Oblivious to Love/Video Games

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Examples of Oblivious to Love in Video Games include:

• In MARDEK RPG, Chapter 3, Elwyen is obviously head-over-heels for Mardek, but Mardek doesn't notice because he's a moron. See quote above.
• In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Big Boss is very oblivious to Ocelot's infatuation with him. EVA, being a Yaoi Fangirl, teases him about how dense he is about it. Even Gene from Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops remarks on how Big Boss "caught Ocelot's eye," prompting Big Boss to ask confusedly what Ocelot has to do with anything. Of course, Big Boss (and others who share his genes) isn't known for being the brightest when it comes to romance...
• Milanor from Yggdra Union has no idea that Kylier has feelings for him. He eventually does find out, but tragically, only after Kylier gives her life to save the party.
• Depending on your choices in Neverwinter Nights, Aribeth may lament at the end that she never noticed how the player character felt about her until it was too late.
• Fire Emblem loves this trope with its lords. Both Roy from Fuuin no Tsurugi and Ephraim from The Sacred Stones are fairly oblivious to the affection of their various possible love interests. Ike from Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, however, takes this obliviousness to entirely new levels and never quite gets it despite all the women who have expressed interest in him. There are, of course, other explanations.
  • Marth from Shadow Dragon is a prime example, as shown by this Awkward Zombie comic
• Played as a game mechanic in Pokémon; some Mons have the trait Oblivious, which prevents the "infatuated" status condition. It's mostly held by dim-witted Pokémon, like Slowpoke and Whiscash.
• Link in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is completely unaware of the fact that Princess Ruto believes them to be engaged. Of course, he's completely unaware of the interest of just about every other female character in the game too.
  • We don't really know that because Link is a silent protagonist.
  • He's not much more observant in Twilight Princess, either, where both childhood pal Ilia and pint-sized Deadpan Snarker Midna have a thing for him. The closest he gets to catching on with anyone is when he shares a brief hand-holding scene with Princess Zelda...and she doesn't seem to have any real romantic feelings for him in this game.
    • What. After the final battle, Link drops the Master Sword, and sprints to Midna's side to make sure she's alright. Then when she leaves for the Twilight Realm, he all but weeps.
    • But then, that doesn't necessitate romance. TP Link is probably less oblivious than his Oo T incarnation, however (But considering he was mentally a 10 year old, this is not surprising).
  • Wind Waker Link seems to be a bit less of an idiot, which may make sense, as he's the first Link (in that timeline) to have actually seen normal, functioning couples, and returns Tetra/Zelda's affection about as well as a Heroic Mime can. And one could argue that Link not only knows about Ilia (and/or Midna's) feelings, but even reciprocates them. After all, the guy lets a royally important trip get interrupted (and gives the plot time to start) because the girl is mad at him for scratching the horse's leg. Sounds pretty whipped to me. On the Midna end of the spectrum, he looks pretty devastated when she returns to the Twilight Realm after first destroying her only way to come back to Hyrule.
• In the Backyard Sports series, Marky Dubois is in love with Billy Jean Blackwood. Billy Jean is oblivious to Marky because she believes he has cooties.
• Terranigma has Meilin, who eventually decides that she's in love with Ark. She then proceeds to make overtures to him, only to get (albeit amusingly) shot down because Ark is too busy worrying about Elle.

Meilin: You know, Ark...I have stories to tell, too.
Ark: Look! This is Elle's house!

• Fairly common in the Tales (series) with the main protagonist. In Tales of Symphonia, Sheena practically confesses her feelings to Lloyd in one possible scene, and he doesn't realize it. In Tales of the Abyss, Tear falls in love with Luke, and he's the only character in the party that doesn't pick up on it (which is saying something since one of the characters, Anise, actually appears to be dumber then Luke for the most part). A similar thing occurs in Tales of Legendia, with Chloe having a crush on Senel (which even the game's big idiot Norma notices). Senel at least picks up on Shirly's crush for him. In Tales of Phantasia, this is largely averted; none of the characters have too much difficulty recognizing each other's affections, but just about all of them refuse to assert themselves romantically before the last act of the game, probably because most of them are teenagers.
  • While Senel from Tales of Legendia is pretty dense, it's implied that he doesn't want to to recognize those kinds of feelings due to his rather troubled past.
  • Continued in Tales of Vesperia with Karol, towards Nan. Hammered home when she's his final foe in the 100-Man Melee - Nan explicitly says that she can't have the man she marries be weak. Karol, being too young and too stupid to know better, then asks why she's attacking him, then. Cue standard Tsundere reaction.
  • Karol actually does like Nan; thats why hey was so eager to get her attention at the begining of the game.
• Pascal of Tales of Graces might be the Most Triumphant Example in the whole series. When Hubert flat-out tells her that he likes her, she misinterprets it as him telling her that he's getting married. She solemnly promises him that she'll be at the wedding, and will take a bath with soap as well. He slinks off, defeated.
• If Shepard woos Tali in Mass Effect 2, she'll confess that she's been in love with him since the first game. Since she ultimately wasn't intended to be a love interest, she obviously didn't drop any hints of her feelings during the first game. Then again, Shepard is the point of view character.
  • Also, Friend Zone Turian is pretty obviously into the quarian on Ilium, but she has so far failed to notice.
    • Until the end of that conversation, anyway... there had to be a reason for her mentioning her "nerve stimulation package" - aside from Fan Service, anyway.
• In Tales of Monkey Island, Guybrush is oblivious to Morgan's feelings for him, especially noticeable in Chapter Three when they talk about how to calm the female manatee. Of course, this is due in large part to his unbreakable devotion to Elaine. (Even though he was more of a flirt in Escape From Monkey Island)
• Miles Edgeworth in the Ace Attorney series seems to be entirely unaware of the frothing masses of fangirls he has, let alone when females develop obvious crushes on him.
  • Although he is all too aware of Oldbag's affection to him. Needless to say, it squicked him out.
  • Lampshaded in Trials and Tribulations, when Gumshoe suggests that maybe the suspect (who Edgey vaguely recognised) was an ex who he forgot. His reaction? Genuine surprise, along with the genius line: "D-Do I really inspire this sort of frothing desire from the female masses?" Yes, Edgeworth, yes you do.
• Cloud in Final Fantasy VII is officially unaware either Aerith or Tifa have feelings for him while both are alive.
  • Add in the fact that Cloud himself was unaware he had feelings for Tifa until the Lifestream event.
    • Until the Lifestream event, he's a partial amnesiac with a slight personality disorder, brought on by recovering (badly) from poisoning just in time to watch the guy who was protecting him get cruelly gunned down within sight of their destination, after both of them had been experimented on in an induced coma for four years. Oh, and the Big Bad mind controls him repeatedly for kicks until then too. The Big Bad he had already beaten. To say that Cloud's mind was not ready to even recognize romantic feelings is an understatement.
• Chrodechild from Suikoden Tierkreis remains oblivious to Asad's affection to her. Poor guy.
• In Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Hammer makes hints about having feelings for Yoko, but she never picks up on them, mistakenly thinking that he's "glaring" at her when he looks her way.
• Akihiko Sanada of Persona 3 "seems to be completely incapable of recognizing female emotion," as the PSP version of the game states. He honestly has no idea why all those girls follow him around, and is similarly oblivious to the advances of the female protagonist if she pursues a relationship with him. He's not that great at understanding his own feelings, either; at the culmination of his Romance Sidequest, the protagonist herself must flat-out tell him that the feelings he just described having mean he's in love with her. This despite the fact that, if he is in the party during the July Full Moon event, he comes close to actually having sex with her under the Shadow's influence.
  • Hilariously, it seems like Akihiko is just the Cool Loner type, until the inevitable Beach Episode, where you discover that he is completely and totally useless in romantic situations.
  • Although really that's a component, albeit a large one, of the fact that he has the social skills of a brick; a result of having a grand total of one friend, himself a Cool Loner, for the first fifteen years of his life and having no time for anyone less dedicated than him.
  • Mitsuru provides a female example, as while she is slightly more in tune to emotions than Akihiko she still seems rather oblivious to the sheer amount of people of both genders who have crushes on her. For an extra bonus, her and Akihiko definetly have some sort of romantic tension but are too oblivious to actually act on it.
• Hiroki in Canvas 2. Seven love interests and multiple students gunning for him and he's unaware of all of them.
• Aveline in Dragon Age II is completely oblivious to Hawke's advances during her romance quest chain, even though he/she flat out says it at one point.
  • Merrill of the same game is incapable of picking up on the advances of Hawke's brother, Carver.
  • As the player, you can also chose to have Hawke be oblivious to Merrill's obvious infatuation with Hawke, you know, if you're a heartless bastard.
• Kyoko in Kara no Shoujo is completely unaware of Uozumi's affections for her. It seems at first like Reiji is similarly oblivious to Kyoko, but it turns out to be a subversion.
• In the Tokimeki Memorial series, the main protagonist suffering a terminal case of this trope is a tradition. Every single one of them (be they a boy or a girl) is affected by this, but the severity of it depends from game to game. One of the worst is the protagonist of Tokimeki Memorial 2: every single main heroine, and both of his male best friends Lampshade his total obliviousness at one point or another in the saga, and even several minor characters do it as well.
• Raz during the first half of Psychonauts is a bit like this.
  • Heck, after Lili blatantly states that she wants to make out with him, he spends the rest of the cutscene trying to comprehend what she was saying.
• Played for laughs in the Smuggler questline on Tatooine in Star Wars: The Old Republic with a female jedi who is completely oblivious to any flirting done by the smuggler, leading to this possible gem in the storyline climax:

Smuggler: (to Risha): Oh, I've got a Jedi and a Sith fighting over me, but I only have eyes for you.
Jedi: Nothing you say makes any sense.
Sith woman: Poor girl, she's never been kissed.

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