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[[File:leslie_knope_2903.jpg|
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Leslie is {{spoiler|a City Councillor-elect and}} the deputy director of the Parks and Recreation Department in Pawnee, Indiana. An [[Inversion]] of the [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]] trope, she is a cheerful bureaucrat full of can-do spirit. This makes her [[The Pollyanna]] on a show where almost everyone else is cynical and jaded to one degree or another. She is also a [[Determinator]].
{{tropelist|Tropes exhibited by Leslie include:}}
* [[Adorkable]]
* [[Adult Child]]: Leslie is cheerful, hyperactive, and a little naïve. Not to mention her fondness for candy and dislike of vegetables. She is competent, however.
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* [[Afraid of Needles]]
* [[Ambition Is Evil]]: Averted! Leslie is extremely ambitious (just read the above quote), but she is also very moral. In some episodes, she is presented with an immoral way to achieve one of her goals and considers using it, but ultimately she ends up feeling guilty and doesn't go through with it.
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* [[Bunny Ears Lawyer]]: She's ''very'' good at her job, and probably should have Ron's. She is however, an extremely eccentric [[Adult Child]].
* [[Catch Phrase]]:
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* [[Character Development]]: Leslie had some [[The Office|Michael Scott]]-ish aspects to her personality in Season 1, but in Season 2 the character became much less obnoxious, and more of a hyper-competent, upbeat Pollyanna.
* [[Determinator]]: Best exemplified by her ''masterful'' oration of her speech intended to attract sponsors to Harvest Festival. All while she was near delirious with the flu, and quickly reverted to sickness-induced delirium during a short Q&A session.
* [[Distaff Counterpart]]: Back in the first season, critics tended to dismiss Leslie as "[[The Office|Michael Scott]] in a skirt", but it's generally agreed that she became more her own character after the series [[Grew the Beard]], as unlike Michael Scott, she is not only good at her job, but totally deserved to have been promoted into it.
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* [[Genre Savvy]]: A lot more than average government officials it seems. How many people do you picture fixing the controversy with Jerry's painting by {{spoiler|making Jerry make a new one in which Tom is the bare chested centaur instead of a female bare chested centaur.}}?
* [[Glurge Addict]]: Mildly. She really likes cute things, but not to an annoying degree.
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* [[Hair of Gold]]
* [[Hypercompetent Sidekick]]: A rare example of the lead character fitting this trope.
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* [[Workaholic]]: Hell, in "Citizen Knope" she attempts to steal some work from the office to do at home during her ''paid'' suspension.
[[File:ann_perkins_846.png|
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Leslie's [[Heterosexual Life Partners|Heterosexual Life Partner]]. Despite being a nurse at the local hospital, Ann seems to spend all her time at City Hall, apparently helping her friends with their work for free. This is [[The Artifact]] from the first season in which she originally brought Lot 48 to Leslie's attention and became involved in the effort to turn it into a park. She is generally a [[Straight Man|Straight Woman]].
{{tropelist|Tropes exhibited by Ann include:}}
* [[Ambiguously Brown]]: Obviously applies to any character played by Rashida Jones, who is black and Jewish.
{{quote|
* [[Expository Hairstyle Change]]: Colors a few locks of her hair bright red in an attempt to impress Chris in "Camping".
* [[Extreme Doormat]]: Definitely has elements of this. She's very passive compared to Leslie and is always pulled into Leslie's plans. Also, due to the [[Florence Nightingale Effect]] and [[Weakness Turns Her On]], she's very inclined to allow boyfriends to take advantage of her.
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* [[Shipper on Deck]]: Ann really, really wants Leslie and Ben to get together (and even sneaks an Al Green song onto their road trip mix, which is designed to be as un-sexy as possible.).
* [[So Beautiful It's a Curse]]: A mild case. Being so beautiful, she's never been dumped before. When Chris breaks up with her, his positive personality and strange wording plus her inexperience make her not realize it until a week later and she is blindsided by it. As Leslie put it in an earlier episode:
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* [[Straight Man]]
* [[Weakness Turns Her On]]: As indicated by her finding Chris more attractive when she was caring for him than when he was a perfect human specimen. [[Fridge Brilliance|This also explains her relationship with Andy and why it didn't work out with Mark.]]
* [[What Does She See in Him?]]: Ann goes through as many lame, unattractive boyfriends as attractive ones in season three. Leslie has to call her out on it in "The Fight" when her current guy happens to be [[Dumbass DJ|the Douche]].
[[File:tom_haverford_2039.jpg|
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Tom is Leslie's immediate subordinate and an aspiring career politician. Networking, hot women, expensive suits, hot women, slacking off, and hot women are just a few of his favorite things.
{{tropelist|Tropes exhibited by Tom include:}}
* [[Actor Shared Background]]: Like Aziz Ansari, Tom is an Indian-American from South Carolina.
* [[Always Second Best]]: He has a sort of inferiority complex for Ron, which came to a boiling point in the third season premiere.
* [[Camp Straight]]: Despite his [[Handsome Lech]] personality, he invests in a [[Where Everybody Knows Your Flame|gay bar]], [[Real Men Wear Pink|wears pink shirts]], and drinks stereotypically "gay" drinks.
* [[Can't Hold His Liquor]]
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** Oddly, in what may be an [[Out-of-Character Moment]], he isn't shown to be particularly affected by his invention Snakejuice, which has terrible after-effects for the rest of the cast.
* [[Casanova Wannabe]]: Sometimes to the point of real pathos.
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* [[Schemer]]: He's always involved in some plan or invention to get fabulously wealthy, but none of them ever work.
* [[Self-Deprecation]]: Will not deny that he rides others' coattails.
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* [[Ted Baxter]]: Full force.
* [[This Is My Name on Foreign]]: His birth name is Darwish Sabir Ismael Gani, but he changed it since he thought people with "funny-sounding Muslim names" didn't have a chance in politics. He admits this reason is [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] after [[Barack Obama]].
[[File:ron_swanson_2743.jpg|
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Leslie's manly, mustachioed, unapologetically libertarian boss who, engaged in a continuous attempt to sabotage the Pawnee government, secretly (or not-so-secretly) tries to stop anything from getting done. Leslie basically does his job for him, allowing him to devote his time to being a [[Memetic Badass]].
{{tropelist|Tropes exhibited by Ron include:}}
* [[Annoying Laugh]]: Despite his unabashed masculinity, he titters like a schoolgirl on the few occasions where he does laugh.
* [[Badass Mustache]]
* [[Big Eater]]: Especially in regards to breakfast meals, and all other foodstuffs are treated with suspicion, or outright derision. The only thing that interests him in a strip club is the breakfast buffet. He says that if he does not have at least three breakfast meals a day, he acts like a tired whiny child. He has an enormous picture of bacon and eggs framed in his office.
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* [[Birthday Hater]]: He hates birthdays so much that he has gone to great lengths to keep anyone from finding out, including having it redacted from all government documents.
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* [[The Cast Showoff]]: Nick Offerman actually is a woodworker. He also plays saxophone.
* [[Catch Phrase]]: "Bully."
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* [[Team Dad]]: Begrudgingly
[[File:april_ludgate_5796.jpg|
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April is [[The Snark Knight]]. Originally, she was an apathetic college intern who constantly slacked off and seemed like she would rather be anywhere else. In the second season, she was hired as Ron's assistant specifically to stonewall anyone wishing to meet with him. It's a symbiotic relationship.
{{tropelist|Tropes exhibited by April include:}}
* [[Actor Shared Background]]: Being of half-Puerto Rican descent. However, it's on the actress's father's side and the character's mother's side.
* [[Bi the Way]]: Potentially. She expresses interest in going to a strip club and thinks the topless painting of Leslie is hot.
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* [[Emotionless Girl]]: Up to 11.
* [[Fag Hag]]: Until midway into season two, she constantly hangs out with her "gay boyfriend" and his boyfriend.
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* [[Fourth Date Marriage]]: Married Andy after dating a month.
* [[Growing Up Sucks]]: Firmly believes so, as demonstrated in "Jerry's Painting".
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* [[Pet the Dog]]: Guilty over [[Be Careful What You Wish For|successfully wishing misfortune upon Chris]] in "Bowling for Votes", she offers to take him to the movies with her and Andy with the tickets she won in the donation phone pool.
* [[Professional Slacker]]: About as literal as possible:
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* [[Sassy Secretary]]
* [[Put on a Bus]]: The possibility is toyed with in season three, where Chris offers to take her back to Indianapolis with him to be his assistant.
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* [[The Snark Knight]]
* [[Spicy Latina]]: She acknowledges the trope while averting it with extreme prejudice.
{{quote|
* [[Trickster Archetype]]: Enjoys being pointlessly contradictory and playing pranks. Might have something to do with a particularly ruthless [[The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry|Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry]].
* [[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?|Why Did It Have to Be Spiders?]]: She has that [[Buffy-Speak|arachnocornucopia thing?]]
* [[Will They or Won't They?]]: With Andy during the second season.
* [[Yaoi Fangirl]]:
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[[File:andy_dwyer_9257.png|
{{quote|
Andy was introduced as Ann's idiotic musician boyfriend in the first season and originally intended as a temporary character. He was kept on in the second season after Ann broke up with him and landed a job as a shoe-shiner at City Hall. He had a [[Will They or Won't They?]] relationship with April in the second season. They began dating in the third season and as of "Fancy Party" are now married.
{{tropelist|Tropes exhibited by Andy include:}}
* [[Adult Child]]: Even more so than Leslie.
* [[Author Catchphrase]]: He mentions that he uses the lines "spread your wings and fly" and "you deserve to be a champion" in all of his songs. The first lyric at least can actually be heard in the [http://www.scarecrowboat.com/downloads.shtml studio versions] of most of his songs.
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** YMMV on that one, considering his completely unreasonable behaviour regarding Ann. After she broke him with him at the end of season 1, he spends much of season 2 stalking her and trying to sabotage her relationship with Mark.
* [[The Ditz]]:
{{quote|
* [[Does Not Understand Sarcasm]]:
{{quote|
'''Tom''': Really? 'Cause an hour ago you told me you'd rather watch a sex tape of your grandparents.
'''April''': Shut up! I don't have anything else to do. Do you want help or not?
'''Tom''': All right, see you guys later. ''[leaves]''
'''Andy''': I think that that's really, really sweet that your grandparents still make love. }}
** In another episode, Andy and Tom are escorted to the archiving room by an extremely old woman. As soon as she leaves, Tom jokingly tells Andy to remind him to ask her where she was when Lincoln got shot. Andy makes sure to write it down.
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** He thinks that the states that form the Four Corners are Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and Oregon.
* [[Jerkass]]: In season 1. He grows out of it.
* [[Literal
* [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl|Manic Pixie Dream Guy ]]: Andy is one of these to April.
* [[Oblivious to Love]]: Towards the end of Season 2, it becomes clear that this is at least partially an act due to the age difference making Andy uncertain.
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* [[Will They or Won't They?]]: With April during the second season.
[[File:ben_wyatt_4761.jpg|
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A state auditor who comes to Pawnee with Chris to evaluate the town's funds at the end of the second season. Promoted to series regular in the third season. He is blunt and cynical, but has a [[Freudian Excuse]].
{{tropelist|Tropes exhibited by Ben include:}}
* [[Adorkable]]: Makes occasional references to sci-fi movies and corrects Tom when he gets them wrong.
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* [[Aside Glance]]: Ben is the king of this.
* [[Bearer of Bad News]]: Chris often forces him into this position.
* [[Berserk Button]]: Any mention of him as a mayor when he was 18 years old is bound to set him off.
* [[Bishounen]]: Leslie starts thinking of Ben as this after they start dating:
{{quote|
* [[Bi the Way]]: When going off on a talk show host, he can be heard saying, "Everyone has gay thoughts!" Although he may not completely fulfill the trope, since said talk show host was heckling and flustering him into saying several embarrassing things.
** So, [[Incredibly Lame Pun|not a straight example]]?
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* [[The Comically Serious]]
* [[The Cynic]]: Though he's getting better, thanks to Leslie and Pawnee in general.
* [[Face Palm]]: Ben's typical reaction to Pawnee, its citizens, and his own personal disasters.
* [[Hollywood Nerd]]: Definite Type II. {{spoiler|Shauna Malwae-Tweep and Marlene Knope-Briggs}} certainly agree.
* [[Improbable Age]]: Was mayor of a town at 18. A caller to the Ira and the Douche radio show lampshades this in the most offensively unintelligent way possible:
{{quote|
* [[In-Series Nickname]]: Ben accumulates a lot of these in his short time in the series ("Mean Ben", "Turd Boy", "Human Disaster", "Calzone Boy", "Nerd", etc). In fandom, "Human Disaster" especially has grown to almost meme-ish proportions.
* [[I Resemble That Remark]]: A [[Running Gag]] with Tom is Tom will make some kind of geek insult about Ben, with Ben to respond indignantly at being called a geek with an even geekier answer. For example, Tom insulting that Ben wants to take a hobbit tour of New Zealand, and Ben responding that he did not care for Peter Jackson's adaptation.
* [[No Social Skills]]
* [[Odd Friendship]]: With Tom. They probably couldn't have been more dissimilar. Though this might apply to Ben and Chris as well.
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* [[Only Sane Man]]
* [[Opposites Attract]]: [[Ship Tease|Teased]] with Leslie.
** In later episodes, they're actually shown to have incredibly similar qualities as well, and the [[Ship Tease]] has been dialed up to all-out [[Unresolved Sexual Tension|UST]].
* [[Promotion to Opening Titles]]
* [[Sharp-Dressed Man]]: In a sleepy midwest town, he definitely stands out.
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** By the end of the third season, however, Ben is definitely his own character. [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/03/parks-and-recreation-mike-schur-talks-about-why-paul-schneider-is-exiting-the-show-plus-more-details.html Also, according to creator Michael Schur], even though Ben was brought in with the idea that he might be a love interest/foil for Leslie, he was hesitant to label Ben that, reasoning that they hadn't shot a single scene with the two of them yet, and implying that, like Andy/April, there needed to be chemistry for it to work.
** He's undeniably replaced Mark as the show's "straight man" though.
* [[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?]]: He's afraid of cops and in "Dave Returns" has to interact with a lot of them.
* [[Will They or Won't They?]]: With Leslie. Oh my ''God''.
* [[The Woobie]]: Becomes this in-universe(and to some viewers) when Donna takes him on her and Tom's annual "Treat Yo'self Day" after seeing him outside at lunch:
{{quote|
** His Woobieness increases later that day when he buys himself a Batman costume to wear as his version of treating himself and begins to weep, his sadness over the breakup of his secret relationship with Leslie finally coming out.
{{quote|
[[File:chris_traeger_8893.jpg|
{{quote|
Ben's partner and opposite. He is cheerful and optimistic, but, in an effort to be liked, he always forces Ben to be the messenger for any bad news. Chris is also a health nut. In season 3 the mayor of Pawnee asks him to fill in for the city manager who's recovering from a heart attack.
{{tropelist|Tropes exhibited by Chris include:}}
* [[The Ace]]: Donna even calls him the Bionic Man.
** [[Broken Ace]]: He's a hypochondriac, and is shown to be unable to cope with the idea of being unhappy and his ultra-positivity often makes him unintentionally a jerk to others (i.e. his behavior toward Ann and Jerry, as well as designating Ben the [[Bearer of Bad News]]).
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* [[Bearer of Bad News]]: But as shown below, he usually leaves that to Ben.
* [[Catch Phrase]]: One of his strategies for making Ben seem like the bad guy instead of him involves variations of this:
{{quote|
'''Chris''': Well, that's terrible! Is there anything we can do about that, Ben?
'''Ben''': Uh, no.
'''Chris''': Damn! ''[hastily leaves the scene]'' }}
** [[Subverted Catchphrase]]: Chris tries to use this once, but then he realizes Ben isn't in the room.
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* [[Full-Name Basis]]: He greets everyone by pointing at them and saying "Hey, <full name>!"
* [[Giving Someone the Pointer Finger]]: It's part of his usual greeting, but it's also what he does when he meets someone for the first time. It can be off-putting.
{{quote|
'''Chris:''' ''(point)'' Ron...Swanson.
''(beat)''
'''Ron:''' Okay. }}
* [[Hollywood Tone Deaf]]: Revealed to be this in "Dave Returns". He doesn't know the words for "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" either.
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* [[Older Than They Look]]: He's 44. The most common in-universe estimate is 25.
* [[The Pollyanna]]: So positive, he scares off Oren, the creepy and morbid Goth at April and Andy's wedding.
** When he was born with a deadly, rare blood disease. The doctors told his parents he would only live for a few months. That's why he is so positive!
* [[Promotion to Opening Titles]]
* [[Pure Is Not Good]]: His exceedingly healthy body, which he compares to a finely-tuned microchip, is more than once played as a weakness. When he catches the flu it hits him like a truck.
{{quote|
* [[Real Men Wear Pink]]: His pink shower cap (from a breast cancer awareness triathlon), and he even has a leg razor. Chris sees none of this anything to be ashamed of.
** He also doesn't see kissing Ron on his birthday as anything strange.
* [[Sarcasm Blind]]:
{{quote|
'''April:''' Wow, that is so sweet.
'''Chris:''' Thank you. }}
** Although in a later episode he seems to understand that Ann is using sarcasm, but not that it's meant as a jab at him.
* [[Stepford Smiler]]: In "The Trial of Leslie Knope", he's so anxious and depressed about Leslie's trial that he loads up on herbal remedies to the point of, as Leslie puts it, "radiating happiness".
* [[Terrified of Germs]]: During flu season:
{{quote|
[[File:mark_brendanawicz_8975.jpg|
{{quote|
[[Straight Man]] caught in a [[Love Triangle]] between Leslie and Ann. He started off the series as a [[Handsome Lech]], but this was quickly dropped and he spent most of his time on the show being a [[Ladykiller in Love]]. [[Put on a Bus]] when he joins a private company at the end of season two.
{{tropelist|Tropes exhibited by Mark include:}}
* [[But for Me It Was Tuesday]]: Non-villainous example. Some years prior to the first season, Mark and Leslie slept together once. This was a ''very'' important event in Leslie's life and she imagines their working relationship has been filled with [[UST]] since. Mark sleeps with so many women that he barely even remembers it.
* [[Casanova]]/[[Handsome Lech]]: In the first season.
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* [[The Generic Guy]]: For two seasons, he stood in the middle of a cast of more interesting characters and acted sane. Which is what a [[Straight Man]] is obviously supposed to do, but many would argue that he just ended up being boring and unmemorable.
* [[Ladykiller in Love]]: How his [[Character Development]] happened.
* [[Perma
* [[Put on a Bus]]: At the end of season two, Ann breaks up with him and he leaves the government to work for a construction company.
[[File:JerryParks_7024.png|
{{quote|
A middle-aged [[Butt Monkey]] who has worked in the Parks Department since the 1970s. He's picked on by everyone, particularly "mean" characters like Tom and April, but also by "nice" characters like Leslie. He is regarded as a boring, out-of-touch loser, but actually seems to have his personal life squared away better than anyone else.
{{tropelist|Tropes exhibited by Gary include:}}
* [[Biggus Dickus]]
{{quote|
* [[Butt Monkey]]
* [[Impossibly Tacky Clothes]]: Something Tom likes to make fun of him for.
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* [[Leap Day]]: His birthday, naturally
* [[My Name Is Not Durwood]]: In "The Trial of Leslie Knope", it's revealed that his name is actually Gary:
{{quote|
* [[Phrase Catcher]]: "Dammit, Jerry!"
* [[The Scapegoat]]: Everything is Jerry's fault
* [[The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter]]: His daughter Millicent.
[[File:Donna_8063.png|
{{quote|
A [[Sassy Black Woman]] who works for the Parks Department. Donna has expensive tastes as she apparently comes from a wealthy family (Ginuwine is her cousin, as revealed in "Sweet Sixteen"). Her most prized possession is her Mercedes-Benz M-Class SUV, which [[Berserk Button|you better not mess with if you know what's good for you]]. She [[Really Gets Around]] and has had a variety of weird sexual exploits, which we mostly hear about in [[Noodle Incident]] format.
{{tropelist|Tropes exhibited by Donna include:}}
* [[Aerith and Bob]]: Her brothers LeVondrias and George.
* [[Berserk Button]]: Do ''not'' touch her Mercedes.
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* [[Sassy Black Woman]]
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