Horrible Judge of Character: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''[[Evil Chancellor|Jafar]]''': I don't trust [[Aladdin (Disney)|him]], sire.<br />

'''[[Reasonable Authority Figure|Sultan]]''': Nonsense! One thing I pride myself on, Jafar... I'm an excellent judge of character.<br />

'''[[Deadpan Snarker|Iago]]''': [[Sarcasm Mode|Oh, excellent judge, sure]]... [[NOT!]]!|''[[Aladdin (Disney)|Aladdin]]''}}

[[Manipulative Bastard|Manipulative Bastards]]s are terribly hard to write and even harder to act. Really hard. And even then, most audiences simply cannot wrap their minds around the fact that this apparently sweet old lady or that elegant young gent actually are terrible jerks with a total disregard for the well-being of others -- withoutothers—without it coming off like a [[Face Heel Turn]] or a sudden [[Villainous Breakdown]]. Real life manipulators appear convincing and interested in your own good, and soothe one in by being nice, kind, getting your sympathy and if that doesn't suffice for them to get everything they want, they begin pushing buttons as they lie whenever they can get away with it. All of that is so subtle that it usually escapes the people who it is happening to.

As a remedy for being unable to write such a character convincingly, writers instead make the manipulated victim carry an [[Idiot Ball]]. That means that everyone else, especially the six-year-old target audience, can and will immediately identify the manipulator as evil. How does this work? The manipulated victim is simply a [['''Horrible Judge of Character]]'''! Do we even have to say [[Unfortunate Implications]]? Compare to when only the protagonists see through the manipulator and everyone else holds him in high regard, in that case it's a [[Devil in Plain Sight]]. Compare to The [[Alpha Bitch]] who is quite often also transparently mean, abusive and treacherous to everyone (who doesn't have the authority to punish her for it), yet inside her clique (read: "popular" and/or upper-class people), magically everyone likes her.

When the plot requires for this [['''Horrible Judge of Character]]''' to regularly make [[Card-Carrying Villain|Card Carrying Villains]] his most intimate confidants, they're [[The Ingenue]] -- or—or [[Too Dumb to Live]]. Innocence and helplessness may attract guardians and friends, but will also make them vulnerable <s> targets</s> candidates to get romantically involved with [[Troubled but Cute]] or [[The Vamp]].

It usually takes a [[Did You Actually Believe?|point blank]] [[Evil Gloating|Evil Monologue]] from their "friend" over the [[True Companions|True Companion]]'s corpse to even ''faze'' them into considering the possibility they might not be as hug-tastic a friend as they thought. If it doesn't [[Break the Cutie|break them]], then they'll just turn right back around and [[Love Martyr|follow their "friend" around]], say he [[Easily Forgiven|forgives them for killing off thousands]] and [[Betrayal Tropes|betraying him completely]], and insist the [[The Power of Trust]] and [[The Power of Friendship|Friendship]] will [[Love Redeems|redeem them]].

== Anime and Manga ==

** The most egregious example would be in [[Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory|0083]], where they give total power over the colonies to [[Complete Monster|Jabitov Hymen and Bask Om]], who at the very least {{spoiler|failed miserably to stop [[Colony Drop|Operation Stardust]] and at worst ACTUALLY ALLOWED IT TO HAPPEN.}}

** Yet by [[Mobile Suit Gundam: CharsChar's Counterattack|Char's Counterattack]] they show no signs of improvement. "In return for not dropping your space rocks on us, we'd like to give you {{spoiler|a big space rock loaded with nukes!}}"

* Prince Diamond of the second season of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' refuses to hear anyone question the motives of his advisor Wiseman. A skeleton with glowing hands and eyes. Who wears a [[Black Cloak]]. Who had previously appeared before them very suddenly offering them his wisdom and the power of the [[Obviously Evil|Evil Black Poison Crystal]]. In his defense, he's also the ruler of a planet of people exiled by the kingdom of Crystal Tokyo, so he's not entirely stable. Of course this all only applies to the anime, because in the manga, the entire Black Moon Clan were [[Complete Monster|Complete Monsters]]s and Demand was pure evil, so nobody really cared much about Wiseman since they were all after the same goal.

* A cynic could very well consider Akane Tendo of ''[[Ranma One Half½]]'' to be one of these. She is convinced that Ryoga Hibiki is a sweet, gentle, kind-hearted person and her best friend. While he ''does'' make some good character growth, Ryoga is very flawed as well: petty, melancholic, obsessive, childish, and obsessed with wooing her, and her blindness to his romantic intentions is one of the things that upsets him the most. She blatantly ignores things like the fact he was once part of a plot to kidnap her because he does things like choke down her [[Lethal Chef|repulsive food]] and lie that it tastes delicious, immediately leaps to assault Ranma when Akane gets angry or upset, and otherwise goes out of his way to stroke her ego. In fact, it's possible that ''this'' is the keystone behind her apparent inability to realise he is really her pet pig P-chan: she thinks so highly of him that she can't conceive he would abuse her trust and stain her honor the way that pretending to be an animal so he can, among other things, sleep in her bed would.

* Elmer C. Albatross and Graham Spectre from ''[[Baccano (Light Novel)|Baccano!]]!''. Elmer is thoroughly convinced that even the biggest [[Complete Monster]] secretly has a heart of gold and happens to be [[Heterosexual Life Partners|best friends]] with [[Mad Scientist]]/terrorist Huey Laforet. As for Graham? Well, he [[Hero Worshipper|Hero Worships]] ''[[Ax Crazy|Ladd]] [[Chaotic Evil|Russo]]''.

* Averted in ''[[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]]'': Though the audience is well aware of Light's descent into madness, he uses a 'normal' persona around his family, classmates, lady friends and (later) coworkers, and often uses that to his advantage. Of course, it doesn't last forever...

* Catherine Gregory from the manhwa ''[[Burning Hell]]''. Okay, so she led a sheltered life and can't understand Korean or Japanese, but the two guys she's stuck with are [[Axe Crazy]] [[Complete Monster|Complete Monsters]]s who make no bones about it and look her in the eyes with [[Slasher Smile|Slasher Smiles]]s, and she even compared their fighting a common foe to a two-headed demon; and she '''still''' considers them to be kind-hearted saviors! When you think that about a guy who wants to [[I Am a Humanitarian|eat you]] and another who considers you prime material for a [[Mad Doctor|Body Works-type]] [[Mad Artist|"work of art"]], you're getting pretty close to [[Too Dumb to Live]].

** ... On the other hand, Scar and Yoki ''do'' pull [[Heel Face Turn|Heel Face Turns]]s later on, so we can forgive her for not assuming the same of a ''truly'' villainous character.

* Araki of ''Hana to Ryuu'' (prequel to ''[[Kizuna]]'') doesn't seem to notice that his most trusted employee is a [[Complete Monster]] with all the qualifications of psychopath, rapist, murderer and torturer, despite the fact that he tried to drive his boyfriend to suicide, is constantly trying to kill him, and even {{spoiler|murdered Araki's wife who was ''pregnant with his unborn child''}}. Yeah, he's [[Sarcasm Mode|just a great guy]].

* Subverted in ''[[Fables (Comic Book)|Fables]]''. Ambrose, who up until the 8th book had been a [[The Ditz|not too bright]] [[Nice Guy]] sets out to restore his kingdom in the homelands. He recruits dead fables in the Witching Well, promising them a physical body and a chance at redemption for their sins. This includes Shere Khan and Bluebeard, both of whom betrayed the fable community and plan to betray him for control of his kingdom. Not only does Ambrose know, it's all part of his [[Plan]].

* In the mystery film ''[[The Thin Man (Filmfilm)|After the Thin Man]]'', Nora Charles's cousin Selma chooses one man over another to marry. The "winner" proves to be a {{spoiler|cold-hearted philanderer}} while the "loser" is {{spoiler|finally revealed to be a raving madman}}. Selma's mother: "You sure can pick 'em!"

* The adaptation of ''[[The Phantom (Filmfilm)|The Phantom]]'' has the main character's father's ghost explain why he trusted the guy who murdered him and took his belt; "I'm a terrible judge of character."

** The [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] makes it plain that by the time of ''[[Revenge of the Sith]]'' the Jedi ''didn't'' trust Palpatine- but they thought he was a fairly typical slimy politician, and figured that [[Big Bad|Darth Sidious]] was hiding as someone in his entourage, which fit with previous Sith behaviors. In other words, they didn't suspect Palpatine because he was ''too obvious''- he was [[Hiding In Plain Sight]].

* Ralphie, from ''[[Storm of the Century]],'' who insists that [[Complete Monster|Andre]] [[Significant Anagram|Linoge]], who has been responsible for five deaths so far and is heavily implied to be ''[[The Devil|the Devil]]'', isn't a bad guy because he gave Ralphie a present, and "bad guys don't give kids presents."

* In both ''[[The Da Vinci Code]]'' and ''[[Angels and& Demons]]'' Robert Langdon unwittingly helps the villain achieve his goal while running scared from the guy who is trying to warn him about it.

* ''[[Wuthering Heights (Literaturenovel)|Wuthering Heights]]''. Lockwood originally describes Heathcliff as "a capital fellow". But then after storytime with Nelly...

* In ''[[Fate Zero|Fate/Zero]]'' Kirei Kotomine seems to simply inspire trust. Risei trusts him unconditionally (though this is kind of justified as Kirei is Risei's son) and Tokiomi Tohsaka notes that he seems more nihilistic than faithful or religious... Yet he also trusts him immensely and it never occurs to him that Kirei might not be the most loyal person on earth. Even Assassin believes that Archer (aka Gilgamesh) is no problem at all when Assassins are implied to ''never'' get into direct fights. Bazett also trusts Kotomine a bit too much.

** Tokiomi also gave his youngest daughter to [[Complete Monster|Matou Zouken]], with [[Abusive Parents|predictable]] [[Rape Asas Backstory|results]].

* [[Star Wars Expanded Universe|Mara Jade]] is typically a decent judge of character, but not necessarily when it comes to the Emperor. In ''[[Star Wars (Franchise)/Allegiance|Allegiance]]'', while in his presence Mara thinks of him as a "wise and good man", for all that there are all kinds of little hints that she knows very well that he's not. Of course, she ''is'' an Emperor's Hand, a Force-Sensitive agent who can hear his commands from anywhere in the galaxy, and it's not hard to imagine that he messed with her head. [[The Thrawn Trilogy|Five years after his death]], she's more angry at Luke for killing Palpatine because this destroyed her way of life and because his last command still echoes in her head. Not so much because a good man wisely leading the galaxy was killed, and in fact between the evidence and his waning influence she's rather messed up. In ''[[Survivors Quest]]'' she finds herself working with the [[Badass Crew|Aurek Seven stormtroopers]] and gets a little nostalgic for the Empire until she goes into the storage core of ''[[Outbound Flight]]'' and sees all of these supplies stacked up, on Palpatine's order, for fifty thousand people he was arranging to kill.

** She wasn't exactly on the ball concerning Jacen either, although the level of her uncharacteristic obliviousness in that series seemed to vary from book to book, [[Depending Onon the Writer|depending on what the author at the time needed in order to get away with the plot.]]

** Also, Percy Weasley - if calling ''Dolores Umbridge'' a "delightful woman" doesn't make him a [[Horrible Judge of Character]], it's hard to imagine what does.

**** Though really, the only ones who seem to believe this are as crazy as he is, like Bellatrix. Among the other major Death Eaters, [[Dirty Coward|Wormtail]] just joined up because he was terrified, [[Aristocrats Are Evil|Lucius]] always advances his own interests first and foremost, [[Psycho for Hire|Greyback]] doesn't care about politics and simply likes a boss who'll let him kill things, and Snape {{spoiler|had a rather involved personal agenda}}.

* Cheryl from [[Atlas Shrugged]] is a young woman who believes in her author's philosophy of hero-worshipping. As a member of the villainous faction of Looters, [[Manipulative Bastard|James Taggart]] believes in a philosophy which is the exact opposite of Cheryl's. And yet, Cheryl manages to misunderstand Taggart so badly that she thinks he's a heroic man who believes in heroism, and marries him. [[Love Martyr|Naturally, the marriage goes badly for Cheryl.]]

* In ''[[Dexter|Darkly Dreaming Dexter]]'', Dexter [[Lampshade Hanging|comments]] on this quality in his co-workers, a trait that gets carried over to the TV series, as mentioned below:

{{quote| '''Doakes''': (to Dexter) "You give me the [[Precision F-Strike|fucking]] creeps."<br />

'''Dexter''': (narrating) "How is it that in a building full of cops, all with a supposedly keen insight into the human soul, is Doakes the only one who gets the fucking creeps from me?" }}

* Dr. Mohinder Suresh of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' possesses the uncanny ability to always somehow manage to make the absolutely worst possible choice in any given situation, a talent that has him repeatedly end up siding with and helping the bad guys (frequently without even realizing it). There's an [[Epileptic Trees|increasingly popular Fan Wank]] that says this ability is his ''real'' Hero Power.

*** Using [[Fridge Logic]], Sylar tells Maya he killed his mother by accident after she became frightened of his abilities. [[Aladdin (Disney film)|HE WAS TELLING HER THE TRUTH]]

* Norg the Yeti of ''[[Power Rangers Operation Overdrive]]''. One of the bad guys barges in and takes over his arctic home, and Norg is just so happy to meet a new friend and would you like a snow cone? This dynamic lasts all season until the villain finally orders his [[Mooks]] to "take care of" both Norg and a [[Distressed Damsel in Distress]] - and even then, said damsel has to spell out the [[Trouble Entendre]] to Norg before he gets it.

* John Locke of ''[[Lost (TV)|Lost]]'' is so frequently blinded by his [[I Just Want to Be Special|need to be special]] and needed that he ends up getting duped both off-island and on by [[Desperately Looking for Aa Purpose In Life|anyone who tells him]] that he is important.

** YMMV. She is aware that he is "bad" by most people's standards, but actively defends him as misunderstood to everyone, until {{spoiler|he cheats on her, humiliates her and uses her to steal money.}}

* Damn near ''everybody'' in ''[[Dexter]]''. The title character works with an entire precinct full of police who don't notice that their co-worker is a serial killer. In his family, only his foster father caught on, and he already knew Dexter was traumatized. His sister not only misses his own craziness, but {{spoiler|gets engaged to the villain of season 1}}.

* Michael Scott of ''[[The Office (TV)|The Office]]'' has 2 means of judging a persons character; By their appearance, and or their willingness to be his friend (or even have lunch with him).

* Penny from ''[[The Big Bang Theory (TV)|The Big Bang Theory]]''. She's gotten better, but for the first two seasons, the list of how many jerks she fell for was pretty long.

* Carly, Sam and Freddie on ''[[ICarly (TV)|I CarlyiCarly]]'' all suffer from this, falling for or befriending jerky guys and manipulative girls.

* Kate of ''[[NCIS (TV)|NCIS]]'' suffered from this to an extent; it only happened a few times, but it is especially notable in her case both because it was the negative side of her trusting nature, and because it was probably her [[Fatal Flaw]]. {{spoiler|Literally, since she was unable to shoot the man who would later kill her because of his 'kind eyes'.}}

* In [[Warhammer 4000040,000]], arguably, The Emperor of Mankind counts as this. Despite numerous warnings from various sources (most notably Fulgrim, who later gave up and joined the Big Bad's side), he still failed to see Horus' betrayal coming. I guess you don't expect that sort of thing from your favourite genetically engineered son...

*** To be fair to Othello, Iago has evidently been playing the loyal compatriot for years beforehand, and his deceptions show us he's ''really good'' at convincing people he's a trustworthy guy. This is more due to Iago being a [[Manipulative Bastard]] than Othello being a [[Horrible Judge of Character]].

* Proving that [[Evil Overlord|Evil Overlords]]s, too, can fall prey, Emperor Gestahl of ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' gets stabbed in the back by two out of three of his most trusted subordinates, with Celes doing s [[Heel Face Turn]] and Kefka out-and-out murdering him before going into full-on [[Omnicidal Maniac]] mode. On the flipside, the third subordinate, General Leo, falls under this as well, as he actually ''trusts'' Emperor Gestahl despite his mad plans for world domination and the enslavement of the Espers used for magicite research as well as the mind-controlling of Terra...he still believes him right up until Gestahl decides [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|he's outlived his purpose]] and has Kefka wipe him out. There's a lot of it to go around.

* [[Fate/stay Stay Nightnight|Hi I am Kirei Kotomine.]] I am emotionless except when amused by the discomfort of others. I'm a jerk, I make fun of you, and I act really suspiciously. Yet everyone just seems to believe that he has nothing to do with what's going on, except Tohsaka. Even she just knows that he's not a nice guy. Hell, in HF up until the end Shirou doesn't really think of him as an enemy where he's quite blatant about not being on Shirou's side or even neutral ''or'' pretending he doesn't have a hidden agenda having to do with widescale destruction.

** In Burke's case, I guess that Simms was easily fooled, but Tenpenny is so senile and barely grasping reality, that would anyone really expect him to see a difference between a polite well-dressed gentleman and a [[Affably Evil|polite]], [[Badass in Aa Nice Suit|well-dressed]] evil assassin?

{{quote| '''Ranmaru''': How dare you in insult Nobunaga-sama! [[Third Person Person|Ranmaru]]'ll kill you!}}

* Although it's not a theme throughout the whole series, in ''[[Mega Man Battle Network (Video Game)|Mega Man Battle Network]] 6'' Lan shows an incredible ineptitude at differentiating friend and foe. He looks up to and almost idolizes {{spoiler|''two'' members of the quirky miniboss}}, and is indifferent to a third, only correctly identifying one villain before he strikes for the entire game (and that villain is the one who thinks it is shameful to try to hide your villainy and chastises the others for being discreet). He also only learns that {{spoiler|the mayor}} is a villain by walking in on a conversation while going to ask him for help. Meanwhile, he is instantly suspicious of two figures who turn out to be {{spoiler|Chaud and Protoman, his longtime allies throughout the entire series}}, nor does he connect the two even after the first reveals himself. The writers never seem to notice this trend.

* [[Mega Man (Videovideo Gamegame)|Dr. Light]] seems curiously willing to trust Dr. Wily when he claims to have gone straight (''3''), to have his lab ransacked by a renegade robot (''Mega Man & Bass''), or to be searching for the cure to a mysterious robot virus (''10'').

* Terra from ''[[Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep]]''.The same way some blind people keep a seeing-eye dog to make walking around safe, Terra should really be keeping an [[Evil-Detecting Dog]] around to make heroics safe, because there's being bad at noticing bad guys, and then there's ''needing someone to order you to kill an innocent'' to realize they don't have your best interests at heart. [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]], [[Obviously Evil]] appearance with horns, flames, [[Glowing Eyes of Doom]]; temptations to [[The Dark Side]]... it all swooshes right over his head as he assumes them to be perfectly nice people.

** To be fair, Knuckles only falls for Eggman's tricks once a series. ''[[Sonic 3 and Knuckles (Video Game)|Sonic The Hedgehog 3]]'' was the only time Knuckles completely believed him since it was their first meeting. In ''[[Sonic Adventure (Video Game)|Sonic Adventure]]'' Eggman only makes Knuckles confused and suspicious about Sonic's actions (and considering the Master Emerald was destroyed, Knuckles probably wasn't in the best frame of mind at the time). ''[[Sonic X (Anime)|Sonic X]]'' Eggman plays on Knuckles's rivalry with Sonic, and again Knuckles isn't in the best frame of mind, being pissed that he's stuck on Earth. I can't remember how it goes in the comics, but Knuckles never believed a word Eggman said afterward.

* Fighter from ''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|8-bit Theater]]'' insists that [[Ax Crazy]] Black Mage is his "bestest [sic] friend" and will protect the [[Squishy Wizard]] against attacks from others, despite the fact that Black Mage hates Fighter's guts, and has said so, and has repeatedly tried to kill Fighter (not that it works, because Fighter is [[Made of Iron|practically]] [[Contractual Immortality|indestructible]]). Fighter, being the [[Cloudcuckoolander]] that he is, will insist that this is merely Black Mage being [[Vitriolic Best Buds|"such a kidder"]].

*** Double subversion plays out a few comics later {{spoiler|Black Mage claimed that he was being mind controlled by Sarda. Fighter believe it, and they're [[BF Fs]]BFFs again.}}

* [[Love You and Everybody|Taisei]] from ''[[Sakana (Webcomic)|Sakana]]'' thinks that [[Jerkass|Yuudai]] is really a nice/cool guy and considers him his and Jiro's friend immediately after meeting him. However this may be actually a [[Subverted Trope|subversion]], since Taisei is actually very smart, and Yuudai isn't that of a bad guy (he just doesn't like Jiro and is a bit of a [[Grumpy Bear]], he also seemed to have a [[Jerkass Woobie|complicated past]]) - [[Fridge Brilliance|Taisei may just see the good that is actually in Yuudai]]. We have to see how this will turn out when Taisei actually meets an actual [[Jerkass]].

* Joey from ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20200313130906/http://www.agameoffools.com/ A Game of Fools]'', who doesn't seem to realise that the aliens that have abducted him mean to kill and rape him, can't see anything weird about an [https://web.archive.org/web/20101212100809/http://www.agameoffools.com/comic_32.html insane naked man whose "backpack smelt like dead people"] and thinks the [[Ax Crazy]] hitchhiker they've picked up, who openly admits to multiple murders, bizarre sexual fetishes and [https://web.archive.org/web/20100408195237/http://www.agameoffools.com/comic_34.html necrophilia], is a perfectly nice guy.

** There's also the fact that he still considers [[Manipulative Bastard|Sylvester]] one of his best friends despite the [https://web.archive.org/web/20100408195305/http://www.agameoffools.com/comic_48.html absolutely] [https://web.archive.org/web/20100408195315/http://www.agameoffools.com/comic_95.html goddamn] [http://agameoffools.com/comic_144.html horrible]{{Dead link}} things he manipulates him into doing.

*** Sylvester can be pretty bad himself, particular when it comes to his friendship with Tomato (and the majority of his other friends too, if [httphttps://agameoffoolsweb.archive.org/web/20210315220228/https://www.google.com/comic_75afs/ads/i/iframe.html this]{{Dead link}} is any indication). Although in his case he does at least seem partly aware how horrible they are - he just doesn't really care.

** Joey's [https://web.archive.org/web/20101029182728/http://www.agameoffools.com/comic_42.html rather poor] [httphttps://agameoffoolsweb.archive.org/web/20210425043931/https://ram21.proasdf.com/comic_169v3/s?q=ghc3.htmlus_vaccine.q00a_select_language&t=2&c=US&pl=&al=&ab=&ol=&ob=&s=it-1500&d=agameoffools.com&k=ghc3.us_vaccine&r=&u=000bf468-7d9a-40ea-8f5d-6bb4097b6858&v=&x=&y=&z=&pz=ccpa&f=1 choice of gym]{{Dead link}} probably counts too.

** [[Order of the Stick|Poor, deluded Tsukiko.]] Do you honestly think that just because you think the living are jerks, the undead [[Card-Carrying Villain]] Xykon is going to be any better? Even the Monster In The Darkness has worked this one out. {{spoiler|This ultimately proves to be her downfall when her beloved Wights turn against her when Redcloak uses Command Undead on them, with her last words asking why they won't love her as she loves them.}}

** Ian Starshine has so far concluded that [[Chaotic Good]] Elan is evil to the core because of his father, but [[Chaotic Evil]] Belkar has some good in him. While his assessment of Elan is completely off the mark, his assesment of Belkar is a bit more reasonable, as Belkar had recently learned the value of actively deceiving others that he was good, or at least willing to play along with societies rules. However, this is exactly the kind of deception a master thief should be aware of, so it still counts.

* Hanna in ''[[Hanna Is Not a BoysBoy's Name]]''. Sure, you can make deals with vampires. [[Sarcasm Mode|They're totally trustworthy and never go back on their word; even when you're trusting them with your life and everyone else's]].

** Lee Falun. His best friend was a [[Jerkass]] whose son was always [[Abusive Parents|covered in bruises]] and whose wife plainly resented him. Did Lee do the math? Nope. Said best friend also murdered him.

** Not learning his lesson, John then started taking advice from [[Serial Killer|Vriska]].

* Nick in ''[[General Protection Fault]]'' is the one who most persistently defends [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing|Trudy]], in spite of Ki and Fooker's justified suspicions about her. The Surreptitious Machinations arc involves the cast racing to help him realize that his "Project Velociraptor" is the keystone of her plans, and it ultimately results in him realizing her duplicity and refusing to help her. After that, [[Character Development|he realizes that he can't always trust people blindly]], leading to him seeing through Trish's story (ironically, as Ki decided to give her the benefit of the doubt like Nick used to) and noticing {{spoiler|that the Ki who lured him into the Mutex is not the one he knows}}.

* Kevin of ''[[Kevin and Kell]]'' is considered this as a result of being a fearless rabbit, which is implied to have been what led him to marry his first wife [[Jerkass|Angelique]]. By the time the strip begins, though, he's smarter about people's ulterior motives.

{{quote| I'm going to go make myself another sandwich, although I don't know how it can be as good as the last one. That one ''ticked''!}}

* [[The Nostalgia Critic (Web Video)|The Nostalgia Critic]] is perfectly adept at pointing out [[Obviously Evil]] in movies, but fails in his own life. Not getting that [[The Nostalgia Chick (Web Video)|The Nostalgia Chick]] wanted his power in ''[[Kickassia]]'' is a good example.

* The title characters from ''[[Beavis and Butt-HeadButthead]]''. Even when they get their asses kicked by Todd, they still think he's cool and aspire to join his gang. In fact, pretty much every single hoodlum, criminal, and [[Jerkass]] they meet is "cool" by their standards. Then again, when you consider their priorities and interests, it's not that surprising.

*** Well, he made it clear he didn't trust Starscream. He just didn't expect him to have the balls to attempt something in case it backfired (Starscream is of course, an enormous coward should the tables ever be turned on him). Still, he's far smarter than G1 Megatron, who knew perfectly well Starscream would try and kill him if he so much as tripped on an acorn and still kept him around and did nothing about it. Then ''[[Transformers: theThe Movie]]'' came along and Megatron realizes just [[Too Dumb to Live|what an idiot he'd been]].

* ''[[Batman: theThe Animated Series]]'': "It soon became obvious to me that The Joker, so often described as a raving homicidal madman, was actually a tortured soul crying out for love and acceptance..." Doctor Harleen Quinzel (aka [[Evil Clown|Harley Quinn]]), welcome to the list.

* And, of course, the Sultan from Disney's ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]''. The movie even [[Lampshadeslampshade]]s this when the Sultan provides the above page quote about priding himself to be an excellent judge of character, and Iago grumbles his sarcastic "NOT!"

** Aladdin's not the only one. ''[[Beauty and The Beast (Disney)|Beauty and Thethe Beast]]'' has the Villagers being completely, legitimately loyal (as in, they willingly love and are not forced to love him out of fear) to Gaston, a man who not only has shown himself to be a self-centered, arrogant [[Jerkass]], but has no qualms of expressing it, reaching an all new low when Gaston and Le Fou blatantly state to the entire bar that their plan involved arresting Maurice under false accusations of being a dangerous madman in order to marry Belle, and they still supported him. Then again, maybe the villagers really are extremely, irredeemably evil.

* ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (Animation)|Galaxy Rangers]]'' - King Spartos of Tarkon had a really bad habit of trusting advisors that told him what he wanted to hear, despite his daughter's objections and knowledge of the wider galaxy. It's only towards the end (and with the use of some [[Applied Phlebotinum]] from the Heart of Tarkon) that he's able to see his daughter and the Rangers are correct.

* [[Pinocchio]], both in the Disney film, and in the [[Filmation]] unofficial sequel, [[Pinocchio and Thethe Emperor of Thethe Night]]. He seems to think he can trust ''absolutely everyone'' he comes across. Worse yet, he often trusts people that ''[[Too Dumb to Live|he's well aware have double crossed him before]]''. In the latter, he willingly makes deals with a boatman with [[Red Eyes, Take Warning|glowing red eyes]] aboard a ship referred to as "The Empire of the Night."

* inIn the book Angelica Button and the Dragon King's Trundle Bed (which is in the [[Simpsons]]. the [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent|the snake]] Lord Evilton is the minister of niceness.

* [[Warren Harding]], whose Secretary of the Interior, Albert Bacon Fall, leased tons of land to his buddies in exchange for massive bribes.

** [[Hatedom|Hatedoms]]s are this at the other end of the extreme: Whatever they hate has ''no'' redeeming qualities whatsoever, and to hell with the facts.

[[Category:Horrible Judge of Character{{PAGENAME}}]]