This trope is used so often that an alternative name for Robotech could be Jerkass Has a Point: The Series.
- Lynn Kyle started off a well intentioned pro-peace anti-war advocate but gradually degenerated into a Jerkass control freak due to stress from living in a war zone where his views weren't easily achievable, alcoholism, and resentment of not getting any return on the emotional investment he'd made in his cousin Lynn Minmei. While war is an undeniably terrible thing and peace greatly preferable to war, Kyle took his black and white view of the situation to an irrational extreme, making him a reversal of Rick Hunter, who also began the series with a similar black and white view of the world but eventually learned to accept the shades of gray that exist in reality. Kyle's final appearance in Private Time had him splashing water in Minmei's face (when she claimed to be tipsy) and then forcefully hauling her out of a restaurant after she irresponsibly blew off a media engagement to have lunch with Rick Hunter and then chastises her for running out on the concert she was supposed to give before telling her that he's leaving as her manager. Although he was an unreasonable jerk Kyle was also undeniably right when he chewed Minmei out for not appreciating the good fortune she'd had in life. At least at the end he's finally self-aware enough to realize he's part of the problem and genuinely wishes Minmei well as he walks out of her life. Also, some of his points against war are genuinely good, and Lisa uses them when talking to her father.
- Prior to their last meeting, Minmei called Kyle out a few times for copping an It's All About Me attitude in light of how everyone was suffering equally and also for his own ingratitude towards the Veritech troops who had protected and rescued them in their time of need. This back and forth calling each other out for their bad behavior ultimately led to Kyle's realization above, driving them further apart;
- Khyron is a violent Blood Knight, often seeking battle with the humans even when it doesn't benefit the Zentraedi and trying to sabotage the peace talks, the latter under the justification that the Grand Fleet will come and kill them all, Earthlings and Zentraedi all, if they catch wind of that. Not only Breetai agrees with the latter point, but the Zentraedi Grand Fleet shows up as soon as Dolza is informed by Azonia; previously, during the ambush on Mars he shot down a soldier that tried to attack early, stating that they needed to wait and that if he could do it then his men could do the same. Not only that soldier trying to attack early nearly ruined the ambush, but following episodes make clear that if you can't wait as long as he can you're a suicidal idiot.
- During the assault on the SDF-1, Khyron shoots a Zentraedi from another unit, and starts trying to do the same to his own men when they run. All of them had confessed they were planning to ditch the fight to go look at Minmei's concert, something that amounted to desertion in the face of the enemy: he was perfectly justified in killing them all on the spot, and he was actually going easy by making an example of the former to try and recover everyone else (who instead panicked), and is in fact screaming to his men to go back to the fight as he's chasing them.
- In "The Masters" saga of Robotech Colonel Fredericks of the Global Military Police, whose job is both of military intelligence and to enforce military discipline, often offers harsh criticism of Dana's actions as an officer. Thing is, Dana's squadron is more a biker gang than a military unit, in her first on-screen encounter with the GMP Dana toppled a security robot just because, and Fredericks has shown some respect for Dana's battlefield prowess;
- Being effectively Fredericks' disciple, Nova Satori has her moments, especially when trying to bust Musica and Bowie when the first one comes to Earth. Thing is, Musica may be on Earth's side, but she's still a triumviroid (clone subject of the Robotech Masters), and the last time a subject of the Masters apparently joined the Earth defenders he was actually a brainwashed spy, and as a member of the GMP her job description includes hunting down spies and those who help them;
- Again in "The Masters", supreme commander Anatole Leonard of the Army of the Southern Cross often acts as a Blood Knight, advocating offensives against the technologically superior Robotech Masters in spite of the enemy's superior firepower and defences, rudely ordering the commander of the first counterattack wave to send in the new fighters against the Masters' motherships in spite of the failure of the better-armed large warships, not caring that the Masters' troops could be actual human beings and not brainwashed micronized Zentraedi (and in fact he apparently refuses to even consider the idea, kicking Dana out of a meeting when she proposes it), and is secretly the last leader of a fascist organization. He also has a disturbing habit of being right on most things:
- Aside for being less bloodthirsty than his superiors in the government (even facepalming at some of their demands), the Masters are unwilling to talk, and the only way to defeat them is through the desperate counterattacks he demands;
- During the counterattack against the Masters, the new fighters are apparently the only reason the first wave survives, as they are launched at the same time as the Masters' launch their corvettes for the final blow and prove a match for them;
- With the Masters unwilling to talk the actual identity of their soldiers doesn't matter (and in fact believing them being basically biological robots is useful for the troops), and Dana in that meeting was being insubordinate to the point of calling him a fool (Dana is a lieutenant. She was lucky to not get demoted to private).
- When the Robotech Expedition was launched, Leonard openly opposed it and publicily declared the departure of so many warships would leave Earth defenseless against potential attackers. After about ten years of rebuilding, the Army of the Southern Cross is barely able to hold back the Masters (who had also departed Tirol well before the REF was launched to contact them or at least fight the war far away from Earth), and can only win, and barely at that, thanks to returning REF task forces providing just enough firepower to give the ASC the edge.
- Sergeant Angelo Dante. Generally acting sarcastic, dismissing his commanding officer in the 15th Squadron for being a woman and scatterbrained, and when Zor Prime, a bioroid pilot of the Robotech Masters, is shot down and captured and, having lost his memory, is reassigned to the 15th Squadron in the hope he'll recover it and help the Earth armies, treats him as a spy. He's right on two points: his superior officer is the above-mentioned Dana Sterling, a tactical genius with few peers, an incredible ditz outside battle, and rather childish and spoiled (and he actually becomes less dismissive and more collaborative as Dana's character improves and she demonstrates herself a capable officer); Zor Prime is a (unwitting and brainwashed) spy, who got his memory wiped and his bioroid shot down by friendly fire precisely to insert him as a spy, the Masters hoping he'd give the the location of Earth's reserve of Protoculture with the device that transmits everything he sees and hears to them (he succeeds, and as a bonus he accidentally gave forewarning about Earth's counteroffensives against the Masters).
- The twice-mentioned Dana Sterling. She's childish, spoiled and thoughtless, treats Zor Prime as her own personal property, and gets mad when Dante continues keeping an eye on him in spite of mounting evidence he's a spy. But when it comes to tactical decisions she's usually right (she's been even described as a tactical genius, and has proven it by taking on the suicide missions of downing a Masters' mothership and then perform a recon in arms and completing th first succeessfully with minimal losses and aborting the latter when it became effectively impossible and still bringing home some useful data plus a completely intact bioroid that had tried to cut her escape), and can be counted on providing useful advice when her subordinates have emotional issues.
- Octavia's rant when the Masters imprison her and Allegra for their sister Musica's defection may sound jerkish... Except at this point she's still loyal, even if her clone, raised to think as one with both Octavia and Allegra, has defected (even if this opens a whole other can of worms, what with the Masters' society rejecting individuality...).
- After overcoming the Masters' brainwashing and joining the Southern Cross for real, Zor Prime becomes this out of cynism. Musica feels bad for having effectively betrayed her people and sisters? He points out she's beyond forgiveness for betraying those who trusted her, just as he himself is (the fact he ignores how he had been brainwashed into doing it doesn't matter to him: he betrayed first his companions in the 15th Squadron and then the Masters). He declaring he should have stayed on the Masters' mothership that he blew up, never mind how disrespectful to the soldiers who fell in combat until then? He can't trust himself to not fall again to the Masters' conditioning, he's a security risk. Calling Nova and confirming her suspicions about Musica being a Tirolian triumviroid? Read again why he feels he should be dead, and add to it that his phone call is the only reason why Nova (who had almost worked out what was happening on her own) didn't arrest the whole squadron.
- As "The Masters" is full of such guys, it's only appropriate that the eponimous Robotech Masters join the group. In the latter part of the saga the Masters interrupt offensive operations against Earth to try and deal with the Invid Sensor Nebula before it can detect the presence of the Flower of Life and thus summon the Invid... And then often wonder why the Southern Cross starts launching continuous offensives against their fleet in spite of the Masters' technological superiority translating in superior firepower and robust Deflector Shields that always cause heavy losses to the Southern Cross. They also imprison Allegra and Octavia for Musica's defection... But as they are triumviroids, that is a trio of clones based on the same genetic matrix and raised to think and act as one, it's only natural they expect the other two to try and defect at the first chance (as they in fact later tried to do) or otherwise do something dangerous now that their sister has started thinking on her own and isn't there to balance them anymore, and strangely generous on their part to not just execute them on the spot.
- During the Battle of Reflex Point, the Invid Regess points at the Robotech Expeditionary Force's all-out offensive trying to reconquer Earth, even having weapons of mass destruction ready in case they lose, as proof that Humans Are Bastards. Sure, she may not know just what the Invid Regent did on Tirol, but considering that the Invid occupation of Earth translated in the conquerors not only letting the Humans do as they wished as long as they didn't try to oppose them nor tried to break the tight regulations on Protoculture (that, incidentally, is the fuel for the mechas and guns that can actually pose a danger to the Invid) but also repairing Earth's ecosystem after the Zentraedi's bombardment brought it on the brink of collapse it's easy to see why she had such a low opinion of the REF. That and she had recognized the REF new equipment as coming from the Haydonites, meaning their ancient enemy was manipulating the Humans into trying to do the dirty work for them....
- In The Sentinels, every scene involving the Regess, be it her recorded voice or her in person, has her insulting the Regent and his crusade against the Tirolian race, detailing why she's insulting him. Every single insult and their justification is spot-on.
- To complete the list, we have the Invid Regent. Who, in the one Sentinels scene in which he appears with his wife he quickly counters her later tirade of insults by pointing out that she is responsible for their situation in the first place, having got seduced by Zor into giving him the secrets of Protoculture, and that the supposed evolution she's gone through since then looks suspiciously like an imitation of the humanlike Tirolians. Notable because not only the Regess doesn't counter either of his points, but on Earth (long after she got fed up with him enough to dump him) she tacitly aknowledged the second by researching a better form into which transmutate herself and the Invid (the fact the research ultimately indicated the Human form as the best one may or may not be a coincidence).
