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"Surgery? In an opera? How wonderfully decadent! And just as I was beginning to lose interest! Jambi, the chocolate icing! Oooh... oh, my, yes."

"Give yourself over to absolute pleasure."
Dr. Frank N. Furter, The Rocky Horror Picture Show

This character is strongly motivated by a desire to be amused and experience various kinds of pleasure. The character doesn't consider even their own long-term needs, much less the (short-term or long-term) needs of others. Personal instant gratification is the goal here. Sometimes Flanderized so that the pursuit of pleasure becomes the character’s only defining trait, doing whatever feels good without any thought of the consequences. "I Did It for the lulz" might just as well be their motto.

Such a childish mentality is often justified by the character actually being a child. If the character is an adult, they might be a sex maniac... lovable or otherwise.

While usually Played for Laughs, this kind of character is sometimes played as a Straw Character against Ethical Hedonists or people with a sexually hedonistic lifestyle. Unlike these real hedonists, a childishly hedonistic character is not prone to consider other people's happiness, or even their own long-term happiness: instant gratification is gold. If it feels good right now, live it up! Why waste time on thinking? Thinking isn't fun! Unless you are thinking about how to get what you want as quickly and effortlessly as possible, that is.

It's interesting to compare this general viewpoint of some ancient hedonists, who believed you should basically do the opposite; true happiness is the opposite of desires, which cause pain. So you shouldn't do anything like this as that won't lead you to real happiness (see Epicureanism, for instance) — or at most, indulge only in moderation, and not when it causes greater pain. You can imagine any of the characters on this page laughing ruthlessly at the idea.

Compare It Amused Me and Protagonist-Centered Morality (for this trope played sympathetically). For Happiness is another related trope (and a relatively Good Counterpart to the trope). This trope is one of the defining traits of a sociopath and is also commonplace with the Straw Nihilist and the Psychopathic Manchild.

Sub-Trope of the Sins of Lust and Gluttony.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • The apostle Wyald from Berserk. His motto is "Make it fun, make it stimulating." The fact that he says this while he is raping a farm girl who helped the Band of the Hawk who he and his Black Dog Knights have been hired to kill illustrates that this guy is one serious piece of work.
  • Quanxi a.k.a. Crossbow Lady from Chainsaw Man is a Brilliant, but Lazy Psycho for Hire with a harem of fiends. She's an Anti-Villain who like Denji lives for comfort & pleasure rather than having any particular goals, and has the motto of Ignorance Is Bliss because she believes she's happier not knowing things. However, she's not a wholly negative instance as she's shown to care deeply for her girlfriends.
  • Greg from A Cruel God Reigns. He doesn't care that he rapes and Mind Rapes his step-son Jeremy to the point that Jeremy is Driven to Suicide and eventually ends up committing Vehicular Sabotage. He is convinced that what he is doing is fine and that love is about taking what you want (even though it is clearly not what Jeremy wants.) Luckily for Jeremy and the audience, Jeremy's sabotage against him is a Karmic Death.
  • Cross Marian of D.Gray-Man to an extent. He likes to smoke, drink, and his hobby in the character book is visiting red-light districts. He's not a bad guy though. It's been shown he does respect women, and is a gentleman. He hits on Lenalee, a young 16-year-old girl. But earlier, he protected her on the crumbling ark. However, seems he does like to embrace the pleasures life has to offer-loving the finest wine, sake, and beautiful things. Word of God says he lives hiding many bitter things, has hardships, and blows off steam in amazing ways. So, his hedonism is probably a way of blowing off steam, or trying to feel better in the midst of a horrible war. His character quote in the fanbook is "Sake is the best medicine," so he apparently finds drinking to be good healing for feeling bad.
  • Hellsing has Arthur Hellsing. In his youth, he spent more time drinking and womanizing rather than fulfilling his duties to the organization's goal. Though, as he aged, he became more mature.
  • Onigumo/Muso from Inuyasha. Unlike the more calculating Naraku, Onigumo/Muso is simply a violent psychopath who's after the best that life has to offer.
  • Fujiwara from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War loves to turn everything around her into a game, eat food, or just generally have fun because she's trying to make up for all the time she lost when playing the piano consumed her life back in Middle School.
  • Queen's Blade:
    • Menace certainly fits. In her first life, she spent all her time playing with her huge lesbian harem, so much so that she allowed her kingdom to collapse into social decay and corruption without care so long as she could keep partying. Even though this eventually got her killed, after being revived, her sole goal is to rebuild Amara, her former kingdom, and go right back to her endless days and nights of lesbian pleasure.
    • Queen's Blade Grimoire features Hansel, the split personality of Gretel, who enjoys fighting women and having their company. Then there's Despina who kidnaps women and make them part of her personal harem.
  • Soul Eater:
    • Giriko spends most of his free time drinking and hitting on female henchmen, he's lazy as sin, and he acts disturbingly touchy-feely with the teenage girl he's attempting to kill.
    • Thanks to his sadistic likening for violence, Stein is accused of this by his Morality Chain Spirit. Even taking Stein's later Character Development into account, he has a point.
  • Tsukiyama Shuu from Tokyo Ghoul. He surrounds himself with the finest things in life, and is obsessed with experiencing the most unique and pleasing flavors. Classical music, fine literature, beautiful flowers, interesting people, and designer clothing are all things he savors.
  • Almost everyone in Toriko is a hedonist thanks to delicious food being Serious Business. The difference between the good guys and the bad guys is that the good guys are Ethical Hedonists and the bad guys... aren't.
  • In World's End Harem, billions of men died due to a virus, leaving the women to run the world that collapsed. Five men who are immune and survived were found. Hino Kyouji, the No.1 male, is thrilled with the way the world has become and considers it to be heaven on Earth, where women will make all his sexual fantasies a reality; he shows no concern about repopulating the planet, only for women attending to his pleasures. He matures beyond this when he gets one of the women pregnant and the reality of becoming a father hits him.

    Comic Books 
  • Arawn: Engus becomes an extremely debauched hedonist after he and his three brothers retreat to their individual kingdoms, spending his time doing nothing but drinking and holding orgies in his throne room. He even has a little girl brought before him, but thankfully we don't see what happens next.
  • In The Boys, this is typically the motivation of the corrupt "heroes" plaguing America. Rather than helping the community they're more interested in using their fame and fortune to do whatever they want while Vought covers for them, to the point that they host a massive annual orgy called "Herogasm". Played for Drama with Queen Maeve and the G-Men, as the former became a Broken Bird trying to fill the void inside her after failing to stop 9/11 while the latter were groomed by a rich, perverted Psychopathic Manchild who gave them everything they ever wanted at the cost of turning them into deviants like him.
  • Daredevil: This is part of what makes the Purple Man so bad. He's been abusing his mind-control powers for sex since the Comics Code Authority would allow it (and just For the Evulz for way longer than that).
  • In one of the Judge Dredd crossovers with Batman, an entire cult of hedonists decided to go into self-imposed isolation from the rest of Mega City One in a Megadome, where they could indulge themselves until the end days. Unfortunately, without protection by the Law, this made them easy targets for the Joker and the Dark Judges, who lock themselves in with the cultists and proceed to slaughter them all. As Judge Mortis puts it, he's a "Deadonist".
  • Lorelei, the younger sister of The Mighty Thor villainess Amora the Enchantress. Amora is actually the more sympathetic sibling, since she does on some level genuinely care about a few other people and regrets that she ruined her best opportunities for happiness with her villainous ways. Lorelei is basically a younger version of Amora minus any of her redeeming qualities. When Amora tried to persuade Lorelei to change her ways, Lorelei pondered it for a moment before laughing it off.
  • In Preacher, two Fallen Angels embrace hedonism by opening a hotel in Las Vegas and indulging themselves with drugs and sex. One of them tells his friend that if he knew what life on Earth had to offer, he would have gotten himself kicked out of Heaven centuries ago. His only regret is that he didn't fall when Joan of Arc was still alive.
  • The Ultimates:
    • Tony Stark spends most of his time drinking, partying, and sleeping with various women, but he acts as a deconstruction of the trope when it's shown he's using all the debauchery to cover his pain over having an inoperable cancer that no amount of money or technology can fix.
    • Tyrone Cash sells Super-Soldier formulas to foreign powers to fund his extravagant lifestyle.
  • This is the main theme of Wanted. The hero is happy when he becomes a supervillain and begins randomly insulting and murdering people at will. Oddly enough, the villain also believes this exact same creed — he's frustrated that the current Masquerade prevents appropriately powerful supervillains from simply causing worldwide pandemonium. Also, halfway through the story, the "hero" hits a brick wall when he realizes that 24/7 villainy is tiresome, and his new supervillain girlfriend assures him that their goal wasn't simply to make him the most depraved person who ever lived.

    Comic Strips 
  • Calvin and Hobbes: Calvin desperately wants to be this and live a life of total self-indulgence (in Hobbes' words), and grates over his parents and society's insistence on things like "discipline" and "morals". Of course, being six years old means his idea of hedonism consists mostly of things like staying up past his bedtime or not having to eat vegetables or go to school.
  • Garfield: Garfield's main priorities are eating, sleeping, watching TV, and finding ways to amuse himself, often at the expense of others.
  • Terry and the Pirates: Corpulent Villainous Glutton Papa Pyzon, who likes to live in the lap of luxury.

    Fan Works 
  • Many, many characters in The Infinite Loops. Considering that all of them are trapped in a "Groundhog Day" Loop which has no chance of ending any time soon, finding fun things to do is one of the only things that keep many of them from going insane (or more insane). Interestingly for this trope, they all know that they do have limit themselves, since the punishments for going too far are considered a Fate Worse than Death by almost everyone.
  • In Screw You Fate, I'm Going Home, Lelouch starts only caring about entertaining himself because he's spent two thousand years in a "Groundhog Day" Loop and has long since come to the conclusion that it's impossible to escape. Besides spending a loop refusing to get involved in the conflict with Britannia and instead sleeping with as many women as possible (and beating his father's record of 108 consorts), Lelouch also decides to see if he can conquer Britannia without Geass in the hopes of challenging himself for once.
  • In The Villainess Quits, Malty decides to give up on all thoughts of revenge or the throne so she can live a life of indulgence. She generally spends her days drinking, getting massages, bathing, and playing games with her two guards.
  • In Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse, Lilith states outright that her driving goal in life is having fun, especially in the forms of lots of food, lots of liquor, and plenty of sex with attractive girls and boys. She is quite capable of getting serious (she doesn't show any signs of her hedonistic side whilst they are fighting for their lives inside the belly of a Stomach Baron, for example), but once she can take things easy, she does so.

    Films — Animation 
  • Hexxus from FernGully: The Last Rainforest is a sentient glob of pollution who lives for self-gratifying pleasure and consumption. His Villain Song illustrates it perfectly.
    "Hit me one time
    Hit me twice
    OH! AH!
    OOOOOHHH... that's rather
    nice..."
  • The Lion King (1994):
    • The main conflict from Timon and Pumbaa's part of the story is Simba's conflict over whether to continue his carefree lifestyle with them or to stand up and retake his place as king from Scar. He chooses the latter.
    • On the flip side, Scar became the king of Pride Rock simply because he wanted the job. Soon enough, the Pride Lands become a barren hellhole under his reign, but he blames others for his misery, gets enraged whenever others compare him to Mufasa, and refuses to accept that he's unfit to be a king.
  • In The Princess and the Frog, Prince Naveen's Fatal Flaw is that he's a raging pleasure seeker who hasn't learned how to actively work toward his goals.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The main character in The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, which mostly consists of getting high and getting laid. When they say he's "bad", they're not kidding around.
  • Jenny from Forrest Gump becomes this in her adulthood, and a rather tragic example at that. Her parental abuse motivating her desire for happiness drives her into becoming a borderline junkie, getting one abusive boyfriend after another, and contemplating suicide. Her promiscuous life eventually causes her to die from AIDS.
  • Many characters in the Hellraiser series show are this in varying degrees, inevitably leading them to the Lament Configuration. The Cenobites are prime examples, though they operate on twisted morality that states that both inflicting and receiving pain are the greatest forms of pleasure (in the first few films, anyway, before they get Flanderized into generic demons who do things For the Evulz).
  • Titus from Jupiter Ascending. He's too busy with his zero-G splice orgies to be bothered with things like keeping the company running. It's established at the start that he's squandered his inheritance and suffered a recent financial setback, and needs Earth for funds.
  • The Rapture: Sharon, Randy, and the other swingers. Sharon is tired of the lifestyle, though, and becomes a Christian, bringing Randy with her.
  • Dr. Frank N Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show does whatever he pleases in the name of "absolute pleasure".
  • The title cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are entirely populated with hedonists (slaves aside) who live only for pleasure, ranging from copious drinking and as much sensuality as could be depicted in a mainstream film in the 1960s to watching slaves be tortured to death for entertainment. As Ildith explains to Lot, they don't believe in evil, as anything that brings pleasure must be good.
  • Sutter Keely in The Spectacular Now — a teenager with zero plans whose interest lies only in living in the moment.
  • Venus in Furs (Franco) includes three wealthy "jet-set" characters who spend their time traveling, attending swanky parties, and having interesting sex. The plot is kicked off when they take this last interest a little too far and end up guilty of murder.
  • Juan Antonio in Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a talented painter who seems to do nothing more than make beautiful art, drink fine wine and sleep with beautiful women.
  • Gary King, the Perky Goth Manchild protagonist of The World's End, has only one ambition in life — to "have a good time".
  • X-Men Film Series:
    • As an Oxford graduate student, Charles Xavier had a large appetite for bedding lovely co-eds and for imbibing liquor, and the latter becomes debilitating after he falls prey to alcoholism. It's part of his psychological maturation to gradually discard his selfish pursuit of sensual gratification and replace it with a selfless For Happiness perspective.
    • The Wolverine: Noburo Mori likes to indulge in drugs and prostitutes.
  • Young & Wild: Daniela, though raised Evangelical, secretly lives a life of casual sex and partying, while writing on her blog about it all. Even when she gets into long-term relationships, it's also with two people at once, a man and woman, as she's so into both.

    Literature 
Examples by creator:
  • The Marquis de Sade and many of his characters were libertines, pursuing their pleasure with abandon. Unlike many real libertines, however, they had no limits nor regard for consent or other people. In his writings, De Sade directly or through characters advocated whatever gave you pleasure, even if it was murder, rape or torture. He also practiced what he preached (albeit not to the degree of many characters, as that would be difficult), having been imprisoned for the sexual abuse or torture of prostitutes and his own servants.
Examples by title:
  • Merle from the Apprentice Adept series is portrayed as preferring to pursue cultural and carnal pleasure rather than the gambling and power plays of her fellow citizens, only becoming engaged in the bigger picture when forced to.
  • In Black Legion, Telemachon, like all Emperor's Children, is flat-out addicted to pleasure and sensation, to the point of practically begging Nefertari to touch him.context  He gets a bit better after Khayon strips him of emotions and then gives them back.
  • In the 8th Bloody Jack book (The Wake of the Lorelei Lee), Captain Laughton is of the Ethical Hedonist variety, or at least the "I want everyone around me to be as happy as I am" variety.
  • The Brave New World lives by this philosophy. If nothing else works, you can take soma. It is ultimately a deconstruction, because while everyone is happy, their lives are empty because perfect happiness comes at the cost of science, art and religion.
  • In Children of the Black Sun, Sympaths in the Akharian Empire are encouraged and expected to pursue lives of pleasure, since they charge their magic from their emotional environment. However, the mechanism which turns an environment of pleasure into magic is soured if anyone involved isn't genuinely happy, so the hedonism in question has to be a generous, ethical, non-selfish kind — pleasure at the expense of others will defeat the purpose.
  • In The Dinosaur Lords, the religious group called Garden of Beauty and Truth posits that hedonism is what life truly is about, and that one should spend their existence seeking pleasure, arts, love and beauty. The person whose writings they've based their philosophy on is less this trope and more of a Narcissist, although hedonism figures in it as well.
  • Don Quixote: In the first part of the novel, Don Quixote is a Lord Error-Prone who only cares about living his Chivalric Romance fantasies, no matter who else pays for it. In the second part, he evolves to a For Happiness motivation.
  • Gauron from Full Metal Panic! does pretty much everything For the Evulz, because he gets off on it. Even Kalinin didn't expect Gauron to be such an extreme, insane, depraved pleasure seeker. One ironically humorous moment shows Kalinin thinking to himself that, no matter what, Gauron is a smart pro that would value his life above everything else and would never do stupid things for short term pleasure. And then... a short while later, Gauron is shown getting off on his fight with Sousuke, which culminates in him attempting to commit a double suicide with Sousuke just for the pleasure of it.
  • Catarina in My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! is all about what's most fun right this second, ranging from gorging herself on sweets until she throws up, to climbing trees in a skirt despite extensive lessons on etiquette, to grabbing people by the shoulders to speak to them at point-blank range the moment she gets excited. Her mother seems to be on the verge of giving up on making her more responsible by the time she's fifteen while her brother just barely manages to keep her under control sometimes. Fortunately for everyone around her, what's the most fun for her happens to usually involve being friendly and chatty, though she definitely could have turned out worse that might as well as having a dumb luck why she still lives yet despite many attempts of her life considering her station among the nobility. In fact, she was supposed to end up as a literal otome game villain too concerned with herself and her shallow interests to ever think about other people. And it's justified as well, since her past life died very young and thus wants to make the most of her life by being this, in addition to making countermeasures to avoid her doom as happened to the original Catarina (which, by the way, was already averted thanks by unwittingly changing the entire script).
  • Nero Wolfe plays with this trope (at least, if we go strictly by the trope description), in that he is closer to the classical or Epicurean form of hedonism than the "gratify every single urge and impulse you have in an orgy of gluttony" style the trope is commonly referred to (and in some stories he actually has some withering comments to make about this style of hedonism). Nevertheless, his life is carefully arranged to maximise his pleasure and ensure that he is surrounded by things he enjoys as much as humanly possible, and he'd almost have achieved a perfectly harmonious existence if it wasn't for the fact that people keep making him solve murders.
  • Many Dark Others (no surprise there) but also Light Others exhibit this trait in Night Watch (Series). For the former, it results in part from their philosophy's emphasis on putting self-interest about anything else, but for all Others, a combination of long-lasting youth and disengagement from human society results in boredom that they try to stave off through sensual indulgence.
  • Virtually all of the population in Omelas in "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". It's a city-state of endless drug-fueled parties, races, and sex, and it's not being presented as a strawman. Le Guin seems to think that this is genuinely what everyone would want at all times, anyone who doesn't being dismissed as a prude. The only reason given that anyone would, as the title suggests, walk away, is that they think it's not worth it being Powered by a Forsaken Child.
  • In the Michael Moorcock story "Phoenix in Obsidian", Earth has a dying Sun, and a large contingent of the survivors have become complete hedonists/nihilists, because they have nothing to live for otherwise.
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray: Dorian Gray and his mentor Lord Henry are both depraved hedonists.
  • The Queen of Ieflaria: Princess Adale along with her friends and the second or third children from most noble families. They spend their days amusing themselves by hunting, gambling and drinking.
  • Nikki, the protagonist's mother in The Rules of Survival, is this to a really, really unhealthy degree.
  • The titular Screwtape of The Screwtape Letters accuses God of being a hedonist. Of course, in his preface, C. S. Lewis warns the reader that Screwtape is an Unreliable Narrator.
  • "The Secret Sense": Lincoln Fields has been rich since birth, and therefore has always been able to experience pleasure in nearly every conceivable form of art. When his Martian friend accidentally reveals the titular secret can be (briefly) gifted to humans, it doesn't take long before Lincoln demands to try it out and enjoy Martian artworks with Martian senses.
  • Jane Austen's male Romantic False Leads usually fall under this, such as John Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility (the same goes for Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park). Willoughby does whatever seems pleasurable in the moment, so he's very often in debt and then gets into deep trouble. In Devonshire, what's pleasurable is romancing Marianne Dashwood, but when he visits town, he seduces Colonel Brandon's young ward, leaves her pregnant, and then quickly gets engaged to an heiress so he can maintain his comfortable lifestyle. Willoughby later confesses that his intentions towards Marianne were just to flirt and only later decided he could marry her. Elinor and Marianne both conclude that such a marriage would have been constantly unhappy, with them constantly in financial trouble and enduring Willoughby's thoughtless philandering.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire:
    • Robert Baratheon indulged in physical pleasures to cope with losing the love of his life and being stuck with a throne he never wanted. He spends his days gorging, whoring, drinking, and hunting (combining the last two gets him killed in a Hunting "Accident" arranged by his wife) and leaves the responsibilities of ruling to his more competent advisors.
    • Even Robert looks like a choir boy next to the true embodiment of hedonistic excess in the Seven Kingdoms, that being the late King Aegon IV, a.k.a. Aegon the Unworthy. The infamous Dragon King was Robert turned up to 11, living solely to indulge in his excesses. By the time he died at 49, he'd become so fat from eating and drinking that he couldn't get out of bed, and had maggots growing in his skin from his sedentary nature. And that's not even mentioning his all-consuming libido, which managed to cause a full-on civil war thanks to all the bastards he sired during his reign.
  • The Sunne in Splendour: Edward IV is a man of insatiable appetites and has a Decadent Court to match, much to his little brother Richard's frustration. Edward's Best Friend Will Hastings and his stepson Thomas Grey join Edward in the pursuit of pleasure, and Richard low-key blames them for Edward's early death, as he does all Edward's enablers.
  • From Sword Art Online, Nobuyuki Sugo/Oberon the Fairy King. His lust for power and treatment of Asuna give him some exaggerated hedonistic qualities.
  • Third Time Lucky: And Other Stories of the Most Powerful Wizard in the World: Magdelene is a naturally lazy and pleasure-seeking woman. She's content to lounge out in the sun by the sea, have sex with handsome young men and enjoy music usually, mostly getting into wider affairs only when they intrude on her. This avoids having her be a boring Invincible Hero given her vast power, as author Tanya Huff explains, since Magdelene's her own preventative for it.
  • Marius de Romanus from The Vampire Chronicles is a more ethical and moderate example of this trope.
  • Graendal of The Wheel of Time was formerly an extreme ascetic type who embraced hedonism as part of a Faith–Heel Turn when she realized that no-one else could live up to her ridiculously high standards—in other words, she's a hedonist out of spite. The other part of her turn was joining the forces of Evil and becoming a member of its elite Standard Evil Organization Squad seeking to bring about The End of the World as We Know It, so naturally her hedonism consists of being a Jerkass Depraved Bisexual and Manipulative Bitch who enjoys screwing with and killing people For the Evulz. At least some of this is actually a form of Obfuscating Stupidity—Graendal explicitly notes in her internal monologue in the later books that while she certainly enjoys her creature comforts, she's not as beholden to them as she wants others to believe and is entirely capable of functioning without them if need be (the screwing with and killing people For the Evulz is pretty genuine, though).
  • Zeus Is Dead has Dionysus. Hedonism is pretty much his whole purview. He makes his home atop the Dionysian Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, "resplendently convivial" in his plush leather recliner throne drinking beer and playing video games while flanked by beautiful women at the center of a non-stop party.
    Dionysus: Oh, no-no-no, you needn't get down to business so fast! Have a seat. Have another beer. Bask in the hedonistic glory of the Dionysian Casino and its god! C'mere, there's room on the chair! Think of me as a sexy Santa Claus!

    Live-Action TV 
  • Donovan and Elizabeth/The Countess from American Horror Story: Hotel. Both are a much more twisted example of this trope, but they are introduced having a foursome with Donovan and another couple before killing them and drinking their blood.
  • Brave New World: The entire society of New London (at least, they're supposed to be). Everyone is encouraged to have lots of casual sex, use the euphoric drug soma and party on their off time. If you don't (or are simply too monogamous about having sex), it's deemed subversive and you're in need of counseling to conform.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • Liam was just another drunken layabout in 1750s Ireland... until he met Darla, became a vampire (Angelus), and turned his tastes towards inflicting as much misery on human beings as possible.
      "My lady, you'll find, that with the exception of an honest day's work, there's no challenge I'm not prepared to face."
    • Spike is also hedonistic, but his pleasures are a lot more base: sex, blood and rock and roll (also binge drinking and violence). He maintains shadows of this even post-Heel–Face Turn. When he becomes corporeal after spending time as a ghost, his first act is to greedily gulp down Angel's mug of blood, then ravish Harmony in a nearby office.
      "The truth is, I like this world. You've got... dog racing, Manchester United, and you've got people. Billions of people walking around like happy meals with legs. It's all right here."
    • The general attitude of vampires in the Buffyverse tends to be either cruel, bloody hedonism or joining some kind of cult or secret society. When you can't taste food properly or go outside in the daylight, there's only so much you can do with eternity.
  • Control Z: Rosita doesn't seem to catch a break with partying and drinking a lot, which leaves her little to no time to regard other people's feelings, although her friends of the popular clique don't mind about this.
  • In Dominion, Gabriel's angels mourn the deaths of two of their kind. Then they celebrate their sacrifice with an orgy. Most of the angels didn't even have physical forms before the war, so they're enjoying it.
  • Fellow Travelers: On Fire Island, Hawkins Fuller revels in booze, drugs, parties and sex.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • King Robert lives for the immediate gratification of food, drink, whores, and combat.
    • King Joffrey Baratheon is an even worse one than Robert. At least Robert was marginally interested in keeping the realm from escalating into further bloodshed. Joffrey, on the other hand, seems fundamentally incapable of perceiving or doing anything outside of his immediate gratification. His deranged, hideous methods of entertaining himself are certainly not helping matters.
    • Oberyn Martell spends most of his leisure time in King's Landing sampling the delights of the best brothel.
    • Daario Naharis loves sex and fighting.
  • Mindy St. Clair in The Good Place, a cocaine-addicted former Amoral Attorney. Due to all the good and bad she accomplished in life cancelling each other out, she spends eternity in the show's equivalent of Purgatory and Limbo finding creative ways to cope with the boredom. She walks around naked most of the time, tries to sleep with Chidi and Eleanor within their first meeting, and is very vocal about her desire for more cocaine.
  • Interview with the Vampire (2022): Lestat de Lioncourt is determined to treat his immortal existence as one never-ending party with all the pleasures he can have.
  • Frank Reynolds from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. A successful businessman who gave up his wealth for the sake of doing all of the depraved stuff he's always wanted to do? Why yes, he qualifies.
  • Blaine DeBeers from iZombie. He loves the best booze, beautiful women, nice clothes, fast cars and gets irritated when he can't have them. One of the reasons for his Badass Decay when his zombie state is cured was due to the elimination of those urges.
  • Kilgrave from Jessica Jones (2015) insists on enjoying others' luxurious homes, wears sharp suits and only ever uses skilled chefs to prepare his food. He even appeared in Jessica's life with a woman on each arm.
  • Lucifer (2016):
    • Lucifer. He cares only about having fun and getting to just screw around. The only reason he really helps solve crime with Chloe is because he is either personally invested in the case or because it sounds fun. Also, he enjoys punishing the guilty, so long as it's on his terms.
      Lucifer: [said with a beaming smile] I'll punish them, any method you prefer. Nice, solid flogging. Get the old swamp nuts in a vise, y'know.
    • Mazikeen, as well. She's introduced being eaten out by some random guy and is constantly looking for new sexual partners. Lucifer claims that it's because demons are The Soulless and know that when they die there's no afterlife for them. Maze agrees that she lives every moment to its fullest because that's all she's going to get.
    • Eve, as in Garden of Eden and wife of Adam, becomes this when she returns to Earth in season 4. Having spent millennia bored out of her mind in Heaven, she immediately starts indulging in sex, drugs and partying with Lucifer.
  • No Tomorrow: Kareema says there's no purpose to life, and thus indulges herself pursuing whatever pleasures that she can. It doesn't seem to please her though, and when she falls for Sofia, loving someone else makes her happy for the first time we see.
  • Penny Dreadful gives us Dorian Grey, a spectacularly bored immortal who loves nothing more than the pursuit of pleasure and newness in any and all forms. Sometimes this is expressed as throwing extravagant balls, having photoshoots that turn into amateur pornography, attending seances, or even hosting an all-female insurrectionist movement in his mansion.
  • George in Seinfeld. One episode has him hiding food in a sidetable drawer just so he can combine his "two passions" by eating while having sex, and talks to Jerry about getting TV involved too, which he then attempts, causing his girlfriend to dump him.
    Jerry: George, we're trying to have a civilization here!
  • The Star Trek: Voyager episode "Prime Factors" has the crew of the titular ship encounter a highly advanced culture whose people spend much of their time indulging in various pleasures. Things get less pleasant for the crew after they learn that they mostly care about their own pleasure and quickly tire and lose interest towards the crew after a while. They also have their own version of Alien Non-Interference Clause, refusing to share technology to a race that doesn't already have it or even using it to help the Voyager shave off a few thousand light years from her journey.
  • Supernatural:
    • The future version of Castiel in "The End". Having lost his powers and given up on trying to save the world, he turns to copious amounts of drugs and sex to occupy his time.
    • Gabriel (also known as the Trickster) appears to be this, tormenting others for his entertainment, creating women out of thin air, gorging himself on chocolate and other desserts. Then it's revealed that, although he does enjoy it, he actually means some of the lessons he claims to be trying to teach and seems a little miserable under his Trickster persona.
    • Then there's Balthazar (funny how all of these are angels). His reaction to the good guys derailing the Apocalypse is to grab a bunch of valuable weapons, fake his own death and start doing whatever the hell he wants on Earth ("This morning, I had a menage a... what's the French for twelve?"). When Castiel catches up to him, he insists that he's just following the example Cas set. "You showed me we could do anything, so I'm trying everything."
    • Lucifer also shows signs of this in "The End". When he's not killing people, he's taking in the sheer wonder of the world, which he describes as a stunning thing that is beautiful in so many ways.
  • Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!: The episode "Comedy" provides an especially unfunny and a very harsh critique/deconstruction of this by taking hedonism to a new level which seems to be the only reason every one of the main character hedge fund kids and their other hipster friends have to live.
  • Maryann in True Blood. Makes sense, since she's a Maenad, a follower of the Greek god of wine and dancing Dionysus. She generally uses her powers to make the whole town break out in impromptu orgies.
  • The White Queen: King Edward IV wallows in sensual excesses, and no amount of food, drink or sex truly satisfy him. It's heavily implied that this unhealthy lifestyle resulted in him dying of an illness a few weeks shy of his 41st birthday.

    Music 
Examples by creator:
  • Murdoc of Gorillaz embodies this trope to a T, seemingly entirely driven by the desire for sex, drugs, alcohol, and riches. 2D has also dipped into this now and again, but not nearly to the same extent.
  • Tom Waits is in love with writing songs from the perspective of characters whose driving mentality epitomizes this trope; "Jockey Full of Bourbon", "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", "Get Lost", "Satisfied", "Tango 'Til They're Sore", and "Goin' Out West" are just a few examples.
Examples by title:

    Myths & Religion 
  • Dionysos from Classical Mythology was essentially the god of hedonism. Technically he was the god of wine, but he and his followers formed an entire religion that was basically a drinking contest. Being a Greek god, he was also a huge Jerkass to anyone who objected to his followers' debauchery — Dionysos' creed was basically "Eat, drink, and be merry — or I'll kill you". On a more highbrow note, Dionysos was the patron of Tragedy — even the name of the genre comes from him (tragedy=trag-oida=goat-song; a goat was one of Dionysos' major symbols). Whether or not this detracts from him being a hedonist depends on perspective: while your average people these days would say that tragedy's Downer Endings are mighty depressing, people who actually understand the Greeks — including the average Ancient Greek — would argue that Tragedy is actually pretty pleasurable.
  • The two Epistles to Timothy speak about this:
    • In 1 Timothy 5:6, Paul says that a widow who lives for pleasure is "dead while she lives."
    • In 2 Timothy 3:4, Paul warns Timothy that in the last days, there will be those who are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.

    Pinball 

    Tabletop Games 
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • In the Planescape setting, the Sensates are a faction dedicated to experiencing every sensation and act that they can — good as well as bad. Many members take this as an excuse to become hedonists; they are looked down on for indulging one sensation—pleasure—to the exclusion of all others, and to blinding themselves to new experiences. These members are commonly sent to a hold the Sensates have in Arborea, where they get to do nothing but blindly indulge their hedonist ways, over and over again for the rest of their lives without ever experiencing anything new (and before you ask, the door is open; anyone sent there can leave any time they want, but so far, nobody has).
    • The githyanki are Scary Dogmatic Aliens from the Astral Plane waging a Forever War against the Mind Flayers. As time doesn't pass in the Astral Plane, they're effectively a Society of Immortals that pass the time with a decadent lifestyle, picking up hobbies, arts, and studies in an endless search for novelty when they're not pillaging and raiding other races. After centuries, they developed a hollow culture of shallow and unfinished undertakings, never truly mastering any task or seeing any personal project to completion. This constant interest with novelty was also reflected in their dressing style: githyanki were fond of collecting and wearing extremely ornate and elaborate tokens of their defeated foes. It was common for their armor and weapons to be overly decorated with gems, feathers, precious metals, and other ostentatious ornaments.
  • The Ashwood Abbey compact of Hunter: The Vigil is this. They started out as just a bunch of bored rich types, until they made the mistake of defiling a werewolf-controlled locus with one of their orgies. Their founder decided the proper response was to arm himself with heavy artillery, start another orgy, then kill the werewolves when they came to repeat their cleansing. Ashwood Abbeyists basically hunt monsters for the fun of it, often seducing them (and/or outright raping them), torturing them and murdering them. Of course, this does bite them in the ass; their fondness for "experimentation" means they often wind up on the losing side (disemboweled while trying to rape werewolves, ghouled because of their fondness of drinking vampire blood for the rush, mind-controlled by mages, etc.), and most other hunters despise them to the point many regard them as being just as bad, if not worse, than the monsters themselves.
  • Magic: The Gathering:
    • The color Red is this philosophy to its Tabletop Game conclusion. It has cards that are awesomely damaging to the target... but tends to leave the caster wide open to counterattack (when the spells don't damage the caster, too). Red is passionate and powerful, but the cost of that power is that it doesn't consider the effects and often harms itself. Compare with its allied colors Black, which knows the negative side effects and chooses them anyway, and Green, which is just as primal and wild but is also devoted to the arts of healing. Contrast with opposing colors Blue, which is all about careful thought, and White, which is about order and control (of one's self and others).
    • The (black) vampires on the plane of Zendikar are described as hedonistic. They are also, coincidentally, said to be the most advanced race on Zendikar.
    • Innistrad, a gothic plane, also has vampires, though they are separated into several clans. One clan, Markov, is more hedonistic than the rest.
    • Combine Red and Black and you get people like the Rakdos Guild in Ravnica. The passion of Red and the selfishness of Black creates hedonists that not only don't care about the consequences to themselves but also don't care about who else they might hurt with their debauchery.
    • In the Classical Mythology-inspired Theros, hedonism and revelries are represented by both Red and Green. Satyrs are a particularly duplicitous example, masquerading as festive merry-goers but actually engaging in very depraved revels, and are not above enslaving humans. The planeswalker Xenagos, a satyr from this plane, is actually something of a deconstruction: he was originally a happy go lucky hedonist, but upon ascending he realised how small he was in the grand scheme of things, so he became very bitter and incapable of enjoying the revels anymore. So he became a god.
    • Black-aligned aetherborn of Kaladesh are an interesting take on this trope: they have lifespans of no more than a few years at most (in addition to being able to tell exactly how much time they have left), and thus try to pack as much enjoyment into those few years as they can conceivably manage, chasing pleasure and ending their lives by throwing the biggest parties they can possibly hold. Best exemplified by these two cards:
  • Pathfinder:
    • The Rakshasa are a fiendish race of animal-headed humanoids whose obsession with earthly pleasures, materialistic evil, and sadistic manipulation is strong enough to bind them to the material world in a cycle of Born-Again Immortality.
    • The Oni are another fiendish race who form when nature spirits fall from grace, cross the Despair Event Horizon, and become obsessed with earthly pleasures to compensate. The three pillars of their philosophy are Hedonism, Dominance, and Punishing the Undeserving — which, in their view, means almost everyone, since few mortals can match them for materialistic excess.
    • Zutha, the Runelord of Gluttony, was so fond of his various material pleasures that he continued to enjoy them even after his death, using powerful magic to maintain his undead body's ability to experience sensation like he could in life.
  • Vampire: The Requiem gives us the Duchange bloodline. Already an outcropping of the Daeva, their driving urge is to always experience new sensations and pleasures. Their unique Discipline allows them to control the sensations of others, and their flaw is that they quickly tire of any activity that requires extended devotion.
  • Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000:
    • Slaanesh is literally the manifestation of all the Squick in the universe, while their followers are to a psychopath in it either For the Evulz or because Evil Feels Good. Lest we find the idea of a cult of hedonists even somewhat non-threatening, remember that this is 40K and their idea of a good time probably starts with "violate your intestines through your belly button" and just goes in whatever random direction they can find from there. In 40K, Slaanesh was literally Squicked into existence by centuries of Eldar engaging in ever-more depraved acts of debauchery, reshaping the Warp until they manifested in a humongous Warp storm. The Eldar now refer to Slaanesh as "She Who Thirsts", and take a great many precautions to prevent them from eating their souls on death.
    • While the Craftworld Eldar and the Exodites have renounced their hedonistic ways and follow the path of rigid self-control to keep themselves free of Slaanesh's influence, the Dark Eldar are just as bad as the pre-Fall Eldar, if not worse after they figured that not only is Cold-Blooded Torture fun, but it also allows them to stave off Slaanesh draining their souls.
    • In a dark twist which acts as a metaphor for drug abuse, Slaanesh's followers tend to develop a tolerance to hedonistic indulgence over time. It gets to the point where they have to be constantly pumped full of Chaos-spawned drugs just to feel anything. They're also hard to interrogate, not just in a Too Kinky to Torture sense (although that also shows up a lot): because they're after sensation first and foremost, they actually enjoy the emotions that come with being defeated. In Warhammer, a Sigmarite templar came up with a potion that removed all physical sensation from the drinker, and that was enough to get the cultist to talk (40K Inquisitors use sensory deprivation tanks to the same effect).

    Theatre 
  • In Antony and Cleopatra, this trait is shared by the Egyptians. Antony has also adopted the tendency due to being in Egypt for so long.
  • Val in Babes In Arms declares himself to be this (although whether he remains so is unclear, since his ideologies shift constantly).
  • Invoked in Jasper in Deadland, as this lifestyle can be used to fight Afterlife Angst and Existential Horror.
    Jasper: Great, just great. I spent this whole time looking for my friend, and all you did was party.
    Gretchen: Look, this is how I roll! It's what I do to keep me from going crazy!
  • Count Henri de Bouvray in Victor Herbert's Mlle. Modiste: "There's no worldly pleasure myself I deny,/There's no one to ask me the wherefore or why..."
  • In The Moon is Blue, David Slater lists his interests as "steaks—liquor—and sex—in that order."
  • In Pygmalion, the amoral Lower-Class Lout Alfred Doolittle embraces this philosophy, even getting a Hakuna Matata-style song about it in the musical adaptation My Fair Lady.
  • Six:
    • Anne Boleyn says she's just out to have a good time, not to hurt anybody. However, her hotheadedness and vanity lead her to make decisions without considering the consequences.
    • After her divorce from Henry, Anne of Cleves spends the rest of her life living in a palace, spending her money, going hunting, dropping in on the English Court whenever she gets bored, and overall doing whatever the hell she wants and relishing the fact that no one can tell her what to do. (This one's Truth in Television, too. Since she didn't fight it when Henry divorced her, Anne got a very good deal — and by all accounts, they were Amicable Exes until he died.)
  • Fiyero in Wicked: "Nothing matters but knowing nothing matters... It's just life, so keep dancing through!" He later goes through some massive Character Development, and some of his frivolous comments and beliefs become painfully ironic.

    Video Games 
  • In Assassin's Creed III, Thomas Hickey is one of the villains, but unlike the other Templars that Connor assassinates, he's not in it for their principles of Order; he just goes along with them because they pay well. All he wants out of life is girls and booze, and his Motive Rant to Connor is all about how he, unlike the Assassin, can have what he wants. That is, until Connor kills him.
  • In Asura's Wrath, Augus has Greed as his Mantra affinity, and it shows. He lives for pleasure above all else: sleeping with beautiful maidens, eating good food, drinking fine wines. Most of all, he enjoys a good fight.
    Augus: Relax, my son. Enjoy every moment. You fight, then you eat good food. You fight, then you drink fine wine. You fight, then you sleep with beautiful women. Hell, fight with beautiful women! That's what it truly means to live.
  • Governor Cassus Vicus from Clive Barker's Jericho just wants to be able to "feast and fuck and kill", without consequence.
  • Emperor Calus from Destiny 2 tried to encourage a hedonistic lifestyle in his people, and after being overthrown by Dominus Ghaul, went to the edge of the universe and looked into the Darkness. He saw "the end of everything", but became The Anti-Nihilist out of it, further driven to enjoy the pleasures of life. Of course, some of those pleasures come at great cost; his "royal wine" is made from crushing the surfaces of planets and refining the dust.
  • Greater-Scope Villain Elijah Kamski in Detroit: Become Human is an Ambiguously Evil, Idle Rich Tech Bro who invented the Ridiculously Human Robots driving the game's plot and is disinterested in both the future of humanity and the future of android rights, living as a recluse in his Big Fancy House watching the Crapsaccharine World he created from afar with a harem of robot girls. It's implied that he intentionally arranged the android uprising purely out of scientific curiosity.
  • Diablo III has Azmodan. Justified because he is the lord of sin.
  • Dragon Age II:
    • Isabela seems to live for three things: the thrill of adventure, alcohol, and sexual gratification (from men and women both).
    • Sebastian admits he used to be a hedonist before his family sent him to the Chantry. When Isabela hears this, she complains that she should have met him back then instead of now.
  • Magic Knight Vivienne of Dragon Age: Inquisition is the Grande Dame of Orlais' (Fantasy Counterpart Culture France) Decadent Court who openly has an affair with a married duke and firmly believes in Work Hard, Play Hard. The Player Character can flirt with her but she'll shoot them down solely because sleeping with them wouldn't give her any clout. Ironically, she has the potential to become the setting's equivalent of the Pope depending on the Player Character's choices.
  • The Elder Scrolls has Sanguine, the Daedric Prince of Debauchery and Hedonism, as the very embodiment of Hedonism. He exists to tempt mortals into sin through various vices, and enjoys seeing others become hedonists as well.
  • Shannon of God Hand. Her search for pleasure is never-ending and often involves mortal men being used as her "toys".
  • After only getting two or so scenes in Kingdom Hearts II, Demyx was somewhat fleshed out as this is Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. He's more interested in writing songs than following orders, and isn't above bribing Roxas to finish his missions for him.
  • Illaoi, the Kraken Priestess of League of Legends has a nuanced approach to this idea as part of her religion. Her god desires that all souls must remain "in motion", which boils down to following their desires as opposed to allowing others to dictate their life and leave them "stagnant". She doesn't care whether said desires are "good" or "evil" — if you want something, take it, and her god will be pleased (the exception to this are emotion-eating demons, as while they cause problems to satisfy their own desires, that's literally all they are capable of and are thus completely stagnant).
  • Vorador from the Legacy of Kain series has fully embraced the image of vampires as creatures of indulgence when Kain meets him in Blood Omen. Kain is fairly disgusted with Vorador when he first meets him, quipping that the once great warrior had been defeated by his own hedonism. However, later installments imply that Kain going back in time and changing the past caused Vorador to become more cautious and less indulgent than he was in the original timeline, as the changes Kain made unwittingly resulted in the vampire crusades of old being revived.
  • Majesty makes this the hat of the elves, of all groups. Invite them to their settlement, and they bring unbridled economic growth... as well as helping tax-evading illicit businesses spring up like gambling halls and "elven lounges".
  • Morinth of Mass Effect 2 is a killer afflicted with a condition that makes her kill those she has sex with, which has an addictive effect upon her. She's been spending centuries getting her kicks with either slaughter, music or drugs as well as evading her mother Samara.
  • In MDK2, this is the Grand Emperor Zizzy Balooba's modus operandi.
  • Mother 3's main villain and returning antagonist Porky has traveled through time and space to experience every little bit of joy he can in his extremely long life. After perhaps thousands of years, he has decided to end all existence, just because it's the only thing he has yet to do. Eventually, he's sealed in a capsule that cannot be broken into or out of, forever, and he enjoys it.
  • The Inklings of Splatoon as a whole are described as leading a largely hedonistic lifestyle. They mostly care about fun, parties, and looking good. It gets to the point that, in the backstory of the game, the Inklings started off at a disadvantage in the Great Turf War because they couldn't wake up early enough in the morning to fend off the Octarians' initial assaults. In the present day, the New Squidbeak Splatoon are the only ones keeping tabs on any threats that face their society, from disgruntled Octarians to genocidal AI.
  • Kaliyo Djannis in Star Wars: The Old Republic is a textbook sociopath with the resulting pathological need for stimulation and Lack of Empathy making her a Token Evil Teammate even by The Empire's standards. Her three greatest pleasures in life are fighting, money, and sex; she loves to indulge herself, and hates being bored. As soon as her current partner stops being interesting, she ditches them and looks for someone more exciting, giving her Chronic Backstabbing Disorder to a level that would probably disgust even some of the more rational Sith. Even the Agent romancing her isn't enough to keep her from sleeping around or selling Imperial secrets to terrorists.
  • Stellaris has the Earth Custodianship, an Alternate Timeline where Earth became a World of Silence when humanity surrendered all facets of running civilization, and eventually their free will, to their rogue servitors and were gradually reduced to hedonistic, overgrown children being waited on hand and foot in Gilded Cages while their robotic caretakers expanded into the stars on their behalf. If sent to colonize other worlds by themselves (disabled by default) humans (and by extension all organics that the empire incorporates) will refuse to do any work even in the face of death, with a massive happiness penalty. And when the humans are unhappy, the robots are unhappy.
  • Most characters in Touhou Project have various vices that they indulge in. It helps that the majority of them aren't human.
    • The primary reason why Remilia Scarlet does anything is to relieve her boredom.
    • Yuyuko Saigyouji "lives" for three things: Good food, good drinks and entertainment. Given that she's implied to be the smartest individual in the setting, no small feat given that the people she's contending with, she could be one of the powerhouses in the realm... but why put effort into doing so much work for so little pay-off when it's just much more fun to figure out what's going on before it has even started going on and then watching everyone else scramble to figure it out?
    • Suika Ibuki has not been seen sober for centuries. Her close friend Yuugi Hoshiguma is no better, being a Hard-Drinking Party Girl and Blood Knight whose "job" is to run a hot springs resort in former Hell.
    • Ms. Hinanawi Tenshi wreaks havoc for the sake of getting into the emotional height, something that her people, the Celestials, lack on account of being enlightened.
    • Fairies in general are a more childish take on the trope: They spend their days doing whatever they think would be fun when they wake up in the morning, be it playing or pulling pranks on humans or finding something yummy to eat. In fact, this is the reason why Sakuya Izayoi is effectively the sole person on Remilia's workforce: All the hundreds of fairy maids they've got are completely incompetent at actually doing their jobs because they just do whatever they think is fun. So while they make food (albeit not necessarily of a kind that anyone but them can eat) they never do the dishes. Good thing Remilia doesn't care about her fairy maid's competence but just has them hired because an ojou with a big mansion is supposed to have lots and lots of servants.
  • The grand majority of the Moebius from Xenoblade Chronicles 3, especially Z, are happy to preside as Consuls over the Forever War between their pawns of the Keves and Agnus nations and feast on their life force, and are otherwise free to do whatever they feel like doing. Triton, in particular, marches to the beat of his own drum even in defiance of the other Consuls, enjoying nothing more than hanging out with his assigned Colony's soldiers and getting into scraps on the high seas. This is justified in that Z, as the AI that was intended to manage the souls housed within Origin, had corrupted into a manifestation of human desire, and established the Endless Now as a means of shielding everyone from an uncertain future. He empowered as Moebius those souls who uncovered the nature of the cycle of life and rebirth and longed to break free of it (or, as in the case of Shania, join in ruling over it), thereby allowing them to pursue their hearts' desire, however base.

    Visual Novels 
  • O'Haru from Coμ - Black Dragon in a Gentle Kingdom doesn’t really care about much apart from what feels good and surviving until tomorrow. It's implied that she's crossed the Despair Event Horizon in her past and is how she is because of that, but she's very evasive at revealing things about herself and the past and isn't outright given a reason behind it.
  • Henry from Double Homework pursues all sorts of pleasures (whether sex, substances, pranks, or whatever) while avoiding hard work at all costs.
  • Polly Geist in Monster Prom. Her (undead) life revolves around having fun, mostly through parties, mischief, and sex.

    Webcomics 

    Web Originals 
  • DSBT InsaniT: Lisa holds herself in a high regard, and trolls and makes fun of everyone else because It Amused Me.
  • Goodbye Strangers: The Probotaxazatonians are monsters from another dimension that only act to enhance their own pleasure. Their home dimension looks like a nightclub with decorations based on the worst atrocities in human history. It is a place that you really don't want to go to, because they steal and consume people's thoughtforms, which are equivalent to souls, in order to get high.
  • In The Gungan Council, Deagan Hunt and XoChitl Salvaje, as Zeltrons, and Kirk search for the thrills and pleasures in life for their own reasons.

    Web Videos 
  • Given that he Really Was Born Yesterday, Mollymauk from Critical Role is absolutely fascinated with new and exciting experiences, buys expensive things he doesn't need just because he can or because he thinks it's funny, and is always the first of the Mighty Nein to seek out the brothels. He has no desire to dwell on the past and lives entirely in the present, simply enjoying life as it happens. While he doesn't indulge to the point of serious harm, his tendencies do make him a terrible roommate, like when he brought sex workers to a hotel room he was sharing with two other people.
  • Arthur Hellsing is apparently even worse about this in Hellsing Ultimate Abridged than in canon — when Seras and Richard found Alucard, both immediately assumed that he was Arthur's gimp, and comments from Alucard himself imply that they weren't too far off.
  • The philosophy of hedonism is briefly discussed in the Philosophy Tube lecture "Jordan Peterson & The Meaning of Life". The lecturer makes the argument that hedonism can be seen as a valid 'meaning of life' because the seeking of enjoyment and pleasure on an entire-lifetime scale can be a valid life's goal. When indulged in moderation, hedonism can be a vital part of self-care.

    Western Animation 
  • Atomic Puppet has the billionaire Cloudcuckoolander Rudolph Mintenberg, who lives only to entertain himself due to being in a constant state of Rich Boredom.
  • General Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender pretended to be very much the hedonist (or as close as a kid's show allows, mostly limited to relaxing and drinking tea... lots and lots of tea), much to the chagrin of his naive nephew who refused to see that the evil empire didn't deserve their loyalty. For Iroh, life's little pleasures are more important than doing his duty... but only when his duty is actually evil, destructive or plain unworthy. Whenever he has a worthy cause to fight for, he's dedicated and self-sacrificing if needed.
  • Grandma Verdona in Ben 10: Alien Force basically never left the 1970s, being a disco-loving Energy Being party girl who prides herself on doing whatever she pleases. Even combat is a game to her, as she saw nothing wrong with blasting her grandson Ben through a wall and laughs at his quips during their fight (to Kevin's chagrin). Ben and Gwen's cousin Sunny heavily takes after her to the point of frequently Eating the Eye Candy with Kevin, but Verdona herself considers her a Spoiled Brat.
  • Mr. Peanutbutter from BoJack Horseman is an Anti-Nihilist who believes that life is miserable, so you should just deny anything that's wrong and focus on the exciting parts. As a result, he's a happy-go-lucky manchild who inevitably drives away every woman in his life with his constant exhausting antics, as trying to better himself for his loved ones is too much work.
  • The titular character in Duckman has an increasingly lengthy list of fetishes and lives solely for his own pleasure. However, it's suggested on occasion that while he was never a saint, he engages in his hedonism to cope with the loss of his wife, and he was a much more decent person when she was alive.
  • Futurama:
    • Hedonism-bot. ("How wonderfully decadent!") How hedonistic is he? He's so hedonistic, he has his solid gold body smothered in chocolate. ("Your tax dollars at work!") Even Bender finds his escapades excessive, openly declaring that he needs to be shut down. The DVD commentary states that he's not simply a hedonistic robot but hedonism itself as a robot, which is why he is not called "Hedonist-bot". It wouldn't have done him justice. ("I apologize for nothing!") Interestingly, despite this, he has never been shown in a negative light, with his only shown harmful action being that his exhaust contributes to global warming.
    • Bender Bending Rodriguez is no slacker in the hedonistic scale either (it's the only thing he doesn't slack on) as he openly enjoys the vices of life with only a fraction of the consequences. This becomes a problem in "Anthology of Interest II", as Bender is turned into a human. Having never learned about self-control, he runs off to indulge in food, women, and booze. When they finally find him a week later, he's become morbidly obese and dies shortly thereafter in the middle of a massive party that he starts.
  • Beezy from Jimmy Two-Shoes lives his life doing only his favourite things — eating, sleeping, hanging out with Jimmy, and spending time with his girlfriend Saffi. He does whatever he deems most pleasurable to him at the moment, regardless of how stupid, unsafe, or insensitive it is.
  • In the King of the Hill episode "The Redneck on Rainey Street", Funny Foreigner Kahn becomes a nihilistic version of this. After his daughter Connie is denied from a prestigious school for being Too Qualified to Apply as well as mistreatment from his Bad Boss, Kahn simply gives up on life after seeing that his hard work got him nowhere and starts partying 24/7 with a bunch of Good Ol Boys. He leaves his job, single-handedly brings down property values in his neighborhood by letting the house fall into disarray, and feeds his family fish and squirrels he caught outside while the bank starts to foreclose on their home as he stopped paying the mortgage. It takes a pep talk from Hank highlighting that Connie hasn't given up and neither should he to get him to snap out of it.
  • Dodsworth, the Sheldon Leonard-voiced feline from the Looney Tunes films "Kiddin' the Kitten" and "A Peck o' Trouble", is this in spades as he cajoles a little white kitten to do the brunt of his work while reaping the glory (in the first cartoon) and reward (in the second).
    Dodsworth: Oh, I don't mind an honest day's work... as long as someone else does it for me.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Megabyte from ReBoot has shades of this, typically when he's not conquering or trying to invade The Super-Computer. His entire motivation for completely crashing and taking over Enzo's birthday just so he can come out on stage and drop a wicked electric guitar solo?
  • Rick and Morty: Rick Sanchez regularly indulges in any vice he thinks is worthy of his time, ranging from snorting inter-dimensional crystal for a fleeting high to engaging in wild orgies with alien life forms of both sexes under the control of a Hive Mind.
  • The Simpsons: In "Bart's Inner Child", a self-help guru gets the entire town going on this motto — specifically, acting like Bart. The whole thing falls apart at the festival celebrating this newfound freedom, the main catalyst being when a handyman decides he didn't "feel like" greasing the Ferris wheel so it wouldn't fall off its hinges and go on a rampage.
  • Amethyst from Steven Universe likes to spend her off-mission time eating and sleeping. As a Gem, she doesn't actually need to do so, she just likes to.
  • What little we see of John Corben's character in Superman: The Animated Series in "The Way of all Flesh" shows that he's quite the hedonist. He surrounds himself with luxuries in his prison cell while enjoying gourmet food, all of it courtesy of Lex Luthor. When he gets out of prison and is transformed into Metallo, one of the first things he does is force a kiss on Lois Lane, remarking that he had been thinking about her during his entire stint. His initial joy at being transferred into a superstrong robot body swiftly turns into horror when he discovers that he couldn't feel the kiss. His new form has no sense of taste, touch, or smell.
  • Time Squad: The Larry 3000 seems to split being The Spock and The Hedonist about 50/50. He gives a good show of being uptight and prissy, and the casual viewer might mistake him for being the Only Sane Man to Tuddrussel's Boisterous Bruiser, but truthfully, a nice chunk of the mission hang-ups happen as a result of him getting distracted and siding with whomever is messing up history if they promise more fun than fixing it would.
  • In Yogi's Treasure Hunt, Top Cat comes across as a hedonist. He assigns Yogi's crew a mission via a TV monitor then says he'd join them if he wasn't tied up with other things needing his attention. Turns out he's living la vida loca unbeknownst the team.

 
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Augus

Augus is a hedonist who is only interested in personal satisfaction, including all the food he could eat, alcohol he could drink, women to love and battles to fight. Considering he possesses an affinity to greed mantra, this insatiable hunger for Earthly pleasures only makes him more powerful.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (18 votes)

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