Examples of Bystander Syndrome depicted in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- The Bridge:
- Anguirus says that he only fights to protect his own kind, the Kaiju, and doesn't care about humans. When dragons attack a pony camp, he ignores it until he realizes that since he's been turned into a pony, they are his kind.
- When Ponyville is overrun by a swarm of Destroyah babies, Discord can't be bothered to help because the only character he really cares about is Fluttershy and she's not in Ponyville right now. After the situation is contained, Fluttershy shames him into repairing the town with his powers.
- Demon In Fodlan: A combination of his defeat against Chaldea and being an outsider to the land of Fodlan, Goetia resolves to not get involve with the socio-political issues within Fodlan—choosing to be a neutral observer and will only act if something affects him. Several characters call him out on this mindset, with Sothis pointing out that Goetia is emulating the very thing he hates Solomon for. A part of his development is to slowly growing out of this mindset and help others in ways that doesn't involve the Incineration of Humanity.
- Dost Thou Even Steal Hearts?: Ren and Morgana are utterly disgusted at how overdependent the residents of the My Hero Academia world are upon the superhero system, to the point that even Pro Heroes will stand by if they think they don't have the 'right Quirk' to handle a situation.
- In crossover story Echoes of Yesterday, Kara arrives at Winslow High to rescue Taylor and finds a throng of girls gathered around the locker and standing still while listening to Taylor's cries and pleas for help.
- In The Good Hunter, Cyril struggles with this in Chapter 2. Witnessing the commotion of a noble kicking a fallen form of a young man with his hands up, he repeatedly tells himself not to get involved. Until Cyril sees red, that is.
- In Infinity Legion: Heroes Unite, the Observants refuse to do anything about the Darkentors, stating that they're too powerful to handle and should just be left to their own devices.
- Legend Of The Rising Star: Averted, for the most part. One prominent example - Shining Advent was founded by Lelus and Attemi for the very reason of protecting Crypton Province from all the crime and misery because they felt like they could make a difference.
- In The Night Unfurls, Kyril's main reason for fighting against the Black Dogs is to defy this trope, reasoning that he bears the shame of doing nothing if he stood by allowing them to cause harm to a nation that has done nothing to deserve its fate.
- Not the intended use (Zantetsuken Reverse): Namedropped and averted. Soma says that part of the reason why maintaining the Masquerade is so difficult is because bystander syndrome is nowhere near as prevalent as most people think.
- In Profesor Layton Vs Jack The Raper, at one point, Watari enters The London Underground, and pulls a sniper rifle on the receptionist, even firing a warning shot. Nobody else responds to this situation.
- The fic Showa & Vampire has a very strange unintentional example. The multiple protagonists are all extremely powerful superheroes, for example possessing multiple powers that would, individually, be the hero's main gimmick in an action show. All of them have some kind of heroic lineage too, either from being the son of a powerful hero from a canon series or being the chosen inheritor of the legacy of a series of superheroes. They know an organization of supervillains and cyborgs are out to take over the world. But the thing is, the fic spends so much time on these characters' personal baggage, their love lives and their high school hijinks, it never gets around to having the heroes actually do anything about this evil organization. They only fight it when its members show up at their school, to personally attack them.
- In Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse, the village of Shay-Lot is being terrorized by a murderer and has stopped all ship construction as a result. Marine Captain Malibu refuses to investigate the case as Shay-Lot is not directly affiliated with the World Government, and as such it's outside his jurisdiction. He instead spends more than a week complaining about how the giants are refusing to build his ship. When the Nerimans arrive and catch the murderer in less than a day, Malibu complains about how the giants prioritize giving their saviors a new ship over his crew.
- Discussed in Dirty Sympathy when Apollo asks himself what he would have done if he had spotted Klavier's abuse wounds at the pharmacy instead of the other way around. He admits that he probably would have ignored Klavier and left him to his fate.
- All Assorted Animorphs AUs: In "What if Tom's yeerk got the morphing cube from David first?", the teachers watch apathetically as Tom beats up David, and the students pay no more attention than a glance to them. The author said in the comments that it was inspired by the live-action TV show, where a lot of drama went down in the school's corridors, but even non-Controllers turned a blind eye.
- Dominoes is a particularly ironic example. Being a superhero AU Deconstruction Fic, half the characters are teenage superheroes who, despite the fact that they are being trained to be active problem-solvers in any crisis, are standing aside, permitting, and even reinforcing the psychological and emotional abuse of someone whom they once (and supposedly still do) considered their equal, friend, and family - because higher authorities responsible for this abuse have assured them it's for the best to treat them this way. For the record, the "higher authorities" in question is the teen superheroes' mentor, Kudo Yusaku, who is also the father of the victim, Shinichi, and the abuse leads to the superheroes actually impeding justice to prevent Shinichi from helping others and thus make him feel more powerless, up to and including Yusaku mindwiping Shinichi and controlling him like a puppet, having the police confiscate and then bury Shinichi's evidence of a string of 40+ child kidnappings, and then calling Shinichi's belief that these crimes occurred a "conspiracy theory." Unsurprisingly, Shinichi comes to believe that the superheroes are corrupt and impeding real justice and aid to those who need it, causing him to side with one of their enemies on account of this enemy somehow being more willing to help save these forty children. The entire time, the teen superheroes claim to be Shinichi's friends (and one even his girlfriend, who still proclaims that she loves him), but stand aside and allow this abuse and injustice to happen. Because of this, when the chance to save one of the children goes awry, there isn't enough time for another; Part 1 ends with a child's death in large part because of the delay in focus and aid caused by Yuusaku and the Irregulars setting up metaphorical roadblocks. And they only realize this at the last minute because they were so busy stranding around depriving Shinichi of aid and support that no one bothered to look deeper at what he was actually trying to accomplish until it was too late.
- From 1Kids Entertainment's Death Note The Abridged Series here
:L: ...and in this footage you can see various pedestrians who clearly don't give a $h!t that somebody near them just collapsed and died. - From Death Note: The Abridged Series (Dogface701):Raye Penber: I'm dying! Somebody help me!
Random Pedestrian 1: Shut up Emo!
Random Pedestrian 2: We have problems too, you know.
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): San's pathy for humans in distress if they aren't ones he cares about can be fairly described as "true neutral". During his and Vivienne's rampage through Jonah's base, Vivienne wants them to use their bio-electrical powers to help the revolting disposable vagrants get out a distress call in the hopes that someone will come to rescue the vagrants, but San initially protests, not seeing why they should risk themselves going out of their way to help humans who've never done anything good to them first. Later, San doesn't care about rescuing a nearby capsized boat as Vivienne does, though he doesn't argue with her when she directs them to help it anyway.
- Princess of the Blacks: In the final book, Narcissa declares that the reason why most members of the magical community aren't taking any action against Voldemort and the Death Eaters is because they see it as simply not affecting them. If being pureblooded is defined as simply "No non-magical grandparents", then the overwhelming majority still qualify as pureblooded, meaning they won't be targeted so long as they don't directly oppose Voldemort.
- Unwanted Free Ugly Troll has this as the reaction to an abandoned young troll in a box on the street, even from the main character Dave. It's only when Dave is heading back through hours later, in the pouring rain and with no one else around, that he makes it his problem and rescues the little thing. The rest of the story concerns him adjusting to a life of abandoned trolls being his problem, and his attempts to make others care as well.
- In Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, the Kamen Rider Club heavily blame themselves for not stopping Meteor from killing Fourze like in the original series. In the side story Tears to Shed, the resurrected (and brainwashed) Gentaro calls them out on this because they stood there while he got killed off and they never stepped forth to save him. Moreover, this trope is deconstructed with Yuki because all the antagonists remind her about how she only cried "Stop!" when Meteor gave Fourze the one-inch punch.
- A Piece of Rebellion: Bad Cop tells Good Cop that Lord Business' plans to Kragle people are "not our problem" and that they don't need to deal with that.
- What is a Person Worth?: The rest of the family is too shocked by Lincoln calling them all out to intervene in his fight with Lynn Jr. Later on, Lynn Sr. sadly admits that the fact they failed to step in was one of his and Rita's greatest failures as their parents.
In Pictopia
- Pictopia II: In the backstory, Nocturno was visiting Red Bumsteer, a friend's wife who had fallen on hard times, when Judge Doome and the Regulator came to arrest Red for prostitution. Nocturno was so frightened of those brutal vigilantes that he did absolutely nothing when they shoved him aside and took Mrs. Bumsteer away from her children, and he never forgave himself for it.
- In Breaking The Bough, Felicity Renoir, the teacher who replaced Caline Bustier, believes this is the main problem for all of Bustier's former students. During her interview with Adrien, she discovers that despite being aware of both Chloé and Lila's problems, the most he ever tried to do was some half-hearted efforts to "lead by example" by treating them nicely, or briefly threatening to withhold his friendship from them before caving in. She gives the whole class an assignment about the Bystander Effect in hopes of impressing upon them the importance of acting rather than leaving
- Two Letters has this as a bit of a Running Theme:
- Marinette quit being Ladybug after two years, in no small part because she felt unappreciated and like others were taking her presence and protection completely for granted. So far as she's concerned, akuma are no longer her problem to deal with; that's what the new Ladybug is for.
- Most citizens in Paris have a bad tendency to keep Holding Out for a Hero, which contributed to Marinette quitting in the first place. It doesn't help that the new Ladybug encourages their dependence upon her, taking advantage of a certain incident where somebody did get involved with a fight to make said interloper out to be a Glory Hound with ill intentions.
- Anyone: Izuku is electrocuted in front of an audience of his peers, with everyone else present either ignoring the tableau or simply watching.
- Ennea Series: The civilians present when Hawks is kidnapped by Kaetsu do not attempt to help the victim. Some ignore what is happening while others wait around for someone else to call a Hero to help. The victim attempts to avert this by directly going to a couple for help, but the kidnapper tricks them into thinking the wingless Hawks is his drunk fiancé and pulls him away.
- In Not Powerless, Izuku is the heavily neglected youngest son of Toshinori, who ignores him in favor of his older children since Izuku is Quirkless. The only member of his family who cares about Izuku is his older brother Haru, who made no real effort to intervene. After Izuku runs away from home, Haru is left guiltstricken over his failure to do more to protect him from their bullying sister or show how much he cared.
- We're Not Friends Kacchan: This is all but outright stated to be the reason why none of Izuku's classmates did anything about Katsuki's blatant Barbaric Bully. Since they didn't have the full context, they looked towards Aizawa and Kirishima for cues on how to handle the matter. Since Aizawa constantly criticized Izuku while only ever giving Katsuki a slap on the wrist at most, while Kirishima constantly insisted Katsuki was a good guy despite his anger issues, the rest of the class collectively settled on staying out of it.
- With Confidence: Not only did Death Arms stand by while Katsuki was being attacked by the Sludge Villain, he attempts to scold Izuku for his intervention, spurring Izuku to call him out on his inaction. This completely tanks the Pro Hero's reputation.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- In The Dark Side of the Mirror Verse, this is Mirror!Fluttershy's entire worldview. She doesn't see anything as worth doing unless she somehow benefits from it in some way, and does the bare minimum required to actually get by, so ignores bad things happening she could have stopped. It's implied that this has to do with Mirror!Spitfire's treatment of anypony who stood up for Rainbow Crash. Deconstructed when Captain Goodguy points out this can have a nasty ripple effect: if it isn't your problem now, it very well could become it if not taken care of, or the problem of somepony you care about. It's also implied that Captain Goodguy used to have this, but learned this lesson the hard way.
- Parting Words:
- This mentality is part of why bullying has become such an issue: most who witness the CMC getting bullied assume their families are already aware of the issue, so they don't get involved. Making matters worse is that Apple Bloom has come to believe her big sister flat-out doesn't CARE, as her attempts to tell her have gotten constantly blown off. Fixing the damage this has done to their relationship becomes part of the focus in the sequel, The Great Alicorn Hunt.
- On a funnier note, when going incognito Celestia and Luna wear absurd outfits (the one we see makes Celestia look like a member of a barbershop quartet, but they both have a closet full of things set apart to assemble strange outfits) and then apply the Not My Problem Spell, that makes people unwilling to think too hard about it and thus recognize the "unusually tall fellow" as a Princess. Still, they have to take care and not be too enthusiastic about it, lest they become effectively invisible and get run over by a carriage (nearly happened).
- All Mixed Up!: Olive and Otto ride the tubes and end up in the tank of Diesel, a dolphin-shark hybrid who proceeds to throw them around the tank before they even have a chance to breathe. Otto gets attacked first, and all Olive can do is watch in horror. Subverted when she snaps into action after a couple seconds and goes to help him out, only to get attacked herself.
- One Year on Probation: Ann accuses Akira of this, not wanting to help her or anyone else deal with Kamoshida directly so long as he can stay out of it.
- In The Keys Stand Alone, the G'heddi'onians and their guards appear to feel that the marauding hordes of the Black Tower and the impending death of the Pyar gods are Somebody Else's Problem—that is, these problems are there for the outworlders to fix. The four really resent being asked to do things that logically the city guards should have done (e.g., rescue a kidnapped baby), and eventually get to the point where they themselves feel that these things are Somebody Else's Problem.
- In Sonic Origins (Ri2), this was what made the culling go on without any objections until Shade stepped up and killed her own superior. Every single recruit was waiting for another one to oppose this plan, that and years of boot camp have made them too conditioned to disobey orders. Shadow explains just why it is so horrifying.
- In Super Mario World (Max Landis), Queen Bean refuses to get involved in the war, seeing it as a Mushroom Kingdom problem.
- In The Princess and the Dragon, Seto Kaiba once again embodies this trope. He lives in the vicinity of Hermos, has two fully-grown white dragons who obey him implicitly, and could have intervened far sooner than he does, but until Jou makes him an offer he cannot refuse, he is determined not to get involved. He's not a citizen of Chronas, so the affairs of the local royalty aren't his problem, at least in his eyes.
