Smug Smiler - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Os quoque parce Erigit*. — nothing could suggest more vividly the smirk of a persevering governess who has finally succeeded in getting a small boy in trouble with his father."

— C.S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love

This is the character who always has an infuriatingly smug expression on his face. He thinks he's better than you, and it shows. He may not be a Smug Snake entirely; either he's not a proper villain (just an annoying jerk), or he's only disdainful to certain people (mostly you).

See Also Smug Snake and Smug Super, for more villainous/heroic versions; that said, this trope doesn't necessarily not involve them. Compare Psychotic Smirk for much the same reaction.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

Ciel from Black Butler, especially in the manga. Always a smug expression, always a snarky remark.
Aizen mixes this trope and Dull Surprise for Memetic results.
Quattro from the Nanoha series, when she shows her true colors.
- Cypha crosses this with either Slasher Smile and Psychotic Smirk, depending on her mood.
Lelouch vi Brittannia (pictured above) loves this trope to the extreme. Only that just as often, given his bad luck, he ends up with an Oh Crap expression on his face moments later.
Seto Kaiba of Yu-Gi-Oh! practically owns this trope. Heck, with only one exception, this is the only type of smile he's known for.
Fujiwara (or "That Sneering Bastard"), from Haruhi Suzumiya, is described as looking like an "evil version of Koizumi" due to the fact that he constantly wears this expression.
Count on Light Yagami, too.
Michio Yuki from MW.
Cell from Dragon Ball Z. It's mostly done in his perfect form, but it's done a lot in his Perfect form.

Comic Books

Kevin in Sin City. Even getting his head hacksawed off doesn't wipe it off.
In the first Blacksad, he mentions he couldn't have shot the Complete Monster if it hadn't been for that smug smile.
After a few pages, it's pretty clear what sort of smile the Smiler really has.

Literature

Zaphod, of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, meets a man with a smile he wants to hit with a brick. He eventually does so.
In A Song of Ice and Fire, this is one of Theon Greyjoy's signature traits in addition to being a Smug Snake, although he's later revealed to have been a rather tragic Stepford Smiler. When he falls into the hands of a sadistic villain who he had previously looked down upon, in addition to other mental and physical tortures, the villain purposely breaks all of Theon's teeth.
- Also, Jaime Lannister does this a lot (which fits with his first appearance as a stereotypical fantasy villain), although the chapters written from his POV show that he consciously puts on his smile whenever he's unsure of the situation, because he's learned that people will read lots of different things from a knowing smile. This is in fact one of the early indications that he might turn out to be a better manipulator than you'd think from his initial thoughtlessness.

Live-Action TV

In Deep Space Nine this was Bashir's default expression for most of the first three seasons.
Rimmer of Red Dwarf, generally when something unpleasant is going to happen to Lister. (Almost invariably, it happens to him instead.)

Video Games

Miranda Lawson in Mass Effect 2, due to being genetically engineered to be the perfect human as well as Uncanny Valley kicking in.
Nikita Dragovich and Lev Kravchenko, two of the main antagonists in Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Joshua from The World Ends With You.
Leland Monroe in L.A. Noire. There are billboards of him grinning at you all over Los Angeles. One character even lampshades it.
Metal Mario in Mario Kart 7. Not only does he have a smug smile on his metallic face, most of his voice clips are downright bragging and condescending, compared to the normal Mario who is more cheerful and neutral to opponents.
George Sewell from Silent Hill Downpour.
Nightwing in Batman: Arkham City has a permanent smug grin on his face. But considering the people he's directing it at are the criminals he's kicking the crap out of, it's forgivable.