Troubled Sympathetic Bigot: Difference between revisions

While a very different kind of character, [[Cerebus Syndrome]] may lead a [[Noble Bigot]] or an [[Innocent Bigot]] to become a '''Troubled Sympathetic Bigot'''. A '''Troubled Sympathetic Bigot''' tends to be neither heroic nor villainous—he's only a little human, struggling with his life.

For characters who are destructive yet sympathetic - without having any internal conflict about their own bigotry - see instead [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]].

{{examples}}

* In the [[Fullmetal Alchemist]] movie, many of the {{spoiler|AU versions}} of the characters that we've come to know and love have quite literally become {{spoiler|Nazis}}. Quite sympathetic ones though.

== [[Literature]] ==

* Archie Bunker from ''[[All in The Family]]'' has shades of this (as well as most tropes related to bigotry), as one of the main themes of the series is how lost he feels in a modern world that constantly challenges his prejudices. This is most notable in "Stretch Cunningham Goodbye", one of the series' best episodes, where Archie is invited to give the eulogy at a close friend's funeral, not knowing that the man was Jewish.

* Pierce Hawthorne on ''[[Community]]'' can come across as this. Pierce's inappropriateness, overzealous creativity, and pathological need to be accepted at all cost are all rooted in frustrations getting attention from his father and his fear that his age is now isolating himself from the rest of the study group.

* King Uther from ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]''. He hates all magic because [[Balancing Death's Books|of his wife's death]], and genuinely believes that he's doing what's right when he commits genocide against those that practice magic. He's also a [[Hypocrite]] considering he seeks out magical help when he's really desperate (thus indicating that he knows magic can be used for ''good''), and ultimately his actions cause his illegitimate daughter to turn against him, something that drives him to his death.

== [[Theater]] ==

* Nellie Forbush and Lieutenant Cable from ''[[South Pacific]]''. Nellie is in love with Emile but tearfully leaves him when she finds out he was once married to a "colored" woman, and has two half-Polynesian children. Cable is in love with Liat, but refuses to marry a Tonkinese woman. Cable's song "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught" is a self-loathing explanation of how he and Nellie acquired such deep-seated prejudice. {{spoiler|Nellie eventually overcomes her prejudice and learns to love Emile's children, but Cable is killed before he has a chance to reconcile with Liat.}}

* Sakuya Shirogane Le Bel, of ''[[Hatoful Boyfriend]]'', is a huge racist and classist [[Upper Class Twit]] with the [[Freudian Excuse]] that this is exactly how his father raised him to be, and he can't imagine going against his father's will. This causes him quite a bit of trouble when the (human) heroine pursues romance with him and then helps him acknowledge his passion for music. The free version of his route ends with him going to confront his father about his desire to be a working-class pigeon; in the paid version {{spoiler|his father disowns him for this}}. The dark arc, ''Bad Boys' Love'', [[Break the Haughty|goes even further]]: {{spoiler|disowned half-brother Yuuya reveals that Sakuya is actually his ''full'' brother, not actually the son of the father who raised him a bigot, and also a [[You Are What You Hate|half-breed of less than noble blood]]. [[Trauma Conga Line|And then Yuuya dies in front of him]]}}.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Sociology Tropes]]

[[Category:Psychology Tropes]]

[[Category:Sadness Tropes]]