You know what makes people different from animals? We're the only species on Earth that observesShark Week.Sharks don't even observe Shark Week; but we do. For the same reason, I can pick up this pencil, tell you its name is Steve, and then go like this;[snaps it in half; gasps of horror] and part of youdies, just a little bit on the inside. Because people can connect withanything. We can sympathise with a pencil, we can forgive a shark, andwe can give Ben Affleck an Academy Award for Screenwriting. People can find the good in just about anything except themselves. —Jeff Winger, Community.

Believe it or not, humans have an amazing ability to empathize with other humans andreasonably humanoid equivalents, even fictional ones! A lot of it has to do withthe kind of focus a character receives, be it aSympathetic POV, withPet the Dog moments, or any of the dozens ofCharacterization Tropes.

This in turn extends a kind ofPopularity Power onto the protagonist/focused on character, giving them a better chance of success in their endeavors than would otherwise be expected. So, one ninjacan beat 10,000 other ninja because we've been following the one ninja the whole show; and we knownothing aboutany of the 10,000. On the other hand, when the villain comes, he's gonna put up an actual fight, because we know who he is, what he wants, and may even have developed sympathies for him as well.

TheRule of Empathy works hand in hand withPlot Armor; while the Rule of Empathy gives a greater chance of successPlot Armor makes surviving long enough to reach that goal easier. Interestingly, it is by no means linked to intelligence. Acompassionatefool islikelier to survive than apragmaticJerkass. This is also why theLittlest Cancer Patient cannot die ofanything but their illness, we're simply too attached to them.

Relatedly, it should be noted that the Rule of Empathy is not an all-powerful charm that grants success and survival to sympathetic characters. It may well be usedagainst the characters/audience with the likes of aMauve Shirt beingKilled Off for Real, or to hook us into rooting for theBoring Failure Hero. As noted earlier, making a villain sympathetic is a sure way of making the audience deeply invested in a story. Sure, they're bad, but they're notall bad.

The Rule of Empathy also informs viewers and characters (and at times authors) just how good or bad an action is within the context of the story. When a villain destroys a wholeThrowaway Country, we don't care becausewe never saw those characters. But when they killone character the audience orhero empathizes with, then they've crossed theMoral Event Horizon.

The Rule of Empathy also has a dark side. There is a fate worse than being a "neutral"Innocent Bystander with no real attachment to the audience; characters who are notablyunsympathetic will (with fewexceptions) be in for a world of hurt. Whether it's because theyKick the Dog or do other heinous deeds that alienate them from (most) viewer's sympathies, these characters will have a comeuppance at the hands ofsomethingsimilar to karma, ranging from theHumiliation Conga, beingHoist by His Own Petard, suffering aDeath by Irony, or falling to aFate Worse Than Death.Related toWoobie and all variations thereof.

Supertrope behindConservation of Ninjutsu,Mook,Red Shirt.

See also:Rule of Cool,Rule of Funny,Rule of Drama.

Advertising

• An IKEA advertising campaignlampshaded this. One example showed a desk lamp being replaced and left out in the rain on the curbside. Cue sad music. The ad then proceeded to tell viewers they were crazy for having feelings for a lamp.

Anime andManga

• Yu-Gi-Oh! (a series which, to most fans, thrives onNarm Charm) tends to get this a lot.
  • We're given some particularly good reasons to empathise withMaximillion Crawford/Pegasus, who lost the woman he loved and has been trying to get her back ever since. Other villains such as Malik/Marik, who was forced into a role he didn't want to play his whole childhood and developed a huge bitterness towards the Pharaoh, Amelda/Alister, whose home country was destroyed by a war fought with weapons supplied by Kaiba Corp - you know, before Kaiba corp did games - and Bakura, whoseentire village was slaughtered to create the Millennium items, also engender a lot of empathy.
  • Then there's Yugi who is just... he's like the poster child for Woobification. If you watch the unknown first season in particular, or read the manga, then you see that he starts out as nothing more than apunchbag for every bully in Domino High. Including bullies whom hestands up for and who later end up being his best friends.
  • If you don't give even the slightest a damn about the pharaoh after what happens to Yugi in the Orichalcos arc, then you have no soul.
• An interesting example is Rosa fromUmineko no Naku Koro ni. Throughout the arcs, she tends to have one of the shortest lifespans of any of the characters, only once making it past the second twilight, and she often dies in very heinous and cruel ways. However, she just about never becomesThe Woobie because the audience still holds a grudge against her for how she abusesher daughter, Maria. In a weird way, those two facts wind up sort of balancing each other out so that the audience can still hope that she eventually makes it out, but doesn't overly sympathize with her.
• The reason most of Kenji's gang and many minor characters in20th Century Boyssurvived while more than 90% of the world's population was wiped out.
• InFullmetal Alchemist, theBig Badturns an entireThrowaway Country into Philosopher's Stones. This is upgraded from a terrifying display of power to anunforgivably evil act whenwe hear the voices of the souls of some of those people inside Hohenheim, and learn that they retained their consciousness and personalities even after being made into Philosopher's Stones. Their comments, especially their enthusiasm in usingtheir souls to fuel Hohenheim's alchemy so he can defeat theBig Bad, make them sympathetic to the audience.

Comic Books

• This is one of the many, many tropes subverted by the beginning ofNeil Gaiman'sBlack Orchid miniseries: a mook captures the title character, shoots her in the head, and sets her on fire to be sure she's dead.

Literature

• InThe Hunger Games, this is present as a part of the universe. When Haymitch is trying to mentor Katniss, he tries very hard to make herlikable, to make her someone the audience will sympathize with. Sympathy will equal sponsors and money for necessities in the arena, and could therefore make the difference in the Games. Peeta, it turns out, is a natural at invoking the Rule of Empathy at the drop of a hat. Katniss is not.
  • Peeta's so good at it he can garner empathy for just about anyone.
• The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books byFern Michaels: The author proves to have difficulty using this trope. The Vigilantes are a group of women whoshould have your sympathy, with theirDark and Troubled Pasts. Unfortunately, they prove to be politically incorrect, abusive to victims, sexist, acting more likeStraw Feminists than real feminists, dishing out aFate Worse Than Death than aCool and Unusual Punishment, and acting more like spoiled little girls who have never really grown up than actual women. They basically get away with all of this because the author wants them to! It's no wonder other characters, including some of the villains, prove to be way more likable in comparison!

Live-Action TV

• Firefly: Don't hurt River or Kaylee.Everyone watching is theirPapa Wolf orMama Bear.
• Similarly, althoughBuffy the Vampire Slayer andAngel weren't afraid to kill off sympathetic characters, if Willow had died the fans would have burned the studio down. Fred is a borderline case because the actress continued on as Illyria.
  • It's notable thatJoss Whedon is well aware of this, having commented that if he wanted theFirefly audience to hate a character, he just had to show them being mean to Kaylee. If he wanted theBuffyaudience to cry, he just had to show them Willow crying.
• Common inCrime and Punishment Series. If she is pretty she didn't do it. This evidence is reinforced if she is slight of build and especially if they have a winning personality. She can never have done it.
• The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Cameron is a cold, emotionless, andliteral killing machine who at one point leaves a man and his sister who helped her to die because they don't matter to her anymore. That doesn't change the fact that she is adeeply sympathetic character who rapidly obtainedEnsemble DarkhorseWoobie status because of both how interesting she was and all the crap she puts up withwithout complaint for the Connors.
• Doctor Who pulls thisall the freaking time, by introducing us to so many good natured, likable, honest folks, and then killing them in cold blood. Such as poor Mo in the episodeHungry Earth, who we first meet while trying to help his dyslexic son to read a book ("who loves you more than me?"). He survives, but hedoes end up being kidnapped and vivisected.^[1]
• Please direct your attention to theKnight Rider (original series) episode "Junkyard Dog" which sees KITT dumped in an acid pit and literally gutted alive (it's the only time we ever see the nigh-indestructible Knight Industries Two Thousand calling forhelp). The reactions of the team when he's hauled out, and KITT's resulting PTSD, are heartbreaking for fans; especially the reaction of Michael, who spends hours sitting around outside of the lab, like a nervous family member outside of an operating theatre, while the team is trying to repair him. And if the episode itself gets to you then for the love of god,don't read the script.
  • KITT tends to do this to people a lot. And given that KITT is essentially asentient car that's saying something. All wehave to get attached to is his personality.
• Amoral Attorney Jeff Wingerdelivers a lecture on this in the Pilot ofCommunity. Ironically, it's a subversion ofPet the Dog.
• InStar Trek: The Next Generation most of Data's interactions with his crew mates can be attributed to this. He's reasonably convincing as a sentient being and is probably one of the most sympathetic characters in the entire franchise, but he lacks emotions and empathic awareness and several characters have argued that he is effectively a highly complex walking computer which may or may not have a soul. Yet the crew encourages him to create and socialize, many consider him a friend, and treat him as if he were fully capable of feeling. They even encouraged him to form a romantic relationship even though this, technically, should be impossible. Actors from the show have stated that half Data's appeal comes from the empathy we feel towards him: we feel what Data cannot feel, and feel sorry because he can't.

Riker: For an android with no feeling he sure managed to evoke them in others.

• • This is exactly what makes the episode with his daughter, Lal, such aTear Jerker (double the empathy objects). He expresses regret (such as he is capable of feeling) that he cannot share in her feelings of love and she responds that she will try to feel it enough for both of them.

Video Games

• InThe Sims 3, If a Sim with the Unlucky or Loser trait dies of anything but old age, theGrim Reaper will revive them on the grounds that he "feels sorry" for them, andthat they provide too much amusement to be killed off.
• Karst inGolden Sun: The Lost Age has a large fan following, and not just because ofwhat she wears. Her relatively large amount of screen time andeasily-relatablemotivation make her the most sympatheticantagonist in the series, and one of the most well-developed and sympatheticcharacters in the series, as well (though, considering it isGolden Sun,that's not saying much).

Web Comics

• Pretty much the whole point ofWarbot in Accounting is to make the audience feel pity for another literal killing machine. UnlikeCameron, however, this machine has no face, voice, appendages, ability to emote, and is basically a box with a giant camera lens coming out of the center. It works.Painfully well.
• Discussed inSinfest, whereBaby Blue objects to a story with a sympathetic protagonist; she gives Fuschia a physics textbook to read to the damned instead.

Western Animation

• One of theÆon Flux shorts viciously subverts this, showing a series of characters, each given screen time alone and characterization to make the audience connect with them, and each of whom becomes the subsequentMook to be slaughtered by another character that the audience is being told to empathize with.

Web Original

• Cracked.com introducesthe monkeysphere, its name for what psychologists know asDunbar's number. There is a finite number of simultaneous relationships that a human can maintain, with a small error-margin to account for certain personal differences.And to add insult to injury, fictional characters can count, too. So if you spend your time reading a lot of fiction and really getting to know the characters, you're cutting back the number of real people you can meaningfully get to know.

Real Life

• A really grotesque version is seen in many ideological movements. A large part of the reason the Nazis got away with so much is that they were able tomanipulate the world's otherwise laudable sympathy for the country that lost the last war.
• On aLighter and Softer note (sort of) one Amish woman got a beer bottle thrown in her face by a passing driver. She was right away given plastic surgery from private contributions from people who did not know her.

• Trope
• Rule of Empathy
• Rule of Index
• Universal Tropes
• Laws and Formulas
• Emotion Tropes