Little Miss Snarker

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Strip from July 13, 1987
Calvin and Hobbes © Bill Watterson.

The Deadpan Snarker comes in many forms; it could be the non-action guy, the sidekick, the Weasel Mascot, and even the cat. This trope deals with snark coming from a little girl.

The humor here is that we don't usually think of an adorable little kid as being sarcastic, and this character type is both smart and perceptive, capable of pointing out exactly what other characters keep concealed - often their feelings for one another.

Expect her to be Wise Beyond Their Years. Compare The Snark Knight.

Examples of snarky little kids include:

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

Fan Works

Michael: "Can we all behave like adults here?"
Emma: "No, I'm still ten years old, remember?"

Film

  • In Beautiful Girls a young Natalie Portman plays one of these.[context?]
  • Dakota Fanning's characters in the movies Push and Uptown Girls[context?]
  • Dakota Fanning portrays another snarky little girl as the voice of Coraline.[context?]
  • Drew Barrymore's character in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is Gertie, Elliott's mischievous five-years-old sister. She makes several snarky remarks throughout the film that nobody remarks upon.
  • 10-year-old Devon from Lawn Dogs. Snark is by far the most wholesome of her methods for dealing with the artificial, stuck-up, pretentious world she inhabits.
  • Dani from Hocus Pocus.[context?]
  • Addie from Paper Moon.[context?]
  • Ironically, Shirley Temple becomes a bit of a Little Miss Snarker in the film Little Miss Marker, after hanging around the gangsters who've unofficially taken her in, after she was left with them by her suicidal father. (Punning from this film's title gets us this trope's name.)
  • Mattie Ross from True Grit.[context?]
  • Sarah Altman from Panic Room.[context?]
  • In Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, despite Snow White's motherly and gentle nature, not having a mean bone in her body, she does possess a sense of sassiness and sarcasm, such as when she recognises Grumpy and announces it mockingly, "Oooh, you must be Grumpy" in a deep voice. Not buying the dwarfs' bluffs upon being asked whether they washed their hands for dinner, she sarcastically responds "Oh, recently". And after Grumpy bumps into a wall, Snow snarkily asks him, "Did you hurt yourself?"
    • A deleted scene of the dwarfs' bedroom argument scene has Snow intervene during a fight that ensues, later blackmailing the dwarfs into letting her stay much to Grumpy's chagrin.

Live-Action TV

Literature

  • Elva from the Inheritance Cycle.[context?]
  • Adah in The Poisonwood Bible.[context?]
  • Jenny Wren in Dickens' Our Mutual Friend. She has a good reason for being so jaded, since her father's irresponsibility and severe alcoholism leave her, at the age of about thirteen, to be the responsible adult of the household.
  • Elani from Broken Sky.[context?]
  • Several child characters in Dean Koontz's works would definitely qualify. Lelani Klonk from One Door Away From Heaven and Regina from Hideaway, to name a couple.[context?]
  • Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter.[context?]
    • Hermione also gets her moments.[context?]
  • Ivy (aka The Archive) from The Dresden Files makes an attempt at this on behalf of the incapacitated protagonist. He notes that she's not very good at it yet, but he gets choked up nonetheless.[context?]
  • While her childish curiosity or perceived psychological instability are the character traits usually played up in adaptations, Alice from Alice in Wonderland could be surprisingly sarcastic and was never one to suffer fools gladly. Her opinion of the Queen of Hearts is a prime example.
  • Percy Jackson: Artemis, Zoë Nightshade and Thalia. Also subverted, since Artemis and Zoë turned out to be Really Seven Hundred Years Old.[context?]
  • Rachel from the Sword of Truth series. Has no problem calling out Chase when he complains about the poultice he's forced to apply by telling him that if he'd just listened to her in the first place, he probably wouldn't have been hurt by the Eldritch Abomination he was surprised by and he wouldn't have to take the burning medicine.
  • The Cadpig from The Hundred and One Dalmatians and The Starlight Barking by Dodie Smith. Okay, so she's a puppy, but that just adds to the cuteness.[context?]
  • Pippi Longstocking combines this with being a Genki Girl and Cloudcuckoolander. Her snarky moments are most frequent in the original books, but she has her moments in most of the adaptations as well.
  • Young Wizards: Dairine Callahan.[context?]

Newspaper Comics

Radio

Theatre

"Ahahaha, you can talk to birds?!"

Video Games

  • Vanilla H. of Galaxy Angel, though in the anime, she is a bit more nonsensical than most deadpan snarkers.[context?]
  • Etna from Disgaea. She's almost never without a snarky comment about her traveling companions.
  • Setsuna Kiyoura from School Days.[context?]
  • Shiori Momono in 11eyes, a returnee from Italy who spends most of her time reading. The other part of her time is spent berating Tadashi. Everyone berates Tadashi, but she does it in a manner that hits him where it hurts.
  • Lieselotte of Arcana Heart, especially in her story route.

Heart: Hey-o! Miss Kidnapper-Person! Are you ready for an awesome rescue~? ♪
Lieselotte: (...zat girl is very odd...)

To Exdeath: Inside your head is the Void!
To Cloud: Your hair is a distraction!
To Kuja: Narcissists are so last Windsday!

Web Comics

Galahad: You're breaking up with me?
Anne: I just have a lot going on right now. With school, and, you know, zombies.

Web Original

  • Marie Swanson in Erika's New Perfume, post regression. There's something to be said about the most snarky (and for that matter, arguably most clever) character in the series being three years old.[context?]

Western Animation

"Power tools in the dark? Darwin should be paying you two goons royalties."