Advertising
- Your cousin...from Boston. (The guy from the Sam Adams Boston lager commercials.) He comes across as a Eagleland-er who embodies multiple boorish stereotypes about Americans in general and Bostonians in particular, but one commercial has him envisioning what Boston would be like if people tried being nice to each other ("tried" being the operative word)."Sam Adams Boston lager, now brighter?" (chuckles, then starts thinking) "A brighter Boston..."
Asian Animation
- Happy Heroes: Smart S. is a narcissist who will often act mean to others on that basis, but he's a superhero and will help the other Supermen whenever he needs to.
- In Lamput, the docs are constantly chasing after Lamput and being a jerk to him, but they still somehow genuinely care about him on occasion. The episode "Fracture" in particular has them outright help Lamput for once when he gets a fracture and can't shapeshift properly.
Comic Strips
- Elvis from Breaking Cat News. He’s paranoid and rude, but he is shown to genuinely care about his friends and has a soft spot for The Girl.
- Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes fame. His heart is well hidden, but Hobbes being damaged or an injured animal can bring it out. He can also get genuinely remorseful if one of his pranks goes too far.
- Garfield is notoriously lazy, arrogant and selfish. He's extremely abusive to both Odie and his owner Jon (not to mention all those poor alarm clocks he smashes...), is often shown to be extremely apathetic and can be outright cruel during his worst moments (this strip, anybody?
) and has even admitted to his own girlfriend's face that he thinks about himself even when he's with her. At the same time, though, he's proven multiple times that he does love and care about his family (and even the viewer!), and can actually be quite protective of them at times. In Garfield in the Rough, for example, a panther threatens the life of both Jon and Odie. Despite initially running to the top of a tree in fear to get away from it, he doesn't even hesitate to dive from the tree onto the panther's back and claw away at it; while he doesn't defeat the panther, he does manage to buy enough time for the park rangers to tranquilize the panther without anyone getting hurt. As well, despite him regularly refusing to share his food with most people, he's also been kind enough to offer a chick a piece of lasagna, and he's shown to have quite the soft spot for Christmas as well. - While Bucky of Get Fuzzy is mostly a self-centered Jerkass, he's been shown to have shades of this on at least 2 occasions.
- In a relatively early arc, when Satchel's arm is badly hurt while chasing a bike, Bucky shows an unusual (for him) amount of care and concern, such as being the one to first inform Rob of the accident and clearly being close to panicking while doing so. Near the end of the arc, Satchel realizes that he lost his beloved wristwatch in the accident, and Rob muses on how it's likely impossible to find it now. Cue a scene of Buckey fishing the watch out of a drainage ditch, out of his own volition.
- In a later arc, in the wake of 9/11, Rob and Satchel decide to donate blood. The last strip of the arc is a single panel showing Bucky setting up a bunch of signs congratulating them on their blood donations and calling them heroes, and even prepared a batch of cookies for them.
- Numerous examples from Knights of the Dinner Table, but the most obvious one is Brian. He's a selfish, manipulative jerk, no denying it, but he has showed some genuine kindess over the years, and has gotten perhaps more Pet the Dog moments than any other character.
- Ignatz Mouse from Krazy Kat — he may constantly throw bricks at the title character's head, but he's been shown to genuinely care about his Friendly Enemy, and he even does the occasional good deed.
- Lulu Moppet may generally mean well and be good hearted, but when the fellers torment her and the other girls... she's pretty mean when teaching them a lesson.
- Rat from Pearls Before Swine qualifies as this sometimes, though the more sociopathic side of his personality tends to be emphasized. One time Pig jumped off a roof believing he could fly (It Makes Sensein Context) and, after waking up in the hospital asked Rat what happened. Rat begins to tell him the truth, but then pauses and says instead that Pig hit his head on the moon.
- Marigold of Phoebe and Her Unicorn is vain to a downright parodic degree and frequently insults Phoebe's appearance. Apart from this, however, she is always her close, loyal and beloved friend.
Manhua
- In Goddess Creation System Ming Zhu views Xiaxi as an obstacle to her marrying the prince, so she kidnaps her. However, while the prince and his uncle both think Ming Zhu will probably murder Xiaxi, she never actually threatens to harm her at all. She attempts to bribe her to leave and when that fails enters into a basically fair competition, though one where Xiaxi is at a disadvantage. When she ends up losing, she frees her, admits that Xiaxi was right about the relationship not being a good idea from the start and seems to view her as a new friend.
Miscellaneous
- Oscar the Cat is supposedly quite rude and irritable towards most people- except ill and dying patients. He goes up to them and lets them pet him as much as they want.
- Many people would attribute various manifestations of this trope as standard demeanor for cats.
Podcasts
- In Roll to Breathe Black Cavalier is stand-offish at best and a bully at worst, but she never intends to hurt people and really does care for whatever relationship she has on the team.
- Hannah from Sequinox. While she comes across as stand-offish and is typically rather bitchy and vocal about her displeasure at having to hang around the other less-popular girls, she has a good heart in the end and wants to protect the world just as much as the others.
Pro Wrestling
- Edge. He may be somewhat sociopathic, arrogant and vicious, but he did show that he cared for his (kayfabe) wife Vickie Guerrero, and despite being turned on several times, always would help out his best friend Christian.
- William Regal. A pompous British aristocratic type for most of his career. His heart of gold was shown when Eric Bischoff's "special" nephew, Eugene, came into WWE. Bischoff wanted Regal to break his spirit in the hopes he'd quit, but once Regal saw Eugene could actually wrestle, he became very supportive of him.
- The real-life personas of several of the WWF's most notorious villains. Stephanie McMahon and Triple H are today's most common examples, as they have always related well with fans, have interviewed well, and carry themselves as great ambassadors to the sport. The most notorious heel of the 1980s-1990s era, Bobby Heenan, was this way, too; when making personal appearances, he'd carry on his act as though it were his real-life persona, but he'd tone it down in such a way that you knew he was bluffing and that he genuinely cared about the fans.
Roleplay
- Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues:
- Hyeon can be a shallow gadfly that's insensitive to the feelings of others, but he does genuinely care about his friends and looks out for them. To say nothing of his literal Pet the Dog moments with his pet squirrel.
- Nadine is a hot-headed bully who torments innocent students like Ivy and Ciro, but at the same time is shown to care deeply about those she likes, including her Gang of Bullies and also the shy, neurotic Josephine.
- In DC Nation, most of the Outsiders fit this like gloves. Travis is a street kid turned Green Lantern who sometimes forgets there are actual people involved when he starts planning. Green Shield has the Arrow family's moxie with a side order of caustic sarcasm. Caleb and Amelia Zukov love to put up a good show of not giving a shit about their teammates, but God or Hell help you if you if you go after the team...especially if Caleb doesn't particularly like them.
- In The Gamer's Alliance, several characters who act rudely are shown to have a hidden heart of gold and that deep inside they really do care for others, or at least grow into people who start caring about other things than themselves. Examples include the cynical mage Raistlin II, the old merchant Kusobaba, and Sultan Khalid.
- Sean "Lucky" O'Cann of Survival of the Fittest acts like a bit of a prick, but has been shown to be genuinely warm and affectionate at other times. It's how he deals with his insecurities, for the most part.
- Little Red Riding Hood in We Are Our Avatars straddles the line.
- Mark usually falls into this trope, although he does sometimes act like a straight up Jerkass
Tabletop Gaming
- Gulliman, the primarch of the Ultramarines was a hard ass, but he legitimately cared about the people he ruled and established the government of the Ultramarines mini empire around the idea of meritocracy (it is theoretically possible for a peasant to one day rise and become chapter master thus rule the empire). His actions have resulted in one of the best places (and least corrupt) to live in the entire Imperium.
- The High Elves from Warhammer are characterised as a race of smug, supremacist jerks who believe they are best suited to protect the world from Chaos. Humans can be helpful allies sometimes but they are dismissed by the elves as foolish, self-destructive children most days. Of course being Warhammer, humans do come off looking very bad, very often.
- The default characterization of many Paladins in D&D. Arrogant and self-righteous, yes, but the "righteous" part does apply, and as written, Paladins have a soft spot for anyone in need.
- Sentinels of the Multiverse:
- Ra defends the innocent, fights supervillains, and eventually lays down his life in a desperate attack on the most powerful entity in the multiverse. So far, so good. However, Ra is also a deeply flawed character, and the Staff of Ra exaggerates the most Ra-like faults of whoever it chooses as a worthy bearer, meaning that the Blake Washington Jr version of Ra starts out with Washington's already impressive ego dialled up to ridiculous proportions, smugly dismissing the enemies he obliterates as not even being worth his time. (His successor, Thiago, was much less of an egotist, meaning that his Ra is less arrogant, with the Staff instead exaggerating his recklessness.
- There's also Absolute Zero, who by his own admission is cynical, surly, sarcastic, and doesn't care about being liked or making friends. He also originally only agreed to do the hero bit in order to pay off the suit that lets him get to stay alive outside the tiny life support room he otherwise has to live in. But when the chips are down he can still be counted on to do the right thing and care about helping the innocent, and when the heroes start an academy he's the teacher who knows the most to instruct about the ethics on what it really means to be a good person and be a hero.
- Leonardo de Montreal of Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine is a prideful, abrasive, condescending, smug Insufferable Genius...with the talent to back it up, and he gets special bonuses to using his massive ego to protect people.
Web Animation
- Hello Kitty and Friends Supercute Adventures: Badtz-Maru can be abrasive at times, but when it looks like Kuromi's favorite film is going to be canceled because not enough tickets sold, Badtz-Maru secretly buys up all the seats in the theater, restoring Kuromi's film to it's proper place, and then invites all of Kuromi's friends to see it with her. He denies doing this when Keropi asks, of course.
