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Hermia
- Ambiguously Brown: The text is open to this interpretation, since Lysander and Demetrius both
derisively call her names like "ethiope" and "tawny tartar" once they have fallen out of love with her. ("Ethiope" and "tartar" refer to African and Central Asian ethnicities respectively.) But in Shakespeare's day a "nut-brown maid" meant a (white) girl with brown hair, so Hermia being a 'raven' to Helena's 'dove' may simply mean she is brunette. - Diabolus ex Machina: Her father has promised her to a man she doesn't love, Duke Theseus holds up Egeus' decision and tells her to accept it, be executed, or go into a convent, they flee Athens for the wilderness, and while she is alone in the woods at night, her fiance apparently rejects her for her best friend with no explanation at all.
- Elopement: Hermia and Lysander run off to do this since Hermia is going to be forced into an Arranged Marriage to Demetrius (or put into a convent). However, events work out so that Demetrius cancels the wedding and the two are able to get married in Athens after all.
- Height Angst: Hermia is shorter than Helena, though it doesn't really get a mention until the love potion kicks in and it looks like her friend has wooed away the man she loves. Then they both go at each other for being too tall ("thou painted maypole") or too short (with the entranced men joining in, naturally).
- Runaway Fiancée: To avoid marrying Demetrius, she elopes with Lysander, who says he has an aunt in another town who can help them get married. The main action of the play takes place in the woods where they're spending the night.
- Tsundere: Tender to Lysander and her best friend Helena... until she thinks they've betrayed her. Then the claws come out.
Lysander
- Elopement: Hermia and Lysander run off to do this since Hermia is going to be forced into an Arranged Marriage to Demetrius (or put into a convent). However, events work out so that Demetrius cancels the wedding and the two are able to get married in Athens after all.
- A Man Is Always Eager: He argues that he can spend a chaste night out in the woods next to his beloved; Hermia replies that he 'riddles very prettily' and asks him to sleep at a distance.
- Marry for Love: He makes this argument in the opening scene, by saying that the difference between him and Demetrius is that Hermia loves him not Demetrius.
- Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: He argues that he is neither poorer nor lower in social status than Demetrius, so Hermia's father has no reason not to choose him over Demetrius.
Demetrius
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: He acts rude to everyone and entitled to Hermia. Sure, he's sweet to Helena at the end—but it might just be the love potion talking.
- No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Demetrius is doubly repulsed when Helena comes to him before she tells him the news.
Helena
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Unbuilt Trope. She was with Demetrius, possibly even engaged to him, before Egeus stepped in. Her dogged pursuit of Demetrius is less jealousy and more outrage that the man who claimed to love her would dump her when she became an inconvenience.
- Love Martyr: At one point she claims she wouldn't mind if Demetrius treated her like a dog so long as she could be his dog. She also seems pretty unconcerned when he threatens to rape her. Granted, it's because she doesn't think he'd go through with it, but still.
- My Girl Is Not a Slut: Demetrius wants Helena to stop following him because she's in danger of rape going out at night. And this while he still claims he hates her.
- Statuesque Stunner: In contrast to the shorter Hermia, Helena is a "painted maypole."
Oberon
The king of the fairies, Oberon is a petty matchmaker who meddles with mortal love lives while tormenting Queen Titania over a changeling he wants to have as his henchman because... just because.
- The Chessmaster: He orchestrates all the plots that happen in the woods... which means he has to deal with the aftermath.
- Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends: Most of the play is about him trying to do this for the mortals by telling Puck to straighten out the romantic entanglements. He gets there in the end.
- Evil Is Petty: More amoral than evil, but most of the supernatural shenanigans happen because his wife won't give him something he wants.
- The Fair Folk: Is its king and is one of the most immoral and inhumane characters in the play
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Puck is his most trusted henchman, for all the good it does him.
- Karma Houdini: Oberon humiliates his wife for an extremely petty reason, and gets exactly what he wanted out of it. Titania doesn't seem to care at all once the spell is removed.
- The Matchmaker: He pairs up Helena and Demetrius... after previously pairing up Helena and Lysander, and his own wife with an enchanted common laborer.
- Pet the Dog: Oberon is hardly the nicest of characters, but he does feel sorry for Helena and attempts to help her by getting Demetrius to fall in love with her. Unfortunately, that just makes things worse.
- Shipper on Deck: Oberon really wants to see Helena's love for Demetrius reciprocated.
Titania
The queen of the fairies, this woman sticks to her guns, which results in her husband slipping her a Love Potion while she's asleep, causing her to fall in love with Bottom.
- Double Standard: Rape, Divine on Mortal: No, we don't see anything happen, and yes, a love potion is involved, but when she falls in love with Bottom, any question of his consent goes right out the window. She's queen of the fairies, and that's just how it is.
- The Fair Folk: Queen of the Fairies. While she doesn't toy with the mortal realm as much as her husband does, she explicitly forbids Bottom to leave and tells him she will keep him by force if she has to.
- I Gave My Word: To her friend who died in childbirth that she would raise her son. In her fight with Oberon, it could be interpreted as Honor Before Reason, considering she most likely knows it will only get worse.
Puck, or Robin Goodfellow
Oberon's henchman who mistakenly gives the Love Potion to Lysander, and then Demetrius, causing them to fall in love with Helena. It doesn't bother him much...
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: He does so in his final speech, addressing the audience.
- Comedic Sociopath: He completely tangles the love lives of four young people, but he largely finds it funny and the audience is probably supposed to do the same.
- The Dragon: He is Oberon's main confidant and right-hand man. While Oberon mostly means well with his plotting, Puck doesn't mind so much that the plan has gone astray because he enjoys the resulting chaos.
- Exact Words: "Did not you tell me I should know the man by the Athenian garments he had on?" Even Oberon can't argue with Puck on that point, as the latter did exactly as he was told, and couldn't have known there was another guy in Athenian garments walking around the forest.
- The Fair Folk: He is Oberon's servant, and displays the classic traits of amorality (even more so than Oberon, as he shows no pity or remorse for the lovers at all) and generally does things for his own amusement.
- Fairy Trickster: His defining characteristic. He tells a fairy that he pulls all sorts of pranks for Oberon's amusement and his own, like jumping into a bowl of ale in the form of a crabapple and bobbing at an old goody's lips. He even turns Bottom's head into that of a donkey and watches his fellow players run away at the sight. He did make an honest mistake in using the love potion on the wrong Athenian, but he's enjoying the results. "Then will two at once woo one. That must needs be sport alone. All those things do best please me, which fall out preposterously."
- The Gadfly: Enjoys messing with people, either for Oberon's entertainment or his own.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: "I jest to Oberon and make him smile" pretty much sums it up. They might as well share a box of popcorn as they watch all the chaos they've caused play out.
- It Amused Me: Puck's screwing up with the love potion. Sure, it was a mistake but he's enjoying the results. "Then will two at once woo one. That must needs be sport alone. All those things do best please me, which fall out preposterously."
- Our Goblins Are Different: Possibly the most famous goblin in all fiction. He's not as nasty as later examples but he does delight in tormenting humans.
- Wild Card: Another fairy describes Puck as such, stating that he can be kind if he chooses to be, but as the events show, Puck gleefully messes with just about anyone short of his king for a good laugh.
Bottom
- Forced Transformation: He's given a donkey's head. He doesn't even notice until someone else points it out.
- Malaproper: He is the poster boy for this trope, saying, for example, "odious" for "odours" and "Ninny's tomb" for "Ninus' tomb" (Ninus was the legendary founder of Nineveh). Bottom goes on to say that the lion "deflowered my dear!" Instead of "devoured".
- Meaningful Name: This is a case of words not changing meaning since Shakespeare's time. Ass meant both donkey and butt/bottom then, just like now.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Nick Bottom is so confident in his abilities to the point that he believes that he can do anything. He can't.
Theseus
- Amazon Chaser: Hippolyta's courtship with Thesus was based on fighting and one of his first lines is how his marriage proposal was their duel.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Slayer of the Minotaur, son of Poseidon (and some other guy too), a kinsman of Hercules, husband of the Amazon Queen... doesn't believe in fairies, apparently.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: While he does rule against Lysander and Hermia in the matter of her Arranged Marriage, he does offer her a third option of consecrated virginity (he would have been within his rights to sentence her to execution for disobeying her father). When Demetrius renounces his claim, Theseus lets them marry with no objections at all.
Hippolyta
- All Amazons Want Hercules: "Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword/And won thy love, doing thee injuries..." Also specifically invoked when Theseus tries to impress Hippolyta with his hounds. She teasingly tells him that she went hunting with Hercules and his hounds were better. (In Greek mythology, Hippolyta was always paired with either Theseus or Hercules.)
- Best Her to Bed Her: Theseus "wooed her with his sword" and they're about to be married.
