Basic Trope: A Jerkass gives an actually valid argument.
- Straight: Norman is usually rude, arrogant, immature, lacking in manners and ill-adjusted along with poor people skills — and surprises everyone when he calls Brandon out on mistreating his friends.
- Exaggerated:
- Norman thinks that going along with social norms is for wimps and has a bad habit of loudly discussing his crudest thoughts. Even he finds Brandon's decision to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge for some random, relatively small slight to go way overboard.
- Norman actively alienates everyone he meets within five minutes, and is right about practically everything.
- Villain Has a Point
- Downplayed: Norman has a personality many would find at least mildly disagreeable. When Brandon curses, Norman raises an eyebrow.
- Justified:
- Norman is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold or a Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold.
- Norman despite being a jerk that casually insults his friends, he never goes as far as to physically mistreat them like Brandon does to his own.
- Norman thinks he's superior simply because he doesn't engage in one kind of disagreeable behaviors, ignoring how he has no problem acting in ways that could reasonably be thought of as disagreeable, if not more.
- Norman, in the vein of being an asshole, is also an extremely self-deceptive hypocrite, who never thinks rules could apply to him.
- Norman is considered a Jerkass because he is always rude to his teammates and speaks aloud every single bad thought he has about them. This is why he is the first person to call Brandon out, whereas everyone else avoided the issue to be polite.
- Norman calls Brandon out in hopes of raising his own esteem in eyes of others.
- Despite his mean tendencies, Norman's Brutal Honesty is often what people appreciate about him.
- Who better than the official Jerkass to know what sort of behavior is considered reprehensible and why so?
- The reason why Norman is such a jerk to Brandon in the first place is because Brandon is a reckless, act-first-think-never Ungrateful Bastard who he has to constantly clean up after. Norman is simply spelling out to Brandon how much grief he's caused him.
- Inverted:
- Norman is a Nice Guy, yet he is really good at making valid points, whether calling someone out if they do any wrongdoings, and especially in regards to other situations.
- Norman is a Nice Guy who is very bad at making valid arguments and points.
- Everyone calls Norman out on behavior that is so nice it just strikes everyone out of proportion or is actually harmful.
- Subverted:
- Norman invokes Your Approval Fills Me with Shame.
- Norman goes to defend Brandon, ranting how others are simply being judgmental morons.
- Norman states that Brandon's actions don't make a difference and everyone else should think so as well.
- Norman admits he actually saying that to spite Brandon and only likes to feel superior.
- Double Subverted:
- ...then states how Brandon indeed should feel ashamed, because even Norman is disgusted.
- ...in an ironic fashion, then switching to straight-out chastising.
- Only Norman is trying to suppress his feelings, because Brandon's deed still made him really angry.
- Norman's exclamation of superiority isn't convincing. He tries to hold up his self-image, but it still shows he's fuming inside.
- Parodied: Norman berates people for the most trivial of misdeeds — often ones that everyone knows to be misdeeds and aren't obscure laws written in 1119 — and makes sure to breathe heavily in their faces, spraying them with saliva, while he does so.
- Zig Zagged: Norman calls Brandon out on his misbehavior or breach of conduct, then in mid-speech turns around and starts presenting Brandon's reasons, good or not, and chastising everyone else for being narrow-minded jerks — to mock Brandon. Others are put off by Norman's hypocrisy and flighty manner of presentation and remark that while Brandon's course of action wasn't exactly laudable, Norman is still worse and thus in no position to judge.
- Averted:
- Norman makes no comment on or doesn't care about Brandon's behavior.
- Norman looks like he's going to call Brandon out, except that it turns out to be a remark about some completely unrelated matter.
- Enforced: The executives are kind of fed up with Brandon there just ranting angrily at any stupid thing that crosses his mind and being the fodder for "The Complainer Is Always Wrong", so they ask the writers to make him undeniably right about something for a change.
- Lampshaded:
- "I can't believe I agree with him."
- "Well if you'd stop being such a douchebag yourself, then maybe I'll take you more seriously."
- Invoked: Norman attempts to draw the attention to what Brandon did.
- Brandon has gotten utterly sick of being The Cassandra, having wisdom but the inability to bring about changes or be believed until it is is too late. He vents his frustrations by telling everyone their flaws.
- Exploited: Norman uses the fact that he's right as an excuse to be as unfiltered as he pleases.
- Defied:
- Other characters say that it doesn't matter if Norman is right, because that doesn't make him any less of an asshole.
- "Okay, Brandon did wrong and suddenly I'm supposed to act like a saint? I don't care."
- (Brandon visibly hits his Rage Breaking Point from the insulting alone and points over shoulder at Norman) "Does anybody else here gives a flying fuck about what he's saying?" (Nobody does, and never analyze how right he is).
- Norman makes it clear that he's going pause being an asshole for a moment to make an honest opinion about things that he thinks must be discussed before doing so. If anything, it makes his opinion more effective.
- "I know you're right Norman, but Brandon doesn't need to hear it from you. Let me explain."
- Discussed:
- "You know Norman, You'd be a great counselor if you can just get that lack of tact under control."
- "You don't wanna take charge, you don't want me to take charge, and the only thing you seem to talk about is how much Brandon's ideas suck - you're right about the latter, I'll give you that, and that still doesn't changes the fact you're nothing but a cowardly twat."
- Conversed: "We get how wisdom can come from unexpected people, but how come it's always the resident Jerk who preaches it while barely applying it to their own life?"
- Implied: Brandon has a talk with Norman offscreen, and grumbles as he leaves stuff along the lines "I can't believe Norman of all people would have the moral high ground."
- Deconstructed:
- Norman and Brandon actually have painful history together. Brandon's deed is what pushes Norman overboard.
- The others tell Norman he has no right to call out Brandon given his own misdeeds.
- Because of Norman's Jerkass behavior, no one takes his advice seriously and his attempt at calling out Brandon makes others call him out for being a Hypocrite.
- Too much Jerkass, not enough of a point: Norman pointing out that Brandon, say for example, never paid his credit card debts in time and now obviously he's getting audited and may have problems keeping his home in the future is something that makes sense. That it's the "jaywalking" part of a fifteen-minute Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking "The Reason You Suck" Speech where he hollers every single kind of insult he can think of at Brandon, his wife and their five-year-old son at glass-shattering decibels, which he caps off by giving Brandon a Pater Familicide Suicide Dare and even slaps a gun down on the table so Brandon can do it right then and there in front of him (and everybody in the restaurant that he just terrorized) is just asking everybody else to accept something that, even by association, is obscenely cruel.
- Even if he may have a point, Norman is just so much of a Jerkass that his friends disagree with him out of spite. Norman is ultimately still in the wrong for not making their point tactfully enough for others to be willing to hear out. Norman gets hit with a well-deserved Jerkass Realization and admits that he was too hard on Brandon.
- After hearing Norman make one too many valid points, Brandon eventually comes to believe that everyone who acts like a jerk to him is right, regardless of the actual validity of their statements.
- Norman is quite capable of complaining about Brandon's inefficiency, and is very right with his points, but the fact he does absolutely nothing else to try to correct the course (and in fact manipulates things so Brandon will remain the leader when everybody else offers Norman leadership or try to take over themselves) is just more proof that he is a jerk, and a lazy/cowardly one (or at least one that prefers seeing Brandon fail a bit too much) at that.
- Reconstructed:
- This makes Brandon realize he's gone too far and admit that Norman is right.
- Norman's response is to point out how bad Brandon's actions must be if he's bothering to say anything about them. Alternatively, he points out he's at least aware of his own misdeeds unlike Brandon, or how being a hypocrite doesn't automatically invalidate your point.
- Norman's is regularly ignored due to sheer force of his jackassery...much to his pleasure. When he is inevitably proven right, Norman wastes no time in gloating about it, and smugly mocks them for thinking him wrong just for being an asshat.
- Norman eventually finds a way to present his point in a more constructive and polite manner.
- Plotted A Good Waste: Norman is the story's Hate Sink and his complains are apparently correct - but then the story reveals that every complication he allegedly tried to prevent with his complains were his fault all along, meaning that he was just trying to distract people of his blame.
- Played For Laughs:
- Norman complains about Brandon's how allegedly Crazy Enough to Work idea of dressing as nuns with slices of bread in their mouths to get past Dean Ratched's angry guard dogs to steal the test's answers is not going to work about ten seconds before the guard dogs chase them off.
- Brandon couldn't find a better rebuttal for Norman's point that smoking is bad for people than saying Adolf Hitler opposed smoking, therefore smoking is good and Norman is just as bad as Hitler. Norman is so baffled that he didn't even bother poking the holes in his logic.
- Played For Drama: Norman, who has been the Hate Sink of the narrative for ninety minutes straight, tells Brandon as he is about to do an expulsion-worthy prank that it's not worth it. As Brandon is marched out of the campus by security, he gets a Flashback to Norman's words and now that they finally sink in he gets a breakdown.
- Played For Horror: Norman is the guy who told the rest of the protagonists that going to that strange little town in the Arkansas backwoods to celebrate the Summer Break party that strangely has no mention anywhere else in the Internet was not a good idea, and they all decided to blow him off because he is a stick in the mud a-hole. Guess who was right.
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