Basic Trope: A genuinely good character is a Jerkass.
- Straight: Amazing Girl routinely saves the people of Trope City from the actions of Emperor Evulz. However, she doesn't like interacting with people.
- Exaggerated:
- Amazing Girl seems like an example of Incorruptible Pure Pureness; however, it's revealed she hates being around people.
- Amazing Girl is constantly abusive to people and highly abrasive, but has done a ton of good deeds and doesn't consider herself a bad person.
- Amazing Girl’s principles and ideals are solid as steel and unambiguously good, but the way she enforces them is so vicious and brutal that even the most blood-thirsty of her allies is scared of her.
- The only kindness Amazing Girl ever shows is the feigned kindness towards her enemies.
- Amazing Girl is a Sociopathic Hero.
- Downplayed:
- Amazing Girl saves the day on regular basis. But when someone ask her autograph, she rudely says she doesn't do that.
- While Amazing Girl is nice, she tends to grab the Jerkass Ball on occasions. Sometimes she acts like a jerk to get ahead in life.
- Amazing Girl isn't rude or cruel, but is far too aloof and serious to be nice.
- Amazing Girl may be rude and condescending for a hero, but shows her soft interior every now and then.
- Good Is Not Soft
- Justified:
- Amazing Girl doesn't view politeness or civility as part of her job description.
- Amazing Girl can save lives or sign autographs and opts for the first.
- Amazing Girl is only a superheroine because she feels that she's obligated to use her powers for good. She doesn't enjoy it at all, and wishes she had a normal life, but it's not like she can see a burning building and just ignore the people trapped inside it.
- Amazing Girl is the team disciplinarian. Being nice is all very well for The Captain. But someone has to do her job.
- Amazing Girl has spent years developing and learning how to use her powers and has no idea how to socialize. She doesn't mean to seem rude. That is just how she is.
- Amazing Girl used to be a villain. Just because she's now a hero doesn't mean she has changed her behavior.
- Amazing Girl is a person in an idealistic, bright-colored environment that can come across as being the Sour Supporter with a Jade-Colored Glasses and a cynical attitude towards society.
- Amazing Girl feels that being nice would cause others to take advantage of her.
- Amazing Girl is a Lawful Good heroine who values human life, justice, and the law, but sees manners as a hindrance to upholding morality.
- Amazing Girl is a Chaotic Good Rebellious Spirit who values human life, justice, and freedom, but sees manners as just another cultural border and having no real value.
- Amazing Girl has a strong moral fiber; but is irritable, cynical, and jaded.
- Amazing Girl lives by moral values that are different from others.
- Amazing Girl lives in a Crapsack World full of corruption, selfishness, and evil. Because of this, she became harsh, misanthropic, and unforgiving towards everyone around her, even those who are nowhere near evil.
- Amazing Girl sees herself as morally superior and looks down on other people who aren't as moral as she is. And just because she's a jerk doesn't mean she's wrong.
- Amazing Girl had a Dark and Troubled Past (i.e., she lost her family at a young age or she was abused by them). Her harsh attitude is her way of coping with her rough childhood.
- Amazing Girl happens to be Surrounded by Idiots; as all her teammates, besides her, are less than brilliant to say the least.
- Amazing Girl gets nervous around people. The idea of punching a missile head-on to save the city? Doesn't scare her at all. The idea of then facing the people she saved and receiving their thanks? That terrifies her.
- Amazing Girl is worried someone will recognize her through the mask, and never sticks around long enough for anyone to work out who she is.
- Amazing Girl is just burnt out. Sure, her Chronic Hero Syndrome keeps her from giving up on hero work entirely, but she skips the much-less-necessary niceness because she just doesn't have the energy for it anymore.
- Amazing Girl has been in too many Cruel to Be Kind situations to get out of the mindset.
- Amazing Girl is an Anti-Hero through and through.
- Inverted:
- The villain is obviously a douchebag.
- Affably Evil
- Evil Is Not Mean; Kira works for Emperor Evulz, does plenty of crimes and puts a lot of people in danger, however she's very nice for a villain and hangs out with Amazing Girl.
- Nice Is Not Good; Angela, even though she's an angel, she's downright evil despite the fact that there's not a mean bone in her body.
- Faux Affably Evil, where the villain is a bigger Jerkass while acting nice.
- Good Is Nice; Amazing Girl is unfailingly polite, simply out of sheer benevolence. Of course, that still doesn't mean she's harmless...
- Amazing Girl is a Hero with Bad Publicity who’s constantly mistreated by the jerkass citizens she saves/protects.
- Subverted:
- Amazing Girl seems like she'll be the type of person to be heroic yet antisocial. However, after stopping Evulz's plans, she sticks around to sign autographs and chat with people, and arrange counselling for Emperor Evulz's wife, children, and the minions who loved him.
- Amazing Girl was a case of this trope but she realized that her personality issues were causing a lot of problems in her life. After all, just because she hasn't really done a Face–Heel Turn doesn't mean that what she is doing is okay, so she tries to stop her personality problems before things get worse.
- Actually, Amazing Girl is willing to do nasty deeds which is likely to injure numerous of innocent individuals unnecessarily and viciously by the excuse of ‘morally righteous’ regularly. Thus, she is nothing but delusional.
- Double Subverted:
- That was a one-time thing. Most of the time, she's as antisocial as they come.
- Amazing Girl end up does something right which keep the civilian from more dangerous disasters. After all, she’s still fundamentally a good person.
- Parodied:
- It becomes clear that Amazing Girl is only acting this way to cultivate a (cliched) "brooding loner" image/reputation.
- Amazing Girl is a hero because she bullies around a helpless Dracone, who is, by definition, a villain.
- In a Crapsaccharine World full of heroes, villains, and people who are neutral, being nice, polite, gentle, friendly, and merciful is heinous, while being rude, harsh, unforgiving, angry, condescending, and violent is honorable.
- Or:
- Zig Zagged:
- Her attitude is dependent on her mood. If she's having a good day, she'll stop and chat with you as if you were old friends. If she's in a bad mood, she'll be antisocial.
- Sometimes, Good Is Not Nice, but sometimes Good Is Nice.
- Averted:
- Good is nice.
- Alternatively, Good is neither nice nor mean.
- No correlation, positive or negative, is made between being Nice and being Good.
- Amazing Girl is an amoral Jerkass who coincidentally sides with a group of heroes.
- Good is nice.
- Enforced:
- "Alright, we need this new hero to have a flaw. Let's make her a real jerk!"
- The author wanted to make point about how morality doesn't entail being nice and vice-versa (i.e., how a person must be Cruel to Be Kind and how person must treat others with Tough Love).
- "I'm tired of nice, soft-hearted heroes. Let's prove that nice heroes finish last and mean heroes get the job done!"
- The author wants to make a foil for the Affably Evil Emperor Evulz.
- Lampshaded:
- "Just because I'm the good person doesn't mean I'm a nice one, you got it fuckhead?!"
- "Amazing Girl isn't a nice person." "But she's still a good person." "Of course morons like you would defend someone with such a crappy attitude."
- "Amazing Girl'll have to do better than that to get me to care about her heroic aspects."
- Invoked:
- Amazing Girl, when starting out, is nice to people and that puts them in harm's way. So...
- After seeing how annoying a super hero's popularity is, she pretends to be a jerk to avoid the unwanted attention.
- Amazing Girl's mentor gives her a test to see whether or not she is qualified in being good by placing her in a Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand dilemma; Will she save a life by being cruel and harsh to them or will she be nice to them which will lead them into danger?
- Exploited:
- A villain tries to show how mean Amazing Girl can be, to make her into a Hero with Bad Publicity.
- Amazing Girl actively manipulates others' perceptions of her this way, so she can slack off and enjoy a day to herself every now and then.
- Defied:
- "You know what? I don't care if I have to save them. They're still my friends."
- Well at least Amazing Girl is not a total villain... So what? She is still not a good person!
- "If that kind of behavior's a benchmark in heroism, then it's "yay neutrality" for me."
- "Would it kill you to not be such a bitch? ...know what? Screw it. It is gonna kill you."
- "Alice, you need to chill out. If you're not careful about how you treat people, you won't like how they react."
- The other heroes take Alice aside and lay down an ultimatum: either she stows the attitude, or they kick her out...or just plain kick her, and there's no guarantee that they'll stop if they do so.
- Discussed: "That Amazing Girl is such a great hero. Do you think she's a jerk? It happens all the time in comics."
- Conversed:
- "Why's the Amazing Girl so mean in this comic?"
- "Man! With her attitude, it's a wonder the people she saved didn't just move town after putting up with her."
- "What was the writer smoking when they developed this psycho!?"
- Implied: Captain Justice and the other heroes asks the kids to vote who is their favorite hero. In the results, Amazing Girl is the only one to have zero votes.
- Deconstructed:
- Amazing Girl's lack of desire to be around people eventually comes to a head and she decides to stop saving people - she's done with the gig.
- Amazing Girl's negative attributes seem to be a lot more apparent than her good ones up to a point where the idea of her being good is really losing any sense of credibility.
- Others are driven away from Amazing Girl and hoped that she won't save them ever again due to her rudeness as a hero. In short: Amazing Girl is now an outcast of society, all because of her behavior.
- Even though Amazing Girl is a known hero, her jerkassery really rubs people the wrong way, and so they consider her to be just as bad as her enemies. She has a Jerkass Realization and apologizes for her abusive attitude, but is never forgiven for it.
- Amazing Girl's heroisms mixed with negative attributes changes the public's opinion on her, viewing her as a villain. She then decides to become a villain and prove them right.
- Being a jerkass hero means that Alice will never face the consequences of her actions because she’s doing good deeds 24/7 in spite of her jerkassery, which not only allows her to evade punishment against all odds, but helps her get rewarded.
- Reconstructed:
- She eventually gets over it and starts rescuing people again.
- She's not really asocial/anti-social so much as very mean to people who deserve it.
- The story tries really hard to justify Amazing Girl's more negative aspects.
- The story does understand that Amazing Girl's more negative attributes are not exactly justified but does plead that it would be immoral to ignore her more heroic aspects as well.
- She couldn't care less what others think about her attitude and behavior and continues to save the day whether they like it or not.
- After a fashion: The next Big Bad who comes out of the woodwork and turns every member of her family he can get his hands on into hamburger meat makes perfectly clear that he did that specific act of brutality because Amazing Girl is an Alpha Bitch shielding herself behind being a superhero — if she was an actual hero with the mentality to match, he would not have done that. Whatever course Amazing Girl takes afterwards, it shall begin with her swallowing that piece of humble pie.
- Played For Laughs:
- Alice is an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist.
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath
- Played For Drama:
- Claire, a Wide-Eyed Idealist kind of girl, has been a big fan of Amazing Girl ever since she was younger, but when she realizes how rude and hostile she is to her, she becomes Amazing Girl's Arch-Enemy because of the inflicted heartbreak and disappointment.
- Alice's heroic and Jerkass traits are in continual conflict, which causes a great deal of mental instability and greatly harms her reputation, both in-universe and out of it.
- Alice is like this because of her Dark and Troubled Past.
- Played For Horror: Going through a near death experience experience traumatized Bob, and having his rescuer promptly scold him for "being stupid", only pushes him further over the edge.
- Plotted a Good Waste: In a story with a Villain Protagonist, the Hero Antagonist is made as mean as possible so that people will root for the protagonist despite being evil.
Wanna serve the Greater Good? Then get your ass back to Good Is Not Nice!
