Tin Man: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:tin man.jpg|link=The Wizard of Oz (film)|frame|[[Sarcasm Mode|Look at this cold, emotionless bastard.]]]]

 

{{quote|''"I mean, being a robot's great, but we don't have emotions, and sometimes that makes me very sad."''|'''Bender''', ''[[Futurama]]''}}

 

Compare [[Frozen Face]], where he cannot show the emotions in his face. Not to be confused with the [[Syfy]] [[Tin Man (TV series)|miniseries]].

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' has the [[Robot Girl]] Chachamaru telling everyone this in [[Spock Speak]]. Subverted in that nobody believes her as she's one of the friendliest people in the cast from the beginning. Even her own [[Mad Scientist]] creator realizes right away that she's different. This is because one of the programmers of her operating system was from a lesser-known work of the writer, ''[[A.I. Love You]]'', where he had designed an artificial intelligence program fully capable of emotions. This is only alluded to in [[Shout-Out|one offhand comment]] in the manga.

* [[Gundam Wing|Heero Yuy]] gets treated as cold and robotic an awful lot by [[Fanon]], but this runs contrary his own statements and actions. His self-stated life philosophy is "The best way to live your life is by acting on your emotions", and when asked he outright says that kindness isn't needed when you're fighting, but it is the rest of the time. This has been lampshaded by at least one doujinshi in which the ''Wing'' cast is recast as ''[[Wizard of Oz]]'' characters and Heero becomes the Tin Man.

* Wolfgang Grimmer, from ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'', seems to believe that the abusive experimentation he experienced as a child destroyed his emotions, to the point that he couldn't even {{spoiler|grieve at the death of his own son}}. Objectively, he's a [[Friend to All Children]] who gets ''really intense'' at [[Berserk Button|any suggestion that they're being hurt]] and has a serious [[Unstoppable Rage]] problem. He's pretty clearly one of the "out of touch" ones.

 

== Comic Books ==

** Vision would in later appearances often use his "inability" as a blatant excuse to get out of awkward social situations, like his relationship with his ex-wife.

** Mind you, he had emotions right from the start—he's possibly the only Avenger to start crying on being accepted into the team.

 

== Film ==

** In [[Terminator]] 3 when the T-800 growls "Desire is irrelevant, [[Punctuated! For! Emphasis!|I. AM. A MACHINE.]]"

* Played with a little in the ''[[RoboCop]]'' series, especially in ''[[RoboCop]] II'', during the scene in which Murphy has to look his wife in the eyes and tell her that he [[Blatant Lies|is just a machine that doesn't remember her.]]

 

== Literature ==

* Paul Redeker of ''[[World War Z]]'' constantly complained that human emotions were weaknesses, making him the perfect person to design worst-case scenarios for anti-Apartheid Rebellions and ultimately the [[Zombie Apocalypse]]. {{spoiler|However, having his scenario implemented against the zombie apocalypse - and feeling compassion -- breaks his brain. He develops an alternate persona.}}

** {{spoiler|[[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|As a direct result of being hugged by Nelson Mandela]] }}.

** Even more so when ever he acts outside the role of Death, as he's able to freely save lives. Usually he'll spend it saving the lives of children.

* In [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]'s ''[[John Carter of Mars|The Master Mind of Mars]]'', both Ras Thavas and Toonolians appear to have reached this state from excessive desire to be [[The Stoic]]. They profess to be above such things as sentiment, but when they manifest it, and Ulysses Paxton calls them on it, they are in complete denial.

* Arguably [[Dexter]], although less so than in the TV series. He has an awful lot of angst for someone with no feelings.

 

* Data on ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' was more often a Tin Man, much to the curiosity of his friends (and viewers), who often contested the point. In one episode, he sacrificed his emotion chip because it had threatened his friends by making him do some pretty damn nasty stuff. In an instance of him telling the Doctor that he was incapable of giving his child love, she looked skeptical and said she found that hard to believe. The series also notes at other points that while he doesn't have a precisely emotional response, his systems do react in ways that mimic emotional response—for example, he cannot "miss" people, but his subroutines become used to the presence of certain persons and their absence can affect him.

** Doctor Soong himself put it best.

{{quote|'''Data''': You know I cannot grieve for you.

** In the episode "The Schizoid Man", this trope is taken literally when Dr. Graves whistles "If I Only Had a Heart" while talking to Data in his laboratory {{spoiler|and while inhabiting Data's body after his body's death.}}

* [[Dexter]] constantly, ''constantly'' says that he is unable to feel emotions. Some of his actions throughout the series, however, directly contrast this belief (e.g., cutting off a potential victim's rant out of anger when he refers to Dexter's girlfriend as a "[[Country Matters|cunt]]", protecting Rita's children).

'''Michael''': What are you talking about, you don't have feelings!

'''KITT''': I know. That's what so strange about it. }}

 

== Music ==

* The appropriately titled song ''Tin Man'' by the pop-folk duo, ''The Avett Brothers'' is about a man who describes the emotions that he misses experiencing with the passion of someone who is obviously still feeling them.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* In ''[[Promethean: The Created]]'', the Prometheans aren't claiming they have no emotions; what they're claiming is that their emotions aren't ''real'' in some way. As artificial creations, they find themselves aping human emotions in an attempt to pass for normal. Their [[Karma Meter]], Humanity, measures how good they are at that; as it slips away, they're less able to keep the facade.

** The vampires of ''[[Vampire: The Requiem]]'' are also stated to not feel genuine emotions so much as ''remember'' emotions they had felt in life; the game notes that a vampire embraced young might suffer some awkward moments as they try to experience emotions they never felt before the Embrace. The only emotions a vampire is truly capable of "feeling" are those that come from the vampire's [[Super-Powered Evil Side|Beast]]: rage, hunger, and self-preserving fear, all of which manifest in the [[Unstoppable Rage]] referred to in the game as "Frenzy."

 

== Video Games ==

* Jon Irenicus, the [[Big Bad]] from ''[[Baldur's Gate]] II: Shadows of Amn'', was punished for his transgressions basically by removing his soul. This left him drained of all almost emotion; he would display arrogance and a bit of incredulity as the story progressed, and shallow bursts of anger, but that was about it. However bad he had been before, his complete lack of empathy for other sentient beings made him [[Complete Monster|even worse]]. He desired to regain or even remember the love he had once felt, but the ways he went about trying to do this were unsuccesful and [[Squick|extremely creepy]].

* The game itself in ''You Find Yourself In A Room'' is a negative example, being convinced it's incapable of emotions (and that this makes it superior to humanity), despite showing constant hate and anger. {{spoiler|Toward the end of the game, you get the opportunity to indirectly point out to it that hate and anger actually are emotions, sending it into a [[Villainous BSOD]]. It releases you, finding no meaning in tormenting you any longer if it's not the superior emotionless being it believed, and you win the game.}}

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* In ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=1005 Antimony seems to revert to] [[Emotionless Girl]] after her father calls her, but [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=1006 Mr. Donlan picks out that she's actually feeling quite strongly.]

* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20140209171938/http://sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4218 Baby Blue professing indifference to Fuchsia's leaving, but the Nerf pitchfork she cuddles was Fuchsia's, and the butterfly painting a gift.]

 

== Western Animation ==