Negatives as a Positive

"Ya'll never beat me! I'm just too stupid... and ugly... ta know when to quit."

— Ben Grimm/The Thing, Fantastic Four

There are more than a few personality traits that are generally regarded as negative. Stubbornness. Greed. Selfishness. Arrogance. Rage. Heck, all the Seven Deadly Sins.

But one thing writers love doing is taking conventions and flipping them on their head.

So, there are times when characters will use or refer to either their own or someone else's negative qualities in a positive way. After all, what would The Determinator be without stubbornness, or the Insufferable Genius without their arrogance? One person's slothfulness is another person's efficient time management.

These qualities can be the foundation of Faith in the Foe. If someone loses their negative traits, their friends (or even enemies) may decide We Want Our Jerk Back!. If this is done intentionally as propaganda spin to make the villain look like a good guy, he's a Villain with Good Publicity.

To qualify, this trope must be deliberately invoked, and not part of a Broken Aesop.

Compare Never Needs Sharpening, in which a product's shortcomings are spun as selling points through Exact Words. Also compare Damned by Faint Praise and Polish the Turd. Compare and contrast with Your Approval Fills Me with Shame, Heroic Self-Deprecation and Chronic Self-Deprecation. Contrast Insult Backfire. Can overlap with Bait-and-Switch, Berate and Switch, and Achievements in Ignorance. Compare with Arson, Murder, and Admiration. Sister trope to Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters.

See also Evil Virtues, for the positive strengths of character a bad guy needs to be good at their evil job, and Well-Intentioned Extremist, who does negative things in pursuit of a worthy goal.

Not to be confused with Bad News in a Good Way and Stealth Insult.

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Examples

Advertising

• The tagline of MidAmerican Energy, a power company for several Midwestern states, is "Obsessively, Relentlessly At Your Service."

Anime & Manga

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: While on a mission to rescue Hakari, Rentarou and the girls are attacked by the dog of a wealthy family. Shizuka is too tiny and weak to escape with the others, but she's so tiny and weak that the dog falls back on instincts to protect weaker creatures over guarding its own territory. Rentarou and the others cheer her on for being so weak.
• Chihayafuru: Determining to advance and reach the level of Karuta Queen, Chihaya tells her teammates that she's really greedy. Tsutomo replies calmly that all of them were already well aware. He doesn't cite it with admonition or disdain, but just part of Chihaya they're comfortable with.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Both versions of Greed are selfish pricks who want to obtain everything there is in the world. This puts him in stark opposition with his creator, Father, and leads to both versions revolting against the Homunculi. Both Greeds also form their own crews and become fiercely protective of them, calling them his "treasures". While the first Greed becomes Affably Evil and only works for himself and his band of chimeras, the second Greed gradually turns into an Anti-Hero that helps the heroes defeat Father, even pulling a Heroic Sacrifice to save his host, Ling, from being pulled into Father.

Comic Books

• Fantastic Four: Benjamin Grimm, a.k.a. the Thing, is a well-known Determinator. He'll also be the first to tell his foes he's simply too ugly and stupid to know when to quit.
• IDW Publishing's original Transformers continuity: the ancient combiner Monstructor is for all intents and purposes a Feral Villain. However, when a group of Autobots fighting it describe it as a Flawed Prototype due to a complete lack of intelligence (it doesn't even separate into the component Monstructor Six anymore) its creator Jhiaxus protests that he doesn't consider Monstructor's lack of sapience a flaw, as it means it's completely loyal to its master and Too Dumb to Fool. He even describes Monstructor's insanity as "a feature, not a bug!"

Fan Works

• With This Ring is all about an Orange Lantern finding ways to turn avarice to good purposes. He builds a Lantern Corps full of people who love killing and points them at an Evil Empire. He welcomes those who are planning on a Klingon Promotion over his dead body because they are among the most motivated to improve. When he participates in a Battle in the Center of the Mind between the personalities of Teth Adom and Theodore Adam, spectated by the seven gods of Kahndaq and the seven Enemies of Man, he is sitting on the head of the statue representing Greed — but his presence and advice about understanding and asserting oneself helps Teth Adom to gain the upper hand and emerge as a hero. At one point, he expresses disappointment that Lex Luthor isn't avaricious enough; Lex is too paranoid to act in his own self-interest when the stakes are high. Even the Guardians of the Universe, with billions of years of experience, consider the orange light of avarice to be too unstable and dangerous to use, but Paul's steadily proving them wrong, with his recruits tackling enemies that the Green Lantern Corps hasn't been able to handle.

Film — Animated

• Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget: Ginger enlists Nick and Fetcher when she goes to save her runaway daughter from Fun-Land Farms, saying that they're the slyest toerags in that part of the country.
• Inuyasha the Movie: Swords of an Honorable Ruler has a demon list several human qualities in a negative way, showing contempt for humanity. But during the climactic battle, as full-demons such as Sesshomaru, Shippo, Kilala, and Jaken begin to lose power, Inuyasha and his human companions fight on, reminding the demon that he's half-human, and that humans are selfish, stubborn, and greedy, which is why they won't give up.
• Mulan: After Mulan/Ping pulls an extremely risky maneuver to save Shang from an avalanche, he says that Ping is the craziest man he's ever encountered. However, he follows that up by saying that craziness is what saved his life and that the soldier has earned his trust.

Film — Live-Action

• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: At Elrond's urging, Aragorn seeks to travel the Dwimorberg Pass to seek an army of the dead. Gimli stands before him, and Aragorn tells him he's not coming with. Cue Legolas saying, "Have you learned nothing about the stubbornness of Dwarves?"
• Top Gun: Ice Man had, at one point during Top Gun training, called out Maverick for living up to his namesake, telling him he was dangerous. At the end of the film, after Maverick saves Ice from MiGs, Ice calls him out on the flight deck.
  Ice Man: YOU! You are still dangerous. (Beat) You can be my wingman any time.
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day: The relentlessness of the Terminator, intended as terrifying in the first film, is cited as a positive by Sarah Connor in the second as the reprogrammed machine protects her son.

Literature

• Chrysalis (RinoZ): Crinis loves to gush about her Master, how he's strong, wise, savage, cruel, relentless, merciless, and ambitious. Anthony is taken aback when she gets to the "savage" and "cruel" parts, but in fairness, all of those traits do help a monster survive and thrive in a Dungeon where everything is a carnivore. Crinis doesn't even realise that he might find her description upsetting.
• In Discworld, it's a recurring theme that good witches know exactly who they are and how to apply themselves. Granny Weatherwax earns every ounce of her great Pride, and in The Wee Free Men, when Tiffany Aching is called selfish, she takes it as a motivation to protect everything she cares about.
  Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!
  I have a duty!
• Hive Mind (2016): The Hives attempted to "breed out" various negative personality traits by restricting who could have children, which led to a population collapse. Part of the purpose of Lottery is to find people's negative traits and channel them in ways that are constructive for the Hive. People with a tendency toward violence, for example, are trained for and placed in roles such as Hive Defense or Strike Teams.
• Nisemonogatari has a conversation between Araragi and Hachikuji about how you can make anything sound noble by sticking "the courage to" in front of it, ranging from "the courage to tell a lie" to "the courage to be a lazy bum".
• Perelandra: Ransom realizes that it's all right for him to use The Power of Hate in his battle because his opponent is the incarnation of pure evil, and it’s a virtue to hate evil.
• In A Wrinkle in Time, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which give Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin gifts as they prepare to enter Camazotz. Mrs. Whatsit tells Meg "I give you your faults," which initially upsets her. However, those faults—anger, a quick temper, stubbornness, and a general dislike of authority—prove extremely useful when facing IT, the Hive Mind of Camazotz that assimilates all conscious beings; Meg is able to resist being absorbed by calling upon her belligerence and hatred of conformity.

Live-Action TV

• Andromeda: When the Sabra-Jaguar pride wanted to join the New Commonwealth, their leader used this trope to make his pitch.
  Charlemagne: Here are the three biggest reasons why you shouldn't let us join: we are renowned for our treachery, we're at war with the Drago-Kazov pride, and we will constantly remind you of your genetic inferiority. Now, here are the three biggest reasons why you should let us join: we are renowned for our treachery, we're at war with the Drago-Kazov pride, and did I mention we command the third largest army in existence.
• iCarly: The episode "I Promote Techfoots" has the iCarly crew be given a sponsorship to promote a new pair of sneakers called the Techfoot. The shoes turn out to be terrible, being uncomfortable to wear, easily fall apart, and even burst into flames if overheated. They're unable to get out of their contract, so they get the idea to highlight all of the problems with Techfoot, but present them happily as if they were actual features. The shoe company relents and gets them out of their contract.
• Scrubs: At one point, Turk tries to deny any pride or arrogance as a surgeon. Dr. Cox, who instigated this, reverses course and points out to Turk that cutting into the human body with any skill necessitated those qualities, and pointed to Doug Murphy as an example of just how incompetent a doctor without arrogance or pride can be.
• Kamen Rider OOO: The villians in this one are the embodiment of greed and ambition. However it is also shown that these are necessary things. The fact that the hero Eiji lacks any of his own is pointed out as a bad thing.
• Star Trek: The Original Series: Spock often points out that humans are illogical and irrational. However, there are times he admits that those qualities are necessary.
  • "The Immunity Syndrome" has Spock state that the Vulcan crew of the U.S.S Intrepid would have been incapable of realizing that they were dying without a logical explanation.
  • "I, Mudd": Realizing that the androids were wholly logical, Spock prescribes a hefty dose of human illogic as just the thing to deal with them.
  • Also from "I, Mudd", Chekov discovers that the android girls were programmed by Harry Mudd...which he decides isn't necessarily a bad thing.
    Alice 118: We are programmed to function as human females, lord.
    Chekov: You are?
    Alices: Yes, my lord.
    Chekov: Harry Mudd programmed you?
    Alices: Yes, my lord.
    Chekov: That unprincipled, evil-minded, lecherous kulak Harry Mudd programmed you?
    Alices: Yes, my lord.
    Chekov: This place is even better than Leningrad.
  • "The Enemy Within", after a transporter accident splits Kirk into two people, one good and one evil, it's revealed that his good side isn't capable of command. Spock postulates that it is humanity's faults, tempered by their morals and ethics, that give them the ability to lead.

Music

• Country artist Luke Combs wrote "Beautiful Crazy" for his wife, Nicole. In one interview, a DJ asked him how Nicole feels about the song. When Luke said she loved it, the DJ exclaimed, "I can't believe you called your wife crazy...and got away with it!" The chorus is:
  Beautiful, crazy
  She can't help but amaze me
  The way that she dances
  Ain't afraid to take chances
  And wears her heart on her sleeve
  Yeah, she's crazy
  But her crazy's beautiful to me

Video Games

• In Honkai Impact 3rd, Bronya often calls Kiana an idiot. However, it's phrased in a way to highlight how much Kiana never quits on things until she succeeds.
• Garen, the most prominent Knight in Shining Armor in League of Legends, is occasionally described in-and-out of universe as embodying the worst aspects of his character type. In Legends of Runeterra, he learns to embrace this.
  Garen: You think me rigid. Single-minded. Predictable. I am rigid, for nothing can sway me. I am single-minded, for I believe in Demacia. And I am predictable, for I will surely defeat you.

Webcomics

• Greta of Kevin & Kell is described as too self-absorbed to hold any malice towards anyone.
• Kill Six Billion Demons: The goddess Ys Pree Ashma, also known as Aesma, is reckless, impulsive, stupidly strong, and prone to violence. It's these qualities that mark her as one of YISUN's greatest disciples, as it means she is never content with the state of things and always strives for greater.

Western Animation

• DuckTales (2017): When in a contest against a spirit that feeds on luck, Scrooge shows confidence in Donald against Gladstone, because while Gladstone is born lucky, Donald has never had luck in his life and relies on stubbornness and rage to get the job done.
• Megas XLR: Coop's Achievements in Ignorance are well documented. But in the series finale, he expressed stubborn pride in his ignorance while fighting an evil version of himself.
  Evil Coop: You know you don't stand a chance.
  Coop: I don't know NOTHIN'!

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