Innocently Insensitive / Western Animation

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Innocently Insensitive in Western Animation.

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• Amphibia
  • Sprig seems to have a problem with this as most episodes have him thoughtlessly blurt something out that's on his mind and unintentionally making others feel uncomfortable.
  • Marcy Wu is genuinely a very sweet girl, but her tendency to be massively oblivious to stuff around her can make her neglectful or uncaring of others' feelings. While this is well-demonstrated in the episode "The First Temple", where her hyperconcentration on the temple's puzzles nearly gets Anne and the Plantars killed several times, it becomes especially dramatic in "True Colors", when its revealed that she deliberately got the girls trapped in Amphibia because she was so desperate not to be separated from her friends when she learned her family was moving out of state that she tricked Sasha and Anne into stealing the Calamity Box so they could all have adventures together in another world. While her decision was undeniably stupid and selfish (even she acknowledges this herself), she had absolutely no ill will towards her friends even despite their neglectfulness towards her and simply just wasn't in a good place at the time of her impulse decision.
• The Animals of Farthing Wood: During the third season, Owl departs White Deer Park to find a mate for herself while the park is attacked by rats. When Owl eventually returns with her new mate, Hollow, upon meeting her old friend Adder she observes that they'll have to find Adder a mate next, only for Adder to bow her head in sorrow. Vixen explains to Owl that Adder did find a mate while Owl was away, but Sinuous was killed by the rats a while ago. Owl immediately apologises for her "foolish beak", but Adder softly assures Owl that she understands that Owl wasn't to know about Sinuous.
• Arcane: After coincidentally winding up in Vi's childhood home and learning of Powder, Caitlyn asks how Vi didn't know if her sister was alive or dead as well as if she didn't have parents, both of which are sore spots for her given that her wrongful imprisonment effectively caused her to abandon Powder and the fact that their parents were killed by Enforcers like Caitlyn. Earlier, upon seeing Silco's revamp of The Last Drop, Caitlyn makes an offhanded comment about how it's obviously shady, not knowing its history or Vi's connection to it.
• Arthur: In the episode "Sick as a Dog", Arthur is anxious when Pal has to go to the vet and stay there overnight after he caused Pal to get sick from eating leftover junk food. D.W. pokes fun at Arthur and says that "now we can get a GOOD dog", which upsets Arthur and gets her scolded by their parents. D.W. later goes to apologize to Arthur for her mean joke and attempts to empathize with him over Pal's plight, telling him that she felt the same way he did when her pet bird Spanky died. Needless to say, this does even less to help Arthur feel better about Pal's illness.
  Arthur: (whines fearfully, then screams:) MOOOOOOM!!
  D.W.: (genuinely confused) What? What did I say?
• One episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender has Zuko cheat his way past a sunlight-based lock to get into a temple by reflecting light from his sword onto the lock. Aang comments, "You know, Zuko, I don't care what anyone says about you; you're pretty smart." Zuko is briefly pleased to receive a compliment, only to realize what Aang means about what anyone says. Aang runs off before Zuko can say anything.
• Batman: The Animated Series: In "Robin's Reckoning", Robin is chasing the man who killed his parents, and intends to kill him. Batman tries to stop him, only for Robin to accuse him of having a "stone-cold heart" and not knowing how he feels. The look on Batman's face makes him realize what he just said and he apologizes immediately.
• In Ben 10, Ben's cousin-by-marriage Lucy is a member of a race of Blob Monster aliens known as the Leopans, who the older Plumbers had a history of conflict with and referred to as "sludge puppies". In Ben 10: Omniverse Ben uses the term in conversation with another Leopan, who takes offense and says it's actually a racial slur.
• In BoJack Horseman, Diane's first encounter with brother-in-law Captain Peanutbutter ends on an uncomfortable note when Captain starts rambling on about how life is the most precious thing in the world, weirding out Diane and causing her to wonder if he's shaming her for her recent abortion. He had no idea about the abortion, and actually just has a twisted spleen and isn't good at talking about painful feelings except in such roundabout ways.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers: As part of his role as the complainer and The Watson, Wheeler often expresses some kind of anti-environmental opinion, such as thinking an ivory necklace would make a great present for Linka. However, it's usually because he grew up in a poor area of New York City as opposed to the more rural areas the other Planeteers come from, and therefore he doesn't know most of the information that's second-nature to them. Whenever he finds out why the others hold alternate opinions, he's usually on board.
• Central Park:
  • In Season 1 "Skater's Circle" after saving the city from Sewer Pipe Mike, one citizen thanks Fista-Puffs and tells her she's not awkward at all. Fista-Puffs questions why would she specifically tell her she's not awkward because it implies she did think she's awkward.
  • In Season 1 "Hot Oven", when Molly tells Brendan she lives in Edendale Castle and she assures him she's not like those rich jerks, Brendan reveals he's actually rich, which makes Molly feel awkward for unintentionally calling him a rich jerk. Brendan said it's fine because he doesn't like to reveal he's rich because people freak out that his last name is Brandenham, then Molly immediately freaks out, proving Brendan's point.
• Dee Dee of Dexter's Laboratory is this at her worst. For the most part, she's just trying to have fun, but she constantly ends up wrecking Dexter's lab and causing him no small amount of grief in doing so.
• Princess Clara in Drawn Together was this originally, with her racism and religious fanaticism being implied to be the result of her sheltered existence. From Season 2 on, however, it became more malicious and deliberate.
• Ever After High: This is practically Apple White's entire character. While Apple is genuinely sweet and kind her destiny fanaticism leads to conflict with Raven, her roommate, and later her best friend Briar Beauty, who's destiny involves outliving everyone she loves.

  Apple: But Briar, we all have our part to play.

  Briar: Easy for you to say Apple, you get poisoned for what, like a week?

  • This is also seen with Daring Charming. He generally means no harm and most of his insensitivities come from him being a bit dim. He doesn't shy away from admitting when he's wrong, seen in his apology to Cerise Hood for his earlier sexism.
• Family Guy:
  • Parodied in a skit about high school kids (and no, this isn't taken out of context): ^note The prevailing theory is that she wanted to walk to class with him.
    Girl: Hey Tyler, you going to algebra?
    Tyler: Yeah, I'll see you there.
    [the girl instantly breaks down bawling, then leaps out a two-story window]
    Girl's friend: You're awful!
    Narrator: The preceding joke is brought to you by: Men.
    Invisible Backup Band: Men! We don't know what we did!
  • At the beginning of "Halloween on Spooner Street", Chris is dressed as Bill Cosby, the only problem being that he's in blackface because he wasn't aware that it was racially insensitive.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: Bloo is an interesting case. He's far from being innocent and becomes a progressively bigger jerk to others with each passing season until near the end, but Word of God from Craig McCracken (as seen in a series of tweets) is that Bloo simply doesn't always understand just how selfish or mean-spirited his actions and behavior can actually be, let alone the potential consequences of them, much like a very young or immature kid - only near the finale does he actually start to become aware of it. Additionally, Bloo was imagined by Mac when the latter was 3 years old, meaning Bloo never matured like Mac did and was still trying to entertain that little kid the only way he knew.
• Futurama:
  • Done repeatedly in "War is the H-Word", where Leela is pretending to be a macho guy, and Bender unknowingly "compliments" her on the macho stereotypes least suited to a woman:
    Bender: You're my kind of soldier, Lemon. A foul-mouthed, barrel-chested, beer-bellied pile of ugly muscle.... But sweet girls aren't for you, eh? You hard-fighting, hard-farting, ugly, ugly son of a—
    Leela: Stop! Stop flattering me!
  • In "A Fishful of Dollars", Fry earns some disturbed looks from his friends when summing up what he learned in the episode:
    Fry: Put that checkbook away because I've discovered something more important. My friends. And they aren't worth even a penny to me.
  • In "Parasites Lost", several truckers (including Sal) make derogatory, sexist comments toward Leela and Fry attempts to defend her.
    Sal: She looks pretty good for a truck stop chick!
    Fry: You take that back! She does not look good for a truck stop chick!
    [the truckers laugh harder; Leela cringes]
    Sal: Yeah, you're right. She don't gots enough meat for a guy like me.
    Fry: She does too! She's loaded with meat! She's got more meat than a cow!
  • Fry is extremely prone to this on the whole. Unfortunately for his unshakeable crush on Leela, it doesn't mix well with her crippling Freakiness Shame.
    Fry: But you're better than normal! You're abnormal!
• In Gravity Falls, nonmalicious insensitivity seems to be a shared quirk of the Pines family. Mabel Pines can take her friendly teasing of her brother a little too far, Grunkle Stan's attempts at Tough Love lead Dipper to mistakenly believe Stan dislikes him, and even Dipper Pines unintentionally stomps on his sister's insecurities hard in a few episodes. This turns out to be shared by the Author, as a result of his Ineffectual Loner tendencies and emotional obliviousness. The scant few times he's shown going on dates he shows that he can be considerate, it's just that his ideas of how to make himself presentable to women are horribly outdated.
• Casanova Wannabe Johnny Bravo was a serial womanizer, but also a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who was just confused on how to approach them rather than a Straw Misogynist who thought they were prizes to be won. When visiting a museum and loudly questioning why women were given the right to vote, he then clarifies that he just didn't know they wanted to (not that it helped matters).
• Justice League: Batman is frequently told how he can never understand the loss of loved ones or he has to hear others talk about how horrible being an orphan is. A darker consequence of secret identities than most.
• Jorel's Brother: Granny Juju, while being a naive old woman, can occasionally say some insensitive things without realizing it. In an episode, her son Mr. Edson comes home with his head completely shaved; when Granny Juju shows up, she does not recognize him, and, thinking he's a stranger, asks the rest of the family "Is that ugly man going to stay for lunch?"
• Kaeloo: Kaeloo often accidentally offends people while trying to be friendly with them. One example is when she meets Stumpy's little sister Lavanade, who has supernatural powers that she can't control very well. Kaeloo also has unusual powers that she often struggles to keep a handle on, so when she meets Lavanade, she attempts to befriend her and reassure her that there's nothing wrong with being different. However, in doing so, Kaeloo calls Lavanade's powers "strange", and Lavanade is offended that Kaeloo would think of her that way.
• Kim Possible: When Kim meets Ron's wheelchair-using friend Felix, she reacts rather awkwardly and keeps trying to be over-helpful. Fortunately, Felix is amused rather than annoyed.
• King of the Hill: Dale doesn't realize his son Joseph's true parentage, leading to this exchange with John Redcorn (Joseph's biological father):

  John Redcorn: Joseph hates me...
  Dale: Why would Joseph hate you? He barely knows you.

  • Some of Bobby's jokes (especially the one where he hikes up his pants and repeatedly asks "what are you talking about?" in a decidedly Yiddish accent) involve invoking stereotypes he doesn't fully understand. He knows people laugh at people who act a certain way, but not necessarily why. This tendency is the focus of a few episodes, most notably "Traffic Jam".
• Kung Fu Panda: The Paws of Destiny: Empress Xiao has a propensity to be insensitive, since she probably spent the 15 years of her life being raised as a princess inside the palace, without interacting with the rest of the world. Her upbringing has given her No Social Skills, and in addition to sometimes being insensitive (usually to her Evil Chancellor, Shi Long) she also is always oversharing her feelings.
  Xiao: I made you an outfit for the funeral! This style will flatter anyone, even someone with numerous body flaws such as yourself.
  Xiao: Oh, Shi Long, I don't know what I would do without you! Thank goodness you don't have a social life.
• The Legend of Korra:
  • Korra was trained for most of her life in a compound where she could be taught the four elements in safety, but as a result, when she enters the world as a teenage girl, she has No Social Skills and winds up greatly exacerbating a Love Triangle she winds up in because she has no firsthand experience with romance. At one point she plants a Forceful Kiss on her crush after he admits to liking her and honestly doesn't seem to grasp that it's a problem (at first) since he's already in a relationship with someone else.
  • The "Innocent" part is a downplayed here, but when Mako and Bolin meet their late father's estranged family in Ba Sing Se, their uncle only knows about the parts of their lives that made the news: their exploits in pro-bending competition and Bolin's acting career. Their cousin Tu bitterly comments that they had it easy living in a mansion, while he was toughened by living "on the streets" (aka a cramped lower-class apartment with his large family). However, the brothers soon have to tell the family that they were orphaned at a young age, literally lived on the streets as homeless kids, and got involved in gang activity in order to survive.
  • Tenzin's declaration that the Air Nomads will help restore balance until Korra recovers from her injuries at the end of Season 3; while it might not seem that bad, earlier Korra had seen hallucinations of previous villains telling her she was no longer needed, and here's her mentor implying the same thing. She doesn't take it well. During Season 4, she calls him out when he acts this way towards her which causes him to backpedal in what he tries to tell her.
  • Opal Beifong has moments of this when she tries to strike up a teen romance with Bolin since Opal was raised in the wealthy Metal Clan family and thus has little to no idea of just how hard life can be for someone like Bolin who comes from a lower to middle-class background. She's basically the Spoiled Sweet rich girl to his blue-collar working man.
• Let's Go Luna!: In "Aren't We a Pair?", Carmen assumes that Cairo, Egypt is "ancient" and "boring", and that all Egyptians live in pyramids, based on what she saw in movies. She eventually learns the opposite.
• The Looney Tunes Show: Downplayed with Bugs Bunny since it doesn't happen often, but whenever he interacts with Witch Lezah, he tends to bring up witch stereotypes that she immediately shoots down, reminiscent of someone asking slightly racist questions out of ignorance rather than malice. The B-plot of "We're in Big Truffle" where Lezah asks him to babysit Gossamer is a prime example.
  Bugs: Where are you going?
  Lezah: The fifth dimension.
  Bugs: Oh. Uh, is that where you're from?
  Lezah: What!? Honey, I'm from Chicago! The fifth dimension is where they're holding the Witch's Convention. They teach you all the new spells and broom tricks.
  Bugs: Sounds great. We'll take good care of him.
  Lezah: "We"? Oh. I forgot about Daffy. Any chance you could babysit at my house?
  Bugs: Oooh, I've never stayed at a haunted house before.
  Lezah: It's not haunted! You make a lot of assumptions.
• In Mike Tyson Mysteries, "Ty-Stunned", everyone minus Yung unintentionally acts insensitive to Miss Ensler when they keep bringing up her husband's mutilated body. Mike Tyson is a big offender when he's having a business meeting with his agent during the mystery.
  Mike: Hey, Miss Ensler, I know you're still grieving, but I want your honest opinion, okay. Do you think I should have a line of neckties?
  Marquess: Michael!
  Ensler: Richard loved ties. They cut off his head!
  [Miss Ensler starts sobbing]
  Mike: Okay, let's do it! Mike Tyson is in the tie business.
• In Milo Murphy's Law, Richard Chase sometimes makes insensitive comments at Milo based on his extremely bad luck, blaming/antagonizing him about it even though he has no control over it. This is remedied in "The Little Engine That Couldn't", when he, Melissa and Milo spend the day together and he gains a new appreciation for Milo's condition.
• In the first episode of Miraculous Ladybug Aurore Beaureal loses a fan voting competition for a show and loses badly. The host decides to comfort her by saying she only lost by half a million votes with a smile on his face. No wonder she's the first person in the series to be shown getting akumatized.
• Molly of Denali: In "Culture Clash", Molly and Tooey try to make friends with Trini after accidentally getting on her bad side. After they find out that she's from Texas, they watch an old cowboy movie to get an idea of what Texas is like. Molly and Tooey then wear cowboy outfits and start speaking in stereotypical Southern accents, unaware that these are untrue Texas stereotypes. Trini then shows them that Texas is not really like that. Later, Molly and Tooey get a taste of their own medicine when Trini assumes that there are polar bears everywhere in Alaska. A trip to the library helps clear things up.
• Moral Orel: Orel Puppington falls under this at times. He's actually a kid with good intentions, but as he's young, naive, and often misinterprets advice from other adults, he usually ends up causing more bad than good for people.
• One episode of the '90s Mr. Men cartoon has Mr. Forgetful's habit of forgetting things cause him to unintentionally hurt Miss Star's feelings. When he realizes that he hurt her feelings, he tries to cheer her up by tickling her foot.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Pinkie Pie often falls into this trope.
    • In "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000", she can't stop gushing about how great the cider at Sweet Apple Acres is, despite Rainbow Dash (who didn't get any cider) growing increasingly irritated. What makes it even worse is that Pinkie Pie had also a) gave the suggestion to other ponies to camp out in front of the cider stand, b) was in front of said line and c) put up a pile of coins and walks off with at least ten mugs of the frothy stuff without realizing that others wouldn't get sips. Thankfully she gives one of her mugs to Rainbow Dash at the end.
    • The episode "A Friend in Deed" is basically twenty minutes of Pinkie Pie annoying Cranky Doodle Donkey while trying to cheer him up.
    • And she unintentionally helped cause the termination of Nightmare Night in "Luna Eclipsed" due to managing to alienate Princess Luna. She genuinely thought it was just part of the fun.
    • She takes this to the extreme during "Filli Vanilli", constantly setting off Fluttershy's stage fright and upsetting her.
  • Twilight Sparkle is pretty prone to this herself.
    • In "Baby Cakes", she innocently tells Pinkie that she knew that Pinkie probably couldn't handle the responsibility of caring for baby twins. She doesn't seem to notice that Pinkie is offended by this, even as she is pushed out the door.
    • In "The Last Roundup", Twilight slams the door in the face of a mailpony after getting a letter from Applejack. On his birthday. Granted, she was worried about her friend, but you can't help but feel sorry for him. (Pinkie Pie does give him a slice of cake, though.)
    • When researching the Mare in the Moon, she dumps a pile of books on Spike's head looking for the right one, and doesn't even notice.
    • In "Spike at Your Service", she once again is so buried in her work fails to notice Spike as he tearfully explains he is honor-bound to serve Applejack and must leave her. She is visibly guilt-ridden when Applejack later coaxes her out of her studies and explains what happened.
  • The episode "Dragon Quest" has Rarity telling Spike that he's better than the other dragons because he has something special that they don't. Spike gleefully asks what it is, and then Rarity says he has "The cutest widdle chubby cheeks," unintentionally humiliating him in the process:
    Rarity: Oh, isn't he adorable when he waddles off in anger?
    Spike: Waddle!? GAAHHH!
  • Spike himself has bouts of this due to his sometimes obnoxious sense of humor and inadvertent bluntness. In "Hurricane Fluttershy", he constantly aggravates Fluttershy's low confidence concerning her poor flying skills, but just doesn't get why Twilight keeps giving him nasty glares.
  • Fluttershy also falls into this at times, such as when she makes Rainbow Dash's stage fright even worse in "Sonic Rainboom", describing how everyone in Cloudsdale, including the Wonderbolts and Princess Celestia would be watching her and see any mistakes she made.
  • Speaking of Rainbow Dash, this could be a reason as to why she starts off seemingly uncaring about Fluttershy's phobias in the early episodes, even willing to prank her. She has impatience in "Dragonshy", doesn't realize her spending time with Gilda is essentially alienating her friend Pinkie Pie, teases Spike for wearing an apron in "Dragon Quest" in her lust for cider, ends up making Fluttershy feel uncomfortable in "Bats", destroys the Cloudsdale weather factory to stop winter just to spend more time with her tortoise, shoves said tortoise to the side in the episode he becomes her pet, tries to get Fluttershy to fly in the tornado by pushing her against her will, (though Fluttershy goes anyway because of Rainbow Dash, she still is told to suck it up by Rainbow Dash before the pegasus quickly realizes who she was talking to and changes her tone) and even unknowingly causes Scootaloo to be afraid of the Everfree Forest by telling ghost stories.
  • The Cutie Mark Crusaders, when inviting Babs Seed into their club, make her painfully aware of her lack of a cutie mark, something she came there to forget about in the first place.
    • Among the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle tend to do this without thinking such as leave their friend alone when she's clearly broken about being teased for being unable to fly, Sweetie unknowingly almost causes Rarity to lose her job just from changing a stitch, and Apple Bloom when she finds the toy Big Mac and her used to play with, kinda just shrugs it off leaving her big brother to be very hurt.
  • Starlight Glimmer is this trope personified in both villainous and heroic versions, as everything she has done in the series to date was based around having good intentions but messing up badly due to her lack of tact and simply just not thinking.
    • As a villain, she really did have good intentions and a point taking talents away from other ponies, as differences do create problems between friends, except she still held onto her own talent in order to do so, exposing her as a Hypocrite, completely undercutting her entire message and making her a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist.
    • After turning over new leaf and graduating to Sixth Ranger, Starlight Glimmer still uses her magical talent to solve problems, only to not only fail to fix things but actually make things worse. In "No Second Prances", Starlight uses her magic to create a cake, except it ticks off the non-magical Mrs. Cake, who believes Starlight is trying to put her out of business.
    • Starlight later ends up scaring away Big Macintosh by casting a talking spell on him so she can talk to him more.
    • Starlight's insensitivity really comes to the forefront in "Every Little Thing She Does", where she once again uses magic, a mind-control spell in particular on her Mane Five friends in order to get her friendship lessons done more efficiently. Unsurprisingly, it spectacularly fails (or works too well depending on how you look at it), effectively turns them into subservient mindless meat puppets, and the Mane Six are furious with her afterwards. Starlight Glimmer still hasn't quite gotten the message about irresponsibly resorting to magic to solve problems.
  • In "Once Upon a Zeppelin", Twilight is upset when she misses out on seeing the Northern stars fly by with her family, even breaking down into tears. And then Cadance walks up to her and tells her how awesome it was. Talk about adding insult to injury.
• The Owl House episode "Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Hooty's Door" contains several examples:
  • Hooty tries to teach King how to dance like a bug-type demon (it's kind of like the demon version of Sign Language). In the process, King performs a fairly generic dance, which causes Hooty to violently attack him off-screen. Apparently, he "said" something offensive about his mother.
  • Hooty's attempt to help Luz ask out Amity is a double example. He builds an elaborate Tunnel of Love for the two to ride, unaware that Luz had been rejected by previous crushes for being "cheesy". In a panic, Luz attempts to destroy it so Amity won't think she's a loser, and Amity (who was actually enjoying the ride) is left heartbroken at the belief that Luz reacted that way because she was disgusted at the idea of them dating.
• Jet from Ready Jet Go! can be like this at times. For example, in "Night of a Bazillion Stars" he takes Sean's birthday telescope just to see how it works and breaks it. He is promptly chewed out by Sydney for this.
• Recess: In the Season 1 episode "Officer Mikey", Mikey wanted to be a safety ranger, going as far as to say it's his dream. His friends work hard to make his dream a reality, doing a bunch of favors to different kids, until they finally get him into the safety rangers. Afterwards, the gang go into school, happy they made Mikey's dream come true, only to be shocked to find Mikey eating in the cafeteria. Mikey told them he quit because the safety rangers were too much hard work. Mikey tells his friends he has a new dream of being a jet pilot; as he's telling his friends this, he does not notice how shocked and devastated they are because all the work they did for him was for nothing.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", Homer and Ned Flanders bump into each other because Ned is carrying a stack of presents so big he can't see around it. Homer only has a small shopping bag. After laughing about the present mix-up, Ned happily goes through the pile cheerfully announcing every time he finds one of his, completely oblivious to how much more he has than Homer and how much better it is. Todd rubs it in by saying to Homer "you forgot your pork chop" and holding up a squeaky dog toy that Homer had bought for Bart.
  • Subverted in "Eeny Teeny Maya Moe", when Moe tries online dating. He is surprised to see his date, Maya, is a little person, then immediately apologises and asks what the correct term is. Maya tells him that he got it right with "little person".
  • In "Homer Badman", Homer gets mistakenly accused of sexually assaulting a woman because he was oblivious to seeing how peeling a candy off someone's butt could be taken the wrong way. He fails to even notice Ashley running out of the car terrified.
• Skull Island (2023): Annie, on account of having been completely cut off from civilization since her early childhood. She often speaks what's on her mind and doesn't have much empathic tact; casually asking Charlie why Mike is gripping his hair when Mike is having a breakdown, and withholding personal bombshells from Charlie (like that she saw his father or that Mike is life-threateningly sick) not out of any malice or tact but simply because it doesn't occur to her that some news should be communicated earlier and with emotional tact instead of being casually dropped in a conversation that takes a vaguely-related turn.
• In Sofia the First, this was Amber's initial characterisation. She was no longer actively mean like she was in the Pilot Movie, but was so sheltered and privileged that she was oblivious to how her words could be hurtful even if she didn't mean to be. For example, she reacts with genuine horror when Sofia invites her commoner friends to a princess' slumber party not considering for a moment that Sofia, who was a "village girl" herself not so long ago, might find that offensive. She did get better with time.
• On South Park, we have Butters in the episode "The Hobbit":
  Wendy: Lisa Berger asks you out and you call her fat?!
  Butters: [Beat] But she is fat.
  Wendy: Do you have any idea how you made her feel?! She's a really nice girl!
  Butters: I think she's a nice girl, too! She's just too big for me.
  • The Main Quartet can all fall into this category, though Stan is the biggest offender, being slightly more naive than the other three. One example is in “Cherokee Hair Tampons” where he cries about Kyle possibly dying from an untreated illness... to Kenny. Kenny points out that no one ever seems to care when he dies (they all forget about his death the next day, so it’s not like they know that Kenny can come back to life, they just don’t seem to care when he dies), but Stan doesn’t take notice, even when Kenny is randomly crushed by a falling piano.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • We have the title character himself. Although SpongeBob means well, he unintentionally ruins other peoples' lives. Just ask Squidward or his boating school teacher Mrs. Puff. It was taken at its worst in "Demolition Doofus" when after his driving caused Mrs. Puff to pop her inflation sac, SpongeBob, who is clueless about what's going on, makes very insensitive comments about her serious condition by saying she should be now called Mrs. Pop, and that he actually likes her that way. It was so bad that this drove Mrs. Puff into attempting to murder the sponge.
  • Due to Patrick Star's intelligence (or lack thereof), he doesn't realize when he's being insulting.
    • In the episode "I'm With Stupid" Patrick convinces SpongeBob to act dumb so that his visiting parents don't think he's an idiot. Patrick's mom and dad immediately begin insulting SpongeBob, and Patrick merrily joins in on verbally attacking SpongeBob. It gets to the point where SpongeBob has to plead with Patrick to drop the charade over how horribly he's being treated, with SpongeBob reassuring Patrick his parents will love him no matter what. Unfortunately, Patrick ends up thinking he is the more intelligent one between them and joins his parents as they double down on the insults.
    • In "Driven to Tears", after SpongeBob fails, yet again, his driver's test, Patrick decides to take it himself and passes it on the first try with minimal effort. For being issued the one millionth drivers' license, Patrick wins a new boat-mobile, and immediately starts behaving incredibly condescending towards SpongeBob. When Patrick finally notices SpongeBob is upset, he assumes that he's upset over the fact that he's a terrible driver, rather than the fact that Patrick keeps bragging over how he got a free car after passing the drivers' test while SpongeBob didn't.
• Steven Universe:
  • A common trait with Pearl is that she doesn't pick up much on what Steven or other humans say or think until she steps over the line, and was unable to realize how upset Amethyst was about her origins.
    Pearl: No, no, Amethyst, you're not the mistake. You're just the byproduct of a [realizing what she's saying, blushes] big... mistake.
  • Sapphire's future vision sometimes means that she forgets that the problems she sees solved in the future still affect people in the present. When she realizes this in "Keystone Motel", she's so mortified she starts weeping.
  • Rose Quartz was also not immune to this back when she and Greg had started dating. Rose laughs at Greg's attempts to fuse with her in order to get intimate in the same way she can with Pearl, and she says that she loves humans because they're all so funny. When Greg asks in complete seriousness if she respects him, Rose still thinks he's trying to be funny. She wasn't trying to be insulting, and in fact by her species' standards was being remarkably loving (as most Homeworld Gems view humans as pests to be exterminated at best), she just genuinely didn't realize she was being such. However, she seems to have largely outgrown this by the time she was pregnant with Steven, if her speech in "Lion 3: Straight to Video" is any indication. With that said, she disregarded how people would feel when she gave up her form to have Steven; Pearl knew and was sobbing about it in private because she didn't want to lose Rose.
  • In "Too Far", when Peridot discovers that Amethyst enjoys her sense of humor, she takes enjoyment in cracking jokes about everyone, including Amethyst, until she unintentionally takes it too far by describing her as defective. When Steven explains that she hurt Amethyst's feelings, Peridot cannot understand what she was saying is wrong and offensive. Peridot has similar issues with Lapis Lazuli. While she understands that Lapis has genuine grievances against her, her attempts to make amends consist of apologies like "Sorry, but you were just so useful at the time."
  • Sardonyx. When she is trying to figure out the capabilities of Steven and Amethyst's fusion Smoky Quartz, she unintentionally makes it all about her and does a number on Smoky's ego. When she realizes what she did, the horror makes her de-fuse.
  • Steven Quartz Universe has also had his moments of unwitting insensitivity. First, how he pressured Sadie (along with Barb) into competing in a competition she hardly wanted to do in the first place. Second, he gave Lapis a minor guilt trip for not wanting to be Peridot's friend — the same Gem who previously imprisoned Lapis (with Jasper), something that Steven was aware of.
    • After returning from giving himself up to the Diamonds Steven initially acts like it was no big deal, despite his actions having painful and long-lasting consequences for his loved ones and most of the town. He does eventually have a Jerkass Realization about his behavior, but Connie and Lion are so angry with him brushing off the emotional anguish his sacrifice caused everyone to go through that they refuse to interact with him for the next few episodes.
  • "Legs From Here to Homeworld": When Centipeetle, or rather Nephrite, is temporarily uncorrupted, unaware of what's happened in the last 5,000 years or the recent revelation that Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond were one and the same, she assumes upon seeing Blue and Yellow Diamond on Earth that Rose Quartz must have been destroyed and lauds them for it. This causes the two of them and Steven to recoil away from her, returning her to her corrupted state.
• Cyborg in Teen Titans (2003) in the episode "Troq", when he calls Starfire by the title word. Throughout the episode, the racist Val-Yor has been calling her this, and Starfire told Cyborg it meant "nothing" (without explaining that it meant "nothing" as in "worthless"), meaning he didn't realize how hurtful it was. Becomes a case of Bullying a Dragon considering that this is a race of super-strong beings who have Eye Beams and energy-hurling abilities.
• The Tick: Tick is so dumb he often says or does things that make him look like a real Jerkass.
• In "Two Tutu Friends" from Timothy Goes to School, Doris and Grace have lots of fun together at dance class. When Grace slips and falls, she is mortified and embarrassed. Doris, however, doesn't realize this and thinks it's just a funny story, which she tells to some of the other kids the next day at lunch. Grace overhears and is terribly upset and crying, calling Doris a "blabbermouth." Doris, angry, calls her a "crybaby." They give each other the Silent Treatment for a while until they finally talk it out and Doris apologizes for what she did, as she genuinely didn't realize that Grace was embarrassed about having fallen.
• We Bare Bears:
  • When Chloe Park first meets the bears, she uses them as the subjects for a research report for one of her college classes. However, the bears are not amused when they read her report and find that she mainly focused on traits such as their eating habits, odor, and lack of social skills around other humans. Hilarity Ensues when the bears attempt to make the report more "factual", but everything turns out okay in the end.
  • Charlie the Bigfoot, especially in his first appearance, was initially seen as an annoyance by the bears, due to actions such as commenting on Panda's (lack of) love life and messing with Ice Bear's cooking. However, the bears soon learn that because Charlie is constantly having to move around due to being hounded by Bigfoot enthusiasts who desperately want his picture, he's never been able to make any real friends. As time goes on, the bears' relationship with Charlie gets better, and they consider him a real friend.
• One episode of Xavier: Renegade Angel begins with Xavier coming to the aid of a boy in a wheelchair he thinks is getting bullied by two other kids. Not only are those two other kids the boy's friends, but Xavier is so condescending to the wheelchair-bound kid while defending him that the two kids beat him up over it.
  Xavier: Look, I'm not 'tarded like Robbie here, so I know a group of strapping young bucks like you would never waste your time with a boy whose legs are as dead as a Thanksgiving turkey with all the trimmings.
  The "Bullies": You apologize right now!
  Xavier: I'll never apologize for defending the weak, the meek, and the useless!
• Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum:
  • In "I Am Susan B. Anthony", Xavier and Yadina are so used to tending to the Secret Museum themselves that they unintentionally leave Brad out and don't let him have a say on what should go where.
  • In "I Am Alexander Graham Bell", Xavier and Yadina keep talking for Brad when he loses his voice instead of listening to him. They realize their errors by the end of the episode.

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