Animorphs: In Book 12, Marco furiously chews out Rachel for jumping into a crocodile pit to save a boy, acquiring and morphing a crocodile in the process, pointing out that someone could have caught her morphing on video tape. Despite admitting he annoys her, Rachel is forced to concede Marco's point, since the Yeerks are everywhere and if she had been taped, they would know that the "Andalite bandits" are human and wipe them out.
In Ascendance of a Bookworm Deid is deadset against Lutz going outside the city during his apprenticeship as a merchant, but when his reasons are laid out, it turns out that not only is he thinking of Lutz the whole time, he's also right about most things. He just comes off as a narrow-minded person because he can't say what he means very well and expects people to understand him.
He is against Lutz leaving town for work, because outside of the city are bandits and beasts. It's too dangerous for a seven year old boy.
He finds it suspicious that Benno claims to want Lutz as his successor, when Lutz merely has a lehange-internship contract. When Benno brings up the option to change the contract to a leherl-apprenticeship, Deid refuses because it's too early, as Lutz has merely been employed as a lehange for not even a season, when leherls are signed after years. This is countered by Benno who informs Deid of Lutz' quick growth and how he has been working with Benno for over a year already, long before his baptism, which is a fact that Deid was not aware of. This goes back to not having understood what Lutz meant when he told his family that he made and sold paper, which led to Deid suggesting that he become a paper-making craftsman.
Deid doesn't want Lutz to be adopted by Benno because Benno doesn't have children and is profit-oriented. Deid doesn't think that would make Benno a good father for Lutz..
Bazil Broketail: King Sanker of Marneri might be a stubborn, spiteful old man but he's entirely logical to doubt that Besita is his child, as her mother had many affairs. It isn't clear how succession works in Marneri, though for actually medieval monarchies like this resembles that would preclude her becoming queen. Oddly though no barrier except his disapproval exists to her succession though.
Bravelands: When Fearless the lion is first introduced to the Brightforest baboon troop, Grub angrily declares that they can't trust a lion because he could hurt or eat a baboon. Due to lions sometimes hunting baboons, he's not completely wrong, and to some baboons in the troop, he's right when Fearless attacks Nut for picking on Mud.
This is much of the role of the Wife of Bath in The Canterbury Tales. She's an unrepentantly slutty gold-digger who hated most of her husbands, but she still makes a fair number of cogent points about the flaws of patriarchal society.
Captain Underpants: While Mr. Krupp is a majorjerkass and Child Hater, he has every right to be angry at George and Harold for pulling pointless (and even dangerous) pranks on staff members and their fellow students. For example, merely having the boys pack their own lunch to school and eat in his office for influencing the lunch ladies to resign in book 3 comes off as a lenient punishment (considering how there would have been no lunch ladies to prepare school lunch for the students on the day after the lunch ladies resigned, and also due to the fact that it would be difficult to find a replacement on such short notice).
He also justifiably banned George and Harold from participating in the Invention Convention competition in Book 2. This is due to their prank from the previous year: they invented a type of glue that was activated by warmth and applied it on the chairs, getting the whole student body and staff members stuck on them when they sat down. He was also later justified in giving George and Harold permanent detention for the rest of that school year due to them sabotaging everybody else's inventions and ruining the Invention Convention competition out of spite for being banned.
The Carrier: Sean is an immature jerkass, but he's not wrong when he angrily tells Gaby (who has just announced she's leaving him for Tim) that the real reason she's so obsessed with Tim is because she can't stand to fail at anything and that her determination to save him from going to prison is because she wants to "fix him", not out of genuine love. Even Gaby herself, who is in love with Tim, can't dispute that there is some truth to this, even if Sean is mostly just lashing out at her for dumping him.
The Chronicles of Dorsa: She's quite rude about it, but Mylla is right in saying she lacks many options that Tasia has when the latter blows up at her over accepting a man's proposal without telling her. The pair could never stay together, since their society wouldn't permit it, and being from a minor noble house Mylla has to marry up, advancing her family in doing so.
Circle of Magic: Winding Circle healer Dedicate Crane is absolutely brutal to his staff in Briar's Book, where he is leading the effort to find a cure for the rapidly spreading, magically-caused plague devastating the city of Summersea. He will fire them for the slightest mistake and insists that absolutely everything be done perfectly — no exceptions, no second chances. And he is absolutely correct.
In Darkest Powers, Tori Enright, while not necessarily evil, is a self-proclaimed bitch who once made it her priority to make Chloe's life hell. While her first time attempting to give Chloe advice ends up in the two of them almost getting carved up by a trio of street thugs, when it seems that Chloe is having trouble with Simon and Derek and gets subsequently very depressed about it, Tori's pep talk ends up helping Chloe to realize just what's wrong with herself. Which in turn leads to her accepting the fact that the one she's liked all along is actually Derek and allows her to return to a mostly normal state.
In The Dresden Files the White Council has a zero tolerance policy on any violation of the Laws of Magic and the only punishment for a violation is beheading. After killing his teacher in self-defense, Harry spends a good part of the early books being viewed as the suspect any time a magical crime is suspected. While this seems unreasonable at first, it's eventually explained that over centuries the Council has seen that dark magic is inherently harmful to the psyche; even one use is enough to start twisting a good person into a warlock.
Harry himself does not disprove this evidence. He works hard to keep on the straight and narrow because he understands how quickly he would lose himself if he slipped.
It's easy to become frustrated with the White Council's head-in-the-sand policy, lack of concern for mortals, and general jerkassery. However, as Luccio points out, any intervention in the affairs of mortals would inevitably pit Council members against each other, as the Council is international and many wizards have extensive mortal families. Although the Laws don't forbid exploitation of mortals, they do set pretty hard limits that prevent wizards from wreaking too much havoc unopposed. The Council may be flawed, but it's a stable institution, and it's worked better than anything else wizards have tried so far.
This attitude is deconstructed in Battle Ground (2020). While Harry did do some shady things to get himself dismissed from the White Council, it doesn't change the fact that they're a bunch of bullying old farts who have had it in for Harry for a long time, and their punishment is outrageously cruel. As a result, Harry all but tells Carlos (and the Council by extension) "fuck off and stay out of my way", and even Michael drops an F bomb.
In The Emigrants, it is hard to see Vicar Brusander as anything but a pompous Well-Intentioned Extremist for his prosecution of Danjel's religious movement. Nevertheless though, he still makes a few good points in his speech to Karl Oskar against emigration. Many people back then did leave Europe for America to escape the laws of their native countries, or only because they heard fanciful stories about how much better everything was over there. And how exactly would Europe survive, if all young people would go to America and leave their old parents at home?
When a teenaged Wei Wuxian suggested to use resentful energy, Lan Qiren is quick to rebuke him and said he couldn't be sure that the resentful energy would be properly controlled and wouldn't backfire on him. While Lan Qiren reacted unnecessarily harsh, his words were an ominous foreshadowing of Wei Wuxian's death, which is implied to be due to backlash from demonic energy.
Despite being aggressive about it, Nie Mingjue was right to be wary about Xue Yang and insisted he be executed rather than imprisoned. Sure enough, once he was freed, Xue Yang would cause the entire tragedy at White Snow Temple and Yi City.
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, while Snape does consider Harry to be far more arrogant than he actually is, he rightly calls Harry out for sneaking out of Hogwarts to goof around with his friends while almost every adult in the wizarding world — including the Minister for Magic himself — is trying to keep Harry safe from a killer who broke out of Azkaban. Lupin tells Harry the same thing after he saves Harry from being berated and lectured by Snape about it.
Uncle Vernon is not a nice person but he makes a valid point when the Muggle news reports that there is an escaped convict on the loose but never said where the convict had escaped from. After all, Sirius Black could be approaching their particular neighborhood and everyone would be unaware of the threat. Despite that Sirius is actually innocent, he does in fact sneak into Harry's neighborhood as a dog with no one realizing it.
Draco Malfoy is a Spoiled BratPure-Blood Supremacist with ties to the Death Eaters' inner circle, and clearly has it out for Hagrid for racist and classist reasons. However, the fact remains that most of his criticisms of Hagrid's teaching methods are perfectly valid.
In Prisoner of Azkaban, the third years are required to buy a textbook that's enchanted to bite people for Hagrid's course. The students must bind or use other methods to restrain the books. Hagrid assumes that the students would figure out they need to stroke the spine of their monster textbooks books on their own. Malfoy remarks that stroking something that's aggressively trying to bite you is not the first thing you think of in that situation.
Malfoy: Oh, how silly we've all been. We should have stroked them! Why didn't we guess! Hagrid: I-I thought they were funny. Malfoy: Oh, tremendously funny! Really witty, giving us books that try and rip our hands off!
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Malfoy believes Hagrid's Blast-ended Skrewts are abominations of nature. For context, the Skrewts are jet-propelled scorpion-leeches that eventually grow to be 10-feet long, they do absolutely nothing of any use to anyone and are apparently illegal hybrids of Manticores and fire-crabs, meaning they shouldn't even exist in the first place. While Hermione defends the Skrewts in Hagrid's class out of loyalty to Hagrid, she privately agrees with Malfoy that the Skrewts are horrible monsters and they should not be around people.
When Hagrid takes his class into the Forbidden Forest during the fifth book to see the thestrals and assures the students the creatures are trained and safe, Malfoy retorts that there have already been several occasions where he showed the class creatures that he considered safe but turned out to be quite dangerous to them. The Slytherins murmur in agreement and the looks on the Gryffindors' faces make it clear they think he has a point too. Of course, this time Hagrid actually is right, but Malfoy still had every right to be suspicious because of past experiences.
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the portrait of Phineas Nigellus points out to Harry that while Slytherins can be brave, they aren't stupid and won't run headfirst into danger. Both points are absolutely right, as Harry falls prey to Voldemort's trap and believes Sirius has been captured by Voldemort, then impulsively rushed to save him without any plan. This inadvertently results in the lives of his friends being in danger and also, in Sirius's death.
Umbridge's actions are despicable and her dismissal of Trelawney was done in as much a Kick the Dog manner as possible, but she's right about Trelawney not really measuring up as a teacher.
Pensieve memories in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince show that Tom Riddle Sr. was a snobbish young man who looked down on Morfin Gaunt, laughed at a wizard wearing silly clothes in an attempt to fit in with muggles, and abandoned his own newborn son. But the thing is Morfin really was an insane pariah with criminal tendencies who regularly harassed Muggles and tortured animals. If anything, Tom Riddle was being polite by referring to him as a tramp, especially when his girlfriend was saying worse about the Gaunts' lifestyle. Laughing at the wizard was also understandably justified, as even Harry noted his clothes (which included a one-piece bathing suit over a coat) made him look clownish. And on the last one, he was rightfully furious at Merope for brainwashing him into being her husband and Sex Slave (which also subverts Double Standard Rape: Female on Male). He never chose to have the baby in the first place, was terrified of someone using magic to make him act against his own will, and understandably just wanted to escape the whole nightmare. Both Dumbledore and Harry agreed that Tom Sr. had every right to get the hell away from Merope.
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the characters take turns holding a literal Jerkass Ball in the form of Slytherin's locket, one of Voldemort's Horcruxes. Ron reacts the worst to it and eventually gets into an argument with Harry over their mission where he brings up a few good points. Namely, that based on what little information they were given by Dumbledore and their current resources, they're nowhere near finding any of Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes and the one they do have they have no means of destroying. Right now the trio is just running aimlessly around the country by themselves in the hopes their luck will eventually change. The day after the fight, which ended with Ron walking out on Harry and Hermione in frustration, Harry concedes that Ron was right and that they're fighting a Hopeless War right now.
Mrs. Weasley's great-aunt Muriel is very rude, prejudiced against Muggleborns, and loves to speak ill of and gossip about the recently deceased Dumbledore. When discussing whether or not his sister Ariana, who died under mysterious circumstances, was a Squib, she makes the valid point that Squibs are treated horribly by being cast into the shadows. She says that it's not right to treat a member of your family that way and that the best thing for Ariana (who wasn't a Squib) would have been to be sent to a Muggle school.
The Hearts We Sold: The Daemon says that none of the heartless troop has any right to complain, since no one was forced to make a deal with him, and they're all getting paid extremely well for their trouble. Dee acknowledges he's not wrong, though she and the others are still pissed he didn't tell them what they were getting into.
In the novel Here's to You, Rachel Robinson, Charles might be an ass to his family and cause a lot of drama when he returns home, but he's not wrong when he points out that the Robinsons are so obsessed with being perfect that they refuse to discuss any actual problems they might be having.
In The Hunger Games trilogy, even President Snow has standards. To him, his acts of terror and oppression are all in the name of order. He may threaten, intimidate, insinuate, kill children etc...but he is not wasteful. Every death he dealt served a purpose. A reminder of this becomes a key plot point towards the end of Mockingjay. He was honest about the incident that killed Katniss' sister but essentially ended the war not being his idea, because as he points out, at that point he had already lost, and had the aircraft been his, he'd have used it to escape, not commit an act of pointless violence, which means it had to have been the work of President Coin of District 13, confirming Katniss' suspicion that the war was turning Evil Versus Evil.
Johanna Mason gets a moment of this when Katniss asks why she seems to hate her so much, and Johanna angrily retorts that Katniss mopes about and sulks about what she went through thanks to the Hunger Games and what happened afterwards, but fails to appreciate that she gets special treatment because she's the Mockingjay, while everyone else who went through just as much — if not more — trauma than Katniss just have to suck it up and get on with it because they still have a war to win.
The Iliad includes a scene early on in which a soldier, Thersites, criticizes the cause of the Trojan War and the character of the leaders. Thersites is depicted as physically deformed and verbally vulgar, infamous for his cowardice and insubordination, and yet he correctly points out that the cause of the war is folly and that Agamemnon is abusing his authority even against the other kings. Thersites' reward is to be beaten in the head for his insubordination and be laughed at, which backfires in the following battles because nobody listens to him.
In the Inheritance Cycle, Galbatorix reveals that one of his plans is to enforce equality by controlling the use of magic, accomplished by hijacking the magical language itself so that he is the only one who can use it. While Galby is notoriously treacherous and it's heavily implied that this is done only so that he can retain power, it's hard to argue against some level of control in a universe where magic has turned the elves into nearly invincible Game Breakers who could decimate the humans, dwarves, and urgals combined if they felt like it. Even Nasuada, leader of the Varden and one of the biggest enemies of Galbatorix, admits that he might have been right on this one.
At one point in Eragon, Eragon and Murtagh are accosted by a band of slavers who try to forcibly claim a bounty on an unconscious Arya's head. Eragon uses his magic to frighten away most of the slavers, but Murtagh takes the leader of the slaver band and beheads him. Murtagh justifies his act by arguing that the slavers could spread information about Eragon, Saphira, and Arya to the Empire, particularly after they had just attacked an Imperial prison to free Arya. Eragon views this as pointlessly cruel and petty, but Murtagh's argument can come across as more pragmatic given their situation.
Vanir, Eragon's elf rival in Ellesmera, is a haughty jerk who insults an injured Eragon while repeatedly beating him in sparring and, at one point, outright tells him that Saphira must have been somehow mistaken to choose Eragon as a Rider. While Vanir is a tremendous douchebag, his implicit messages to Eragon — that respect has to be earned the hard way, particularly if you're someone who an entire species' survival is thought to hinge on — is right.
Katherine: Alice Perrers is the King's favourite mistress and a catty Gold Digger, but she's right when she points out that Country Mouse Katherine is gorgeous and the men will notice even if the other women won't, and sure enough Sir Hugh Swynford tries to rape Katherine shortly after this conversation.
Les Misérables: While Inspector Javert's belief that criminals can never change is extreme, he was fully justified in not trusting Valjean to keep his word and allow himself to be arrested after being given a few days to put his affairs in order. After all, the reason Valjean was a wanted criminal at the time was because he had already broken his parole once, so why would a policeman who knew this trust him to honor a parole now that he's finally been caught ?
Since Jean Valjean has NOT been caught but was not even remotely suspected and denounced himself to clear someone who was taken for him, Javert should have understood he would not get away.
In Matilda, Miss Trunchbull may despise and torment children for all the wrong reasons, but she's not wrong about Matilda's father, although she shouldn't be taking it out on Matilda who had nothing to do with it.
In My Sister, the Serial Killer, nurse Korede is in love with Tade, a doctor with whom she works, but he falls for her sister Ayoola (whose last four boyfriends have died, not that she killed them). She tells Korede that all he is interested in is her looks. When Tade shows Korede the ring for his proposal, she asks what appeals to him about her sister. All he brings up is that she is beautiful and special. Korede realizes that her sister was right.
Origami Yoda: In the third book, Secret of the Fortune Wookiee, Harvey is a huge jerkass, but he's right when he calls out Sara over faking the Fortune Wookiee's predictions so the other kids do what she thinks is best. Even after he causes a scene in the library while revealing this (which ends with the Fortune Wookiee being torn in half), Tommy concedes that he has a valid point and goes to confront Sara on it.
A major story beat in Percy Jackson and the Olympians. While Luke's attempts to fix things are...extreme at best, nobody can say his core motivation isn't right. Even Percy, who hates and resents Luke possibly more than anyone, admits several times that he sympathizes with Luke's anger. In the end, Percy promises a mortally-wounded Luke he won't let the injustice get this bad again and uses a formal boon to force the gods to acknowledge their children and, by extent, understand that their selfish actions nearly caused their downfall and killed thousands of young, innocent people.
In one book in the Pony Pals series, the main characters' new neighbors, the Stewarts, build a sheep pen across the trail in which the protagonists ride on their way home, resulting in the protagonist, their horse and the unleashed dog scaring the sheep and the Stewarts being furious with them. The Stewarts are hardly the most understanding people, especially since they send their reply to the protagonist's apology letter to the protagonist's parents, telling them to "be firm with (their) child)," but they have legitimate concerns about the well-being of their sheep. The plot of the book involves the protagonist
Pride and Prejudice: Mr. Darcy delivers a haughty and condescending marriage proposal to Elizabeth Bennet which spends more time detailing why he shouldn't propose to her than why he should. After it goes very badly wrong for obvious reasons, Darcy writes Elizabeth a letter that explains his perspective on events in more detail, in particular that her family generally does act in a very embarrassing and socially improper fashion. While still very peeved, Elizabeth is forced to concede that he has a point and that his concerns about being related to them through marriage were not entirely invalid or based on pure snobbery.
Mrs Bennet is right to be concerned about her daughters getting married soon because if Mr Bennet died, their entire estate would go to his closest male relative, Mr Collins, and if the girls didn't marry well, they would live in the streets. It was the way she went about it that was the issue.
In Prince Caspian, the grumpy and bitter dwarf Nikabrik points out the flaw in the thinking that the Magic Horn is Too Awesome to Use. The other characters agree with his criticism and decide that he's right and that they should use the horn sooner rather than later — which is what turns out to have set in motion the events of the entire book.
Protector of the Small: Lord Wyldon, the sexist training master, makes it clear that he doesn't think Keladry should be training for a knight. He also continually forces her to climb trees and look over high walls when she's cripplingly afraid of heights and it often causes her to Stress Vomit. Kel's friend Neal attributes this to Wyldon's continual efforts to make her leave, but Kel says — correctly — that she does have to overcome her fear and Wyldon is really trying to help her.
Wyldon also does give Kel practical help when her fear of heights overwhelms her. During the scene in First Test where Kel freezes on the curtain wall, Wyldon steers her away from the edge and tells her to focus on his face. At the pages' summer camp, he realizes halfway through Kel's report that she's going to be sick from climbing and excuses her to throw up.
Althea Vestrit is pissed in Ship of Magic when her father dies and the family liveship is given to her older sister Keffria and her Jerkass husband Kyle when it had been promised to her, but Kyle retorts that just because Althea was allowed to sail with her father as a girl it doesn't make her an experienced sailor like he is and to give her Vivacia would be pure Nepotism and not on merit. Althea, who hates Kyle, does eventually admit he was right about that and sets out to become a sailor worthy of Vivacia.
In The Mad Ship, Althea tries to stop her Spoiled Brat niece from getting involved in a conversation about the family's financial future and angrily tells Malta to stop embarrassing herself when Malta refuses to be dismissed. Malta retorts that Althea's the one bringing embarrassment to herself and her family, given she refuses to conform to Bingtown's societal expectations (rejecting Grag Tanira, constantly hanging out with Amber, dressing like a man) and obsessing over turning Paragon into a working Liveship. The point is so good that Althea ends up storming out of the room.
Rebecca: Deconstructed. Near the end of the novel, Jack Favell accuses Maxim of murdering Rebecca, and the narrator and Frank of being complicit in the cover-up, and he's absolutely right. The trouble is, he's such a smug, boorish, condescending slimeball that no one who could do something about this accusation wants to listen to him, and they're all predisposed to distrust him. He also doesn't help his own case much by trying to blackmail Maxim with the accusation rather than going straight to the authorities, which makes it look even more like he just made it all up.
The School for Good Mothers: The Child Services worker assigned to Frida's daughter's case is very unpleasant toward Frida, for example canceling appointments for supervised visits without an apology. But she is right when she says that Frida should have known better than to leave her house, leaving her toddler child unattended, even if it was for only a bit.
Skyward: Though she is petty about it, Ironsides turns out to have a very good reason to be so adamant about never letting Spensa fly. She saw Spensa's father turn against humanity, and believes that the "defect" will cause Spensa to do the same. And if it weren't for M-Bot's cytonic shielding, she'd have been right.
In The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas, Harry is often portrayed as an abusive asshole with few redeeming qualities. Nevertheless, his defense for the titular Slap — that Hugo was in the process of attacking his and his cousin's children with a cricket bat while his own parents were doing little to stop it — is difficult to argue with, as Anouk points out early on — "We all wanted to slap Hugo that day!" — and even Aisha comes to agree with as the court case approaches.
Alliser Thorne, an abrasive and arrogant bully of the Night's Watch, comes to King's Landing to present evidence that the dead are walking and warn everyone that an invasion by the Others is imminent. And he's telling the truth: The dead are walking, the Others are coming, and the lords of Westeros are too busy fighting each other to do anything about it. He even has a jar with a still-moving zombie hand inside it. Unfortunately, Tyrion, a much more sympathetic character who developed a dislike of Thorne's poor behavior, delays his audience as long as possible (causing the hand to decompose into non-moving mush), utterly ignores his warnings, and makes fun of him.
Tyrion: Lord Baelish, buy our brave Ser Alliser a hundred spades to take back to the Wall with him. Alliser: Spades? Tyrion: If you bury your dead, they won't come walking.
Sandor 'The Hound' Clegane is a pretty big jerk but the majority of what he says about how the lords and knights of the kingdoms take advantage of the weak is pretty accurate. His assessment of his brother is both incredibly blunt and distressingly on the mark.
In A Dance with Dragons, Dany gets a visit from an old "friend", Xaro, the merchant prince of Qarth. His behaviour becomes increasingly obnoxious throughout his visit, until he reaches the point where he declares war on her, but he makes several good points about Dany's rule. The truth is, Dany's reign hasn't done a lot of good for the people of Meereen, as her sacking of it and the subsequent crises have shattered the city's economy and started a guerilla civil war, and many people who were once happy and well-off are now starving. Moreover, despite her claims to be the breaker of chains, there are many people in her city who are slaves in all but name — slaves to her. Not to mention the fact that her dragons have gone completely out of control and have begun eating the farmers' livestock and children.
In A Game of Thrones, maegi Mirri Maz Duur does some rather awful things to Dany without true cause (although some are later exaggerated by Dany — she did not kill Khal Drogo) but one act stands out as being pragmatic in a Kingslayer-fashion: the killing of Dany's unborn child, Rhaego.
Mirri Maz Duur: The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust.
Steel Crow Saga: Xiulan's driving goal is to replace her sister Miuzan, who bullied her throughout their childhood, as heir to the throne. At the end, Miuzan bluntly tells Xiulan's partner Lee that Xiulan has a lot of potential but isn't mature enough to rule, and Lee is forced to agree.
The Sunne in Splendour: George, Duke of Clarence, may be traitorous and grasping, but he is not wrong about his brother Edward IV's marriage being invalid and he being the rightful heir to the throne.
Treasure Island: Captain Smollet is a stern, blunt man who is concerned with doing his duty, whether people like or not. Squire Trelawney finds his blunt honesty unbearable and irritant, calling him "intolerable humbug" who is "unmanly, unsailorly and downright un-English", but when Smollett's paranoia regarding the sailors plotting a mutiny, Trelawney admits Smollet was right (and he himself had been an ass).
The Unknown Soldier: Captain Lammio is a martinet, an egotist and much too full of himself for his own good, but he shows time and time again that, in spite of his personality being about as abrasive as number two sandpaper, he does know what he's doing as a commander. The main characters bristle at him commanding them to split up when under artillery fire, being forced to return looted items, reprimanding them for drunkenness and cracking down on Rokka's loose cannon antics while claiming that he is in fact as lenient with Rokka as he can be. The reader, however, will probably be far more sympathetic.
The Wandering Inn: One of Erin's regular customers, Pisces, is quite pretentious, leading to many characters disliking him. Although he has many faults, he tends to be correct, whenever he suggests something, much to Erin's regret, as following his advise is the last thing she wants to do.
In The Darkest Hour, Darkstripe is caught feeding Sorrelkit deathberries by Graystripe, who reports him to Firestar. On being questioned after Darkstripe and Graystripe finish fighting each other, Darkstripe growls that Firestar will always take Graystripe's side since the two are best friends. Even Firestar admits that Darkstripe is right, so he has to find solid proof to make sure Graystripe isn't lying or jumping to conclusions.
In the second half of The New Prophecy arc, Squirrelflight acts like a real Jerk when trying to 'warn' her Love Interest, Brambleclaw, not to trust his half-brother, Hawkfrost. She frequently yells at Brambleclaw, insults him, even on two separate occasions outright accusing him of being disloyal in front of their Clanmates, and rather quickly breaks up with him, accusing him of valuing her less than Hawkfrost, even though she has a close bond with her own sister. But ultimately, Squirrelflight is proven right about Hawkfrost, who exposes himself as an ambitious, murderous, Manipulative Bastard.
The Place of No Stars has a downplayed example from Crowfeather, who while much less of a Jerkass than he once was, is still grouchy and mistrustful. When Squirrelflight is abducted by Ashfur, Crowfeather suspects that she went with him willingly. While this suspicion is wrong, Crowfeather does make a pretty good point when he recalls that Squirrelflight has done questionable things to her real mate, Bramblestar; defying him to help a group of stranger called the Sisters and lying to him that her sister, Leafpool's kits, were his and Squirrelflight's by blood.
Team Kimba keeps getting yelled at for clogging up their comms in the sims with mindless chatter. While Gunny Bardue is right and this could have bad consequences, Phase is also right in that the chatter has helped them keep tabs on each other and quickly realise when someone's gone down — that, and outside of the sims, the comms are just a high-end IM service.
In "Ayla and the Mad Scientist", the Spy Kidz get pissed off at Phase for reducing Kew to tears after Kew stole things from Phase's utility belt. While screaming at Kew probably wasn't the best way to handle the situation, the fact still remains that Kew did steal Phase's weapons, Phase really needed them, and he had every right to be pissed off. Those weapons were really freaking expensive.
From "No Beast So Fierce":
Bravo: Young lady, is this depraved queen forcing his loathsome attentions on you? Jobe: Excuse me? ‘Queen’? Let’s leave aside the issue of mere slander, and focus on the illogic of your question — if I’m forcing my attentions on her, then I’m not homosexual; if I’m a homosexual, then I’m the last person that she needs to be worried about.
World War Z: The French soldier interviewed is dismissive of American efforts during the Zombie War, claiming that the conditions they had to endure was nothing. After he describes the battle of Paris, which involved clearing a quarter million Zacks from the catacombs and braving not only Zack but complete darkness, explosions, navigation errors, choking gas pockets, cave-ins and drowning in sewer water and doing it all with blades, trench spikes and the occasional air rifle (the smallest spark could set off a methane explosion), you're likely to agree with him.
