Break the Haughty in literature.
- Aeon 14: Admiral Sini Laaksonen, AST Space Force, starts the Short Story "Know Thy Enemy"note professionally cautious but confident in her abilities, pointedly considering herself a superior commander to Bollam's World Admiral Senya, whom she considers severely overranked. A Mook Horror Show, a disastrous pursuit of Intrepid, and a Time Skip later, and she resigns her commission in protest rather than lead a fleet against Tanis Richardsnote again.
- Artemis Fowl: In The Eternity Code, Artemis' that he had all the possible angles covered almost got Butler killed. That gives him a punch to the stomach.
- Jane Austen's works have a lot of this trope.
- Pride and Prejudice: Mr. Darcy's obviously a rather haughty type who gradually realizes that he has to take himself down a peg or two; Elizabeth's own pride in her ability to judge people gets a few dents over the course of the novel, particularly from Mr. Darcy's letter; happens to Mr. Collins when Elizabeth refuses to marry him; and to Lady Catherine when Elizabeth refuses to promise that she will not marry Darcy.
- It also happens in Emma, where Emma is forced to realize how little she knows about matchmaking. She also publicly humiliates a poor, old, harmless spinster who had been a family friend for years and partly depended on Emma's charity. Spinster's reaction was "I will try to hold my tongue. I must be very disagreeable, or she wouldn't say such a thing to an old friend". Emma then gets the Break The Haughty of her lifetime by some guy whom she eventually marries.
- Northanger Abbey: Catherine is forced to realize what an idiot she had been treating real life as if it were a gothic novel.
- Sense and Sensibility: Marianne has to admit that she behaved badly after her rejection by Willoughby. She confesses that she has worried Elinor and her Mother and that her illness stems from neglecting her health in a manner she knew to be wrong at the time...
- Mansfield Park: Fanny's uncle Sir Thomas is concerned about having his niece from a modest background stay with them. It turns out to be his children and not Fanny who endanger the social status of the family.
- In Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon, this is just the opening move protagonist Light does when he's dealing with his enemies, whether it's the former party he adventured with for them only to turn and try and murder him for sport, or the random supremacists he encounters engaged in hate crimes against human "inferiors." He thoroughly tramples their superiority complexes to the ground by making them look like total chumps in a fight with himself, and then after driving them to despair as he reveals they had no hope against him in the first place, that's when he decides how he's going to make them pay.
- Zan and the others in the first book of Bad News Ballet decide they need to make the Bunheads embarrass themselves in class. The gang convince the Bunheads to put powdered detergent on their ballet shoes in place of rosin and to lace the ribbons up their calves. The Bunheads all do so and end up ruining the floor of the dance studio by coating it in a layer of soap—and get lectured by Mr. Anton for it and their bad slipper lacing.
- Corlis in A Bad Place to Be a Hero treats the other two protagonists with utter disdain throughout most of the story, and only learns some humility through a Near-Death Experience where he's forced to rely on them.
- Ben Safford Mysteries: Unexpected Developments puts smarmy Corrupt Corporate Executive Walter Wellenstein through a well-deserved ringer. Mere days after he's appointed as ambassador to France, he's disgraced when a plane he's been marketing while knowing that it is flawed crashes in the middle of a Paris air show after Wellenstein forcefully insisted on showing it off there. He's painted as the villain for the media by his successor as CEO and longtime rival and is forced to resign his ambassadorship and admit that he bribed a congressman to try and cover up an earlier plane crash where the defective plane killed or injured three schoolchildren. He then finds himself being completely shut out by the political establishment he hobnobs with, becomes a murder suspect, and is nearly murdered himself under terrifying circumstances that make him collapse in a faint after the police rescue him. He's last mentioned as begging his rival for a job, which is unlikely to be successful. By the end of the book, he's a self-pitying wreck, and no one is the least bit sorry for him.
- The Black Arrow: Throughout the story, Dick Shelton's self-assured and ignorant cockiness, which borders on jerkassery, gets beaten out of him by the consequences of his bad actions (such like stealing a ship because he needed one, without thinking what would happen to the people whose livelihood he was taking away) and mistakes until he become a humbler, more thoughtful young man.
- The Canterbury Tales: The knight in the Wife of Bath's tale is a rapist who is given a year and a day to find out what women truly want. If he fails, he goes to the block. He ends up having to abase himself before the ugliest woman he can find in order to get the answer (the right to control their own lives). He ends up better off than some of the other leads in the Tales, but not before having his ego snapped like a twig.
- Chalet School: In Esutacia goes to Chalet School:
- The main plot. Take the titular girl, an Insufferable Genius with academic parents, a Missing Mom and a set of relatives who barely pay attention to her. Put her in the Chalet School, where her arrogance and tale-bearing make her unpopular with the other girls. Add a nasty accident that results in Eustacia being seriously injured and disabled, and voila! You have a sadder, wiser and nicer character who realises the error of her ways.
- Sybil Russell, Madge's daughter, acts like a Bratty Half-Pint, not helped by strangers constantly complimenting her on her looks (at least, Madge and Joey think so). Then she accidentally spills boiling water on her little sister Josette in Gay from China, badly scalding her. This, coupled with her dad Jem being livid with her, breaks Sybil somewhat and by Joey to the Rescue, she's almost a completely different person.
- City of Ashes: After being nothing but condescending to Jace because he's the son of the Big Bad, the Inquisitor finds out that her plan to trade Jace to Valentine for the two Mortal Instruments that he has isn't going to work, because despite what she thought, Valentine doesn't care about Jace, only the instruments. This causes her to have a Freak Out and a BSOD until Maryse snaps her out of it.
- Conan the Barbarian: In "The People of the Black Circle", the wizard subjects Yasmina to reliving all her past lives to humble her with slavery, torture, rape, poverty, and being hunted by predators. It works to the extent that she is madly grateful to see Conan, though she remembers that she's a queen rather quickly.
- The Chronicles of Narnia:
- This is a recurring theme of The Horse and His Boy. Bree, the proud warhorse constantly bragging about all the battles he's been in, is humbled when Shasta shows more courage than he does against a lion. The Tsundere Aravis is reluctant to accept that part of being a Rebellious Princess Runaway Fiancé is losing the privileges of being a princess until Shasta, "a rude, common little boy," impresses her in the same incident. Then there's the proud and spoiled Prince Rabadash, who is turned into a donkey as punishment.
- Also features in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Eustace has an (unjustified) superior attitude towards everyone around him (especially towards the non-humans) and considers himself above such mundane tasks as setting up camp and sneaks off on his own to explore the island. He gets hopelessly lost and then turned into a dragon for sleeping on a dragon's hoard while thinking greedy thoughts. This actually seems like it would be pretty fun, but Eustace hasn't the right mindset to be able to enjoy it; also, being turned into a dragon has some serious drawbacks since he can't speak and can't go on with the ship because he's too heavy and eats too much.
- Melodía of The Dinosaur Lords is a Princess Imperial who's convinced she's so much smarter and wiser than her fellows and acts accordingly. Then she's arrested on false charges, raped, forced to escape by hiding in a cart of guano for days, beaten up by her servant to hide her identity and finally, when she tries to help people end a war, all she accomplishes is getting all of her companions and her best friend killed. At least she manages to get back on her feet after all this.
- The Divine Comedy:
- Hell has a tendency to humiliate people who were self-important and powerful in life. There is no distinction that separates popes and kings from the average man, they are punished equally for equal sins.Virgil: How many now hold themselves mighty kings, who here like swine shall wallow in the mire.
- The the first terrace of Purgatory exists to purge the sin of Pride from souls, which it does by forcing them to carry giant boulders up the mountain. They learn humility from this by being forced to stay down to Earth and away from their wild, self-aggrandizing fantasies. To help them in this process, the grounds are illustrated with the most famous downfalls of the Proud with examples ranging from Lucifer's failed take-over of Heaven to Arachne's curse received for declaring her art godly.
- Hell has a tendency to humiliate people who were self-important and powerful in life. There is no distinction that separates popes and kings from the average man, they are punished equally for equal sins.
- Felix Harrowgate, one of the protagonists of Doctrine of Labyrinths, is an arrogant Agent Peacock antihero who, over the course of four books, endures the revelation of his low birth and history of prostitution, rape (more than once), Mind Rape, public display for crimes he didn't commit, incarceration in a Bedlam House, the death of a lover, and exile, before emerging as a marginally decent human being. However, this may qualify as a subversion, since it's obvious that his long history of miserable experiences did nothing to reform him: the big difference between his past and present is his relationship with his half-brother, Mildmay.
- The title character in Eden Green assumes that her intellect can and will get her through any trial — though her ego starts to take a hit after she's infected with an immortal needle symbiote and her options begin to narrow.
- Emerald City:
- Corina, the Villain Protagonist, starts off as arrogant Magnificent Bastard who by the end of the first book controls the Emerald city, practically controls most of the Magic Land's remainder (including Violet and Blue lands), and made the Good Witches prisoners in their lands. Then in book two, Ellie dethrones her, following which she starts a slow downward spiral. By the book ten she has been captured by the Big Bad, Brought Down to Normal, turned into a (non-talking) mouse, locked in a cage for weeks... and the cage is currently located in a basement filling with water. After one of her previous opponents rescues her from said basement, even he refers to her as "poor Corina".
- She is not the only one with this fate, however. Ogre Midgety, Paracels, Donald, Elg, Argut and even Almar all suffer from their arrogance very often. Not being arrogant is one of the main themes in the decalogy.
- Enemies & Allies: The treacherous Wayne Enterprises directors (such as the greedy and condescending Paul Hemming and the less venal but particularly rude Frank Miles) go from self-satisfied and dismissive of Bruce to gaping in shock and fear after he reveals that he knows their various dirty secrets.
- Epithet Erased: Prison of Plastic: Towards the end of the book, upon believing she killed Naven by mistake, Lorelai is horrified and nearly has a panic attack. Though he turns out to be okay, he directly confronts her about her behavior through the book, culminating in her admitting that his near-death hit upon her greatest fear: she's convinced that her reality warping abilities were the cause of her mother's death, and is absolutely terrified that they'll continue to grow in power until she permanently loses control and accidentally murders yet another loved one without even trying or realizing. Which itself is followed by the realization that her actions have already damaged her relationship with her younger sister to the point the latter wants nothing to do with her.
- Mirabella of The Faerie Queene was punished for torturing her suitors with a lifetime spent in the capture of Disdain and Scorne. She can only be free when she fills a vial with tears of true repentance, except the vial leaks, so she has little to no hope of ever reaching freedom no matter how much she mourns.
- Fate/Zero: Lord El-Melloi Kayneth Archibald, thinking he's entitled to all of the niceties that have been handed to him and claiming a vain sort of chivalry in the form of a Worthy Opponent, walks into battle against Kiritsugu with disdain, thinking it's all beneath him. He scoffs when Kiritsugu sprays a shower of low caliber rounds at his perfect defense. Then Kiritsugu tricks Kayneth's defense and blasts him in the shoulder with a 30.06. A fluke! This vermin thinks he's won? Look, he's trying the same trick again. The same trick won't work twice on the Lord El-Melloi — then Kiritsugu fires his Origin Bullet, permanently crippling and stripping Kayneth of magecraft. By the end, the once-proud Kayneth resorts to desperately accepting a cease-fire. And gets mowed down with a machine gun.
- Forever and a Death Mark undergoes a heroic version after he's caught spying on Curtis for the heroes (after ignoring their warnings that his cover was blown) and is Made a Slave on one of his construction gangs. He's a very different man by the time he's finally rescued.
- GONE:
- Diana Ladris starts the series a beautiful, proud, rich snob who spends her time belittling others and making them wish they were her... it was all downhill for her from that point. After getting tortured and nearly killed by Drake, is driven to eat human flesh during after months of starvation, is thrust off a cliff *but saved*, suffers post-traumatic stress disorder from becoming a cannibal, and finally is betrayed by boyfriend Caine Soren after being unwittingly impregnated by him...She then goes on, 15 years of age, to give birth in a mine with two psychopaths who torture her relentlessly. Then her own daughter enslaves her and degrades her in every way possible (physically and emotionally) just for entertainment. It's fan speculation that she's pretty much lost it by this point. Break the haughty, indeed.
- Diana's male (cocky, arrogant and charming) counterpart Caine Soren may be heading towards this as of FEAR, which was quite a blow to his pride. Has his hands cased in cement and a crown stapled to his head, and is then paraded through town in a humiliation conga courtesy of Penny. Oh yeah, and he wet himself in the process.
- Astrid Ellison could also qualify in books LIES and PLAGUE, although she bounces back in FEAR after taking a level in badass, so it's subverted.
- Gor: The novels do not so much use this trope as harp on it to the point where it really becomes little more than a Take That! to women who are not slaves. One example in the ninth book, Marauders of Gor, include two high-ranking Torvaldslander women named Hilda the Haughty (sic) and Bera — who end up as slaves, side by side, and emphatically happy about it. And the first novel in the series has this as an important part of it, too.
- While Tom of The Great Brain is often an expert at Karma Houdini and can show up adults with his smarts, there are times he's subjected to this.
- The biggest example is in More Adventures of the Great Brain when Tom decides to prove he's ready to work for his father's newspaper by putting out one of his own. To his credit, Tom is able to solve a bank robbery to help the town. But the rest of his "news" is nothing but malicious gossip that's been going around for years. This leads to full-on fights in the streets and threats of lawsuits against Mr. Fitzgerald. Amazingly, Tom assumes his father's anger is for being scooped and that he's ready to work for the paper. Instead, his father gives a scathing speech on how Tom doesn't understand the first thing about journalistic ethics, shuts this paper down and this stunt only proves he's barely capable of delivering the paper rather than writing for it. While he has a stern punishment, younger brother JD is rocked by how, for the first time in his life, Tom is reduced to tears by his father's brutal words.
- When Tom nearly gets two kids drowned to make a lousy thirty cents, JD organizes a "trial" for him. Tom smugly thinks he can outwit them only for the teenage "judge" to take apart every one of his arguments and Tom forced to realize how much pain he's been bestowing suckering his fellow kids out of money many of them can't afford to lose.
- On a train trip to Salt Lake City, Tom suggests a pipe from the locomotive to the rear of the train for the comfort of passengers and sits back as if waiting to be paid on the spot for the idea. The train conductor deflates Tom by stating that very idea has been suggested before and vetoed as unworkable. Tom has to stew at the train passengers laughing at this kid thinking he could succeed where scores of experienced engineers failed.
- At confession, Tom tells a priest of his many con games, each one with a defense on why he did it and that it's not his fault he has a "great brain and money-loving heart." The priest cuts through his justifications by saying Tom's confession is outright blasphemy and gives him a hard penance to last for weeks.
- Older brother Sweyn gets this when he's so proud of his new fishing pole he won't even let Tom or JD touch it. Tom gets back at him by managing to catch more fish than Sweyn on a trip and win the pole on a bet. While suspecting (rightly) Tom somehow pulled a trick, their father agrees Sweyn needed a lesson after all his bragging.
- JD is also hit by this in My and My Little Brain as he thinks he can easily follow Tom's con artist ways only to face the reality he's not smart enough to pull them off.
- Fittingly, the final story of the last book in the series has Tom's con game flipped on him, forced to pay money to his brothers and other kids, and publically embarrassed...and all by his own mother.
- Harry Potter:
- Draco Malfoy goes from Spoiled Brat to Jerkass Woobie when he learns Evil Is Not a Toy. He spends the first five years as Harry's schoolyard enemy who thinks the idea of Voldemort coming back is the coolest thing ever. When the bad guys actually give him an important job, he starts out as smug as ever... then gets a massive dose of reality. By the end of book six, he's a nervous wreck who can barely keep it together, and by the finale, he just wants out.
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: Draco gets his first taste of humble pie when, after Harry, Hermione, and Neville find themselves in detention for being out of bed after hours, he gets paired with them for their stint in the Forbidden Forest, and Hagrid wastes no time raking him over the coals the minute he starts protesting that he's above serving his detention with a bunch of "filthy little mudbloods".Hagrid: [to Draco] Yeh done wrong and now yer gonna pay fer it!
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: The humiliation starts as early as when Lucius gets his ass handed to him by his own former house elf. It actually starts just before that, when he realizes that Harry Potter has just tricked him into releasing said house elf.
- Percy Weasley also does a full arc. He starts as a snobbish but harmless (a male Go-Getter Girl at worst), and then turns on his family in order to get ahead in the ministry and renounces his father in Book 5. It takes him over two years to come to his senses, and he rejoins his family (and the other good guys) in the final battle — only to lose his brother mid-reconciliation.
- Poor Otto of the H.I.V.E. Series starts off as an Insufferable Genius who does absolutely everything for his own benefit, even if his actions are good. He saves the orphanage because he doesn't want to start overtaking leadership somewhere else, and he essentially invites Laura to escape with him because she's pretty, without asking Wing. His solution to every problem in the beginning is to respond with sarcasm and make the other person feel bad. He begins to become more humble only after Wing's supposed death in book two. He is further brought down to earth by the revelation that he is Overlord's clone, created only for the purpose of being a total body donor. In book four, he is kidnapped and forced to kill innocent people in book five, crushing his self-esteem and making him feel extremely guilty despite not being in control of himself. In book six, his girlfriend Lucy Dexter is murdered, causing him to become too paranoid to admit his feelings to his longtime crush Laura for fear that something will happen to her as well. And something does happen. In the very next book, she is blackmailed into betraying the Alpha stream, which Otto could have prevented, and then captured by the Glasshouse and mind raped.
- In The House on the Lagoon, Rebecca holds soirées got her artist friends. One evening Rebecca performs a version of the dance of the seven veils to her group of artist friends. When her husband spots her dancing half-naked, he beats her severely and imposes a tyrannical regime in the house, making everybody take a cold shower each morning and attend mass every day. He also forces Rebecca to abandon her artistic aspirations. With time, Rebecca grows hard and bitter.
- Imperial Radch: In Ancillary Justice, Seivarden Vendaai was a proud officer, member of a noble house and rather arrogant. When Breq finds her, she is dying from hypothermia after having given himself a drug overdose, just outside the door of an inn where nobody cares about her. When she wakes up, she is convinced Breq was sent to find her because he's important, while actually she just took pity. As it turns out, she was cryonic sleep for hundreds of years, her family lost all importance, and when she woke up, no one would acknowledge how important she was, which drove her to take drugs.
- In Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester spends most of the novel being both a liar and a Manipulative Bastard, pulling an Operation: Jealousy on poor Jane. His breaking starts when Jane finds out, just as they're about to say "I do", that he already has a wife, and runs off when he's not looking. Then said wife burns his house down with him (and her) inside it, leaving her dead and him blind and missing a hand. When Jane returns, he's a much humbler person who is worthy of marriage.
- Knaves on Waves features Jacques, one of the world's finest swordsmen, who suffers many devastating losses throughout the course of the book. interestingly, he seems to maintain his arrogance despite the many setbacks, so he may actually be a subversion.
- Quill Kipps of Lockwood & Co. starts out as an arrogant hotshot agent with a grudge against Lockwood & Co., but over the course of several books loses his psychic Talent, watches a friend die, is shown up several times by the protagonists, Kicked Upstairs and eventually has his pension confiscated and reputation destroyed. He's a much nicer person after all this, though the narrator makes it clear that he's still annoying.
- Malazan Book of the Fallen
- Queen Janall of Lether is introduced as a powerful, gorgeous woman whose political influence is somewhat greater than her much older husband. After helping start a war with the Tiste Edur for her own amusement, she and her son are defeated, captured and exposed to chaos magic that turns her into a hideous snake thing that is kept alive as a demonstration of the King in Chains' power. To top it off, due to her near immobility she grows obese.
- Clip is established as a confident jerkass who doesn't respect anyone and smugly snarks at everybody. Then he gets possessed and brainwashed. When the Dying God finally relinquishes his soul, he locks himself into a cell, either out of guilt or sheer embarrassment, never to be seen again for the rest of the series.
- This trope is a key part of "Lady Audley's Secret".
- Malory Towers: Gwendoline Mary spends most of the series as a vain, spoiled brat who causes trouble for everyone around her. This trope begins in the fifth book when Alicia gives her a "The Reason You Suck" Speech pointing out that the shallow Maureen, whom Gwen loathes, is exactly like her. In the final book, her father develops a serious illness implied to be at least partly due to stress caused by his daughter. The family loses all their money and Gwen is forced to drop out of school and get a job to support herself, with a final letter to Darrell showing that Gwen has started to change at last.
- In Master of the Game, Kate Blackwell decides to disinherit her favorite granddaughter Eve — whom she had chosen to inherit her company — when it becomes clear that she believes the world should revolve around her and has tried more than once to kill her innocent sister Alexandra simply for existing. Eve winds up on a living allowance that's just enough to afford a small, unfashionable New York City apartment. Unfortunately, this doesn't break Eve because she is an excellent Gold Digger and thus free to continue plotting against Alexandra and Kate.
- In The Mental State, Zack State does this to several law enforcement officers who are a little too fixated on their own goals, ambitions and moral views. Commissioner Viceman ends up being blackmailed into going against his own political views, Sargent Haig becomes an inmate in his own prison and Officer Reed loses his chance at promotion and becomes a Spice junkie.
- The Misfit of Demon King Academy: Emilia Lud(o)well was initially an advocate for Fantastic Racism against half-demons and humans. However, after being forcibly being reincarnated into a half-demon and becoming a victim of the very racism she once advocated for afterwards, she finally begins to reconsider her world view and even takes a fire blast aimed at Izabella despite previously trying to kill her.
- No Coins, Please: One of Artie's rackets involves betting on a toy car race with lots of randomly switching obstacles in front of the Washington D.C. Capitol Building. One Congressman confidently bets on a race because he thinks he can win and teach Artie a lesson about gambling. The cars he bets on fail to finish a single race until he is down to the last of his money and is desperately begging for a win, at which point Artie helps his damaged car finish the race out of sympathy for how haggard the man is.
- Olivia Goldsmith excelled at this in her novels and not just for the bad guys either.
- The First Wives Club has each of the husbands, starting out so cool and powerful, brought down hard. Gil is the biggest as in one day, he's arrested for hitting his wife at a party, discovers his would-be big deal has fallen through, costing $800 million of his partners' money so they want his head and the SEC wants a word with him on his crimes.
- Aaron starts a meeting with how he wants to buy out his partner...only for the guy to reveal he's buying Aaron out with three big clients and the board on his side. Then son Chris gives his dad a nice "The Reason You Suck" Speech on his actions.
- Flavor of the Month has Neil, a hot New York stand-up comic who lands his own sitcom deal. He's soon bragging he'll be the biggest star on TV in no time to a reporter who's "seen this story before." The show is quickly canceled and before he knows it, Neil is right back to working for tips.
- The Bestseller has Daniel co-writing a book with wife Judith although she does most of the work. They have Daniel pose as the sole author to have it sold but the rush of fame goes to his head as he soon believes he did write it alone and cuts Judith out. He carries that attitude to his first book signing...which no one shows up for. The book is a huge flop that ruins him while Judith moves to a good writing career of her own.
- The same novel has publisher Gerald Davis Ochs throwing his weight around for the entire book, including a scam to steal sales from other authors for his own books, which ends up with him fired and eventually taking his own life. Meanwhile, editor Pam goes from a respected (if not liked) Editor of the Year to fired, humiliated and drunkenly peeing in an empty bottle when security beaks into her office to remove her.
- Pen Pals is a case for the protagonist as Jennifer agrees to take the blame for some chicanery in her company, believing her boss and lawyer (who's also her fiancee) that she'll be sent to a "country club" prison and be out in a couple of weeks. Jennifer takes the "country club" literally, meeting with the warden to request a cell with good lighting and access to the internet and an assistant to do her work before she's released. The warden is amazed she doesn't get her situation and decides rather than an easy job in the prison library, Jennifer is better working in the laundry room. And that's before Jennifer's fiancee dumps her and it hits her that he and her boss were setting her up the whole time as the fall guy for their crimes.
- Paladin of Shadows: Katya starts out as a cold psychopathic bitch who's constantly causing troubles for the people, until Unto the Breach, when she's in a helicopter forced to fly over a trio of enemy bunkers armed with heavy machine guns, and one of the people in the chopper gets their guts blasted all over her and the helicopter's interior by a round. Seeing the effect breaks her the way earlier threats of being killed for acting like a bitch hadn't. Later she's said to occasionally even be helpful to those she hassled earlier, though the others aren't sure if the change of heart will actually hold.
- Paradise Lost:
- Only a few days after leading a war into Heaven, Satan has to retreat from Eden when five angels threaten him. As he creeps away, they remind him of how hideous and weak he's become, realities he's too arrogant to grant.
- Satan arms himself with a chariot in an imitation of the chariot of the Son of God. He boasts from atop the chariot that he created himself and that he's invincible, only for Michael to come up to him and cut off the right side of his body. This introduction to pain leaves the Devil whimpering in agony as his foot soldiers carry his body away from the battle."[T]here they him laid
Gnashing for anguish and despite and shame
To find himself not matchless, and his pride
Humbl'd by such rebuke, so farr beneath
His confidence to equal God in power." - The Devil sneaks back into Hell in an attempt to make the announcement of Man's fall as dramatic as possible. He takes his giant golden throne and yells to all his demons of the mighty victory won by his efforts alone, only for any praise he might win to be silenced when every demon in Hell is turned into bestial serpents as a consequence of Satan's attacks on humanity.
- Perry Rhodan: The alien spaceship captain Thora da Zoltral. Considering that her people, the humanoid Arkoniden, were (in)famous for their arrogance and haughtiness towards "lesser" races, as well as their ruthless empire-building and Manifest Destiny worldview (imagine the Roman and British Empires and Imperial Japan rolled into one), Thora had a lot of pride to swallow when circumstances forced her to accept help from and to ally with the "barbarians" from planet Earth, who had just performed their first manned moon landing and discovered the shipwrecked alien spaceship there. Her brother, the gentle and open-minded scientist Crest, fares a lot better in adjusting his mindset to new ideas.
- Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander Chiang MacClintock from Prince Roger starts out the series as a bit of a vain, arrogant fop, partly in rebellion to the generally negative or dismissive treatment he gets from others. His father, whom he physically resembles somewhat, was banished from the Empire of Man for treason, but no one told him about the reasons for the banishment. Between being stranded on a Death World and finding out why he was treated as he was, the fop is quickly blown away in the course of a Heroic BSoD, and the ones who overthrew the family in a coup find Roger taking a level in badass when he demonstrates just why you don't screw with a MacClintock.
- The Railway Series: This is done fairly often. Especially to Gordon the Big Engine. Early example: After Henry is shut up in a tunnel as punishment for refusing to leave said tunnel, Gordon makes a habit of mocking him every time he passes by. Until one day, Gordon stalls from a burst safety valve in front of the replacement tunnel, much to Henry's amusement. A repentant Henry is let out to help Edward pull Gordon's train — the express he then prided himself on being the only one to pull.
- The Saint: In "The Golden Journey", Simon observes a Rich Bitch being rude to the staff of the hotel where he is staying. Deciding that she needs a lesson in humility, he arranges for her to be forced into a situation where she has to accompany him on a several day cross-country hike. He uses the opportunity to thoroughly humiliate her, and then instill in her a much healthier attitude towards life.
- Smaller & Smaller Circles: After another murder, Benjamin Arcinas is broken after realizing that his selfish, glory-chasing actions after taking charge of the serial killer case have caused the death of yet another young boy. He even receives a harsh reprimand from the NBI Director.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: This happens to several characters.
- Sansa Stark from Starts as shallow, sheltered, naïve little girl and is repeatedly taken advantage of and abused by all attractive males with whom she comes into contact. The only people who treat her well are Tyrion Lannister and Sandor Clegane, both of who are hideously deformed.
- Jaime Lannister, beginning with his sword hand chopped off.
- Cersei Lannister may have managed to avert this trope. After her naked walk through the streets of King's Landing, she's humiliated but not broken, and hell-bent on revenge.
- Stannis Baratheon undergoes this as he finds no one cares about his right to be king and his insistence on honor and justice is a great hindrance. His armies are beaten, his fleet destroyed, and his allies abandon him. However, because he is incredibly stubborn, he absolutely refuses to give up his fight. He does, however, realize that he needs to save the people to win the throne, rather than the other way around. This leads to his Big Damn Heroes moment at the end of Book 3.
- Theon after being captured by Ramsay Bolton ends up the most thorough example by far, losing several fingers and toes, most of his teeth, possibly being castrated, sent to sleep in a dog kennel, and turned into a Replacement Goldfish for Ramsay's servant Reek. By the end, he's afraid to think his own name. He gets slightly better.
- Viserys, the former prince of the Seven Kingdoms, whose life after exile has been one long Humiliation Conga. He is, for the most part, an Asshole Victim. Viserys still believes himself the rightful King of Westeros and the last hope of House Targaryen, referring to Robert Baratheon as "the Usurper". After selling off his younger sister to a warlord, he goes through constant humiliation traveling with them, believing that the Dothraki are simply savages he can control. He meets his demise after threatening his pregnant sister in front of her warlord husband, who kills him by pouring molten gold over his head, "crowning" him.
- Spaceforce (2012): Jay is a supremely confident, amoral Magnificent Bastard who evades the insanely strict rules of his society. At the end of the first book, he is brought down by a woman he treated badly, and is beaten nearly to death and has everything he worked for taken away from him. At the end of the third, he is struck to the floor by his commander, forced to separate from his new wife and taken back to his homeworld — with the threat that he will be left there to assume his original destiny as a blacksmith unless he gives up his womanizing ways.
- Speaker for the Dead: Ender's introduction to Novinha's family involves multiple break the haughty moments, all done quickly. This is viewed in Ender's mind to be just a practical as his rapid physical conquests. It shows his clear social dominance in this situation, allowing them to respect him in a way no one else had.
- The Spirit Thief: Miranda is pretty stuck-up and convinced of her moral superiority in the first book, so the second has her on the run from the Spirit Court, hiding in a cave with no benefits her station would usually give her, with only her spirits to keep her company. It makes her slightly more bearable and humble — and more appreciative of the spirits.
- In Star Wars: Bloodline Princess Leia does this to Lady Carise Sindian by having the Elder Houses strip her of her royal titles for breaking her Blood Oath to keep items filed under royal seal secret even at the cost of her own life if need be. Namely providing a message kept under royal seal from Bail Organa to Leia on her true parentage. To Carise it's the worst fate possible, having to live life as a commoner.
- These Words Are True and Faithful: Ernie Butler, the Villain Protagonist, starts out being seen by many (including himself) as a conquering hero who can do no wrong. After the public humiliation brought on by his infidelity, he becomes more contrite.
- The Trial: Josef is a pompously self-important bank manager whose reaction on being arrested in his apartment is outrage at such minor officials daring to bother him. Over the course of the novel, he finds out that he has much less power than he thought. Whether any moral lessons emerge is questionable, though.
- Virgil suggested that the motto of the Roman Empire was parcere subjectis et debellare superbos, which translates to "Spare the humble and weaken the pride."
- Staple element in most of Mika Waltari's historical novels:
- Sinuhe in The Egyptian is not overbearingly haughty, but gets plenty of humbling (and humiliating) moments where he either realizes his mistakes or simply despairs for a while.
- Mikael in The Adventurer and The Wanderer considers himself an intelligent man, and whenever he gets a little success in any endeavour he becomes quite holier than thou. Furthermore, Giulia, who is both his beloved and something of a nemesis, gets what's coming to her very late in the second book.
- Warrior Cats: Lionblaze starts out arrogant and battle-obsessed, and trains under his grandfather Tigerstar to become a great warrior. At the end of the Power of Three arc, he learns that he's actually a bastard, and Tigerstar was just using him for his power. He still remains somewhat arrogant, until Night Whispers, where his love interest Cinderheart leaves him because he has to focus on his destiny and can't be distracted, leading to him becoming much more humble and less battle-hungry.
- Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River: When the jerk governor of Nevada is informed that Hoover Dam will overtop, he becomes a lot more concerned and conciliatory.
- The Wheel of Time:
- The Aes Sedai order of channelers (mages) get hit by this. Repeatedly. 'Kneel, Aes Sedai, or you shall be knelt!' Especially notable because the Aes Sedai tend to see themselves above royalty, so being ordered by three farmboys is one of the main reasons to read the books.
- A particularly awesome example occurred at the end of the 12th book in the series, when Elaida, a particularly power-hungry, self-obsessed bitch, was captured during a Seanchan raid on the White Tower, thus being subjected to a particularly brutal form of slavery.
- Wintersmith: Granny Weatherwax got to break two haughties for the price of one. Annagramma Hawkin is Alpha Bitch to the new generation of witches, and because Granny suggested Tiffany Aching to take over an open spot, Annagramma got it instead. Annagramma's teachings by that point ill-prepared her for real-world witchcraft and forced her to seek aid from the others of her group. This served to teach Annagramma what witchcraft was and prove that her teacher Mrs. Earwig didn't teach witchcraft properly.
- The Witchlands: Prince Merik Nihar starts the series firmly convinced that he's his homeland's only hope for a better future. His character arc in Windwitch has him coming to terms with his misconceptions about himself and others, his "holy conceit", as he calls it. And being Esme's favorite science project in Bloodwitch knocks him down a few more pegs, making him realize that his reliance on Berserker Rage has been holding him back all his life.
- In Robert Arthur's "The Wonderful Day" this kid who'd unknowingly gotten a hold of a unicorn horn made a wish on it that all of the figurative expressions grownups used would come true for just one day. This resulted, among similar cases of instant karma, in a woman who'd been referred to as "puffed up like a balloon" with self-importance swelling up like Harry Potter's Aunt Marge and having to be rescued from a tree hours later.
