Inferiority Superiority Complex / Live-Action TV

Characters who have Inferiority Superiority Complexes in Live-Action TV.

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• 30 Rock:
  • Jenna acts the Small Name, Big Ego, but it's made clear that she's really afraid of becoming a White-Dwarf Starlet. This is Played for Laughs as she acts insanely paranoid about anyone upstaging her.
    Liz: Jack is hiring a new cast member.
    Jenna: IF IT IS A BLONDE WOMAN, I WILL KILL MYSELF!
  • Tracey apparently has a similar problem. Look at his reaction to the same news:
    Tracey: IF IT'S A BLONDE WOMAN, I WILL KILL MYSELF!
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel:
  • Buffy herself: A variation. As noted in a DVD commentary, Buffy has a superiority complex in that she's the Slayer and believes herself better than those she protects (pretty much everyone), but this makes her feel bad so she has an inferiority complex about having the superiority complex. This was also pointed out in-universe by a vampire psychology student who opted to put Buffy on the couch while she was trying to kill him. It actually worked for a while.
  • Wesley. On Buffy, he was pompous and high and mighty when he was more like an inefficient nuisance to everyone else. Then came Angel and after going through a series of horrible situations, it's revealed he never thought he was good enough as a watcher or to his father.
  • Spike. He acts cocky and arrogant to the bone, but all the superior remarks of his are for convincing himself as much as convincing everyone else. This is particularly apparent in his dynamic with Buffy and his century-long feud with Angel.
  • Faith. She scorns Buffy's moral, 'weight-of-the-world' approach to being a slayer all through Buffy Season 3 and even claimed to her they were better than everyone else, then in S4 undergoes a redemption arc and even begs Angel to kill her in a display of overwhelming self-loathing.
  • Angel is the inverse of this. He has genuine insecurity and self-hatred, all of which he's very open about, but at the same time sometimes acts superior through his actions. It's only with Spike that Angel is a traditional example of this trope: his rivalry with Spike in S5 all but confirmed he felt a certain degree of entitlement in being the vampire with a soul and a champion, the Shanshu prophecy, and having Buffy... until Spike came along. Fueling his insecurities and doubts all the more.
• Community:
  • Ken Jeong has stated that Chang abuses his authority and generally acts like a jerk because of insecurity.
  • Often, when Britta's obnoxious Soapbox Sadie façade is broken down, she reveals her vulnerable side, admitting she actually hates herself, even going as far as to compare herself unfavorably to cancer at one point. A lot of the things she does are to gain respect from others, especially the study group. During the first season's paintball episode, she admitted that the reason she tries so hard to be a good person is that deep down she doesn't believe she is one.
  • Jeff, like Britta, has a fragile ego and is implied to have deep-seated self-esteem issues as well. One episode involved an intimate revelation about having to wear a Pocahontas costume for Halloween as a kid and getting "what a pretty girl" comments all night.
    Jeff: The worst part was that after the third house, I stopped correcting them. I was just glad they thought I was pretty...
• Doctor Who:
  • This comes to dominate the First Doctor's character towards the very end of his run. He starts out as unironically arrogant and in love with his own genius and mellows out a bit. But as more of his assumptions about the way he does things are proven wrong and his favorite companions (Ian and Barbara) make him return them to their own time, his arrogance becomes a cover for his deep-seated uncertainty (not even knowing how to fly his TARDIS, and even if he could, he could never go back to his home planet) and loneliness. This is Played for Drama in "The Massacre", and even Played for Laughs in "The Time Meddler", where his demeanour towards the Monk becomes noticeably more haughty as soon as he realizes that the Monk has a much nicer TARDIS than he does.
  • There's a repeated conceit throughout much of the show that the Doctor's lack of belief in formal education and endorsement of instinctual methods of flying the TARDIS is really because he got terrible grades as a student and failed his TARDIS driving exams. See "Terror of the Autons", where the Third Doctor gets snotty when reminded the Master got better grades on his exams than he did, or "The Time of Angels" when the Eleventh Doctor gets very self-righteous when River points out that he doesn't know what a lot of his TARDIS buttons actually do.
  • Few incarnations react with anything other than horror and misery upon seeing their new face for the first time, but soon begin to brag about how handsome it is, suggesting this may be its motive. For example, the Third Doctor sees himself in the mirror at the start of "Spearhead from Space", is mortified, but soon declares it's not all bad and spends the rest of his run acting convinced he's gorgeous. In "The Face of Evil", the Fourth Doctor goes in the space of a single conversation from complaining a statue of him with a doorway behind it isn't very good because 'the nose could be a touch more aquiline', but as soon as Leela suggests the nose might be how they get in (not even directly remarking about its size), the Doctor gives an offended and self-conscious reaction.
  • In the Fourth Doctor book Festival of Death, Romana accuses the Doctor of having this problem at the root of his constant self-aggrandizing academic underachievement and conviction that School Is for Losers:
    'Inferiority complex?' The Doctor fixed her with a probing stare. 'What could I possibly have to feel inferior about? Me? K9, have you ever heard anything so ridiculous?'
    'Affirmative, master,' replied K9. 'You have frequently made statements with greater nonsensical content.'
    'And when I want your opinion I'll ask for it.' The Doctor glared at the robot dog.
  • Donna Noble seems to have a bad case of this, likely caused by her emotionally abusive mother. She's loud, sassy, and snarky, but quietly rejects any attempt by the Doctor to tell her she's important or special. In "Journey's End", the Metacrisis Doctor finally realizes this is not just humility on her part.
    Donna: I keep telling you, I'm not [special].
    Metacrisis Doctor: No, but you are-! (he pauses) Oh... You really don't believe that, do you? I can see, Donna. What you're thinking. All that attitude, all that lip, 'cause all this time... You think you're not worth it.
    Donna: (half-heartedly) Stop it.
    Metacrisis Doctor: Shouting at the world 'cause no-one's listening. Well, why should they?
    Donna: (quietly) Doctor. Stop it.
  • The Tenth Doctor himself had a bad case of this. Both during Nine and Eleven's runs, and quite a few scenes during Ten's run, have shown the massive guilt and self-loathing he feels about the destruction of the Time Lords, not all of it unwarranted, which seems at odds with his general demeanor of being cocky and almost arrogant, a trait that was exaggerated more and more later in his run, culminating in the Time Lord Victorious speech in "The Waters of Mars". This seems like the best explanation.
  • According to a documentary, actors are instructed to play the Daleks like this, the idea being that subconsciously the Dalek race as a whole are extremely troubled by their existence as deformed, irradiated mutants locked inside unfeeling metal cages from birth to death. Thus, they (over)compensate by deciding they must be better simply by virtue of them being Daleks. The best example of this would be the Daleks from "Bad Wolf"/"The Parting of the Ways", who adopt an erstatz religious fundamentalism to mask the self-loathing they feel due to being engineered from "impure" human DNA.
    • The Doctor delivered an observation on this issue in the New Series Adventures novel Prisoner of the Daleks; confronting Dalek X- the Dalek Inquisitor General, the most dangerous Dalek currently active, now trapped on a dead world with just enough power to keep it alive- the Doctor pointed out the Daleks couldn't accept every other race in the universe was better than them, pointing out that nobody in existence would willingly become a Dalek.
  • There are times the show hints that this is part of the Master's problem as well. Even as far back as the 1970s (sort of), the Roger Delgado incarnation's greatest fear was a vision of a giant Doctor doing an Evil Laugh, suggesting less a fear of the Doctor (the two are at their friendliest during this period) and more a fear of the Doctor being better than him. And when the already unstable Sacha Dhawan Master discovers that the Doctor is, as he sees things, better than him, by virtue of being the Timeless Child, he snaps and single-handedly razes Gallifrey.
• Lord Genis, the Big Bad of Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger claims to be the greatest and most powerful being in the universe and destroys planets for his own amusement and as proof of his superiority. He secretly is ashamed of his origin, that he is composed of countless weak creatures merged into one. Anybody exposing his secret or showing pity to him is his Berserk Button.
• ER's Kerry Weaver frequently found subtle and not-so-subtle ways of putting her coworkers down, turning everything into some kind of competition, and eventually trampled on numerous people in order to advance her career, all to compensate for whatever insecurity she felt about having been abandoned at birth and being disabled. Additionally, it's heavily implied that Doug's womanizing behavior was a form of compensation for feeling unlovable (due to his father abandoning him).
• Frasier Crane, despite being openly arrogant, vain, self-absorbed, and in possession of an absurdly inflated opinion of himself, is cripplingly insecure and needy, with much of his self-aggrandizing behavior rooted in his desperation to be liked and admired, and his extreme bossiness towards his little brother Niles and best friend/producer Roz, whose opinions he constantly runs roughshod over and whose lives he is always trying to interfere with, is heavily hinted to be rooted in paranoia that they'll stop hanging around him if they stop needing him.
• Game of Thrones
  • Joffrey Baratheon's ego is as fragile as it is massive as he reacts with intense rage to any slight or insult or sign of disrespect.
  • Theon Greyjoy's arrogance has a lot to do with coping with being constantly reminded of his glorified prisoner status.
• Rachel from Glee, despite always protesting that she is the best singer in the club. The biggest example comes to mind at the start of season 2, where an eager singer, who was just as if not more talented than Rachel, wanted to join the Glee Club. Rachel responded by sending her to a crack house.
• Tahani in The Good Place was a rich & famous Statuesque Stunner who constantly had to make sure everyone in the room knew it, which annoyed Eleanor to no end. However, it's revealed that her haughty streak was the result of a crippling inferiority complex from her parents arbitrarily making her The Unfavorite, and the reason she ended up in Hell in the first place is that all her charitable works were done in the name of self-aggrandizement rather than altruism.
• Frank Pembleton from Homicide: Life on the Street has a fairly arrogant attitude, but it's occasionally shown that underneath the surface he is plagued by self-doubt and self-loathing.
• Gregory House has said a few times that he doesn't deserve to live or be happy and that the only thing he has going for him is his mind.
• How I Met Your Mother: Barney Stinson occasionally betrays the vulnerabilities and insecurities which hide beneath his self-assured, charismatic demeanor.
• The InBESTigators: In "The Case of the Peculiar Pop Quiz," Ava repeatedly goes out of her way to claim that Kelly wanted to hire both Maudie and Ezra as tutors because she knew Ezra would see it when he edited the video.
• Kamen Rider:
  • Shintaro Gotou of Kamen Rider OOO began like this in relation to the eponymous Rider, Eiji Hino, who he saw as an irresponsible fool. After getting thoroughly humbled and re-training himself as a sidekick to Kamen Rider Birth, he becomes a person more genuinely worthy of being called a hero and eventually takes over as Birth.
  • The following series, Kamen Rider Fourze, has two such cases. Kengo Utahoshi refuses to acknowledge the existence of the Kamen Rider Club or accept the friendship of hero Gentaro, until Kengo is nearly killed while stranded on the moon, where he reveals how scared and unhappy he really is. Shun Daimonji mercilessly bullies students whom he views as lower-class than himself until it's discovered that he is under crippling pressure from his father and Just Wants to Have Friends. Both characters become much nicer after this.
• The live-action of The King's Avatar highlighted this more in certain characters.
  • While Sun Xiang is a great player, much of his boosting after he joins Excellent Era is due to the fact he knows that he cannot live up to the hype of being Ye Xiu's successor.
  • Wei Chen likes to brag and claim he would lead the team to victory to cover for the fact that his Glory skills have deteriorated due to his age.
  • Qiu Fei likes to present himself as very knowledgeable and skilled in Glory but in reality, he is terrified of being seen as a loser as his family sees him as.
• Hank Kingsley from The Larry Sanders Show tends to act the very picture of the bombastically egotistic Hollywood celebrity, but deep down clearly knows that he's not that talented nor smart, that his fame and success rests solely on being the sidekick to a more talented and successful person, and that his career is built on a very shaky and unstable foundation that could be taken away any second. Consequently, he's clearly also full of bitterness, self-loathing, and insecurity.
• Life: Detective Charlie Crews thinks this about the universe.
  Charlie: It was the universe that makes fun of us all.
  ...
  Reese: Why exactly would the universe make fun of us all?
  Charlie Maybe it's insecure.
• Lost has several examples. There's Sawyer, a cocky, abrasive playboy who actually hates himself for becoming like the man who killed his parents, Charlie, who looks more dejected every time someone doesn't recognize a Drive-Shaft song, Shannon, whose seemingly large ego is frequently cut down by her brother telling her she's worthless, and finally Ben, whose aloofness and presumed arrogance are due to his feelings of inadequacy caused by his abusive father and the deep need he feels to impress Jacob.
• Prince Arthur from Merlin can often fall into this category. His Jerkass behavior near the start of the series is quickly put down to his Freudian Excuse of having a very demanding and emotionally distant father, and it's clear in his insecurity with Guinevere, Merlin, Morgana, and Lancelot that he doesn't consider himself worthy of their affection or friendship, even as he takes them all for granted.
• Mythic Quest:
  • Ian Grimm is a creative powerhouse with seemingly endless charisma and self-confidence, but he isn't nearly as strong on the technical side, and in Season Two he confesses his darkest fears: that his lead programmer-turned-co-creative head Poppy Li is "the younger, smarter version" of himself and that Mythic Quest is the only good idea he'll ever have. Season Three shows that despite his success in the present, Ian was a poor student and struggled academically even when he tried his hardest. He inadvertently admits to resenting Poppy when she decides to try to "do his thing" (big picture ideas as opposed to technical execution), and it culminates in him admitting that he has no desire to actually work on her game.
  • In contrast to Ian, Poppy is an academic (MIT-educated) genius and technical wizard, but struggles to communicate with other people and has No Social Skills in general. She tries to compensate with a mask of arrogance and false confidence, but she's ultimately very sensitive about her shortcomings. On a deeper level, this is a big part of why her partnership with Ian is so rocky. She can achieve incredible feats as a programmer, but she can't "see it" (have revelatory, big picture ideas that players will enjoy) the way Ian can, and she is convinced in her own mind that means she will always be subservient to him despite him saying he doesn't see it that way.
• Tom from Parks and Recreation is superficially self-confident to the point of arrogance, but it’s clear that his carefully crafted persona as a “baller” masks deep insecurities, likely stemming from his childhood as a social outcast. For all his entrepreneurial ventures, Conspicuous Consumption, meticulously-groomed appearance, and constant put-downs of anyone he considers uncool, he lives in terror of being left behind by the zeitgeist and turning out to be nothing more than an insignificant man working an unfulfilling government job in a nowhere small town, to the point that he suffers a borderline existential crisis when he learns that teenagers do not recognise or enjoy his favourite music. This aspect of his character disappears in later seasons when he manages to achieve success as a businessman and genuinely does become a Man of Wealth and Taste.
  • The perfect demonstration of this is when Jerry retires and the department begins looking for who will be the next office Butt-Monkey and quickly settle on Tom over Andy. Although Andy is a clumsy, slovenly idiot who regularly humiliates himself; he also lacks any sense of shame and is genuinely and sincerely comfortable in his own skin, meaning that people laugh with him rather than at him whenever he screws up. Meanwhile, Tom’s dignity is so fragile and artificial that simply saying the phrase “file piles” is sufficient to turn him into a laughing stock.
• Arthur Shelby of Peaky Blinders is a swaggering loudmouth prone to violence and boasting, and comes off as genuinely arrogant and intimidating, especially during confrontations with his rivals. But behind the bravado, he's a horrendously broken human being who struggles with insecurity and self-hate. He regularly engages in massively self-destructive behavior and has attempted suicide more than once.
• In Red Dwarf, Arnold Rimmer is always publicly aggrandising himself: of course he'd pass the officer's exam if Lister hadn't stopped him studying, of course he'd be a great military leader if he had that opportunity^note In "Legion" he claims to be a brave warrior soul who, through no fault of his own, was born in the body of an abject coward, and so on. However, in "Terrorform", the most powerful force in his mind is self-loathing, and in "Inquisitor" he admits he's nothing "but from where I started, nothing is up". Essentially he tries desperately to believe he's the sort of son his parents wanted but knows he isn't and doesn't know how to be anything else.
  • The alternate novel continuity had the observation that Rimmer is actually good at art and graphic design, and his main problem with trying to succeed in the space corps is that he genuinely isn't cut out for it, but his family is so fixated on that career path that he's never let himself consider another option.
• In Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes has this; and the second season is pretty much all Break the Haughty where he's concerned. While the other characters don't see him as a Jerkass Woobie in-universe (he's more a case of Intelligence Equals Isolation), he can be seen like this from the audience's perspective.
• Smallville's Lionel Luthor is a grandiose Magnificent Bastard and Corrupt Corporate Executive who is still running away from his past as an abused child. Lex Luthor is his son and bases his need to be a hero on his own feelings of worthlessness.
• Kendall Roy from Succession practically oozes insecurity, desperation, and self-loathing despite playing at being a confident, ruthless businessman.
• Dean Winchester from Supernatural is a pretty good example of this. He's arrogant, judgmental, self-righteous, and is capable of being very brutal to compensate for his insecurities and overwhelming lack of self-worth.
• The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "A Piano in the House". A cruel, arrogant bully buys a player piano that causes listeners to reveal their true personalities. When it works on him, he admits that he's actually frightened, immature, and jealous of the people around him.
• The White Lotus: Cameron from season 2. Despite his show-boaty Frat Bro personality, it's implied a lot of what he does has to do with trying to showcase and prove he is better than others, especially his frenemy and former roommate Ethan. He has a long history of Seduction as One-Upmanship, sleeping with any woman Ethan had a liking for in college, which Ethan was well aware and calls out as a decision made because Ethan was the more successful student. According to his actor, Theo James, part of the reason why Cameron has decided to even take Ethan and Harper out for a Sicily vacation was to show off again after Ethan's latest business venture has made him the richer of the two.
• The Wire has Jimmy McNulty, an arrogant, Too Clever by Half detective who believes deep down that his profession is the only thing that keeps him from being worthless.

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