Decoy Protagonist: His role as the lone viewpoint character lasts maybe halfway into the first season and rapidly diminishes from there.
Season 3 also seems to be gearing up towards a bit of a Deconstruction of him; his more negative traits, influences and effects on the group have been increasingly focused on, and the group as a whole seems to be increasingly resistant to / intolerant of his usual tactics and behaviours.
Abusive Parents: In "Home Economics," Jeff makes a throwaway reference to having a drunken and abusive dad when explaining how TV makes an excellent parent.
Aesop Amnesia: He seems to have to learn and re-learn that he either needs to start treating his friends better and / or deal with the fact that he's at Greendale and stop acting so high-and-mighty about everything very frequently.
Jeff: He doesn't like fake courses, well, he's about to get a real lesson on the fact that Jeff Winger never learns.
Season 3 premiere seems to suggest he has finally learned how much he needs his friends (at least subconsciously) just as they are no longer reliant on him.
Lampshaded almost word-for-word in "Paradigms of Human Memory" They've been reading the trope pages again, haven't they?
None of that chemistry is going Shirley's way though.
Berserk Button: Don't play mind games with Jeff when it comes to his long lost father.
Jeff: If you're lying to me, if my father isn't coming, if a car pulls up and anyone other than my father steps out, say an actor or you in a wig, if you pull any Ferris Bueller, Parent Trap, Three's Company, F/X, F/X2: the Deadly Art of Illusion bull—- I will beat you. And there will be nothing madcap or wacky about it.
Better as Friends / Friends with Benefits: Jeff and Britta's relationship has zigzagged between the two; despite some romantic tension in season one, they appeared to have decided that they're Better as Friends — except it was revealed "Paradigms of Human Memory" that they'd still been hooking up on occasion. The end of that episode, however, saw them apparently decide to call that quits as well, and it seems that they're now just platonic friends.
Break the Haughty: Much of Jeff's character arc basically involves getting him down from his high horse by any means necessary, usually through a combination of humiliation and good old-fashioned Character Development.
Brilliant, but Lazy: Played with for Jeff; he's clearly quite clever, he's very lazy, but whenever he tries to coast on this, things usually go wrong for him.
Jeff: Well, the funny thing about being smart is that you can get through most of life without ever having to do any work.
Bully Hunter: Jeff's a curious example; on the surface, he seems thoroughly reluctant to involve himself in anything outside his own self-involved little bubble, and isn't adverse to letting rip with the odd snide and cutting comment himself, yet he consistently appears unwilling and / or unable to let bullying go unchallenged. Pretty much every time a bully / group of bullies has appeared, even if the victim isn't one of his friends Jeff's more often than not ended up confronting them; he'll usually frame it as confronting them for being a loud, obnoxious and irritating dickhead rather than a bully, but nevertheless. In "Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism" we learn Jeff himself was a victim of bullying as a child, which might explain this.
Catch Phrase: "But here's the thing." Usually said when he's endeavoring to be the voice of reason.
Designated Villain: As Pierce was for season 2 it seems Jeff fits this role sometimes in season 3.
Dismotivation: Played with; Jeff wants to get his degree, get out of Greendale and back into his cushy high-powered lawyer lifestyle, but is incredibly lazy, used to coasting on his wits and charm, and sees doing any more than the bare minimum amount of effort required to get by, whether it is in getting his degree or doing anything for his friends, as a personal failure. Naturally, he often falls into the trap of doing more to actually avoid doing anything (and consequently bringing on more trouble and strife to himself as a result) than would be necessary if he just sucked it up and put an honest effort in.
Forehead of Doom: This feature has been brought up several times when insulting him.
Jeff: It's not really that big, is it? Troy: It's not small.
Freudian Excuse: Jeff drastically changed his image and attitude after a brutal lashing at foosball—a loss so bad that young Jeff actually wet himself—by a bully who turns out to be Shirley when he was 10 years old.
Jeff: The funny thing about being smart is that you can get through most of life without having to do any work.
Jeff also often falls into the trap of putting more effort into avoiding having to work hard to do something (with usually a greater amount of trouble and strife for him) than it would probably take if he just sucked it up and put an honest effort in to doing what he was supposed to be doing.
Hipster: Jeff tends to occupy the 'vain, self-centered and obsessed with being the coolest-yet-most-aloof person in the room' part of the stereotype.
Hot Guys Are Bastards: He's getting (a bit) better, but he still has a tendency to use his looks as an excuse for being a jerk.
Jerkass: His default setting. While the study group has enabled him to gradually develop and display a heart of gold, he originally wasn't very nice at all, and can occasionally regress.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Almost on every episode he is in when he has to rescue the group from their hi-jinx. Lampshaded by Britta in Modern Warfare. In fact, it can be argued that this trope is Reconstructed with Jeff.
Loony Friends Improve Your Personality: Although it's played with, in that it's gradually revealed that as much as he might try to deny or hide it, he's just as loony as the rest of them in many ways.
Manipulative Bastard: He's getting much worse at this over time, due to Character Development. His skills started failing him right around when he came to Greendale.
"Stop Having Fun" Guy: In general, his rather snide and hipper-than-thou attitude and efforts to demonstrate a cool ironic detachment can sometimes mean that he can ruin the fun a bit (alternatively, he can seem to have it most at the expense of someone else). Seems especially the case in "Remedial Chaos Theory" where the timeline resulting in him going to get the pizza is ultimately the one were everyone ends up having the most fun.
White Male Lead: Out of two black people, an Arabic guy, and an Asian guy on the cover, the main character ends up being the young white male. Although the series has become a lot more of an ensemble piece over time.
Berserk Button: Britta likes boys, and she DOESN'T like when they're mean to her, and she DOESN'T like when they stop kissing her and start kissing one of her friends.
Break the Haughty: Like Jeff, Britta tends to have a rather high opinion of herself. Again like Jeff, many of the plots involving her tend to involve knocking her off her high horse as humiliatingly as possible.
Although, she didn't start out this way. It came up gradually in season two and then began to dominate her character in season three. May be a result of Flanderization.
Does Not Like Men: A somewhat mild example. She's made it clear how her views about men are not very flattering. That doesn't stop her from being close friends with four men though.
Expository Hairstyle Change: Goes from a wavy do in season one to a straighter one in season two. Then back to wavy again in season three.
The Grinch: In "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas", her rather smug and snide dismissals of the trappings of the festive season, such as Christmas songs, see her come off as a bit of a killjoy.
The Heart: The gang seems to think she's this, even though almost any member except for Pierce has a better claim to the role. She has grown into it over time, however.
Hipster: Like Jeff, much as she might try to deny it Britta is totally a hipster. In particular, she tends to occupy the 'pretentious, smug and rather ill-informed left-winger' aspect of the stereotype. And she's apparently always been a hipster—for example, she deliberately tracked down VHS bootlegs of Rebop as a child.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Britta tends towards being rather obnoxious, self-righteous, self-centred and inept, but her heart is generally in the right place and it's often made clear that she'd jump through fire for her friends.
Meaningful Name: Britta is a rather brittle person, who puts on a tough, confident and self-impressed front but is really a rather unstable stew of neuroses and insecurities when you get past the surface.
Soapbox Sadie: Parodied; she will latch on to any excuse to jump onto her high horse about something, especially if the something in question is something that is no longer as radical or controversial as she thinks it is. This tends to lead to her making a fool of herself.
She's the AT&T of people!
"You don't have to yell at us! Nobody is on the other side of this issue."
Women Are Wiser: None of the characters is a flawless human being, but she tries to act this trope more than the others (who may actually have more claim to it than her). She does admit at one point that she doesn't consider herself to be so, however, and her heart is generally in the right place even if there's a gulf between her opinion of herself and the reality.
Berserk Button: A double subversion occurs in "Accounting for Lawyers" when Pierce fails to guess another man's Berserk Button, but in fact has just mentioned his own - his hair loss.
Black Best Friend: One thing that gets Pierce out of his suicidal funk is that he has "a young African-American friend".
Butt Monkey: Pierce typically serves this role within the study group, as lampshaded in "The Art of Discourse."
Casting Gag: Up until a couple of years ago, Chevy Chase was absolutely notorious for being difficult to work with. He's turned it around since then, but Pierce's status as the group's in-universe Scrappy-Doo and general Jerkassness can be seen as him essentially playing who he thinks he used to be.
The Cast Showoff: Performs a couple songs accompanying himself on keyboard.
In "Intro to Political Science" he got into the election for student body president just to publicly humiliate Vicky in every way imaginable for not lending him a pencil.
Don't You Dare Pity Me: Pierce hates the thought of anyone pitying him for any reason. Unfortunately, he's also so desperate for attention that rather than accept people's pity, he'll instead lash out in more negative ways to the point that pity ends up being the last thing anyone feels for him, even if he genuinely warrants it.
Pierce: You know I've been coming to this school for twelve years? I—I've never been friends with anyone here for more than a semester. Probably for the same reason I've been married seven times. I guess I assume eventually I'll get rejected, so I, you know, test people, push them until they prove me right. It's a sickness, I admit it. But, this place has always accepted me, sickness and all. This place accepted all of you. Sickness and all. It's worth thinking about.
Took a Level in Jerkass: In season 2, he starts engaging in self-alienating behavior while simultaneously castigating the others for alienating him; this culminates in the events of "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking," "A Fistful of Paintballs," and "For a Few Paintballs More." In season 3, that level of jerkass seems to have receded, returning him to the sympathetic bumbler of season 1.
Troubled Sympathetic Bigot: Can across as this. Pierce's inappropriateness, overzealous creativity, and pathological need to be accepted at all costs are all rooted in frustrations getting attention from his father and his fear that his age is now isolating himself from the rest of the study group.
Ambiguous Disorder: He is incredibly fascinated with films and television and is a bit obsessed with projecting their tropes onto real life. He also has a strange, somewhat sterile demeanor, doesn't seem to know (or even when corrected, care about) how to go about certain social situations, and is face-blind. The characters seem to be unsure of whether or not Abed is showing symptoms of some kind of mental disorder, or is just really quirky. His parents have attempted treatment, if the syringe clipart in his student film is anything to go by.
Awesomeness by Analysis: He's so Genre Savvy that he can predict, word for word, how anyone in the group will respond to a given situation.
In Cooperative Calligraphy, it was revealed that in this fashion he figured out the menstrual cycles of the women in the group.
Dangerously Genre Savvy: His encyclopedic command of tropes gives him the full-on power of prophecy. He shot a video where the study group bands together to stop Jeff from living out of his car... the week before it happened to the characters themselves.
Dawson Casting: Abed's exact age is never specified, but he's probably in his early twenties. Danny Pudi is 32.
Abed: Troy invented rap music, and he's related to Danny Glover, and President Obama. Troy: Hey man, that stuff I said this morning wasn't true, I was just messing with you. Abed: You were lying? Troy: Yeah, as a joke. You've never had somebody mess with you before? Abed: Yes, just kidding, no. Like that? ...This isn't a table. (Laughs) ...That's funny.
Fake Nationality: Abed and his dad as Palestinians, or as any kind of Arab: Danny Pudi (Abed) is half-Indian and half-Polish (and grew up speaking Polish), while Iqbal Theba (Abed's dad) is Pakistani. The Arabic they speak in "Introduction to Film," however, is real.
Fourth Wall Observer: At one point he looks directly at the camera and says "this is the movie!" while someone sings "Abed!" in the background.
As he says, talking about people like they're in a TV show is his gimmick and that they "leaned pretty hard on that last week." He then says that he "can lay low for an episode." As mentioned above, this becomes Dangerously Genre Savvy at times (oddly enough it is relatively rare that he is victim to Wrong Genre Savvy).
He's even Genre Savvy about having an Ambiguous Disorder - he got out of a conversation with Chang where he was caught in a lie by pretending to 'glitch', making Chang go away in frustration.
Only Sane Man: Literally. When Britta has the entire group take a psychological test, all of them are revealed to be extremely unstable, except for Abed.
Pass the Popcorn: Part of his Meta Guy shtick. He goes as far as giving cues to the players so they know how to proceed cinematically.
In his own words, "I know you guys all so well I can predict your behavior."
There's a throwaway joke in "Physical Education" when Jeff spills a bag of bagels on the floor and Abed glances down at them briefly before saying, "Thirteen."
Pierce and Duncan have both referred to him as such.
Reference Overdosed: References are basically how he communicates with the world.
The Alcoholic: Started drinking a lot after her divorce.
Beware the Nice Ones: Shirley in general appears to have deep-seated rage issues underneath her saccarine-sweet exterior, as noted by Jeff in the pilot:
Jeff: Shirley has earned our respect. Not as a wife, not as a mother, but as a woman. And don't test her on that, because that thing about the jukebox was way too specific to be improvised.
Shirley also threatens Jeff with a pizza slicer at one point.
She humiliated foosball competitors as a child.
Black Best Friend: Mostly to Annie but sometimes to Britta, and in one episode, to Jeff.
Holier Than Thou: Shirley is both the most passionately religious member of the study group and the most insufferably self-righteous and judgmental about it.
Politeness Judo: Her status as Team Mom gives her this ability. Case in point the WWBJD bracelets.
She's an interesting version of this, as rather than being called Hollywood Homely, she's accepted as being "cute" most of the time, but goes to a more "sexy" appearance by Letting Her Hair Down.
Word Of God: Annie's pretty young. we try not to sexualize her.
In another odd example, Troy is actually unaware that Annie is attractive until Jeff points it out to him. Then again Troy is not exactly the brains of the operation. And he did say that that his high school memories with her blurred out her current beauty.
Berserk Button: Being called "Little Annie Adderall", or taking her pen.
Don't kiss her, disappear for the summer without contact, and then swear you're just friends. (Note, this was part of a fake confrontation with Jeff, but she admitted that it started getting a little real. So... acting?)
Beware the Nice Ones: As "The Science of Illusion", "Anthropology 101", "Accounting For Lawyers" and "A Fistful of Paintballs" / "For a Few Paintballs More" demonstrate, pissing off Annie Edison is not recommended. She can get... aggressive.
Annie has no issues taking down a man twice her size with chloroform... twice. And she seems TOTALLY prepared to do it to Jeff too.
She has also punched Jeff in the face and slammed his head into a table. Ouch.
Covert Pervert: Many instances, but most noticeably in her stint as Hector, the Well Endowed
Cute and Psycho: A benign variety, but Annie has been shown to be one failing grade, lousy party, or bad round of model United Nations from a complete mental breakdown.
The Cutie: Annie is the living, breathing embodiment of this trope.
Justified with the revelation that in high school Annie was overweight, wore braces and had terrible acne, it was only after she went into rehab for her Adderall addiction (after screaming 'Everyone's a Robot' while running through a plate glass door) that she became attractive. That, and she's clearly neurotic. Not that this is necessarily a turn-off.
Ms. Fanservice: For a series that tries not to sexualize her, Annie certainly does seem to get wet, dirty, endure clothing damage and get undressed quite a bit.
Sweater Girl: Cardigans appear to make up about half of her wardrobe.
Teacher's Pet: For instance, in "Physical Education", instead of putting his binder back, Seņor Chang drops it on the floor and orders Annie to pick it up.
Technical Virgin: Some have speculated she's one, based on A) being high on Adderall, B) having never seen her boyfriend's (or any man's) penis, and C) her boyfriend crying throughout the act (Britta theorizes he was gay), leading some fans to (wishfully) think sex never actually occurred.
Shirley: Annie, being a virgin in this day and age is something to be proud of. You're like a unicorn!
Teens are Short: She is the younger and shorter in the group.
Hollywood Jehovah's Witness: Averted. He is a Jehovah's Witness and this is often referenced and demonstrated in that he doesn't celebrate Christmas or birthdays. However, you otherwise couldn't tell that he was a Jehovah's Witness if he didn't say so.
"Yeah, but we don't celebrate birthdays or Christmas and we can't drink. But it helps."
Jerk Jock/Dumb Jock: He's more lovable now but apparently in high school, and to a degree in the early episodes of the show, Troy wasn't without his Jerkass side. As demonstrated in "Football, Feminism and You" when a chance to join the Greendale football team ends up with him strutting around in a self-obsessed manner lambasting people at random with his "politically conservative high school's shamefully outdated fight rap(s)."
Black and Nerdy: Hanging out with Abed has had an effect on him, in that he's gradually lost interest in his former jock pursuits and has embraced his inner geek more.
Lovable Jock: If he didn't start out as this, then he's certainly grown into it.
Then lampshaded by Troy himself in "Mixology Certification" by his reaction to getting a birthday cake with Jehovah's Witness-appropriate language.
Troy:(reading) "Hello during a random dessert, the month and day of which coincide numerically with your expulsion from a uterus." You guys, I never cry, but...
Screams Like a Little Girl: his usual reaction to any crisis is to start screaming and crying like a six-year-old girl. Usually accompanied with a jumpy little tantrum.
Berserk Button: Seņor Chang has several, but upon being informed in "Social Psychology" that the experiment was going to start late immediately exploded in a violent, childish temper tantrum, involving throwing furniture and screaming "MOMMY!" Since the purpose of the experiment was to test how long people would put up with being delayed before exploding, Professor Duncan was quite pleased:
Duncan: Houston, we have an idiot.
The Blind Leading The Blind: as it turns out he does not actually know Spanish. At one point, he was teaching them Klingon.
Sadist Teacher: In the episode "Environmental Science", he drags Annie out of his classroom for failing to put her pencil down at the end of a test, assigns an essay to the rest of the class as punishment, extends the length of the essay every time a student says something (eventually coming to "TWENTY PAGES, EN ESPANOL, ON ASS KISSING!"), makes it worth thirty percent of the students' overall grade for the class, sets it due the following Monday (despite the class being an introductory Spanish class), and promises to follow it immediately with "a big ass quiz." He also openly insults nearly every student in the class on a regular basis (see his explanation of "Usted" on the Quotes page). Apparently, the school's been trying to fire him for years, but couldn't because nobody wanted his job. (He was eventually fired when it was discovered that he didn't have any teaching credentials. Or Spanish credentials.)
Most of the scenes involving him appearing in a teaching capacity generally tended to involve him abusing, insulting, ranting at or on some occasions even borderline molesting his students.
Butt Monkey: He's the first person bitten by the zombies in "Epidemiology", gets fired from his job thanks to the study group in "Contemporary American Poultry", gets a poisonous dart in the face from Professor Bauer in "Anthropology 101", just for starters. AND no one calls him by his real name.
In "Modern Warfare", he gets shot point-blank by Pierce while they're looting the vending machines.
Technically averted, since the character gives his name early in the series ("My name is Alex, dude!") but no one's ever called him that. By the end of season 2, he seems to have all but given up on people using his real name.
Hypocritical Humor: It's a source of some frustration to him that no one seems to look under the surface appearance he presents and notice the true person he is underneath. His frequent attempts to solve this problem, however, are equally superficial things like adding a hat or a lizard to his ensemble.
Jerkass: He's a self-admitted drug dealer, and it's rare for him to say anything that doesn't immediately earn douchebag points.
Kavorka Man: He has inexplicably little trouble attracting female attention. Jeff seems to think bribery has something to do with it:
Jeff:[Referring to chicken fingers] He gives them away so that people will act like he isn't Starburns.
Nice Hat: Starting in season 2, he starts wearing a top hat all the time, to try and stop being known solely for his starburns. It fails magnificently.
Pandering to the Base: Invoked for parody; in "Intro To Political Science" he changed his last name to 'Rodriquez' while running for school president to "court the Hispanic vote." The name change appears to have stuck.
Phrase Catcher: "Shut up, Leonard!" Usually followed by "I know about your [seemingly embarrassing secret]!"
Shell-Shocked Veteran: He claims to have participated in several wars, and this may be an explanation for his current wild and coarse nature.
Noticeable Nipples: He's often referred to by a nickname denoting his tiny nipples.
Put on a Bus: Transfers to Delaware for a hackysack scholarship.
Rule of Three: Always says hello and good-bye three ways. Lampshaded by the study group, who start to count his greetings on their fingers whenever they see him and respond in kind.
Walking Shirtless Scene: To the chagrin of everyone. As Jeff points out, as he never wears a shirt and he never wears shoes, it's a wonder he doesn't die from lack of service. Later in that episode, Vaughn states that it took so long for him to get ice cream because they made him find a shirt.
Dr. Rich Stephenson
Played by Greg Cromer
Abusive Parents: Apparently Rich's mother blamed him for his brother's death, driving him into becoming a doctor and a Stepford Smiler.
Shoo Out The New Guy: Trope mocked mercilessly. He's allegedly been in the gang's Spanish 101 class this entire time. The entire main cast is either weirded out by his sudden, unexplained appearance in their lives or convinced he's a murderous psycho. "Investigative Journalism" ends with Owen Wilson suddenly appearing and offering Buddy a spot in the "cool" clique.
Breakout Character: Parodied. Has his own catchphrase not unlike many breakout characters from 70's sitcoms. Time will tell if "Pop Pop!" will join "Ayy!" and "Dyno-Mite!" in the sitcom Hall of Fame. The working name for his character was even Poochie.
Hidden Depths: "He's awake who thinks himself asleep." (Yes, he quoted Keats.)
Chekhov's Gunman: Fat Neil is mentioned in "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design" and "Asian Population Studies" before his main appearance in "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons."
Political Correctness Gone Mad: Has a tendency to slip into this, causing the creation of the "Greendale Human Being" (Jeff: "I think not being racist is the new racism") and the non-denominational Mr. Winter ("Merry Happy!"). This habit of his is also apparently the reason the degreeless Chang got the Spanish teaching position—Pelton was afraid of being called a racist for asking an Asian man for Spanish credentials.
Demoted to Extra: The character was initially featured in early promotional material as the main professor character in the show, but after a handful of episodes he disappeared, with Seņor Chang (Ken Jeong) essentially taking his place. Oliver returned in the first season finale and was the professor for their anthropology class as a supporting character in season two. This was the result of Oliver's decision to not become a regular cast member because he didn't want to leave The Daily Show (the two programs are filmed on opposite sides of the country) and Ken Jeong's breakout role in The Hangover in the interim between pilot and broadcast.
Hidden Depths: Apparently plays piano - and plays it well - for the Glee Club.
Psycho Psychologist: Non lethal version, but Duncan has been shown to run ethically questionable experiments and lure patients into therapy for ulterior motives (hitting on them and getting publication material for a case study).
Put on a Bus: Perhaps as a result of Demoted to Extra above, hasn't been seen or heard of much throughout Season 3.
Vitriolic Best Buds: His interaction with Chang following "The Psychology of Letting Go" has elements of this.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: After playing an important role in Season 1 and helping drive the plot of the season finale, Slater is mentioned once in passing in the Season 2 premiere and never again (thus far). In "Introduction to Political Science", the news crawl on Abed and Troy's election coverage has the headline "Professor Slater still missing". May be an example of Shoo Out The New Guy.
Professor of Accounting and coach of the Debate Team.
Beware the Nice Ones: While usually nice and carefree, Professor Whitman can tell when you're just taking his class for an easy A and will call you out on it, which he does to Jeff.
Geek / Otaku: Has worn a pendant with a picture of the originator of Model UNs on his neck since high school, and claimed to be known as "Model UN Guy" in college.
Annie: Please rename that thing. And this time not with a contest on Twitter. Troy: It's HIS Twitter account. He can do what he wants. Annie: They are MY body parts.
Greendale Human Being
Greendale's mascot.
Samus Is a Girl: Revealed in on-line video Office Hours: Pamphlet Serious.
Uncanny Valley: invoked Designed to bear no resemblence to any race, he/she/it falls deep in the valley. Several characters, upon encountering it, are either noticeably terrified or at least visibly discomforted.
Field Promotion: In his first appearance, he's a mere Greendale security guard. Soon after (and in all subsequent appearances), he's a local police officer.
