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"From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both: but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved."
Might or might not overlap with Jerk With A Heart Of Gold. Basically, the character tries to act like either a heartless bastard or otherwise obnoxious jerkass when he really isn't.
His reasons might be because he is afraid to get intimate with other people because he simply assumes that the person will either die or betray him just like everyone else he has ever gotten close to. It might be because the person is being stalked by horrible demons, The Mafia, a corrupt government, or some other dangerous and unstoppable entity and does not want to drag others into any unnecessary danger or have his problems become their problems. So rather than letting anyone get close to him, he behaves like a completely obnoxious douche bag to scare them all away from wanting anything to do with him.
See also Its Not You Its My Enemies, Defrosting Ice Queen, Think Nothing Of It, Dont You Dare Pity Me.
Examples
Anime
- Berserk - In the Black Swordsman and Conviction arcs of the manga Guts behaved in this manner, particularly towards Puck, but everyone else as well, because Guts has the Brand of Sacrifice and therefore the demons are never going to leave him alone. While he is perfectly capable of defending himself against the demons, he probably wouldn't want to have to worry about anyone else dying and so gives the outward appearance that he is completely immoral, heartless, and downright sadistic.
- In notable example early on, Guts gives the daughter of an Apostle that he just fought (and he also took the poor girl hostage during the fight) a knife after the father was dragged off to hell and tells her to kill herself. At first, this is a Jerk Ass moment, but when she falls through the floor, Guts saves her, and he leaves while she swears revenge on him. After he leaves, Guts is on the verge of breaking into tears, as he really just told her to kill herself so that she would hate him, just some random stranger, instead of her father, and her desire for revenge would at least give her some reason to keep living. In another scene, when Wrong Genre Savvy sidekick Isidro asks Guts to teach him all the fancy sword techniques he thinks Guts uses, Guts rather coldly lectures the boy on sword fighting, pointing out that Isidro's height and strength (or lack thereof) would make BFS wielding impossible for him, and also that the basics of sword fighting are used every single day while fancy techniques are practically nonexistent. Later, Serpico tells Guts that he did a good thing, as Guts was simply dispelling Isidro's misconceptions so that he could both improve himself and wouldn't die when he actually entered a real battle.
- Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion is sorta this. She's legitimately caring towards Shinji about 15% of the time; the other 85% of the time she fucking defines Jerkass.
- A better description is that her heart is in the right place, but her actions tend to be very abrupt verging on brutal. See the whole "Sea of Dirac" bit, she's worried sick for Shinji, she's feeling slightly guilty for pushing him into being rash, and she's really mad at him for being so rash and getting his fool ass trapped. Then she's irritated with Misato and Rei for monopolizing Shinji when he gets out.
- That and her low self esteem that she first tries to compensate by acting overconfident, and later develops into full-fledged self-loathing that causes her to treat everyone around her like crap, which in turn makes her feel even worse. It's a wicked circle.
- It's implied that quite a few characters are like this, like Shinji's father and Misato.
- Hayate from Pretear, particularly in the anime adaptation. Once the backstory is revealed, it becomes apparent that he has been acting mean towards Himeno out of fear that she will fall in love with him, just like Takako did in the past — which didn't end well. Not only does this fail to keep her from getting attached (especially once she learns his reasons), but he ends up falling in love with her.
- Let's be honest here, if Code Geass's Lelouch Lamperouge didn't act like a complete dick whenever people called him out on his actions, fewer people would want him dead. He's still a dick, just not the Complete Monster he pretends to be.
- Zero Requiem in R2 especially had this, with Lelouch eventually getting just about everyone (no exaggeration) to hate him so that he could die and make Britannia and the world a better place.
- Lampshaded in R2 episode 19, where Lelouch and Kallen are facing a firing squad. He puts on the facade with an obfuscating Facing The Bullets One Liner to prevent her from making a Senseless Sacrifice by defending him and getting killed. As she's walking away, he whispers: "Kallen, you must live on."
- Played straight in season 1 whenever Lelouch interacts with Kallen, in order to throw her off his trail from identifying him as Zero.
- In Bleach, Soifon deliberately acts hostile to her subordinates for the so that they can become stronger. This is especially true with her lieutenant, Omaeda, whom she motivates (through reverse psychology) to stay alive during the battle against Aizen's forces. Ichigo's cold and distant behavior toward Keigo, Mizuiro and Tatsuki before going to rescue Orihime is another example of a Jerkass Facade.
- Nico Robin in One Piece was already a bit detached from the crew when she first joined. However, she went into full Jerkass Facade in the Water Seven arc, trying to convince the other Straw Hats she had willingly betrayed them. Her reason for this was the bad guys were threatening them with the very attack that destroyed her home island if she didn't comply. She goes as far as to actively resist attempts to rescue her after the crew learns of this before coming to her senses.
- Nami acted similarly in the Arlong Arc. While she initially hated pirates, she eventually found herself wanting to stay with the crew, but being unable to do so because of her obligation to buy back her village. As a such, when she sees her crewmates on the island, she falsely claims to have murdered Usopp and states that she was using the crew to gain money.
- Shichibukai Boa Hancock seemed like a puppy-kicking Vain Sorceress with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, even turning her own subjects into stone for allowing a man (Luffy) onto her island. However, when she saw Luffy protect her sister's brand, and thus their shared secret, as well as make the choice not to leave the island, but see his petrified friends revived, she allowed him into her castle and showed her brand. She explained that the Celestial Dragons who bought them as slaves when they were children burnt it into she and her sisters' backs to show them they were "less than human". Given what the Celestial Dragons were shown as capable of, spending four years with them as slaves would be no picnic, and this had lasting psychological effects on the three. The middle sister, Sandersonia, had a freak-out from just remembering. Thus, Hancock decided that she would no longer show weakness to anyone, including her own subjects. Nyon implied her crying to Luffy was the first time she showed any warmth in her. Naturally, Luffy understood and forgave her. Of course she no longer has to pull this facade on Luffy, as she now loves him.
- Roy Mustang is a prominent example of this. A good-looking soldier who only cares for promotions (and sworn himself to protect his comrades and underlings using his position and power), dates several girls at the same time, (using this so that people wouldn't take him him too much) cooks a girl alive for supposedly killing his best friends, (and fakes her death to protect her from serious implications, in a mostawesome way)constantly goes to a brothel/pub with a lot of girls, (to gain information from the girls, and the pub owner is his mother) uses military phones to call his supposed girlfriends, (and to direct the 'girlfriends' in a coordinated attack) and whose assistant had to keep him in check. (read: Stop him from going too far with his idealism). But he really did commit genocide. After which he was driven to attempt suicide (by eating his own gun right on the spot) from the horrendous guilt, and thereafter dedicated his life to seeing justice carried out.
- Many of the above spoilers are manga or anime only
- Yuuko of xxxHolic pretends to be a selfish Bottle Fairy who makes Watanuki do all her work when in actuality essentially everything she makes him do or every time she acts like a jerk, she's probably saving his life, teaching him, training him, or something like that. And he always falls for it.
- Oogami Rei from Code: Breakers certainly acts like a cold-hearted bastard, doing things like snapping a dog's neck, burning a group of policemen to death to elimiate all witnesses, killing a man in front of his Littlest Cancer Patient daughter, and torching the helpful, handcrafted guide his classmates made for him in order to help him remember their names. Actually the dog was dying after getting beaten up by thugs, the policemen were wholly corrupt (as was their chief), giving the little girl an excuse for a Roaring Rampage Of Revenge against Oogami also gave her a reason to live, and Oogami had already memorized their names ("I don't like 'things', they disappear too easily. I don't need 'things' to remember people." (basically)) — the first time he ever bothered to learn the names of, essentially, innocent bystanders.
- Naturally, his
stalker companion Sakura notices something's amiss when Oogami had an almost tender look on his usually mask-like face when he euthenizes the dog and also when he saves the dead dog's puppy, who takes an immediate liking to Oogami dispite Sakura's protests.
- Gunslinger Girl. Jean maintains a cold demeanor towards his cyborg Rico, and hits her whenever she doesn't perform to standard. Seeing as the cyborgs are all going to die before adulthood as a result of their conditioning, he has good reason not to get too attached, especially since Jean still feels the loss of his sister Enrica. On rare occasions, however, this façade cracks, like when Rico is injured and falls into the sea during a battle and Jean desperately dives in to save her.
- In X 1999 the protagonist Kamui Shirou is a Jerk Ass because he is involved in something big, namely The End Of The World As We Know It, and he doesn't want to involve his two dear friends (Kotori and Fuuma) so he distances himself from them and acts cold to everybody around him to keep them away. Naturally he warms to them eventually, but then fate has its way with them.
- Bridge Bunnies Mayl and Tayl from Heroic Age chew the eponymous protagonist out behind his back for seemingly giving in to the Smug Snake's plans and joining him aboard the fleet's flagship. But as surmised by the other characters and confirmed by Age himself, he's only doing this because the other Nodos will now be after him, putting any ship he's on in danger.
- Ruka from Revolutionary Girl Utena arguably does this. He deliberately spent the last week of his life making the girl he loved hate him with every fiber of her being, because it was the only way to get her out of the self-destructive holding pattern she'd been in for the entire series.
- Mayoi Hachifuji in Bakemonogatari. She knows that she is caught in or actually is a supernatural event and doesn't want anyone else to have to get involved. She's a 'snail,' otherwise known as a spirit that distracts people who are avoiding going somewhere and makes them follow her. She knows she's dead and that she won't reach her destination, so she tells anyone who talks to her that she hates them so they'll leave her alone and not waste their time on her.
Comics
- In an early Spiderman story Peter Parker started acting like a jerk around Betty Brant so that she wouldn't want to be in a relationship with him anymore. Betty had lost her brother who kept getting himself into danger, and Peter didn't want her to have to face a similar situation with her boyfriend.
- Spider-man initially treated the X-Men this way too.
- Dr Allison Mann in Y The Last Man maintains a cold façade to everyone she deals with (especially Yorick) after being dumped by her first lesbian girlfriend in college, and angrily denies that love is anything other than a biological reaction.
- Believe it or not, The Incredible Hulk is like this sometimes, but this is usually because of his multiple personalities.
- Night Thrasher sometimes came off as a Jerkass to the rest of the New Warriors and got kicked off the team twice as a result.
- Inverted after Civil War where his brother is somewhat of a dick but everyone loves him anyway, except Jubilee, who isn't liked by her teammates because she's the only who doesn't put up with him.
- In Legion of Superheroes, the Legion discovers that Ultra Boy hid a criminal past and set out to catch him. Only Phantom Girl objects that they should know him and that this is out of character. He flees and joins some pirates, until their plan comes to fruition and turns on them. He reveals that he had used his sight powers and learned their plans, and that they could not be overcome by a frontal attack, and so he had forged evidence to show he had been a criminal to get inside.
- One of the reasons Back to the Klondike became such a popular story was for establishing this aspect of Scrooge McDuck's character.
- Batman. Big time. Especially to his adopted son Dick Grayson. He kicked him out twice, replaced him, punched him and frequently hurts his feelings but it his hinted in some issues that Bruce does that to hide his feelings and that he actually loves Dick (as a son) and that he is the favourite child. Also, he says that he intentionally amped up his coldness and jerkassery as Dick was starting to go out on his own, even though he know it would cause Dick to be bitter towards him (which he eventually gets over), so that Dick wouldn't end up like him and keep his humanity.
- Nightwing can be a jerkass himself (guess where he got that from) however he's pretty bad at this. He once tried that and started crying because unlike Bruce he is a lot more emotional. Probably the reason he is liked more than his mentor.
- Arsenal has the whole jerk facade but he does that to hide his insecurities and even when he is a jerk he is still not that bad.
Film
- Mr. Nebbercracker from the film Monster House is actually a very nice old man, but deliberately acts mean and cranky. He does this to keep children away from the Monster House so it won't attack them.
- Ethan Edwards from The Searchers. Fighting in the US Civil War traumatized him so much that he sought solace in giving up his humanity and wallowing in his hatred of the Comanche. But when he gets a chance to prove it by killing his half-Comanche daughter, he doesn't do it.
- Christopher Nolan's Batman film reboot has Batman deciding Bruce Wayne should be an arrogant, lazy, alcoholic, philandering Jerk Ass Rich Idiot With No Day Job (imagine Paris Hilton as a guy), both in order to deflect suspicions that he's really Batman, and to prevent long-lasting relationships from developing (which also helps keep suspicion down). There was also an element of him "saving himself" for Rachel.
- Constantine. John Constantine is extremely rude to Angela Dodson for some time after meeting her. He later tells her why: "You don't wanna know what's out there, trust me...Your sister embraced her gift, you denied yours. Denial is a better idea. It's why you're still alive. Stick with me, that will change. I don't need another ghost following me around."
- The title character in Good Will Hunting very much fits this trope.
Literature
- This pops up in Discworld from time to time: most of the main characters fall into this, including the witch Granny Weatherwax (a gruff bitchy old woman with biting sarcasm who's too proud to admit how much she likes her friends, but who is never mean to anyone who can't fight back or doesn't deserve it), pre-Men at Arms Sam Vimes (Captain of the Night Watch, a sarcastic pessimistic alcoholic who lived a pauper's life to provide for widows and children of men who'd fallen in the Watch), and Ankh-Morpork's current Patrician, Lord Vetinari (master of the Xanatos Gambit who is completely ruthless and has absolutely no problems with murder, blackmail, kidnapping, and so forth if and only if it benefits his city. All in all though, he turns out to be a fair judge and surprisingly non-oppressive tyrant, especially compared with the kings and patricians before him, who were either sadistic or paranoid-insane or both. Also, Vetinari used to have a small very elderly terrier, Wuffles, to whom he was quite attached, and although Wuffles died of old age offscreen, Vetinari still visits his little grave regularly and leave a piece of Wuffles' favorite dog food there.)
- In Dean Koontz's Hideaway, the character Regina does this briefly because she is afraid that Hatch and Lindsey will only adopt her for a little while before they get sick of her and bring her back to the orphanage, which will hurt her deeply so instead of going through that pain she tries to scare them off from adopting her in the first place.
- What Fallen Princess Sansa Stark has learnt to put on, thanks to her mentor, Petyr Baelin aka Littlefinger, as self-defense against the noblemen in her surroundings in A Song Of Ice And Fire.
- In Spider Robinson's novel Very Bad Deaths, a main character is a natural telepath whose perceptions of others' minds are extremely painful to him. Fortunately, his perception has a limited physical range, so he just needs to keep his distance from others. In college he repels company, not by jerkass behavior, but simply by never bathing. Later in life that isn't enough, his range has grown longer, so he lives alone on an island off the coast of Vancouver, British Columbia.
- Puck from The Sisters Grimm is the perfect example of this trope. He pulls gross and disturbing pranks on Sabrina, calls her rude names, and insists that she is the worse thing that happened to him. Yet, despite all of this, he's always there to save her life and even teared up when Sabrina nearly fell off the platform while battling dragons.
- Not to mention the fact that they are married in the future.
- Carnival from the Deepgate Codex series, so goddamn much. She tries her very hardest to act as though none of the people she knows mean much of anything to her, even after she nearly gets killed trying to rescue one of her best friends—but by then we all know better.
- Francis Crawford of Lymond in Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles is pretty much the epitome of this. Every book starts out by presenting him as a heartless and obnoxious bastard before slowly revealing the Jerk With A Heart Of Gold underneath.
- This trope is Dante from A Rush of Wings. He's completely justified, too.
- An unintentional version appears in Brewster's Millions and it's various adaptations; Monty Brewster is a decent and good-hearted man, but because he can't tell anyone why he has crazily spend a huge amount of money within a short period of time (it's so that he can inherit an even larger amount when he's done so), he frequently comes across either as insanely reckless or an irresponsible, feckless jackass.
Live Action TV
- Firefly - Mal's jerkass nature masks the deep love he has for his crew.
- Jayne's facade is firmer but on the few occasions we see things affect him emotionally they seem to get him hard.
- Sawyer in Lost, though I forget the reasons... Someone help me out here.
- Although nobody could ever accuse House of secretly being a nice guy, one of the points of the series is that we know him best. So while Tritter, Vogler, a patient or one of his fellows might think that he's pure evil, we (and Cuddy or Wilson or one of the few patients that he's connected with) know that's not true.
- Do we??
- Although his niceness is very deep inside. He's so good at the facade he even fools himself!
- I remember an episode where there was a sort of subversion, where patient was a Jerkass teenager. At one point they suspected that he wasn't really a jerkass and it was a symptom. Turns of they were wrong. As Dr. House said, "Sorry, your kid's a jerk."
- May apply to Torchwood's Owen Harper, since what got him into Torchwood was the death of the love of his life by alien tumor... which he dealt with at one point by date-raping a couple. Torchwood needs therapists.
- Dr. Kelso from Scrubs hides behind a facade of Jerkassdom. Many would just write him off as being a Jerkass, but as shown in "My Jiggly Ball," (where it's shown that he puts on a happy face when walking around the hospital, but the moment he steps off hospital grounds he's just as saddened by death and sickness as anyone else) the choices Kelso makes actually affect him deeply - he just finds it a better working environment if his colleagues don't know. This is also proven in "My Chopped Liver," when Kelso's dog dies and he refuses to leave his office out of fear that others in the hospital would see him crying.
- In "His Story IV," it's revealed that when interpersonal strife starts to make the hospital staff less effective, Kelso deliberately goes out of his way to do something blatantly Jerkass-worthy so as to unite the staff in common hatred of him.
- Barney from How I Met Your Mother. His selfishness and womanizing are just a cover up for his insecurities.
- Similarly, Tony of NCIS hides his insecurities and lack of self worth behind as much obnoxiousness, chatter, and sexual banter as he can come up with. He comes off most of the time as a sophomoric pig, but he's probably the most selfless and noble character on the show.
- Yuuto Sakurai from Kamen Rider Den-O comes off as rude, overly serious, and quick to anger (especially with his partner Deneb). As the series progresses, however, we learn that his ability to become a Kamen Rider comes with a hefty price: each time he transforms, some of the memories people have of him are erased, meaning that the more he fights, the fewer people know he even exists.
- Lester from Primeval is in reality a fairly Benevolent Boss but Whitehall power politics (and that he is a bit of a snob) force him to hide behind his facade of a classic Obstructive Bureaucrat.
- Star Trek: Dr. McCoy's thin, crumbly veneer of grumbles and sarcasm hides (badly) what is quite possibly the most compassionate character on network television. His counterpart in the new movie hides it a bit better.
Video Games
- Possible example: Albel Nox from Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. The commonly accepted Fanon here is that he doesn't let people close because he doesn't want to deal with losing them, after his father sacrificed himself for him.
- Neku, from The World Ends With You seems to be like this. When he is forced to say what is on his mind, he constantly states that he doesn't want to get close to other people because they’ll only end up betraying him. Although, this might not actually be a facade.
- Even when he loses most of his Jerkass tendencies toward the end of the game (and in Another Day), he still tends to be quite the Deadpan Snarker.
- Squall, the main character of Final Fantasy VIII, chooses to act like a cold, insensitive bastard because he believes that if he forms any kind of emotional investment, it will be broken eventually, so he's better off just being a complete jerk to everyone rather than deal with the pain of loss again after the loss of his big sister.
- Asuna/Flannery from Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald tries to be intimidating and scary because this is the way she believes a Gym Leader should behave. She's very bad at it, and after being defeated by the player, she gives the facade up entirely.
- Snake starts off like this in Metal Gear Solid, a grumpy "Stick to the mission" type who apparently has little patience for romantic overtures and idealistic pursuits, but it's strongly implied - if not outright stated that he acts like this to protect himself from even more emotional/psychological trauma. He later softens up into a Jerk With A Heart Of Gold - though willing to be a Manipulative Bastard for the greater good.
- Colm from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones is like this, acting like a jerk and a common thief but eventually showing a softer side.
- Zero from Mega Man X and Zero straddles this with Jerk With A Heart Of Gold. Deep down he is a nice guy who fights for the people he believes in, but has been betrayed by so many allies - including Iris, a girl he had feelings for - and fought in so many wars he's practically forced to take up this facade.
- In some installments of the Dynasty Warriors series, this is part of Zhuge Liang's story mode. Other characters think he's a cold, scheming jerk, but he's willing to bear responsibility for some of Shu's more ruthless moves if it means Liu Bei's compassionate reputation remains intact.
- Rin Tohsaka from Fate Stay Night. Pretty much her entire personality in the early parts of the game is a Jerkass Facade. It's especially obvious in Heaven's Feel, although there it's for a good reason.
Webcomics
WesternAnimation
- Theodore Tugboat of all characters in the episode Bumper Buddies. Foduck playfully bumps him, not realising that it hurts so Theodore avoids him. When Foduck asks if they're still friends, Theodore's answer is "Foduck, I am not your friend anymore." The Narrator then says "I'm still not sure if Theodore meant it, he just didn't want Foduck to bump him anymore.".
- In The Movie for Ed Edd N Eddy, its revealed that Eddy's greedy and selfish attitude was all an act to impress his brother, who is a bigger Jerkass then he (or anyone, even Kevin and Sarah) could ever hope to be.
- One episode of The Fairly Oddparents brought this up for Trixie, but it was never brought up again.
- During the first season of Avatar The Last Airbender, Prince Zuko puts on a mighty show of acting like a Royal Brat in front of his men, effectively earning their resentment... before risking his own life to save the ship's helmsman during a terrible storm.
Real Life
- Drill Sergeants usually are like this, due to their occupation demanding them to toughen up their recruits, and this usually by degrading them as much as possible without mercy so they will set their goal higher and become stronger because of it. Of course, their occupation is to train the recruits, not to make them mentally ill, so it is vital for the drill sergeant to recognize when one of his recruits is obviously affected in the wrong way by the training, and try getting said recruits help instead of more drilling. After all, since almost every drill sergeants have lives outside the military, most are actually nice people, and will notice when something is wrong with the recruits.
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