Break the Haughty in western animation TV shows.
- American Dad!: Roger Smith gets this in "Weiner of Our Discontent" when he claims to have been sent to Earth as the "decider" of humanity's fate but finds out that he was actually just a crash test dummy for the UFO he landed in.
- The third season and end of the second season of Archer have seen the titular character Sterling Archer take quite a bit of karmic retribution, including the death of his fiancée and his possible biological father, and then his fiancée being resurrected as a cyborg, only to leave Archer for the man who murdered her in the first place.
- Atomic Puppet: The entire premise of this series revolves around the Smug Super Captain Atomic being transformed into a sock puppet and now having to cope with the fact that he's lost everything that made him so beloved to the people of the city he protected. As his official bio explains:"After a lifetime of being able to handle every situation with his brute strength or endless charm, AP now struggles with the idea that he needs Joey's help in order to be the hero the city needs."
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- Prince Zuko and his pre-series fall from royal prince to banished prince, followed by his fall from banished prince to The Drifter. And then, just when he has managed to return to the Fire Nation and regains his place as prince, he realizes he's been on the wrong side the whole time and goes into exile again (this time voluntarily) to join forces with the Avatar. By that point the Good Guys are rather distrustful of Zuko's protestations that he has truly changed, considering he had (nearly) made a Heel–Face Turn once before but then chose not to at a critical moment, so he has to swallow the last dregs of his pride and beg for another chance until they accept him. And The Lancer actually tells him that she'd kill him with her own hands if he ever does something similar again. (Understandable, since she's The Hero's Violently Protective Girlfriend and the one who witnessed his botched Heel–Face Turn.)
- Zuko's sister Princess Azula also suffers a rather magnificent (read: psychotic) break. In the finale episode, Ozai names Azula Fire Lord like she wanted — but then crowns himself Phoenix King, basically making her a puppet ruler. She begins losing her mind, seeing visions of her Missing Mom, chopping off hunks of her hair, banishing almost all of her servants at random, and eventually challenges Zuko to Agni Kai, a firebending duel. She loses (eventually being defeated and captured by Katara), snaps completely, and it is later revealed that she is now in an asylum.
- Fire Lord Ozai himself. Ruthless, arrogant Social Darwinist intent on destroying the world and rebuilding it in his own image until the Kid Hero royally kicks his ass and spiritually castrates him, leaving him to lie useless and pathetic on the ground while the hero's friends taunt him. Then, to add insult to injury, he's visited in his lonely prison cell by the son he banished and tried to kill...who is now the new Fire Lord.
- One unique example of this Trope happens in Bravestarr, in an episode where Stampede thought Tex Hex was starting to forget who was in charge. Stampede tells Hex — in so many words — that he's on his own, which means he loses his superhuman powers, and as a result, he's quickly arrested, and can finally stand trial for everything he's done (with Bravestarr himself prosecuting). Hex almost succeeds in getting off by managing to rig the jury so that Hawgtie, one of his own henchmen is put on it (a unanimous vote is needed for a guilty verdict) and gets so confident at one point that he even admits to everything he's on trial for. ("Just ask Hawgtie!" he gloats. "He was there a few times!") Unbelievably, however, Bravestarr manages to convince Hawgtie to vote guilty along with the rest of the jury, because the henchman realizes that he's being used — just like he's always been. (Of course, after being sentenced, Hex almost wants to go to prison after Stampede comes to break him out, and tell him why he let it all happen, confident that he's now learned his place, with the suggestion that things are going to be different from now on...)
- Wile E. Coyote, in the several shorts where he faces off against Bugs Bunny, the Karmic Trickster. Each time he proudly announces at the beginning that he is a "Super-Genius." Always gets his comeuppance by the end, in one short declaring that "My name is Mud" and promptly keeling over unconscious.Bugs: (looking into camera) And remember: "mud" spelled backwards is "dum".
- Happens to Gunther, Professor Farnsworth's hyper-intelligent Jerkass monkey in the Futurama episode "Mars University" when his Amazingly Embarrassing Parents crash Parents Weekend.
- David Xanatos from Gargoyles suffers this in "The Gathering". After being able to manipulate everything and everyone to his advantage for the entire series, he is suddenly faced with a Physical God bent on kidnapping his newborn son. Despite his best efforts and with the help of two of his antagonists, the Manhattan Clan and Halcyon Renard (David's father-in-law), he is ultimately completely helpless and unable to protect someone that is more important to him than wealth or power. For once Xanatos knows what it feels like to be a helpless victim. There are well-done moments in that which for the first time, Xanatos hears his father say he's proud of him, and reacts to that, all David's wealth and power never impressed Petros Xanatos, but his efforts to defend his son do. Later, in the last scene we see David, his smirk is gone.
- The Author from Gravity Falls was quite proud of himself in his younger years. A scientific genius, he was very susceptible to praise. So much so that Bill Cipher was able to appeal to his flattery so as to trick him into creating a portal that would allow the demon to take over the world. The Author has been considerably humbled by this experience, and as soon as he returns to Earth, he spends his time and energy trying to atone for his mistake.
- Bill Cipher has spent the whole series getting people to make deals with him, letting him screw them over later or trick them into helping him. In the finale, he even succeeds in his goal of bringing Weirdmageddon to Gravity Falls, letting him wreak havoc. He ends up getting a minor version of this in Part 2 when he realizes that he is stuck in Gravity Falls and can't take Weirdmageddon outside the town, but he gets this hard in the final part. Ford appears to submit to him and Bill makes a deal to spare Stan and the twins if he lets Bill run free. However, it was a trick. The person whose mind Bill goes into is actually Stan, who proceeds to let his mind get erased in order to kill Bill. For once, Bill realizes he has no way out and his attempts to bribe Stan fall flat, sending him into a Villainous Breakdown before Stan finally kills him once and for all.
- Hazbin Hotel: The events of the first season finale leave Alastor humbled and on the verge of a Villainous Breakdown after he almost gets killed by Adam. He then bounces back with renewed determination to find a way out of whatever deal he made that has put him on someone else's leash.
- Lucius Heinous VII on Jimmy Two-Shoes has this happening to him frequently. Usually, he just gets some humiliation that is typically gone by the end of the episode (like in "Spew Tube"), but in "Best Prank Ever", the people of Miseryville get back at him for his pranks by transforming the town into Smilesville, which works so well it results in him going insane.
- Lex Luthor becomes a broken man in Justice League when his criminal activities are exposed by the League, and he learns that he's dying of cancer (caused by carrying radioactive Green Rocks for years). Notably, Luthor is one of those characters who recovers from this and comes back for more. His cancer is cured (courtesy of Brainiac), he begins a (feigned) campaign to become President of the USA, and later usurps Gorilla Grodd as leader of the Legion of Doom. Magnificent Bastard or what? However, he gets this again when his attempt to resurrect Brainiac resurrected Darkseid instead, thanks to interference from Tala.
- Kaeloo: Happens to the rich Alpha Bitch Pretty, who looks down on everyone else, quite often. Usually, it's a result of Kaeloo and Mr. Cat trying to get revenge on her and intentionally setting up the conditions for a Break The Haughty type scenario.
- In Episode 26, Kaeloo herself gets a taste of this. She receives a letter in the mail, and just before she opens it, Stumpy asks what it is. Kaeloo says that it's probably a letter from an admirer or fan of the show, and explains to Stumpy in a condescending tone of voice that the reason she gets one and he doesn't is that she's the main character of the show and the show is named after her. She then proceeds to open the letter, and it turns out to be a hate letter criticizing her for being "boring". And to rub salt in the wound, the letter also says that Stumpy (and the rest of the cast) is better than her.
- The Legend of Korra:
- This is Avatar Korra's entire character arc in the first season. She is incredibly proud of her bending skills and defines her entire life by her role as the Avatar, so she starts off confident and sure of herself to the point of arrogance, with a knack for jumping into situations without thinking things through, which is the absolute worse thing you can do against a Magnificent Bastard like Amon. Throughout the entire first season, his actions destroy her confidence in herself until he finally fulfills her worst fear: taking away her ability to bend all the elements she's mastered, which to her was everything that mattered. Giving up her pride allowed her to connect with her spiritual side and master airbending, the Avatar State, get her bending back, and top it off by becoming a sort of Reset Button for everyone else whom Amon had previously DePowered.
- Another massive example with Tahno getting his bending taken away by Amon. Before the fight, he was a remarkably cocky, self-assured Jerkass who inspired loathing from the protagonists. After losing his bending, which was the only thing he had going for him, he's seen as this scraggly, disheveled loser with all his strength and popularity suddenly stripped from him. Despite his prior actions, it's hard not to feel a little pity for him at this point.
- In the fourth season, Zaheer is back in a customized cell, all too happy to see Korra ask for his help in getting into the spirit world to save the Earth Kingdoms from its expansionist faction. While not entirely broken, the smug look gets wiped off his face when she points out that if he hadn't killed the Earth Queen in the first place to spread global anarchy, the Earth Kingdoms wouldn't have fragmented and a fascist army rise up to reunite them. He helps her after that.
- Miraculous Ladybug: Chloé Bourgeois pride and ego eventually break because she suffers the consequences of her cruel bullying ways.
- She does not take it well when her idol Ladybug refuses to take her advice during a battle and then calls her a liar, which results in her getting akumatized. When Adrien threatens to end their friendship, however, this time, she's outright shocked and sulking.
- Her life falls into a downward spiral from the moment she betrays the team to Hawk Moth to obtain the Bee Miraculous. When that plan falls through, she's expelled from the Queen Bee position permanently, and the rest of the class now despise her for her actions. This only drives her to double down on her nastiness, willingly letting herself akumatized to get revenge on Ladybug and allying herself with Lila to make Marinette's life more miserable.
- The fifth season starts hammering the nail in when Chloé ultimately loses Adrien's friendship after he gave her every chance to redeem herself and realizing she's proud of causing pain to others. Her Only Friend Sabrina soon followed, having tolerated being mistreated for years and Lila being the new bestie but saw Chloé helping Lila sabotage their classmates' futures to hurt Marinette as the last straw as she works with Marinette to expose the scheme. Sabrina's "betrayal" of Chloé effectively and finally destroys their friendship, thus leaving the latter completely friendless, and Ms. Bustier, who had done her best to see the good in Chloé, decides to keep a closer eye on her from then on.
- In "Collusion" and "Revolution", still in contact with Lila, Chloé, goes full-on scorched earth on everyone, going as far as to abuse her father's status further to get Ms. Bustier fired. But her father is shown to have grown tired of appeasing her and others by giving them what they want, and eventually resigns as Mayor. Lila talks Chloé into accepting an offer from Gabriel (who unbeknownst to her, played a big part in her father's resignation) to become interim mayor and outlaws all heroes and villains, but allows herself to be akumatized into "Queen Mayor" in an act of total hypocrisy and uses Gabriel's security robots to capture everyone who has ever got on her bad side while turning her admiration into a regime. She also tricked Ladybug and Cat Noir into using their special abilities to publicly expose their identities and end their hero careers once they de-transform, only for the plan to fall apart when the heroes learned to maintain in their hero forms indefinitely and rally the citizens to fight back. In the end, Chloé is deposed, left universally despised by all of Paris, abandoned by Gabriel and Tomoe (who flee to keep their plans hidden), as well as Lila (who got she wanted from their arrangement), and loses her mother's respect while being exiled to New York. Looking at her phone on her way out, rather than call Sabrina to mend things between them, Chloé instead calls Marinette to taunt her about Adrien leaving. But she instead ends up at the receiving end of Marinette's scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech, which finally breaks Chloé's pride and ego.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well is revealed to be an intentionally constructed Break The Haughty scenario: The rest of the group got sick of Rainbow Dash's gloating and created the superhero persona to knock her down a few pegs.
- The "Great and Powerful" Trixie, a traveling magician, gets one off-screen. She's introduced in her first episode as the type of over-the-top "I'm the most awesome thing alive" antagonist you might expect to find in a children's cartoon, and after getting shown up by the main character, is still going on about how awesome she is as she flees town. It turns out later that the event destroyed her career, to the point where she had to work on a rock farm to make ends meet.
- In "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 2", Discord is subjected to this at Tirek's hands, finally solidifying his Heel–Face Turn.
- In "Crusaders of the Lost Mark", this finally happens to Diamond Tiara. When Pipsqueak decides to run for class president, she, of course, has to try to sabotage his efforts and use blackmail and bribery to turn the tides back in her favor. She fails miserably before the episode is half over, Silver Spoon's finally had enough of her crap and calls her out, and she gets a chewing-out from her snotty mother. She ends up in tears and the Cutie Mark Crusaders actually feel sorry for her. Thankfully, this ends up being the catalyst for her Heel–Face Turn.
- In The Owl House episode "Hollow Mind", Hunter starts off by bragging about his own knowledge of the mindscape, uncritically singing Belos's praises, and laughing in Luz's face when she suggests he could be evil. Over the course of the episode, Hunter is forced to learn that Belos is actually a genocidal maniac who rose to power through lies, deception, and cold-blooded murder, and that Hunter himself is the latest in a long line of clones Belos keeps creating and then killing when they disobey him. When Hunter brokenly begs Belos for answers, Belos decides this is enough to count as insubordination and tries to kill him, which only very narrowly fails. After escaping the mindscape, Hunter has a severe panic attack, tears off his Golden Guard cloak, and runs off into the woods while hyperventilating. Gus finds him days later squatting in Hexside's abandoned auditorium, now a Seriously Scruffy Nervous Wreck, though this does culminate in Hunter's Heel–Face Turn.
- In The Powerpuff Girls' first confrontation with Princess Morbucks, Blossom not only defeats her without breaking a sweat, but she gives Princess "The Reason You Suck" Speech of all time.
- Happened to Ren from The Ren & Stimpy Show in the episode "Stimpy's Fan Club". Stimpy gets a lot of fan mail which stings at Ren's jealousy since he doesn't get any. Throughout the episode, he figures out the ways to make himself important, his schemes ranging from taking up the role of Stimpy's Fan Club's president, to killing Stimpy. When he finally gets a fan letter, he gloats about it to Stimpy, pointing out that it's his turn to be a fan's favourite now, with some appropriate Ren-like exaggerating. His triumph fades out in an instant when he finds out the letter was from Stimpy himself.
- In one episode of Samurai Jack, Jack encounters a loudmouthed calling himself "Da Samurai" who, while genuinely possessing some skill, uses his position to bully the local townsfolk to get what he wants. Da Samurai thinks that he is capable of taking Jack in a duel, and goes out of his way to antagonize Jack until he gets his fight. What follows is one of the most one-sided fights in Samurai Jack's entire run: Not only does Da Samurai fail to land a single hit on Jack, Jack relieves him of his expensive glasses, clothes, and fake Heroic Build in less than four minutes, all while using a stick of bamboo. Da Samurai does learn from the lesson and tries to be a more humble hero in the future.
- The Simpsons: In "Homer vs Patty and Selma", Patty and Selma take turns belittling and blackmailing Homer after he is forced to borrow money from them, and later fail him on his chauffeur test. Then, they get caught smoking on the job by their boss, who threatens to pull their promotions. Homer almost is willing to let them pay the price for their own screw-up...until he sees Marge worried, and covers for them. Patty and Selma immediately apologize for their behavior, and (reluctantly) forgive their debt to him.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- Squidward goes through one in the episode "Squidville". After finally having it with SpongeBob and Patrick after their fun with reef blowers end up blowing up his house, Squidward moves to Tentacle Acres, a town of octopi who are just like him. While he enjoys his stay at first, his constant repeating of activities every day eventually causes him to miss SpongeBob to the point where he ends up playing with the reef blower and annoys the other town residents. Naturally, the town haughtily expels him.
- Sandy suffers this in the episode "Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm." She goes to take out the Alaskan Bullworm for the sake of the town and adamantly refuses to listen to SpongeBob's warnings about how big and monstrous the thing is, convinced she's "too Texas-tough" and can easily handle the worm. In the end, she comes across the worm in a cave and apparently beats it...only to discover that what she fought was actually the worm's tongue, and the Bikini Bottomites were not exaggerating over how big and monstrous it is; all of her bravado fades in an instant.
- Steven Universe:
- Pearl's crush on Rose Quartz gave her the impression that she was Rose's most trusted confidant, that she knew all her secrets, and that Rose loved her more than anything. Despite her status as the Team Mom, she was not above lording this over everyone else, becoming extremely unpleasant when her idea of her relationship with Rose was threatened. Truth is, Rose did care about Pearl, but their relationship was nowhere near as deep or trusting as Pearl imagined. Increasing evidence of this (Rose marrying Greg, the existence of Lion and everything Rose-related that he is privy to, Steven learning stuff about Rose that she didn't know) culminates in the song "It's over, isn't it?" where Pearl has no choice but to acknowledge these facts.
- Peridot was one of the primary antagonists throughout the later part of Season 1 and in Season 2 being cold, cruel, and surprisingly vicious. After her defeat, she goes through a lengthy redemption process where we learn she was one of many interchangeable technicians made on the cheap (being underdeveloped physically and lacking powers) and has a bad Inferiority Superiority Complex. There's a number of episodes where Peridot must get accustomed to her new life, learn to respect other people, and genuinely try to improve herself. After a lot of humbling, it's abundantly clear that she's really grown as a person.
- In "Change Your Mind", this trope is the only way to get through to White Diamond. She believes she's perfect and has no flaws, so Steven can't redeem her until he gets her to realize that she is flawed and imperfect just like everyone else.
- One episode of Tales From The Cryptkeeper involves a narcissistic adventurer who's definitely more about the glory (including his good looks) than about the less attractive aspects. He and his trusty but scrawny sidekick enter a castle where a maiden is held prisoner by a vampire. In the end, the scrawny sidekick gets the maiden, and the adventurer gets turned into a vampire. His most lamented aspect of this development is that, as he has no reflection... "No more handsome checks!"
- Total Drama:
- Courtney repeatedly, usually having something to do with Duncan. She ultimately does herself in in All-Stars when her selfish intent gets the better of her, and ultimately runs out of excuses when the others make sure she knows they've had enough.
- Heather often got hers in regards to her cruelty, but the second-to-last episode of Island is what really did it. She gets a dare from Lindsay to shave her head, which is something she threatened to do to her several episodes ago. In a panic, Heather kicks the razor out of Chef's hand — it lands on her hair, shaving her anyway. Then Chris points out that since Heather didn't technically accept the dare, she's disqualified from the competition, resulting in an epic Villainous Breakdown. Then, in the special, she's shunned by everyone except Harold (due to her previous actions, none of the other contestants were willing to pair up with her in the scavenger for the money) and eventually breaks down in tears.
- Alejandro suffers this in the final episode of World Tour. Heather manipulates his feelings for her so that he'll hold off completing his victory to kiss her...and then promptly knees him the balls and pushes him down the mountain on a block of ice. After manipulating girls through love, Alejandro ultimately falls prey to the same tricks he used. And he gets burned by lava and stripped of his good looks. Now THAT is Karma.
- In Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race the Ice Dancers make it clear that winning silver at the Olympics was one of the worst moments of their lives. By the end of the series they don't win silver again...they win bronze. Josee does not take it well.
- Transformers: Animated:
- Sentinel Prime getting his head taken off and his body taken over.
- Wasp is an arrogant, talented bully classmate of Bumblebees. If he hadn't been such a jerk, maybe Bumblebee wouldn't have immediately suspected he was the Decepticon spy, and eventually got him sent to a prison so bad that when he finally escaped, he was reduced to a buzzing, muttering wreck with a bad optic twitch. Harsh.
- Sentinel has one when he first meets Blackarachnia, who is really Elita-1, his and Optimus' love interest who was led to her current fate by both boys. Made worse because he insults her before he realizes it is her. He is really broken up by this revelation and goes so far as to admit to Optimus that they should never have gone to the spider planet that caused her current condition. He had taken every opportunity to mock Optimus about this failure before. There's another after that in "Decepticon Air" when Sentinel has to call on Optimus for help. After Optimus saves the day, Sentinel, in absolute seriousness, offers his comrade a place in the Elite Guard (which Optimus turns down politely) and salutes him as they part ways. Still, he's jealous when Optimus ends up as the hero in the final episode.
- Transformers: Prime has Silas, the murderous, power-hungry terrorist who stole Breakdown's body and betrayed humanity to the Decepticons. He ends up being used as a test subject for all kinds of painful experiments by a vengeful Knock Out, and eventually becomes an energon-hungry zombie. By the time Airachnid kills him, he's actually grateful.
- Riven from Winx Club. He leaves the fairies and his Specialist squad for an evil witch, Darcy, the resident flirty Dark Action Girl, and when she decides she and her sisters don't need him anymore, she invites him to her house, where she and her sisters taunt Riven (one of them slices his cheek open with her fingernail) before sending him to the dungeon.
- Happens to of all people Miss Martian aka M'gann M'orzz in the second season of Young Justice (2010). In the first half of the season, she constantly abuses her mental powers and freely justifies Mind Raping her enemies since it gets the job done. Then, she mentally breaks the believed traitor of the group Aqualad, not knowing he's actually The Mole for the team, and is horrified when she finds out the truth, spending a majority of the second half of the season a nervous wreck about using her powers.
