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Poisonous Friend
- 166 statements
- 31 feature instances
- 27 referencing feature instances
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A character defined both by their obsessive loyalty towards a target character and by their vastly divergent (and comparatively "cynical") moral code. The Poisonous Friend is usually attached to an Ideal Hero or an Anti-Villain. They tend to consider their "master" a person to be worshipped or protected at all costs — and they may accomplish this through actions that the master would not knowingly permit, such as killing their "master"'s enemies on their behalf. Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })For example, if the master is a Fettered Actual Pacifist or a Noble Demon who is completely against killing his enemies, the Poisonous Friend might pay lip service to this trait while the master is nearby... and then turn around and butcher the enemy behind the master's back. If caught, they'll claim they just "did what had to be done". Few masters catch on. Sometimes the master's influence gets through to the Poisonous Friend, with varying results. In other cases, the Poisonous Friend continues to pose a danger both to the master's other friends (through jealousy) and to the enemy. The Love Interest, Living Emotional Crutch, and the Morality Chain is in particular danger of the Poisonous Friend if they suspect them of making the master "vulnerable". Though sometimes introduced as anti-heroes or turncoats from the other side, they cease to be those things because they place their fundamental loyalty upon the shoulders of their "master". Basically they become a good guy's secretly-evil minion, or a bad guy's much-badder sidekick. Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })This character is often used when writers don't want to stain the "innocent" master's hands, but still need a way to deal with those pesky defeated enemies. Even friends who have been explicitly told to behave or otherwise decided to hold back can still function in this regard if they have done something bad or really bad enough to intimidate the villains. If a particularly noble and idealistic hero cannot wrong anyone, but has a particularly cruel and ruthless poisonous friend, the villain may hesitate to take advantage of that hero's idealism and kill him out of fear of what his buddy's response could be. The name of this trope comes from a song by the band Seabound. See also Toxic Friend Influence (when their behavior actually starts to rub off on the hero), Psycho Sidekick, Token Evil Teammate (when the hero retains their own morals, but still knowingly tolerates what this character gets up to) and The Creon (when the character is the hero's second-in-command). Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_3'); })Contrast: Psycho Supporter, The Only One Allowed to Defeat You, Loony Fan, Token Evil Teammate, Shoot the Dog, Overzealous Underling, Underling with an F in PR. Compare Big Bad Friend. Not to be confused with Poisonous Person, in which someone is literally poisonous, though they can be combined. Also not to be confused with False Friend, in which one deceives another as being their friend, only to have an ulterior motive to do so. A Mysterious Backer might turn out to be one of these. |
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Dropped link to APerfectCircle: Not an Item - IGNORE | |
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Dropped link to Pulp: Not an Item - IGNORE | |
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Poisonous Friend / int_1099a6ac | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_1099a6ac | comment |
Tyler Durden very much fits this trope in Fight Club. | |
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Fight Club | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_13668e6e | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_13668e6e | comment |
In Twig, the narrator, Sylvester, becomes steadily aware that he is essentially this towards the more moral Lillian, and he worries even when they enter a romantic relationship that he isn't actually able to love her and build her up instead of tearing her down. His amorality and inbuilt Manipulative Bastard tendencies also make him worried that he'll become a poisonous influence on her future as an Academy professor. | |
Poisonous Friend / int_13668e6e | featureApplicability |
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Twig | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_1367cea0 | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_1367cea0 | comment |
In Worm, Token Evil Teammate Regent, realizing that Sociopathic Hero Shadow Stalker isn't going to leave the Undersiders alone and will in fact keep coming after them with lethal force until she gets lucky, takes it upon himself to use his People Puppets power to utterly destroy her life and drive her out of town, refraining from killing her only because it would be more troublesome and draw more attention from the authorities. | |
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Worm | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_2c0b2cfc | type |
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In Men in Hats, Aram attacks Sam with a steamroller in the name of putting Gamal's plans into action, and Gamal is pretty sure steamrolling people wasn't his idea. (Aram has also been known to poison his friends, sometimes with scorpions.) | |
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Men in Hats (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_36d1798b | type |
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Poisonous Friend / int_36d1798b | comment |
Pete in A Goofy Movie. Whereas in Goof Troop, Pete was just a heartless jerkass who only cared about himself, the film version of Pete legitimately wants to help Goofy raise Max better. The problem is that Pete is very cynical and condescending, especially towards children of any age, so Pete just assumes Max is a bad kid and works from there. He insists that trying to have an honest conversation is pointless and that Goofy should be authoritative and punish Max until he learns to never talk back. For his part, Goofy disagrees, but it turns out Pete was right about Max deceiving him, which doesn't help things. | |
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A Goofy Movie | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_3aa95d7a | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_3aa95d7a | comment |
In Hakuouki, Hijikata Toshizo intentionally takes on the role of harsh disciplinarian and "Demon Vice-Commander" to keep order within the Shinsengumi and further Commander Kondou Isami's goals against the heavy opposition of the era's very classist society, allowing Kondou to remain as nice and brotherly and idealistic as he wants to be. It's a mild example since Kondou is aware of everything Hijikata is doing, but there are points at which Hijikata is specifically noted as "playing the villain" for Kondou's sake. In the end, it kind of backfires on both of them, as Hijikata's efforts protect Kondou from many of the harsher realities of leadership and leave him unprepared to deal with the situations the Shinsengumi face after the Boshin War begins. | |
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Poisonous Friend / int_3f3abe9 | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_3f3abe9 | comment |
Rick from Rick and Morty, despite all the abuse, treating his family as a means to an end, and all his many many flaws, will look out for his friends and family when the chips are down and isn't even sure why he bothers. Of course, since it's Rick, he'll do it in some pretty ruthless, messed up, and heartless ways. Best example is when he passively protects Jerry of all people from a jealous alien out to kill him: | |
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Rick and Morty | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_5755b96a | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_5755b96a | comment |
In The Order of the Stick, Tarquin does seem to genuinely love Elan, but he expresses it in truly awful ways. He welcomes Elan by arranging captured slaves to spell Elan's name and then burning them alive. He wants Elan to be happy with Haley...so he frames Haley's father for murder as a "test" to see whether she deserves Elan. He wants Elan to grow into the role of The Hero instead of remaining a supporting character...so he orders his army to kill the actual Hero Roy. On the other hand, being Tarquin's enemy is even worse which Nale found out the hard way. | |
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The Order of the Stick (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_5df88692 | type |
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Rounders has Worm, who constantly gets his poker-playing buddy Mike in trouble by cheating- for example, at a game full of off-duty cops, or another one with a couple of Russian mobsters- which Mike is good enough to win anyway. | |
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Rounders | hasFeature |
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Charles "Big Time" Bigelow from Batman Beyond, towards Terry. He's the reason Terry has a juvie record (Terry didn't even know what was happening until it was too late) and he spends most of his screen time manipulating Terry, either to get away with something or to get Terry as a lackey. | |
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Batman Beyond | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_6ac55ec7 | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_6ac55ec7 | comment |
Pretty common for basically any party in Dungeons & Dragons containing characters of varying alignments. The Lawful Good paladin may be staunchly opposed to any undertakings that would go against his moral code, but chances are the Chaotic Neutral rogue, even if he is otherwise loyal to the rest of the party and does consider them True Companions, does not have such qualms. | |
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Dungeons & Dragons (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_6d7c7f1c | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_6d7c7f1c | comment |
Something*Positive: Hurt Davan in any way and PeeJee and Aubrey will respond with tenfold the pain you caused him. Davan is not always bothered by this. | |
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Something*Positive (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_711ab3c8 | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
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Withnail in Withnail & I absolutely revels in this trope. | |
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Withnail & I | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_72f18f0 | comment |
Another MSTed movie, The Beatniks, has Mooney, who absolutely refuses to let Eddy break away from the gang to start a singing career. | |
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The Beatniks | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_7d4d63ef | comment |
Nicky Santoro in Casino is the source of all of Sam "Ace" Rothstein's problems. Rothstein was a powerful, rich, and successful casino manager and lost it all due to the attention the mobster Nicky kept drawing to him. Casino is actually based on a true story though names were changed for the film. | |
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Casino | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_9cf7191 | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_9cf7191 | comment |
Mean Streets: Johnny Boy is this to Charlie. | |
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Mean Streets | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_a9cb14fc | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_a9cb14fc | comment |
In the Ravenloft setting, Wizards can summon a familiar and paladins can summon a war horse, like in other settings. However, these companions are Always Chaotic Evil (or lawful evil or neutral evil, depending on the law/chaos alignment of the summoner) in Ravenloft. They are loyal to their master, but lack a conscience, and aren't averse to carrying out evil deeds to "help" their master behind his back. This is bad enough for wizards, but potentially devastating for a paladin, who now has to deal with a pet that constantly puts him in danger of losing his paladinhood. | |
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Ravenloft (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_ac7fd385 | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_ac7fd385 | comment |
Hatoful Boyfriend has two notable examples, both revealed in the much darker "Bad Boys' Love" route. Namely, Hitori Uzune's efforts to avenge (and later, keep the remains of) his brother Nageki Fujishiro, and the extremes to which Yuuya Sakazaki went to protect his brother Sakuya Shirogane Le Bel. | |
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Poisonous Friend / int_af42a07f | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_af42a07f | comment |
The Operative in Serenity fills this role for the controlling central government. He himself observes that the purpose of his actions is to maintain an ordered society for people unlike him. In the end he finds out that the government has terribly failed to uphold its ideals, so he ceases to work for it. | |
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Poisonous Friend / int_b9b796cf | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_b9b796cf | comment |
Rider is Sakura's poisonous friend in the Heaven's Feel route of Fate/stay night. She's willing to let the world be destroyed or kill Shirou and Tohsaka, her sister, just to prolong her life an extra couple days if she has to, whether Sakura wants her to or not. Eventually, she realizes that Sakura just being alive isn't sufficient, and ends up fighting against her. She's still acting almost exclusively for Sakura's benefit, though. Shinji, Sakura's adoptive, abusive brother is this for Shirou. |
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Fate/stay night (Visual Novel) | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_bd310eaa | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_bd310eaa | comment |
In El Goonish Shive, Nioi believes that General Shade Tail is this to Lord Tedd, corrupting him with his Blood Knight tendencies. | |
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El Goonish Shive (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_c5eaa1a9 | comment |
Beetlejuice drags Lydia into all sorts of scams, schemes, and misadventures; however, he is profoundly loyal to her, and will utterly destroy anyone else who creates difficulties for her. (Or he would if she'd let him. She stops him if he goes too far.) | |
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Poisonous Friend / int_c6b738c4 | comment |
BJ Whitmer has been one to many people in Ring of Honor. To Christopher Daniels, it was escalating the competition with CM Punk's Second City Saints into outright conflict when Whitmer beat up Punk's girlfriend Lucy. For Jimmy Jacobs, it was derailing Decade, who were interested in younger talents like Colby Corino, due to an obsessive hatred with Colby's father Steve that saw Whitmer try to turn father and son against one another. For Kelly Klein, Whitmer's big mouth and tendency to interfere in her matches often got her in more trouble than she expected. Yet people were surprised when then-newcomer Punishment Martinez wanted nothing to do with Whitmer. | |
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Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_c7912cea | comment |
Both Beezy J. Heinous and Heloise towards the titular Jimmy Two-Shoes. While how much they actually hate each other depends on the day, it isn't rare for them to engage in violent and combative Friend Versus Lover fights over Jimmy's attention. | |
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Jimmy Two-Shoes | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_d6cca7ff | comment |
In The Veronica Exclusive, Veronica's girlfriend Jane would do anything to make her happy, up to and including murder. | |
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The Veronica Exclusive (Web Video) | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_e308ed04 | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_e308ed04 | comment |
Used interestingly in Cobweb and Stripes, when Betelgeuse offers to be exactly this for Lydia. He volunteers to handle anyone at her request, so she needn't get her "sweet little hands" dirty. She's not entirely comfortable with the offer, although at the same time she sort of appreciates it. | |
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Cobweb and Stripes (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_e6275a02 | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_e6275a02 | comment |
Looking for Group: Richard. Just... Richard. Cale has conceded that Richard is both a blight upon the world and the best chance they have at saving it IF he gets enough material to troll Cale with when the party isn't looking. And by material, we mean knights, peasants, orphans, endangered animals, funny dogmatic armies, doggy funmatic Mix-and-Match Critter, etc. Pella commits a crime to further the main character's cause. |
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Looking for Group (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
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Poisonous Friend / int_e67b079a | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_e67b079a | comment |
Firefly Cross has a fairly low-key (so far) example; Katyn's friend Micah is actually Dark, and willing to kill in order to protect her. Which he's already done, when a Well-Intentioned Extremist stole her sword. | |
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Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_eb5d7301 | comment |
Amphibia: Sasha is both this and Toxic Friend Influence: Sasha combines her controlling attitude toward Anne with a ruthless protectiveness. She used her school status to defend Anne from bullying and believes Anne would be better off if she joined Toad Tower. | |
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Poisonous Friend / int_f12f9b66 | comment |
Wander over Yonder: Although there's little doubt that Lord Hater is a bad guy, his right-hand man Commander Peepers is largely responsible for channeling his unmotivated evildoing into a quest for galactic domination. He has been known to work behind his boss's back, as when he took out a series of bounty hunters hired by Hater to capture Wander and Sylvia since he wanted the credit of capturing them himself. | |
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Poisonous Friend / int_fc28ae4e | type |
Poisonous Friend | |
Poisonous Friend / int_fc28ae4e | comment |
Sean Penn's character (a lawyer turned gangster) was the poisonous friend to Al Pacino (a former gangster trying to go straight) in Carlito's Way. | |
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