Discussion Main / NoSocialSkills

There are several examples which are not clearly characters that lack social skills — artefacts of the old problematic title Raised by Wolves which is now a new, separate article for characters raised by animals. Several of these examples were moved to that page.

Here the problem is a "savage" nature and an antipathy to humans is one thing — but how does she lack social skills?

• San from Princess Mononoke was Raised by Wolves after her birth parents encountered a huge wolf in the forest when she was very young and abandoned her in an attempt to get away safely. Indeed, it's implied that her parents literally threw her at the wolves to get away. The wolves were offended enough by this behavior to take care of her, instead.

Here we just lack details.

• Knowledge of Angels by Jill Paton Walsh is about a child literally raised by wolves, among other things.
• The Wolfriders of ElfQuest have operated under the leadership of chiefs and chieftesses directly descended from Timmorn Yellow-Eyes (who was himself the result of a mating between a shape-changed High One and a wolf). Because their bloodline has been "tainted" by wolf blood you could argue that anyone born to the tribe is raised by wolves. Add to this the fact that they bond with actual wolves (the animals serve as companions, mounts and hunting buddies) and it becomes even more true.
  • To add another level, Little Patch in this single-issue story is a human raised by Wolfriders and their wolves, who later attempts to return to human society. Any similarities to The Jungle Book are probably not coincidental.

These appear to be non-examples. The wolf in particular is very chatty with the repartee.

• In Hoodwinked, a 2005, animated, feature-length film retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, the Wolf parodies this trope. (Of course he was raised by wolves. He's a wolf.)
  Chief Grizzly: Pretty thin Wolf! You say the old lady was already tied up. How did that happen?
  The Wolf: I don't know, maybe to make herself look innocent. I just write the news, Chief, I don't make it.
  Red: For a reporter, you sure have a strange way of doing your job.
  The Wolf: What can I say? I was raised by wolves.
• Spoofed in ''Kung Pow" when The Chosen One (that's his actual name) was raised by "various rodents". And when he wasn't Walking Or Driving Across The Earth, he frequently partied with forest animals.

These appear to be non-examples which are also not examples of humans raised by animals and so I have nowhere to put them.

• Non-humanoid example: William, one of the birds kept by Hodgesarrgh in Carpe Jugulum, was Raised By Chickens, having imprinted on the hen that'd been keeping its egg warm.
• Averted with Lupine from Reaper Man, an actual wolf who turns into a man at full moon. Presumably by the time we meet him, he's learned enough about passing for normal from his Fresh Start Club friends to pull it off.

This used to be the page quote:

It's pretty funny and illustrates the concept fairly well. From what I remember, it was taken from a now-defunct website that collected user-submitted roleplaying game quotes... Does that make it ineligible?

This sparse entry is probably not an example.

• Clara's kids in The Guild.

On the work page we see stuff like "locked in a cat carrier" but no reference to social skills. I think this is yet another case of the old misinterpretation of the trope as "bad childhood" when it was under the old title.

Homsar is probably a better example of a Cloudcuckoo Lander than no social skills: he's just so totally off the dial and does not really interact much with the rest of the cast.

Without details we cannot know these are people with No Social Skills rather than just people with rough childhoods. They might fit better into Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

• Gundam 00 - Setsuna F. Seiei might've been better off being Raised by Wolves. Raised in a poor Kurdish household when he was a child, he was then mentally conditioned to kill his parents by his new "mentor" to prove his loyalty to God, right before leading him to become a child soldier before he is saved by the man who would eventually become his greatest enemy, and the largest threat to humanity.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

• Karcharoth of Cry Havoc was conscripted at the age of six, and raised by soldiers, making him one of the best mercenaries in the world.

These sub-examples from the Dragon Age series are more problematic: not Raised by Wolves but one of the many interpretations of the old trope article as a bad childhood:

• She's not the only one though. Alistair jokes that he was raised by the Mabari Hounds in the kennels of Redcliffe castle. Considering he actually spent a good portion of his early years in the repressive Chantry while enduring Templar training (which he deeply resented for various reasons), maybe that was just wishful thinking on his part.
• Finally, Zevran was the Son of a Whore, raised in a whorehouse, and sold into slavery to an Assassin syndicate. Again, he would have been better off with wolves.

These may not be examples: no details are given of a lack of social skills — they have moved to Raised by Wolves, not sure if they fit here too:

• She's not the only one though. Alistair jokes that he was raised by the Mabari Hounds in the kennels of Redcliffe castle. Considering he actually spent a good portion of his early years in the repressive Chantry while enduring Templar training (which he deeply resented for various reasons), maybe that was just wishful thinking on his part.
• Finally, Zevran was the Son of a Whore, raised in a whorehouse, and sold into slavery to an Assassin syndicate. Again, he would have been better off with wolves.

• Chauncey, the protagonist of the obscure sim game The Horde, was raised by cows.
• N, the leader of Team Plasma was raised by Pokemon because his father, Geetis, deliberately neglected him to condition N into a man that would hate humans.