Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
alt title(s): Comedic Sociopath "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall in an open sewer and die." — Mel Brooks
"How much humor can we milk out of psychotic behavior? Find out this fall! Only on Marvel/DC!
Comedy, as has been noted before, ain't pretty.
John Cleese once noted, when talking about Fawlty Towers, that comedy is very much like tragedy, the only difference being that comedy lacks sympathy towards the character. This is often because the character in question does not particularly merit sympathy; Basil Fawlty, for example, lives a life full of hardships, annoyances and general misery, but because he is antisocial and offensive towards his guests and staff often with little provocation (and that most misery is caused by his own actions), you find yourself laughing at him rather than mourning his misfortune. If Basil Fawlty were a decent person rather than an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist, Fawlty Towers would be a depressing exercise in watching a man tortured undeservedly.
We laugh when we see someone else get hurt. Schadenfreude is a staple of humor, there's no question about that. But Slapstick is only acceptable in limited doses these days, and people just don't throw around banana peels like they used to. And so, in order for humor to be committed, writers must turn to the psychological equivalent.
This means that in any given situation, the Butt Monkey of the moment must be surrounded by people who are capable of making him miserable, whether intentionally or not. This capacity for cruelty and its lack of consequences comprise what we call Comedic Sociopathy.
Sociopathy, loosely, is a condition in which a person is indifferent to or unaware of the rights and feelings of other people. In comedy, these symptoms show up in the darnedest places. Any time a character needs to be trodden on, put upon, tongue-lashed, stung, bashed, insulted, dejected, neglected, and all kinds of other mean nasty ugly things, somebody's got to be there to do it to them. And so, regardless of the personalities of all the characters involved, everyone eventually develops these symptoms.
What's amazing about the way this plays out is not that there will be characters who are mean, and snarky, and sarcastic, and uncaring, but the behavior of the characters who are not. In order for the appropriate level of hilarious misery to occur, other characters — even kind, loving characters — must temporarily lose their ability to sense, understand, or care about the emotional discomfort, pain, and suffering that the current Butt Monkey is experiencing. They may regain it when the plot calls for it, but for that critical moment of "gag," the character is essentially a sociopath. In the worst cases, when there's a Writer On Board, Comedic Sociopathy can cause characterization to break down completely, allowing close friends to deliver cutting remarks like casually thrown knives.
Comedic Sociopathy can be seen in nearly all comedy. It is the root of shows like Seinfeld, Family Guy, and Fawlty Towers, but it shows up just as readily on Sesame Street. To the cruel, it is meat and drink; to the kind, it is the chicken the vegan compliments as the best tofu ever. You chuckled, didn't you? Sociopath.
A subtrope of the Out Of Character Moment. See also Heroic Sociopath, a character who knowingly causes this in large doses. This trope is what the Sadist Show lives off of. This may result in No Sympathy in situations where the character is clearly deserving of it.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Ah My Goddess has Belldandy herself, who is a goddess, The Messiah, Friend To All Living Things (and nonliving things!), and The Empath. Belldandy is not omniscient, but she is powerfully sensitive to emotions, and always knows just the right thing to say or do to give everyone else the epiphanies they need to triumph. She is beautiful and compassionate and perfect in every way. Except to Keiichi, the man she loves. With Keiichi, she literally cannot distinguish love from the flu. She says exactly the wrong things to cause Keiichi to panic about others finding out her secret, and never notices his fear or flusteration. She embarrasses him, throws unintentional jealous fits that cause earthquakes and paranormal activity, and generally causes as much stress and mayhem for Keiichi as the villains, or at least the other good guys. Belldandy is a victim of Comedic Sociopathy of the highest order.
- Mostly involving Shinji at the beginning of Neon Genesis Evangelion. The rest of the series however...
- Ranma One Half. If you can't maintain a sense of humor, you miss the point. Every one of the characters is a grade-A Jerk Ass at one point or another. It's all for the funny, but analyzing the series puts every single character squarely into Dysfunction Junction.
- Love Hina. If you can't stand Ranma, don't watch this anime. The manga is a little less so.
- Taken to extremes with Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan. Dokuro honestly think she's helping Sakura in spite of her frequent (and often deadly) physical assaults, constant demands for his attention, and having been (directly and indirectly) responsible for Sakura's social isolation.
- Maison Ikkoku made this troper wish for a baseball bat wrapped with razor wire and dipped in acid to take to the majority of the cast, and fails to understand how the main character managed not to kill either himself and/or the fuckers who seem to conspire to make his life living hell for their unthinking amusement.
- Yusaku does indeed, during a particularly nasty barrage of insults, ask himself if he'd rather kill Mrs. Ichinose or her bratty son.
- Suzumiya Haruhi: Sexual harassment? Check. Regularly abuses her best friends? Check. Blackmails people with photos of scandalous events she orchestrated? Check. Abducts people just because she thinks they're interesting? Check. Treats people as objects and is generally incapable of comprehending the fact that other people posses feelings that differ from her own? Check.
- While the series itself treats these actions as comedic, characters within the series (especially Kyon) see it as... well, incredibly selfish and annoying.
- Urusei Yatsura lives off of this.
- Dragon Half.
- FLCL. Although, it could be argued that this whole angle was a Batman Gambit on Haruko's part to force Naota into the proper state of emotional turbulence needed to free Atomsk... wait, that doesn't make it better at all, does it?
- Full Metal Panic - especially Fumoffu. And lord, the Full Metal Panic: Overload manga turns this up thirty notches.
- Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Tsuna is the world's Butt Monkey.
- Mayuri Kurotsuchi from Bleach in his Hueco Mundo appearance. An awkward case, as the fanbase remains divided as to whether it could be considered comedy or not. One side of the fence found it all very amusing, while the other found it repulsive. The latter because the Butt Monkey in that situation was a former enemy and the grandson of one of Kurotsuchi's many For Science victims. The former because not everyone who reads/watches Bleach considers the whole thing Serious Business, and finds Mayuri and his unapologetic sociopathy hilarious.
- In Yugioh GX the constant, unceasing application of this trope was ultimately responsible for Misawa's Character Derailment.
- In Tona Gura, Yuuji's intrusive, often juvenile pursuit of Kazuki, and his sister Marie's literally armed response to any and all signs of such lewdness. Possibly also Hatsune tying Marie up to stop her punishment of Yuuji, and her ignoring Kazuki's stated desire to stop her extreme efforts at matchmaking.
- D.Gray-Man: Cross Marian's abusive treatment of his student Allen Walker is played for laughs.
Comic Books
- Knights of the Dinner Table lives off of this trope, especially with how the players and Hackmasters relate to each other. Justified, as it's an outgrowth of the Killer Gamemaster philosophy that dominated roleplaying games the time period the comic parodies—Hackmasters were expected to show players no mercy and players were expected to twist the knife if they got even a smidgen of an advantage. This, however, only applies within the game... it's considered in very poor taste between the characters to invoke this trope in Real Life. Jerkasses like Stevil and Bob still pull it, but they're much more likely to get called on it.
Film
- Crowning Momentof Funny in Evolution - Orlando Jones is rectally compromised by a doctor in search of a parasitic butterfly. He does not find the experience enjoyable, and later requests ice cream.
Live Action TV
- Showcased brilliantly in just about every episode of Blackadder...until the end of the fourth season, when the Comedic Sociopathy of General Melchett and Field Marshall Haig leads to an amazingly poignant finale.
- Absolutely everyone in the world of The Worst Week Of My Life displays this attitude towards Howard.
- The female cast of Las Vegas frequently acts like this, often having Danny act as the Only Sane Man. Of course, at least with Sam and Nessa, it was their job to do this. Still...
- Kenny Vs Spenny. Specifically Kenny, but the crew engages in it from time to time.
- Soap 's rich cast of characters routinely, and hilariously, took turns humiliating themselves and each other. The mentally ill elderly war veteran, the guy trying to get out of the Mafia, the suicidal gay character, the ventriloquist convinced his dummy is real, the put-upon African-American butler, the promiscuous Tate daughters, the philandering husbands, the sexually dysfunctional Catholic priest, were all mined for loads and loads of comedy gold.
- In addition, the first season's storyline was based around the murder of a character's son, which of course, was committed in the most hilariously over-the-top fashion possible.
- Sock from Reaper pretty much exemplifies this.
- Nearly all the characters in That 70s Show, especially in the later seasons, become prone to this in regards to Eric, from his best friends to his girlfriend to even (and sometimes especially) his parents.
- In fact, in one episode, Kelso takes personal offense to the way Hyde treats him after he falls off the water tower, and the fact that it all stemmed from Hyde criticizing the way he drew a pot leaf. Hyde the counters with a childhood story of when Kelso laughed as Kelso's dog bit Hyde, causing him to bleed and cry. Lesson learned by Kelso: "It's funny when friends get hurt."
- Basil Fawlty himself is occasionally guilty of this. One example that comes to mind is when he tricks a deaf guest into turning her hearing aid all the way up — and then shouts as loud as he can directly into it.
- M*A*S*H mostly used Frank Burns's misfortunes to this end, although he was never a terribly sympathetic character. Henry Blake also suffered a fair amount of comedic misfortune, however he was much more sympathetic than Frank.
- Howard Moon in The Mighty Boosh gradually became more a victim of cruel humour as the series progressed.
- Neil in The Young Ones, gratuitously so, although often subverted absurdly to give him the upper hand (i.e. Vyvyan throwing a petrol into his and Rik's bedrooms, only to have the rather positive side effect of clearing up his sinuses).
- Rik as well, often much more viciously, without any sympathy.
- Titus is built on this trope, yet subverts it, in that even the father is somewhat sympathetic.
- Everyone on Always Sunny In Philadelphia
- Pretty much everyone on Seinfeld.
- Megan, to Drake And Josh's titular characters.
Literature
- Ignatius Reilly from A Confederacy Of Dunces has a Master's degree in history and believes life peaked with medieval feudalism and has degenerated ever since. He announces this loudly while bouncing between menial jobs and managing his valve.
Newspaper Comics
- Pretty much anyone who has ever interacted with Charlie Brown. Seriously, there was a whole town full of people who gave Charlie Brown rocks when he went trick-or-treating.
Video Games
- Tsukihime has Arcueid doing this to the protagonist in spades, from her visiting his high school and attempting to get his attention by waving wildly in the middle of the grounds (and admitting that she was just about to jump directly up to the third floor window by his desk to talk to him during class) to her barging/sneaking into the Tohno Mansion on a regular basis to meet him (not a very wise thing to do, considering Akiha's jealously).
- She does have some justification for this. Part of it is because she's naive enough to literally not understand what she's doing wrong, and part of it is because her mission (tracking down Roa) is just that important.
- The creepiest moment is probably when she considers breaking Shiki's glasses (something she *knows* would drive him insane) just because he was given them from another woman...
- Fate Stay Night has cases of this as well, such as when Saber seriously attempted to convince Shirou to let her go with him everywhere, including school, so she can protect him (note that she considers full body armor as casual dress).
- Ironically, from what does happen, this actually would have been a good idea despite the stress it would have caused.
- Shirou sometimes does this as well, as Issei 'did-you-just-tell-me-to-take-off-my-clothes?!' Ryudo can attest.
- Knights Of The Old Republic features HK-47, an assassination droid that was designed with a love of violence and hatred of anything living. However, HK is also one of the primary sources of humor in the series.
- With Iji, we have the Komato, to whom "right to bear arms" is a religious tenet *
as long as you pay for them and "public safety"... is not.
- The Aqua Teen Hunger Force game features advice during the tutorial such as "Go ahead, break all of Carl's windows. They're not yours anyway."
Web Original
Webcomics
Western Animation
- Half the shows on Adult Swim. At least.
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force deserves a lifetime achievement award for this trope. While we expect Carl to suffer his end of abuse, it gets really irritating when even Frylock exhibits this behavior towards Meatwad.
- Drawn Together, holy mother of god, Drawn Together.
- Frequently used in Avatar The Last Airbender. The most spectacular moment has to be when Sokka gets rid of the crew of an airship by luring them into the bomb-bay with the promise of "hot cakes and sweet cream" to celebrate a crew member's birthday (which it really was) and then opens the doors, dumping them into the ocean.
- The airship's "crew" were enemy soldiers, though.
- It was his birthday. Dick.
- At least another crew member wished him a happy birthday after they were all dumped into the ocean. That was nice of him.
- Of course, Sokka has no way of knowing that it's any of the crew's birthday.
- The crew deserved it. When everyone is invited to a "birthday party" that takes place in a room filled with explosives, the floor of which can be conveniently removed, statistically someone should know that there is something very wrong.
- 99% of the time Goofy in Goof Troop is completely oblivious to how much destruction and pain his clumsiness inflicts, especially to his neighbor Pete.
- Of the central characters on Futurama, perhaps only Bender really qualifies as a true sociopath. Nevertheless, the characters all show tremendous disregard for each other's feelings. And everyone's sociopathic for Zoidberg.
- Practically everyone in Family Guy, Peter most prominently.
- I wouldn't call him a sociopath, just to stupid to even think of anyone else.
|
|
