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"Abashed the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is."
"Mercy is the mark of a great man." (stab) "Guess I'm just a good man." (stab) "Well, I'm alright."
""Good is not nice, polite, well-mannered, self-righteous, or naive, though good characters may be some of these things."
He never kills anyone if he can help it, nor will he allow people to come to any sort of harm by ignoring them. He's always willing to go out of his way to save the town and complete strangers. When the call comes, he will answer it, usually with very little protest. He will often help people in need with little promise of reward. In almost every way, he acts like the typical hero.
Except that he's antisocial and sometimes downright abusive toward most people he meets. He may refuse to explain anything. He may actively repulse people who express gratitude, friendship, and love as well as offers of support if he's got a problem. Let's face it; Good Is Not Nice.
Affably Evil is when a villain acts polite, friendly and kind, even while plotting evil. Good Is Not Nice is the inverse of that: a character who is morally slanted toward the good side but is rude, unfriendly, and mean.
There are a few reasons a person may act like this:
- He may want to be selfish and arrogant, or just unbiased to either side, but his morality keeps on getting in the way, even if it's to his detriment. He may put on a Jerkass Facade to try to counter it.
- He may believe he is better than other people and looks down on them. It's hard to be nice to people you don't respect because you're smarter, or stronger, or just all-around better.
- He's a natural loner. His sense of duty forces him to perform heroic acts, but he does not consider chitchat, or politeness, to be one of his duties.
- He may want to be a nice person, but believes in tough love and doing whatever it takes to get the job done, no matter how unpleasant. Particularly if he has to teach something. (This one may be an intermittent effect, applied only when necessary; contrast Beware The Nice Ones, where such outbursts result from break-down. On the other hand, emotional trauma can coincide with the realization that nice won't cut it.)
- He had a crappy relationship with his dad or... something like that.
- He can't afford to let others get close to him because his enemies will use them against him.
The Naive Newcomer may be surprised to learn he appears No Hero To His Valet.
Compare Noble Demon, who will likely fall into this if not too morally ambiguous. Often a Knight Templar, Knight In Sour Armor, Mr Vice Guy, Jerk With A Heart Of Gold, Jerkass Woobie, or sometimes just a Jerk Ass who does good things. The term Anti Hero is sometimes used to cover this trope — see Sliding Scale Of Anti Heroes for discussion of the types.
Contrast Nice Is Not Good.
Lawful Good versions of this trope may be strict, humorless and serious.
See other Hidden Depths.
Examples
Anime and Manga
- Kanda from D Grayman, who says often that he doesn't care about other people, but will save them and protect them, often after saying he was using them as bait. General Cross could also fall under this one. He's brutal, but effective, and he genuinely does care about Allen. Awww.
- Disputed: Both of them are really ruthless. Kanda is ready to kill any stranger just for approaching the Black Order headquarters and let weak exorcists fall in battle for being useless and Cross has no regards for the hurt his lies and actions cause Allen.
- Sanzo from Saiyuki is on a mission from God... er, Buddha, to save the world. He has a knack for smacking down villains and convincing people to live again. He's also a bitchy, verbally and physically abusive Jerkass.
- Pretty much the entire main cast can fit under this trope.
- The supposed hero Sunred in Tentai Senshi Sunred. He knows he's supposed to play the role of hero and does beat up villains regularly. Yet he's also a smoking, pachinko-playing jerk who mooches off his girlfriend and becomes (understandably) annoyed at Florshiem's attempts at "world domination".
- L from Death Note is on the trail of dangerous serial killer known as Kira. He's also a sugar junkie Raised By Wolves with practically no social skills and a very low opinion of most other people, who only takes up cases that interest him in order to fend off boredom.
- And then there's Near, who is even more Raised By Wolves and much less subtle in regards to snarking.
- Meta Knight in the Kirby anime acts as a Trickster Mentor to Kirby, training him and helping him, but being rather distant. Also notable: in his first appearance he speed-trained Kirby to wield a sword... by beating the crap out of him and pointing out all his mistakes. Other times he's cool and distant and generally only directly helps Kirby when his life is in danger.
- The entirety of Team Urameshi in Yu Yu Hakusho, aside from debatably Kuwabara. Hiei is just plain evil For The Evulz. Yusuke is an ass towards literally everyone he knows, including God, plain and simple. Kurama is outwardly pleasant, but he's also a Deadpan Snarker of the highest order, incredibly fond of the Stealth Insult towards his less intelligent teammates. Kuwabara is overall an alright guy, but he's violent and, in the anime, something of a Chivalrous Pervert.
- Both of them are generally heroic to a fault, but Fullmetal Alchemist's Edward Elric can be quite an arrogant jerk, in contrast to his more empathetic and polite brother Alphonse.
- Even more so Olivia Armstrong who is not only a jerk, but also a Darwinist and is still one of the good guys.
- Hiruma from Eyeshield 21.
- A realistic interpretation of the protagonists of Slayers will place them all squarely in this trope. Black Magician Girl Lina Inverse is a fairly realistic portrayal of what would happen if you gave a self-centered, immature, avaricious and tempermental teenage girl an advanced grasp on highly destructive Black Magic. Gourry Gabriev is at best an Idiot Hero and at worst a Dumb Blonde and thusly goes along with whatever Lina decides to do. Love Freak Amelia Seylune wants to be a "Hero of Justice" but is so naive and wrapped up in stereotypes and cliches she's barely aware of what that means. Zelgadis Greyweirs will go to just about any length, including turning on his allies and destroying priceless relics, to further his pursuit of a cure. Anime-only character Filia is a Holier Than Thou and bad-tempered priestess (though, in her defense, she appears to have been raised in isolation from the wider world and her main problems are due more to immaturity and naivety then anything else). And yet, they're all that stands in the way of the various ravening monsters, mad wizards and nihilistic demons that pop up over the course of the series.
- Asuka Soryu from Neon Genesis Evangelion is an arrogant, obnoxious bint who, despite claiming to pilot her Eva only to become famous ("prove (herself) to the world"), risks her life on countless occasions to defeat the angels/save humanity and is highly honourable (she willingly puts herself in harm's way in episode 11 to square her debt with Shinji).
Comic Books
- Batman is sometimes portrayed as this, Depending On The Writer. Often described with roleplaying terms as "Lawful Good doesn't mean Lawful Nice".
- Reggie Mantle from Archie Comics sometimes falls into this category. Some stories portray him as hating the holiday season because the Christmas spirit interferes with his natural desire to be rotten, while others portray him as actively taking precautions to make the victims of his pranks are only humiliated, without actually being hurt.
- Spider Jerusalem from Transmetropolitan IS this trope.
- See also: Wolverine.
- The British-published Sonic The Comic by Fleetway paints the titular hedgehog as such. He's a hero and saves the day constantly, but if you're one of his allies? Expect to be belittled, verbally abused, and made to cater to his ego.
- The Golden Age Superman had no trouble with threatening crooks to get them to confess. He didn't kill people, but if criminals suffered Karmic Death (which happened a lot) he'd usually comment that they got what they deserved. In one comic he grabbed a doctor, ignored his protests, and flew him through a hurricane and two hundred miles cross-country so he could save a dying kid.
- Green Lantern (for now, anyway) Guy Gardner is a pretty good example of this trope. He's rude, crude, slightly misogynistic, and can be down right mean to certain heroes, but when the chips are down, you can count on Guy Gardner to fight with his all.
- The female Dr. Light: Helping fellow heroes while looking down on them since 1985.
- Grimjack aka John Gaunt. His code of "Always Seek The Truth" can (and often does) hurt his friends, family, clients, random people on the street, etc.
Film
- The titular ogre of the Shrek films, who initially just wants to be left alone in his swamp. Then he agrees to rescue a princess in exchange for clearing out the exiles in his swamp, and things spiral from there.
- Ace Ventura is a send-up of this sort of character, whether intentionally or otherwise. He literally talks out of his backside, is inherently immature and even sociopathic, but losing someone he was trying to save drives him into seclusion in a monastery. Said someone was a raccoon...
- Hancock starts off like this. He goes out of his way to help people in need and stop criminals, and he also doesn't commit murder, with one possible exception right near the end of the movie. He's also an alcoholic with a short temper who isn't afraid to use his powers to intimidate people he doesn't like.
- Not sure what the quote is word for word, but, from the first Prophecy movie: Locusts, fire from the sky, cities turned to salt, all the first born killed in the night, whenever God needs to visit some disaster or punishment on mankind, he calls an angel. Have you ever considered just what sort of being it takes to do something like that?
Literature
- Granny Weatherwax from Discworld is practically the poster girl for this. It's her freaking catchphrase. She was supposed to be an evil witch, until her "good" sister turned evil in her place. She resents her for that.
- To a degree, many other Discworld witches. Miss Treason intentionally dresses up the evil witch appearance even though most of it is Boffo novelty items, and can only really do her job because people fear her.
- There's also Sam "This is how you play Lawful Good you morons!" Vimes.
- Even Carrot qualifies at times, such as when he kills Dr Cruces and upbraids Colon at the end of The Fifth Elephant.
- In Harry Potter Severus Snape, while devoted to Dumbledore's cause and atoning for Lily's death is acerbic, strict, and apparently despises Harry, while trying to protect him all the time.
- Then there is Harry Potter himself, who spares Peter Pettigrew's life only to condemn him to what might be a fate worse than death at the end of Book 3. "He can go to Azkaban. If anyone deserves that place, he does."
- Max Pesaro from The Gardella Vampire Chronicles.
- In CS Lewis's The Chronicles Of Narnia series, the narrator points out that many who haven't been to Narnia don't believe something can be terrible and wonderful at the same time. They are wrong. We are repeatedly warned that Aslan "is not a tame lion." As the beavers tell us in the first book, he's "good", but not "safe." There is this encounter, from The Silver Chair, in which Jill Pole, a girl from our world, encounters Aslan without knowing anything about him except that he's a very large talking lion:
"Do you eat girls?" she said.
"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
- Seeing as Aslan is a Jesus equivalent, this makes sense.
- Also some old Testament God. Oh, don't forget that time he slashed one girl's back, pointing out that the wounds matched exactly those that she had forced on an innocent maid.
- Mr. Darcy from Pride And Prejudice and Sir Thomas Bertram from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen — Both are principled and responsible, but also stiff and distant.
- Nicholas van Rijn from Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League novels is a greedy, sloppy, cynical, womanizing corporate executive. He also constantly saves his employees from death and disaster, often with an elaborate Xanatos Gambit that involves using evolutionary psychology to psychoanalyze whatever alien race is giving their interstellar trading company trouble. He is also merciful towards his enemies and tries to create win-win situations for them.
- Sherlock Holmes was often arrogant, self-absorbed, misogynistic and rude.
- The Night Watch.
- Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time has quite a bit of this. Rand al'Thor, and to a lesser degree Perrin Aybara, want to be good and nice, but end up growing more bitter and reclusive as the series progresses. And then there are all the jerkass women, who are "good" only because they oppose the Dark One.
- And even for those women, even their status as good is constantly debatable.
- The Malazan Book of the Fallen verse by Steven Erikson and Ian Cameron Esslemont has many good-guy characters who are very disillusioned and grumpy. In fact, most of them are either this or wangsty, or both.
- In Dan Abnett's Gaunts Ghosts novel Ghostmaker, the angel (or hallucination) that appears to Larkins inspires him to carry out his mission alone, despite his terror, but that includes prying out him the truth of his panick-stricken flight and demanding that he carry it out.
- In JRR Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings, Frodo tells Gollum that he must obey him, because if not, Frodo will put on the Ring, and order Gollum to jump off a cliff or the like. This astounds Sam, who had always assumed that Frodo's goodness made him soft, and reduces Gollum to whimpering terror.
- Gandalf — in the books but less so in the movies — fits this trope perfectly. He has quite a temper, he hates explaining himself, and he's also something of a Deadpan Snarker. But he's also the Big Good.
- Roland from The Dark Tower series. He desires to be kind, and whenever he has an opportunity he demonstrates it. But he always ends up in situations where he must hurt, even sacrifice those he loves for the sake of his mission. It bothers him.
- Stated fairly well in The Dresden Files, when Charity is dressing Harry's cut even though she dislikes him.
"I hear they make antiseptics that don't hurt these days. Charity used iodine."
- In T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, Sir Galahad is detested by most of the knights he comes into contact with, because he is far too good to be merely polite.
- The Baroness in Thackeray’s The Virginians remarks: “…Let me tell you, sir, that angels are sometimes not very commodes à vivre. It may be they are too good to live with us sinners, and the air down below here don't agree with them.”
- In the Circle Of Magic, Tris. It's even lampshaded by her student in "Shatterglass", which makes her blush. Aw.
- Tamora Pierce does it again in the Tortall series when she makes a comment about how good kings are not necessarily nice people.
Live Action TV
- Gregory House, a brilliant doctor with a misanthropic and acerbic personality.
- Of course, whether he's "good" or just enjoys solving medical mysteries (which happens to save peoples lives in the process) is up for debate.
- As of the episode "Last Resort" it's pretty clear that for him, solving the mystery is more important than people's lives.
- What about when he offered to risk his life by having his damaged brain electronically stimulated so he could remember Amber's symptom and save her life? Maybe it just depends on the person he's trying to cure.
- Of course, a lot of this has to do with the fact that Amber is Wilson's girlfriend, and House will go to extreme lengths for Wilson.
- Likewise, Dr. Cox of Scrubs is willing to risk his career to save a patient's life, but is not an overwhelmingly friendly person and gladly insults a patient who has different opinions than him.
- Becker.
- Malcolm Reynolds of Firefly. If his damn conscience didn't keep dragging him towards Chaotic Good, and let him get on with his life as an amoral, Chaotic Neutral rogue, he'd have single-handedly won the War of Coreward Aggression. (At least that's the way he sees it nowadays.)
- Pretty much every one of the good guys on Supernatural but the new angel, Castiel, deserves special mention. He might work for the greater good but he and all of the other angels are warriors, they're not there to follow anyone around or perch on anyone's shoulders. Seriously, they're about as far away from Roma Downey as you could possibly get.
- Zachariah's way of asking for help is elaborate long, drawn out murder. And he's "lacking in imagination".
- In Doctor Who the Doctor is often sharp and blunt with people and has been known to rub people the wrong way at times. When the Abzorbaloff in "Love & Monsters" accuses the Doctor of being 'sweet' and 'passionate' the Doctor agrees. However, he also adds "...don't ever mistake that for nice." (However, this rebuttal was somewhat part of a bluff). The Doctor doesn't entirely fit this mould all the time but he has been known to (especially in his first, sixth and ninth incarnations).
- Rodney McKay of Stargate Atlantis is about as rude, obnoxious and anti-social as they come, but despite his vocal cowardliness he's one of the first to put his life on the line for the greater good, and is capable of truly awesome heroics whenever his internal "Chance of Impending Doom" gauge redlines.
- Also, there's Ronon Dex, who can be outright mean, is hard to get to know, and takes a long time for him to warm up to you enough to trust you as a friend. But when that time comes, he's a fierce fighter.
- Spike in Angel. During a brief stint at Angel's old job of helping the helpless, he stops a vampire from killing a woman. He then proceeds to insult the crap out of her for being dumb enough to be walking down a dark alley dressed the way she is.
- Hell, Angel in Angel is this trope, for the most part. Reason #3 describes him rather well.
- Keisuke Nago follows this trope to the letter in Kamen Rider Kiva, to the point where all five reasons listed in the opening paragraphs that a person could experience this trope apply to him. He eventually mellows out, but it takes half the series to happen.
Tabletop Games
- In the table-top RPG In Nomine, many of the angels would fall into this category, most notably the Seraphim, who are blunt as a brick to the head (except when they decide to tie the truth in knots), have egos the size of California, and generally find humans annoying, and the Malakim who are serious hardcore Proud Warrior Race Guys. The only groups of angels that could be considered unequivocally "nice" from a human perspective are the Mercurians.
- In Seraphim's defense they 'are' the angels of Truth, which can be painful at times. Plus the thing that really annoys many of them is the self depreciating lies that people tell themselves. Lying to yourself is one thing but even the most loathsome demons have he good sense to tell themselves 'happy' lies. Malakim don't need to be Proud Warrior Race Guys, in fact the Archangel Lawrence (who most Malakim not under Hostile A.A.s point to as their role model) is somewhere between a Knight In Shining Armor and a Knight Templar depending on how Grey And Gray Morality you want your game. Actually the most Proud Warrior Race Guy in the game is Michael and he's a Seraph.
- D&D paladins, especially those who veer towards Knight Templar or the Lawful Stupid end of the scale.
- In 3.5, the Book of Exalted Deeds directly says that good does not mean nice.
- The Salamanders chapter in War Hammer 40000. Absolutely relentless in battle, an entire chapter of Scary Black Man with Red Eyes Take Warning and a Kill It With Fire fighting style. However, the good part here is from how they actually care about the people they protect and find the thought of harming civilians disgusting, even punching out another chapter master for even thinking of it. Amongst this Knight Templar Warrior Race, this respect for innocent lives is only shared by Chapters like The Space Wolves and The Ultramarines. The Salamanders and Ultramarines are the closest thing this universe has to Lawful Good and the Space Wolves are the closest thing to Chaotic Good.
- Actually, everyone who you could consider to be "good guys" in the setting are not nice.
- And the renegade Soul Drinkers, who are the closest 40K gets to Neutral Good...but what this generally means is that while they'll gun down Guardsmen, they'll feel guilty about it afterwards.
- If you consider the power of light and law to be "good," than the color White from Magic The Gathering falls into this category. Remember, this is the color that believes orderly behavior is more important than individual will, and more recognizably, brought us the spell "Wrath of God."
Theater
- Lampshaded by the Witch in a kind of reverse way in Into The Woods
You're Nice
You're not Good
You're not Bad
You're just Nice
Video Games
- Squall from Final Fantasy VIII, as well as Cloud from Final Fantasy VII.
- Gene from God Hand is a snarky, somewhat childish demon-hunter. His female protectee and love interest also shows traces of this trope.
- Shadow the Hedgehog from the Sonic The Hedgehog series is generally good. At least on a technical basis. He is however, an asshole.
- Although if you consider how his life has gone, and how those first encountering him tend to react negatively(which is REALLY off-putting), you can appreciate WHY he's that way. His demeanor might improve if, for instance, people stopped trying to take advantage of him. And the few friends he does have...well, anyone who brings harm to them is in deep shit.
- Yuan from Tales Of Symphonia is snarky, impatient when the heroes need things explained, apparently changes sides without warning... and is doing everything in his power to save the world from the Big Bad. No matter who's in his way. In fact, it's a little iffy to label him "Good", except that he ends up (somewhat reluctantly) on the party's side, when it becomes clear that they actually might succeed... and that they're the only ones in with a chance.
- Doctor Magnusson from Half-Life 2: Episode Two is tempermental, impatient, and arrogant. He's also capable, in his own way, of showing genuine gratitude.
- The Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout are some of the purest good guys in the games, with the exception of a good-aligned Player Character. With some exceptions, they're also arrogant bastards who are more than willing to let innocents die in the pursuit of their long-term goals for the revival and salvation of humanity.
- In Fallout 3, they're more typical Knights In Shining (Powered) Armor, so the Outcasts take over for the Good Is Not Nice through Anti Mutiny.
- Solid Snake.
- Archer, Archer, Archer... To be fair, he would seem like less of a (rather badass) jerk if he wasn't always going up against Shirou. Almost all of the above examples apply to him. The constant switching of sides really muddies the issue of whether he's 'good' or not for a while. As a matter of fact, he's true neutral.
- Some of your allies in the Suikoden series can come off as complete jerks who you nonetheless respect because they're good at what they do. Shu aand Zerase immediately spring to mind.
- Cenarius from Warcraft III is shown to be rather rude, arrogant, and threatening so the player will be more eager to kill him
- Freaking Marietta from the Dept Heaven series. She's a Jerkass Knight Templar who spends much of Knights In The Nightmare kicking little puppies, killing you, imposing Sadistic Choices, and flat-out denying that Meria has any right to be alive at all. The only way to get her to be even slightly kind to you is to jump when she tells you to, no matter how much it grates. She's also a guardian of order and has extremely strict good intentions, sort of.
- Gordon Freeman of HalfLife. Has saved the world (over and over again), but rather rudely refuses to speak to anyone.
Web Comics
- Order Of The Stick: Roy to a certain extent, who, while Lawful Good, enjoys verbally lambasting his friends and enemies a bit too much and is even berated for it by the forces of Good. Vaarsuvius is a better example, being arrogant and condescending but ultimately a decent person.
- Well maybe.
- The paladins of Azure City are better examples — pragmatic in general, cunning to the point of underhandedness when necessary. (Yes, even
 Miko.)
- Girl Genius. After Gil delineates how Zola is fairly innocuous and in danger — an idiot, but not malicious — he is questioned about whether her lack of malice is important. Producing an intimidating burst of rage that if he let every idiot die, there would be few people left alive.
- Girl Genius is pretty fond of this trope - practically all of the "good" characters are able to slip into "Evil Demented Genius" mode at a moment's notice. Agatha, Gil and Klaus would be the best examples. Although sometimes it is at least half-way to Beware The Nice Ones: not a tactic but a breakdown.
Agatha: "Oh, I see where this is going. [...] I'm the bad guy, because, for whatever reason, you didn't tell your nasty little friend who you are, and now she's sad. So you're mad at me because now she's all sweet and teary and needs rescuing, and I'M the evil madgirl with the death ray and the freakish ancestors and the town full of minions and the horde of Jägers and the homicidal castle full of sycophantic evil geniuses and fun-sized hunter-killer monster clanks and goodness know what else- (pause)...And you know what? I CAN WORK WITH THAT!"
- As an even earlier example — albeit with a good touch of Beware The Nice Ones — here the very first time Gil realizes this:
Gil: "I am sick to death of this! What do I have to do?! I just took down an entire army of war clanks, and still get threated like a halfwit child! [...] Always, I try to be reasonable. To be fair. I try to talk to people. And no one ever takes it as anything other than weakness. [...] Because nobody ever takes me seriously - unless I shout and threaten like an cut-rate stage villain. Well, you know what? I can do crazy. I really can. And it looks like I'm going to have to. [...] And show you idiots what kind of madboy you're really dealing with! ...Oh. Oh, no. This must be how my father feels - all the time!"
- Mike from Its Walky has this in him. He comes off as a total Jerkass until he sacrifices his life to save Joyce at the end. He also does several other heroic things before then, but that's the kicker.
Web Original
- Captain Hammer from Dr Horribles Sing Along Blog is a Superhero who's apparently saved the city numerous times over. He's also the world's biggest Jerkass; he only even seems to do the hero gig to earn the adulation of others and thus feed his insufferable ego, and, upon discovering the secret identity of his arch-nemesis, decides to gloat and continue dating the girl of the villain's dreams just to make him squirm instead of simply arresting him for his crimes. The first time he's ever actually hurt in the commission of his heroic duties, he runs like a scared child and spends months in therapy.
- This troper thinks he's too much of a Jerkass to be considered Good by any sense of the word.
- Of course, that's what the audience is expected to think of Captain Hammer, since the it's all shown from Dr. Horrible's perspective. To the people of the city, he did save them numerous times, so they at least consider him "good." Rather than Lawful Good, he's more like Lawful Jerkass.
- In Survival Of The Fittest, Adam Dodd circa v3. Whilst he's supposedly the good guy of the series that doesn't stop him acting like a a complete prick to more or less everyone. Until around the third game, his handler acted the exact same way.
- Corporal Erik Mahren, range officer at Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe. Coarse, angry, and clinically insane after the horrors he experienced in a Black Ops group for the U.S. Defernse Department, he acts like a Jerk Ass to the students. Except he'll do anything to keep students from being hurt on his ranges, and he was willing to be brutally ripped to pieces to save a teenage girl from killing herself.
Western Animation
Real Life
- Various cultures both eastern and western agree that a true friend, as opposed to a fair-weather one, should be willing to harshly point out your flaws and wrongdoings and speak unpleasant truths instead of just buttering you up.
- This Troper read somewhere that Florence Nightingale was in fact an extremely cranky and curmudgeonly perfectionist and when she saw anyone of whatever rank who did not fit her standards, her wrath was terrible to behold.
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