Basic Trope: A character hates being criticized for their errors.
- Straight: Alice becomes furious when Bob tells her about her mistakes.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice maims Bob all because he was pointing out her wrongs in extensive detail.
- Bob isn't even halfway done saying "With All Due Respect" before Alice beheads him. Despite the fact that he was heralding good, positive news, and was afraid that the news wouldn't be good enough to please her.
- Halfway through his first word, Alice proceeds to gut Bob alive in the most vicious fashion possible.
- Downplayed:
- Alice glares at Bob for pointing out her errors.
- Alice rolls her eyes at Bob's criticism.
- Bob gives a full-scale "The Reason You Suck" Speech, and Alice's response is an annoyed but controlled "Whatever. A jerk like you wouldn't understand anyway."
- Justified:
- Alice is an Insufferable Genius, a Know-Nothing Know-It-All, or just a Bad Boss who believes that she's always right and can't make mistakes.
- The way Bob criticizes Alice is rather callous and cruel.
- Bob is also known to have a nasty reputation for being immensely condescending, often leaning heavily into attacking the other person's character or deliberately putting out bad faith critiques to puff up his own ego and "prove his superiority" in his beliefs, whether it be in his taste of media or otherwise. He's also, paradoxically, completely unable to take any criticism of his own mistakes and surrounds himself with a cult of fans who take everything he says as gospel and harassing anyone who dares to point this out. As such, Alice doesn't want to hear his criticism because she knows that he doesn't actually care about constructive insight, and that he's so thin-skinned that any attempts to debate with him is fruitless at best and actively dangerous at worst.
- Alice has been criticized a lot before; Bob's points were merely the straw that broke the camel's back.
- Alice is a sensitive person with low self-esteem and can't handle any negativity thrown at her.
- Alice is not used to ever being criticized. She may have even been spoiled so much that she's never been criticized before.
- Alice is in a position of power and it's gotten to her head. To her, all criticism feels like a defiance of her authority, and she won't accept that.
- Alice has a persecution complex and takes criticism of her behavior as a personal attack.
- Alice is an extreme perfectionist.
- Bob made his criticism known to the public, embarrassing Alice.
- Alice grew up in an abusive household where she was constantly criticized, put down, and insulted. As a result, she now automatically assumes that any criticism is a personal attack.note
- The criticism focused too much on what Alice is doing wrong or not doing and not enough on what she is doing or doing right.
- Bob's "criticism" is just a huge barrage of insults of all kinds with a tiny "you did wrong, Alice" center. Regardless of whether or not Alice likes being criticized, she is correct about not having to put up with such language.
- The "criticism" against Alice really is objectively wrong — her critics either misread or completely ignored the facts, making her the victim of Malicious Slander.
- Inverted:
- Alice enjoys being criticized by Bob.
- Alice accepts all of Bob's criticisms, even the unreasonable ones, and even agrees completely with him.
- Alice wants Bob to criticise her, because she views it as a sign that he respects her enough to be honest with her, even if it hurts sometimes.
- Subverted:
- It looks like Alice is ready to break Bob's neck for criticizing her, but then she admits that he was right.
- Alice is not angry that Bob criticized her. Had he voiced his complaints earlier, a lot of damage could have been avoided.
- Alice is furious at Bob for criticising her... but only because he's a massive hypocrite and even if he's right about her, she believes that he's in no position to call her out.
- Double Subverted:
- ...Right before threatening to kill him should he ever criticize her again.
- She blames him for the damage her actions caused even though even he didn't spot the problem or problems until it was almost too late.
- But her outrage at Bob's hypocrisy wasn't because of any principled stance on the matter. She just hates being criticised, and is using Bob's hypocrisy as an excuse to dismiss his criticism out of hand. She's at least as hypocritical as he.
- Alice curses Bob behind his back when he leaves.
- Parodied:
- Alice literally blows a fuse after Bob corrects her on how to bake cookies.
- Alice throws a tantrum whenever Bob criticizes her.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Alice only gets angry if Bob's criticism was meant to put her down and only relents if the criticism was more constructive. Or she just lashes out whether the criticism was gentle or harsh.
- Alice tolerates criticism from Adam and Cathy because she believes they want the best for her. Bob and Carol are another story; they're just nasty to her.
- Averted:
- Alice doesn't get angry at Bob's criticism.
- Alice doesn't care about being criticized.
- Alice isn't criticized at all.
- Enforced: "Let's make Alice such a Drama Queen that she starts yelling and pulling her hair apart the minute someone gives her constructive criticism."
- Lampshaded: "Geez, Alice, I never thought you would go berserk just because I called you out."
- Invoked: Alice tells Bob that if he ever sees her half-assing anything to hit her with some needed criticism so she would get riled up and motivated to prove him wrong by doing her best.
- Exploited: Alice is a Manipulative Bitch in Sheep's Clothing with a good reputation. The two people she's bullied for over a decade, Bob and Carol, can't speak out against her for her behavior because no one would believe them. So Carol approaches her in public, politely criticises her for something that's really not that big a deal, and Alice blows up at her. This causes people to see what she's really like, just as Carol had hoped.
- Defied: Alice tries to avoid getting angry at Bob's criticism and takes heed to it instead.
- Discussed: "Why is it so hard for people to listen to criticism these days?"
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: Once Bob comments that Alice has a horrible fashion sense on her internet blog. She stops writing on her blog, deletes it, and stops going on the internet for a month afterward.
- Deconstructed:
- Bob is a moral advisor for Alice and always gives Alice criticism whenever she does something wrong, if not outright evil, but this builds up many levels of anger and resentment that Alice gives in and proceeds to murder Bob, thus completing her journey to irredeemable evil.
- Bob gives up on criticizing Alice, knowing that she doesn't want to get better.
- Alice's reaction towards criticism, in general, is a manifestation of a deep-seated issue she is unable and unwilling to resolve.
- Alice commits suicide because she feels like she cannot do anything right as a result of the criticism. This puts Bob in an awful position, since the media have taken to treating him as the criminal for driving her to suicide, with everyone turning against him. Bob, for his part, ends up feeling immense guilt, viewing his actions in hindsight with a very negative light and realizing that he might have gone too far and didn't consider the complicated nuances of why Alice was so unwilling to take criticism. He ends up withdrawing from society completely due to the guilt of his part in Alice's death.
- Alice is a business owner who keeps threatening legal action against people who leave negative reviews or criticise her company's shady practices on the internet. This blows up in her face when she does end up suing one of her critics, as she loses the lawsuit and goes bankrupt due to the legal fees.
- Alice is a business owner who refuses to accept criticism over her practices and keep making ill-advised decisions that drive her company into bankruptcy.
- Reconstructed:
- However, Alice feels better about herself and every critic tries hard not to criticize her should they suffer the same fate.
- Eventually, Bob tries to see things from Alice's perspective and vows to help her become less sensitive to criticism.
- Alice resolves to listen to criticism when she finds it easy to do and will only lash out on those who criticize her for no valid reason other than being Jerkasses.
- Played for Laughs: Alice goes into a fit of pathetic Angrish whenever someone criticizes her.
- Played for Drama:
- Whenever Alice is criticized by others, she snaps so harshly that this drives people away from her.
- Alice has avoidant personality disorder, and takes all negative criticism very personally due to it "validating" her belief about being inferior to everyone else. She doesn't show or discuss this due to her fear of being rejected, until one day her defenses finally crack, she suffers a Freak Out, and is forcibly tossed into the Despair Event Horizon.
- Played for Horror: After being criticized one too many times, Alice snaps and begins to track down and murder anyone who criticizes her.
You're telling me that I Can't Take Criticism?!? HOW DARE YOU!!!
