Basic Trope: A Jerkass character who is also The Ditz.
- Straight: Bob is a rude, mean-spirited jerk who frequently insults other people. He's also not very bright and is poorly educated.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob is a narcissistic sociopath who cruelly bullies other people for little or no reason. He's also dangerously stupid, and makes a lot of very idiotic mistakes out of sheer arrogance and stubbornness.
- (Almost) every single character in the story are psychopathic morons who make each other (and themselves) miserable with their selfishly stupid antics.
- Stupid Evil
- Downplayed:
- Bob is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, who's actually quite a caring guy deep down. He's also a Book Dumb Genius Ditz who can be surprisingly clever despite his general ignorance.
- Bob may be mean spirted and dumb, he is just clever enough to play the "lovable goof" act.
- Despite being mean and dumb Bob occasionally gets a few things right.
- Justified:
- Bob never went to school when he was a child, and his parents taught him that it was okay to be a jerk to people.
- Bob did briefly go to school in his childhood, but his rudeness and poor grades got him expelled, and no other school would enroll him.
- Low intelligence tends to go hand-in-hand with unchecked egocentrism and reduced social self-awareness and empathy, as really stupid people often have problems with or even outright lack the capacity to imagine themselves in other people's shoe or assess how their actions may come off to onlookers.
- Inverted:
- Bob is a highly intelligent man, but is just as much of a jerk to people.
- Bob is stupid, but he's open-hearted to people.note
- In addition to being highly intelligent, Bob is considerate of others as well as attuned to social etiquette.
- Subverted: Bob is much kinder and smarter underneath his façade.
- Double Subverted: Bob believes that he is putting on an act, but is not smart enough to realize he really is that mean and dumb.
- Parodied: Bob is a total moron who is always drunk, mean-spirited and so god darn lazy that he cares less and less about others for little to no reason in spite of being best friends with Danny the Dummy, who cares about him as much as he does with other people, and Bob is someone that nobody openly likes. And much to the point that everyone and everything hates him, and is the Zoidberg of his hometown. Bob's stupidity always leads himself into troublesome mishaps in comical, satisfying ways.
- Zig Zagged: Bob is a dim-witted Jerk with a Heart of Gold at best or Jerk with a Heart of Jerk at worst.
- Averted: Bob is neither dumb nor an Jerkass.
- Enforced:
- "We needed to make a loud-mouthed, mindless asshole character to make things interesting."
- "I'm annoyed to tears how some works portray stupid characters as kindhearted and good-natured by default, so how about we have a stupid character who's also a total prick to show that even morons can be assholes?"
- Lampshaded: "Geez. That idiot Bob sure is a massive jerk."
- Invoked: Bob is usually The Ditz, but will act incredibly rude regardless of who he is talking to when he gets disturbed when "busy" or feels disrespected for either good reasons or none.
- Exploited: While Bob is incredibly provocative, Bob's idiotic jerkassery helps out screwing things up for himself and unwittingly helps other people in the process since he is The Chew Toy.
- Defied:
- Bob realizes how harsh, heart-wrenching, and callous some moronic jerks can be, so he prefers to learn how to have good manners.
- Or, Bob realizes how stressful and agonizing it can be to be a mindless jerk or a jerky idiot, so he prefers to learn how to have righteous manners and expanding his mind to be informed on what is balanced in life itself so that he isn't a complete and utter bozo.
- Discussed: "Of course Bob has his education listed as 'School of Hard Knocks'. Must be nice being proud of being so stupid and shitty."
- Conversed:"Imagine being my aunt and being in your fifties and still being that proud of how ignorant you are and how many fights you've been in."
"Jesus, talk about a trainwreck. Didn't she just get out of jail, only to get the police called on her three days later?"
"Sure did. Neighbor asked her to clean up after her dog after it took a shit in her yard, so she blasted 'Crazy Bitch' at max volume and shot off fireworks at two in the morning."
"Good lord. What else can you expect from someone who unironically compares herself to Harley Quinn and literally bills themselves as white trash?" - Deconstructed: Bob's combination of stupidity and Lack of Empathy for other people, leads him to joining a gang and turning to a life of crime; and he ends up going to prison (or even getting killed), due to making a lot of stupid mistakes (and enemies) until his luck ran out.
- Implied: Bill tells Carl about referring to a person he knows, Bob, that was so stubborn and reckless when teaching him how to drive that he got himself in a car crash.
- Played for Laughs: Bob's stupidly mean-spirited nature always leads him to his defeats, setbacks, failures, countless Epic Fails that embarrasses himself and is a massive Chew Toy because of his stupidity and his jerkassery.
- Played for Drama: Bob's proud ignorance and anti-intellectualism and extreme rudeness and hostility towards others mask a deep core of insecurity and self-loathing that he lacks the introspection to recognize, and he blows up opportunity after opportunity for himself out of a misplaced, immature sense of pride until his luck runs out and he realizes, on some level, that his dismal future with no realistic way out is entirely due to his horrible attitude and judgment.
- Played for Horror: Bob is defined by his proud ignorance, stupidity, and hubris, as well as by his astounding disregard for basic human decency, but he is equally defined by his psychopathic tendencies and love of violence, and the readiness with which he searches for opportunities to justify inflicting serious harm on others is so pronounced that anyone who is in his vicinity is in danger.
Back to Insufferable Imbecile.
