Jerkass Has a Point/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A Jerkass gives an actually valid, if hypocritical, What the Hell, Hero? -speech.

  • Straight: Norman is usually rude, arrogant, immature, lacking in manners and ill-adjusted along with poor people skills - and surprises everyone when he calls Brandon out on mistreating his friends.
  • Exaggerated: Norman is a Jerkass bordering on Complete Monster -territory, who thinks going along social norms is for wimps and even he finds Brandon's decision to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge for some random, relatively small slight to go way overboard.
  • Justified: Norman is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold or a Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold.
    • Norman still has some standards despite being a jerk.
    • Norman, in the vein of being an asshole, is also an extremely self-deceptive hypocrite, who never thinks rules could apply to himself.
    • Norman is considered a Jerkass because he is always rude to his teammates and speaks aloud every single bad thought he has about them: this is why he is the first person to call Brandon out, whereas everyone else avoided the issue to be polite.
  • Inverted: Everyone calls Norman out on behavior that is so nice it just strikes everyone out of proportion.
    • ...or is actually harmful
  • Subverted: Norman invokes Your Approval Fills Me with Shame.
    • Norman goes to defend Brandon, ranting how others are simply being judgemental morons.
    • Norman states that Brandon's actions don't make a difference and everyone else should think so as well.
    • Norman admits he actually only likes to feel superior.
  • Double Subverted: ...in an ironic fashion, then switching to straight-out chastising.
    • Only Norman is trying to suppress his feelings, because Brandon's deed still made him really angry.
    • Norman's exclamation of superiority isn't convincing, implying he's merely comfortable in his jerk self-image despite momentary out-of-character behavior.
  • Parodied: ???
  • Zig Zagged: Norman calls Brandon out on his misbehavior or breach of conduct, then in mid-speech turns around and starts presenting Brandon's reasons, good or not, and chastising everyone else for being narrow-minded jerks - to mock Brandon. Others are put off my Norman's hypocrisy and flighty manner of presentation and remark that while Brandon's course of action wasn't exactly laudable, Norman is still worse and thus in no position to judge.
  • Averted: Norman makes no comment on or doesn't care about Brandon's behavior.
    • Norman looks like he's going to call Brandon out, except that it turns out to be a remark about some completely unrelated matter.
  • Enforced: ???
  • Lampshaded: I can't believe I agree with him.
  • Invoked: Norman attempts to draw the attention to what Brandon did.
  • Exploited: ???
  • Defied: Other characters say that it doesn't matter if Norman is right, because that doesn't make him any less of an asshole.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???
  • Deconstructed: Brandon's friends begin to see Norman as right, and start to question their loyalty to Brandon. Because if a Jerkass like Norman can see something is wrong with him, something must be wrong.
    • Alternatively, they lose respect for Brandon and leave him outright. Turning to Norman simply because he's correct.
    • No one in the team listened to Norman, and they eventually get punished for it for being ignorant of his warning.

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