Upper Class Wit: Difference between revisions
Rescuing 1 sources and tagging 0 as dead.) #IABot (v2.0.8
m (clean up) |
(Rescuing 1 sources and tagging 0 as dead.) #IABot (v2.0.8) |
||
| (6 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown) | |||
Line 11:
This seems to be a [[Forgotten Trope|dying trope]], since it depends on a way of life that is mostly extinct.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* [[Depending on the Writer]], when [[Batman|Bruce Wayne]] isn't an [[Upper Class Twit]], he's this.
== [[Fan Fiction]] ==
* Octa in ''[[The Surprising Adventures of a Glaceon in Unova]]''.▼
==
* Charles Xavier has shades of this in ''[[X-Men:
▲* Octa in [[The Surprising Adventures of a Glaceon in Unova]].
* [[Magnificent Bastard|Chuck Bass]] from ''[[Gossip Girl]]''. He ''does'' have a job, but keep in mind that he's an eighteen-year-old hotelier who spends more time drinking, having sex, and playing mind games with everyone he knows. His excuse? "I'm Chuck Bass."▼
▲* Charles Xavier has shades of this in ''[[X-Men: First Class|X Men First Class]]''. He's from an extremely wealthy family, attends Oxford and possesses an absolutely brilliant mind—but he prefers to use his mind-reading abilities and genius knowledge of genetics to seduce women and seems more interested in drinking than helping mankind. Even when he starts the team, he still possesses a keen wit and sense of fun (which is not to say he is in any way flippant about his beliefs). Only towards the end, when his friendship with Erik is destroyed and he is left paralyzed, does he truly become the mentor and leader we would come to know and love.
▲== [[Live Action Television]] ==
▲* [[Magnificent Bastard|Chuck Bass]] from [[Gossip Girl]]. He ''does'' have a job, but keep in mind that he's an eighteen-year-old hotelier who spends more time drinking, having sex, and playing mind games with everyone he knows. His excuse? "I'm Chuck Bass."
** He's also not the eternal bachelor, but if he can't have Blair he seems determined to have every prostitute and easy girl in New York instead.
* Warrick Harrow, Mal's client in "Shindig", from ''[[Firefly]]''. Despite only showing up in one episode, he managed to out-snark two [[Upper Class Twit]]s and Badger. Note that [[The Medic|Simon]] is ''upper-middle'' class, not upper class. Doctors work for a living, whereas the upper class do not.
** Actually, to assert that simply because Simon worked as a doctor, he cannot be considered a good subversion to this trope. The elder Tams, judging from how they treated River, seemed more the type of
* Tyrion "The Imp" Lannister starts off this way in ''[[Game of Thrones]]''. He explains in the first episode that he uses it as "armor" against the insults of others.
== [[Literature]] ==▼
* Higgins from ''[[My Fair Lady]]''
▲== Literature ==
* Lord John Gray from the ''[[Outlander (novel)|Outlander]]'' series has some of the trappings of one of these, but as he matures proves to be an [[Officer and a Gentleman]]
▲* Higgins from ''[[My Fair Lady]]''—has a [[Big Fancy House]], servants, and a two-story library; is a [[Brilliant but Lazy]] linguistics and speech training expert, and a [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]].
▲* Lord John Gray from the ''[[Outlander (novel)|Outlander]]'' series has some of the trappings of one of these, but as he matures proves to be an [[Officer and a Gentleman]]. (And [[Invisible to Gaydar]] to boot.)
* Several of [[Saki (author)|Saki]]'s young "heroes" are this type (and some are [[Upper Class Twit]]s).
* [[P. G.
* Philo Vance, the hero of S.S. Van Dine's detective stories, is a brilliant polymath who habitually acts like an indolent fop. He has been described as a polymathic Psmith.
* Byerly Vorrutyer from [[Vorkosigan Saga|''A Civil Campaign'']] fits this trope to a tee. He's Vor-class, [[Rich Idiot With No Day Job|"is notoriously without visible means of support"]], makes sarcastic quips at everyone else's expense, and [[Ambiguously Gay|is very interested]] in what [[Gender Bender|his newly male cousin]] [[Kissing Cousins|looks like without clothes]]. Subverted in that {{spoiler|he's actually a high ranking civilian [[Secret Police|Imp Sec]] agent}}, though he doesn't fit [[Rich Idiot With No Day Job]] exactly because his bratty and decadent personality is more then a pose.
** Ivan Vorpatril is another example of this trope, though he tends to act like an [[Upper Class Twit]] to the degree that it was years before his cousin Miles Vorkosigan realized his first name wasn't "That Idiot."
* Lord Peter Wimsey from [[Lord Peter Wimsey|the eponymous series]]. Lord Peter keeps up a running stream of babble that makes the uneducated believe him to be an [[Upper Class Twit]], but which references disparate subjects from the classical canon to campanology.
* [[Oscar Wilde
* ''[[Harry Potter]]'': James Potter and Sirius Black are portrayed this way, at least before they join the Order.
* Jem Harthouse from Dickens' ''[[Hard Times]]'', perhaps. He is portrayed as rather clever at times.
== [[Music]] ==
* [[Professor Elemental]],
== [[Theater]] ==▼
▲== Theater ==
* [[Oscar Wilde]] wrote a lot of these characters, probably because [[Author Avatar|he was one himself]].
** Algernon Moncrieff from ''[[The Importance of Being Earnest]]''
** Lord Augustus from ''Lady Windermere's Fan''
** Lord Henry Wotton, and to an extent Dorian Gray, from ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]''
** Lord Goring from ''[[An Ideal Husband]]''
* Philip from ''[[Easy Virtue]]''
* [[The Zeroth Law of Trope Examples]] applies here. Examples from [[William Shakespeare
** John Falstaff
** Mercutio from ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'' - the cynical, wisecracking variety.
** Petruchio from ''[[The Taming of the Shrew]]'' - the "I'll Do Anything For a Bet" variety,
** Orsino from ''[[Twelfth Night]]'' - the [[In Love with Love]] variety.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' has Balthier, a lovely example of the trope. It turns out he's {{spoiler|the son of the Empire's court scientist, and that he ran away from home to escape his mad father, the Emperor's reign, and nobility in general.}} To his credit, he prefers living as an adventurer and actually knows how to use a sword.
== [[Real Life]] ==
Line 72 ⟶ 66:
* John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
* [[Oscar Wilde]]
* [[Stephen Fry]] often gets cast in this role in the public perception (he even admits to deliberately playing up to this image in public) when in fact he's spent time in prison, had to work his ass off to get into Cambridge from a sixth form
* In all likelihood, ''you.'' You're browsing [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|
{{reflist}}
Line 79 ⟶ 73:
[[Category:Just for Pun]]
[[Category:An Index of Ladies and Gentlemen]]
[[Category:
| |||