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Basic Trope: The hero happens to be a bigot.

  • Straight: Despite being willing to fight bad people and save lives, Bob is also racist.
  • Exaggerated:
    • Bob is such a bigot that he's barely any better than the villains he fights.
    • Bob refuses to work with foreigners and anyone that isn't his own race, often speaks out racial slurs every second and thinks that all women should Stay in the Kitchen. However, he's still an honourable person who's willing to sacrifice his own life to protect his homeland and his companions.
    • Bob talks about Capitalism Is Bad but gets mislabeled as a Dirty Communist by everyone.
  • Downplayed:
    • Bob isn't exactly un-PC, but he sometimes has trouble understanding that stereotypes are not always true.
    • Bob isn't truly a bigot. He just does not care if he deliberately or accidentally offends someone.
    • Bob still has a long way to go, but he is at least trying to be more accepting towards others.
    • Bob is incredibly racist and intolerant... against nonhuman creatures, like aliens, demons, and vampires, regardless if they're Always Chaotic Evil.
    • Bob is Innocently Insensitive and had a close-minded upbringing, so sometimes he says some pretty offensive things out of lack of tact, but he means no malice with it.
    • Bob enjoys telling and hearing offensive jokes.
  • Justified:
  • Inverted:
  • Subverted:
  • Double Subverted:
  • Parodied: Bob rescues Mike while yelling slurs at him. Mike gets fed up with Bob's bigoted crap and socks him in the face.
  • Zig-Zagged:
    • Bob's un-PC tendencies vary depending on what minority he's dealing with, and he either learns not to be so close-minded or remains bigoted toward that minority.
    • During some episodes Bob is a heroic and reliable member of the team, despite his bigoted tendencies. Other episodes focus on the groups internal conflicts, where Bob is essentially the villain of the story.
  • Averted: No heroic characters demonstrate any form of bigotry or prejudice.
  • Enforced:
  • Lampshaded: "Bob, how can such an otherwise nice person as you be full of such unacceptable bigotry?"
  • Invoked: Bob helps several members of minority communities, but they treat him shabbily afterwards because they hate people like him, so he decides to respond in kind.
  • Exploited: The villain tries to ruin the hero's reputation by spreading rumors that the hero is a bigot.
  • Defied:
    • Bob refuses to be bigoted and makes an effort to be more tolerant toward groups he doesn't understand, beginning with learning more about them.
    • The other members of Bob's team teach him to respect minorities.
  • Discussed: "So Bob saves Mike's life, and he has the gall to joke about his sexual orientation. This Is Unforgivable!"
  • Conversed: "I find it hard to root for Bob if he's going to keep being mean to gay and black people and treating women like objects."
  • Implied:
    • Bob, a heterosexual white male, is shown to be cordial toward white straight males and is distant at best towards anyone who isn't white, straight, or male.
  • Deconstructed: Bob's bigotry causes him to become a Hero with Bad Publicity due to more open-minded people being disgusted with how he treats minorities, allowing the Politically Correct Villain to gain more influence.
  • Reconstructed: While Bob's bigotry isn't excused, the people give him credit for doing the right thing and being, for the most part, much more respectful toward minorities than the villains are.
  • Played for Laughs:
  • Played for Drama:
    • Bob gains a Misaimed Fandom of far-right terrorists. He is horrified.
    • Bob is currently fighting a Politically Correct Villain, and risks exposing his own prejudices to the civilians around him is he opposes the villain.
    • Over time Bob's bigoted views begin to decline as he becomes a hero, until he comes across a villain that belongs to a minority and embodies all the worst traits of his ethnicity. Bob begins to feel that his earlier prejudices were justified, which causes him to doubt his own growth.
    • Bob mistakes a black civilian for a criminal and kills him.

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