You Are Better Than You Think You Are / Live-Action TV

Times where somebody tells another that "You Are Better Than You Think You Are" in Live-Action TV series.

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By Series:

• Angel gets several of these from Buffy, Wesley, and others across the course of his run on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and his own show. A notable one comes in "Somnambulist", when Cordelia convinces him he's better than Angelus or Penn, while cheerfully agreeing to "kill [him] dead" if he ever does become Angelus again.
  • A rather dark version comes from Wesley when he assures Angel that he's a man with a demon inside him, not the other way around, and can come back from the transformation he'll need to make to win the fight Wesley is sending him into (due to the dimension they're in he becomes the demon itself instead of just getting a Game Face). Once Angel is gone Gunn asks him if he's really sure about that, and Wesley replies that he "needs him to think it." It's true though.
• Arrowverse:
  • Oliver, her father, and finally Laurel try to convince Sara on Arrow that she's not a bad person, but she refuses to believe them until she overhears a cop referring to her as a hero for going into a burning building to rescue a child.
    • When Oliver is skirting the Despair Event Horizon in "Streets of Fire", the penultimate episode of Season 2, Felicity snaps him out of it with a combination of You Are Not Alone and this trope:
      Felicity: Malcolm Merlyn, the Count, the Clock King, the triad, everyone who has tried to hurt this city, you stopped them! And you will stop Slade.
    • In the Season 5 episode "Disbanded", Oliver has soared past the Despair Event Horizon due to Prometheus' physical and psychological torture in the previous episode convincing him that he's a monster. Diggle refuses to let him wallow in this:
      Dig: You can tell me that you're a serial killer, or that you're crazy, or you're whatever Chase has shoved into your head, but I'm not believing that even if you do. And that is because I know the kind of man you are Oliver. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I know! And you don't need to punish yourself or isolate yourself. But what you need to do is stop pushing me away. Because I am NOT going anywhere, Oliver! Do you get that?!
  • The Flash (2014): Barry, when he meets Magenta, manages to talk her out of killing her abusive dad and everyone else in the hospital with one of these.
    Barry: This isn't the way. Your foster father never forgave himself for his mistakes, that's why he took them out on you, he couldn't face who he is, he couldn't move forward. But you can.
  • Supergirl (2015) has a depowered Kara doing this in order to get a looter to disarm himself during the aftermath of an earthquake.
• Buffy tells Spike this in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Never Leave Me":
  You faced the monster inside of you and you fought back. You risked everything to be a better man. And you can be. You are. You may not see it, but I do. I do. I believe in you, Spike.
  • Later on, in "Touched", Spike returns the speech, comforting a very demotivated Buffy:
    When I say, 'I love you', it's not because I want you or because I can't have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman.
    I don't exactly have the reputation of being a thinker. I follow my blood, which doesn't exactly rush in the direction of my head. So I've made a lot of mistakes. A lot of wrong bloody calls. A hundred-plus years, only one thing I've ever been sure of. You.
• Chernobyl: In the final episode, during a recess of the show trial for the three responsible parties that lead to the Reactor 4 explosion and meltdown, scientist Valery Legasov and party official Boris Shcherbina, who were tasked with supervising the disaster and its cleanup along with mitigating any further catastrophe, sit in the abandoned town of Chernobyl and ponder how much good they really managed to do amid the Soviet Union's constant push for secrecy and denial of accountability. When Shcherbina despondently grouses that he never amounted to anything of actual value within the party and is now dying of radiation poisoning with nothing to show for it, Legasov invokes this trope in one of the series' most poignant moments:
  Shcherbina: I'm an inconsequential man Valera. That's all I've ever been. I hoped one day that I would matter, but I didn't. I just stood next to people who did.
  Legasov: There are other scientists like me. Any one of them could have done what I did. But you... Everything we asked for, everything we needed. Men. Material. Lunar rovers? Who else could have done those things? They heard me, but they listened to you. Of all the ministers and all the deputies, the entire congregation of obedient fools, they mistakenly sent us the one good man. For god's sake Boris, you were the one who mattered most.
• Chuck: Said to Chuck in the second season finale when he feels he doesn't have what it takes to be a spy and save the world on a full-time basis:
  Chuck: You belong out there, saving the world. I'm just... I'm just not that guy.
  Sarah: How many times do you have to be a hero to realize that you are that guy?
• Parodied and subverted in the first episode of Community, where Amoral Attorney Jeff Winger uses a speech like this to manipulate his fellow students in the study group. He goes on to do this so much throughout the series that the other characters eventually deem it "the Winger speech."
• CSI: NY: At the end of the arc of serial killer Shane Casey in "The 34th Floor," Lindsay is given a medal for having killed him. Later, she has a bit of a breakdown and runs up to the roof of the Lab's high-rise. In turn, Mac and Danny arrive to comfort and reassure her. Mac tells her she has the spirit of a warrior which can't be broken and that, whether she realizes it or not, she is coming to terms with the fact that she killed another person. Danny tells her she's his hero... not for the life she took, that of a crazed serial killer, but for the life she saved, that of their daughter Lucy, whom she'd rescued from Casey.
• The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance: Deet, after Hup tells her he can't be a Paladin if he couldn't save Rian from skekMal the Hunter, tells him he's already on his way to being a Paladin. After all, he saved her from the Spitter Arathim, the two bully Stonewood Gelflings and the gobbles.
• In Season 5 of Dexter, Deborah cries and claims that Dexter has always been the strong one of the family. Her coworker protests, telling her he thinks it's the opposite.
  • Deb also tries to assure Dexter that he's a good person despite his protests to the contrary. Of course, she doesn't know the real reason he is saying this...
• Dinnerladies: A major part of Bren's character development is her overcoming her self-disliking tendencies that came from her abusive childhood; through her friendship with the rest of the team and especially through her romance with Tony.
• Doctor Who:
  • "The Satan Pit": The Doctor counters the Beast's "Reason You Suck" Speech with this, pointing out to the others that the villain is playing on basic fears to try and unnerve them, and that working together, they can defeat him because he is alone, but they are not.
  • "The Shakespeare Code": Faced with the burden of crafting words powerful enough to bind the Carrionites back into their prison, Shakespeare has a brief moment of crisis when the Doctor boosts him back up by telling him he is the one true genius capable of stopping them.
  • Donna Noble has always had a bit of low self-esteem. She had a perfectly normal life as a temp in Chiswick until the whole "teleported to the TARDIS to fight the Racnoss on her wedding day" thing. Later, after she joins the Doctor, she still believes herself to be normal but gets cocky. However, she is still unwilling to accept that she is the most important person ever. Rose Tyler crosses dimensions to tell her this and yet she continues to deny it. After she is reborn as the Doctor-Donna she gets a new level of confidence. Sadly, after Donna saves all reality... not an exaggeration... she can't recall her time with the Doctor or she will die.
  • "The Next Doctor": Once the Doctor reveals that the title character isn't really the Doctor but in fact Jackson Lake, Jackson (understandably) starts believing that he's just a fool playing at being the hero and comes to the immediate conclusion that a) he's been living a lie (which he has, sort of) and b) that all of his bravery while being "The Doctor" was just a farce. The Doctor is quite quick to disprove the latter and, to an extent, the former: the infostamp that made Jackson think he was the Doctor only had facts and figures. The bravery was all Jackson himself, and he did a pretty good job of it.
  • "The Wedding of River Song": Even the Doctor gets one of these. After having destroyed his entire species to save the universe, seen countless friends and family die, and come to the conclusion that the universe is better off without him, he tries to distance himself from everyone. River Song tells him that he's being stupid, and there are literally billions of people throughout time and space who think the universe is better because of him.
  • "Listen": The Doctor gives a quietly rousing speech to a scared little boy about how fear makes you stronger than you could imagine. We find out at the end of the episode that Clara gave him that speech when he was a little boy who didn't have the grades to become a Time Lord, inspiring him to become the universe's greatest hero.
  • "The Tsuranga Conundrum": Astos' last words are telling his junior colleague Mabli that she is this.
    "You can do this, Mabli. I believe in you. I always have."
• Farscape episode 1 has John telling Aeryn that she can be more than just a mindless soldier.
• In "After Dark" from The Flight Attendant, before resigning from her law firm, Annie tries to give this to her assistant, Jennifer, telling her that she never should have allowed to her to call her "Jessica," telling her that names are important and that her name should actually be pronounced "Ah-nie," but when she was a kid the other kids kept pronouncing it "Ann-ie" and she finally gave up trying to correct them. She says that she shouldn't allow other people to tell her who she is, but Jennifer says that she doesn't think she can just become a "Jessica" and she'll miss working with her.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: In "Not With My Pig, You Don't", Phil's mother Patty visits and tells Will stories about "Zeke's" life on their farm in Yamacraw, and Will tells them to a reporter who is writing a story about Phil's life in honor of him receiving an Urban Spirit Award. Phil is angry at him for spoiling his image those embarrassing stories, but Patty overhears them and is furious that he'd be ashamed of his upbringing. At the reception, a depressed Phil goes into the bathroom and Will goes to tell him that some of those stories were really great, such as him being the first black president of the Young Farmer's Association, and he gets him to realize that he had a fine boyhood.
• Friends:
  • In Season 2, Chandler's fears for his future are reinforced when he learns how much he has in common with the gang's bitter downstairs neighbor Mr Heckles, but the others assure him that he's better than Heckles because his decision to call Janice (his most consistent but most annoying ex-lover) shows that Chandler genuinely wants to be with someone.
  • In Season 5, Chandler tries to apologize to Monica after a fight but almost gives up admitting how bad he is with relationships. She kisses him, quotes the trope word for word and their fight is forgotten.
  • In Season 8, Rachel panics during her baby shower when she realizes she doesn't know a single thing about raising a baby and is worried that she'll be a terrible mother. Ross relates how worried he was when his first child was born and how he was able to grow into taking care of him and likewise quotes this trope word for word for Rachel to tell her she that she's underestimating herself, reminding her of how she went from being a spoiled Daddy's Girl to an independent woman with a career.
• In a Gilligan's Island episode, Gilligan sees his likeness on a native totem pole and comes to believe that he is descended from headhunters and is doomed to become a headhunter himself. The Professor convinces him otherwise by offering up his own head as Gilligan's first prize; when Gilligan cannot bring himself to do the deed, he realizes he doesn't have the headhunting instinct after all and returns to normal.
• Rachel tells Quinn this in Glee, most notably during prom.
  • Quinn also tells Rachel this in original song, implying that they may not hate each other quite as much as they make out to. (cough les yay cough cough)
• In Episode 3 of The Glee Project, Cameron tells Alex he's proud of him.
• Jennifer Morrison was on the other end of such exchanges when she played Cameron on House. As part of House's conscience, she did her best to keep him from pulling crazy stunts, but she also tried to lift him up when he ran himself down unnecessarily. To take one memorable example: halfway through Season 3, Eve, a rape victim, comes into the clinic and insists that House be her physician. Discussing the matter with his team, House avers that he's "useless at this sort of thing." Without missing a beat, Cameron responds "No, you're not." And while House looks confused, and even a bit scared, to hear that, he looks more than a little angry when Chase disagrees. Incidentally, Cameron's right: the episode ends with Eve opening up to House about the rape, which she had earlier refused to talk about even to a trained psychiatrist.
• The InBESTigators: When Ezra is demoralized by bullying comments during the young small business competition in "The Case of the Distracted Detective", his friends all point out that he's the reason the Inbestigators exist and that they would have no reason to be at the competition without him.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: When Nori demands the Stranger to fight against the worshippers of Sauron, he refuses believing its in his nature to hurt the innocent ones. Nori disagrees and tells him that only he can chose what he is and what he can do.
  Nori: You're here to help. I know it.
• Though it's never explicit, this trope's subtext is definitely present in Merlin where it's hinted that Arthur, despite his arrogance, suffers from low self-esteem thanks to the high expectations of his father. It's usually Merlin and Guinevere who provide the moral support needed for him to really embrace his role as a leader and future king.
• Odd Squad:
  • In "Mid-Day in the Garden of Good and Odd", Otis gives a speech to a Reformed, but Not Tamed Odd Todd who is being corrupted by the evil that still resides within him. Otis reminds him of his gardening duties and how good he is at gardening, and even eats the tomato that Odd Todd gave him as a "Begone" Bribe earlier. This manages to leave him mentally exhausted enough to collapse in Otis's arms and complete his Heel–Face Turn.
  • At the end of "Oscar Strikes Back", Oprah gives some words to Oscar following his promotion to President of the Scientists as he's hesitant about his new rank in Odd Squad.
  Oscar: I don't want to not see you every day.
  Oprah: Me neither. But they need you here. And, I'll visit you. You'll visit me. We'll hang out all the time. Go. [puts her hand on Oscar's shoulder] Be the leader I know you are.
  • In "The Scientist", Oona gives some inspiring words to herself when she decides to retrieve gadget #89 from the lab and fight off a giant plant invading Precinct 13579 in the alternate dimension, stating that she's always believed in herself.
  • In "Portalandia", Opal tells Orla this when the ancient warrior agent believes that she's bought another faulty portal kit from the Portal Master store.
  Opal: You can do this! You may be a brave, strong warrior, but your most powerful muscle is your brain!
  Oswald: Technically, your brain is an organ.
  • In "The Thrill of the Face", after Opal and Omar get turned to stone by the Piedro de Guerrero, Oswald's facade of bravery cracks and he refuses to go with Orla to retrieve box #13, stating that he belongs behind a desk like his twin brother and that working behind desks is In the Blood. Orla reiterates what she told Oswald at the beginning of the episode, that it's okay to be afraid, and tells him that he needs to start believing in himself just as she and the rest of the Mobile Unit does, which spurs newfound confidence in him.
  • In the mid-Season 3 finale, "End of the Road", Opal attempts to get The Shadow, now known as her younger sister Olizabeth, to pull a Heel–Face Turn and apologize for being too overprotective. One of the things she does is tell her that she always knew the villainess could do whatever she wanted and that she's the smartest person Opal knows. The Shadow doesn't see the truth in her words, though, as she believes Opal's simply saying that to stop her from setting her Evil Plan into motion and destroying Odd Squad, but eventually does get swayed to the side of good once Opal shows her a Captain's Log she's been storing up.
• On Once Upon a Time, Emma eventually comes to realize her role in breaking the Dark Curse was all according to Rumplestiltskin's plan. When she talks to Rumplestiltskin about that, he denies credit for what she's done, saying he simply knew what she would be able to do and planned accordingly. And her recent victory over Cora was all her doing.
• Our Flag Means Death: The end of episode 5 has this in an exchange between pirates Stede Bonnet and Edward "Blackbeard" Teach after a failed attempt to introduce Ed to high society. Ed is seen still in his fancy garb from the night, peering over the moonlit water with thoughts of his lower class upbringing firmly on his mind as he caresses a piece of fine red silk he's held onto since his childhood as a memento of his mother, when Stede approaches to give him some encouraging words. When Ed seems reticent at the idea he could ever fit into a different social circle than the one he currently occupies, Stede takes the piece of silk and folds it so that it fits neatly and elegantly into Ed's breast pocket. While Ed contemplates this gesture in stunned silence, Stede invokes this trope in one of the show's most heartwarming and romantic moments:
  Stede: You wear fine things well.
• Sherlock: Despite those bloody-awful social skills Sherlock had to tell John twice that he was awesome, and it took a freaking speech for John to realize just how awesome he was.
• In Smallville, other than the page quote, in "Fracture", Clark tells Alexander/Lex's good side that he is stronger than he thinks.
• Stargate SG-1:
  • An ascended Daniel tells this to an imprisoned Jack in "Abyss" after Jack outright admits to him that deep down he thinks he's just not worthy of ascension.
  • Just as Jonas is about to leave the SGC for home, Jack tells him this in no uncertain terms.
    Jack: You earned it.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
  • In "The Measure Of A Man", Riker is forced to argue that Data should be considered Starfleet's property, lest the judge rule summarily against the android. Riker gives an excellent argument for his side. Despite losing the case, Riker feels like a traitor for arguing against his friend. However, Data explains that he is deeply grateful to him for agreeing to prosecute, since if he had not, Data would have had no chance of victory.
  Data: That action injured you and saved me. I will not forget it.
  • Picard gives a speech like this to Wesley at the end of "Coming of Age" after Wesley fails his Starfleet Entrance exam, going so far as to confide in Wesley that even he didn't pass the first time. More than likely, this conversation went a long way towards convincing him to reapply.
  • In Descent, Part 2, Hugh wonders if the newly-individualized Borg will ever be able to work together and retain their individuality now that they are leaderless. Picard points out that they have a leader in Hugh. Hugh seems reluctant to accept this but when we meet him in Star Trek: Picard decades later, he is Executive Director of the Borg Reclaimation Project and has dedicated his life to aiding former Borg.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In the episode "Hard Time", O'Brien is tormented by memories from a decades-long (but simulated in minutes) prison sentence in which he killed his cellmate after finding the stash of food he'd been keeping while they were starved by the guards, not realizing it was meant for both of them until after O'Brien had killed him, driving him to the brink of suicide. When Bashir came to talk him down, O'Brien confided that he felt like he was little more than a violent animal, but Bashir assured him that an animal wouldn't feel the guilt and grief he was feeling.
• In the second part of the second season finale of Supernatural, Bobby says this to Dean after he revealed that he made a Deal with the Devil in order to bring Sam back to life that would drag him to hell in a year's time saying that he believed that his life actually had a meaning at that point since his dad John had made the same deal to save his life earlier in the season. Bobby's response to Dean was how he could possibly have such a low opinion of himself.
  • Dean gets this again in Season 8 when he insists that he be the one to go through a set of trials to close the gates of Hell forever, a task that he imagines will be dangerous and potentially deadly. His reasoning is that Sam is smarter than he is and more capable of having a normal life, so he's the one who should get away from everything and survive, and that will make Dean happy. Sam tells him he's a genius who should want to live, and that Sam believes in him.
  • Castiel also gets a taste of this in Season 9, courtesy of some fellow angels. With the angels locked out of Heaven and multiple factions engaging in brutal feuds with each other, Castiel wants the fighting to stop but is severely disheartened by the actions of his kin and deeply regretful of his own past actions, some of which are actually being used as the current villains' inspiration. Castiel outright states that he is nothing, and when an angel approaches and wants to follow him, he says he's not a leader. He is told that he is a leader, and more than one angel has shown up wanting to join him.
• The Twilight Zone (1959): In "The Changing of the Guard", Professor Ellis Fowler may not have saved any lives directly but his teachings inspired others to save many lives.
• Walker, Texas Ranger has these moments:
  • Season 6's "In God's Hands" had Trivette being placed on administrative leave after he is accused of shooting a six-year-old boy who was caught in the crossfire, while Walker tries to prove that the bullet came from the Villain of the Week's gun. Trivette gets it not once, but twice. Walker is able to snap Trivette out of his Heroic BSoD and he agrees to revisit the scene of the crime, then while goes out for a run to clear his head beforehand, the victim's vengeful older brother is about to shoot and kill him after buying a gun from an unlicensed seller, but quickly relents at the last minute when Trivette runs into a mounted police officer on horseback, who also believes he is innocent, stating this sort of thing has likely happened before and is considered the worst nightmare of every law enforcement officer. Hence, the mounted officer and everyone in his department are in his corner.
  • In Season 8's "Rise to the Occasion", Walker did this to 12-year-old Henry Monroe, who decided to kill himself due to his poverty-stricken life and relentless bullying. Walker sadly fails, but then decides to turn his sadness into action to help improve the reputations of the students and the school itself so they don't suffer the same outcome Henry did. Another thing that helps is the background song played throughout the episode:
    You're stronger than you think you are
    You'll shine If you just follow your star
    You can do even more than you know
    But you got to believe that's so
    A life worth saving.
• A literal version in The Walking Dead; Carol comes to thank Darryl for his efforts to find Sophia.
  Carol: You're every bit as good as them. Every bit.

TV Movies:

• This is the Feminist message of the Daryl Hannah Made-for-TV Movie remake of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman:
  "You're better than they are. You're smarter than they are. And you know more than you think. We all do."

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