Characters / The Simpsons - The Simpson Family

The Simpsons Main Character Index
Simpson Family (Homer Simpson, Bart Simpson) | The Simpsons Extended Family | Springfield Elementary School | Government, Judges and Lawyers, Police and Criminals | Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Springfield Shopkeepers | First Church of Springfield, Doctors, Celebrities | Friends and Neighbors, Families | Other Recurring Characters | Itchy & Scratchy Characters | One-time Characters

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General

Clockwise from the left: Lisa, Marge, Maggie, Homer, Bart, Santa's Little Helper, Snowball II.

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• Aerith and Bob: Homer and Bart are uncommon names, Lisa and Maggie are normal names, Marge is somewhere in the middle.
• All of the Other Reindeer: With the exception of Maggie, the immediate family is occasionally put down by their hometown, Springfield. This trope is usually put into effect due to Homer's blunders, Bart's mischief, or a series of events which brings out the town's general nastiness.
• All Work vs. All Play: Marge and Lisa are All Work while Homer and Bart are All Play. This gets lampshaded a couple of times.
• A Mistake Is Born: Some Depending on the Writer is in play here, but generally none of the three Simpson children were planned, something Marge and Homer make no attempt to hide from them.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: The family may argue a lot on even the pettiest things but they still love each other no matter what.
• Badass Family: All of them have their awesome moments but only a couple at a time are allowed to be badass together.
  • It's a bit of a Running Gag that Maggie is the most badass member of the family. She saved Homer's life on four separate occasions and was the one who shot Mr. Burns.
  • Strangely, Homer shows some elements of this, especially in the movie. In the main series, he's often got involved in car chases that required him to kick someone's ass.
  • Marge is regularly shown to be very physically gifted and a skilled fighter. She was once a police officer, a bodybuilder, and won an MMA match.
  • Lisa has her moments, most notably with the episode "Lisa on Ice". There's also the time that Lisa one-hit KO'd Bart in an MMA ring and she also connects a gloriously-animated punch on Bart in the movie.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: The Simpson women. Marge is feminine and nurturing (beauty), Lisa has genius IQ (brains), and Maggie despite being an infant is a guntotting mallet-wielding badass (brawn).
• Beware the Nice Ones: Lisa and Marge are the more courteous and caring of the family Depending on the Writer compared to Bart and Homer who are far more likely to act like complete jerks (they cause most of the conflict in the series as a matter of fact). But when Lisa and/or Marge are genuinely angry, they're actually rather terrifying.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Marge and Lisa have strong moral values and refuse to accept a gray area. Bart and Homer, on the other hand, are comfortable with breaking the law for their own amusements but will atone when they think they've crossed a line. This is best shown with Marge and Lisa's views on lying.
  • In "Reality Bites" Marge becomes a realtor and uses her morals to prevent people from buying a new house. Lionel Hutz explains that telling the truth has both good and bad consequences, only for Marge to go against the business and try to return the Flanders' money after they happily bought a new house from her. The reason why she wanted to return the money was that she lied about the house since it had a history with homicide, and she felt that she should have pointed it out sooner.
  • In "Lisa Gets An A" Lisa cheats on her literacy test and gets an A+++. Even though her cheating would benefit everyone in the school, she ultimately confesses her guilt from cheating and that the school was using funds they didn't earn. In "Diary Queen", Bart mistakenly believes that Krabapple had faith in him and the belief makes him behave better and perform better in school. When Lisa finds out the truth, she became racked with guilt even though the lie benefitted everyone.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Homer is usually the one to say "D'oh", but Marge, Bart, Lisa, Grampa and Mona have all said it too. The only family member who hasn't said it is Maggie, and that's only because she can't talk yet.
• A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family: With Bart, Lisa and Maggie.
• Brother–Sister Team: A great deal of episodes involve Bart & Lisa teaming up to foil some sort of evil plot, or at least getting involved in general hijinks.
• The Conscience: Both Lisa and Marge are the sources of moral guidance for Bart and Homer. Lisa often becomes the voice of logic when Bart and Homer are forced to deal with a situation that they may have caused or worsened.
• Dysfunctional Family: The obvious exemplar, we could be here all day with examples to back up their inclusion. However, even if the President wished Americans could be "more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons," they stay together, go to church together and eat dinner together every night, and they're ultimately closely-knit.
• Feuding Families: Due to the escalation of Sideshow Bob's vendetta against Bart to the point that he's dragged the rest of his own family, the Simpsons have become trapped in a one-sided feud against the Terwilligers where the latter engage in schemes to murder the former (which varies between simply Bart or the family at large).
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: Bart is a notorious prankster who relies on manipulation and stealth over combat (thief). Lisa's intelligence is held in high esteem by her family and educators (mage). Despite Maggie's infancy, she's shown to have a proficiency with firearms and was shown to be worryingly violent after she hit Homer with a mallet (fighter).
• Flanderization: All of their traits have been exaggerated over time, most notably Homer goes from an ignorant, short-tempered but loving father to an idiotic Jerkass Manchild and Lisa goes from a sweet, intelligent and well-behaved girl to a Little Miss Perfect Soapbox Sadie who is often Holier Than Thou.
• Flawless Token: The show is renowned for using this at its most intense form, with Marge, Lisa and Maggie often established as gifted, intelligent, and sensible people, while Homer and Bart usually act like immoral idiots who instigate the dilemma of each episode. The show's long run (along with Flanderization taking its toll) has led to numerous reversals and deconstructions (Lisa has gained an ego complex due to this trope, sometimes condescending and underestimating Bart and Homer, while Marge's sensible demeanor was exaggerated to the point she needs Homer for any impulsive drive), but the trope's formula is still easily the most consistent.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: During the show's runtime, there hasn't been much contact between Bart and Maggie, with them finally getting a subplot in "How Lisa Got Her Marge Back", in season 27. Justified as Maggie is a non-talking baby and spends most of her time around Marge, whereas Bart has stories elsewhere in Springfield. They also don't really interact in any future episodes either.
• Friendless Background: The female Simpsons, depending on the episode (justified with Maggie because she’s a baby). They are occasionally seen hanging out with other people (a few random classmates for Lisa or random local women for Marge) but they have no consistent friendships with other characters. Both Marge and Lisa explicitly say "I have no friends" several times and it sometimes becomes a plot point, like in "Pay Pal".
• Hollywood Genetics: Homer (had brown hair) and Marge (blue hair) have three blonde kids. None of the Bouviers are blonde, and Abe Simpson also had brown hair... One episode claims that Bart's natural hair color is red which makes it weirder. Downplayed when it comes to eye color. Different blink-and-you’ll-miss moments across the series reveal Homer and the kids have blue eyes, but Marge’s eyes are hazel. However, in regards to their eye colors, it is possible for a blue-eyed parent and a hazel-eyed parent to have blue-eyed children.
• Iconic Item: Homer has his doughnuts and cans of Duff Beer, Bart has his slingshot and skateboard, Lisa has her saxophone, and Maggie has her pacifier, leaving Marge as the only immediate family member without an item ironically associated with her.
• Jacob and Esau: All 3 children prefer Marge over Homer. While Bart prefers to go on adventures with Homer, he respects Marge far more due to Homer's treatment towards him. While Lisa loves her father, she finds it easier to talk to Marge and has more in common with her than Homer. Maggie prefers Marge due to Homer's negligence.
  Marge: Homer, we can't root for one child over the other. You wouldn't like it if the kids played favorites with us.
  Bart: Hey, Mom! Look at me, Mom!
  Lisa: Hi, Mom! Over here! Mom!
• Meaningful Name: Their surname "Simpson" was taken from the slang word "Simp" which means "A silly or foolish person". With that in mind, their surname is supposed to be interpreted as "Son of the foolish person". The Simpsons have a unique syndrome that only affects the males in the family, it's a degenerative condition that damages their brain cells and lowers their IQ.
• Never My Fault: They often refuse to take their share of the blame when something goes wrong.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Out of the Simpson children, Lisa is nice (the well-behaved girl), Bart is mean (disrespectful and proud of it), and Maggie is in-between (mostly a harmless baby but with a violent, dark side).
• Non-Standard Character Design: Their particular design and physical features are unique family traits and not used for any other character on the show (with rare exceptions), like Homer’s beard line, Marge's ridiculously tall Beehive Hairdo, or Bart, Lisa and Maggie's skin-coloured "hair" (they are supposedly blonde but every other blonde haired character in the show is drawn with more realistic hair).
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: They never age, and Bart and Lisa have been Elementary School children for 30+ years. This concept is parodied and lampshaded many times on the show. In the episode "Behind the Laughter", where in a "documentary" about the show featuring the cast as Animated Actors, Lisa complains about how she was forced to take anti-growth hormones in order to prolong the series.
• Nuclear Family: They are an archetypical nuclear family, with Homer's job at the power plant likely being a play on this very concept.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Averted, for Homer and Lisa. But played straight for Marge (Marjorie), Bart (Bartholomew) and Maggie (Margaret). This also the case to a degree for the extended family: Abe (Abraham), Patty (Patricia), Jackie (Jaqueline) and Herb (Herbert).
• Parents as People: Though both Homer and Marge are happy with their children, they do show vulnerability and problems that everyone faces.
  • Homer sometimes feels trapped because he and Marge had kids before they were at a secure point in their life. Homer had to give up his dreams to provide a steady income for his family. He lashes out at Bart because he doesn't know how to genuinely bond with him and can't find an activity they can share. He and Lisa have very little in common but both are trying to find common ground with each other, while Homer often forgets Maggie exists because of his work.
  • Marge has to project a very high moral standard for her children, for example; telling them that it's wrong to lie no matter how much it benefits everyone in the process. Like Homer, Marge had to give up her dreams so she can care for the children and sacrificed her personal life in the process. At the same; she had to prioritise Maggie which left her unprepared on how to quell Bart's behavior and how to bond with Lisa.
• Principles Zealot: Both Marge and Lisa have uncompromising moral principles and will often sacrifice the benefits of a bad decision, on the basis of morality. While the two have a strong moral fibre and are able to set an example for Bart and Homer, there are times where it was more beneficial to keep quiet about their misdeeds.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Impulsive Homer and practical joke artist Bart clearly form the Red Oni half of the Simpson household to pragmatic, tradition-worshipping Marge and bookworm Lisa's Blue Oni.
• Shared Family Quirks: Almost everyone who is either born to or marries into the Simpson family will inevitably say "D'oh" at some point. The only Simpson who hasn't said it is Maggie, and that's only because she can't talk yet.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Bart is a lazy delinquent while Lisa is a socially aware academic.
• Thicker Than Water: For all their bickering and dysfunction, it's made clear that they are incredibly loyal to each other. In "Lisa's Wedding", Lisa ends up calling off the titular wedding just before it was meant to happen because of how much her groom disrespects the rest of them.
  Hugh: You complain about them more than anyone.
  Lisa: That may be, but I still love them, and I don't think you understand that.
• The Three Faces of Adam: Bart is "The Hunter" because he's the young rebel who takes great risks to perform pranks. Homer is "The Lord" because he's the family breadwinner who lets his impulses cloud his judgement but has enough skills and resources to find employment or reemployment. Grampa is "The Prophet" because he's the oldest and he frequently tells wartime stories to anyone who listens.
• The Three Faces of Eve: Two variants,
  • Lisa is "the wife" because she's the smartest of the family and often provides counsel to the other members. Marge is "the seductress" because of her beauty and because of the number of men attracted to her. Maggie is "the child" because of her infancy.
  • Marge is "the wife" because she's calm, rational and capable of giving advice to others. While Lisa is "the seductress" because of the number of boys who've been attracted to her.
• Town Girls: Traditional housewife Marge is the Femme, intellectual Granola Girl Lisa is the Neither, and Maggie is portrayed as Butch in future episodes when she is older (dresses like a punker, is the leader of a rockband, etc.) and even in the present she has a violent streak and can use weapons.
• Tuckerization: All of the members of the Simpsons family are named after Matt Groening's family members, except Bart, which is an anagram of brat. Bart was originally going to be named Matt.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Due to their Non-Standard Character Design, they are quite weird-looking compared to all the other characters, but this is hardly ever noticed in-universe. Even in the episode where Lisa's hair is a plot point, she's treated like a generic blonde girl. Marge is also considered extremely beautiful, and nobody has a problem with her Beehive Hairdo. In the crossover episode with Futurama, Leela is one of few characters who notice that Marge's hair is strange.
• Women Are Wiser: The trope gets taken to its logical extreme in the episode "Lisa The Simpson", where Lisa discovers that even though all Simpsons start out intelligent, only the men have a genetic condition that causes them to gradually lose their intelligence as they age, ending up as bumbling, idiotic man-children working menial jobs, while the women keep their intelligence into adulthood and thus are all very successful.
• Youngest Child Wins: Due to Marge and Homer having children at such young ages, each child is overshadowed by the other. Bart was unwittingly supplanted by Lisa because Homer and Marge had to focus their time on her, while Lisa is eventually supplanted by Maggie because of her age and because of Bart's rebellious behaviour.

Homer Jay Simpson

"Lord help me, I'm just not that bright."

Voiced by: Dan Castellaneta

Debut: "Good Night"

Debut on The Simpsons: "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire"

The father, the dope, and more or less the main character of the show. Homer is overweight, almost completely bald, and rather selfish, short-tempered and stupid, but is a good person at heart and has a bright outlook on life.

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• For tropes related to him, see here.

Marjorie Jacqueline "Marge" Simpson (née Bouvier)

Hrrrm...

"You're about to learn the two most dangerous words in the English language are 'Marge Simpson'."

Voiced by: Julie Kavner ^{Other Languages}Jiří Lábus (Czech, Seasons 1 - Present), Véronique Augereau (European French), Béatrice Picard (Canadian French, Seasons 1-33), Chantal Baril (Seasons 33-present), Nancy McKenzie (Latin Spanish, Seasons 1-15), Marina Huerta (Latin Spanish, Seasons 16-31), Claudia Motta (Latin Spanish, Season 32-present)

Debut: "Good Night"
Debut on The Simpsons: "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire"

The mother and typically both The Straight Man and closer to earth, Marge is predominantly a homemaker, but does have her wilder side. Loving and supportive, her devotion to her family may be strained at times but is never broken.

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• Abusive Parents: Not the physical type like Homer can be but she’s shown in a few episodes to be emotionally abusive or standing in the sidelines when Homer strangles Bart.
• Action Mom: She despises violence but, somewhat ironically, is regularly shown to be very physically gifted and a skilled fighter. She was once a police officer, a bodybuilder, and won an MMA match.
• AM/FM Characterization: Her favorite singer is Tom Jones.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: While not as much as Homer, she tends to embarrass her kids especially Bart.
• Amusing Injuries: Her hair often gets destroyed in various creative ways.
• Antics-Enabling Wife: Marge is a classic example of this trope, often doing next to nothing to stop Homer's antics aside from glares and mild nagging while suffering in silence through the consequences.
• Aesop Amnesia: No matter how often she meddles in someone else's affairs and inevitably makes things worse because she's against it for whatever reason the episode gives her and learns she shouldn't do it, she keeps doing it anyway in later episodes.
• The Artifact: Apparently, the original reason for the giant beehive was that it hid rabbit ears. Eventually, the idea was scrapped.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: She's considered one of the most attractive women in Springfield, and is usually kind and well-intentioned. Compare her to her husband (a bald and overweight loser who is often a jerk) and both of Marge's sisters (who are unattractive, other than being rude and unpleasant people).
• Beehive Hairdo: Yes. Some flashbacks depict her as having had it since she was a baby, though the first full-episode flashback shows her only doing it like this for her high school prom.
• Belief Makes You Stupid: Despite her standing as the voice of reason and common sense to her husband's stupidity and impulsiveness, Marge has a tendency to let her religious views cloud her judgement, leading her to act as a narrow-minded fundamentalist at best or a self-righteous Moral Guardian at worst.
• Berserk Button: Any woman who displays an interest in Homer - even when it is purely platonic - will bring about her wrath. In "Friends and Family" Homer had to explain multiple times to Marge that Julia was just a friend but she still went absolutely ballistic.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Despite her conservative personality and general niceness, she's easily the scariest member of the Simpsons family when angered. You do not want to piss her off. Numerous focus episodes tend to show how vicious she can be. She shamed the entire population of Springfield because they drove Bart to suicide over a little league game. When driven past breaking point by Homer being an extra-strength jerkass, Marge finally loses her temper completely and attacks Ned with a broken bottle (Ned is stronger than he looks and admits he's having difficulty keeping Marge at bay, she did manage to stab him).
• Big "WHAT?!": Has a tendency to let these out whenever Homer says or does something insane. In other words, at least once every other episode.
• The Bore: Marge's incredibly bland taste in everything is a frequent source of humor. For example; looking for some adrenaline in her life, Marge decides to stop buying regular ham, and go instead for deviled ham. Contrast this with Homer's Renaissance Man qualities, music, language, etc. only some of which are played as one off jokes.
• But Not Too Foreign: Her and the entire Bouvier family's names and her thick curly hair indicate she might be of Creole ancestry.
• Character Catchphrase: "Hmmmmmm..." According to one of the DVD audio commentaries, the writers wanted to establish "I don't think that's a good idea" as her catchphrase in earlier seasons.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Any woman getting too close to Homer (even if they are genuinely just friends) will drive her insane. One of the main reasons she stays married to Homer is because she feels the need to possess him and have him dependent on her. After forgiving Lurleen, she threatens her with serious bodily harm if she comes near her husband again. Luckily for her, Homer is oblivious to all attraction other women have as Marge is the only woman he loves.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Definitely downplayed compared to Homer, but she still has moments that show her to be on the loopy side.
  Marge: Why don't you bring this potato? It's pretty big.
  Bart: Mom, you're always trying to give us potatoes. What is it with you?
  Marge: I just think they're neat.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: That said, she's typically the one who prevents Homer from doing anything too foolish.
• The Comically Serious: Noted for her rather dull and no-risk demeanor, occasionally getting dizzy thrills out of monotonous activities like household chores (she does desire excitement and diversity every once in a while however, which is revealed to be a partial reason she likes Homer).
• Covering Up Your Gray: "Secrets of a Successful Marriage" reveals that Marge has been "gray as a mule" since she was 17 and that she has been dying it to cover it up. This is expanded on in "The Blue and the Gray", where it's revealed that every time she has her hair dyed, she forgets that she has gray hair, thus making her horrified when she gets what she thinks is her first gray hair. She initially goes for a complete gray look, then goes back to dying it to help combat her jealousy issues.
• Covert Pervert: In some episodes, she does some perverse things including getting drunk. Also this line from when Homer was reading Kama Sutra.
  Homer: Hey, look, Marge, they took our idea.
  Marge: Ooooh.
• Daddy's Girl: This isn't very apparent, as said dad has very few appearances and isn't mentioned very often, but "Fear of Flying" seems to imply that Marge was close to her father. So finding out his Unmanly Secret was shocking to her.
• Determinator: Whenever Marge really wants something, she will stop at nothing to get it.
• Double Standard: In an early episode, she has several dates with a man who makes numerous explicit romantic overtures with her, and she only backs out from sleeping with him while she's driving to a rendezvous to do just that. In the very next episode, she finds a photo of Homer platonically dancing with a bellydancer at a stag party and acts like she cheated on him, to the point of yelling at him and throwing him out of his own house. Although part of it was because Homer lied repeatedly that there won't be a stripper, and Bart is the one that took photos of it and she thinks it will set a terrible precedent for him on how to treat women.
• Dude Magnet: Many men were attracted to her, like Moe, Mr. Burns, or her high school classmate who was still obsessed with her after 20 years.
• Education Mama: Especially with Bart, she even home-schools him for a period of time. It's Justified due to Bart being such a lazy and poor student and Marge being right to worry about his future. Notably, Bart shows more improvement when she homeschools him than he ever did at Springfield Elementary.
• Expressive Hair: Marge's hair being disheveled is usually a sign of her being upset or stressed. The Running Gag of characters getting advice and arguing with their brain goes up to eleven with Marge when her hair is the entity giving her advice.
• Extreme Doormat:
  • As Homer became more of a Jerkass, Marge appeared to be more and more of a doormat, forgiving him over and over again, not only for stupid accidents and acts of ignorance, but huge acts of genuine deceit. While Bart and Lisa weren't willing to put up with it in many cases, Marge overlooked almost everything he did. Finally addressed in the movie where Marge declares she has put up with Homer's jerkass nature and shenanigans long enough and decides to leave him. Homer spends the rest of the movie figuring out why Marge left him and what he can do to correct it. Some episodes show that this behavior came from how Patty and Selma treated her.
  • This isn't limited to just the family. In "Kill Gil: Volumes I & II", after feeling guilty about indirectly getting Mall Santa Gil fired, she allows him to move into the home, where he quickly and repeatedly takes advantage of their hospitality. Whereas Marge could have put her foot down at any point, her soft boundaries and his manipulation stops her. Once he finally leaves the home with a new job across the country, she buys him a summer home after getting him fired again.
• Fan Hater: In-universe example. When at her worst, Marge is willing to protest anything she despises because others like it, even outright admitting this in "The Great Wife Hope".
• Fanservice Pack: She was originally designed to look kind of dowdy, befitting an overworked housewife (hence the exaggerated Beehive Hairdo). But as Homer is expressly overweight and slovenly she came across quite a bit more attractive in comparison. A couple of episodes take advantage of this.
  • The main plot of the episode "Large Marge" is all about her accidentally gaining huge boobs (they were meant for Mayor Quimby's female intern). She in fact went into plastic surgery for light liposuction after developing some body image insecurities.
  • In some Halloween specials she is more busty than in regular episodes, especially when based on fanservice-heavy genres like Slasher films.
  • After getting mugged Marge started weight training and exercising regularly, developing a much more fit, athletic body compared to her normal softer figure. Then when she gets into competitive bodybuilding it becomes Fan Disservice, as her heavily muscled shoulders and arms looks unsettling in her traditional green dress.
• Feminine Women Can Cook:
  • Marge seems to buy into this quite a lot, as she does take a lot of joy in preparing household meals. But a long-running background joke is that Marge can be a pretty bland cook, once claiming that her secret ingredient was salt.
  • Though averted in one episode, where she apparently made bad sundaes.
    Marge: What's wrong with my sundaes?!
• Fictional Fan, Real Celebrity: Marge was a fan of Ringo Starr in particular when younger, making various paintings of him and even sending him one. When she was a kid, she was a big fan of Davy Jones, of The Monkees.
• Flanderization:
  • She went from being a loving, prepared, down-to-earth mother who lectured Bart whenever he was up to his old tricks to overprotecting him and being paranoid about his well-being.
  • Her somewhat no-nonsense personality was also Flanderized somewhat. In early episodes, she was merely wiser and something of a nag, though she did cut loose on several occasions. In later episodes she is extremely boring and un-impulsive by nature, getting hyped up by household chores and monotonous hobbies.
  • In the earlier episodes of the show, Marge was a very supportive mother and the family's voice of reason and moral authority when Lisa's personality was not yet fully developed (actually, Lisa's Soapbox Sadie tendencies were lifted from Marge). However, she was Not So Above It All at times (like in "Rosebud", where she lampshades it with a "Well, why can't I be greedy once in a while?"). In later episodes, her good parenting became an Informed Attribute due to her transformation into a Stepford Smiler ("Catch 'Em If You Can " is a good example) and she became more likely to join Homer and the rest of Springfield in whatever stupid shenanigans they were getting into in the episode.
  • It could be partly thanks to Homer's Flanderization into a gluttonous manchild, but Marge used to call Homer out on his behaviour. As Homer became more of a Jerkass, Marge became a Stepford Smiler who wanted their marriage to succeed no matter what crazy things he did. Then Homer became a greedy, selfish, lying alcoholic who endangered and abused his family. Since Marge chastising her husband every time he's stupid would get boring, she started by forgiving him impulsively at the end of every episode and now seems completely blind to his flaws. But Fox seems to have enough problems with showing Homer being locked out of the house for the night, let alone Marge filing for divorce, so by doing nothing, she's basically an enabler.
  • Her boringness. The first time Marge learned her husband and children thought she was no fun, in season 5, Marge was actually hurt and angered by this. In later years, Marge actively seeks the best ways to be duller than dishwater, and make other types of fun illegal.
• Foil: To Homer. While Homer is goofy, aggressive, and unintelligent, Marge is serious, calm, and rather smart. Typically she's the one who prevents Homer from doing anything too foolish.
• Former Teen Rebel: "Marge the Meanie" reveals that Marge was The Prankster at her middle school and that she, not Homer, is probably the source of Bart's love for mischief.
• Friendless Background: A fact made clear several times is that Marge has little to no actual friends, for a variety of reasons. One big reason is Homer himself, who it's implied has routinely (accidentally, mind) driven away anyone who might want to socialize with her. A secondary reason is due to being a card-carrying wet blanket, as shown at the beginning of "The Twisted World of Marge Simpson".
• The Friend Nobody Likes: In the times where she is shown to have friends they're either shown to be extremely judgmental of her for either her parenting style or marriage, or find her to be extremely dull and boring.
• The Fundamentalist: It's not overt, but Marge is incredibly intolerant when Lisa decides to convert to Buddhism, first saying she couldn't get dessert and later trying to bribe her with a (fake) pony on Christmas, and when Bart decides to become Catholic, she even kidnaps him from the Catholic School. Marge hates Catholics and thinks they are strange... despite being proud of and "knowledgeable" of her French heritage. France is a historically Catholic nation with the Christian population of France being overwhelmingly Catholic with over 13 million members, in comparison the Protestant population is only around 500,000. Likewise, she's outraged when Homer desires to forgo church in lieu of passively worshipping God from his couch, going as far as calling him wicked, or when he joins Bart in becoming Catholic. She eventually accepts her family's choices, as long as they perform lip-service at Church on Sunday. This is a really weird trait for her to have, as one episode showed that she hadn't even bothered to have her children baptised. Marge's moralizing is so infamous that the entire town knows about it. When the townspeople are debating whether to adopt legalized gambling, Mayor Quimby asks if there are any moral objections. Everybody in the room immediately turns towards Marge, who actually supports it.
• The Gambling Addict: In the episode where a casino is built in Springfield, Marge loses quite a fortune at the slots. Since then, her gambling is mostly under control, though it is mentioned every now and then.
  Comic Book Guy: Hey, I'm watching you!
• Green-Eyed Monster: In "Friends and Family", the prospect of Homer getting a new female best friend named Julia causes her to become irate with him and complain that if another woman is his best friend then that makes their marriage feel less important if Marge herself isn't his best friend. She of course comes around to her senses (but feels right being angry at him anyway).
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Marge tends to be oblivious to bad people such as bullies. However, as seen in "Sleeping with the Enemy", she does seem to be aware of Nelson's bullying as she asks him if he was the boy who beats up her son, suggesting that she is either naive towards bullying or is easily manipulated by the bullies.
• Good Parents: She is a very loving and caring mother who has a close bond with all her children. She has her issues and sometimes argues with Bart or Lisa, but her intentions are good, and is always willing to support her children and give them advice.
• Gossipy Hens: She does love her gossip. When Maggie's baby monitor picks up on phone calls, she becomes addicted to listening to it.
• Hairstyle Inertia: Zig Zagged. Depictions of her earlier years vary between her having the same Beehive Hairdo (sometimes shorter than it usually is) or a different style. Typically as a child she has a beehive while during her teen years she’s always shown with having her hair straight and worn down.
• Hammerspace Hair: Her total height including the hair is eight foot six. Her hairdo is strong enough to hold everything from Maggie to a beach umbrella to a jar full of money to a ten-pin bowling ball.
• Happily Married: For most of the show's run with Homer. Despite the many conflicts they get into, they'll always find their way out of it.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Occasionally, though she's normally more of a social drinker.
• Heroic Willpower: It's a common thing to have her resist mind control even when everyone around her has succumbed, as we've seen in "The Joy of Sect" and the first Treehouse of Horror.
• Hidden Depths: She is great at making sculptures and wanted to be a painter once.
• Hidden Eyes: In the aforementioned "Little Orphan Millie", to keep Homer guessing her eye color.
• Hikikomori: Spends a period like this in "The Strong Arms of the Ma". She eventually overcame this after using the weight-lifting set Homer bought from Rainier Wolfcastle.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Zigzagged. Marge is sometimes naive towards people or tend to let her fundamentals influence her better judgement, but she's still depicted as the Only Sane Man of the family. When Bart is told to make a Valentine's Day card for Nelson, she quickly tells him that Jesus told his followers to "love thy enemy", despite recognising Nelson's bullying history with Bart. When Bart was being hunted by Jimbo, Kearney and Dolph for having an affair with Jimbo's girlfriend Shauna, Marge genuinely believed that they were friends with Bart and told them to wait. She also unintentionally ruined the marriage of Otto and then girlfriend Becky by telling her to make an ultimatum by making him choose between her and his his music. He chooses the latter in a heartbeat despite Marge thinking that he would choose Becky out of love.
• Housewife: While she does have a few jobs over the show's run, she spends most of her time as a housewife.
• Hypocrite:
  • Begs Homer to get rid of his gun, claiming she doesn't want a gun in her house. After Homer gives it to her to dispose of, she keeps it for herself.
  • In episode 9 of the first season, Marge basically has an affair with a man she met while bowling, and only got a change of heart when driving off to a sexual rendezvous with him. The VERY NEXT EPISODE, Marge finds a photo of Homer dancing (with no sexual overtones) with a bellydancer at a stag party he went to (with her knowledge), and proceeds to treat him highly condescendingly, throw him out of his own house, and act like he cheated on her.
  • Doubly so with Homer's platonic relationship with Lurleen Lumpkin another hundred or so episodes later, where she is against him spending any time with Lurleen (despite him being her manager) and treats it like he is cheating on her.
  • She supports gay rights and is proud of Homer for marrying gay couples, but when her sister comes out of the closet she refuses to accept her sexuality.
  • On one episode, when Lisa gets asylum in Canada and she even admits that she prefers Canada over the US for several reasons, Marge calls her a traitor and even plans to drag her back to the States by any means necessary. In another episode, Marge wants the whole family to move to Denmark due to its lifestyle.
• I Can Change My Beloved: Marge did this with Homer, and insists it worked and that now he's a "whole new person", despite the evidence that he's still an often-inconsiderate slob. Lisa's response is to just pretend to agree with her.
• I Have No Son!: While she doesn't officially disown Bart nor kicks him out of the house, she either distanced herself from Bart, became so disappointed in Bart, or flat-out gave up on Bart at least four times. Three ("Marge Be Not Proud", "Bart the Mother" and "Peeping Mom") she had reason to (and in the first case was convinced it was for his own good), but one ("Love is a Many Splintered Thing") was for petty reasons.
• I Want Grandkids: In "The Burns and the Bees", when Marge is asked what her greatest fear is, she instantly replies, "Never being a grandmother". Another episode has Marge, who believes she is about to be executed, despairing that she wouldn't see her children grow up and start their own families, etc.
• Impossible Hourglass Figure: Inverted. In "Husbands and Knives", she got upset when she realises her hips were too wide and she had lost her "perfect" 26-26-26 figure.
• Impossibly-Low Neckline: Her regular dress. Once even lampshaded by a prison warden.
  Warden: NOTHING IS KEEPING UP HER DRESS! ONLY HER MELONS!!!
• Incredibly Lame Fun: Marge gets thrills out of monotonous activities such as household chores and evening walks (of which she tends to prefer the dullest route). The family actually tend to find doing Marge's ideas of fun more unbearable than Homer or Bart's troublemaking.
• Informed Attractiveness: Marge was not designed with the intention of being attractive, and is in fact described as plain or even homely looking multiple times early on. However, as the writers became more aware of the Perverse Sexual Lust parts of their fan base had for her (and the Generic Cuteness of the art style making her not much different than other attractive characters), they turned her into a Dude Magnet who is way out of Homer's league, despite not altering her design at all.
• Insistent Terminology: She always refers to intimate times with Homer as "snuggling."
• Intimate Marks: In "Homer to the Max", Marge says she has a tattoo of Homer's name on her "You know". Implying it's on her lower back, an intimate spot, or a private area.
• It's All About Me: A minor example, but Marge often makes efforts to prevent her family from doing things they like because it might embarrass her. Then again, the embarrassment ranges from dressing inappropriately or drinking at a party to hitting the Queen of England and angering Australia.
• I Want Grandkids: Her greatest fear is dying without grandchildren.
• Jerkass Ball: While she's normally the most down to earth of the family, she does act more insensitive than usual in a few episodes, especially "Regarding Margie".
• Karma Houdini: A combination of Double Standard and her status as the show's Designated Victim makes her this. She can be a Jerkass on the same level as Homer, but if her actions aren't ignored or played for laughs, her bad behavior is a sign that she's unappreciated or overworked. This includes things such as praying that Lisa's vegetarian diet makes her sick, tricking her into eating meat, and even trying to kill Homer because she had to take over his driving duties, and not once did she even show that she was the slightest bit sorry. There are episodes where Marge is clearly shown in the wrong, only for it to go through a Halfway Plot Switch so not only are her actions forgotten, she usually ends up getting exactly what wanted. Her abuse and neglect of Bart is also regularly ignored in favor of focusing on Homer's.
• The Killjoy: Depending on the Writer she can go from simply just being too cautious to do something to outright refusing to let anyone else enjoy something if she doesn't, and forcing everyone to go along with her. As early as season 5, the whole town knows that if anyone's going to have an objection to an idea that everyone else is onboard with, it'll probably be Marge.
• Knight Templar: Slips into this in some episodes when she goes too far to keep the family's life normal. A few episodes with the other family members questioning religion, for example, has her almost rival Ned in her zealotry.
• Laughing at Your Own Jokes: She does this occasionally. She gives her best one liners when no one's around.
• Leg Focus: When she and Homer get "frisky". This is explicitly mentioned by Lenny in one episode.
  Lenny: She's got legs from here to yah-yah!
• Letting Her Hair Down: Her motherly appearance comes primarily from her Beehive Hairdo making her look much older than she is. Whenever her hairstyle changes due to being wet, wearing a hat or otherwise trying a new look it is connected with her fanservice being ramped up.
• Limited Wardrobe: Her standard outfit is a strapless green dress with a pearl necklace. On some occasions she wears a green jacket when going out for the evening. When a thief came into town he removed her necklace, showing indentations in her skin. She later revealed to have a lot of replica pearl necklaces, each one being a family heirloom.
• Literal-Minded: Marge has shown multiple times to have a poor recognition of sarcasm and is sometimes literal-minded towards jokes.
  • For example, when Bart makes a joke about Homer's weight disrupting satellites, she still believes it to be true despite Homer telling her it was a joke.
  • Another example would be Marge becoming confused when Bart tells her that he was being sarcastic when he sarcastically clapped in celebration of Lisa's promotion to school president.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Her marriage to Homer is what stops him from crossing a line. Homer loves Marge so much that he's willing to let many people (such as Patty and Selma) speak to him with such cruelty and callousness. It's fair to say that without Marge's support in Homer's life, he would become a Villain Protagonist due to his abusive behavior towards Bart, alcoholism, negligence of Maggie and poor connection with Lisa despite his unconquerable love for all of his children.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Her possessiveness of Homer can lead her to become paranoid and a court actually finds her "insane". She suspects any woman who gets along well with Homer is actually trying to steal him away from her. She threatens to hurt Lurleen, is glad that Mindy lost her job, attempts to get rid of Julia (not the yandere one), and tries to kill Becky because she believes she is trying to take her place in the Simpson's family (although in the last case she was right). Marge can be downright terrifying.
• Lust Object: Marge has gained attention from a majority of male characters like Moe, Mr. Burns and a number of celebrities. It probably helps that she's a housewife with a beehive hairdo that regularly wears a strapless dress.
• Mama Bear: Any attack against her children, even though her son is a well-known troublemaker; Marge will go on the war path... even if you’re part of the 99 percent of Springfield. Don’t mess with the Simpson children in general. It also helps to know this same rules applies to Homer... most of the time.
• Marital Rape License: She overpowers and rapes Homer in "Strong Arms of the Ma", and it's Played for Laughs.
• Master of the Mixed Message: Marge is this to pretty much everyone. She presents herself as an overworked and under-appreciated housewife and mother despite repeatedly showing that she gets thrills out of monotonous activities such as household chores. She also becomes incredibly neurotic whenever she gets a chance to relax as seen in "Regarding Margie".
• Meaningful Name: The name Marjorie means "pearl", which shows how valuable she is to the family, and also why she values her antique heirloom pearl necklace so much.
• Moral Guardian: In her more insufferable moments, she forces her sense of morality onto others when she does not possess the authority to do so.
• Morality Pet: To Bart and Homer. Whenever Bart and/or Homer did something too far, they'll know when their actions upsets Marge.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy" has several moments showing Marge has an astounding body.
  • She becomes this in "Large Marge", in which she is accidentally given breast implants and becomes a model.
  • In "The Devil Wears Nada" after sexy pictures of her end up on a charity calendar.
  • Several of the Halloween specials have Fanservice scenes with her too.
  • In Real Life she appeared on Playboy posing semi-nude!
• Ms. Vice Girl: Marge is normally a loving wife and mother, but suffers from a gambling addiction, which can occasionally pop up every now and then. More commonly she is also something of a finicky wet blanket, often unwilling to break from her standard comfort zone, which can make her rather overbearing and humourless. It says something that as often as the kids feel more comfortable around Marge than Homer, they actually find the latter's antics more tolerable than her fussy moods.
• Mundane Object Amazement: Her dullness is often Played for Laughs. She gets excited over very mundane things, such as potatoes.
• Named by the Adaptation: It's easy to forget that she was unnamed in the Tracey Ullman shorts.
• Nervous Wreck: The antics of her family sometimes drive her to nervous breakdowns.
• Nice Girl: While she can be somewhat judgemental and narrow-minded from time to time, Marge is generally portrayed as being an incredibly loving and extremely patient mother and wife.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: She doesn't mean it, but she often scares the crap out of people around her.
• Not Me This Time: A non-villainous example. When the town tries to legalize gambling, Mayor Quimby asks if anyone objects, and everyone turns to look at Marge, who's okay with it.
• Not So Above It All: Will join in on some antics at times. For example, when Homer starts a food fight with the Flanders, Marge (along with Lisa) hesitates for a moment before joining in with the same glee as Homer and Bart. During "Rosebud", when the family are discussing what to do with Bobo, it's Marge who suggests extorting Mr. Burns, defensively asking "well, why can't I be greedy once in a while?" During "The Old Man and the Lisa", she actually manages to get two pretty solid burns in on Burns in the space of a minute.
• One True Love: "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer" reveals her to be Homer's soul mate, and there are more than enough episodes that show that they were made for each other.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: She's primarily called "Marge" by relatives and friends alike.
• Only Sane Woman: Most of the time. The straight man role is usually traded between her and Lisa.
• Parental Substitute: Marge has often become a replacement mother for characters who have either been abandoned by their own parents, live in poverty or live in a household that lacks parental love. Examples of this include Nelson Muntz ("Sleeping with the Enemy") and Dwight ("I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"). It's also due to her motherly personality that she is unknowingly able to convince Simon ("Double, Double, Boy in Trouble") to stay with them after his troublesome first day of pretending to be Bart.
• Parenting the Husband: To Homer.
  Announcer: Attention, Marge Simpson: your son has been arrested.
  Announcer: Attention, Marge Simpson: we've also arrested your older, balder, fatter son.
• Pink Is Erotic: While trying to seduce Homer, she's known to wear a pink nightie or a pink dressing gown. When she modeled for Maxim magazine, she posed seductively while wearing a pink bandana. When she modeled for playboy, she parodied one of their previous models by wearing a pink see-through nightie while carrying doughnuts.
• Progressively Prettier: Although Marge's appearance hasn't changed, how attractive she is stated to be has changed from housewife to centerfold. Also present in the original The Tracey Ullman Show shorts. Marge started out as quite dumpy, but quickly began slimming down.
• Properly Paranoid: While Homer was oblivious to Lurleen's love, Marge is right in that she wants to sleep with him.
• Same Clothes, Different Year: Certain depictions of her as a kid have her wear a dress similar to her present-day one. They even resemble Lisa's dress, only green.
• Series Continuity Error:
  • During the episode "The Blue and the Gray" Marge is shocked to see gray hairs in her blue hair, even though it was established seasons before that her natural hair is gray and that she dyes it blue. Her hairstylist explains that her blue hair dye causes partial memory damage.
  • "Fear of Flying" established that Marge has (or had) a fear of flying, yet in the earlier episode "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington", Marge got on a plane with no problems.
• Ship Tease:
  • With Ned Flanders sometimes, but it doesn't go anywhere because she loves Homer.
  • It's sometimes implied that she has a crush on Homer's friend Lenny, even if she rarely interacts with him.
• Show Some Leg: Marge once distracted Chief Wiggum by flashing her (temporarily surgically enhanced) breasts. Which Krusty referred to as "Mugumbos". Which happened to be the control word for Stampy the Elephant.
• Sleeps in the Nude: There were several episodes in the early Seasons where she is shown to be sleeping in the nude instead of her nightwear, such as in "Burns Verkaufen Der Kraftwerk", "Colonel Homer", and "Bart's Inner Child". And this is without first having or preparing to have sex. ^note Though she did end up doing so in "Colonel Homer", though she didn't know he was coming, so it still counts.
• Stacy's Mom: Several young characters, such as Nelson and Milhouse, have admitted to finding her attractive.
  Bart: My mom wears earrings. Do you think she's cool?
  Milhouse: No, I think she's hot! ...Sorry, it just slipped out...
• Stepford Smiler:
  • From very early on. Marge mentions in "Moaning Lisa" that her mother always told her to smile, otherwise people would judge her, though Marge couldn't bring herself to make Lisa do this. She frequently refuses to talk about subjects she doesn't like (such as one of her uncles going on a shooting spree). Her long-suppressed fear of flying is not helped by Marge's utter refusal to admit there actually is a problem, even when it's causing her to become increasingly neurotic.
  • More pronounced as of recent, although it's understandable considering Homer's increasing Jerkassness. Comes to the fore in The Simpsons Movie where she admits that she can't overlook Homer's jerkass qualities anymore and actually gets to the point where she decides to leave him. This immediately shakes Homer out of his jerkass bravado, making him realise what the hell he's done wrong and immediately begin to set about putting it right.
• Straight Man: Shares this role with Lisa, most of the time.
• Stronger Than They Look: She occasionally displays superhuman strength. She has been seen lifting Homer off the ground easily several times, including picking him up and throwing him through the bedroom door to show him that Moe taught her the bum's rush and swinging him around in a circle during a dance contest; she also once effortlessly tossed a motorcycle to Homer up a flight of stairs. She also knocked Snake out with a garbage can lid.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Looks the same as her mother when she was her age.
• Textile Work Is Feminine: Marge would often be seen sewing in the Tracey Ullman shorts, and would sometimes do it in the actual show.
• Thinks of Something Smart, Says Something Stupid: In "Simpsorama" (the Crossover with Futurama), Marge is introduced to Leela:
  Marge: [thinking] Oh, don't mention her eye. Don't mention her eye.
  Leela: [thinking] Don't mention her hair. Don't mention her hair.
  Marge: I (Eye)... am so pleased to meet you.
  Leela: Nice to be hair.
• Token Good Teammate: She's the only nice one of the Bouvier sisters. Patty and Selma are much more cynical than she is.
• Token Religious Teammate: She is easily the most religious member of the family, as the others would likely not go to church if it wasn't for her.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: While she was always prone to Not So Above It All moments, later seasons crank these up to a point where she plays the Only Sane Man much less regularly.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: From approximately season 20 onwards, Marge has been depicted as much more petty and manipulative over her family, alternating between trying to live out her dreams through Lisa and passive-aggressively guilt-tripping any family member who dares to be more successful than her into giving up said passion for her sake. She also verges towards being straight-up abusive towards Homer on occasion, even when he hasn't done anything, all while being pretty quick to contemplate cheating on him herself.
• Turn the Other Cheek: Marge often tries to forgive her wrongdoers and can sometimes be too forgiving. Her sisters, Patty and Selma, are the best examples of this as she always forgives them for bullying her in the past and trying to make her divorce Homer. With Sideshow Bob, it depends on the episode as she'll sometimes forgive him for trying to murder her son and other times, she'd jump to protect Bart from Bob.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Hot Wife to Homer's Ugly Guy. It does show that Homer was slimmer when they were dating, and early episodes has Homer bemoan his weight gain. The episode "The Italian Bob" even seems to reference it; when the end of the episode shows Marge and Homer taking a romantic gondola ride, the gondolier providing his services for the evening puts his own spin on the song That's Amore, much to Homer's annoyance.
  Gondolier: ♪When a wife looks like that and her husband's so fat, that's immoral!♪
• Unnamed Parent: In the Tracey Ullman shorts, Homer and Marge were credited as "Mr/Mrs Simpson" or "Mom/Dad". While Homer is referred to by his final name in the shorts themselves, Marge's name wouldn't be mentioned until the series itself.
• Useless Bystander Parent: She only ever offers token resistance when Homer abuses Bart; the most Marge does is acknowledge it's happening without actually doing anything to stop it.
• Vocal Dissonance: She's a tall and very beautiful woman in her 30s... with a raspy and croaky voice which makes her sound like she's in her 70s. This becomes more apparent after season 30, where Kavner's voice has grown even raspier with age, often making Marge sound like she's losing her voice.
• Vocal Evolution: Marge's voice has gotten increasingly gravellier and raspier as Julie Kavner has aged. By Season 30, Marge frequently sounds like she's losing her voice.
• The Voiceless: In the episode "Krusty Gets Kancelled". She also never spoke in any Butterfinger commercials.
• Wet Blanket Wife: Marge started off more as a Closer to Earth spouse for Homer, though she was eventually Flanderized into a more dull and neurotic character who tends to find the least enjoyable way of doing things the most acceptable. One episode lampshaded that Marge needs Homer's reckless antics for any excitement in her life, to the point where she ended up taking his place when a Jerkass Realization made him this trope instead.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: It was not until season 19 we find out the color of Marge’s eyes. They are hazel. Homer even wrote a song about her called “Beautiful Eyes.”
• Women Are Wiser: She takes this to the point of parody. Homer is the archetypical dimwitted sitcom husband who nearly always needs to learn a moral lesson in any given episode, which he is almost certain to forget by the next. Marge, on the other hand, is so down-to-earth that she is incredibly boring.
• What Does She See in Him?: Frequently asked exactly why she stays with an insane, boorish drunken clod like Homer. Usually she's able to give an answer.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Flying, due to finding out her father was a stewardess as a child (and also because she never addressed the shame this caused her). Granted, her toy plane spontaneously combusting and getting shot at by a plane at that cornfield probably didn't help, either.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Marge naively believes in the best in people and often puts her faith in love conquering all. For example, she believes everyone should be married or in a relationship despite Lisa telling her that some people prefer to be single or alone.

Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson

"I didn't do it. Nobody saw me do it. There's no way you can prove anything."

Voiced by: Nancy Cartwright

Debut: "Good Night"
Debut on The Simpsons: "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire"

The son and original protagonist of the show in its first couple seasons. Though the oldest child of the family, Bart is a self-professed hellion and mischief-making little punk, though not incapable of good things for the right reason.

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• For tropes related to him, see here.

Lisa Marie Simpson

I'll be in my room.

"Why do I get the feeling that one day I'll be describing this to a psychiatrist?"

Voiced by: Yeardley Smith ^{Other Languages}Helena Štáchová (Czech, Seasons 1 - 27), Ivana Korolová (Czech, Seasons 28 - Present), Aurélia Bruno (European French), Lisette Dufour (Canadian French), Patricia Acevedo (Latin Spanish, Seasons 1-15, 32-present), Nallely Solís (Latin Spanish, Seasons 16-31)

Debut: "Good Night"
Debut on The Simpsons: "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire"

The smart one and the middle child, Lisa is both a bookworm and something of the "hippie" of the family. Her intelligence, as seasons roll on, can sometimes make her into an annoying know-it-all. Has trouble fitting in with other kids her age.

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• Academic Alpha Bitch: She prides herself on her intelligence and always coming top of the class with straight 'A's. One episode has her world collapsing when she gets her very first B; another deals with an even brighter girl joining her class and Lisa's utter jealousy of her, and another when she skipped a grade and was no longer the big fish in a small pond.
• Academic Athlete: Although generally portrayed as unathletic and disinterested in sports, she has demonstrated considerable talent in certain athletic activities such as ice hockey, soccer, lacrosse, and even gymnastics. She was even interested in joining a football team (although she mainly did this to break the norm for her own sake) only to find out that there are already girls on the team.
• Affectionate Nickname: Her brother Bart often calls her "Lis".
• Age-Inappropriate Dress: She's an 8-year-old wearing a strapless dress and pearls. She even lampshades it in "Puffless"; her substitute teacher in "Black-Eyed, Please" questions her about it.
  Mrs. Cantwell: What eight-year-old wears pearls?
• Adorably Precocious Child: As sophisticated, intelligent, and worldly as Lisa may be at 8 years old, she has more growing up to do than she thinks, and so she is not above lapsing into childish behavior if the situation calls for it.
• All Girls Like Ponies:
  • On her Christmas list, she listed "pony" over and over again. She finally got one in Season 3, "Lisa's Pony".
  • The moment she's at a country club, complaining about the snobs, and sees someone riding a horse. The predictable happens.
  • In "She of Little Faith", her family attempted to bribe her into converting back to Presbylutheranism by presenting her with a pony (but which is really Milhouse and Ralph pretending).
• All Girls Want Bad Boys:
  • She had a crush on Nelson once, and he was her first kiss.
  • She's implied to have a crush on Jimbo Jones.
  • Parodied in one episode where she reveals her crush on a boy who works at the library. His "bad boy" behavior is pretty much limited to being annoyed at people who confuse the juvenile and young adult sections.
    Lisa: Ooooh... if only someone could tame him...
  • Later she only becomes interested in Dogged Nice Guy Milhouse when he acts like Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire and is mean to her.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Depending on the episode, when the writers want to evidence her "misunderstood outcast" status for the sake of the plot. In "Lisa Goes Gaga", she is voted the least popular student of the entire school.
• All Take and No Give: A major flaw of Lisa's is that she believes that all her interpersonal relationships should be based solely around her own desires and worldviews, while the other party doesn't get the same consideration. Unsurprisingly, this is one of the main reasons she's unpopular with her peers.
• Aloof Big Sister: Played Straight with Maggie but inverted with her older brother, Bart. Homer is very open with his favouritism towards Lisa, his negligence towards Maggie, and his disproval of Bart. As such, Lisa often outshines her brother and sister through her intelligence and sometimes feels threatened when her siblings starts showing signs of being better than her.
• Always Second Best:
  • To Allison in the episode "Lisa's Rival" where Allison was slightly better than Lisa at everything, mostly slightly more knowledgeable and better on the sax.
  • Lisa's voice actress Yeardley Smith even remarked about how often Lisa would enter a contest and end up in second place; two notable examples are "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington" and "Lisa the Beauty Queen". Also when she entered a cruciverbalism (crosswords) contest, she went to the finals and lost to Gil. In the spelling bee episode, she also loses to another kid in the finals.
• Always Someone Better:
  • She plays this to Bart, who she is often proved to be smarter and more gifted and capable than. It's revealed in a season 27 episode that Bart been upstaged by Lisa since he was 6 and his resentment of her stems from his inability to be better than her at anything. Even in her earlier brattier days in the shorts, a running gag had Bart constantly bested by Lisa (and sometimes even Maggie) in his pranks and showboating.
  • To Martin Prince, her school rival in Science Fair. Even if Martin's IQ is 216 (Lisa's IQ is 156 or 159), she is often stated to be the smartest person in Springfield above him.
• AM/FM Characterization: She's generally depicted as being a fan of Jazz and Blues (her saxophone playing is also one of the most memorable things about her character), with an exception in the episode "Panic on the Streets of Springfield" where she got really into an expy of Morrissey.
• Ambiguously Bi: While she does like boys and had different boyfriends throughout the series, later episodes seem to imply that she is lesbian or bisexual in the future, even if it's only a phase. In the couch gag of "Holidays of Future Passed", Lisa is seen with a girlfriend in one photo and two different girls in another. In "Mr. Lisa's Opus", Lisa's roommate seems to want to be "more than a friend", but we never learn if Lisa's interested. In the credits of "Mother and Child Reunion" when Lisa asked if any of the vision of the future is true, the oracle (Nate Silver) said, among other things, that Lisa will have 47% chance of a boyfriend and 72% chance of a girlfriend, Lisa is ecstatic about the odds (not at all bothered about the possibility of being a lesbian). In "No Loan Again, Naturally," when Bart misunderstands the phrase "family outing" and claims that Lisa is gay, she doesn't refute it, saying that it only makes sense she'd want to be gay as several of her idols are.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Bart usually finds her annoying, though it's more common for Bart to be the one annoying Lisa. Lisa is also able to antagonize her brother on purpose sometimes.
• Author Avatar: To creator Matt Groening concerning certain viewpoints of his.
• Badass Bookworm: Lisa is very intelligent and able to knock out her older brother.
• Badass Pacifist: She uses words, speeches, blackmail, and trickery to deal with her problems. Later, however, she becomes a lot more willing to resort to violence.
• Berserk Button: Whenever Lisa receives anything less than an A on her report cards, expect her to freak out.
• Big Brother Worship: As a toddler, she absolutely adored Bart, to the point that her first word was her brother's name. The "worship" part went away over time, though she still loves her brother.
• Book Smart: She is a hardworking bookworm who excels academically.
• Borrowed Catchphrase:
  • Like her mother and siblings, Lisa's said "D'oh" when she's frustrated or upset by something. She's borrowed some of her father's other catchphrases by imitating him drooling over his favorite foods with his tongue hanging out, and yelled "woo hoo!" when she succeeded at something.
  • In a couple of episodes from the earlier seasons, she sometimes borrows her mother's "Hmmmmmm...". In "Rosebud", she even says it along with Marge.
• Brain Bleach: In "Whiskey Business", Lisa seems to need some after seeing Moe in disturbingly tattered clothes. Thankfully, it looks like it's minimal:
  (Moe knocks at the door; Marge opens it and sees Moe in his ruined suit)
  Marge: Moe? What are you doing?
  Moe: Midge, uh, the suit got a little mussed up... But I gotta ask ya... Is it noticeable? (turns around and shows his butt)
  (Beat.)
  Marge: Thank God, the kids aren't here.
  Lisa: I was.
• Break the Cutie: Multiple times. One notable example is in "Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore" when Bart and Lisa form a close bond, before Bart ditches her for Milhouse, causing her to start crying.
• Bully Magnet: In the occasional episode where she is the target of bullying, has been the recipient of multiple reasons: because she is a nerd, because she doesn't follow the clique rules of other girl students, because she is not as pretty as the rest, because she's a blonde and the bully's initial assumption is that she is a Dumb Blonde, because she is a Soapbox Sadie and somebody got fed up with it... in one episode she even tries to discover what makes a bully constantly beat her up and she discovers that bullies are a Human Subspecies who have a natural drive to attack people who give off certain pheromones (like nerds).
• Bystander Syndrome: In "Postcards From the Wedge" Bart tries to avoid studying and doing homework by driving a wedge between Homer and Marge but resorts to destroying the school when Homer and Marge decide to neglect him so that they can preserve their marriage. Lisa knew about what Bart was doing from the beginning, but chose to do nothing rather than telling her parents about what Bart is doing. This example borders on Accomplice by Inaction.
• But Not Too Challenging: She often complains about the lack of educational challenges at school, but she doesn't take it well when she gets anything other than straight A's.
• Butt-Monkey: On occasion. Her family is a bunch of idiots (with the exception of Marge, although she is frequently Not So Above It All in later seasons) and she gets bullied fairly often for being a nerd.
• Character Catchphrase: Lisa didn't have a catchphrase since the beginning of the show until she said "If anyone wants me, I'll be in my room.", which is said in the end of the episode "Bart Gets Famous". Lisa also said this in "Lisa the Vegetarian", "Grift of the Magi", and "Dude, Where's My Ranch?". She also frequently yells out a shrill "MOOOOMMMM!!!" in response to Bart's antics or "DAAAAAD!!!" whenever Homer says or does something stupid. And, of course, there is "Meh."
• Characterization Marches On:
  • Throughout the Ullman Shorts, she is a disrespectful troublemaker and not particularly bright, much like her brother. The writers originally conceived her and Bart as something of an interchangeable duo of bratty kids designed to drive Homer and Marge crazy. As Bart became the rascally Breakout Character, however, the writers believed having Lisa as a female version of Bart seemed redundant, so they rewrote her as a brainy, yet socially awkward girl. However. season 1 has a mix of her two characterizations. While still a bit of troublemaker and generally plays along with Bart's antics, she is shown to be the more mature one between her and Bart
  • In the early episodes, she was a big fan of The Happy Little Elves while Bart preferred to watch Krusty the Klown and The Itchy and Scratchy Show (along with horror movies and, in the episode where Homer steals cable TV, X-rated movies). Later episodes either show both of them being childish, both of them being mature or, in a lot of cases, Bart being the childish one and Lisa being the more mature one.
  • Her artistic side arguably dates back the development of the show, since her saxophone solo is part of the opening credits. Another case of this would be her rebellion against her music teacher Mr. Largo. It's part of the opening credits, and is emphasized considerably in a couple early episodes. Later, not only did Lisa avoid conflict with her teachers to the point of becoming a grades-obsessed teacher's pet, but Mr. Largo has been Demoted to Extra (and in some cases, Put on a Bus).
  • Her attitude towards school evolved from being a teacher's pet (telling Janey that 'school is never pointless' in an early episode) to a more rebellious and disillusioned attitude towards teachers who don't return her enthusiasm for learning ('Do you remember when you lost passion for this job?' to multiple school staff in one episode). However, this is zig-zagged and often depends on the episode - she still behaves far better in class than Bart, and gets incredibly hung up on getting perfect grades. As a general rule, she wants to do well in school but is less of a sycophant towards authority figures than Martin Prince is.
  • Early episodes showed her being friends with other average girls in her class, liking ponies, and having small sleepovers at her house. The later episodes established her as a sad loner who is very disliked, constantly bullied for being "smart", a very uppity Granola Girl, and always trying to find friends outside her school and joins environmental groups and MENSA.
• The Chew Toy: She has been shown to get bullied a lot in episodes like "Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily", "Bye Bye Nerdie" and "Sleeping with The Enemy". She is also not safe from slapstick. She has been punched in the face at least twice (one of those times by a man), hit in the face multiple times with a basketball, strapped to an airplane propeller that was then turned on at full speed as part of a military academy hazing, and - probably her most humiliating moment - dared by Bart into drinking canal water from the "Little Land of Duff" ride in Duff Gardens which turned her into a hallucinating, naked "Lizard Queen".
• Child Prodigy: She's 8 years old and has a genius IQ.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Not as much as Marge, but she's usually this when she interacts with her Bumbling Dad Homer. She's also the voice of reason for other characters as well.
• The Chosen Wannabe: In "Gone Maggie Gone", Lisa believed she was part of a religious prophecy that would bring world peace, only to discover that the prophecy was about Maggie.
• The Conscience: Tries hard to be this for other people, both in the family and outside of the family, often calling out others on their behavior.
• Cunning Linguist: She speaks Italian, with the help of Milhouse. She also seems to understand and know Swedish to a certain degree, as seen when Professor Frink won the Nobel Prize in "Treehouse of Horror XIV", however, this is only a non-canon source.
• Cute Bookworm: She just loves books, libraries and reading.
• Cutting the Knot: Averted; Lisa often overthinks situations or she forgets how young and naive she is. In "The Girl Who Slept Too Little" she gets scared of a nearby cemetery and develops problems with sleep. She doesn't realise until the end of the episode that she could have just bought a nightlight or closed the curtains.
• Daddy's Girl: While her father is a complete idiot and often manages to embarrass her, she still loves him no matter what. "In Lisa's Wedding", she stops her own wedding because her British fiance was disgusted with her family (that, and he wasn't wearing her father's cufflinks. Which look like pigs.) Homer himself usually makes a bigger effort to support her compared to Bart or Maggie. He - not once, twice - sacrificed buying an air conditioner for his family to buy Lisa a new saxophone. And he sold his ride on the Duff Blimp to enter her in a beauty pageant when she was suffering from a lack of self-esteem. Several times, she comes to realize this and loves him back.
• Descent into Addiction: Whether it's second-hand smoke, calling the Corey hotline, expanding her mypod playlist or collecting pins, Lisa has an addictive personality and usually needs Bart or Homer's help to bail her out.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • Either she is the bright spot of the Simpson family and Springfield, or a self-righteous jerk who, despite her intelligence, can be as jerkish as the rest of the town.
  • Her emotional maturity and brilliance. She used to be the most mature and bright of the family, and while she had her flaws, she usually managed to learn from them. But as everyone got flanderized, she became quite a jackass and not as different from her family.
  • Though she is never popular, just how unpopular she is varies from episode to episode. In some episodes, she hangs out with Janey Powell and some of the other girls but in other episodes she says she has no friends with even Janey teasing her.
  • Her intelligence can range from her being a Child Prodigy (159 IQ, being part of MENSA, etc.) , having above-average intelligence for her age group (being a wise and intelligent kid, but with her flaws and defects), to only getting good grades because Springfield Elementary is a Sucky School with low standards (she struggles when she is moved to third grade).
  • Similarly, while they eventually settled on her being Buddhist, there was a time when Lisa could switch between a hard-nosed skeptic, Flanders v2.0, or a New Ager at the whim of the writing staff.
  • Her love for her family seems to vary as well, in some seasons she does love her family despite how much they embarrass her or make her feel like an outcast. Whereas, other times she's quick to abandon them for the greater good or for what she deems is a better life.
  • Whether or not she averts A Mistake Is Born: While Bart and Maggie were very much unplanned, the series flip flops over whether Marge and Homer actually intended to have her or if she was merely the only Surprise Pregnancy they were HAPPY about.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Lisa started out more or less as a Distaff Counterpart of Bart (though, unlike Bart, she had a smart side and felt like an outcast compared to the other students). In "Krusty Gets Busted", we get the first evidence of the smart Lisa that we all know, as she agrees to help Bart clear Krusty's name.
• Does Not Like Men: Downplayed. In See Homer Run, the school authorities believe that Lisa has a development disorder that will make her hate men for the rest of her life if Homer doesn't start acting like a father to her. While Lisa is known to be more aggressive to men, it's either because she and Homer have fallen out or it's because she's trying to prove herself to other feminists. When she's acting independently on her beliefs, Lisa believes women can take responsibility for themselves and the worst thing she'll say about men is that women can save themselves.
• Driven by Envy: It's common for Lisa to feel threatened when someone appears to be smarter than her. In "Smart & Smarter" she developed a one-sided rivalry with Maggie when the latter's IQ test stated that she was smarter than her. In "Lisa's Rival", she has Alison's project sabotaged by Bart because she felt outshined by her classmate.
• Dude Magnet: Despite being a social outcast and generally unpopular, multiple boys have had a crush on her, including Milhouse, Ralph, Nelson, and many One-Shot Character love interests.
• Easily Forgiven: Whenever Lisa does something morally wrong, she is often quickly forgiven by her family whereas whenever Bart and Homer do something wrong, they both suffer the consequences until they apologise.
• Enraged by Idiocy: Lisa is like this sometimes.
  Lisa: (to Homer) You, sir, are a baboon! BABOON, BABOON, BABOON!!!
• Even Nerds Have Standards: Lisa may be a classic nerd in a way but she has standards.
  • She can't stand pöpli.
  • She laughed at Bart for having a stamp collection.
  • She fakes having food poisoning to get out of Martin Prince's educational-themed birthday party in "Grade School Confidential".
• Family Theme Naming: With her paternal grandmother, Mona Simpson. Together, their names create "Mona Lisa".
• Fatal Flaw: Pride and self-righteousness.
  • Pride: Lisa champions herself as the smartest in the family and the source of morals, so when she thinks her position is threatened by someone smarter than she is or she falls into jealousy, she quickly tries to reassert herself by sabotaging her rivals.
    • In Girly Edition, Lisa feels threatened and jealous when Bart becomes a more respected news anchor than her and she orchestrates an ambush between Bart and Groundskeeper Willie as punishment.
    • In Lisa's Rival, she sabotages Allison's diorama because she felt Allison was usurping her and wanted to keep her position as the smartest kid in school.
  • Self-righteousness: If Lisa believes she's in the right then she'll assume that she knows better than everyone else and act on her beliefs, no matter how complex the situation actually is or how everyone benefits from the fault.
    • In Pranksta Rap, Lisa figures out Bart faked his kidnapping to attend a rap concert and shames Bart, Homer, and everyone else for knowingly going along with the lie because everyone benefitted from it (Wiggum gained a promotion, Kirk gets well-fed and has fangirls, Homer profits off of merchandise, and nobody got hurt from the lie).
    • In "Lisa Gets An A" Lisa cheats on her literacy test and gets an A+++. Even though her cheating would benefit everyone in the school, she ultimately confesses her guilt from cheating and that the school was using funds they didn't earn.
• First Kiss: A "Shut Up" Kiss from Nelson Muntz. Lampshaded.
• Flanderization:
  • She started out as a sweet-natured and well-behaved little girl^note Well, she started out as Bart in a dress in The Tracey Ullman Show shorts, but most of her brattiness faded quickly once The Simpsons became a show in its own right, with the main vestige of that part of her nature that was retained being her enjoyment of Bart's prank calls to Moe who acted as the family's voice of reason, alongside Marge. As seasons went by, she became Little Miss Perfect: her largest vice, her envy, was ramped up to the point she was unable to accept when someone in her family/friend group was better than her at any given activity. Her sardonic view of society as uncultured, phony, pandering, and lowest-common-denominator-focused became extreme intellectual superiority and being Holier Than Thou (as seen in "They Saved Lisa's Brain") and her quirkiness and nerdy interests became patronizing enthusiasm for the most pretentious of vocations (as seen in "Elementary School Musical" and "The Day The Earth Stood Cool"). She went from being a model child and the voice of reason (and therefore, Bart's contrast) to a stuck-up genius prude.
  • Lisa wasn't that brilliant or mature in the early episodes (for example, she believes in Santa Claus), but she was clearly quite an achiever for her age. However, over time, her intelligence was taken up to eleven, with her doing things like trigonometry while still in second grade and understanding fractions in a flashback to when she was three years old.
  • Every season progressively escalated her Soapbox Sadieness higher and higher. She started complaining about anything and everything that didn't meet such standards, her strong progressive streak became activist tendencies (as seen in "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy," when she protested against the Talking Malibu Stacy's misogynist phrases like "Thinking too much gives you wrinkles" and "My name is Stacy, but you can call me ((Wolf Whistle)), then full-out environmental and uber-liberal extremism (as seen in "Lisa the Vegetarian," "The Old Man and the Lisa," and "Lisa the Treehugger").
  • While she had some friends in the early seasons, including Janey, who was the closest she had to a best friend, the Lisa of later seasons has become a friendless outcast due to the Flanderizations mentioned above. This is especially true in the episode "Lisa Goes Gaga", where she is voted Springfield Elementary's least popular student.
• Flawless Token: She is female, well-behaved (for the most part) and intelligent, playing foil to Bart who's male, a bit of a jerk and Book Dumb (but Street Smart). There are occasional aversions to this (see above).
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Bart and Lisa are among the most extreme and well-known examples. Bart is a Book Dumb mischievous troublemaker (Foolish) while Lisa is very studious, well-behaved, and respectful (Responsible).
• Friendless Background: Glaringly enough Depending on the Writer. Some episodes have her spend time with one or a bunch of them, but then the next she's so incredibly neglected by her peers with the excuse she's too smart for them.
• Friend to All Living Things: Given her activism streak and environmental appreciation, it's no secret that she has a tendency to befriend animals, mammals, and even insects for an episode. This extends to one of the show's promotional images, which depicts her balancing a caterpillar on her finger. The whole reason she became a vegetarian was because she bonded with an adorable little lamb at a petting zoo.
• Funny Conception Story: "3 Scenes Plus a Tag From a Marriage" reveals she was conceived on the fire escape in Homer and Marge's first apartment.
• Generic Cuteness: She has some insecurities about her appearance and sometimes the other girls mock her for the same thing, but given the art style it is difficult to convey her as being any more or less attractive than the other girls on the show. Given the episodes that bring this up also discuss the issues with unrealistic beauty standards, it can be justified.
• Genius Burnout: She is academically gifted and has aspirations towards attending elite universities, but she is concerned about the Simpson gene that makes you get stupider over time. Flash Forward episodes waffle back and forth between her attending college in England, being President of the United States and married to Milhouse still living in Springfield. In "Future Drama" specifically, Bart accidentally messes up her college admission and makes things right so that she doesn't have to marry Milhouse.
• Genius Bruiser: As Clobber Girl, she keeps her genius intellect and gains Super-Strength.
• Go-Getter Girl: Lisa goes back and forth between being this and acting like a normal girl.
• Granola Girl: Starting in season seven's "Lisa the Vegetarian." She feels guilty about eating meat after bonding with a lamb at a petting zoo, which leads to her becoming first a vegetarian, and then an ecological activist over the series.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Lisa's main flaw is that she's quick to jealousy whenever she feels outshined or when she believes her title as the smartest kid in school is threatened. In "Smart and Smarter", she runs away from home because she felt outshined by Maggie. In "Jazzy and the Pussycats", she indirectly causes Bart's hand injury by adopting wild animals after Bart supplanted her dream as a jazz musician by becoming a drummer.
• Guile Heroine: She's extremely clever and perfectly able to outsmart and manipulate her enemies like Mr Burns.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She is blonde, and before Flanderization took over she was a very respectful and considerate person most of the time. Post-Flanderization, it's Depending on the Writer.
• Hated by All: Zig-zagged; A recurring theme with episodes based on Lisa running for leadership always ends with Lisa losing the vote because of her low popularity. In "The Kid Is All Right", Milhouse tells her some of the kids do agree with her ideas, they just don't like her. In her adulthood, Lisa is able to become president and is shown to be a reasonable, successful figure.
• Heel Realization: She has a tendency to be selfish about what she wants and judgmental about the intellectual quality of her family, but comes to realize how ungrateful she can be. In one episode she realized that while Homer sometimes takes her on outings she isn't that interested in, he still is trying to spend time with her. Likewise, Homer will take her to things she loves and he doesn't, while she acts embarrassed to be with him.
• Holier Than Thou: At times due to her Soapbox Sadie traits. The "a girl wants to play football" scene from Bart Star is a great example. She initially demands a place in the football team because it's male dominated. Ned welcomes her and points out that there are several girls already on the team. She loses interest, making it clear she was just pushing for affirmative action for the sake of it, and then tries to shame them for using balls she think are made out of pig skin to make herself look good, only to be told that their balls are synthetic and some of the money they pay for the balls is going to charity.
• Honor Before Reason: Lisa is willing to bend the rules, but only if she comes to that conclusion by herself. If someone tells her to lie, cheat, or even just conceal the truth, she will refuse, even if lying, cheating or concealing the truth would be to everyone's advantage. Part of being an 8 years old child and part flanderization.
• Hypocrite: More often than the other family members, Lisa tends to become this, changing her stance on a cause in the very same episode. She claims she wants to be challenged, but whenever she finds herself challenged becomes sulky and resentful.
  • A prime example of this would be "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson"; she spends much of the episode complaining how she feels "unchallenged" at school (and seems to look down on the other kids because of her "intellect"), she then sees military school as the way forward. However, when she is rejected by the boys and made to really be challenged (not just mentally but physically), she's completely incapable of living up to it. When Bart calls her out on this, she outright claims she wanted a challenge she knew she could do, not one she could actually fail at, which completely negates the concept of a challenge in the first place.
  • Once after she cheated to gain a perfect score in a test, the school was awarded extra funding to buy some basics. But even after she confessed to Skinner and he requested she keep quiet for the school's sake, she confessed to the School Inspector, which ultimately would sabotage her fellow students' learning - regardless, her conscience was wiped clean.
  • One episode has her buying gifts for her whole family to enjoy for Christmas, but rather than buy them gifts they'd actually want, she buys them the type of gifts that make her feel like a better person, so of course none of them like them. She becomes angry at their "ungratefulness", but thankfully Bart sees through her true intentions and soon calls her out on it; she quickly remedies it after though.
  • When Todd Flanders has a crisis in faith, Lisa gives him a thumbs up after he tells the First Church of Springfield congregation he doesn't believe in God anymore. Lisa then tries to convert Todd to Buddhism, and he calls her out on it.
  • She and the narrative treat Sherri and Terri in particular as awful jerks for shunning her for being different or only pretending to like her. However, she often thinks very little of them herself even when trying to approach them. She will also happily shun Ralph for being too different.
• I Can Change My Beloved:
  • In "Lisa's Date With Density", she falls for Nelson, gushing out how dark and mysterious he is and insisting that only she can change him. Subverted when Lisa comes to realize that she could never change Nelson.
  • In "Lucas", she inexplicably falls for a hopeless boy who wants to be a competitive eater (despite Bart's warning that he's just "Ralph Wiggum with a dream") and then thinks about changing him. Marge fears that Lisa goes out with him because he reminds her of her father.
• I Can't Dance: She can do jazz dancing (as seen in "Lisa the Beauty Queen"), but she's terrible at tap and ballet (as seen in "Last Tap Dance in Springfield" and "Smoke on the Daughter").
• Idiot Ball:
  • A surprising number of examples, like running up hundreds of dollars in charges to a 900 number, spending the time she should have been studying for a test playing a video game (and then cheating to pass it), and downloading $1,200 of music on her MyPod. Then there's "Lisa The Simpson", where she's led to believe that she's biologically predisposed to be like this (and finds out in the end that it's actually Bart's cross to bear).
  • Played for Laughs in "Bart of Darkness"; the Simpsons get a pool, and Lisa gains popularity among the kids of Springfield, causing her brain to leave her and Lisa to speak in a Simpleton Voice. Her brains come back when everyone leaves for Martin's pool on the other side of town.
• I Just Want to Be Special: She's a child academic with a bright future ahead of her and she sometimes feels like she's a victim of circumstance due to her family's poor income and lack of shared interests. She aspires to be around people who share her interests and she wants to be in a school where she feels challenged. She can be selfish about it sometimes but she wouldn't sacrifice someone else's wellbeing for her own benefit. As shown when she immediately quit an upper-class school after she found out that she only got into it because Marge offered to do their laundry in exchange for her enrollment.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: While in some episodes, she does have friends, she is sometimes portrayed as a lonely outcast Depending on the Writer and this trope provides the plot of several episodes.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: The show tries to portray her as this, although it's not always played straight (see Not So Above It All). She has utterly refused to watch stolen cable with the rest of the family and has generally remained the voice of reason in crisis situations. Though sometimes tempted into giving in, she mostly remains an example of hope for humanity. Matt Groening even admitted this symbolism during an interview, saying that she might be the only character who will eventually be able to escape Springfield.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Lisa Simpson’s Fatal Flaw is that she defines herself by being smarter then others and due to flanderization this aspect of her has only gotten worse throughout the years. Lisa has done things such as willingly staying a Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond, to completely alienating her fellow student (by being a Soapbox Sadie to those who don’t share her interest and an Insufferable Genius to those that do). At her worse, Lisa will flat out sabotage someone she considers her better out of jealousy. While she will usually feel sorry for her actions it’s only after she gets what she wants.
• Informed Deformity: On several occasions it has been stated that Lisa has a large backside, despite her body shape resembling most other Springfield kids.
• Informed Loner: She's supposed to be a lonely outsider. However, she occasionally hangs out with average girls of her class and has no problem getting along with her schoolmates, unless the plot wants her to be unpopular. And for all her unpopularity, many boys have shown interest in her, and she also gains popularity easily over the course of many storylines, often becoming praised and loved by many people.
• Innocent Prodigy: Usually rather level headed and one of the most intelligent people in Springfield. However her brattiness and childlike naive perks up many times, especially where her Sibling Rivalry with Bart is involved.
• Insufferable Genius: At her worst. She longs to be challenged, but at times it's clear she enjoys feeling smarter than her peers.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Played straight sometimes. In earlier seasons Lisa had a best friend called Janey and had quite a lot of friends, but they got pushed aside and forgotten. The latest episodes show some of those friends, Janey included, but they tend to push Lisa away whenever she shows her smarts.
• Introverted Cat Person: Aside from early seasons, Lisa is usually presented as a friendless loner. She has a fondness for cats and has owned several.
• It's All About Me:
  • Just like Bart, Lisa shows many signs of this trope. She defines herself by being better then others, to the point where many of her worst moments are more about proving that she's right than proving her point.
  • One example of this comes from the episode "Gone Abie Gone", Lisa gains $413,762 through gambling but loses the money. When Bart tells her that he was the user who won Lisa's money, Lisa immediately claimed ownership and thought that she would use the money to go to college and then use the rest of the money to live like a queen.
• Jerkass Ball: She's prone to this at times, usually when she tries to force her own personal beliefs on everyone else.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When Bart is sent to a juvenile prison Lisa reassures Marge by saying that it wasn't her fault that Bart ended up the way he did, and instead blames Homer for being a bad influence. While Lisa isn't wrong in the slightest that sort of argument could have easily ended with Homer and Marge divorcing each other, especially when Homer had no influence over Bart's choice to play the prank that landed him in prison.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Post-flanderization, she's settled into this. She's generally kindhearted and well-behaved, but has a nasty tendency to push her beliefs into other people's throats, change her point of view at the drop of a hat in order to look cool, and break down when she realizes someone in her family is better than her in a given activity. At the very least, however, she'll usually own up to her faults in the end.
• Karma Houdini:
  • In her earlier days, she was essentially a female Bart, but shrewder in her mischief, so had a much greater tendency to go unpunished than her brother. Allegedly, the creative team were stated to be dead against the suggestion of Homer violently disciplining Lisa in the same way he does Bart.
  • It happens occasionally in the later seasons. While in the early seasons if she ever went too far in being Academic Alpha Bitch she would receive some form of Laser-Guided Karma, later episodes would not only do away with this, but reward her.
  • Many episodes in the later seasons have treated Lisa’s actions as in the right, even when people are heavily injured or even killed by having a third party actually do the deed.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All:
  • The Trope Namer. Though Lisa is very smart and knows stuff people don't already know, Homer and Lisa's argument at the dinner table in "Lisa the Vegetarian" has Homer calling his daughter a "barbecue-wrecking, know-nothing, know-it-all". She does have a moment of this in "Money BART". When Lisa becomes the manager of Bart's baseball team, she claims that there have been several women managers and lists some off like Terry Francona and Connie Mack. Nelson tells her that all of her examples are men, much to Lisa's shock. At times, Lisa skirts this trope in the sense of having the knowledge and not knowing how it applies in a more practical sense.
  • Several episodes also highlight that for all her intelligence, she's actually not as smart as she might think. For example, in Bart Vs. Lisa Vs. The Third Grade, she aces a test and is bumped up to third grade. However, once she enters third grade, the environment is a little different and what they are taught is slightly more complex compared to second grade. One would think Lisa would have no issue with a minor change like this, but she completely crumbles and welcomes going back to being "a big fish in a small pond" simply to make herself feel like the smartest one in the room again.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: She's usually portrayed as the "nice one" of the Simpson kids and she's a big cat fan. She is the primary caretaker of Snowball II.
• Lady And A Scholar: She's a very intelligent child who is more well-spoken and philosophical than the other kids. Despite a few Insufferable Genius moments and her Sibling Rivalry with Bart, she is mostly polite, pleasant, and friendly to everyone.
• The Lancer: To Bart, whenever they take on Sideshow Bob.
• Lady Macbeth:
  • In "The Spy Who Learned Me", she helped Nelson gain a great physical condition, but didn't stop him from hurting innocent kids, only commenting that "He's hard on the nerds but easy on the eyes".
  • In "Dial 'N' for Nerder" she pressures Bart to prevent him from confessing about the murder and tried to offer herself as Nelson's girlfriend to prevent him from revealing her confession.
• Like Parent, Like Child: Lisa gets her morals from Marge. In some of the earlier episodes, she also has a tendency to say "Hmmmmmm..." like her.
• Like Parent, Unlike Child: Lisa and Homer share little in common.
• Limited Wardrobe: Always wears a red dress with pearls. In one episode she decides to trade her pearls to get a rare Olympic Games pin to complete a collection, which was a big deal as she considered it part of her identity.
• Little Miss Badass: She's a natural Guile Heroine despite her young age . And physically, Lisa one-hit KO'd Bart in an MMA ring and she also connects a gloriously-animated punch on Bart in the movie.
• Little Miss Snarker: Her snark is her defence mechanism amidst her dysfunctional family. She's the smart one and educated one among the uncultured and the others are boorish or stupid. Her mother alternates between being like the others or a sophisticated, artistic woman.
• Magic Skirt: Lisa's trademark red sundress; especially egregious as it's a dress with no waist, which should logically fall all the way down to her shoulders whenever she's upside down.
• Mature Younger Sibling: Lisa is much smarter and wiser than her ten-year-old brother Bart, often warning him against bad ideas and such forth. In fact, in "My Sister, My Sitter", when the parents are out, she babysits him rather than the other way around.
• Middle Child Syndrome: She often has trouble fitting in with her family, and they often have trouble understanding her. Several episodes explore this dynamic in detail.
• Morality Chain: Like Marge, Lisa often plays the conscience for the family and often becomes a morality pet for people outside of the family.
• Morality Pet: She's probably the only one of Homer's kids whom he makes a conscious effort to be a good father to. In addition, if anyone, even his wife, somehow hurts her in some way, he gets intensely angry. It is implied that Lisa was neglected by Homer as a baby, when Homer observes some old videos of him completely ignoring her early talents, he is driven to tears in guilt.
• Mouthy Kid: Her intelligent comments earn her the ire of the rest of Springfield's citizens.
• Ms. Exposition:
  Lisa: Dad! The flash [of the camera] must have scrambled [the robots'] circuits!
  Homer: What are you, the narrator?
  Lisa: Aah, just keep taking pictures.
• Ms. Imagination: Lisa occasionally drifts off into a fantasy world to avoid the grim reality of living life in Springfield.
• Ms. Vice Girl: Lisa is intellectually gifted, philosophical and compassionate, and all at the age of eight years old. Perhaps because of the awareness of her gifts however, she can sometimes be incredibly egomaniacal and self righteous, with an over insistence on being the center of attention and pushing her beliefs down others' throats, and often insensitively dismissing others as stupider or less significant than her.
• Nerds Love Tough Schoolwork: From time to time. In one episode the school has to shut down, and by the time Lisa gets home she is hysterical due to withdrawal. She immediately takes out an emergency kit she keeps under the couch, which contains a picture of Springfield Elementary and a tape recording of a teacher yelling at students.
• Nerdy Bully: Zig-zagged. Due to All of the Other Reindeer Lisa repeatedly flip flops from Bully Magnet to Academic Alpha Bitch Depending on the Writer.
• Nice Girl: Lisa is a nice and caring girl who usually tries to do the right thing and has a strong sense of morality, although in later seasons she becomes more rude and pushy about her beliefs.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Ironically, despite being the voice of reason, every time Homer gets into a position of power, once he takes advice from Lisa, it usually ends up meaning that things go horribly wrong and everyone jumps ship. Then again, the people working underneath Homer tend to be idiots who don't want things to change, the prime example being the Stonecutters.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Every time Lisa finds herself in a classroom setting other than Miss Hoover's second grade class and is actually challenged by the teachers and coursework, she doesn't get the A's she's used to.
• Not So Above It All:
  • Though often priding herself on her intelligence and maturity, she is still a kid and enjoys some of the same things as Bart (such as Itchy & Scratchy or prank-calling Moe). Even with Bart's pranks, if she's not the first to scold them, she's likely the first to laugh at them. And as noted above, she is not above bending the rules completely.
  • Later episodes show Lisa daydreaming about murdering Bart, and she was all too willing to cover up the assumed, if accidental, murder of Martin Prince to stay out of trouble. It looks as if she's not entirely immune to Springfield's corruption.
  • At the end of "Lisa The Simpson", Lisa loudly cheers with a "woo hoo!" that would have done Homer proud when she finally solves the kiddie puzzle that made her question if she was losing her intellect. She immediately corrects herself to say "splendid", but she's still enough of a Simpson to borrow several of her father's catchphrases.
• Onee-sama: She's Maggie's older sister and is a revered 8th grader for her high intellect.
• Only Sane Woman: She often finds herself thrust into the role of only sane girl. Quite often, when her family (or occasionally, the entire town) is caught up in some insane course of action, she's the one who points out how absurd things have become. Her comments are usually ignored. The straight man role is usually traded between Lisa and Marge. Sometimes Lisa is also caught up in the craziness, for example with the Movementarians.
• The Paragon: Lisa is good at appealing to the better nature of others and inspiring them to be better people, even if it's short-lived. Her vow to justice can be a flaw at times, as she often puts herself in charge to do the right thing or chooses to do the right thing, even if everyone suffers from it. For example, in "Lisa the Vegetarian" she ruins Homer's barbeque because she was the only one who saw meat-eating as evil. Examples of her charisma are when she inspires Sideshow Bob to stop his evil plans in "The Man Who Grew Too Much" and inspire Mr Burns to start recycling in "The Old Man and the Lisa".
• Ping Pong Naïveté: She switches between world-weary cynicism and childlike naiveté as the plot demands. In one instance, within seconds - she hurls a bucket of red paint at Krusty (who's wearing a coat made from some kind of animal skins), screams "Fur is murder!" then follows it with "When's the Krusty movie coming out?"
• Poor Communication Kills: Lisa often has trouble conveying her ambitions in a positive manner. In "Lisa Simpson, This Isn't Your Life", she decides to devote herself to her education after discovering Marge's childhood achievements before meeting Homer. She wanted to have a good future and improve her education, however, an offended Marge took this as "my mother is a failure because she chose to be a housewife".
• Proud to Be a Geek: Zigzagged. There are times where she doesn't feel that way and wants to be like everyone else, and others where she takes pride in her geekier aspects.
• Ridiculously Successful Future Self: She either becomes a successful businesswoman or the President of the United States when she grows up. Her personal life however is mixed, with a strained relationship with her husband and daughter.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Lisa rarely compromises with her principles and never takes a bribe.
• Secret-Keeper: "A Milhouse Divided" implies Lisa is Homer's confidant for stuff he doesn't want Marge to know (or at least that he thinks Marge doesn't know about).
  Homer: There's a lot of stuff she doesn't know about!
  Lisa: You mean like your poker shack in the swamp?
  Homer: Yuh-huh.
  Lisa: She knows.
• Signature Instrument: Her saxophone, of course. She's always seen playing it when she's feeling the blues or preparing for a gig. Interestingly, some of the background music involving her scenes will occasionally play a sax, even when her sax is not present.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Lisa is the schools outcast and takes pride in this and maintaining her intelligence which causes her to become envious and jealous towards anyone who outsmarts her.
• The Smart Girl: The smartest one in the family, and easily one of the smartest people in Springfield.
• Snap Back: Averted in "Lisa the Vegetarian." Originally, the writers wanted it to be a one-time, What If? thing and go back to normal the next episode. However, Paul McCartney (the episode's guest star), when originally asked to appear, would only appear if he was assured that the change would be permanent. Also averted in "Sleeping With the Enemy" when Lisa tells Homer that she still feels insecure about her body and she's not going to go back to acting like she's not. However, later episodes never again mention Lisa and her eating disorder.
• Soapbox Sadie: Became one of the most infamous examples after Flanderization.
  • In the "Bart Star" episode, her soapbox was deflated, as she tried to join the pee-wee football team. "That's right, a girl wants to join the team." After it was revealed that there were four girls already on the team, she tries to raise a fuss about the fact that footballs are made from pigskin. She then learns that the balls are synthetic and with each purchase, money is donated to Amnesty International. Unable to cope with not being on the moral high ground, she runs off crying.
  • Lisa also has a habit of jumping on a soapbox for boys - though she already has views on the subject she will amp them up to get boys to notice her.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: In "Mr. Lisa's Opus", when she's telling her dormmate her skills, she mentions that she speaks fluent cat, then makes subtitled cat noises.
• The Stool Pigeon:
  • She's pretty much this constantly, with many many plots throughout the seasons (as an example, "Lisa Gets an "A"") revolving about someone building a lie (and sometimes the plot showing that the lie is the better thing for everybody (even Lisa herself) and everybody saying so) and Lisa trying to tell the truth regardless. She thinks of herself as a Concerned Claire-type (in that she says it's the legal/moral thing to do), but what type she really is depends on the plot at hand (at least sometimes shows to be doing it out of some desire to thumb her nose up at the liar).
  • "Bart the Daredevil": Despite trying to convince Bart the dangers of daredevil stunts, Lance Murdock is instead impressed by Bart's interest in it, which causes Lisa to tell Homer about it, fearing that he may get hurt or die despite getting the most attention.
  • "Mypods and Boomsticks": She squeals on Bart after pulling a prank on Steve Mobbs and the rest of the consumers and employees.
• Straight Man: Lisa has the thankless task of playing foil to her entire town. In the early days she and Bart were a classic Straight Man and Wise Guy combo, and while this is still true, she often finds herself playing straight to almost everyone else in Springfield. Luckily, she is usually excellent at it. Occasionally, especially in later seasons, Lisa's more extreme personality traits will come to the fore and she gets to have someone else play off her for a change.
• Straw Feminist: Depends on the episode:
  • While Lisa is normally passive in her beliefs as she speaks of the achievements of women and voices her support for leading feminists. There are a few times when she's gotten unfairly irritated toward men (Homer in particular) and in one episode, she expresses disappointment toward her mother for choosing to forgo her education after meeting Homer.
    Lisa: Dad, put aside your selfish male ego and tell the truth!
  • Especially played straight in "Bart Star" where her feminism is Played for Laughs and only serves to make her look foolish in one scene. She smugly declares she wants to join the football team as a You Go, Girl! ("That's right. A girl wants to play football. How about that?") but after it's revealed that are already four girls on the team, she loses interest and claims that football is not her thing anyway.
• Surrounded by Idiots: She actually once voiced that she lives in a town of idiots in an issue of the comic.
• Token Good Teammate: She was the only member of the family who wanted to give Bobo to Burns without getting any money.
• Teacher's Pet: Her ego is often a result of her parents and school teachers putting her on a pedestal because of her intelligence and morals.
• Telepathy: She reads a worm's mind in "Lisa the Vegetarian". However, it is likely Psychological Projection, as the worm thinks exactly what she would imagine the worm to think, in exactly the bleating voice the lamb she ate for dinner used when pleading not to be eaten in the previous evening's Imagine Spot.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: In most Future Episodes, Maggie is usually a tough, laid-back tomboy and Lisa is usually a prim and proper girly girl.
• Too Clever by Half: In the first "Treehouse of Horror", Kang and Kodos abduct them in their flying saucer to live in luxury. Lisa snoops around the ship and finds a book titled "How to Cook Humans". Offended at the notion, the aliens blow some dust off the book's cover revealing the title to be "How to Cook For Humans". To which Lisa points out that there is still dust on the book, with the title now "How to Cook Forty Humans". Kang then demonstrate that there is yet still more dust on the book's cover, finally revealing the book's full title "How to Cook For Forty Humans" (the Simpsons were gluttons).
  Marge: Now you know what we mean when we say you're too smart for your own good?
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Zigzagged. An unfortunate aspect of Lisa's Character Development over the seasons was her growing not only more "saintly", but also becoming full of herself, rude towards those she considered less than her, and pushy about her beliefs. Later seasons have mostly fixed this by having Lisa focus on self-improvement and making friends instead of political activism.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Despite being a vegetarian, she really loves shrimp.
• TV Genius: Zigzagged. Lisa does at very least have Insufferable Genius qualities and on occasion is rather blindly obnoxious and self serving in her ethics, to the point of being a Soapbox Sadie. These flaws obviously became less significant as the rest of the cast was Flanderized excessively but her shortcomings still show on occasion. While she sometimes has problems with Intelligence Equals Isolation, she's actually one of the most well-adjusted characters on the show. Her level of knowledge is totally implausible for an eight-year-old, but it depends entirely on Rule of Funny.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: What she'll grow up to be, as seen in episodes taking place in the future.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: With Milhouse in some possible future. He grows up to be balding with a gut and Lisa grows up beautifully in episodes like "Holidays of Future Passed."
• Unbuilt Trope: By way of Characterization Marches On, her earlier depictions as a Child Prodigy show that, for as much of a prodigy as she may be, she's still a child with a limited understanding of the world. "Lisa's Pony" is a good example of this, where she indulges in her newfound hobby before realizing that Homer is working himself to exhaustion to support it. Also her activism is driven by a tortured conscience.
• Unknown Rival:
  • Lisa fears and hates Sideshow Bob as much as Bart and has outgambitted him just as often. Despite this, Bob's psychotic vendetta sticks with just Bart (and sometimes Krusty and rakes on the side), even lampshading that he is utterly apathetic towards Lisa.
  • Turned around in one of the comics, where Cecil dedicates himself to ruining Lisa even though they'd had no prior interaction, simply because they were the less favored sibling.
• Virgin in a White Dress: In a Flash Forward episode where we see Lisa's wedding, she and Marge briefly discuss this as they are a church-going family.
  Lisa: Mom, I feel kind of funny wearing white. I mean... Milhouse.
  Marge: [dismissive] Oh, Milhouse doesn't count.
• Virtuous Vegetarianism: Lisa is both the most intelligent and idealistic member of the cast and has converted to vegetarianism. Originally her conversion was to teach An Aesop about accepting the differences of others, but since learning her lesson it's remained a part of her character ^note largely due to Paul McCartney, who guest starred in the episode as a vegetarian icon, stipulating that he would only appear if Lisa remained vegetarian going forward.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Being the Only Sane Woman and Child Prodigy genius she is, Lisa plays the Serious Child role to her Wacky Parent of a Bumbling Dad Homer.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Lisa will often resort to extreme methods for ideals and her methods are examined in some episodes.
  • In "Lisa the Vegetarian", she ruins Homer's barbeque because she was the only one who didn't like the idea of eating a roast pig. While Lisa believes herself to be in the right, her fellow vegetarians actually call her out on this. Rather than convince people to join her vegetarianism, she inspired the anti-vegetarian backlash since they didn't understand why she was so offended about a roast pig and she didn't explain why eating meat is wrong.
  • In "The Simpsons Game", she and Bart destroy a logging camp because she believed they should save the trees. However, once the pair do destroy the camp, they are confronted by a pair of loggers who are now out of work since they now lack the means to provide for their families and don't have the skills to find other means of work.
• White Sheep: Sometimes she's portrayed like this and is seen as Token Good Teammate of the family. In "Lisa's Wedding" her (future) boyfriend Hugh tells her "You're like a flower that grew out of a pot of dirt". She doesn't take it well.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Lisa was this in earlier seasons. She followed her ideals the best she could but the rest of Springfield either didn't understand her ideals or didn't want to conform to them. Her vegetarianism is the best example of this, she became a vegetarian because she became horrified and guilt-ridden for eating meat after playing with a lamb. She tried to convert her family, school and friends but they couldn't understand. She became aggressive with her views but eventually calmed down after Apu, Paul and Linda McCartney taught her that aggression won't get people to understand her views but patiently influencing them will slowly get them to understand her viewpoint.
• Wise Beyond Her Years: In fact, one episode had Mayor Quimby surprised that she's a child, saying that he always thought she was a midget—Lisa explains that she isn't and that the preferred term is "little person." When she was two, she was as articulate as any person, with only a few grammar errors. Believe it or not, this is actually Truth in Television- some two-year-olds can have conversations with you.
• Women Are Wiser: Compared to Bart, although they play this trope to a much lesser extent than their parents. Lisa is certainly much more intelligent and mature than Bart, but Bart is the more socially adept of the two, and isn't nearly as dumb as his father.
• Worthy Opponent: After thwarting scheme after scheme with her ingenuity and sharp wit, Lisa has earned Sideshow Bob's respect as a worthy adversary.
• You're Not My Mother: "You're Not My Mother and Father". She did this to both of her parents when they really upset her (to Homer in "Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words", and to Marge in "How Lisa Got Her Marge Back").
• Your Tradition Is Not Mine: Lisa only inherits her morals from her mother. Other than that, she's different to her family in many ways. Unlike her family, Lisa is a vegetarian, a bookworm and a Buddhist.

Margaret Evelyn "Maggie" Simpson

*sucks pacifier*

Voiced by: Carol Kane^*uncredited, Elizabeth Taylor, Nancy Cartwright, Russi Taylor, James Earl Jones, Jodie Foster^*on different (generally non-canon) occasions

Debut: "Good Night"
Debut on The Simpsons: "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire"

The youngest of the children. Typically a marginal figure, but she does get her share of scenes.

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• Adorably Precocious Child: Sometimes she is overly attached to Marge, but one episode based on trying to make her more independent worked TOO well, and she was able to watch her favorite shows and get snacks all by herself.
• Advertised Extra: As part of the main family, she appears in promotional illustrations and is featured prominently in the opening, however most of the time she is just a mute toddler who serves as a Living Prop to the point that the others (especially Homer) often forget about her existence. It can be argued that the show has four main characters instead of five (in contrast with Family Guy, where the baby is one of the most prominent protagonists).
• Anti-Hero: As demonstrated with her competence with firearms and the ending to "Master and Cadaver" where she channels Alex DeLarge.
• Arch-Enemy: Maggie's is Gerald, the baby with one eyebrow. The updated intro includes a brief scene where she and Gerald shake their fists at each other in the grocery store.
• Baby Fever Trigger: She inspired both the Nahasapeemapetilons and the Albertsons (though Comic Book Guy himself took some convincing from Kumiko) to try for kids.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Maggie is the youngest child and the youngest Simpson family member.
• Badass Adorable: She's saved Homer's life on four separate occasions and Moe's life on another, stopped a mob fight with only her innocent smile, and was the one who shot Mr. Burns.
• Berserk Button: Losing her pacifier. Often she'll cry, but "Crook and Ladder" from Season 18 shows that she will rampage if she's forcibly separated from her pacifier.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Despite being a quiet Cute Mute toddler, she has taken down a gang of mobsters, saved Homer from drowning, threatened to shank Mister Teeny with a broken bottle in the movie, and then later saved Homer and Bart from the head of the EPA when he was about to kill them. In one of the Treehouse of Horror episodes, she unleashes her pent-up rage and brains Marge with a shovel because she's sick of being read "Goodnight Moon". She isn't above hurting people when she needs to.
• Big Brother Worship: She seems to get along with Bart pretty well and likes to spend time with him. In "O Brother, Where Bart Thou", Maggie is excited to see him, and she is playful with him in the final moments of "The Yellow Badge Of Cowardge".
• Brainy Baby: Numerous episodes have implied that she's very smart for her age. She may be more intelligent than the rest of the family. Yes, even Lisa, as demonstrated when one-year-old Maggie effortlessly plays her sax and outperforms her by eight points on an IQ test. But when Bart, Homer, and Marge nearly die later in the same episode, she confuses the button she must push to save them and needs Lisa to bail her out. It transpires that Lisa subconsciously helped her sister on the spot because she wanted her to do well. The episode still implies after this that she might still be really clever, as she's seen effortlessly playing the saxophone without any help, which causes Lisa to panic again.
• Cain and Abel and Seth: Since Maggie is just an infant and under Marge's constant care, Bart and Lisa are able to take the spotlight from her and have their own adventures. Homer is often so preoccupied with work and drinking that he often forgets that Maggie even exists.
• Character Tic: She frequently trips over her onesie.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Most future episodes had Maggie being in a relationship with baby Gerald.
• The Chosen One: In "Gone Maggie Gone", she's revealed to be the gem child that is prophesied to bring peace to the world. Marge takes her from the throne due to parental instincts, but feels guilty and selfish for disrupting the prophecy.
• Creepy Child: On occasion, she'll dip into this territory, for example when she hit Homer with a mallet after watching The Itchy and Scratchy Show.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: In earlier seasons, Maggie tended to fall whenever she walked, likely because she hadn't completely mastered walking yet.
• Cute Mute: A series-long Running Gag is that she never speaks, at least not when anyone can hear her. Even in "Holidays of Future Passed", where she’s a famous lead singer in a rock band, she's forbidden from speaking due to being pregnant, as apparently the vocal cords and the umbilical cords have been proven to be connected.
• The Cutie: She's adorable and innocent (usually). Justified, since she's just a baby.
• Daddy's Girl: Maggie's first spoken word throughout the series was "daddy". "And Maggie Makes Three" was very sweet when Homer was worried about having a third baby in the family, but the minute he saw her, she won his heart. Even more so since Maggie's been the only one who called him "daddy" as a baby instead of "Homer". In a future episode where Maggie has grown to be a teenager, she has a picture of herself with Homer above her bed.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • The shorts The Longest Daycare and Playdate With Destiny were shown in theatres before Ice Age: Continental Drift and Onward, respectively. They're perhaps the only pieces of Simpsons media that focus exclusively on Maggie. In The Longest Daycare, Marge only appears at the start and the end to drop off and pick up Maggie, Baby Gerald is the villain, and all the other characters are nameless background babies. In Playdate With Destiny, Homer and Marge have no bigger purpose than to bring Maggie to the playground (or not, in Homer's case), and new character Hudson is a romantic co-lead.
  • There were also two Tracey Ullman sketches (one of which was a two-parter) involving her wandering off when Bart and Lisa were neglectful in babysitting her.
  • "And Maggie Makes Three" and the second half of "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder" more or less focus on her (or rather, the father-daughter relationship between herself and Homer, who constantly neglects and forgets her existence, despite that he has her baby photos at work collaged around the "Don't Forget: You're Here Forever" demotivational plaque so that it reads, "Do It For Her").
  • "Moe Baby Blues" focuses on her relationship and adventures with Moe after he becomes her babysitter.
  • There were a couple of picture books released in the '90s starring her, and aimed at a much younger audience than the show itself.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Design-wise she is indistinguishable from Lisa as a baby. In episodes set in the future, Lisa's hairstyle tends to be more curly while Maggie grows out her hair.
• The Dividual: With Marge. Marge and Maggie are always together (mainly due to parental aspect as well as Homer's incompetency) and are often treated as one character.
  • In "Treehouse of Horror X", when Marge is immediately chosen as Lisa's +1 for the escape trip to Mars, Maggie is taken with her without question.
  • When Marge is playing Pictionary with Maggie, she is the only one to understand Maggie and win the game against Patty and Selma.
• Enfant Terrible: On some occasions, her behaviour is rather cruel for her age.
• Facepalm: Will occasionally react this way whenever Homer and Marge get into trivial disputes.
• Felony Misdemeanor:
  • In "At Long Last Leave", when Mayor Quimby cites that the family drove Springfield into bankruptcy due to their trademark antics, Maggie's fault was due to never crying once.
  • Like with the rest of her family, Sideshow Bob wants to kill Maggie just for being a Simpson.
• Flat Character: Despite certain episodes at least giving her some notable moments among viewers and to give her some form of personality (whereas every other Simpson family member has grown for better or worse over the years), she remains a voiceless baby whose primary goal is to be a Living Emotional Crutch to her overprotective mother or someone to be rescued by a more developed character. Even episodes that attempt to give her some personality still end with the focus being put back onto one of the Simpsons.
• Friendly Sniper: She certainly knows her way around firearms and it's saved her family members on more than one occasion.
• Friend to All Living Things: She seems to love people and animals a whole lot; Mr. Burns and Sideshow Bob are the only exceptions to the people she's willing to befriend.
• Friend to Bugs: In "The Longest Daycare", she goes to amazing lengths to protect a butterfly she befriended.
• Good Is Not Soft: Sure, there's "The Longest Daycare", but at the same time it is implied that she deliberately shot Mr. Burns.
• Greater Need Than Mine: She chooses to return Mr. Burns' teddy bear Bobo back to him after she saw how much he loved it. This makes perfect sense considering that Homer had also chosen Maggie's happiness over his own when he told Mr. Burns that he was going to let her keep the bear earlier in the episode.
• Heavy Sleeper: She's a baby, after all.
• Improbable Infant Survival: For the most part, especially being a baby. Maggie has shown to survive and evade situations that any character of an older age within the series would otherwise not be as lucky in. An excellent instance is in the episode "The Call of the Simpsons", though there are a few other similar instances.
• Informed Ability: In future episodes she’s been stated to be an exceptional singer and even becomes a famous rock star. The audience never hears her speak, let alone hear a note.
• It Runs in the Family: Her skills with weapons and aggressive traits may have been influenced by Bart and Homer, as they're both notable in terms of trouble making (another example of this is when Homer helps a woman raise a baby, but the baby nearly kills Maggie in a zoo and learns how to serve beer). Due to her Big Brother Worship relationship with Bart in the episode "How Lisa Got Her Marge Back", Homer has to directly tell Bart not to influence Maggie.
  Homer: Bart, you're a great kid but if I had another one like you, I'd hang myself from a highway overpass. Please give your sister the precious gift of not being you.
• Kid Hero: Maggie's only a year old and has played the role as Little Miss Badass numerous times.
• Limited Wardrobe: Always in a blue onesie dress. It contributes to her signature walk and trip maneuver.
• Little Miss Badass: She's ridiculously talented for an infant.
  • She sure knows her way around a firearm. She drove away a group of mobsters by using a shotgun to snipe at them from a distance. It's also subtly implied that she intentionally shot Mr. Burns.
  • There was the time she knocked Homer unconscious by bonking him on the head with a mallet.
  • She can bowl a perfect game, although Homer would never allow her to officially best him with the score.
  • In the movie, when the mob storms the Simpson's household, Krusty order Mister Teeny to go after Maggie. She scares him away with a Death Glare and threatens to shank Mister Teeny with a broken bottle. She also drops a boulder on Russ Cargill's head right before he's about to shoot Homer and Bart.
  • Has saved Homer's life on at least 4 occasions, including in the movie.
  • Led a revolt in a daycare and rallied together wildlife in a Roaring Rampage of Rescue.
• Living Lie Detector: Maggie is the only one in the family that Bart can't lie straight to her face, and Lisa refers to a Noodle Incident that confirms that Maggie can figure out when someone lies.
• Living Prop: Usually just sits in the background and contributes little to the plot. Granted, she's just a baby and is only precocious if the plot demands it.
• Morality Pet:
  • Homer initially doesn't like having another child, but upon seeing Maggie for the first time, he is willing to return to working for Mr. Burns for her sake.
  • Maggie's the only Simpsons family member (probably the only character, period) who's never a target of Bart's pranks or teasings. He has been known to use her as a (probably unwitting) accomplice in some of his schemes, but even at his worst he treats her better than pretty much anyone else — he certainly never treats her like he does Lisa.
• "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: "Manger Things" reveals that her middle name is Lenny, after her father Homer's friend, so named because he apparently assisted in her birth.
• Never Learned to Talk: Although she is continuously a baby (and is able to speak when she's older, though it always happens offscreen), she is sometimes implied to be developmentally behind even for her young age. Marge worries about it in "Lisa's First Word" (though Maggie does say her first word in that episode, nobody else hears it), and in "The Great Wife Hope," Marge's friends gossip about her lack of speech and speculate that it's the result of her witnessing something traumatic in their house. It's of particular note since Maggie is a very Brainy Baby, apparently fully comprehending what everybody else says and occasionally shown to be able to read and write with ease. Potentially Truth in Television, because of Einstein syndrome, where gifted kids start speaking later because (essentially) their brains are too focused on learning other things.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: It's an issue that affects Bart and Lisa too, but is especially prominent with Maggie because of her young age. Any Time Skip would suggest she would grow up just a little and start talking, but despite a few words here and there she is always the silent, pacifier-sucking infant who is barely learning how to walk. One episode had Homer and Marge tell Apu how great it is to have kids with Maggie right with them, Apu and Manjula ended going through an entire pregnancy and a few months afterwards. Those kids eventually grew up enough to start talking themselves, while Maggie remains the same age.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Pretends to be a normal baby. Averted in the Tracey Ullman shorts.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Is almost never referred to as her formal name. Homer often forgets this.
  Homer: Who the heck is Margaret Simpson?
  Bureaucrat: Uh, your youngest daughter.
  • Made doubly funny on recollection that Marge had told Homer what Maggie was legally known as only a few episodes earlier.
  Homer: Fathering children is the best part of my day. I'd do anything for Bart and Lisa.
  Judge: *reading a page in a file* And Margaret?
  Homer: Who? Lady you got the wrong file.
  Marge: *whispering to Homer* It's Maggie.
  Homer: Oh, Maggie. I got nothing against Maggie.
• Oral Fixation: Her pacifier, which she treats like a cigar on occasion.
• Only Sane Woman: When Marge and Lisa get caught up in the insanity, the camera will frequently cut to Maggie facepalming.
• Out of Focus: How important Maggie is varies over the years. She was more of an actual character in the earlier seasons, with emotional reactions and even some relevance to the plots (she even shot Mr. Burns). She later develops some individuality and has her own adventures... After Season 8, she is more of a Living Prop just to facilitate the story of other members of the family. She does get stories to herself with The Simpson short films.
• Phoneaholic Teenager: Flash Forward episodes often show her as being talkative on the phone to her friends off camera.
• Reused Character Design: Whenever she's shown to be a child rather than a baby, she always looks exactly like Lisa.
• Satellite Character: She mostly exists to be the Simpsons' family baby, unless the writers want to explore her precociousness.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Played with.
  Maggie: Maggie talk! Maggie talk!
• The Silent Bob: Being a baby, Maggie is mute and solely communicates through body language.
• Silent Snarker: Conveys her sarcasm through body language. Subverted when she speaks in baby talk that is subtitled for the viewers, saying "Bald mommy will surely fail."
• The Speechless: Justified because she's a baby and can't talk. Especially in "future" episodes, where she is shown as a sullen teenager who still never says anything, despite the fact she's apparently a hellion who never shuts up, because she is prevented or simply disappears off-screen as she is about to speak in a Running Gag. Don't you know she has a beautiful singing voice? There are a few non-canon episodes (including several Halloween specials) where she does talk, usually in a deep, scary masculine voice. Other than that she has said several canonical words in the series, including "Daddy", "Ja", "Daddily-doodily" and baby talk that was translated as "Bald Mommy will surely fail."
• Suddenly Voiced: Usually via some non-canon reason (dream, Treehouse of Horror episode, Imagine Spot) she has been voiced by Elizabeth Taylor, James Earl Jones, Harry Shearer, Jodie Foster and even Meg Ryan. Nancy Cartwright usually does the vocal effects, like cooing, crying and the pacifier sucking.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Tomboy to Lisa's Girly Girl. Not so much in the present, but it's apparent in most future episodes, where Maggie dresses like a punker, is the lead singer of a rock band, etc. There is also her tendency to pick up on Homer and Bart's violent tendencies, such as her love for weapons, and she seems somewhat close to Bart. In the episode where Burns begins to live in a virtual reality, she gains a very butch appearance when she is pregnant. Lisa, on the other hand, is usually a prim and proper girly girl. In "At Long Last Leave", when the Simpsons family become outcasts and went to live in the more anarchistic Outlands, Lisa wore a turquoise dress with a floral print and black boots. Maggie, on the other hand, wore just her diaper, but sported a Mohawk and had the American flag tattooed on her chest, giving her quite a contrasting appearance from Lisa.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Raisins, according to Lisa in "The Cad in the Hat".
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Especially for her age, she will get involved with some scenario and prove to be quite dangerous. She injured Homer with a mallet, imitating Itchy and Scratchy. Another instance shows her wrestling Bart to the ground in a chokehold.
• True Blue Femininity: Her bow and clothes.
• Tsundere: Toward Gerald, the baby with the one eyebrow, at least according to the comics, where they get married in the future.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: What she grows up to be.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: Other than the bow and clothing, she is indistinguishable from Lisa as a baby.
• Undying Loyalty: To Marge, considering the fact that she liked living with the Flanders family, but loved Marge a whole lot more.
• The Un-Favourite: Mostly when it comes to her father.
  • While he mistreats/insults Bart more, there's a running gag of Homer forgetting Maggie exists.
  Marge: We have three kids!
  Homer: Marge, the dog doesn't count!
  • A quote from "Lisa on Ice" implies Homer likes Maggie even less than Bart.
  Homer: Now that we're all alone, Marge, admit it: you like Lisa best!
  Marge: No!
  Homer: Oh, so you're a Bart woman, are you?
  Marge: No!
  Homer: Well, you can't possibly like Maggie best. What's she ever done? Nothing for nobody.
• The Voiceless: Her defining character trait. When she does speak, it’s a one-off gag or incredibly poignant and touching.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Doesn't appear for entire episodes or just disappears from them. This can be seen clearly in "Trilogy of Error" - Maggie appears at the beginning but never again after that.
• Wise Beyond Her Years: She's led a revolt in daycare, successfully driven a car for miles (albeit into a prison wall), and sniped mobsters without being seen... with a shotgun. And the ONLY ONE bold enough to shoot Mr. Burns with his own gun after he stole her candy!

Simpson Family Pets

Snowball II

Voiced by: Dan Castellaneta, Frank Welker

Debut: "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire"

Lisa's pet cat. Snowball II was named after Snowball I. Though Snowball I had white fur, which obviously inspired her name, Snowball II had black fur and greenish/yellow eyes. As a non-speaking character she usually interacts with Santa's Little Helper and Maggie.

According to the episode "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot", Snowball II was hit by a car, and replaced by an identical cat named Snowball V, who was renamed Snowball II for convenience's sake. Don't expect this to be referenced again.

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• Animal Jingoism: Subverted. Snowball is usually friendly towards the family dog, Santa's Little Helper.
• Back Up Twin: Snowball II dies in "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot", yet the episode ends with Lisa finding an identical cat with the exact same personality, calling it Snowball II and pretending Snowball II's death never happened. A Lampshade is hung as Lisa mentions not wanting to spend money on a new food dish and Principal Skinner points out the whole thing is a cop-out, leading to Lisa calling him Armin Tamzarian and Skinner withdrawing his point, effectively rendering the replacement non-canon.
• Butt-Monkey: Everybody treats her terribly except for Lisa and she serves no purpose story-wise. Santa's Little Helper gets more of a role in the series, whereas Snowball's largest role involves her getting killed.
• Cats Are Superior: She is often presented as being much more intelligent than Santa's Little Helper and can perform complex tricks on command but nobody cares. Homer, however, temporarily starts to believe that cats are better than dogs after Snowball II saves his life in "Old Yeller-Belly". Official art of the series shows Snowball II juggling dressed in a tutu while riding Santa's Little Helper, and her intelligence is a plot point in the Coralisa segment of Treehouse of Horror XXVIII.
• Cute Kitten: Quite affectionate and craves attention. Lisa dresses her up as a baby in "Treehouse of Horror VII".
• Female Feline, Male Mutt: The female cat to the male dog, Santa's Little Helper.
• Furry Confusion: When she and Scratchy show up together in the "Treehouse of Horror IX" segment "The Terror of Tiny Toon".
• Humanoid Female Animal:
  • Inverted to the point of Furry Confusion when she and Scratchy show up together in the Treehouse of Horror IX segment "The Terror of Tiny Toon".
  • Played straight in "Holidays of Future Passed", where she and Santa's Little Helper appear together, complete with oversized brains.
• Ironic Name: A black cat named Snowball.
• Legacy Character: Implied with the II in her name, but another episode had Snowball II die and Lisa went through another three cats before finding an identical replacement, calling them Snowball II just to save on getting a new titled bowl.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: The current Snowball II is in fact the fifth, though to save money on food bowls, Lisa came to the conclusion to just make her a Legacy Character, essentially making the replacement non-canonical in episodes afterwards. Skinner lampshaded the spuriousness of this, though one mention of the name "Tamzarian" shut him up.
• Living a Double Life: As Smokey.
• Negative Continuity: In a spoof of the episode, "The Principal and the Pauper", "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot" has the original Snowball II die only to get replaced by an identical looking and acting cat with the Simpsons pretending Snowball II never died.
• Non-Indicative Name: Snowball II carries on the original's name despite having dark fur and is actually the fifth Snowball according to "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot".
• Out of Focus: Snowball II doesn't get nearly as much limelight as Santa's Little Helper, though has been the subject of a few B-Plots in later seasons. (To put it in perspective, one of the few times she is given attention is when she DIES.)
• Replacement Goldfish: Snowball II was bought to replace an earlier cat that died, this is why her name is Snowball despite being black furred.
• Secret Other Family: The Simpsons family consistently neglects her and so she starts visiting another family, where she is known as "Smokey".

Santa's Little Helper

Voiced by: Dan Castellaneta^*most appearances, Frank Welker^*focus episodes

Debut: "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire"

Bart's pet dog, a greyhound that was adopted by the family when Homer lost all his Mall Santa money at the dog tracks and Bart and Homer see Santa's Little Helper being abused by his master. Once ran away and was taken in as Mr. Burns' new guard dog, while another prominent interaction with Mr. Burns was when he ended up purchasing the 25 puppies he had fathered with a champion racing female greyhound, who all turned out to be world champions. As a result, Mr. Burns can remember Santa's Little Helper, but not Homer.

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• Ambiguously Bi: He's sired 25+ puppies with at least two dogs, but he also had to be physically dragged away from the Springfield pride parade once the Gay Dog Alliance came on the scene.
• Animal Jingoism: Subverted. Santa's Little Helper generally gets on well with the family cat, Snowball II.
• Butt-Monkey: Gets treated pretty bad often (usually by Homer; there are no photos of Homer and SLH in which they aren't abusing each other). He actually runs away in "Dog of Death" when the entire family condemns him due to the financial burden caused by a needed operation. He is still well-loved and has had his Day in the Limelight - unlike Snowball II.
• Canine Companion: Bart's loyal but dumb dog. A few early episodes focused on their bond.
• Cone of Shame: Comes with doggie-wheelchair.
• Depending on the Writer: Either he's the family beloved dog, or the stressful dog who makes their lives worse in several ways and doesn't know any better.
• A Dog Ate My Homework: Santa's Little Helper does this once, much to Bart's surprise, as he didn't think that excuse had any real merit. Subverted in a later episode when Bart desperately tries to get him to eat his unfinished homework. Even when slathered in dog food, he just cleanly eats it off, straightens out the paper and even answers one of the questions.
• Dogs Are Dumb: There are many intelligent dogs in the series, so Santa's Little Helper stands out as not just a dumb dog but the dumbest in the series. One time Bart throws a frisbee for him to fetch, but he just lets it hit him in the face.
• Female Feline, Male Mutt: The male dog.
• Go Fetch: He can be distracted by sausages, along with Homer.
• Heroic Dog: From time to time, especially when Bart is concerned. Subverted when the Simpson house is on fire and Homer is asleep on the couch. It appears that Santa's Little Helper is trying to rouse Homer, but rather he is getting a chocolate candy bar from Homer's pocket. Once the candy bar is out, Santa's Little Helper leaves Homer to his fate. This happens again in a later episode where Homer is caught in a fire in the Simpson's newly constructed treehouse but Santa's Little Helper is too cowardly to do anything, so Snowball II ends up saving Homer's life instead. There was one episode where he saved a mother and her child from an wild bear, so there’s that.
• Interspecies Romance: Played for Laughs with Snowball II. In Donnie Fatso Santa's Little Helper and Snowball II mated, Whistler's Father reveals that the two are involved in a secret romance, and a future episode reveals they had babies together. In Fear of Flying, Marge gets worried that the family never held a wedding for the two pets and thus they are "living in sin".
• Lovable Coward: In one early episode.
• Morality Pet: He is literally this to Bart.
• Papa Wolf: Occasionally, he is portrayed as being very protective of Bart.
• Took a Level in Badass: In "Dog of Death", after which it fluctuates but generally doesn't drop too far. Justified because Mr. Burns brainwashed Santa's Little Helper into being a vicious, soulless killer.
• Troublesome Pet: Santa's Little Helper is not the brightest bulb in the box. He'll eat whatever is in sight, frequently destroy items around the Simpsons' household due to his sheer size, and rarely obey commands. One particularly notable example is in "Bart's Dog Gets an F", where SLH destroys a precious family heirloom, which forces him to go to obedience school. He (barely) passes, but it doesn't take very long for things to go back to square one, as SLH apparently bit Bart shortly after graduation. Homer didn't mind, though.
• Undying Loyalty: To Bart.

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