History WhatTheHellHero / WesternAnimation

* ''TransformersPrime'' has Jack call out Bulkhead for being perfectly fine with letting jerks be taken by Deceptacons, ''twice''.

** Also in the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode ''Twilight (of the Gods)'' Superman has a ''massive'' one due to Darkseid popping up to ask for help to save Apokolyps from Brainiac: while everyone understood why Superman's reaction at seeing him was a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown, cheering when Darkseid told them that Apokolyps was about to be destroyed received this.

** The MASSIVE shaming Robin received once the crew realized that he was pulling a BatmanGambit via being Red X and playing them off to get close to Slade.

** And in ''TeenTitansTroubleInTokyo'', Robin's unnecessarily brutal take down of a villain causes realistic legal trouble for the team. Subverted when [[spoiler:they find out that the villain took a dive as a XanatosGambit by the movie's BigBad]].

* ''SouthPark'': Cartman as the Coon is called out for actions such as planning to blow up a hospital, faking pictures to blackmail someone, and teaming up with [[spoiler:''Cthulhu'']]. Of course with [[CompleteMonster Cartman]], the term hero is used loosely.

** The final episode has Iron Man and his buddies capturing Hypnotia and trying to get vital info from her. Except rather than interrogating her or giving her a chance to explain willingly, they simply gag her and then forcibly rip the information out of her mind via Century's psychic abilties. That's gotta be violating some civil liberties....

** Another notable one comes from Iron Man's interactions with S.H.I.E.L.D.. Tony frequently collides with Nick Fury on being willing to use drastic methods to solve a problem when Fury's only doing his job by protecting the people. In "Fun with Lasers" Living Laser holds the world hostage from a space station and demands a fight with Iron Man. After an attempt to retrieve two of their agents from the station fails Fury opts to blow up the station. Tony calls him out on it in spite of 1. The agents knew what they were getting into when they joined SHIELD and 2. Living Laser was close to killing MILLIONS of innocent people. Iron Man's TakeAThirdOption plan only succeeded with seconds to spare. Considering the circumstances Fury's decisions would it have come to it were justified.
** Later one Tony looks into a SHIELD computer and finds the Living Laser dying and calls Fury out on it again in spite that Living Laser was a criminal who had held the world hostage not too long ago. While YMMV on whether or not it was right to let him die considering Living Laser's [[DeadlyUpgrade condition]] was his choice it could easily by argued that you whether or not Fury would be obligated to help.

* The protagonists of ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' get a lot of these, but most of them can be shrugged off due to the protagonists being very young. Finn is a young teenage boy who was raised by dogs, and Princess Bubblegum is a very young princess who holds the responsibility of ruling a large kingdom... and Jake is a dog. Notable examples for Finn are when he hurts all of those creatures in "Another Way," and in "Too Young," where he beats up Lemongrab and makes him cry. (Lemongrab was being an obnoxious, tyrranical asshole, but not on purpose, and he never physically hurt anybody.) Jake is a klepto, and occasionally makes statements that suggest murder, letting people burn alive, enslaving a group of mutants, and various forms of black humor. Princess Bubblegum has often been called out by the fanbase for her unethical, if not just plain mean, treatment of her experiments, (such as Lemongrab), who are living people that have been shown to have feelings. PB also killed a very cute jellyfish just to make a sandwich. Marceline can be excused, because she's a vampire who's over a thousand years old.

*** He finally calls her out on it in "Depths," even stating that [[spoiler:her actions [[NotSoDifferent make her no better than Psimon]]]]. But the last straw was [[spoiler:her erasing their fight about it from his mind so he wouldn't be mad at her anymore.]] And to add insult to injury, Superboy then calls her out on the fact that [[spoiler:not too long after their breakup she's now dating Lagoon Boy.]] Miss Martian shows remorse, but Superboy wonders if its genuine or is it for the fact that she got caught.

** In order to get Superman's attention in "Question Authority", {{Huntress}} kidnaps his pal JimmyOlsen and uses him as bait to lure the Man of Steel to a rooftop. After revealing that Jimmy is BoundAndGagged but ultimately unharmed, she jokingly suggests that Superman find an easier way to contact him in the future.

** In order to get Superman's attention, {{Huntress}} kidnaps his pal JimmyOlsen and uses him as bait to lure the Man of Steel to a rooftop. After revealing that Jimmy is BoundAndGagged but ultimately unharmed, she jokingly suggests that Superman find an easier way to contact him in the future.

** In "A Canterlot Wedding," Twilight Sparkle is suspicious of [[spoiler:impostor]] Princess Cadence's behaviour, and after [[NotWhatItLooksLike misinterpreting one of her actions]] [[spoiler:sort of]], Twilight bursts into the wedding rehearsal and accuses the princess of being outright ''evil''. Her friends all leave without even speaking to her, and even ''Princess Celestia'' herself makes it clear she's disappointed.

*** He finally gets a chance to call her out on it in "Dephs," even stating that [[spoiler:her actions [[NotSoDifferent make her no better than Psimon]]]]. But last straw was [[spoiler:her erasing their fight about it from his mind so he wouldn't be mad at her anymore.]]

** In the season 2 episode "Earthlings", [[spoiler:Miss Martian psychically rips out the knowledge of what the six missing Leaguers did in space during the sixteen hours they were under the control of the Light from a Kroloteran, leaving him in a coma.]] Superboy tries to call her out on it but she interrupts with the reveal of her newfound knowledge. Superboy relents but he's clearly furious.

* The second season of the 90s ''{{WesternAnimation/Iron Man}}'' cartoon starts with Tony faking his death as part of a plan to stop the Mandarin. He doesn't of his friends in on it so their grief will convince the villains he's really dead. All but two of the supporting cast (Rhodey and [[ComicBook/{{Spider-Woman}} Julia]]) walk out on him in disgust, and even the two who stay make it clear he crossed a line.

* The protagonists of ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' get a lot of these, but most of them can be shrugged off due to the protagonists being very young. Finn is a young teenage boy who was raised by dogs, and Princess Bubblegum is a very young princess who holds the responsibility of ruling a large kingdom... and Jake is a dog. Notable examples for Finn are when he hurts all of those creatures in "Another Way," and in "Too Young," where he beats up Lemongrab and makes him cry. (Lemongrab was being an asshole, but not on purpose, and he never physically hurt anybody.) Jake is a klepto, and occasionally makes statements that suggest murder, letting people burn alive, enslaving a group of mutants, and various forms of black humor. Princess Bubblegum has often been called out by the fanbase for her unethical, if not just plain mean, treatment of her experiments, (such as Lemongrab), who are living people that have been shown to have feelings. PB also killed a very cute jellyfish just to make a sandwich. Marceline can be excused, because she's a vampire who's over a thousand years old.

* In ''[[ABugsLife A Bug's Life]]'', Flik the ant, desperate to make up for his blundering, decides to ally the colony with stronger insects to drive off the villainous grasshoppers. It's only after he's brought them back and introduced them as the colony's saviours that he realizes that it was a misunderstanding, and they're actually circus performers. Rather than be exposed as a blunderer yet again, Flik wheedles the circus bugs into keeping up the charade and works behind-the-scenes, formulating their battle plan. When the circus bugs' original boss shows up and Flik's dishonesty is revealed, the Queen angrily orders them to leave, and pulls no punches when she banishes Flik:

'''Sentinel:''' [[SarcasmMode Well, thanks for not spoiling the surprise]]. 'Cause I wouldn't wanna be, I don't know, PREPARED FOR THIS OR ANYTHING!\\

'''Sentinel:''' [[SarcasmMode Well, thanks for not spoiling the surprise]]. 'Cause I wouldn't wanna be, I don't know, PREPARED FOR THIS OR ANYTHING!

** Jonah gets one from captain Stacy, when he cheers on Mysterio's mechanical gremlins beating Spider-Man.

--->'''[[Rico]]''': ''Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssshhhhh!''

*** Think about [[{{Batman}} who built the thing]]. There's a reason he's best known for being CrazyPrepared.
*** Given that [[spoiler: it was later hijacked and ''fired at the Earth'' (yeah, didn't see ''that'' one coming, did you Bats?)]] they're arguably correct about it.

*** Though to be fair, you can't exactly put a being capable of fighting Superman on even terms in a prison cell... Of course, Batman IS the man who will save [[CompleteMonster The Joker]] from a well-deserved death.
** The League gets called out by a ''lot'' of people for [[spoiler:easily forgiving Hawkgirl after her actions in the previous season finale.]] Fortunately, this died down eventually. It also helped that it was clear that [[spoiler: not everyone completely forgave her, not even among the Big Six, particularly Wonder Woman.]]
*** Eventually [[spoiler:WonderWoman did forgive Shayera after teaming up to save Hades from Felix Faust.]] As Shayera said after [[spoiler:Wonder Woman]] asked if things were OK between them:
---->'''Shayera''': ''Like oil and vinegar. We go together, but we don't mix.''
* In the first season finale of ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'', Robin accosts a random dockworker for information on Slade's whereabouts, and has to be physically restrained by Raven. The rest of the team accuses him of emulating Slade's tactics in his zeal.
** What makes this worse is that Slade is pretty civil to his informants, which is why he can use them again and again. So, Robin was actually [[EvilerThanThou worse than the villain]].
** Or how about the MASSIVE shaming he received once the crew realized that Robin was pulling a BatmanGambit via being Red X and playing them off to get close to Slade.

** Also Raven sort-of gets one in Season Four after returning from [[spoiler: Azarath]] and beats the crap out of Slade. When she tells Slade she's not afraid of him, his response is, "You might not be afraid of me, but look who's afraid of ''you''." Camera pans to the other Titans, all of them visibly shocked and shaken by the beatdown.

** [[spoiler:Dinobot goes on to make an [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome absolutely awesome]] TearJerker of a HeroicSacrifice to [[RedemptionEqualsDeath redeem himself]]]].

** Most recently in "This Is Why I Hate Machines," Alpha Trion berates Sentinel Prime for his decision to fire at [[spoiler: Omega Supreme,]] knowing the risks of possibly destroying Cybertron. He makes it very clear that if the decision was up to him, Sentinel wouldn't be Magnus any longer.

-->"You knew about this?!"\\
"I didn't know how to tell you."\\
"[[SarcasmMode Well, thanks for not spoiling the surprise]]. 'Cause I wouldn't wanna be, I don't know, PREPARED FOR THIS OR ANYTHING!"
*** In Optimus' defense, he did TRY to tell Sentinel before he headed off to Dinobot Island, but Sentinel ignored him.
* TransformersPrime has Jack call out Bulkhead for being perfectly fine with letting jerks be taken by Deceptacons, ''twice''.

** Something they didn't go into would be the fact that Jefferson also raped some of the black women in his "employ" (because he ''owned'' them and they couldn't say no unless they wanted to be lynched). Who also had children by him. Yes, that Jefferson [[HistoricalHeroUpgrade the one everyone loves today]]...revolutionary, Founding Father, visionary, serial rapist. Sadly, he was actually ''nicer'' to his slaves than plenty of slaveholders.
*** Interesting fact: The slave in question? Was the slave of his wife Martha, and also her half-sister. And Thomas only took interest in her after Martha's death. Jefferson's white descendants ignored or denied the slave's descendants when they claimed to be descended from Jefferson, until finally genetic testing pretty much proved the slave's descendants right.
** A viewer unfamiliar with their history may also feel this trope towards Washington at the end of the series.
*** Although Washington did call for the freedom of his slaves in his will upon his death.

** In another episode, Rainbow The Clown is turned into the evil Mr Mime due to a freak bleach accident. At the end, when they reverse the effects, the PowerPuff Girls still beat the hell out of him and send him to jail, -despite it not being his fault-. Okay, maybe they didn't know it was a bleach accident, but Rainbow frickin' -sings- about how the PowerPuff Girls saved him!
** A particularly heinous example, is when the girls beat the ever loving tar out of Mojo Jo Jo, over candy. While it's obvious the [[DoesThisRemindYouofAnything "candy"]] was meant to be interpreted as something else, it becomes clear the girls have likely beaten Mojo within an inch of his life, as even they are shocked by when he start to cry from the pain.
** YMMV, but in one episode when Buttercup refuses to bathe, she comes home from fighting monsters all day, and the Professor, offended by the smell, runs outside and taps on the window, saying, "Buttercup, you stink, take a bath." When Buttercup refuses, he kicks her out of the house! Sure, she said, "If you don't like it, throw me out!" but she is only ''five''.
*** Ordinarily, you'd be right, but you're forgetting who we're talking about here; do you really think that she would run into anything she couldn't handle before she came to her senses?

** Props to the storymen at Pixar: as a kid you bristle at how "mean" the Queen was to Flik, but when you get older you realize that she was absolutely ''right''. Flik wanted his great big idea to pay off, and he was willing to risk the possibility of the death of his entire colony if anything went wrong. Of course, the movie has a happy ending and Flik saves the day, but he definitely has a hard road to travel, owning up to his dishonesty and not hiding behind others.
*** Unfortunately, no matter how right the Queen was and how true it might be in real life, the way it was done most likely would invoke a DoNotDoThisCoolThing effect: Flik pushed his idea at the risk of the entire colony, was chewed out and banished for it (In fact, when he originally proposed the idea, they only agreed to it in order to exile him without his knowledge), but in the end he was completely right about the circus bugs and he saves the day thanks to his original reckless idea. Ha! [[FamilyUnfriendlyAesop So the Queen was wrong after all]]!
*** Flik didn't even know that circus bugs were never warriors from the beginning (The circus bugs were actually performing RobinHood in an attempt to intimidate some flies that were harassing Francis, leading Flik to think they were literally warrior bugs). When he did find out, he couldn't bear further embarrassment so he asked them to "[[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath squish]]" him before he left the island. But when he saw how well they fended off the bug-hungry bird, he decided that maybe they [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass DID]] stand a chance against the grasshoppers and allowed them to stick around for a while more. So in a way, his idea was never reckless and the Queen was wrong from the start.
** Really his only contribution was getting the ants mad enough to fight; the queen's main failure was not realizing that Hopper wasn't really a threat and the ants could have taken him at any time. Hopper points this out to his gang fairly early in the movie.
*** What do you mean "fairly early"? The movie is about halfway through by the time Hopper points out that the ants outnumbered them 100 to 1. And if you'll recall, nobody in the colony realized that until after Flik stood up to Hopper ''after being attacked by Thumper.''

* In the episode of ''AvatarTheLastAirbender'' "The Storm" an elderly fisherman calls out Aang on abandoning the world to 100 years of war (although the man is entirely unaware of the circumstances, and believes it to just be a result of cowardice and willful neglect of his duty as Avatar, which it was, up until the whole "frozen in an iceberg" bit). Katara gives the old man one of these in return (mixed with a CallingTheOldManOut moment) after Aang runs off.

* Played for laughs in an episode of ''PhineasAndFerb'' when Perry crashes through Dr. Doofenshmirtz's door rather than just knocking. Doofenshmirtz proceeds to give Perry a lecture about not going around breaking down other people's doors, and then guilts him into paying to get the door replaced.
** Which had a great callback in a later episode, where Perry had a KEY and Dr. Doofenshmirtz actually comments how much nicer and easier it is now.

* Deconstructed in AmericanDragonJakeLong. After finding out that Jake had his Dragon Chi confiscated on purpose, Lao Shi scolds him for irresponsible and not flawlessly rising to the job. Haley (who has been filling in for Jake) loses her temper and [[CallingTheOldManOut angrily tells Lao Shi]] that being the American Dragon is not as good as it seems -after being on the job for just a few days, she wouldn't even consider doing it for two more days - let alone two more years. She also points out that ever since Jake began his duties, he's always been late for school, had to lie to his dad, had his own girlfriend forget about him, and in addition to all that, he's the guardian of a magic realm that no mortal (other than his friends) know about. Lao Shi takes this to heart and decides to cut Jake's dragon training in half.

--->'''Rico''': ''Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssshhhhh!''

** Naturally, this backfires.
* Episode 20 of ScoobyDooMysteryInc has Velma dawn on her that disc jockey Angel Dynamite is really Cassidy Williams, member of the original Mystery Incorporated, and she faces Angel about it at the end. In the next ep, Velma says she hasn't told the others but only because Angel says ''she'' would when the time was right. At the end of episode 25, Angel comes clean to the gang and declares the mystery done, but not only does Fred think otherwise, he's angry because Angel lied to the gang all this time. And now in episode 26, everyone's mad at Velma for her not telling them and thus causing the present team to break up, perhaps for good.

* Twilight Sparkle gets a mild one from Princess Celestia in the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' episode "Lesson Zero" after Celestia teleports in to fix the mess Twilight made. There's not many words, just "Meet me in the library" and a stern look. Which is all that was needed, because the princess is fully understanding about the anxiety that had led Twilight to take desperate measures to begin with.
** Pinkie Pie in "Luna Eclipsed", pretending that Princess Luna was evil to make Nightmare Night seem more scary for her and the children, even though Luna wanted everyone to see that she wasn't evil anymore. Twilight shows exasperation at this.
** The Cutie Mark Crusaders get a few from "Ponyville Confidential", but the special mention should go to Big Macintosh, who was actually mad enough to chew them out for humiliating him and Applejack.