History Main / TheUpperCrass

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': Nobility and Aristocracy come in all flavors in the setting. While there are some UpperClassTwits with repulsive habits (specifically the Celestial Dragons) there are also many who are decent people (though most of the more decent ones tend to be deposed by villains at the time they're encountered).

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': Sabo is a son of a noble family in Goa Kingdom, but he prefers playing around with his commoner friends Luffy and Ace in the streets and the woods.

* A modern, realistic example: in the season 13 episode of ''Series/MidsomerMurders'' "The Noble Art", Gerald Farquaharson is the local lord of the manor, but (in stark contrast to almost all other gentry in the series) he is an affable man of the people with no pretentiousness or interest in status who loves nothing more than gambling and boxing while trying to do what is right by the people of the village.

Their attitude may come from being a case of RagsToRoyalty, though their more cultured counterparts might also be a case of that. Maybe they were a HiddenBackupPrince and keep their old-fashioned attitudes even after being recognized. The Upper Crass tends more to ModestRoyalty than your typical aristocracy. Compare ImpoverishedPatrician, which isn't as fancy due to lack of money, rather than lack of culture and personality. Might overlap with NouveauRiche if a noble had commoner origins and was granted lands and titles for their service. Closely related to UpperClassTwit, for when the wealthy are unsophisticated. If all the aristocrats are this, chances this trope veer into AristocratsAreEvil territory. May overlap with WickedPretentious, when a crude and uncivilized villain puts on a façade of being cultured.

** Due to their poverty, the Cressay family is forced to live like peasants on their own land, having to hunt for their food. Despite this, they're very proud of their lineage, and refuse an otherwise perfect marriage between their sister Marie and the rich merchant Guccio, leading to all sorts of problems including [[spoiler:the AccidentalMurder of their child, Marie and Guccio being forced to think they've been abandoned by the other and both dying alone]].

** ''Literature/TheFifthElephant'': The werewolf clans of Uberwald are revealed to be exactly this way in their social setup. The von Uberwald clan are a family with titles and have a castle and estates, but also the sort of social graces you might expect from people who spend at least half their time in a canine form. The patriarch has, by choice, spent so much time as a wolf that he is losing the knack of how to be human: a situation his rather snobbish wife calls him out on, a lot. And younger members of the family tend to sprawl in front of the fire in wolf form; at first, visitors take them to be rather large and boisterous dogs of the Alsatian type. ''Literature/{{Thud}}'' takes the idea a step further: werewolf Angua von Uberwald feels inadequate, cloddish, and condescended to in her interactions with vampire Sally von Humperdinck, who, being a vampire, carries nobility lightly with all the expected grace, style and confidence. Angua feels like a Dung Age peasant next to Sally, even though both are on the same social level as minor nobles.

** Robert Baratheon, to the disgust of pretty much everyone, even his best friend, Ned Stark. Having sunk into a deep depression after the death of his beloved Lyanna, he has fully given into hedonism and become a rowdy, gluttonous and promiscuous drunk who wishes he weren't the king, doesn't give two shits about ruling or raising his children and the only thing that can raise him from his stupor is his violent hatred of the Targaryens. He beats his wife and children and is always off hunting, drinking, or whoring, relegating state affairs to his council.

** Robert Baratheon is Lord of the Stormlands and became king of the Seven Kingdoms after overthrowing the Targaryens. He's a BoisterousBruiser who spends most of his time drinking, hunting, and whoring, and boasts about his GloryDays as a great warrior in graphic detail. At a feast, he openly makes out with a servant girl, at which his wife Cersei is also present, and he opens a tournament by bellowing for the fighting to start before he pisses himself, making her roll her eyes in disgust. His behavior underlines how much Robert hates being king; he only took the throne to bring stability back to the country after the rebellion but he has no interest in ruling, nor can he bothered acting the part. It's PlayedForDrama when he [[DomesticAbuse strikes Cersei]] during a nasty argument; he is remorseful and says it "wasn't kingly", but for Cersei, it's the final straw and she arranges a HuntingAccident for him to install her [[TheCaligula own son]] ([[MamasBabyPapasMaybe not his]]) on the throne.
** Lord Walder Frey is a lecherous, foul-mouthed DirtyOldMan who flaunts his new wife in a sexualized manner; said wife is young enough to be his granddaughter. When he meets his new queen Talisa, whom Robb Stark had married instead of one of Walder's daughters, Walder remarks he thinks Robb married not for love but for "firm tits and a tight fit", only to add he'd have broken 50 vows for such a woman if he'd been younger. He then [[spoiler: violates guest right - a huge taboo in Westeros - by having Robb and his bannermen massacred during his daughter's wedding to Robb's uncle; he sits there drinking wine and grinning at the carnage like it's a spectator sport]].

* In ''Series/TheMusketeers'', Porthos genuinely is working-class, but one episode has a villainous example in Baron Renard, a StupidEvil brute who rapes and kills peasants for fun and can't understand why Athos is upset about it. Porthos suggests that he and his very similar son must be the result of rustic inbreeding.

This character is a leftover of the original kind of nobility that survived well into the age of cultured aristocrats. Usually by living in a remote place, this rustic breed of noble is as simple and practical as the peasants he lords over. He may be loud and foul-mouthed and may be quirky to a degree unforgivable at the royal court. He may practice barbaric traditions such as DroitDuSeigneur, and his home is a few centuries behind the times: if the aristocrats of the capital live in castles, this guy lives in a tower or fortified manor; if castles are no longer in vogue, a castle is exactly where this guy lives.

* The infamous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullingdon_Club Bullingdon Club]], a society at the University of Oxford, whose membership is reserved for the very poshest students. With two British Prime Ministers among its former members, details about the goings-on inside the club are hazy, but a repeated theme is fancy dinners featuring a ritual of thoroughly vandalising the dining room afterwards (with members prepared to pay fines/clean-up fees afterwards). Other stories like the notorious ceremony with a pig's head, or burning £50 notes in front of a homeless person, have often been repeated but may be apocryphal. In general it's treated like an OldShame for key figures in the Conservative Party who used to be members; UsefulNotes/BorisJohson described it as "a truly shameful vignette of almost superhuman undergraduate arrogance, toffishness and twittishness".

* The infamous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullingdon_Club Bullingdon Club]], a society at the University of Oxford, whose membership is reserved for the very poshest students. With two British Prime Ministers among its former members, details about the goings-on inside the club are hazy, but a repeated theme is fancy dinners featuring a ritual of thoroughly vandalising the dining room afterwards (with members prepared to pay fines/clean-up fees afterwards). Other stories like the notorious ceremony with a pig's head, or burning £50 notes in front of a homeless person, have often been repeated but may be apocryphal.

** While the nobles are all along the refinement scale, Robert d'Artois plays up the image of a LargeHam RichIdiotWithNoDayJob living only for wine, women, and song, both because it's not much of an exaggeration of his natural temperament and because it makes his enemies [[ObfuscatingStupidity underestimate him]]. His role in the "[[EngineeredHeroics rescue]]" and downfall of the D'Aunay brothers goes completely unsuspected because no one thought it odd that he'd be found in a brothel-rich area or that he'd fight off bandits to save their victims.

** Robert Baratheon is Lord of the Stormlands and became king of the Seven Kingdoms after overthrowing the Targaryens. He's a BoisterousBruiser who spends most of his time drinking, hunting, and whoring, and boasts about his GloryDays as a great warrior in graphic detail. At a feast, he openly makes out with a servant girl, at which his wife Cersei is also present, and he opens a tournament by bellowing for the fighting to start before he pisses himself, making her roll her eyes in disgust. His behavior underlines how much Robert hates being king; he only took the throne to bring stability back to the country after the rebellion but he has no interest in ruling, nor can he bothered acting the part. It's PlayedForDrama when he [[DomesticAbuse strikes Cersei]] during a nasty argument; he is remorseful and says it "wasn't kingly", but for Cersei, it's the final straw and she arranges a HuntingAccident for him to install her [[TheCaligula own son]] ([[MamasBabyPApasMaybe not his]]) on the throne.

* Myth/ClassicalMythology: In one version of the Labors of Hercules, King Augeas is just as disgusting and unhygienic as his stables (whose claim to fame was that they'd never been cleaned out despite housing 3000 immortal cows, to the point where Hercules had to divert two rivers through them to remove all the manure). Not only that, but he refuses to pay Hercules for the job despite the hero doing the deed in a single day. Hercules kills him and gives the kingdom to one of his sons.

** The Northern nobles are perceived this way by those to the south. In truth, their harsh surroundings simply lead them to eschew the pageantry that other regions enjoy. Some do play it straight, such as the rowdy and decidedly rustic Umbers, and their neighboring mountain clans, both are rumored to practice DroitDuSeigneur. Then there are the Boltons whose practice of that tradition is the ''least'' horrifying about them.

** Nearly all Northern nobles exemplify various sides of this trope. The Starks are exemplars of old-school values of honor, the Umbers and Mormonts are the champions in being crude and rustic, and the Boltons exemplify the dark side of the trope by practising many quaint local traditions, among which DroitDuSeigneur is the ''least'' horrifying.

* VideoGame/GwentTheWitcherCardGame: Imerleth, The "Duke of Dogs", and Whoreson Junior all are upper-class types who chose to be crude and downright vicious despite having noble/wealthy family. Their taunts reflect this.

* ''WesternAnimation/MissingLink'': PlayedForLaughs. Lord Piggot-Dunceby acts like the typical snobbish aristocrat most of the time... but when he's angry, he throws a childish temper tantrum. He also claims that the "civilized" way to deal with Sir Frost, who he dislikes, [[HypocriticalHumor is to hire a thug to kill him]].

This character is a leftover of the original kind of nobility that survived well into the age of cultured aristocrats. Usually by living in a remote place, this rustic breed of noble is as simple and practical as the peasants he lords over. He may be loud and foul-mouthed, and may be quirky to a degree unforgivable at the royal court. He may practice barbaric traditions such as DroitDuSeigneur, and his home is a few centuries behind the times: if the aristocrats of the capital live in castles, this guy lives in a tower or fortified manor; if castles are no longer in vogue, a castle is exactly where this guy lives.

** While the nobles are all along the refinement scale, Robert d'Artois plays up the image of a LargeHam RichIdiotWithNoDayJob living only for wine, women and song, both because it's not much of an exaggeration of his natural temperament and because it makes his enemies [[ObfuscatingStupidity underestimate him]]. His role in the "[[EngineeredHeroics rescue]]" and downfall of the D'Aunay brothers goes completely unsuspected because no one thought it odd that he'd be found in a brothel-rich area or that he'd fight off bandits to save their victims.

** ''Literature/TheFifthElephant'': The werewolf clans of Uberwald are revealed to be exactly this way in their social setup. The von Uberwald clan are a family with titles, and have a castle and estates, but also the sort of social graces you might expect from people who spend at least half their time in a canine form. The patriarch has, by choice, spent so much time as a wolf that he is losing the knack of how to be human: a situation his rather snobbish wife calls him out on, a lot. And younger members of the family tend to sprawl in front of the fire in wolf form; at first, visitors take them to be rather large and boisterous dogs of the Alsatian type. ''Literature/{{Thud}}'' takes the idea a step further: werewolf Angua von Uberwald feels inadequate, cloddish and condescended to in her interactions with vampire Sally von Humperdinck, who, being a vampire, carries nobility lightly with all the expected grace, style and confidence. Angua feels like a Dung Age peasant next to Sally, even though both are on the same social level as minor nobles.
** ''Literature/{{Hogfather}}'': Susan works as a governess for a NouveauRiche couple despite being the Duchess of Sto-Helit ([[Literature/{{Mort}} and her father having been awarded the dukedom for personally saving the life of the queen]]) and therefore ranking higher than all but maybe one or two people in Anhk-Morpork. The disconnect in a duchess working as a servant causes a severe crisis for the socially-conscious lady of the house, who is constantly trying to move into the upper classes by reading books on etiquette. When Mrs. Gaiter tremulously asks her how one addresses the second cousin of a queen, Susan responds without thinking "We called him Jamie, usually," and Mrs. Gaiter has to go and have a headache in her room.

*** His descendants in ''Literature/WaxAndWayne'' have shades of this, too. Lord Waxillum Ladrian is a CowboyCop who hates attending noble parties, and gleefully talks about the time he shot a dog's tail off when aiming for his balls--during a wedding party, and in front of his date's father.
*** According to Wax, his distant cousins of the House of Cett are snobbish and greedy. He identifies a coach company owner as a Cett by the way he was about to shoo Wax away until he recognized him as rich, and then bent over backwards to accommodate him. Wax gets information out of him by correctly guessing that he illegally uses emotional Allomancy to drum up customers, and promising not to turn him in.
** Straff Venture is the richest nobleman in Luthadel, and is so secure in his position that he can afford to be openly condescending in negotiations. During a parley with his rebellious son King Elend and Elend's girlfriend/assassin Vin, he brings one of his mistresses in as a serving girl, and they realize that he was showing off that he could get a younger, prettier version of Vin (Vin is eighteen, and this girl is estimated to be around [[OldManMarryingAChild fifteen]]). Mid-negotiation, Elend realizes that Straff isn't the genius Elend thought he was; he's a bully who only lasted because he inherited his wealth and didn't mismanage it.

** Robert Baratheon, to the disgust of pretty much everyone, even his best friend, Ned Stark. Having sunk in deep depression after the death of his beloved Lyanna, he has fully given into hedonism and become a rowdy, gluttonous and promiscuous drunk who wishes he weren't the king, doesn't give two shits about ruling or raising his children and the only thing that can raise him from his stupor is his violent hatred of the Targaryens. He beats his wife and children and is always off hunting, drinking or whoring, relegating state affairs to his council.

** Olenna Tyrell is a very straight example of ScrewPolitenessIAmASenior being rude, abrasive and more than a bit foul mouthed.
** Cercei Lannister is not much better throwing public tantrums, openly insulting nobles.
** A large chunk of Westerosi nobleborn characters do not show much more refinement, curtesy or decorum than their lowborn counterparts. Is part of the reason they are considered savages by the Essosi.
* ''Literature/TheHighCrusade'': The hero of the novel, Sir Roger de Tourneville, is a baron of a small town in northern Lincolnshire. His lands being poor and backward, and his few periods away being spent fighting, he is acknowledged by even his friends as lacking in "courtly graces", being a blunt, jovial, bombastic and at times crude man. But he is nevertheless a shrewd and highly cunning individual, as well as a great military leader. This is particularly highlighted compared to his wife [[ProperLady Lady Catherine]], daughter of a wealthy southern Viscount who was brought up in Winchester "amongst every elegance and modern refinement".

** Robert Baratheon is Lord of the Stormlands and became king of the Seven Kingdoms after overthrowing the Targaryens. He's a BoisterousBruiser who spends most of his time drinking, hunting and whoring, and boasts about his GloryDays as a great warrior in graphic detail. At a feast he openly makes out with a servant girl, at which his wife Cersei is also present, and he opens a tournament by bellowing for the fighting to start before he pisses himself, making her roll her eyes in disgust. His behavior underlines how much Robert hates being king; he only took the throne to bring stability back to the country after the rebellion but he has no interest in ruling, nor can he bothered acting the part. It's PlayedForDrama when he [[DomesticAbuse strikes Cersei]] during a nasty argument; he is remorseful and says it "wasn't kingly", but for Cersei it's the final straw and she arranges a HuntingAccident for him to install her [[TheCaligula own son]] ([[MamasBabyPApasMaybe not his]]) on the throne.

* A modern, realistic example: in the season 13 episode of ''Series/MidsomerMurders'' "The Noble Art", Gerald Farquaharson is the local lord of the manor, but (in stark contrast to almost all other gentry in the series) he is an affable man of the people with no pretentiousness or interest in status who loves nothing more than gambling and boxing, while trying to do what is right by the people of the village.

** This is basically the [[PlanetOfHats Hat]] of the Fountland's rural nobility. The Fountland is [[FantasyCounterpartCulture partly based on medieval Russia]], and its landholders tend to be either brooding and saturnine...or [[BoisterousBruiser Boisterous Bruisers]] who drink the local vodka-equivalent in gallon-sized mugs, wake up the next morning in a stable somewhere, and then go on a brisk ten-mile-run through the snow (wrestling a bear along the way) to work up an appetite for breakfast.

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'': Teyrn Loghain Mac Tir is a commoner elevated to being the local equivalent of a duke. His fief Gwaren is nestled deep within the Brecilian Forest and is described as a largely rural place, with the town itself being a fishery and logging community. The Orlesian Empire views ''every'' Fereldan nobleman as being an upjumped barbarian, but that's not necessarily true. Teyrn Bryce Cousland of Highever, for example, is cosmopolitan enough to have deep connections to Antivan trading families (his son married the daughter of a wealthy Antivan merchant) and has positive diplomatic relations with the Grey Wardens. Loghain, on the other hand, acts completely out of step with the rest of Ferelden, and has very little political support.

* VideoGame/GwentTheWitcherCardGame: Imerleth, The "Duke of Dogs", and Whoreson Junior all are upper class types who chose to be crude and downright vicious despite having noble/wealthy family. Their taunts reflect this.

Their attitude may come from being a case of RagsToRoyalty, though their more cultured counterparts might also be a case of that. Maybe they were a HiddenBackupPrince and keep their old-fashioned attitudes even after being recognized. The Upper Crass tends more to ModestRoyalty than your typical aristocracy. Compare ImpoverishedPatrician, which isn't as fancy due to lack of money, rather than lack of culture and personality. Might overlap with NouveauRiche if a noble had commoner origins and was granted lands and titles for their service. Closely related to UpperClassTwit, for when the wealthy are unsophisticated. If all the aristocrats are this, chances this trope veer into AristocratsAreEvil territory.

** Robert Baratheon, to the disgust of pretty much everyone, even his best friend, Ned Stark. Having sunk in deep depression after the death of his beloved Lyanna, he has fully given into hedonism and become a rowdy, gluttonous and promiscuous drunk who wishes he weren't the king, doesn't give two shits about ruling or raising his children and the only thing that can raise him from his stupor is his violent hatred of the Targaryens. He beats his wife and children (although they certainly deserve it) and is always off hunting, drinking or whoring, relegating state affairs to his council.