Fat Bastard: Difference between revisions
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* There were a few ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' shorts from 1941 and 1942 that portrayed Elmer Fudd this way, his appearance based on that of Arthur Q. Bryan; unfortunately, the fat-jokes Bugs made at Elmer's expense got old quickly, and in these shorts, Bugs became far more of an unprovoked aggressor. After five of these cartoons, he was changed back. |
* There were a few ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' shorts from 1941 and 1942 that portrayed Elmer Fudd this way, his appearance based on that of Arthur Q. Bryan; unfortunately, the fat-jokes Bugs made at Elmer's expense got old quickly, and in these shorts, Bugs became far more of an unprovoked aggressor. After five of these cartoons, he was changed back. |
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* Ratarro from ''[[Thundercats (1985 series)|Thundercats]]'' was a portly [[Rat-Man]] who, while a more competent villain than most of the mutants, was so nasty that even ''they'' hated him. |
* Ratarro from ''[[Thundercats (1985 series)|Thundercats]]'' was a portly [[Rat-Man]] who, while a more competent villain than most of the mutants, was so nasty that even ''they'' hated him. |
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* One [[Secret Squirrel]] short featured an obese panda thug named One-Ton as the [[Villain of the Week]], both a [[Meaningful Name]] and [[Punny Name]]. |
* One ''[[Secret Squirrel]]'' short featured an obese panda thug named One-Ton as the [[Villain of the Week]], both a [[Meaningful Name]] and [[Punny Name]]. |
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== Real Life == |
== Real Life == |
Revision as of 16:35, 17 September 2023
![](http://static.miraheze.org/allthetropeswiki/2/2c/Fat-bastard.jpg)
So I surrounded myself with some unusual cats |
Also called fatbastarditis. Once a television character reaches a certain level of tubbiness, the show they are in will lose all sympathy for them. It is generally assumed that overweight people are either pathetic, obnoxious losers or Corrupt Corporate Executives. They also tend to be portrayed as ludicrously obsessive eaters. Furthermore, most are portrayed as lazy, having poor hygiene, bad grooming, and no fashion sense. Glandular conditions, genetic tendencies, a natural endomorph body type, and low metabolism are treated as lame excuses alongside the "I'm just big-boned" mold.
This trope first shows up with the introduction of synthetic, high-fat foods in the early twentieth century, which enabled people from most social classes to gain weight quickly. Prior to that point, being fat was considered high fashion- a fat wife, for example, proved that the Railroad Baron had enough money to feed her a lot. Hence how we can go from the Santa Claus character type of rich and jolly to the modern character type of greedy, lazy, and evil.
Interestingly, some comedians (usually fat ones) complain about Political Correctness Gone Mad when it comes to fat jokes... although the sheer quantity of recent examples we have amassed tend to disagree on this front. Obesity is so universally seen as a negative character trait that it's relatively common for characters to be given some Adaptational Attractiveness to offset this fact.
Compare Big Eater and Villainous Glutton (often with Jabba Table Manners). Fat Bastard and Big Eater are usually (but not always) mutually exclusive. While Fat Bastard is often fairly ugly, the Big Eater usually has a somewhat pleasant appearance. This is because the first character is played for villainy and the second for laughs. Dead Weight is this type... but undead!
This trope is named after the character from the Austin Powers movies. He epitomizes this trope to such a ridiculous extreme that it qualifies as parody.
See Also Big Fat Future. Fat Idiot portrays a similarly negative image of the overweight, though not necessarily an unsympathetic one (there are plenty of dim but good hearted fat characters). Contrast Big Fun, who is fat, jolly and great fun to be around. Contrast Big Beautiful Man who is attractive because he's chubby. Also see Large and In Charge which can have some overlap with this trope (along with Corrupt Corporate Executive and other bad leader tropes), though you don't necessarially have to be fat to qualify. There is also some overlap with Adipose Rex, though it is possible for a royal to be fat and not a bastard. Often stems from Evil Is Bigger.
Anime and Manga
- One of these was a Commodore of the Navy and a Filler Villain in the Dragon Filler Arc of One Piece. So far he's been the only high-ranking naval officer to not have asskicking skills to back up his rank. And he was constantly shown eating a huge piece of meat after piece of meat.
- Another villain is Iron-Mace Alvida, a female pirate with a cowboy theme who describes herself as the most beautiful marauder on the ocean, in spite of being roughly spherical and having a terrible attitude. Later on, she returns after having eaten the Slip Slip Fruit, and she's lost so much weight she's not even recognizable as the same character any longer she goes out of her way to mention that the only difference in her appearance since Luffy last met her is that her acne has cleared up.
- Another example would be Wapol, former King of Drum Island who was not only a huge bastard (The guy got rid of most of Drum Island's doctors specifically because he wanted people to grovel to him in order to have the privilege of seeing one of the remaining few, as well as slapped a young Princess Vivi for the hell of it), but even has Devil Fruit powers that allow him to eat pretty much anything he can wrap his jaws around.
- And of course, there's Marshall D. Teach aka Blackbeard, Luffy's evil counterpart who loves to chow down on cherry pies and has no problems backstabbing and murdering anyone in order to get what he wants (As his deceased crewmate Thatch and his former captain Whitebeard can attest to.
- In Bambi And Her Pink Gun, King Grabba is a grotesquely fat... rock star with hordes of screaming female fans who carry signs to his concerts that say things like "Rape me." To help you figure him out, he's an evil version of Elvis Presley at the height of his decline, and he savagely beats the women who come to see him backstage, instead of, you know, having sex with them. Oh, and when fans tell them they love him, he responds with "I love me, too!"
- Somewhat subverted in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, with the males of the Torumekian royal family. They're all grotesquely fat and initially somewhat villainous, but all of them show themselves capable of goodness near the end of the story, except for the one who got eaten by a giant bug before he had the chance to be redeemed like the others.
- Subverted in Paprika The enormously fat Tokita is suggested to be something of a Man Child, as well as a comically ridiculous overeater who gets stuck in narrow passageways. However, he's also brilliant and, unusually enough, gets the girl.
- Fist of the North Star had a lot of fat characters, but several truly stand out. The most famous of them is Mr. Heart, who is ten feet tall, and so fat that if you punch him 'your fist gets stuck up to the elbow.' He is famous for being the first villain to present a challenge and actually do damage to the main hero. Then there's Galf, who looks like an evil version of Mr. Weatherbee from Archie comics, who is obsessed with his dogs. The second series includes Geira, an obese Jabba the Hutt-esque man who hypnotizes people, and Gyoko, a man so fat that he sinks into the ground when he walks.
- In Death Note, there's Demegawa, the corrupt TV producer and presenter. His greed and corruptness make one of Light's plans fail. Moreover, as Kira grows in power and influence, he throws himself wholeheartedly into the role of Professional Butt-Kisser when it becomes clear who's in charge.
- Dragonball Z: Fat Buu seems to be this... but while fat and childish, he is not intentionally cruel and, in the end, winds up as one of the good guys.
- Definitely an inversion, as he gets eviler as he gets thinner, from Fat Buu, to the trim-but-buff Super Buu who is evil but at least has a sense of purpose and a tiny germ of honor, to half-pint Kid Buu who's just a Complete Monster Omnicidal Maniac.
- General Regius Gaiz of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, though his portrayed evil traits of power-hungriness and petty jealousy turned out to have stemmed from well-intentioned reasons that sort of got overblown when he rose in power and got manipulated by the people who saw him as a useful puppet. One 4koma strip, based around the scene at the end of Episode 23 when Zest confronts him with a picture of the two and asks what happened to the justice he hoped to pursue, has Zest also ask what happened to his muscles.
- Haruka Nishiharu from Girls Saurus, until she's forced go through a miracle diet. She still remains a pretty violent Tsundere afterwards.
- The Major from Hellsing.
- Averted with Kurita from Eyeshield 21, who is both one of the heaviest characters in the series and one of the nicest.
- Fat Buttcha from Air Gear. The guy (when first introduced) takes this term to a new extreme: apparently his "fat" is nothing more than a pool of blood, blood that he can subsequently pump into his arms. The Bastard part? Ikki thinks that he can will a race against Buttcha because the guy is so fat, but the latter tells the former that (in his mini-hulk mode) he is just thin enough to fit down the alley they both need to pass through, but fat enough that no one can get around him.
- Taikon from the fourth Bleach movie.
- Averted to the extreme in The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer. While Shimaki is fat, he is very smart, competent, and probably the most valuable member of the group he's in. Hell the fact that he is fat is barely even addressed in the series since it's just a physical characteristic and not part of his personality.
- Captain Continental in Legend of the Blue Wolves.
- Nakai in Bakuman。 used to be sympathetic despite being overweight. But then he Took a Level in Jerkass and starts being manipulative once success starts going to his head, which disgusts the woman he viewed as his love interest. He ultimately gets Put on a Bus and moves back home with his mother. By the time he returns from his bus trip, he's even more overweight, has an even more repulsive personality and is currently working with the current antagonist of the series.
Comic Books
- X-Men:
- The Blob, member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. His weight and physical appearance are played up for horror and squick whenever he shows interest in a woman. In a bit of a subversion, his weight comes not from overeating but his mutation. When he was depowered, he ended up as his true weight - which was incredibly thin. After plastic surgery to remove his excess skin, he ended up being a pastiche of Jared from the Subway commercials. In the animated series and depending on the writer, he's still a greedy, slovenly, unhygienic pig, though.
- Dialed Up to Eleven with the Ultimate Universe version of the Blob, to the point where he once paused during an attack on the
AvengersUltimates' mansion to raid the fridge. Less funny was the time he was discovered eating the Wasp's corpse. - Also from X-Men is the alien Mojo, a sort of fat evil television executive.
- When Shadow King possessed Karma for several months in New Mutants, she became ludicrously bloated through Farouk's gluttony. She got better, thanks to the Desert Starvation Diet.
- Amahl Farouk's original body was also obese. One version of the Shadow King's origin states that he not truly Farouk, but an ancient demon and Farouk was simply another victim of his body theft. Whichever is true, it seems uncontrolled weight gain is a side effect of this villain's Demonic Possession.
- Shape from Supreme Power, who is also a Rubber Man.
- The writers of Marvel Universe never seem to be able to decide just what the deal is with the Kingpin. He's an incredibly huge person, but depending on the writer this is because his muscles are so huge they make him look fat or that he's a greedy slob with no sense of control. Some split the difference and write that he's got incredibly powerful arm and leg muscles but is fat everywhere else because of overeating--ignoring the more medically likely explanation that, like sumo wrestlers, he is well-muscled everywhere, but eats enough to maintain a significant layer of padding on top of it.
- Whatever the explanation, it doesn't stop Spider-Man from going to town on him for it, at one point responding to being told that Kingpin was planning a huge operation using most of his available mercenaries by commenting, "Oh, he must be getting take-out."
- Another example from Spider-Man's corner of the MU would be Nick Katzenberg, a Daily Bugle photographer and professional rival to Peter Parker. While not evil, Katzenberg was sleazy, immoral, and generally unpleasant.
- Whatever the explanation, it doesn't stop Spider-Man from going to town on him for it, at one point responding to being told that Kingpin was planning a huge operation using most of his available mercenaries by commenting, "Oh, he must be getting take-out."
- Also in the Marvel Universe is Ulysses X. Lugman, aka the Slug; a Miami drug lord who makes the Kingpin look svelte. At over 1100 pounds, originally, he is so obese he cannot move without the aide of a motorized chair and can suffocate people in the folds of his flesh. Although to be fair, he lost a lot of weight during the Secret Invasion storyline (when he was one of many Earthlings replaced by Skrulls) and in stories since then is "only" around 450 pounds,
- Another Marvel example is Douglas Carmody, one of Power Pack's few recurring bad guys. A fat, middle aged, balding, jobless, Fantastic Racism fueled, ex-bureaucrat who barely fits in his low-end Power Armor that manages to remain one of the group's biggest threats simply because he knows their secret identity, fights them one at a time and is not afraid to trick the small children. This is taken to an extreme during Inferno when he's thrown into limbo and demons eat his "greasy" soul away turning him into a grotesque obese shark monster.
- Allfather D'Aronique from Preacher is fat to the point that his personal aircraft inevitably sustains damage landing. On the top of that, he's also bulimic. As such, D'Aronique has no qualms about messily gorging himself with food and then vomiting all over himself in front of his subordinates.
- Brewster Rockit: Space Guy - Cliff Clewless. The idea is in his name. He's supposed to be the station's engineer, but knows nothing beyond making an idiot of himself (though not the same level as Brewster, whose stupidity is beyond measure), lazing around, and causing trouble to himself and his crew mates.
- Corrupt Politician Amanda Waller is one in most adaptations of Justice League.
- Both Roark brothers in the comic version of Sin City are overweight and look unhygenic. Herr Wallenquist also has this look. They are all extremely evil crimebosses.
- A lesser example would be Agammemnon, the sleazy porn-obsessed boss of Dwight and later, Wallace. He was an art dealer that was overweight, ugly, and smelled bad. He didn't pay well, either.
- Spawn has a few Fat Bastard enemies:
- Violator, whose usual human form is a short, fat, ugly clown. While he is a shapeshifter who can make himself look like any type of human, he prefers the clown as a way to mock humans, whom he considers to be disgusting and insignificant creatures.
- Billy Kincaid, child-murderer and pedophile; he was a Fat Bastard when he was alive, and still is one as a demon.
- Subverted with Sam, however. While he basically caters to every single characteristic of the trope, he's as good a guy as they come who always strives to right wrongs. The bastard tendencies tend to be directed towards bad guys.
- For a while, Lex Luthor from Superman was drawn as one of these, looking quite a bit like a less-heavy Kingpin. Makes quite a bit of sense, as it really plays off of his envy for Superman by making him overweight while Supes is of course built like a god.
- In one Punisher story, Medallion was a lot like Lugman, only with far less humor involved. Believing himself to be a "criminal mastermind", he was more like a crazy and paranoid megalomaniac, possibly suffering from ADD and a very bad diet. Even Frank considered him a big joke. Like most foes of the Punisher, he didn't survive past the arc he was introduced.
Fan Works
- Councilmen Arnold of soulless shell, a convicted rapist ferret who tries to rape two other girls in-story, is even described as a "fat bastard".
- Mr. Davidson in Tokyo Mew Mew No Hope Left. He "talks about George Bush and shit" and shoots aliens in the leg.
- Sasuke, of all people in Naruto Veangance Revelaitons. His evil scheme involves, among other things, turning everyone in the shinobi nations fat.
- The Rookie Crusher from Pokémon: Reset Bloodlines is an unpleasant, rotund brute of a man who loves nothing more than crushing the dreams of fledgling Pokémon trainers by humiliating them in the Indigo League's highly publicized battles. When Ash beats him fair-and-square, he throws an unsightly temper tantrum and accuses him of cheating, refusing to believe that he had been outmatched and outplayed.
Film
- Played with in WALL-E. After centuries of living in a low-gravity environment, being waited on hand and foot by robots, and near-constant bombardment by Buy 'n' Large's consumer culture run rampant, every human aboard the Axiom is fat, slothful (both physically and mentally), and almost helpless... until the title character shows up and shakes up the status quo. And being fat and almost completely out of shape doesn't stop the Captain from stopping the rogue autopilot from taking over the ship and making sure the Axiom gets back to Earth. Nor does it stop the rest of them from rebuilding civilization on Earth, which, as depicted during the end credits, results in them becoming fitter and stronger...but still quite fat!
- Interestingly, aside from the obvious infantilism of the human race by this point from being overly coddled by their own technology, they're not really shown as degenerate, just ignorant. As well, take a close look at the dates on the Captain photos when they scroll by about 43 minutes into the film. Even though they're getting fatter and more helpless, the captains are living longer (presumably, all the humans are similarly long-lived). While they were Well-Intentioned Extremists, the robots really did their job taking care of humanity.
- Monsters vs. Aliens: In the early concept art, the alien villain Gallaxhar was originally designed to be an obese, four armed alien woman.
- Sykes in Shark Tale.
- King Malbert in Igor.
- Wonder Woman's depiction of Hades.
- Pete in all of his roles in Disney stuff is incredibly fat and an incredible bastard.
- Interestingly averted in Goof Troop, where Pete is still a fat bastard but his son P.J., who's shaped pretty much like him (but with less of the ugly) is a really nice kid.
- Ursula from The Little Mermaid.
- Lucifer the cat from Cinderella.
- The corrupt mayor, after eating one too many falling cheeseburgers and hotdogs from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
- The Big City Agent from The Trumpet of the Swan.
- Anyone and everyone played by Sidney Greenstreet, though they usually softened the blow by being Affably Evil. The most famous is Kasper Gutman (no, really) in The Maltese Falcon.
- Bonus points as Gutman is called "The Fat Man" by the characters.
- Most of the characters played by Laird Cregar, perhaps most memorably the prissy chocoholic villain Willard Gates in This Gun for Hire.
- Jabba the Hutt of Star Wars fame. Yes, he's an alien, but he was originally supposed to just be a fat hairy guy before Lucas's budget got boosted for the two sequels.
- The cruel and corrupt Porky from the Porky's series of movies.
- Rasputia from Norbit.
- Papa Klump from the new The Nutty Professor films probably counts, if only for being stinky.
- Bluto from Animal House.
- George from Mean Creek played by Josh Peck.
- Just in case anyone missed it in the opening paragraphs, Fat Bastard from the Austin Powers films is the Trope Namer. He weighs a metric ton and Eats Babies.
- Blade - Pearl, the morbidly obese blob of a vampire record keeper. Heck, the only record keeping she keeps is her mouth! Might have been the basis for Balthazar in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- That character was supposed to be a woman? I thought it was just a guy with a high voice.
- He is. He's supposed to be a femme gay. Blade even said, "If HE moves, fry HIM."
- Overdrawn at the Memory Bank had "really, really big brother". Can someone please turn off the revolving fat man?
- The Shawshank Redemption has exactly one fat prisoner. Don't remember him much? That's because he's the one that breaks down crying on his first night, and is promptly beaten to death by the guards.
- The Commitments about an Irish R&B group has lead singer Deco an obnoxious and egomaniacal lout.
- Mr. Creosote from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. He is unquestionably fat, and also rather rude to the restaurant staff. If going out of your way to puke on them isn't poor etiquette...
- Paul Blart: Mall Cop.
- The annoyed toy store clerk in Elf.
- Balls of Fury's main protagonist.
- Serial killer "Crazy Fat" Ethel Janowski from the Criminally Insane duology.
- Gorge in Gamer.
- Dennis Nedry from Jurassic park is not only obese, but is also quite unpleasant and whiny and decides to shut down Jurassic Park's security system so he can run off with a bunch of dinosaur embryos to sell on the black market. Needless to say, the guy does NOT leave the park alive.
- In Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Themberchaud is an obese dragon (Holga remarks that he is "pudgy" but it's sarcasm). He can't fly and can't move as fast as a typical dragon, but unfortunately for the heroes, that is still much faster than a human can run...
Literature
- In Stephen King's Bag of Bones, custody lawyer Elmer Durgin is a Fat Bastard. He is, of course, also a lawyer, but main character Michael Noonan speculates that Durgin's physical appearance is responsible for his repugnant personality rather than his profession, identifying Durgin as a member of a sub-species he calls "Evil Little Fat Folks/Fucks". Noonan says that most fat people are generally nice, but the Evil Little Fat Folks are naturally hateful (especially toward people who are physically fit) and bent on world domination.
- Billy Bunter has got to be one of the archetypes for this trope, having made his first appearance in 1908 and becoming so well-known that his name was long used as an insult for real life Fat Bastards (in the UK). Comically greedy, snobbish, dishonest, inept, self-centred, lazy, stupid, mean, cowardly and always, always on the scrounge, he provided the perfect foil for his upright and honest classmates and became so popular that he eventually took on the title role for the series.
- Harry Potter
- The male Dursleys, particularly Dudley. Indeed, in Dudley's introductions in the first book, Rowling spends nearly as much time going over how fat he is as she does over his actual bullying of Harry. Rowling did eventually become uncomfortable with how she was using this trope to equate evil with being overweight, and eventually gave Dudley enough physical training for him to be a competent boxer. Of course, then in the last book Dudley turns out to be halfway decent at the last second, so...
- Peter Pettigrew, evil murderous traitor extraordinaire, is described as having been fat or 'chubby' in his youth, though when they first see him as an adult he has the look of 'having lost a great deal of weight in a short amount of time' which is equally unflattering.
- Umbridge is described as having rolls of fat. She is much thinner in the movies.
- Terry Pratchett lampshades this in Going Postal, where one of the chairmen at the Grand Trunks Company is described as fat, multi-chinned and having a grating voice and an expression like a piglet, and a footnote says that it's stereotypical to say that someone like that couldn't be a kind and generous man, like it's stereotypical to say a man in a striped shirt coming in through your window in the middle of the night is a burglar.
- Basu, The Morbidly Obese Ninja from the novel of the same name by Carlton Mellick III. when he was lean he was the deadliest ninja in town, after he reached 700 pounds of weight, he also became the meanest. post-character development he's more a Fat Bastard with a heart of gold.
- Baron Harkonnen's girth is used alongside his sexual deviancy and torture of slaves to emphasize how disgusting a person he is.
- That's got to be justified. The man weighed 200 kilograms (441 pounds) but could only support one-fourth of that by muscle-power without anti-gravity suspensors. While there are certainly active people who reach that weight, they also develop the body/muscular structure to support it. To be immobilised by his fat at that size, he would probably have needed to eat SO much that he gained weight too quickly for his body to adapt, for a long period of time, and intentionally compensated for it with antigravs rather than making any effort to carry his own bulk.
- It is also implied that the excessive weight gain is a symptom of a hereditary disease common to the Harkonnen. Rabban is stated to be approaching the Baron's girth, while Feyd-Rautha keeps it in check through his... rigorous physical training program. Neither of these is any less of a monster, though.
- The prequels explained that the Baron was originally an exceptionally fit man, in fact fairly obsessive and vain about it. But then one day he was blackmailed into siring a child (Jessica) with a Bene Gesserit and decided to have a little fun with it at her expense. She in turn took the opportunity to tweak his body chemistry a bit.
- Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
- And how. Like all the kids in the book he's an Anvilicious Aesop, in his case about gluttony. Alongside avarice, sloth, and... gum-chewing. Hmm.
- Early in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, Warlord Zsinj was an enemy of the New Republic and one of the very few humans in Star Wars described as overweight at all. His portrayal in The Courtship of Princess Leia showed him as venal, highly evil, self-important, and very, very stupid. His successes seem to be all related to the size of his fleet and the programs his scientists set up. The X Wing Series Retcons this, making Zsinj still fat and faintly ridiculous, still highly evil, but also very, very smart, and deliberately cultivating a slightly absurd image that he knows smart people can see past, but he likes playing to an audience.
- Hutts, which are specifically said to be lithe and muscular when young and become progressively more obese as they grow older and gather more power, are almost universally disgusting. Almost. There's some record that a Hutt was once a very fair and very popular Chancellor of the Republic.
- There is also a subversion in at least one Hutt Jedi, who is implied to get more powerful in the force as he gets fatter, presumably because he has more life force, or something.
- The Hutts in general are one of the few races that are immune to the "mind tricks" of the Jedi or Sith, indicating perhaps a naturally strong connection to the force as a species trait.
- Wait - fat, toadlike, powerful telekenetics? The Old Ones were Jedi!!
- There is also a subversion in at least one Hutt Jedi, who is implied to get more powerful in the force as he gets fatter, presumably because he has more life force, or something.
- There's also the Toydarians, who are related to Hutts, are almost as bastardly, and they all have big guts. Though, as extra materials point out, their guts aren't filled with fat, but helium. Which explains why such a being can fly around on those puny wings. Fatness may be the least of their unfortunate stereotyping.
- Another fat bastard human featured in Tatooine Ghost - one of Leia's fellow survivors of Alderaan is fat enough to need a hoverchair. He's small-time compared to the other bad guys in the fic, but a greedy wretch nonetheless.
- Splinter of the Minds Eye has a villain whose physical description includes this line.
- Hutts, which are specifically said to be lithe and muscular when young and become progressively more obese as they grow older and gather more power, are almost universally disgusting. Almost. There's some record that a Hutt was once a very fair and very popular Chancellor of the Republic.
[...] he stood to reveal a modest paunch curving gently from beneath his sternum like a frozen waterfall of suet, to crash and tumble somewhere below the waistline in a jumble of uniform. |
- This trope is closely examined in Robin Hobb's Soldier Son trilogy. After Nevare grows extremely fat as a side effect of a disease, he notices how people's attitudes towards him have changed drastically to the worse. People who haven't even talked to him make fun of his size in his presence, and some are even openly hostile. He pretty much has to prove to those he meets that he isn't a bastard, because they tend to assume he is.
- Inverted by Harold Lauder in The Stand by Stephen King, at least in the novel. Harold is a sympathetic character while a fat nerd—it's only after he loses weight, becomes moderately attractive, and gains a few levels of competence outside of bookish pursuits that he does a Face Heel Turn.
- The Bible describes the assassination of a very fat king who leaks excrement when he is stabbed. He oppressed the Israelites for eighteen years, which perhaps explains why this particular detail was included by those who wrote the account.
- A good female example is found in the person of The Ancestress, an early villain in Bridge of Birds. Li Kao recalls her as a beautiful, scheming concubine who butchered all of her rivals and their children, then had the Emperor murdered and set herself up as a regent over her weak-willed son for years, where her extravagance ran the empire into the ground; her son got blamed and subsequently executed in a coup, while she retired to a life of luxury. By the time we see her, however, she has gained two hundred pounds out of overindulgence. When she finally meets her end, in a gruesome manner typical to this series, she is described as blundering around the room crushing her own guards with her monstrous weight while Henpecked Ho pursues her with an axe. About the best thing that you can say for the Ancestress is that she was a Complete Monster long before she was fat.
- Tim Powers uses this villain archetype in several of his novels—Leo Friend in On Stranger Tides and Loretta deLarava in Expiration Date are both described as extremely, grotesquely fat.
- In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "The Phoenix on the Sword", Ascalante sneers at one of the nobles who thought they had hired him as "the fat baron of Attalus."
- A Song of Ice and Fire: Strong Belwas, who is a fat ex-gladiator. Although he's a stone cold killer on Dany's side, so that arguably makes him Grey in a world of Black and Black Morality.
- A Song of Ice and Fire is filled with this trope. There's Yezzan zo Qaggaz, an extremely wealthy slave owner who is called (behind his back) the Yellow Whale for his yellow eyes and the fact that he is so obese that he cannot stand unassisted. Ser Amory Lorch isn't as fat as him, but still quite fat and also a Complete Monster. Magister Illyrio is morbidly obese and seems to be decidedly amoral.
- However, this trope is subverted with Lord Wyman Manderly, who is another morbidly obese person who at first seems to be this trope, but it turns out this was a ploy and he is actually a pretty good guy.
- The Big Bad of book 1 and 2 of Detectives in Togas.
Live-Action TV
- Inverted/Avoided in Mike and Molly; both of the main characters are overweight, but generally kind (if snarky) people; sometimes the kindest ones on the show.
- There's a character on Freaks and Geeks who's overweight, a geek, and has a medical condition that makes him smell bad. The three main Geeks avoid him for the first half of the season, but once he is paired with Sam (instead of Sam's crush) he confronts Sam, and he is seen hanging out with them occasionally throughout the rest of the series.
- Exception: on House, Chase is called out repeatedly for being a jerk on the subject of the overweight patients he treats. In a later episode -- "Que Sera Sera"—the team's conviction that their patient's morbid obesity was responsible for his ailment caused them to come quite close to not diagnosing it at all.
- Averted in Lost, which has been fairly sensitive dealing with Hurley's obesity. While not often addressed directly, a major part of Hurley's character is guilt related to his weight. He was previously involved in a deck collapse in which two people died. He refuses to ration the food, then is found to have hoarded some. In the fourth season finale, Frank comments that the helicopter needs to shed a few hundred pounds. The camera focuses on a conflicted Hurley, and then Sawyer jumps from the helicopter so Hurley won't have to.
- Fairly sensitive? Maybe in season 1, when Hurley was a character with many traits (decent, kind, somewhat crazy, obsessed by the numbers...) who also happened to be fat. In season 2, his being fat became the focal point of his character - the most important thing about him, what caused his mental illness, his Fatal Flaw, etc. And all those Sawyer fat jokes - sure, James was still a Jerkass, but Hugo's weight was by far his favourite target. Then there was that bit about Libby falling in love with him, and after she is revealed to be a former patient in a mental hospital - implying that an attractive young woman would fall for an obese guy only if she's not completely sane. After season 2 it got better, admittedly.
- Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck, a recurring nemesis from Monk. Think of him as an obese Moriarity or a bigger Kingpin if all that muscle was actually just fat.
- Doctor Who: If you're overweight, there's a good chance you're actually a disgusting fat alien in disguise (Slitheen, Abzorbaloff, etc.)
- Also the Marshal from "The Mutants," an obese human colonialist who refuses to relinquish his power over an apartheid-like regime.
- Or maybe you're stealing food rations during WWII.
- However, basically subverted in the Eighth Doctor Adventures books. The Doctor's Worthy Opponent Sabbath (who serves as an Expy of the Master, but more reasonable) is rather on the chubby side of Stout Strength, because he just doesn't care about his appearance (for the same reason, his hair is so short as to almost count as Bald of Evil). Once in a while, other characters make unflattering remarks about it, but only rarely. And it provides for an excellent Paper-Thin Disguise opportunity in one book, where with a suit which is only slightly Bigger on the Inside, he almost effectively disguises himself and proves that the Doctor doesn't realize that humans can lose weight or something.[1] He falls just short of being Affably Evil, and has a number of Enemy Mine situations (and quite a lot of Foe Yay) with the Doctor. He just happens to be quite evil and quite large.[2]
- Also subverted by the Adipose. Sure, the species are comprised of fat-cells, but the villain helping them get born is extremely thin and the only way for them to breed is for people to lose weight. If people were happy with how fat they were, there would have been no problem.
- And they're so cute!
- Billy Bunter Expy and Enfant Terrible Cyril from The Celestial Toymaker counts.
- Boss Hogg from The Dukes of Hazzard.
- Newman from Seinfeld. He's so obese that he often becomes short of breath in his angry, hateful rants.
- Downplayed with J.L. McCabe from Jake and the Fatman; not a villain, but clearly a grouch and a Mean Boss.
- Balthazar from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Bad Girls.
- Naturally averted in Roseanne. For the most part.
- 24 avoids this with Edgar.
- Ugly Naked Guy in Friends.
- Interestingly enough, in a flashback episode, the character was described by Phoebe as "cute naked guy" who was just starting to put on some weight. By the time of "The One Where Monica Gets a Room-Mate", he was fat.
- Stargate SG-1: has two examples: Jim and Nerus. Jim was the persona of Anubis's projection onto the Ascended Plane. He was a fat, abrasive man at the Astral Diner who delighted in mocking the ascended being who made his ascension possible: Oma Desala. Keep in mind that Anubis was a Complete Monster Omnicidal Maniac with a god complex who was considered evil even by Goa'uld standards. Nerus was a minor Goa'uld who appeared in two episodes: "Beachhead" and "Off the Gird", both in Season 9. He was likely inspired by Dionysus/Bacchus. He was described by Vala Mal Doran as the definition of "avarice and gluttony". He was deceitful and had many ...appetites. He got what was coming to him though when the SGC sent him back to Ba'al (whom he had betrayed in his first appearance) with a box of the Hostess cakes he so loved with claiming to have only served the Ori as a spy. The cakes contained subspace transmitters that planted a virus in the ship's shields and navigation systems and broadcast their location to human forces who quickly arrived and took them all out, though not before Ba'al killed him.
Newspaper Comics
- The cynical fatty tabby, Garfield. Other than abusing Odie and making his owner's life hell, he usually does nothing but eat and sleep. However, he proves time and time again that there's a good heart under all that blubber.
- Dick Tracy villain Oodles; one strip where he weighed himself had him at 465 lbs (without his guns) and was happy because that meant he lost weight!
Professional Wrestling
- In 1993, Yokozuna was THE Fat Bastard as well as being an Evil Foreigner.
- Rikishi, after it was revealed he tried to end the career of Stone Cold Steve Austin by running him over. Otherwise, Rikishi is made of Big Fun
- King Mabel / Viscera / Big Daddy V
- Kenny "Starmaker" Bolin from OVW TV
- Bastion Booger, who was both a Fat Slob and had Jabba Table Manners to boot.
- Bam Bam Bigelow
- Paul Bearer, during any of his Heel runs.
Radio
- Real Life example: Comedian Artie Lange is constantly mocked on The Howard Stern Show, where the Stern sidekick's obsession with junk food caused him to gain more than fifty kilograms in less than a year.
Tabletop Games
- The Macellarius bloodline from Vampire: The Requiem. Hell, their nickname is "Gluttons." Once someone's initiated into the bloodline, they gain up to 150 pounds in the next few nights. Oh, and the bloodline is made up mostly of cultured gourmands with a special taste for long pork.
- Subverted and lampshaded in Exalted: Sesus Nagezzer, one of the canonical Dragon-Bloods, deliberately ignores his obesity problem, to the point where he's been nicknamed "the Slug". Before he became so, he was a brilliant officer in the Realm's army, and he's picked up a few tricks since he lost the use of a leg. Did we also mention he's one of the best hopes for the Realm to survive the Time of Troubles? And that his almost-official position in the Scarlet Dynasty is The Pornomancer?
- Dominar Rasheth from Skorne Empire in Iron Kingdoms is one, deliberately going against the Proud Warrior Race code of his people and loving it.
- Dungeons and Dragons:
- Hill giants in 5th edition are this and Villainous Gluttons. Giant society as a whole lives by a caste system where the the larger the giant is, the more authority he has, but hill giants tend to misinterpret this custom, and believe the fatter they are, the more important they'll be. Most other giants view them with disgust and contempt.
- Nalfeshnee are demons that are just below balors in terms of social rank in the Abyss and actual power. They are often depicted as obese and Obsessed with Food.
- The flab giant, from the third-party sourcebook Tome of Beasts. Obese, ugly, lazy, stupid, and disgusting, many believe this was some sort of curse inflicted upon ordinary hill giants.
Theatre
- Shakespeare's Falstaff. A witty Loveable Rogue whom audience considers the Big Fun, but considering what he does, he is a total Jerkass.
- Cyrano De Bergerac: Cyrano gives us the Flowery Insults version at Act I Scene V, talking about Montfleury:
Cyrano: This Silenus, |
- The title character of Ubu Roi.
Video Games
- Fatman from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is a fat and bald bomb-building maniac. He considers himself an artist and wants to become known as the greatest bomb-builder who ever lived. He also wears a bomb-disposal coat filled with more explosives which makes him seem even fatter.
- God of War
- Cronos is actually described as this by Ben Croshaw.
- Clotho also qualifies so much she actually makes Jabba the Hutt seem like Michael Phelps. Describing this… thing with words like “ugly” or “hideous” would not do it justice. It seems to be the godly embodiment of Ugliness. It’s actually a giant, bloated, obese mound of lumps that seem to be female mammaries. Few Body horrors are more horrifying...
- Thor is lovingly referred to as a "fat dobber" by Mimir, and indeed: he's a violent, gluttonous brute with the waistline and sadism to match the horror stories told about him.
- Well, except maybe the Brood Mother from Dragon Age: Origins. These thing look like Clotho, but have tentacles, rotting pink flesh, and is fought in a Womb Level. Just keep reminding yourself that it is a victim of the Dark Spawn - meaning the battle is a Mercy Kill - and you might resist the urge to throw up upon seeing this obese monstrosity.
- Interesting case in Bioshock 2. Buck Raleigh is a fat, ruthless, Corrupt Corporate Executive. However, he is the most sympathetic of the multiplayer characters. He was never interested in plasmids but started using them when his wife disappeared. Almost a year later it turns out she was leading a revolt against him.
- Wario, though he's got plenty of muscle as well.
- Porky Minch, the Enfante Terrible co-Big Bad of EarthBound; his name is something of a Lampshade Hanging, and his Fat Bastard status is later played up in full force as an Animal Motif in his Big Bad status in Mother 3, where his empire, army and everything else are pig-themed while one of his highest-ranking servants (Fassad) is another Fat Bastard who's every bit as despicable as he is.
- EarthBound also provides a subversion in the form of Apple Kid. He's fat, apparently unhygienic and socially awkward, and accordingly less popular among the citizens of Twoson than rival Orange Kid, who's thinner, has considerably better social skills, and uses this to get funding for his work. Then the subversion comes into play - Orange Kid is a Small Name, Big Ego type with virtually no talent to back up the formidable sums of money he asks for, whereas Apple Kid is an absolute genius who actually cares about the fate of the world, plays a massive role in enabling the heroes to defeat Giygas, and never asks for anything in return.
- Jack Turner of the Art of Fighting games is one of Mr. Big's thugs, and the leader of a tough gang of bikers called the Black Cats. At the age of 13, he subdued a rampaging bear.
- Executioner Smough in Dark Souls. In fact, he's more of a bastard than his partner, Dragon Slayer Ornstein. When one of them is defeated, the other absorbs his power. Ornstein hesitates if Smough falls first, but if Ornstein falls first, Smough does it without question and laughs evilly.
- Dong Zhuo, as depicted in the Dynasty Warriors games.
- The source material, too. After he was killed, the angry mob made torches by shoving splints of wood into his fat.
- In Samurai Warriors, this goes to Tokugawa Ieyasu, but he's far kinder and more amiable than Dong Zhuo. But considering most of the characters seem to flock toward the Western army in this game, many of them see him as a Fat Bastard.
- From World of Warcraft:
- Most ogres. You'll certainly never see a thin one, and most - but not all - are evil.
- Imp Mothers are huge, obese Burning Legion demons that are often too fat to even move from the pools of slime they inhabit, fighting the players using powerful magic that they can easily cast over the heads of their diminutive brood.
- The Battle for Azeroth expansion has several:
- Priscilla Ashvane, Treacherous Advisor to Katherine Proudmoore and the corrupt head of Ashvane Trading company. A cruel and deceptive woman, her girth reflects her incredible greed.
- Priscilla also has an accomplice who qualifies, Irontide Captain Harlan Sweete. A Shout Out to Governor John Ratcliffe, his speed, agility and fighting skills are uncanny for a man of his girth.
- There is a whole class of Elite Mooks found in employ of Ashvane Trading who are the Stout Strength type of fat.
- Unlike Sweete, however, the slovenly Pig Man Raal the Gluttonous from Waycrest Manor can barely move at all, using toxic vomit and Ground Pounds to combat the players.
- In Quake IV there is a gigantic obese Strogg thing which the player kills by overfeeding.
- King Hippo of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!.
- Somewhat subverted, in that, in his in-between round dialogue, he doesn't taunt Mac like the others do. He even offers to take him out to lunch!
- The Boomers from Left 4 Dead that attacks players a la Mr. Creosote-style: by vomiting on them to attract the horde, and It Gets Worse when you fire enough rounds into them...
- Krew from Jak II, who needs an antigravity chair to move around.
- Possible subversion in the form of Kliever from Jak 3, who, while most definitely not meant to be seen as sympathetic at first (wanting to eat your partner-in-crime Daxter), but by the end he is shown to be more than capable, and has at least some redeeming qualities.
- At least until Jak X, when he races for the opposing team.
- Possible subversion in the form of Kliever from Jak 3, who, while most definitely not meant to be seen as sympathetic at first (wanting to eat your partner-in-crime Daxter), but by the end he is shown to be more than capable, and has at least some redeeming qualities.
- Eddie Dombrowski in Silent Hill 2. The story has more sympathy for him than most of the other characters here, however.
- Shimada in Star Ocean: The Last Hope. The only overweight character in the game, and of course also a Villainous Glutton and Corrupt Corporate Executive.
- Persona 4. Hanako. Beauty contest. That is all.
- In Overlord, the first corrupted hero you fight is a grotesquely obese halfling named Melvin. He represents the sin of gluttony, and his most lethal attack is rolling over your minions. After being killed, he shows up in hell where his punishment is to repeatedly stuff himself until he bursts.
- In a minor example, most of the Empire Nobles in Overlord II can count, being quite pudgy and decadent.
- Samurai Shodown gives us Earthquake, the 1,380-pound ninja. From Texas. One hundred years before Texas existed. In his profile, it's stated that he likes people fatter than he is, and dislikes "skinny people"
- King of Fighters, another SNK game, has Chang, the morbidly obese fighter from Korea. While he doesn't get much respect from the rest of the cast, and was introduced as a criminal being reformed, he's more or less wacky comic relief now.
- [[Meaningful Name| Governor L. Phatt in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. Not just fat, he's too lazy to even leave his bed, where he's fed by a mechanical tube nearby. The swarming flies around him indicate that he likely never bathes either.
- Final Fantasy VII has at least three characters that fit this trope to a T: President Shinra, Palmer, and Heidegger.
- The Seeq in Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy Tactics A2. A race of pigs so the fat factor is already settled in. They are described as being gluttonous, dimwitted, slow, and are mostly common thieves. in FFTA2, sometimes a newly recruited Seeq will ask what is for lunch after he joins your clan or they may also say that there won't be any problems as long as you feed him. There are a few kind hearted Seeq in the games, but most are portrayed as unlikable.
- Col. Perrault, who commands the player's home base in Ace Combat 5, is a pretty unlikable guy even before the plot takes a sharp turn when the player's squadron is accused of treason and he shows off just how badly he shoots.
- Pokémon nicknames have a maximum length of ten letters. Given that the earlier games came out concurrent with the Austin Powers movies, someone, somewhere had to have named their Snorlax FatBastard.
- Although their size and sleeping habits are a game-important obstacle for both players and Ash of the Pokémon anime, and their habit of eating islands worth of food when awake aside, Snorlax can be pretty nice otherwise.
- Certain Pokémon trainers however play this trope as straight as can be. Cue Balls/Roughnecks are trouble-making thugs who often threaten to beat you up and steal your Pokémon when you fight them, usually because they're feeling cranky or think it'd be funny. Male Team Yell Grunts are also obnoxious nuisances who cause trouble in the name of hyping up Marnie, their favorite trainer.
- General Failure Damon von Grant from Valkyria Chronicles is a fat, arrogant aristocrat who only occupies his position because of his wealth, and is otherwise completely incompetent. He despises the militia and considers them disposable trash, steals their merits when Welkin's strategies work, is completely unsympathetic towards Isara's death, thinks of Alicia as a weapon when her Valkyria powers awaken, and even uses illegal weapons to cover up for his failures on the battlefield. Need I go on? Luckily, he gets a Karmic Death when The Dragon Selvaria self-destructs and takes him (and a large chunk of Gallia's army) with her.)
- Oliver in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. Though he somehow survives the game and joins your party in Radiant Dawn thanks to his status as the Ensemble Darkhorse.
- He gets an Expy in the form of Duke Ludwig von Aegir in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, a similarly fat, selfish, and arrogant nobleman who comes off as even worse, given the role he played in ruining the lives of Edelgard and her father.
- Dantes Inferno: An Animated Epic - Dante's father was an abusive man who often beat his wife and child. Not only was he a fat disgusting glutton, but horribly greedy as well, once beating his wife when he thought she had stolen one of his golden coins. He appears in the fourth circle of hell as a fat, grotesque demonic soldier who is spared the torture of other greedy souls by Satan and battles his son for a while before Dante finally ends his cruel father's (un?)life by dumping him into a giant wheel moved by molten gold.
- In the game, Dante absolves his father instead of using him as an excuse for Dante's own sins.
- These are one mook type in God Hand, with many sub-types.
- The Fat Guard (Politician) in the original Prince of Persia.
- Burnov in Double Dragon II: The Revenge.
- In Sonic the Hedgehog, Dr. Eggman, Eggman Nega, and Storm the Albatross. Of course, in the former's case, his level of bastardry has varied over different incarnations.
- The Big Bad of Deadly Premonition, Forrest Kaysen.
- The emperor of Blobolonia in A Boy and His Blob.
- Jasper Horst, the troll parody of Casper Gutman in Discworld Noir.
- The Heavy is seen as one of these by the other classes in Team Fortress 2, or so their domination/revenge quotes would seem to indicate.
Scout: I am owning you, you fat bald bastard! |
- Juan "The Banker" Borgia in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.
- He follows in the footsteps of his fat uncle, Rodrigo Borgia. Unlike the first example (Juan was actually a very thin man), Rodrigo has the excuse of being historically' of large girth...and coincidentally, one of history's most notorious villains.
- Though you never get to see the full body of Duke Radcot in Vanguard Bandits, you don't really need to. His portrait alone has three chins. Trying to load that much fat on-screen at once might break the PS 1.
- Bob in Gungrave. In the game's storyline he's depicted as being a real jerk underneath his calm exterior. As the first major boss fight of the game, his initial reaction to Grave is to call him out for his so-called "ingratitude" to his former friends and the syndicate for providing him (Grave) with power, wealth and a place to call home, without even realizing that it also directly and indirectly led to Grave's undoing.
- Pierce, or Jigglesworth, from The Colour Tuesday, is a creepy Living Doll Collector who moves around on a chair. Its heavily implied that he's a pedophile, judging by his comments to and his harrassment of Alex. As Jigglesworth, he's a writhing mass of flabby appendages. Even the ruthless Maxwell is disgusted by him.
Maxwell: "You're a disgrace, little man." |
- King Dedede from the Kirby series started as a straight example of this trope, stealing all the food belonging to his subjects because he's that much of a glutton. But his defeat at Kirby's hands changed him for the better, and nowadays if they come to blows it's usually over a misunderstanding or Dedede being a victim of some kind of brainwashing or possession.
- Dingodile and Papu Papu from the Crash Bandicoot series, though they're downplayed as far as this trope is concerned. While he starts off a gleefully evil minion of Cortex, Dingodile's mellowed out considerably by the fourth game and has retired from villainy. Papu Papu on the other hand isn't really evil so much as he is hostile towards outsiders that intrude upon his home.
- In Streets of Rage, there was a boss that was a big, fire-breathing Fat Bastard. On top of being That One Boss, if you try to suplex him, your character hurts their back and suffers damage.
- Hector: Badge of Carnage has Detective Inspector Hector, a surly, corrupt and lazy Heroic Sociopath who also happens to be one of the few competent individuals on the police force.
- Smough the Executioner of Dark Souls. He likes to use the remains of the executed as food seasoning.
- Luther from the SSX series, voiced by Oliver Platt.
- The Mancubi from Doom are ludicrously fat (or at least big-boned), and their idiosyncratic projectile patterns are sure to make more than a few new players find them to be quite the bastards.
- Executioners: First, you have a Mook who is green, fat, snake-tongued, whacks you around with his belly, and actually shakes the screen when he hits the ground! I don't know if he has an official name, so I'll just nickname him Fat Snake. Then there's the third level boss, who is an Enemy Summoner who disgustingly spits out 2 Fat Snakes! This boss is even fatter, will actually try to eat you alive, the screen shakes even harder or longer when he hits the ground, and don't bother trying to throw him - you'll suffer damage, apparently because he's too heavy! I don't know if this boss has an official name, so I'll nickname him Blobba The Butt.
- Pigma Dengar from Star Fox is the embodiment of this trope.
- Azmodan in Diablo III. "Bastard" is probably an understatement, since he's the Prime Evil embodiment of Sin leading a demonic army bent on Sanctuary's destruction. His girth is justified since Gluttony is a Sin.
- The Dead Rising series has more than its fair share of these, most of them psychopaths. There's the lesbian rapist cop Jo Slade and the cannibal butcher Larry Chiang in the first game, obese pervert Randy Tugman, cannibal chef Antoine Thomas, and redneck sniper Derrick Duggan in the sequel, and horrific Big Eater Darlene and lazy rich idiot Teddy in the third game. From the first game, we also have this trope in action regarding one of the survivors" Ronald. In order to get the guy to follow you back to the safehouse, you need to give him some food. And once he reaches the safehouse? You better be ready to feed him every couple of hours, or he'll start an insurrection and he'll run off quite a few of your suvivors in tow.
- Roadhog in Overwatch is one of the most psychopathic characters of the main cast and also the fattest.
- In the Mega Man X series, there's an unspoken rule that the fatter a Maverick is, the more unpleasant they'll be. Flame Mammoth is a power hungry jerk who loves to bully the weak, Frost Walrus is a violent asshole (and in the manga, a total fucking psychopath) who was unpleasant long before being declared Maverick, and Silver Horn is a sadistic prison warden who delights in torturing and maiming his victims.
- Millibelle from Hollow Knight is a monstrously fat, but otherwise unassuming banker that you can lend money to so it won't be lost upon dying (Which will happen. A lot.) Once you give her enough, she'll take the money and run for the City of Tears' luxurious hot springs. Thankfully, you can track her down and beat your stolen funds out of her (plus interest!).
- In Octopath Traveler, Primrose's story route gives us a very bastardly example in the form of Helgenish, her Starter Villain. An obese, violent, psychopathic tavern owner, Helgenish treats the dancers working for him as little more than sex objects that he can abuse to his heart's content, whether it be viciously beating them for displeasing him or selling them into sexual slavery. This trope is reflected in his battle sprite, which shows him reclining in a chair with A Glass of Chianti in one hand while grasping a dagger in the other and hiding it behind his back, all with a shit-eating grin on his face.
- Mr. Morlock and his bodyguard Omar, the Arc Villains of Tressa's chapter 2 are nowhere near as vile as Helgenish, but are still very bastardly. Morlock runs the mining town of Quarrycrest as his own personal fiefdom and forces his employees to fork over any gold they find for a tenth of what it's worth, and when Tressa and her rival Ali try to sell precious stones in his town, he's quick to seize imminent domain over their goods and takes them by force. Omar, on the other hand, is more than happy to be Morlock's attack dog and beats Ali for defying his master before the pair kidnap and try to sell him into slavery out of spite.
Web Comics
- Used straight in this strip of Loserz.
- Tharqa from Penny and Aggie practically defines this trope. The only overweight character in the entire strip, and she couldn't be more venial. Karen, while having lost weight and shaped up considerably, is still bigger than every other character except Tharqa, and is well on her way to becoming the Big Bad of the comic with her Machiavellian plans against the titular characters.
- Subverted with Sidney Burns of Mob Ties. Enormously fat, but still just about the most heroic and driven of the psychotic cast.
- The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob: Emperor Krelchzeeber, the guy who killed Riboflavin's dad. Nemesites are butterfly people, and therefore normally very skinny with big wings; not so with Krelchzeeber.
Web Original
- Partially subverted in The Guild Clara is overweight, a terrible wife and mother, spends all her time eating, drinking, and abusing her relationships with her friends - but she's also friendliest and probably happiest character, and seems too ditzy to realize that her actions are harmful, even greeting people with hugs and calling Codex her "best friend in the whole wide world".
- The stories/art/pictures of popular deviantaArt fetish artist Saxxon often feature women who are not only cruel and evil, but almost always inhumanly obese. To put it in perspective, characters who end up rivalling the Earth by the end of the story are amongst the smaller women.
Western Animation
- Eric Cartman of South Park. Most notably in two episodes where 1), during his family reunion, all of his family members, save for his mother and grandmother who are thin and caring, are fat annoying slobs. 2) Where Eric from the future, who lost weight and became a better person in general (and wealthy to boot), came to the past to tell Eric to be a good human being. Eric (thinking it was a trick) delivered the generic "screw you" line and said he would stay the way he was, after the other characters were out of view the future Eric transformed into a dirty obese mechanic as a result of his younger self not "changing for the better".
- Rob Reiner in the episode "Butt Out" uses propaganda to point out the dangers of smoking while ignoring his obesity to the point he needs butter to squeeze out of his limo.
- In Family Guy, Peter Griffin's tendency to invoke this trope is probably the most obvious difference between him and Homer Simpson. While Homer can gobble down platefuls of food for laughs, Peter's usually only shown in the same context as food when the point is supposed to be that he's a Jerkass.
- One episode in particular stands out - Peter forms an awareness group for fat people discrimination, and every last one of them conforms to this trope, making disturbing groaning noises, busting out snacks every few minutes, and making excuses for all their actions. One half-dead fat guy actually interrupts the action to ask if he can eat a dead fat guy that's in the same room as he is.
- In a cutaway scene from the episode Brian Sings and Swings, John Goodman is portrayed as this.
- It's somewhat amusing to note too that Peter actually has a repressed fat-fetish.
- ...which brings us to the other standout episode of this trope: When Peter gets a vasectomy and loses all interest in Lois, she starts pigging out, and he starts to make jokes about her weight...until said fat fetish busts out and breaks the bed.
- Only averted sometimes by Chris Griffin and averted always with Cleveland (now a protagonist all his own), and Cleveland Jr., who are all fat but are also among the show's few genuinely decent tempered characters. Chris is with his dad in the Fat Idiot trope though, but he's still far less vicious generally. Cleveland is rather intelligent.
- When Chris in one episode makes an attempt to lose weight, Stewie taunts and mocks him relentlessly. As the episode goes on, Stewie pigs out and eats more and more to taunt Chris with the food he cannot eat. This causes Stewie to gain lots of weight over time and as he gets bigger, he becomes more of a slob (he slams his face into a chocolate cake and eats like a pig), his girth breaks his high chair, and he grows so lazy to the point where his insults are lazily made and he falls asleep in the middle of it before he can finish his ice cream.
- Speaking of Homer, despite what one may initially think, The Simpsons mostly averts this trope. When 75% of the entire cast is fat - Springfield is the fattest city in America! - the fat people come in all temperaments. Everyone who's fat has their Fat Bastard moments, but it isn't always consistent, especially with the Negative Continuity.
- There are near-consistent straight cases, though, even if the fat and the bastardy aren't directly related. Mayor Quimby's girth could be taken to represent him being one of the "fat cats" (a derogatory term for over-privileged and corrupt politicians). Comic Book Guy is nasty and self-defeating pompous. Fat Tony belongs to an evil profession. Nelson is a big fat bully.
- Fat Tony died of a heart attack in the appropriately-named episode "Donnie Fatso"; his thinner, healthier cousin Fit Tony took over as leader of his gang. Sadly, Fit Tony started overeating after taking the job (due to stress over assassination attempts) changing his moniker to "Fit-Fat Tony" until he was just as fat as his cousin.
- Never, ever forget the episode where Homer selfishly and stupidly became horrendously obese just to be able to work at home and avoid 15 minutes of exercise a week.
- Slightly inverted in that the most actively evil characters on the show, Mr. Burns and Sideshow Bob, are thin.
- There are near-consistent straight cases, though, even if the fat and the bastardy aren't directly related. Mayor Quimby's girth could be taken to represent him being one of the "fat cats" (a derogatory term for over-privileged and corrupt politicians). Comic Book Guy is nasty and self-defeating pompous. Fat Tony belongs to an evil profession. Nelson is a big fat bully.
- Toot from Drawn Together, who is overweight and bitter about it. Becomes more sympathetic later.
- So overweight, in fact, that at one point it takes her nervous system about two minutes to relay pain to her brain. Said pain was a sword Xandir stabbed into her back as a bet.
- There was also an episode where she ended up on an island as a beached whale.
- Tohru from Jackie Chan Adventures was this before his Heel Face Turn.
- Tubbimura, the fat ninja from Xiaolin Showdown. A moderately competent (and relatively unsympathetic) villain, and quite certainly a Jerkass.
- Lawrence Limburger from the original Biker Mice From Mars series. It's implied obesity is a sign of high rank in Plutarkians (being Planet Looters who strip other planets bare for natural resources), with most of the seen plutarkians being very bloated (Limburger's sister even mentions going to the Plutarkian "fat farm" and wanting to get there before all the good fat is gone). The only skinny Plutarkians seen are Marshall the Monster (Limburger's pre-teen hellion of a nephew) and a certain lawyer.
- On the U.S. Acres segment of Garfield and Friends, all three of Orson's cruel brothers qualify.
- Hurricane Harry from Cool McCool.
- Oleander, a zaftig villain from Sushi Pack, although she's only a villain because she's a foodee and wants to eat the Sushi Pack (who don't help things by describing themselves as "bite-sized bits of bravery" and "finger foods of freedom").
- Hoggish Greedly from Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Also Sly Sludge to a lesser extent.
- Codename: Kids Next Door, a lot of the recurring adult villains the KND face are rotund in appearance.
- The Oblongs gives us Helga, a rude, ugly, mobidly obese little girl with delusions of grandeur. At least, they connect it to being underpriveleged (she can only affored to eat thrown out wedding cakes, she lives next to an abandoned factory...) And she is still awesome!
- Batman: The Animated Series
- Recurring villain, Rupert Thorne, an overweight mobster.
- One episode had Bruce Wayne, with amnesia, kidnapped and forced to work in a mining camp by a white-suited obese man who was always munching on a turkey leg. When one of the man's henchmen tried to remind him that the exhausted slaves have to eat, he replied, "I have to eat. They have to work."
- A Pith Possum segment of The Schnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show gives us Supper Squirrell, who was planning on using his Big Eater stature to drive Possum City into famine.
- Patrick from SpongeBob SquarePants occasionally shows traits of this. For example, "Spongebob Naturepants".
- Keep in mind said example was more a result of Patrick becoming manic depressive without his best friend around and going to extreme lengths to bring him back. He does have rather valid moments of this trope however, especially in later episodes thanks to Flanderization, "Rule Of Dumb" is a very extreme example.
- Mr Krabs may also count at times, though less enthasis is put on his rotound build for the most part.
- The protagonist of the animated short La Faim. While he is not a particularly nasty person, he disgusts the audience due to his complete and utter selfishness; he cares about absolutely nothing in life outside of his own pleasures. His gluttonous gorging gets more and more over-the-top as the short goes on (facing a full banquet table, he becomes an Eldritch Abomination made of mouths and arms so he can eat it all, and then literally becomes a steamshovel as he devours the table itself), and he morphs from a handsome young man into a morbidly obese slug. Finally the short ends when the man realizes the cost of his lifestyle: millions of children across the world are starving. He is surrounded by starving waifs, who proceed to...well, you can probably guess from here.
- In the third Aladdin movies, one of the forty thieves is a goofy, clumsy fat guy. He must be a terrible bastard though, considering how one becomes one of the forty thieves: you must kill another thief...
- Gargamel's godfather Baalthazar from The Smurfs is an overweight wizard; some episodes suggest his taste for rich foods is the cause.
- Fat Cat from Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers.
- Rancid Rabbit from CatDog.
- Cobbler from Adventure Time.
- Citrocet from The Ripping Friends.
- Muscle Man from Regular Show.
- Bob's Landlord from Bob's Burgers.
- Cheif from Tak and the Power of Juju is 100% Fat Basbard, seeing at Principal Pixiefrog does his voice and seeing the Tak ruins most of Pupununu kind.
- Oggy.
- Rat Matsison from The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat.
- Ms. Teets from Good Vibes.
- Penny from The Mighty B!.
- Peg-Leg Pete from Classic Disney Shorts and the rest of the Disney canon. The degrees of bastardy have varied over the years, from being a Complete Monster to Jerk with a Heart of Gold, but he always qualifies.
- There's the mob boss Mandragora from Justice League Unlimited, a homage to the Kingpin. Not only is he both fat, yet very physically powerful, he's also a repulsive, murderous bastard.
- There were a few Looney Tunes shorts from 1941 and 1942 that portrayed Elmer Fudd this way, his appearance based on that of Arthur Q. Bryan; unfortunately, the fat-jokes Bugs made at Elmer's expense got old quickly, and in these shorts, Bugs became far more of an unprovoked aggressor. After five of these cartoons, he was changed back.
- Ratarro from Thundercats was a portly Rat-Man who, while a more competent villain than most of the mutants, was so nasty that even they hated him.
- One Secret Squirrel short featured an obese panda thug named One-Ton as the Villain of the Week, both a Meaningful Name and Punny Name.
Real Life
- King Henry VIII, though he was a wife killing asshole even before gaining the extra pounds at the end of his life.
- Which makes it a subversion - as a young man he was a tall, powerful and magnificent athlete and was described as handsome. The fat really piled on when he stopped exercising and kept eating and drinking as much as ever.
- There was also the debilitating leg injury that kept him from exercising.
- Then there is King George IV (of the Regency fame), who ended his life as a fat, lecherous, boozing pig of with a body weight of 111 kg.
- Which makes it a subversion - as a young man he was a tall, powerful and magnificent athlete and was described as handsome. The fat really piled on when he stopped exercising and kept eating and drinking as much as ever.
- Former bailiff Johnnie Jordan testified against the (quite large) district court judge, Elizabeth Halverson for abusing her power and forcing the bailiff to do mundane and demeaning tasks such as rubbing her feet, picking up the sun flower seeds and cookie crumbs she left on the floor, and serving her microwavable dinners. She was also alleged to have fallen asleep in court, cussed at other employees, and used the bailiff to spy on other staff at the regional justice center. His tearful remarks of losing his dignity and faith in America are not overly dramatic. [1]
- Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, the early Hollywood star who was accused of raping actress Virginia Rappe at a party and rumored to have crushed her to death with his weight. The evidence was as ambiguous as it gets, and he was acquitted, but only after two mistrials, and the press and Moral Guardians had instantly assumed he was guilty and had already made the case into such a massive snowball of kneejerk disgust, moral shock and Body Horror that it utterly ruined him long before there was a chance to look at the facts. No, it is not Political Correctness Gone Mad to be concerned about the dangers of applying this trope in Real Life.
- Pick your Strawman Political: Michael Moore on the left, Rush Limbaugh on the right.
- An obese inmate managed to hide a gun in his fat layers
- Hermann Goering, possibly the reincarnation of Ceasre Nero. Like Henry VIII, he was a thin and good-looking in his youth. But after World War I, he ballooned up to enormous size, and also got a lot more evil as he enthusiastically joined the Nazis. When he was captured at the end of World War II, the pilot assigned to fly him to Nuremberg requested a larger airplane, because he was unsure his two-seater could handle Goering's weight.
- Perez Hilton
- Roman Emperor Vitellius. Whether he was truly as bad or his fame is tied to the saying of his political enemies, though, is in discussion.
- Angry fat guy wants his Mcdonald's chicken sandwich and he WANTS IT NOW BITCH!
- Eric Pickles, member of the UK government responsible for austerity and also the only cabinet minister visible from space. Not a nice man by all accounts.
- Becky Fischer, the preacher from Jesus Camp, notorious for screaming fire-and-brimstone sermons at children to terrify them into accepting Jesus.
- Diamond Jim Brady, a Depression Era-politician. He started eating precisely four inches from the table and only stopped when he bumped into it.
- In politics, you'd notice quite a lot of politicians from different countries are on the heavy side and have a reputation for doing corrupt activities. But of course, this doesn't necessarily mean "chubby" politicians are always corrupt; physical appearance and career do not contribute to one's being corrupt. This can apply to all kinds of professions, such as in education, arts, religion, etc.
- ↑ ‘Your suit distracted me for a while,’ he added. ‘I couldn’t understand how you managed to squeeze your rather ample form inside it.’
- ↑ And Big Eater Fitz, who is in actual fact described as looking like he's "made of pipe cleaners", seems to eat more than he does, so Sabbath is hardly a Villainous Glutton.