History DeconstructedCharacterArchetype / BojackHorseman

* DeadpanSnarker: While this is a generally accepted and beloved part of the show, it gets a dark iteration in Beatrice Horseman. She was a very funny woman, but when her marriage began failing she started directing her considerable wit into snarking at her husband, which he responded to in kind. The result? Bojack being absolutely miserable, his parents incapable of expressing sincere love or support, but plenty capable of throwing out a witticism that pointed out how lame or insufficient something of his was, even from the time he was very young. Beatrice being a DeadpanSnarker, more than her backstory or her unplanned pregnancy or her sad family life, is what probably did the most damage to Bojack. He could never feel safe around her, and she never expressed real love to him, her own son, and the result is a middle-aged man still desperately looking for true unconditional love to fill the hole she didn't.

** Bojack's own abuse at the hands of Beatrice has also left him with deep scars and resentment. When he is forced to care for a senile Beatrice, he finally lashes out at her by throwing her doll over the balcony. [[spoiler: After Beatrice poisons Hollyhock with weight loss supplements, he immediately dumps her in a crappy retirement home]].

* IronLady: Princess Carolyn, Vanessa Gekko, Angela Diaz, and Amanda Hannity are capable women on their own right and have ways of handling themselves, but each has issues: PC can’t find a way to separate private and professional life since her work ''is'' her life, making her very miserable and self-conceited; Vanessa has an implied good personal life, but she is backstabbing and unpleasant when in work mode; Angela Diaz has to put up a cold, detached, and manipulative front to survive in a misogynistic profession; and Amanda is the top editor at Manatee Fair, but can just as easily subjugate to the PowersThatBe if it will affect her livelihood, even if it’d be immoral to do so. The show also makes the point that once these women become players in the system, they’re forced to become part of the same system and rules that oppressed and blocked their paths in the first place. Only women like Diane and Stefani manage to get some leverage and that’s because they work independent of the system.

* ButtMonkey: "[[PhraseCatcher Shut up, Todd!]]", indeed. Todd's status as one of the AcceptableTargets of the show is usually PlayedForLaughs, but heaps and heaps of mockery (mostly from [[VitriolicBestBuds [=BoJack=]]]) have caused him to have a pretty low vision of himself, a desire to be part of something important and an ExtremeDoormat, to boot.

* OneOfTheKids: Bojack has an uncanny ability to bond with younger characters because of his own mental immaturity. However, this makes him much more susceptible to screw up around those younger characters instead of behaving as a responsible adult should. "Escape From L.A." just drives this home; he's still his usual self, but by interacting with people closer to his emotional age (a.k.a. teenagers) he comes off less as a lovable loser and more as a creepy, pathetic old man.

Likewise the many tropes that the show deconstructs, ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'' also masters the ability of presenting complex characters that do not fit the standard archetypes they're assigned.

* BastardBoyfriend:
** [=BoJack=] acts and behaves this way towards [[LoveMartyr Princess Carolyn]] at the beginning of the series. However, it's not because he hates her, or because he's intentionally being cruel; more because he's too LoveHungry and selfish to truly focus on a serious relationship with her. The fact that his mood can often make her the target of his ire by venting his frustrations or obsessive love and clinging doesn't help at all. In a way, the relationship is an example of what happens when an [[{{Narcissist}} arrogant]], yet [[BrokenBird insecure]] [[InferioritySuperiorityComplex individual]] [[LivingEmotionalCrutch hangs up]] to a much more well stable partner [[SexForSolace for solace]].
** Mr. Peanutbutter is not a bad dog, but his dismissal of anything complicated or depressing and focus only on the things he thinks are happy and good for everybody makes him a charming and insufferable individual all the same. He never listens to anything his loved ones say (which is the reason he's thrice divorced), oversteps anybody else's desires to fit his train of thought, is dangerously oblivious to any of life's shortcomings and injustices (poverty, death, sexism, depression, Hollywoo's toxicity), is often distracted and rarely pays attention to anyone in particular and his perception of affection is narrow and way too opaque to work in real life. Like [=BoJack=], this only highlights his neediness, childish attitude and insecurity.

* HystericalWoman: Honey Sugarman was a pretty normal mare, married and with children living through TheForties, at least until the day [[AdultFear her one and only son Crackerjack left for war and was killed in action]]. From then onward , Honey was unable to stop thinking about him, blaming herself for everything, a deep feeling that was worsened by her husband not willing to empathize with her due to the values of the time and led her to neglect her only child left, Beatrice. Eventually, during the end of war celebration in Michigan, Honey explodes into a maniac-depressive fit from bottled emotions and causes a severe car crash in which Beatrice was driving. Unable to deal with the grief (and with neither society, husband or anyone willing to lend support or [[ThereAreNoTherapists even recommend therapy which didn’t exist back then]]), [[spoiler:Honey ends up getting a lobotomy with her last words to Beatrice being a promise to “never love anyone the way [she] loved Crackerjack”.]]