History Main / ExcellentJudgeOfCharacter

* The Sultan from ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'' claims he's one of these. He's right about Aladdin, but on the other hand, he also thinks [[EvilChancellor Jafar]] is a reliable right-hand man up until the last part of the movie...

* ''Film/MenInBlack'': During his MIB interview, Jay deduces that all the monstrous aliens in the simulated firing range are non-hostile, while the seemingly innocent girl is likely an EvilGenius and shoots at her instead. Seems that he was right, as he passed their SecretTestOfCharacter.
* ''Film/SpiderManNoWayHome'': Norman quickly trusts Peter Parker's MCU counterpart, although it may be due to his relationship with the latter in his universe. Also, Norman deduces that something is wrong with his friend and fellow scientist Otto Octavius, after hearing his grumpy and miserable behavior. Fortunately, while working with the MCU Peter, Norman realizes that he is right to trust his intuition, as he found out about Otto's situation that caused his downer behavior.

** Even without his Magatama, Phoenix has an excellent eye for clients who didn't ''actually'' commit murder, no matter how watertight the case against them seems at first- with special mention to Lana Skye, the client who was caught stabbing the victim and ''outright confessed'' [[spoiler: due to the real killer blackmailing her with her little sister's safety]]. The one time he did feel uneasy about a client and checked the guy's statements with the Magatama, [[spoiler: the guy turned out to be guilty. Though in this case, Phoenix had a very good reason to doubt him; Maya was being held hostage to get Phoenix to take the case, and why would someone go to the trouble of kidnapping instead of just ''hiring Phoenix'' unless they were worried that Phoenix's reputation for honesty and finding the real killer every time would be ''bad'' for Matt?]] He was a bit worse about it in his college days, trusting [[BitchInSheepsClothing Dahlia Hawthorne]] to the point of destroying a critical piece of evidence that could've proved her guilty of two murders because he just couldn't accept that she was Really Bad News, and reacting to her confessing to attempting to murder ''him'' by denying that the girl in court was really Dahlia. [[spoiler: In a way, he was actually right. The girl he had been dating really ''didn't'' kill anyone and ''wasn't'' in court that day... because she was really Dahlia's identical twin sister Iris, who'd done a TwinSwitch with Dahlia for dating Phoenix in an attempt to stop the real Dahlia from murdering him. Phoenix only met the real Dahlia when they first met and she gave him a necklace (actually a critical piece of evidence that she'd poisoned two people), and the day she testified against him in court (which was her getting tired with Iris's inability to retrieve the necklace and attempting to kill him for it).]]

On one end, we have the HorribleJudgeOfCharacter; the character who couldn't tell a bad guy if it hit them in the face. They trust the ObviouslyEvil characters, dismiss any and all claims of their true personalities, and are typically totally oblivious when it comes to who can be trusted or not, but on the opposite end, we have the character who is able to tell a bad guy with just one look! They see the evil in their eyes, the cockiness in that smirk, and the deceit in their voices that some of the other characters just can't see. As such, they can sometimes be CassandraTruth people who try to convince everyone else of the bad person's true intentions only to be dismissed or brushed off. They're told that they're "jealous", "mean" and "overreacting" along with some other things that show how oblivious the person they're trying to convince is.

* ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'': series' lead Tanjiro Kamado is an expert at telling a person’s true nature not long after meeting them; two shining examples are his encounters with [[StepfordSmiler Shinobu]] and [[CowardlyLion Zenitsu]]: with the former Tanjiro is able to tell Shinobu harbors some deep anger under her constant pleasing smile that impresses the Hashira enough to tell him the reason why, with the latter Tanjiro is able to tell Zenitsu is actually a very strong demon slayer right away, despite Zenitsu repeating numerous times in their first encounter that he is weak, it reaches the comical irony in which Tanjiro is actually surprised to see, in the Red Light District arc, that Zenitsu has to rely on his trance sleep mode to unleash his full strength, while other people, like Inosuke, had to see Zenitsu during that state to see that he was strong after all. He isn't wrong about it either, [[spoiler: since the time where Zenitsu fights without the influence of the trance, he's indeed powerful enough to create a technique to defeat his traitorous colleague, and later to gain an inch in the fight against Muzan.]]

** Perhaps unsurprisingly, Luffy's idol "Red-Haired" Shanks, a former member of the legendary Roger Pirates and presently one of the Four Emperors, is essentially the BigGood of the story. Due to a prior encounter with Marshall D. Teach, the pirate who would later become infamously known as Blackbeard, that implicitly left him with his signature scar, Shanks tried to warn Edward "Whitebeard" Newgate to avoid him at all costs despite Teach's crime of murdering a member of Newgate's crew, and importantly, to call off "Fire-Fist" Ace, the subordinate who was hunting him. Unfortunately, Whitebeard's HonorBeforeReason approach to Shanks' request results in a cavalcade of severe consequences that culminates in Ace and Whitebeard's deaths, and Blackbeard usurping the latter as an Emperor himself.

** When Euphemia first meets Megatron, despite telling her that they have the same goals, she could tell just by looking in his optics that he wasn’t telling the whole truth. Later on, when she, Lelouch and Optimus are trapped on a deserted island, Euphemia informs them that when she looked into Megatron’s optics, she saw that there was no soul inside of him. Optimus tells Euphemia that she was correct about him, saying that if Megatron did have a soul, it was most likely long gone now.

** When she meets Chloe and learns that she dislikes Marinette, she asks if Chloe can give a reason for why but the latter deflects her question. It lets Kagami know that Chloe feels insecure around Marinette, causing the blonde to lash out. Later in chapter 31, she points out that Chloe couldn't be the one to sabotage's Marinette's birthday gift to their teacher since Chloe's hidden admiration of Marinette has limit her aggression to just verbal remarks rather than anything physical.

** In chapter 40, Kagami notes that Zoe tends to act as cold like her mother Audrey when she is by her but she acts more open towards the amicable Andre and the sociable and friendly Marinette. This leads her to reason that Zoe is acting as a mirror toward others to help fit in.

* In ''Fanfic/TheShieldsDragon'', former yakuza [[VideoGame/{{Yakuza}} Kazuma Kiryu]] can effectively tell who in Melromarc can be trusted and able to see through most of the bullshit perpetuated by the Royal family, the Church and the other three useless Heroes when it comes to the [[Literature/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero Shield Hero's]] reputation due to decades of experience in Japan's criminal underworld resulting in superior maturity. It does help that Julius Harken, a former Royal Court mage had warned him about all of them in advance, but even then Kiryu doesn't fully take that information at face value until he sees it for himself.

* In Creator/{{Disney}}'s ''WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians'', Roger is this towards Cruella. He '''is''' the one who invented [[TheVillainSucksSong the song]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbsR6_b-xJQ "Cruella de Vil"]] after all. Just listen to the lyrics! Not to mention that he remembers how much Cruella wanted Pongo's and Perdita's puppies and how aggressive and angry she got when she couldn't have them. As such, he proclaims her to be his "number one suspect" after they're kidnapped, even after Anita argues against his accusations. Turns out Roger was right about this, even though he doesn't find out in the end. However, in [[WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatiansIIPatchsLondonAdventure the sequel]], Roger finds out after Cruella is exposed and arrested for her second attempt to kidnap the puppies.

* King Kashekim Nedakh from ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire''. Given to his past history of [[MyGreatestFailure harnessing the power of the Heart of Atlantis as a weapon of war in his arrogance]] (which caused Atlantis to sink at the cost [[BlindSeer of his own eyesight]] and the lives of thousands of civilians, including his wife), he is determined to have the crystal hidden away, not only to let history repeat itself, but also to spare his daughter Kida from the same fate. This event is what allowed him to correctly deduce that Rourke and his men have equipped themselves with weapons and a hidden agenda in their expedition; he even gives them only one night to rest and resupply as a warning that they must leave the city afterwards. The King is also able to detect a sense of goodness within a few members of the expedition as he accepted Sweet's aid when the latter attempts to tend to his injuries inflicted by Rourke; [[FaceDeathWithDignity he even willingly entrusts Milo with the knowledge about the crystal's power and the responsibility to take care of Kida and the city before he dies]].

* ''Film/TheNakedGun'': Detective Frank Drebin is [[InspectorOblivious a lot of bad things for his chosen line of work]], up to and including being a LethalKlutz, but ironically he is very good at feeling whether [[ObviouslyEvil or not]] someone is innocent. In the first film, he had a sinking suspicion that Vincent Ludwig was hiding something long before finding out that [[spoiler:he had a plan to assassinate the Queen of England]], and in the second film he was able to notice that Meinheimer was acting differently compared to their first meeting [[spoiler:which was correct, because Meinheimer had been replaced by a CriminalDoppelganger by an anti-alternate-energy consortium]].

* ''Film/SpiderManNoWayHome'': Norman quickly trust Peter Parker's MCU counterpart, although it maybe due to his relationship with the latter in his universe. Also, Norman deduces that something is wrong with his friend and fellow scientist Otto Octavius, after hearing his grumpy and miserable behavior. Fortunately, while working with the MCU Peter, Norman realizes that he is right to trust his intuition, as he found out about Otto's situation that caused his downer behavior.

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': Arya Stark, at all of 9-years-old. From the get-go, she dislikes [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen Cersei]] and [[TheCaligula Prince Joffrey]], even while her [[{{UpperclassTwit}} sister Sansa]] is fawning over them. As a prisoner at Harrenhal, she develops a skill for recognizing the cruel guards from the safer ones, and doesn't reveal herself to [[BigBad Roose Bolton]] despite him being a Northern lord and (allegedly) sworn to her brother. The only character she does trust with her true identity, [[HeroicBastard Gendry]], comes through as a rare decent person and loyal friend. The fact she's [[NiceToTheWaiter less blinded by status]] than most nobles helps and she contrasts painfully with her parents and older brother and sister, whose HorribleJudgeOfCharacter is their FatalFlaw.

** Samantha [=LaRusso=] [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter doesn't start the show as one]]. At the start of Season 1, she's so fixated on maintaining her popularity with the rich kids clique at school that she doesn't realize just how awful they are until she finds out Kyler is a jerk and rapist, and Yasmine turns her cyberbullying on Samantha. After that, she's much warier of everyone around her. In Season 2, she's right on the money when she tells Aisha and Miguel that their new Cobra Kai classmate Tory Nichols is not a good person and they shouldn't be hanging out with her. Aisha and Miguel initially blow off her concerns, thinking Samantha is just being jealous, but Miguel realizes it after he briefly cheats on Tory by kissing a drunken Samantha at a party and in response, she decides to pick a fight with Samantha at school the next day. And while Samantha is separated from Miguel for Season 2 and the first part of Season 3, she realizes he's still deep down the good person she dated in Season 1, giving her the resolve to stand up to her dad when he catches her and Miguel making out in the Miyagi dojo.

** ''Spy-anoia Will Destroy Ya'': K.C suspects that Ernie's girlfriend Jolie is a spy but her family and Marisa don't believe her (mainly because K.C is going through a "[[ImproperlyParanoid spy paranoia]]" phase). However, K.C ends up being right about Jolie after she accidentally provokes her into speaking Russian and confirms this by tricking Jolie into going through K.C's locker, realizing that she lied about who she was. Although she told Marisa about being right about Jolie, K.C decided not to tell her family, especially Ernie, about it.
** ''Double Crossed Part 3'': Marisa suspects something is off with "K.C", after the real K.C was imprisoned and she was replaced with a fake, because she agreed to go to a party with Marisa. She tells Ernie and Kira about it but they don't believe her. However, Marisa realized that she was right to trust her judgment when the fake K.C was surprised that Marisa knew about her spy life, forcing the fake to kidnap her. In the process, she led Marissa to her real best friend and helped K.C escape. Also, Ernie and Kira eventually realized that Marisa was right about K.C acting strange when Judy showed them and Craig video footage of the fake eating meat when the real K.C is a vegetarian.

** Leo realized that Marcus was evil the minute he met him and tried to convince everyone about it but no one believed him. However, the Lab Rats and Davenport finally realized that Leo was right about Marcus when he showed the latter showed his true colors by helping kidnap Davenport.

* ''Videogame/GodOfWarRagnarok:'' This seems to be [[spoiler:the Norns']] true power, rather than [[spoiler:control and knowledge of Fate and how to avert it. Mainly because (as they readily admit) there ''is'' no Fate; there is just people and their choices, and they know ''those'' well enough that they can predict what people will do down to their very downfalls. Especially when those people will do anything to avert their supposed destiny [[NeverMyFault except change]] ''[[NeverMyFault themselves]]'', which is all too common among godly beings it seems. Going by their BrutalHonesty and the sheer personalized psychological savagery of each "test" in the way to their lake, they also know how to hit a person where it ''hurts''.]]

* In ''VideoGame/MassEffect'', Urdnot Wrex informs Shepard that he was once offered a job from the game’s BigBad Saren. Wrex then mentions that the instant he saw him, he suspected that there was something off about him, so Wrex decided to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere leave before he accepted the payment]]. Wrex then tells Shepard that he was right about Saren, as all of the other Mercenaries who took the job were killed a week later.

* Arthur Morgan from ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'' seems to have a perfect judge of people. Particularly he's confident about John Marston being loyal to the gang, one of the few to notice Dutch's changing behavior and [[spoiler:knows from the beginning that Micah shouldn't be trusted]].

* [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderSokka Sokka]] from ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' is this. He's usually the only person in the team to tell if someone has bad intentions or not, and he's often brushed off as a result. An example would be with Jet.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': Despite being an IdiotHero, Luffy is a ''phenomenal'' judge of character, which combined with him being a MagneticHero means that anyone he chooses to place his trust in almost invariably becomes a lifelong ally (even if they were originally planning on betraying or killing him).

* In ''WesternAnimation/RecessSchoolsOut'', Principal Prickly explains to T.J. why the main villain and his former best friend, Dr. Phillium Benedict, turned out the way he did: Back in 1968, when the two of them and Miss Finster were young teachers at Third Street School, Benedict, who had also just became the school's principal (the youngest ever, according to Prickly), initiated a no-recess policy at the school in a misguided attempt to raise test scores and further his own career. This led to the students becoming overworked and with no free time, prompting their enraged parents to lay down a protest against the school unless recess is reinstated. Prickly, whom Benedict told about his plan, brought in the Superintendent in hopes of reasoning with Benedict and overturning the policy to pacify the protesters. However, despite the no-recess edict being overturned and the Superintendent assuring the protesters that recess will never be abolished at the school as long as he's in charge, Benedict still refused to back down and instead argued with the Superintendent, claiming he didn't "get it". The Superintendent, who rightfully sensed that Benedict has gone DrunkWithPower due to his position, angrily fires him and promotes Prickly as the new principal, something which Prickly didn't expect. This was also this event that drove an enraged Benedict to break his friendship with Prickly and his relationship with Finster.

* In ''WesternAnimation/RecessSchoolsOut'', Principal Prickly explains to T.J. why the main villain and his former best friend, Dr. Phillium Benedict, turned out the way he did: Back in 1968, when the two of them and Miss Finster were young teachers at Third Street School, Benedict, who had also just became the principal at Three Street School (the youngest ever, according to Prickly), called Prickly into his new office to reveal his plan to initiate a no-recess policy at the school in a misguided attempt to raise test scores and further his own career. This led to the students becoming overworked and with no free time, prompting their enraged parents to lay down a protest against the school unless recess is reinstated. Prickly, in hopes of reasoning with Benedict and overturning the policy to pacify the protesters, brought in the Superintendent. However, despite the no-recess policy being overturned and the Superintendent assuring the protesters that recess will never be abolished at the school as long as he's in charge, Benedict still refused to back down and instead argued with the Superintendent. The Superintendent, who rightfully sensed that Benedict has gone DrunkWithPower due to his position, angrily fires him and promotes Prickly as the new principal, something which Prickly didn't expect. This was also this event that drove an enraged Benedict to break his friendship with Prickly and his relationship with Finster.
* King Kashekim Nedakh from ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire''. Given to his past history of [[MyGreatestFailure harnessing the power of the Heart of Atlantis as a weapon of war]] (which caused Atlantis to sink at the cost [[BlindSeer of his own eyesight]] and the lives of thousands of civilians, including his wife), he is determined to have the crystal hidden away, not only to let history repeat itself, but also to spare his daughter Kida from the same fate. This event is what allowed him to correctly deduce that Rourke and his men have equipped themselves with weapons and a hidden agenda in their expedition; he even gives them only one night to rest and resupply as a warning that they must leave the city afterwards. The King is also able to detect a sense of goodness within a few members of the expedition as he accepted Sweet's aid when the latter attempts to tend to his injuries inflicted by Rourke; [[FaceDeathWithDignity he even willingly entrusts Milo with the knowledge about the crystal's power and the responsibility to take care of Kida and the city before he dies]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/RecessSchoolsOut'', Prickly explained to T.J. why the former principal Phillium Benedict got fired: during 1968, Benedict initiated a no-recess policy in a misguided attempt to raise test scores, which drove enraged parents to lay down a protest against the school. Prickly, who was a young teacher back then, brought in the Superintendent in hopes of reasoning with Benedict and overturning the policy to pacify the protestors. However, despite the no-recess policy being overturned, Benedict still refused to back down and instead got rude with the Superintendent, who rightfully sensed that Benedict has gone DrunkWithPower. As such, the Superintendent angrily fires Benedict and promotes Prickly as the new principal, something which Prickly didn't expect. It was also this event that drove an enraged Benedict to break his friendship with Prickly and Finster.

* In Creator/{{Disney}}'s ''WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians'', Roger is this towards Cruella. He '''is''' the one who invented [[TheVillainSucksSong the song]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbsR6_b-xJQ "Cruella de Vil"]] after all. Just listen to the lyrics! Not to mention that he remembers how much Cruella wanted Pongo's and Perdita's puppies and how aggressive and angry she got when she couldn't have them. As such, he proclaims her to be his "number one suspect" after they're kidnapped, even after Anita argues against his accusations. Turns out he was right about this, even though he doesn't find out in the end.

* King Kashekim Nedakh from ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire''. Given to his past history of [[MyGreatestFailure harnessing the power of the Heart of Atlantis as a weapon of war]] (which caused Atlantis to sink [[BlindSeer and cost him his eyesight]]), he is determined not to let history repeat itself by hiding away the large crystal from sight in case anyone else tries to steal it. This event is what allowed him to correctly deduce that Rourke and his men have equipped themselves with weapons and a hidden agenda in their expedition; he even gives them only one night to rest and resupply as a warning that they must leave the city afterwards. The King is also able to detect a sense of goodness within a few members of the expedition as he accepted Sweet's aid when the latter attempts to tend to his injuries inflicted by Rourke; he even willingly entrusts Milo with the knowledge about the crystal's power and the responsibility to take care of Kida and the city before he dies.

However, while that is often the case, it doesn't always have to be. Sometimes, another character will listen to them, and this doesn't just have to be about knowing who's an antagonist when the other characters usually don't. Sometimes, being a good judge of character is about knowing who to trust and having it pay off. When someone [[FreakyFridayFlip switches bodies]], gets kidnapped then swapped with a clone/duplicated, mind controlled or someone's in disguise and they don't know it, they can sometimes feel or see that something's off as they try to find out the answer by figuring it out on their own, which shows that the person is trusting their instincts and judgment. They also sometimes see that something is going on as they either attack or give them a glare of suspicion, which could lead to something bad or finding out a terrible secret about them.