Basic Trope: A character who offends people unintentionally.
- Straight: Alice is something of a playful jokester, but because of this, this unintentionally offends those around her.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice tells a lot of funny jokes which lead to everyone horribly lashing out against her.
- Obliviously Evil.
- Not only did Alice have no intentions of hurting others, she was trying to compliment them.
- Bob is suffering from emotional trauma but conceals it due to pride. Various people around him push emotional trigger buttons that they have no idea are there.
- Downplayed:
- Alice tells a lot of jokes which offends some people, but others don't mind them.
- Most of Alice jokes are taken lightly, but she occasionally hits a "sensitive spot" without intending to.
- Alice ends up being More Insulting than Intended.
- Justified:
- Alice isn't socially adept and just wanted to lighten people's moods.
- Alice is The Ditz who doesn't know better.
- Alice is a child not even out of the first decade of her life.
- The victim's sore spot isn't readily apparent.
- Inverted:
- Alice intentionally snarks and insults her friends, but they are all entertained.
- Alice deliberately offends people, but her friends don't follow.
- Subverted:
- It turns out that Alice does intend on hurting others with her jokes.
- When other people finally stepped up and pointed out how hurtful her jokes is, Alice dismissed them as being overly insensitive, tries to play the victim, and refused to stop.
- Double Subverted: ...Except she underestimated the harm she would do with her comments. Even after she is forgiven, she doesn't quit her old habits, though.
- Parodied: Alice verbally abuses her friends and allies, bordering on Dude, Not Funny! territory In-Universe. But the laugh track still plays.
- Zig Zagged: Alice is so unpredictable that nobody ever knows whether she is seriously trying to offend them.
- Averted: Alice's jokes meant to hurt anyone, and she couldn't care less how they feel about them.
- Enforced: "I want to give Alice a trait that makes Her an Idiot Hero. Let's have her insult people without her knowing it."
- Lampshaded: "Come on. I never meant to hurt anyone's feelings!"
- Invoked: "Just Joking" Justification, or profuse apologizing.
- Exploited: Alice's enemies convince her friends that she is deliberately being a jerk.
- Defied: "Just because you didn't mean to, doesn't excuse it, Alice!"
- Discussed: "I think Alice needs to quit joking and realize she's hurting others."
- Conversed: "Alice sure can't go at least one episode in unintentionally offending others."
- Implied: Before Alice is seen on screen, Bob outright calls her The Friend Nobody Likes. Somebody else comments that Bob could learn to like her if he didn't judge people so harshly for minor remarks. When we actually meet Alice, she seems like a fairly decent person.
- Deconstructed:
- Alice has offended people, so she makes time to seek reconciliation, but doing that has resulted in their emotional wounds to open up even more. If people still treat Alice like a jerk, then let her be a jerk. Or worse.
- Alice is aware that she offends people, but only after the fact, and develops quite a complex about it. She eventually becomes afraid of speaking, worrying she's going to offend someone by accident again.
- Even though Alice is apologetic for her insensitive comments, Bob can't find it within himself to forgive her, and the fact she wasn't even aware of what she was saying was cruel makes Bob even more bitter.
- Alice ends up offending the wrong person and gets in trouble.
- Reconstructed: Alice is sociable enough that she can find other people who take her jokes more in stride, or at least can ignore them in favor of her more positive qualities, without going down the slippery slope.
- Played For Laughs: Alice is an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist who's clueless about how to be nice to people and be friends with them. Regardless, the characters and the audience still love her.
- Played For Drama: Alice's behavior leaves her a very lonely Woobie. The Woobie part is made worse by her having No Social Skills at all, and not realizing why nobody wants to hang out with her.
Back to Innocently Insensitive, you big dummy!
