Horrible Judge Of Character / Literature

Horrible Judges of Character in Literature.

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• Nineteen Eighty-Four: Almost every judgment Winston Smith makes about a character’s loyalty to the Party is completely wrong. He pegs a fellow rebel as a government drone, a member of the Secret Police as part of La Résistance, and believes Tom Parsons to be too mindlessly loyal to the Party to ever be disappeared when Tom actually turns out to at least subconsciously resent the Party and is just too fatalistic to try to resist. The only correct judgment he makes is that Syme, a diehard supporter of the Party, is Too Clever by Half and will vanish one night because he understands the Party’s tactics too well, and even then, there’s debate among readers whether Syme was actually disposed of like Winston assumes or was recruited to the Inner Party.
• Pinocchio in The Adventures of Pinocchio is far too trusting in people he shouldn't. This is most notable with the Fox and the Cat, who are really interested in stealing the money Mangiafuoco gave to Pinocchio. Before they do the theft, there are too many clues that they are not the good guys they pretend to be: they clearly keep feigning handicaps, call Pinocchio in a pretty suspicious way, tell Pinocchio that school is the reason for their handicaps, kill a blackbird that tries to warn Pinocchio, leave Pinocchio to pay for all the food they ate, arrange a meeting in midnight and almost kill him (they were disguised, but Pinocchio managed to bite off the Cat's paw and could have discovered all). But Pinocchio still believes their lies until the theft. Later, Pinocchio trusts the worst students in his class, even if his teacher and the Fairy advised him not to. For that, those students trick him to skip school and when one of them gets hit and faints, the rest scapegoat Pinocchio.
• Cheryl from Atlas Shrugged is a young woman who believes in her author's philosophy of hero-worshiping. As a member of the villainous faction of Looters, James Taggart believes in a philosophy which is the exact opposite of Cheryl's. And yet, Cheryl manages to misunderstand Taggart so badly that she thinks he's a heroic man who believes in heroism and marries him. Naturally, the marriage goes badly for Cheryl.
• Senex in The Book of the Dun Cow unwittingly makes a Deal with the Devil with the evil Wyrm, never realizing who he is actually talking to until it's too late.
• The elder princesses of the country where A Brother's Price takes place seem to have been this. They and the husband they chose are already dead at the beginning of the novel, but the trauma caused by said husband is still very alive. Because of the polygyny practiced in their culture, all their sisters suffered from their bad taste in men.
• In the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant The Lords of Revelstone gave a seat on their council to the being that would later become known to them as Lord Foul the Despiser (Also Satansheart and Soulcrusher, Corruption, the Gray Slayer, etc, etc). They did give him gifts they thought should have revealed any ill intent but he was too powerful for them to work. Still a horrendously bad judgment on their part.
• Mr. Boddy in the little-known Clue book series is surprisingly never actually killed, but a lot of attempts are made on his life by the same six people he consistently invites over either to show off this new tomb he bought to put in the back garden complete with tour, have a nice dinner, afternoon tea... he even lampshades this. He always escapes, somehow, and talks about it in the next entry.
• At the start of The Count of Monte Cristo, the young Count himself is a terrible judge of characters, trusting as friends the same men who will completely ruin his life and get him started on the quest for revenge that will occupy the rest of the story. In fact, he will never realize, by himself, the reason for his downfall: only with the help of old Faria will he be able to finally get a clue.
• In both The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons Robert Langdon unwittingly helps the villain achieve his goal while running scared from the guy who is trying to warn him about it.
  • Seeing as "the real Big Bad is actually the person who has been apparently helping the protagonists the most and has no logical reason to be the Big Bad" is one of the many common elements to all of Dan Brown's work, this may be a case of Genre Blind instead.
• Deptford Mice: In the book The Oaken Throne by Robin Jarvis, the Starwife is totally stunned when her trusted handmaiden Morwenna betrays her and brings her realm to ruin. This in spite of the fact that the Starwife is supposed to be all-knowing.
• Played with in Divergent. Four has no problem identifying Marcus as a bad person or Tris as strong or brave, but becomes the Unwitting Pawn to multiple characters in the series. In the cases of Evelyn and Nita, they try to make it up to him, however.
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Susan means well, but doesn't seem to understand any of her children and spoils her youngest son Manny way too much.
• The Divine Comedy:
  • Knowing without a doubt that a Perfectly Good and All-Knowing God had damned them, Dante still falls for the excuses of several characters being punished in Hell.
    • First, he faints with despair after an adulterous couple explains why they had no choice but to fall into sin. Their excuse? They heard a love poem about Lancelot's affair and thought it sounded pretty cool.
    • Second, Dante can't help but feel pity when he meets his former master, Brunetto Latini, punished for some type of violence. Dante thanks him for teaching him everything about writing and poetry and remembers how Latini taught him that the secret to immortality was to write brilliantly. Latini reaffirms everything Dante says of him, even when Dante says he wouldn't have put Latini in Hell, apparently not realizing that in life and now in death he lead Dante away from the true secret to immortality: giving one's self entirely in the Love that is God. So in perpetuating Dante's error and leading him away from the Paradise, Latini continues in death to do Violence against God.
  • Thomas Aquinas concludes a dialogue about human wisdom by observing that men are foolish when they casually judge whether another is damned or blessed because to do so would be to "count ears before the corn is ripe." Since that's foolish, Aquinas reminds the ordinary man that he should not assume to be the Mind of the Lord, for even one who appears to be a robber can be saved while the charitable giver may suffer in Inferno.
• A truly bizarre inversion in the Doctor Who Expanded Universe novel Timewyrm: Exodus, where the Doctor intervenes during the Beerhall Putsch and gains Adolf frickin' Hitler's unquestioning faith and trust. This is all part of the Doctor's scheme to reverse the Timewyrm's interference with European history. Hitler never has an inkling that the Doctor isn't one of his oldest friends until The Reveal; it's even strongly implied that the Doctor's betrayal was the last straw leading to Hitler's death.
• Fire & Blood: Good Queen Alysanne was normally a pretty good judge of character, but she had a massive blind spot for her daughter Saera, assuming she was just in need of a little love and affection, even by the point it was clear Saera hated mom and dad and had no intention of ever coming back.
• Tash Arranda, a Force-Sensitive protagonist from Galaxy of Fear, is very hit or miss when it comes to her friends. Thanks to their shared aptitude for the Force she becomes fast friends with Luke Skywalker. Similarly she's quickly able to sense that Wedge Antilles, Lando Calrissian, Fandomar Nadon, and Dash Rendar are good people. However, the Force doesn't give her Detect Evil powers unless the people in question are also Force-Sensitive, and she's quite susceptible to friendliness and flattery. Her brother, remembering the times she's picked up on the people who are the most helpful, once assumes that anyone she likes will be similar and it backfires.
• From Harry Potter:
  • Snape in regards to Harry. Snape views Harry as arrogant, attention-seeking, and selfish, whereas nothing could be further from the truth. That being said, it's all but stated he's projecting James onto Harry, and only because he can't stand the fact that the woman he loved chose another man over him (with Harry being the living reminder of that).
  • Cornelius Fudge in regards to Lucius Malfoy. Bribery might be involved.
  • Percy Weasley - if calling Dolores Umbridge a "delightful woman" in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix doesn't make him a Horrible Judge Of Character, it's hard to imagine what does. Buying into the Ministry's anti-Harry propaganda and advising Ron to cut his ties with his best mate doesn't help him at all.
  • The Sorting Hat is a good judge of character but lets itself be swayed by students who have a strong preference for a house other than the one the Hat would have chosen. We see this expressly with Harry, but it's hinted with Snape (on the train to Hogwarts he expressed a strong preference for Slytherin, even though he had a lot of Gryffindor traits, to the point that Dumbledore wonders whether the Hat might have placed him differently if it were given the chance to reconsider). And it doesn't take too much Wild Mass Guessing to imagine the Hat also considered James Potter (arrogant rulebreaking prodigy that he was as a youth) in Ravenclaw, but granted him his strong wish (also expressed on the train) to be in Gryffindor. And putting Peter Pettigrew in Gryffindor as well? (It's worth mentioning that while the Hat stood by its earlier opinion that Harry would have done admirably in Slytherin, Dumbledore disagreed completely in The Chamber of Secrets, claiming that only a student who Godric Gryffindor himself had favored could have drawn his sword out of the Hat.)
  • Albus Dumbledore is normally an Excellent Judge of Character, with one exception in his youth: Gellert Grindelwald, who was the love of his life before becoming Wizard Hitler and his Arch-Enemy. He also exploited Dumbledore's love for him in hopes of Dumbledore joining him to achieve those goals, until Ariana's death snapped Dumbledore out of it. It's implied that this bad experience with Grindelwald is why Dumbledore was able to peg the true nature of Tom Riddle (the future Lord Voldemort) years later.
• The Hunger Games: One of Katniss's biggest flaws. Quite simply, she has a nasty habit of always assuming the worst of everyone she meets when these people ironically often end up saving her life and or genuinely caring about her. Her trust issues mostly stem from her childhood trauma of never having anyone to be there for her and in turn having to be there for her younger sister.
• In Death series:
  • Peabody in Holiday In Death. Eve warns her that Brent Halloway is the wrong guy to get attracted to, due to his It's All About Me attitude. Peabody still becomes gooey-eyed over the guy, and as a result, gets his fingers stuck into her crotch, and in one of Roarke's bars on a date, no less! At least Peabody gives the pervert a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  • Eve's mother in New York to Dallas proves to be this. Both Eve and Melinda Jones try to warn her that Isaac McQueen is just using her and will kill her off like so many of his "partners". She doesn't listen. Guess what happens to her later on.
  • Roarke in Innocent in Death, believe it or not. Usually, he is anything except this trope. However, an old lover named Magdalana comes back and has him fooled. It took considerable effort on Eve and Summerset's part to get Roarke to see that Magdalana was just a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing.
• George Denbrough, the first victim of the Monster Clown in Stephen King's IT. Yes, he's six years old, but you'd think he'd still sense something not right about a clown who suddenly appears in a sewer grate.
• The Left Hand of Darkness: Despite being a trained diplomat, Genly's personal biases cause some disastrously bad judgements. He dislikes Estraven, the one local who genuinely supports him, due to Culture Clash over local etiquette; misses the danger posed by the Evil Chancellor Tibe; and fails to realize he's wandered into a Police State until his erstwhile allies betray him.
• Leia Organa in Leia, Princess of Alderaan has a pretty understandable one. She takes a liking to Kier, a fellow Alderaanian, who's thoughtful, principled, dislikes The Empire much as she does, is liked by her parents, likes her, and helps teach her sharpshooting. He's a personable and genuine young man. However, he's also aware that Alderaanian involvement in any kind of Rebel Alliance will cause incredible suffering and loss of life among their people and is fatalistic enough to believe that any effort would be futile. Leia reveals to him that her parents are both major figures in the Rebellion, and after seeing Imperial retaliation on a much smaller issue - it included wiping out a city and killing hundreds of thousands of people - he betrays her trust and attempts to turn Bail and Breha in, believing that this will spare Alderaanians from war and reprisal.
• In The Lion The Witchandthe Wardrobe, Edmund was very easy on trusting that the White Witch would make him King of Narnia rather than kill him and his siblings. He should have figured out from the start that The White Witch is evil from what The Pevensies heard about her from the Beavers or that they found out she imprisoned Tumnus just for helping Lucy. He played the Idiot Ball even further by sneaking out to the White Witch's castle and getting himself captured. It wasn't until she berated him for coming alone and he was forced to witness her cruelty that he finally snapped out of this trope. That said, he had eaten too much of the White Witch’s enchanted Turkish Delight and it’s implied that he was too addicted to the food to care until he was forced to witness her cruelty.
• Julia Valerian of The Mark of the Lion series is this in regards to her romantic relationships, consistently choosing partners who are abusive, invariably selfish, or who don’t love her back and are merely playing her like a fiddle for their own ends, only to drop her when she is no longer of use. Given her romantic Wide-Eyed Idealist nature at the beginning of the series and where this vicious cycle eventually lands her, this is a little bit heartbreaking.
• The title character of Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes is an amateur psychologist (formerly a teacher of French, now a bestselling author), inclined to be proud of her work in psychology. She spends some days at a women's college and at the start reflects that she's never seen such fine specimens of English women. Well, not only do all sorts of not-so-fine things turn up, but the first woman she'd taken an instant liking to turns out to be a murderer. The book ends with Miss Pym reflecting bitterly that "as a psychologist, she was a pretty good teacher of French" and vowing to stop lecturing on psychology.
• The Neverending Story: Bastian thinks nothing of trusting one of Fantasica's most infamous witches, despite the fact she obviously tries to turn him against Atreyu. She also quite obviously feigned defeat when she kidnapped the knights and Bastian rescued them, as Atreyu points out, but he thinks nothing of it. This can possibly be explained as a result of Bastian gradually losing his memories, and consequently his humanity.
• James Morland in Northanger Abbey. He thinks that John Thorpe is an excellent friend and doesn't recognize that Isabella Thorpe is a Gold Digger who thinks the Morlands are richer than they are. Although Catherine is close friends with Isabella, she starts noticing the discrepancies of Isabella's behavior sooner and never likes John. It isn't until Isabella abandons her engagement to James for the richer Captain Tilney that James' eyes are opened.
• Pharaoh - Ramesses is a bit of a loose cannon, but quite easily manipulated. Partially due to being so changeable.
• The Reynard Cycle: Given how completely blind she is to the villainy of both her cousin, and later, Reynard himself, the Countess Persephone is an excellent example of this.
• In the Young Adult novel Rosebush by Michele Jaffe, this is a huge factor in the plot, as it's the protagonist Jane who doesn't know which of her friends is the one who tried to kill her.
• Septimus Heap: Jillie Djinn, Beetle's Bad Boss. She arbitrarily fires him and hires Merrin Meredith to replace him.
• Mister Poe in A Series of Unfortunate Events has a tendency to fall for Olaf's Paper-Thin Disguise of the day that's part this, part Captain Oblivious, with maybe a dash of not caring.
  • In general, whenever Poe expresses an opinion on someone or something, it's pretty much the opposite of what the Baudelaires (and by extension, the audience) are thinking. Though at times it can be unclear if it's this trope, or he's just trying to put on a brave face.
• The Silmarillion: Celebrimbor trusts Sauron, the Big Bad in Lord of the Rings, and teaches him what he needs to know to create the One Ring. Sauron used his dead body as a banner.
• Sisterhood Series by Fern Michaels: Bobby Harcourt in Sweet Revenge was apparently this with regards to Rosemary Hershey, according to Isabelle Flanders's recounting of past events. Fortunately for Bobby, the lust he felt for her wore off by then, he had come to see Rosemary for what she really was, and decided to divorce her. Roland Sullivan is Lethal Justice is very much this. He felt such lust for Arden Gillespie that he cheated on his wife, and essentially became Arden's puppet. Even when the consequences finally start hitting him, he refuses to leave Arden. He even figured out at a very late date that Arden had no conscience, and she confirmed it when he asked her. He still did not leave her. This just shows that Roland is a real piece of work!
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Eddard Stark. Littlefinger did warn the man not to trust him...
  • Catelyn isn't much better. She takes Littlefinger as a trustworthy sort of guy when he's got a blatant crush on her, thinks her paranoid Psychopathic Manchild of a sister will be reasonable, and assumes Jon Snow is just itching for the chance to try and take Winterfell from her children.
  • Sansa is this at first with regards to Joffrey and Cersei, but she eventually becomes disillusioned. Other than that, though, she's generally a pretty good judge of character — she's one of the few people who immediately recognized Littlefinger as being a dangerous creep — and this has only been improving as she acquires Jade-Colored Glasses.
  • Cersei Lannister, for all her paranoia and tendency to find threats in every shadow, is remarkably terrible at seeing enemies where they actually exist. The Church Militant that even the Targaryens trod lightly around? The perfect pawns for a petty scheme. Random dude who looks a bit like Prince Rhaegar? Great choice for an admiral. Anyone who questions her increasingly irrational decisions? Bitter enemies, who must be purged. It all collapses on her spectacularly in A Feast for Crows.
  • Theon Greyjoy. No, Theon, this is not a helpful Igor. This is the master of said Igor, who wants to give you a Fate Worse than Death.
  • Tywin is a strange hybrid of this trope and Excellent Judge of Character. The trouble is, he knows he's a good judge of character, so once he thinks he's got a handle on someone, he assumes he's completely right and never changes his opinion. Ever. The possibility of him having been a little off in the initial Sherlock Scan, or being completely right but said person having changed since he initially made his assumptions simply never registers.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Mara Jade is typically a decent judge of character, but not necessarily when it comes to the Emperor. In Allegiance, while in his presence Mara thinks of him as a "good and wise man," for all that there are all kinds of little hints that she knows very well that he's not. She is an Emperor's Hand, a Force-Sensitive agent who can hear his commands from anywhere in the galaxy, and it's not hard to imagine that he messed with her head. Five years after his death, she's angrier at Luke for killing Palpatine because this destroyed her way of life and because his last command still echoes in her head. Not so much because a good man wisely leading the galaxy was killed, and in fact between the evidence and his waning influence she's rather messed up. In Survivor's Quest she finds herself working with the Aurek Seven stormtroopers and gets a little nostalgic for the Empire until she goes into the storage core of Outbound Flight and sees all of these supplies stacked up, on Palpatine's order, for fifty thousand people he was arranging to kill.
  • She wasn't exactly on the ball concerning Jacen either, although the level of her uncharacteristic obliviousness in that series seemed to vary from book to book, depending on what the author at the time needed in order to get away with the plot.
• Stick Cat: In "To Catch a Thief", a burglar breaks into Goose's and Tiffany's apartments to steal all their valuables. Stick Cat knows right away he's a theif, but since he gave them bits of tuna to distract that (which only Edith ate), Edith is convinced he's actually a good person. She rationalizes he comes into good cats' homes to give them treats and toys, and that he's only taking things from Goose's and Edith's apartment to make more gifts for cats. It's only when the burglar starts stealing her collars that Edith starts thinking he's not really that nice a person.
• This is very much true of the character Squire Allworthy in Tom Jones. He's supposed to be a Reasonable Authority Figure, but throughout the novel, he always makes the wrong judgments, trusting bad characters and assuming the worst about the heroes to the extent that his reasonableness is Informed Ability.
• Treasure Island: Squire Trelawney unknowingly hires a bunch of pirates to sail his treasure-hunting vessel. He also mistakes Captain Smollett's plain speaking, sensible caution and firm-but-fair approach to discipline for "unmanly" character, until events prove that Smollett was right (or if anything under-cautious).
• Olivia in The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign sees the White Queen as a benevolent figure. This leads her to join the villains, as she thinks that Kyousuke would be better off reunited with the Queen. Notably, she even maintains this attitude after the Queen rips off Kyousuke's arm (it was a fake arm, but she didn't know that at the time). This is justified by the fact that she comes from a kingdom that venerates the Queen as a goddess, because the Queen rewrote history so that they would see her in this manner. Olivia does realize the Queen's true nature when Kyousuke points out contradictions in her kingdom's history, causing her to pull a Heel–Face Turn.
• Brambleclaw in the second Warrior Cats series believed that Tigerstar was trying to redeem himself for his evil ways and that Hawkfrost wasn't evil. He was wrong.
• Wuthering Heights. Lockwood originally describes Heathcliff as "a capital fellow". But then after storytime with Nelly...

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