Extreme Doormat / Literature

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Extreme Doormats in Literature.

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• Adrian Mole: Although not a general trait of Adrian's, in Weapons of Mass Destruction he is an extreme doormat to the highly manipulative Marigold Flowers and her family, who twist him round their little finger, and bully him into marrying her, and spending vast amounts of money on her, despite his resolve to stop seeing her.
  Daisy: So tell her the wedding's off before they hire the sodding marquee!!!
  I didn't tell her I had written a large cheque to the marquee hire firm.
• Anita Blake: Nathaniel. Until he grew a pair to please his mistress, the title character, he was so incredibly submissive and masochistic both in and out of the sex dungeon that he literally could not do anything without his master's/mistress's permission. Oh, and he's a wereleopard.
• Archer's Goon: Quentin, Howard's father, is this; he explicitly states that his role in life is to be a passenger.
• A Brother's Price: The princesses deceased father is said to have been this. He let his son-in-law walk all over him, and is, at one point, even blamed for letting this son-in-law beat up and rape one of his daughters without intervening. It is not entirely clear whether he actually knew what was going on, though — it is mainly brought up as a point in favor of a potential marriage candidate for the princesses, as the young man in question is obviously no doormat.
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The bratty kids' parents.
• Coraline:
  • The Other Mother really wanted something to love so she tried to keep Coraline for herself and make her into the "perfect, obedient daughter". Such as when she tries to sew buttons on her eyes so that she'll be a well behaved "little doll".
  • The Other Father is this to the Other Mother. Even though he obviously wants to help Coraline, he is unable to.
• European folklore: The Patient Griselda, appearing in Boccaccio and Geoffrey Chaucer, which makes it Older Than Print.
• Homer Simpson (no, not that one) in Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust allows everyone — from his love interest to his neighbors to various shady salesmen, push him around and manipulate him.
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rowley usually just goes along with Greg's ideas, even though Greg often uses him and makes him do all of the work.
• Despite being a hardened criminal and former teen assassin, Mildmay from Doctrine of Labyrinths is a shy, self-deprecating emotional wreck who accepts ridiculous levels of cruelty from his brother, Felix. Both brothers grew up being horrendously abused, but while Felix learned to emulate the arrogance and cruelty of his abusers, Mildmay mostly just tolerates constant mistreatment and views it as normal. They do form a more balanced relationship in the final book, however, after Mildmay gets better at standing up for himself and Felix is brought to his senses via Humiliation Conga.
• Discworld:
  • Sourcery: Coin is a Tyke-Bomb who effectively grew up possessed. He's never made his own decisions in his entire life, so he never learned how.
  • Unseen Academicals: Nutt is basically this, and it's repeatedly given more than one Lampshade Hanging. He's described as an "amiable milksop", and tries to always be helpful and agreeable and "accumulate worth" because he's an orc and was at worst horribly abused and at best taught to keep his head down as a survival strategy. He does have opinions, and sometimes expresses them, but is very meek about talking to anyone he doesn't know well.
• Earth's Children:
  • Clan women are generally raised to be obedient and deferential towards others - in particular men - but in The Clan of the Cave Bear Oga takes it to another level when it comes to her mate Broud. It's indicated this is due to Broud's explosive tempers, frightening her into meek submission.
  • Although Fralie from The Mammoth Hunters is well-meaning, her lack of confidence and physical frailty means she tends to let both her mother and mate walk all over her, to the point of endangering herself and her unborn child. This stems back to her childhood, where she was persuaded by her mother to accept a betrothal despite disliking the man. Mamut remarks to Ayla that although he is sympathetic to Fralie, he feels that she could improve her situation by standing up to Crozie and Frebec but that she lacks will-power. Fralie later admits to Ayla that she doesn't want to intervene in their bickering because she understands where they're both coming from and doesn't want to hurt either of them, so she tries to remain passive.
• The title character in Ella Enchanted is cursed to be this by a fairy who cast a spell forcing her to obey anyone who tells her to do something.
• In A Frozen Heart, Prince Hans from Frozen was this growing up. Being the proverbial Black Sheep of his family and the youngest of 13 sons meant that he was an easy target for most of his older brothers (especially Rudi and Runo, who bully Hans the most) to pick on, and growing up the smallest and most forgettable of his clan wound up being the source of his issues. He's been been the victim of countless pranks (especially where three of his brothers pretended he was "invisible" for two straight years), not to mention being subjected to extensive psychological and physical abuse numerous times despite repeatedly asking his brothers to stop it. Plus, his father is an extremely stone-cold and unfeeling man who regards his youngest son with nothing but utter contempt and disgust for being a "weakling" against his older sons. By the time he's a young adult, Hans has already given up fighting back as it just makes their physical abuse worse, and is forced to use violence against his father's subjects despite his objections. But by doing this, it only accelerated his father's emotional abuse even more by saying Hans should "learn a thing or two" from his brothers.

• Gone with the Wind:
  • Ashley Wilkes, who disagrees with the American Civil War but is willing to fight anyway.
  • His wife and brother-in-law also fit the trope. Scarlett married Charles partially because he was so biddable to her, and Melanie is subservient to everyone, unless they trigger her Berserk Button by mistreating Scarlett.
• The Great Gatsby: George Wilson, an ineffectual car salesman who is completely dominated by his wife and her lover, until Daisy accidentally kills his wife and Gatsby takes the fall for it, causing him to go berserk and confront Gatsby in a murder-suicide.
• Harry Potter:
  • The house elves. They are magically bound to do whatever their master tells them to and seem to share a universal inferiority complex, despite incredible magical power. Despite being able to easily defeat a powerful wizard, house elves are at their happiest when they serve wizardkind and fall into a severe depression when they are fired. Even Dobby, an eccentric by house elf standards, as he loves to be free, had to talk his employer Dumbledore down in terms of salary and days off, because he loves working more than being free. However, if a house elf really dislikes their master, they are able to differently interpret or even outright defy their orders.
  • Peter Pettigrew always allies himself with the winning side for his own protection, despite the insults he regularly gets from his "allies". When allied with Voldemort, he was treated with nothing with contempt and designated to do only menial labor. While he does grumble a bit about this, he always does what is asked of him.
  • Merope Gaunt, Voldemort's mother, was constantly terrorized and abused by her father and brother for being unskilled at magic and her only reaction is to cower in fear.
• The Hollows: During the time she had spent with Algaliarept, Ceri seemed to be this. She regained her pride pretty fast, though. That's because she got her soul back. Al had stolen her soul to make her serve him, but Rachel negotiated for it to be returned as part of their deal.
• The Host (2008): Wanderer. Even the human colonists eventually get annoyed. Part of this is due to the communal nature of the souls but part of it is a survival strategy to avoid antagonizing her (understandably) hostile captors. She gets better about it as she feels less threatened.
• In the Hurog series, Ward's younger brother implies that their mother was this even before she became The Ophelia. Her children needed her protection against her abusive husband, but she chose to drug herself instead.
• In Death series: Purity in Death reveals that Donald Dukes's wife is this. She knows what he's doing and seems unable or unwilling to do much about it. Eve Dallas, considering her Dark and Troubled Past, has little patience for people like this.
• Jeeves and Wooster:
  • Bertie of this P. G. Wodehouse book is the epitome of this — story after story shows that he can be bullied or cajoled into anything. He suffers the worst of one Zany Scheme after another because he's simply unable to say "no" to a friend, Jerkass or otherwise. Besides that, he's afraid to stand up to his Grande Dame aunt, and he lets his valet dictate every facet of his existence, even down to the details of his wardrobe. Attempts to assert his rights by keeping an article of clothing Jeeves disapproves of invariably give out by the end of the story. Bertie acknowledges this in the short story "Bingo and the Little Woman":
    Anybody can talk me round. If I were in a Trappist monastery, the first thing that would happen would be that some smooth performer would lure me into some frightful idiocy against my better judgment by means of the deaf-and-dumb language.
  • Another Wodehouse example is "Corky" Corcoran, who lets himself get dragged into all sorts of schemes by his friend Stanley Ukridge.
• In the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy, Johnny tends towards this, mostly going along with what everyone else thinks, although he'll stand up if he thinks it's important. Kirsty is always telling him off for this, completely failing to realise that this tendency is what makes him one of the few people her bossiness hasn't driven away.
• Knight Life Series: In this Peter David series, the character of Gwen (Queen Quinevere of Arthurian legend reincarnated) begins as this, takes a level in badass within the book itself, and ends up being the Determinator.
• Kushiel's Legacy: Phedre isn't this, but she acts like it when working in her professional capacity to satisfy the unique tastes of her clients. More than one enemy, up to and including a God of Evil, has failed to recognize the difference until it was too late.
• The Lord of the Rings: Sméagol to both Gollum and Frodo, which leads to some conflict of interest....
• Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard depicts Sigyn as this, after having been absolutely broken by her experience leading to Loki's imprisonment and keeping venom from dripping onto his face.
• Malory Towers: Catherine, introduced in the Fifth form, is explicitly described as a doormat. However, the other characters dislike her strongly because she goes out of her way to be kind and friendly and helpful, often to the point of giving Unwanted Assistance. For instance, she once sharpened all of Belinda's pencils for her without asking, but since Belinda used them for her art and kept some of them blunt on purpose, and so she definitely didn't thank her. The girls nickname her Saint Catherine at one point and use it mockingly.
• The Manchurian Candidate: Raymond Shaw, although he is too arrogant to be a perfect fit, has many of the features of this. He has little drive or emotional depth, and he always caves in to his shrewish mother, even giving up the only girl he ever had any interest in just to shut her up.
• Mansfield Park: Fanny Price is extremely docile and biddable due to her circumstances — she grew up as a charity case, being adopted by her wealthy relatives (her overly strict uncle Sir Thomas Bertram and her neglectful aunt Lady Bertram) and her other aunt Mrs. Norris is downright abusive. Her only real friend is her cousin Edmund. Important to note — she has opinions, but she's not in a position to be open. This makes the moments where she stands up for herself, such as her refusing to marry a morally dubious man whom everybody else considers a stellar match, all the more impressive... and astonishing to her fellow characters.
• In Book 1 of MARZENA, Dr. Lauren will go to any length to preserve the status quo. Add to this the fact that she is Alexithymic and thus blind to her own emotions making this trope go to excessive length. She will kill if ask to by the proper authority figure and that in spite of the horrible guilt that will follow, and she will take up on her shoulders great and dangerous mission to save the world with little to no argument despite definitely not being professionally qualified for such a task. This trope goes Up to Eleven when Gorski and the TAR Kernel seize her up to strap her on the chair of the Mad Doctor where she does not even attempt to scream or fight them off, and does not even attempt to talk herself out of it. Fighting would only make things worse anyways.
• Mercy Watson: Baby Lincoln tends to speak softly to her sister and keep her thoughts to herself, given Eugenia's tendency to be stubborn and opinionated.
• In The Neverending Story, Xayide acts this way towards Bastian, as part of her gambit to manipulate him.
• Oblomov: Agafya. The titular character is also guilty of this, seeing as he is pushed around by Tarantyev.
• Phenix from Of Fear and Faith is this with women, although he is slightly more assertive around his own gender.

• Simona Ahrnstedt gives us Sofia Löwenström her debut novel Överenskommelser. Fearing that she would get beaten by her abusive father, she hardly ever expresses any opinion of her own. So people are really astounded if she does. Sadly enough, her mother has become this as well because of her abusive husband.
  • Venus Dag och Natt in "De skandalösa" is also very close to this. She's so desperate to please her mother and doesn't seem to have any opinions of her own.
• Pride and Prejudice: Mr. Bingley is an astonishingly Nice Guy who really hates conflict. He's eager and obliging to all of his friends; sadly this makes it easy for them to remove him from Hertfordshire and persuade him that it would be a mistake to marry Jane Bennet. It gets sorted out, but when he and Jane later have to deal with her obnoxious sister and brother-in-law, the best evidence Bingley shows of his irritation was to talk about dropping a hint that they should go.

• Raffles: Bunny's Undying Loyalty to Raffles makes him abandon whatever moral principles he has to pursue Raffles's latest scheme — he can't say no to the man, although Raffles does occasionally resort to dirty tactics like alcohol to get Bunny to comply.
• The Rise of Renegade X: In the fifth book, Kat is initially envious of how her Alternate Self seems like The Ace, before realizing that she just does everything her parents tell her to (even get engaged) without any reflection of whether it is the right thing to do and/or what she really wants.
• Shoeless Joe: Annie Kinsella: Her main line of dialogue is "Oh love, if it makes you happy, you should do it," even if that means Ray should plow up his crop and build a baseball field and then kidnap J.D. Salinger on a whim, risking financial ruin and jail time. Averted Trope in the book's movie adaptation, Field of Dreams, in that Annie also receives a few of Ray's visions herself.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Poor Theon Greyjoy begins the series as a Smug Snake of the worst sort, but by A Dance with Dragons a healthy dose of horrific torture and some Gaslighting courtesy of Ramsay Snow turns him into 'Reek', who has long ago learned to do whatever his master tells him without hesitation.
  • In the backstory novel Fire & Blood, Thaddeus Rowan spends a few days during Unwin Peake's attempted coup against Aegon III in the care of the Red Keep's Lord Confessor, and is left so utterly broken that he'll admit to anything if asked, up to and including being responsible for the Doom of Valyria.
• In the Star Darlings franchise, Libby is a people-pleaser to the extent that it's hard for her to make her own decisions and say no to people.
• The Stormlight Archive: Szeth will do anything that the person who holds his Oathstone orders, except commit suicide or give up his Shardblade. This is actually cultural. Shin "warriors" are treated like slaves, with Shin culture greatly favoring farmers and craftsmen and elevating them to the rulership positions of society. Soldiers are slaves that are conditioned to view themselves as having little value and to obey whoever possesses them.
• The Stranger: Mersault thinks that nothing really matters, so he does pretty much anything people ask him to.
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Millicent Hattersley, best friend of the heroine.
• The title character in the Dr. Seuss book Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose is one at first. He lets other animals live on his antlers, which seems like a noble gesture at first, especially when his friends alienate him for it. But then his "guests" refuse to let him migrate when winter comes, and Thidwick puts their selfish wants over his own needs. It's not until he is cornered by hunters that he learns his lesson.
• The Ties That Bind: Laika qualifies if she took corporal punishment for 20 years without complaint and willingly became a slave in BDSM.
• The main villain in Twistaplot #12: Journey to Vernico 5 had turning practically everybody in the universe into one as his goal, only he prettied it up by calling them "Willingness Workers."
• In Vorkosigan Saga Ivan Vorpatril is a subversion. At first he'll do almost anything Miles says(with proper amounts of grumbling of course). Later he learns to show some initiative.
• Sonya Rostova from War and Peace has a chronic martyr complex, and in the end it causes her to lose out on the love of her life to another woman and spend the rest of her life as a "sterile flower" of a spinster.
• The Witch of Knightcharm: A witch at an evil Wizarding School named Janet Yawkly proves to be this. She's made to endure countless humiliations, including another witch forcibly renaming her to Yawkly on the bogus premise that this way she won't be mixed up with some other witch named Janet (who looks nothing like her whatsoever), and she's so scared and timorous that she does so without complaint.

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