Characters who have Inferiority Superiority Complexes in Video Games.
- Baldur's Gate II: The arrogance displayed by Anomen is much influenced by the disrespect his father has for him for joining the Order and for pursuing their moral codes before the family interests. Basically, Anomen dedicated all his life to be a squire aiming to become a full knight, going through the harshness of boot camp and the rigid standards of the Order, but his family being a disaster and his paternal contempt put a huge toll on his self-confidence. He has to show that he is worthy.
- Baldur's Gate III:
- Token Evil Teammate Lae'zel is a Proud Warrior Race Girl who carries herself like a queen, exudes an aura equal parts confidence and arrogance, and clearly expects the rest of the party to fall in line behind her. The moment she's reunited with her own people it's made clear that in spite of her name sounding "proud, regal even" she's a nobody fledgling, and after the Player Character sufficiently melts her icy exterior it's made clear that all of her grandstanding stems from a crippling fear of never accomplishing anything with her life.
- Gale is a magical prodigy, powerful and skilled enough to have drawn the attention of the goddess of Magic herself, which he takes great pride in. Poking a bit at his "genius wizard" facade makes it clear that underneath he is suffering from severe loneliness and self-esteem issues after Mystra abandoned him over a mistake, as he feels like his magical talent is the only source of his self-worth (telling him you like him for who he is as a person rather than for his magical prowess will genuinely shock him). In his bad ending, he becomes the god of ambition and is cursed with the compulsive need to compete with the other gods to elevate himself, trapping himself in an Ironic Hell where he'll never truly feel as though he's good enough.
- In the bad ending to his questline, Token Evil Teammate Astarion develops this as a coping mechanism for the trauma stemming from his master's abuse and the Player Character's inability to help him resolve it in a healthy manner. His desire to usurp his master's Deal with the Devil comes from a desire to Never Be Hurt Again, and if allowed to act on it he immediately becomes Drunk on the Dark Side and convinces himself he's an Ultimate Life Form, becoming a sadistic bully just like Cazador was and ensuring that he'll forever be haunted by his abuse. The Player Character can lampshade this, pointing out that You Are What You Hate and if having romanced him can go even farther and tell him point blank that he's ensured he'll never truly be free of Cazador, which infuriates him.
- This is the Fatal Flaw of Lotte Carmine from BlazBlue. As a researcher, he harbored some ambition that he'd surpass his superior Kokonoe in scientific breakthrough, but for some reason, Kokonoe dismissed him that bad and even refused to support him in particular research about seithr. Not knowing to give up and even dismissing the support of his partner Litchi, he went on through the research and ended up as Arakune. And even as Arakune, what remains of him was his hatred for Kokonoe's superiority and his desire to become supreme scientist.
- George from Deadly Premonition is obsessed with gaining power, physical or otherwise, due to being raised by an abusive mom and his belief that the strong will naturally overcome the weak. His insecurities lead him to become the new Raincoat Killer.
- Deltarune: Kris's know-it-all classmate Berdly is revealed to have this problem in Chapter 2. He prides himself on being one of the smartest kids in class, but it's revealed it stems from beating Noelle in a spelling bee as a kid when he only won due to the final word "December" being her Trauma Button, and he let the praise go to his head. In reality, he's reliant on Noelle's help to maintain his good grades.
- Dominus Ghaul in Destiny 2 is a mighty Cabal warlord who's brave and intelligent, but also has a rather fragile ego and is constantly seeking validation for his actions. He tries to conquer the City and gain the Traveler's powers because he's jealous; angry that the Guardians were granted the Traveler's blessing and not him, because surely someone as strong as him deserves it more. It's noted he could easily just steal the Traveler's light, but he won't because he's convinced doing so would be equal to admitting failure and he won't accept that. He needs the Traveler to acknowledge him as worthy on its own and starts cracking when it becomes increasingly obvious that he can't impress it.
- Disgaea:
- Laharl suffers from this. He acts all high and mighty for being the Overlord, but deep down is really somewhat lonely, especially once you learn of his backstory. However, the fact that he acts like a complete Jerkass to most people isn't exactly earning him any brownie points, either. This is driven further in Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness in which the Krichevskoy group constantly compares Laharl to his old man and say what Krichevskoy would do in a situation like this. Escalates to the point where in chapter 8 Laharl makes it very clear that he's going to be better than his dad and demands they trust him when the trio get themselves in a bad situation.
- Axel from Disgaea 2 also suffers the same complex. He acts like he's popular and that everyone loves him yet he knows that his career is in shambles and he's pretty much the laughingstock of the universe. His efforts at put-downs are less effective than Laharl's but he still hides his insecurities underneath the Dark Hero mask he constantly dons.
- Ensemble Stars!:
- Tori is extremely demanding and loves to gloat about how much better he is than the 'slaves' around him. However, he is highly aware that he is the youngest and least experienced member of fine and is very worried deep down that he might be holding them back. Part of his Character Development involves him deliberately choosing to become less childish and selfish so he can stand on his own even after the third years graduate without making them worry.
- Arashi appears very confident, often boasting about her great fashion sense and beauty. But deep down she's dealing with some pretty major gender issues, and while she pretends it doesn't bother her when others call her things like 'okama' (a slur aimed at queer men and trans women), she really does worry that she'll never be able to become the beautiful woman she wants to be. Her boasting is an attempt to put up a shield and to convince herself that she's okay with things as they are.
- Final Fantasy:
- Final Fantasy VII is full of these. To the extent that it could be considered one of the main themes of the game:
- Cloud insists on showing off as much as possible, striking poses, and being flamboyantly snarky towards others. This is later revealed to be a false persona that stemmed from a complex caused by his feelings of worthlessness, exacerbated by Jenova cells and trauma. At one point, he states that as a child he dealt with his isolation and feelings of worthlessness by convincing himself that it was because everyone other than him was stupid.
- A similar case can be made for Cloud's enemy, Sephiroth. When he learned he was the product of sick science and some sort of alien monster "lady", he... didn't take it well. To say the least. When his pride was shattered by the revelation, he went mad trying to prove himself more than a lab monster and ended up falling into delusions of grandeur, ripping through many Moral Event Horizons like wet paper in his wake. Upon realising he isn't a real human, Cloud quotes him as saying that he'd always known he was strange and different when compared to other people, "but... not like this...". A week later, he's declaring himself the 'rightful heir to this Planet' and planning to become a God. His arrogance even allows him to re-emerge five years after his apparent death falling into a reservoir of Mako energy, without having experienced the ego-death that is suffered by most people heavily exposed to Mako energy.
- Red XIII acts haughty, intelligent, and ancient, with little time for the inexplicable behaviour of humans. To Red's embarrassment and Cloud's surprise, it later turns out that he's the equivalent of a fifteen-year-old boy and he still lives with his grandfather, and he was showing off due to feelings of inadequacy.
- Aerith's reckless behaviour and manic levels of confidence about her Zany Schemes are in contrast to how awkwardly she talks about her powers when Tifa asks her about them. It's clear she has only a confused grasp of her abilities, doesn't know what her mother's Materia is for (calling one of the two most powerful magical items in the world 'good for absolutely nothing' and wearing it as a hair accessory), and is scared of how different she is. The Expanded Universe has it that she was mostly isolated growing up due to her surveillance by the Turks and because her abilities led people to consider her creepy. By the end of the first Disc, she has so much control over her powers that she can translate the words of spirits, interfere with Cloud's dreams to speak to him while he's unconscious, find the lost City of the Ancients, and cast her mother's spell.
- Barret at first comes off as an aggressive blowhard who loves being in charge and is very arrogant and uncompromising about his anti-Shinra political views. He later admits that this is all an attempt to deal with his feelings of worthlessness after his initially pro-Shinra views led to his town being destroyed. When the displaced and destitute residents corner him and shout abuse at him, Barret just nods and takes it.
- Zigzagged by Yuffie, who at one point gives a big speech about how her country has been stripped of pride after its colonisation, and she only stole from the party because she thought that if she did, she could prove herself... and immediately reverts to her usual Awesome Ego personality after using this to lure the party leader into trapping the other members in a big cage, gloating at them for being stupid enough to fall for it. However, most fans do think Yuffie's speech was about her real reasoning, even if she was using it to manipulate others. Many of her in-party scenes show her tough-girl attitude falling apart when faced with genuinely threatening and disturbing things, like confronting the shooter in the Battle Square, saying goodbye to Aerith, or working up the courage to kiss a boy.
- Final Fantasy VII Remake, as a Remake, has Barret directly call Cloud out on his cockiness coming from "a huge inferiority complex".
- Final Fantasy IX has Kuja. In a race of artificial people called "Genomes", he was the only one with an actual soul due to some sort of fluke. He was always insisting due to this that he was different from his nigh-mindless peers, loudly trying to enforce his individuality. But then ANOTHER Genome was created with a soul (on purpose this time) and was scheduled to be Kuja's replacement. Kuja reacted... badly. He kidnapped the child and dropped him into the world Kuja was to help destroy, all out of a desire to prove himself superior.
- Final Fantasy VII is full of these. To the extent that it could be considered one of the main themes of the game:
- Fire Emblem:
- Hugh from Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade insists that he's a talented, handsome young man. In a support conversation with his grandmother Niime, he falsely concludes that he's not her real grandson because he missed out on the immense talent for dark magic that runs in the family and remarks that she must be disappointed that he's her only surviving relative, revealing his absolutely terrible self-esteem.
- Serra from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade acts like a haughty Rich Bitch, but inside is a scared little girl afraid of being alone and ignored.
- Severa from Fire Emblem: Awakening takes this on pretty hard. She has spent her entire life being compared to her "perfect" mother and even opts to not follow the same career path as her just so she doesn't get compared further.
- Takumi from Fire Emblem Fates haughtily declares that he intends to be the one to bring the Avatar down for their betrayal in the Conquest route and is often abrasive toward people who haven't earned his trust, but it quickly becomes clear that he doesn't have much faith in himself. He also has a tendency to project his negative thoughts about himself on others. His supports with his older siblings and even his own son drive the point home the best. Takumi's self-esteem is actually frighteningly low, and his possession by Anankos on the Conquest route just makes his issues worse.
- Roxanne Wolf from Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach. While she just seems narcissistic at first, there are several hints that it's merely a facade. When you spy on her in the vents, she starts out complimenting herself in front of the mirror but then breaks down crying a short time later. One of her voice lines has her nervously reassure herself that she will find Gregory first because she's "the best".
- Scaramouche the Balladeer, from Genshin Impact, is infamous among the Fatui for his cruel and haughty nature. He treats even his fellow Harbingers with disrespect, talking down to even those that outrank him, and views humanity in general as vermin barely worth his time. But the revelations of his Dark and Troubled Past show him to be haunted by the belief that he is incomplete and terrified of letting himself become attached to short-lived humans as he had in the past. Abandoned as a failed prototype by his creator, who he views as his mother, he felt that he lacked a "heart" and desperately longed to become human. But a series of betrayals and losses drove him mad with grief, until he swore to never associate with mortals again. He believed achieving godhood was the only way to cure the emptiness he felt, and outright admits when confronted that he's happy to erase his own identity to achieve his goals. When the truth of his past betrayals is revealed to him, he desperately attempts to change the past by erasing his existence from reality, essentially trying to commit suicide to escape his pain. It fails, forcing him to begin the difficult path to reconciling with his past. The final line of his Boss Battle theme is even (in latin): "I wish I'd never been born".
- In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, it is not outright stated but heavily implied that the protagonist, Rean Schwarzer, loathes himself, which is what causes him to go out of his way to help practically everyone who asks, no matter how mundane or outrageous their requests may be, and even some who never ask for help. In the first game, people just assume he's just a good kid who wants to do well, but by the third and fourth games, he actually hates himself for who he is and what he has done up to that point.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Zelda was initially very cold and dismissive towards Link but as later revealed, acted in this manner due to not being able to awaken her ancestral power. Seeing Link as the chosen hero, easily wielding the Master Sword, was a reminder of their own failures. Revali also acts in a similar manner towards Link by constantly spouting off on how much better he is than him and brushes off Link's chosen one status as merely "being lucky". It's all a front to hide his feelings of looking worthless after spending most of his life being his village's highly praised warrior and getting one-upped by a boy that happened to be special.
- Live A Live: This is Oersted's Fatal Flaw. The character in question is heavily reliant on external validation and the approval of others to maintain their own emotional balance. When it all gets ripped away by Streibough's manipulations, Oersted can't handle it and completely breaks.
- Mass Effect:
- Miranda from Mass Effect 2 was genetically designed to be perfect, and she envies Shepard for having built their career with nothing more than skill, hard work, and courage. If you defrost her enough, she'll admit to feeling that she can't take responsibility for anything but her mistakes, as she constantly worries that any good she does is the result of the geneticists who created her.
- The Big Bad of the Citadel DLC for Mass Effect 3 implies this during their Villainous Breakdown, that their real motivation to Kill and Replace Shepard stems from an inferiority complex at being considered nothing more than a clone of the real Commander Shepard.
- Time Man from Mega Man Powered Up acts this way to compensate for the fact that he was activated in an unfinished state.
- Liquid Snake from Metal Gear Solid. He grew up believing that he was genetically inferior to his "brother" Solid Snake, and this insecurity partly inspired Liquid's world domination plot. It turns out it was the other way around, and it was Liquid who was the superior one, and Solid had the inferior genes, and it was all made up by the Patriots. The Last Days of FOXHOUND has The Sorrow exploit it into convincing him to learn a lesson about brains vs brawn.Big Boss: You play him like a damn Stradivarius.
The Sorrow: Ha! More like a fifty-cent kazoo. A kazoo with a big red button labelled "inferiority complex". - Persona:
- Persona 3 has this in the Magician Arcana in Junpei Iori. He tends to act cocky and confrontational, mainly with The Hero. However, we learn that he has low self-esteem and a cruddy home life with an absent alcoholic father. As such, he initially saw SEES as a way to escape his home life and be a somebody in his life. However, he does carry the insecurity of being not good at anything besides fighting ... which he then gets outclassed by the entire cast. His issues are toned down a bit in Portable should you play as the female character, instead becoming more of an older brother sort of figure, though still also your closest friend (outside of Aigis).
- Token Evil Teammate Akechi in Persona 5 was a Sad Clown with a Friendless Background, who despite having many talents including being a powerful Persona user, despised Joker for being able to catch up to and eventually surpass him through The Power of Friendship while he had nobody.
- Persona 5 Strikers: Ango Natsume's pride was devastatingly wounded when he found out that not only was the writing competition he won fixed, but his editor saw him only as a talentless money fountain. He propped himself up with EMMA, but still felt inadequate. It's best represented by how after he is defeated, his outfit is revealed to be a cardboard cutout he stands behind in his underwear.
- The Rival (A.K.A. "Silver") in Pokémon Gold and Silver and Crystal is an extremely arrogant, highly abrasive boy who acts like he's stronger and better than everyone else, berating the player and calling them "weakling" constantly throughout the game even right after losing, calling everyone else weak, rudely brushing off advice and help from others, viewing Team Rocket or any bunch of people as little more than a bunch of cowards compensating for their lack of strength and possessing a burning hatred for everyone and everything he sees as weak, even scoffing at you for trying to cure a sick Ampharos. In the original generation 2 games, he goes as far as to say he wants to wipe out the weak. However, in the remakes it's revealed that it's to compensate for his deep-seated fear of his own weakness, stemming from his father Giovanni's loss to Red three years prior that prompted the temporary disbanding of Team Rocket and his abandoning of a very young Silver. He gets better by the end, however.
- In the Wii remake of Punch-Out!!, Super Macho Man is an egocentric showoff who plays to the crowd and treats his opponents like dirt. Surely losing to Little Mac once isn't going to put a dent in that massive ego, right? Fight him again in Title Defense and he's changed for the worse - he throws a tantrum when the crowd boos him, yelling "Why don't you love me?" (The crowd always booed him before and he ignored it.) He doesn't even flash his trademark smile as he taunts anymore - instead, he flexes so hard it looks painful as he grimaces at Mac. If he wins this bout, he has an epiphany and decides that Celebrity Is Overrated... but then it goes to his head and he reverts to his old ways. If the man wasn't an atomic-level Jerkass, you'd almost feel sorry for him.
- Radiant Arc: At the start of the game, it's clear that Derek is jealous that Lexie is giving Linky so much attention, which is why he bullies Linky and looks down on the latter for being weaker. In the present, he's easily defeated by a Minotaur while Linky succeeds by awakening his powers as the Radiant Arc, causing Derek to lose faith in himself now that Linky surpassed him. This causes him to join the Morians both to prove himself stronger than Linky and because he's projecting his fear of his weakness on the rest of humanity, believing they're too weak to oppose the demons.
- Rise of the Third Power: Noraskov survived the Great War, but at the top of Peren Desh, he claims that failing to bring his country to victory was one of his greatest failures. This, combined with his shame over his peasant background, implies that he cultivates a strongman image to compensate for his own inferiority complex.
- In the first Shovel Knight expansion, Plague of Shadows, Plague Knight is very proud of his intelligence and skill with explosives and arcane arts, but he's constantly belittled by every other character in the game for his lack of physical strength and reliance on "trickery." He blows off their insults with his own retorts, but it becomes clear as you progress that he really does feel ashamed of not being stronger. So much so that the entire purpose of his quest to create the ultimate potion is merely to become strong enough to woo his Love Interest Mona. (Who, of course, loves him already.)
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- This is Metal Sonic's motivation. He was built for the sole purpose of defeating Sonic, but no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't beat him. This slowly developed into a drive to prove himself superior to Sonic, one that began to drive Metal insane. By the time of Sonic Heroes, his inferiority complex caused him to become so unstable that he betrays Eggman and tries to devastate the planet in a desperate attempt to prove that he's the more powerful warrior.
- Infinite takes this even further in Sonic Forces. The self-proclaimed "Ultimate Mercenary", he belittles everyone he meets, including Sonic and Shadow; he even gloats a bit toward his boss, Dr. Eggman. But for all his arrogance, Sonic doesn't take him any more seriously than he does his other enemies, and even Dr. Eggman gets sick of him. Why? Before the events of the game, Infinite was just a two-bit sellsword. His effortless defeat at Shadow's hands prompted a Freak Out and motivated him to fusing himself with the Phantom Ruby, becoming a weapon of mass destruction and shredding his original name.
- Blaze the Cat. Acts rather aloof and a bit above it all, and prefers being independent and doing everything by herself (at least initially). Despite this, she's socially awkward and insecure, it's stated in official sources that she's self-conscious about her figure, and she becomes very defensive and snappy when Silver claims that he could have taken the robots out without her in Sonic Colors, immediately claiming that she could have taken them out without him as well. This could also be seen in her debut game, in which she was so disgusted by the notion of letting Sonic aid her that she fought him when he refused to back out of the fight with the Eggmen, which allowed the latter to escape their grasp and in turn nearly led to the destruction of two dimensions.
- Alex from Stardew Valley reveals this in his route; he was abused by his father as a child, possibly witnessed his mother's death, and came to believe he was worthless. Grandma Evelyn's well-meant concerns about his academic shortcomings are furthering his insecurity, so he covers up with rudeness and bragging about his athleticism and future as a sports star.
- Darth Thanaton in Star Wars: The Old Republic, the Big Bad of the Sith Inquisitor storyline. Like the Player Character he was a former slave who became Sith after it was discovered he was Force-sensitive, but his low upbringing combined with his Insufferable Genius demeanor caused him to not be taken seriously by his peers. Even after ascending to the Dark Council most of the other members seem to quietly disdain him, and his stubborn adherence to Sith tradition at the cost of alienating everyone around him is a thinly-veiled overcompensation to validate himself.
- Papyrus from Undertale has this. His Establishing Character Moment is him nagging his brother Sans to stop slacking around, slipping into a boast on how perfect he is, and ultimately wishes to be showered with the respect he deserves. When you have to fight him, the way he talks heavily implies he just wants people to like him. That, of course, isn't to say he doesn't already have what he wants, and he doesn't seem to notice when someone actually hates him, to the point of giving words of encouragement to the person who just decapitated him. That one he does notice - if you choose not to decapitate him, he actually tells you "to be honest, I was a little afraid" of coming out to meet you. He just sincerely believed you could do better.
- In Until Dawn, during the therapy sessions with Dr. Hill, if Emily is chosen as the player's least favourite person, Dr. Hill would suggest that she may have a fear of failure and her abrasiveness is a cover for her insecurities. This is seen later on if both she and Matt survive and have high relationship stats, Emily will ask the police about Matt and is noticeably concerned if Matt still considers her a good, devoted girlfriend.
- It's currently just background information since Yandere Simulator isn't finished yet, but final rival Megami Saiko's little brother Kencho has this bad. The only reason he was born was to be a Spare to the Throne in case Megami dies or abandons her responsibilities (like her aunt did before her), and he knows it. Because of this, he feels that his entire self-worth is tied to her, and he only has purpose if he can outdo her. Unfortunately for him, she's a Parody Sue who always outdoes him in everything, so he has a massive inferiority complex tied to her. The 'superiority' part comes from his relationship with other people- he loves flaunting his wealth and generally rubbing his status into the faces of people he considers his inferiors in a desperate attempt to feel better than someone.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Lanz leans into his role as the team's Big Guy and Dumb Muscle in order to cover up the Survivor's Guilt he feels from an incident where a friend saved him at the cost of their life. Sena has shades of this as well, deliberately playing herself up as a Plucky Girl to mask the fact that she doesn't consider herself to have much value outside of being the team's Dumb Muscle. The two of them eventually bond over their shared insecurities and resolve to support each other instead of pretending to have no weaknesses.
