History DesignatedHero / LiveActionTV

** Jim & Pam, who are supposed to be normal, but are actually kinda pricks. Jim knew he wasn't supposed to upset Andy when he was at Stamford, but he did, and he did it again at Scranton. He picked on Andy - someone he ''knew'' had anger management issues - enough to make him punch a hole in the wall. He even probably endangered Pam in helping too. For a long time, they were lusting after each other, regardless of the feelings of the people with whom they were involved. They also broke company policy in the baby shower ep with the Bluetooth and making themselves noticeable enough to warrant investigation ([[FridgeBrilliance though considering how lax Michael is with office policy, he probably let it slide]]). Sometimes Jim's pranks on Dwight go too far (enough to give him a bit of a HeroicBSOD when regaling). The writers do notice this sometimes, especially in later seasons. A few episodes show Jim being embarrassed by his immaturity, and show Dwight as more of a victim.

** Robin Hood from the BBC's 2006-2008 version of the story kept getting worse as the seasons went on. His "[[ThouShaltNotKill no-kill]]" policy was chucked out the second season when it became apparent that he was prepared to kill in the name of King Richard (even if it meant shooting unarmed priests and mentally-deranged spies), and by the third season he was shooting guards in the back whilst ''still'' insisting that he only killed when he needed to. He also treated his outlaws like crap (especially poor Much), started a relationship with a girl he was barely interested in despite knowing that his best friend liked her, attacked a frightened woman in her own bedroom after she's had to kill a man in self-defence, and shot dead an executioner who was just doing his job (and ''then'' having the gall to tell the aforementioned woman that not only is ''she'' "a murderer" for killing a man who was threatening to rape/strangle her but that ''he'' only kills when he absolutely needs to).

** Although Madison does tell the Cruz family about the outbreak, she stands back and does absolutely nothing (except tell her children to get away from the window) when the undead Peter Dawson attacks Ms. Cruz on her front lawn. As a result, the walker murders the entire Cruz family, including their daughter. Later on, she never displays any remorse or care about telling her other neighbors about the planned [[KillEmAll Cobalt protocol]], on the grounds that they never bothered to help her family when Nick was taken. They leave the gate to their neighborhood wide open for the walkers to get in, intentionally leaving their neighbors to die just for that.

* ''Series/ExtraordinaryAttorneyWoo'': Han Seon-young is effectively presented as the BigGood of the series since she's the CEO of the law firm Woo works at, but while she generally acts affable, she also uses some very underhanded and unsavory tactics to sabotage rival law firm CEO Tae Soo-mi, such as digging up personal information on her that can be used to tar her reputation and sink her political ambitions. She also [[spoiler:mainly hired Woo to her company because Woo is Soo-mi's illegitimate daughter and that's something she can use against her. And she even attempt to reveal Woo's relationship to her right before her confirmation hearing, despite knowing full well of the attention it would bring Woo and the stress it would put on her as a person with autism who dislikes intense social situation, as well as the fact that it would jeopardize the rest of her legal career. She only relents from doing so when an even more incriminating piece of information comes along that she can use]]. Han claims to be doing all this to prevent an unsuitable candidate from becoming South Korea's Minister of Justice, but several lines of dialogue imply her reasons for doing so are purely down to the personal rivalry she has with Soo-mi and nothing else. She ends up coming across as a lot more despicable than Soo-mi, and probably more than the writers intended.

* ''Series/ExtraordinaryAttorneyWoo'': Han Seon-young is effectively presented as the BigGood of the series since she's the CEO of the law firm Woo works at, but while she generally acts affable, she also uses some very underhanded and unsavory tactics to sabotage rival law firm CEO Tae Soo-mi, such as digging up personal information on her that can be used to tar her reputation and sink her political ambitions. She also [[spoiler:mainly hired Woo to her company because Woo is Soo-mi's illegitimate daughter and that's something she can use against her. And she even attempt to reveal Woo's relationship to her right before her confirmation hearing, despite knowing full well of the attention it would bring Woo and the stress it would put on her as a person with autism who dislikes intense social situation, as well as the fact that it would jeopardize the rest of her legal career. She only relents from doing so when an even more incriminating piece of information comes along]]. Han claims to be doing all this to prevent an unsuitable candidate from becoming South Korea's Minister of Justice, but several lines of dialogue imply her reasons for doing so are purely down to the personal rivalry she has with Soo-mi and nothing else, and she ends up coming across as more despicable than her.

** Even Sheldon, though usually an intentional UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist, can be this at times. Because to spite how much he annoys everyone, his AmbiguousDisorder means he's treated as incapable of change and his friends are expected never to challenge him on it. For example in one episode Howard dresses as him for Halloween and spends the episode mimicking his annoying traits, Sheldon doesn't realize he's doing this and is very hurt when he finds out it was an impression of him. Instead of reflecting on how people see him and [[CharacterDevelopment making an attempt to change his behavior]] the episode just treats Howard as a {{Jerkass}} for offending Sheldon in this way and when Amy confronts Bernadette over it she's treated as equally in the wrong for responding [[HypocrisyNod "well he makes fun of people all the time."]]

* ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'''s Alex Russo is often seen by the others as this, treated as the bad kid compared to Justin. Ironically, Justin falls into this more than she does. When turned into a werewolf without his consent, he simply runs off with his lycanthrope girlfriend. He joins the Angels of Darkness, and while on can say he was under their influence, when he's freed by Alex, and she's awarded for saving the world, [[EntitledBastard he flies into a rant about he deserves that award more than she does.]]

* Series/KirbyBuckets can be a pretty unlikeable character at times; he has often lied to others for his own benefit ("Killer Puppies", "The Mother of All Lies"), acted greedy and selfish ("Kirby Almighty", "Torched"), disobeyed and disrespected his parents ("Viva La Dad", "Say Uncle"), turned his back on his own best friends ("Art Attack", "Buckets of Money"), caused a lot of bad things that happened to others on the show ("Flice of the Living Dead", "Day of the Cat"), and constantly acts like an arrogant jerk towards his sister ("The Kirbinator", "Tunnel Babies"), not that she's much better, even when she's helping him.

* Series/KirbyBuckets can be a pretty unlikeable character at times; he has often lied to others for his own benefit ("Killer Puppies", "The Mother of All Lies"), acted greedy and selfish ("Kirby Almighty", "Torched"), disobeyed and disrespected his parents ("Viva La Dad", "Say Uncle"), turned his back on his own best friends ("Art Attack", "Buckets of Money"), caused a lot of bad things that happened to others on the show ("Flice of the Living Dead", "Day of the Cat"), and constantly acts like an arrogant jerk towards his sister ("The Kirbinator", "Tunnel Babies") who is [[DesignatedVillain supposed to be the bad guy]] but often comes off as the [[UnintentionallySympathetic sympathetic sibling]] instead.

* ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'''s Alex Russo is often seen by this. Despite being the protagonist of the show, she at times acts practically like a villain, especially later on in the show.

** In one episode, she forces her husband to go with her to a couple's therapist in the hopes that the therapist will tell Ray to be more compliant to her demands. Ray is initially reluctant to open up, but then the therapist finds Ray sympathetic during the session. Naturally, Debra is shocked by this, as she expected the session to be all about how Ray is not the man she wants him to be. After all, how could ''she'' possibly be anything less than perfect? After the therapist appears to ''not'' take Debra's side, Debra refuses to attend any more sessions and is mad at Ray for embarrassing her like that (to reiterate, he did exactly what she wanted him to do - open up). And the show then goes out of its way to portray her as being right.

* In soap operas like ''Series/CoronationStreet'', ''Series/{{Eastenders}}'' or ''Series/{{Hollyoaks}}'', pretty much every main character is constantly [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor grabbing and dropping]] the JerkassBall, but in storylines were they're portrayed as the hero previous instances were they behaved in similar ways are pretty much never brought up.

* ''Series/TwentyFour'' had several occasions where the good guys acted like ruthless {{Knight Templar}}s and/or just extremely incompetent. [=CTU=] has tortured innocent people, including one of their own who was then ''[[KickTheDog fired for complaining about it]],'' and frequently succumbs to TyrantTakesTheHelm; their agents- including Jack Bauer- very often let family matters and personal vendettas get in the way of their job (occasionally to the point of treasonous or even terroristic activity); almost every single season involves this [[InformedAttribute premier counter-terrorist agency]] (or in one season, the [=FBI=]) ''failing'' to prevent ''multiple'' terrorist attacks ''on American soil''. The government is not any better and have done such things as framing a reformed terrorist for the attempted murder of a sitting President (when said ex-terrorist actually ''saved the President's life'') to cover up that the ''actual'' culprits were extremists ''within the government'' (worse still, this becomes an AbortedArc- hunting these traitors down is NEVER brought up again, though the last mention of them implied they are to be executed, despite one of them attempting to weasel his way out of it by discrediting one of CTU's most decent leaders); much of the drama in several seasons comes from the Cabinet and the President arguing about whether or not to NUKE countries they ''think, might'' be guilty before the day is up ''without'' planning on organizing a thorough investigation first (with the most frequent excuse being that the don't want the rest of the world to think they are weak- they will kill MILLIONS of people just to ''look scary'')- the Cabinet has been willing to ''impeach'' a President for ''backing out'' of this. The PresidentEvil on the show is actually one of the ''saner'' ones in that regard; all ''he'' did was try to kill some ''proven'' terrorists and then cover it up when the plan failed (and try and kill Jack, but even ''good'' Presidents have attempted ''that'').

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': A lot of fans have a hard time seeing Felicity as a hero when she lies to both Ray and Oliver about the other being a superhero, along with her saying in the season 3 finale that she thinks Ray should go save Oliver instead of saving the entire city from a bioweapon. Subsequently, she continues to work behind Oliver's back with the team when the two were supposed to be retired, only to break up with Oliver when she discovers he kept a secret of his own. Then she quits the team when they need her after ruining missions because she was too busy punishing him. Felicity continuously preforms increasingly selfish acts and is never called out on it. In ''Crisis on Earth-X'', she suddenly decides to add her and Oliver's wedding onto Barry and Iris' without warning or discussing it with them first.

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'':** A lot of fans have a hard time seeing Felicity as a hero when she lies to both Ray and Oliver about the other being a superhero, along with her saying in the season 3 finale that she thinks Ray should go save Oliver instead of saving the entire city from a bioweapon. Subsequently, she continues to work behind Oliver's back with the team when the two were supposed to be retired, only to break up with Oliver when she discovers he kept a secret of his own. Then she quits the team when they need her after ruining missions because she was too busy punishing him. Felicity continuously preforms increasingly selfish acts and is never called out on it. In ''Crisis on Earth-X'', she suddenly decides to add her and Oliver's wedding onto Barry and Iris' without warning or discussing it with them first.

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': This eventually became the basis for the once beloved Felicity Smoak to became a BaseBreakingCharacter and then a CreatorsPet in the later seasons. She was constantly touted as a [[CharacterShilling selfless person and the best you could ever meet]] while doing increasingly self''ish'' and often hypocritical acts without ever being called out on it. In season 3, she hid from Team Arrow his affiliation with Ray Palmer while also hiding her affiliation to Team Arrow from him. It gets even worse in the season finale, where she says that she thinks Ray should go save Oliver (one person) instead of the entire city from a bioweapon. Subsequently, she continues to work behind Oliver's back with the team when the two were supposed to be retired, playfully dismissing the long-term lying and secret-keeping, only to break up with Oliver herself when she discovers he kept a secret of his own. She doesn't care Oliver was forced to hide he had a son in order to be allowed to visit him. Due to this, she creates conflicts in the Team Arrow missions and subsequently leaves the team. This caused her popularity to drop over the course of Seasons Three and Four, forcing the writers to try and redeem her character in Season Five. After seemingly succeeding, they undid all their work all at once with the final nail in the coffin -- [[NeverLiveItDown the infamous double wedding]] on ''Series/CrisisOnEarthX'', an act so selfish that it completely debased all the CharacterShilling and made her the most hated character ''in the entire franchise'', especially since she previously made a scandal by stating to not believe in marriage. From that point on, any attempt to redeem Felicity fell flat because the fans kept on remembering that moment, causing them to view all her actions in their most negative and selfish interpretations.

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': This eventually became the basis for the once beloved Felicity Smoak to became a BaseBreakingCharacter and then a CreatorsPet and TheScrappy in the later seasons. She was constantly touted as a [[CharacterShilling selfless person and the best you could ever meet]] while doing increasingly self''ish'' and often hypocritical acts without ever being called out on it. In season 3, she hid from Team Arrow his affiliation with Ray Palmer while also hiding her affiliation to Team Arrow from him. It gets even worse in the season finale, where she says that she thinks Ray should go save Oliver (one person) instead of the entire city from a bioweapon. Subsequently, she continues to work behind Oliver's back with the team when the two were supposed to be retired, playfully dismissing the long-term lying and secret-keeping, only to break up with Oliver herself when she discovers he kept a secret of his own. She doesn't care Oliver was forced to hide he had a son in order to be allowed to visit him. Due to this, she creates conflicts in the Team Arrow missions and subsequently leaves the team. This caused her popularity to drop over the course of Seasons Three and Four, forcing the writers to try and redeem her character in Season Five. After seemingly succeeding, they undid all their work all at once with the final nail in the coffin -- [[NeverLiveItDown the infamous double wedding]] on ''Series/CrisisOnEarthX'', an act so selfish that it completely debased all the CharacterShilling and made her the most hated character ''in the entire franchise'', especially since she previously made a scandal by stating to not believe in marriage. From that point on, any attempt to redeem Felicity fell flat because the fans kept on remembering that moment, causing them to view all her actions in their most negative and selfish interpretations.

* A major problem with ''Series/{{Inhumans}}'' from the word go. Attilan is presented as a CrapsaccharineWorld running out of resources. Everyone is put through the Terrigen Mists that give Inhumans their powers as a teenager... and if you don't gain powers, or do but that power isn't considered 'good enough' somehow, enjoy being immediately taken away to be a slave in the mines for the rest of your life! Now, our 'heroes' are the royal family - in other words, ''the people who rule with this system in place.'' Maximus, the BigBad, is the ''only one who has a problem with this.'' He's the one you'll be rooting for all the way until he tells his plan for that 'out of resources' thing (specifically, "let's go take Earth's!")

* ''Series/TheFlash2014'': While not as extreme as other examples, Nora West-Allen gets hit with this in the second half of the season. In ''The Flash And The Furious'', Nora lies to the police, telling them that Joslyn broke out of police custody when she was actually kidnapped, possibly making her prison sentence longer, all because she found out Thawne had been lying to her and [[InsaneTrollLogic that must mean no criminals can change]], despite being told by someone who can feel emotions that Joslyn felt guilty about what she did. While she does come to her senses about Joslyn, in ''Memorabilia'' not only does she ignore Sherloque's warnings about not using the memory machine alone, risking the lives of herself, her parents and Grace, so she can continue to lie about working with Thawne, but we also learn her previous claims about Iris being a bad parent [[UnreliableExpositor were untrue]]. She also tricks Sherloque into falling for a meta so [[ShipperWithAnAgenda he will be more focused on stopping Cicada instead of figuring out her secret]] in ''Goldfaced''. While her teaming up with the Young Rogues turned out to be a plan to steal weapons to destroy Cicada's dagger, that's no excuse for the robberies, [[WhatanIdiot allying her self with three different super-villains who she should have expected to betray her]], and for threatening Cisco in [[TraumaButton a way that manipulates his trauma]]. Plus everyone else on Team Flash was [[EasilyForgiven very forgiving considering she was working with their arch-enemy for months and lying about it and for the crap she pulled in ''Gone Rogue'']].

** Clara Oswald becomes one toward the end of Series 8. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E7KillTheMoon Kill the Moon]]", when the Twelfth Doctor leaves the fate of the Moon Creature -- whose birth might destroy Earth -- in her and humanity's hands, she overrules the votes of Earth and decides to spare the creature. Fortunately it doesn't destroy all, but she has no reason to think that it wouldn't. She ''and'' the episode are busy seeing the Doctor as in the wrong for trusting humanity to save it rather than just doing it himself based on his informed guess about the creature's intentions -- an intended gesture of respect that comes off as condescending partially because he has NoSocialSkills. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E10InTheForestOfTheNight In the Forest of the Night]]", upon learning that a solar flare will burn the Earth, she rejects the proposition of the Doctor to save herself, her boyfriend Danny and a class of children claiming that she doesn't want to be the last human...without bothering to consult Danny and the children first! (So the Doctor's learned from his "Kill the Moon" experience, but she hasn't!) And while it's not surprising that over time she learns to be a ConsummateLiar from the Doctor's example, where he primarily uses lies to put plans into action, she ''constantly'' lies to the Doctor and Danny about her relationships with both men simply because she's a ControlFreak who wants things both ways. The kicker is the beginning of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E11DarkWater Dark Water]]": [[spoiler: after the sudden death of Danny, she attempts to blackmail the Doctor to save him by drugging him and threatening to throw the keys of the TARDIS in a volcano]]. She is understandably stressed at the time and the Doctor does call her out on her actions, but that's ''still'' nasty for someone we're supposed to see as TheWoobie -- and then the Doctor bends over backwards to help her. Remember, the Ninth Doctor kicked Adam out of the TARDIS [[MoralDissonance for a far lesser crime]].

* The VictimOfTheWeek in the ''Series/WithoutATrace'' episode "Silent Partner". Yes, it's admirable that he goes all out to reimburse people ripped off by his company. It doesn't change the fact that he's an adulterer and a bigamist who faked his death so as to ditch his first wife and run off with the second one. And as evidenced by the conversation he has with the first wife, he doesn't have a shred of remorse about this--despite being presented as the typical IceQueen RichBitch, she's basically a DesignatedVillain--she never says or does anything to indicate that she deserves to be treated like this.

** There's also [[PlayfulHacker Garcia's]] tendency to disregard the law in order to get access to information faster. She once declared (proudly) "I will make HIPPA my bitch." In another episode, while arguing with a woman who wouldn't give her access to a sealed adoption record, Garcia not only steals the record she needs, but also hacks into the woman's private files and emails a topless photo she found to the woman's boss "because you're crabby." Based on JJ's smirk as she does this, we're apparently supposed to find this justified and charming. A woman who was just doing her job, insisting Garcia follow the law that she, as an FBI employee, is sworn to uphold, had her privacy violated and has to face the repercussions of sexual content being leaked (potentially leading to her being fired or sexually harassed by her boss, to say nothing of their sharing it with others), simply because Garcia didn't want to be bothered following the proper procedures. Making matters worse: there was no ticking clock. No lives were at stake that necessitated cutting corners. Their unsub was on trial ''and'' had amnesia, meaning there was an ongoing debate over whether he'd even pose any threat in the future. But that's still apparently worth potentially ruining a woman's life.