Friendship-Hating Antagonist

Dagda: Now do you see, kid? Friendship is a joke. Abandoned at the first sign of trouble. Making friends is a pointless exercise, an inevitable disappointment. It's sickening. Influence is a poison. We should strive to be true individuals, to think freely for ourselves.
Krishna: My, my, Dagda. You must be fond of your doll, speaking to and for him.
Dagda: Quiet.

— A dialogue exchange in Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse that takes place after the party lose during their first fight against Odin.

For every person who believes in The Power of Friendship, there is someone out there who despises it with equal fervency. Meet the Friendship-Hating Antagonist, a particular brand of antagonist who despises the bonds that people form with each other and prefers to work alone. These particular bad guys will often serve as the Foil to the main character and often tends to be an Evil Counterpart or Shadow Archetype whose worldview exists in stark contrast to the main character and will often challenge their beliefs that bonds with people make life worth living.

In the hierarchy of antagonists, they can be anywhere from a minor mook, to The Rival, an Arc Villain, an Interim Villain, or even the Big Bad, but they all share the same hatred for the Hero and their oh-so-precious Power of Friendship, feeling that the hero's Virtue Is Weakness and that Love Is a Weakness to be manipulated and crushed underfoot in favour of individualist power and strength. At their most sympathetic, the Friendship-Hating Antagonist simply wants to Never Be Hurt Again due to their past tragedies; however at their absolute worst they will be completely unable to understand why the main hero would ever want to put their faith in other people, let alone have relationships outside of using them as tools to get what they want.

In some cases, it's completely possible for the Friendship-Hating Antagonist to also be a Villain Protagonist or The Sociopath, in which they may serve as a Deconstruction of the usual Power of Friendship-loving hero by showcasing what would happen if the main protagonist had a huge swath of friends, yet lacked the kindness and compassion to form a genuine bond with any of them.

In order for a character to qualify as a Friendship-Hating Antagonist, they must do the following:

1. Make a big deal out of hating friendships and bonds specifically, regardless of how hypocritical it makes them look.
2. This trope refers to friendships and bonds specifically, if the character's main grudge is romantic and sexual relationships, or an inability to feel those things themselves, it's a case of No Love for the Wicked. If they're a misery guts who just hate fun in general, then they're a Fun-Hating Villain. However, in some cases, either trope can overlap with Friendship-Hating Antagonist.
3. They only work with others out of necessity, reluctance, or because it is in their interests to do so.
4. Their lifestyle of solitude is a choice, though it is possible for them to envy others for having social relationships.
5. Any ideal relationship of theirs allows absolute freedom and control, such as working alone or being the boss. Regardless, they have no problem with treating others like dirt.
6. The main character ends up fighting them at least once, or at least has the option of opposing them.

This can overlap with I Work Alone, or Aloof Ally in that these tropes involve characters who prefer to work alone or This Loser Is You if the character in question is a Villain Protagonist, compare Loners Are Freaks, I'm Not Here to Make Friends, Love Is a Weakness, The Power of Hate, Social Darwinist, and Virtue Is Weakness or contrast The Hermit, Villainous Friendship or Zen Survivor. It can also be considered a sister trope to No Love for the Wicked and Fun-Hating Villain.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• Bleach: As with many Shonen series, there are many villains who fall into this category.
  • Szayelaporro Granz sees everyone (including his brother and his own followers, and Aizen out of convenient loyalty) as just means to an and despises the concept of loyalty and camaraderie (thinking of himself as a perfect being certainly "helps").
  • Sosuke Aizen for the most part was a Manipulative Bastard who just used everyone (just ask Momo, the Espada, and even Gin and Tousen) to get his way. He grows out of it at the end of the manga.
  • Yhwach despises friendship and respects only fear and power, and thus berates Yamamoto and the Gotei 13 for mellowing in the years following the first Quincy war after finding honor and other things to protect. Given how he holds his grip in the Wandenreich, his entire mindset and life can be described in four words: It's All About Me.
  • His subordinate Sternritter "L" PePe Waccabrada is no better: he has the power to manipulate and cause love to others. Ironically, the guy only understands one love: love of himself and only himself, or simply put, he's a Narcissist. He's perfectly willing to use his powers on his allies and make them attack each other For the Evulz.
• Death Note: As a Deconstruction of a shonen protagonist, Light Yagami has a family who cares about him and manages to attract people willing to devote themselves to his cause of using the Death Note to end crime. Light sees everyone around him as mere tools to manipulate and gladly uses them as a means to avoid being caught out as Kira by the Task Force. For what it's worth, Light spends a good chunk of his time trying to make sure that nobody outs him as Kira due to all the murders he's committed using the Death Note, and to this end, he knows that any friendships would simply run the risk of him getting in trouble with authorities if they were to crack under police pressure.
• Dragon Ball has many throughout its run:
  • Dragon Ball has Commanders Red and Black. The first is a General Failure who is a Bad Boss to his subordinates, the second is more pragmatic, but both of them despise friendship. Red is so ruthless and incompetent (he wanted Dragon Balls to make himself taller) that Black, his The Dragon, kills him on the spot. Black himself despises friendship (in both the original and Dragon Ball: Mystical Adventure he decides to mock Goku's friendship with Android 8 after destroying him), which proves fatal for him (after this Bullying a Dragon moment, Goku gets one of his first power-ups and quickly kills Black, who only manages an Oh, Crap! look).
  • Dragon Ball Z has Bibidi and his clone Babidi. Both treat their subordinates like crap (despite their subordinates being more powerful than them) and just use them. Babidi's abuse of Buu is what costs him his life when Buu decided enough is enough and gets bored of Babidi.
  • Dragon Ball Super: During the Universe Survival Arc, it's eventually revealed that Jiren, the main rival character during the arc, hates the concept of bonds because he once got close with some fellow students when he was younger, only for them to be massacred in front of his eyes, leading him to believe that friendship wasn't strong enough to survive in the world, and that only power mattered. He grows out of it.
• Fairy Tail: Exaggerated; because the series is Anvilicious about The Power of Friendship, every Big Bad (and most of his minions) dismiss friendship as an obstacle to power.
• Fist of the North Star:
  • Shin Took a Level in Jerkass after many misadventures (and Jagi's words), dismisses his friendship with Kenshiro and takes the motto "Power is the justice".
  • Jagi is a Manipulative Bastard with a Small Name, Big Ego attitude (and a massive case of It's All About Me). Nobody can say bad things about him, he is The Corrupter (just ask Kenshiro how he ruined his life) and friendship in his mind is just an opportunity to use.
• In One Piece, no matter how strong or weak a villain is, friendship and bonds are repulsive concepts to several of them:
  • Captain Kuro freely lets one of his crew members die to escape and willingly kills others, sometimes just For the Evulz (he even said he'd kill his crew to erase witnesses of his plan). Friendship is a poison in his mind.
  • Don Krieg is a big bully who respects only himself and doesn't care about everyone else, including his crew (Gin learned this the hard way and is still loyal to him).
  • Double subverted with Donquixote Doflamingo. He looks like he's a Father to His Men (even directly calling themselves the "Donquixote Family") and has a Villainous Friendship with his elite officers (who were a big part of his journey to villainy) and actually respects them, only to decide to sacrifice them to the Birdcage without remorse, calling them just means to an end, and that he can simply make another family.
  • Vinsmoke Judge and his sons except Sanji consider Virtue Is Weakness and despise friendship (his sons were even conditioned to think this way as part of militaristic formation). Fittingly, Judge has one of the biggest cases of It's All About Me and Dirty Coward (ironically, he even begs his sons to save him, but they just laugh because he didn't bother to teach him the meaning of compassion). Luffy and co. open his eyes a little on the subject.
  • Kaido always believes in Might Makes Right and thus he holds his empire together by ruling through fear and intimidation, only getting new crewmen because he only respects strength. He even he told his son Yamato that friendship is a sham and only for show, trying to force Yamato to rule with fear and that ''ogres are not meant to be friends with humans''.
• Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl: During the Sinnoh arc, Ash's rival Paul is a trainer whose team is built of the strongest Pokemon he could find. Unlike Ash who believes in the Power of Friendship, Paul only sees worth in Pokemon that give him results, going as far as to put them through Training from Hell in order to bring out their results and releasing any Pokemon that doesn't fit his high standards. One particular case has him training a Chimchar in order to make use of its Blaze ability and then discarding them once he sees no use in Chimchar. Ash later adds this Chimchar to his team and after helping Chimchar through his trauma and getting his Blaze ability under control, they end up managing to defeat Paul with the very Chimchar he showed disregard towards. Despite Paul's demeanour, he does soften up somewhat near the next, and during his return in Journeys, he makes it a point to help train Ash by using a team of Gyarados, Garchomp, and Metagross in order to help him overcome the signature Pokemon of Lance, Cynthia, and Steven respectively, even if Paul doesn't want to admit it.

Fan Works

• Double the Trouble: The Kremling Kommander, Krumple views the Kongs as weak because they care about their friends and family. In contrast, he views the Kremlings' lack of kindness and compassion as a form of strength.
• Fall of Starfleet, Rebirth of Friendship: Grand Ruler Celesto absolutely hates friendship and redemption, seeing them as ridiculous and foolhardy concepts. Despite this, he's a racist, childish dictator who is also The Millstone and sees his son Lightning Dawn as a weapon to be used in his war against Dark Conquest. The only reason he's even able to stay in power at all is that he has his hands on two powerful artifacts that allow him to warp reality to his liking and use his people's belief in him to empower himself respectively.
• Friendship is Failure: One of the antagonists, Stone Heart, is a thin-skinned writer who verbally attacks anyone who dislikes his writing, and has a creepy obsession with Sandy Beam, writing her as a love interest in his stories despite her being creeped out by this. When he gets his hands on a magical typewriter, he uses it to take petty revenge by attacking people in their dreams and even targets Twilight Sparkle and Spike. One of his main reasons for hating Twilight is that her acceptance of friendship leads to a life far more fulfilling than his.
  Stone Heart: Friendship has done nothing but cause me pain and suffering for as long as I can remember. No matter how hard I tried, it never worked, but I see ponies like you making it look so easy? It breaks me to the core! Now! You're going to pay for it!

Films — Live-Action

• Odd Squad: The Movie: Weird Tom and his Weird Team is the antithesis of Odd Squad. Whereas Odd Squad practices friendship and teamwork, Weird Team believes in the I Work Alone mentality and doesn't believe in friendship or in teamwork. Weird Tom even openly admits this when he gets interviewed by the media, stating that he tells his employees not to talk to nor help other folks, and if they have a problem, they should fix it themselves instead of relying on friends to help.

Literature

• Harry Potter: Voldemort is stated to be as such by Dumbledore, saying while a few of his followers believe themselves to be his closest friends, Voldemort sees them as nothing but expendable Cannon Fodder, due to his belief that things such as friendship, love, and compassion are weaknesses to be exploited. Unfortunately for him, while he may be the strongest Dark Magic user in the world, Harry has friends who are willing to put their lives on the line for him, while Voldemort's minions only side with him for their own self-centred reasons.

Live-Action TV

• Gotham: Oswald "The Penguin" Cobblepot tells Martin to "shun friendship" because "the best friend I ever had became my greatest enemy."
• Odd Squad: Many villains in the franchise despise friendship and teamwork, both of which are Odd Squad's modus operandis. Odd Todd is a stellar example — whereas Otto is a kind and caring partner and friend to Olive who serves as her Living Emotional Crutch, Odd Todd is the polar opposite, being cruel, being abusive, and flexing his superiority over Olive any chance he gets.
• In Ultraman Taiga, the villainous Ultraman Tregear has become disillusioned with all of the heroic virtues that the Ultramen preach, but he particularly despises bonds of friendship and brotherhood — his own experiences with friendship had been painful as he never really had any, and he came to resent the Only Friend he did have, Ultraman Taro, when they drifted apart as their lives took different paths. Of course, he's the villain in a series that features a Power Trio (led by Taro's son Taiga) instead of a lone Ultraman, and tries to pick apart Taiga's bonds with his friends and his father as much as possible (and, also of course, fails spectacularly).
• Ultraman Trigger: New Generation Tiga: Hudram, despite being part of the Dark Giants, actually sees friendship as a weakness, constantly belittling his boss Carmeara's loyalty towards Ultraman Trigger, having intentions to betray and backstab all his allies and usurping leadership and later mocking the heroes' bonds as friends while trying to kill everyone. It bites him rather impressively in the ass at the series' end.

Toys

• BIONICLE: The Shadowed One is the leader of the Dark Hunters, a group of Psycho for Hire rogues and murderers. He believes that things such as friendship and honor as shackles that hold one back and their only use being tools to manipulate others to his side, even pairing up different Dark Hunters for his own personal amusement rather than out of any desire to create strong bonds among his members.
• Transformers: Generation 1:
  • The original toy bio (and expanded bio) of Megatron painted him as being one of these, to the point his other famous quote besides "Peace through tyranny" is "Everything is fodder." In The Transformers, despite Soundwave being his most consistently useful subordinate even he isn't spared from a harsh rebuke in "The Key To Vector Sigma" where Megatron calls him a fool for tripping and dropping the titular Key. Later series (e.g. Transformers: Animated, Transformers: War for Cybertron, Transformers: Prime) would sometimes paint Megatron as a Fallen Hero or Dark Messiah with at least a few key followers he's genuinely close to (most often Soundwave and Shockwave).
  • The Insecticons Shrapnel, Kickback, and Bombshell zigzag this. They're quite loyal to each other, but it's also normally made clear that this is because they recognise they're at their most effective together rather than any genuine friendship or affection. However, they happily mock friendship and bonds other beings have for each other. Their original toy bios imply they get a bit of a thrill out of twisting concepts like bonds and friendship, as Kickback is described as a charmer who befriends others only to suss out blackmail material and Bombshell outright brainwashes people into betraying even their most trusted loved ones.

Video Games

• Disco Elysium: The true culprit Commissar Iosef Lilianovich Dros is a bitter old man who spent most of his life fighting as part of a communist revolution. Years of isolation and being unable to move on from the death of his comrades have warped Iosef into a bitter man who hates all social connections and cannot stand the idea of people enjoying their lives, seeing it as escapism when they should be rising up in revolution. Despite all this, he'll gladly confess that he was the true culprit due to a combination of old age, a belief that he's legally protected by the Wayfarer Act, and that the Phasmid has left him.
• Fire Emblem Engage: Sombron despises friendship and bonds, to the point of having an in-battle skill called Bond Breaker that reduces the effectiveness of Chain Attacks. This mentality led to him being an absolutely AWFUL father, treating his many children as disposable pawns, letting them kill each-other to weed out the weak ones and offing the worst "failures" himself. He's ironically motived by the one genuine bond he ever had, with the Zero Emblem, who was his Only Friend when the rest of the world abandoned him. The protagonists are quick to call him out for this, saying it doesn't come close to justifying all the harm he's inflicted on others.
• Mass Effect 3: The antagonist of the Citadel DLC despises the bonds Commander Shepard has forged with their crew and squadmates throughout the trilogy, and derisively refers to the latter as "the cult of Shepard". This is made all the more poignant by the fact that said antagonist is Shepard's clone, who, due to being grown in a vat by Cerberus, has never had a chance to establish a friendship network of their own and has therefore only learned to bark orders and not to rely on other free-willed beings in a pinch.
• Mega Man Battle Network: Bass is a powerful Navi built by a benevolent scientist named Cossack. He was so powerful that when a disaster occurred on the net because of the "Primordial Net", known as Alpha, he was blamed instead and attacked within an inch of his life. He managed to escape and swore off trusting humans and Navis with operators, relying only on his ability to obtain new powers and abilities via his "Get Ability Program" and his own strength. This naturally brings him into conflict with Lan and Mega Man, who are literally Bash Brothers who strongly believe in The Power of Friendship.
• Mega Man Star Force:
  • The second game introduces Solo, a white-haired boy currently working for Dr. Vega and her group because their plans involve Mu, his home civilization. Despite this, Solo actually hates bonds and refuses to accept help from others, making a big deal of this every time he shows up. Unlike other characters who fuse with EM-beings to Wave Change, Solo can transform into Rogue without help from others, showing disgust in Mega Man's belief in Link Power all the while. After getting his ass handed to him for the first time, he later begrudgingly accepts Hollow's help and absorbs the Indie Fragment — a representation of the rejection of bonds — to make himself strong enough to take revenge against MegaMan. If the player defeats Le Mu XA, the player gets a secret ending where Rogue takes MegaMan with him from the crumbling Mu so he can challenge them to one last fight to prove that Link Power is worthless.
  • In the third game, he becomes a lone wolf who still opposes Mega Man's belief in bonds but is less hateful, even going as far as to help him take down Dealer only because they were using Murian technology for their own agenda and Solo wanted to take vengeance on them. Additionally, he managed to find an EM-being called Laplace though he only uses Laplace as a weapon during battles, replacing his sword from the previous game.
• Mega Man X: Command Mission: In stark contrast to Epsilon and his soldiers, Colonel Redips operates alone with his only henchmen being robot henchmen and resurrected Mavericks. While both characters want the Supra Force Metal because they feel that Reploids are second-class citizens compared to humans, Redips feels that he's fit to rule above all others and uses the Supra Force Metal to transform himself into Great Redips. After his god form is defeated, Colonel Redips reverts to his normal form during his death scene. After being called a Maverick by X, Redips claims that X is more maverick due to holding reploids back. This dialogue exchange sums it up:
  Colonel Redips: Maverick? You seem more Maverick to me with all your stubborn nonsense about friendship and your unwillingness to evolve.
  Zero: You don't know a thing about friendship, Maverick scum!
  Colonel Redips: Stay in our place, be friendly to all, decade after decade... Indefinitely... Is this all Reploids will ever be? Some day... you'll see... We'll... change the world...
• Octopath Traveler: Mattias, the Savior and Arc Villain of Ophilia's story, used to believe in friendship until his loved ones died in a fire. Blaming the gods for their inaction, he became the leader of a Galdera-worshipping cult and co-founded the Obsidians, and manipulates Lianna into joining by promising to cure her adoptive father, Archbishop Josef. However, he only sees his followers as disposable tools to be sacrificed, and during his boss fight openly rants to Ophilia that love and friendship are illusory bonds destined to break.
• Persona 4: The true culprit, Tohru Adachi, underneath his bumbling facade is a misanthrope who prefers solitude to socializing with others, having started the murders to relieve his boredom at being reassigned to a small town due to his behavior before the game started. He manipulates Namatame into kidnapping people and putting them in the Midnight Channel, taking advantage of Nametame's savior complex to keep the game going until he was defeated. During his social link in Golden, he's revealed to live alone and buys only cabbage due to being on a budget. Despite the protagonist's attempts to help him, Adachi is merely confused and annoyed by this and eventually betrays him due to Adachi's role as the killer. After being defeated, it turned out that on some level, he did appreciate everything the Dojimas did for him and at least tries to mend fences with Dojima after being arrested. His appearance in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax has him serve as a Foil to Sho Minazuki due to their similar outlooks on the world.
• Persona 4: Arena Ultimax: The main antagonist Sho Minazuki is working with the Malevolent Voice in order to grant his desire: to destroy the human race. Sho claims to be a person who rejects all bonds due to his adoptive father Ikutsuki using him as a test subject, eventually causing the boy to develop a split personality and a desire to destroy humanity. As Persona 4TW points out, Sho and his alter MINAZUKI only got as far as they did because they had a bond.
• Persona 5: Despite his charming exterior and a well-crafted illusion he calls his social life, Goro Akechi actually despises friendship and bonds, considering them shackles that prevent his heart from being free. Despite this, he envies Joker for being loved without having to put in tireless work in getting people to want and need them, because Akechi was actually a bastard child of Shido and was only helping him so that he could betray Shido later on.
• Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse: Upon being killed by Andramelech, Nanashi is resurrected by Dagda, an Irish god who, as it turns out, has plans for him. Dagda despises friendships, seeing them as weak people being overly dependent on others and being unable to make their own decisions to the point of going on anti-friendship spiels on several occasions. Despite him calling Nanashi's friends useless, he himself never helps out during battles, only ever resurrects Nanashi if he dies or reminds him to equip a weapon designed to kill Shesha and his plan hinges entirely on Nanashi agreeing with his ideals. As it turns out, Dagda wants to return to a state of being a part of nature, and to this end, he wants to destroy the old universe and installs Nanashi as the creator god of the new universe after killing YHVH. It's up to the player if they want to side with Dagda and bring his plans to fruition or oppose him in favour of keeping the old universe and getting rid of YHVH anyway.
• Sonic Boom: In Rise of Lyric, Shadow the Hedgehog simply shows up and claims that Sonic is weak because of his friendships before his boss fight begins. After being defeated, he doesn't show up again. Shadow's characterization in this game is particularly bizarre because in games before and after, Shadow is more of a Good Is Not Nice Anti-Hero whose only friends are Rouge and Omega, and is willing to work with Sonic, even if he does find the blue hedgehog a little irritating sometimes. Further still, in Shadow the Hedgehog where Shadow can choose to go it alone on the Neutral routes, he isn't shown to hate friendships and bonds and is rather open to working with others for the sake of his own goals.

Visual Novels

• Because We're Here: Walter Bergengruen is the only character in the game whose route is considered non-romantic. Walter is a distant rifleman with grand artistic aspirations who resents his comrades and who prefers animals over human beings. This is because he's a self-centred sociopath who couldn't care less about friendships/romance and sending others off to die during wartime, believing that anyone who doesn't fully devote themselves to Wessling is a national traitor. His route revolves around Elfriede and her acquaintances finding out if Walter has any humanity left or if he's beyond help.

Western Animation

• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: To contrast the Main Six and The Power of Friendship they wield, many villains in the show despise, mock, misunderstand, or otherwise reject friendship and teamwork. This is most notable with the team-up of Queen Chrysalis, Lord Tirek, and Cozy Glow. Chrysalis and Tirek are both intent to win on their own, without getting help from the other two, while Cozy Glow stands out for understanding the innate power that friendship can offer you. The three eventually develop a strong sense of teamwork but continue to consider friendship a disease they must not succumb to. As a result, they're defeated not just by the Main Six, but by the entire population of Equestria, joining together in friendship.
• OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: One of the show's antagonists, Lord Boxman is a businessman who despises the bonds of friendship between the Lakewood Plaza heroes because he feels friendship distracts customers from buying his product.
• The Smurfs (1981): Chlorhydris is an evil witch who tries to destroy all love in the world, as she can't stand the thought of anyone being friendly or compassionate. The wizard she intended to marry never showed up at the altar on her wedding night, and she's despised love ever since.
• Steven Universe: Jasper is a powerful orange gem whose first appearance showcases her utter disdain for fusion between two different Gem Types, believing Garnet to be an embarrassment for being a fusion of a Ruby and Sapphire. Hypocritically, she ends up coercing Lapis Lazuli into fusing with her in retaliation when Garnet beats her in battle, creating a toxic fusion known as Malachite who serves as an Arc Villain for Season 2. During her fight with Smoky Quartz in Season 3, Jasper fuses with a corrupted Gem to become Zebra Jasper, which comes back to bite her later on. Before her initial duel with Garnet], Jasper views fusion as a cheap tactic designed to increase the power of the fusing gems and when [[spoiler: she starts using fusion herself, she uses it as a means to increase her own power without any regard for the other gem she's fused with. In addition, Jasper is a Social Darwinist who believes that weak, defective gems deserve to be shattered and utterly despises Steven and the Crystal Gems for using teamwork (especially fusion of different gem types, plus a human) to beat her.
• Steven Universe: Future: Jasper is seen living alone in a cave while everyone has moved on from the Great Diamond Authority's tyranny over the galaxy. After being bested by Steven during their first fight, she plays the role of Evil Mentor when Steven visits her again. During Steven's training, Jasper tries to get Steven to embrace his Diamond powers and leave the Crystal Gems whom she believes are holding him back. After she gets shattered during her rematch with Steven, she ends up being resurrected and insists on devoting herself to him for being stronger, much like she did with Lapis in the original series.
• The Little Mermaid (1992): The Evil Manta. His first appearance revolves around him turning everyone in Atlantica from friends into enemies, just for the sake of it. When this plan is foiled, he openly rants about how much he hates things like friendship and love.
• Total Drama: While most of the villains of the show tend to mock the idea of having friends while competing, since they're there to win, Julia, the villain of Island (2023), is the most overt about it, with her at one point comparing having friends to having zits: She doesn't have any, she doesn't want any, and she doesn't want to see other people having any.

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