History Characters / TheGoodPlaceNeighborhood

* InnocentlyInsensitive: All of them, to varying degrees of innocent and insensitive. Eleanor was insensitive to everyone but was conditioned since childhood to be that way as a defense mechanism, Chidi was inadvertently insensitive to others' feelings and pain induced by his logical indecisiveness, Tahani was insensitive to how her standing and success motivated by feeling inferior could make others feel inferior, and Jason was insensitively impulsive to the detriment of everyone around him, but too sweet and adaptable to notice.

* MrViceGuy: Eleanor was a self-serving, abrasive cynic, Chidi was a neurotic and indecisive wimp who made everyone in his life miserable with his crippling fear of making bad decisions and facing negative consequences, Tahani was a vain, attention-seeking snob who did good for selfish reasons, and Jason was a reckless moron who never considered the consequences of his actions. While these flaws are what threw them to the non-existent mercies of the Bad Place, the whole point of the series was for them to realize this and work to become better.

* CharacterDevelopment: She starts off as a completely selfish, reckless and amoral jerk, before becoming TheLeader of Team Cockroach. Her changing under Chidi's tutelage [[SpannerInTheWorks ruins Michael's plan]] for an innovative Bad Place, which depended on her being static forever. In Season 2 she's matured from a selfish and childish person who cares about no one but herself to being the only one who passed Gen's test of character... and then lies about it when she found out everyone else failed. In Season 3, she becomes willing to shed her hard exterior and says ScrewDestiny in the face of impending torture, on realizing that she had become a better person. She also uses her lying for the good of the new experiment when Michael has a breakdown.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Eleanor is shown to be a flagrantly selfish, narcissistic and hedonistic person, but she does eventually admit to having felt some guilt for shirking her trash duties, and she's the only one who finds it wrong that people who weren't perfect but weren't utterly terrible are sent to a place of eternal torment after they die. Deep down, she is capable of great selflessness and compassion. Her confessing to not belonging in the Good Place to protect Chidi is the most heroic act she commits.

* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Eleanor's the Masculine Girl and Chidi's Feminine Boy. Chidi is a nerdy, polite, well-mannered and slightly timid and neurotic intellectual who loves French poetry while Eleanor is a hyper-sexual, alcoholic, foul-mouthed, strong-willed and uncouth {{Ladette}} who says "man" a lot. These two care and support each other despite their obvious differences. Funny thing is that when they shared a house together in Episode 5, they acted like a stereotypical husband and wife but with the stereotypical gender role expectations reversed, where Chidi complains that he has to do all the chores while Eleanor is a slob.

* OppositesAttract: The rational and studious college professor Chidi comes to realize that he's in love with Eleanor, who is a lazy and impulsive underachiever.

* PitbullDatesPuppy: Eleanor's an abrasive rebel and Chidi is a sensitive nerd and while they didn't seem like ideal soulmates due to their extreme differences, they eventually have a well-developed and endearing relationship that progresses throughout the whole show. Note that their physiques and their personalities mirror each other when it comes to this trope. Chidi is a jacked dude opposite the petite Eleanor, but she's absolutely the dominant partner emotionally.

* SavvyGuyEnergeticGirl: Energetic Girl to Chidi's Savvy Guy. She's generally reckless and more adventurous, while he's more of a straight-laced intellectual.

* TheComicallySerious: Chidi is a very serious gentleman who serves as the StraightMan of the show but he can be a bit awkward and neurotic at the same time so it results in some hilariously uncomfortable moments.

* TheEeyore: He admits he has never been happy due to constantly feeling miserable as he feels so low about his morality.
* EndearinglyDorky: Chidi is a shy, studious, and analytical bookworm who can be an awkward NervousWreck, especially once his indecisiveness comes to light. Doesn't stop him from being a CluelessChickMagnet. For example, Simone delightedly explains that he's so weird, and she likes it.

* TheFinickyOne: He's the indecisive and uptight Professor of Ethics and Moral Philosophy with extreme neuroses and serves as the StraightMan to the other main characters.
* GentlemanAndAScholar: He's an incredibly sophisticated and kind intellectual, though his obsession with morality and resulting indecisiveness do a lot of harm.

* LovableCoward: Chidi is timid, meek, neurotic, and spineless but despite that, he was always sweet, kind, and deeply cared for others he loved and the fear of hurting those people makes him feel hurt.

* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Chidi's the Feminine Boy to Eleanor's Masculine Girl (except in terms of phsyique; he's jacked, like way jacked, and she's petite). Chidi is a nerdy, polite, well-mannered and slightly timid and neurotic intellectual who loves French poetry while Eleanor is a hyper-sexual, alcoholic, foul-mouthed, strong-willed and uncouth {{Ladette}} who says "man" a lot. These two care and support each other, despite their obvious differences. Funny thing is that when they shared a house together in Episode 5, they acted like a stereotypical husband and wife but with the stereotypical gender role expectations reversed, where Chidi complains that he has to do all the chores while Eleanor is a slob. At the end though, like more modern and healthy couples, they both ended up doing half of the chores each.

* NerdsAreSexy: Played with. Chidi is extremely ripped, but also a timid philosophy professor. According to Eleanor, this is because he once learned exercise helped with anxiety and then never stopped doing it.

* NoSocialSkills: Chidi's quite the awkward nerd and he's sometimes oblivious of how his obsessiveness nature can be insufferable to other people around him. It's also worth noting that he is unable to lie even when it's to protect the feelings of others. One example of this is how he very outwardly calls his professors red boots ugly to his face.

* OnlySaneMan: While Chidi is very neurotic, insecure, and indecisive, he's the most cautious one in the main cast and is the most concerned about morality when making decisions since he was a professor of ethics and moral philosophy.

* OppositesAttract: The rational and studious college professor Chidi comes to realize that he's in love with Eleanor, who is a lazy and impulsive underachiever.

* ThePerfectionist: He's extremely cautious with his own morality and panics when he feels like he's made a wrong choice so he obviously aims for a perfect life.

* ThePhilosopher: In fact, he is literally a moral philosophy professor who had a doctoral thesis in the thousands of pages, and part of the reason he is so well-respected by the rest of the cast is because he offers the perfect advice at the perfect time. However, his extensive knowledge of moral dilemmas and competing theories, coupled with mental issues and his former ChildProdigy status, have led to him being [[ShrinkingViolet shy]] and extremely [[TheDitherer indecisive]]. Being a rare example of a philosopher as a sitcom lead, Chidi eventually undergoes tons of CharacterDevelopment to become more confident and assured, [[spoiler:enough to almost single-handedly reform a demon into an angel and redesign the entire afterlife]] even though he already starts out much more well-written than most comedic examples of this trope.
* PitbullDatesPuppy: Eleanor's an abrasive rebel and Chidi is a sensitive nerd and while they didn't seem like ideal soulmates due to their extreme differences, they eventually have a well-developed and endearing relationship that progresses throughout the whole show.

* SavvyGuyEnergeticGirl: Savvy Guy to Eleanor's Energetic Girl. She's generally reckless and more adventurous, while he's more of a straight-laced intellectual.

* TheSmartGuy: Chidi is the one who uses his knowledge about ethics to guide Eleanor during her quests.

* StraightMan: He's the most rational and level-headed character in the main cast and is often the voice of reason when characters like Eleanor and Jason act in very immature and impulsive ways.

* UptightLovesWild:
** Chidi is a sophisticated and pragmatic ethics professor with a sense of perfectionism when it comes to morals who wants a stable life and dreams of meeting his soulmate but in the "Good Place", he ends up with the wilder and more impulsive Eleanor but despite her many flaws, he is very caring and loyal towards her and later develops mutual romantic feelings with her.
** He also plays the Uptight to the more relaxed Simone.

* MotorMouth: She's an annoying chatterbox who literally said that she "adores talking" and has a tendency to name drop celebrities every time she talks about things in her past.

* {{Jerkass}}: He's a rude, arrogant, stubborn and entitled bigot. His egotistical and narcissistic attitude is so annoying that not even Chidi likes him and calls him a bad person. Given the eventual fates of everyone else, the show confirms that no other character is as offensive and bothersome as Brent is. Even the demons.

* ObliviouslyEvil: He has no malice and doesn't realize how damaging his bratty behavior is because he's been protected from consequences all his life. This fact makes it quite difficult to reform him, as he doesn't believe he has any need to reform.

* PinocchioNose: In Season 2, she becomes very sad that Jason and Tahani are together. She attempts to lie that she's happy for them, but every time she does, she malfunctions in strange ways like spewing pennies out of her mouth or causing a huge vegetarian sub sandwich to fall from the sky.

* AndIMustScream: It's revealed that marbelizing a Janet doesn't kill them. Instead, they are turned into a screaming marble. While they can be revived, we've only seen it happen once.

* DemotedToExtra: Downplayed. He's no longer the main character for most of Season 4 due to his memory being erased, putting him out of commission for helping the others run the neighborhood... And yet because the entire experiment hinges on him, he's effectively the ''most'' important character, just OutOfFocus. Even then, he is still a major supporting character, along with the other three humans in the new neighborhood. When he regains his memories, he goes back to being the main character.

** Much like Jason, he is a {{Manchild}} who has lived his entire life out of short-sighted ignorance and [[TooDumbToLive ended up in the afterlife due to his own ineptitude]]. However, Jason has many of the more positive traits of childhood (blind optimism, curiosity, desire for friendship, fantastical idea of what love is), lived a life of street crime, and was born into a lower socioeconomic class; meanwhile, Brent behaves more like a SpoiledBrat who throws tantrums at the first sign of conflict, has committed (and gotten away with) various {{white collar crime}}s and was born into wealth. And while Jason showed himself to be very sweet-natured and loving, Brent is incredibly obnoxious and selfish. Best summarized by how Brent thinks of Janet as nothing but a glorified secretary who exists solely to serve his needs while Jason eventually fell in love with her.
** In terms of their backgrounds, Brent is a foil to Tahani. Both of them were born into wealthy upper class backgrounds and thus have high expectations and expensive tastes. Both of them constantly crave attention and tend to bring their status into conversations, Tahani with her constant namedropping while Brent constantly brings up having gone to Princeton. The difference is that Tahani's parents messed her up by constantly pitting her against her sister in competitions which made her feel like she had to earn their love and approval and subsequently corrupted her motives for any good things she did. Brent is messed up in the complete opposite direction, having been given everything in his life on a silver platter and thus never actually struggled or earned anything in his life on his own merit. And while Tahani used her wealth and privilege for altruistic purposes, even if they were selfishly motivated, Brent is never mentioned as having done anything kind and doesn't seem to think his privilege brings with it any kind of higher responsibility. Furthermore, Tahani is genuinely kind and sweet-natured while Brent is incredibly boorish, insulting and obnoxious.

** Jason was given the fake identity of the Buddhist monk "Jianyu Li". Not only does Jason start to become a wiser person (even learning how to actually meditate to calm down]], but he spends [[spoiler:[[TimeAbyss literal millennia]] living a simple monk-like life of solitude and contemplation in the woods while waiting by the Final Door to give Janet a necklace he'd made her. [[ComicallyMissingThePoint He doesn’t realize the significance of it]], but Janet does]].
** Chidi viewed himself as a clever philosopher who was able to live the most ethical life possible ([[RunningGag almond milk notwithstanding]]). Not only does he become less of a NervousWreck and gain better control over his neuroses, but [[spoiler:he become the primary designer behind a new afterlife system that completely exorcises eternal punishment and replaces it with constructive therapy]].

** KarmaHoudiniWarranty: While he may have escaped accountability in his earthly life, he is made to answer for his actions and behaviors in his afterlife.

* AintTooProudToBeg: She's programmed to beg for her life if anyone presses her kill switch. As soon as someone balks, she reassures them that she feels no pain.

* PinocchioNose: In Season 2, she becomes very sad that Jason and Tahani are together. She attempts to lie that she's happy for them, but every time she does, she malfunctions in strange ways like spewing pennies out of her mouth or manifesting a huge vegetarian sub sandwich.