacie aren't based on love but on addictive obsession and resentment. Jack's inability to feel any kind of genuine love for anyone serves to show how disturbing and twisted he is.

Comic Books

• Marvel Universe:
  • The Incredible Hercules: Just as in Classical Mythology, the Olympian goddess Athena is both aromantic and asexual. Several characters also note that she can't be trusted, since she's always working toward her own ends for a perceived "greater good". She's also not above using her beauty and attractiveness to manipulate men (and women) into doing her bidding and then disappearing moments later without reciprocating.
  • Wolverine: Despite being infamous as a Depraved Bisexual, Daken is actually aro-ace according to Word of God. He only uses sex as a tool to manipulate others.
• Batman: The Joker tends to be portrayed as completely uninterested in sex, only caring about his "jokes" and schemes. While he is willing to partake in sex, he only ever does it as part of an Evil Plan, manipulation, or because he wants to make a sick joke out of it. For example, the self-titled graphic novel has him rape a woman named Shelly, the wife of one of his henchmen and the book's POV character, Jonny Frost, as a fucked-up way of making things "even" between the two after Frost withheld the fact that he had a meeting with Two-Face.
• Watchmen: Rorschach, while not really a villain, is repulsed by the idea of sex and never had any relationships. That in addition to his lack of hygiene, lack of sleep, and unkempt appearance is only done to show how obsessive he is over his job as a vigilante to the point of neglecting his own life.

Fan Works

• Hero Chat: Lila is theorized by Zoe to be aromantic. Not knowing the meaning of the word, Lila looks it up and makes this declaration^note which makes her both aromantic and asexual:
  Lila: The fuck do you mean "sexual and romantic attraction are real"?!
• The Makings of Team CRME: Cinder Fall is described as asexual in this series. While she is willing to have sex and flirt with others to manipulate them without much hassle, she states that it never holds her interest. She also states on several occasions that she has no desire for love and only sees it as something to take advantage of.
• Zistopia: Word of God described Big Bad Nancy Goetz as a "self-serving asexual".

Films — Live-Action

• The Human Centipede: Subverted with Josef from First Sequence. While he's misanthropic to the point of being uninterested in conventional sexual activity, it's strongly implied that he derives sadistic sexual pleasure from mutilating his victims and forcing them into coprophagy.
• James Bond:
  • Red Grant, the assassin in From Russia with Love, has no interest in sex.
  • Vargas from Thunderball does not drink, does not smoke, and does not make love. Instead, he is a cold, hardened killer without any human indulgences.
• Played with in the case of Rupert Pupkin, the Psychopathic Manchild and Loony Fan in The King of Comedy. He does ask Rita out for a date and fantasizes about marrying her on stage, but it's strongly suggested that he isn't interested in her per se, he just wants the social status of having a pretty girl by his side. Notably, he turns down Rita's grudging invitation to go up to her apartment after their date, and sexual conquests never appear in Rupert's very active fantasy life.
• Se7en: Not stated explicitly but strongly implied for John Doe. He's shown to be a recluse living an almost monastic and ascetic life as he carries out his murders, and his remarks suggest that he's repulsed by casual sex. He does admit to Mills that he envies his normal, married life, so he could just be too hateful towards humanity to channel that desire for a relationship in a healthy way.

Literature

• Played with in the case of Rudi Waltz in Kurt Vonnegut's Deadeye Dick. He isn't really evil, just passive and indifferent. However, he feels evil because his own carelessness resulted in an innocent person's death, and is so emotionally crippled afterwards that he's indifferent to and probably incapable of romantic or sexual relationships. At one point, Rudi states that he doesn't even really know if he's heterosexual or homosexual by inclination.
• Harry Potter: According to Word of God, Lord Voldemort cannot feel love, romantic or otherwise, and he shows no sexual interest in the book canon, making him magically twisted. Although Harry Potter and the Cursed Child reveals that he fathered one child, Delphini, it's clear he did it simply to get an heir and not out of love or sexual attraction.

Live-Action TV

• Black Mirror: While Daly from "USS Callister" is a Sadist who enjoys tormenting his coworkers without end, he shows no interest in sex or romance of any kind, and even seems reluctant and a bit scared when confronted with the concepts; while his space adventures always end with a required kiss from one of the female ensigns, he clearly does it because he views it as an obligatory trope of the genre and insists on it being closed-mouth. He even goes so far as to remove the genitals of the crew's avatars to keep the simulation as chaste as possible. When Nanette tries to flirt with him in an attempt to distract him, he appears curious, but also somewhat uncomfortable with the situation.
• Dexter:
  • In the pilot, Dexter Morgan says, "I don't understand sex. Not that I have anything against women, and I certainly have an appropriate sensibility about men, but when it comes to the actual act of sex, it's always just seemed so undignified." He starts dating a rape victim, Rita Bennett, to avoid any sexual intimacy while still appearing normal to outsiders. Later on, it turns out that he is pretty sexual but has an aversion towards sex because his partners somehow get a glimpse of what he's really like: a serial killer who's Hiding in Plain Sight. He sticks with Rita because somehow, she doesn't.
  • A straighter example would be Jordan Chase, the Arc Villain of Season 5. He spearheaded the multiple rapes of several young women with his gang, but Jordan himself appears to be quite uninterested in sex or any other kind of intimacy. He does not participate in the rapes and when a woman with Stockholm Syndrome for Jordan tries to caress him, he quietly brushes her off. He was just in it for the power he wielded over other people's lives.
• Fargo: Season Three: V.M. Varga, ringleader of an international money laundering racket, shows no sexual, much less romantic, interest in anyone. Despite his vast wealth and power, he lives a completely ascetic life apart from his bulimic binging and purging of huge meals.
• Game of Thrones: In a series steeped in sexual politics, Joffrey Baratheon stands out as being a rather asexual character. Finding talk of sex to be boring, he only really brings it up as him needing to consummate his marriage with whoever his wife will be or threatening to rape Sansa, while showing no indication he'd enjoy it outside of seeing Sansa suffer. When Tyrion hires two prostitutes for Joffrey in hopes it'll calm him down, Joffrey only makes one beat the other up due to enjoying their pain more (and partly to spite his uncle.) This gives his villainy a colder bent than most characters in the series.
• In the Masters of Horror episode "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road", the albino serial killer Moonface is not interested in "sexual things" according to his longtime and crazed prisoner Buddy. He just enjoys inflicting pain.
• Highlander: The evil Immortal Kalas feigns romantic interest in Duncan's female companion in the '20s, but that's just so he can get her alone and try to strangle her for revenge against Duncan. Later, he captures Amanda, and basically tells her she's wasting her time using her "not inconsiderable talents" on him. Kalas did spend most of his long life in a monastery, so at the very least, he's accustomed to going without having sex (although that didn't stop a lot of real monks).
• In Leverage, one Black Widow who runs a group of female grifters who seduce rich bachelors declares that there is no such thing as love. She's very familiar with techniques that make people fall in love and seems to only see love as a physical reaction she is immune to.

Mythology & Religion

• One interpretation of The Bible posits that The Antichrist will be aromantic and asexual. The basis for this comes from Daniel 11:37 (although some 20th & 21st-century commentators think this refers to a Depraved Homosexual). The leaders of The Protestant Reformation used this passage as ammo against The Pope, due to Catholic Church's requirement for clerical celibacy.
  He shall regard neither the gods of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god; for he shall magnify himself above them all.

Toys

• Transformers: In contrast to the Autobots, who (sometimes) have love interests, it's incredibly rare for any of the Decepticons (or Decepticon equivalent factions) to even show any romantic interest in someone, let alone have an actual romance. In early media in which Decepticons were a separate race, female Decepticons simply weren't built. Blackarachnia in two shows is a reprogrammed Maximal or former Autobot and has a Dating Catwoman thing with one of the heroes (she returned to the heroes' side in part due to it in Beast Wars), Cyclonus has a relationship with Tailgate in the first IDW comic continuity, Thunderblast has a thing for Megatron in Transformers: Cybertron, and Megatron seemed to like Nightbird a lot (if you see his interest in her usefulness as romantic) in her one episode in the original cartoon, but that's pretty much it.

Video Games

• Metal Gear Solid: Psycho Mantis, FOXHOUND's most Ax-Crazy member, is asexual and rants about his disgust for the biological "need for breed". Unfortunately for him, he's psychic and can't help but pick up on the desires and fantasies of everybody around him.
• High Commander Jegran in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers tries to tempt Princess Althea with We Can Rule Together, but otherwise doesn't seem to have any physical or emotional desires. He merely wants to remake the world using his power, and since she's the princess — actually queen, since her father is dead — she is merely a stepping stone to give him the power he craves. After her refusal, he decides it doesn't matter since he sees himself as a god now.

Visual Novels

• Walter from Because We're Here is a sociopath who does not care whether his fellow humans live or die. He is also the only non-romantic route option, his bio stating that he 'could not be less interested in friendship or romance.'

Webcomics

• The Order of the Stick: In the print-only prequel Start of Darkness, as Redcloak prepares the ritual to turn Xykon into a skeletal lich, he warns him that he will lose the use of a "certain body part". Xykon reassures him that it won't be a concern since "it hasn't moved on its own in over 20 years."

Web Video

• Everyman HYBRID: HABIT, the series' main antagonist, is completely asexual and uninterested in romance, being an entity who gets pleasure out of causing others pain, rather than out of having sex. This gets even more disturbing later on when he claims to have raped Nick's mother, amongst other people during his long life, which was done to inflict suffering rather than to derive sexual pleasure, and also to breed himself a strong host to possess since normal human hosts tend to fall apart after being shot a few dozen times.

Western Animation

• The Golden Touch: In the opening number, King Midas mentions that he has no interest in romance, simply because he Loves Only Gold. While he's not exactly villainous, he is shown to be a selfish Jerkass in this part, before his development later on.
• Hazbin Hotel: Alastor is completely detached from humanity, as he was a sadistic Serial Killer in life and upon entering Hell became an Evil Overlord gleefully spreading pain and misery for his own amusement. He Hates Being Touched and is put off by flirting, which is unfortunate considering the fact that he's surrounded by sexual deviants like Angel. His fellow Overlord Rosie playfully refers to him as "an ace (asexual) in the hole".
• Queen Chrysalis of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, despite being as close to a succubus as a G-rated cartoon will allow, views The Power of Love as strictly a source of power to make her stronger and balks at the idea of even so much as giving friendship a try. She actually seems completely incapable of actually befriending or falling in love with anyone or anything, and instead operates by either assuming the form of someone's ideal romantic partner or by replacing their true love and then sucking them dry when they love her without so much as a shred of reciprocating their feelings. Even when it's made explicitly clear to her, on numerous occasions, that genuinely loving someone would make her far more powerful than her one-sided love stealing she simply cannot comprehend the idea.
• Subverted with Lilith Clawthorne in The Owl House. While she is both the primary antagonist of Season 1 and the only known aromantic-asexual character in the series, these two aspects are treated as being entirely disconnected (in fact, we don't learn about the latter until long after her Heel–Face Turn). And while she may have no personal interest in romance, both platonic and familial love are incredibly important to her and she has zero problem with other people falling in love, as shown by the fact that the very same scene where she reveals her sexual orientation also had her writing about how happy she was to learn of Luz and Amity's Relationship Upgrade.
• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: Word of God states that Mayor Jones's love of treasure has turned him asexual.
• The Diamond Authority from Steven Universe. Technically all gems (besides Rose) are Asexual due to having No Biological Sex, but gem culture seems to discourage all romantic relationships. Fusing is only permitted as a battle tactic and fusing between different gem types is punishable by death, even if done accidentally. Permanent fusing is usually synonymous with marriage in gem culture, and most series antagonists have a revulsion to it, especially Jasper; when Garnet fights her in "Jailbreak," she responds to Jasper mocking her permafused status by joking that Jasper's just mad that she's single.
• Wander over Yonder: Lord Dominator has absolutely no interest in love or romance, despite not being afraid to employ feminine wiles to manipulate people. She explicitly makes this clear in her Villain Song, where she cruelly crushes Hater's hopes by telling him she'll never be his girlfriend because she's too interested in destroying planets and making people miserable.

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