Jerk with a Heart of Gold/Web Comics

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"Why do I work for you people again?"
"Because your heart is strong and full of love. Let's fly."

  • Ito, the God of Trust and Betrayal from A Moment of Peace, steals dreams and crushes hopes [dead link] for a living, and has prosthetic hands forged from moments of despair by crows that grew hands to strangle people. Despite all this, he seems to be a nice guy when you get to know him.
  • Ben from Loserz. See this strip for his jerk tendencies and this one for his golden heart.
  • Abel from Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures. Though sometimes it's hard to tell whether he's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold or just a plain ol' jerk.
    • Also, Wildy. She's the kind of tomboy whose idea of caring sometimes takes the form of "only I get to beat up my friends, damn it!"...but it's there nonetheless.
  • Krosp in Girl Genius. Of course, he's a cat and you have to make allowances.
  • Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire has the Klegdixal ambassador from the Gallimaufry arc. Possibly also the Klegs as a whole. The way the ambassador tells it, the Beemahs are their albatross, and they desperately want to fix the mistakes they made with the poor fuzzy little weapons.
  • Davan from Something*Positive, a sarcastic, cynical jerk but nonetheless is capable of great caring and fearsomely loyal to his close friends. In fact, most of the cast are like that.
  • El Goonish Shive, both in Moperville North and Moperville South — they are not classic Queen Bees, but the closest to this status.
    • Susan adopts the angry Straw Feminist role mostly because it's an easy way to handle her daddy issues, but she's both smarter and nicer than that. So when something touches her where this convenient mask is too stretched, the next moment it's torn and you can see the real Susan (a cynical Deadpan Snarker, but not without compassion), while jerks still face "The Hammer Queen".
    • Diane is a lying, haughty manipulative bitch... but she takes care of what friends she has, and helps Grace when she's in need. Also, "Permission to hug?" She changed her behavior after seeing her friends have bad reputation and having to reassess baseline for "cool" (when Susan killed an abomination and sent another running, Diane happened to be around and was plainly told she got the same magical affinity, possibly stronger).
  • Rumisiel from Misfile is sleazy, sexist, drunken, stupid, incompetent... (the list goes on) until someone needs some advice about the human heart or a vengeful spirit placated.
  • Dandy from Dandy and Company.
  • Amon Thorn from Cwynhild's Loom is typically rude and comes across as selfish, but in reality he cares a great deal about the Valkyries and is risking everything to help them.
  • Netta from DDG usually spends her time thinking up fresh torments for Zip, but can be capable of the occasional sweet gesture.
  • Varsuuvius occasionally has a bit of this. V is pompous, arrogant, pedantic, looks down on non-elves and less intelligent people with equal scorn, genuinely hates at least one teammate, and generally doesn't seem to be very motivated to save the world. Even so, there have been moments of V genuinely caring for teammates, notably Haley.
  • The most of the main characters from Errant Story are a bit dickish on the surface but are, at heart, decent people. Jon, Sarine, Sara, and more recently Meji (though that was more the result of maturing as a person rather than revealing something that was already there) all more or less fall into this category. In fact, the only one who is nice on the surface turns out to be a genocidal maniac.
  • Both Conrad and Veser from Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name.
    • Doc Worth, too. He genuinely cares for Hanna and doesn't want him putting himself in dangerous situations.
  • Rhea, main character of Slightly Damned.
    • Cliff is implied to be one, but he rarely shows the "heart of gold" part, especially if Buwaro's around.
  • Thanatos from Gallows Humor
  • Brent Sienna from PvP. Now official.
  • Mora and Rachael from Las Lindas. The writer tries to portray Miles as one, but most consider him just a regular jerk.
  • Cpt. Dahl from Air Force Blues. At least, when he gets into serious "Danger Zone" mode.
  • Though his group finds him unpleasant and cranky, Rocky from Our Little Adventure isn't such a bad guy.
  • Finn, the protagonist of Sea of Insanity started as a garden variety jerk, but may actually be one of these.
  • To varying degrees, almost all of the major male characters in Out There (the exceptions being John and Chuck). James is selfish and abrasive, arrogant, constantly borrowing money without paying it back; he also volunteers at a homeless shelter. Clayton is surly, has been known to steal alcohol from his favorite bar, and is constantly seen mooching off of others; but he refused to take advantage of Miriam when she was drunk. Steven and Rod are unrepentant philanderers, but are generally loyal and respectful towards their ex-flame-cum-best-friends (Sherry and Araceli, respectively). Wally is a repentant (and former) philanderer. Considering the fact the main character, Miriam, has enough flaws to fill a book (while remaining unerringly sympathetic) Out There seems to be a world where everyone is a little bad, but nobody is too bad (although the near-saintly John is an idiosyncratic exception).
  • The Trolls of Homestuck at first appeared to be an entire race of Jerk Asses, but quite a few of them showed off their hearts of gold during the Act 5 "Hivebent" arc. Karkat is probably the best example, and is actually a relatively nice guy compared to some of the other trolls...
    • Before the SGrub game, Eridan spends most of his time trying to save the very troll castes he wants to wipe out, if only because it would make Feferi unhappy. Later subverted when he murders Feferi after she tries to stop his Face Heel Turn.
    • Equius Zahhak may be a racist thug, but after Gamzee goes Ax Crazy, the first thing he does before heading out to confront him is send Nepeta to safety. After the two of them had spend some time talking about their feelings in the robot pile after Aradia's explosion.
  • Bob of Emergency Exit is surprised to find out other people see him as this: 'jerk' because of his poor social skills and unwillingness to show affection, 'heart of gold' because he genuinely does care for his friends.
  • Faye of Questionable Content can be really mean to random strangers just for the hell of it, which she has been called out on at least once. The heart of gold is apparent around her friends (though this isn't immediately apparent with Dora).
  • Zig Zag from Sabrina Online. She may be a slut, but she has been shown to be nice when she wants to. Time will tell on whether the events of Internet/GIFT Arc will shift her character to pure Jerkass.
  • Pyramos from Wurr is an arrogant, pompous ass who runs Iacar (the protagonist) and his pack out of hound territory altogether. Why? Because a pregnant female in his pack has lost her mate, and needs a cave for her pups. Of course, there's canonically some question as to whether or not he's got some vested interest in the situation—-which would mean that he'd broken the hound rule against deepblooded mating—but even so.
  • Jamie from Khaos Komix is typically depicted as a grouchy, mean, homophobic Jerkass. In his girlfriend Charlie's story he's shown to be quite polite and nice. It appears that something happened when he was younger that sparked his mean behavior.
  • Charlie from Soul Symphony is pretty rash, condescending, angry, opinionated metalhead. He even talks down to one of his closest friends all the time. We realize over time that he means no harm, and even has a soft spot for those close to him.
  • Bruno, in Too Much Information: a skirt-chasing jerk, but when he steps over the line and his best friend Ace is going to have to be the bad guy, Bruno announces he has a new job and is leaving. He doesn't. He quit so his best friend wouldn't have to fire him.
  • Trawn from Electric Wonderland can occasionally seem single-minded and forceful in her movement for her newspaper's success, but she does show sympathy for Aerynn (due to her rejections from society) and Lululu (due to her household's state of poverty).
  • In Sakana, most of the Jerkass characters are this, to the point is more surprising to find jerks with no redeeming qualities:
  • Sniper from Romantically Apocalyptic. Word of God says he's actually a Nice Guy, but considering who he has as company, and all the utter crap he gets put through (left hanging upside-down in an abandoned train, abducted by aliens, sent off on a quest with only a Hello Kitty handbag for protection), can you blame him for acting that way?
  • Layla from Eerie Cuties. She's rude to almost everyone and is convinced that she have to act haughty. But she loves her sister and her boyfriend and can be nice to random people... until she remembers the "need" to posture. Then it goes like this -

Layla: You should thank me! I wouldn't do that for just any- Hey! Who are you?

    • Amusingly enough, Magick Chicks made it clear that Melissa is Not So Different - though they'd probably tear to shreds anyone who told it to them, except Tiffany who managed to befriend both while knowing they are theoretically on the "enemy" team. At least, she did add (if with some effort) Faith to the list of people whose imminent demise she considers undesirable, despite the trouble in question being a result of Faith's attempts to turn her into one more adoring servile sex toy.
  • In Gunnerkrigg Court Zimmy turns out to be like this. She snaps at people all the time and mocks anyone she can. And is irritated when someone tiptoes around her, as well. Then again, mostly she is jealous very about Gamma (or maybe deeply terrified to lose her), and knows that her condition is a danger for almost anyone around. Other than this, she cares at least about the people who can afford to hang out with her, and won't mind to help the others, given an opportunity.
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