• Aerith and Bob: Homer and Bart are uncommon names, Lisa and Maggie are normal names, Marge is somewhere in the middle.
• All of the Other Reindeer: With the usual exception of Maggie, the immediate family is occasionally put down by their hometown, Springfield. This trope is usually put into effect due to Homer's blunders, Marge and Lisa's Honor Before Reason tendencies, Bart's mischief, or a series of events which brings out the town's general nastiness.
• All Work vs. All Play: Marge and Lisa are All Work while Homer and Bart are All Play. This gets lampshaded a couple of times.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: The family may argue a lot on even the pettiest things but they still love each other no matter what.
• Badass Family: All of them have their awesome moments but only a couple at a time are allowed to be badass together.
  • It's a bit of a Running Gag that Maggie is the most badass member of the family. She saved Homer's life on four separate occasions and was the one who shot Mr. Burns.
  • Homer has beaten up several people in a fight, and endured injuries that would easily kill a normal person. To say nothing of all the other insane things he's done over the series.
  • Marge is regularly shown to be very physically gifted and a skilled fighter. She was once a police officer, a bodybuilder (albeit with steroids), and won an MMA match.
  • Bart is regularly proven to be a skilled skateboarder, and quite cunning as a prankster. When pushed, he is even capable of beating up Nelson in a fight.
  • Lisa has her moments, most notably with the episode "Lisa on Ice". There's also the time that Lisa one-hit KO'd Bart in an MMA ring and she also connects a gloriously-animated punch on Bart in the movie.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: The Simpson women. Marge is feminine and nurturing (beauty), Lisa has genius IQ (brains), and Maggie despite being an infant is a guntotting mallet-wielding badass (brawn).
• Beware the Nice Ones: Lisa and Marge are the more courteous and caring of the family Depending on the Writer compared to Bart and Homer. But when Lisa and/or Marge are genuinely angry, they're actually rather terrifying.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Marge and Lisa have strong moral values and refuse to accept a gray area. Bart and Homer, on the other hand, are comfortable with breaking the law for their own amusements but will atone when they think they've crossed a line. This is best shown with Marge and Lisa's views on lying.
  • In "Reality Bites" Marge becomes a realtor and uses her morals to prevent people from buying a new house. Lionel Hutz explains that telling the truth has both good and bad consequences, only for Marge to go against the business and try to return the Flanders' money after they happily bought a new house from her. The reason why she wanted to return the money was that she lied about the house since it had a history with homicide, and she felt that she should have pointed it out sooner.
  • In "Lisa Gets An A" Lisa cheats on her literacy test and gets an A+++. Even though her cheating would benefit everyone in the school, she ultimately confesses her guilt from cheating and that the school was using funds they didn't earn. In "Diary Queen", Bart mistakenly believes that Krabapple had faith in him and the belief makes him behave better and perform better in school. When Lisa finds out the truth, she became racked with guilt even though the lie benefitted everyone.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Homer is usually the one to say "D'oh", but Marge, Bart, Lisa, Grampa and Mona have all said it too. The only family member who hasn't said it is Maggie, and that's only because she won't talk yet.
• A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family: With Bart, Lisa and Maggie.
• Brother–Sister Team: A great deal of episodes involve Bart & Lisa teaming up to foil some sort of evil plot, or at least getting involved in general hijinks.
• Butt-Monkey: All of them have had their moments of misfortune and slapstick, especially in couch gags. Homer and Lisa (especially the former) just happen to get the worst of it.
• Can't Live With Them, Can't Live Without Them: In "At Long Last Leave," they're forcibly ejected from Springfield only for the entire town to gradually relocate to the place where they fled.
• The Conscience: Both Lisa and Marge are the sources of moral guidance for Bart and Homer. Lisa often becomes the voice of logic when Bart and Homer are forced to deal with a situation that they may have caused or worsened.
• Desperately Craves Affection: A family-wide problem. Lisa can't stop herself from getting her hopes up for new friends even when she knows Status Quo Is God, Bart admits he can handle any bad except for losing the only parent who will give positive reinforcement, Homer will cling to anyone or anything that will give him approval, and Marge often gets manipulated by people who promise to appreciate her. Even Abe and the two pets are shown to be this.
• Dysfunctional Family: The obvious exemplar, we could be here all day with examples to back up their inclusion. However, even if the President wished Americans could be "more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons," they stay together, go to church together, eat dinner together every night, and they're ultimately closely-knit.
• Easily Forgiven: How rushed or not is Depending on the Writer, but they'll always forgive each other in the end. Grand Romantic Gestures are common, even in the familial sense, but mostly they all know they're flawed while loving each other.
• Feuding Families: Due to the escalation of Sideshow Bob's vendetta against Bart to the point that he's dragged the rest of his own family, the Simpsons have become trapped in a one-sided feud against the Terwilligers where the latter engage in schemes to murder the former (which varies between simply Bart or the family at large).
• Flanderization: All of their traits have been seriously exaggerated over time, like how Homer went from an ignorant, short-tempered but loving father to an idiotic Jerkass Manchild, and Lisa went from a sweet, intelligent and occasionally mischievous but nice girl to a Little Miss Perfect Soapbox Sadie who is often Holier than Thou.
• Friendless Background: The female Simpsons, depending on the episode (justified with Maggie because she’s a baby). They are occasionally seen hanging out with other people (a few random classmates for Lisa or random local women for Marge) but they have no consistent friendships with other characters. Both Marge and Lisa explicitly say "I have no friends" several times and it sometimes becomes a plot point, like in "Pay Pal".
• The Friends Who Never Hang: During the show's runtime, there hasn't been much contact between Bart and Maggie, with them finally getting a subplot in "How Lisa Got Her Marge Back", in season 27. Justified as Maggie is a non-talking baby and spends most of her time around Marge, whereas Bart has stories elsewhere in Springfield. They also don't really interact in any future episodes either.
• Hated by All: They're often seen as pariahs in their community, with Token Good Teammate Marge singlehandedly maintaining their good standing, and no matter where they go, their neighbors (minus long-suffering, saintly Ned Flanders) can't stand them.
• Hollywood Genetics: Homer (had brown hair) and Marge (blue hair) have three blonde kids. None of the Bouviers are blonde, and Abe Simpson also had brown hair... One episode claims that Bart's natural hair color is red which makes it weirder. Downplayed when it comes to eye color. Different blink-and-you’ll-miss moments across the series reveal Homer and the kids have blue eyes, but Marge’s eyes are hazel. However, in regards to their eye colors, it is possible for a blue-eyed parent and a hazel-eyed parent to have blue-eyed children.
• Iconic Item: Homer has his doughnuts and cans of Duff Beer, Bart has his slingshot and skateboard, Lisa has her saxophone, and Maggie has her pacifier, leaving Marge as the only immediate family member without an item ironically associated with her.
• Informed Flaw: The Simpsons are regularly treated by the rest of Springfield as though they're among the worst residents in the city. The thing is though, this is clearly not true. In fact, before Flanderization kicked in, the family was actually far more lucid than most of their neighbors and associates. For instance, in "The Telltale Head", several recurring characters attempted to lynch Bart and Homer simply because Bart defaced the town statue.
• Jacob and Esau: After Flanderization, all three children strongly prefer Marge over Homer. While Bart does enjoy playing with Homer, he respects Marge far more due to Homer's treatment towards him. While Lisa loves her father, she finds it easier to talk to Marge and has more in common with her than Homer. Maggie prefers Marge due to Homer's negligence, as well as the fact that he very often forgets that she exists.
  Marge: Homer, we can't root for one child over the other. You wouldn't like it if the kids played favorites with us.
  Bart: Hey, Mom! Look at me, Mom!
  Lisa: Hi, Mom! Over here! Mom!
• Meaningful Name: Their surname "Simpson" was taken from the slang word "Simp" which means "A silly or foolish person". With that in mind, their surname is supposed to be interpreted as "Son of the foolish person". A retcon reveals that Simpsons have a unique syndrome that only affects the males in the family, it's a degenerative condition that damages their brain cells and lowers their IQ. That said, this is rarely, if ever, touched upon.
• A Mistake Is Born: Some Depending on the Writer is in play here, but generally none of the three Simpson children were planned, something Marge and Homer make no attempt to hide from them. They will usually get told they're loved and not actually regretted, but if not, Bart will get the worst of it from Homer.
• Never My Fault: They often refuse to take their share of the blame when something goes wrong.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between: Out of the Simpson children, Lisa is nice (the well-behaved and compassionate girl), Bart is mean (disrespectful troublemaker and proud of it), and Maggie is in-between (mostly a sweet baby but has a violent, dark side and can be a Silent Snarker sometimes).
• Non-Standard Character Design: Their particular design and physical features are unique family traits and not used for any other character on the show (with rare exceptions), like Homer’s beard line, Marge's ridiculously tall Beehive Hairdo, or Bart, Lisa and Maggie's skin-coloured "hair" (they are supposedly blonde but every other blonde haired character in the show is drawn with more realistic hair).
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: They never age, and Bart and Lisa have been Elementary School children for 30+ years. This concept is parodied and lampshaded many times on the show. In the episode "Behind the Laughter", where in a "documentary" about the show featuring the cast as Animated Actors, Lisa "reveals" to the media that she was forced to take anti-growth hormones in order to prolong the series.
• Nuclear Family: They are an archetypical nuclear family, with Homer's job at the power plant likely being a play on this very concept. Nowadays, this concept has greatly lessened, given the sheer wackiness of things, with Homer's job itself changing on a dime.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Averted, for Homer and Lisa. But played straight for Marge (Marjorie), Bart (Bartholomew) and Maggie (Margaret). This also the case to a degree for the extended family: Abe (Abraham), Patty (Patricia), Jackie (Jaqueline) and Herb (Herbert).
• Parents as People: Though both Homer and Marge are happy with their children, they do show vulnerability and problems that everyone faces.
  • Homer sometimes feels trapped because he and Marge had kids before they were at a secure point in their lives. Homer had to give up his dreams to provide a steady income for his family. Depending on the episode, he lashes out at Bart because he doesn't know how to genuinely bond with him and can't find an activity they can share. He and Lisa have very little in common but both are trying to find common ground with each other, while Homer often forgets Maggie exists because of his work.
  • Marge has to project a very high moral standard for her children, for example; telling them that it's wrong to lie no matter how much it benefits everyone in the process. Like Homer, Marge had to give up her dreams so she can care for the children and sacrificed her personal life in the process. At the same; she had to prioritize Maggie, which left her unprepared on how to quell Bart's behavior and how to bond with Lisa.
• Principles Zealot: Both Marge and Lisa have uncompromising moral principles and will often sacrifice the benefits of a bad decision, on the basis of morality. While the two have a strong moral fiber and are able to set an example for Bart and Homer, there are times where it was more beneficial to keep quiet about their misdeeds.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Impulsive Homer and practical joke artist Bart clearly form the Red Oni half of the Simpson household to pragmatic, tradition-worshipping Marge and bookworm Lisa's Blue Oni.
• The Scapegoat: While it's clear that Springfield is a Dysfunction Junction of the highest order without their help, the town has a tendency to treat them as the root of all its problems.
  Lisa: Bart, do you know how many furious mobs the average family has to contend with?
  Bart: Hmm, six?
  Lisa: Zero. Zero!
• Shared Family Quirks: Almost everyone who is either born to or marries into the Simpson family will inevitably say "D'oh" at some point. The only Simpson who hasn't said it is Maggie, and that's only because she can't talk yet.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Bart is a lazy delinquent while Lisa is a socially aware academic.
• Thicker Than Water: For all their bickering and dysfunction, it's made clear that they are incredibly loyal to each other. In "Lisa's Wedding", Lisa ends up calling off the titular wedding just before it was meant to happen because of how much her groom disrespects the rest of them.
  Hugh: You complain about them more than anyone.
  Lisa: That may be, but I still love them, and I don't think you understand that.
• The Three Faces of Adam: Bart is "The Hunter" because he's the young rebel who takes great risks to perform pranks. Homer is "The Lord" because he's the family breadwinner who lets his impulses cloud his judgement but has enough skills and resources to find employment or reemployment. Grampa is "The Prophet" because he's the oldest and he frequently tells inane wartime stories to anyone who listens.
• The Three Faces of Eve: Two variants,
  • Lisa is "the wife" because she's arguably the smartest of the family and often provides counsel to the other members. Marge is "the seductress" because of her beauty and because of the number of men attracted to her. Maggie is "the child" because of her infancy.
  • Marge is "the wife" because she's calm, rational and capable of giving advice to others. While Lisa is "the seductress" because of the number of boys who've been attracted to her.
• Town Girls: Traditional housewife Marge is the Femme, intellectual Granola Girl Lisa is the Neither, and Maggie is portrayed as Butch in future episodes when she is older (dresses like a punker, is the leader of a rockband, etc.) and even in the present she has a violent streak and can use weapons.
• Tuckerization: All of the members of the Simpsons family are named after Matt Groening's family members, except Bart, which is an anagram of brat. Bart was originally going to be named Matt.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Due to their Non-Standard Character Design, they are quite weird-looking compared to all the other characters, but this is hardly ever noticed in-universe. Even in the episode where Lisa's hair is a plot point, she's treated like a generic blonde girl. Marge is also considered extremely beautiful, and nobody has a problem with her Beehive Hairdo. In the crossover episode with Futurama, Leela is one of few characters who notice that Marge's hair is strange.
• White Sheep: They actually serve as this among their extended family, at least in the early seasons. Even the Bouvier family weren't exactly "close" to Marge, with her mother referring to Marge as a disappointment in her very first appearance.
• Youngest Child Wins: Due to Marge and Homer having children at such young ages, each child is overshadowed by the other. Bart was unwittingly supplanted by Lisa because Homer and Marge had to focus their time on her, while Lisa is eventually supplanted by Maggie because of her age and because of Bart's rebellious behaviour.

The father, the dope, and more or less the main character of the show. Homer is overweight, almost completely bald, and rather selfish, short-tempered and stupid, but is a good person at heart and has a bright outlook on life.

• For tropes related to him, see here.

The mother and typically both The Straight Man and closer to earth, Marge is predominantly a homemaker, but does have her wilder side. Loving and supportive, her devotion to her family may be strained at times but is never broken.

• Abusive Parents: Not too much in the early seasons, but Flanderization has turned Marge into this. Aside from how often she turns a blind eye to the struggles Bart and Lisa face, Marge can be emotionally abusive and neglectful to even Maggie. On rare occasions, she will actually be physically abusive, with a one-off joke in "The President Wore Pearls" revealing that she threw vodka in Maggie's face at one point. That said, like with Homer, it greatly varies Depending on the Writer.
• Action Mom: She despises violence but, somewhat ironically, is regularly shown to be very physically gifted and a skilled fighter. She was once a police officer, a bodybuilder, and won an MMA match. And God help you if you mess with her kids.
• Aesop Amnesia: No matter how often she meddles in someone else's affairs and inevitably makes things worse because she's against it for whatever reason the episode gives her and learns she shouldn't do it, she keeps doing it anyway in later episodes.
• Aggressive Submissive: The inversion to Homer's playing it straight. Even at her most Extreme Doormat Antics-Enabling Wife, she was always the one pouncing on Homer for sex, or calling the shots in the bedroom.
• Always Save the Girl: Gender-flipped, as it's lampshaded that Homer being who he is juggles the Distress Ball a lot, and Marge is a Violently Protective Wife.
  Homer: Once again, I have to thank you for saving me when I failed at saving you.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: While not as much as Homer, she tends to embarrass her kids, especially Bart. Besides being utterly out of touch with what's considered "cool" and oblivious to the social pressures her children are under, she has a hard time accepting that Bart and Lisa are growing up and often treats them like they're younger than they are.
• Amusing Injuries: Her hair often gets destroyed in various creative ways.
• Antics-Enabling Wife: Marge is a classic example of this trope, often doing next to nothing to stop Homer's antics aside from glares and mild nagging while suffering in silence through the consequences. Deconstructed occasionally, as it's revealed she really does like him as a zany Manic Pixie Dream Guy, they'll even swap roes when she really wants something, and Springfield (while having a lot of gall) ends up calling her the worst one of the family because she enables their mess.
• The Artifact: Apparently, the original reason for the giant beehive was that it hid rabbit ears. Eventually, the idea was scrapped.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: She's considered one of the most attractive women in Springfield, and is usually kind and well-intentioned. Compare her to her husband (a bald and overweight man who's a Jerkass with a Heart of Gold) and both of Marge's sisters (who are unattractive, other than being rude and unpleasant people).
• Beehive Hairdo: Yes. Some flashbacks depict her as having had it since she was a baby, though the first full-episode flashback shows her only doing it like this for her high school prom.
• Belief Makes You Stupid: Despite her standing as the voice of reason and common sense to her husband's stupidity and impulsiveness, Marge has a tendency to let her religious views cloud her judgement, leading her to act as a narrow-minded fundamentalist at best or a self-righteous Moral Guardian at worst.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Despite her conservative personality and general niceness, she's scary when angered. You do not want to piss her off. Numerous focus episodes tend to show how vicious she can be. She shamed the entire population of Springfield because they drove Bart to suicide over a little league game. When driven past breaking point by Homer being an extra-strength jerkass, Marge finally loses her temper completely and attacks Ned with a broken bottle (Ned is stronger than he looks and admits he's having difficulty keeping Marge at bay, she did manage to stab him).
• Big "WHAT?!": Has a tendency to let these out whenever Homer says or does something insane. In other words, at least once every other episode.
• The Bore: Marge's incredibly bland taste in everything is a frequent source of humor. For example; looking for some adrenaline in her life, Marge decides to stop buying regular ham, and go instead for deviled ham. Contrast this with Homer's Renaissance Man qualities, music, language, etc. only some of which are played as one off jokes.
• Broken Bird: Marge shares the same issue as Lisa that Status Quo Is God gets to her, and any kind of hopeful activity beyond being a housewife will disappear. Multiple episodes later on have her upset that she's wasted her potential, has intense anxiety and maybe depression due to being taken for granted, and needs Lisa to be successful (but not too much) so she can vicariously live out her dreams. Luckily she loves her family more than anything, her Manic Pixie Dream Guy will never stop trying to make things right, and her special kids call her their favorite person.
• But Not Too Foreign: Her and the entire Bouvier family's names and her thick curly hair indicate she might be of Creole ancestry.
• Catchphrase: "Hmmmmmm..." According to one of the DVD audio commentaries, the writers wanted to establish "I don't think that's a good idea" as her catchphrase in earlier seasons.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Any woman getting too close to Homer (even if they are genuinely just friends) will drive her insane. One of the main reasons she stays married to Homer is because she feels the need to possess him and have him dependent on her. After forgiving Lurleen, she threatens her with serious bodily harm if she comes near her husband again. Luckily for her, Homer is oblivious to all attraction other women have as Marge is the only woman he loves.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Definitely downplayed compared to Homer, but she still has moments that show her to be on the loopy side.
  Marge: Why don't you bring this potato? It's pretty big.
  Bart: Mom, you're always trying to give us potatoes. What is it with you?
  Marge: I just think they're neat.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: She's typically the one who prevents the others from doing anything too foolish.
• The Comically Serious: Noted for her rather dull and no-risk demeanor, occasionally getting dizzy thrills out of monotonous activities like household chores (she does desire excitement and diversity every once in a while however, which is revealed to be a partial reason she likes Homer).
• Covering Up Your Gray: "Secrets of a Successful Marriage" reveals that Marge has been "gray as a mule" since she was 17 and that she has been dying it to cover it up. This is expanded on in "The Blue and the Gray", where it's revealed that every time she has her hair dyed, she forgets that she has gray hair, thus making her horrified when she gets what she thinks is her first gray hair. She initially goes for a complete gray look, then goes back to dying it to help combat her jealousy issues.
• Covert Pervert: In some episodes, she does some perverse things including getting drunk, and secretly pining after men who aren't Homer. Also this line from when Homer was reading Kama Sutra.
  Homer: Hey, look, Marge, they took our idea.
  Marge: Ooooh.
• Daddy's Girl: This isn't very apparent, as said dad has very few appearances and isn't mentioned very often, but "Fear of Flying" seems to imply that Marge was close to her father. So finding out his Unmanly Secret was shocking to her.
• Determinator: Whenever Marge really wants something, she will stop at nothing to get it.
• Domestic Abuse: Over the years, per Flanderization, Marge has become a serious offender of this. Whereas Homer has never intentionally harmed Marge or cheated on her, Marge is shown doing this in episodes such as "Strong Arms Of The Ma" and "Brake My Wife Please", actually running over Homer with a car in the latter.
• The Dragon: Occasionally shown as such in her and Bart's relationship for comical reasons, such as season 9's "Brother From Another Series" ("Get 'im Lis!").
• Dude Magnet: Many men were attracted to her, like Moe, Mr. Burns, or her high school classmate who was still obsessed with her after 20 years.
• Education Mama: While she doesn't expect much from Bart at this point, she can be tough on Lisa. "Mother and Child Reunion” depicts a potential future in which she and Lisa are estranged for years because Lisa refuses to go to college, even as Lisa achieves tremendous levels of success in education and politics without the degree and is finally elected President of the United States.
• Expressive Hair: Marge's hair being disheveled is usually a sign of her being upset or stressed. The Running Gag of characters getting advice and arguing with their brain goes up to eleven with Marge when her hair is the entity giving her advice.
• Extreme Doormat: Not originally, with Marge being surprisingly assertive in the early seasons, but she gradually became this in regards to dealing with her family's increasingly idiotic antics.
  • As Homer became more of a Jerkass, Marge appeared to be more and more of a doormat, forgiving him over and over again, not only for stupid accidents and acts of ignorance, but huge acts of genuine deceit. While Bart and Lisa weren't willing to put up with it in many cases, Marge overlooked almost everything he did. Finally addressed in the movie where Marge declares she has put up with Homer's jerkass nature and shenanigans long enough and decides to leave him. Homer spends the rest of the movie figuring out why Marge left him and what he can do to correct it, and they both got better after that. Some episodes show that this behavior came from how Patty and Selma treated her.
  • This also extends to her other family members. Not only does she often overlook how poorly her sisters treat others (especially Homer), but she will often turn a blind eye to Bart, Lisa, and Maggie's antics, despite the increasing problems they cause. This is even noted at one point when the rest of Springfield kick out the Simpsons.
  • This isn't limited to just the family. In "Kill Gil: Volumes I & II", after feeling guilty about indirectly getting Mall Santa Gil fired, she allows him to move into the home, where he quickly and repeatedly takes advantage of their hospitality. Whereas Marge could have put her foot down at any point, her soft boundaries and his manipulation stops her. Once he finally leaves the home with a new job across the country, she buys him a summer home after getting him fired again.
• Fan Hater: In-universe example. When at her worst, Marge is willing to protest anything she despises because others like it, even outright admitting this in "The Great Wife Hope".
• Fanservice Pack: She was originally designed to look kind of dowdy, befitting an overworked housewife (hence the exaggerated Beehive Hairdo). But as Homer is expressly overweight and slovenly she came across quite a bit more attractive in comparison. A couple of episodes take advantage of this.
  • The main plot of the episode "Large Marge" is all about her accidentally gaining huge boobs (they were meant for Mayor Quimby's female intern). She in fact went into plastic surgery for light liposuction after developing some body image insecurities.
  • In some Halloween specials she is more busty than in regular episodes, especially when based on fanservice-heavy genres like Slasher films.
  • After getting mugged Marge started weight training and exercising regularly, developing a much more fit, athletic body compared to her normal softer figure. Then when she gets into competitive bodybuilding it becomes Fan Disservice, as her heavily muscled shoulders and arms looks unsettling in her traditional green dress.
• Female Misogynist: Depending on the Writer, it's implied a few times that Marge isn't thrilled with the idea of an independent women, or at least has trouble wrapping her head around it without an immediate example. She initially believes a professor named their reserve after his wife and when told the titular "wife" is the professor herself, Marge is genuinely surprised.
• Feminine Women Can Cook:
  • Marge seems to buy into this quite a lot, as she does take a lot of joy in preparing household meals. But a long-running background joke is that Marge can be a pretty bland cook, once claiming that her secret ingredient was salt.
  • Though averted in one episode, where she apparently made bad sundaes.
    Marge: What's wrong with my sundaes?!
• Fictional Fan, Real Celebrity: Marge was a fan of Ringo Starr in particular when younger, making various paintings of him and even sending him one. When she was a kid, she was a big fan of Davy Jones, of The Monkees.
• Flanderization:
  • She went from being a loving and down-to-earth mother who lectured Bart whenever he was up to his old tricks to overprotecting him and being paranoid about his well-being.
  • Like Homer, Marge was often shown to be Not So Above It All, even getting drunk in the first season and embarrassing Homer at a party thrown by Burns. Yet, she also had a clear set of ethics, and regularly called out Homer and the kids when they were about to cross a line. Nowadays, she regularly ignores how increasingly dysfunctional her family has become, to the point of ignoring their well-being.
  • Her somewhat no-nonsense personality was also Flanderized somewhat. In early episodes, she was merely wiser and something of a nag, though she did cut loose on several occasions. In later episodes she is extremely boring and un-impulsive by nature, getting hyped up by household chores and monotonous hobbies.
  • Her boringness. The first time Marge learned her husband and children thought she was no fun, in season 5, Marge was actually hurt and angered by this. In later years, Marge actively seeks the best ways to be duller than dishwater, and make other types of fun illegal.
  • Despite her flaws, Marge was clearly a nice woman at heart, and dearly loved her family as much as the next housewife. Nowadays, she can be quite a jackass, to the extent of actually trying to kill Homer a couple times, and being okay with the potentially life-threatening woes their children face, if not outright instigating them.
• Foil: To Homer. While Homer is goofy, aggressive, and unintelligent, Marge is serious, calm, and rather smart. Typically she's the one who prevents Homer from doing anything too foolish.
• Former Teen Rebel: "Marge the Meanie" reveals that Marge was The Prankster at her middle school and that she, not Homer, is probably the source of Bart's love for mischief.
• Freudian Excuse: As much as Marge refuses to admit it, her childhood was pretty terrible. Her mother was dismissive and taught her to be a conservative Stepford Smiler who feels like she can't do anything right, her dad was protective but kept secrets from her, and Patty and Selma's bullying made her an Extreme Doormat with a mean side that she feels awful about. She's also been sexually assaulted by Artie Ziff, who makes no secret that he wants to do it again, and projects her trauma over dreams sacrificed onto Lisa. Not to mention how her father died when she was still relatively a young adult.
• Friendless Background: A fact made clear several times is that Marge has little to no actual friends, for a variety of reasons. One big reason is Homer and the kids, who accidentally drives away those who might want to socialize with her. A secondary reason is due to being a card-carrying wet blanket, as shown at the beginning of "The Twisted World of Marge Simpson".
• The Friend Nobody Likes: In the times where she is shown to have friends they're either shown to be extremely judgmental of her for either her parenting style or marriage, or find her to be extremely dull and boring.
• The Fundamentalist: It's not overt, but Marge is incredibly intolerant when Lisa decides to convert to Buddhism, first saying she couldn't get dessert and later trying to bribe her with a (fake) pony on Christmas, and when Bart decides to become Catholic, she even kidnaps him from the Catholic School. Marge hates Catholics and thinks they are strange... despite being proud of and "knowledgeable" of her French heritage. France is a historically Catholic nation with the Christian population of France being overwhelmingly Catholic with over 13 million members, in comparison the Protestant population is only around 500,000. Likewise, she's outraged when Homer desires to forgo church in lieu of passively worshipping God from his couch, going as far as calling him wicked, or when he joins Bart in becoming Catholic. She eventually accepts her family's choices, as long as they perform lip-service at Church on Sunday. This is a really weird trait for her to have, as one episode showed that she hadn't even bothered to have her children baptized. Marge's moralizing is so infamous that the entire town knows about it. When the townspeople are debating whether to adopt legalized gambling, Mayor Quimby asks if there are any moral objections. Everybody in the room immediately turns towards Marge, who actually supports it.
• The Gambling Addict: In the episode where a casino is built in Springfield, Marge becomes addicted to the slots and neglects her family to keep playing. Since then, her gambling is mostly under control, though it is mentioned every now and then.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Marge tends to be oblivious to bad people such as bullies. However, as seen in "Sleeping with the Enemy", she does seem to be aware of Nelson's bullying as she asks him if he was the boy who beats up her son, suggesting that she is either naive towards bullying or is easily manipulated by the bullies.
• Good Parents: Depending on the Writer. She is a very loving and caring mother who has a close bond with all her children. She has her issues and sometimes argues with Bart or Lisa, but her intentions are good, and she is always willing to support her children and give them advice.
• Gossipy Hens: She does love her gossip. When Maggie's baby monitor picks up on phone calls, she becomes addicted to listening to it.
• Green-Eyed Monster: In "Friends and Family", the prospect of Homer getting a new female best friend named Julia causes her to become irate with him and complain that if another woman is his best friend then that makes their marriage feel less important if Marge herself isn't his best friend. She of course comes around to her senses (but feels right being angry at him anyway).
• Hairstyle Inertia: Zig Zagged. Depictions of her earlier years vary between her having the same Beehive Hairdo (sometimes shorter than it usually is) or a different style. Typically as a child she has a beehive while during her teen years she’s always shown with having her hair straight and worn down.
• Hammerspace Hair: Her total height including the hair is eight foot six. Her hairdo is strong enough to hold everything from Maggie to a beach umbrella to a jar full of money to a ten-pin bowling ball.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Occasionally, though she's normally more of a social drinker.
• Heroic Willpower: It's a common thing to have her resist mind control even when everyone around her has succumbed, as we've seen in "The Joy of Sect" and the first Treehouse of Horror.
• Hidden Depths:
  • She is great at making sculptures and wanted to be a painter once.
  • She can be a great teacher to her son, Bart. On multiple occasions, she has shown how to get Bart to learn something in a way he would like and she actually does a better job then the local school system.
• Hidden Eyes: In the aforementioned "Little Orphan Millie", to keep Homer guessing her eye color.
• Hikikomori: Spends a period like this in "The Strong Arms of the Ma". She eventually overcame this after using the weight-lifting set Homer bought from Rainier Wolfcastle.
• Honor Thy Abuser: To dangerous extents, especially after the first couple seasons. In “Barting Over”, she’s more annoyed at Bart finally strangling Homer than the usual opposite, and while Homer clearly hasn’t told her much about his childhood, the stuff she does know doesn’t stop her from thinking he should make nice with Grampa. Even she doesn’t like her sisters or mother much, but still thinks she (plus the rest of the family) should be dutiful. Gets confronted with this attitude in “King Leer”, as Moe’s terrible family makes her realize that not every family should force it to work.
• Hope Bringer: To her whole family. She’s the only thing stopping Bart from going off the rails, Lisa is miserable without her mother supporting her, Maggie would have chosen the Flanders if not for her, and seeing her in detention got Homer out of his Missing Mom Despair Event Horizon.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Zigzagged. Marge is sometimes naive towards people or tend to let her fundamentals influence her better judgement, but she's often depicted as the Only Sane Man of the family. When Bart is told to make a Valentine's Day card for Nelson, she quickly tells him that Jesus told his followers to "love thy enemy", despite recognising Nelson's bullying history with Bart. When Bart was being hunted by Jimbo, Kearney and Dolph for having an affair with Jimbo's girlfriend Shauna, Marge genuinely believed that they were friends with Bart and told them to wait. She also unintentionally ruined the marriage of Otto and then girlfriend Becky by telling her to make an ultimatum by making him choose between her and his his music. He chooses the latter in a heartbeat despite Marge thinking that he would choose Becky out of love.
• Housewife: While she does have a few jobs over the show's run, she spends most of her time as a housewife.
• Hypocrite: A significant part of her character, with it actually being a thing since season 1. On many occasions, she will call out others for their actions, despite being no better than them or doing so largely for her own sake.
  • Begs Homer to get rid of his gun, claiming she doesn't want a gun in her house. After Homer gives it to her to dispose of, she keeps it for herself.
  • In episode 9 of the first season, Marge basically has an affair with a man she met while bowling, and only got a change of heart when driving off to a sexual rendezvous with him. The VERY NEXT EPISODE, Marge finds a photo of Homer dancing (with no sexual overtones) with a belly dancer at a stag party he went to (with her knowledge), and proceeds to treat him highly condescendingly, throw him out of his own house, and act like he cheated on her.
  • Doubly so with Homer's platonic relationship with Lurleen Lumpkin another hundred or so episodes later, where she is against him spending any time with Lurleen (despite him being her manager) and treats it like he is cheating on her.
  • She supports gay rights and is proud of Homer for marrying gay couples, but when her sister comes out of the closet she refuses to accept her sexuality.
  • On one episode, when Lisa gets asylum in Canada and she even admits that she prefers Canada over the US for several reasons, Marge calls her a traitor and even plans to drag her back to the States by any means necessary. In another episode, Marge wants the whole family to move to Denmark due to its lifestyle.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: Sure she's a Clingy Jealous Girl who once compared Homer to a bike that needs locking up or other women will ride it, but when Helen Lovejoy makes a crack about his faithfulness, Marge gives her a Bitch Slap.
• I Can Change My Beloved: Marge did this with Homer, and insists it worked and that now he's a "whole new person", despite the evidence that he's still an often-inconsiderate slob. Lisa's response is to just pretend to agree with her.
• I Have No Son!: While she doesn't officially disown Bart nor kicks him out of the house, she either distanced herself from Bart, became so disappointed in Bart, or flat-out gave up on Bart at least four times. Three ("Marge Be Not Proud", "Bart the Mother" and "Peeping Mom") she had reason to (and in the first case was convinced it was for his own good), but one ("Love is a Many Splintered Thing") was for petty reasons.
• Impossible Hourglass Figure: Inverted. In "Husbands and Knives", she got upset when she realizes her hips were too wide and she had lost her "perfect" 26-26-26 figure.
• Impossibly Low Neckline: Her regular dress. Once even lampshaded by a prison warden.
  Warden: NOTHING IS KEEPING UP HER DRESS! ONLY HER MELONS!!!
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Not really, and she'd be the first to admit she isn't, but Bart and Homer see her as such, Homer even thinking he should be killed for actually corrupting her.
• Incredibly Lame Fun: Marge gets thrills out of monotonous activities such as household chores and evening walks (of which she tends to prefer the dullest route). The family actually tend to find doing Marge's ideas of fun more unbearable than Homer or Bart's troublemaking.
• Informed Attractiveness: Marge was not designed with the intention of being attractive, and is in fact described as plain or even homely looking multiple times early on. However, as the writers became more aware of the Perverse Sexual Lust parts of their fan base had for her (and the Generic Cuteness of the art style making her not much different than other attractive characters), they turned her into a Dude Magnet who is way out of Homer's league, despite not altering her design at all.
• Insistent Terminology: She always refers to intimate times with Homer as "snuggling."
• Intimate Marks: In "Homer to the Max", Marge says she has a tattoo of Homer's name on her "You know". Implying it's on her lower back, an intimate spot, or a private area.
• It's All About Me: Something she shares with Lisa. While usually not intentionally out of selfishness, Marge often makes efforts to prevent her family from doing things they like because it might embarrass her. Then again, the embarrassment ranges from dressing like a child or drinking at a party to hitting the Queen of England and angering Australia.
  • She has also been known to plan events and family vacations that only cater to her interests and those are often dull and boring and she gets mad when the rest of the family want to do something else or they find a way to make it more interesting and fun
• I Can Change My Beloved: She stubbornly maintains that she's succeeded in improving Homer.
  Marge: Well, most women will tell you that you're a fool to think you can change a man. But those women are quitters!
• I Want Grandkids: Her greatest fear is dying without grandchildren. In "The Burns and the Bees", when Marge is asked what her greatest fear is, she instantly replies, "Never being a grandmother". Another episode has Marge, who believes she is about to be executed, despairing that she wouldn't see her children grow up and start their own families, etc.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's an enabling bore who can be abusive in her own way and have her moments of deep stupidity, but she's (usually) a loving wife, her children will fully admit to feeling safe around her, and holds up wonderfully after having a very emotionally abusive childhood.
• The Killjoy: Depending on the Writer she can go from simply just being too cautious to do something to outright refusing to let anyone else enjoy something if she doesn't, and forcing everyone to go along with her. As early as season 5, the whole town knows that if anyone's going to have an objection to an idea that everyone else is onboard with, it'll probably be Marge.
• Knight Templar: Slips into this in some episodes when she goes too far to keep the family's life normal. A few episodes with the other family members questioning religion, for example, has her almost rival Ned in her zealotry.
• Laughing at Your Own Jokes: She does this occasionally. She gives her best one liners when no one's around.
• Leg Focus: When she and Homer get "frisky". This is explicitly mentioned by Lenny in one episode.
  Lenny: She's got legs from here to yah-yah!
• Letting Her Hair Down: Her motherly appearance comes primarily from her Beehive Hairdo making her look much older than she is. Whenever her hairstyle changes due to being wet, wearing a hat or otherwise trying a new look it is connected with her fanservice being ramped up.
• Limited Wardrobe: Her standard outfit is a strapless green dress with a pearl necklace. On some occasions she wears a green jacket when going out for the evening. When a thief came into town he removed her necklace, showing indentations in her skin. She later revealed to have a lot of replica pearl necklaces, each one being a family heirloom.
• Literal-Minded: Marge has shown multiple times to have a poor recognition of sarcasm and is sometimes literal-minded towards jokes.
  • When Bart makes a joke about Homer's weight disrupting satellites, she still believes it to be true despite Homer telling her it was a joke.
  • Another example would be Marge becoming confused when Bart tells her that he was being sarcastic when he sarcastically clapped in celebration of Lisa's promotion to school president.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Her marriage to Homer is what stops him from crossing a line. Homer loves Marge so much that he's willing to let many people (such as Patty and Selma) speak to him with such cruelty and callousness. It's fair to say that without Marge's support in Homer's life, he would become a Villain Protagonist due to his abusive behavior towards Bart, alcoholism, negligence of Maggie and poor connection with Lisa despite his unconquerable love for all of his children.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Her possessiveness of Homer can lead her to become paranoid and a court actually finds her "insane". She suspects any woman who gets along well with Homer is actually trying to steal him away from her. She threatens to hurt Lurleen, is glad that Mindy lost her job, attempts to get rid of Julia (not the yandere one), and tries to kill Becky because she believes she is trying to take her place in the Simpson's family (although in the last case she was right). Marge can be downright terrifying.
• Love Martyr: Marge has put up with a lot in order to remain married to Homer and even defended him to others as an essentially good man. How much he rewards her effort depends on the era.
• Loving Parent, Cruel Parent: Downplayed. While both she and Homer are usually portrayed as ultimately loving parents, Marge is usually portrayed as the kinder of the two, lacking Homer's tendency to strangle Bart. She's also consistent, even in flaws, while Homer's being a giant kid can cause major issues.
• Lust Object: Marge has gained attention from a majority of male characters like Moe, Mr. Burns and a number of celebrities. It probably helps that she's a housewife with a beehive hairdo that regularly wears a strapless dress.
• Mama Bear: Any attack against her children, even though her son is a well-known troublemaker; Marge will go on the war path... even if you’re part of the 99 percent of Springfield. Don’t mess with the Simpson children in general. It also helps to know this same rules applies to Homer... most of the time.
• Marital Rape License: She overpowers and rapes Homer in "Strong Arms of the Ma", and it's Played for Laughs, with occasional call backs showing she thinks she didn't do anything wrong.
• Master of the Mixed Message: Marge is this to pretty much everyone. She presents herself as an overworked and under-appreciated housewife and mother despite repeatedly showing that she gets thrills out of monotonous activities such as household chores. She also becomes incredibly neurotic whenever she gets a chance to relax as seen in "Regarding Margie".
• Meaningful Name: The name Marjorie means "pearl", which shows how valuable she is to the family, and also why she values her antique heirloom pearl necklace so much.
• AM/FM Characterization: Her favorite singer is Tom Jones.
• Misplaced Retribution: When it's her turn to have a Jerkass Realization, she'll usually explain that her lashing out at her husband and kids even when she knows they haven't done anything wrong this time, is frustration building up from her loneliness, childhood trauma and all the shit they have done.
• Morality Pet: To the rest of the family. Whenever Bart, Lisa, and/or Homer did something too far, they'll know when their actions upsets Marge. Even Patty and Selma treat her better than the others, especially Selma.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy" has several moments showing Marge has an astounding body.
  • She becomes this in "Large Marge", in which she is accidentally given breast implants and becomes a model.
  • In "The Devil Wears Nada" after sexy pictures of her end up on a charity calendar.
  • Several of the Halloween specials have Fanservice scenes with her too.
  • In Real Life she appeared on Playboy posing semi-nude!
• Ms. Vice Girl: Marge is normally a loving wife and mother, but suffers from a gambling addiction, which can occasionally pop up every now and then. More commonly she is also something of a finicky wet blanket, often unwilling to break from her standard comfort zone, which can make her rather overbearing and humourless. It says something that as often as the kids feel more comfortable around Marge than Homer, they actually find the latter's antics more tolerable than her fussy moods.
• Mundane Object Amazement: Her dullness is often Played for Laughs. She gets excited over very mundane things, such as potatoes.
• Named by the Adaptation: It's easy to forget that she was unnamed in the Tracey Ullman shorts.
• Naughty by Night: Marge is both The Bore who gets excited by cleaning supplies, and a woman with a healthy sexual appetite. In "The Springfield Connection", when she puts cuffs on Homer, his initial reaction is to think sex games are happening.
• Nervous Wreck: The antics of her family sometimes drive her to nervous breakdowns.
• Never My Fault:
  • She regularly voices her grief about how dysfunctional the Simpsons are, despite being part of the problem. The fact she usually does very little when Homer strangles Bart says it all. It's even outright lampshaded in At Long Last, where Mayor Quimby notes how Marge's enabling makes her the "worst one".
  • Marge tends to blame herself most for situations that rely on Cant Get Away With Nothing, but if she's actually in the wrong, she can turn it around by Playing the Victim Card. Homer has done worse so she can do what she wants to him, Lisa likes her fads so Marge will put meat juice in her meals, Bart probably wants to be a little hellion so she can say I Have No Son!. Whether she realizes her mistake depends on the episode.
• Nice Girl: In the earlier seasons, she was, barring her moments of hypocrisy and nagging, one of the nicest characters in the series (albeit having flipped out a few instances) as she showed patience for the family and tried treating them what was best for Homer, Bart, Lisa and Maggie. However, this was all deconstructed later.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: She doesn't mean it, but she often scares the crap out of people around her.
• No Name Given: In the Tracey Ullman shorts, she has no name, being credited either as "Mom" or "Mrs. Simpson" throughout the series' run. She received the name "Marge" for the first season of the spinoff series, and even then, early drafts of "Homer's Odyssey" named her "Juliet" instead.
• Not Me This Time: A non-villainous example. When the town tries to legalize gambling, Mayor Quimby asks if anyone objects, and everyone turns to look at Marge, who's okay with it.
• Not So Above It All: A trait prominent since the early days. For example, when Homer starts a food fight with the Flanders, Marge (along with Lisa) hesitates for a moment before joining in with the same glee as Homer and Bart. During "Rosebud", when the family are discussing what to do with Bobo, it's Marge who suggests extorting Mr. Burns, defensively asking "well, why can't I be greedy once in a while?" During "The Old Man and the Lisa", she actually manages to get two pretty solid burns in on Burns in the space of a minute.
• Obsessively Organized: Extremely dedicated to keeping the house clean, and unlike most examples of this trope this genuinely does seem to be the result of some form of obsessive-compulsive disorder- as seen when she fixates on a single spot on the kitchen floor because she started having intrusive thoughts that the cleaners scheduled for later that day will view her with disgust.
• Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: She tends to lapse into this behavior whenever she embarks on one of her moral crusades:
  • "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge" has her protest the eponymous cartoon for being too violent after Maggie hits Homer over the head with a mallet, something that could’ve been prevented if Marge had simply kept Maggie from watching the show, or kept a closer watch on her to prevent her from doing so.
  • In "Bart After Dark", she deems the presence of the Maison Derriere as a blight on Springfield due to its “total lack of morals”, and tries to have it torn down.
  • In "The Great Wife Hope", she claims that no one should be allowed to enjoy kickboxing simply because she personally disapproves of it due its violence, and later pickets the event outside of the stadium.
• One True Love: "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer" reveals her to be Homer's soul mate, and there are more than enough episodes that show that they were made for each other.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: She's primarily called "Marge" by relatives and friends alike.
• Only Sane Woman: If Lisa ends up caught in the craziness — for example with the Movementarians — expect Marge to take over instead. In fact, the straight man role is usually traded between Lisa and Marge, with the latter holding it more frequently in early episodes and almost always when it comes to anything Homer does. However, there are times Marge's Wide-Eyed Idealist and Moral Guardian qualities make her just as hopelessly crazy as the rest of Springfield.
• Parental Substitute: Marge has often become a replacement mother for characters who have either been abandoned by their own parents, live in poverty or live in a household that lacks parental love. Examples of this include Nelson Muntz ("Sleeping with the Enemy") and Dwight ("I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"). It's also due to her motherly personality that she is unknowingly able to convince Simon ("Double, Double, Boy in Trouble") to stay with them after his troublesome first day of pretending to be Bart.
• Parenting the Husband: To Homer.
  Announcer: Attention, Marge Simpson: your son has been arrested.
  Announcer: Attention, Marge Simpson: we've also arrested your older, balder, fatter son.
• Pink Is Erotic: While trying to seduce Homer, she's known to wear a pink nightie or a pink dressing gown. When she modeled for Maxim magazine, she posed seductively while wearing a pink bandana. When she modeled for playboy, she parodied one of their previous models by wearing a pink see-through nightie while carrying doughnuts.
• Playing the Victim Card: She tends to do this a lot. This trait of hers was looked at in "Homer and her Sisters", as she secretly likes them fighting because she gets to play the long-suffering one and have them all dependent on her. That dynamic of theirs isn't down to her, as much as they would like it to be, but she doesn't help and is very glad that she doesn't have to look at her own flaws.
• Power Dynamics Kink: She admits power does “strange” things to her, and in “Homerland” when acting-weird Homer tops she’s delighted and calls him daddy. But she’s very happy to be the one in control, knowing how to tie a good knot and has cuffed him for fun before.
• Progressively Prettier: Although Marge's appearance hasn't changed, how attractive she is stated to be has changed from housewife to centerfold. Also present in the original The Tracey Ullman Show shorts. Marge started out as quite dumpy, but quickly began slimming down.
• Properly Paranoid: While Homer was oblivious to Lurleen's love, Marge is right in that she wants to sleep with him.
• Same Clothes, Different Year: Certain depictions of her as a kid have her wear a dress similar to her present-day one. They even resemble Lisa's dress, only green.
• Series Continuity Error:
  • During the episode "The Blue and the Gray" Marge is shocked to see gray hairs in her blue hair, even though it was established seasons before that her natural hair is gray and that she dyes it blue. Her hairstylist explains that her blue hair dye causes partial memory damage.
  • "Fear of Flying" established that Marge has (or had) a fear of flying, yet in the earlier episode "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington", Marge got on a plane with no problems.
  • "[1]" established that she genuinely loved being with Homer as young adults, with nothing to imply she was thinking of leaving him. Yet, "[2]" explains that she was originally planning to leave him until learning about Bart's conception.
• Ship Tease:
  • With Ned Flanders sometimes, but it doesn't go anywhere because she loves Homer. Occasionally she entertains the thought of having both of them.
  • It's sometimes implied that she has a crush on Homer's friend Lenny, even if she rarely interacts with him.
• Show Some Leg: Marge once distracted Chief Wiggum by flashing her (temporarily surgically enhanced) breasts. Which Krusty referred to as "Mugumbos". Which happened to be the control word for Stampy the Elephant.
• Sleeps in the Nude: There were several episodes in the early Seasons where she is shown to be sleeping in the nude instead of her nightwear, such as in "Burns Verkaufen Der Kraftwerk", "Colonel Homer", and "Bart's Inner Child". And this is without first having or preparing to have sex. ^note Though she did end up doing so in "Colonel Homer", though she didn't know he was coming, so it still counts.
• Stacy's Mom: Several young characters, such as Nelson and Milhouse, have admitted to finding her attractive.
  Bart: My mom wears earrings. Do you think she's cool?
  Milhouse: No, I think she's hot! ...Sorry, it just slipped out...
• Stepford Smiler:
  • From very early on. Marge mentions in "Moaning Lisa" that her mother always told her to smile, otherwise people would judge her, though Marge couldn't bring herself to make Lisa do this. She frequently refuses to talk about subjects she doesn't like (such as one of her uncles going on a shooting spree). Her long-suppressed fear of flying is not helped by Marge's utter refusal to admit there actually is a problem, even when it's causing her to become increasingly neurotic.
  • More pronounced in the middle seasons, although it's understandable considering everyone's increasing Jerkassness. Comes to the fore in The Simpsons Movie where she admits that she can't overlook Homer's jerkass qualities anymore and actually gets to the point where she decides to leave him. This immediately shakes Homer out of his jerkass bravado, making him realise what the hell he's done wrong and immediately begin to set about putting it right.
• Straight Man: Shares this role with Lisa, most of the time.
• Stronger Than They Look: She occasionally displays superhuman strength. She has been seen lifting Homer off the ground easily several times, including picking him up and throwing him through the bedroom door to show him that Moe taught her the bum's rush and swinging him around in a circle during a dance contest; she also once effortlessly tossed a motorcycle to Homer up a flight of stairs. She also knocked Snake out with a garbage can lid.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Looks the same as her mother when she was her age.
• Textile Work Is Feminine: Marge would often be seen sewing in the Tracey Ullman shorts, and would sometimes do it in the actual show.
• Thinks of Something Smart, Says Something Stupid: In "Simpsorama" (the Crossover with Futurama), Marge is introduced to Leela:
  Marge: [thinking] Oh, don't mention her eye. Don't mention her eye.
  Leela: [thinking] Don't mention her hair. Don't mention her hair.
  Marge: I (Eye)... am so pleased to meet you.
  Leela: Nice to be hair.
• Token Good Teammate: She's the only nice one of the Bouvier sisters. Patty and Selma are much more cynical than she is. In terms of her own family, she alternates this role with Lisa, with her more conventional approach often rendering her acceptable to Springfield where her daughter's Soapbox Sadie antics fall flat. In "At Long Last Leave," this ironically gets her exiled from Springfield with the rest of the Simpsons: because her palatability and sympathetic nature caused the town to tolerate the rest of the family far longer than they should have, she's declared the worst offender of the bunch.
• Token Religious Teammate: She is easily the most religious member of the family, as the others would likely not go to church if it wasn't for her.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: While she was always prone to Not So Above It All moments, later seasons crank these up to a point where she plays the Only Sane Man much less regularly.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Once Flanderization kicked in, she's gone through this as much as the rest of the cast. From approximately season 20 onwards, Marge has been depicted as much more petty and manipulative over her family, alternating between trying to live out her dreams through Lisa and passive-aggressively guilt-tripping any family member who dares to be more successful than her into giving up said passion for her sake. She also verges towards being straight-up abusive towards Homer on occasion, even when he hasn't done anything, all while being pretty quick to contemplate cheating on him herself.
• Troubled Abuser: Sometimes, after the first four seasons or so. It's to the point that Bart is glad that he gets physical abuse from Homer, instead of the psychological one Marge inflicts on Lisa. Like with Homer's abusiveness, a lot of this depends on the needs of the episode.
• Turn the Other Cheek: Marge often tries to forgive her wrongdoers and can often be too forgiving. Her sisters, Patty and Selma, are the best examples of this as she always forgives them for bullying her in the past and harassing Homer. With Sideshow Bob, it depends on the episode as she'll sometimes forgive him for trying to murder her son and other times, she'd jump to protect Bart from Bob.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Hot Wife to Homer's Ugly Guy. It does show that Homer was better looking when they were dating, and early episodes has Homer bemoan his weight gain. The episode "The Italian Bob" even seems to reference it; when the end of the episode shows Marge and Homer taking a romantic gondola ride, the gondolier providing his services for the evening puts his own spin on the song That's Amore, much to Homer's annoyance.
  Gondolier: ♪When a wife looks like that and her husband's so fat, that's immoral!♪
• Unnamed Parent: In the Tracey Ullman shorts, Homer and Marge were credited as "Mr/Mrs Simpson" or "Mom/Dad". While Homer is referred to by his final name in the shorts themselves, Marge's name wouldn't be mentioned until the series itself.
• Useless Bystander Parent: She provides the page image. Marge only ever offers token resistance when Homer abuses Bart, mainly in that she rarely steps in to stop Homer whenever he strangles Bart (or when Lisa joins in to strangle Bart herself, or just mock and belittle him in general); the most Marge does is acknowledge the abuse is happening and not actually doing anything to stop it. Occasionally veers into Honor Thy Abuser, even when Bart and/or Lisa is being mistreated by another kid or adult.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Homer has a tendency to pick up a Distress Ball, and Marge will always come to save him. For all his obliviousness and occasionally feeling emasculated, he makes sure to let her know he really is grateful for her constant (physical and emotional) rescue. In “Wedding For Disaster”, Bart and Lisa weaponise this trait to make Selma and Patty pay for the third Homer/Marge wedding.
• Vocal Dissonance: She's a tall and very beautiful woman in her 40s... with a raspy and croaky voice which makes her sound like she's in her 70s. This becomes more apparent after season 30, where Kavner's voice has grown even raspier with age, often making Marge sound like she's losing her voice.
• Vocal Evolution: Marge's voice has gotten increasingly gravellier and raspier as Julie Kavner has aged. By Season 30, Marge's voice has gotten deeper and frequently sounds like she's losing her voice.
• The Voiceless: In the episode "Krusty Gets Kancelled". She also never spoke in any Butterfinger commercials.
• Weakness Turns Her On: She gives plenty of healthy (despite many frustrations) reasons why she loves Homer: his big heart, how he loves everything he loves so much, funny and a lot of fun, the fact that he constantly tries, how ultimately he's the same "adorable boy I married". But she has to admit that she also loves how dependent and clingy he is to her. But luckily he apparently gets secretly turned on when she's a Control Freak.
• Wet Blanket Wife: Marge started off more as a Closer to Earth spouse for Homer, though she was eventually Flanderized into a more dull and neurotic character who tends to find the least enjoyable way of doing things the most acceptable. One episode lampshaded that Marge needs Homer's reckless antics for any excitement in her life, to the point where she ended up taking his place when a Jerkass Realization made him this trope instead. After the movie, he Took a Level in Kindness and she Grew a Spine, even if both were slow-going Character Development.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: It was not until season 19 we find out the color of Marge’s eyes. They are hazel. Homer even wrote a song about her called “Beautiful Eyes.”
• What Does She See in Him?: Frequently asked exactly why she stays with an insane, boorish drunken clod like Homer. Usually she's able to give an answer.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Flying, due to finding out her father was a stewardess as a child (and also because she never addressed the shame this caused her). Granted, her toy plane spontaneously combusting and getting shot at by a plane at that cornfield probably didn't help, either.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Marge naively believes in the best in people and often puts her faith in love conquering all. For example, she believes everyone should be married or in a relationship despite Lisa telling her that some people prefer to be single or alone.
• Women Are Wiser: While played straight for a long time, a lot of episodes deconstruct this one. Marge banks a lot of her self-esteem on being "the good one", but also resents the fact that she has to play stern mom to Homer's "fun dad", but she would rather have Homer's entertaining insanity than anything else.

The son and original protagonist of the show in its first couple seasons. Though the oldest child of the family, Bart is a self-professed hellion and mischief-making little punk, though not incapable of good things for the right reason.

• For tropes related to him, see here.

"Why do I get the feeling that one day I'll be describing this to a psychiatrist?"

The smart one and the middle child, Lisa is both a bookworm and something of the "hippie" of the family. Her intelligence, as seasons roll on, can sometimes make her into an annoying know-it-all. Has trouble fitting in with other kids her age.

• Academic Alpha Bitch: She prides herself on her intelligence and always coming top of the class with straight 'A's. One episode has her world collapsing when she gets her very first B; another deals with an even brighter girl joining her class and Lisa's utter jealousy of her, and another when she skipped a grade and was no longer the big fish in a small pond.
• Academic Athlete: Although generally portrayed as unathletic and disinterested in sports, she has demonstrated considerable talent in certain athletic activities such as ice hockey, soccer, lacrosse, and even gymnastics. She was even interested in joining a football team (although she mainly did this to break the norm for her own sake) only to find out that there are already girls on the team.
• Affectionate Nickname: Her brother Bart often calls her "Lis".
• Age-Inappropriate Dress: She's an 8-year-old wearing a strapless dress and pearls. She even lampshades it in "Puffless"; her substitute teacher in "Black-Eyed, Please" questions her about it.
  Mrs. Cantwell: What eight-year-old wears pearls?
• All Girls Like Ponies:
  • On her Christmas list, she listed "pony" over and over again. She finally got one in Season 3, "Lisa's Pony".
  • The moment she's at a country club, complaining about the snobs, and sees someone riding a horse. The predictable happens.
  • In "She of Little Faith", her family attempted to bribe her into converting back to Presbylutheranism by presenting her with a pony (but which is really Milhouse and Ralph pretending).
• All Girls Want Bad Boys:
  • She had a crush on Nelson once. While he gets nicer in the future, they still have an on-again off-again relationship.
  • She's implied to have a crush on Jimbo Jones.
  • Parodied in one episode where she reveals her crush on a boy who works at the library. His "bad boy" behavior is pretty much limited to being annoyed at people who confuse the juvenile and young adult sections.
    Lisa: Ooooh... if only someone could tame him...
  • Later she only becomes interested in Dogged Nice Guy Milhouse when he acts like Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire and is mean to her.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Depending on the episode, when the writers want to evidence her "misunderstood outcast" status for the sake of the plot. In "Lisa Goes Gaga", she is voted the least popular student of the entire school.
• All Take and No Give: A major flaw of Lisa's is that she believes that all her interpersonal relationships should be based solely around her own desires and worldviews, while the other party doesn't get the same consideration. Unsurprisingly, this is one of the main reasons she's unpopular with her peers.
• Aloof Big Sister: Played Straight with Maggie but inverted with her older brother, Bart. After his Flanderization, Homer is very open with his favoritism towards Lisa, his negligence towards Maggie, and his disproval of Bart. As such, Lisa often outshines her brother and sister through her intelligence and sometimes feels threatened when her siblings starts showing signs of being better than her.
• Always Second Best:
  • To Allison in the episode "Lisa's Rival" where Allison was slightly better than Lisa at everything, mostly slightly more knowledgeable and better on the sax.
  • Lisa's voice actress Yeardley Smith even remarked about how often Lisa would enter a contest and end up in second place; two notable examples are "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington" and "Lisa the Beauty Queen". Also when she entered a cruciverbalism (crosswords) contest, she went to the finals and lost to Gil. In the spelling bee episode, she also loses to another kid in the finals.
• Always Someone Better: A running gag. While definitely among the smartest in Springfield, Lisa is quite often overshadowed by various characters. At times, she can even be academically bested by Bart long after his Flanderization as a completely selfish idiot, such as in "Clown v. Board of Education".
  • Zigzagged with Bart, Depending on the Writer. At times, she secretly resents Bart for being Brilliant, but Lazy, street smart, and his other strengths. But, a season 27 episode that Bart been upstaged by Lisa since he was 6 and his resentment of her stems from his inability to be better than her at anything. Even in her earlier brattier days in the shorts, a running gag had Bart constantly bested by Lisa (and sometimes even Maggie) in his pranks and showboating.
  • To Martin Prince, her school rival in Science Fair. Even if Martin's IQ is 216 (Lisa's IQ is 156 or 159), she is often stated to be the smartest person in Springfield above him.
  • Maggie is clearly even more brilliant than Lisa at the same age, with Lisa more than once panicking at the idea of being usurped as the "smart one".
• Ambiguously Bi: While she does like boys and had different boyfriends throughout the series, episodes set in the future depict her as taking an interest in girls. In the couch gag of "Holidays of Future Passed", Lisa is seen with a girlfriend in one photo and two different girls in another. In "Mr. Lisa's Opus", Lisa's roommate seems to want to be "more than a friend", but we never learn if Lisa's interested. In the credits of "Mother and Child Reunion" when Lisa asked if any of the vision of the future is true, the oracle (Nate Silver) said, among other things, that Lisa will have 47% chance of a boyfriend and 72% chance of a girlfriend, Lisa is ecstatic about the odds (not at all bothered about the possibility of being a lesbian). In "No Loan Again, Naturally," when Bart misunderstands the phrase "family outing" and claims that Lisa is gay, she doesn't refute it, saying that it only makes sense she'd want to be gay as several of her idols are.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Bart usually finds her annoying, though it's more common for Bart to be the one annoying Lisa. Lisa also antagonizes her brother on purpose sometimes, even tattling on him from time to time in early seasons over something trivial.
• Author Avatar: To creator Matt Groening concerning certain viewpoints of his.
• Badass Bookworm: Depending on the Writer. Lisa is very intelligent and able to knock out her older brother.
• Badass Pacifist: She uses words, speeches, blackmail, and trickery to deal with her problems. Later, however, she becomes a lot more willing to resort to violence.
• Big Brother Worship: As a toddler, she absolutely adored Bart, to the point that her first word was her brother's name. The "worship" part went away over time, though she still loves her brother.
• Big Butt Blues: Lisa is shown to be embarrassed about having a big butt. In "$pringfield", while trying to figure out what state to go as for her school geography pageant, she didn't want to go as Nevada claiming it would make her "butt look big". In "Date with Density", while Lisa berates Nelson for his delinquency, he respond by stating that Lisa's "butt sticks out", self-conscious she denies it while turning around to look at her behind which Nelson kicks. In "Sleeping with the Enemy", when Lisa bends over to pick something up, the girls behind her tease her for having a big butt, due to the Simpson Gene.
• Big Fish in a Bigger Ocean: Lisa is Book Smart, but as she finds out the hard way by going up a grade, she's completely out of her depth regarding much harder schoolwork.
• Blue Means Smart One: Inverted; Lisa is (arguably) the smartest member of her family, but the only one whose character design does not include the colour blue (Homer's blue jeans, Marge's blue hair, Bart's blue shorts and shoes, Maggie's blue onesie and bow).
• Book Smart: She is a hardworking bookworm who excels academically.
• Borrowed Catchphrase:
  • Like her mother and siblings, Lisa's said "D'oh" when she's frustrated or upset by something. She's borrowed some of her father's other catchphrases by imitating him drooling over his favorite foods with his tongue hanging out, yelled "woo hoo!" when she succeeded at something and growled "Why you little..." before strangling Bart once.
  • In a couple of episodes from the earlier seasons, she sometimes borrows her mother's "Hmmmmmm...". In "Rosebud", she even says it along with Marge.
• Boyish Short Hair: Lisa's signature spiky hairstyle doesn't even reach her chin, highlighting how she's the smartest of the family. On The Tracey Ullman Show and to a lesser extent in Season 1, she was a Bratty Half-Pint like Bart.
• Brain Bleach: In "Whiskey Business", Lisa seems to need some after seeing Moe in disturbingly tattered clothes. Thankfully, it looks like it's minimal:
  (Moe knocks at the door; Marge opens it and sees Moe in his ruined suit)
  Marge: Moe? What are you doing?
  Moe: Midge, uh, the suit got a little mussed up... But I gotta ask ya... Is it noticeable? (turns around and shows his butt)
  (Beat.)
  Marge: Thank God, the kids aren't here.
  Lisa: I was.
• Break the Cutie: Multiple times. One notable example is in "Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore" when Bart and Lisa form a close bond, before Bart ditches her for Milhouse, causing her to start crying.
• Bully Magnet: In the occasional episode where she is the target of bullying, has been the recipient of multiple reasons: because she is a nerd, because she doesn't follow the clique rules of other girl students, because she is not as pretty as the rest, because she's a blonde and the bully's initial assumption is that she is a Dumb Blonde, because she is a Soapbox Sadie and somebody got fed up with it... in one episode she even tries to discover what makes a bully constantly beat her up and she discovers that bullies are a Human Subspecies who have a natural drive to attack people who give off certain pheromones (like nerds).
• But Not Too Challenging: She often complains about the lack of educational challenges at school, but she doesn't take it well when she gets anything other than straight A's.
• Butt-Monkey: On occasion. Aside from Maggie, her family has become a bunch of idiots (with the exception of Marge, although she is frequently Not So Above It All in later seasons) and she gets bullied fairly often for being a nerd.
• Bystander Syndrome: In "Postcards From the Wedge", Bart tries to avoid studying and doing homework by driving a wedge between Homer and Marge but resorts to destroying the school when Homer and Marge decide to neglect him so that they can preserve their marriage. Lisa knew about what Bart was doing from the beginning, but chose to do nothing rather than telling her parents about what Bart is doing. This example borders on Accomplice by Inaction.
• Catchphrase: Lisa didn't have a catchphrase since the beginning of the show until she said "If anyone wants me, I'll be in my room.", which is said in the end of the episode "Bart Gets Famous". Lisa also said this in "Lisa the Vegetarian", "Grift of the Magi", and "Dude, Where's My Ranch?". She also frequently yells out a shrill "MOOOOMMMM!!!" in response to Bart's antics or "DAAAAAD!!!" whenever Homer says or does something stupid. And, of course, there is "Meh."
• Characterization Marches On:
  • Throughout the Ullman Shorts, she is a disrespectful troublemaker and not particularly bright, much like her brother. The writers originally conceived her and Bart as something of an interchangeable duo of bratty kids designed to drive Homer and Marge crazy. As Bart became the rascally Breakout Character, however, the writers believed having Lisa as a female version of Bart seemed redundant, so they rewrote her as a brainy, yet socially awkward girl. However. season 1 has a mix of her two characterizations. While still a bit of troublemaker and generally plays along with Bart's antics, she is shown to be the more mature one between her and Bart.
  • In the early episodes, she was a big fan of The Happy Little Elves, while Bart preferred to watch Krusty the Klown and The Itchy and Scratchy Show (along with horror movies and, in the episode where Homer steals cable TV, X-rated movies). Later episodes either show both of them being childish, both of them being mature or, in a lot of cases, Bart being the childish one and Lisa being the more mature one.
  • She was far less cynical when the show started and usually knew when to have a good time, even joining her family in their usual antics. Likewise, Lisa was much more emotional like a typical girl her age, even crying in "Bart vs. Thanksgiving" because Bart ran away from home. Nowadays, she'd likely never cry over Bart's disappearance in less than a day, nor be able to emotionally convince him to apologize for his misbehavior.
  • Her artistic side arguably dates back to the development of the show, since her saxophone solo is part of the opening credits. Another case of this would be her rebellion against her music teacher Mr. Largo. It's part of the opening credits, and is emphasized considerably in a couple early episodes. Later, not only did Lisa avoid conflict with her teachers to the point of becoming a grades-obsessed teacher's pet, but Mr. Largo has been Demoted to Extra (and in some cases, Put on a Bus).
  • Her attitude towards school evolved from being a teacher's pet (telling Janey that 'school is never pointless' in an early episode) to a more rebellious and disillusioned attitude towards teachers who don't return her enthusiasm for learning ('Do you remember when you lost passion for this job?' to multiple school staff in one episode). However, this is zig-zagged and often depends on the episode - she still behaves far better in class than Bart, and gets incredibly hung up on getting perfect grades. As a general rule, she wants to do well in school but is less of a sycophant towards authority figures than Martin Prince is.
  • Early episodes showed her being friends with other average girls in her class, liking ponies, and having small sleepovers at her house. The later episodes established her as a sad loner who is very disliked, constantly bullied for being "smart", a very self-righteous Granola Girl, and always trying to find friends outside her school and joins environmental groups and MENSA.
• Child Prodigy: She's eight years old and intelligent.
• The Chosen Wannabe: In "Gone Maggie Gone", Lisa believed she was part of a religious prophecy that would bring world peace, only to discover that the prophecy was about Maggie.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Not as much as Marge, but she's usually this when she interacts with her Bumbling Dad Homer. She's also the voice of reason for other characters as well.
• The Conscience: Tries hard to be this for other people, both in the family and outside of the family, often calling out others on their behavior.
• Cunning Linguist: She speaks Italian, with the help of Milhouse. She also seems to understand and know Swedish to a certain degree, as seen when Professor Frink won the Nobel Prize in "Treehouse of Horror XIV", however, this is only a non-canon source.
• Cute Bookworm: She just loves books, libraries and reading.
• Cutting the Knot: Averted; Lisa often overthinks situations or she forgets how young and naive she is. In "The Girl Who Slept Too Little". she gets scared of a nearby cemetery and develops problems with sleep. She doesn't realise until the end of the episode that she could have just bought a nightlight or closed the curtains.
• Daddy's Girl: Even after Homer was {{Flanderization: turned into a complete idiot who often embarrasses the family]], he's surprisingly nicer towards Lisa. In "Lisa's Wedding", she stops her own wedding because her British fiance was disgusted with her family (that, and he wasn't wearing her father's cufflinks. Which look like pigs.) Homer himself usually makes a bigger effort to support her compared to Bart or Maggie. He - not once, twice - sacrificed buying an air conditioner for his family to buy Lisa a new saxophone. Several times, she comes to realize this and loves him back, though like Bart, mostly enjoys him as a fun (if anxiety-inducing) big brother.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • Either she is the bright spot of the Simpson family and Springfield, or a self-righteous jerk who, despite her intelligence, can be as jerkish as the rest of the town.
  • Her emotional maturity and brilliance. While she had her flaws, it wasn't anything too serious for a girl her age. But as everyone got Flanderized, she also became quite a jackass.
  • Though she is never popular, just how unpopular she is varies from episode to episode. In some episodes, she hangs out with Janey Powell and some of the other girls but in other episodes she says she has no friends with even Janey teasing her.
  • Her intelligence can range from her being a Child Prodigy (159 IQ, being part of MENSA, etc.), having above-average intelligence for her age group (being a wise and intelligent kid, but with her flaws and defects), to only getting good grades because Springfield Elementary is a Sucky School with low standards (she struggles when she is moved to third grade).
  • Similarly, while they eventually settled on her being Buddhist, there was a time when Lisa could switch between a hard-nosed skeptic, Flanders v2.0, or a New Ager at the whim of the writing staff.
  • Her love for her family now varies as well. In some episodes, she does love her family despite how much they embarrass her or make her feel like an outcast. Whereas other times she's quick to abandon them for the greater good or for what she deems is a better life.
  • Whether or not she averts A Mistake Is Born: While Bart and Maggie were very much unplanned, the series flip flops over whether Marge and Homer actually intended to have her or if she was merely the only Surprise Pregnancy they were HAPPY about.
  • Her physical aptitude. Several episodes show her utterly failing gym class, and being far less physically fit than Bart, especially when they both enrolled in a military school. Yet, on other occasions, she has proven to be the stronger sibling, punching Bart out with one blow.
• Descent into Addiction: Whether it's second-hand smoke, calling the Corey hotline, expanding her mypod playlist, or collecting pins, Lisa has an addictive personality and usually needs Bart or Homer's help to bail her out.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Lisa started out more or less as a Distaff Counterpart of Bart (though, unlike Bart, she had a smart side and felt like an outcast compared to the other students). In "Krusty Gets Busted", we get the first evidence of the smart Lisa that we all know, as she agrees to help Bart clear Krusty's name.
• Does Not Like Men: Downplayed. In See Homer Run, the school authorities believe that Lisa has a development disorder that will make her hate men for the rest of her life if Homer doesn't start acting like a father to her. While Lisa is known to be more aggressive to men, it's either because she and Homer have fallen out or it's because she's trying to prove herself to other feminists. When she's acting independently on her beliefs, Lisa believes women can take responsibility for themselves and the worst thing she'll say about men is that women can save themselves.
• Driven by Envy: It's common for Lisa to feel threatened when someone appears to be smarter than her. In "Smart & Smarter" she developed a one-sided rivalry with Maggie when the latter's IQ test stated that she was smarter than her. In "Lisa's Rival", she has Alison's project sabotaged by Bart because she felt outshined by her classmate. She also tends to get jealous of Bart from time to time, especially when he actually outshines her academically.
• Dude Magnet: Despite being a social outcast and generally unpopular, multiple boys have had a crush on her, including Milhouse, Ralph, Nelson, and many One-Shot Character love interests.
• Dumb Blonde: Inverted. Lisa is a blonde but is the smartest one in the family and one of the smartest in Springfield.
• Enraged by Idiocy: Lisa is like this sometimes.
  Lisa: (to Homer) You, sir, are a baboon! BABOON, BABOON, BABOON!!!
• Even Nerds Have Standards: Lisa may be a classic nerd in a way but she has standards.
  • She can't stand pöpli.
  • She laughed at Bart for having a stamp collection.
  • She fakes having food poisoning to get out of Martin Prince's educational-themed birthday party in "Grade School Confidential".
• Family Theme Naming: With her paternal grandmother, Mona Simpson. Together, their names create "Mona Lisa".
• Fatal Flaw: Pride, Envy, and self-righteousness.
  • Pride: Lisa champions herself as the smartest in the family and the source of morals, so when she thinks her position is threatened by someone smarter than she is or she falls into jealousy, she quickly tries to reassert herself by sabotaging her rivals.
    • In Girly Edition, Lisa feels threatened and jealous when Bart becomes a more respected news anchor than her and she orchestrates an ambush between Bart and Groundskeeper Willie as punishment.
    • In Lisa's Rival, she sabotages Allison's diorama because she felt Allison was usurping her and wanted to keep her position as the smartest kid in school.
  • Self-righteousness: If Lisa believes she's in the right then she'll assume that she knows better than everyone else and act on her beliefs, no matter how complex the situation actually is or how everyone benefits from the fault.
    • In Pranksta Rap, Lisa figures out Bart faked his kidnapping to attend a rap concert and shames Bart, Homer, and everyone else for knowingly going along with the lie because everyone benefitted from it (Wiggum gained a promotion, Kirk gets well-fed and has fangirls, Homer profits off of merchandise, and nobody got hurt from the lie).
    • In "Lisa Gets An A" Lisa cheats on her literacy test and gets an A+++. Even though her cheating would benefit everyone in the school, she ultimately confesses her guilt from cheating and that the school was using funds they didn't earn.
• First Kiss: A few episodes will toy with this concept for Lisa. For instance, when Nelson gave her a "Shut Up" Kiss, Lisa stated that it was her first kiss, despite being kissed by another boy in "Bart The General".
• Flanderization:
  • She started out as a decent little girl^note Well, she started out as Bart in a dress in The Tracey Ullman Show shorts, but most of her brattiness gradually died down as The Simpsons became a show in its own right, with the main vestige of that part of her nature that was retained being her enjoyment of Bart's prank calls to Moe who acted as the family's voice of reason, alongside Marge. As seasons went by, she became Little Miss Perfect: her largest vice, her envy, was ramped up to the point she was unable to accept when someone in her family/friend group was better than her at any given activity. Her sardonic view of society as uncultured, phony, pandering, and lowest-common-denominator-focused became extreme intellectual superiority and being Holier than Thou (as seen in "They Saved Lisa's Brain") and her quirkiness and nerdy interests became patronizing enthusiasm for the most pretentious of vocations (as seen in "Elementary School Musical" and "The Day The Earth Stood Cool"). She went from being a model child and the voice of reason (and therefore, Bart's contrast) to a stuck-up genius prude.
  • Lisa wasn't that brilliant or mature in the early episodes (for example, she believes in Santa Claus), but she was clearly quite an achiever for her age. However, over time, her intelligence was taken up to eleven, with her doing things like trigonometry while still in second grade and understanding fractions in a flashback to when she was three years old.
  • Every season progressively escalated her Soapbox Sadieness higher and higher. She started complaining about anything and everything that didn't meet such standards, her strong progressive streak became activist tendencies (as seen in "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy," when she protested against the Talking Malibu Stacy's misogynist phrases like "Thinking too much gives you wrinkles" and "My name is Stacy, but you can call me ((Wolf Whistle)), then full-out environmental and uber-liberal extremism (as seen in "Lisa the Vegetarian," "The Old Man and the Lisa," and "Lisa the Treehugger").
  • While she had some friends in the early seasons, including Janey, who was the closest she had to a best friend, the Lisa of later seasons has become a friendless outcast due to the Flanderizations mentioned above. This is especially true in the episode "Lisa Goes Gaga", where she is voted Springfield Elementary's least popular student.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Bart and Lisa are among the most extreme and well-known examples. Bart is a Book Dumb mischievous troublemaker (Foolish) while Lisa is very studious, well-behaved, and respectful (Responsible).
• Friendless Background: Glaringly enough Depending on the Writer. Some episodes have her spend time with one or a bunch of them, but then the next she's so incredibly neglected by her peers with the excuse she's too smart for them.
• Friend to All Living Things: Given her activism streak and environmental appreciation, it's no secret that she has a tendency to befriend animals, mammals, and even insects for an episode. This extends to one of the show's promotional images, which depicts her balancing a caterpillar on her finger. The whole reason she became a vegetarian was because she bonded with an adorable little lamb at a petting zoo.
• Funny Conception Story: "3 Scenes Plus a Tag From a Marriage" reveals she was conceived on the fire escape in Homer and Marge's first apartment, this being the only place they could go to avoid waking up Bart.
• Future Loser: Much like Bart, she can be depicted as this in certain episodes. Notably, at worst, future Lisa is shown stuck in an unhappy marriage with Milhouse, comedically being more attracted to him when he was bitten by a zombie.
• Generic Cuteness: She has some insecurities about her appearance and sometimes the other girls mock her for the same thing, but given the art style it is difficult to convey her as being any more or less attractive than the other girls on the show. Given the episodes that bring this up also discuss the issues with unrealistic beauty standards, it can be justified.
• Genius Bruiser: As Clobber Girl, she keeps her genius intellect and gains Super-Strength.
• Genius Burnout: She is academically gifted and has aspirations towards attending elite universities, but it can waiver. Flash Forward episodes waffle back and forth between her attending college in England, being President of the United States, or married to Milhouse while still living in Springfield. In "Future Drama" specifically, Bart accidentally messes up her college admission and makes things right so that she doesn't have to marry Milhouse.
• Go-Getter Girl: Lisa goes back and forth between being this and acting like a normal girl.
• Granola Girl: Starting in season seven's "Lisa the Vegetarian." She feels guilty about eating meat after bonding with a lamb at a petting zoo, which leads to her becoming first a vegetarian, and then an ecological activist over the series.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Lisa's main flaw is that she's quick to jealousy whenever she feels outshined or when she believes her title as the smartest kid in school is threatened. In "Smart and Smarter", she runs away from home because she felt Maggie would do better without her around.
• Guile Heroine: She's extremely clever and perfectly able to outsmart and manipulate her enemies like Mr. Burns.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She is blonde, and before Flanderization took over she was a very respectful and considerate person most of the time. Post-Flanderization, it's Depending on the Writer.
• Hated by All: Zig-zagged; A recurring theme with episodes based on Lisa running for leadership always ends with Lisa losing the vote because of her low popularity. In "The Kid Is All Right", Milhouse tells her some of the kids do agree with her ideas, they just don't like her. Several adults are also annoyed by her piousness, sometimes ignoring her entirely. However, in a potential future, Lisa is able to become president and was shown to be a reasonable, successful figure.
• Heel Realization: She has a tendency to be selfish about what she wants and judgmental about the intellectual quality of her family, but comes to realize how ungrateful she can be. In one episode she realized that while Homer sometimes takes her on outings she isn't that interested in, he still is trying to spend time with her. Likewise, Homer will take her to things she loves and he doesn't, while she acts embarrassed to be with him.
• Holier than Thou: At times due to her Soapbox Sadie traits. The "a girl wants to play football" scene from Bart Star is a great example. She initially demands a place in the football team because it's male dominated. Ned welcomes her and points out that there are several girls already on the team. She loses interest, making it clear she was just pushing for affirmative action for the sake of it, and then tries to shame them for using balls she think are made out of pig skin to make herself look good, only to be told that their balls are synthetic and some of the money they pay for the balls is going to charity.
• Honor Before Reason: Lisa is willing to bend the rules, but only if she comes to that conclusion by herself. If someone tells her to lie, cheat, or even just conceal the truth, she will refuse, even if lying, cheating or concealing the truth would be to everyone's advantage. Part of it comes from her being a 8-year-old child as well as flanderization.
• Hypocrite: More often than the other family members, Lisa tends to become this, changing her stance on a cause in the very same episode. She claims she wants to be challenged, but whenever she finds herself challenged becomes sulky and resentful.
  • A prime example of this would be "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson"; she spends much of the episode complaining how she feels "unchallenged" at school (and seems to look down on the other kids because of her "intellect"), she then sees military school as the way forward. However, when she is rejected by the boys and made to really be challenged (not just mentally but physically), she's completely incapable of living up to it. When Bart calls her out on this, she outright claims she wanted a challenge she knew she could do, not one she could actually fail at, which completely negates the concept of a challenge in the first place.
  • Once after she cheated to gain a perfect score in a test, the school was awarded extra funding to buy some basics. But even after she confessed to Skinner and he requested she keep quiet for the school's sake, she confessed to the School Inspector, which ultimately would sabotage her fellow students' learning - regardless, her conscience was wiped clean. It's even more hypocritical on her when she sabotages anyone who has the Always Someone Better situation just to keep herself as the best.
  • One episode has her buying gifts for her whole family to enjoy for Christmas, but rather than buy them gifts they'd actually want, she buys them the type of gifts that make her feel like a better person, so of course none of them like them. She becomes angry at their "ungratefulness", but thankfully Bart sees through her true intentions and soon calls her out on it; she quickly remedies it after though.
  • When Todd Flanders has a crisis in faith, Lisa gives him a thumbs up after he tells the First Church of Springfield congregation he doesn't believe in God anymore. Lisa then tries to convert Todd to Buddhism, and he calls her out on it.
  • She and the narrative treat Sherri and Terri in particular as awful jerks for shunning her for being different or only pretending to like her. However, she often thinks very little of them herself even when trying to approach them. She will also happily shun Ralph for being too different, and usually cares very little when Nelson and his fellow bullies pick on Bart and the other boys, even encouraging the bullies at times.
• I Can Change My Beloved:
  • In "Lisa's Date With Density", she falls for Nelson, gushing out how dark and mysterious he is and insisting that only she can change him. Subverted when Lisa comes to realize that she could never change Nelson.
  • In "Lucas", she inexplicably falls for a hopeless boy who wants to be a competitive eater (despite Bart's warning that he's just "Ralph Wiggum with a dream") and then thinks about changing him. Marge fears that Lisa goes out with him because he reminds her of her father.
• I Can't Dance: She can do jazz dancing (as seen in "Lisa the Beauty Queen"), but she's terrible at tap and ballet (as seen in "Last Tap Dance in Springfield" and "Smoke on the Daughter").
• Idiot Ball:
  • A surprising number of examples, like running up hundreds of dollars in charges to a 900 number, spending the time she should have been studying for a test playing a video game (and then cheating to pass it), and downloading $1,200 of music on her MyPod. Then there's "Lisa The Simpson", where she's led to believe that she's biologically predisposed to be like this (and finds out in the end that it's actually Bart's cross to bear).
  • Played for Laughs in "Bart of Darkness"; the Simpsons get a pool, and Lisa gains popularity among the kids of Springfield, causing her brain to leave her and Lisa to speak in a Simpleton Voice. Her brains come back when everyone leaves for Martin's pool on the other side of town.
• I Just Want to Be Special: She's a child academic with a bright future ahead of her and she feels like she's a victim of circumstance due to her family's poor income and lack of shared interests. She aspires to be around people who share her interests and she wants to be in a school where she feels challenged. She can be selfish about it, but she (at times) wouldn't sacrifice someone else's wellbeing for her own benefit. For instance, she immediately quit an upper-class school after she found out that she only got into it because Marge offered to do their laundry in exchange for her enrollment.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: While in some episodes, she does have friends, she is sometimes portrayed as a lonely outcast Depending on the Writer and this trope provides the plot of several episodes.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Lisa Simpson’s Fatal Flaw is that she defines herself by being smarter then others and due to flanderization this aspect of her has only gotten worse throughout the years. Lisa has done things such as willingly staying a Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond, to completely alienating her fellow student (by being a Soapbox Sadie to those who don’t share her interest and an Insufferable Genius to those that do). At her worse, Lisa will flat out sabotage others out of jealousy. While she will usually feel sorry for her actions it’s only after she gets what she wants.
• Informed Deformity: On several occasions it has been stated that Lisa has a large backside, despite her body shape resembling most other Springfield kids.
• Informed Loner: She's supposed to be a lonely outsider. However, she occasionally hangs out with average girls of her class and has no problem getting along with her schoolmates, unless the plot wants her to be unpopular. And for all her unpopularity, many boys have shown interest in her, and she also gains popularity easily over the course of many storylines, often becoming praised and loved by many people.
• Innocent Prodigy: Usually rather level headed and one of the most intelligent people in Springfield. However her brattiness and childlike naive perks up many times, especially where her Sibling Rivalry with Bart is involved.
• Insufferable Genius: At her worst. She longs to be challenged, but it's clear she enjoys feeling smarter than her peers.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Played straight sometimes. In earlier seasons Lisa had a best friend called Janey and had quite a lot of friends, but they got pushed aside and forgotten. The latest episodes show some of those friends, Janey included, but they tend to push Lisa away whenever she shows her smarts.
• Introverted Cat Person: Aside from early seasons, Lisa is usually presented as a friendless loner. She has a fondness for cats and is the closest to Snowball II (disregarding "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot").
• It's All About Me:
  • Just like Bart, Lisa shows many signs of this trope. She defines herself by being better then others, to the point where many of her worst moments are more about proving that she's right than proving her point.
  • One example of this comes from the episode "Gone Abie Gone", Lisa gains $413,762 through gambling but loses the money. When Bart tells her that he was the user who won Lisa's money, Lisa immediately claimed ownership and thought that she would use the money to go to college and then use the rest of the money to live like a queen.
• Jerkass Ball: She's prone to this, usually when she tries to force her own personal beliefs on everyone else.
• Jerkass Has a Point: A common thing. While she isn't always pleasant, Lisa's points do make sense quite often, especially since a lot of people around her tend to act like utter morons.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Post-flanderization, she tends to fall under this trope. She's generally kindhearted and well-behaved, but has a nasty tendency to push her beliefs into other people's throats, change her point of view at the drop of a hat in order to look cool, and break down when she realizes someone in her family is better than her in a given activity. At the very least, however, she'll often own up to her faults in the end.
• Karma Houdini: In her earlier days, she was essentially a female Bart, but shrewder in her mischief, so had a much greater tendency to go unpunished than her brother. Allegedly, the creative team were stated to be dead against the suggestion of Homer violently disciplining Lisa in the same way he does Bart.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: She's usually portrayed as the "nice one" of the Simpson kids and she's a big cat fan. She is the primary caretaker of Snowball II, at least when the writers are nice to the poor feline.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All:
  • The Trope Namer. Though Lisa is very smart and knows stuff people don't already know, Homer and Lisa's argument at the dinner table in "Lisa the Vegetarian" has Homer calling his daughter a "barbecue-wrecking, know-nothing, know-it-all". She does have a moment of this in "Money BART". When Lisa becomes the manager of Bart's baseball team, she claims that there have been several women managers and lists some off like Terry Francona and Connie Mack. Nelson tells her that all of her examples are men, much to Lisa's shock. At times, Lisa skirts this trope in the sense of having the knowledge and not knowing how it applies in a more practical sense.
  • Several episodes also highlight that for all her intelligence, she's actually not as smart as she might think. For example, in Bart Vs. Lisa Vs. The Third Grade, she aces a test and is bumped up to third grade. However, once she enters third grade, the environment is a little different and what they are taught is slightly more complex compared to second grade. One would think Lisa would have no issue with a minor change like this, but she completely crumbles and welcomes going back to being "a big fish in a small pond" simply to make herself feel like the smartest one in the room again.
• Lady And A Scholar: She's a very intelligent child who is more well-spoken and philosophical than the other kids. Despite a few Insufferable Genius moments and her Sibling Rivalry with Bart, she is mostly polite, pleasant, and friendly to everyone.
• Lady Macbeth:
  • In "The Spy Who Learned Me", she helped Nelson gain a great physical condition, but didn't stop him from hurting innocent kids, only commenting that "He's hard on the nerds but easy on the eyes".
  • In "Dial 'N' for Nerder" she pressures Bart to prevent him from confessing about the murder and tried to offer herself as Nelson's girlfriend to prevent him from revealing her confession.
• The Lancer: To Bart, whenever they take on Sideshow Bob.
• Like Parent, Like Child: Lisa gets her morals from Marge. In some of the earlier episodes, she also has a tendency to say "Hmmmmmm..." like her. In "Marge the Meanie", she says she gets her kind heart from Homer, despite them worrying on several occasions they have nothing in common. Many other episodes show that several of Lisa's talents actually come from Homer, who is Brilliant, but Lazy.
• Like Parent, Unlike Child: Despite her being his favorite child, Lisa and Homer share very little in common. One episode has him worry about this, not helped by his bar buddies suggesting she might not even be his, but she reassures that she got his kindness and protectiveness of his family.
• Limited Wardrobe: Always wears an orange dress with pearls. In one episode she decides to trade her pearls to get a rare Olympic Games pin to complete a collection, which was a big deal as she considered it part of her identity.
• Little Miss Badass: Sometimes, when she isn't being the butt of a joke or damsel in distress. She's a natural Guile Heroine despite her young age. And physically, Lisa one-hit KO'd Bart in an MMA ring and she also connects a gloriously animated punch on Bart in the movie.
• Little Miss Snarker: Her snark is her defense mechanism amidst her dysfunctional family. She's the smart one and educated one among the uncultured and the others are boorish or stupid. Her mother alternates between being like the others or a sophisticated, artistic woman.
• Magic Skirt: Lisa's trademark red sundress; especially egregious as it's a dress with no waist, which should logically fall all the way down to her shoulders whenever she's upside down.
• Mature Younger Sibling: Lisa is much smarter and wiser than her ten-year-old brother Bart, often warning him against bad ideas and such forth. In fact, in "My Sister, My Sitter", when the parents are out, she babysits him rather than the other way around.
• AM/FM Characterization: She's generally depicted as being a fan of Jazz and Blues (her saxophone playing is also one of the most memorable things about her character), with an exception in the episode "Panic on the Streets of Springfield" where she got really into an expy of Morrissey.
• Middle Child Syndrome: She often has trouble fitting in with her family, and they often have trouble understanding her. Several episodes explore this dynamic in detail.
• Morality Chain: Like Marge, Lisa often plays the conscience for the family and often becomes a morality pet for people outside of the family.
• Morality Pet: Among the three kids, she is the one Homer is shown making the most effort to be a good father to. In addition, if anyone, even his wife, somehow hurts her in some way, he gets intensely angry. It is implied that Lisa was neglected by Homer as a baby, when Homer observes some old videos of him completely ignoring her early talents, he is driven to tears in guilt.
• Mouthy Kid: Her intelligent comments earn her the ire of the rest of Springfield's citizens.
• Ms. Exposition:
  Lisa: Dad! The flash [of the camera] must have scrambled [the robots'] circuits!
  Homer: What are you, the narrator?
  Lisa: Aah, just keep taking pictures.
• Ms. Imagination: Lisa occasionally drifts off into a fantasy world to avoid the grim reality of living life in Springfield.
• Ms. Vice Girl: Lisa is intellectually gifted, philosophical and compassionate, and all at the age of eight years old. Perhaps because of the awareness of her gifts however, she can sometimes be incredibly egomaniacal and self righteous, with an over insistence on being the center of attention and pushing her beliefs down others' throats, and often insensitively dismissing others as stupider or less significant than her.
• Nerds Love Tough Schoolwork: From time to time. In one episode the school has to shut down, and by the time Lisa gets home she is hysterical due to withdrawal. She immediately takes out an emergency kit she keeps under the couch, which contains a picture of Springfield Elementary and a tape recording of a teacher yelling at students.
• Nerdy Bully: Zig-zagged. Due to All of the Other Reindeer Lisa repeatedly flip flops from Bully Magnet to Academic Alpha Bitch Depending on the Writer.
• Never My Fault: She often bemoans her unpopular status at school. Considering how often she can be arrogant, selfish, and/or a Principles Zealot, it's not hard to see why other kids don't like her. Episodes like The Spy Who Learned Me showcase this best, with Lisa causing Nelson to become an even bigger bully and yet, showing zero empathy for his victims.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Ironically, despite being the voice of reason, every time Homer gets into a position of power, once he takes advice from Lisa, it usually ends up meaning that things go horribly wrong and everyone jumps ship. Then again, the people working underneath Homer tend to be idiots who don't want things to change, the prime example being the Stonecutters.
• No Accounting for Taste: It says a lot that her best future choice is Nelson. She’s married to Hubert at some point who is a jerk, and Milhouse who is a pathetic Stalker with a Crush, and she was happy in neither. She also nearly gets married to Hugh who wants her to never see her family again, and a Hair-Trigger Temper game board guy who she promises is actually really sweet.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Every time Lisa finds herself in a classroom setting other than Miss Hoover's second grade class and is actually challenged by the teachers and coursework, she doesn't get the A's she's used to.
• Not So Above It All:
  • Though often priding herself on her intelligence and maturity, she is still a kid and enjoys some of the same things as Bart (such as Itchy & Scratchy or prank-calling Moe). Even with Bart's pranks, if she's not the first to scold them, she's likely the first to laugh at them. And as noted above, she is not above bending the rules completely.
  • Later episodes show Lisa daydreaming about murdering Bart, and she was all too willing to cover up the assumed, if accidental, murder of Martin Prince to stay out of trouble. To say nothing of episodes like "The Principal and the Pauper", where she doesn't care at all that the "real Seymour" had his life stolen (again) and forcibly kicked out of Springfield.
  • At the end of "Lisa The Simpson", Lisa loudly cheers with a "woo hoo!" that would have done Homer proud when she finally solves the kiddie puzzle that made her question if she was losing her intellect. She immediately corrects herself to say "splendid", but she's still enough of a Simpson to borrow several of her father's catchphrases. She uses "D'oh!" more often than you'd think she would.
• Onee-sama: She's Maggie's older sister and is a revered 8th grader for her high intellect.
• Only Sane Woman: She often finds herself thrust into the role of only sane girl. Quite often, when her family (or occasionally, the entire town) is caught up in some insane course of action, she's the one who points out how absurd things have become. Her comments are usually ignored. The straight man role is usually traded between Lisa and Marge. Sometimes Lisa is also caught up in the craziness, for example with the Movementarians.
• Ping Pong Naïveté: She switches between world-weary cynicism and childlike naiveté as the plot demands. In one instance, within seconds - she hurls a bucket of red paint at Krusty (who's wearing a coat made from some kind of animal skins), screams "Fur is murder!" then follows it with "When's the Krusty movie coming out?"
• Poor Communication Kills: Lisa often has trouble conveying her ambitions in a positive manner. In "Lisa Simpson, This Isn't Your Life", she decides to devote herself to her education after discovering Marge's childhood achievements before meeting Homer. She wanted to have a good future and improve her education, however, an offended Marge took this as "my mother is a failure because she chose to be a housewife".
• Proud to Be a Geek: Zigzagged. There are times where she doesn't feel that way and wants to be like everyone else, and others where she takes pride in her geekier aspects.
• Ridiculously Successful Future Self: It depends on the episode. At best, she either becomes a successful businesswoman or the President of the United States when she grows up. Her personal life however is mixed, with a strained relationship with her husband and daughter. "Mother and Child Reunion" has Marge asking if Homer and Bart will get along in the future, and they eventually will, but Marge and Lisa will also struggle.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Aside from minor issues, Lisa rarely compromises with her principles and never takes a bribe.
• Secret-Keeper: "A Milhouse Divided" implies Lisa is Homer's confidant for stuff he doesn't want Marge to know (or at least that he thinks Marge doesn't know about).
  Homer: There's a lot of stuff she doesn't know about!
  Lisa: You mean like your poker shack in the swamp?
  Homer: Yuh-huh.
  Lisa: She knows.
• Shed the Family Name: In one episode, Lisa is hustled out of winning a crossword puzzle competition. What's worse, Homer made a massive winning by betting against his own daughter. Seeing the evidence of this betrayal destroys Lisa's faith in her father to the point that she abandons the Simpson name for her mother's maiden name. By the end of the episode, Lisa and Homer reconcile and she returns to being Lisa Simpson.
• Signature Instrument: Her saxophone, of course. She's always seen playing it when she's feeling the blues or preparing for a gig. Interestingly, some of the background music involving her scenes will occasionally play a sax, even when her sax is not present.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Lisa is the school's outcast and takes pride in this and maintaining her intelligence which causes her to become envious and jealous towards anyone who outsmarts her. She also tends to look down on the other residents of Springfield, despite regularly being just as much as of a jackass as them in later seasons.
• Small Town Boredom: She's discontented with the quality of culture and general intelligence in Springfield and longs for more sophisticated surroundings.
• The Smart Girl: The smartest one in the family, and easily one of the smartest people in Springfield.
• Snap Back: Averted in "Lisa the Vegetarian." Originally, the writers wanted it to be a one-time, What If? thing and go back to normal the next episode. However, Paul McCartney (the episode's guest star), when originally asked to appear, would only appear if he was assured that the change would be permanent. Also averted in "Sleeping With the Enemy" when Lisa tells Homer that she still feels insecure about her body and she's not going to go back to acting like she's not. However, later episodes never again mention Lisa and her eating disorder.
• Soapbox Sadie: Became one of the most infamous examples after Flanderization.
  • In the "Bart Star" episode, her soapbox was deflated, as she tried to join the pee-wee football team. "That's right, a girl wants to join the team." After it was revealed that there were four girls already on the team, she tries to raise a fuss about the fact that footballs are made from pigskin. She then learns that the balls are synthetic and with each purchase, money is donated to Amnesty International. Unable to cope with not being on the moral high ground, she runs off crying.
  • Lisa also has a habit of jumping on a soapbox for boys - though she already has views on the subject she will amp them up to get boys to notice her.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: In "Mr. Lisa's Opus", when she's telling her dormmate her skills, she mentions that she speaks fluent cat, then makes subtitled cat noises.
• The Stool Pigeon:
  • She's pretty much this constantly, with many many plots throughout the seasons (as an example, "Lisa Gets an "A"") revolving about someone building a lie (and sometimes the plot showing that the lie is the better thing for everybody (even Lisa herself) and everybody saying so) and Lisa trying to tell the truth regardless. She thinks of herself as a Concerned Claire-type (in that she says it's the legal/moral thing to do), but what type she really is depends on the plot at hand (at least sometimes shows to be doing it out of some desire to thumb her nose up at the liar).
  • "Bart the Daredevil": Despite trying to convince Bart the dangers of daredevil stunts, Lance Murdock is instead impressed by Bart's interest in it, which causes Lisa to tell Homer about it, fearing that he may get hurt or die despite getting the most attention.
  • "Mypods and Boomsticks": She squeals on Bart after pulling a prank on Steve Mobbs and the rest of the consumers and employees.
• Straight Man: Lisa and Marge have the thankless task of playing foil to their entire town. In the early days, Lisa and Bart were a classic Straight Man and Wise Guy combo, and while this is still true, she often finds herself playing straight to almost everyone else in Springfield. Luckily, she is usually excellent at it. Occasionally, especially in later seasons, Lisa's more extreme personality traits will come to the fore and she gets to have someone else play off her for a change.
• Straw Feminist: Depends on the episode:
  • While Lisa is normally passive in her beliefs as she speaks of the achievements of women and voices her support for leading feminists. There are a few times when she's gotten unfairly irritated toward men (Homer in particular) and in one episode, she expresses disappointment toward her mother for choosing to forgo her education after meeting Homer.
    Lisa: Dad, put aside your selfish male ego and tell the truth!
  • Especially played straight in "Bart Star" where her feminism is Played for Laughs and only serves to make her look foolish in one scene. She smugly declares she wants to join the football team as a You Go, Girl! ("That's right. A girl wants to play football. How about that?") but after it's revealed that are already four girls on the team, she loses interest and claims that football is not her thing anyway.
• Straw Vegetarian: Depending on the Writer. "Lisa the Vegetarian," the episode which first saw her embracing vegetarianism, treated her perspective (and the pressure she was under to eat meat) with sympathy, while also leading her to the conclusion that she can't force her values on other people. She can still be overbearing about it from time to time.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Very much the same as her family members. She can go from being pathetically weak, to holding her own against Bart in a fight, to easily clobbering him and others when angry.
• Surrounded by Idiots: She actually once voiced that she lives in a town of idiots in an issue of the comic.
• Teacher's Pet: Her ego is often a result of her parents and school teachers putting her on a pedestal because of her intelligence and morals.
• Telepathy: She reads a worm's mind in "Lisa the Vegetarian". However, it is likely Psychological Projection, as the worm thinks exactly what she would imagine the worm to think, in exactly the bleating voice the lamb she ate for dinner used when pleading not to be eaten in the previous evening's Imagine Spot.
• To Be Lawful or Good: A frequent problem for her. A sweet moment in “Marge The Meanie” has her admit that she got morals from Marge and a good heart from Homer.
• Token Good Teammate: Excluding Maggie, Lisa and Marge are often more likely be this trope than Bart and Homer among the family. Case in point, she was the only Simpson who wanted to give Bobo to Burns without getting any money. And when the Simpsons fall asleep during church resulting in the apocalypse, she was the only one that God tried to bring into Heaven until Homer pulled her back down.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: In most Future Episodes, Maggie is usually a tough, laid-back tomboy and Lisa is usually a prim and proper girly girl.
• Too Clever by Half: In the first "Treehouse of Horror", Kang and Kodos abduct them in their flying saucer to live in luxury. Lisa snoops around the ship and finds a book titled "How to Cook Humans". Offended at the notion, the aliens blow some dust off the book's cover revealing the title to be "How to Cook For Humans". To which Lisa points out that there is still dust on the book, with the title now "How to Cook Forty Humans". Kang then demonstrate that there is yet still more dust on the book's cover, finally revealing the book's full title "How to Cook For Forty Humans" (the Simpsons were gluttons).
  Marge: Now you know what we mean when we say you're too smart for your own good?
• Took a Level in Jerkass: An unfortunate aspect of Lisa's Character Development over the seasons was her growing not only more "saintly", but also becoming full of herself, rude towards those she considered less than her, and pushy about her beliefs. In certain cases, she can be downright immoral at worst, such as in "Fan-ily Feud".
• Trademark Favorite Food: Despite being a vegetarian, she really loves shrimp.
• TV Genius: Zigzagged. Lisa does at very least have Insufferable Genius qualities and on occasion is rather blindly obnoxious and self serving in her ethics, to the point of being a Soapbox Sadie. In Lisa's defense, Flanderization is a strong factor for this, and she's still usually one of the most well-adjusted characters on the show.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: With Milhouse in some possible future. He grows up to be balding with a gut and Lisa grows up beautifully in episodes like "Holidays of Future Passed."
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: She'll grow up to look much better in her 40s then Homer will, as seen in episodes taking place in the future.
• Unbuilt Trope: By way of Characterization Marches On, her earlier depictions as a Child Prodigy show that, for as much of a prodigy as she may be, she's still a child with a limited understanding of the world. "Lisa's Pony" is a good example of this, where she indulges in her newfound hobby before realizing that Homer is working himself to exhaustion to support it. Also her activism is driven by a tortured conscience.
• Ungrateful Bitch: At her worst. Most notably towards Homer, especially given the number of times she tried to shut down the plant, which would leave Homer jobless and the entire family to starve.
• Unknown Rival:
  • Lisa fears and hates Sideshow Bob as much as Bart and has outgambitted him just as often. Despite this, Bob's psychotic vendetta sticks with just Bart (and sometimes Krusty and rakes on the side), even lampshading that he is utterly apathetic towards Lisa.
  • Turned around in one of the comics, where Cecil dedicates himself to ruining Lisa even though they'd had no prior interaction, simply because they were the less favored sibling.
• Virgin in a White Dress: In a Flash Forward episode where we see Lisa's wedding, she and Marge briefly discuss this as they are a church-going family.
  Lisa: Mom, I feel kind of funny wearing white. I mean... Milhouse.
  Marge: [dismissive] Oh, Milhouse doesn't count.
• Virtuous Vegetarianism: Lisa is both the most intelligent and idealistic member of the cast and has converted to vegetarianism. Originally her conversion was to teach An Aesop about accepting the differences of others, but since learning her lesson it's remained a part of her character ^note largely due to Paul McCartney, who guest starred in the episode as a vegetarian icon, stipulating that he would only appear if Lisa remained vegetarian going forward.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Being the Only Sane Woman and Child Prodigy genius she is, Lisa plays the Serious Child role to her Wacky Parent of a Bumbling Dad Homer.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Lisa will often resort to extreme methods for ideals and her methods are examined in some episodes.
  • In "Lisa the Vegetarian", she ruins Homer's barbeque because she was the only one who didn't like the idea of eating a roast pig. While Lisa believes herself to be in the right, her fellow vegetarians actually call her out on this. Rather than convince people to join her vegetarianism, she inspired the anti-vegetarian backlash since they didn't understand why she was so offended about a roast pig and she didn't explain why eating meat is wrong.
  • In "The Simpsons Game", she and Bart destroy a logging camp because she believed they should save the trees. However, once the pair do destroy the camp, they are confronted by a pair of loggers who are now out of work since they now lack the means to provide for their families and don't have the skills to find other means of work.
• White Sheep: Sometimes she's portrayed like this and is seen as Token Good Teammate of the family. In "Lisa's Wedding" her (future) boyfriend Hugh tells her "You're like a flower that grew out of a pot of dirt". She doesn't take it well.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Lisa was this in earlier seasons. She followed her ideals the best she could but the rest of Springfield either didn't understand her ideals or didn't want to conform to them. Her vegetarianism is the best example of this, she became a vegetarian because she became horrified and guilt-ridden for eating meat after playing with a lamb. She tried to convert her family, school and friends but they couldn't understand. She became aggressive with her views but eventually calmed down after Apu, Paul and Linda McCartney taught her that aggression won't get people to understand her views but patiently influencing them will slowly get them to understand her viewpoint.
• Wise Beyond Her Years: In fact, one episode had Mayor Quimby surprised that she's a child, saying that he always thought she was a midget—Lisa explains that she isn't and that the preferred term is "little person." When she was two, she was as articulate as any person, with only a few grammar errors. Believe it or not, this is actually Truth in Television- some two-year-olds can have conversations with you.
• Women Are Wiser: Compared to Bart, although they play this trope to a much lesser extent than their parents. Lisa is certainly much more intelligent and mature than Bart, but Bart is the more socially adept of the two and can rival or surpass her intellectually when he applies himself. She's also normally smarter than Homer and Abe, excluding her moments of grabbing the Idiot Ball.
• Worthy Opponent: After thwarting scheme after scheme with her ingenuity and sharp wit, Lisa has earned Sideshow Bob's respect as a worthy adversary.
• You're Not My Mother: "You're Not My Mother and Father". She did this to both of her parents when they really upset her (to Homer in "Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words", and to Marge in "How Lisa Got Her Marge Back"). Obviously, it won't stick, and she ends up forgiving them.

The youngest of the children. Typically a marginal figure, but she does get her share of scenes.

• Adhesive Bow Tie: She has a bow in her hair with no visible attachment.
• Adorably Precocious Child: Sometimes she is overly attached to Marge, but one episode based on trying to make her more independent worked TOO well, and she was able to watch her favorite shows and get snacks all by herself.
• Advertised Extra: As part of the main family, she appears in promotional illustrations and is featured prominently in the opening, however most of the time she is just a mute toddler who serves as a Living Prop to the point that the others (especially Homer) often forget about her existence. It can be argued that the show has four main characters instead of five (in contrast with Family Guy, where the baby is one of the most prominent protagonists).
• Ambiguously Evil: She occasionally shows violent behaviour such as shooting Mr Burns, shooting Fat Tony's gang and pushing a boulder onto Russ Cargill. However, in all of these cases, Maggie was hurting people who were evil themselves and so protecting her family, although it is presented in an ambiguous way, especially with Mr Burns.
• Anti-Hero: As demonstrated with her competence with firearms and the ending to "Master and Cadaver" where she channels Alex DeLarge.
• Arch-Enemy: Maggie's is Gerald, the baby with one eyebrow. The updated intro includes a brief scene where she and Gerald shake their fists at each other in the grocery store.
• Baby Fever Trigger: She inspired both the Nahasapeemapetilons and the Albertsons (though Comic Book Guy himself took some convincing from Kumiko) to try for kids.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Maggie is the youngest Simpson family member.
• Badass Adorable: She's saved Homer's life on four separate occasions and Moe's life on another, stopped a mob fight with only her innocent smile, and was the one who shot Mr. Burns.
• Berserk Button: Losing her pacifier. Often she'll cry, but "Crook and Ladder" from Season 18 shows that she will rampage if she's forcibly separated from her pacifier.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Despite being a quiet Cute Mute toddler, she has taken down a gang of mobsters, saved Homer from drowning, threatened to shank Mister Teeny with a broken bottle in the movie, and then later saved Homer and Bart from the head of the EPA when he was about to kill them. In one of the Treehouse of Horror episodes, she unleashes her pent-up rage and brains Marge with a shovel because she's sick of being read "Goodnight Moon". She isn't above hurting people when she needs to.
• Big Brother Worship: She usually gets along with Bart and likes to spend time with him. In "O Brother, Where Bart Thou", Maggie is excited to see him, and she is playful with him in the final moments of "The Yellow Badge Of Cowardge".
• Bows for Cuteness: As the youngest and (seemingly) most innocent member of the family, Maggie wears a little blue bow on her head.
• Brainy Baby: She's very smart for her age. She is quite possibly even more intelligent than the rest of the family, given how adept she is in general.
• Cain and Abel and Seth: Since Maggie is just an infant and under Marge's constant care, Bart and Lisa are able to take the spotlight from her and have their own adventures. Homer is often so preoccupied with work and drinking that he often forgets that Maggie even exists.
• Character Tic: She frequently trips over her onesie.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Most future episodes had Maggie being in a relationship with baby Gerald.
• The Chosen One: In "Gone Maggie Gone", she's revealed to be the gem child that is prophesied to bring peace to the world. Marge takes her from the throne due to parental instincts, but feels guilty and selfish for disrupting the prophecy.
• Creepy Child: On occasion, she'll dip into this territory, for example when she hit Homer with a mallet after watching The Itchy and Scratchy Show.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: In earlier seasons, Maggie tended to fall whenever she walked, likely because she hadn't completely mastered walking yet.
• Cute Mute: A series-long Running Gag is that she never speaks, at least not when anyone can hear her. Even in "Holidays of Future Passed", where she’s a famous lead singer in a rock band, she's forbidden from speaking due to being pregnant, as apparently the vocal cords and the umbilical cords have been proven to be connected.
• Daddy's Girl: Maggie's first spoken word throughout the series was "daddy". "And Maggie Makes Three" was very sweet when Homer was worried about having a third baby in the family, but the minute he saw her, she won his heart. Even more so since Maggie's been the only one who called him "daddy" as a baby instead of "Homer". In a future episode where Maggie has grown to be a teenager, she has a picture of herself with Homer above her bed.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • The shorts The Longest Daycare and Playdate With Destiny were shown in theatres before Ice Age: Continental Drift and Onward, respectively. They're perhaps the only pieces of Simpsons media that focus exclusively on Maggie. In The Longest Daycare, Marge only appears at the start and the end to drop off and pick up Maggie, Baby Gerald is the villain, and all the other characters are nameless background babies. In Playdate With Destiny, Homer and Marge have no bigger purpose than to bring Maggie to the playground (or not, in Homer's case), and new character Hudson is a romantic co-lead.
  • There were also two Tracey Ullman sketches (one of which was a two-parter) involving her wandering off when Bart and Lisa were neglectful in babysitting her.
  • "And Maggie Makes Three" and the second half of "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder" more or less focus on her (or rather, the father-daughter relationship between herself and Homer, who constantly neglects and forgets her existence, despite that he has her baby photos at work collaged around the "Don't Forget: You're Here Forever" demotivational plaque so that it reads, "Do It For Her").
  • "Moe Baby Blues" focuses on her relationship and adventures with Moe after he becomes her babysitter.
  • There were a couple of picture books released in the '90s starring her, and aimed at a much younger audience than the show itself.
• Depending on the Writer: Her characterization can range from a typical baby to an incredibly gifted child. She can also go from being independent to very needy within episodes, especially regarding Marge.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Design-wise she is indistinguishable from Lisa as a baby. In episodes set in the future, Lisa's hairstyle tends to be more curly while Maggie grows out her hair.
• The Dividual: With Marge. Marge and Maggie are always together (mainly due to parental aspect as well as Homer's incompetency) and are often treated as one character.
  • In "Treehouse of Horror X", when Marge is immediately chosen as Lisa's +1 for the escape trip to Mars, Maggie is taken with her without question.
  • When Marge is playing Pictionary with Maggie, she is the only one to understand Maggie and win the game against Patty and Selma.
• Enfant Terrible: On some occasions, her behavior is rather cruel for her age, though she means well.
• Facepalm: Will occasionally react this way whenever Homer and Marge get into trivial disputes.
• Felony Misdemeanor:
  • In "At Long Last Leave", when Mayor Quimby cites that the family drove Springfield into bankruptcy due to their trademark antics, Maggie's fault was due to never crying once.
  • Like with the rest of her family, Sideshow Bob wants to kill Maggie just for being a Simpson.
• Friendly Sniper: She certainly knows her way around firearms and it's saved her family members on more than one occasion.
• Friend to All Living Things: She seems to love people and animals a whole lot; Mr. Burns and Sideshow Bob are the only exceptions to the people she's willing to befriend.
• Friend to Bugs: In "The Longest Daycare", she goes to amazing lengths to protect a butterfly she befriended.
• Genki Girl: Her kindergarten-aged incarnation in "Parahormonal Activity."
• Good Is Not Soft: Sure, there's "The Longest Daycare", but at the same time it is implied that she deliberately shot Mr. Burns.
• Greater Need Than Mine: She chooses to return Mr. Burns' teddy bear Bobo back to him after she saw how much he loved it. This makes perfect sense considering that Homer had also chosen Maggie's happiness over his own when he told Mr. Burns that he was going to let her keep the bear earlier in the episode.
• Guilt by Association Gag: When the family runs afoul of the community, expect her not to be spared.
• Heavy Sleeper: She's a baby, after all.
• Improbable Infant Survival: For the most part, especially being a baby. Maggie has shown to survive and evade situations that any character of an older age within the series would otherwise not be as lucky in. An excellent instance is in the episode "The Call of the Simpsons", though there are a few other similar instances.
• Informed Ability: In future episodes she’s been stated to be an exceptional singer and even becomes a famous rock star. The audience never hears her speak, let alone hear a note.
• It Runs in the Family: Her skills with weapons and aggressive traits may have been influenced by Bart and Homer, as they're both notable in terms of trouble making (another example of this is when Homer helps a woman raise a baby, but the baby nearly kills Maggie in a zoo and learns how to serve beer). Due to her Big Brother Worship relationship with Bart in the episode "How Lisa Got Her Marge Back", Homer has to directly tell Bart not to influence Maggie.
  Homer: Bart, you're a great kid but if I had another one like you, I'd hang myself from a highway overpass. Please give your sister the precious gift of not being you.
• Like Father, Like Son: She has occasionally been shown to share Homer's appetite and will pig out when given the opportunity.
• Limited Wardrobe: Always in a blue onesie dress. It contributes to her signature walk and trip maneuver.
• Little Miss Badass: She's ridiculously talented for an infant.
  • She sure knows her way around a firearm. She drove away a group of mobsters by using a shotgun to snipe at them from a distance. It's also subtly implied that she intentionally shot Mr. Burns.
  • There was the time she knocked Homer unconscious by bonking him on the head with a mallet.
  • She can bowl a perfect game, although Homer would never allow her to officially best him with the score.
  • In the movie, when the mob storms the Simpson's household, Krusty order Mister Teeny to go after Maggie. She scares him away with a Death Glare and threatens to shank Mister Teeny with a broken bottle. She also drops a boulder on Russ Cargill's head right before he's about to shoot Homer and Bart.
  • Has saved Homer's life on at least 4 occasions, including in the movie.
  • Led a revolt in a daycare and rallied together wildlife in a Roaring Rampage of Rescue.
• Living Lie Detector: Maggie is the only one in the family that Bart can't lie straight to her face, and Lisa refers to a Noodle Incident that confirms that Maggie can figure out when someone lies.
• Living Prop: Usually just sits in the background and contributes little to the plot. Granted, she's just a baby and is only precocious if the plot demands it.
• Morality Pet:
  • Homer initially doesn't like having another child, but upon seeing Maggie for the first time, he is willing to return to working for Mr. Burns for her sake.
  • Maggie's the only Simpsons family member (probably the only character, period) who's never a target of Bart's pranks or direct mistreatment. He has been known to use her as a (probably unwitting) accomplice in some of his schemes, but even at his worst he treats her better than pretty much anyone else — he certainly never treats her like he does Lisa.
• Ms. Vice Girl: Maggie has a bit of a savage and even violent tendency but aside from that, she is mainly a sweet and likable baby.
• "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: "Manger Things" reveals that her middle name is Lenny, after her father Homer's friend, so named because he apparently assisted in her birth.
• Never Learned to Talk: Although she is continuously a baby (and is able to speak when she's older, though it usually happens offscreen), she is sometimes implied to be developmentally behind even for her young age. Marge worries about it in "Lisa's First Word" (though Maggie does say her first word in that episode, nobody else hears it), and in "The Great Wife Hope," Marge's friends gossip about her lack of speech and speculate that it's the result of her witnessing something traumatic in their house. It's of particular note since Maggie is a very Brainy Baby, apparently fully comprehending what everybody else says and occasionally shown to be able to read and write with ease. Potentially Truth in Television, because of Einstein syndrome, where gifted kids start speaking later because (essentially) their brains are too focused on learning other things.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between: The savage but sweet in-between to Lisa's nice and Bart's mean. At times, she can switch with Lisa.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: It's an issue that affects Bart and Lisa too, but is especially prominent with Maggie because of her young age. Any Time Skip would suggest she would grow up just a little and start talking, but despite a few words here and there she is always the silent, pacifier-sucking infant who is barely learning how to walk. One episode had Homer and Marge tell Apu how great it is to have kids with Maggie right with them, Apu and Manjula ended going through an entire pregnancy and a few months afterwards. Those kids eventually grew up enough to start talking themselves, while Maggie remains the same age.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Pretends to be a normal baby. Averted in the Tracey Ullman shorts.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Is almost never referred to as her formal name. Homer often forgets this.
  Homer: Who the heck is Margaret Simpson?
  Bureaucrat: Uh, your youngest daughter.
  • Made doubly funny on recollection that Marge had told Homer what Maggie was legally known as only a few episodes earlier.
    Homer: Fathering children is the best part of my day. I'd do anything for Bart and Lisa.
    Judge: *reading a page in a file* And Margaret?
    Homer: Who? Lady you got the wrong file.
    Marge: *whispering to Homer* It's Maggie.
    Homer: Oh, Maggie. I got nothing against Maggie.
• Only Sane Woman: When Marge and Lisa get caught up in the insanity, the camera will frequently cut to Maggie facepalming.
• Oral Fixation: Her pacifier, which she treats like a cigar on occasion.
• Out of Focus: How important Maggie is varies over the years. She was more of an actual character in the earlier seasons, with emotional reactions and even some relevance to the plots (she even shot Mr. Burns). She later develops some individuality and has her own adventures... After Season 8, she is more of a Living Prop just to facilitate the story of other members of the family. To date, there are over 30 episodes where she makes no appearance at all. That said, she does occasionally get stories to herself with The Simpsons short films and a few episodes, such as "Maggie's Extraordinary Animal Adventure" in season 27.
• Phoneaholic Teenager: Flash Forward episodes often show her as being talkative on the phone to her friends off camera.
• Primary Colour Champion: Aside from her yellow skin, she also wears blue pajamas and sucks a red pacifier.
• Reused Character Design: Whenever she's shown to be a child rather than a baby, she always looks exactly like Lisa.
• Satellite Character: She mostly exists to be the Simpsons' family baby, unless the writers want to explore her precociousness.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Played with.
  Maggie: Maggie talk! Maggie talk!
• The Silent Bob: Being a baby, Maggie is mute and solely communicates through body language.
• Silent Snarker: Conveys her sarcasm through body language. Subverted when she speaks in baby talk that is subtitled for the viewers, saying "Bald mommy is sure to fail!"
• The Smart One: She's clearly the most gifted among the Simpsons, given how advanced she is for her age.
• The Speechless: Justified because she's a baby and can't talk. Especially in "future" episodes, where she is shown as a sullen teenager who still never says anything, despite the fact she's apparently a hellion who never shuts up, because she is prevented or simply disappears off-screen as she is about to speak in a Running Gag. Don't you know she has a beautiful singing voice? There are a few non-canon episodes (including several Halloween specials) where she does talk, usually in a deep, scary masculine voice. Other than that she has said several canonical words in the series, including "Daddy", "Ja", "Daddily-doodily" and baby talk that was translated as "Bald mommy is sure to fail!"
• Suddenly Voiced: Usually via some non-canon reason (dream, Treehouse of Horror episode, Imagine Spot) she has been voiced by Elizabeth Taylor, James Earl Jones, Harry Shearer, Jodie Foster, Meg Ryan, Amy Sedaris and Lindsay Lohan. While Yeardley Smith was a source of vocals for her early on, Nancy Cartwright has emerged as her most consistent voice, usually doing vocal effects, such as cooing and crying, but occasionally speaking words.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Tomboy to Lisa's Girly Girl. Not so much in the present, but it's apparent in most future episodes, where Maggie dresses like a punker, is the lead singer of a rock band, etc. There is also her tendency to pick up on Homer and Bart's violent tendencies, such as her love for weapons, and she seems somewhat close to Bart. In the episode where Burns begins to live in a virtual reality, she gains a very butch appearance when she is pregnant. Lisa, on the other hand, is usually a prim and proper girly girl. In "At Long Last Leave", when the Simpsons family become outcasts and went to live in the more anarchistic Outlands, Lisa wore a turquoise dress with a floral print and black boots. Maggie, on the other hand, wore just her diaper, but sported a mohawk and had the American flag tattooed on her chest, giving her quite a contrasting appearance from Lisa.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Raisins, according to Lisa in "The Cad in the Hat".
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Especially for her age, she will get involved with some scenario and prove to be quite dangerous. She injured Homer with a mallet, imitating Itchy and Scratchy. Another instance shows her wrestling Bart to the ground in a chokehold.
  • In "At Long Last Leave", this trope is directly lampshaded as one of Springfield's many grievances against the Simpson family; citing that she never cries. Maggie nonverbally threatening the citizen who states this fact does nothing to alleviate anyone's concerns.
  • During the movie, Maggie shatters her bottle and malices Mister Teeny with it when the citizens of Springfield (again) mob up against the family. She later saves Homer and Bart from Russ Cargill by knocking him unconscious.
• True Blue Femininity: Her bow and clothes.
• Tsundere: Toward Gerald, the baby with the one eyebrow, at least according to the comics, where they get married in the future.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: What she grows up to be.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: Other than the bow and clothing, she is indistinguishable from Lisa as a baby.
• Undying Loyalty: To Marge, considering the fact that she liked living with the Flanders family, but loved Marge a whole lot more.
• The Un-Favourite: Mostly when it comes to her father.
  • While he mistreats/insults Bart more, there's a running gag of Homer forgetting Maggie exists.
    Marge: We have three kids, Homer!
    Homer: Marge, the dog doesn't count as a kid!
  • A quote from "Lisa on Ice" implies Homer likes Maggie even less than Bart.
    Homer: Now that we're all alone, Marge, admit it: you like Lisa best!
    Marge: No!
    Homer: Oh, so you're a Bart woman, are you?
    Marge: No!
    Homer: Well, you can't possibly like Maggie best. What's she ever done? Nothing for nobody.
    (Maggie catches a beer bottle from hitting an oblivious Homer's head)
• The Voiceless: Her defining character trait. When she does speak, it’s a one-off gag or incredibly poignant and touching.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Doesn't appear for entire episodes or just disappears from them. This can be seen clearly in "Trilogy of Error" - Maggie appears at the beginning but never again after that.
• Wise Beyond Her Years: She's led a revolt in daycare, successfully driven a car for miles (albeit into a prison wall), and sniped mobsters without being seen... with a shotgun. And the ONLY ONE bold enough to shoot Mr. Burns with his own gun after he stole her candy!

Lisa's pet cat. Snowball II was named after Snowball I. Though Snowball I had white fur, which obviously inspired her name, Snowball II had black fur and greenish/yellow eyes. As a non-speaking character she usually interacts with Santa's Little Helper and Maggie.

According to the episode "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot", Snowball II was hit by a car, and replaced by an identical cat named Snowball V, who was renamed Snowball II for convenience's sake. Don't expect this to be referenced again.

• Animal Jingoism: Subverted. Snowball is usually friendly towards the family dog, Santa's Little Helper (sometimes more than friendly).
• Back Up Twin: Snowball II dies in "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot", yet the episode ends with Lisa finding an identical cat with the exact same personality, calling it Snowball II and pretending Snowball II's death never happened. A Lampshade is hung as Lisa mentions not wanting to spend money on a new food dish and Principal Skinner points out the whole thing is a cop-out, leading to Lisa calling him Armin Tamzarian and Skinner withdrawing his point, effectively rendering the replacement non-canon.
• Berserk Button: A couple episodes show that Snowball really doesn't like being forced into tight spaces. In "$pringfield", she viciously claws Milhouse when he tries to put her in a box as part of his magic show, and in "Lisa's Date with Density", she gets angry at Lisa and runs off when the latter tries to put her in a baby carriage.
• Butt-Monkey: Everybody treats her terribly except for Lisa and she serves no purpose story-wise. Santa's Little Helper gets more of a role in the series, whereas Snowball's largest role involves her getting killed.
• Cats Are Superior: She is often presented as being much more intelligent than Santa's Little Helper and can perform complex tricks on command but nobody cares. Homer, however, temporarily starts to believe that cats are better than dogs after Snowball II saves his life in "Old Yeller-Belly". Official art of the series shows Snowball II juggling dressed in a tutu while riding Santa's Little Helper, and her (well, "his," for the segment) intelligence is a plot point in the Coralisa segment of Treehouse of Horror XXVIII.
• Cute Kitten: Quite affectionate and craves attention. Lisa dresses her up as a baby in "Treehouse of Horror VII".
• Female Feline, Male Mutt: The female cat to the male dog, Santa's Little Helper.
• Furry Confusion: When she and Scratchy show up together in the "Treehouse of Horror IX" segment "The Terror of Tiny Toon".
• Gender Bender: Is male in the Coralisa segment of Treehouse of Horror XXVIII to mimic Coraline's feline friend in the original story. And to justify him being voiced by Neil Gaiman.
• Humanoid Female Animal:
  • Inverted to the point of Furry Confusion when she and Scratchy show up together in the Treehouse of Horror IX segment "The Terror of Tiny Toon".
  • Played straight in "Holidays of Future Passed", where she and Santa's Little Helper appear together, complete with oversized brains.
• Ironic Name: A black cat named Snowball. The original Snowball is sometimes portrayed as white, explaining this, though this isn't always consistent.
• Legacy Character: Implied with the II in her name, but another episode had Snowball II die and Lisa went through another three cats before finding an identical replacement, calling them Snowball II just to save on getting a new titled bowl.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: The current Snowball II is in fact the fifth, though to save money on food bowls, Lisa came to the conclusion to just make her a Legacy Character, essentially making the replacement non-canonical in episodes afterwards. Skinner lampshaded the spuriousness of this, though one mention of the name "Tamzarian" shut him up.
• Living a Double Life: As Smokey.
• Negative Continuity: In a spoof of the episode, "The Principal and the Pauper", "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot" has the original Snowball II die only to get replaced by an identical looking and acting cat with the Simpsons pretending Snowball II never died.
• Non-Indicative Name: Snowball II carries on the original's name despite having dark fur and is actually the fifth Snowball according to "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot".
• Out of Focus: Snowball II doesn't get nearly as much limelight as Santa's Little Helper, though has been the subject of a few B-Plots in later seasons. (To put it in perspective, one of the few times she is given attention is when she DIES.)
• Replacement Goldfish: Snowball II was bought to replace an earlier cat that died, this is why her name is Snowball despite being black furred.
• Secret Other Family: The Simpsons family consistently neglects her and so she starts visiting another family, where she is known as "Smokey".

Bart's pet dog, a greyhound that was adopted by the family when Homer lost all his Mall Santa money at the dog tracks and Bart and Homer see Santa's Little Helper being abused by his master. Once ran away and was taken in as Mr. Burns' new guard dog, while another prominent interaction with Mr. Burns was when he ended up purchasing the 25 puppies he had fathered with a champion racing female greyhound, who all turned out to be world champions. As a result, Mr. Burns can remember Santa's Little Helper, but not Homer.

• Ambiguously Bi: He's sired 25+ puppies with at least two dogs, but he also had to be physically dragged away from the Springfield pride parade once the Gay Dog Alliance came on the scene.
• Animal Jingoism: Subverted. Santa's Little Helper generally gets on well (or better) with the family cat, Snowball II.
• Butt-Monkey: Gets treated pretty bad often (usually by Homer; there are no photos of Homer and SLH in which they aren't abusing each other). He actually runs away in "Dog of Death" when the entire family condemns him due to the financial burden caused by a needed operation. He is still well-loved and has had his Day in the Limelight - unlike Snowball II.
• Canine Companion: Bart's loyal but dumb dog. A few early episodes focused on their bond.
• Cone of Shame: Comes with doggie-wheelchair.
• Depending on the Writer: Either he's the family beloved dog, or the stressful dog who makes their lives worse in several ways and doesn't know any better.
• A Dog Ate My Homework: Santa's Little Helper does this once, much to Bart's surprise, as he didn't think that excuse had any real merit. Subverted in a later episode when Bart desperately tries to get him to eat his unfinished homework. Even when slathered in dog food, he just cleanly eats it off, straightens out the paper and even answers one of the questions.
• Dogs Are Dumb: There are many intelligent dogs in the series, so Santa's Little Helper stands out as not just a dumb dog but the dumbest in the series. One time Bart throws a frisbee for him to fetch, but he just lets it hit him in the face.
• Dub Name Change: Named "Spasitel" (The Saviour) in the Czech dub.
• Female Feline, Male Mutt: The male dog.
• Go Fetch: He can be distracted by sausages, along with Homer.
• Heroic Dog: From time to time, especially when Bart is concerned. Subverted when the Simpson house is on fire and Homer is asleep on the couch. It appears that Santa's Little Helper is trying to rouse Homer, but rather he is getting a chocolate candy bar from Homer's pocket. Once the candy bar is out, Santa's Little Helper leaves Homer to his fate. This happens again in a later episode where Homer is caught in a fire in the Simpson's newly constructed treehouse but Santa's Little Helper is too cowardly to do anything, so Snowball II ends up saving Homer's life instead. There was one episode where he saved a mother and her child from a wild bear, so there’s that.
• Interspecies Romance: Played for Laughs with Snowball II. In Donnie Fatso Santa's Little Helper and Snowball II mated, Whistler's Father reveals that the two are involved in a secret romance, and a future episode reveals they had babies together. In Fear of Flying, Marge gets worried that the family never held a wedding for the two pets and thus they are "living in sin".
• Lovable Coward: In one early episode.
• Morality Pet: He is literally this to Bart.
• Papa Wolf: Occasionally, he is portrayed as being very protective of Bart.
• Took a Level in Badass: In "Dog of Death", after which it fluctuates but generally doesn't drop too far. Justified because Mr. Burns brainwashed Santa's Little Helper into being a vicious, soulless killer.
• Troublesome Pet: Santa's Little Helper is not the brightest bulb in the box. He'll eat whatever is in sight, frequently destroy items around the Simpsons' household due to his sheer size, and rarely obey commands. One particularly notable example is in "Bart's Dog Gets an F", where SLH destroys a precious family heirloom, which forces him to go to obedience school. He (barely) passes, but it doesn't take very long for things to go back to square one, as SLH apparently bit Bart shortly after graduation. Homer didn't mind, though.
• Undying Loyalty: To Bart.