History DesignatedHero / WesternAnimation

* The original ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' were this in the episode "Mother Mae Eye", where, at the end, they send the pie containing the titular villain to the Hive Five. It's supposed to be funny, but it's essentially attempted mass murder by proxy.

* ''UnintentionallyUnsympathetic/ThePowerpuffGirls''
* ''UnintentionallyUnsympathetic/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil''
* ''UnintentionallyUnsympathetic/TeenTitansGo''
* ''UnintentionallyUnsympathetic/TomAndJerry''
* ''UnintentionallyUnsympathetic/TotalDrama''

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'' can be this trope depending on the episode. Some episodes have the girls doing some things that are [[UnscrupulousHero underhanded]] at best, ''un-heroic'' at worst and they are almost always portrayed in the right. Unlike other examples, however, this is balanced out in some episodes as the girls ''do'' learn from their mistakes and better themselves.
** One of the more infamous examples happens in the episode "Mime for a Change". A freak accident involving a truck full of bleach turns Rainbow the Clown into Mr. Mime, who begins to drain Townsville of all color and sound. The girls managed to return the town and Rainbow to normal, but when he thanks them for bringing him back to his senses, the girls [[DisproportionateRetribution beat him to a pulp and send him to prison]] even though it was painfully clear he was NotHimself. Uniquely, this is an EnforcedTrope moment: According to WordOfGod, they originally wanted to give him the PetTheDog ending everyone thought he deserved, but ExecutiveMeddling refused to let the [[DesignatedVillain "bad guy"]] be a KarmaHoudini (they evidently didn't know the meaning of SplitPersonality) -- so the staff deliberately invoked EsotericHappyEnding as a public TakeThat against said executives. The issue apparently got cleared up as he is seen attending the girls' birthday party in the later episode, "Birthday Bash".
** In the episode "Major Competition", a new superhero named Major Man stops crimes before the girls can, but they eventually discover he's a fraud who sets up crimes in advance. Their plan to expose him? Hire a giant monster to attack the town without him knowing and force him to confess. The girls managed to get away with it even.
** One of the more egregious examples happen in the episode "Candy Is Dandy". The girls develop an addiction to candy and the Mayor will give them candy whenever they save the day. When crime in Townsville is slow, they decide to hire Mojo Jojo to attack the town, get defeated by the girls, and they would break him out on the next day to do it again. When the Mayor informs them that Mojo stole their candy, the girls give him a ''vicious'' WhatTheHellHero that leaves the poor man in tears before confronting Mojo, who gleefully admits he stole their candy [[ForTheEvulz just to get under their skin]]. Cue one of the most [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown vicious beatdowns]] in the series as they kick the everloving shit out of him. It was so bad that ''[[HeelRealization the girls themselves]]'' [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone eventually saw how far they've fallen and apologize to the Mayor for their actions]].
** In the episode "Ploys R Us", the girls awake to find their room filled with toys and discover the Professor has been robbing the toy store while sleepwalking. Instead of trying to prevent it, the girls take advantage of his nighttime strolls and have him steal toys for them while pretending to investigate the thefts. Eventually, the professor catches on to the girls's scheme and with the Mayor's help, tricks them into confessing. The girls again apologize for their actions and, while they're offered to keep the toys as they were all paid for, they reject them as they know that they didn't deserve them, and the toys go to the Mayor instead.
** In the episode "Slave the Day", The girls save Billy of the Gangreen Gang from being killed by an oncoming subway and to show his gratitude, he becomes their personal butler. With each well-intentioned feat, he causes horrendous collateral damage and eventually gets a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech from [[BewareTheNiceOnes Blossom]] which causes him to go back to the gang. The gang tries to kill the girls by trapping them on a subway track, but Billy gets a change of heart and rescues them. Instead of gratitude, the girls beat the crap out of him along with the gang even though he had clearly turned against the gang. This, however, is somewhat justified, as while Billy did save the girls from getting ran over, he still had them tied to the tracks in the first place, thus still needed to suffer the consequences.
** [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]] in "A Very Special Blossom". On Father's Day, Blossom wants to get the Professor some very expensive golf clubs for a gift. So, after stopping Mojo Jojo's rampage, she finds the set and steals it, which causes the Professor to get arrested when he goes to a golf game. Blossom at first tries to lie her way out of it by saying Mojo sold her the golf clubs, but is eventually forced to confess that she stole them. She is then sentenced to Community Service.
** [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]] also in the Buttercup-centered episode, "Makes Zen To Me". During a fight with Fuzzy Lumpkins, Buttercup uses way more force than necessary and is called out on her violent actions by the girls and Fuzzy's doctor, who outright tells her she is no hero as her actions have left Fuzzy with crippling injuries. She then seeks the help of an OldMaster to help find inner peace and curb her violent ways.
** In "Moral Decay", Buttercup suddenly develops an obsession with money and starts knocking teeth out of villains to get more of it from the tooth fairy. While what she does is pretty selfish, her sisters don't try to talk to her about this. They instead organise for ''every villain in Townsville'' to beat the crap out of Buttercup, gloat about it and then Buttercup's money has to go towards paying her dental bills. Blossom and Bubbles are painted as in the right, while only Buttercup is painted as in the wrong.
** In "Gettin' Twiggy With It", Mitch tortures the school pet hamster Twiggy. While his behavior is seen as abusive, the Powerpuff Girls don't try to just take Twiggy away the first time. Instead they ''gleefully threatening to feed him to the now mutant Twiggy'', and ''have him chased on a hamster wheel to flee for his life''. Ms. Keane even frames the Powerpuff Girls as the good guys for this behavior.
** Buttercup from ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls2016'' is depicted as being right usually, but she's completely okay with beating up other people, even if they did nothing to bother her. She also calls [[spoiler:Silico]] "messed up in the head" after he tells her and her sisters his sad backstory.
** In "Little Octi Lost", we're supposed to be rooting for her when she loses Octi. She originally was going to just hide him because [[DisproportionateRetribution Bubbles lost a kickball game]], but Packrat ended up stealing Octi. Bubbles had a completely good reason to be pissed at Buttercup for what she did, but Bubbles is presented as in the wrong, and Buttercup's presented as in the right for trying to hide her sister's most prized possession for a minor mistake.

* Many of the characters fall under this in ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'' :
** [[Characters/StarVsTheForcesOfEvilStarButterfly Star Butterfly]] may be the hero of the series, but she has a lot of actions that paint her in a much less sympathetic light. She often acts impulsively without thinking about others, is prone to running away from her problems instead of trying to fix them, suffers little to no consequences for her actions, has rather self-centered behavior in regards to dealing with romantic interests like Marco and Tom even after her character development in season 3, and shows a lot of blatant hypocrisy in season 4 by expecting others to trust her, yet doesn't have the decency to trust others, and also by scolding others for exhibiting flaws that she is still shown to have. [[spoiler:It gets even worse in the series finale, "Cleaved", where she commits ''magical genocide'' and yet suffers virtually no consequences whatsoever.]]
** Glossaryk can also be considered this. He's intended to be a neutral character with a sense of mysticism, yet he's never clear with his intentions, and shows no regret/remorse when he shows tough love with those he's helping, showing a ''very'' smug snideness. His scenes where he feels unappreciated for his efforts makes him look like an UngratefulBastard.
** [[Characters/StarVsTheForcesOfEvilMoonButterfly Moon Butterfly]] is considered this in "Here To Help" and subsequent episodes. [[spoiler:It turns that she was responsible for the attacks that Mina and her army inflicted on Mewni, thinking that Eclipsa was not fit to rule. Even if she never wanted any innocents to be harmed, and didn't want Eclipsa and Globgor caught in the crossfire, it doesn't change the fact that she was essentially planning a coup behind her back, and proves that she still doesn't trust Star to make her own decisions. Plus, she almost got Star and her friends killed.]] Her showing regret is all talk and no show, and thus Star scolding her is more than justified.
** Pony Head ''really'' falls into this. In her first appearance, she tried '''''murdering''''' Marco out of petty jealousy. Subsequent episodes try showing more of her humanity, but with how narcissistic and egotistical she is, she looks like a near psychopath. Not helping things, is how she's severely underdeveloped.
** Starting in season 3, [[Characters/StarVsTheForcesOfEvilMarcoDiaz Marco Diaz]] is this for much of the same reasons as Star. His more jerkish, stubborn, and standoffish behavior is simply meant to be him being too confident in himself, but he's so smug and narcisistic about it that he comes across as cold and selfish, and he's never properly called out for it.
** Solaria herself comes across as this in the finale. Her disowning Mina by turning away as she's crying out for her help comes across as cruel and hypocritical on her part especially since she chose and created what eventually became Mina's current state downright to causing her to lose her mind! Supplementary books like the Magic Book of Spells where her entire entry on monsters consists of racist ramblings and creative ways to destroy monsters on the pretense that they are "much happier that way" don't exactly help either and only make her sudden HeelFaceTurn come out of nowhere and rejecting Mina less heroic and more of a KickTheDog moment.

* The Teen Titans would usually go in this territory in ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'', to the point where the actual alleged villains come off as better people because of it. The show itself is fully aware of this, due to all the SelfDeprecation and [[LampshadeHanging lampshading]] their less-than-heroic behavior, and it's usually very tongue-in-cheek about it.
** In "Girls Night Out", Starfire and Raven free Jinx and they go on a crime spree.
** In "Artful Dodgers", the Titans cheat at a dodgeball game between them and the Hive Five, and it's hinted they have done this before. And when the Hive win their game despite their blatant cheating, the Titans have them arrested so they would win by default. Made worse by the fact that both Robin and Starfire point out that "[[{{Hypocrite}} cheaters]] [[BrokenAesop never prosper.]]"
** Also in "Artful Dodgers," Raven [[DisproportionateRetribution eats at least one opposing team of dodgeball players alive for gently hitting her that she didn't even try to dodge]] and it's PlayedForLaughs.
** In the infamous "Staring at The Future", Beast Boy and Cyborg, upon being sent to a future where the rest of the Titans are responsible people with productive lives, decide to selfishly and deliberately ruin the others futures just to create a world where they won't have to deal with responsibility.
** In "Baby Hands", when the Titans have their memories erased by Brother Blood, Robin takes advantage of their amnesia to retrain them to respect him by telling them outlandish stories of their origins, all to feed his ego.
** In "Second Christmas", Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Raven lie to Starfire, causing her to miss a holiday on her planet, just so they can have more stuff.
** In "Ghost Boy", Beast Boy treats Starfire like a slave as a prank and when the Titans cast a spell of transparency on him to make him think he's a real ghost, Beast Boy retaliates by pretending to jump into a volcano, leading to the Titans ''accidently killing themselves'' when they try to stop him. He even has the gall to laugh at them.
** In "Opposites", Cyborg begins dating Jinx for no reason even though she's a villain, and eventually convinces the other titans to become criminals so there is nothing to keep them apart.
** In "Salty Codgers", Raven intentionally lets the others be turned into old people by Mad Mod because she found old people adorable, causing them to die of old age. And when she pulls a BatmanGambit on Death to get their souls back, he instead turns them into zombies as revenge. Raven shows no concern as she finds zombies just as adorable as old people. This is even Lampshaded by Death.
--->'''Death:''' Shortening the lives of your friends for your own selfish desires. So very evil, Raven. I love it!
** In the episode "Mas Y Menos", while mentoring the title twins, Robin treats Menos horribly, believing him to be a hindrance to his brother Mas. He even lies to Menos about Mas being in a hospital so he could spend more time with Mas. The other Titans are appalled at his actions, but Robin shows no remorse. And when the twins's energy overloads and nearly endangers the city, Robin helps stop them, but at the end of the episode, he outright says that the most important part of being the hero is to put yourself in the spotlight and steal the glory.
** In the episode "Puppets, Whaaaaat?", Robin is fed up with the Titans's constant disobedience, so he sells their souls to the evil Puppet Wizard and turns them into puppets. Though he helps the Titans regain their souls, the end of the episode implies he hasn't learned his lesson.
** In "Breakfast Cheese", all four members of the team, sans Starfire, are depicted as blatant [[SociopathicHero sociopathic heroes]] who beat up criminals for fun and use being heroes as an excuse for their violent behavior. Starfire is disgusted by their actions and attempts to curb their violent tendencies.
** In "Brain Food", Beast Boy uses Raven's spell book to make the other Titans dumber than he is just as they are attempting to destroy an oncoming asteroid just so he could feel smart. Had Silkie, accidentally made smarter by the spell, not come to the rescue with his giant robot, the city would've been destroyed.
** In "Lazy Sunday", after Robin donates the couch to a retirement home in an attempt to curb Beast Boy and Cyborg's laziness, the two trick the others into helping them steal it back.
** Aqualad is depicted in much the same way in the episode "Pirates". Instead of being a FriendToAllLivingThings, he treats his sea creatures like slaves, constantly standing on them and using them as stepping stones. Aqualad even has a large amount of sea creatures fed to sharks to impress Raven (who, being a Designated Hero herself, enjoys watching them be eaten). At the end of the episode, it turns out he's a pirate. It would be more shocking that a superhero became a looting, pillaging, murdering pirate who treats sea creatures like slaves and has them fed to sharks if half the show wasn't essentially an animated FauxtivationalPoster.
** In the episode "The Hive Five", the Titans's {{Jerkass}} behavior is worse. After suffering constant prank calls from the Titans, the Hive decide to take a day off to avoid them. But their day off is ruined when the Titans intrude on them.
** Deconstructed in the episode "A Farce" where Brother Blood and the Brain take the Titans to court for their careless destruction of Jump City. They are all found guilty at the end of the episode.

* ''Franchise/TomAndJerry'':
** Jerry comes off as this when he's just being mean for the sake of it. Most episodes do start out with Tom harassing Jerry for no reason other than to be mean, but sometimes he just does something that inconveniences Jerry and Jerry immediately goes for the nuclear response, or worse, Jerry decides to pick a fight with Tom for selfish reasons or even no reason at all. Yet even then, the writers usually take it for granted that the audience is going to be on Jerry's side. In the writers' defense, they weren't utterly oblivious to this, and actually let Jerry lose to Tom on a fair few occasions he ''really'' crossed the line.
** One good example of Tom actually winning is "Timid Tabby", where Tom's identical cousin George, who is scared of mice, comes over. Jerry mistakes him for Tom and keeps tormenting him when he realizes his fear, coming across as a jerk. Finally Tom and George work together to scare Jerry out of the house.
** Other examples where Jerry loses are "The Year of the Mouse", where he is particularly sadistic, and "The Million Dollar Cat", where when Tom learns he'll inherit a million dollars so long as he doesn't harm a mouse for the rest of his life, Jerry milks it for all it's worth and torments Tom throughout the short.
** There was one episode of the series where Tom was beheaded by his owner for failing to stop Jerry and Nibbles stealing food set out on the royal banquet table. Jerry and Nibbles are Musketeers in the episode, and they're stealing food from the ''king'' -- the person they're supposed to be ''protecting'' -- with Tom as one of the palace guards designated to keep an eye on the banquet for later that night. In other words, they're supposed to be ''on the same side'', and the mice are still stealing the food. At the end of the episode, as the mice are walking away with their tiny arms loaded with food, we hear a drum roll, and they look up to see the rise and drop of the guillotine. Nibbles swallows the bite of food in his mouth with a momentarily surprised look, says "Pauvre, pauvre pussycat," then casually shrugs his shoulders and says "Ah, well, ''c'est la guerre!''" and they go off happily munching with jaunty theme music in the background.
** The [=DtV=] movies are just as bad about this, with the exception being "The Fast and the Furry". In the others, Tom and Jerry often have to team up to save the day or find the MacGuffin, with Tom proving to be a good guy. But at the end, no matter what, Jerry screws over Tom without fail for no good reason. This, considering Tom not deserving it [[CatsAreMean beyond being a cat]], turns Jerry into a [=Jerkass=] bordering on VillainProtagonist.
** The attitude towards Tom being the villain and Jerry the hero no matter what was probably best shown in "WesternAnimation/HeavenlyPuss", where Tom dies and is told by the Gatekeeper he will be sent to Hell if he doesn't get Jerry's forgiveness for [[DesignatedVillain all the times he's persecuted Jerry.]] Though it was AllJustADream, it shows very well who was always the "Good Guy" in the creator's mind.
** In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerryTales'', Tom actually uses this to his advantage, catching wise to the "[[WhatMeasureIsANonCute small underdog trickster always prevails]]" formula, he hires an even smaller cuter ant to steal back all the food Jerry took, and takes pleasure watching Jerry become the bumbling pursuer for once. Similarly, this is a rare occasion in which [[TeamRocketWins Tom gets the last laugh]].
** This is lampshaded and subverted in one episode where Tom is told by the King, who is trying to sleep, that if he hears a noise Tom loses his head. Jerry and Nibbles keep trying to make noise, finally causing Tom to scream in pain, waking the King. However, they realize that they have gone too far and Nibbles sings the King back to sleep, after which the mice and Tom quietly leave the room and resume fighting.
** Another example involving Nibbles and Jerry as musketeers: Jerry is in love with a female mouse and has Nibbles deliver love letters to her. Each time, Nibbles is beaten senseless by Tom and comes back badly wounded, even ''crawling'' to him at one point. At no point does Jerry show any concern nor try to help him, all he cares about is whether he received a love letter from the girl. And when the girl sends him a letter that spurns his affections, he rips it up, pulls out a portrait of another girl, and sends Nibbles out to [[HereWeGoAgain do it all over again]]. Made even worse as Nibbles is a ''[[HideYourChildren kid]].'' In other words, Jerry is performing blatant child abuse on a kids' show.
** The basic premise of most shorts that involve Spike are as follows: Something Tom does angers Spike, Spike tells Tom not to do it again or else, Jerry overhears this and proceeds to ensure Tom gets in trouble from Spike and succeeds. "Hiccup Pup" actually subverts the part where Jerry succeeds by having Tom help Spike.
*** Perhaps the most infamous example is the ''Tales'' episode ''Do Not Feed The Animals''. In most Spike episodes, Tom at least initially angers Spike in the process of picking a fight with Jerry. In this episode, Tom is just doing his job as Spike's assistant zookeeper when Spike incorrectly thinks Tom is feeding the animals and chews him out for it. Jerry overhears this, and decides to get Tom in trouble, even though Tom had done nothing to harass Jerry. Tom goes through a lot of pain and eventually gets EatenAlive by a lion trying to stop Jerry from feeding the animals, but Spike repeatedly thinks Tom was the one trying to feed them. And while Spike wasn't necessarily feeding the animals with food that was good for them, neither was Jerry. Jerry's actions could have easily made some of the zoo animals sick if Tom hadn't intervened.
* ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'':
** The Killer Grips in "The Chefshank Redemption". They're seen as being in the right for forcing Gwen into throwing the challenge for her team and subsequently eliminating herself as blackmail for how Trent would keep throwing challenges for his team to keep her safe... Even though she had no idea that he was doing so in the first place.
** Cody in ''World Tour''. While Sierra's treatment of him does cross a few lines, [[DoubleStandard he more-or-less acts]] [[{{Hypocrite}} the same way around Gwen]], even after she and Duncan hook up.
** Sierra in ''All-Stars''. While she ''is'' a nice person at times, her obsession with Cody and the rest of the cast makes her seem ill-suited to the title of "hero", and she rarely shows said niceness to anyone who isn't Cody and her violent tendencies are rather extreme, having the intention to ''kill'' Heather in one episode with a freaking drill.
** [[Characters/TotalDramaDuncan Duncan]], while the show doesn't try to hide the fact he's a bully, he keeps getting treated by others as the good guy up against the real villain. Particularly prevalent in ''All-Stars'' where there's his InUniverse VillainDecay leading everyone (especially Chris) to keep hailing him as a hero.
** [[Characters/TotalDramaMike Mike]] seems to have absolutely no problems with keeping damaging secrets from others, only to hurt them even more when he reveals them.
** While Shawn is treated as one of the main heroic contestants of ''Pahkitew Island'', some feel that he comes off as a Designated Hero due to his zombie schtick getting old very fast and making him occasionally very selfish and cowardly or excessively paranoid, as well as him being partially at fault for ruining his relationship with Jasmine, and being extremely reluctant to split the million dollars with her. While he did eventually do the right thing, made up with Jasmine, and split his winnings with her, he made things harder than they should have been.
** Sky from the same season falls into this boat too because of how harshly she treats Dave late in the season, her overly competitive nature coming off as largely unjustified, and her moments of hypocrisy earning her negative comparisons to Courtney. It doesn't help that many have also drawn negative parallels with Zoey.

* ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'': The Cul-de-Sac kids are meant as {{Hero Antagonist}}s justified in how they treated and [[GreyAndGrayMorality no worse than the Eds]], especially [[VillainProtagonist Eddy]]. But their treatment of them often came off as KarmicOverkill (straight up worse than the Eds, over things [[GuiltByAssociationGag only the other Eds caused]] or accidents/[[MisplacedRetribution outside the Eds control]]), happened even when they did nothing to deserve it, and self-inflicted by [[AesopAmnesia their continuing to trust the Eds despite this]].

* Sam Manson of ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' is Danny's best friend and [[OfficialCouple supposed true love]] and is [[CreatorsFavorite favored by the creator, Butch Hartman]]. However, many see her as a {{Hypocrite}} and worse than his other love interest, [[DatingCatwoman Valerie]]. Throughout the show, Sam had a tendency to impose her will on other characters, from forcing the entire school to join her vegetarian lifestyle, to blackmailing her friends into releasing zoo animals, to scolding Danny for [[spoiler: purposely getting rid of his powers]] without considering the stress and trouble he had been going through because of them ([[spoiler:especially since ''she'' was the one who convinced him to do the deed that resulted in the FreakLabAccident that gave him his powers to begin with]]).

* ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'': The Cul-de-Sac kids are meant as {{Hero Antagonist}}s meant to be justifiably disliking and [[GreyAndGrayMorality no worse than the Eds]], especially [[VillainProtagonist Eddy]]. But their treatment of them often came off as KarmicOverkill (straight up worse than the Eds, over things [[GuiltByAssociationGag only the other Eds caused]] or accidents/[[MisplacedRetribution outside the Eds control]]), happened even when they did nothing to deserve it, and self-inflicted by [[AesopAmnesia their continuing to trust the Eds despite this]].

* The Cul-de-Sac kids from ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy''. They may be {{Hero Antagonist}}s, but their actions make them come off more or less like bullies. [[GreyAndGrayMorality The Eds themselves are no saints either]] (this is especially true with Eddy), but they would torment them for little to no reason whatsoever.

* ''WesternANimation/MiraculousLadybug'':

* ''WesternANimation/MiraculousLadybug'': Ms. Bustier is meant to be seen as a CoolTeacher whom everyone (including [[AlphaBitch Chloé]]) loves and is fair to her students. However, the fact that she's fallen victim to AdultsAreUseless more than once, up to and including being quick to punish innocent students even when they're not at fault, combined with a [[MisplacedKindergartenTeacher hands-off approach to conflict resolution]] that [[KarmaHoudini leaves actual troublemakers unchecked]], has left several fans wondering if she even deserves this reputation.

* ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'':

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' can be this trope depending on the episode. Some episodes have the girls doing some things that are [[UnscrupulousHero underhanded]] at best, ''un-heroic'' at worst and they are almost always portrayed in the right. Unlike other examples, however, this is balanced out in some episodes as the girls ''do'' learn from their mistakes and better themselves.

** Jerry comes off as this when he's just being mean for the sake of it. In most episodes, we're expected to support Jerry while Tom is constantly fed to the lions because, after all, CatsAreMean. In the writers's defense, they weren't utterly oblivious to this, and actually let Jerry lose to Tom on a fair few occasions he ''really'' crossed the line.

** While Shawn is treated as one of the main heroic contestants of ''Pahkitew Island'', some feel that he comes off as a Designated Hero due to his zombie schtick getting old very fast and making him occasionally very selfish and cowardly or excessively paranoid, as well as him being partially at fault for ruining his relationship with Jasmine, and being extremely reluctant to split the million dollars with her.

* The Cul-de-Sac kids from ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy''. They may be {{Hero Antagonist}}s, but their actions make them come off more or less like bullies. [[GreyAndGrayMorality The Eds themselves are no saints either]] (this is especially true with Eddy), but they would torment them for little to no reason whatsoever.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' most of the cast qualify due to DependingOnTheWriter as they alter between HeroicComedicSociopath and VillainProtagonist in any ep or even within the same episode. Stan, Roger, Klaus, and to some extent Steve are at least deliberately portrayed as {{Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist}}s. Francine and Hayley however are designated into long suffering WomenAreWiser archetypes who have moral superiority 99% of the time, despite often proving to be equally [[{{Hypocrite}} hypocritical]], [[ItsAllAboutMe self serving]] or outright [[ComedicSociopath sociopathic]] as the [[DoubleStandard male Smiths]].

** The titular Ben Tennyson himself becomes one thanks to {{Flanderization}}. His ChronicHeroSyndrome, his defining trait in the previous shows, is heavily toned down in favor of making him an arrogant, incompetent, and thoroughly obnoxious {{Jerkass}} who causes as many problems as he solves, takes next to nothing seriously, cares more about having fun than actually helping people, and as the series finale shows, [[spoiler: apparently [[SkewedPriorities cares more about]] '''''[[TrademarkFavoriteFood Mr. Smoothies]]''''' [[SkewedPriorities than his friends and family]]]]. It has gotten to the point that many fans prefer either [[HypercompetentSidekick Rook]] or some of Ben's alternate counterparts such as [[BadassNormal No-Watch Ben]] and [[JerkassWoobie Ben 23]] along with his future self [[FutureBadass Ben 10,000]]. Fans have even resorted to [[RootingForTheEmpire rooting for the villains]] as Ben is just too unlikable. This is even lampshaded by Proctor Sevantis, who outright says that the Omnitrix is too powerful to be left in the hands of someone as irresponsible as Ben.

** The main character himself, Peter, is supposed to be a BumblingDad [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold with a heart of gold]]. However, it can be kind of hard to see him that way. For example, one episode has him trying to save a beached whale only to kill it. The same episode also has him cooking ''his own kids'' (he puts Chris in the microwave, Stewie in the fridge and Meg in the microwave, which [[YourHeadAsplode causes her head to explode]]). Both times, he is never called out for his actions and he ultimately gets off scot-free.

** This trope is one of the many reasons why Brian is such a divisive character. While yes, he does have every right to be annoyed by the people around him and [[JerkassHasAPoint he does make a few good points here and there]], there are [[TheFinickyOne many]], [[{{Hypocrite}} many]], ''[[InsufferableGenius many]]'' [[KnowNothingKnowItAll different]] [[{{Jerkass}} reasons]] why he's a BaseBreakingCharacter.

* ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'': Arnold in the Lila episodes. We are supposed to feel bad for him because he never gets the girl, but his actions make him come off as a bit of an entitled jerk.

** Marge and Lisa. While the show generally enlists them into StraightMan roles against the former two, there are plenty of cases the girls can be just too priggish, hypocritical or self-serving in their cause to side with.

** Star may be the hero of the series, but she has a lot of actions that paint her in a much less sympathetic light. She often acts impulsively without thinking about others, is prone to running away from her problems instead of trying to fix them, suffers little to no consequences for her actions, has rather self-centered behavior in regards to dealing with romantic interests like Marco and Tom even after her character development in season 3, and shows a lot of blatant hypocrisy in season 4 by expecting others to trust her, yet doesn't have the decency to trust others, and also by scolding others for exhibiting flaws that she is still shown to have. [[spoiler:It gets even worse in the series finale, "Cleaved", where she commits ''magical genocide'' and yet suffers virtually no consequences whatsoever.]]

** Moon is considered this in "Here To Help" and subsequent episodes. [[spoiler:It turns that she was responsible for the attacks that Mina and her army inflicted on Mewni, thinking that Eclipsa was not fit to rule. Even if she never wanted any innocents to be harmed, and didn't want Eclipsa and Globgor caught in the crossfire, it doesn't change the fact that she was essentially planning a coup behind her back, and proves that she still doesn't trust Star to make her own decisions. Plus, she almost got Star and her friends killed.]] Her showing regret is all talk and no show, and thus Star scolding her is more than justified.

** Starting in season 3, Marco is this for much of the same reasons as Star. His more jerkish, stubborn, and standoffish behavior is simply meant to be him being too confident in himself, but he's so smug and narcisistic about it that he comes across as cold and selfish, and he's never properly called out for it.

** Duncan, while the show doesn't try to hide the fact he's a bully, he keeps getting treated by others as the good guy up against the real villain. Particularly prevalent in ''All-Stars'' where there's his InUniverse VillainDecay leading everyone (especially Chris) to keep hailing him as a hero.
** [[SplitPersonality Mike]] seems to have absolutely no problems with keeping damaging secrets from others, only to hurt them even more when he reveals them.

* ''WesternAnimation/CoconutFredsFrutiSaladIsland'': Take all of [=SpongeBob=]'s negative traits and remove any of his positives and you end up with Fred. It's a little hard to enjoy his antics due to the virtually ChaoticStupid nature of his mayhem. This isn't made much better by his IdiotHoudini nature.

** Other examples where Jerry loses include "The Year of the Mouse," where he is particularly sadistic, and "The Million Dollar Cat", where when Tom learns he'll inherit a million dollars so long as he doesn't harm a mouse for the rest of his life, he milks it for all its worth and torments him throughout the short.
** There was one episode of the series where Tom was beheaded by his owner for failing to stop Jerry and Nibbles stealing food set out on the royal banquet table. Jerry and Nibbles are Musketeers in the episode, and they're stealing food from the ''king'' -- the person they're supposed to be ''protecting'' -- with Tom as one of the palace guards designated to keep an eye on the banquet for later that night. In other words, they're supposed to be ''on the same side'', and the mice are still stealing the food. At the end of the episode, as the mice are walking away with their tiny arms loaded with food, we hear a drum roll, and they look up to see the rise and drop of the guillotine. Nibbles swallows the bite of food in his mouth with a momentarily surprised look, says "Pauvre, pauvre pussycat," then casually shrugs his shoulders and says "Ah, well, c'est la guerre!" and they go off happily munching with jaunty theme music in the background.

** The attitude towards Tom being the villain and Jerry the hero no matter what was probably best shown in "WesternAnimation/HeavenlyPuss," where Tom dies and is told by the Gatekeeper he will be sent to Hell if he doesn't get Jerry's forgiveness for [[DesignatedVillain all the times he's persecuted him.]] Though it was AllJustADream, it shows very well who was always the "Good Guy" in the creator's mind.

** Another example involving Nibbles and Jerry as musketeers. Jerry is in love with a female mouse and has Nibbles deliver love letters to her. Each time, Nibbles is beaten senseless by Tom and comes back badly wounded, even ''crawling'' to him at one point. At no point does Jerry show any concern nor try to help him, all he cares about is whether he received a love letter from the girl. And when the girl sends him a letter that spurns his affections, he rips it up, pulls out a portrait of another girl, and sends Nibbles out to [[HereWeGoAgain do it all over again]]. Made even worse as Nibbles is a ''[[HideYourChildren kid]].'' In other words, Jerry is performing blatant child abuse on a kids' show.