Flaw Exploitation in Western Animation.
- Archie's Weird Mysteries: In "Misfortune Hunters", the fortune hunters lure Betty into going after the treasure for them by slipping her fortune cookies with good deeds to do, knowing that only a pure-hearted person can pass the traps.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- Azula, in "The Beach", has her team concentrate on a single player of the opposing team that she deduced had a childhood knee injury to win a volleyball game.
- In the first season, Admiral Zhao leads a group of several ships to pursue Aang and the others. During their subsequent fight, Aang uses Zhao's lack of self-control to trick him into setting EVERY SINGLE BOAT on fire, defeating him without attacking even once and leaving Zhao incapable of pursuit, allowing Aang to escape.
- Zig-zagged by Zuko during his Agni Kai with Azula. He's able to notice Azula's failing sanity and focus and realizes that he can match her 1 on 1 as a result. However, it backfires when he goes too far thinking he can goad her into using her lightning by directly and very obviously calling it out. Azula then turns it around by beginning her lightning attack but aiming for Katara instead to exploit Zuko's weakness knowing he'd take too long crossing the distance to properly set up his redirection technique.
- Batman Beyond: Spellbinder's plot in "Eyewitness" hinges on exploiting Barbara's Inspector Javert tendencies towards Batman, duping her into thinking he killed Mad Stan in cold blood. It almost works, and when he's exposed and arrested, he gloats to Barbara's face that it was easy to trick her because she was already fully prepared to believe the worst about Batman anyway.
- Big City Greens: In the Random Rings short "Cricket and Tilly Call Area 51", Cricket and Tilly prank call a store called Area 51 Comics, but believe they're actually calling Area 51 and are talking to an alien race. Izzy, the cashier who receives the call, realizes how naive and foolish the children were to think such a thing, so she takes advantage of their gullibility by keeping up the act, and when she learns she's been pranked, she tricks them into believing the cops are coming to find them, causing them to panic and hang up.
- Bravestarr once reluctantly agreed to a bargain with Tex Hex, because he knew that Tex was such a compulsive backstabber that he would never honor his own end of the deal, which would then leave Bravestarr free to break it as well.
- Buzz Lightyear of Star Command:
- From the Pilot Movie:Zurg: We need to get him to come out... [to a minion] Target the Planet of Widows and Orphans!
Buzz: You fiend! [flies out]
Zurg: I knew that would get him! - In "Clone Rangers", Team Lightyear exploits their own weaknesses to defeat their evil kid clones.
- From the Pilot Movie:
- In the Codename: Kids Next Door episode "Operation G.R.O.W.-U.P.", the agified Nigel gets the Delightful Children to hand him the age-changing cigar simply by asking for it. It works because he's an adult, and goody-goody little brats have to obey adults.
- Danny Phantom:
- Manipulative Bastard Vlad constantly pulls this on Danny, usually by making him his personal Unwitting Pawn. Danny however, does the same thing against him, too! One example is in "Maternal Instincts" where Danny tricked Vlad by using his desire for the boy as his son. Calling him "new dad", Danny slaps a Power Nullifier on him, then proceeds to beat the crap outta him.
- Technus also used Danny's emotions to keep him busy or enraged in one episode while he worked on his ultimate plan.
- This is Spectra's MO, as she feeds off misery, and thus manipulates people's flaws to make them as miserable as possible.
- In the Five-Episode Pilot for Darkwing Duck, Darkwing is keeping Gosalyn safe from Taurus Bulba by hiding her in his secret lair. Bulba, having observed that Darkwing is an egotistical Glory Seeker, sets up a trap by sending out a message offering to surrender to him and only him. Darkwing, eager to get the fame of bringing down a criminal kingpin, walks straight into the trap, in the process revealing his hideout and leaving Gosalyn unprotected and susceptible to being kidnapped by Bulba's goons.
- This is how Bill Cipher in Gravity Falls manipulates others into taking his deals, even when they should know better. For example, despite Dipper being well aware Bill likely won't properly honor any deal he makes, he still takes it because he's desperate for the password to a laptop which may have information on the Author, and he only has five minutes before the laptop clears all its data as a failsafe.
- Kim Possible:
- Dr. Drakken is known to have exploited Kim's teenager flaws, like making Kim disappear if she's too embarrassed or sending in a perfect boyfriend for Kim to fall in love with.
- Shego takes over the world by exploiting the major flaw that Kim Possible is nowhere near as effective without her sidekick Ron Stoppable, Shego splits them up by offering Ron's mother a new job in Norway.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- In "The Return of Harmony, Part 1", Discord uses the mane cast's flaws to break them and turn them against their Elements. It fails on Fluttershy, however, because she knows she has flaws and is perfectly accepting of them so he brainwashes her the old fashion way. Ironically, the heroes do this right back at him in Part 2 to ultimately defeat him, as his ego and inability to truly understand friendship's strength is ultimately what allows them to get the final blow.
- Amazingly, Fluttershy shows some serious Magnificent Bastardry by pulling this on Discord again in "Keep Calm and Flutter On", all while Discord thinks he's pulling this on her. He uses her "friendship" as a free ticket to run completely rampant while she sits back and deals with it, thinking he has her wrapped around his little talon. She's aware of his plan, and exploiting it because it's the easiest way to get close to him and, to Discord's shock, he realizes that he's gained enough of genuine bond with Fluttershy that he can't betray her.
- The Simpsons has the episode "Cape Feare", in which Bart plays upon Sideshow Bob's need to showcase his unappreciated musical talent by getting him to sing the entire H.M.S. Pinafore score until police can save him.
- South Park: Cartman's revenge plot against Scott Tenorman in "Scott Tenorman Must Die" relies heavily on this. If Stan and Kyle didn't rat him out to Scott, or Scott himself had reacted differently, the whole plan could have fallen apart. This can be seen double way, as it's either Cartman predicting the three's vindictive hatred of him, or acknowledging he's such an insufferable Jerkass of a friend to Stan and Kyle that they'd want to backstab him in the first place.
- In The Spectacular Spider-Man, Doctor Octopus pegs Spider-Man as "weak" because he's obliged to save Innocent Bystanders. Ock then grabs a nearby damsel and uses her in a Hostage for MacGuffin ploy to get Spider-Man to fork over some desirable Applied Phlebotinum.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In "Gullible Pants", SpongeBob is temporarily put in charge of the Krusty Krab while Mr. Krabs leaves to get a manicure. When he tries to tell Squidward what to do, Squidward refuses, and upon knowing SpongeBob is The Ditz and Super Gullible, he takes advantage of the sponge's flaws by telling several "secrets", and SpongeBob being SpongeBob is gullible enough to comply, and thus the Krusty Krab becomes a total disaster.
- Squidward does this again in "Sportz?" when Sponge and Pat accidentally receive Sandy's sporting goods but don't know how to play the sports and what they are; when they ask Squidward to teach them how to play, Squidward decides to use their idiocy and makes up several fake sports where they use the wrong equipment in different situations, resulting in both Sponge and Pat getting excessively hurt and injured until they're completely beat-up.
- The Transformers:
- One episode has Megatron executing a plan to teleport Cybertron (the Transformers' homeworld) into Earth orbit, the presence of which would disrupt Earth's gravity and ultimately destroy the planet. The Autobots try to stop him, but when Optimus finally does prevent Megatron from pressing the button to complete the teleport, Megatron gloats and insists that Optimus will be the one to push the button — because if he doesn't, the teleport will fail, destroying Cybertron in the process. Optimus, true to form, reluctantly pushes the button, rather than let his homeworld perish. (Which is kind of the opposite of other characterization he's had since, where he would sacrifice the rest of his species if it means the Decepticons would not be able to threaten any other sentients ever again.)
- In an earlier episode, Megatron goads Optimus into a one-on-one duel in which the loser's faction will exile themselves forever, knowing the Autobot leader's sense of honor would never allow him to refuse a chance to end their war peacefully. Naturally, he cheats during the competition, and sends troops into the Autobot base to disable their computer and prevent the deception from being noticed (and he would've gotten away with it, too, were it not for those meddling Dinobots...).
- Wander over Yonder has Wander and Sylvia trying to escape from a planet with an Army of Watchdogs trying to hunt them down. The Watchdogs figure out that Wander is compelled to help people and start to victimize random beings to draw Wander out for capture. It works.
- As a counterpart to what happened in the comic book, the second season of W.I.T.C.H. has Will using Phobos' own arrogance and sense of superiority to manipulate him like a fiddle, also convincing a few Noble Demons among his men to pull an Heel–Face Turn by exposing his lack of honour. Again, it fails, but for different reasons: Phobos does fall for it, but Cedric sees through it and chooses the moment before it would have paid off to pull a Starscream...
- Chase Young may be a Noble Demon in Xiaolin Showdown, but that doesn't stop him from being Manipulative Bastard as well. Wanting to take the young Omi as his apprentice, he uses Omi's biggest flaws to bring the boy over to his side...his naivety, his over-trusting nature, and then even after his friends save Omi from the dark side... Chase also previously had Omi swear his loyalty to him, knowing Omi would have no choice but to stay, because like Chase, the boy always honors his word.
