History Main / NoSympathy

* The biggest part of Mary Jane's [[TheScrappy scrappydom]] in the ''Film/{{Spider-Man}}'' movies, especially part 2. Even not knowing that Peter is a superhero, you'd think most people would understand that a full-time college student struggling to keep his studio apartment might not have as much free time as a retiree (Aunt May), a jobless loser (MJ's dad) or a wealthy heir (Harry) would to go and see her stupid fucking play, and yet she treats him very cruelly based on this fact alone and refuses to hear his legitimate reason for missing it (the usher refused to admit him).

* [[{{Peanuts}} Charlie Brown]]. Just . . . Charlie Brown.

* In the Disney movie, GoFigure, the heroine is chewed out as a failure by her skating coach for not showing up to practice. The coach never gave her a chance to explain that TheLibby locked her in a supply closet, despite the fact that she was covered in purple paint and had apparently been through something.
* In ''{{Because I said so}}'', the girl accidentally broke a glass that the RomanticFalseLead owned (and was his grandmother's he related after the fact), who immediately insulted her, and gave her a cold shoulder despite her extremely sincere and distressed apologies, including offers to buy a replacement.

->c) Throw a hissy fit at their failure to secure the correct colour of gift, rant and rave at their clumsiness in breaking it, then toss them out of the house when they set off the sprinklers?

* In ''{{Because I said so}}'', the girl accidentally broke a glass that {{The Paolo}}-figure owned (and was his grandmother's he related after the fact), who immediately insulted her, and gave her a cold shoulder despite her extremely sincere and distressed apologies, including offers to buy a replacement.

* Ash occasionally gets this in ''Pokemon'', especially when Misty was traveling with him. Most egregious example: "Ignorance Is Blissey", in which he is the victim of a very clumsy Blissey multiple times, to the point where he needs to be treated by Nurse Joy, and when he comments that he never did get supper, both Misty and Brock jump down his throat.

Compare BadlyBatteredBabysitter. Contrast UngratefulBastard. If a character is deliberately stated to be ''incapable'' of sympathising with the feelings or viewpoints of others, that's LackOfEmpathy.

* [[MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha Fate Testarossa]], only 10 years old, is told to collect magical artifacts of untold power by her mother, Precia. She throws herself at the task with reckless abandon, exhausting and injuring herself to dangerous levels. Her mother responds by whipping her until she collapses, furious at how slowly Fate's progress has been. It gets worse. [[spoiler: When it's found out that Fate is just a clone, Precia says something to the effect of "That's right. You're nothing but a fake. I never loved you ''once''. I ''despise you''." Fate STILL forgives her, and says that even if she's hated, she'll still protect her mother. Her mother smiles, and replies "How stupid."]]

* [[{{Twilight}} Bella Swan]] is incapable of feeling sympathy for anyone's problems if they don't sparkle. Case in point: Everyone but her in school is upset that the snow is gone and they can't finish their game; her reaction is to gloat about it.
** The above example isn't even scratching the surface of Bella's narcissism. In the first chapter of ''Twilight'', when she moves to live with her dad, she is given a truck as a welcoming gift. The truck belonged to her dad's best friend, who, Bella is told, was recently in an accident that left him permanently in a wheel chair. Rather than be concerned about the friend, or grateful to her father, she whines about how she thinks the truck will be a piece of crap. Petty ''and'' pessimistic!
** Then there's the way she treats Tyler, the kid who almost killed her when his car skidded out of control. Bella is unscathed but Tyler bangs up his head pretty bad. When they're both in the hospital, Tyler, who is apparently very traumatized about nearly killing his friend, incessantly apologizes to Bella, who calls this "annoying" and even tries to ''fall asleep while he's apologizing to her''. What's even worse is that, since Bella is a MarySue, Stephenie Meyer evidently sees nothing wrong with this.
*** And then she jokes about running him over too so that they're even. Wow.

*** Unless it was cut from that horrible irresponsible mother's heart, it wasn't enough.

** Luckily, in the movie he was rewarded handsomely with a big 'ol plate of steak.

* Kate from ''Series/RobinHood'' spends a lot of time whining about her dead brother, who was killed by Guy of Gisborne after [[NiceJobBreakingItHero her botched rescue attempt. She doesn't seem to care that she is surrounded by fellow outlaws who have ''also'' suffered at the hands of Gisborne: Little John had his wife and son tortured, Much lost the woman he loved, Allan had his brother executed, and Robin's ''own wife'' was ''murdered''. But, nooo, all Kate can moan is: "E keeled mah bruvvah!"

* In EurekaSeven, 14-year-old Renton's undying loyalty to the crew of the Gecko State is rewarded with a humiliating fake mission staged for their amusement. Told that it was of 'paramount importance', Renton ''doesn't even realize he's being mocked.'' As the 'mission' starts to fall apart, so does he. In tears, berating himself for his uselessness, the crew watches via secret camera as he delivers a lengthy speech about his admiration for them all, his happiness at being given this critical mission, and above all, ''his trust in them''. They stare, wide eyed, at the screen... and burst into laughter at how idiotic he is. Then they make the mission objectives more ridiculous, photograph him at the most humiliating point of his life, and publicize it on the cover of a globally read magazine. The entire mission is recorded. And shown to his girlfriend. It's actually meant to be amusing. [[DudeNotFunny It's not.]]

* Hoo, man, {{Shitsurakuen}}. The ENTIRE manga is based around ''insanely'' abusive boys with equally insane superiority complexes. It's actually a bit difficult to read, simply because ''everyone'' is a CompleteMonster, and a good amount are [[KarmaHoudini Karma Houdinis]].

* In ''SoraWoKakeruShoujo'', Nami's depressed state of mind is not helped by her family's complete lack of love and sympathy. Her sisters practically kick her around as some scurvy dog and don't even once wonder why she acts the way she does. {{This troper}} was not too surprised when [[spoiler:Nami decided to turn on them]].

* Ash occasionally gets this in ''Pokemon'', especially when Misty was traveling with him. Most egregious example: "Ignorance Is Blissey", in which he is the victim of a very clumsy Blissey multiple times, to the point where he needs to be treated by Nurse Joy, and when he comments that he never did get supper, both Misty and Brock jump down his throat. One of many times This Troper wanted to smack Misty, and one of the few non-flirting occasions when I wanted to do the same to Brock.

** The instance that struck this troper as the most {{egregious}} was one where both Elliot and ''the writers'' displayed a complete lack of empathy for J.D., deeming his anger and jealousy over the fact that Elliot broke up with him for her old boyfriend mere minutes after they slept together as wrong and irrational. Elliot even has the gall to tell him to "Remember that you're supposed to be my friend." Which could much more easily be applied to her behavior than J.D.'s.

* Most women in Robert Jordan's ''{{Wheel of Time}}'' are afflicted with this. Main hero Rand al'Thor is their typical ButtMonkey: He has a never-healing wound that causes him pain every waking moment, he is in danger of [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity going mad from the tainted magic he uses]](and in fact may have already done so), and, oh yeah, he has the responsibility of {{Saving the World}}. But most women around him for some reason feel that the most sensible way to help him save the world is by making his life as miserable as possible, and doing such things as criticizing him for being rude (in the ballsiest hypocrisy this troper has ever seen) while trying to stop everyone else from being idiots and prepare for the last battle already. Being [[WouldntHitAGirl a total pussy]], Rand just accepts it. Possibly because practically all his male friends and allies give him shit if he does something like, for example, not kowtowing immediately to Aes Sedai demands for the very good reason that they are a bunch of manipulative Jerkasses in the midst of their own civil war, so it isn't as if he should know which ones advice to follow even were he so inclined.

)

Compare BadlyBatteredBabysitter. Contrast UngratefulBastard.

** What's it called? I have the sudden urge to track down the author and deliver a WhatTheHellHero rant.

* In ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', in the beginning of season 3, Buffy returns home from LA after a series of events that can be safely called mindcrushing. The response of her friends? They berate her for disappearing, and tell her that she should be ashamed of herself for not being around to comfort them after the season 2 finale. [[spoiler:She had to fight her lover to the death, after essentially getting thrown out of her house. And Xander explains to her that this was a traumatic experience for him.]]

**In season four finale, he had been in an accident and had a head injury, but still his best friend asked him to do a potentially fatal test on himself to save his (the friend's) girlfriend's life.

* Poor Donald Duck. This trope is a big factor in making him TheChewToy. Girlfriend Daisy is particularly prone to empathy failure. No matter what catastrophe befalls her beau, Daisy won't bother to staunch the bleeding before she sets in with a vicious rant-a-thon.