"Ya'll never beat me! I'm just too stupid... and ugly... ta know when to quit."
— Ben Grimm/The Thing, Fantastic Four
There are more than a few personality traits that are generally regarded as negative. Stubbornness. Greed. Selfishness. Arrogance. Rage. Heck, all the Seven Deadly Sins.
But one thing writers love doing is taking conventions and flipping them on their head.
So, there are times when characters will use or refer to either their own or someone else's negative qualities in a positive way. After all, what would The Determinator be without stubbornness, or the Insufferable Genius without their arrogance? One person's slothfulness is another person's efficient time management. Heck, maybe they were just misunderstood: when the contemporary crowd can't appreciate someone's ahead-of-their-time genius, greatness can be mistaken for failure.
These qualities can be the foundation of Faith in the Foe. If someone loses their negative traits, their friends (or even enemies) may decide We Want Our Jerk Back!. If this is done intentionally as propaganda spin to make the villain look like a good guy, he's a Villain with Good Publicity.
To qualify, this trope must be deliberately invoked, and not part of a Broken Aesop.
Compare Never Needs Sharpening, in which a product's shortcomings are spun as selling points through Exact Words. Also compare Damned by Faint Praise and Polish the Turd. Compare and contrast with Your Approval Fills Me with Shame, Heroic Self-Deprecation and Chronic Self-Deprecation. Contrast Insult Backfire. Can overlap with Bait-and-Switch, Berate and Switch, "May Be X, But Our X" Remark, The Odd-pliment, False Flirting Stratagem, and Achievements in Ignorance. Compare with Arson, Murder, and Admiration. Sister trope to Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters.
Contrast Virtue Is Weakness, i.e Positives as a Negative.
See also Evil Virtues, for the positive strengths of character a bad guy needs to be good at their evil job, and Well-Intentioned Extremist, who does negative things in pursuit of a worthy goal. May be used as part of an Insult Accuracy Acceptance. Compare Negative Emotions Aren't Bad, for when negative emotions can have positive uses.
Not to be confused with Bad News in a Good Way and Stealth Insult.
Examples
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Advertising
- The tagline of MidAmerican Energy, a power company for several Midwestern states, is "Obsessively, Relentlessly At Your Service."
Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You:
- While on a mission to rescue Hakari, Rentarou and the girls are attacked by the dog of a wealthy family. Shizuka is too tiny and weak to escape with the others, but she's so tiny and weak that the dog falls back on instincts to protect weaker creatures over guarding its own territory. Rentarou and the others cheer her on for being so weak.
- Chiyo, Uto, and Rin point out that Eira being a scaredy cat leads her to empathize when others are afraid, even driving her to forget her own fear if need be. Uto goes so far as to say cowardice is her strength.
- Chihayafuru: Determining to advance and reach the level of Karuta Queen, Chihaya tells her teammates that she's really greedy. Tsutomo replies calmly that all of them were already well aware. He doesn't cite it with admonition or disdain, but just part of Chihaya they're comfortable with.
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Both versions of Greed are selfish pricks who want to obtain everything there is in the world. This puts him in stark opposition with his creator, Father, and leads to both versions revolting against the Homunculi. Both Greeds also form their own crews and become fiercely protective of them, calling them his "treasures". While the first Greed becomes Affably Evil and only works for himself and his band of chimeras, the second Greed gradually turns into an Anti-Hero that helps the heroes defeat Father, even pulling a Heroic Sacrifice to save his host, Ling, from being pulled into Father.
Comic Books
- Fantastic Four: Benjamin Grimm, a.k.a. the Thing, is a well-known Determinator. He'll also be the first to tell his foes he's simply too ugly and stupid to know when to quit.
- IDW Publishing's original Transformers continuity: the ancient combiner Monstructor is for all intents and purposes a Feral Villain. However, when a group of Autobots fighting it describe it as a Flawed Prototype due to a complete lack of intelligence (it doesn't even separate into the component Monstructor Six anymore) its creator Jhiaxus protests that he doesn't consider Monstructor's lack of sapience a flaw, as it means it's completely loyal to its master and Too Dumb to Fool. He even describes Monstructor's insanity as "a feature, not a bug!"
Fan Works
- Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus: Goh's Fatal Flaw is his recurring stubborness to not listen to others nor caring about what other people think. The rewrite states that this is what Chloe likes about him; he doesn't care about others' comments and just does what he does to get the future in the palm of his hands.
- A Monster's Marriage: Big Daddy Bane joins Adam and Roman during their interview with Lisa, serving as Adam's mouthpiece, constantly speaking lawyerly and trying to frame everything Adam says in a positive light.
Bane: "Why, I'm Mr. Taurus' spokesman and adviser."
Adam: "Provisional adviser."
Bane: "See how careful he is with his decisions? Now that's a leader." - Sister Complex: Offended at Jaune calling her weird, Cinder tries to spin her less-than-stellar qualities as positives.
Jaune: Sis, you want to conquer the world.
Cinder: I'm ambitious.
Jaune: You routinely tell me you're evil incarnate.
Cinder: Honest.
Jaune: You're going to destroy Beacon because Salem told you to!
Cinder: Career-oriented. - The Phantom Riders Club: Winston is a cynical Jerk with a Heart of Gold who bursts the bubble around him...which only motivates everyone to do something about it. When he tells Amanogawa High that Gentaro's most likely to be expelled, they immediately decide to counter it and prove that the school truly loves his presence. And when he tells the Phantom Riders not to get too cocky at the finale of their little circus, they take it as advice to prepare for a potential Zodiarts attack.
- With This Ring is all about an Orange Lantern finding ways to turn avarice to good purposes. He builds a Lantern Corps full of people who love killing and points them at an Evil Empire. He welcomes those who are planning on a Klingon Promotion over his dead body because they are among the most motivated to improve. When he participates in a Battle in the Center of the Mind between the personalities of Teth Adom and Theodore Adam, spectated by the seven gods of Kahndaq and the seven Enemies of Man, he is sitting on the head of the statue representing Greed — but his presence and advice about understanding and asserting oneself helps Teth Adom to gain the upper hand and emerge as a hero. At one point, he expresses disappointment that Lex Luthor isn't avaricious enough; Lex is too paranoid to act in his own self-interest when the stakes are high. Even the Guardians of the Universe, with billions of years of experience, consider the orange light of avarice to be too unstable and dangerous to use, but Paul's steadily proving them wrong, with his recruits tackling enemies that the Green Lantern Corps hasn't been able to handle.
Film — Animated
- Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget: Ginger enlists Nick and Fetcher when she goes to save her runaway daughter from Fun-Land Farms, saying that they're the slyest toerags in that part of the country.
- Inuyasha the Movie: Swords of an Honorable Ruler has a demon list several human qualities in a negative way, showing contempt for humanity. But during the climactic battle, as full-demons such as Sesshomaru, Shippo, Kilala, and Jaken begin to lose power, Inuyasha and his human companions fight on, reminding the demon that he's half-human, and that humans are selfish, stubborn, and greedy, which is why they won't give up.
- Mulan (1998): After Mulan/Ping pulls an extremely risky maneuver to save Shang from an avalanche, he says that Ping is the craziest man he's ever encountered. However, he follows that up by saying that craziness is what saved his life and that the soldier has earned his trust.
Film — Live-Action
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: At Elrond's urging, Aragorn seeks to travel the Dwimorberg Pass to seek an army of the dead. Gimli stands before him, and Aragorn tells him he's not coming with. Cue Legolas saying, "Have you learned nothing about the stubbornness of Dwarves?"
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day: The relentlessness of the Terminator, intended as terrifying in the first film, is cited as a positive by Sarah Connor in the second as the reprogrammed machine protects her son.
- Top Gun: Ice Man had, at one point during Top Gun training, called out Maverick for living up to his namesake, telling him he was dangerous. At the end of the film, after Maverick saves Ice from MiGs, Ice calls him out on the flight deck.
Ice Man: YOU! You are still dangerous. [Beat] You can be my wingman any time.
Literature
- Cheaper by the Dozen: The narrator says that Father Gilbreth, who co-founded the field of motion study (the study of ways to eliminate wasted motion), would walk into factories and say he wanted to see the laziest man on the job. His theory was that a lazy man is too lazy to use any more motion than necessary and studying him is therefore useful for telling which motions can be eliminated to hurry things up.
- Chrysalis (RinoZ): Crinis loves to gush about her Master, how he's strong, wise, savage, cruel, relentless, merciless, and ambitious. Anthony is taken aback when she gets to the "savage" and "cruel" parts, but in fairness, all of those traits do help a monster survive and thrive in a Dungeon where everything is a carnivore. Crinis doesn't even realise that he might find her description upsetting.
- In Discworld, it's a recurring theme that good witches know exactly who they are and how to apply themselves. Granny Weatherwax earns every ounce of her great Pride, and in The Wee Free Men, when Tiffany Aching is called selfish, she takes it as a motivation to protect everything she cares about.
Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!
I have a duty! - Hive Mind (2016): The Hives attempted to "breed out" various negative personality traits by restricting who could have children, which led to a population collapse. Part of the purpose of Lottery is to find people's negative traits and channel them in ways that are constructive for the Hive. People with a tendency toward violence, for example, are trained for and placed in roles such as Hive Defense or Strike Teams.
- In The Last Unicorn, Schmendrick's mentor Nikos recognizes he has immense magical talent because he fails at a level the old sorcerer has never seen before. He tells Schmendrick that his magic is simply working backwards and makes him immortal so he can live long enough to turn it around.
- Nisemonogatari has a conversation between Araragi and Hachikuji about how you can make anything sound noble by sticking "the courage to" in front of it, ranging from "the courage to tell a lie" to "the courage to be a lazy bum".
- Perelandra: Ransom realizes that it's all right for him to use The Power of Hate in his battle because his opponent is the incarnation of pure evil, and it’s a virtue to hate evil.
- In Machado de Assis' The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas and Quincas Borba, Humanitism preaches that everything belongs to the principle of existence — Humanitas — and thus, selfishness and war are beautiful for allowing it to live on, whereas peace can lead it to doom. Quincas Borba gives the allegory of two tribes disputing for a potato field: sharing the potatoes in peace would lead to neither side eating enough and both starving to death, whereas war would ensure that one side would be nourished enough to live and traverse the mountains for more potatoes. Rubião points out that the vanquished side would not agree with his point about morality, but Borba genuinely believes that there is no true death when everything is part of Humanitas, much like bubbles go back to boiling water.
- Wear Your Soul Round Your Neck: Thyssa spends the entire story clinging to the Benevolent Heart, unwilling to give up her humanity even if those around her tell her she's not truly human, even if it kills her and the people around her. Her selfishness and sheer stubbornness prevent her from surrendering even when it would be reasonable (and even when her enemies work hard to make it reasonable). She only sacrifices the Benevolent Heart to shut down Lili's superweapon, which also returns its power to the Goddess Fountain. Had she given up any sooner, everything would have been worse off.
- In A Wrinkle in Time, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which give Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin gifts as they prepare to enter Camazotz. Mrs. Whatsit tells Meg "I give you your faults," which initially upsets her. However, those faults—anger, a quick temper, stubbornness, and a general dislike of authority—prove extremely useful when facing IT, the Hive Mind of Camazotz that assimilates all conscious beings; Meg is able to resist being absorbed by calling upon her belligerence and hatred of conformity.
Live-Action TV
- Andromeda: When the Sabra-Jaguar pride wanted to join the New Commonwealth, their leader used this trope to make his pitch.
Charlemagne: Here are the three biggest reasons why you shouldn't let us join: we are renowned for our treachery, we're at war with the Drago-Kazov pride, and we will constantly remind you of your genetic inferiority. Now, here are the three biggest reasons why you should let us join: we are renowned for our treachery, we're at war with the Drago-Kazov pride, and did I mention we command the third largest army in existence.
- The Dick Van Dyke Show: In "The Bottom of Mel Cooley's Heart", Alan Brady gets angry at Mel and fires him. While trying to convince Alan to rehire Mel, Rob admits that Mel is a square and a brother-in-law and a scapegoat, as Alan says. However, he points out that a square is ideal for long hours looking over material, a brother-in-law is particularly motivated to watch his own in-law's budget, and a scapegoat prevents Alan from lashing out at the wrong people and getting the show shut down.
- iCarly: The episode "I Promote Techfoots" has the iCarly crew be given a sponsorship to promote a new pair of sneakers called the Techfoot. The shoes turn out to be terrible, being uncomfortable to wear, easily fall apart, and even burst into flames if overheated. They're unable to get out of their contract, so they get the idea to highlight all of the problems with Techfoot, but present them happily as if they were actual features. The shoe company relents and gets them out of their contract.
- Kamen Rider OOO: The villians in this one are the embodiment of greed and ambition. However it is also shown that these are necessary things. The fact that the hero Eiji lacks any of his own is pointed out as a bad thing.
- Scrubs: At one point, Turk tries to deny any pride or arrogance as a surgeon. Dr. Cox, who instigated this, reverses course and points out to Turk that cutting into the human body with any skill necessitated those qualities, and pointed to Doug Murphy as an example of just how incompetent a doctor without arrogance or pride can be.
- Star Trek: The Original Series: Spock often points out that humans are illogical and irrational. However, there are times he admits that those qualities are necessary.
- "The Immunity Syndrome" has Spock state that the Vulcan crew of the U.S.S Intrepid would have been incapable of realizing that they were dying without a logical explanation.
- "I, Mudd": Realizing that the androids were wholly logical, Spock prescribes a hefty dose of human illogic as just the thing to deal with them.
- Also from "I, Mudd", Chekov discovers that the android girls were programmed by Harry Mudd...which he decides isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Alice 118: We are programmed to function as human females, lord.
Chekov: You are?
Alices: Yes, my lord.
Chekov: Harry Mudd programmed you?
Alices: Yes, my lord.
Chekov: That unprincipled, evil-minded, lecherous kulak Harry Mudd programmed you?
Alices: Yes, my lord.
Chekov: This place is even better than Leningrad. - "The Enemy Within", after a transporter accident splits Kirk into two people, one good and one evil, it's revealed that his good side isn't capable of command. Spock postulates that it is humanity's faults, tempered by their morals and ethics, that give them the ability to lead.
Music
- Country artist Luke Combs wrote "Beautiful Crazy" for his wife, Nicole. In one interview, a DJ asked him how Nicole feels about the song. When Luke said she loved it, the DJ exclaimed, "I can't believe you called your wife crazy...and got away with it!" The chorus is:
Beautiful, crazy
She can't help but amaze me
The way that she dances
Ain't afraid to take chances
And wears her heart on her sleeve
Yeah, she's crazy
But her crazy's beautiful to me - Kenny Rogers' "The Greatest" is about a little boy playing alone with his baseball bat and ball, convinced he's about to knock it out of the park because he's "the greatest there has ever been." After trying (and failing) to hit the ball three times, he walks away satisfied... at how good a pitcher he must have been to strike himself out.
- Tony Tammaro: "Scalea" is a celebration of the eponymous seaside town, dubbed by the protagonist as "the most beautiful place that exists", with the many problems like thefts, water shortages, packed summer houses and packed beaches that afflict the place being seen as pluses.
Tabletop Games
- In Fate, one of a Player Character's defining Aspects is their Trouble: something like "Anger Management Issues" or "Wanted Dead by the Mob" that they generally struggle with. However, just like any Aspect, the player can invoke their Trouble when it's relevant in order to boost their dice rolls or hamper an opponent — those anger problems could help the character intimidate someone or resist social manipulation.
Video Games
- CookieRun: Kingdom: In the Golden Cheese Kingdom, Greed is considered a virtue, as it motivates you to take action and accomplish great things. Golden Cheese Cookie proudly considers herself the greediest cookie on Earthbread and cherishes her subjects as precious treasures. It got to the point that she created a virtual world to preserve their souls so she could continue holding onto them after her kingdom was destroyed in the Dark Flour War.
- In Honkai Impact 3rd, Bronya often calls Kiana an idiot. However, it's phrased in a way to highlight how much Kiana never quits on things until she succeeds.
- League of Legends: Garen, the game's most prominent Knight in Shining Armor, is occasionally described in-and-out of universe as embodying the worst aspects of his character type. In Legends of Runeterra, he learns to embrace this.
Garen: You think me rigid. Single-minded. Predictable. I am rigid, for nothing can sway me. I am single-minded, for I believe in Demacia. And I am predictable, for I will surely defeat you.
Webcomics
- Kevin & Kell: Greta is described as too self-absorbed to hold any malice towards anyone.
- Kill Six Billion Demons: The goddess Ys Pree Ashma, also known as Aesma, is reckless, impulsive, stupidly strong, and prone to violence. It's these qualities that mark her as one of YISUN's greatest disciples, as it means she is never content with the state of things and always strives for greater.
Western Animation
- DuckTales (1987): In "Armstrong", the titular robot goes on a rampage, taking Scrooge and Gyro captive and planning to take over Duckburg and eventually the world. Given his immense control over technology (including deadly weapons like lasers), the triplets initially have a hard time thinking of anyone they could fetch for help, saying that whoever that is would be crazy. After a moment's thought, though, they think of someone exactly crazy enough to be what they need — Scrooge's kooky-but-fairly-competent pilot, Launchpad.
- DuckTales (2017): When in a contest against a spirit that feeds on luck, Scrooge shows confidence in Donald against Gladstone, because while Gladstone is Born Lucky, Donald has never had luck in his life and relies on stubbornness and rage to get the job done.
- Megas XLR: Coop's Achievements in Ignorance are well documented. But in the series finale, he expressed stubborn pride in his ignorance while fighting an evil version of himself.
Evil Coop: You know you don't stand a chance.
Coop: I don't know NOTHIN'!