Jerkass Woobie/Video Games: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Tales of Symphonia (Video Game)|Tales of Symphonia]]'': Zelos Wilder. He's a jerk, pervert, and totally lazy, and {{spoiler|betrays the group a few times, feeling the need to side with the side he thinks is the strongest}}. If you talk to him at Flanoir, however, you find out that {{spoiler|he had to watch his mother die from an assassination attempt aimed at him. Her dying words were that he shouldn't have been born. He also says that his parents were forced together, which causes him grief. His people only see him as the Chosen and not as a person.}} If you choose Kratos's ending, {{spoiler|Zelos betrays you, further solidifying his Jerkass status, but he also says, smiling the whole time, that he did it because Mithos promised to transfer the Chosen title to his sister. He also suggests that he's generally tired of living}}.

* Ganondorf in ''[[The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker]]'', to a certain extent. Before that game, he was generally portrayed as a typical [[Evil Overlord]] who occasionally verged into [[Complete Monster]] territory ([[Moral Event Horizon|trying to feed all the Gorons to Volvagia comes to mind]]). His speech before the final battle in ''Wind Waker'', however, shows that his desire to conquer Hyrule stemmed from the awfully harsh life he had in the unforgiving desert. {{spoiler|Any sympathy he gains from players, however, gets a little diluted when he subsequently proceeds to beat the crap out of Link in order to snatch the Triforce of Courage}}.

** Scrapper from ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword]]'' is another example. He's generally very rude to Link, and unlike Midna, [[It Got Worse|never really gets any nicer.]] However, he is the last remaining one of his species. The fact that he's blissfully unaware of this, though, may qualify him as a full on [[Jerkass]].

* LaCroix, the Camarilla Prince in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]''. For all his ambition, ruthlessness, devious schemes, and the fact that he's the main antagonist in all but one of the possible endings, he's so damn ineffectual that he winds up coming off as more pathetic than villainous. Hell, unless you side with him, he doesn't get so much as a {{spoiler|boss fight in the end. You just shrug off his attempt to dominate you and slice'n'stab him with a [[Cherry Tapping|letter opener off his desk]] in a ''[[Humiliation Conga|cutscene]]''}}.

* Dante from ''[[Devil May Cry]]''. He is constantly making snide remarks, complaining about money, extremely lazy (only works once a week), is in debt to all of his friends (and makes it clear that he won't be paying anyone back anytime soon), and is a major jerk to just about everyone. Then again, he consistently turns down payment (does the job anyway because it is the right thing) and refuses payment from the poor, saves the world on several occasions, takes care of Patty (to a certain extent), is shown to spare demons who are able to love and refuses to kill humans, and is shown to have a compassionate side as well as a kind side (he'll just give you a hard time).<br />The [[Jerkass Facade]] is to cover up the fact that he is miserable (it can be seen basically everywhere, especially in the anime; really, he never smiles except when he is slaughtering a demon or when he does a good deed!). The Woobie part is that he [[Missing Mom|witnessed his mother being slaughtered]] [[Mama Bear|while she protected him]] at the age of eight and [[Dead Little Brother|believed his brother to be dead as well]]. [[Disappeared Dad|He also believes that his father abandoned them at a young age]] and it is assumed that he basically raised himself. He finds his brother [[Cain and Abel|completely insane]] and is forced to defeat him, which leads to Vergil's apparent suicide (or so Dante believed), and forced to finally (all the while not knowing that it was Vergil) kill a possessed Vergil ten years later.<br />His friends constantely take advantage of him (manipulating him, forcing him to pay for clothing, etc.), he is forever hunted and hated by the entire demon world (and most humans hate him because of his demon heritage), and he has no hope of ever having a normal day (let alone a normal life). During everyday life, he is constantly being shot at (Lady shoots him point blank through the forehead twice and later through the stomach...in a period of six hours!), [[Impaled With Extreme Prejudice|impaled]] (a [[Running Gag]] to be stabbed through the chest or stomach), and other things. Capcom really wanted to make sure that Dante had the worst possible upbringing and life possible, didn't they?

* Bowser, especially in ''[[Super Mario RPG (Video Game)|Super Mario RPG]]'' and the ''[[Mario and Luigi (Video Game)|Mario & Luigi]]'' series, and ''most'' especially in ''[[Mario and Luigi Bowsers Inside Story (Video Game)|Bowser's Inside Story]]'', where he's the sympathetic [[Anti-Villain|Anti]] [[Villain Protagonist]].

* ''[[Portal 2 (Video Game)|Portal 2]]'' gives us Cave Johnson, the insane CEO of Aperture Science. He is a [[Bad Boss]] of the highest degree, and doesn't care very much what happens to his employees. Yet still, most of the things he and his company invented were by accident. He wanted to make a diet pudding, he made the propulsion and repulsion gels instead (a pair of gels that are definitely ''not'' to be consumed). He had a similar intention with the conversion gel too, and even tried it on himself...only to find out that it is deadly as all hell and works better as portal conductors. On a related note, he definitely spent more time testing his products than actually marketing them due to how horrible Aperture was at that particular task. This eventually leads to his downfall as he eventually goes bankrupt and, in his last moments, he {{spoiler|uploaded his assistant's conciousness on to [[G La DOS]] so that she would be able to run the facility in his place (despite the fact that she did not want to)}}. In short, he would have been a millionare and an everyday hero if he had at least a little more sanity and some marketing ability, and the sense to use that ability.

* Alma Wade from ''[[First Encounter Assault Recon]]''. Sure, she's a psychotic [[Yandere]] that tries and succeeds at raping you, but she's also went through hell itself trying to save her children, and the flashbacks that we see of her past, where she's taken to the vault, are horrible.