Upper Class Twit: Difference between revisions
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[[The Ditz]] with a trust fund. The '''Upper Class Twit''' is either an [[Blue Blood|aristocrat]] or a relative of someone in the upper echelons of society, and is automatically provided with [[Infinite Supplies|all of his living expenses]]. In other words, he was a [[Spoiled Brat]] as a child, and now he has no reason to contribute to society, which is just as well, since he doesn't have the skills to contribute anyway. More often than not, he leads a hedonistic lifestyle that embarrasses his family. Highly prone to [[Conspicuous Consumption]].
Usually used as a foil for [[The Jeeves]] or some other more intelligent character. The male
A popular recent subtype, and the female counterpart to the usually male
Of course, sometimes they're [[Obfuscating Stupidity]], and they may even be up to [[Rich Idiot With No Day Job|something far more interesting after hours]]. See also [[The White Prince]] for a royal version.
Interestingly there is a heroic variation called [[Stiff Upper Lip]] in which a character acts like an
A [[Sub-Trope]] of [[Idle Rich]].
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* ''[[Temptation Island]]'' has bitchy contestant Suzanne (Serafina in the remake), and the pageant coordinator Joshua.
* ''[[The Swan]]'' with Grace Kelly is a take on this that makes twittiness its own punishment. An absurdly proud family of royal pretensions uses servants as toys and tools and thinks kin politics is relevant long after it has been made meaningless by bureaucracy, thus breaking a potentially healthy romance needlessly. The result is the chief villain pines for power, the antiheroine loses her chance for happiness, and all because of their absurd devotion to irrelevant snobbery. The description sounds harsh but the characters are not really unlikable, just pitiable, and even the chief villain is not really evil and her cruelties are petty and the results of frustrations. If they had been happy with the comfort they had and not made a fuss of it they would have been nicer to themselves and nicer to other people. Instead they are a group of rather tragic Upper Class Twits.
* In ''[[Wonka]]'', the [[Corrupt Corporate Executive| Chocolate Cartel]] is this - their gripe with Wonka is not simply that he's making better chocolate, but that he is making it ''affordable'' to the lower class. {{spoiler| It is even revealed that Slugworth - Wonka's most notorious competitor - gained his fortune by cheating his neice out of her inheritance.}}
== Jokes ==
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* Ippolit Kuragin in ''[[War and Peace]]''. A minor character compared to his siblings [[Casanova|Anatole]] and [[Hello, Nurse!|Helene]], whose one moment in the sun is during a soirée in which he has a [[Cloudcuckoolander]] moment:
{{quote|"The road to Warsaw, perhaps," Prince Ippolit said loudly and unexpectedly. Everyone turned to him, not understanding what he meant to say by that. Prince Ippolit also looked around with merry surprise. Like everyone else, he did not understand the meaning of the words he had spoken. In the course of his diplomatic career, he had noticed more than once that words spoken suddenly like that turned out to be very witty, and, just in case, he had spoken these words, the first that came to his tongue.}}
* ''[[Discworld]]'':
** The aristocrats in the ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[
*** Take note, this
* The standard protagonist of Decadent fiction, as well as the standard author. You have to wonder if they'd be so filled with existentialist ennui if they quit moping around the house all day long and got jobs. The pinnacle of the Decadent novel (and this trope) was ''
* Many of [[Sharpe]]'s enemies fit this trope. They tend to end up dead.
* Lots of people in ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'', but the Buchanans get singled out:
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** Danilo Thann, however, was [[Obfuscating Stupidity|faking it]] from the word go.
* Foxbat from the ''[[Champions]]'' universe was this before the loss of his family fortune turned him into the world's most eccentric supervillain.
* The Last Passenger, in the ''[[Ravenloft]]'' setting, a [[Canon Immigrant]] from the ''[[Eberron]]'' setting. Decades ago, the nation of Cyre was destroyed during the [[Apocalypse How/Class 0| Day of Mourning]], a magical cataclysm of unknown origins. Fortunately for most residents of the capital city of Metrol, they had an evacuation plan ready - citizens would flee using the lightning rails, super-fast [[Steampunk]]-style trains. But one train was delayed by a rich snob now known as the Last Passenger.<ref>True to Eberron tradition, the identity of this villain remains hidden; fans of the series have offered some theories, noting that anyone in the House of Orien or House of Cannith (likely Starrin or his son Norran) or even the Queen would have been rich enough and cruel enough to be the Last Passenger.</ref> This VIP not only held the train up, but forced several hundred passengers off the train so they and their retinue could board in secrecy, likely with a great deal of their material wealth. When the train finally departed, it was too late, and was consumed by the magical destruction that claimed the entire nation. Except it wasn’t destroyed. Cursed for their crime, the Last Passenger is now the Darklord of Cyre 1313, now known as [[Afterlife Express| the Mourning Rail]], a mobile Realm that forever transverses the Demiplane. The Last Passenger - along with, sadly, everyone else on the train - still believes they are outrunning the Mourning, unaware they are dead and that they has been damned by their own selfish folly.
==
* [[Shakespeare]] [[Zeroth Law of Trope Examples|examples]]:
** Polonius in ''Hamlet'', a sort of hybridization of this, [[Old Master]], [[Evil Genius]] and [[Knight Templar Parent]].
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** The ridiculously incompetent Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B. in ''[[H.M.S. Pinafore|HMS Pinafore]]''.
** The Peers in ''[[Iolanthe]]'' are proud of their [[Blue Blood]], though they have to admit that it hasn't given them much in the way of brains.
* Sir Evelyn Oakleigh in ''[[Anything Goes]]''. ([[P. G.
* ''[[Der Rosenkavalier]]'' has Leopold Anton, Baron Ochs ([[Meaningful Name|German for "ox"]]) auf Lerchenau, the Marschallin's [[Country Cousin]].
* In ''The Little Foxes'', Leo acts this part, even though his family is really only [[Nouveau Riche]].
* The 'music hall' (popular entertainment, mainly working-class, in the 18-1900s, a collection of songs and comic skits)is a rich mine of these characters: 'Gilbert the Filbert, the Knut with a
== Video Games ==
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