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Jerkass Realization
(aka: Jerkass Realisation)

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Jerkass Realization (trope)
Typhan-knee finally sees herself for what she's become.
Sonic: Jet, do you think I've been a dick to everybody?
Jet: [silence]
Sonic: I need you to answer me, buddy, please. Please tell me I'm a good person. Please, deep down, just tell me I'm a good person.

A character is being a jerk to another character. They could be giving them a harsher-than-necessary lecture. They could be acting selfishly, harming the other in the process. They could be acting out of anger or frustration and going too far. Sometimes, their actions are bad enough to even be abusive. The thing is... they don't immediately realize that they're actually being a jerk. And when something makes them notice their own cruelty? They'll feel absolutely awful about it.

All that it takes is for one character to come to the conclusion that the way they were treating someone else was wrong. Their intentions won't matter here, no matter how well-meaning or oblivious they actually were. What matters is the result. After realizing the harm they caused, they'll get to work patching things up; it may only take a Heartfelt Apology, but it could also take a genuine effort to change their ways and become a better person.

Could be considered a minor version of My God, What Have I Done? and Heel Realization. See also Was Too Hard on Him which involves a character feeling remorse over harshly scolding or punishing another character. Compare Oblivious Mockery and Guilt-Induced Nightmare. May be instigated by a reference to Thirty Pieces of Silver or hearing a Blissfully Horrific Backstory.


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    Advertising 
  • Sexual Violence with the Birds and the Bees:
    • After Zach is made to realize that he was about to commit date rape, he looks down in shame, remarking that he feels like a "total woodpecker head."
    • The bee guy in the second episode posts a lewd comment on a girl's photo. Another guy confronts him over it and impresses upon him how dickish and thoughtless he was, and as the bee guy is left standing alone afterward, his stinger retracts in shame.

    Comic Books 
  • Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: It's discovered that Splinter and the Turtles are slowly being Brought Down to Normal as a result of their presence in the DC Universe, with them allying with Batman to get back home. During this time, Raphael gets impatient with Batman and gives him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, outright declaring him to be nothing but "a selfish little rich kid" who beats up bad guys for the fun of it who he refuses to put his faith in. Raph gets hit with this trope when Batman takes him to Crime Alley, where his parents were gunned down in front of him, and explains how that loss motivates him to do what he does.
  • The Defenders: Jack Noriss spends some time being an irritant to the un-team, since he's convinced Valkyrie is his wife (it's... very complicated), and to Val in particular. Eventually during one time travel incident Doctor Strange gets so fed up he freezes Jack to the spot while everyone else goes and deals with the actual plot. On the plus side, this gives Jack time to think about his behavior and realize it was wrong.
  • Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four: After a Trauma Conga Line of his experiment going wrong and endangering thousands of lives, Professor Ito admits to Reed Richards that the latter is not a Glory Seeker as he had thought, but a true scientist, while he is what people in their profession refer to as a "jerk".
  • The Internship: Andy undergoes this halfway through Volume 3. While he’s meeting with his boss Emery and his new boyfriend Noah, he ends up admitting to them his cowardice and hypocrisy in not facing his issues with Cooper and being jealous of his new friendship with River (who is gay and nonbinary, two terms Coop always evaded in the past) while he’s already in a deep Friends with Benefits situation with Emery.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): After returning from space, Sonic dates Fiona despite full knowledge of Tails' crush on her, both because he was hurting over his recent breakup with Sally, and because he knew that Fiona had no interest in him and he wanted to stop Tails from being hurt. Instead, it just heavily strains his friendship with Tails, Sonic unaware of just how angry and hurt Tails is over the mess until the tensions explode and lead to a physical fight between the two shortly after the destruction of Knothole. All the while, Sonic is confused and has no clue why Tails has such a beef with him until Tails flat-out screams it at him in a rage and chews him out over dismissing his feelings for Fiona and lack of sensitivity. It's at that moment Sonic realizes just how insensitive and selfish his choosing to date Fiona really was and leads him to apologize and even offer to let Tails beat him up as payback.
    Sonic: I've been a jerk to you, man. I didn't mean it, but it doesn't change the fact that I was.
  • Superman:
    • In the Silver Age story "The Tyrant Superman" (Superman (1939) #172), Superman is forced to choose a successor to the title when a meteor strips him of his powers, and he selects a young Kandorian, Ar-Val. The fame quickly goes to Ar-Val's head, to the point where he secretly uses his superpowers to create crises so he can show off. When the former Superman throws himself in front of a Kryptonite spear for him, Ar-Val nearly kills the villains responsible in rage. After settling the matter, he steps outside to think about how horrible he's been.
    • The entirety of Superman: Savage Dawn, but especially the events of Action Comics Vol. 2 #50, has the Man of Steel finally stop being the Jerkass loner he'd become since Superman: Truth and realize he'd always had friends looking out for him, especially people like his ex-girlfriend Wonder Woman and Lois Lane, who blew his secret identity to save him. It's driven home when the villain Metallo, who is badly injured protecting Lois, willingly surrenders his Kryptonite heart to empower Superman.
    • In DC Comics Presents #29, Superman is so determined to find Supergirl that he flies faster than he ever has before, to the point where The Spectre has to step in to stop him from endangering the multiverse with his reckless interdimensional speed. The Spectre tries to reason with him, but Superman won't listen and attacks him instead, forcing the Spectre to put him through several psychological tests, the final one involving a confrontation with a mindless berserker duplicate of himself, and this is what finally causes him to realize that he was being unreasonable.
    Superman: H-he's... choking the life... out of me... How can I stop him, Spectre?
    Spectre: There is only one way, my friend... You must open your eyes... and see.
    Superman: See what? A mindless, rampaging monster? A creature who acts without thinking or... Oh. Of course. I...see.
  • Wonder Woman (1987): At a women's shelter, Artemis tells an abuse survivor that she's a coward for the way she fled her abusive husband to save her kids, and that her kids would be better off if she were dead. Artemis arrogantly refuses to back down despite reactions, and only seems to realize just how awful she's been when the woman ends up shot by her husband.

    Fairy Tales 
  • "The Grave Mound" opens with a rich man hearing a mysterious voice asking him what he has done in service of his fellow man with the money he has accrued. The rich man is shocked and horrified to realize that he has spent his time on earth as a cruel miser, and kicks off the plot by sharing his food with a struggling single father. The poor man returns the rich man's only act of kindness by conning the devil out of claiming the rich man's soul.

    Films — Animation 
  • The Angry Birds Movie: After the Pigs attack Bird Island and steal the birds' eggs, Judge Peckinpah admits to Red that he and the other birds were wrong to brush off his warnings. It says a lot when he swallows his pride and has Red takes his position of leader of the birds.
  • A Bug's Life: After Flik reveals he understands how Atta feels when she says the colony is all watching her, waiting for her to screw up, Atta realizes she was just as guilty of treating him that way, apologizes, makes it up to him and is nicer to him from then on.
  • In Cars 1, Lightning McQueen has his when he learns about Doc Hudson's Dark and Troubled Past where a horrible crash cost him his racing career for good, and he finally discovers what an awful jerk he's been over the course of the movie, making him undergo his Character Development. Doc also has one when he's called out by Sally for calling the press about where Lightning is so he can get him out of town and send him off to the tiebreaker race.
  • Chicken Little (2005): Buck spends two thirds of the movie having a hard time believing in his son. When Chicken Little and Kirby (The baby alien) enter a movie theater, Buck tries to run away with his son, but Chicken Little stops him and criticizes him for never believing him or supporting him (other than during the baseball game) ever since the acorn incident. Buck comes to realize his son was right all along, and takes the blame onto himself, up to an extent, when he admits he's a bad father.
  • Imelda in Coco is completely unwilling to forgive her husband for 96 years for supposedly walking out on her family to the point that she completely bans any music in her household and erase any presence of him in their household and later upon dying in the afterlife, she rejects any and all attempts at him to apologize and explain and left him behind to rot. But then upon being told the truth that Hector intended to return before being murdered along with the fact that he is on the verge of being Deader than Dead, Imelda gets horrified by what she had done to the point that despite being unable to forgive him right away, she agrees to help him live by retrieving the photo that Ernesto has confiscated.
  • At the end of Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show, Eddy breaks down and realizes that his horrible behavior he had over the course of the series, which he learned from his brother, only caused him and his two friends pain and trouble and that he made up all the stories about his brother just so people would like him. It's with that and the heartless beating his brother gave him that the kids realize two things: the reason for Eddy's behavior and that they are becoming just as bad as Eddy's Brother. Sarah, in particular, is implied to be most affected by this as she abuses her brother constantly and takes joy in it, just like Eddy's Brother. After realizing what Eddy had went through all this time, the kids forgive the Eds for all the scams and trouble they caused, apologize for the ruthless torment they gave the Eds, and finally accept the Eds as their friends. Except for Jonny, who was Late to the Realization and ends up beating up the Eds like the other kids planned to do at the start, only for the kids to retaliate and beat him up in turn, cementing the fact that Jonny took the Eds' place as the social outcast from now on.
  • In Eight Crazy Nights, after Whitey tells Elanor about Davey's past when his parents were killed in a car accident one night after he won the basketball tournament, Davey flips out at him and calls him a freak, tells him nobody likes him, and that he will never win the patch of appreciation for his charity. Later, Davey has an epiphany realizing that he's been a dick to everyone because of his bitterness towards his parents' deaths and turning to alcohol as a crutch, and Whitey, who had taken him in after his trailer burned down, really isn't appreciated by the townspeople who take advantage of his kindness. He goes to the town banquet to apologize for his behavior over the years and calls out the townspeople for their treatment of Whitey and that he had probably treated him worst of all, the townspeople regret the way they treated him and help Davey give Whitey a surprise party and give him the appreciation patch he's always wanted.
  • Incredibles 2: Bob gets angry upon seeing his superhero vehicle, the Incredibile, in the possession of a smug rich man and decides to activate it remotely, but decides against it after realizing he shouldn't be trying to steal his car back.
  • Inside Out:
    • In the first film, Joy has one after she and Bing Bong end up in the Memory Dump with Riley's core memories. Joy not only realizes she's caused all sorts of trouble with her attempts to keep Riley happy, but when she finds a memory with a mixture of Sadness and Joy, Joy realizes Sadness does have a purpose and she's been pushing her to the side all these years for no reason. This gives her the resolve to escape the dump and make things right.
    • In the sequel Inside Out 2:
      • After spending the entirety of their journey complaining about Joy's methods and how she seemingly doesn't fully get how much danger Riley is in with Anxiety driving her, Fear, Anger, and Disgust have a collective one as Joy calls them out for said compaining and assumptions about her having all their answers. They end up helping her cool down and once they continue on, they don't complain for the rest of the film.
      • Riley has one after her new Sense of Self is formed and her anxiety attack ends, fully realizing and acknowledging just how badly she's treated her friends since their first day of hockey camp. She delivers a heartfelt apology to them when they check on her and even admits that she completely understands if they don't want to be friends anymore (luckily for her, they forgive her pretty quickly).
  • Kung Fu Panda:
    • In first film, Master Shifu is angry that Po is chosen to be the Dragon Warrior by apparent accident, so he does his best to give Po severe training to drive him out of the palace. But when Tai Lung escapes from prison and Oogway ascends into the heavens, Po is very frightened and tells off Shifu, also saying that whatever abuse Shifu threw at him, nothing hurt him more than living with his faults and failures and how he wants to learn kung fu to change him into someone better. This makes Shifu realize that he cannot train Po the way he had trained the Furious Five, and he decides to train Po a different way.
    • Tigress in the first film is the first one to acknowledge Po as a Kung Fu master after he defeats Tai Lung. Coupled with her expression after her own defeat at Tai Lung's hands, it's obvious she learned something from her loss. She gets another one in the third film, although its more of a minor one. After she chastises Po for planning to take on Kai without any strategy and still having not mastered chi, Po eventually laments she is right and he doesn't have what it takes. She suddenly emits a very forlorn, guilty look, clearly having not meant to break down Po like that.
  • In The LEGO Batman Movie, it takes getting sent to the Phantom Zone and having Phyllis the guardian point out all the times he's pushed people away to make Batman realize how much damage his lone-wolf vigilante shtick has done to his life.
  • The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part: After being forced to destroy Apocalypseburg as punishment for fighting with Bianca, Finn realizes what a jerk he's been to her.
  • In Madagascar 1, Alex's time in the titular country causes his natural predatory instincts as a lion to slowly kick in, making him instantly hungry for potential food. Once he notices this after biting his Best Friend Marty, who is a zebra, he begins to feel ashamed about himself.
  • In Migration, Pam has this after she and Mack are caged by the Chef and captured with Uncle Dan, Delroy and the other ducks in the Chef’s helicopter, realizing Mack was right about how dangerous their trip would be after her insistence to go and panicking about their kids, all while she worryingly goes through a Despair Event Horizon until Mack raises her spirits.
  • My Little Pony: The Movie (2017): Twilight gets a painful one, as she let her lack of faith in friendship nearly ruin everything. While she is held captive on Tempest's airship, Twilight solemnly admits she screwed up.
    Twilight Sparkle: Friendship didn't fail me... I failed friendship...
  • ParaNorman: Implied when Norman lashes out and yells at his friends (out of frustration) to get out when searching for Agatha's records. He rants about how Courtney never listens to him and no one else listens to him, and how everyone thinks he's a freak. While she did leave, after seeing him endanger himself she becomes more kind and supportive to Norman, implying she realizes how much pain he is in when he was an outcast and now she wants to help him.
  • Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension: While Phineas is normally a Cheerful Child, he feels genuinely angry and betrayed after learning of Perry's double life as a secret agent, to the point where he just tells him to go after wrongfully assuming he's trying to sneak away again. He winds up realizing how harshly he reacted after learning from Doofenshmirtz-2 that Perry went to turn himself in, insisting to go back and save him, and more so after learning that Perry has to be relocated from him and his family due to finding out about his secret. He makes up for it by willing giving up his memories of his agent identity so they can keep him.
  • Rugrats in Paris: Chaz has one after seeing Coco for who she really was, it dawns on him that he got caught up in the romantic atmosphere of Paris, he didn't realize who he was romancing until it was almost too late.
  • The Simpsons Movie: Homer's major character arc in the film is having one of these, after he finally drives his family away from by selfishly choosing to stay in Alaska to let Springfield and all the people in it be destroyed, because of a situation he caused, while throwing the very words he used to convince Marge to stick by him earlier back in her face, and going back to save his family and town.
    • There's also a major subplot of him driving away his son Bart, who gradually turns to Ned Flanders as a Parental Substitute. Homer eventually recognizes his failure as a father and they rekindle their relationship while saving Springfield together in the climax.
  • Shrek:
    • In the first film:
    • In the second film, King Harold has one after he returns to his true form of a frog, as he admits that he was wrong to be so hard on Shrek, apologizing to both him and Fiona and offering his blessing to their marriage.
    • In Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, While he's already going through a serious Break the Haughty moment throughout the film, this trope kicks in once Puss meets his past lives and is incredibly put off by how boastful and selfish they are. After they mock him for how much he's changed, he ends up calling them (and in turn, himself) out for their standoffish attitude.
  • The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie: After spending much of the film distrusting Daffy to the point of keeping him out of the action and saying outright that he hopes he gets probed, Porky ends up coming to the tearful realization that his own lack of trust in Daffy is just as to blame for their capture as the duck himself. He makes up for it by letting Daffy be himself to help destroy the asteroid.
  • Trolls:
    • In the first film:
      • Biggie and Cooper have one when they find out why Branch is never happy and doesn't sing, as they realize how unfairly they have treated him and not only give him sympathy, but comfort.
      • Branch finally realizes that while he wasn't necessarily wrong, he hadn't been the nicest Troll to Poppy and the rest of the village when he witness them loses their colors (and to an extent their hope of living) similar to him.
    • In World Tour, Poppy has one after Branch calls her out for not listening to him and everyone else, especially after learning that the Pop Trolls instigated the separation of the tribes in the first place. It inspires her to make things right even when she ends up getting captured by Barb.
    • In Band Together:
      • Upon reuniting with his youngest brother, John Dory treated Branch like he was still a baby and didn't consider his feelings, as he ends up making a joke about his intentions to be together as a family again, but he ends up hurting his feelings. Seeing that his joke hurt Branch, and the latter snapped at him for his behavior, John Dory realizes that he has been an inconsiderate jerk to his youngest brother.
      • Ever since reuniting with their older and youngest brother, Spruce and Clay have not only been treating John Dory coldly but have been treating Branch like a baby. However, after Branch calls them out for their selfish behavior, Spruce and Clay undergo one when they see how unsympathetic they have been to their brothers, especially when they realize that their actions really hurt their feelings.
      • Viva gets one when she realizes that she has been an unreasonable jerk to Poppy and her friends after meeting Bridget and King Gristle Jr., as she shows remorse for not listening to her sister and not coming with the group to save Floyd.
  • In The Wild Robot (2024): Brightbill undergoes this after Longneck explains to him the full extent of how Roz saved his life. It takes him the entire rest of the film to fully express his remorse for not appreciating her.
  • In Wreck-It Ralph: Felix tears into Ralph when he reunites with him after being rejected by Calhoun and treated poorly by the people of Sugar Rush. He claims to Ralph he has no idea what it feels like to be unfairly treated as a criminal. Ralph counters that he does, as that's his whole job, finally letting Felix know what he goes throw each day and making the hero see what a poor friend he has been to his partner.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In Bad Moms, Amy gives her son Dylan a "The Reason You Suck" Speech for claiming that he's a "slow learner" as an excuse to slack off when he's really just entitled. He proves that he gets the message when gets his act together and starts putting in more effort in his schoolwork.
  • In the film Chasing Christmas, as Jack Cameron is dragged through the past when Christmas Past goes rogue, he comes to acknowledge that his attitude towards Christmas has been excessive (he caught his wife cheating on him and since then has hated the holiday), while seeing himself from outside helps him realise how and why he failed as a husband. Ultimately, when he learns that Past’s presence in his past will erase him from existence, Jack is initially prepared to accept that as he recognises he’s been unfair, but Present convinces him to keep fighting when she points out that erasing Jack from existence will also erase his daughter.
  • Subverted in Dead Poets Society. After discovering that Neil has committed suicide, Mr. Perry initially shouts "Neil!", but starts saying "My son, my son!" afterwards.
  • In Dennis the Menace, Mr. Wilson gives Dennis a "The Reason You Suck" Speech when the latter tells him that his house has been robbed, causing him to miss the blooming and death of a rare flower he bred at a garden party he hosted. Dennis runs away as a result, and when Henry and Alice return from their business trips, Mr. Wilson realizes that Dennis running away was his fault and searches everywhere for him. Though he doesn't succeed in finding Dennis, who is instead found by Switchblade Sam, he is very distraught and relieved when Dennis returns the next morning on his bicycle, carrying a defeated Sam in his wagon.
  • Hocus Pocus 2: Mike regularly makes fun of people's interests but doesn't realize he's doing it, instead thinking he's just making casual conversation. He's genuinely horrified when Becca and Izzy call him out on this and he realize he'll have to apologize to a lot of people.
  • Home Alone 1: Kate realizes how unfair and neglectful she was towards Kevin when she finds out that she left him behind while rushing to the plane and spends the rest of the movie doing everything she can to get back to him.
  • In the film version of It, the now-adult members of the Losers Club hold a meeting to talk about old times and discuss their plans for taking down the eponymous creature. One of their number, Stan, is conspicuously absent, which causes the other members of the club to playfully ridicule him and berate him for being late. Soon afterwards, they get a phone call that puts an immediate end to the frivolity—Stan had committed suicide the night before.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • The Avengers (2012): Tony Stark and Steve Rogers both get this when their hesitation to form a team and work together leads to Coulson's death and Loki's escape from the Helicarrier to enact the Battle of New York in the climax.
    • Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): Drax gets this trope enacted on him when he realizes (and even admits) that his Roaring Rampage of Revenge was simply to cover up the death of his family, leading to Ronan grabbing the orb (and the Power Stone inside it) and heading towards Xandar to start his attack on said planet.
    • Spider-Man: No Way Home: Peter Parker/Spider-Man has one after he initially disregards May's advice to help the displaced multiversal villains, when he realizes that he will be sending them back to their universes to die. He seems to have another when Peter-2 interrupts his attempt to murder Green Goblin despite knowing Norman Osborn is still overtaken by him, which would've made Peter the murderer that he was accused of being.
  • Mortal Kombat: The Movie: Raiden is fond of this trope. A rare humorous Jerkass Realization.
    Raiden: The fate of billions will depend upon you. Heh heh heh heh! ...sorry.
  • Not Okay: As her lie falls apart and the world turns on her, Danni is forced to acknowledge to a support group that she wasn't that nice a person before this all started and even worse once she got famous. Notably, a member of the group calls her out on "you're saying you learned but at the end of the day you're a privileged white girl who thinks she's the main character." Danni admits that's right in how she's not sure if she really has grown and learned anything from this. The final scene does have her affected by hearing Rowan's poem railing on her lies and leaving in tears at how Rowan is a true survivor while Danni was only pretending to be.
  • A meta-example: Jake LaMotta has said he never truly realized how terribly he treated the people in his life until he saw the events dramatized by Martin Scorsese in Raging Bull (which he worked as a consultant on).
  • In SHAZAM! (2019), After Billy searches for a long time to find his mom and finds out that she wants no part in his life, he realizes that his obsession to find his mother has made him selfish and how cold, and distant he was to his foster family. He makes it up by embracing his new life with them.
  • 16 Wishes: Abby waited for eight years of her life for her sixteenth birthday, as she wanted things her way and made a list. When the day arrives and she gets sixteen magic candles from a fairy godmother, Abby gets everything she wanted at first, until she makes a wish that everyone would stop treating her like a kid, but it instead makes her an adult. However, through that wish, Abby realizes how bratty and selfish she was to everyone around her, especially her friends and family. After making a wish to redo her sixteenth birthday, Abby starts treating everyone around her better.
  • Space Jam: A New Legacy: Lebron has a big one when after arguing with the Looney Tunes about his coaching methods, he realized he was crushing them (and by extension, his son) with his expectations and finally started making things right by playing their version of basketball as well as apologizing to Dom for not having supported him on his computer skills.
  • Transformers: Rise of the Beasts: Noah Diaz and Optimus Prime have a tough time getting along with one another due to the two being so wrapped up in their own self-centered goals. For Noah, it's him trying to find a way to try and make money to provide for his family (and to nurture his brother Kris in particular), and for Optimus Prime, it's him trying to get the Transwarp Key to try and get him and his Autobot comrades back to Cybertron to reclaim it from the Decepticons. This leads to them arguing with one another and the two hesitant to participate with the rest of the Autobots, the Maximals and Elena. This even extends to the fact that Noah wanting to obliterate the Transwarp Key out for the sake of protecting his family and friends from the Terrorcons and Unicron, in spite of Prime telling him to not do so. However, once a corrupted Airazor attacks the heroic group, which allows the Terrorcons to grab the other half of the key in order to enact Unicron's arrival towards Earth, and also resulting in Airazor's death as Primal performs a Mercy Kill on her, both Prime and Noah get this trope enacted on them as they realize that what they did to each other was wrong, that they were looking out for the same thing they were committed to protecting - their own homes and their loved ones, and that their uncooperativeness towards one another had only did more harm than good. It ultimately leads to Prime apologizing for his antagonistic attitude that he had shown towards Noah earlier on in the film, with Noah, having seen the wisdom in Elena's words, saying that he can't be livid at him because of this, and it pushes the two to get their act together and trust the other Autobots, the Maximals and Elena, ultimately leading the two to being part of an alliance and working towards a goal, and for Noah to become selfless and Prime to...well, trust humans and accept them as his friends and ally for his faction from now on.
  • Turkey Hollow: After getting kidnapped, Annie thinks about her life and realizes how poorly she treats her parents and her brother. She treats everyone better from that point on.

    Literature 
  • Accomplishments of the Duke's Daughter: After seeing how hard his sister and family are working and how wasteful and useless his friends are in actually aiding the kingdom, Berne realizes that he should never have sided with the second prince. He later owns up to his mistake and apologizes to Iris for turning on her when she needed him most, but while she accepts the apology, she also tells him that she can't forgive him yet.
  • Bazil Broketail: Wiliger goes through this a few times in book four, but it doesn't tend to stick and he goes back to being a Jerkass after another (real or imagined) slight from his subordinates. However, witnessing his men and dragons dying in a terrible manner during the battle at Tog Utbek horrifies him, and makes him finally realize what an awful man he was towards them until this point.
  • The Berenstain Bears Big Chapter Books: Throughout The Berenstain Bears and the Wheelchair Commando, Harry McGill has stubbornly refused to be friendly towards anyone because he thinks they only want to know how he became a paraplegic or that they pity him because of his condition, and otherwise don't care about him as an actual person, no matter how friendly they try to be. When Brother decides to stick up for him against Too-Tall and Harry still thinks it's only because Brother pities him, Brother's finally had enough and calls him out over his jumping to conclusions before telling him why he really stood up for Harry (because he can't stand Too-Tall's bullying anyone). Harry, realizing that Brother really means what he's saying (with a little help from Freddy, who tells him about another time Brother stood up to Too-Tall), finally admits that he had Brother and Fred all wrong, and apologizes.
  • The Black Arrow: Main character Richard "Dick" Shelton stumbles upon a boy named John Matcham wandering around the moor and promises to guide him through the forest. Shortly after, Dick discovers that "John" is really a -beautiful- girl called Joanna Sedley, he embarrassedly remembers their interactions during their trip (featuring Dick complaining about "John" being a wimp, Dick ranting to "John" about not wanting to get married ever because all women are witches, Dick complaining about "John" hindering him every time Dick wants to do something stupid... and, most importantly, Dick wanting to hit "John" during an argument and then whining about the unfairness of being called a bully if he ever went ahead with it), and he feels like a blithering idiot.
  • In The Dinosaur Lords, Melodía, after acting condescendingly to all of her ladies-in-waiting, realizes that they all have Hidden Depths and are smarter than they look. She concludes gloomily that she's been a self-righteous jerkass and the most shallow girl in her clique.
  • The Dresden Files:
    • Harry gets several of these, mostly involving Murphy: a few books into the series, he starts letting down the "secretive wizard" routine and sharing more important information, realising that she deserved to know and he wasn't doing anyone any good with it, and much later on, in Small Favor, she mentions her concerns with his increasingly short temper and destructive streak (even by Harry's standards), and he starts working to get a hold on it.
    • In Proven Guilty, Molly rakes her mother over the coals for continually treating Harry like some kind of craven, selfish parasite no matter how much he did for them. Charity gets a lot nicer to Harry from then on, even after Michael is seriously injured in a magical crisis involving Harry.
    • In Turn Coat, Morgan finally seems to have realised that his Inspector Javert nonsense directed at Harry in the early books was out of line; while he's still crabby, aggressive and argumentative, he's lightened up a bit and seems to trust Harry to have his back. He dies less than a minute after effectively admitting he was wrong.
      Morgan: I knew that you knew how it felt to be an innocent man hounded by the Wardens.
  • There are many examples in the Harry Potter series.
    • One was when Ron was craning his neck to get a look at the Longbottoms' beds, then he is told of the Longbottoms' condition.
    • When Hermione is lecturing Harry again about his connection to Voldemort and makes the mistake of saying he likes it. Harry's Death Glare pretty much shuts her up and has her bending over backwards to apologize.
    • The Magical Maintenance man the trio forced to leave in Deathly Hallows was there to be with his wife when she had to go up against Umbridge and the Anti-Muggle trial, cue Jerkass Realization.
    • Slughorn is pretty much a vest-wearing walking example of this trope.
    • When Hermione criticizes The Quibbler in front of Luna in a very Jerkass way, then finds out Luna's the daughter of the Quibbler's Editor, though seeing as how Luna had been reading it when Hermione walked in, it was rather rude regardless.
    • In Order of the Phoenix, Dudley has one when he is attacked by the dementor and is shown the sort of person he really is. This causes Dudley to cease bullying Harry (he is never shown to pick on him again after this point in the books) and try to be a better person (leaving tea outside Harry's room, telling Harry he doesn't think he's a waste of space).
    • Harry himself went through this in the fifth book. When his mental connection to Voldemort as well as Umbridge's actions at Hogwarts make him rude and short with Ron and Hermione, he realizes how moody he'd been. He tries to reel himself in, though he keeps being rather touchy throughout the book until Sirius dies. And even after that, he goes off on Dumbledore in his grief over it.
  • The novel How to Rock Braces and Glasses by Meg Haston is basically a book-long one of these for protagonist Kacey Simon. She's the Alpha Bitch of her school, but she genuinely believes that her Brutal Honesty is helpful and beneficial to those she uses it on. After losing her popularity due to the sudden acquisition of braces and glasses, she realizes that her fellow students mostly consider her a colossal Jerkass and sets out to change this fact by being nicer.
  • Men at Arms: Angua discovers a notebook in Vimes' desk, filled with women's names and corresponding amounts of money. She voices her outrage that Vimes, a man soon to be married, is spending so much money on prostitutes, when Carrot informs her (voice entirely devoid of inflection) that they're the widows and orphans of watchmen who fell in the line of duty.
  • In The Mouse Watch, Bernie Skampersky is a Troubled Sympathetic Bigot mouse who hates and fears rats because one of them killed her brother. When she's accepted into the titular Heroes "R" Us team she's paired up with another rookie, a rat named Jarvis Slinktail. Bernie struggles with her prejudice, alternating between accusing Jarvis of being a traitor and starting to like him in spite of herself until The Reveal that another character is the actual traitor causes her to realize how wrong she's been. She apologizes to Jarvis at the first opportunity and finally accepts him as a friend.
  • Neofeud Short Story Collection: Double subverted. Gem briefly admires Sarah's speech about how Cindercat let her fame as a cosplayer and newfound wealth go to her head, and then wonders if she's also guilty of treating her peers poorly, but quickly decides such a speech couldn't also apply to herself. However, she later treats her fellow cospaupers better and thinks to herself that it feels good to nice to people even if she doesn't have anything to gain from it. She ends the story thinking about Sarah's words again and decides to cosplay to have fun and make friends instead of chasing fame and fortune.
  • In the The Railway Series book More About Thomas The Tank Engine, Thomas and Percy got into a bitter quarrel which started with Thomas blaming Percy for intentionally covering him in coal, and in the last book "Drip Tank", Thomas was even more unsympathetic towards Percy, calling him a "drip" during their argument in the sheds. After Percy rescues him from his accident with a punctured water tank, Thomas becomes ashamed of his behavior and apologizes to him for calling him a "drip" and finally reconciles their friendship. It is from that point on that Thomas becomes more humble and kind throughout the series.
  • The Scholomance: Chloe's last scene in the first book has her apologizing to El for treating her so coldly earlier on and for taking the protection of her enclave for granted.
    Chloe: That day Orion introduced us, I acted like all I needed to have you be my friend was let you know that I was willing to let you talk to me. Like I'm so special. But I'm not. I'm just lucky.
  • Temeraire: In Black Powder War, the protagonist Captain Laurence realizes that he's been treating Tharkay with undue suspicion and hostility, in part due to his mixed ancestry, and offers both a sincere apology and a declaration of how valuable Tharkay has been on his journey. Tharkay, to his own surprise, accepts and later brings The Cavalry at a crucial juncture.
  • Villains Are Destined to Die: Some characters end up realizing that the way they treated Penelope was nothing short of awful. Emily comes to deeply regret how she treated Penelope, even the butler sees how his indifference towards Penelope has hurt her as well, since it enabled the mistreatment by the rest of the servitude under him and made her more prone to lashing out. Callisto is very well aware that holding a defenseless and frail woman at swordpoint and cutting her in the neck was a dick move. Siyeon's real-life family has this as well, although far too late to make amends with Siyeon, who decides to live on as Penelope and cuts the life support of her original body.
  • Wear Your Soul Round Your Neck: Thyssa initially makes excuses for the people she kills, but when she saves a fellow malform only to kill it when it turns on her, she starts to think of her actions as "endless slaughter" and wondering if this is what it really means to be human.
  • The Witchlands: Merik realizes that for the past few weeks, he's been going full-on I Reject Your Reality and It's All About Me when the only person left willing to put up with his moods leaves him after giving him a brief "The Reason You Suck" Speech.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Arrested Development: A rare moment when a character actually realizes that they've said something terrible:
    Tobias: [to Michael] ...And second-of-ly, I know you're the big marriage expert — oh, I'm sorry, I forgot, your wife is dead!
    [Michael and Lindsay stare in silence]
    Tobias: I'm sorry, that was one hundred percent inappropriate and I do apologize profusely. I do apologize profusely, I'm — oh...
  • In the Grand Finale of The Big Bang Theory, when Sheldon once again angers his friends by not caring at all about their personal lives, they are beginning to consider going home. They don't feel like supporting Sheldon when he never does so for them. When Sheldon complains about this to Amy, she tells him that he has always been putting his needs over his friends and the only reason they have tolerated it for years is that he has never meant to. Sheldon asks if this also includes her. She sadly says that, at times, it has. This leaves him stunned so much that when the actual ceremony comes, he takes every second to personally thank his friends and wife for their impact on his life.
  • Brooklyn Nine-Nine: In the first episode, Jake constantly mocks and rebels against the new police captain Holt's strict policies and attempts to get him to behave more maturely until he learns that the reason Holt is so fanatic about making his force run as smoothly as possible is that he was constantly denied opportunities to rise up in the police force because of his homosexuality and this is his first real chance to prove his worth as a captain. After hearing all this from Holt, Jake apologizes to him for being an insensitive jerk and makes an effort to behave (somewhat) better in future episodes.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • In the season 2 premiere "When She Was Bad", Buffy comes back to Sunnydale having Took a Level in Jerkass as a result of her temporary death at the Master's hands; she is sullen, actively lashes out at people, and flirts with Xander purely to upset Angel (and hurts Xander and Willow as a result). She gets hit with this when her refusal to cooperate with the other Scoobies leads to Giles and Willow being kidnapped and nearly ritually sacrificed.
    • In the season 3 episode "Revelations", Xander, furious that Angel is Back from the Dead and Buffy withheld it from the rest of the Scoobies, gives Faith the bare minimum of details regarding it, knowing she won't hesitate to stake Angel. However, Angel isn't evil anymore and helps in the resulting fight against the treacherous Watcher Gwen Post. While his lie to Buffy in "Becoming, Part 2" was a bit justified, since Angelus was actively trying to bring about an apocalypse, Xander realizes that he crossed a line here, and makes it up to Buffy by helping her save Angel from the First in "Amends."
    • During the season 5 episode "Forever", Willow and Xander run into Spike, who's in the process of trying to deliver a bouquet of flowers to the Summers home. Xander believes he's trying to take advantage of Buffy's mother's death to score points with Buffy, but Spike adamantly insists that he was actually trying to pay his respects to Joyce, as she was the only one of Buffy's "lot" that was ever nice to him. Xander refuses to believe Spike, who eventually gives in, throws the flowers down, and storms off, telling Xander to think whatever he wants. As soon as he's gone, Willow picks up the bouquet and informs Xander that Spike didn't include a card with the flowers, surprising them both with the knowledge that Spike really was trying to pay his respects.
    • In the above episode, Dawn openly accuses Buffy of not caring or even grieving over their mother's death, because she's been running around and treating it like "just another chore." At that, Buffy breaks down and confesses that, far from being emotionless about Joyce's death, Buffy has been bottling up her emotions because it's the only way she can deal with the grief. Dawn's expression as Buffy steadily breaks down into grief-stricken sobbing goes from cold anger to tearful horror as she realizes just how much her older sister is hurting.
    • In the season six episode "Entropy", once Buffy's Secret Relationship with Spike is revealed, while the other Scoobies accept it relatively easily, Xander is left shocked and horrified, spending the majority of the next episode, "Seeing Red," confused and disgusted as to why she would ever want to have sex with him. Eventually, however, Xander realizes and acknowledges that he gave her plenty of reason not to tell him, and he reacted exactly as badly as she feared he would.
  • Doctor Who: In "It Takes You Away", Erik leaves his blind daughter, Hanne, in their remote cottage with a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax recording playing outside to keep her in the house while he hangs out in an alternate universe where there's a version of his dead wife. When he finally comes back, he sees the writing the Doctor left on the wall for Ryan before she went through the portal, telling Ryan to assume Hanne's father is dead and to find someone who can take care of him, where it finally dawns on him what he almost did.
  • Family Matters: In "Words Hurt", the Winslows hire a hypnotherapist to find out why Steve is sleepwalking and attacking Carl at night. It turns out that a few months ago, Steven accidentally wrecked Carl's prized model ship and Carl, after throwing him out of the house, ranted about how he wished that he would just go away and never come back, not knowing that he heard everything. Carl is absolutely mortified when he learns this and his family starts to alienate him for his words.
  • Full House:
    • In "Just Say No Way", Jesse is absolutely furious when he catches D.J. holding a can of beer at a school dance he was performing for, not knowing that she was actually trying to prevent her then-boyfriend Kevin from drinking it. After Kevin vouches for D.J. (the principal having caught him red-handed and about to suspend him from school), Jesse realizes that he's been throwing the book at his niece for no reason and promptly heads back to apologize.
    • In "The Trouble with Danny", Danny is making the family clean the house for Spring Cleaning Day and they have a private meeting in D.J.'s room to vent their anger at his Neat Freak personality, not knowing that Danny was inside the closet at the time listening onto the whole thing. This prompts him to try to change his image and become a slob, and it's when he tells the others that he's no longer, to quote Joey, "a psycho with a dust mop" do they realize that they've hurt his feelings.
  • Galavant: In the third episode of season one, the titular knight Galavant, Princess Isabella, and Galavant's put-upon squire Sidney take a rest at Sydney's hometown. There the former two learn Sydney hasn't been completely honest with his parents and the whole town, with them thinking Sydney is the knight and Galavant is his squire. Though unhappy about it, Galavant plays along and later works with the other squires in town, who are treated poorly as well, to set up a party for Sidney's return. The other squires begin a song about how every knight is a "Jackass in a Can."note . While listening to them complain about how they view knights, Galavant finds himself joining in singing the final verse, "[All] That jerkface in a can /There's nothing sadder than / [Galavant] Some over-muscled, chauvinistic / Self-indulgent, egotistic / Stingy, prissy, narcississy / [All] Jackass in a can!." Upon finishing the song, Galavant realizes that he is much like the men these squires mock. Later at a party takes Sydney aside and apologises for his behavior and honestly thanks him for his hard work as well as saying his parents should be told the truth and they will still love and respect their son.
  • Girl Meets World: In the episode "Girl Meets Popular", Riley ends up becoming an icon for Farkle's gang of nerds, even changing up her entire outlook to become a Harajuku girl to fit in with them. During the spelling bee scene near the end, Maya changes Riley's given word to "Harajuku", causing Riley to come to her senses and throws the match.
  • In Episode 2x04 of Glee, Rachel Berry has a self-inflicted one of these when she finally realizes that her determination to win at everything and hog all the spotlight, all the time, has made her into a genuinely loathsome individual. She then spends the rest of the episode trying to lose at something so she can consider herself a good person again. Shame it doesn't last - by Episode 2x09 she's walking into class with her mouth taped up in protest over someone else being featured at Sectionals, and when her eternal rival Quinn Fabray hands her an immensely satisfying talking-to about the selfish 'schoolgirl bubble' in which she lives her life in 2x15, all it inspires is a dreary self-justificatory whine set to music - but it was nice while it did.
  • Hannah Montana: In the episode Judge Me Tender, Oliver acted like a major jerk to Lilly when he gets caught in the attention the girls are giving him for being on a America's Top Talent, parody of the reality show America's Got Talent. Through Miley's help, Oliver realizes how badly he acted towards Lilly and immediately apologizes to her, as she quickly forgives him.
  • In the third Horatio Hornblower telefilm, Midshipman Hunter hates Horatio's penchant for prudence and "cheating" tactics, believing himself to be braver and more dutiful. When they're captured, Hunter disobeys orders by forming his own escape plan, which ends in total disaster. Horatio immediately claims that the whole thing was his idea, knowing that he'll be shoved in the Punishment Box that broke another shipmate, and refuses all persuasion to tell the truth. Hunter realizes his error, becoming quite subdued and anxious about how Horatio is suffering in his stead.
  • Mimpi Metropolitan: Bambang has been acting rude towards Melani for a couple episodes due to her rejection and his unfounded jealousy. At the end of episode 43, Melani finally talks back, which doesn't move Bambang, and ends up crying. Bambang's expression changes from spiteful to regretful when her tears appear and he spends several hours regretting that he makes a woman cry. However, it takes some time for him to apologize, because he gets distracted by the realization that Melani is implying that she loves him too.
  • My Name Is Earl uses this in its pilot episode to set up the premise. Earl is a petty criminal, drunken vandal, and all-around piece of obnoxious white trash who wins $100,000 from a Scratch 'n' Win lottery ticket, only to get hit by a car during his celebration dance, losing the ticket to the wind and putting him in the hospital. While Earl's high on painkillers, his promiscuous wife Joy hands over divorce papers so she can run off with Earl Jr.'s real daddy, Darnell. As Earl is bemoaning his fate, he sees Carson Daly on TV explaining the concept of karma — good things will happen to you if you do good things, whereas bad things will come back to haunt you. At that moment, it occurs to Earl that the reason his life sucks is because he's done nothing but bad things to a lot of people, and that maybe he would have better luck if he made up for them. To that end, Earl prepares a list of all of the bad things he can remember doing, and starts finding a way to make up for them, one by one. Starting with his first item of picking up litter (because he used to litter a lot), Earl walks to the trash and comes across his missing lotto ticket. This is evidence to him that karma really does work, and he sets out to scratch every item off the list, setting up the premise of the show.
  • My Stubborn: Sorn has a deep-seated bias against younger romantic partners. When he starts a Friends with Benefits relationship with the much younger Jun, he repeatedly insists that he doesn’t actually like Jun in any way. However, Sorn is jealous and possessive, using physical and emotional control to keep Jun away from anyone who shows even passing interest in him. Eventually, Jun has enough and leaves Sorn with a heartbreaking "The Reason You Suck" Speech. Sorn finally realizes that Jun is nothing like his biases had insisted, and all he had accomplished was to hurt, isolate, and drive away the person he now knows he’s in love with.
  • My Sweetheart Jom: Yo is furious at being falsely accused of drug use, so when he learns that Jom hates cigarettes, he decides to get revenge by taking up smoking. However, when Jom finds out, instead of being angry, he recoils in fear and faints. Yo is then told that Jom hates cigarettes because his childhood nanny would abuse him with them. Yo feels awful about it and realizes he’s been a complete brat since the day he arrived.
  • Naughty Babe: Hia Yi makes a serious effort to connect with Khondiao to figure out why Diao tried to run away. As they start communicating properly for the first time in years, Yi becomes increasingly horrified and heartbroken as he learns just how badly he had misinterpreted Diao's feelings and actions, leading to years of unintentional cruelty and neglect.
  • NCIS: Tony does this when talking about Gibbs often, he mentions things like his divorce rate, or something about bourbon, cue the scene of Gibbs standing behind him, or walking in from nowhere.
  • The Orville: Klyden is vehemently against Topa's decision to become female again and when he is unable to prevent the gender reassignment procedure he tells Topa he wishes she was never born before leaving her and Bortus. However, once he discovers the Moclan military abducted, tortured, and nearly murdered Topa, Klyden is so disgusted with himself not only for having thought like those people, but also of how Topa's kidnapping wouldn't have happened without his own hurtful comments, that he returns to the Orville and tearfully apologizes to Topa, admitting he was wrong to think so poorly of her.
  • Paper Girls: Mac's brother apologizes for how poorly he treated her when they were kids as, being a father himself, he knows how crappy that was and worse following her death.
  • Scrubs: Quite a fan of these moments as well.
    • After JD's father passes away, JD gets mad at Cox, Cox narrowly averts this trope by getting mad at JD but immediately feeling like a Jerkass, as he knows JD's father has died. Then Ted joins in the taunting of JD, Ted asks why are they clapping and Dr. Cox says, "His dad died..." Ted then immediately stops clapping. "Damn it..."
    • Also in Season 8 when Elliot is shown how depressed Keith is over her treatment of him.
    • A rather odd one in where JD has just revealed to the entire waiting room that he received a DUI last night. Cue flashback to a few minutes ago with Laverne Roberts saying that a girl involved in a drunk driving accident had made it, but her mother had died. However, the jerkassery lies in the way that he brought it up so flippantly, not in the DUI itself since, as we see earlier in the episode, he actually got it for walking (not driving) his moped home while drunk, with the moped on only to play the radio, making it seem like he was about to get on while intoxicated.
    • Dr. Cox spends most of an episode doing community service and is being driven up the wall by Denise Lemmon, an annoyingly optimistic paramedic, who simply will not shut up about her son, her son's favorite baseball card, or how he'll always be ten years old to her. Eventually, after Denise crashes the ambulance, Cox loses it and goes off on a rant towards her. Minutes later another paramedic hands Cox the baseball card, that was recovered from the ambulance, and Cox finally puts the pieces together, realizing that Denise's son had been killed in an accident.
    • In another episode, Dr. Cox, a Hollywood Atheist, becomes determined to convince Laverne, a devout Christian, that everything is a coincidence. When he inevitably pushes things way too far, Laverne gives him an epic Shut Up, Hannibal!, telling him that she needs there to be a God and a bigger reason behind the things that happen to patients because it helps her cope with the horrors of watching people die around the hospital every day. Cox softly offers an apology and stops pushing the issue.
  • In Sherlock, the eponymous hero never holds back from telling the truth as he sees it, generally not caring (or even realizing) if he offends or upsets people in the process. But every now and then he has a moment of clarity where he belatedly realizes just how insensitive he’s being.
    • One notable example is when he draws attention to one of Molly’s hand-wrapped Christmas presents, stating that she’s obviously arranged it specifically for someone she has romantic feelings for, and spends a good few minutes rather brutally lampooning her for it, before picking up the parcel and realizing that it’s his name written on the card (by which time Molly is close to tears and everyone else in the room is massively uncomfortable). For once, he not only realizes what a jerk he has been, he actually apologizes, to the shock of everyone watching.
    • Another example takes place when Mycroft visits the flat and at one point ends up very rudely telling Mrs. Hudson to stay out of the conversation, leading Sherlock to bring him to heel. When Sherlock has to tell you to stop acting like a jerk, you know you've screwed up royally. Mycroft immediately apologizes. This turns into a spot of Hypocritical Heartwarming since after chastising Mycroft, Sherlock then also immediately tells Mrs. Hudson to butt out of things.
    • In the first episode, upon being told that the "Rachel" message the victim carved on the floor is the name of her miscarried daughter, Sherlock launches into a rant about how this makes no sense because she shouldn't still care about something that happened so long ago. The look of sheer dismay on John's face at this blatant lack of compassion stops him cold, and after a moment he hesitantly admits that what he said was "not good".
  • Stargate SG-1: In "Lifeboat", Daniel Jackson becomes the host for about a dozen different consciousnesses, and the team goes back to the planet where it happened, they find the person responsible, then Sam and Teal'c pretty much ordered him to remove the said consciousnesses from Jackson's mind, thus killing them, theorizing that they are already dead. Then they find out they've just asked the man to kill his 10-year old son. Yep, Sam and Teal'c are Jerkassess.
    • Though Teal'c justifiably points out that Daniel wasn't given the chance to volunteer to keep said child alive.
  • Studio C: In "The Real Bully", Mallory and her family pick on others while blaming everyone else for provoking them into doing it. After yelling at Mr. Peterson, Mallory starts to eel bad about her actions and starts to realize she's in the wrong. Unfortunately, it turns into an Ignored Epiphany when she decides to go out for fast food instead of allowing herself to feel guilty.
  • The Suite Life on Deck: After the season 2 final and during most of the third season, Cody has been a jerk to Bailey as he blames her for their breakup. Despite his attempts to be friends with Bailey, Cody couldn't let go of his anger and hurt as this led him to write a play about their breakup. However, after the play and a talk with Zack, Cody not only realized how bad of a jerk he was to Bailey but also that he made a mistake of breaking up with her.
  • Two and a Half Men: In "She'll Still Be Dead at Halftime" (S06E16) Alan and Jake call Charlie a sleazeball for being willing to cheat on his fiancée with a drunk and horny former acquaintance. He brushes them off at first, but their words do ultimately get to him; in the end he's unable to go through with it.
    Charlie: You're right. I'm a sleazeball.
    Alan: Don't tell me you actually had a moral epiphany.

    Manhua 
  • Goddess Creation System: Xiaxi ends up suffering a harsh setback because another maid ratted her out on attempting to seduce Mingluan. She realizes that she actually had it coming and that Ting Zhu, the maid, was absolutely not the one at fault. She had consciously snubbed several attempts to get along and shown herself as a complete professional ass-kisser, which made her a threat to Ting Zhu's own chances of getting anywhere. She goes out of her way to get on Ting Zhu's good side and doesn't make the mistake of alienating other servants again, even though she probably still doesn't actually care about them.
  • My Beloved Mother: Sinbell, the protagonist, is an orphan Raised by Robots who behaves like a massive Jerkass to his robotic mother, Milan, repeatedly rejecting her attempts to love him and even running away from home to seek his "real" mother. He eventually regrets his actions near the end when he realize Milan, his robot mother, continues being a Mysterious Protector to him even after he orders her to leave and be reprogrammed, and realize how much Milan actually means to him - leading to Sinbell's futile attempts to retrieve Milan before she gets recalled and destroyed.
  • My Wife Is a Demon Queen: Aisi is constantly rude to and dismissive of Xiang Ye, considering him "useless lumber". She realises just how wrong of her it was to treat him like that when he starts whipping out spells at a level of power and proficiency that rivals Rennes, The Ace of her class.

    Video Games 
  • Absented Age 2: Ghostbound:
    • In a flashback, Amamiya is angered at Karen for turning the Sado Club into the Sado Band Club and throws water bottles at her, only to realize he went too far. He later helps the Sado Band Club pass out fliers for their concerts.
    • Rumi petrifies Akane with a Misfortune Plume after the latter calls her out for holding a grudge against Karen. Linh tells her that this goes against her original goal of making a tight-knit club, causing Rumi to be stunned silent. In the Rooftop Driftworld Core, Rumi admits that she was wrong to let her inferiority complex towards Karen get the better of her.
    • In Akane's flashback, Linh was among those in the Brass Band Club who ostracized Karen, to the point where she doesn't bother helping Karen when the latter collapses and states that Karen wouldn't care about her if she was in a similar situation. After Akane takes Karen to the school infirmary, Linh underperforms in a competition because her role needs Karen's performance to be nearby in order to be optimal. Linh visits the infirmary and apologizes, stating that she should have reached out to Karen instead of going along with Rumi's perception of Karen. After Karen clears the Music Room Driftworld Core and gets Akane's Heart Fragment back, Linh calls out Rumi for scheming against the Sado Band Club and points out that this goes against the latter's goal of creating a welcoming club environment, showing that her Character Development stuck long after Karen left the Brass Band Club.
    • Downplayed with Karen, since while she's more polite to Rumi than Rumi is to her, she misjudged Rumi's character. She initially believes that Rumi's platitudes about team harmony and solidarity were just excuses to make light of music. In the Rooftop Driftworld Core, she learns about Rumi's past in middle school where her Brass Band Club advisor forced her and her clubmates to go through physical abuse and harsh training. This causes Karen to realize that she was wrong to look down on Rumi, who was trying to ensure that her high school club didn't go down the same dark path as her middle school club.
  • Absinthia: In the ending, one of the knights apologizes for insulting Freya behind her back about being trans. It's implied that Guinevere's diversity course helped change the knight's mind.
  • Best of Three: In one ending, the self-absorbed and sophisticated Grant realizes why Helen is so upset at him; she had wrote a poem in English class, and Grant gave her insulting, overly critical comments while unaware she wrote it. When this comes up, Grant genuinely apologizes by saying he didn't realize it would be taken so seriously, and that he didn't really mean most of what he said. Helen can accept his apology to get them on better terms and have a happier ending.
  • Bug Fables: Vi's sister Jaune is initially cold to her, rejecting her apology. However, when Vi goes out of her way to get Jaune red paint for her painting, Jaune hears Vi out and realizes how truly sorry Vi is about what she said and also how unfairly she had treated Vi by trampling on her dreams. She immediately apologizes and asks for forgiveness. Vi accepts on the condition that Jaune forgives her as well. Jaune agrees and the two share a hug.
  • Crescent Prism: Nova starts feeling guilt about his treatment of Amos when the latter leaves the Sundown Squad in order to help Lunita traverse Chroma Tower.
  • Cyberpunk 2077: Johnny Silverhand, given a second chance fifty years after his death by having his biochip put into V's head, comes to a realisation that everything he did pushed people away, made no difference and left him buried in a garbage dump. He resolves to be a better, less selfish person and, if given V's body in the end, quits Night City a better and wiser person. He's even given up smoking, out of reverence for the body he's unwillingly taken over.
  • Destiny 2: Saint-14, after being on the recieving end of a "The Reason You Suck" Speech from Mithrax, realizes that to the Last City, he's a hero. To the entire Eliksni race-including their children-he's The Dreaded. He resolves to treat the House of Light better from then on.
  • Elohim Eternal II: Son of Man:
    • James originally blamed Lazarus for the Pleromans foiling the first attempt at rebellion, since the latter is a Pleroman and the son of High Baptist Caiaphas. After Lazarus risks his life to bust the Zealot members out of prison, James apologizes and states he was wrong to distrust his comrade.
    • Jessua suffers from Sanity Slippage and becomes more aggressive in leading the Zealots against the Pleromans. After his actions provoke a second genocide against the Shemerians and he gets crucified, he realizes he was wrong to use his powers for revenge and that he let his messiah powers go to his head.
  • Eternal Radiance:
    • Ruby drives Valana out of the party when she suspects the latter is a Shadowborn, due to her becoming paranoid after being betrayed by Yvonne. When she receives a letter from Yvonne stating that Valana was attacked by the Shadowborn, Ruby regrets letting her paranoia drive a wedge between herself and Valana.
    • Valana refuses to talk about her motives even after joining the party, which makes it hard for others to trust her. After the above example with Ruby, Valana realizes that it's unfair to ask the other party members to trust her without trusting them in return.
    • Quinn spends much of the game on bad terms with Celeste because she disobeyed orders, to the point where he refuses to hold a conversation with her. When he learns that she fought Eldareth, the powerful leader of the Shadowborn, he realizes that she could have died and that his last words to her would have been ones of hostility. He then spends the rest of the game mending his relationship with Celeste.
  • Donned in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is a sickly boy who is confined to a wheelchair, but he is able to walk when he is transported to the fantasy world of Ivalice. He becomes hostile towards his older brother Marche since they are trying to get everyone back to the real world and it would mean Donned would lose his ability to walk. When the two brothers finally settle down to talk, Marche reveals that no, he didn't get everything he wanted in the fantasy world and he basically was forced to give up the love and attention from his parents so that they could spend more time taking care of Donned. Upon hearing Marche vent, Donned realizes how much of a brat he was being towards his brother without knowing the sacrifices he was forced to make and cries into his brother's arms while apologizing.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade: In their C support, Chad asks Hugh to lend him some money, to which the latter agrees, but only after making fun of him. In their B support, Chad returns the money and explains why he wanted it in the first place - the orphanage he grew up was burned down by Bern soldiers, and the "little ones" were taken in by the Elimine Church. He bought a sword with the money so he can end the war faster and go pick them up - and defensively asks if Hugh has a problem with that. Hugh says he doesn't, and in fact apologizes for his earlier behavior, even saying that Chad is more of an adult than he is.
    • Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade: In their B support, Nino calls out Canas for leaving his family and letting his mother cast hexes on his one-year-old son; he agrees to tell her to stop, but hedges until Nino yells at him and says that his son needs him. Canas laments that he's ashamed of himself and his ending sees him going home to said son, suggesting it had an effect.
    • Quite a dark example with Say'ri in Fire Emblem: Awakening. Because her brother Yen'fay betrayed their country to join Walhart The Conqueror, Say'ri openly declares she has no brother and vows to kill him personally when they meet on the battlefield. After she does so, Excellus, the Smug Snake tactician of Walhart's forces, pops in at that very moment and reveals to Say'ri that the only reason Yen'fay even joined Walhart in the first place was to protect her, and that if it wasn't for him, Walhart's forces would have already killed Say'ri herself. Say'ri is left absolutely horrified at the fact that she hated and killed a brother who still loved her.
  • Frogsong: Chorus wants to join the Defense Guild, but is looked down upon by their leader Basalt because of their small size and hailing from a village that focuses more on religion than fighting. Then Chorus risks their life to get some honey in the hope of curing Elder Bufo's illness, as honey has become rare and they're the only one small enough to get into a nest full of Humming Devils (bees). Although it doesn't work and Bufo passes away, Basalt realises that she was too hard on Chorus, especially after they later tell her that the reason they wanted to join the Defense Guild was because their old village was once saved from an attack by them, and by the end of the game the two are on much better terms.
  • God of War (PS4): In Alfheim, Atreus accuses Kratos of not actually caring that his mother is dead, and suffers one of this when Kratos makes it clear he does care and is mourning for Faye in his own way.
    Atreus: I'm sorry. I didn't realize...
    Kratos: No. Why would you? You do not know my ways.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Early on in the game, when Ilia discovers a wound on Epona's leg, she furiously chews Link out, believing that he had been pushing Epona too hard and had injured her jumping over fences. She gets hit with this when Colin explains to her that the reason Epona had been injured is that Link had taken her into the forest to save Talo from monsters; though Ilia did know of that, she didn't know the full story.
      Ilia: I had no idea... I hadn't heard the details about Talo's capture...
    • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Zelda started off rather abrupt with Link when the latter was able to wield the Master Sword while she was unable to unlock her Royalty Super Power, making him a living reminder of her own failure to fulfill her destiny. At one point, when she is unable to open one of the Sheikah Shrines (with it and the other ancient Sheikah technology being things she is very interested in studying) and realizes it is intended to only open for the Sword's wielder, she angrily tells him to get lost despite him being ordered by the King to guard her. Her diary entry right after this says that he was visibly confused by this outburst, which made her feel bad afterward. Then, when Zelda is attacked by Yiga Clan assassins, Link selflessly fights them off in her defense, which finally makes her realize how pointlessly mean she had been to him. She soon apologizes and starts opening up to him, whereupon she finds out he has similar insecurities to hers.
  • In Love, Ghostie, Gerard, an emo giraffe, realizes how mean he was being to Mina after his prank on her by pretending to be a ghost by wailing out his songs isn't taken well by her. He later explains to her than his metal screaming is just how he likes to sing, but he promises to try piping down at night so as not to disturb her.
  • Manafinder: At the end of Sol and Mar's quest chain, they once again make a rigged challenge for Lambda to scam her out of her money. Sol nearly injures herself in order to ram into Lambda in the rock climbing course, causing her to realize that their scams are going too far. The two then relent and give Lambda the prize that they promised rather than running away again. It's implied that they were exiled for running similar scams in Manahill.
  • Gemma in Ninja Pizza Girl apparently thought that joining the rest of the school in mocking "Wobbly Wanda" for her crippling fear of heights was just a bit of fun, and she seems oblivious to the connection between that and Wanda since having dropped out of school. After receiving a snide put-down from Alpha Bitch Chloe about herself having No Sense of Direction, she realises that she's been a jerk and goes out of her way to be nice to Wanda, eventually succeeding in restoring some of the poor girl's confidence.
  • Persona:
    • At one point in Persona 3, Junpei suddenly comes to the conclusion that he had been a jerkass to the protagonist, apologizes, and is more pleasant afterwards. What makes this so surprising is that despite the franchise, this did not require a Battle in the Center of the Mind or a revelation gained from battling one's dark reflection.
    • Persona 5:
      • At one point, Makoto Niijima has a discussion with her elder sister Sae about the morality of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, during which Makoto innocently comments that she believes their late father would have supported them. Sae has a rather low opinion of their father's ideals, especially since said ideals led to him being killed in action, and hearing Makoto say that causes Sae to lose her temper and verbally attack her younger sister, going so far as to flat-out tell Makoto to her face that she's useless and does nothing but eat away at her life. Makoto is visibly distraught, and Sae immediately regrets it and apologizes, but it's too late to take it back.
      • Sae gets hit by this again during the interrogation after Makoto gets implicated as one of the Phantom Thieves. The protagonist will pick up on this and can opt to twist the knife a little further.
        Joker: You never noticed?
  • At the climax of Psychonauts, Raz's father enters the Meat Circus and sees the Evil Augustus projection made from Raz's own trauma. His response says it all:
    Augustus: Is that... is that really how I look in your mind?
  • Ratchet & Clank (2002): After Ratchet manages to get his revenge on Qwark, he realizes how selfish he was after he sees that Drek has managed to destroy Gorda City. This is ultimately what causes him to start acting more selfless.
  • Valkyria Chronicles: The Imperial soldiers who used to make fun of the now-deceased scout Fritz for being a "Momma's Boy" realize how much of a Jerkass they were after finding out from Welkin and Alicia that the poor boy died crying out for his mother, and likely realizing that Fritz's "enemies" on the other side of the war showed him more kindness and sympathy than they ever did.
  • The World Is Your Weapon: In the third ending, Valiant Hero Schivardi becomes jealous when Weaco defeats the Demon Lord before he can. He snaps and threatens to kill Ponmi if Weaco doesn't give him all the credit for it, but Weaco calls him out on letting his status as hero go to his head and offers him redemption. He then realizes how unheroic he's being and cries Tears of Remorse.

    Visual Novels 
  • When the protagonist of Double Homework is trying to convince Johanna that she’s the only functional one of her siblings, they discuss how Tamara is dysfunctional, lashing out at and manipulating others because she can’t process her own feelings in a healthy way. Tamara, who was listening to their whole conversation, then reveals herself... and agrees with everything they just said about her.
  • In Melody, if the protagonist goes to lunch with the title character in the second week, he has the option of calling her out on the way she behaves toward Amy. Melody admits that he’s right.
  • Physical Exorcism Series:
    • Extra Case: My Girlfriend's Secrets: Seira treated Sally coldly because she was jealous that the latter was in a relationship with John. She realized she was wrong to let her jealousy of Sally consume her and wanted to reconcile with her sister, but she died in a car crash before she could get a chance. It's implied her desire for reconciliation is the reason why she never became an evil spirit.
    • Blood Lily Loop: In the normal ending, Sally returns to the real world and talks with her mother. Due to Sally disappearing for thirteen days, her mother realized how wrong she was to neglect her daughter in favor of Nya's cult and decides to become more attentive.
    • Blood Lily Ghoststories: Beatrice and Celio call Azura a coward in order to goad her into visiting the Cannibal Boy site with them, but later realize they were too harsh towards her.

    Web Animation 
  • Camp Camp:
    • Max has one in "Nikki's Last Day on Earth", after repeatedly brushing off Nikki's belief that it was her Last Day to Live and deriding the other campers for going out of their way to give her nice final day on Earth based on very flimsy evidence that she's dying, he eventually drives her to break down crying... followed by her snapping at him and telling him off for being selfish, before calming down, leaving Max unnerved. Immediately afterwards, they watch a play put on by Preston and their fellow campers in honor of Nikki's apparent approaching death, where Max is portrayed as a completely apathetic asshole, who couldn't care that one of his best friends is dying, while he slumps in his seat, for the first time being fully confronted with just how much of an aloof Jerkass other people see him as. Soon afterwards, he confides with Nikki that while he still doesn't believe she's dying and the whole last day on Earth things is dumb, it was wrong of him to just completely disregard her feelings.
      • Afterwards, he sparks a minor example with the rest of the campers, after pointing out that they've all gone out of their way to give Nikki the last day on Earth they would want and not asking her if their was anything she specifically wanted to do for her last day on Earth.
    • Max is on the receiving end of another one in the season three finale, "Camp Corp", where when it seems like their time at Camp Campbell is over for good, when the camp shuts down, Max tries to brush off his best friend's, Neil and Nikki's, feelings about being separated, to spare himself the pain of admitting his own feelings on the matters, by telling them that being separated after camp ended was enabatable and they were always "temporary friends" at best. Unsurprisingly breaking their hearts and leading to them parting with him on bad terms. After an attempt to save the camp and realizing that he's becoming like Cameron Campbell leads to him realizing how much he does care about the two, and he gives them a surprisingly heartfelt apology:
      Max: I'm...I'm sorry. I didn't go through all of this trouble for Camp Campbell. I did it...For you guys. Cause you're my friends, and I just didn't wanna admit it, cause once the time finally came for us to say goodbye, I'd have something to lose. But you know, going through life all on your own seems pretty fucking stupid now.
  • "Helluva Boss": During Blitz' apology tour, after apologizing to Stolas for misinterpreting his intent towards him and subsequently dodging responsibility, he visits Verosika and gives a backhanded apology to her. He says that he shouldn't need to reciprocate love to anyone, to which Verosika angrily clarifies that it's not that he rejected her, but how he does it in a horrible, truly hurtful way, even though she also feels bad for how she reacted in turn. She tells Blitz that her parties against him are also to support those he hurt. Seeing them so hurt makes Blitz finally realize what he's been doing this whole time and how much a negative impact he had on his exes, genuinely apologizing and saying this isn't who he wants to be. In turn, Verosika doesn't fully forgive him at the moment, but does smile as she understands his potential to be better, and advises him to give Stolas some space.
  • Manga Women's Eden: At the end of The tragic fate of a woman who wanted to be treated like a princess forever, a 55-year-old Himeko breaks down crying after a young boy thanked her, as she realized too late about how much of a jerk she was in her youth.
  • Nomad of Nowhere: After being the Butt-Monkey for the entire season, Red Manuel angrily questions why no one seems to respect him despite anything he manages to accomplish. Skout awkwardly points out that it's probably because he acts like a jerk all the time, and he's completely stunned by the revelation.
  • RWBY: Throughout most of Volume 4, Blake repeatedly lashes out at Sun, who's trying to help her and bring her out of her shell. She slaps him repeatedly and tells him point-blank she doesn't want his help in "A Much Needed Talk". An episode later, Sun is badly injured in a fight with Ilia, and she breaks, reinforcing her belief that it's her fault her friends are being injured because of her connection to Adam. When Sun comes around from the injury, he calls her out on her attitude, telling her that, contrary to what she thinks, constantly running out on her friends and pushing them away is not selfless; it just causes them pain. After that, she's much more accepting of Sun's presence in her life.

    Webcomics 
  • Ask White Pearl and Steven (almost!) anything: After Pearl's self-defense lessons go completely Off the Rails, Rose steps in, clearly anticipating that she'll have to protect Pearl from his Tranquil Fury and admonishing him not to blame her. To her surprise, Steven blames himself instead, breaking down over his inability to keep his promise to protect Earl. Rose then recalls a time where she was in a position similar to his... and that much like Blue Diamond, she isn't showing much in the way of sympathy. This spurs her to try treating him the way she wishes she would have been treated back then.
  • Beware the Villainess!: Ian and Melissa spend part of a festival together after spending months arguing. As a little joke, she puts a toy tiara on his head and gets seriously angry at how humiliated he is, calling him out on how disrespectful it is towards half the population to take offense at being put in a woman's role. He starts behaving more respectfully from here, though Melissa doesn't really notice since he already burned that bridge long ago.
  • Sam & Fuzzy has an example with Lance, who gets stuck with Fuzzy as a partner after Fuzzy and Sam have a massive falling out. After spending less than a day with Fuzzy, Lance quickly realizes why Sam is always such a neurotic wreck since he has to deal with Fuzzy's idiotic schemes all the time. When he spells this out for Fuzzy, pointing out that Fuzzy is neither talented nor a great businessman, just a jerk who wants to play at being a big shot, and only cares about how others make him feel about himself, Lance realizes that he had just repeated the same speech his last ex had given him when she threw him out, almost verbatim. Unfortunately, it's too late to apologize, though the Character Development sticks.
    Lance: Wait, why does that sound familiar? [cue flashback] ARGH, how could I have been so STUPID!
    Fuzzy: I know, Lance, but it's not too late to make amends with me!
    Lance: GO DIE IN A DITCH, BEAR!!
    Fuzzy: Or not.
  • Unsounded: Jivi defaults to adolescent bullying towards Sette after they get off on the wrong foot. Later on, a magical overload causes visions of her worst memories to start manifesting around her, and he sees his own laughing face in the crowd tormenting her. He immediately gives her a Cooldown Hug and promises to change.

    Web Original 
  • Atop the Fourth Wall: The Movie: After Allen's death, Linkara is struck with guilt over his treatment of him ever since they met. He recalls how when the government wanted to assassinate him so they could take Comicron-1 for themselves, Allen spoke in his defense and essentially saved his life, but Linkara still acted like an asshole to him.
  • The Cry of Mann: After discovering that Jouglat is dead, Jack temporarily snaps out of his "Jack Prime" state and admits that he should've been nicer to his brother while he was back from the war, rather than his stubborn insistence on being angry and caring only about his art show.
  • During the Midnight Screenings for Zookeeper, Jerrid blasts Jake for not showing up, thus forcing Jerrid to watch the movie. In the recent Harry Potter movie, Jake says the reason he didn't show up was that he had a huge family emergency. The audience also probably thought Jake was dipping out so it gets the audience with a Jerkass Realization, along with Jerrid's.

Alternative Title(s): Jerkass Realisation

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Kai encourages Wu

When Wu decides to turn himself over to Aspheera to save his students from her wrath, Kai realizes he went too far in lashing out at his mentor and apologizes. He convinces Wu not to go through with it by pointing out that Aspheera can't trusted and tells him that they're still family.

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Main / LifeSavingEncouragement

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