A character is abandoned, neglected, or thrown to the wolves by someone they love and trust because said caretaker decided to look after someone else. There are two main variations of this trope:
- Abandonment at a critical point: Alice is in the middle of a battle alongside her mentor, Bob, and Bob's other apprentice, Charlie. Usually, Alice is the more powerful or competent of the apprentices — she gets into much less trouble than Charlie. However, on this single occasion, Alice is unlucky. Not to worry, though — Bob will rescue her! After all, he's always bailing Charlie out of trouble, isn't he? He'd never fail his apprentice! Except...as Alice screams for help, she catches sight of Bob and Charlie — and they're fleeing the battlefield. If Charlie is in any way sympathetic, he will protest leaving Alice to her fate, only for Bob to tell him "Leave her!" Alice blacks out, bewildered and betrayed. If she has been struggling before, the sight of her friends turning their backs on her will break her spirit and she may give up.
- Ongoing Neglect: David and Emily are siblings. David is perfectly healthy, but Emily is Delicate and Sickly. Their parents are constantly attending to Emily, bundling her up against the cold, making emergency hospital trips, taking time off work to look after her when she's ill, and generally worrying about her. In all the fuss, however, David is practically forgotten — his mother and father expect him to look after himself since he doesn't technically need as much care as Emily does. However, should he start misbehaving or, worse, voice resentment about Emily's monopoly of his parents' time, expect a massive guilt trip of the "you don't know how lucky you are" variety.
Somehow, Alice escapes her captors and David manages to survive childhood. Unsurprisingly, however, they are less than happy with the person who failed them. If they are The Stoic or The Woobie, they probably won't make a fuss — the Stoic because they see complaining as a sign of weakness and the Woobie because... well, it's part of that "suffering beautifully" thing. However, other characters may opt for Calling the Old Man Out.
How does the "Old Man" justify himself? "I abandoned you because I knew you could cope." Or, "I had faith in your abilities." Or, more bluntly, "Your [insert relevant relation or friend here] needed me more."
This reaction can be perfectly justified. The mentor may have had to make a Sadistic Choice, and chosen the course of action most likely to get everyone out alive. It's also inevitable that a sick child is going to demand more attention than a healthy one. This does not make it any more pleasant for the character who was left out in the cold, but it prevents the audience from losing sympathy with the parent/mentor. Other situations are less defensible — for example, Charlie has clearly been Bob's favourite all along, or Emily is not actually sick, just a Spoiled Brat who feigns illness to get attention. (Though, the latter case still prevents the loss of audience sympathy if the neglecters are hoodwinked.)
This trope has more capable or better-natured characters getting the short end of the stick because they are always expected to look after themselves (and, often, other people as well) while their parent/mentor/friend goes haring after their more vulnerable or stupid associates. If the target of Because You Can Cope can't cope in one particular instance (usually having to rescue themselves or be saved by a third party), others may claim it was because the victim was weak, not because they were let down.
Sometimes the parent/mentor gets away with their act of abandonment with no ill consequences. However, Alice in particular may be prone to a Face–Heel Turn, eventually attacking those who left her to die. Even David might decide to deny help when his parents or sister need it as payback for years of neglect. This may be an act of Laser-Guided Karma or proof of David/Alice's descent to evil, depending on the lesson the writer is shooting for.
There is a Heroic Sacrifice version of this trope, where a character volunteers to take one for the team because they are better equipped to deal with a bad situation — for example, The Big Guy goads an enemy into attacking them in order to protect the Squishy Wizard. Tragically, he usually overestimates his own resilience. The trope can be Played for Laughs but may end with Dude, Not Funny!. A game of Misery Poker may be involved, especially between siblings. Occasionally, the mentor/parent will use the "Because you can cope" excuse as an excuse to cover up more sinister motives — or just their own thoughtlessness. Related to Misery Builds Character.
As this is a Betrayal Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In Code Geass, this is revealed to be the reason Lelouch and Nunnally's parents justified abandoning them. They rationalized that living in a foreign land as little more than political hostages was more sustainable than living right next to a Mad Scientist Evil Uncle who was immortal and had an army of child soldiers with superpowers. Lelouch tells them off because Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You doesn't hold weight when said daddy then declares genocidal war on the specific country that they were abandoned in.
- In From the New World, part of why Maria chooses Mamoru over her best friend Saki is because Mamoru has to run away from their village and Maria thinks he'll need her help more than Saki does.
- Twisted version in Gravitation. Shuichi demands that Yuki stay in the relationship for him, since, although Yuki is coughing blood due to stress (allegedly due to Shuichi's presence in his life), it won't kill him — but Shuichi claims he will die without Yuki. Could be a What the Hell, Hero? moment for Shuichi, but Yuki's own Jerkass tendencies and the fact that his illness isn't actually Shuichi's fault are mitigating factors.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has a relatively benign example of Parental Neglect in Nanoha's backstory for this reason — she spent much of her childhood alone despite having a legitimately loving family because her father nearly died when she was young, and his recovery was a painful process that took years. Her mother and older brother had to work in the family cafe to keep the family from going broke, and her older sister spent most of her time taking care of their father, which left Nanoha to see to herself more often than not. Nanoha understands the necessity and knows that her family really does love her, but combined with the fact that Nanoha is nearly ten years younger than her older siblings, it leaves her feeling like something of a third wheel in her own family even after her father is recovered and back on his feet.
- Ranma ½: When Ranma, Akane, and Nabiki are all standing on the Tendo house's balcony when it collapsed, Ranma made a point to catch Nabiki, knowing an untrained girl like her would be badly hurt by a full-story fall, while trained karateka Akane would land on her feet without a bruise. This sets off a story arc where Akane angrily transferred their engagement to Nabiki, who starts abusing the hell out of Ranma's Jerk with a Heart of Gold nature.
Comic Books
- Batman: Dick Grayson explained his reason for firing Tim Drake as Robin and giving the title to Damian Wayne as being because Damian needed it more and Tim was older. This damaged his relationship with Tim due to the callous way it was carried out on the heels of all the other losses and betrayals Tim had recently suffered and was compounded by Dick not believing Tim's (correct) claims that Bruce wasn't dead and trying to force Tim to remain at the manor and the fact that Damian had tried to murder Tim.
- In the Lucky Luke comics, Ma Dalton reveals that she's so tough on Joe because he's almost exactly like his father, unlike his brothers, and he needs to be tougher so he can look after them.
- Supergirl storyline "The Super-Steed of Steel": Subverted. Comet chooses to save one woman from an alligator instead of Supergirl, who is sinking into quicksand. After emerging out of the pit, Kara guesses Comet realized she could save herself by her own means, whereas Liz Gaynor was in greater danger. Later she realizes that Comet did not save her because he had lost his memories and did not remember she was his friend.
Fan Works
Crossovers
- Big Human on Campus: Yukari initially assumes that the bad luck curse she places on Ranma will work out this way; after all, he can handle anything it throws at him, right? She doesn't take it well when she realizes just how close this came to getting him killed — though ironically, Ranma himself doesn't hold it against her.
- Child of the Storm has this happen once with Odin (regarding Harry being left at the Dursleys) and ongoing with Doctor Strange (who either puts Harry, the Avengers, and everyone around them through various twists and turns or at least does little to mitigate matters beyond keeping them alive).
- In Odin's case, it was partly down to his perception of time (10 years equals about a month on his relative time-scale), partly due to the fact that while Harry was treated badly, his mistreatment could have been much worse, and that it genuinely wasn't safe to reveal the truth. Harry forgives him but later notes that this is not by any means the same as forgetting.
- In Strange's case, he excuses it as a necessity to prepare them to face Thanos, and that he picked them (Harry especially) because they could cope with the burden. While this is very grudgingly accepted (Strange famously cannot lie - though mislead is another matter entirely), his actions have more than once drawn violent reactions from the Avengers, and he's generally tolerated as useful and Necessarily Evil (or at least, amoral - his sad observation is that he became He Who Fights Monsters a long time ago) rather than liked.
- Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus deconstructs this. Sara states that the only reason she continued to bully and demean Chloe Cerise is because the girl never retaliated. But it turns out the reason she didn't is because Chloe already got in trouble for pummeling Sara after her Carrie prank of pouring red paint on her after a talent show got her suspended and one more act of retaliation would get her expelled.
- Remnant Inferis: DOOM: Despite being close to Team RWBY, the Slayer is okay with causing Epsilon to burn down because he's confident that they'll survive the fallout. Qrow calls him out on this, and the Slayer acknowledges that he's got a point... but by that point, it's too late for him to stop.
- Us, Withering Under The Sun: Lee En-sook had two children: Woo-jin and Ha-ri. Woo-jin was a healthy baby, while Ha-ri wasn't; therefore, En-sook decided that Ha-ri needed her more than her son did, smothering her and micromanaging her life while neglecting Woo-jin and growing resentful over being born healthier than his sister... and for how Ha-ri loves him and gets upset at her Lack of Empathy for her son. She repeatedly 'justifies' her abuse by proclaiming that he's naturally stronger than his sister — and that he frankly doesn't deserve his good health or any of his accomplishments.
- In My Deepest, Darkest Secret, this is heavily implied to be the reason why the vampires tend to neglect Solon, as they assume he's able to protect himself, unlike Sooha. Best shown in My God, What Have We Done? where in a scene before leaving for a group date with Sooha, since Solon doesn't go wih them here, Jino frets over leaving him alone, especially since he disappeared for a jog (actually, his first werewolf transformation) and didn't come back until the middle of the night. Jaan says this:
Jaan: Why? Solon's not a baby anymore. He won't be eighteen until December and he's far more independent than the rest of us combined. He can take care of himself.
- Hellsister Trilogy: During "The Apokolips Agenda", The Spectre is summoned to destroy Trigon... which he does, but he leaves straight after, even though the War against Darkseid isn't over yet. His friends ask him to stay, but he replies he's already breaking too many rules as it is, but he knows they'll rise victorious.
- Survivors: Kara and Kal are sent to Earth in the same rocket. Upon landing, Kara discovers her uncle didn't load any food supplies for her. When she has the chance to talk to Jor-El's A.I. and demand an explanation, she is told her parents assured her uncle that she was resourceful enough to keep her cousin and herself alive while looking for food. Jor-El's A.I. points out they were obviously right, but Kara isn't impressed.
- Chapter 16 of Secret Sunshine has Ryuuko alluding to this. Feeling hostile towards her sister, she tells Mako that, because a pregnant Satsuki is rich and has more of a support system, she'll manage, while the former has to worry about Kiko.
Ryuuko: Not as much as my sunshine needs me. Satsuki, I'll tell you, can manage.
- A romantic version appears in In the Service. Several references are made to something having happened between Nanoha and Yuuno that makes Yuuno awkward around Nanoha, while Nanoha remains oblivious. It is later revealed by Nanoha herself, that she had long ignored Yuuno's attraction to her because Nanoha had chosen to take care of the emotionally-fragile Fate instead. Ultimately, Nanoha's wilful obliviousness had hurt Yuuno, but not as much as it could have hurt Fate.
Nanoha: I made a choice, a long time ago, to save a life. Yuuno was a mature, capable person who could clearly deal with anything life might throw at him. Fate was a timid wreck who shivered when touched and bore incredible guilt over the death of her actual mother Precia and her emotional mother Linith. Someone who could easily be destroyed by a careless crush or an errant friend. I took responsibility. I saved a life. But that did a disservice to Yuuno. I love Fate dearly and do not regret my choice, but I am still aware that it was a choice and that I could have been happy with either of them. Yuuno suffered for this choice, not as badly as Fate might have, but he did. I am not inclined to allow him to suffer further in this manner.
- In Mass Effect's Crucible's companion fic, Inteference, this trope is the general attitude of Alt.Garrus to his and Shepard's son Gaius's distress over his father's constant absence and breaking promises. It's not out of malice, but because of Garrus's bad habit of simply assuming what people thought without much investigation and his misguided wish to preserve Gaius's innocence. It comes back to bite his ass when he realizes Gaius no longer trusts him and even thinks of himself as unloved.
- BURN THE WITCH: When Marinette points out to Adrien how he tends to defend Chloé and Lila's hurtful actions while refusing to intervene when she's being hurt, he claims that it's because "they're struggling. It's... harder for them than it is for you." However, he immediately has a Jerkass Realization upon saying it out loud: Rose's akumatization into Witch Hunter has forced him to recognize just how many people were hurt because he pressured Marinette to stop trying to expose Lila's true nature. Just because Marinette could deal with their cruelties, that didn't make it necessary, or actually help anyone aside from the bullies. Adrien then spends the rest of the story as The Atoner, trying to make up for his earlier Betrayal by Inaction.
- The 'Adrien version' of NeutralMime's Chameleon: alternate ending
has Marinette tell Adrien about how Lila threatened her in the bathroom, and how she nearly got akumatized as a result. Adrien chooses to focus on how she managed to avoid it, declaring "That's amazing, as expected of you!" and making clear that he's treating this as proof that she can handle the problem Lila poses without publicly exposing her as a liar. Tellingly, he changes his mind after learning how Lila was also responsible for stealing his father's book and nearly getting him yanked out of school; once he's personally affected, all bets are off.
- Fashion Upgrade: Caline Bustier constantly forced Marinette to take on far more than her fair share of responsibilities at school, taking advantage of her giving nature and pressuring her to "lead by example" by forgiving her bullies for their constant cruelties. When Marinette finally calls her out on this, Bustier tries to justify herself by claiming she knew Marinette could handle everything, but her former student isn't having it:
Bustier: But... you're just so talented! You make organization look easy. I was just trying to give you a leadership role—
Marinette: No you weren't! You were making me take care of everything and everyone. You forced me to be a good example and let bullies and my friends roll right over me. It's a teacher's job to be a good example, not a teenager's. Do you have any idea how alone I've felt? How stressed out? I've been targeted by akuma multiple times. That's why I hide during akuma attacks. Hawkmoth has akumatized most of my old class and half my family. I'm terrified! I have stress nightmares. I may have PTSD and you were more concerned about how you looked to others than helping me.
Bustier: You were always so self-sufficient! I never knew you needed help!
Marinette: Everyone needs help sometimes! Even grown-ups! You didn't ask me how I felt or if I needed help, you didn't even notice! You and the rest of the class made decisions that affected me without even asking for my input. Why would I want to come back to that? - From the Ashes:
- One of the reasons why Ladybug refused Chat Noir's request for a mutual reveal of their secret identities after they defeated Hawkmoth was that she believed he would be able to handle it, unaware that he was Adrien and had just committed Patricide.
- Master Fu, by contrast, was aware of what Adrien/Chat Noir was going through, but refused to take his emotional needs into account.
- The Karma of Lies: Adrien uses this to excuse his refusal to do anything about Lila. When Marinette confesses how the Con Artist manipulating everyone else in their class to socially isolate her is wearing her down, Adrien simply smiles and 'reassures' her that he knows she's strong enough to handle it... completely ignoring how she's telling him outright that she's at her breaking point. Marinette then realizes that she was Loving a Shadow the whole time: while she'd thought he was a Nice Guy, Adrien simply doesn't care about her or anyone aside from himself, seeing no reason to expose Lila because HE hasn't been suffering from her lies.
- In the original version of Leave for Mendeleiev, this is how Adrien justifies his refusal to help Marinette when he sees her being cornered by her long-time bully Chloé. As he explains to Aurore, Marinette can handle whatever Chloé dishes out... but the Spoiled Brat is so used to getting her way all the time that if she isn't allowed to do whatever she wants, she'll flip out — and her tantrum will attract an akuma. Aurore is unimpressed by his reasoning, as well as his subsequent attempt to scold her for intervening — and how he doesn't exactly acknowledge Marinette pointing out that she wasn't actually coping with Chloé's Breaking Speech since that would require him to admit he might have misjudged the situation.
- Truth and Consequences:
- After waking up from his coma, Master Fu admits that the reason he focused on training Marinette over Adrien is due to this. Being the Guardian is a lonely and secretive existence, and Adrien was already a Lonely Rich Kid, while Marinette had both of her parents and plenty of friends. Thus, he presumed she'd be able to handle the burden better, unaware of just how much she was already suffering from the responsibility of being Ladybug.
- At the end of the story, Marinette admits that she'd believed Chat Noir could survive whatever got thrown at him, while Adrien wouldn't be able to handle the Awful Truth of his father being Hawkmoth or anything else.
- The Wolves in the Woods has Adrien blithely dismiss the impact being socially isolated and bullied by her former friends has had on Marinette: she hasn't been akumatized yet, so that proves she's strong enough to handle it, right? When he learns that she's transferring to another school, he's deeply disappointed in her, as he fails to grasp how that's a sign she wasn't handling the abuse so well.
- One flashback has him witnessing Kim and Alix cornering Marinette in the park and giving her a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. His only response is to walk away, making no attempt whatsover to intervene in the Barbaric Bullying. Yet despite this incident and many others, Adrien continues to blame Marinette when the consequences of their actions catches up to their class, believing that she should have continued to endure all the suffering rather than trying to escape it.
- Discussed in this Accusation Fic, when Marinette vents to Felix about how Adrien keeps choosing Lila's side over hers:
Marinette: He said he was supporting me, but all he cared about was defending her. He called me the bully when I'm the one she's been hurting.
Felix: You tried to tell him.
Marinette: I did! I pointed out how it was unfair! But no! He's only worried about Lila being akumatized if she feels bad. Doesn't he even care about how all this is making me feel?
Felix: If it's any consolation, I believe it may be due to his trust in your strength of will and capability to not be akumatized.
Marinette: (chuckling bitterly) Just because I CAN fend off an akuma doesn't mean I should have to.
Felix: No. You shouldn't.- Its follow-ups make clear that Felix's theory is incorrect, as Adrien proceeds to take a page right out of Lila's book by Playing the Victim Card and trying to convince their classmates that her standing up for herself makes her a bully. Showing that he's fully aware of how she's being hurt and is merely pretending otherwise.
Felix: You'll be fine. They may be angry right now, but they'll chalk it up to your sad upbringing and daddy issues and forgive you by the end of the week. Which is more than they would have done for Marinette had your little ploy worked as you wished. Which is rather cruel of you. I half wonder if you weren't trying to punish her.
Adrien: (looking away with a wince, unable to meet Felix's eyes as he claims) I... I didn't want to get her in trouble.
Felix: Do you really expect me to believe that? If you hadn't wanted to harm her, you wouldn't have given your heavily edited version of events that conveniently left out your own actions. All so you could look like the innocent party. Please, tell me, Agreste. How was that not wanting to get her in trouble?
- Its follow-ups
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- In the Pony POV Series, this is the reason why Princess Celestia went to aid Cadence rather than staying with Twilight during the wedding incident: she believed her niece needed her support more than her student in that moment, unaware that she was actually dealing with a disguised Chrysalis.
- Holi-daze: The fact that Shaw, a sociopath, would be better able to cope with Root's death than Root would be able to cope with Shaw's is one of the arguments Root uses to justify throwing herself in the path of a car to save Shaw. Shaw isn't having it.
Root: Don't you see? You wouldn't be crippled by the loss, the grief. You are so strong, Sam. Unlike me, you could go on.
Shaw: Just because I can doesn't mean I'd want to.
- Futari Wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon: This is a key part of Kainatrol's Backstory. She and her sister Kore were stuck working for an abusive Ringmaster; Kainatrol yearned for freedom, while Kore had long given up any hope of escape. Then Kainatrol overheard Kairos planning to escape with Kore... and only Kore, leaving her to face the wrath of the Ringmaster alone because he believed she was strong enough to handle it. Saying she didn't take well is a bit of an understatement; Kainatrol proceeded to go on a roaring rampage of revenge that culminated in her joining the Etherium in destroying her own home planet, personally finishing off her sister.
- Gensokyo 20XX has the Ongoing Neglect version happen to Chen, due to a mixture of Ran's mental state at the time and how everyone she's being neglected in favor of (Reimu, Maribel, Yumi Ni and Renko) are too young to take care of themselves.
- In Of Snowballs, Cell Phones and Homicide, Kuwabara notices that Yusuke would never go to the same kinds of insane lengths to defend him emotionally that he had done for Kurama thus far. Unbeknownst to him, this is because Yusuke sees him as the only member of his group that has his shit together when it comes to his emotional well-being, so he doesn't see him as needing help in that area. (Yusuke also notes that this situation would be reversed if Kuwabara or Kurama needed physical backup instead.)
Film — Animation
- In The Rugrats Movie:
- Tommy's parents don't pay attention to him because they're taking care of his new baby brother, Dil. Left alone at night, Tommy mournfully sings to himself the lullaby his parents are singing to Dil.
Baby, please, rest your head. Now it is time for bed. Please stop. Don't you see? I want mom and dad for me...
- Stu at least notices Tommy's neglect and takes him aside to try to explain to him that Tommy's now the older brother and Dil needs to be looked after and he might see Dil as a bother after they get older it will all be worth it. Tommy doesn't really understand since he's also still a baby but Stu at least was well aware of what was happening since he also grew up with a brother and understood how Tommy felt.
- Tommy's parents don't pay attention to him because they're taking care of his new baby brother, Dil. Left alone at night, Tommy mournfully sings to himself the lullaby his parents are singing to Dil.
Film — Live-Action
- Batman does this to himself in the ending of The Dark Knight, after Harvey Dent goes nuts and becomes Two-Face, kills five cops and mobsters, and dies. If the truth about Harvey Dent ever comes to light, any legitimacy his indictments have also dies, and there's no chance that the charges against the criminals of Gotham City will stick. Batman takes the metaphorical bullet, and then orders Commissioner Gordon to lay the blame for the killings at his feet.
Batman: You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. I can do those things, because I'm not a hero, not like Dent. I killed those people, that's what I can be.
Gordon: No, you can't! You're not!
Batman: I'm whatever Gotham needs me to be. Call it in. - In David's Mother, Sally explains to her older daughter Susan that she neglects her in favor of her autistic brother David because she can care for herself and David can't. Susan is not satisfied with this explanation.
- Like Normal People: This is the answer Bobby gets as a teenager when he asks why his mentally disabled brother Roger is allowed to play annoyingly repetitive records while Bobby is trying to study, and later as an adult when he asks why his parents are so much more concerned with Roger's career than with his own.
- In Marathon (2005), Jung-won demands to know why his mother hardly pays attention to anything besides his autistic brother Cho-won. His mother snaps, "You and Cho-won are different!"
Literature
- Katie, the mother in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, pays for her son Neely's education and not her academic daughter Francie's. She justifies this by saying that Francie will fight to achieve her dreams, whereas Neely won't. Francie doesn't buy it, and it cements Neely's position as his mother's favourite (which she made no secret of earlier in the book). Francie sums it up:
"You fix everything for him and tell me I can find a way myself."
- Would be a Moment of Awesome if Francie wasn't immediately made to feel guilty about asserting herself and promptly apologise to her mother.
- In Dragon Bones, Ward is the Promoted to Parent big brother of his siblings. When he takes his brother Tosten on a journey, Tosten quickly becomes jealous of Oreg, a travel companion, and allegedly distant cousin, about whom Ward acts even more protective than about Tosten. However, when he finds out that Oreg is magically enslaved to Ward, and The Woobie, he pities Oreg, and calls Ward out for not having watched out for him more. It helps that Ward doesn't really neglect anyone — he's always there when needed, and never invokes this trope to excuse his actions.
- In Flip Flop Girl, after Mason's father dies, he becomes completely mute. As a result, his mother and grandmother spend all of their time spoiling him and trying to get him to talk again, while completely neglecting Vinnie, his older sister. Vinnie is bitter because she thinks he's faking it for attention, but it's not made clear either way.
- Subverted in the poem "Footprints". A dead man is walking with God, looking at the footprints of his life. There's always two sets, his and God's, except when times get hard; then there's one. Man accuses God of abandoning him at those points but God says he was carrying the man.
- The mentorship version shows up in the Gaunt's Ghosts novel Straight Silver. Two members of the newly-inducted Verghast portion of the regiment are vying for induction into the prestigious (and so far all-Tanith) Scout company: Muril and Jajjo. Scout-master Mkoll picks both of them to accompany him and his squad on an expedition into the backwoods, but chooses Jajjo to spend the whole time on point with him, practicing his scouting talents. When Muril calls him on it, he responds that Jajjo needed the extra coaching, but he'd seen her talents right from the start and offers her a scout position on the spot. Tragically, they are separated during a Chaos attack, and Lijah Cuu, who's grown paranoid about people knowing that he killed Bragg, kills her during the confusion, before the promotion can go through.
- Mrs. Everdeen in The Hunger Games abandoned her daughters in her grief following the death of her husband. She's physically present, but Katniss has been Promoted to Parent and was solely responsible for keeping the family alive from the age of 11. After Prim's death and Katniss's imprisonment, Mrs. Everdeen leaves District 12 forever with no effort made to stay with her surviving child.
- Jodi Picoult uses this trope for the Knight Templar mothers in her stories. It's not clear if Picoult herself is agreeing with this, as she shows how destructive this kind of parenting is, since it not only ruins the mother and ill child's life but destroys their family and everyone who gets too close.
- Amelia of Handle with Care gets lectured about all the things she can do that her fragile little sister, Willow, can't do whenever the girl complains about the restrictions placed on her and the neglect she suffers.
- Anna of My Sister's Keeper gets No Sympathy for all the painful operations she gets put through because her mum is too busy making sure that her cancer-stricken big sister Kate is all right.
- Theo of House Rules is expected to put up with his brother Jacob's abuse and is held to higher standards than his sibling because Theo is capable of normal social interaction and autistic Jacob is not.
- Kate Cann's Leaving Poppy uses the "sibling who fakes illness" plot — the titular Poppy controls her mother and sister's lives through tantrums and passive-aggression. Her mother claims that Poppy is "fragile" and guilt trips her other daughter, Amber, into bowing to her younger sister's demands. For example, when Amber is due to go on holiday, Poppy throws a fit, and their mother pleads with Amber to cancel, claiming that she'll have plenty of other opportunities to go on holiday while Poppy will not — and that while cancelling her holiday will be tough on Amber, Poppy (and their mother) will be even worse off if she doesn't, so Amber should be the one to make the sacrifice.
- In My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, this is why Geordo is already broken as a child: her mother spent most of the time tending his younger twin Alan, who was having a Soap Opera Disease at the time, to the point of total and utter neglect.
- In the Rizzoli & Isles book series, the titular character's mother has spent years blatantly favoring her son Frankie while ignoring her daughter Jane. Her Character Development turns this into her mother always knowing that Jane was the strong and capable one who didn't need her mother's constant attention while Frank was the weakling who needed coddling. A later book takes this even further — when her husband leaves her for another woman and her son takes his side, she finally realizes the error she made with her bias.
- In Shadows of Self, the shapeshifter Melaan uses this trope to justify some of her god Harmony's shadier actions. Specifically, sending the protagonist Wax to kill the rogue shapeshifter Bleeder without informing him that Bleeder was actually Lessie, the wife he thought was dead. Or that Bleeder had originally assumed the Lessie identity on Harmony's orders. She points out that as Harmony isn't fully omniscient or omnipotent, sometimes shuffling trauma onto strong individuals is the kindest thing he can manage.
- In The Ship Who... Partnership, Nancia is immensely disheartened when Daddy Didn't Show to her graduation, or meet her before she started on her first assignment. He only sent her a rushed recording where he revealed he hadn't even read what honors she received, and is interrupted to continue his business partway through the message. He's also pretty near to absent for the next five years. At the end of the book he makes time to meet with her and she finds out that he's felt like he's neglected his other kids for her, and has spent all that time following her Black Sheep brother around trying to get him to quit music for a "real" job.
- A variant in This Is Not a Werewolf Story: Mary Anne is angry when Raul seemingly tells an embarrassing secret about Vincent to the school. She admits that she judges Vincent more favorably for his constant lying because he has serious self-confidence issues, while she considers Raul to be a far stronger person who shouldn't need to cut him down. In this case Raul is innocent, however, and Mary Anne's opinion of Vincent seemingly changes during the months that Vincent gets Raul Shapeshifter Mode Locked.
- In The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign, this trope is one of the reasons that Kyousuke and Mary aren't together anymore. Logically, he knew that she was just reacting to the shitty stuff his family did to her...but emotionally, he needed some sort of scapegoat for all his negative feelings about Operation March Hare, and he will always side with humans over her because they're weak and his species and he believes that being good means supporting the "underdog" in any situation regardless of their actual choices.
- Millie from Warrior Cats did this to two of her children, Blossomfall and Bumblestripe, when the third, Briarlight, broke her back. This was one of the deciding factors in bringing Blossomfall to the Dark Forest.
Live-Action TV
- Multiple times to Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but most notably and gratuitously when Giles departs for England in season 6. Giles outright says that she needs to learn to cope on her own, rather than leaning on him. This leaves her (1) parenting her 15-year-old sister alone, as their mother died recently and their father hasn't bothered to get in touch, (2) trying to find a job that will support both of them as a 20-year-old college dropout, (3) severely depressed (bordering on suicidal) after having been ripped out of heaven (by her two best friends and their partners — and Willow's version of helping her deal with it takes the form of gratuitous memory wipes, which itself constitutes a major betrayal), and (4) dealing with the constant battle which is life on the Hellmouth. Any one or two of these, she'd cope with, but all of them together? Just barely, and it was a lot worse for her than it needed to be.
- Probably still justified; Giles' point was that Buffy was just sitting back and letting him take care of everything. She was totally withdrawn, which had to stop or she'd sink deeper into her depression. YMMV on whether he could have stayed and forced her to step up while still offering at least a little help.
- One episode of Everwood has Andy treating a boy for various injuries. It turns out these are being caused by his severely autistic younger brother, which the older brother has been trying to keep secret from their mother. Andy gives their mother information on a special boarding school for disabled children and is surprised when she instead sends her other son away so that he can be safe while she continues to care for her autistic son. Given that the older son seemed even more self-sacrificing than she was, the traditional angst of this trope would hopefully be avoided.
- "Cousin Geri," an episode of The Facts of Life, deconstructs this trope. The titular character is Blair's cousin, who has cerebral palsy. Throughout the episode, Geri hits it off with all of Blair's friends with her self-deprecating humor and general fun demeanor, but Blair herself seems oddly put off by her, until she finally confesses to Mrs. Garrett that Geri gives her an inferiority complex. Blair feels like Geri’s successes in overcoming her disability makes her own accomplishments pale in comparison, and that makes her feel small and even a little jealous. Mrs. Garrett assures her that Geri’s success does not lessen Blair’s and that it’s human to feel that way. Blair gets over her jealousy and the episode ends with her joining Geri for a talent show comedy act and expressing admiration for her strength, which moves Geri to tears.
- One episode of Family Matters has Laura go out on a pity date with village idiot Waldo Faldo, in favor of going on one with Urkel. When Steve confronts her about this, she basically outlines this trope: Steve's been rejected by her so much that he's used to it, but Waldo wouldn't be able to take it. Steve doesn't take this news very well, however.
- Appears in Firefly when Zoe can either rescue her husband or her captain and good friend. She chooses her husband without an instant's hesitation, probably because he couldn't survive the torture. Mal didn't seem to mind.
- Which makes it not really a betrayal. Mal could cope better than Wash, and they all knew it. Zoe unapologetically (and understandably) cared more about Wash than Mal, and everybody but Wash knew it. Then there's the fact that they did come back and get Mal as soon as they could get a rescue party together. She probably acted exactly as they all expected, and Mal didn't seem to have the least problem with her decisions.
- Also, Wash is their Ace Pilot, the only one with the skills to get them back inside the space station to rescue Mal (which he does by pulling off an insanely awesome maneuver that gets them past the defenses). Picking him was the only way both of the men in Zoe's life could be saved.
- One episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air sees Will joining the high school basketball team, which Carlton has been on for years. Will's natural talent soon makes him a star player, and the whole family begins to go to the games, even though they failed to do so before. Carlton naturally gets upset and calls Phil out for this, but Phil patiently explains that while Carlton has many achievements and earns his pride every day, Will is struggling to fit in and also gave up all of his friends and family to move to Bel-Air. As Phil puts it, "His mother is 3,000 miles away. He needs a cheering section as much as you do—maybe more."
- In the The Golden Girls episode "The Custody Battle", Dorothy's younger sister Gloria visits from California. Dorothy has always felt like her mother, Sophia, favored Gloria over her, lavishing her with affection, praise, and attention. When Gloria attempts to get Sophia to move back to California with her, Dorothy finally hits her breaking point and lashes out at Gloria, accusing her of taking Sophia away from her. Gloria tells Dorothy that she's always believed Dorothy was the favored child, because Dorothy was smart, self-sufficient, and full of promise. In Gloria's own words, "Ma looked at you and saw a wonderful future. She looked at me and hoped I'd marry rich."
Gloria: Dorothy, even with all my money, you have so much more than I do. You have Ma and your friends and your work and...your life just seems so much more important than mine. And I wanted to take a little bit back with me.
- A self-enforced Ongoing Neglect in one episode of House with a girl whose brother was in a wheelchair. She didn't want to give her parents anything more to worry about so for months she hid the fact that she had been feeling ill until her body hit its breaking point.
- In Malcolm in the Middle, Malcolm spends an episode teaching Reese the value of hard work and studying and helps him write a passing paper for a class. When the paper gets an "F", the boys, who do not see how they can get Reese to perform any better, cheat and have Malcolm take one of Reese's tests for him. This one gets an "F" as well, and this is when they realize that Reese's teacher really IS deliberately failing him out of spite. When Lois threatens to use this information to force the teacher to pass Reese, he points out this will get Malcolm in trouble. Lois justifies her plan using this very trope, to Malcolm's own shock:
"You don't think I'd sacrifice this one? Let me explain something to you. I would sell Malcolm down the river in a heartbeat to save Reese. Malcolm's gonna be fine no matter what happens. Maybe he'll have to go to junior college or start off blue-collar, but he'll work his way up to management eventually. Reese is the one who needs saving."
- Just to emphasize the point, as the teacher protests that she'd never do it, Francis conveniently shows up outside begging to be let back home after suffering off on his own throughout the episode. She gives the teacher a smug "is-that-good-enough-proof-for-you?" look that has him promptly caving.
- In the series finale, it's revealed that this is Lois' overall motivation for her treatment of Malcolm, on the grounds that this will make him a great president someday.
- This is the reasoning behind Kyra's severe Middle Child Syndrome on Reba. She's trapped in between teenage newlyweds Van and Cheyenne and younger brother Jake and Van and Cheyenne's infant daughter Elizabeth. Once, she had been saving for a field trip to England but was unable to go because the money saved had to go to Cheyenne (she had dropped so many classes in college that if she didn't enroll in summer school, she'd lose Elizabeth's spot in the school's daycare center). At this point, she decides she's had enough of it and asks to live with her father. When all of this is brought up to Reba, she mentioned she has no choice; Jake and Elizabeth are so young they can't take care of themselves, and Van and Cheyenne are such screw-ups, they can't take care of themselves either. Reba flat-out says she does it because "she's the only other adult in the house" (she was about 14 at the time).
- In the last episode of Stargate SG-1, "Unending", after being trapped in a time freeze for 60 years, Teal'c stays to press the Reset Button, thus being the only one not to get those years back. He does this because he has a much longer lifespan than the rest, so the loss of six decades is less drastic for him. He is also the only one to retain the memories of what happened, which is shown to be much more difficult than getting older. It was also brought up that he's the only one still in good enough physical shape to actually perform the necessary tasks quickly enough once he's back in the past.
Video Games
- Meta example: The role of a "Tank" in most RPG games. He's built to take damage, so the player just lets the enemies beat him up while focusing on protecting the Squishy Wizard and Glass Cannon characters. An important priority is to make sure he can cope by buffing/healing him to take more pain, and disrupting enemy tactics that would be too powerful for anyone to cope with.
- In Dragon Age: Origins, the Heroic Sacrifice variation appears in Leliana's Song. Tug pulls a "Because I can cope", getting himself tortured rather than Sketch. Tragically, he overestimates his own toughness.
- The Sentinel role in Final Fantasy XIII is this trope invoked intentionally. The designated tank provokes the enemies to attack him so that the other characters can attack or heal; as a bonus, the Sentinel gets abilities that allow him to guard, guard and heal, guard and counterattack... the ideal Sentinel not only can cope but becomes much better at coping when in the role. The Sentinel also grants a bonus to everyone else's defense while active.
- Marche in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is a great example of Ongoing Neglect: His younger brother, Doned, has an unnamed illness that requires he go to the hospital occasionally, and he is confined to a wheelchair. This becomes a plot point later in the game, as Doned is revealed to have gained the ability to walk in Ivalice, and is a streetear who gives out information about Marche's location, so bounty hunters can attempt to collect the reward on Marche's head. Marche and Doned eventually have a heart-to-heart, where Marche convinces his brother that he was not left behind, and Doned accepts that Marche is given the shaft when it comes to parental care.
- In Mass Effect 2, if you don't have enough Paragon/Renegade points to use Charm or Intimidate to resolve Miranda and Jack's argument, you will have to choose to support one of them and later pass another Charm or Intimidate check if you want to regain the loyalty of the other. If you chose to support Jack, both your options to regain Miranda's loyalty consist of telling her that she's more reasonable than Jack. A similar principle comes into play with the Renegade option to restore Legion's loyalty. The same applies in Dummied Out dialogue for a Grunt vs. Mordin argument, except for the Renegade means of regaining Mordin's loyalty.
Western Animation
- On American Dad!, Francine is hurt when she discovers that her parents are leaving all their money to her sister. At first, she assumes that it's because she was adopted when really it's because her sister is a ditzy (and unmarried) Asian Airhead whom they believe needs the money a lot more than Francine does.
- On The Cleveland Show, Robert neglects his own son, Rollo, to spend time with Junior and help him become cool. At the end of the episode, he justifies this by noting that, being his son, Rollo is born cool, while Junior needs a lot of help.
- In Daria, Quinn gets a cash reward from her father for getting an A on an essay. Daria, the much smarter of the two, immediately calls him out on it for it being a Double Standard, even implying that it would demotivate her since her consistent high grades garner no such rewards. In this case, though, it's to milk him for money (which works).
- If one reads between the lines, this may be why Helen's mother showers Rita with money and gifts — she's never held down a job for long and has an unstable love life, while Helen and their other sister, Amy, are both financially successful. It's clear that Helen, at least, gets lots of praise from Mom, so it's not a clear-cut case of Parental Favoritism. (Rita even seems to think that she's the favorite.)
- This is the extremely controversial ending of the infamous "Seahorse Seashell Party" episode of Family Guy. The whole Griffin family is trapped indoors during a hurricane, and begin to, as always, gang up on eldest daughter Meg, who has been The Unfavorite and Butt-Monkey for years. Their treatment of her has long passed from gentle joking to full-on physical, psychological, and emotional abuse. Meg, who can't take it any more, finally proceeds to tear them all down in a series of blistering speeches, explaining exactly why and how Chris, Lois, and Peter have mistreated her. They are stunned by her words and begin turning on each other. In the end, though, Meg realizes that the family is so dysfunctional that they need a "lightning rod" to absorb all of their neuroses and problems, or the individual members will ultimately destroy themselves. She resigns herself to being that lightning rod, which Brian praises as a sign of maturity and responsibility. The audience, who saw this as an incredibly Broken Aesop about justifying and even embracing abuse because "you can take it," reacted with utter outrage, and cite that "lesson" as the reason that "Seahorse Seashell Party" is considered the absolute worst episode of the series.
- Deconstructed in The Owl House with Lilith and Eda's mom, Gwendolyn. Because Eda was afflicted with a dehabilitating curse at a young age and Lilith was very self-sufficient, Gwen poured all her time and resources into trying to cure her, while neglecting Lilith. It's not that she doesn't love her, it's just that she thought she didn't need her as much. But she very much did, especially since she was already bearing the guilt of having cursed Eda in the first place. Meanwhile, being the one who got all the attention wasn't a picnic for Eda, either, since her mother completely refused to listen to her wishes and kept coming to her with phony cures sold by scam artists, not wanting to accept that the curse likely can't be cured; only managed. Gwen's intentions were purely good, but she neglected one daughter and completely isolated the other for over thirty years because she was sure she knew best.
- The Simpsons featured this with Bart getting his first-ever A grade on any school test — after genuinely studying ("It was like a whole different kind of cheating.") — and the restaurant treating it like a birthday; for Lisa, of course, this is a standard occurrence.
- One live-action segment of an episode of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! dealt with this. Mario and Luigi meet a little boy who is running away from home, prompting Mario to reminisce about a time when he did the same thing as a child. He explains that he and Luigi were both fighting, but their mother only punished him because, as the older brother, he was supposed to know better.
- The Venture Bros.: Rusty routinely saddles Hank with the lion's share of the emotional trauma of being a boy adventurer because he reasons that Hank knows it's all fake. Meanwhile, he tries to protect Dean while maintaining his belief in "super-science" and the threat of costumed aggression. While the Hank part remains true, by the end the series, Dean rejects this lifestyle, wanting to become a journalist and get away from the hero/villain cycle.
