Nice To The Waiter / Literature

Times where you can tell the good guys from the bad based on whether or not they're Nice to the Waiter in Literature.

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• From the Eric Flint novel 1632: 1633:
  • It's pointed out that, despite having previously been a very negatively portrayed Straw Character — at least before he got handed a navy and a whacking great dose of character development — John Simpson and his wife are greatly respected by the working class people of Magdeburg because of their treatment of their underlings. Despite being a bit of a snob, Mary Simpson is commonly referred to as "The American Lady" because she is unfailingly courteous to her servants.
  • Likewise, in the beginning of the same novel, Cardinal Richelieu is noted to be very polite to his servants, repaying loyalty from them with loyalty in return. (Note that series creator Eric Flint said that Richelieu could easily have been an ally of the USE, but he needed someone fiendishly smart to serve as his primary antagonist and Richelieu fit the bill.)
• The Afterward: Kalanthe's from a noble family but always treats Olsa, a Street Urchin thief, with respect and never talks down to her. Olsa is charmed by her kind treatment.
• Mr. Weston doesn't treat Agnes like she's invisible just because she's a governess in Agnes Grey, which is strange for the time and proves his kind character.
• In Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Alice is kind and polite to everyone she meets. This is in contrast to the White Rabbit, who apparently is upper-class enough to have a servant, and whom we see speaking rudely to said "servant" (he mistook Alice for her) and later boot-licking the Queen of Hearts.
  • This is taken to extremes in the sequel, Through the Looking Glass, where the White and Red Queen expect the newly-queened Alice to be so polite as to formally introduce herself to the dishes at her coronation banquet. She obliges for the first few, but eventually refuses on the grounds that they won't let her eat anything she knows personally and she's very hungry.
• Marcus in The Arts of Dark and Light is almost always courteous to foreigners, common soldiers and workmen and even to the slaves. Something that marks him out as unusual in his times is that he always tries to address inferiors by name, rather than insults or condescension. He also abhors mistreatment of anyone under his own power, whether this refers to servants, soldiers, or even captured enemies.
• In the Ascendance Series, Sage tries to build a rapport with his personal attendant by encouraging him to call him Sage instead of sir and insisting on dressing himself, but only succeeds in making him uncomfortable.
• Bazil Broketail: Don't Lagdalen of the Tarcho's aristocratic background fool you — she is a very down-to-earth girl who has zero trouble interacting and hanging out with low-class citizens such as Relkin (judging from her parents' behavior, it runs in the family) and is quite kind with them.
• In Beastly, one of the signs that Kyle is becoming a better person is that he sees his maid and his tutor as his best friends. Also, the girl he falls in love with worked the ticket booth at prom at the beginning of the book (though he didn't think well of her at the time).
• In the Belisarius Series:
  • Weapons designer John of Rhodes is the sort of man who's only rude to his social equals or superiors. There's also Kungas, whose character is revealed to Raghunath Rao when he walks into a room, swiftly assesses where he'll need to post guards, curtly gives his soldiers the orders to post those guards, and then leads them slowly and carefully across the room so they won't scuff the floor a servant was polishing just then.
  • When Eon is being evaluated for the position of Emperor by the Axumite chiefs and warriors one of the most important things they ask is how he treated the servant girls. They all knew he was a notorious ladies man and didn't mind terribly; but what they wanted to know is if he had abused them or unduly pressured them because that was considered a sign of how he would treat his people. Eon passed with flying colors; he was intemperate with his servants but not unkind and that was what they wanted to know.
  • When Rana Sanga stormed the Malwa capital, his son Rajiv felt pity on a company of hapless mooks about to be cut up and trampled so he rushed out, announced himself and got them to surrender and swear themselves to his service; and had them all lined up safely out of the way when his father came thundering through the gate. Dad feels both great pride and great amusement.
• In the historical novel Betsy and the Emperor, a British teenager is surprised to note that Napoleon Bonaparte, who is, as far as she's concerned, the scourge of Europe, is fair and decent towards slaves, allowing them to take a rest break before a noble prisoner is allowed the same privilege.
• The Black Arrow: Dick Shelton, protégé of the lord of Tunstall, is kind and polite to the poor inhabitants of Tunstall hamlet, chooses to look the other way when they badmouth their lord, and does his best to clarify their concerns. Unfortunately, it is clear he doesn't understand the concerns of people whose lives and livehoods depend on his lord's whims.
• In the "Black Crown" short story Solace, King Flavius clearly doesn't hold a grudge against the working class; despite referring to the peasants in Schism as 'the mob' and 'stallions to be broken'.
• Subverted in Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce: The Rogue of Port Caynn, Pearl, likes dogs and threatens people who hurt them. Bekka knows she has no other redeeming characteristics, but this still makes it harder than it was before.
• In Patricia A. McKillip's The Book of Atrix Wolfe, the Scullery Maid Saro is sent to deliver a tray of food to the prince in the haunted and half-ruined hall. She drops it; he takes the blame for startling her, especially after she had braved the ghosts and owls, and offers her a white lily. She goes back to the kitchen dreaming of him.
• In A Brother's Price, one of the signs that Keifer Porter was evil was that he could "barely be civil" with his younger wives, who had no power over him, but always acted sweet with the elder sisters, whom he could easily charm with his beauty. Jerin Whistler being nice to the children is considered proof of his good personality.
• In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer describes his knight as never having spoken rudely to anyone.
• In Andre Norton's Catseye, Rerne is polite to and talks with Troy; Citizen Dragur babbles about his triumph and only when he has a question manages to remember that Troy is there.
• The Chronicles of Dorsa: Tasia befriended the palace guards who hold the gate she uses to sneak in and out into the city so they won't inform her father (along with bribing them). She had been taught to treat all servants with respect, so this comes naturally for her. Later she also sticks up for Joslyn (who became her bodyguard) when she's mocked as a result of being Terintan.
• C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia:
  • In Prince Caspian, when Caspian is knocked unconscious in the forest and taken in by strangers, his first request, on waking up, is that they look after his horse. They tell him it ran off.
  • The Pevensies are kings and queens who treat all of the other beings with respect.
  • In The Horse and His Boy, when Shasta and Bree find Hwin and Aravis, Bree and Hwin talk. Aravis demands to know why he's talking to her horse, not her. Bree points out that as Talking Horse, Hwin has as much right to speak of Aravis as her human. Aravis finds this unsettling.
    • Similarly, Aravis gets karmic punishment for her lack of concern over a servant: the servant got a whipping for letting Aravis escape, so Aslan scores Aravis' back with his claws.
  • Various Calormene nobles are unpleasant to the lower classes, starting with the one who wants to buy Shasta. Archenland's and Narnia's nobles and royalty do much better.
    King Lune: Never taunt a man save when he is stronger than you; then, as you please.
  • Frank, the first king of Narnia, treated his horse as if it were a close friend. When Aslan made the horse intelligent and able to talk, Frank was thrilled, seeing it as proof that the horse was as smart (and well-bred) as he thought. Then again, Frank was not exactly posh himself, being a London cabbie before his ascension to royalty.
• Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian series:
  • In "The Phoenix on the Sword", Dion thinks nothing of Thoth-amon because he is a slave.
  • In "A Witch Shall Be Born", Salome thinks nothing of a deaf beggar — actually a hearing spy.
  • In "The Pool of the Black One", Zaporavo never realizes that Conan is growing popular with the crew.
• One of the Millers' most scandalous crimes in Daisy Miller is that they *gasp* actually treat their servant Eugenio like a human being instead of a piece of furniture! How could anyone be so vulgar?!
• Terry Pratchett's Discworld:
  • In Unseen Academicals, both Ridcully and Lord Vetinari listen to Glenda, a Night Kitchen cook, reminding us that none of these characters fit any stereotype perfectly. The former is partially because wizards like their food, though he didn't know that she was the one making the incredible pies until about halfway through the conversation.^note Still, don't piss off anyone that could handle your food. Lord Vetinari talks to her because she's a cook—she's a Sugarbean.
  • It's noticeable that Ridcully tends to be a lot nicer to the serving staff than he is to his fellow professors, possibly because he grew up in the Ramtops (at least, he spent a good many summers in Lancre). People in Lancre don't accept notions of class and rank meaning you can be rude to people.
    • It's probably also a commentary on the fact that he was originally appointed Archchancellor because after he finished school he went to live in the country, and they were expecting a bucolic halfwit who wouldn't make waves; he has shown a tendency to repay respect in kind, on both sides of the scale.
  • Taken in an interesting direction with the Duchess in I Shall Wear Midnight. She may be rude or even contemptuous to her servants, but she takes care of them. She considers it a matter of pride that no one who works for her will ever have to beg for food, and in fact, the reason she has so many servants is because a fair number of them are needed to take care of the servants too old to work.
  • Pyramids plays with it. Pteppic would like to be this, but due to cultural issues, his subjects live in mortal terror of their pharaoh trying to Remember Their Name and Put Them At Ease, or worse, Ask Them What They Do. That's the nicer options. Pteppic just politely trying to shake a workman's hand ends in mutilation (it's forbidden to touch the pharaoh, and the offending part is removed. Had he not been stopped, the poor bastard would've cut off his own hand.)
  • Subverted in Going Postal. The villain of the story is Reacher Gilt, and our hero Moist notes that impersonating him in a letter to a maître d' is a surefire way to get himself a table; Reacher's entire public image is an act, and part of the persona he presents involves tipping like a drunken sailor, even though he's a murderous bastard underneath. Moist on the other hand is a good guy (or at least a less evil guy) who cannot afford the expensive meal, and implicitly intends to scam his way out of paying (before Reacher offers to buy it for him).
  • In Snuff, Vimes learns that the previous Lady Ramkin had a policy that the housemaids may not even look at a man while on the job, and must turn to face the wall when one comes by (or flee if addressed). He considers this to be classist bullshit until his wife explains the reasoning; it's to protect the maids. They aren't especially worldly or well educated, and young aristocratic males have a tendency to take advantage of them, so preventing any contact while they are on the job is wise. The maids are otherwise well treated, well paid, and thanks to this policy "have no shame about wearing white on their wedding days".
    • Snuff also reveals that the late Lord Ramkin was this; he was a drunken old sot, but also a very jolly one who had no qualms about throwing money around and drinking with the servants as equals. Another holder of the title tried to avert this by tossing red hot pennies to the gate guards for a laugh, but was usually so drunk that he'd do it with dollars instead, so the servants actually miss the practice.
  • Young Vetinari is nice to the Assassins' Guild porter in Night Watch, although apparently mostly for cynical reasons: being friendly with the porter gives him opportunities to snoop. It seems to be a bit of a strategy of his to get on good terms with the sort of people others don't respect, as when most of the guilds decide they've got an ax to grind with him the Beggars, Seamstresses, and so on are still on his side. This is contrasted against his predecessor, Mad Lord Snapcase, who's gotten all the revolutionary elements on his side because he asks regular folk what they do. In private, Snapcase turns out to be a total arse.
• Dragonvarld: Edward was taught by his father, the king prior to him, that they must refrain from mistreating their servants. Doing so would make them not a true king, and particularly since the servants couldn't fight back. Therefore he refrains even when Edward is really angry with them.
• The protagonist in The Dresden Files, Harry Dresden, can be counted on to be as nice to the waiter as he is snarky to Queens of Fairy, vampires, and fallen angels. As a rule, the more powerless a being is, the more polite Harry will be.
• Duumvirate uses this trope constantly. Being on good terms with your servants is a mark of competence as a master. The titular characters even use it to decide who to let live at the end of the book.
• Emma by Jane Austen: Emma and her father have earned the devotion of their servants—it's particularly true of Serle, the cook, who patiently puts up with Mr. Woodhouse's peculiarities and contributes to the security of the household as well as cooking things exactly the way he wants them made. Mr. Knightley is also highly regarded by those who work for him. Conversely, the stuck-up Eltons are shown in one scene to actually be quite rude to Mr. Knightley's maid.
• Enchanted Forest Chronicles: In Dealing With Dragons, Cimorene is technically hired help for Kazul, but the relationship between the two is very much that of close friends. This is notable considering that pretty much all the other dragons ignore their princesses and don't expect much out of them (Kazul even says that princesses are generally only kept as a "minor" mark of social status) while the princesses don't actually do any work and run off with whatever prince comes to rescue them.
  • While King Mendabar isn't very fond of his elven servant, Willin, he is still shown to be a sympathetic character. This is because while Willin means well, he tends to bother Mendabar about stuff the king doesn't need him fussing with. Mendabar does treat his subjects as kindly as he can, which is impressive considering that his kingdom is full of magical creatures who constantly are bickering and enchanting each other and getting into trouble.
• An inversion occurs in the Ender's Shadow novels, where John Paul warns his son Peter that Achilles is undermining Peter's leadership because Achilles is always kind and friendly with the staff, while Peter tends to ignore them. In this case, though, Peter is the Big Good and Achilles is a murderous psychopath (albeit one who is very good at lying when he needs to).
• A subversion of sorts from Thomas Dixon's Fall of a Nation: The heroine's family servant thinks the Big Bad is a swell fellow because he tips generously. As it turns out, this is all part of the Corrupt Corporate Executive's plan to become a Villain with Good Publicity.
• G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown:
  • In one story, Father Brown explains why he didn't trust the villainess:
    If you want to know what a lady is really like, don't look at her; for she may be too clever for you. Don't look at the men round her, for they may be too silly about her. But look at some other woman who is always near to her, and especially one who is under her. You will see in that mirror her real face, and the face mirrored in Mrs. Sands was very ugly.
  • In another one, the Dénouement hinges on the fact that Father Brown talks to the secretary, whereas the employer knows nothing about him besides his name.
  • In yet another one, the villain's deception only works because his victims don't pay any attention to the waiters serving them. Chesterton was slightly fond of this trope.
• A Fighting Man of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Tan Hadron pledges to defend a slave who saw a kidnapping and says that what he has to say will not please someone prominent.
• In Sara Paretsky's Fire Sale, readers are clued in fairly early that Billy, the youngest of the family that turns out to be the Big Bad (they own a Walmart-like corporation), is different from the rest of his family by how he treats the workers kindly and they all are happy to see him.
• The Fort (2022): Ricky is very uncomfortable watching a Home Depot manager scream at an employee for giving Ricky the wrong color paint and wants to just take the wrong color to spare the man any further abuse and embarrassment, before getting distracted when he recognizes the manager as his friend C.J.'s stepfather and has a "Eureka!" Moment about C.J.'s constant injuries.
• The Fragility of Bodies: Verónica treats the doorman at her building very well, to the point he often does favors to her. Although we also learn in his brief POV segment that he does favors to her hoping he'll get to sleep with her someday.
• The Great Zoo of China: Early on, CJ intervenes when she sees a worker who made a mistake in front of the Western guests being physically chastised by his boss. She helps him clean up his stuff then threatens to have the foreman fired if he tries anything.
• In Harry Potter, the Wizarding World's treatment of sentient non-humans (especially house-elves, who are by nature vulnerable to exploitation) is both an overtly political issue and a sign of personal values, though we only ever get to see Wizarding Britain's stances on it:
  • Hermione and Harry play this trope straight from the beginning, both being raised in the Muggle world (though Harry was a bit slow to catch on regarding the elves, only realizing the consequences in Half-Blood Prince, and Hermione may have played it too straight due to naivete in the beginning). Ron is a bit more difficult to categorize. He is a good person like his friends, but he hasn't gotten as much chance to interact. The only hesitance he has shown is a wariness toward giants (which, to be frank, is understandable given their size and history of violence, to which Hagrid can attest). He also acts as a bit of a foil toward Hermione about house-elves, but has nothing against them. However, he seems to be even more unaware than Harry of the potential consequences of the isolating behavior. He does earn something special from Hermione when he advises that they order the House-Elves to retreat, finding the idea of ordering the elves to die for them abhorrent.
  • Hogwarts has the largest population of house-elves in the world, but they all wear clean pillowcases with the Hogwarts seal stamped on them, as opposed to the filthy rags other house elves are shown wearing, and Dumbledore allows Dobby to work as hired help rather than an indentured servant and encourages Dobby to insult him in private. His starting offer of wages and vacation days is actually too generous for Dobby, who demands a lower one. Helga Hufflepuff, one of the founders of Hogwarts, gathered house-elves to the school so that they would have steady work (which elves thrive on) and not run the risk of being abused by harsh masters out in the wizarding world.
  • Sirius Black, source of the page quote, is (according to Dumbledore) kind to house-elves in general, but he can't stand his own family's house elf Kreacher when stuck trapped in the same house for a year while hiding in Order of the Phoenix, while his evil-aligned family were kind to Kreacher. Sirius is the second type of No Hero to His Valet: he is good, but he views Kreacher as an embodiment of everything he loathed about his childhood and family traditions, resulting in a very negative relationship (not to mention the implications he and Kreacher never got along even back when Sirius was a child). This proves to be Sirius' undoing.
  • As Hermione points out, house-elves tend to absorb and reflect the beliefs of those who are kind to them, so for most of the story Kreacher is racist, classist, and nasty... until Harry and Hermione are kind to him and he begins taking on the beliefs of his new master, albeit quite late in the series.
  • Ironically, the quote comes from Sirius commenting on Barty Crouch Sr.'s mistreatment and dismissal of his house-elf Winky, as Crouch needed to stop the investigation that would've exposed how he'd broken his own son out of Azkaban and then used the Imperius Curse to keep him under house arrest. But the quote itself also illustrates a picture of just what sort of man Crouch Sr. was when he was head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
  • Dumbledore warns Harry at one point that, at a national level, wizards and witches are being too arrogant and patronizing in dealing with "inferior species" (goblins, house-elves, centaurs, etc), and if they don't start treating them fairly, they are going to make unnecessary enemies at a time when they can ill-afford to do so. There are repeated instances of non-humans being genuinely surprised that Harry and his friends treat them with respect, or becoming increasingly alienated by the Ministry's insensitive behavior.
    • Umbridge refers to the centaurs of the Forbidden Forest as "filthy half-breeds" to their faces. Their reaction leaves her with a permanent fear of clopping hooves.
    • Dumbledore's prediction comes fully true in Deathly Hallows: Voldemort grants special treatment to a few particularly violent non-human species that he finds useful as weapons, like the Dementors and the werewolves, but the rest suffer even more abuse at the hands of the Death Eaters than they did under the Ministry, and rise against him in outright revolt after Harry's Heroic Sacrifice.
    • Beautifully shown in The Deathly Hallows. After the house-elf Dobby's death, Harry, Ron and Dean dig his grave by hand to show the depths of their gratitude and grief. The goblin Griphook notices this and remarks to Harry that goblins and house-elves are not used to being given this sort of respect from wizards, and it helps him decide to aid Harry in his quest. Without him, it would have failed.
• In John C. Wright's The Hermetic Millennia, Larz tells Menelaus that he actually worked for Menelaus, who never noticed the little guys. But Larz is not telling the truth in this scene.
• Played both ways in Hive Mind (2016). Amber's niceness is shown by her thanking Hannah for cleaning up and making a point of saying that the unit's success is due as much to the support staff as it is to the Strike Team. Fran's Face–Heel Turn is foreshadowed by her telling Amber not to bother thanking Hannah, a mere Level 57 Law Enforcement Office Cleaner.
• In Holes, Mr. Pendanski initially comes across as the chummy, friendly counselor to contrast Mr. Sir's outright disdain and jerkishness. However, he also makes rather nasty jabs at "Zero", who never talks and is assumed by most of the campers to be too dumb to understand spoken English, which is the main sign that he's actually no better.
• In Honor Harrington, the good officers/aristocrats are always very polite to subordinates and make sure they get lots of credit for their work, whereas evil ones belittle and tyrannize their underlings and treat servants as air that brings them things.
• In Hurog, the hero Ward is nice to everyone, including the immortal slave he inherited and cannot set free.
• In Andre Norton's Ice Crown, Princess Ludorica remembers a soldier's name even though he was presented to her only once, and when they are traveling as commoners, she shoots down going to a wedding, and proposes a birthing, with them making a wreath along the way, so that her companion comments on how well she knows peasant customs.
• Imperial Radch: Breq, the last surviving Wetware Body of a spaceship AI, knows just what it's like to be treated like an object (which, legally, she is) instead of a person, and so treats everyone with compassion even though she manages to pass as a wealthy human foreigner.
• In Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series, one of the things that makes Dominic DeLuca realize that cryptids aren't evil monsters is literally that Verity's cryptid cousin Sarah remembers to be nice to her waitress, despite having such powerful telepathic abilities she could have told the waitress to do anything at all and been eagerly obeyed.
• In Poul Anderson's "Inside Straight", Ganch is repulsed by the way their nice manners extend even to inferiors – in this particular case, a waiter.
• In the Modesty Blaise novel I, Lucifer, there's a side incident where Sir Gerald Tarrant gets Willie's help to teach a lesson to two particularly unpleasant men at his gentleman's club. He notes that while most of the other members regard these two with distaste, the real sign is that all the club's serving staff hate them.
• Jane Eyre: Mr. Rochester is generous to and undemanding of his servants, albeit a bit weird. Then Jane shows up...
• P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster books and the TV show based thereon:
  • This is what makes Bertie worthy of having Jeeves as a valet: although he's an Upper-Class Twit who's always carrying the Hero Ball, Bertie's a really Nice Guy and an ideal employer.
  • Bertie realizes that Florence Craye truly is a Rich Bitch when he learns how mean she is to servants. According to a comment from Jeeves in the TV version, her downstairs nickname is "Lady Caligula". Both she and Honoriah Glossop have stated their dislike of Jeeves, and Bertie's Aunt Agatha (probably the most class-conscious character around) routinely criticizes Bertie for consulting Jeeves on personal matters.
  • All of Bertie's friends respect Jeeves' competence and intelligence: Bingo Little regularly relies on Jeeves for help with his romantic problems (often involving women of a lower social class as an added bonus), and Bertie's Aunt Dahlia invites Bertie to stay just to have access to Jeeves for her schemes. Bertie is (usually) the first to recommend Jeeves' advice and opinion, openly admitting that Jeeves is the brains of the pair—"the man practically lives on fish!"
  • In The Code of the Woosters, both of our protagonists end up perched on furniture in a room with an angry dog. As Alexander Cockburn's foreword noted, Bertie only suggests Jeeves should grab a sheet and stuff the dog into it. He'd never command Jeeves to take the risk.
• In P. G. Wodehouse's Jill the Reckless, Jill is nice to servants. To such an extent that Freddie warns that her prospective mother-in-law will regard it as undue familiarity.
• In The Kadin, Lady Janet not only treats her own people well, but when she hires crafters to build her new hall, she makes sure the craftmasters pay their workers as soon as she pays them, something a few of them aren't happy about. Janet also gets regularly called out for being nice to her serfs and servants, not that she cares. Their love for her encourages them to do their best, and her demesne is very prosperous.
• From Life's Little Instruction Book:
  452. Show respect for anyone who works for a living, regardless of how trivial their job.
  675. Be as friendly to the janitor as you are to the chairman of the board.
  727. Show extra respect for people whose jobs put dirt under their fingernails.
  846. Just because you earn a decent wage, don't look down on those who don't. To put things in perspective, consider what would happen to the public good if you didn't do your job for 30 days. Then, consider the consequences if sanitation workers didn't do their jobs for 30 days. Now, whose job is more important?
• In A Little Princess, Sara Crewe treats the servants at Miss Minchin's with courtesy. When she's the school's "show pupil", she is kind to scullery maid Becky, realizing out loud, "We are just the same—I am only a little girl like you. It's just an accident that I am not you, and you are not me." And later when she's relegated to the status of servant herself, even when the other servants verbally abuse her she responds with "a quaint civility":
  "She's got more airs and graces than if she come from Buckingham Palace, that young one," said the cook, chuckling a little sometimes. "I lose my temper with her often enough, but I will say she never forgets her manners. 'If you please, cook'; 'Will you be so kind, cook?' 'I beg your pardon, cook'; 'May I trouble you, cook?' She drops 'em about the kitchen as if they was nothing."
  • At one point, Sara buys herself a dozen sweet rolls with some money she finds in the street — but gives all but one of them to a homeless waif who's even hungrier than she is. At the end she learns that this act inspires the baker, who witnesses it, to adopt the waif in question, giving her both a home and a job.
• The Lord of Bembibre:
  • Don Álvaro risking his neck to save his squire's life earned him Millán's fervent loyalty. Later, when he decides to reliquish his title and leave his homeland after his wife's death, Álvaro makes sure that his servants will be well off by dividing his lands and properties between them.
  • Doña Beatriz is loved by her father's servants because she treats them with respect and kindness.
  • In contrast with them, the evil and power-hungry Count of Lemos regards his servants, peasants and even lower nobility as Don Álvaro with contempt.
• Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey:
  • In Have His Carcase, Harriet Vane is cleared of suspicion because the police asked her charwoman about her associates; they have found this a reliable way of finding them out.
  • Also, part of the signal that the murder victim in Whose Body? is a good guy is that he was well-liked by his servants, not just because of this, but also in a more classist way, because he was a "natural gentleman" despite being a Self-Made Man- one point in solving the mystery was that he would always neatly fold his clothing before going to bed.
• The Mad King by Edgar Rice Burroughs: The regent and his Mook discuss how Prince von der Tann might have found out they're planning to do away with the king:
  I don't for a moment doubt but that he has his spies among the palace servants, or even the guard. You know the old fox has always made it a point to curry favor with the common soldiers. When he was minister of war he treated them better than he did his officers.
• In The Mayor of Christ Mountain, Edmund makes a point to read the waitress Molly's nametag and address her by name. After listening to her story, he also makes sure to tip her well.
• "My Dinner with Ares": Ares insists on calling his waiter a "wench" because he "does a wench's work", which clearly irritates the waiter.
• In Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" that is the unnamed duke's complaint about his late wife.
  "She thanked men,—good! but thanked
  Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
  My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
  With anybody's gift."
• My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!: Katarina treats everyone as her equal regardless of their social status, in part because her Past-Life Memories as a Japanese schoolgirl means that she doesn't really consider herself to be nobility. There are even several side chapters devoted to how she ended up improving the lives of members of her household's staff just by being a good person. Her late grandfather was also stated to have been this way.
• The Odyssey:
  • Odysseus disguises himself as a beggar upon returning to Ithaca in part for this reason: in general, those who treat him kindly in his alter-ego are loyal, while those who mistreat him have betrayed him. Eumaeus the swineherd, who lets the beggar into his house when he requests shelter and slaughters a pig so they can have something nice to eat, remains loyal to his old king. Melanthius, who insults the beggar, calls him a lowlife, and kicks him in the back, is a traitor. Philoetius, who asks the beggar if he's doing alright? Loyal. Antinous, who tries to kick him out and throws a stool at him? Traitor. Telemachus, who defends the beggar's right to stay? Loyal. Arnaeus, who is also a beggar but still has the nerve to scream at him to leave? Traitor. Penelope, who calls out the suitors for their cruelty and lets the beggar have a go at a contest for her hand in marriage? Loyal.
  • Housekeeper Eurycleia cautions Odysseus before he goes on his Roaring Rampage of Revenge not to kill everyone involved with the parasitical suitors- she's willing to vouch that a bard and shepherd alongside them were strong-armed into serving, and never disrespected the house's servants. Meanwhile, maids who took advantage of the suitors' affections to order around their fellows and mistress are punished almost as harshly as the suitors themselves. Both nobles and servants are held to high standards.
• In the Percy Jackson books, it's the degree to which Percy and Nico are nice to the waiter that is used to contrast them. Percy noticed a little girl stoking the hearth on his first day at Camp Half-Blood, but gave it no other thought. She later reveals herself to be the goddess Hestia, saying that very few people ever stop to speak with her — but Nico did. Later, when they fight the Titan Iapetus and erase his memory (renaming him Bob), Percy never gives him a second thought after Persephone says he'll be taken care of. But Nico visited him periodically and talked to him, and it's Nico putting in a good word for him that causes Bob to save Percy and Annabeth's lives later. Percy is by no means unkind, but he also doesn't go out of his way to help people beyond monster slaying and demigod heroics. When he tells Nico this, Nico tells him it's dangerous not to give people a second thought.
  • Nico also shows the dead more care than most would—when he's calling up ghosts under the tutelage of King Minos, he uses a McDonald's Happy Meal and a Coke as an offering to make them strong enough to manifest. Minos complains that it's unnecessary, any sort of food and drink, or even animal blood, will do, but Nico answers that if he's going to do it, he's going to offer something that, in intent, is kind and comforting.
• Subverted in an anecdote from Perry Rhodan, which has a noble Arkonide acting conspicuously polite towards a mere gardener (of an "inferior" species, at that) who has greeted him in the same way not out of any particular respect or appreciation, but simply to demonstrate that just like everything else his grasp of manners is naturally also superior to that of "such a creature".
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: One of the signs that Mr. Darcy isn't as bad as Elizabeth had initially believed is that his servants speak glowingly of him to strangers.
• In L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero Lost, Miranda does, in the opening scenes, sacrifice valuable artifacts to save a servant, though she is conflicted over it. Later, after she learns that her Lack of Empathy may be magically induced, and is told that her aerial servants love her, she consciously decides to use persuasion rather than force to get Boreaus to not harm humans, and then instead of flatly refusing to free them, tells the air spirits that she would need them to swear to keep the air spirits from causing harm. They concede that this would be difficult but start thinking about how they could pull it off, grateful for even the chance. Also, when her brother complains of one of her employees speaking his mind, she backs up the employee.
• The Queen of Ieflaria: Adale is known for kindness toward servants or commoners generally. This means she'd be a much better regent than either of her cousins, in her parents' opinion, because they're quite callous to them and this would alientate the common people.
• In The Rise of Kyoshi, one sign that Fire Lord Zoryu is a nice guy is that he still speaks fondly on Yun despite knowing that he wasn't really the Avatar. One sign that his half-brother Chaejin is a jerk is that, when recounting the people killed in Yun's attack, he lists the VIPs but not the two guards.
• Schooled in Magic: Word gets around that Emily is extremely kind to servants.
• In The Secret Garden, Mary's mother wanted her out of the way, and the servants would just try to keep Mary quiet. As a consequence, she quickly learned that tantrums and hitting would get her what she wanted. Her uncle's servants do not treat her with deference, which helps in her Character Development from Spoiled Brat.
  • Mary also quickly takes a liking to Martha, Dickon, and their family, along with the gardener. Mostly this is because those are the people who are consistently around, while her uncle is never there. Even when she befriends Colin, she chooses to spend the day with Dickon instead of him at one point.
• The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie: The heroine is established as a good person, despite her somewhat flippant manner, when she asks her chauffeur about his wife's health and offers to pay for a trip to the country if the doctors think it will help her.
• In "The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope", by Saki, there is the following exchange:
  "Is your maid called Florence?"
  "Her name is Florinda."
  "What an extraordinary name to give a maid!"
  "I did not give it to her; she arrived in my service already christened."
  "What I mean is," said Mrs. Riversedge, "that when I get maids with unsuitable names I call them Jane; they soon get used to it."
  "An excellent plan," said the aunt of Clovis coldly; "unfortunately I have got used to being called Jane myself. It happens to be my name."
• In The Problem of Thor Bridge, Sherlock Holmes benefits from this trope when one of his wealthy client's employees comes at the outset to warn him about the client's vindictive nature. Holmes even lampshades it when he points out the insights one can get into a man's character when you see what his employees think of him.
• In Josepha Sherman's The Shining Falcon, Ljuba is quite frustrated at how Finist is so concerned with the welfare of the peasants and other commoners.
• Thieves in the Ink from Skate the Thief make a point to be generous in coffeehouses and alehouses to engender goodwill among the locals as an incentive to help the gang avoid the Baron's Guard.
• In Tamora Pierce's Tortall Universe, the early books have all good characters be good to commoners, while all bad ones aren't. The huge cast of nobles who care about commoners keep saying that it's atypical in Tortall for nobles to care about commoners while the only non-villain who demonstrates this is Merric, who tells Kel and Neal that they're too concerned and generous.
  • It's different in Beka Cooper, since she has to deal with loads of annoying nobles (and even upper middle-class commoners) who are offended at being questioned by a member of the unwashed masses. She dislikes seeing a noble clear beggars from his path by having servants scatter copper coins like grain for the beggars to dive after. It works and is better than keeping them back with violence but it's also very dehumanizing.
  • It's zigged and zagged in Tempests and Slaughter. Arram is unfailingly good to the poor and deeply uncomfortable about the Enlightened Self-Interest of some healer-students working during a pandemic, who're only there to get their degrees and have no compassion for their patients. His friends Ozorne and Varice, on the other hand, are kind, neutral, or cruel depending wildly on the circumstances; they can be generous when in good moods, and far worse when they aren't. Arram, being the point of view character and very invested in his friends being good people, ignores or rationalizes away most of their harsh moments.
    • Speaking of Ozorne, there's an inversion in Emperor Mage. Now-Emperor Ozorne has Daine, the most famous wildmage in Tortall, travel to his palace just to heal his pet birds — yet he can "send armies to their deaths without batting an eye." This is the first clue as to how messed-up he is.
• The Son Of The Ironworker: Discussed when the hermit Cornelio is advising the main character to flee to the Indies, and after condemning settlers who treat the natives as slaves, asks Martín to treat any servants that he could have properly.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Eddard Stark is always polite and respectful with his servants. He regularly invites one of his household members to dine with him for a night — ranging from the steward to the blacksmith to the old servant woman — to better understand the needs of his smallfolk.
  • Arya Stark, Eddard's younger daughter has inherited this from him, as she was very close to the household servants growing up — to the point they called her "Arya Underfoot" — and befriends and regards the smallfolk as equals. She also becomes fiercely protective of the downtrodden after witnessing the abuse of commoners during the war.
  • Catelyn Stark also treats the commoners well. After promising a ship's crew a bonus if they made good time, she paid each oarsman personally rather than give the money to their captain, who would have kept it all for himself.
  • Edmure Tully was the only noble to allow his peasants to take refuge in his castle during the war, a move which the others saw as foolish and soft-hearted. This is a bit of Artistic License – History combined with Hollywood Tactics; the whole point of having a castle with a large courtyard and big sturdy walls is to protect the commoners during a siege. After all, if they all get killed by the enemy, who's going to take care of your land afterwards?
  • Daenerys Targaryen frees slaves, treats her servants with respect, and thinks of all of her followers as her children. Harming them is a surefire way to make her very, very angry.
  • Jaime Lannister treats his squires and washerwomen well. This is likely an extension of his being A Father to His Men. He even ships them, and invites a poor raped girl into his household because he can.
  • Tyrion Lannister starts off this way, treating the prostitutes he sleeps with respectfully and even teaching one how to read; but as the books go forward he becomes more callous, and by the fifth book he treats them like garbage.
• So This is Ever After: Arek and co. quickly decide to increase the wages of the servants who work in the castle, while another is moved deeply at how they don't have her put into the stocks for spilling wine accidentally onto Matt. This gets him named "King Arek the Kind".
• In the Spaceforce (2012) novels, society in the Taysan Empire is strictly stratified along caste and class lines. In the first book Jay is, at considerable personal risk, masquerading as swordbearer caste when he is in fact of lowly origins. When he treats a servant with unnecessary politeness and consideration, it's enough to draw attention to himself.
• Miryem in Spinning Silver has no time for the excuses and evasions of her debtors—with good reason, because many are lying about their ability to pay and they're all antisemetic. However, when she drafts Wanda in to pay her father's debt by working as a servant, Miryem deals with her fairly, teaches her how to be an assistant in collecting, lets her eat with the family, and then provides more help and advice when she realizes the situation Wanda would be in without the job. This is why Wanda is later willing to risk her life to save Miryem from the Staryk King.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Part of Wedge Antilles' Establishing Character Moment in Rogue Squadron is his conscientiousness to his mechanic; he smiles and tells the mechanic that his X-Wing looks good as new if not better, putting aside private unease. The mechanic is a Verpine, and there are stories about Verpine mechanics tinkering with craft and forgetting that most pilots don't count in base six or have vision that lets them see microscopic detail. But none of the stories are substantiated. He's also sympathetic to his new astromech when it tells him that its nickname is "Mynock" because a previous pilot said it screamed like one in combat, which was a slander.
  • Played with amusingly in Wraith Squadron, when Wedge shows up in a rather similar scene to look over twelve shiny new X-Wings, and this time he's not the viewpoint character. This mechanic lies blatantly, saying that these are the worst new ships he's ever seen—factory-new ships tend to have all kinds of untested irregularities—and unless he can pull off a miracle with the extruder valve, they won't be flight-ready for a couple of days. Wedge blinks and gives him those days, apparently completely ignorant of the fact that X-Wings have no extruder valve. He wanders around for a bit, making the mechanics uneasy since they can't go on break for fear of being written up; they retaliate by loudly telling each other about catastrophic mechanical failures in X-Wings and the resultant loss of life. After he finally leaves, they fix the minor problems and play sabacc. Overestimating the time makes them look good.
  • In The Courtship of Princess Leia, Luke's adherence to this trope upsets and disturbs Prince Isolder.
    Isolder: You shouldn't do this! The universe doesn't work this way!
    Luke: What do you mean?
    Isolder: You–you're treating those beasts as equals. You show my mother, the Ta'a Chume of the Hapes empire, the same degree of cordiality as you give a droid!
    Luke: This droid, these beasts, all have a similar measure of the Force within them. If I sense the Force, how can I not respect them, just as I respect Ta'a Chume?
  • Thrawn proves himself as a combination of this trope and Benevolent Boss in an Establishing Character Moment. Two crewmembers on his Star Destroyer were responsible for trying to capture Luke Skywalker, but failed. The one who made excuses was punished. The one who made an honest effort, tried something innovative, and accepted responsibility when it failed was promoted for his creativity and hard work. It's noted by Pellaeon that after this (and after Bad Bosses like Vader), the crew would be willing to die for him.
• The Stormlight Archive, book 2, Words of Radiance:
  • Before the Parshendi assassinated her father, Jasnah was paying assassins to spy on people, including her own family. While said assassins were mildly annoyed they weren't killing anyone, the fact that she showed them more respect than most nobles (and paid well) meant that they were actually surprisingly fond of her.
    Jasnah: Assassination is a dirty business. So is taking out a chamber pot. I can respect the people who do the job without caring for the job itself.
  • Zigzagged with the Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Brightlord Amaram. He is pleasant to his darkeyed house staff, even remembering the random serving girl's name and plans for the evening, and assuring her that she'd be taken care of when she marries. On the other, he has an entire squad of his men murdered in sickbay so he can claim a Shardblade from one of them without looking like he'd extorted it from him.
  • The Order of Edgedancers are focused on helping the small people of the world; their second and third oaths are remembering the forgotten and listening to the silenced. When the Radiants disbanded centuries ago and their fortress abandoned, the Edgedancers focused on helping their servants and staff relocate now they were out of a job.
  • Prince Adolin turns out to be this. While he lives and believes in a very classist society, thinking that lighteyes ruling and darkeyes serving to be natural order, he still believes in treating everyone with respect and dignity. In Rhythm of War, he regularly goes out drinking with the rank-and-file, and not only remembers the bartender's name, but gets him a wedding gift and congratulates him on the marriage. Kaladin, his darkeyed friend, realizes that where Kaladin remembers the names and likes of everyone in his command, Adolin remembers everyone.
• In Andre Norton's Storm Over Warlock, Garth Thorvald took advantage of his superior position and ability to talk his way out of trouble to abuse Shann.
• The Sword of Saint Ferdinand: García and Diego de Vargas are greatly respected and admired by the rank-and-file soldiers because despite being lower nobility, they are always courteous and kind to everyone, regardless their social standing or background.
• Sword of Truth: In Blood of the Fold, one of the cleaning maids in the Palace of the Prophets remarks that most students never notice her, but Richard always had a kind word to say. Verna, whom she later helps escape captivity, likewise treats her kindly. Also, a cook from the Confessors' Palace shares a few stories about Kahlan growing up.
• In Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll:
  • The Vice-Warden, his wife, and his son Ugugg are all cruel to the poor.
    He was a fine old man, but looked sadly ill and worn. "A crust of bread is what I crave!" he repeated. "A single crust, and a little water!"
    "Here's some water, drink this!" Uggug bellowed, emptying a jug of water over his head.
    "Well done, my boy!" cried the Vice-Warden.
  • Sylvie and Bruno, in contrast, chase after the old man to give him Bruno's cake, and find out he's their father.
• Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie: Discussed. An aristocratic wife manages to treat her servants distantly, though politely—she is dependent on them to take care of her, but never pretends to relate to them. Her maids don't hate her for it, though; in fact, they're somewhat fascinated by her glamour and difference.
• In the Chivalric Romance Tale of Gamelyn, Gamelyn's attack on his brother does not rouse any assistance for the brother from the servants, because Gamelyn treated them well, and his brother poorly.
• In Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, Alianora rescues Hugi from Duke Alaric's stronghold while Holger fights his way free. Holger is ashamed of himself for not thinking of Hugi's danger himself.
• Amy Thomson's Through Alien Eyes has the ultra-wealthy Xaviera family require that all of their children work as servants for three days a week in part to foster this.
• In the Trueman Bradley series, the Non-Idle Rich proagonist is an extremely generous tipper.
• Tsumiko and the Enslaved Fox: Tsumiko's kindness and thoughtfullness towards all of her newfound staff quickly earn her the friendship and confidence of Michael, Sansa, and Gingko and eventually Argent, despite resisting and distrusting her kindness with all his might.
• Subverted in the Colin Forbes' novel Terminal when someone sees a waiter spill a drink on a professor and rush to clean it up. The professor's response is to have no reaction whatsoever, meaning he has either extraordinary self-control or is seriously psychotic.
• In Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots by Seanan McGuire, Velveteen gets new toys to animate by going to Goodwill, animating all the toys they have, warning them about the dangers of going with her, and asking for volunteers.
• In the Village Tales novels, anyone who isn't this is clearly a villain. Even so, the ducal family and the Rector stand out particularly as being this. (Those with less power and influence and rank than has he, are the only people to whom the Duke isn't rude.)
• In the first book of the Villain.net series, Jake at one point gives up his chair to an older henchman of his Evil Mentor Basilisk's, helping solidify his status as an Anti-Villain.
• Warhammer 40,000 Expanded Universe:
  • In Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel Necropolis, when the Noble Yetch and the Noble Chass are introduced in Council, Yetch argues that he should be able to evict refugees who have flooded his factory, interfering with production. Against him, Chass says that he liked those people when they raised his production quotas, and they should be permitted.
    Chass continued. "If this attack inconveniences our houses, I say: Let us be inconvenienced. We have a duty to the hive population."
    • It must not have stuck with his daughter: when the attack begins, Lady Chass is caught in a dress store. When she finds that the clerk fled for his life instead of seeing to her safety (bear in mind, the district was being shelled by artillery at the time!), she declares the store will never again have the patronage of her house.
  • In Brothers of the Snake, when the Princess Royal tries to object to a Flashed-Badge Hijack of her car, a bodyguard points out that they are, after all, Space Marines. She hits him hard enough to knock him over. The dying Inquisitor sees to it that the Marines are not harmed by her complaints to their Chapter Master.
  • In Sandy Mitchell's novel Scourge The Heretic, Secundan society is so hierarchical, and superiors are never polite to inferiors, even Inquisition agents have to be brusque to get treated as serious; those who qualify for this trope are taken as inferior.
  • In Graham McNeill's Horus Heresy novel False Gods, Maggard's vocal cords have been removed because it is unfitting for a bodyguard like him to speak in the presence of his mistress. Unsurprisingly, when Horus praises him highly after a fight, his loyalties are Horus's. When she sees that after that fight, the soldiers respect him more than her, she thinks it wrong and resolves to fix it. Horus assassinates her, while Maggard is off assassinating another obstacle to Horus's plans.
  • In James Swallow's The Flight of the Eisenstein, other Death Guards, having jeered at Garro for following the old custom that preserved Kaleb's life as his equerry—to Kaleb's face—proceed to stop Kaleb in the corridors and heckle him until another Death Guard interrupts. He admits to this one that Garro uses him to feel out the morale; no one notices him as he moves about.
    Guess who remained loyal and who proved a traitor?
  • In Swallow's Red Fury, the tech adepts who dazzle Caceus are less concerned about his servant Fenn, which means Fenn has a much clearer idea of them.
  • Also from Swallow, Faith & Fire, where Vaun hits a medic merely because he is annoyed at the man fussing over his injuries.
  • In Graham McNeill's Fulgrim, Braxton is enraged that the primarch keeps him waiting, because keeping people waiting is what he does to other people, to demonstrate his superior status.
  • This is lampshaded in the Ciaphas Cain series by Sandy Mitchell. Cain is an extremely self-centered survivalist who is nonetheless always kind to his subordinates. He wryly notes that commissars who operate by the book have a tendency to die heroically for the Emperor even when the enemy is suspiciously far away. However, he is genuinely fond of his aide, Jurgen. The man might have the hygiene of an ogryn and the sense of humor of a particularly stupid rock, but he is steadfastedly loyal to Cain, and has saved Cain's life more than anyone can count. At one point, one of Cain's female conquests (who happens to be a noble) talks down to Jurgen and treats him like a slave. Cain is quick to correct her attitude, defending his aide as he would any other friend.
  • In Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Night Lords novel Soul Hunter, the Night Lord Talos finds his shuttle had been attacked, with one of his two slaves dying and another kidnapped. He treats the slave's injuries, assuring him that what went wrong didn't matter, charges into a stronghold of his enemies to save the other from Attempted Rape, and gives the first slave the best quality augmentics for his body parts injured beyond repair—better than many rich can get. It's not unsurprising the second slave, who had been used as a pawn her whole life before she was Made a Slave, becomes a loyal slave. He also allows his slaves to question him—maybe not defy him, but they're all allowed to ask him why he's doing what he's doing, or things they want to know, and voice their own opinions like they're people.
    • A further example, Talos—who had a good memory even for an Astartes—warns a newly-recruited Raptor off of tormenting a random crewman by introducing them; he cites the human crewmember's name, his exact number of years of service, and how many battles the ship had seen during his service. The undertone of the conversation is this man is valuable and we do not mistreat valuable people.
• Zigzagged with Wax in Wax and Wayne. Wax is an aristocrat who left to become a Cowboy Cop in the Roughs, before unexpectedly becoming the head of House Ladrian. His experience living independently in the Wild West splits this trope; he's good to the people who work for him in general, but ignores them on a persona level. Wax is sympathetic to commoners and does much to help the people his house employs, raising the wages of factory workers, trying to prevent firings when they're almost bankrupt, and cracking down on abusive managers. The only reason why he's willing to live a stifling life as a nobleman is because letting his house go bankrupt would put everyone he employs out of work. However, since he's used to doing everything himself, he's uncomfortable with having servants to cook and clean for him, but since he's also used to not having to worry about anyone but himself and his friends, he often flies off without warning to save the day, letting his servants pick up the pieces. It's implied that Ladrian servants have a high turnover rate.
• In Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell is an active and conscientious landlord at his estate, Austen Friars. He frequently takes in urchins and orphans, giving them employment in the house and picking out anyone with intelligence and ability, as well as a widow who refused to work at an abbey because they would have separated her from her children. At one point he volunteers to help his butcher (who is scandalized and refuses). It doesn't take away from his role in the downfall of Thomas More and Anne Boleyn, but he's consistently decent to people of lower social station as he came from there himself.

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