History Characters / ForrestGump

* IdiotHoudini: Forrest is cognitively impaired, yet all his decisions lead to success, wealth and fame. He becomes a star footballer just by running into a stadium during a match. He survives an ambush and napalm strike in Vietnam, saving some of his fellow soldiers, and emerges with nothing more than a stray bullet in the ass. He becomes a world table tennis champion because he was bored while recovering from his bullet wound and wanted to occupy himself. He makes millions as a shrimp boat captain despite having no skills, experience or success until a freak storm wipes out the local industry leaving him and his boat miraculously unscathed. He inspires the creation of the smiley face and the phrase "shit happens." He meets three different presidents ''and'' exposes the Watergate break-in by pure accident. He fumbles and stumbles through life pursuing on a whim whatever seems like a good idea at the time, yet nothing he ever does throughout the film leads to negative consequences for him.

* IronicName: Despite being named after and descended from the founder of the KKK, Forrest lacks any sense of bigotry in spite of being a Southerner in the pre-Civil Rights era and treats everyone with basic respect.

* HiddenDepths: Following his joining Forrest's shrimp company, Dan shows himself to be a very shrewd businessman. Making it into a major fishing firm and he's sharp enough to invest some of the profits into Apple Computers, amking both himself and Forrest extremely wealthy to the point that neither ever has to worry about money again.

* DisabledLoveInterest: [[spoiler:His last appearance shows Dan engaged to a Vietnamese woman named Susan]].

* HeterosexualLifePartners: He and Forrest seemed destined to be this [[spoiler:until his death.]]

* PresentAbsence: Forrest ''never'' forgets Bubba. He dedicates a good chunk of his life to realising Bubba's dream of starting a shrimp fishing business, co-names the company after him, and cuts Bubba's family in on the profits generated to help them out of poverty.

* HandicappedBadass: Losing his legs doesn't make him any less of a badass while working alongside Forrest in the shrimping business.

* DeathSeeker: He's had a family member die in every single war America has fought in, and thus feels it's his duty to do the same in Vietnam. He actually has a nervous breakdown after Forrest rescues him, because not only has he lost his legs, he ''doesn't know what to do now.'' He eventually overcomes his depression and finds new meaning in life.

* IGaveMyWord: He jokingly promises Forrest that if he becomes a shrimp boat captain, Lt. Dan will serve as his first mate. He makes good on the promise later, claiming that he is "a man of his word".

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Hers is helping Forrest get his foot unstuck from a grate, followed by unashamedly telling off two men for staring at his leg braces and telling him never to let anybody put him down. Right off the bat we see she's a loving, strong-minded woman unafraid to stand up for her boy and the most influential adult of Forrest's life.

* {{Badass}}: He comes out on top of every fight he's in.

* TheAce: Star track runner, war hero, table tennis champion, and successful shrimp businessman.

* {{Mooning}}: President Johnson found out how LiteralMinded Forrest is the hard way when he joked that he would like to see his "million dollar wound."

* DisabledLoveInterest: [[spoiler:His last appearance shows Dan engaged to a Vietnamese woman]].

Bubba is Forrest's friend whom he meets upon joining the Army. Bubba was originally supposed to be the senior partner in the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, but due to his death in Vietnam, their platoon leader, Dan Taylor, took his place. The company posthumously carried his name. Forrest and Dan later gave Bubba's mother Bubba's share of the business.

* KindheartedSimpleton: He's rather simple-minded, but one of the nicest characters in the story.

* HiddenDepths: Following his joining Forrest's shrimp company, Dan shows himself to be a very shrewd businessman. Making it into a major fishing firm and he's sharp enough to invest some of the profits into Apple Computers.

* SuperSpeed: A mundane version, but a lot of Forrest's talents and accomplishments such as his football stardom, his super-fast gun-loading, his war heroism, and his uncanny talent for ping-pong, all come from being able to move and act extremely fast.

* NobleBigot: She did seem to be quite a racist, naming her son after the leader of the Ku Klux Klan. This part is justified due to the time period she was raising her son in. When you take that part out, she really genuinely loves her son, and it's likely Forrest became a good person because of her. Besides, Forrest mentions that his mom told him he was named after the KKK leader because "sometimes people did things that made no sense" which indicates that she may not have been that racist after all.

* GoodParents: She's completely supportive of her son, outright willing to have sex with a sleazy principle just to get Forrest into school so that he can get an education and never once addressing her son's lower intelligence as a handicap or burden.
* MamaBear: Was willing to have sex with the sleazy principal of Forrest's school to get him a good education.

* SavedFromTheirOwnHonor: Forest mentions that Lt. Dan came from a military family who had a tradition that all his ancestors had died in every American war, and [[DeathSeeker Lt. Dan was eager to live up to that tradition in Vietnam]]. After Forest realized that running away from the Vietcong ambush mean that he left Bubba behind, he went back into the kill-zone to get him out, only to find wounded members of his platoon begging for help, and Forest got them all out. On his penultimate trip into the jungle, he finds Lt. Dan with his legs mangled by gunfire and ordering an air strike directly on top of his location, and Forest takes off any unnecessary equipment that would weigh Lt. Dan down and, despite begging to be left behind to be burned by the napalm, Forest carries him to safety and goes back for Bubba, who dies after shortly before the medi-vac Hueys arrive at their location. During their stay in the field hospital, [[ComplainingAboutRescuesTheyDontLike Lt. Dan angrily yells at Forest for cheating him out of his destiny, and for making him a "legless freak"]]. It would be years later [[spoiler: during their time together on the shrimping boat that Lt. Dan finally thanked Forrest for saving his life, wore prosthetic legs, and even went on to lead a happy normal life with his new wife]].