Basic Trope: A character who doesn't apologize for their misdeed (or a number of misdeeds).
- Straight: Alice never apologizes for upsetting those around her.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice does very horrible things and willfully passes up the chance to easily mend the bridges with a simple "sorry".
- Alice lets everyone to know that she isn't sorry for kicking puppies, killing thousands of people, and smoking in public, despite that others always give her the benefit of the doubt.
- Downplayed:
- Alice did something wrong, but while she feels a tiny sense of remorse, she chooses not to admit it.
- Alice never apologizes sincerely.
- Alice only feels remorse when she occasionally hurt some people by accident but never to people who she thinks they deserve it.
- Justified:
- Alice is too prideful to apologize, which she believes will make her feel weak.
- Alice believes that she's justified in doing what she did.
- Alice is incapable of showing consideration for anyone's feelings.
- Alice is a Card-Carrying Jerkass who is proud of the cruelty she displays.
- Alice believes that what she did isn't worth apologizing for.
- Alice didn't really have any part in what she has to apologize for, though everyone thinks she does for one reason or another.
- Alice once gave a sincere, heartfelt apology, only for it to be rejected harshly. Because of this, Alice vows to never apologize again.
- Alice doesn't believe any apology would be accepted, no matter how sincere it would be.
- Alice did something that was seriously heinous, so apologizing for it would be pointless.
- Nobody ever apologised to Alice when they were mean to her.
- Alice knows that she's in the wrong, but she also knows that a simple apology won't make people forgive her misdeeds, so she shrugs and decides to live life on her own terms.
- Alice isn't actually sorry, and feels an insincere apology would be more disrespectful than no apology at all.
- A painful past has led Alice to not apologise, fear of getting hurt again.
- The people who are demanding that Alice apologises for her behavior have said or done the same things in the past, and they never apologised. Alice regrets what she did, but she doesn't like hypocrites, so she refuses to give them the apology they want from her.
- The people who are demanding that Alice apologises for her behavior don't expect apologies from Bob and Claire, even though what Alice did is minor in comparison, and she feels unfairly singled out.
- Alice is the logically-minded type who believes that apologizing for something that has happened still won't change the fact that it already happened in the first place. Thus, she isn't going to waste the time if (she thinks) it won't change anything.
- Inverted:
- Subverted: Alice comes to Bob, who is one of the people she's victimized, and finally says "sorry".
- Double Subverted: Alice comes to Bob and tells her that she's sorry that he's not thick-skinned.
- Parodied: Alice is a pariah of society because she refuses to apologize for stepping on her neighbor's grass.
- Zig Zagged:
- Alice openly comments how there's a difference between not apologizing for your actions and not taking responsibility for them. Just because she feels nothing from her misdeeds, that doesn't necessarily mean she isn't aware that she did them or that they might have been wrong.
- Sometimes she doesn’t apologize, sometimes she does.
- Averted: Alice always apologizes if she does something wrong.
- Enforced: "We need to focus on An Aesop on apologizing, so we thought that our resident bitch Alice will be put in a situation where she has to apologize."
- Lampshaded:
- "Forget their feelings, what about MY feelings?!"
- "To apologize would mean that I'm wrong. I'm never wrong. Ever."
- "It's not like a simple 'I'm sorry' is gonna magically fix anything anyways, and the deed is done. No point in crying over spilt milk. Why bother apologising when I can simply move on and forget about it?"
- Invoked: Alice's father taught her not to apologize to anyone because he viewed it as a sign of weakness or submission.
- Exploited:
- Bob wants to make a point about Alice being a jerk, so he asks for an apology to a major offense, knowing well enough that she'll refuse it.
- Bob tricks Alice into offending Charlie, a psychopath who becomes enraged when he feels he's not being respected. Alice's refusal to apologize for whatever pissed Charlie off gets her killed and nicely out of Bob's way.
- Defied:
- Even if Alice doesn't feel sorry for what she did, she does her effort to apologize because it's the right thing to do...to save face that is...
- Bob makes it very clear that Alice will apologize, or he will threaten to give a severe punishment.
- Discussed: "Why won't that heartless bitch apologize already?!"
- Conversed: "I would pay to see in the next season where Alice apologizes for once."
- Deconstructed:
- Alice's refusal to apologize stems of the belief that she will never be forgiven for her acts, which doesn't help that her apologies aren't good enough to mend the fences (and she knows this deep down). It's easier for her to embrace this unrepentant behavior and repeatedly cross the Moral Event Horizon than to apologize knowing she will be ignored or rejected.
- The reason Alice doesn't apologize to anyone is because the person she apologized to doesn't care about her wanting to make up for her wrongs and wanting reconciliation, but is only interested in making her feel bad and live with the remorse, especially if that person has a grudge against her.
- Reconstructed: While Alice still refuses to apologize, she still does try to do good deeds without having to apologize for her bad, which is okay for some people.
- Played For Laughs: Alice became the town pariah and was eventually chased out. Her crime? Bumping into someone without saying "excuse me".
- Played For Drama: Because Alice's stubbornness to give an apology, she becomes alienated by her remaining loved ones. Finally, whether or not Alice realizes this or even cares, Alice is left to die alone.
- Played For Horror: Alice is an Ax-Crazy Spree Killer who is still at large who won’t even say a simple “sorry” for the endless suffering she causes. Evil Is Petty at it’s finest.
Back to The Unapologetic. I'm not gonna apologize for making you read this article.
