Pride: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|"[[I Resemble That Remark|''Clearly I lack arrogance, as that would be a '''flaw.''''']]"|'''Red Mage Statscowski''', '''[[8-Bit Theater|Eight Bit Theater]]'''}}
Just like alcohol, sometimes having a good opinion of
Take boasting for an example. In their [[Greek Mythology|myths]], the Greeks (who coined the term ''Hubris'' for such dangerous amounts of pride) were big on having a mortal [[Puny Earthlings|(un)deservedly]] [[Blasphemous Boast|boasting that they're better at something than their]] [[Jerkass Gods|highly petty and vengeful gods]], especially the one who declares oneself [[A God Am I|Above the Most High]]. Or trying to [[Bullying a Dragon|constantly bully the weirdo who has the powers to reduce you into a smear on the wall]], [[Tempting Fate|because your pride says you can]]. [[Break the Haughty|You can guess how that tended to go.]] Or (always a classic) walking right into an enemy's hands confident they'll fall just like everyone else has, despite how they seem to be [[Trash Talk|goading you]] to [[Defensive Feint Trap|stand on the big red bulls-eye.]]
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[[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|Great power in general tends to generate great hubris and great insanity at the same time]]. Sometimes the excessive hubris is the insanity in itself. In more [[Romanticism Versus Enlightenment|Romanticist]] works, hubris also goes very well with committing, [[Science Is Bad|through science]], [[Scale of Scientific Sins|sins against nature]] or discovering [[Things Man Was Not Meant to Know]].
Pride and its sister Hubris have brought down more heroes and villains than [[Homer]] could shake a cudgel at. As a [[Fatal Flaw]] and [[Achilles' Heel]], it is a classic that's [[Older Than Feudalism]] and [[Undead Horse Trope|not likely to go away any time soon]], especially since pigheadedness and vanity seem to be pretty firmly rooted human foibles... and, after all, it goes ''so'' well with [[Evil Overlord|megalomania]] and [[Villain Ball|how villains do stupid things]]! There's a reason why this is one of the [[Seven Deadly Sins]], and why a ''very minor'' character in [[Classical Mythology]] is the [[Trope Namer]] for [[Narcissist
Pride is a potent driving force for [[Rule of Drama|Drama]]: Some stories begin with [[Pride Before a Fall|the proud brought low]] and their attempts to learn humility, others are driven by [[To Be a Master|prideful quests]], while others end because of an unwillingness to [[Break the Haughty|forsake said pride]].
[[It's All About Me]], [[A God Am I]], [[Kneel Before Zod]], [[Nothing Can Stop Us Now]], [[Grudging Thank You]] and [[Don't You Dare Pity Me!]] are [[Genius Bonus|proud]] stock phrases. Proud people are also very likely to suffer from [[Moral Myopia]] (to the point of [[Knight Templar|being convinced to be the only righteous one]]). [[Come to Gawk]] is frequently uncommonly painful for the
{{examples|Depictions of pride as a fatal (or extreme) flaw include:}}
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* Sesshomaru from [[Inuyasha]].
* Asuka from ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' is practically defined by
* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', Pride is the leader of the Homunculi, following the [[Seven Deadly Sins]] theme. However, his identity differs between the first anime and
** Not only is Pride Father's most powerful Homunculus, and not only is Pride the most prideful and arrogant of them all, his very ''shape'' is proof of Father's hubris. His true form is basically {{spoiler|''Father'''s original form as an amorphous shadow in a flask}} cranked up to eleven and then some. What better example of Father's pride then to make his strongest warrior {{spoiler|in his own image}}?
** Particularly in the ''Brotherhood'' version, Ed's pride (being an [[Insufferable Genius]]) seems to be a major motivation in his ill-fated attempt to bring his mother back from the dead, although love for her was certainly a big part of it as well. Which makes {{spoiler|his defeat of the Homunculus of the same name}} [[Fridge Brilliance|even more appropriate]].
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* ''[[Code Geass]]'' - [[Word of God]] confirms that pride is Lelouch's main [[Fatal Flaw]].
* Light from ''[[Death Note]]''. Where Light's pride hurt him the most was his underestimating L's abilities. While he was a better [[The Chessmaster|Chessmaster]] than L and correctly estimated Mello and Near's ''individual'' abilities, several of Light's mistakes can be traced to underestimating L. First was the Lind L. Tailor incident. Then Light changed the time he wrote in the Death Note after L figured the times of death meant Kira was a student, letting L know Kira had a connection to the police. Kira had better chances of being identified one of many students than as a family member of the police, but simply did it just to one-up L. Then Light only waited a week after Penbar's investigation of him to kill him, thinking that the lapsed time would be long enough to cool his trail, but picked up the attention of not only L but also Misora. And there really wasn't a good reason to kill Penber at the time anyway. Then he didn't think that L would leave a way for his {{spoiler|successors to know he had died}}. Had Light recognized that the detective L was smarter than the criminal Kira, things may have gone differently.
** Light's [[God Complex]] is the most obvious example of this trope in the
** Actually, Light ''purposely'' let L find out that Kira was connected to the police. It was all part of his [[Xanatos Gambit]] to make L suspect the police, and then investigate them, [[Divide and Conquer|ultimately pissing the police off]] and [[Divided We Fall|causing L to lose their support as well as have the police turn on him]]. It actually worked almost as well as Light hoped, but in the end, L and a small number of the force chose to trust each other. Which, as Soichiro points out, L [[The Chessmaster|might have been waiting for all along]]...
* Neji from ''[[Naruto]]''. He thinks he's better than everyone, until Naruto beats some sense into him. Sasuke, too, which unfortunately [http://fc09.deviantart.com/fs4/i/2004/250/b/4/Naruto_Therapy_by_Risachantag.jpg has yet to be remedied].
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* ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' - Jafar was ''this close'' to complete victory, but his refusal to accept any position other than that of the most powerful being on the face of the Earth was what ultimately undid him. To be more specific, he was already the Sultan ''and'' the most powerful sorcerer in the world as a result of his first two wishes upon capturing the Genie, but his undoing came when Aladdin tricked him into wishing to be a genie -- [[Sealed Evil in a Can|with everything that goes along with the package]].
** Thinking about it, he could have avoided the last third of the movie altogether if he hadn't wasted his first wish on, essentially, stealing the Sultan's clothes - out of pride.
* Pride is key to plot in ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]''. Shifu was too proud of his [[The Gift|prized pupil]] Tai Lung, whom he valued as a son, to realize that Tai Lung was proud to the point of being arrogant. When Oogway denied Tai Lung the Dragon Scroll, he went berserk, carving a swath of devastation through the valley and trying to kill Shifu before being stopped by Oogway.
Twenty years later, Shifu has allowed his pride and that failure to blind him to the potential of his other students, and prevents him from seriously considering that Po is the only hope of defeating Tai Lung. Meanwhile, Tai Lung has only gotten more full of himself while wasting away for twenty years, and when he finally confronts Shifu, he reveals that the motive behind everything he ever did [["Well Done, Son" Guy|was to make Shifu proud of him]]. Shifu declares that he was always proud of him, but that pride worked against him and kept him from seeing that he was setting Tai Lung up for disappointment. And once more, Tai Lung is too proud to accept this, and says he only wants the scroll.
At the end, after getting thoroughly trounced by Po, he fails to understand the meaning of the Dragon Scroll that he had sought for so long, which is that you don't need to seek out some ultimate secret to reach your full potential: the power is already within you. His pride does not allow him to consider that he might have been wrong about everything, and he {{spoiler|dies... we think...}} refusing to accept that he had lost to, in his words, a "big, fat panda."<br />
== Literature ==
* In ''Shadow Puppets,'' one of the [[Ender's Game]] sequels, Virlomi sets herself up as a [[A God Am I|holy woman/god on earth]] to lead a resistance movement in India against the Chinese occupation. After a long sequence of everything going right for her against rivals she knows are better than she is, she becomes convinced that she really is either divine or favored by the gods, and carelessly leads her army into an obvious trap
Later stories show just how much old Ma and Pa Wiggins manipulated their children because the pride of their children (especially Peter) was such there was no way their parents could have figured out they were world famous political Bloggers. ''Ender In Exile'' especially shows this with how they manipulate Peter to exile Ender and Valentine to join Ender. In Peter's case it takes him four books to even suspect his parents used him due to his own pride. This may be a [[Retcon]], however. If it is, it is one inspired by the fact that the reason (according to the Hegemony) that Peter, Val, and Ender are so smart to begin with is that their family has such an excellent genetic history of intelligence.
* In ''Starless Night'', Drizzt Do'Urden leaves his friends behind to see if he can head off the coming storm all by himself. Not only does he fail, not only would he have died if his friends (and even some enemies) hadn't rescued him, but he arguably makes things ''worse''. This would be fine...if it weren't for Drizzt's proclivity for [[Contemplate Our Navels|endless navel-gazing]] on various philosophical themes and subjects in his journal, [[Anvilicious|just in case you missed the point]].
* [[Jane Austen]]
** ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]'', naturally. Sometimes, people who accuse others of being too proud are the proudest of all.
** ''[[Emma]]'',
** ''Persuasion'', too, though it's not Anne Eliot herself, but her father, quite conceited over his [[Blue Blood]] and good looks, and older sister. Though at one point they are being abject to restore a connection and Anne thinks something she had thought she would never think: she wished they had more pride.
* In ''[[The Bible]]'', [[Satan|Lucifer]] rebels against [[God]] because of his pride, and gets himself and his angels cast down into Hell because of it.
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* [[Outbound Flight|Jorus C'baoth]] claimed that a Jedi was immune to pride. He was extremely wrong. Pride is the leading cause of death among Sith, narrowly beating out "swinging lightsabers" and "reactor shafts."
* In Nick Kyme's ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' novel ''[[Salamanders|Salamander]]'', Tsu'gan blames himself for his arrogance that led to his leaving his post, and so to an enemy's breaking in and killing his captain.
* In [[James Swallow]]'s ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' ''[[Blood Angels|Deus Encarmine'' and ''Deus Sanguinius]]'', Sachiel's pride is [[Foil|contrasted to]] Rafen, down to their reactions to each other's loss. Sachiel's reaction to news of an explosion ([[No One Could Survive That]]) is to [[Talking to the Dead|gloat]]; Rafen sees Sachiel's corpse and pities him
In the [[Backstory]], Rafen was so arrogant as to have been rejected as an aspirant for it, but that humbled him and (through some other circumstances) led to his being selected anyway.
Stele explicitly compares Sachiel to Rafen: while it nearly killed him to break Rafen, and that was to [[Despair Event Horizon|drive him to despair]] because he could not win him over, he quite easily brought over Sachiel, through his pride.
* In [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]'s ''[[John Carter of Mars|The Chessman Of Mars]]'', the men of Manator are particularly proud and maltreat their slaves from contempt because they have never been defeated and [[Made a Slave|enslaved]] themselves.
* In [[Ben Counter]]'s [[Warhammer 40000]] novel ''[[Soul Drinkers|Chapter War]]'', Eumenes justifies his rebellion on grounds of fighting for what he believes in, but is clearly after power, especially when he gloats over what he will do with Sarpedon after Sarpedon submits to him to save the Chapter.
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* As [[C. S. Lewis|CS Lewis]] puts it in ''Mere Christianity'':
{{quote|...the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.}}
* Being as ''[[Things Fall Apart]]'' is more or less stated to be a classical Greek tragedy set in pre-colonial and early colonial Nigeria, it makes sense that Okonkwo's driving force and {{spoiler|ultimate cause of death}} is Pride. Subverted in that the author does not condemn Okonkwo's pride but rather is saddened by it
The backstory of his deadbeat father, who spent his days idling and died in massive debt, provides a [[Freudian Excuse]] in this case. Okonkwo swore to himself he would be a pillar of strength and manliness, not a failure like his father.
* In J.R.R Tolkien's ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', pride literally goes before a Fall:
** Melkor sought to create and rule over others, and was too proud to admit his creations were only discoveries made possible by God. He became Morgoth, that is, Satan.
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* ''[[Discworld]]'': Her pride is one of the defining character traits of [[Knight in Sour Armor]] Granny Weatherwax.
{{quote|"You could bounce rocks off her pride."}}
* ''[[Farsala Trilogy]]'': This is the fatal flaw of the
* In Andy Hoare's ''[[White Scars]]'' novel ''Hunt for Voldorius'', Kor'sarro is warned against the sin of pride while talking with the Raven Guard captain; he manages to move from [[H Divided We Fall]] to [[Teeth-Clenched Teamwork]].
* ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'': In "The Hyborian Age" <ref>the [[Backstory]] to the main stories.</ref> the Aquilonian empire suffered from this.
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* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: [[Classical Mythology]] is chock full of these. Here "pride" often means contention with or disrespect for a god.
* Medusa was a famously beautiful priestess of Athena. In Ovid's late [[Retcon|retelling]] of the myth she has sex with Poseidon in a temple of Athena. She got turned into [[A Kind of One|one of the Gorgons]] by Athena because of it.
* Arachne claimed she could weave better than the Goddess of Arts (and most everything else), Athena. The story varies from telling to telling; in some she makes tapestries depicting the gods' faults and foibles, and in some she out-and-out taunts Athena after actually beating her in a weaving contest. Either way, her pride gets her beaten senseless and nearly killed by the angry Athena, who quickly relents and turns Arachne into the first spider as a testament to her skill
Yet another version has her [[Driven to Suicide|hanging herself]] after Athena destroys her life's work (a moving tapestry of the gods) in a fit of jealous rage. Athena resurrects her as the first spider out of remorse.
** Note that she didn't just [[Blasphemous Boast|claim to be better than Athena]], in many versions of the story ''she actually was''. [[Jerkass God|Not that the Greek gods being phenomenal jerks should surprise anyone]], of course.
* Achilles in [[Homer]]'s ''[[The Iliad]]'' [[Achilles in His Tent|refused to leave his tent]] and help the Greeks fight, even after Agamemnon apologized for their meaningless spat earlier. He ended up with a {{spoiler|[[Dead Sidekick]]}}.
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* ''[[Mage: The Awakening]]'' - Every bad thing that has happened to the mages in the [[New World of Darkness]], from the [[Cosmic Horror|Abyss]] to the [[Enemy Without|released Goetia]], can be traced back to mages who [[Schmuck Bait|decided to push the proverbial big red button]] and were too hubristic to consider the consequences of their actions. Indeed, a major theme is that all evil is ultimately human evil in Mage.
* Many Space Marine chapters in ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' have this problem. The last codex had optional disadvantages to represent this, such as We Stand
The orks have Flash Gitz, who are this trope personified within ork society, with a fair share of [[Greed]] to go with it too. Where normal orks love fighting anything that moves, Flash Gitz are more concerned with getting more teeth (the ork currency, mind you) while spending as little of it as possible, and showing off their highly custimized guns and money to other orks. They are widely disliked amongst normal orks due to these facts for being huge showoffs.
** Then there were the Thousand Sons. Magnus's two big mistakes: thinking he knew more about the Warp than the Emperor, and thinking he was too smart to fall for a [[Deal with the Devil]]. Then, over the course of about a day, the whole thing came crashing down around his ears.
*** The Eldar who are now on the brink of extinction but still full of themselves and refuse to get along with other races.
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* ''[[Geneforge]]'' series - The Shaper Council. If you choose to help a faction that opposes them, then they learn the hard way that yes, the rebellion ''can'' be a threat to them. Unfortunately, the other factions are often just as arrogant.
* ''[[Fate/stay night|Fate Stay Night]]'' - Pride is the [[Fatal Flaw]] of {{spoiler|Gilgamesh}}; he is the single-most powerful being in the story, capable of frightening even {{spoiler|Avenger -- the embodiment of all human evils incarnated in an unlimited source of power}}... But he ''never'' goes all out on people because he is too secure in his own superiority, and it ''always'' comes back to bite him in the ass because by the time he gets serious it is already too late
Shinji is also overly prideful (with far less justification, too), which (combined with his general uselessness) ultimately leads to his downfall in all three routes (in particular Heaven's Feel).
* [[Fatal Fury|Geese]]...[[SNK Boss|poor]], [[That One Boss|poor]] [[Blondes Are Evil|Geese]]. If it weren't for his... excessive pride, he wouldn't be stuck to the pavement like a mancake right now.
* In the original ''[[Ridge Racer]]'', the ultimate unlockable vehicle in the game is the black car (officially #13, 13" Racing). Even a good player can expect to be passed like they were standing still soon after the starting line, whereupon they will come around the next lap to see their opponent ''lounging by the black car, waiting for them to catch up.''
** Tortoise and the Hare, much?
* In ''[[Dragon Age|Dragon Age: Origins]]'', the [[Seven Deadly Sins]] are divided up among five different types of demons: Rage (wrath), Hunger (gluttony), Sloth, Desire (greed, envy, and lust), and Pride. Pride Demons are considered the strongest of the five types by the Chantry because the emotion that they feed off of is the most human and complex.
* About half of the fortresses in ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' meet their demise due to some form of shameless, unabashed hubris on the part of the [[Cruel Player Character God]]. Many projects attempting to convert the landscape into [[Mordor]], construct gargantuan statues, develop horrific [[Doomsday Device
** It should be pointed out that [[Let's Play|The Infamous Boatmurdered]] featured ''three of the above'' (and would have had {{spoiler|Hell Itself}} had {{spoiler|Hell Itself}} been part of that version of DF). It, somewhat predictably, meet its doom when the Horrific Doomsday Device, having previously converted the landscape into Mordor, misfired and demolished a chunk of the gargantuan statue (which angered the artisan who'd engraved the statue, which led rather efficiently to a [[Disaster Dominoes|lethal Tantrum spiral]].
* In ''[[Ace Combat]] Zero'', pride seems to be associated with the Knight Ace style ("[aces] who live for pride"), who refuse to cause collateral damage even when it's the surest way to victory. Your [[Wing Man]] even comments that your pride is gonna get you killed. Ironically, among the enemy boss squadrons, the one explicitly associated with pride is Detlef Fleischer's Rot Squadron, whom you face in the ''Mercenary'' route. As the epilogue shows, even ten years later, poor Detlef still cannot accept and understand how he was defeated by mere mercenaries.
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== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Darkwing Duck]]''
* ''[[Care Bears]]'' - "Proudheart Cat doesn't have a lot to say, but she's [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Purrfect In every way]]."
* ''[[Transformers]]'' - Pick a Starscream. [[The Starscream|Any Starscream.]] Granted, all of Decepticon/Predicon culture is [[Glory Hound|glory seeking]], but no mech is more of a [[The Fighting Narcissist|narcissist]] than the Pride of the Cybertron War Academy, the Greatest Explorer in Modern Times, the true heir and leader of the Decepticons, and self-cloning geek, ''fragging Starscream''.
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