Break the Haughty in animated movies.
- 1, in the movie 9. He starts out as a Jerkass Well-Intentioned Extremist, and isn't very sympathetic at the beginning...then the church, the place he led seven of the others to and kept them safe in, burns to the ground when a machine attacks. Then the revelation that he sent one of the others out to die comes to light and he loses a great deal of trust and respect. Then his bodyguard and the only thing close to a friend he has is killed. Ouch.
- The Book of Life:
- Joaquin. After losing the Medal of Everlasting Life and getting his butt handed to him by Chakal.
- Manolo besting Xibalba in the final trial deflates his ego. If just a bit.
- In Brave, Tomboy Princess/Bratty Teenage Daughter Merida's Character Development is letting go of her selfishness and growing up. So she irresponsibly made the wish of having her mother change, not expecting to take the first steps to grab her own destiny? Well, her dear mother and her brothers shall be transformed into bears, with the side effect of almost causing a civil war (since her mother just happened to be the one holding the local clans together), and Merida will have to fix up this big mess herself and learn that she must put some effort into being a better person, as well as able to forge her way in life. By the end of the series, the same girl who arrogantly tried to win her own hand to escape from an Arranged Marriage is the same one who breaks the spell over her mom and siblings... when she sobs about how much she loves them and admits how wrong her past attitude was.
- Brent from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. He starts off an arrogant jerk, riding on the fame he garnered as a baby, but once Flint's food replicator gets going, he sees his status in the town drop like a rock, until he is booed by the very same people who were cheering for him mere days earlier. Ultimately, this works in his favor, because if he hadn't lost his social status he never would have become... CHICKEN BRENT!
- Coco: Miguel spends much of the film thinking he doesn't need his family's help (not to put up his ofrenda, nor to send him home), nor Héctor when he thinks Héctor won't be able to help him get what he wants, and feels confident he can get to Ernesto by himself to get the latter's blessing to go home, where he'll become a famous musician and be remembered that way. When Ernesto reveals his true colors and has Miguel thrown into a cenote to be forgotten, all trace of bravado is gone and Miguel sobbingly laments that he should have listened to his family, and Héctor.
- Kuzco from The Emperor's New Groove starts out as an egotistical jerk who casually informs the peasant Pacha that he's planning to raze his home to make room for a Kuzcotopia. Then he gets transformed into a llama by his vengeful ex-advisor Yzma and is forced to work together with Pacha to get back to his palace, which eventually results in him crying alone in a downpour after he scoffs at Pacha's advice one too many times and becoming more humble from that point on.
- Home on the Range: A rather tragic example for Buck the Horse. He spends much of the movie as a total Jerkass towards the three bovine protagonists, wanting to catch Alameda Slim himself for all the glory. However, when it's revealed that Rico, his idol and a supposed bounty hunter, is actually a mercenary who was working for Slim all along, Buck is left feeling betrayed and heartbroken.Slim: Let me introduce the most traitorous, double-crossing gun for hire that I've ever had the pleasure to call partner—Rico.
Rico: You're too kind, boss.
Buck: No, it can't be!
Slim: His reputation as a bounty hunter is well-known, but lately he's been doing a little moonlighting and covering my tracks. - The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney): Claude Frollo was a Knight Templar extreme, but his own belief in his superiority was shaken at least once. At the beginning of the movie, he murders a Gypsy woman and threatens to kill the woman's child, all of this on the steps of The Cathedral of Notre Dame. In comes the Archdeacon, who is able to get under his skin by pointing out that no matter how much he can justify himself, God is watching him. Frollo, shaken and feeling like the statues of the saints in the cathedral are staring down at him, backs down, and (reluctantly) adopts the child.Clopin: And for one time in his life of power and control
Frollo felt a twinge of fear for his immortal soul - In Justice League vs. Teen Titans, the Damian Wayne Robin is still the Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy here, out and out dismissing the Teen Titans as "kids" when Batman sends him to the team as punishment. He quickly dismisses them until he makes the mistake of pushing Jaime Reyes' buttons one too many times, leading to the two of them to fight. Damian overwhelms Jaime and boasts that while Jaime may be hooked up to a weapon, Damian was a weapon, the Scarab decides to issue a "screw you" by taking over Jaime and blasting Damian point-blank in the face with a plasma cannon. The only thing that saves his life is Raven using her powers to heal his wounds. Once he comes to, he's really quick to apologize to the team... in his own way, of course.
- Kung Fu Panda: Tigress starts as a cold, stoic Arrogant Kung-Fu Girl and de-facto leader of the Furious Five who sees Po as a silly, clumsy fanboy who doesn't take kung fu seriouslynote . She also firmly believes that the Furious Five are more than capable of defeating Tai Lung and doesn't want to wait for however long it'll take for Po to either learn kung fu or quit and leave the Five to handle it anyway. She then gets a one-two punch straight to the pride after Tai Lung's escape is revealed: first, she sees Po give up on kung fu after he admits his self-loathing to Shifu and confesses that the reason he stayed after Shifu and everyone else tried to get rid of him was that he believed learning kung fu from Shifu would make him unlike himself and therefore better. Then, after she leads the Five to stop Tai Lung themselves behind Shifu's back, they put up a good fight but end up getting their asses handed to them when Tai Lung reveals his nerve attack, only getting out alive because Tai Lung wanted them to spread fear of him to the Valley. After Po gets his act together and defeats Tai Lung once and for all, she is the first to bow to him as a master in his own right, and spends the next two movies as his closest friend and confidante.
- The Land Before Time: Cera starts out as a rude, egotistical, hot-headed brat who spends most of the film bragging about how she can take care of herself. She even has the gall to call Littlefoot's mom stupid, despite the fact that Littlefoot's mom risked her life to save both Cera and Littlefoot. Cera leads the others in the wrong direction, nearly getting her friends killed in a lava flow and narrowly escaping death herself from a pack of predators. It's only after she is pranked and humiliated by the others for going the wrong way does she realize her foolish mistake and breaks down sobbing.
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: Arrogant Alpha Bitch Sunset Shimmer is confident that she deserves to be the wielder of the Element of Magic, despite having stolen it from Twilight Sparkle, The Chosen One who really does deserve to wield it. At the end of the first film, Sunset is defeated by Twilight and the other humanized bearers of the Elements of Harmony, forced to face how awful she is and that she really isn't worthy of the Element of Magic. This basically destroys Sunset's arrogance and causes Sunset to pull a Heel–Face Turn.
- However, this change in attitude gets deconstructed through the next few movies in the series. While Sunset eats a nice slice of Humble Pie after losing to Twilight Sparkle and having her haughty attitude broken, this new personality becomes a weakness that the Dazzlings exploit in Rainbow Rocks to keep Sunset out of the way. Sunset is Reformed, but Rejected by the rest of Canterlot High School for her previous Alpha Bitch attitude, which keeps Sunset's self-confidence down in the gutter and causes Sunset no end of self-critical stress. The Dazzlings break Sunset down even further, which prevents Sunset from speaking up on what the Dazzlings are planning to do because Sunset feels like it isn't her place to judge anyone.
- The main plot of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is the titular Puss realizing that he's on his last life despite claiming that he laughs at the face of death, and so he seeks the wishing star to restore his lost lives. Ten minutes into the movie he meets a wolf bounty hunter who instills fear on him for the very first time by easily disarming him in a battle and managing to make him bleed for the first time in his life. And later on it is revealed that he is in fact Death ready to collect his soul for wasting his eight lives and being arrogant about being a legend.
- Abbot Cellach, from The Secret of Kells. He controls the Village of Kells and has them build a wall around it to protect them from the Viking invaders. However, he doesn't let the monks do anything else and punishes anyone who tries. Then the Vikings break down the gate, climb over the walls, burn the village down, and shoot him with a burning arrow. The people he was trying to save die because he paid more attention to the wall than the steps into the only protected building in Kells, and he gets stabbed trying to get to Brendan, who he had locked in the Scriptorium prior to the invasion as punishment for illuminating. Said Scriptorium burns down, and he’s lead to believe for nearly twenty years that he had caused the death of his 12-year-old nephew.
- Toy Story: 50's pull-string cowboy Woody is Andy's favourite toy. Everybody knows it and more especially, he knows it. But when new-fangled plastic Space Marine Buzz Lightyear arrives on the scene and Andy starts playing with him more, he becomes Always Someone Better to Woody, and Woody doesn't take this knocking down the pecking order lightly. Then this attitude gets him in deep trouble.
- In Turning Red, Ming is certain that she has her daughter, and her daughter's red panda, firmly under control, even bragging about it to her relatives. Then she finds that Mei has succumbed to the evil (in her mind) influence of of her friends: sneaking out, exploiting the panda, transforming whenever she wants, and lying to Ming about all of it. Next, Mei chooses to keep the panda, meaning that Ming has failed in one of the most important duties she has as a parent—and her relatives were there to see every humiliating moment. (Note that after Mei runs off, Ming's not so much angry at what Mei did, as she is about how it reflects on her. "How could she do this to her own mother?!") At the concert, Mei tells off her mother in no uncertain terms, proving that she's really broken free of Ming's control. And finally, when they meet on the astral plane, Mei does something for her mother that Ming couldn't do for Mei: readily offers kindness and compassion when it's most needed, without reservation or hesitation.
- Scowler from Walking with Dinosaurs is a Jerk Jock Big Brother Bully who becomes Drunk with Power after becoming leader of the herd, and when his brother Patchi saves the herd from drowning in a frozen lake he kicks him out of the herd and leaves him to die in a ditch after a fight that he wins. Things soon go downhill for him when he attempts to flee from the Gorgosaurus after leading the herd into Ambush Alley, which results in him nearly dying and the herd abandoning him. Alex dubs this foolish act as "Scowler's Folly". Once Patchi saves him after returning he has become repentant to the point of conceding his leadership to him.
- Wreck-It Ralph: Of all of the racers, Taffyta is the most haughty when interacting with Vanellope. Starting in the Daily Random Roster Race, she gets taken down a peg. When Vanellope runs her, Candlehead, and Rancis off the track, Rancis is just shocked and Candlehead's ditzing out about her candle being extinguished, but Taffyta's crying like a baby. She also feels remorse and instantly apologizes when she discovers that the girl she'd been mistreating was her ruler all along!
- She gets even more of this when Rancis uses his secret weapon to send her flying off the racetrack in the tie-in storybook One Sweet Race. After she had insulted him for losing, no less.
