Adaptational Jerkass

Gyro Gearloose, 1987: Eccentric, kindly, well-meaning, but inept Bungling Inventor.
Gyro Gearloose, 2017: Arrogant, hot-headed, sassy, sarcastic Insufferable Genius.

"The Phantom of Love Never Dies has all of the negative qualities of his original incarnation and none of the sympathetic ones. Since his situation has changed for the better, he's wealthy, successful, and has several people supporting him, he comes off as less of a tragic monster lashing out at a world that screwed him over, and more like a selfish bully hiding behind weak excuses."

— Musical Hell

Regardless of the medium, characters are introduced and established as having certain traits and, as such, the fans of those works expect those characters to adhere to them. If they're The Hero's trusted friend in the novel, the film adaptation should convey that as well, but wait — why is the hero's trusted friend from the novel, suddenly giving him the cold shoulder in the motion picture? Why is the faithful Love Interest from the manga two-timing him in the anime? And the Lovable Rogue, who gives to the poor in the television series, only cares about lining his own pockets in the Made-for-TV Movie. They weren't like that before, so what happened?

The answer is: the character has suffered from Adaptational Jerkassery, the narrative equivalent of Taking a Level in Jerkass.

Whatever the reasons, the writer(s) has seen fit to change the character's original positive portrayal, to make them more of a jerk. Perhaps the character was a Jerk with a Heart of Gold in the original work, but the adaptation failed to convey the "heart of gold" aspect. Thus, turning them into a total jerk. Or it could be due the adaptation being Darker and Edgier (or Ruder and Cruder, especially ) than the original, and the character's portrayal was changed accordingly.

However, while there may be some overlap with Adaptational Villainy, the key difference here is, the character isn't necessarily villainous. In many cases, they're still on the good side and due to Adaptational Angst Upgrade, can be a comedic sociopath, an Anti-Hero or just The Friend Nobody Likes.

Because of the nature of the trope, it's obviously related to Took a Level in Jerkass and by extension contrasts with Took a Level in Kindness.

A subtrope of Adaptation Personality Change.

Its inverse is Adaptational Nice Guy.

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Example subpages:

• Fan Works
• Ultimate Marvel

Other examples:

Anime & Manga

• In the Advanced Variable Geo series, Ayako Yuuki is shown to be a Good Samaritan who protects other women from muggers and rapists, but the OVA adaptation nearly makes Ayako out to be a rapist herself, by having her sexually harass Satomi during their fight.
• Black Butler: In the anime, Ciel is much more selfish and can be downright abusive to his household staff, while in the manga he's never shown harming them, and even scolding them is left to Sebastian. He also slaps Sebastian in the face on multiple occasions in the anime, while in the manga the worst he's done to Sebastian when angry with him is throw a pillow at him.
• Blazblue Alter Memory: Downplayed in the original games, Jin is already quite a Jerkass, but he still has a soft spot for his Childhood Friend Tsubaki. Here, that soft spot is gone.
• In the anime adaptation of Bokurano, Machi loses her temper during a discussion with Anko and Komo, briefly accusing the other two girls of being the uncontracted pilot (i.e. the one who doesn't have to take a turn fighting for the planet, which will inevitably result in their death), for no apparent reason other than possibly to prevent them from suspecting that she's the uncontracted pilot. Apart from that, the adaptation mostly sticks to her characterization as a fairly nice person who cares for Kana and regrets getting the kids signed up to fight in the first place.
• Leon MacNicol in the Bubblegum Crisis OVA was supportive of the Knight Sabers. Leon in the Tokyo 2040 remake considers the team vigilantes and a blight on the AD Police.
• When Nelvana dubbed Cardcaptor Sakura into English and rebranded it into Cardcaptors, they gave many of the characters, including Sakura herself, more of a jerkish attitude.
• Carnival Phantasm does this to Sakura Matou. In Fate/stay night, she was a withdrawn girl who struggled to suppress her darker impulses thanks to her horrific upbringing, but was also a total sweet-heart who deeply cared for her friends and her Servant, Rider/Medusa. As the Carnival Phantasm anime made her into the butt of jokes, her darker traits in the latter are flanderized into being a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing with a creepy obsession towards Shirou and treats the people she cares about, such as Rider, like trash, while also forgiving Shinji for the abuse he inflicts on her because it makes her look good.
• In Corpse Party, whiler most incarnations of Yoshiki Kishinuma range between being a loner (in the PC-98 game) to a Jerk with a Heart of Gold in the Blood Covered continuity, he never did anything despicable. But in the manga Corpse Party: Musume, he's on another level, as he himself admits, he only cares about Ayumi (and even then he isn't exactly nice to her either as he tries to grope her), and for him, the rest of the survivors can get by themselves.
• DD Fist of the North Star has Toki, who does have jerkass tendencies in comparison to his original counterpart who is Kung-Fu Jesus and a Nice Guy. DD has Toki attempting get a job as a part-timer in Ryuken's store, and will use any means to get the job, such as having Raoh arrested for murdering Jyuza.
• DEVILMAN crybaby: Even before he's revealed to the Big Bad, Ryo Asuka wasn't exactly a pleasant guy in the manga, and had a ruthless streak within him, but said ruthlessness is amped up considerably in the anime, with an extreme willingness to Shoot the Dog that would come off as outright sociopathic if it wasn't for the humanizing interactions he has with Akira.
• Yamato from Digimon Adventure is portrayed as an Aloof Big Brother, who sees it has his mission to keep his younger brother Takeru safe when the kids are trapped in the digital world. While his counterpart Matt does take care of his younger brother, his portrayal veers more into Jerk with a Heart of Gold, as he also throws insults at him.
• Davis in Digimon Adventure 02 is given this treatment in the dub, due to being the unfortunate Creator's Pest. He outright refers to Kari as "his girl" and is hostile towards TK due to how close he is with Kari. Originally, he's just your typical Stock Shōnen Hero who just wants to impress a girl he has a crush on.
• Doraemon:
  • Doraemon: Nobita's Great Battle of the Mermaid King have a manga adaptation (the movie comes first) that does this to two of the series' recurring Nice Girl characters. Manga Shizuka is somehow depicted as naggy and over-controlling, insisting on scrubbing Princess Sophia (an alien mermaid who's a Fish out of Water) while scolding her for "not knowing the concept of a bath" and saying "the aliens should be educated over cleanliness", never mind the fact that Sophia is obviously not of this world and her obliviousness could hardly be her fault. Meanwhile, Doraemon's sister Dorami is willing to help her brother on his research... but he needs to pay her twenty Melon Buns in exchange. In the anime Dorami willingly helps her brother out of goodwill.
  • Stand by Me Doraemon somehow pulls this off to the titular robot cat. Doraemon from the original manga is willing to be sent back to the past by Sewashi to help fixing Nobita's daily life and being supportive to him, only to become apathetic due to Nobita's bratty and immature tendencies toward him as time goes on while his bond with him remain intact. Here, he's already resentful with the idea of being sent back to the past to help Nobita from the get-go due to said bratty and immature tendencies of his, let alone helping his life and only being supportive toward Nobita just because Sewashi forced programmed him and make Doraemon unable to return to his original timeline until he make Nobita fully happy.
  • Doraemon is also far more unpleasant in the Disney XD American dub of the 2005 series.
• In Dragon Ball Super, Goku invites Gohan to participate in the tournament against Universe 6, but Gohan has to decline because of an academic conference scheduled on the same day. In the anime, we see the conversation happen (Gohan was excited at the prospect, but then remembered the conference) and Goku is disappointed but understands how important Gohan's job is to him; in the manga adaptation Goku tells us this after the fact while dismissively calling Gohan a bookworm.
• Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière from The Familiar of Zero becomes this in the anime compared to the original light novels. While she was an overly violent Tsundere in both versions, she was a lot more sympathetic in the novels, where she had a lot of good moments and development and actually does get called out on her abuse of Saito when, instead of using her normal whip to "punish" Saito, she uses an actual bullwhip to knock out an already battle-weary Saito from the night before. By contrast, any likeability her anime incarnation has is extracted in favor of being an easily-angered Jerkass Karma Houdini and a bad girlfriend, while her treatment of Saito leans towards being abusive (in rather unsettling ways) as opposed to the usual Belligerent Sexual Tension. It's pretty understandable why many people have been turned off by the Tsundere as a whole due to characters like her, and why many fans of the Tsundere archetype are very put off by her.
• Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA:
  • Sella, one of Illya's maids. In the original Fate/stay night VN she's just reserved and uptight. In the sequel Fate/hollow ataraxia, she's merely suspicious and critical towards Shiro, constantly voicing disapproval of him and forcing him to sleep in the shed whenever he visits Illya's castle, but that's all. Her hostility gets turned up in kaleid liner, where she's outright abusive towards him (even though he's now also one of her wards instead of just a visitor). To wit, she once viciously beats him up because his cooking was making her gain weight.
  • The same applies to Rin Tohsaka who, while already a canonical Tsundere, would never call a small child her slave, and then force said child to fight against corrupted spirits against her will unlike what this version did. She thankfully eases up once she recognizes the stress she's causing.
• In Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Marth's Love Interest Caeda is an overall Nice Girl. In the short-lived anime, she's a Tsundere and Clingy Jealous Girl.
• Fullmetal Alchemist (2003):
  • Solf J Kimblee gets hit with this in the first anime adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist. While the manga version of Kimblee was undoubtedly insane, he could be quite charming and had genuine respect for people with strong integrity and convictions. The anime version of Kimblee, on the other hand, has nothing but contempt for everyone and his politeness is so paper-thin that nobody is fooled.
  • The townspeople of Xenotime in the anime's two-parter "The Other Brothers Elric." In the original Light Novel The Land of Sand that the episodes are based on, while they believed that Russell and Fletcher Tringham are "the real Elric brothers" and initially treat the real Ed and Al coldy, they come to realize that the two are genuine alchemists who could still help them, with one person suggesting that they do share similar names, but just aren't the famed "Elric Brothers" (which Ed decides to go along with rather than cause a fuss) and ultimately treat the brothers nicely for most of the book. In the TV episodes, they simply believe the real Ed and Al to be con artists stealing their identities, completely ignoring that Ed still showed alchemic talent in front of them, and treat the two harshly throughout the 2-parter.
• Ghost Stories: Given the nature of the anime's Gag Dub just about everyone could be in this trope. The most notable example is Momoko Koigakubo, the kind-hearted Team Mom of the main group. In the dub, she was turned into The Fundamentalist who says a lot of offensive things about Jews, gays, and other non-Christians.
• Girls und Panzer has a few examples from the manga adaptation:
  • An odd example comes with Anchovy, since the manga was released before the anime showed her match with Oarai. In the anime, Anchovy's competitive but fairly good-spirited, and after losing, invites the Oarai crew to eat with her and the people who set up the match. In the manga, she starts off by accusing Miho of having a "weak" way of tankery, and at the end, accuses Miho of costing her old school the championship by abandoning the flag tank.
  • Erika is a Jerkass in the anime, but mainly to the extent of being snide and condescending toward Miho (for example, in the finals, saying that Oarai must be weak if she became its commander). In the manga, between the semifinals and the finals, Erika flies over to Oarai, confronts Miho, and angrily accuses her of not just costing them the victory, but abandoning them in their time of crisis, and vaguely insinuates that Miho traded her vice-captaincy of her old school for captaincy of her of her new school. She's significantly more vicious and angry in that scene from the manga, and leaves Miho in tears at the end of it
• Killua is an Anti-Hero in all versions of Hunter × Hunter; however, in the 1999 anime adaptation, there are more allusions to his dangerous Creepy Child nature from the get go.
• Isekai Quartet:
  • An In-Universe example happens in the production of Cinderella performed for the school festival, where the titular character is far more rude, aggressive and arrogant than many other versions as a result of Ram playing the leading role.
  • Played straight with Kazuma, who is more of a Jerkass here than in his own series, with his more positive traits being downplayed. This goes double for his relationship with Aqua, as while they don't get along in their own series, Kazuma demonstrated more than once that he can't leave Aqua to die. This Kazuma is more than willing to leave Aqua to get eaten by giant toads.
• Karakuri Circus: The anime skips young Bai Jin's Jerkass Realization, making him even more selfish than in the manga.
• Meganee Akai has been a very kind and generous person in all of her depictions in the Pretty Series... except in Kiratto Pri☆Chan, where she's now a hot-blooded boss who complains to her assistant Yuzuru about anything, wether he has anything to do with it or not.
• In Kirby, King Dedede, while he's a lazy and rather greedy king whose "royalty" is questionable, he can be a pretty good guy every now and then who helps Kirby saving the day. In the Kirby: Right Back at Ya! anime, Dedede is more of a jerk who wants to "clobbah dat dere Kurbeh" almost every episode and treats other people like crap, with more spaced out Pet the Dog moments.
• The Legend of Zelda (Akira Himekawa):
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1999): While Ganondorf was the villain in the original game, the manga version has several more cruel actions, such as brainwashing an innocent dragon into becoming Volvagia and forcing Link to kill it. He also lacks the Freudian Excuse later games give him.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, King Bulbin is just a strong monster following orders from whoever he deems the strongest. His cruelty is more pronounced in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016), and he is an unapologetic darwinist to contrast Link's belief in always helping those in need.
• Love Hina: Naru Narusegawa in the manga was still a violent Tsundere and would frequently "punish" Keitaro, but still had her Pet the Dog moments towards him and became more open about her love to him by the end of the series. Meanwhile, the anime ramps up her Tsundere behavior to borderline Jerkass levels while leaving out her more sympathetic traits and her frequent Megaton Punches towards the Accidental Pervert Keitaro are far more extreme than her manga counterpart.
• In Naruto, Naruto's goal is to be the leader of his town. In the High School AU Shippu Konoha Gakuen Den, Naruto's goal is to be the yakuza leader of Japan. Considering that the yakuza is a criminal organization, this is a lot less mundane than just being the hokage; however, Naruto still keeps his sweet nature nevertheless. He's more interested in fighting than anything.
• Persona 4: The Animation: Rise's former manager, Minoru Inoue, is given this treatment in episode 9. In the game, he repeatedly shows up in Inaba and tries to convince Rise to return to show business, genuinely wanting her back and believing that her retiring from being an Idol Singer would be a waste of her talent. Here, he only heads to Inaba to Kick the Dog by telling her she's been replaced in an upcoming movie by a younger Idol Singer, coldly telling Rise that he's done being her manager in favor of the new girl. He does the same thing in Volume 8 of the manga adaptation, showing up at the concert that she and the others put on at Junes.
• Persona 5: The Animation:
  • A few of Sae's scenes establishing that she does care for Makoto are cut out, such as the first dinner together in which Sae expresses that as strict as she is, she does want Makoto to succeed. Immediately after Okumura's death, Sae seems unusually gleeful at the prospect of "using" the man's grief-stricken daughter for information, causing Akechi to sigh and walk away. "Dark Sun" also omits Sae's apology to Futaba for putting pressure on Sojiro.
  • Chihaya comes off as an unrepentant Snake Oil Salesman in the anime, in which she's shown trying to sell Holy Stones to Eiko and Tsukasa, and later to Ren, since her backstory and Character Development are not included. By comparison, in the game, she did honestly believe that people couldn't change their fates without help, it turned out the ADP's leader (who's done far worse things) was making her sell the stones, and after the protagonist helps change her beliefs, she pays him and her other customers back.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • This is utilized with several Gym Leaders. Many, most notably Lt. Surge, Erika, and Skyla, are changed into egotistical Jerkasses with a condescending demeanor towards their challengers; or, in Erika's case, towards those who don't appreciate the perfume her gym makes. Pryce is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who is cold towards Pokemon due to a misunderstanding with his Piloswine long ago, although he does get better when the Piloswine is found and the situation explained. Particularly in the games, Pryce is a perfectly pleasant and decent man, Erika is a laidback Ojou, Skyla is a cheerful and upbeat Nice Girl, and Lt. Surge, while cocky in the games, isn't nearly as mean about it as he is in the anime (being a Type 1 Eaglelander instead of a Type 2). All of them make friends with the heroes in the end.
  • Misty downplays this more than the others, as her anime counterpart is a tsundere with a temper (though she calms down once Togepi enters the picture) while her game counterpart doesn't seem to be that way (though later games made the odd nod to this characterization). The English dub also toned down her narcissism compared to the Japanese version.
  • Iris in the games is an energetic young prodigy. Despite her prowess as a trainer, she's a humble character who is quite friendly, to the point where she volunteers to be Bianca's bodyguard despite barely knowing her. However, in the anime, while heroic, her Catchphrase is telling Ash that he is "just a kid" due to his immaturity (despite being the same age as him). Iris in the anime is much more brattier than in the games, although she does improve by the end of the show, and since she is not a Gym Leader of Opelucid City yet in the anime, it's arguable that her anime characterization is meant to take place before her game characterization, allowing for Character Development. Her final scene with her adoptive grandfather and mentor Drayden says that she will one day take his place at the Opelucid Gym as leader, and she eventually does reappear in Journeys as the Unova region's Champion, where she has matured but still calls Ash "just a kid" (albeit now out of joking fondness as opposed to actual criticism).
  • Spearow and Raichu are generally presented as far more aggressive than they are in the games, though good-natured Raichu have appeared.
  • In Pokémon: I Choose You!, Ash has a moment where he abandons Pikachu after losing a battle. He says that he wishes he had a Squirtle starter instead of a Pikachu starter and runs off. Even though Ash in the Kanto arc could be stubborn and a little bratty, he would never say such things about his Pokémon. A downplayed example, as the rest of the film doesn't show him like this; and he does apologize for it in a later scene.
  • Another Gym Leader who went through this is Sabrina, a creepy girl with a permanent Death Glare and a sadistic childishness who spent almost her whole childhood developing her Psychic Powers and nothing else. Any trainer unfortunate enough to lose to her must play with her. And by play with her, we mean she shrinks them into the size of a doll so that they can be her personal playthings for who knows how long. And if they are very unfortunate, she turns them into literal dolls, putting them in a state where they can't even move at all. She even did this to her mother no less. Obviously, she never did this in the games, and it thankfully doesn't last long thanks to Ash's Haunter making her laugh for the first time.
  • The anime does this to Pokémon in general by showing that some change personalties upon evolving, most frequently being more stubborn and aggressive. This is loosely based on how in the games Pokémon will disobey their trainers if they don't have enough gym badges. The anime presents this as a normal part of Pokémon development, while the games do not. This also gives a convenient excuse for why some Pokémon refuse to evolve.
• Pokémon Adventures:
  • Norman, the protagonist's father in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. In the games, Norman is a kind, gentle person who respects his child's wishes and would most likely not use physical violence. In the manga, Norman is a lot meaner and beats up his son for disobeying him. Despite his harshness, he is on the side of good — he is genuinely supportive of Ruby.
  • Gladion is more ruthless than his game counterpart and isn't against having his Pokémon attack humans. He's also shown having a thing against women in power, thanks to his abusive mother.
• In Pocket Monsters: The Animation, Pallet Town is a Wretched Hive and Ash's mother Delia was a Stepford Smiler who resented him on some level and was glad to have him out of the house. In the actual anime she was perfectly kind and loving to the point of embarrassing him frequently.
• Akane Tendo from Ranma ˝ is a zigzagging case, in that it's hard to get any group of fans to agree which of her two incarnations (anime vs. manga) is the more jerkish. The anime version is generally portrayed as more consistently hot-tempered and quick to start shouting at Ranma or get grumpy. But the manga version goes to far nastier extremes in terms of anger at and distrust for Ranma — for example, believing Ranma will try to rape her when they are home alone together during the Hypnotic Mushrooms story, or accusing Ranma of trying to rape Hinako Ninomiya in her introductory story, both of which are things the anime version of Akane would never do.
• Rosario + Vampire:
  • In the original manga, Kokoa started out as a Jerkass, but mellowed out into a Tsundere Jerk with a Heart of Gold over time. In Capu2, she never mellows out and is rude, disrespectful, and bitchy to everyone she talks to, especially Outer Moka. Inner Moka is the only character in the entire show she treats with anything resembling kindness or respect, and that's just because they grew up together and Kokoa worships her.
  • Despite being overall Lighter and Softer than the manga, the anime nonetheless succeeded in making Kuyou even worse. In the manga, he just decides to kill the Newspapers Club as soon as he takes them to the headquarters of the Public Safety Commission and they rebel against him, while in the anime, he takes Tsukune, Moka, Kurumu and Mizore, and proceeds to torture Moka (and threatens to do the same with Mizore and Kurumu) to make Tsukune confess his identity as a human. Afterwards, he sentences Tsukune to a Public Execution in front of everyone in Yokai Academy to make an example of him.
• In RWBY, Weiss Schnee is a prejudiced person from a wealthy, abusive family. However, she genuinely wants to improve, so her initial character development into a supportive friend and team-mate happens quickly. In RWBY: Ice Queendom, she is a full-blown racist who learns the wrong lessons and fakes civility to score points with the teachers. This is to set up the main plot of her being infected by a Nightmare Grimm that so accentuates these negative traits that she's nicknamed "Nega(tive)-Weiss" in-universe.
• Sailor Moon:
  • Rei is an Aloof Dark-Haired Girl in the manga, but in the first anime adaptation, she is Hot-Blooded and often picks fights with Usagi. Rei is very prone to insulting Usagi, much more than the other way round and in many cases without provocation or reason other than teasing Usagi. Despite their bickering, they're still the closest of the guardians (in the manga Rei is closer with Minako than Usagi). The Dic dub takes this a step further. Rei, or rather Raye, is made even meaner to Usagi, or rather Serena, losing almost every little hint of strong companionship they have in the original version.
  • This ended up happening to Sailors Uranus and Neptune in the classic anime. Aloof allies to the max, they treated the Inner Guardians as kids who were too idealistic for their own good and couldn't handle a war that decided the fate of the world, even though they had already dealt with two world threatening villains (an Eldritch Abomination that was responsible for the Moon Kingdom's destruction and time-traveling terrorists from the 30th century) before they appeared and among them are a national genius girl with a handheld supercomputer that's suggested to be more advanced than modern day appliances (Ami), a psychic girl who could've figured out who held the Talismans by divining through the Sacred Fire (Rei), a girl who awoke as a Sailor Guardian long before all of them did and fought against evil organizations overseas by herself (Minako), and a girl with a legendary crystal that has the capacity to heal/destroy an entire planet and bring the dead back to life (Usagi). They even went as far as stealing Usagi's Transformation Trinket just to get her out of the way and threaten to kill her if she showed up again.
  • Luna also has a special mention. In the classic anime, she was very smug and quick to belittle Usagi whenever she did something dumb, and was especially snooty towards Artemis. She was always quick to dismiss him and hardly had any faith in him. When Diana appeared before him and called him her father, she instantly accused him of cheating on her while failing to see that Diana's fur was a mix of her's and Artemis' (grey). When it was revealed that she was Diana's mother, her treatment of him was never brought up.
  • While Chibiusa was no saint by any means in both the original and the Viz dub, her Bratty Half-Pint tendencies get cranked up in the DiC dub. This is not helped by Tracey Hoyt making her sound even MORE intolerable than usual.
• School Days:
  • Makoto Itou gets this in the anime. While he was no saint in the original VNs, the various routes made it possible to make him a genuine Nice Guy. His anime counterpart is instead a selfish, perverted, two-timing Jerkass who intentionally manipulates the girls into loving him, which results in them going insane and killing him. And that's not even getting to his personality in the Cross Days manga, where he is a straight up sexual predator.
  • In the manga adaption, where Makoto was given a far more likable personality, the reverse was done for Sekai, being very manipulative of everyone around her, including Makoto himself.
• Amu from Shugo Chara! gets that treatment in the anime; she was more snooty towards her charas than she was in the manga. She was always quick to dismiss them and hardly had any faith in them. When they, along with Eru, lost her Transformation Trinket, and then retrieve it, she instantly accused them of getting it lost on purpose, she it was Eru's idea. Also, when she lost her chocolate box she made for Tadase for Valentine's Day while fighting a Brainwashed and Crazy classmate, and saw her charas rubbing their stomachs after the fight was over, she instantly accussed them of eating her chocolates and chased after them, while failing to notice said chocolates landed on Ikuto.
• Sonic in Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie is ruder, more obnoxious, and less willing to help people than his video game counterpart.
• Sonic X:
  • Amy Rose from the Sonic the Hedgehog games could be bratty and over obsessed with Sonic, but otherwise a Nice Girl, while in the anime, she was gradually Flanderized into being short-tempered, aggressive, violent, and downright nasty to others, most especially by the third season. This personality in the anime bordered to the games later on, but was still toned down from her worst in the anime and eventually was abandoned.
  • Downplayed with Cream, who often joins in manipulating and beating up Knuckles just to showcase how much of a Butt-Monkey he is. In the games, she treats him with just as much respect as the rest of her friends.
• Sword Art Online: As much of a bastard he is in the light novels, Gabriel Miller actually manages to be worse in the anime, having a penchant for rape that was never present in the light novels.
• General Radi Jaeger from Valkyria Chronicles was a generally well-meaning Punch-Clock Villain who only fought on the side of the Empire because Maximillian promised to give his country independence if the war was won. This meant that he was also a regular witness to the Domestic Abuse his boss would inflict upon Selvaria. To make up for his inability to intervene on her behalf, he befriended her and treated her with kindness. The Anime of the Game however, gave Jaeger's role to Ascended Extra Johann Eisen. To avoid repeating the same character archetype twice, Jaeger's personality needed to be retooled. So his entire approach towards Selvaria was changed to making Stealth Insults and snarky remarks whenever her love for Maximillian manifested itself and in reaction to the latter's abusive antics. Essentially, showing her some Tough Love to hopefully make her realise their relationship is unhealthy.
• Pai Chan from Virtua Fighter is normally cheerful and happy-go-lucky in the games. The anime turned her into a very sassy Tsundere, especially when it comes to Akira.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: While Gozaburo Kaiba was always a villain, being an Abusive Parent to Seto, Mokuba AND Noah, being the whole reason Seto is initially a psychotic Jerkass, he's infinitely worse in the anime. In the anime he's an Omnicidal Maniac who planned to launch missiles across the world in order to wipe out 97% of Earth's population and rule over the survivors like a god from the digital world. The anime also has him basically raise Seto to perform a Grand Theft Me on him for Noah, before deciding to take Seto's body for himself when he dies via digitally transferring his mind.

Comic Books

• All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder:
  • Batman is depicted as enjoying violence and inflicting pain, in contrast to his usual depiction.
  • Superman is more concerned with how Batman's actions will reflect on all superheroes than Dick Grayson's safety and is morequick to anger, going as far as threatening to kill Wonder Woman if she kills Batman.
  • Wonder Woman is a misandrist (an infamous line is her calling a man a "sperm bank"), thinking all men outside of Superman as worthless, and she honestly wanted to kill Batman and head his head over to the authorities.
• In the Classics Illustrated adaptation of The Black Arrow, Bennet Hatch interrupts protagonist Dick Shelton as he is encouraging the villagers to join Sir Daniel's forces to tell them they will join their lord's army or else...and then advises Dick treating the "simple varlets" with more harshness. In the original novel he makes no such insulting comments; neither he suggests Dick to abuse people.
• Tony Stark himself suffers this early on in Heroes Reborn: Iron Man, starting off as an arrogant prick, not caring about less well-off people, comparing them to ants, and using his money and clout to get what he wants.
• Jem and the Holograms (IDW):
  • The Misfits are still the antagonists and still not nice girls (except Stormer), but it's slyly demonstrated that each of the band stands solely on their own. Pizzazz's temper is even worse, and feels she literally cannot trust anyone in her life. Roxy and Jetta aren't down each other's throats anymore, but they'd just as easily laugh if one was the butt of a joke. Pizzazz, Roxy, and Jetta still gang up on Stormer, but Stormer is actually more likely to snark back at them, insult them and even scream at them, unafraid to stand up to even Pizzazz. Clash in the cartoon also wouldn't have tried to seriously injure, or outright murder, Jem like that.
  • At the same time though, this is inverted as their softer sides and Hidden Depths are more present. Jetta went from the Token Evil Teammate to being calm and relatively nice (especially towards Roxy, who she's best friend with in the comics but is enemies with in the cartoon). A lot more emphasis goee into giving Pizzazz's Hidden Depths focus. She has a lot more moments of sincerity, happiness, and vulnerability. In one issue she actually listens to Stormer's wants to do a ballad and ends the issue on a middle ground. She'll allow a ballad on the next album, not the current one. In the cartoon scene that was inspired by Pizzazz outright just shredded the lyrics because she doesn't like "soft" songs.
• Judge Dredd is a prime example of Good is Not Nice, since his job requires him to be the faceless, robotic enforcer of a dictatorship prone to Disproportionate Retribution. However, Judge Dredd does have rules and a code of honor he adheres to, helping out the helpless wherever he can and not taking instances where he has to Shoot the Dog lightly. At one point he even turned in his badge when he grew disgusted with the system. In the Alternate Continuity published in Heavy Metal, he is a lot more Trigger-Happy and seems to go out of his way to hound innocent people.
• The Justice League: Gods and Monsters tie-in comics features a self-serving version of Francine Lee, the eventually wife of Man-Bat. Outside of The New 52, she's usually a supportive and loving person to Kirk.
• In prior-continuities, R.J. Brande was an affable nice billionaire who helped fund the Legion out of gratitude to Garth, Rokk, and Imra for saving his life and because he realized the galaxy needed heroes. President Brande in Legion of Super-Heroes (2020), on the other hand, is a two-faced beaurucrat whose opinion on the Legion flip-flops depending on what's useful to her at the time. Not helping matters is that Chameleon Boy loathes her, whereas in the continuities where Cham is R.J. Brande's son they get along seemingly well.
• New 52
  • Wonder Woman and her supporting characters are all much less pleasant people than the norm in Wonder Woman (2011), with some like Donna Troy being turned into straight up villains. That Wondy and the Amazons revel in killing and the Amazons of this continuity are murderous, rapist, slave trading misandrists rather misses the mark of the original intent behind Wonder Woman and the Amazons, who were meant to be an example of the best of humanity and what could be achieved without the limitations posed on people due to bigotry.
  • Tim Drake is as harsh and hardened as he was at his lowest points in Red Robin pre-Flashpoint but without the Trauma Conga Line that led him to that point in his new backstory. Evidently this version of Tim is just a jerk, even endangering his family to try to uncover Batman's identity, which he definitely did not do in his original incarnation.
  • Billy Batson. He starts off appearing to be the same Wide-Eyed Idealist as in past versions, but is immediately revealed to the reader to be a Manipulative Bastard cynically spouting what potential foster parents want to hear, with the group home manager openly telling him that she's letting him get away with this in the hope of getting rid of the most unpleasant kid she's ever met. It's a set-up for him to learn An Aesop about family by the end of his origin, but it's still a bit off-putting.
• In Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil, Mrs Bromfield is briefly mentioned as hating Mary because she blamed her fosterage for Mr Bromfield leaving. In all other continuities where the Bromfields feature Mary is Happily Adopted.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic is a heroic, laid-back, if somewhat cocky character in the games, and at the time of Sonic the Comic was written in western canon as being a Totally Radical Mascot with Attitude. But in here, he's a bullying, immature Jerkass, especially to Tails. Despite caring for his friends, he really has a hard time showing it.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
    • While not to the extent of his Sonic the Comic counterpart, Sonic's flaws are emphasized more in this incarnation, and he verges into Jerk with a Heart of Gold territory more often than not. Examples include the following:
    • On top of dating Fiona despite full knowledge of Tails' crush on her, during the House of Cards arc, he ends up criticizing and insulting Tails' father for kick-starting a Velvet Revolution, and when trying to stop his mother from breaking him out of jail to continue it, fully expects Tails to be 100% okay with him doing so, going so far as to gloat to Rosemary and Amadeus' faces that even if they are his parents, Tails worships him and will get over it. Instead, Tails is justifiably pissed over all of that, on top of his dating Fiona, and hearing that leads him to snap and try to beat the crap out of Sonic.
    • In the games, Sonic is generally an All-Loving Hero (if with a sarcastic streak and Good Is Not Soft moments), while in Archie, as much as he tries to be such at times, he generally has a history of holding long lasting and sometimes even outright violent grudges:
    • After the events of Sonic 3 and Knuckles, Sonic seemed perfectly willing to befriend Knuckles, with most of the distrust and resentment one-way on Knuckles' part, and often comedic (though Sonic has no qualms playfully insulting him). In the comics, the two both straight up hated each other for a long while even after Knuckles realizes he's been duped by Robotnik, and while Knuckles generally avoids the same trickery afterwards, they still regularly spat, blame each other for things going wrong or just show petty resentment towards each other, with just as much vitriol on Sonic's part as Knuckles'. They cool down eventually, but still have more serious disagreements than in the games.
    • In comparison to his games counterpart, who was perfectly willing to forgive and forget Silver for doing such acts as trying to kill him out of misguided heroism, Sonic's attitude towards him for similar acts here is much less relaxed, leading him to end up smashing Silver through a wall, trying to Spin Dash him to oblivion, and give him a brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech. Even after calming down, the next time they meet, Sonic still sees red, telling Silver in no uncertain terms that he's done listening to anything he has to say and ordering him to screw off. To be fair, this was right after Sonic had just witnessed Sally's roboticization and Antoine, one of the people Silver accused of being a traitor with little-to-no evidence to back it up, had been rendered comatose after saving Elias and the Acorns from Metal Sonic. He does finally forgive Silver, but it takes a lot more convincing from his allies as well as Silver obtaining Mecha Sally for Sonic to lighten up around him.
    • No incarnation of Dr. Eggman is a Nice Guy, but his video game counterpart is a legitimately Affably Evil villain with some positive qualities who is prone to Enemy Mine situations with Sonic and his friends. Pre-reboot, this Eggman is far more monstrous and guilty of numerous horrifying atrocities, up to and including mass murder and genocide, having much more in common with Eggman Nega than his games self.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): Shadow is way more hostile and prone to violence than his more subdued and stoic persona in the games, and his relationship with Sonic is slightly more embittered (though this isn't unjustified given the situation they were in). Most notably, he's way more arrogant about his abilities and confidently assumes he's more capable than he actually is, which coss him greatly in the Metal Virus saga. According to Ian Flynn, this was an editorial mandate on Sega's part, as they decided this was how they wanted Shadow's personality to be portrayed.
• In The Star Wars, Princess Leia is much ruder than her canon counterpart, and has a Slap-Slap-Kiss thing going on with Annikin.
• Spider-Man: Life Story:
  • Mary Jane in issue #2, having never met Peter when he was younger at Aunt May's insistence, is seen as the hedonistic party-goer she was in Lee-Romita's run. It turns out, however, that this is an act and that she knew Peter was Spider-Man for a while and she gets angry at him for his constant bailing out on his friends and general passive nature, since all he does in his civilian life is pass judgment on his friends or make them feel guilty for their lives. She tones down considerably after the death of Gwen Stacy, allowing Peter to lash out at her while she in turns hugs him out of his grief and regret, much like the end of Conway's famous story.
  • In issue #3, Peter Parker becomes a neglectful father to his twin babies, Ben and Claire, as opposed to the loving, caring and devoted parent seen in Spider-Girl and The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows. He is entirely aware of this but his Chronic Hero Syndrome prevents him from taking active measures to improve his family life. Likewise, in 616, when Peter found out that the Symbiote was alive and was alerted about it by Reed Richards, Peter agreed to eject the suit quickly. Here Reed is appalled that Peter is knowingly using a suit with an alien consciousness just so he can continue to function as an aging superhero and a need to "stay relevant".
  • In issue #4, it is shown that Tony Stark never went through meaningful character development and never stopped being a weapons dealer due to becoming more involved in the Vietnam War. To Tony, his weapons helped the United States win the war against Russia and blows up on Peter for suggesting he stop making them. He hits Peter under the belt by hanging Mary Jane constantly moving herself and the kids away from New York, and Peter implies that Tony sold weapons to not-so-great regimes.
• The Transformers (IDW): A controversial aspect is their tendency to do this to fan favorite characters.
  • Arcee is typically depicted as one of the more mature and sisterly Autobots. In the comics, she was originally a male Transformer who was subjected to inhumane experiments that turned her into a female. This resulted in her becoming morally detached and violently unstable.
  • Prowl is usually an honorable By-the-Book Cop. In the comics, he becomes a complete jackboot who regularly commits immoral crimes because he feels that they were necessary to maintain peace.
  • In the original cartoon, Spike and Sparkplug Witwicky were the Autobots' closest human allies. The comic versions of the characters are completely different characters, both being huge jerks who hate Transformers. Spike is a particularly extreme example, becoming a minor luddite who's such a smug jackass that no one except his parents like him.
  • Transformers: Deviations sees its version of the Autobots introduced in The Transformers: The Movie be incredibly rude to Hot Rod, with Ultra Magnus threatening violence and even accusing Hot Rod of treason because of his dream of the Matrix. The thing is the premise of the story is deviating from the film so it's Optimus who survived what was supposed to be his final duel with Megatron and it's Megatron who died — and in the film itself, the Autobots still didn't hold anything against Hot Rod despite Optimus's death, so it's weird they're bullying Hot Rod in this since with Optimus alive, they have no reason to do so.
• Wonder Woman (1942): With the switch in writers after William Moulton Marston's death Steve Trevor and Gen. Darnell become noticeably more sexist, frequently saying things they'd once have been happy to have Wonder Woman and the Holliday Girls' help with are a man's job and belittling their once trusted ally Etta Candy. This changes were somewhat subtle at first, but the subtlety was dropped when the book switched from the Golden Age Earth-Two to the Silver Age Earth-One.
• Wonder Woman: The True Amazon features one of the meanest versions of Wonder Woman out there that isn't outright evil, as she's incredibly spoiled, selfish, and proud. Her hubris ends up killing and maiming several of her Amazon sisters, and she becomes Wonder Woman as penance for her actions.
• Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia: Features Batman in the role of a Hero Antagonist as he tracks down someone who has come under Wonder Woman's protection and so many of his negative qualities get amplified and put on full display.

Films — Animated

• A very downplayed version in The Amazing Maurice, where Keith is mostly the somewhat diffident Nice Guy he is in the book, but there is one moment when book Keith is slightly shocked at Malicia's plan to deal with the ratcatchers (not just giving them laxative and telling them it's poision, but giving them more laxative and telling them it's the antidote), saying "You are not a nice person" (although he still goes along with it). In the film, he completely approves and calls her a genius.
• Alice's Birthday:
  • In the original Alice, Girl from the Future series, Rrrr is timid, quiet and extremely polite. In the animated adaptation of Alice’s Birthday, he is sarcastic and easily irritated, often rudely snapping at Alice. Partly justified, since their friendship, unlike in the books, has a rocky start, with her mistaking him for an actual kitten and later accidentally spraying him with a foul-smelling vaccine.
  • Alice herself gets it to a lesser extent. When a six-year-old boy from Koleida offers to help her, she rudely refuses, telling him rather sharply that he is too small. Granted, her nerves at that moment are on edge and she does not want him to join her dangerous mission, but book!Alice, while she can be sarcastic, is never outright rude, and she is always nice to kids younger than her, even when they are annoying.
• In the Batman comics, Councilman Arthur Reeves had mob connections and hated Batman, but he was an ultimately harmless buffoon set up to fail by said mob connections^note Rupert Throne, wanting Hamilton Hill to be mayor, set Reeves up with false evidence implying Batman as a mob boss, only to out the truth for Hill's victory In Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Reeves sold Carl Beaumont out to Sal Valestra after Carl refused to give him more money for his campaign, resulting in Carl's death. The first annual for Batman & Robin Adventures also sees this version of Revees becomes a super villain in his own right.
• In the original Coraline book, Coraline is polite, well-mannered, and stoic, while her film counterpart is sarcastic, belligerent, and snarky (although she does soften out by the end). The game counterpart is a mixture of both. Nowhere near as jerkish as the movie version, but not as stoic as the book version.
• Disney Animated Canon:
  • Beauty and the Beast: In the original tale, the Beast was never a bad guy to begin with. He was transformed by an evil fairy through no fault of his own and is seen to be kind-hearted for the most part, and gentleman-like, with only an occasional tendency to be hot-tempered. In the Disney version, he starts out as an outright Jerkass who was transformed as punishment for his cruelty, is always angry (although not without remorse, as shown when he sees Belle crying in the tower and takes her to a nicer room), and only becomes good after Character Development.
  • Big Hero 6 is more "Adaptational Jerk with a Heart of Gold." In the comics, Hiro Takachiho is an Ordinary High-School Student. At the start of the animated movie, Hiro Hamada partakes in illegal bot-fights before his brother shows him around his school. There's also the issue of trying to kill Callaghan, though to be fair, that was an extreme circumstance.
  • Lilo & Stitch: In one of the "Inter-Stitch-ial" trailers, Princess Jasmine from Aladdin is depicted as a Gold Digger who ditches Aladdin for Stitch when she sees he has a spaceship, which she finds more impressive than Aladdin's magic carpet.
  • The Sword in the Stone: Both Wart's foster-father, Ector, and his foster-brother, Kay, have a lot of their positive qualities scrubbed away (at least until the end). Ector goes from a Reasonable Authority Figure who wants Wart to be educated to a bossy disciplinarian who's against it, while Kay is reduced to a one-dimensional bully who hates Wart for no good reason, rather than having a legitimate inferiority complex (he also gets an Age Lift, which exacerbates the problem — it's one thing to see a twelve-year-old being picked on by his fourteen-year-old brother, and another thing to see that same bullying from a guy who's at least eighteen, if not older).
  • Tangled: In the original tale, "the prince" (who Flynn is based on) was the stereotypical heroic character. Here, he is a selfish anti-heroic thief, but becomes less selfish after spending time with Rapunzel and steps up to true blue heroism. Flynn started development as a Gentle Giant thief named "Bastion" who only robbed because he had no other choice growing up an orphan, making his more true to the original prince, however the team decided to revamp his character into something "sexier".
  • Downplayed in Ralph Breaks the Internet where the Disney Princesses are more standoff-ish than normal and seem to enjoy messing up C-3PO's name. They're still quite friendly otherwise.
• DC Animated Movie Universe:
  • In the comics, Nightwing is open to Damian becoming Robin (he actually replaced Tim Drake in order to bring Damian into the Batfamily) and gladly supports and guides him even before he got the mantle. In Son of Batman, he's a rather standoffish jerk who would prefer to avoid Damian if at all possible and is vehemently opposed to Damian becoming Robin. In this case, it's because he's a sort of Composite Character with Tim Drake, whose relationship with Damian was a lot tenser.
  • In Batman: Bad Blood, Batwoman is more willing to resort to lethal force and unlike the comic, when Batman rescues a pre-Batwoman Kate, she's shown to be resentful of it.
• A minor case in Green Lantern: First Flight, where Tomar Re and Ch'p are initially distrustful and dismissive towards Hal Jordan because of doubts that he is a worthy successor to Abin Sur. In contrast, their comic counterparts got along rather well with Hal Jordan from the start.
• In The Hobbit, Thranduil. In the book, he's relatively isolationist, but he doesn't restrict his people's movements, he keeps ties to the nearby men, and he willingly comes to their aid. In the movie, he's first seen abandoning Erebor at Smaug's initial attack, and in Desolation of Smaug he orders his people not to leave the keep once the forest gets dangerous. In the book he is reluctant to fight the dwarves ( "Long may I tarry, ere I begin a war for gold,"), while in the movie, he is eager to fight.
• The Lion King (2019):
  • Scar zigzags this trope, between this version of him and the Scar from the original movie. His sarcasm focus more on malicious remarks this time, he gets a new scene trying to make Sarabi his queen, and punishing all the lionesses when she refuses. Though he still blames the hyenas for Mufasa's death and gets killed by them, he treated them better beforehand this time: he doesn't claim to be Surrounded by Idiots and personally leads them in hunts. The hyenas don't complain about his rule this time, implying he was a better king to them in this version.
  • Mufasa comes off as a more aloof and self-centered character than his portrayal as The Good King in the 1994 film. In the original movie, he only interrupts Zazu's morning report for a "pouncing lesson", which is done with Zazu's (reluctant) permission, once he realizes that's what Simba is more interested in; in the remake, it's rewritten so that Mufasa gets the idea himself and never talks to Zazu about it, so it comes off as more of a prank he's playing on him out of boredom. Some added dialogue during his talk with Simba after the elephant graveyard also gives the impression that he cares more about ensuring the survival of his bloodline than the fact that his son just put himself and his friend in mortal danger for a cheap thrill.
  • A brief moment, but Timon and Pumbaa say things that bother Simba while laughing about the "great kings of the past", which brings bad memories to Simba. This is opposed to them just laughing in the original. They also blame each other for laughing at Simba, while the original has them looking a little guilty, with Timon adding, "Was it something I said?"
• While Kano is no saint in Mortal Kombat canon, he never did the crimes against humanity he committed in Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind, which included terrorizing small towns and deliberating unleashing a hodre of revenants so he could Take Over the World.
• Queer Duck: The Movie does this to the unnamed Mocky Mouse mascot that appeared in the original web series' episode "The Gayest Place on Earth". While the character in the original web series was already not very nice due to lashing out on Queer Duck for flirting with his lover Gobble the Salty Seaman and berating Gobble at the end of the episode for not finishing a blowjob, the movie reinterprets the character as being straight and a homophobe, denying Queer Duck and the other gay men he's brought together entry to the theme park Happyland by bringing down the gates and yelling "Beat it, you homos!"
• In a case of this happening to the hero to a degree, Superman vs. the Elite actually sees Superman go through with lobotomizing Manchester Black and depowering the Elite. In the original comics, the Elite retained their powers and Supes merely gave Black a concussion. A small detail implies that it might still be a concussion, but those who haven't read the comics wouldn't be able to notice it.
• In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Donkey Kong is given Adaptational Intelligence (in the games normally using Hulk Speak at best Depending on the Writer) and made a snarky Jerk Jock.

Films — Live-Action

• Batman:
  • Batman Returns:
    • While the comics Penguin was a crime boss, he was also an Affably Evil Wicked Cultured gentleman of crime and was genuinely deemed sane. Here, he's a deformed, psychotic, Ax-Crazy, sadistic, sexually-repressed child killer and would-be mass murderer, setting the stage for many future interpretations of the character to follow, including The Batman, the Batman: Arkham Series, and Gotham.
    • In most versions, Selina is an amoral jewel thief who is mostly sane. Here, she's a revenge-obsessed and mentally unstable vigilante with an even more sadistic streak.
  • Batman Forever: In the comics, Two-Face was was more of a tragic Anti-Villain with sympathetic qualities. This incarnation of Two-Face, while sillier and more comical, is also arguably the nastiest version of the character. For starters, he lacks any of the sympathetic or tragic qualities he has in the comics, and he has plenty of Kick the Dog moments, such as being responsible for the deaths of Robin's parents and brother.
• Beauty and the Beast (2017):
  • While in the animated film the villagers seemed amused by Belle's quirks, here they are much more hostile towards her and see her as a genuine threat to the status-quo, becoming outraged when Belle commits the crime of teaching a girl how to read.
  • In the animated movie the Bimbettes were just silly airheads without any real malice towards anyone, but in this version they act more snobbish, disdainful, and actively dislike Belle. When Gaston has Belle locked up alongside her father, they actually laugh at her expense.
  • In the animated movie, the Beast was troubled, angry, violent and hostile, but he wasn't completely without remorse, as mentioned in the animated movies example above. In the live action film, he's much more uncaring and has no second thoughts about imprisoning Belle in a tower.
• The Cat in the Hat: In stark contrast to the mischievous but friendly and well-meaning Cat in the Hat of the original novel and the animated special, Mike Myers' version of the Cat is a wisecracking, foul-mouthed, perverted Jerkass.
• Doctor Zhivago has Commissar Strelnikov. In both the novel and film he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist who burns down innocent villages just to make a point. However, the novel version is quite personable when Yuri meets him, and gets humanizing moments like making sure that a wounded POW gets medical care and privately wishing he could sneak off from the war even for a little while to see his family. In David Lean's film, Strelnikov is cold and hostile in person, claims "the private life is dead in Russia" with regards to his family, and the hints at his humanity are so subtle that it's easy to perceive him as being genuinely dead inside.
• In the book A Dog's Purpose, Ethan's dad is a distant father who is implied to have a bad relationship with his wife which ends in divorce. Other than Bailey mentioning that Mom and Dad sometimes yell at each other, there aren't too many red flags about him. The film adaptation exaggerates him into a more noticeably abusive character.
• Dune (2021): Book!Gurney was a hardass, but also had a well-developed sense of humor and a keen interest in art. The film's Gurney is far harsher and more brutal and only retains a small sliver of the book's Warrior Poet, with his interest in music gone and his tendency to joke and spout quotations at the drop of a hat severely curtailed.
• In Jane Austen's Emma, Emma's sister Isabella Knightley is a very sweet, affectionate woman who is very concerned about her children and their well-being, especially their health. She's easily distressed and a bit nervous but she's an indulgent mother whose children are happy. She's also absolutely devoted to her husband. In Emma. (2020) (the 2020 adaptation), she's turned into a shrew who constantly fusses at the slightest hint about her children's discomfort, makes a huge deal out of minor things and repeatedly makes her baby cry. She never once talks kindly to her husband and always snaps at him.
• In Fantastic Four (2015):
  • Johnny comes across as a cocky, spiteful, and combative individual — and unlike his comic counterpart, he doesn't get to show his devotion to his friends and family. Even his quip toward Ben (calling him "the Thing nobody wanted") comes across as mean-spirited instead of playful teasing (which is made worse by the fact that Ben in this movie was scarred by bullying growing up). The only justification he has is that he suffers a bit from perceiving himself as a "Well Done, Son" Guy, but even then, he doesn't make an effort to learn anything that his father tries to teach him.
  • While arrogant, the Doctor Doom of the comics is at the best of times a Well-Intentioned Extremist. In the film, he's an Omnicidal Maniac, intent on wiping out all life on Earth.
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): The MonsterVerse portrayal of Rodan which debuts in this film is one of the viler iterations. In the original Showa movies, Rodan consistently despised the evil King Ghidorah, and at his best he was portrayed as one of Godzilla's closest brothers-in-arms alongside Anguirus. By contrast, this version of Rodan is a Wild Card who sides with Ghidorah against Godzilla and Mothra, partially contributing to Mothra's death. And after Ghidorah's death at the climax frees Rodan from Ghidorah's control, he tries to aggravate Godzilla himself, before he wisely rethinks that and bows down to his slain evil master's killer.
• Harry Potter:
  • Ron's kindness and loyalty towards his friends has been toned down in the films, in an attempt to make him more of a comic relief character. In the books, Ron is portrayed as a very loyal friend, who is willing to even risk his life to help the people he cares about. In the films, he is portrayed as somewhat insensitive to the feelings of others, which is played for comedy. This is very noticable during this exchange from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban:
    • Book version:
    Snape: “That is the second time you have spoken out of turn, Miss Granger, Five more points from Gryffindor for being an insufferable know-it-all.”
    Ron: “You asked us a question and she knows the answer! Why ask if you don’t want to be told?”
    • Film Version:
    Professor Snape: That is the second time you have spoken out of turn, Miss Granger. Tell me, are you incapable of restraining yourself, or do you take pride in being an insufferable know-it-all?
    Ron: He's got a point, you know.
  • Dumbledore is a frequent offender of this trope.
    • In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Dumbledore raps on Ron's plastered leg several times, totally oblivious to Ron's winces of pain.
    • A particularly infamous example happens during Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Just after Harry is chosen to compete in a dangerous tournament he is too young to participate in, Dumbledore asks him whether or not he entered said contest voluntarily. The book explicitly mentions Dumbledore asking this calmly. In the movie, he physically shakes Harry while angrily yelling said question.
    • In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, his overall demeanor seems to be more gruff and uncaring compared to his book counterpart. When divination professor Trelawney is sacked by Umbridge in front of a large number of students, Book Dumbledore takes charge of the situation, stays calm and gleefully acts like a Rules Lawyer, telling Umbridge she has no right to banish sacked teachers from the Hogwarts premises. In the movie, he states the rules with a raised voice and then vents his frustration on the onlooking students, angrily asking them if they don't have any studying to do, instead of looking at Trelawney being sacked. He also acts like a jerk towards Harry, just after Harry saw Ron's father Arthur being attacked by Voldemort's snake. In the book, he sends Harry, along with the Weasley children, to his godfather Sirius, in order to get them away from Umbridge. In the movie, immediately after receiving the vision, Dumbledore sends the emotionally shaken and confused Harry to Sadist Teacher Snape to teach him how to block his mind from Voldemort.
  • A minor case of this happens in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when Harry's illegal studygroup Dumbledore's Army is discovered by Umbridge. In the book, Dumbledore's Army is willingly revealed by the best friend of Harry's love interest Cho, followed by Harry and Cho having a fight about this in which both sides actually have a point. When Umbridge discovers Dumbledore's Army in the movie, the group is unwillingly revealed by Cho, who has been obviously forced to show its location, as she was dragged along by Malfoy, yet Harry seems to treat it as if Cho willingly did so and alienates her like the rest of the school does, making him look like a bit of a jerk to her. He only realizes his mistake when Snape later outright confirms what he should have figured out from the start.
  • In the book of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the Hufflepuffs shun Harry when they believe he put his name in the Goblet, thus stealing glory from the other Hogwarts Champion Cedric Diggory; in the film, they outright taunt him.
  • The film of Order of the Phoenix somehow manages to do this with Umbridge. Her film version introduces and enforces much more petty rules the students have to follow during her reign at Hogwarts.
• Joker (2019) sees Thomas Wayne as more elitist and callous than most other depictions, and while he wants to help, he displays Condescending Compassion. Related to this, Alfred Pennyworth is rather mean and taunts Arthur about his mother, though this behavior was likely caused by fear for Bruce.
• The Jungle Book (2016): Baloo. While he keeps the animated version's laid-back personality in this film, he also gets a selfish, cunning side, such as tricking Mowgli into getting honey for him, unlike his animated counterpart who never takes advantage of Mowgli.
• Sokka from the parent cartoon series was a bit of a sexist jerk to his sister, Katara, pre-Character Development but it was always portrayed as nothing outside a normal sibling relationship: he never did anything worse than smart off at her and she gave as good as he did. In the movie adaptation, The Last Airbender, it’s implied that he’s hit her in the past due to the way she cowers when he raises his arm. He also treats her a lot worse in general than he did in the show.
• Last of the Mohicans: In the film version, Duncan Heyward, although he has a Heroic Sacrifice, is significantly more of a jerk than the character in the book, who not only survives the book, but his descendants remain loyal to Hawkeye.
• Mars Attacks!: Minor case. In the cards, the reason the Martians were attacking Earth was that Mars was going to explode from air pressure and they needed a new planet, whereas here they are doing it For the Evulz. Also, not all Martians were evil in the cards. The warlike Martians were called Gnards and the peaceful, intellectual ones were called Paecs.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): In the comics, Star-Lord was a seasoned cosmic superhero long before joining the Guardians. In the movies, he starts off as a self-serving outlaw and a bit of an asshole, although he eventually chooses to step up for true blue unselfish heroism - with a side of whatever (and whoever) he can get his hands on.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Although he's a villain in the comics as well, the film's version of Ego plans to wipe out all life in the universe and replace it with himself, and commits very personal atrocities such as killing his own lover and Peter's mother Meredith with an artificial brain tumor.
  • In Spider-Man: Homecoming, Flash Thompson is a good deal less sympathetic than his comic counterpart, who, at the very least, had a Freudian Excuse for his bullying, and also greatly admired Spider-Man, qualities that Homecoming's Flash lacks. Additionally, in one scene where he and his classmates are trapped in an elevator, he prioritizes saving himself and a trophy he didn't even earn. That said, the sequel Spider-Man: Far From Home restores him to his regular levels of jerkassery; a Freudian Excuse is now implied and he gets to show that he does respect Spider-Man, with Flash himself commenting that he's trying to improve.
    • Then again in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Flash is shown again to be more jerkassed than his comic book counterpart as he is shown to just want to profite of him knowing Peter Parker and therefor Spider-Man, going as far as pretending to be Spider-Man´s best friend and blackmailing Peter when the latter needs his help.
  • Also from Spider-Man: No Way Home, J. Jonah Jameson. While he is an outright jerkass in the comics he is generally portrayed as a Jerkass with a Heart of Gold who also is a good journalist despite his hatred for Spider-Man who genuinly cares for Peter and his employees. Also, his hatred for Spider-Man is often justified for various reasons. MCU-Jameson however doesn't show any of these redeeming qualities and seems like a Pompous Political Pundit who wants to capitalize on the whole Spider-Man-killed-Mysterio story.
  • Thanos zigzags this, as while his comic counterpart put Gamora through Training from Hell, he does have some fondness for her and some Pet the Dog moments, like saving her as her species was wiped out and seeking revenge against her attackers after she was raped. Film Thanos abducted her just because he could, though he does say he considers her his "favorite daughter," and is angry with Ronan when he finds out that Gamora has defected and joined the good guys. However, the relationship with Nebula is better, given in the film, she's one of his "daughters" and in the comics, he turned her into a corpse-like vegetable just for claiming to be his granddaughter. Then the sequel plays it straight when Nebula reveals that Thanos made her and Gamora fight, and would forcibly replace part of the loser's body with cybernetics supposedly to make her stronger. Nebula always lost, hence her unquenchable hatred for Thanos in the films (and to a lesser extent her hatred for Gamora).
• Mulan (2020): While Shan-Yu from Disney's first take on the story was a brutal warmonger, he was also notable for his lack of sexism. Though he was understandably surprised that the Chinese soldier who set off the avalanche was a woman in disguise as a man, he clearly doesn't care that she's female, showing no wounded pride at a woman getting the better of him and taking her seriously as an opponent. His counterpart Bori Khan, however, is a Straw Misogynist who mistreats his right-hand woman Xian Lang despite her playing a crucial role in his success and refuses to accept Mulan as a genuine threat.
• Claudius in Ophelia. Claudius is no saint in the original Hamlet, but many adaptations portray him as Affably Evil. Not so much in this one; he's Faux Affably Evil at best and comes off as a churlish bully who preys on vulnerable people. All in all, this is one of the least sympathetic portrayals of Claudius in a major Hamlet adaptation.
• Power Rangers (2017):
  • Almost all of the good characters are hit with this trope compared to their original versions in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. The original Rangers were all idealized portrayals of teenagers, who could do no wrong, get top grades at school and do at least five volunteer jobs each. In this film, the Rangers are a far cry from their goody two shoes counterparts, as they meet each other in detention, which they received for legitimately screwing things up. Their allies Zordon and Alpha were the surrogate father figure and childlike Robot Buddy respectively. In the film, Alpha is a Deadpan Snarker, while Zordon openly admits he has no confidence in the Rangers and it is even revealed he only bothered with them as a means to revive himself.
  • Rita Repulsa is far more serious, as this version is depicted as a murderer and even engaging in torture.
• The cartoon versions of Scooby-Doo and his friends are generally friendly and nice people. The 2002 live action film adaptation, meanwhile, gives them a lot more Jerkass traits for laughs. Fred, Daphne and Velma spend much of the film arguing, Scooby punches Fred in the face, Shaggy suggests after Fred and Velma are captured by monsters that he, Scooby and Daphne let them get eaten (the cartoon version of Shaggy is a coward, but he's not the kind of person that would abandon his friends), and a flashback shows them abandoning Scrappy - Scooby's nephew - in the middle of the desert. In addition, Scrappy gets some heavy Adaptational Villainy, becoming the film's Big Bad.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (2020): In the games, Dr. Eggman may be the primary villain, but he's Affably Evil. This movie's take on him is an Insufferable Genius who's pretty much incapable of interacting with anybody else without being rude and condescending to them whose only real redeeming trait is his fondness for Dr. Stone.
• Spider-Man 3: In the comics, Eddie Brock's grudge against Spider-Man was caused when he published an article incriminating a man he thought was a Serial Killer, only for Spider-Man to catch the real culprit. This publicly shamed Eddie, causing his company to fire him, his father to disown him, and his wife to leave him. Here, Eddie pretty much digs his own grave by forging fake photographs, making his grudge against Peter Parker seem pettier as a result. This even extends to his actual supervillain origin — in the comics, Eddie went to the Our Lady Of Saints Church to pray to God for forgiveness, as he was planning to commit suicide after his life fell apart, but here, Eddie prays for God to kill Peter Parker.
• Watchmen: Zig-Zagged with the cast. Rorschach is more hostile and angry than his comic counterpart with Jackie Earle Haley intentionally portraying him like rabid dog. However, Rorschach's craziness and misogyny seemed downplayed. Likewise, while Ozymandias is colder, he seems to feel more remorse for his more heinous actions.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • In the comics, Quicksilver may be a world-class asshole and suffer from Heel–Face Revolving Door, but he is well-meaning at the core and can be counted on to do the right thing. In X-Men: Days of Future Past, he's just a bored teenager with a kleptomaniac streak who doesn't really care about being a productive member of society and who has to have the breakout sold to him as an opportunity to raise hell, as it's clear that he probably wouldn't have done it of his own volition otherwise. However, he does grow out of it in later films.
  • X-Men: Apocalypse does this to both Angel, who becomes an angry and cocky rebel who jumps at the opportunity of becoming a Horseman of Apocalypse, and Cyclops, who is a bad boy instead of a "boy scout" (though through the movie, he starts to transition to the straight-edge guy who becomes the X-Men's field leader).

Literature

• In the novelization of The Boss Baby, the executives of Baby Corp get this. When Francis Francis talks about them firing him, there is no mention of him being lactose intolerant like in the film. Apparently they just fired him without any stated reason.
• While the Eldritch Abominations in the Cthulhu Mythos are highly destructive with no regard for humanity, they were so far removed from familiar human concepts like morality that they weren't so much evil as they were indifferent, much like how we step on ants without noticing them. In I, Cthulhu, the Great Old Ones have thoughts and wants similar to that of humans, which makes them seem outright malicious.
• Jonathan Harker, of Dracula, gets hit with this hard. In the original, he's a Nice Guy who went through a lot, but still cares deeply for his wife, and was even willing to become a vampire so she wouldn't suffer undeath alone. Most adaptations turn him into a Jerkass who barely cares about Mina at all, sometimes an abusive husband and/or Entitled to Have You. Most of these adaptations do this to justify a romance between Mina and Dracula, making it a case of Adaptational Consent as well.
• Oliver Twisted: The original tale of Oliver Twist allowed a Pet the Dog moment for Mr. Bumble when escorting Oliver to Mr. Sowerberry's premises, although he didn't act much on his slip of compassion. No such luxury is provided to the same beadleman in this novel, and it goes on amplifying his vanity and cruelty, to the extent where he hits Oliver with his cane to "keep him lively".
• Princess Odette in Swan Lake is usually portrayed as sweet, gentle and kind (she is the white swan, after all). Princess Odette in The Sorcerer's Daughter, a retelling of the story, is an Ice Queen who has a Hidden Heart of Gold very deep down. The very reason she gets turned into a swan is that she a) ordered all the real swans of the lake to be shot because she wanted Fluffy Fashion Feathers dresses for herself and the court b) taunted Rothbart about it.
• Ellie in Tales of the Magic Land is less innocent than Dorothy from Land of Oz. For example, Ellie knows about Bastinda's fear of water and left the kitchen floor wet to annoy her.

Live-Action TV

• The Arrowverse has a tendency to depict many characters as far more ruthless than their comics counterparts, even if they were already villains:
  • Arrow: Oliver Queen was more forgiving and showed more of a sense of humor in the original comics, whereas this version goes for the opposite by portraying him as being a solemn and grouchy Byronic Hero who is not above brutalizing his enemies. He does eventually grow out of it though.
  • The Flash (2014):
    • In contrast to the comics, Wally West is initially depicted as an angsty teen who is reluctant to accept Joe, Barry, and Iris and acts mean toward them at first. He outgrows this, thankfully, in time to become Kid Flash.
    • Tina McGee is still heroic but initially depicted as antagonistic; it's downplayed, though, since she only acts this way because Eobard Thawne stole the identity of her friend Harrison Wells and estranged their friendship. Later, she warms up to Barry and his friends.
    • Dante Ramon was close to his brother Cisco in the comics, while here they don't get along at all.
    • In the comics, Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man, is a slightly goofy Nice Guy and thoroughly devoted husband. The show version was made a misogynist pervert and a cowardly asshole due to being a Composite Character with Plastic Man. This also sets him up for eventual Character Development as Barry trains him to be a hero, and come Season Five, he acts a lot nicer.
    • The Future Flash from the New 52 comics was still a villain, but in the original source material, underwent Sanity Slippage and had somewhat nobler intentions, wishing to correct his own mistakes which led to the death of Wally West. The Arrowverse version is a much pettier villain, doing many things For the Evulz, as well as attempting to kill Iris only to secure his own existence by making sure Barry will eventually become him.
    • Clifford DeVoe is still a megalomaniac criminal known as the Thinker, but he puts his comics counterpart to shame by faking his own murder and framing Barry for it, drugging his wife Marlize on a regular basis, and trying to destroy the entire world after his defeat just because it would go on without him otherwise.
• The Boys (2019):
  • In the original comic, Mallory was a reliable Reasonable Authority Figure to the team who started the crusade against Supes after their incompetence got his platoon wiped out in World War II. Greg's show counterpart, Grace Mallory, was partially responsible for the team originally falling apart due to her becoming an Accuser of the Brethren towards Frenchie, which was somewhat understandable since it was a result of Poor Communication Kills. However, in Season 3 it's shown that rather than being a WWII vet she was a participant in the Iran-Contra affair and knowingly helped instigate the crack epidemic in black neighborhoods before keeping the rest of the team Locked Out of the Loop about a potential method of killing Homelander to save her own skin. When Butcher and Mother's Milk call her out for this she refuses to take responsibility and instead shifts the blame to Butcher, with his Broken Pedestal causing him to become even more of an Anti-Hero and make the team fall apart again.
  • Soldier Boy in the original comic was an inept Fake Ultimate Hero but never showed bad interpersonal behavior. In the show, he had a bad habit of hazing his sidekick to the point of abuse as well as making misogynistic remarks. He also crosses the line into Adaptational Villainy as despite his claims that he's "not a bad guy", he's a Destructive Savior who shows little-to-no regard for the people he hurts in the process.
• L from Death Note is subject to this in the TV drama. Though not exactly a hero (with Word of God admitting that he's a bit evil), he usually comes across as A Lighter Shade of Grey when compared to Light, and a few spin-offs (namely the film L: change the WorLd and the light novel Another Note) portray him more sympathetically. The drama, by contrast, draws more attention to the amorality of his actions and he is generally far more smug and arrogant than most portrayals.
• In Fate: The Winx Saga, Stella is less of the Lovable Alpha Bitch, and a lot more arrogant and condescending towards others than she was in Winx Club.
• The Flash (1990):
  • In addition to being reimagined from a doctor to a retired beat cop, Henry Allen was also a jackass towards Barry for being a forensic scientist as opposed to following in his footsteps and becoming a beat cop like his other son Jay (a reimagined Jay Garrick) did.
  • In the comics, both Captain Cold and the Trickster are pretty sane bank robbers with gimmicks. Here, Cold is a hitman and the Trickster was pretty much a testing ground for Mark Hamill's version of The Joker.
• Several characters in Game of Thrones are subjected to this in contrast from the books:
  • Ellaria Sand is a Nice Girl and an Only Sane Woman in the books who knows that getting revenge against the Lannisters will not bring back her dead lover and his relatives. In the show, she's antagonistic towards her lover's older brother who refuses to participate her revenge against the Lannisters and she even kills him personally.
  • In the books, Brienne is unfailingly kind and stubbornly idealistic, recoiling at the thought of killing and treating everyone around her with an unfailing fairness. In the series, possibly thanks to the writers age lifting her by close to a decade, she's considerably more bitter and cynical, harboring no delusions as to the state of Westeros, and projects a much colder exterior as a result — particularly when it comes to Davos and Melisandre, who she openly regards as opportunistic traitors. That being said, she's still bullheadedly honorable and rarely crosses over into being openly unkind — even when it comes to Podrick, whom she initially treats a mite harshly but ultimately takes under her wing after bonding with him and apologizing for her behavior. However she still takes obvious pleasure in killing enemies, even if it's a wounded man who can't fight back, and gloating about it, while in the books Brienne has only ever killed in self-defense, and even though they were utterly vile people she never takes pleasure in it. ^{From the Books}  Brienne's fixation for vengeance for Stannis is not apparent in her POV in A Feast for Crows. She notes privately on meeting Gendry and recognizing him as a bastard of King Robert, "They are not his sons. Stannis told it true, that day he met with Renly. Joffrey and Tommen were never Robert's sons" which hints that she's accepted that Stannis had a better claim than Renly
  • Robett Glover is a loyal Stark bannerman who helped Wyman Manderly in his plot to overthrow the Boltons and bring House Stark back to Winterfell, and - so far as we know - isn't bigoted against the Wildlings. In the show, he refuses to help Jon Snow and Sansa Stark in retaking Winterfell not only because Jon's army had Wildings in them but because he lost his trust on his brother Robb after the Red Wedding and he rudely told Sansa that House Stark is dead. Fortunately, after Jon and Sansa successfully retook Winterfell, he realizes his mistake and apologizes to them.
  • Yara Greyjoy (the show's counterpart to Asha Greyjoy) is rather rude to her brother Theon as she comes off as a Karmic Trickster in terms of her baiting him.
  • Robb Stark breaking his oath to marry one of Walder Frey's daughters happens in both the books and the show, but the reasoning behind it is changed in a manner that makes him appear somewhat more selfish. In the book, Robb is wounded in battle, receives news of his two younger brothers' apparent deaths at the hands of his former friend Theon Greyjoy, drinks himself into a stupor, and, in a moment of weakness, beds the woman nursing him. When he sobers up the next day, he realizes he has done her a great disservice by taking her virginity out of marriage, and takes her as his wife to restore her honor at the cost of breaking his own word to the Freys. In the show, Robb simply falls for a random woman and decides to take her as his wife, even though doing so will alienate the Freys. While he breaks his word in both versions (and his ultimate fate was Disproportionate Retribution either way) in the books, he did it to protect someone else, whereas in the show he's just putting his own happiness above keeping his word.
• Gotham:
  • Renee Montoya is much more antagonistic towards Gordon than in other incarnations, her thinking clouded by the fact that he is with her ex-girlfriend, Barbara Kean, and going after Gordon for imagined crimes like the Penguin's disappearance. While she does apologize once the Penguin reveals himself to be alive, again, she still sleeps with Barbara behind Jim's back.
  • In the comics, Alfred is usually proper and polite in dealing with others and Servile Snarker to counterbalance Bruce's darker moments as Batman. While not a complete jerk, in the series, he's more coarser, more prone to expressing Anger Born of Worry in dealing with Bruce and more flippant to Gordon, and promo materials even state this Alfred came from the East End, a rough neighborhood.
  • Tommy Elliot and his parents were friends with the Waynes until Tommy's half-successful attempt at being a Self-Made Orphan. Here, neither he and Bruce like each other. He later returns when Bruce is in his jerkass playboy phase, and they get along quite well.
• Hank Zipzer: Miss Adolf and Principal Love, already not nice people in the books, are even worse in the tv series. They seem to actively despise Hank, and are constantly jerks to him.
• Kamen Rider Dragon Knight is an odd case in regards to Kamen Rider Femme, renamed Siren in the American adaptation. In the original series she was a con artist who toyed with wealthy men to swindle them out of their money, but had a sympathetic goal in wanting to avenge sister's death and even falls for the main protagonist. In Dragon Knight, she's introduced as one of the good guys but one of the first things she does is taunt and humiliate the main character, refusing to acknowledge him as a Kamen Rider. She thankfully gets better.
• Les Misérables (2018): Valjean. In the book when he robbed Petit Gervais of the coin it is ambiguous whether he is really aware of what he is doing, only realising after Gervais has run away. In the series he clearly knows what he is doing and even pockets the coin, though repents of it quickly as well. He also fires Fantine in person for lying about her child rather than leaving it to the foreman and being ignorant of the situation. His charitable actions are also downplayed, while his relationship with Cosette is far more controlling.
• The Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation incarnation of Michelangelo is noticeably a bit more uncouth than most incarnations of the most fun-loving Ninja Turtle, most notably in how he sometimes makes lecherous comments toward Venus de Milo.
• In Once Upon a Time, Belle's father is more of a jerk than he is in almost any other version of Beauty and the Beast, including the Disney version that Belle herself gets most of her traits from. Instead of being a kindly but bumbling inventor, he's a stern, warlike and greedy lord. When the Storybrooke version, Moe, finds out Belle is actually alive, he rejects her attempt to have a relationship with Rumplestiltskin and is even willing to take her over the town line, getting rid of all her memories so she'll forget Rumple.
• Power Rangers has several characters whose Japanese counterparts in Super Sentai seem to be much nicer:
  • Bandora from Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger has a rather motherly demeanor and compliments her minions when they succeeded in a battle against the Rangers. Rita Repulsa, her counterpart in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers is constantly angry, has No Indoor Voice and verbally and physically abuses her minions whenever one of her plans fail.
  • Guirail from Denji Sentai Megaranger already fits the definition of Jerkass, as he frequently employs underhanded tactics to get his preferred results, including turning on his allies. He treats this as a necessary evil to achive the ultimate victory. Darkonda from Power Rangers in Space has the same underhanded personality, but goes a step further by actually gloating about his underhandedness.
  • Dark Merchant Biznella from Seijuu Sentai Gingaman is nothing more than a polite arms merchant who is completely loyal to the other villains, particularly Battobas who he's been longtime friends with. Deviot, his counterpart in Power Rangers Lost Galaxy is a nasty piece of work with a severe case of Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.
• Star Trek: Discovery: While Star Trek: The Original Series showed that he had his moments of snakiness and the occasional jab of Vulcan wit at Dr. McCoy, Spock was never outright mean unless he was under some sort of negative influence. Here, while he's still very much the same Vulcan we all known and love, he's an absolute jerk to his adoptive sister Michael Burnham, having refused to reconcile with her for years due to an incident long ago. While said incident comes from a young Burnham insulting his human heritage, Spock refuses to forgive her because he feels her blaming herself for multiple tragedies in her lifetime was purely selfish, and isn't afraid to angrily express this to her. However, they are eventually able to reconcile.
• The Twilight Zone (1985): In "Night of the Meek", Mr. Dundee is considerably more unpleasant than his officious counterpart from the original episode. In The Remake, he berates an employee because a junior salesman accidentally sold the custom made fur coat that he intended to give his wife for Christmas and demands that both of them be in his office at 9 o'clock on Christmas Day. This version of Dundee clearly hates Christmas and sees it merely as an opportunity to make money. When another employee wishes him Merry Christmas, he pointedly says "Good night." As he leaves his store on Christmas Eve, he even kicks a tree. Most significantly, this Dundee is a racist. He comments that it would not surprise him in the least if Henderson, an African-American security guard, helped Henry Corwin to sneak the allegedly stolen merchandise out of his store. His expression and Henderson's reaction make it clear that it was intended as a racist remark.
• War and Peace (2007): The Kuragins weren't exactly good people in the book, just selfish and uncaring rich people, but this series plays up their assholery. Anatole seduces Natasha as payback on the Bolkonskys for getting rejected by Marya. Hélène helps in the seduction out of jealousy of Natasha and because the girl suggested she was a horrible wife to Pierre. When Napoleon invades Moscow, Prince Vasily and Hélène decide to collaborate with the French occupiers.
• The incarnation of Wonder Woman in the stillborn 2011 series has none of the positive qualities typically associated with the character. She tortures suspects for information instead of using her Lasso of Truth, accuses rivals of criminal acts even when she has no proof, brutally slaughters security guards who are just doing their job, and outright intimidates law enforcement into looking the other way. It's no wonder that the series never got past the pilot.
• Young Sheldon:
  • In this series, Mary is quite mean in several ways, while for the majority of her time on The Big Bang Theory, she was nice to nearly everyone she met, mostly Sheldon's friends, except Beverly Hofstadter or when she was angry with Sheldon. Mary usually feels she has to control everything, is often mean to her husband and bosses him around, does nothing about her mother's disapproval of him, gives Sheldon too much preferential treatment and too much coddling and while she still loves Georgie and Missy, she will yell or punish them. The Season 3 finale shows that she deliberately hid Sheldon's college acceptance letter just so her favorite child wouldn't leave and also because she feels she gets to make all of Sheldon's decisions by herself and without George, thus showing a lack of communication in the marriage. The Season 4 finale "The Wild and Woolly World of Nonlinear Dynamics" made her a bigger bitch when she instantly snapped and punished Missy for ripping Sheldon's picture and not even bothering to hear Missy's side, notice she's crying or even bothering to ask why she's crying.
  • In this series (especially seasons 1–3), Missy is much less of a nice character than in the parent series. Little Missy was a near-complete Bratty Half-Pint who started cussing before she hit double digits and loved to antagonize Sheldon and get her way, but could still be nice. It's a backpedaling away from her present-day maturity to show that she used to be a real stinker.

Theatre

• Bamatabois in the Les Misérables musical is a customer who makes advances on Fantine, beats her when she refuses, and tells Javert that she attacked him first. In the book, he meets her in public, taunts her and throws a snowball at her, but there's no indication that he was interested in her sexually, and he doesn't report her to the police, but runs away from the scene.
• In Puyo Puyo's theatrical play Puyo Puyo on Stage, Amitie (who is typically a Nice Girl) does a couple of things in her excitement over the search for the White Wishing Puyo that she would probably never do in the games, such as punching Klug in the throat for calling the legend silly (and threatening to give him the kancho, too), repeatedly tickling people to get them to pay attention to her, act dismissive of anyone who even as much as suggests the Wishing Puyo might not be worth tracking down and even trying to sabotage Rulue in a Puyo match that Arle was trying to win fair and square. She never apologizes for any of this.
• The Nutshell Kids are much ruder to each other in the stage adaptation of Really Rosie.

Video Games

• In The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius: Jet Fusion and The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius: Attack of the Twonkies, The Bully Butch Pakovski acts as one of the bosses as he attacks Jimmy for no real reason. However, in the show Jimmy was one of the few kids he didn't pick on and he even went out of his way to help him at times.
• Batman: Arkham Series:
  • While not to the same degree as All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder, Batman himself is struck with this. In addition to being more brutal and willing to break bones during interrogations, he's frequently cold, barely emotes, and frequently wants deals with his problems alone (to the point he never becomes a team player and his paranoia leads him to putting Tim in a cell in Knight). While we don't know his reason for doing so at the time, there's also the little matter of Bruce having Tim replace Jason even before Jason is confirmed "dead", as opposed to the comics, where a reluctant Bruce lets Tim replace Jason (putting aside the whole "Jason coming back from the dead as the new Red Hood" bit) some time after Bruce already saw and buried Jason's body.
  • Speaking of the Joker and what he did to Jason, unlike the comics version, where the Joker pummeled Jason with a crowbar and blew him up, this version sees the Joker hold Jason captive for a year and torture him (even branding him with a "J" on his cheek).
  • In Batman: The Animated Series, Ferris Boyle, the guy who turned Victor Fries into Mr. Freeze, was a greedy jerk who didn't care if he ended a life just to save money, and him turning Victor into Freeze was a reaction to Victor pulling a gun on him. In "Cold, Cold, Heart" DLC, he asked Victor to build cold based weapons in exchange for helping his wife, only to renege on the deal. Later, he was willing to kill Batman and Freeze so he could leave no witnesses, and was preparing to kill Nora in front of Freeze out of spite.
  • Calendar Man. In the comics, he was a petty criminal whose holiday-themed crimes rarely involved murder. In the Arkham series, he's portrayed as a sadistic Serial Killer who crimes revolve solely around murder.
  • The Scarecrow himself, while very much a villain, occasionally has sympathetic moments in the comics, generally relating to his backstory as a bully victim and severe abuse from his family (great-grandmother pre-Crisis, father in the New 52). In the game, he lacks any sympathetic qualities and is even more monstrous than his comics incarnation, easily one of the most vile characters in the series. Background material suggests that this version of Jonathan Crane isn't even mentally ill, just pure evil.
  • Much like in Batman Returns, the Penguin was shown to be quite psychopathic, sadistic, and brutal. This version lacks the Affably Evil and Wicked Cultured traits of the comics' gentleman of crime, and has displayed racism, misogyny, homophobia, and ableism.
  • While most incarnations of the Riddler are fairly narcissistic, they are, at the least, humble enough to respect Batman as a Worthy Opponent and are on good terms with the rest of Gotham's villains. Arkham's Riddler, by contrast, is a smug, egotistic, patronizing, arrogant, and thoroughly obnoxious Jerkass who is either ignored or outright belittled by Batman and most of the other villains.
  • While Jack Ryder could be a jackass, it was usually as part of a feint for his actions as The Creeper. Here, he's a legitimately self-serving and egoistical asshole.
  • Batman: Arkham Origins' "Initiation" DLC saw Kirigi from as a mild example, making him a True Neutral Jerkass at worst, whereas his comics counterpart was one of the most pacifistic mentors Batman ever had (Denny O'Neil's Knightfall novelization mentions he stopped training Bruce because Bruce refused to forsake violence forever).
• Cyberpunk 2077:
  • Johnny Silverhand was always an egocentric asshole, but his tabletop incarnation had enough redeeming features that he could be seen as a straight-up Knight in Shining Armor. This game's version of Silverhand is far more abrasive, toxic and jerkish to everything and everyone.
  • The tabletop version of Hanako Arasaka was an Internal Reformist who was a moderating influence on her power-hungry father and older brother Kei. In this game Hanako is a staunch supporter of her father Saburo and his vision, including his plan to use Soulkiller to take over Yorinobu's body. Granted, this game is a sequel and Saburo has had plenty of time since Kei's death to bring Hanako and Yorinobu over to his way of thinking, but the contrast is still jarring.
• In Dragon Ball FighterZ, upon Goku winning when paired with Gohan, the former expresses genuine pride in his son. However, the localization version for some reason, added a "...finally" line and in a condescending tone too which gives the impression that Goku isn't really proud of his son at all and once again, gives the impression of another "Goku is a bad father" moment.
• Final Fantasy VII Remake have few characters become bigger jerks compare to the original.
  • Cloud Strife: In the original game, Cloud wasn't out to screw with things unless the others dragged him into it or Sephiroth was involved, and he barely cared all that much about Avalanche overall. But here, when Johnny gets captured by Shinra security for questioning and rats out Jessie, which could jeopardize the whole group, Cloud immediately jumps to wanting to kill Johnny - which horrifies Tifa and causes her to plead for him to back down. Notably, unlike in the original where Barret rehires Cloud for the next mission, Cloud's bad attitude leads Barret to choose not to rehire him for the Sector 5 mako reactor job, forcing the Arbiters of Fate to intercede, and the people who hire him for side-quests often berate his lack of altruism.
  • Red XIII: Red XIII never adopted an adversarial attitude towards Barret in the original game^note If anything, it was the other way around; at the beginning, Barret was often the one annoyed by Red. Here, he acts like a Sitcom Archnemesis to the big guy for no apparent reason.
  • Sephiroth: Despite his more pronounced affability to Cloud in this version, Sephiroth does something in the remake that he didn't originally: he personally murdered Cloud's mother and uses it to torment him, telling him about how she begged him to spare her son and how he killed her with his own blade. In the original, she was another casualty of his burning of Nibelheim, and her death wasn't brought up again. He also mocks Cloud every time he fails to reinforce Cloud's frustration at the world over having no control over the direction of his own life to motivate Cloud into accomplishing his goals.
  • Mayor Domino: Downplayed. Mayor Domino in the original game was a bitter and snarky, but kooky and helpful man. In this game, he is quite proud of his position as Mayor of Midgar, which he declares the greatest city in the world, and only helps the party specifically because he wants them to stick it to President Shinra. He quite clearly has no qualms with the terrible things Shinra has done, just with how they've marginalized his authority.
  • Elmyra Gainsborough: Downplayed. In both versions, she's uncomfortable with the idea of Cloud getting close to her daughter Aerith, but the way she expresses it is different. In the original, she politely asks Cloud to leave the house at night without telling Aerith, but she's somewhat firmer in the remake, and claims that Cloud "made a trade- a normal life for power."
• Captain Bask Om is much worse in Gihren's Greed: The Menace of Axis V than he was in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. More crimes are added to his name such as him being the one to blow up Jaburo if he gets the chance and overthrowing and executing Jamitov if he isn't deposed by the end of the campaign, which is followed up with a war on the Jupiter colonies and the Earth Sphere being thrown in chaos.
• Injustice: Gods Among Us: The Joker was purely evil from the start, but his cruelty in the game overshadows his theatricality in the Injustice-verse, making him even harder to root for in this game and its sequel. He's indirectly responsible for everything wrong with the Injustice universe by tricking Superman into killing his wife Lois Lane and nuking Metropolis with a wire linked to Lois's heart, resulting in years of misery for everyone. The heroes and villains in both games hate him for this reason or in general principle, and even his ex-moll Harley Quinn refuses to indulge with him. His jokes about mass murder, nihilism, and mocking his opponents' personal pain are also given attention to show how awful he is.
• Harry Potter himself is a bit of a cartoonish jerk in the LEGO Harry Potter games. For example, during the Dueling Club scene in Chamber of Secrets, he deliberately commands the snake to go after Malfoy, looking smugly when Malfoy flees from it. In the original, he merely ordered the snake to stand down. He was also highly amused when he saw Snape being humiliated by his father during the flashback he saw in his Occlumency lessons, while the real Harry was actually disturbed seeing his father act like this.
• Mega Man Battle Network: Downplayed with ProtoMan.EXE. The original Proto Man in Mega Man (Classic), while aloof, is a supportive big brother figure for Mega Man. In the BN timeline, ProtoMan.EXE is considered a rival to MegaMan.EXE because their operators are also rivals, but ProtoMan doesn't take it personally; he's also more willing to scold and even fight MegaMan if it's necessary.
• Entei, Raikou, and Suicune of Pokémon fame are free spirited Legendaries who mind their own business more often than not without much hostility towards others. Contrast that with how they act in Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon, in which Entei at multiple points threatens to kill the heroes, first out of suspicion of them being the culprits of others turning into stone due to being at the wrong place and wrong time, and again when they trespass into its territory. The others aren't much better as they treat the hero and partner characters like pack mules during the trip in the Void Lands. In their defense, the latter was done to prevent the two from staying beyond with them, and at the end of the game can be recruited, even feeling humbled to join them, like the rest of the legendary roster.
• In SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos, Ryu went from a stoic warrior who trains to better himself every day to an out-and-out asshat who taunts everyone he meets and even makes fun of Mai for her choice of ninja garbs.
• While Shadow is far from a nice guy in the mainline Sonic the Hedgehog games, in Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, he is more of a Jerkass. He is an abrasive, bullying Jerkass who calls Sonic weak for relying on his friends. His rivalry with Sonic is a lot more antagonistic as he's only there to fight him for no reason other than to antagonize him.
• Kyouji Shinkawa is subjected to this in Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization as Richter. In canon, he was at least a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing with enough acting skills to make himself seem like a Nice Guy that Shino trusted. In the games, he's a full out Stalker with a Crush who thoroughly creeps Sinon out and attempted to destroy her friendship with Kirito and co. by exposing her Dark and Troubled Past.
• Tesla Maxwell in Wild ARMs: Million Memories. He's a lot more hostile to ARM users in this game than Wild ARMs 3. Somewhat justified due to the demise of Slayheim not so long ago.
  • Rudy Roughnight is a mild case. He's a lot more reckless in this version and veers on outright destructive at times. Again, the trope is justified as he's had a vision of him betraying everyone and destroying the world, and there's something blocking the memories of his grandfather, meaning he's less access to his moral compass.

Webcomics

• The Fate/Grand Order parody series Learning with Manga! FGO turns The Female Protagonist (Ritsuka Fujimaru), who is canonically depicted as an Ambiguously Bi Nice Girl who deeply cares for her servents, into Gudako, a gambling, sex-crazed Heroic Comedic Sociopath who regularly (be it physically or sexually) assaults her servants, especially Mash and Olga.
• Hiimdaisy:
  • In Persona 4, Saki was somewhat polite with Yosuke simply due to the fact that his family was her father's boss and he only found out that she hated him after her death, although the circumstances in which he heard her thoughts makes it somewhat ambiguous as to how much she disliked him. In the webcomic, she shows her being nothing but snide and insulting towards him with her sprit outright telling him to go kill himself.
  • In Persona 4, Dojima was generally a good person, even if he often scolded Adachi for his mistakes, and there was a bit of tension between him and his nephew over the latter's involvement with the murder case. Here, he's a lot more abrasive and condescending; compare how in the game, he has positive reactions to how you take your coffee(the game notes he's smiling or "looks like he's having fun"), to the comic, in which his responses range from condescending to sarcastic, and he throws a cup at the protagonist's head if he asks Dojima to "surprise me."
• Platformers:
  • Downplayed with Mario. In his home series, he was always a Nice Guy, never letting his accomplishments get the best of him. In Platformers, he is still a nice person, but he does sometimes give in to his ego every now and then.
  • While L.O.G. has always been a Jerkass in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, he's more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Here, he is an even bigger asshole, often getting himself into heated debates with the other Galaxy Council members.

Web Original

• Beauty and the Beast (Phelous): Nearly everyone is more of a jerk than they are in traditional versions of the fairytale:
  • Beauty, normally a pure-hearted heroine, claims she would sell her father's soul for more books, and kills/beats up some of the Beast's servants for saying anything she doesn't want to hear. She also only wants to marry the Beast for his money.
  • The Beast is more of a Dirty Coward than other versions. He tries to bribe Wabuu into not killing him. He also never learns to love like other versions of the Beast do.
  • With Old Man, this is either played straight or inverted depending on your point of reference. In Beauty and the Beast (Golden 1992), his debut, he was meant to be a lovable character. In Phelous' videos, he's a massive Jerkass. Here, he's somewhere in between. He's not quite as malicious as in Phelous' other videos, but he still takes a rose from the Beast's garden immediately after being told not to.
  • Wabuu was also meant to be lovable in the Dingo Pictures movies he comes from, but his evil characterization here is perfectly in line with Phelous' version of him.
• Dark Secrets Of Garry's Mod: Downplayed with Sonic, in his source material it is extremely rare to see him lose his cool let alone lash out on others. But in this series he has a much shorter temper and there are times when he gets really hostile to rather harmless situations. While he can be still considered as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold in both versions, in the original his "jerkish" part is downplayed while in this series is played more straight forward.
• Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
  • Shockingly, Gohan of all people. As Android 16 points out, this version of Gohan thinks he's better than everyone else and the only one suffering, refusing to stand up and fight back by clinging to pacifistic morals while everyone else gets hurt. He caps off the speech by asking Gohan to stop holding back.
  • Almost everyone in DBZ Abridged is either a Card-Carrying Villain, mentally unstable, or extremely acidic and snarky. Because it's funnier that way.
• Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged:
  • Compared to The Heart of the team she is in the original game, Tifa is a crass, salty, manipulative bitch who tricks Cloud into doing stupid stuff for her. She also happens to be a traumatized wreck of repressed tragedy and bad memories. Season 2 helped mellow her out once she starts to talk to someone without being abrasive. Unless your name is Reno.
  • The original Sephiroth killed nearly everyone in Nibelheim out of revenge. Abridged Sephiroth not only did that, but even specifically singled out Cloud's mother just because of Cloud's annoying fanboy attitude. That sounds quite petty, even for a guy like Sephiroth. Also, upon murdering Aerith, rather than brushing off Cloud's ability to be emotional like in the original, here, he takes the opposite and more sadistic option and openly taunts Cloud on the latter feeling the pain of both her death and Cloud being unable to keep his promise to her.
• Practically everybody in the "grounded videos" that have a “Baby show" character as the target could count, from the main character who goes from a likable guy and or girl to a sociopathic bully who wants to fuck everyone over to the main character's parents that go from loving to hating their kids' guts to the character's teacher that will punish their students for every minor thing.
• This is case for Sora in Kingdom Hearts in a Nutshell. In the original series, he's a happy-go-lucky Nice Guy who's friendly to almost everyone he meets. In this series, he's the Only Sane Man who constantly points out the logical inconsistencies of the other characters and complains about how stupid the plot is. His view of Kairi is also different, as whereas in the original series, he's head over heels in love with her, here, he seems annoyed by her mere existence.
• Darlene Spritzer from Lobo is more lippy than her comic book counterpart. She swears infrequently.
• Downplayed in McBusters. While Ronald McDonald, Hamburglar and Mayor McCheese are still decent people for the most part, they are much more prone to anger and swearing than they were in the McDonaldland ads. This is especially notable with Mayor McCheese, whose canon portayal as the jovial mayor of McDonaldland is contrasted by making him an ill-tempered Manchild who shuts up Walter Peck by punching him unconscious and rudely yells at Grimace to be quiet in a vulgar way when the latter complains about not being included in the painting of the McBusters that appears after defeating The Burger King.
• Mystery Incorporated (2022): The Hex Girls are quite rude to Shaggy when they first meet him. While they did mess with him and Scooby a bit in their first appearance in the animated movie series, they were ultimately a group of Perky Goths.
• Most of the characters from RWBY are given this treatment in RWBY Chibi. A prominent example is Ruby herself, who goes from a heroic Plucky Girl to an entitled jerk that makes Weiss look tame. Speaking of which, while Weiss herself was no saint, she did eventually warm up to people. This version of Weiss, however, thought it would be funny to drop a bucket of frozen ice on Ruby as a prank. Adding to that, Blake on one occasion adopted Sun's kleptomania and Yang is shown to have a terrible temper and a twisted sense of humor, laughing at an unconscious Nora while everyone else there is worried about her.
• StacheBros:
  • Mario is much more abrasive than his canon counterpart, what with him constantly quarreling with his brother Luigi, occasionally getting irritated with rescuing Peach, and having a deep hatred for Diddy.
  • Downplayed with Luigi, who's comparatively nicer than Mario, but still has his moments of selfishness.
• In Sword Art Online, Kirito and Asuna were noble and kind-hearted swordsmen who treated everyone with respect and were sometimes impulsive at their worst (Kirito specifically). Sword Art Online Abridged, meanwhile, twists them into Heroic Comedic Sociopaths, with the former being a smug Jerkass who takes pleasure in tormenting people around him, while the latter is a Stalker with a Crush Yandere who is feared by anyone who crosses paths with her, all the while perfectly hiding it under her "innocent" facade. Unlike most examples, they actually do undergo some Character Development, especially in regards to Kirito after witnessing Sachi's death.
• Welcome Back, Potter:
  • Harry, here named Jarry, is a jaded drug-addled con-artist who has nothing but contempt for the Wizarding World he was destined to save compared to the angsty hero from the books and films.
  • While messing with his family was a big Berserk Button for Ron in canon, here Don isn't the least bit curious about what became of the rest of the Weasleys.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, Seto Kaiba is even more of a jerk than in Yu-Gi-Oh!, especially in mistreating his little brother.
  • In canon, Joey Wheeler participated in Duelist Kingdom to pay for Serenity's eye surgery. In this adaption, he blows all his winnings on Duel Monster cards, making his parents pay for her operation to fix her eyesight, and when it flopped he points out that on the bright side, she won't need her cards anymore.

Western Animation

• Aladdin: The Series: Aladdin is a downplayed example, as a lot of episodes saw Aladdin act more smug than he did in the films, but his positive and noble attributes remained overall intact.
• Mort in All Hail King Julien. Most entries in the Madagascar franchise depicted him as an obsessive Cloudcuckoolander, but still innocent and well-meaning. Here Mort is violently insane, prone to fits of explosive rage, often indulges in bizarre and creepy fetishes (such as bathing in toenails or making wigs out of stolen hair), and he's heavily implied to have criminal connections. Later seasons reveal he's also an immortal, soul-sucking Eldritch Abomination, though a fairly benign one.
• Animaniacs (2020):
  • A downplayed example is with the Warners themselves. They're still fun loving to go after jerks, but they aren't quite as cheery. The siblings are much likelier to goof on each other and aren't above mean-spirited stunts (such as what Dot does to Yakko in "The Cutening" or the other two's response to Yakko's Pungeon Master antics in "WhoDonut").
  • In the original myth, Odysseus may have been a trickster (and a cheater to his wife Penelope), but overall, he cared about his comrades and, for the majority of the time, he would not harm anyone if they did not set him off. In his appearance in "Warners Unbound", he's turned into a Jerk Jock who bullies the Warners just because he can.
• In Avengers Assemble, Captain Marvel is written in a more condescending and combative manner than she usually is in the comics. While her comic counterpart can be cocky at times, she's usually not as much of a jerk to her fellow heroes.
• Back to the Future: In the movie trilogy that introduced him, Marty McFly comes across as relatively humble (despite his dreams of being a wealthy rock star) and a loving friend, family member, and boyfriend who would (and did) go through any number of troublesome situations for the people in his life. The animated series portrays him as far more self-centered and uncaring. Episodes that especially highlight this include "Witchcraft" and "St. Louis Blues."
• The Batman:
  • The Penguin is rude, boorish, and all-around unpleasant. While he's still a bad guy in the original comics, he's nowhere near as impolite. On the contrary, he's Affably Evil enough to be known as the "Gentleman of Crime".
  • Harley Quinn was already stuck-up and had a few screws loose, even before meeting the Joker, and the Joker doesn't need to do much to push her over the edge. She also is shown poisoning squirrels, something most Harleys wouldn't do.
  • Unlike in Batman: TAS where he is a sympathetic figure trying to cure his wife, Mr. Freeze is a thug who enjoys robbing banks.
  • Unlike tradition, Batman and Superman swapped stances on the League and teaming-up, meaning this version of Superman initially refused to get involved in the Justice League when it was started and had to be convinced to team-up with Batman, whereas he's usually the one of the two to be more open to both ideas.
• Castlevania (2017):
  • Carmilla has always been portrayed as a villain in the original games, but if there is one thing common in previous continuities was her slavish devotion to Dracula, sometimes serving as an Yandere for him like in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. In the animation however, she has nothing but disdain and contempt for him, and is actively plotting to undermine and usurp him. Later seasons reveal her to be not only sexist but also downright insane to the ninth degree.
  • The game version of Death, while a villain, was generally polite to his enemies and was unfailingly loyal to Dracula. This version of Death is a raging, slimy swearaholic who played everyone for fools and nearly ushered in the apocalypse.
• DC Super Hero Girls 2019:
  • Hal Jordan in this series is a narcissistic Jerk Jock, although he's more Innocently Insensitive than outright mean.
  • Dick Grayson's portrayal in this series manages to be even worse than his below-mentioned Teen Titans Go! self, as he's a straight-up Hate Sink with a Small Name, Big Ego who makes fun of Barbara Gordon (who despises him) trying to be a Kid Hero, lacking the redeeming qualities of not just Robin, but also Jason Todd and Damian Wayne.
  • Downplayed with Kara Danvers. She’s generally portrayed in the comics as a sweet-hearted girl (although she did get angry at times) and in the previous cartoon, a dorky Cute Clumsy Girl. This version is more rebellious and hot-tempered (partially due to being a Composite Character with Power Girl) and hates being compared to Superman, while also showing a kinder side. That being said, this version was based on Lauren Faust's Super Best Friends Forever cartoon, which was used as the basis for the 2019 series.
  • Superman himself occasionally came off as a Smug Super with a showboating, egotistic side which caused conflict between him and Kara. However, he still kept his heart of gold and the two eventually reconcile once he admits that he always respected her.
• DuckTales (2017):
  • Gyro Gearloose (pictured above) in DuckTales (1987) was a kindly, well-meaning, but inept Bungling Inventor. Gyro in the reboot is a hot-headed, sarcastic Insufferable Genius who's introduced barging into a board meeting and shouting "Shut up, everyone, I've just done something brilliant!" It's revealed that he became this because of a Dark and Troubled Past.
  • Doofus Drake from the original series was an annoying but harmless Fat Comic Relief. Doofus Drake as introduced in "Day of the Only Child!" is a dangerously-temperamental Spoiled Brat who serves as a foil to Jerk with a Heart of Gold Louie.
  • In "Last Christmas!", The Ghost of Christmas Past from A Christmas Carol is turned into a non-romantic Crazy Jealous Guy trying to keep Scrooge from his family.
  • In "The Trickening!", the monsters from the short "Trick or Treat" and the original series episode "Ducky Horror Picture Show" are depicted as scaring trick-or-treaters to steal their candy, and eating the trick-or-treaters if they don't have any to appease them.
• Nermal was never really a Nice Guy in most icarnations, but The Garfield Show ups his jerkishness and arrogance a notch, such as in "King Nermal", where he faked an injury to gain Jon's pity and unleashed a torrent of torment on poor Garfield and Odie.
• In Hercules: The Animated Series, Adonis is portrayed as a Royal Brat who frequently bullies Hercules but takes advantage of his strength and heroism when the school actually faces danger. The mythological Adonis was just known for being a Pretty Boy favored by Aphrodite.
• Invincible (2021):
  • Amber, Mark's first girlfriend in Invincible was a ditzy Dumb Blonde who definitely gave him her share of grief, but her show equivalent took it to another level. Here she was changed to an intelligent Sassy Black Woman with a narcissistic streak, as she constantly gave Mark crap for showing up late to dates despite knowing full well he was a superhero, and tried to manipulate him into giving up his Secret Identity by acting hurt by his need to ditch her during an attack. She even flirts with another guy at a party right after he saved her life even though she was the sole cause of the rift in their relationship. When he finally works up the nerve to tell her, she's hurtful and dismissive towards him even after his best friend got kidnapped because he was distracted trying to fix things between them.
  • Atom Eve's father Adam was a well-meaning Bumbling Dad in the comics. However, in the show he's a Straw Misogynist who stops short of calling his own daughter a bitch as he tells her to Stay in the Kitchen and tries to justify her boyfriend Rex cheating on her.
• Jellystone!: Downplayed, as he was arguably borderline Jerkass to begin with, but The King from Heyyy, it's The King! is more aggressive and smug than his original incarnation.
• In the Kid Paddle comics, the Gamer Chick Max get along well with Kid and often partner with him and his friends in whatever they're up too at the moment, being at worst in a Friendly Rivalry with him. In her early appearance in the cartoon, the friendship is gone and the rivalry between them is more vitriolic, Max will sometime act cocky and mocking toward Kid. This get rectified when she is made closer to how she is in the comic, complete with a different more-fitting voice.
• Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness: Po rather jarringly gets hit with this a lot. In the movies, he's a lovable Nice Guy, but the show constantly makes him a lazy, incompetent Jerkass constantly undergoing the same lessons involving his pride and laziness. The other characters can get this as well.
• The Legend of Zelda (1989):
  • Anyone familiar with Link, the hero of The Legend of Zelda, knows that he's near consistently portrayed in adaptations as, and implied in the games to be, a brave, humble, all-around heroic person who saves the land of Hyrule and its princess without expecting anything in return. People familiar with Link's other portrayals will probably be surprised that in the cartoon that came after the NES games, he's the complete opposite. This Link was lazy, self-centered, whiny, and is only motivated by getting Zelda to kiss him.
  • Zelda herself isn't any better. Most incarnations of her are kind, regal, and wise. This version of Zelda is extremely arrogant, dismissive, snarky, and refuses to give Link the time of day no matter how many times he saves her and her kingdom. She is, after all, the whole reason why the Well, Excuse Me, Princess! trope exists.
• While Donald Duck has always been a bit irritable, Mickey Mouse (2013) portrays him as rather assholish and more prone to being inconsiderate and insensitive towards his friends.
• Mr. Men:
  • Little Miss Somersault in the books was a Nice Girl if not a bit of a showoff, but the 90s cartoon turns her into a Jerk Jock who acts like a bitch about losing a race to Little Miss Wise (Who, mind you, didn't intentionally take part) and calls Little Miss Splendid, Little Miss Greedy and Mr. Lazy "hopeless" for not being able to somersault as well as she can.
  • Zig-Zagged with Mr. Rude in The Mr. Men Show. In the books, he was, well, rude, but the worst thing he did was insulting people and eventually underwent Character Development by the end of his story. In the series, he’s a French Jerk who repeatedly gets on others nerves, such as driving recklessly and getting people kicked out of restaurants on something that wasn't their fault, and was even willing to leave Miss Giggles to die in "Machines". That said, his book counterpart genuinely hurt others feelings, while in the series he would trade in some sarcastic remarks. The cartoon also adds in a Running Gag where he passes gas, causing the other Mr. Men and Little Misses to shout "MR. RUDE!", something that even his book counterpart would find disgusting.
• An unusual example is Snufkin in Sky1's Moominvalley. His actual behaviour hasn't changed, but the way it's presented has. In the books, his wanderlust and enjoyment of solitude are positive traits; in the series he's a selfish borderline misanthrope who must learn An Aesop about how Moomintroll is affected by the continual disappearance of his supposed best friend. As part of this, the plot of "The Spring Tune" becomes less "Snufkin finds himself bothered by a creature who won't take a hint" and more "Snufkin is rude to a creature that just wants to chat". "Snufkin and the Park-Keeper" treats his dislike of authority similarly; in Moominsummer Madness, Moomintroll and Snork Maiden being arrested for burning the prohibitionary notices is entirely the fault of the unreasonable and inflexible authority figure, while the episode has it as Snufkin's fault for not thinking of the consequences when he tore them down. Even the song "All Small Beasts Should Have Bows in Their Tails" has been rewritten to make the point, going from a celebration of a world without punishments to a cautionary tale about facing up to your responsibilities.
• The Powerpuff Girls episode "Members Only" features The Justice Friends from Dexter's Laboratory; though here they're called The Association of World Super Men and Major Glory, Van Halen and secondary character Tiki Torch are the only previously established heroes returning (Krunk is only mentioned in passing). In the episode, the entire superhero team, (Major Glory and Van Halen included) refuse to let the Powerpuff Girls join their team even after they pass their tests with flying colors, as they refuse to let any girls join them. The two were depicted as sexist and insensitive jerks, unlike in their original show where they were shown to be much nicer and inclusive to pretty much everyone, Van Halen more so then Major Glory.
• The Rotten Ralph animated special Not-So-Rotten Ralph and the television series give this treatment to Ralph's more polite cousin Percy. While the books simply used Percy as a foil to his ruder and more unscrupulous cousin, the animated special and series depicts Percy's politeness as being less sincere in addition to him relishing getting Ralph in trouble and talking down to him for not being as well-mannered as he is.
• Scooby-Doo franchise:
  • In Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated does this to Scooby and Velma. The latter is far more cynical, self-centered, vain, and sarcastic than any incarnation prior, and both she and Scooby spend a chunk of the first season at each other's throats in a Friend Versus Lover fight for Shaggy's attention. A fight which ends with Scooby winning and Velma's dislike being targeted towards Shaggy for a good while. This is especially rather jarring when compared to a good number of other Scooby productions (especially A Pup Named Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo in Where’s My Mummy?) where Velma is all but stated to be Scooby's second best friend.
  • Fred has become this in Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!, rendering him into a dimwitted Control Freak and an unmasking hog.
  • Velma has a much more cynical tone than previous installments in the franchise, so almost every character from the previous iterations is significantly meaner and more abrasive. The title character stands out; although Velma was often the snarkiest member of the gang in previous incarnations, here, she's a completely Insufferable Genius who bullies and belittles everyone she meets. She constantly ridicules Fred for Compensating for Something, and even laughs at own her best friend when he confesses to having a crush on her (hard enough to snap her out of a panic attack).
• Sonic Prime: Amy's alternate selves across the Shatterverse tend to be more aggressive than the prime version to varying degrees. This also applies to Nine, who is Tails' counterpart in the New Yoke City Shatterverse whom never met Sonic and had to survive in a crapsack world on his own.
• Spider-Man: The Animated Series:
  • In the comics, Mary Jane Watson's Aunt Anna in the comics was a sweet-natured woman who even showed gratitude for Spider-Man saving her life. Here, she's an ill-tempered crone who treats Peter Parker like dirt in spite of how nice he is to her.
  • In the comics, Eddie Brock's grudge against Spider-Man was caused when he published an article incriminating a man he thought was a serial killer, only for Spider-Man to catch the real culprit. This publicly shamed Eddie, causing his company to fire him, his father to disown him, and his wife to leave him. Here, Eddie is a sleazy Immoral Journalist who's not only perfectly willing to expose Curt Connors as the Lizard and ruin the doctor's life to boost his own career, but digs his own grave by outright lying to Jonah about the theft of Prometheum X from John Jameson's shuttle, claiming that Spider-Man was the thief when it was actually the Rhino, and Spider-Man's actual role in the event was fighting the Rhino to save both; Eddie saw the whole thing but deliberately withheld the Rhino's presence and took advantage of Jonah's hatred of Spidey to get his job back, making his grudge against Peter Parker much pettier as a result.
• Strawberry Shortcake: Raspberry Tart/Torte in the 2021 series, with the addition of Adaptational Villainy. In most incarnations, she's a cheerful Nice Girl who's either a tomboyish jock or a girly fashionista, but in the 2021 version, she's become an Alpha Bitch and Strawberry's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis, who is jealous of her business and plots to run her out of the BerryWorks.
• Tak and the Power of Juju (2007):
  • While still capable of heroic deeds, Tak as depicted in the animated series is more arrogant than he was in the original video game series and is more willing to use his magic for personal gain.
  • Lok frequently belittles and picks on Tak, when he was on better terms with him in the video games.
• Teen Titans (2003):
  • Despite her Adaptational Heroism, Terra still has shades of this. In the comics her being evil is largely an Informed Attribute as she's never shown doing anything particularly evil in The Judas Contract arc. In the cartoon, under Slade's orders Terra does a lot more damage. She wrecks a city and it's implied she killed people.
  • Mento of the Doom Patrol, as virtue of elements of the Chief fused into him, is more obsessive and unforgiving. That said, even in the comics, Mento was always a jackass, as he was a pompous asshole who didn't get along with the majority of the Doom Patrol in the '60s and was temperamental at best during the '80s and '90s.
• In Teen Titans (2003), the Titans are straight-laced heroes. In Teen Titans Go!, they regularly display jerkass behavior, are often Vitriolic Best Buds, and are Heroic Comedic Sociopaths. Here's the individual examples of the Titans:
  • Robin really distances from his usual heroic characterization and is portrayed as a selfish, narcissistic Glory Hound who beats up villains for the fun of it or to get hero-cred, while caring very little about the safety of others.
  • Raven has more anger management issues. She is prone to violent outbursts and has a habit of attacking the other Titans if annoyed, especially Beast Boy.
  • While Beast Boy was always depicted as a rebel, this Beast Boy is noticeably more of a jerk than his former incarnation, and is often devoid of remorse and regret over his actions. Instead of feeling guilty for his pranks, he will often laugh and fail to comprehend he has done anything wrong.
  • Cyborg is far more selfish and immature, not to mention a lot dumber.
  • While she's nicer than the rest of the Titans, Starfire can engage in jerkass behavior like them from time to time. One example is in the "TTG vs PPG" special where she along with Robin and Raven endlessly mock the Powerpuff Girls for being babies.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003): Michelangelo is a lot slower to show the warm, emotional side that characterizes most of his other versions. In the other continuities, Mikey is an unquestioned Nice Guy, but he's more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold in this adaptation due to his egocentric attitude as well as his frequent Innocently Insensitive moments and role as The Gadfly.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012):
  • Splinter is a minor example. Make no mistake, he does love his sons dearly. But, at the same time, he's not above messing with their heads for his own amusement, can be something of a hypocrite, and overreacts to an extreme degree towards some of the mistakes they make when fighting above ground. The reason why the Turtles fear disturbing him is because his default reaction to their fighting or being disruptive tends to be beating the shit out of them with a flurry of advanced ninjitsu techniques. It certainly keeps them in line, and is Played for Laughs as Tough Love, but at the same time, most of his previous counterparts would have never lifted a hand to the Turtles in anger.
  • April gets a special, but subtle mention. She would sometimes be prone to be mean towards the turtles if they do anything to upset or disappoint her. When her father was accidentally mutated into a bat and Mikey confessed they released the Mutagen canisters from a Kraang ship, which led to said mutation, she instantly accused them of mutating him on purpose, swore to never see them again, and even refusing to believe their claims that the whole incident was an accident. Fortunately, after a visit from Donnie and when Casey told her his story about how he lost a friend of his on an incident as they both remarked that some things can't be controlled, April not only realized her horrible treatment towards the Turtles but also how wrong she was to be so hard on them. Also, during a Foot attack, April realized that Donnie and Casey were right as it convinced to call the Turtles for help. Through this act of being there for her and understanding their always be her friend, April was convinced to forgive the Turtles and apologizes to them for her awful behavior towards them, especially Donnie.
  • Neither of them have anything on the Turtles themselves, though. Make no mistake, they're still heroes and will do the right thing, but they are much more prone to squabbling and infighting, and their personal flaws^note Leo's rigidity and desire to have everything his way, Donnie's bordering-on-entitlement crush/obsession on April, Raph's Big Brother Bully behavior for absolutely no reason, and Mikey's refusal to recognize when he's at fault are given more focus, making the Turtles come off as much meaner and less reasonable than they are in most incarnations. It also doesn't help that the Turtles in this series have a bad habit of putting themselves and their desires over other people (including their family) and making morally questionable actions, such as betraying Karai despite a greater threat being on the loose or most of them agreeing to let Pulverizer spy on the Foot despite the threat. Fortunately, the Turtles get much better on these fronts through Character Development, but it's still noticeable.
• Thomas & Friends:
  • Gordon in The Adventure Begins comes off as far more antagonistic and rude to Thomas than he was in the original book and the first episode of the TV series "Thomas and Gordon". His trick dragging him along with the express is similarly revenge for Thomas heckling him earlier, however this itself was only in retaliation for Gordon belittling him a fair deal beforehand.
  • The Flying Scotsman seemed relatively humble and respectful in his few speaking roles in The Railway Series, but in his first appearance in the special The Great Race, he's much more pompous and arrogant, has a low opinion on Sodor's engines, and often makes remarks to rile up Gordon, his brother.
  • The Skarloey Coaches undergo this due to Series Continuity Error. In "Four Little Engines", they are rude and distrusting to Sir Handel despite him trying to be nice, and intentionally bump him off the rails at the first sign of him mishandling them. In the books this was because in an earlier story, Sir Handel had been very rude and insulting towards them and they pulled a Heel–Face Door-Slam when he tried to behave, though these events are moved to a later episode in the show. While they were still treated as wrong in both works, and apologised when called out on it by Skarloey, there was at least some founded explanation for their hatred of Sir Handel originally.
• On Total DramaRama, Beth, Leshawna, and Gwen are all hit by this. Beth goes from being a socially awkward but very friendly Nice Girl to being an extremely selfish and thoughtless narcissist; Leshawna is changed from a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who stood up for others against bullies and cared deeply for her friends to a bossy and egotistical Alpha Bitch; and Gwen goes from a Perky Goth with a heart of gold under her icy attitude to a gloomy and sociopathic Creepy Child who enjoys scaring the other kids and seeing them get hurt.
• Transformers: Animated: In G1, Bumblebee was such an all-around Nice Guy that the closest he got to being mean were a few Deadpan Snarker moments. Here, he's much more arrogant and temperamental. This is likely due to the Animated Bumblebee originally being envisioned as a new incarnation of Hot Shot from Transformers: Armada, who was changed to 'Bee in pre-production without changing much (if any) of his personality.
• As opposed to other versions of the character, the Blurr of Transformers: Rescue Bots, while he does get better, starts off as a self-serving, cowardly, selfish jackass.
• In the original parable of the Good Samaritan, the traveler is injured in a mugging, and the passersby are afraid that if they stop to help him, they will be the robbers' next targets, so they pretend not to see him. The VeggieTales episode "The Tale of Flibber-O-Loo" plays this about the same, only now the passersby stop for a song and dance about how little they care before abandoning him.
• Watership Down (2018): Bigwig from the original book and movie is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, being quite the Drill Sergeant Nasty yet still very loyal to Hazel and having a kinder side. The 2018 Netflix series really amps up the "Jerk" part of him, pretty much running on angry and confronting Hazel on every decision he makes.
• In the W.I.T.C.H. cartoon, Cornelia is presented as more of a straight Alpha Bitch than the Lovable Alpha Bitch she is in the W.I.T.C.H. comics. She's ruder and generally more aggressive. In the comics she is a Bully Hunter but in the cartoon, prior to her Character Development she was The Bully herself.
• Unlike his comics counterpart, who was only The Social Darwinist, Apocalypse in X-Men: The Animated Series was an outright Omnicidal Maniac.
• The revival of Young Justice (2010) sees Cyborg's father Slias Stone get this treatment. While the character always had his flaws, including being a workaholic who put his work above his son, the show sees him so out of touch with Vic's life that he tells Vic to get his grades up—even though Vic's already got a 4.0 GPA.

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