Smug Smiler

Pictured: Lelouch on a good day.

"Os quoque parce Erigit^note "Uplifts her face with moderated cheer" (a quotation from the Psychomachia of Prudentius) — nothing could suggest more vividly the smirk of a persevering governess who has finally succeeded in getting a small boy in trouble with his father."

— C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love

This is the character who always has an infuriatingly smug expression on his face. He thinks he's better than you, and it shows. He may not be a Smug Snake entirely; either he's not a proper villain (just an annoying jerk), or he's only disdainful to certain people (mostly The Hero).

See Also Smug Snake and Smug Super, for more villainous/heroic versions; that said, this trope doesn't necessarily not involve them. Villainous versions are usually denoted by Tsurime Eyes, more benign or heroic examples usually have Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes. Both versions are usually big users of the Fascinating Eyebrow. Compare Psychotic Smirk, Slasher Smile, DreamWorks Face, and Cheshire Cat Grin for much the same reaction.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Unadonman from Anpanman has his eyebrows and mouth flipped up at the tips. Combined with his simplified Tsurime Eyes, it makes it look like he's looking down upon others and their food choices. Conversely, these same traits can make him eventually look humbled when he has learned his lesson.
• Ciel from Black Butler, especially in the manga. Always a smug expression, always a snarky remark.
• Bleach:
  • Aizen mixes this trope and Dull Surprise for Memetic results.
  • His underling Gin is almost never seen without a creepy, self-satisfied smirk on his face. If that expression changes, RUN.
• Lelouch vi Brittannia from Code Geass (pictured above) loves this trope to the extreme. Only that just as often, given his bad luck, he ends up with an Oh, Crap! expression on his face moments later.
• Darker than Black: Amber's smile is friendlier than most, but still sticks out due to how inappropriate a cheerful grin can be during a tense situation.
• Death Note: This is Light Yagami's default facial expression whenever things are going as planned.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Goku himself, at his cockiest, he will give these kind of smiles. He gives one to King Piccolo after he throws him into a building and to his son, Piccolo Jr, after he waste a bunch of energy on a blast that barely harmed him. After he went Super Saiyan, this becomes his default smile to Frieza when he did smile. When he tells Vegeta up front that he is way stronger than him and he will need an entire year in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber just to keep up, he gives Vegeta this smile.
  • Cell. It's mostly done in his perfect form, but it's done a lot in his perfect form.
  • Future Trunks from the beginning of the Android saga adopted this mode when dealing with Frieza and his father King Cold. Being that he spent the better part of his life fighting Androids more powerful than him in the Bad Future he came from, completely wiping the floor with and annihilating two utter monsters was therapeutic for him. He gets it from his father, Vegeta, who is one of the most arrogant characters in the entire Dragon Ball series.
• Durarara!!: Izaya almost always has a devious smirk on his face, to the point that if he doesn't, it means either you should really worry, or that one of his plans has failed.
• .hack//SIGN: Protagonist Tsukasa usually greets adversity with one of these. It's less a promise of an eminent curb-stomp — he's a Squishy Wizard whose Guardian Entity does the actual fighting — and more of a feeble act of rebellion against social convention. Given what we see of his player's real-life Abusive Parents, smiling dismissively was apparently the best defense they had to protect what little self-worth they had.
• The main trio of Gintama can be seen sporting a shit eating grin in the 9th opening◊. In the show itself a lot of people◊ can be seen◊ doing that◊.
• Haruhi Suzumiya:
  • Fujiwara (or "That Sneering Bastard") is described as looking like an "evil version of Koizumi" due to the fact that he constantly wears this expression.
  • Kyon often reads smarm into Koizumi's own perpetual smile when it's combined with his penchant for flippant philosophizing and generally being inscrutable.
• Dio Brando from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is almost never seen without one, so you know that when he stops smirking you are either the newest entry on his shit list or about to become extremely dead (although the former is almost inevitably followed by the latter.) This carries on to the second opening of Stardust Crusaders when he passes a smirk to us and Jotaro in the stopped time.
• And Saruhiko Fushimi of K (who happens to share a voice actor with the previous two), whenever he comes into contact with "... Mi ...sa ...kiiiii".
• Megumin in the KonoSuba OVA tricks Yunyun into losing their rock-paper-scissors match, and then follows with an extremely smug shit-eating grin while muttering "Heh". It became known in the fandom as 'Smugumin'.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Quattro, when she shows her true colors.
  • Cypha crosses this with either Slasher Smile and Psychotic Smirk, depending on her mood.
• Gotou from March Comes in Like a Lion saves these for whenever he's taunting Rei.
• Michio Yuki from MW.
• Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl: When Paul isn't being a Perpetual Frowner, this is his expression, especially when he's about to crush his current opponent.
• Rebuild World:
  • Akira’s Virtual Sidekick Alpha is an Artificial Intelligence with a smile calculated to be perfect, as part of being a Proud Beauty and Attention Whore. Alpha is a Manipulative Bitch using the protagonist Akira for her own ends. Notably, she uses her smiles to comfort him that everything is going well, so when she stops smiling, it means things are dangerous.
  • Yanigisawa is a mysterious Badass in a Nice Suit and Wild Card in the Corporate Government who’s introduced Playing Both Sides in a Government Conspiracy. He’s this as Alpha’s Arch-Enemy after having completed her mission but betrayed her at the last moment. This is probably where he got the trait from.
  • And then there’s Viola, a Knowledge Broker with Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, but who doesn’t let her ego get out of control. Her smiling is just a mask, and Akira often makes her sweat behind it, controlling Viola through fear.
• Sailor Moon: Haruka/Sailor Uranus and Michiru/Sailor Neptune sport these from time to time.
• SPY×FAMILY: Anya Forger usually attempts to put up a friendly smile to hide her anger, but it ends up so smuggish that becomes one of her trademark features.
• Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!: When she's not laughing at him, Hana Uzaki frequently smiles this way with the firm intention of riling up her senpai, Sakurai.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • Seto Kaiba smiles this way frequently. With only one exception, this is the only type of smile he's known for.
  • Yami Yugi can pull off a pretty good one on occasion, especially when he's about to deliver it.

Comic Books

• In the first Blacksad, he mentions he couldn't have shot the villain if it hadn't been for that smug smile.
• Robin (1993): While Scarab usually keeps an impassive blank expression or has her face hidden by her helmet her other expression is a smug smirk usually brought on by thoroughly outwitting an opponent or client, like when she tricked Tim into accidentally helping her escape custody in Red Robin.
• Kevin in Sin City. Even getting his head hacksawed off doesn't get rid of it.
• Transmetropolitan: After a few pages, it's pretty clear what sort of smile the Smiler really has.

Fan Works

• Harry Potter fanfictions are strangely fixated on making the Slytherins' only facial expressions sneering or smirking (for instance, Harry Riddle has a Slytherinish!Harry and his new friend Draco do a lot of smirking). This fandom quirk is parodied in The Parselmouth of Gryffindor, where smirking and sneering are skills that all Slytherins are supposed to master for public relations as a matter of house pride, and students are casually noted as "master Slytherins" because they manage to communicate their moods solely through sneers and smirks.
• All You Need Is Love: Light and his son Duck do this all the time.
• Throughout the Eleutherophobia series, Essa 412 is frequently described as wearing a twisted smile on Tom's face.
• In Fever Dreams L suspects Light is up to no good by his smug smirking. Light is deliberately invoking this trope so that L will remain suspicious of him in order to stay close to him.
• This Legend of Korra comic gives one to Asami of all people.
• In My Huntsman Academia, Neo is perpetually smiling while kicking Katsuki's ass, letting her foes know just how badly they're outclassed.
• In The Power of the Equinox, Hasty Vote, an Expy of Dolores Umbridge, has constantly a sweet smile on her lips as she belittles other ponies.
• The Mountain and the Wolf: The Wolf is often described as grinning or smirking in a way that makes whoever he's talking to want to punch him in the face. Of course, if the grin isn't enough there's the constant and unstoppable Innocently (and not-so-innocently) Insensitive comments he's always making regarding the inferiority of Southerners or heavy-handed approval of actions the other characters regret the most.
• In Manehattan's Lone Guardian, when the Midnight Castle gang first confronts Leviathan while they're trying to rob the Pyre of Fears, she turns to them and sports a cat-ate-the-canary grin that the author notes is reminiscent of Jetstream Sam.

Films — Animation

• Catwoman: Hunted: Barbara Minerva's most common facial expression is a smug grin or smile. In her Cheetah form, it comes across more as a Slasher Smile.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: Sunset Shimmer's cruel smile is a constant of the first movie until her transformation and Heel–Face Turn. After spending most of the next movie meek, she eventually regains her confidence and flashes a few of these in My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games.
• Adagio Dazzle from My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks loves doing this, occasionally slipping outright into Psychotic Smirk when things are really going her way.
• In Turning Red, Tyler has a brief one when he succeeds in threatening Mei with blackmail.

Films — Live-Action

• Alex sports a pretty arrogant smile of his own in A Clockwork Orange.
• DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story: White Goodman, The Protagonist's Smug Snake asshole rival, films his swole-ier-than-thou Globo Gym commercial with a "I'm better than you" smile the entire time.
• The Hobbit: Azog's frequent Slasher Smiles demonstrate his confidence as much as his bloodlust.
• This is the most frequent expression on the face of Louise Leroi from The Legend of Frenchie King.
• The Mummy (1999): When Imhotep corners the last of the cursed treasure hunters to harvest his life force and organs, he smugly smiles at the doomed man with most of his lips still missing.
• Daniel Atlas and Thaddeus Bradley both infuriate people for how smug they act in Now You See Me. To be fair, though, their smugness is usually justified.
• The Blank version of Oliver Chamberlain from The World's End.
• X-Men: Apocalypse: During her duel with Beast, Psylocke has a boastful glee on her face, and he doesn't appreciate it one bit.

Literature

• The Belgariad: Ctuchik has an ego to match his status as an ageless Sorcerous Overlord and disciple of the God of Evil, and expression usually ranges from a smirk of disdain to a bleak un-smile. It's one of the first things the protagonist notices in him:
  It was a face filled with an ancient and profound evil. Cruelty and arrogance had eroded all traces of decency or humanity from it, and a towering egotism had twisted it into a perpetual sneer of contempt for every other living thing.
• Prince Calder in the The First Law novel The Heroes is a self-professed coward and schemer who employs a smug smirk as "armor" against all of the bloodthirsty barbarians he interacts with. He's something of a composite expy of Theon Greyjoy and Jaime Lannister (see above), including the aspect of seeming like a total bastard up until he becomes a POV character.
• Dolores Jane Umbridge from Harry Potter reveals her overconfidence with several smug smiles in Order of the Phoenix.
• Zaphod, of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, meets a man with a smile he wants to hit with a brick. He eventually does so.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • This is one of Theon Greyjoy's signature traits in addition to being a Smug Snake, although he's later revealed to have been a rather tragic Stepford Smiler. When he falls into the hands of a sadistic villain who he had previously looked down upon, in addition to other mental and physical tortures, the villain purposely breaks all of Theon's teeth.
  • Jaime Lannister does this a lot (which fits with his first appearance as a stereotypical fantasy villain), although the chapters written from his POV show that he consciously puts on his smile whenever he's unsure of the situation because he's learned that people will read lots of different things from a knowing smile. This is, in fact, one of the early indications that he might turn out to be a better manipulator than you'd think from his initial thoughtlessness.
  • The HBO tv adaption interprets this as Littlefinger's default expression, and whilst he is a Perpetual Smiler in the book, his smile is described as either quite friendly or rather sad.

Live-Action TV

• Mr. Morden from Babylon 5. One of several signs that he is BIG trouble.
• Nazi Professor de Crinis in Charité at War constantly has a smug grin plastered across his face. You can tell that things are going south for him and his peers when it finally starts to fail.
• Britta Perry from Community is mostly sympathetic and well-meaning, but she can get and look very, very smug whenever she gets on her self-righteous high-horse about something or starts lauding her supposed moral superiority over her friends. Which is often.
  • Jeff Winger's is even worse; in keeping with the fact that he's an Amoral Attorney with an Inferiority Superiority Complex that manifests itself in a conviction that he's above everyone he's surrounded by, a smug, insufferably pleased-with-himself smirk that kind of makes you want to punch him is practically one of his default expressions.
• Mike Baldwin from Coronation Street has the greatest, self-satisfied, shit-eating grin to end all self-satisfied, shit-eating grins.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Doctor briefly adopts this look when he goes off the deep end during "The Waters of Mars", until he realizes he's crossed a line.
  • Son of Mine. SON OF MINE.◊ He's having "Super fun!" blowing up the village. What makes it worse is that he never stops doing it — even when the Doctor is blowing up their ship and he's screaming for the Family of Blood to escape, he's still smiling. Guess the body-snatching monster that he is isn't used to wearing a humanoid body.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Dagmer. He has a constant smirk on his face that would classify as mischievous if it weren't for the fact that it tends to accompany his Evil Mentor and Kick the Dog moments.
  • In "The North Remembers", Tyrion can barely conceal his glee at Cersei's fury and discomfort during their first meeting.
  • Theon is prone to smirking when he's being cocky. His opportunities to be cocky, however, get fewer and farther between as the series progresses.
  • Theon's sister Yara (Asha in the books) also qualifies, with her default expression being a self-assured, cocksure smirk. At least in the second season, she is seen smiling whenever Theon messes up... which is often.
  • Daario Naharis generally wears a mischievous grin, which manages to be a Playful Cat Smile due to the shape of his lips, especially when he's trying to impregnate Daenerys with his eyes. This is gone now that Michiel Huisman plays him.
  • By his expression, it's clear that no one thinks Petyr Baelish is more cunning or witty than Petyr Baelish himself.
  • Daenerys Targaryen has really turned up the smug in the later seasons. If you think this is justified or not will generally dictate whether you are her fan or not.
  • There probably isn't a character from any medium ever, to compete with that contemptible, irritating smirk that Cersei wears constantly.
  • Littlefinger's signature smirk has never been as prominent as when he gets to taste some real military strength for the first time on his own while simultaneously getting to play the Big Damn Hero in front of Catelyn Tully's eldest daughter.
  • Despite not being named by Thorne as one of Jon's killers, Olly can't keep a self-satisfied smirk off his face in "The Red Woman".
  • Even gagged it's hard not to see Ellaria's smile as Cersei asks her why she killed Myrcella. Shes proud that she killed the innocent girl if it meant she hurt Cersei. Which makes the revenge that Cersei inflicts on the evil bitch next all the more satisfying.
  • Weasel constantly wears a sadistic smirk.
• The officers on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, whenever they catch the perp of the week.
• Merlin: Morgana Pendragon throughout most of season 3 after doing something evil does an evil smile. Other villains in the series (Agrivaine, Morgose, and Cenred) can be seen doing evil smiles. Even before he was evil Mordred both as Asa Butterfield and Alexander Vlahos. Merlin himself even showed some smug smiles through the course of the 5 seasons.
• Once Upon a Time: If the Evil Queen (before her Heel–Face Turn) isn't annoyed or upset, chances are she's turning on the smug factor.
• Rimmer of Red Dwarf, generally when something unpleasant is going to happen to Lister. (Almost invariably, it happens to him instead.)
• In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine this was Bashir's default expression for most of the first three seasons.
• Dave from Storage Wars, whenever he's bidding.
• Supernatural:
  • Angels (especially if they're bad angels) tend towards this expression, and it fits with how smug they often are and how malevolent they can be.
    • Lucifer knows more than you the little hairless ape that you are, and shows it with that smirk which is practically his default facial expression.
    • Zachariah. Comes with the corporate ooze he admits.
    • Naomi, though she isn't on par with Zachariah. She surpasses him.
  • One of the demon Meg's trademarks. She often does this when she is resorting to manipulative tactics or when she has gotten her way.
• Played for laughs at the end of a That Mitchell and Webb Look sketch where David Mitchell and Robert Webb are plotting out the good and bad sketches of their show, which in turn leads to the two discussing common criticisms of their work. It ends with Webb gloatingly dismissing the criticism with "And people call us smug!", at which point the two sit around nodding at each other with the most absurdly smug expressions on their faces.

Multiple Media

• MonsterVerse:
  • Walter R. Riccio in Skull Island: The Birth of Kong starts out with a near-constant little smirk on his face and the attitude to match in the first part, but it disappears once things go south for the expedition within minutes of touching down on the island.
  • Walter Simmons in Godzilla vs. Kong has an arrogant, smug little smirk on his face most of the time when he's in the control hub overseeing Mechagodzilla.
• Star Wars:
  • Star Wars Rebels: If smug smirking is needed, Agent Kallus is usually the one who provides it, whenever he's winning. Special mention, however, must go to "Zero Hour", after Governor Pryce has ordered him Thrown Out the Airlock because he was taunting her because she was losing, and two stormtroopers escort him into the elevator, and he smirks, because it's the perfect opportunity to escape.
  • The Mandalorian has two so far: Moff Gideon and Bo-Katan. The most noticeable example for the former happens in the final season of season 2 when Din obtains the Darksaber and he knows they will have to duel to the death for it. He only gets giddier when the Dark Troopers show up, though he quickly loses it when a Jedi shows up. As for the latter, she has a tendency to curl her mouth into a shit-eating grin whenever she speaks in an arrogant, condescending manner, which happens quite often.

Music Videos

• Miserable by Lit: Val, the Giant Woman the band had been performing on top of throughout the video, can be seen smiling while Kevin Baldes makes the poor decision to stand on her lips, which makes it easy for her to simply open her mouth and eat him alive. Later, when she's captured Final Guy A.Jay Popoff, she flashes him an amused smile while she watches him dangling from her fingers and flailing before tossing him into her mouth and eating him.

Video Games

• Dicey Dungeons'': Lady Luck's smile tends to only disappear briefly when she's caught off guard by her contestants saying or doing something that catches her off-guard with their apparent stupidity. Such as the Inventor's frank response to her question about what brought her there.
• Metal Mario in Mario Kart 7. Not only does he have a smug smile on his metallic face, but most of his voice clips are also downright bragging and condescending, compared to the normal Mario who is more cheerful and neutral to opponents.
• Ace Attorney:
  • Quite a few villains have this. Like Redd White, whose smug smile doesn't leave his face until his Villainous Breakdown.
  • Similarly, after The Reveal, Matt Engarde only loses his smirk when Phoenix manages to turn the case around.
• In his introduction in the prologue of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Jetstream Sam lets out an amazingly smug smirk at Raiden.
• This is Shang Tsung's default expression in the Mortal Kombat series, especially in Mortal Kombat 1 where it can be counted on one hand the times he's not smiling.
• In Pokémon Black and White, the grass-type starter is Snivy, whose smug little grin quickly made it a favorite at its first reveal. It was even popularly known as "Smugleaf" before its official name was released.
• Sei from Koihime†Musou manages to come off as incredibly smug even when 'not' smiling—but a good amount of her images feature her smirking at you.
• Sans from Undertale, being a skeleton and all, sports one of these almost constantly. Normally it's a lighthearted example to emphasize his laid-back and mischievous nature, but will take a very dark turn if you manage to get on his bad side by killing so many characters to get him to fight you.
• WarioWare Gold: Wario Deluxe always sports a smug look compared to his normal form which is a Slasher Smile instead.

Web Animation

• RWBY
  • Neopolitan has an adorable grin that persists for all of the appearances she had in Season 2 (save for one Oh, Crap! moment). Said grin borders on mockery when Yang attempts to fight Neo one-on-one, with Neo wordlessly dodging and redirecting every single attack thrown at her and even finding the time to casually take a break in the middle of the fight. Yang is driven nuts by Neo's playful attitude, but at the same time just can't land a single hit on her opponent.
  • Mercury Black usually has a sardonic grin that almost never seems to leave his face. He approaches almost any situation with a smile that borders on arrogance, because it's usually combat he's tasked with, and he knows almost no one can keep up with him.

Web Comics

• Dinosaur Comics did a comic on this concept.
• In Drow Tales, this is the Big Bad, Snadhya'rune's default facial expression. When the smile stops, it's a very, very bad sign.
• Voltaire, everyone's favorite sadistic immortal in El Goonish Shive. Occasionally slips into Not So Smug raw fury, but almost never when he's in front of anyone.
• Niels, the Danish mob boss in Humon's comic Niels.
• Faz from Shortpacked!.
• When bullying others, Teddy from Weak Hero sports a comically huge, comically smug smile. You can tell the artist had fun with him.◊
• unOrdinary: Terrance, after trying to pose as sympathetic, smirks after leading his "friends" into a trap before ditching them to be attacked, stabbed and abducted by Spectre.

Web Original

• The Onion's Who Needs a Good Cock Punching?.
• The Trollface has a famously self-satisfied smirk that has become associated with all manner of pranks and unruly behavior in Internet culture.
• A smug smile is the defining feature of Smug Anime Girl Wendy's, as a result of delivering sick burns. Sometimes she has a Playful Cat Smile for extra smugness.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Jet. During his first appearance, the writers apparently had orders to make sure Jet always looked cool.
  • Varrick sports one in The Legend of Korra when it's revealed he's running the False Flag Operation framing the Northern Water Tribe for the attacks.
• CatDog: Winslow smiled much of the time he was mocking the titular duo (but especially Cat).
• King of the Hill: Hank's dad, Cotton.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Babs Seed, from the episode "One Bad Apple".
  • This is Diamond Tiara's default expression.
• Miraculous Ladybug: This seems to be the default expression of many villains, especially Chloe, Lila and Hawk Moth. And in Lila's case, if people actually acted upon all of the times she did that damn smirk in front of them, her role in the Big Bad Duumvirate would be screwed.
• Odalia from The Owl House doesn't seem to be physically capable of smiling at someone without giving off the air of "I can manipulate this person for my own gain". Even an old photo featuring her blushing at her future husband displays her with that same smug grin.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: As a Large Ham, all of Double Trouble's expressions are somewhat exaggerated, so when DT is smug, DT is very◊, very smug. Even while in disguise, they will occasionally pause when no one can see them to smirk arrogantly and congratulate themself on their deviousness just for the hell of it.
• Qilby the Traitor in Wakfu after he ditches his Mask of Sanity and reveals his Big Bad status. His default expression is either a smug smile, a Slasher Smile, or some unholy combination of the two. He's got a pretty good reason to act as if he's better than The Hero Yugo considering he's basically a far more powerful version of him thanks to adulthood and his merging with the Eliacube. He only loses his smirk when his Berserk Button is pushed and when Yugo dissects his true motivations.

Real Life

• Judah P. Benjamin, the southern Senator and Confederate cabinet member, was almost always photographed and drawn with a smirking expression, which was unusual for the 19th century. As an influential Jew in government, he was prone to being insulted for his faith but usually maintained his cool with a smug smirk. In a notable exception, he challenged Jefferson Davis to a duel on the Senate floor over an insult, but the two reconciled and became Fire-Forged Friends.
• John Carmack is as good at having the most devious smirk as he is in computer engineering.
• If there's one thing President Donald Trump and President Barack Obama have in common, is that both men have some of the smuggest smiles in presidential history.

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