Spike: Because. You're the goody-good guys. You're the freaking cavalry.
Heroes have to deal with a lot of obstacles on their quest, or even everyday life. Not just from the Big Bad, but also fellow citizens. One of the most annoying is the Ungrateful Bastard, who won't thank the heroes over being rescued, or worse, complains! Of course, there are worse bad habits out there. Chief among them is acting like an Entitled Bastard.
The Entitled Bastard comes in two flavors:
- Someone who, despite being a Jerkass who bad mouths the heroes, obstructs their efforts or is an outright villain, feels entitled to the heroes' unwavering loyalty and aid in a time of crisis. Once a threat comes around that can't be slimed out of by selling out an ally, he asks for and expects to be saved, possibly even before more deserving Innocent Bystanders! He will be completely shameless about this, even if he created the threat in the first place and perhaps even intended to use it against the heroes before it backfired on him.
- A Jerkass who generally thinks they have the right to do or have whatever they want and nobody has any right to stop them, and expects special treatment from those around them despite doing nothing to deserve it. This may show up with people who say Screw the Rules, I Have Money!, Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!, Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!, et cetera.
Regardless, both types share defining traits: The Entitled Bastards usually think it's all about them; they have an inflated sense of self-importance, and neither feel the least bit sheepish about asking the people whose lives they've made hell for help nor see any reason to thank them for it afterwards. What happens to them depends on just how annoying or harmful they've been, and how nice or naughty the heroes are. If they've just been bad-mouthing a generally Good Samaritan of a hero, they'll be saved no matter what. If the hero has a sense of humor, they might leave them in a safe place... hanging by their underpants. On the other hand, outright murderous villains will likely die with a look of bewilderment as the Anti-Hero refuses to help and leaves them to their fate... or even speeds their death along.
Compare the Spoiled Brat and Narcissist, who often displays entitled behavior themselves, as well as Entitled to Have You, when a character feels they automatically deserve sex or a relationship from another character. Usually a source of Dude, Where's My Respect?, and often a case of Villain Ball. Doubles as a form of hypocrisy. The vast majority of villains in general show this quality to some degree given that their way in life is getting whatever they fancy without caring about whether or not they have any rightful claim over it, and it's also one of the defining traits of The Sociopath.
Not to be confused with literally entitled bastard, who holds a seat in the peerage of a kingdom despite the circumstances of their birth.
If the hero actually does decide to save the jerk willingly, see Save the Jerk.
Offended by an Inferior's Success, a trope in which someone feels another isn't entitled to something is the Inversion
Not to be confused with Villains Want Mercy or Ain't Too Proud to Beg, when a villain, or just a Jerkass ends up in a dangerous situation and begs the same people they victimized/mistreated for help. If the jerk is willing to act nice to get something out of their enemy, then its a case of Fair-Weather Foe.
Examples:
- Attack on Titan showcases this with a worryingly large number of the wealthy, but best highlighted with Edward "Dimo" Reeves; during the Battle of Trost, he deliberately blocks off an emergency exit with his merchandise, flat-out tells Mikasa to her face that she and the rest of the military exist solely to die so people like him can live, and tries to pull Screw the Rules, I Have Connections! when she threatens him.
- Cardcaptor Sakura: This is Syaoran's primary problem during the early part of the series. He believes that he is the rightful heir to the Clow Cards by virtue of being Clow Reed's descendant, whereas Sakura is, in his view, an incompetent weakling. His entire rivalry with Sakura is built on entitlement. Fortunately, he grows out of it.
- Dragon Ball:
- In the first series, during their first meeting with Master Roshi after returning his pet turtle, Bulma fully expects Roshi to give her a gift in exchange despite the fact that she blatantly refused to initially help Turtle return to the sea, and tried to persuade Goku to feed Turtle to the Bear Thief to save her own hide; Turtle even outright says that Goku's the only one who really helped him.
- During the fight against Frieza in Dragon Ball Z, Vegeta gets himself critically injured by Krillin as part of a plan to get a power boost by having Dende heal him (Saiyans become more powerful upon recovering from near-death experiences), and is genuinely shocked when Dende refuses to do so since Vegeta was just as bad as Frieza and had slaughtered countless Namekians himself. He ends up doing so anyway after Piccolo, Gohan, and Krillin point out that they need Vegeta to stand a chance. For bonus points, the first thing Vegeta does after getting healed is punch Dende in the stomach for taking so long.
- As a whole, this is Vegeta's Fatal Flaw, along with his pride and wrath, before the final fight with Majin Buu. He believes he should be the strongest because he's the Prince of the Saiyans and born exceptionally gifted among his race, whereas Goku was born at the absolute bottom of the Saiyan pecking order. His entire rivalry with Goku is built on entitlement.
- In Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F', Frieza offers Vegeta a high-ranking position back in his army if he kills Goku for him. Despite the fact that Frieza slaughtered Vegeta's entire species, destroyed his homeworld, belittled him at every turn while Vegeta served him, and tortured him to death for fun back on Namek, he's genuinely shocked when Vegeta shoots his offer down in favor of killing him. Vegeta even lampshades it:
Vegeta: Use your head. Do you honestly think I would stay loyal to you after you blew up the planet I was destined to rule?!
- Fruits Basket:
- As God of the Zodiac and head of the Sohma family, Akito feels she has the right to do whatever she wants and no one has any right to stop her. No better is this shown with her relationship with the Zodiac members, expecting them to love her unconditionally despite giving them nothing but abuse and spite in return.
- Her mother Ren is just as bad, if not worse, being nothing more than an overgrown brat who complains whenever someone else is getting even a bit of attention. She goes so far as to claim everyone should be revering her instead of Akito as it's been solely because of her that Akira was saved and Akito exists, despite the fact that she didn't even want to have Akito and went so far as to threaten to abort her unless she was Raised as the Opposite Gender.
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Shou Tucker genuinely expected to be rewarded by the State Military for turning his own daughter into a chimera for the sake of a research grant; when they instead place him under house arrest to eventually be decommissioned and court-martialed, he has the gall to gripe about how no one understands him and he got the short end of the stick.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Stardust Crusaders: During his fight with Jotaro, DIO spouts rude, sexist comments at the cashier of a jewelry store he crashed into while also demanding her help, before killing her as well.
- Diamond is Unbreakable: Yoshikage Kira truly believes he deserves to live a quiet and peaceful life without conflict or strife, with the full expectation that luck and good fortune is his right. What he never seems to realize is his merciless killing of anyone and everyone who so much as irks him denies him any right to such a life, something that is lampshaded by the heroes a couple of times.
- JoJolion: Jobin's ill-thought schemes were primarily motivated under the conceit that his family wasn't as respected and rich as it ought to be.
- Haruka's mother Kumiko in Kotoura-san, who abandons her daughter and then goes to said daughter's apartment demanding food and booze. When said daughter is still underaged.
- The young Priestess Shion from Naruto Shippuden: The Movie acts like this, a lot. It turns out that she just does it to keep people from wanting to be around her, 'cause people who get close to her often end up dead.
- One Piece:
- There's a subversion: Post-Time Skip, a group of impostors try to take advantage of the Straw Hats' infamy and recruit powerful pirates for their venture into the New World. Their captain, Fake Luffy, acts like this by using Luffy's reputation (especially his rather colorful heritage) to do what he wants — since he isn't the real Luffy, he's a bastard, but not an actual entitled bastard. It's one of the main reasons why Sentoumaru was able to tell they were fakes; taking advantage of his reputation to bully civilians is something the real Luffy would never do. The real Luffy also cares very little for his heritage, to the point that he seems completely unaware of it at times.
- The World Nobles. Ironically, Donquixote Doflamingo, a former World Noble, is probably the worst of the lot. His actions boil down to him having a thirty-year long temper tantrum over the fact he was not allowed to return to Mariejois just because his father decided to uproot their family and make them live as commoners. That would be a mistake, as the country they moved to (which was completely unaffiliated with the World Government) found out about their status and, being victims of the World Nobles' cruelty, decided to take their revenge on them knowing that there would be no repercussions. While he does have a genuinely tragic past, that is no excuse for his deplorable actions. And — something that is frequently pointed out out-of-universe — it was because Doflamingo kept on acting like a Spoiled Brat that the citizens were tipped off about their heritage in the first place.
- In the manga Psychometrer Eiji there was a character named Yoshio Oonuki who was involved in a gang rape where the victim ended up killing herself. When her grandfather goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge he is arrested and put in protective custody. When he started complaining that he wasn’t going to get into a good university, the main character called him out on not only his Skewed Priorities but him completely missing the point of what was going on.
- Ramen Fighter Miki: Miki never has any doubts about asking for help from the people she constantly bullies and abuses.
- In Ranma ½ many of Ranma and Akane's old enemies/rivals/unwanted fiancé will often come to the Tendō dojo pleading their help with some problem. Notably Sentarō, from the Martial Arts Tea Ceremony episodes, whose antics include kidnapping girl-type Ranma off the street in order to marry her. When he does get Ranma and Akane to help him, he takes advantage of the situation by trying to run off with Akane.
- In The Rising of the Shield Hero, King Aultcray Melromarc embodies this trope, since even before Malty enacted her blatantly lie-filled scheme, the King always opted to ignore the Shield Hero, not even caring for him to introduce himself after the three other Cardinal "Heroes" introduced themselves, that alone speaks volumes of his sheer dislike/hatred toward the Shield Hero; and it just gets better from there as he constantly finds flimsy excuses to deprive him of whatever he has scraped together, even his own slave Raphtalia, which is a demi-human, and the King freaking hates demi-humans; not to mention knowing full well that demi-human slavery is prominent in Melromarc by his own decree no less, he just used the rigged duel on the Shield Hero to subtly vent his hatred on him, getting joy when he sees the rigged duel seemingly worked. Temporarily at least. Really says a lot about how shitty this Royal Asshat is. He does get better, unlike his daughter.
- Sword Art Online:
- Sugou Nobuyuki/Oberon, the Big Bad of the Fairy Dance arc, takes this to extreme levels, believing he has the right to do whatever he wants, like rule the world, and no one has any right to stop him. When he first reveals his true colors to Kirito, he brags that it's his right to take advantage of Asuna, since RECTO took custody of her and the other 300 SAO survivors, and that he's entitled to compensation for keeping them all alive. Later, when Kayaba's Virtual Ghost overrides his control of ALO and gives Kirito Game Master privileges, Sugou throws a screaming tantrum and rants that Kayaba always takes everything he considers rightfully his.
- When Alice returns to Rulid Village with Kirito after the first half of the Alicization arc, the villagers shun her for being a criminal and force her to stay on the outskirts. Despite that, a few of the villagers make requests of her to do odd jobs for them, without showing her any real gratitude or changing their minds about her.
- In The Testament of Sister New Devil, the hero clan, but especially Takashi Hayase, call Basara Tojo out on his involvement in the Brynhildr incident even though the incident scarred him much more than them and he was unable to control his powers at the time. Even though it's not without reason, they're just so vengeful about it that it's really hard to care. Mio Naruse calls them out with a Shut Up, Hannibal! after hearing this reason for the umpteenth time.
- Sandorst from The Autumnlands: Tooth & Claw. The city is in ruins so he orders a salvage in order to build a comfortable lounge for himself while the rest of the citizens huddle in the cold wreckage.
- The Dark Knight Returns: Jerkass bystander Byron Brassballs.
- The Kingpin from Daredevil has a lot of this in his character and will pull Disproportionate Retribution on people who deny him his way. The Ultimate version was worse, ordering Spider-Man's school blown up while class was in session after Daredevil threatened to kill his wife. And during the threat, he kept pleading with Daredevil that he had done nothing wrong because it "wasn't personal" despite the fact that in the Ultimate continuity, Kingpin was the one who killed Daredevil's father. Made worse in triplicate by the fact that it was Spider-Man who talked Daredevil down. That's right, The Kingpin was going to bomb a school full of teenagers to punish the guy who saved his wife from death right in front of his eyes.
- Fantastic Four: In "Unthinkable", Dr. Doom used demonic possession to seize control over Reed's infant daughter Valeria, captured and tortured his family for days, and opened a portal to hell and threw his son into it. After Reed managed to save the day, he was able to trick Doom into insulting the demons who granted him his power boost, causing them to grab him and drag him into hell. After all this Doom still asked Reed to save him from an eternity of torment and claim he'd changed his ways but... It says a lot to how much suffering Doom had caused that Reed felt no guilt or shame at all in leaving him there to rot.
- Legion of Super-Heroes: A story involved a young boy (around 10-years-old) whose father was extremely wealthy. The boy placed himself recklessly in danger, expecting the Legion to save him because (in the boy's view) they expected to be paid. He eventually learns his lesson after being scared half to death by a truly murderous maniac who hated the boy's father and would have killed the boy as revenge if the Legion hadn't prevented it.
- Irredeemable: A flashback showed the Plutonian being faced with a man who complained that his boat was damaged in a pirate attack the Plutonium just prevented. This guy ended up annoying the Plutonian (who was already having a rough day) to the point that he flew to the moon just to get a few minutes of peace and quiet. And then the events that would kickstart Plutonian's Start of Darkness happened...
- Spider-Man: Spidey's greatest and best-hidden foe does this quite often. Who is he? J. Jonah Jameson. He manages to publicly badmouth and ridicule him on a daily basis, has created two supervillains (the infamous Scorpion as well as C-lister The Human Fly) and a few evil robots in his quest to kill Spidey, gets into all sorts of fights and kidnappings by Spidey's other foes (who are jealous of him), and Spider-Man always, always pulls his bacon out of the fire... though he does put him in his place with purposely embarrassing rescues. He even gets to become the Mayor of New York, despite how often he's printed complete garbage about Spider-Man that he's later had to retract when it turned out that, yes, it really was Mysterio or Chameleon, and despite the fact he's known to have sponsored the creation of Scorpion, the Human Fly, and the Spider-Slayers.
- Superman:
- In various continuities, this is Lex Luthor's attitude towards Superman. And pretty much everyone else's opinion of Lex himself.
- In Supergirl (2005), Sleazy journalist Cat Grant launched a smear campaign against Supergirl with the intention of driving her away from Metropolis. Cat calls Supergirl a reckless, out-of-control teenager, accuses her of spearheading a Kryptonian Alien Invasion, and complained about her out-of-fashion dress and the length of her skirt. During one year she told everyone over and again that the world doesn't need a Supergirl. And then she ran into trouble in Day of the Dollmaker and blackmailed Kara into helping her because she couldn't find Superman. And as they teamed up, Cat kept insulting her.
Supergirl: "The hero the world doesn't need," Cat wrote about me. Some days, though, it sure feels like it does. Though, if there weren't three kids missing, I'm not sure I'd help her. You can't say those kinds of things about a person then expect them to just fly up and give you a hand.
- Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade: Belinda spends the whole school year bullying Linda and trying to drive her and Lena apart. Finally, she snaps, attacks the school and Supergirl, steals her inter-dimensional communicator, and overloads it with her out-of-control emotions. Her actions and choices lead to her being turned into a sentient statue, a development that she blames Supergirl for. Still, when Supergirl and Lena start arguing, Belinda complains about helping her not being a priority. And she calls them jerks.
- Teen Titans: When Cheshire was part of Deathstroke's Titans team, she wanted to kill him for embarrassing her and tried to get Arsenal to help. This was after their daughter Lian was killed in Justice League: Cry for Justice and Roy fell back into his heroin addiction and became a violent antihero. Cheshire first tried to feign sympathy by telling Arsenal he couldn't bring their daughter back by hurting himself, then tried to play on his loyalty to the Titans by telling him Deathstroke was soiling their name. When that didn't work, Cheshire dropped all pretense by telling Arsenal she didn't care if his drug addiction killed him but he owed her for "Letting their daughter die." What's especially hypocritical about this is that Cheshire once conceived a replacement baby to get out of the Secret Six, even though it meant Lian might be killed in the process since her well being was used as a bargaining chip to keep Cheshire on the team. And Cheshire still treats Arsenal like crap while he's on Deathstroke's team with her when she's not sleeping with him to keep him under her thumb.
- The Transformers: Robots in Disguise: When the Autobots win the war and Cybertron is restored, many of the neutral Cybertonians return to the planet and try to take control, forcing the Autobots to release the captive Deceptions to stop the attack. They also put blame on the Autobots even though it was the Autobots who fought and died to restore their world.
- Happens basically every second time the X-Men save somebody. They are getting racial slurs thrown at them and are expected to save the same people.
- Ultimate X-Men: Longshot, as part of his Adaptational Villainy. Being the luckiest man in the world, he is used to things just falling into his lap, and gets somewhat disagreeable and violent when they don't.
- Zatanna: Benjamin Raymond, having made a deal with Mammon to help him collect souls in exchange for extended life, tries and fails to sacrifice Zatanna. This causes his own soul to be forfeit to Mammon, and he has the nerve to ask Zatanna to help him. She can't stop Mammon from claiming him, but takes pity on him and transforms him into an inanimate lump of gold so he won't suffer.
- In Amazing Fantasy, Mysterio was once a special effects artist but was fired during the rise of CGI because his effects were just too expensive. Rather than adapt to the times or look for cheaper ways to do his specialty, Mysterio became a supervillain just to get the money he "deserved".
- Blue-Green Eyes: Soun Tendo proves to be this, treating his elder daughters like personal servants and focusing all his time and energy on training Akane. Nabiki eventually calls him out on this when he tries to punish Ranma for something that didn't happen.
- Child of the Storm has this as a feature of many of its villains: Gravemoss thinks he deserves the power to conduct his heinous experiments; HYDRA think they deserve to rule the world (based on an unclear metric of being 'better' than everyone else); the Red Room believe they deserve to regain Russia's 'lost empire' (more specifically, Yelena Belova believes that she deserves to be the Black Widow); Sinister believes that he deserves the god-given right to treat anyone and everyone as a medical experiment; Surtur believes he deserves his power (stolen from the Phoenix) and has the right to rewrite the universe according to his design (because everyone else is wrong, apparently); and Reynolds a.k.a. the Void/the Parasite believes that he deserves Clark's power because apparently he isn't using it properly.
- Viserys Targaryen from The Difference One Man Can Make thinks the Norfolks will immediately grovel and obey him when he comes at First Forge seeking an army to give him the Iron Throne. When Harry bluntly says no and details why, Viserys is so infuriated he tries to draw his sword and when his sister Daenerys stops him, his first reaction is trying to beat her.
- Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: After feeling overshadowed and ignored for years, Chloe Cerise's desire to be recognized twists into something toxic, as she latches onto the notion that others need to earn her forgiveness and runs away with it. To her credit, once her mother calls her out on it, she does acknowledge and works to address that flaw, realizing that she's got to solve her own problems rather than expecting others to cater to and coddle her.
- In The Last Son, many villains (most notably Cadmus and the Friends of Humanity) think they deserve access to Kryptonian technology, even after Superman explained they wouldn't be able to use them anyway (all Kryptonian technology is gene-locked so that only Kryptonians can use it, and most of it is so elaborate that humans don't have the resources to duplicate or power anything they might try to steal anyway).
- Mutant Storm makes Magical Britain as a whole an example of this. Most witches and wizards treat Harry like dirt, particularly after the fact that he is a mutant becomes public, and yet they demand that Harry fight and stop Voldemort.
- The Superheroics of Haruhi Suzumiya: Despite constantly insulting, belittling and bullying Izuku, Katsuki still expects him to follow him to Aldera Middle School. When he learns that he's planning on attending the same school as Haruhi instead, Katsuki's completely shocked... and furious.
- In Dirty Sympathy, Daryan fully expects for Klavier to get the murder charge off of him despite how he treats him. This works in Klavier's favor, as Daryan fails to consider that Klavier threw him under the bus.
- In Alien: Nemesis, Zack Ryan basically wants to be top dog without being willing to put in the effort to actually get there, and sees all women as "parasites" because he grew up in an area where he mostly saw women flocking around wealthy men. As a child, he was expelled from a criminal gang for never putting any work in, he was constantly arrested when he tried to gather resources to start his own gang afterwards, and his attempt to get an "in" with local junk traders leads to him joining Ripley's crew to track the aliens while dismissing her tales as stories due to his lack of respect for women. He ends up having his eyes clawed out by Jones the cat when he tries to steal a rare tool from Newt, and subsequently refuses to accept the explanation that there is no equipment to repair the damage to his eyes.
- Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Denial: Mahiru outright demands that Togami and Hinata protect her, even while constantly criticizing their efforts because they're 'useless men'. She eagerly throws them under the bus when the worst happens, blaming them for every single thing that goes wrong. Even seeing one of them covered in blood after they tried and failed to prevent Akane's death elicits No Sympathy from her, treating it as a Failure-to-Save Murder.
- Danny Phantom: Stranded: Justified. Stella Bevier was raised in a wealthy family who taught her that her opinion matters more than "the commoners" believe and also to be mindful of her status. It's implied that this is the reason Stella always puts herself first and usually doesn't care how her words and actions affect others, all the while, still fully expects others to fulfil her whims and reacts in shock and anger when she doesn't get her way. To her credit, once she realizes that her actions have consequences (such as when she hurt her relationship with her daughter), she works very hard to make amends, showing that she is not irredeemable.
- In The Blacksmith's Apprentice, Snotlout makes it clear more than once that he has become this after being appointed heir, complaining when he has to do any work that doesn’t involve giving other people orders or beating someone up, in contrast to Hiccup’s willingness to serve the village in any capacity even after he’s been disinherited.
- Kingdom Hearts 3: Final Stand:
- Ansem's parents acted as such, believing themselves better than everyone else purely because they were of royal blood.
- As revealed in Moons of Fate, Minoru was no better, constantly going on about how he deserves more respect and recognition than he gets, and being jealous of Yamato for getting all the glory when Minoru himself has basically done nothing to deserve any respect or recognition. It's to the extent that when he slaps Rimi, the crown princess, for criticizing him and is dishonorably discharged by Ansem for doing so, Minoru continues to rant about Ansem showing favoritism to Yamato.
- Braig as well. At the end of Re:Final Stand, he bemoans that he'll never get a Keyblade now and that Xehanort promised him his own. Terra and Aqua tell him point-blank that an evil bastard like him would never be worthy of a Keyblade anyway.
- Veran, the Big Bad of Wisdom and Courage, is an openly sadistic Jerkass whose entire Evil Plan amounts to gathering power and then using it to commit random acts of destruction For the Evulz, and yet she believes she deserves to rule all worlds and even the Golden Goddesses themselves should bow down to her. Then she's genuinely surprised and furious when Link rejects the We Can Rule Together card when she pulls it during the final showdown; keep in mind that Veran has spent a significant portion of the story going above and beyond to make Link's life miserable and that she makes the offer mere seconds after she inflicts a brutal Cold-Blooded Torture on Link that ends with her slashing out his right eye.
- Entering The Love Hina World: After Naru's behavior is reported to Tokyo U, getting her banned from her dream college, she demands that Keitaro help her out. When he refuses to do so, she's absolutely shocked, even asking what she ever did to him to deserve such treatment. Keitaro wonders how she could ask him such a thing after all the years of abuse.
- For His Own Sake:
- Most residents of the Hinata House fully expected Keitaro to keep everything running smoothly and cover for all their various transgressions despite their constant mistreatment and abuse. When Keitaro decides enough is enough and walks out, the girls are forced to face the consequences of their actions.
- By the end of the series, Naru has firmly established herself as this. After she gets arrested for the second time, Granny Hina finally cuts her off, having realized how poorly she handled everything. With nowhere else to go, Naru tries to convince her father to take her in, and after this fails, heads back to her mother, expecting to be welcomed back with open arms despite how horribly she treated her mother and sister the last time she saw them. Unsurprisingly, Saori rejects her, and is disgusted by Naru acting as though she didn't do anything wrong, insisting that "I'm your daughter, so you have to forgive me!" She then has the nerve to turn to Keitaro and ask him to get back together, acting shocked and furious when he rejects her, despite how, the last time they met, she had him kidnapped and beat him while he was tied up.
- Sarah is also this in spades after Seta sends her to a strict boarding school in hopes of curtailing her Spoiled Brat attitude. When he goes to visit her, she rants about how much she hates him for putting her there, and how Naru and Granny Hina will help her out and make everything go back to normal. Though he attempts to explain to her that they're in no position to help her, she screams at him to get out of her life. Eventually, she learns that Hina has lost control of the Inn and all of its tenants have been evicted, at which point she's suddenly real keen on seeing Seta again in hopes of convincing him to take her back. Haruka goes to visit her in his place, reminding her that she was the one who cut him off.
- In the Accusation Fic The Days of Reckoning Are Upon Us, Steve Rogers and the rest of the rogue Avengers feel that they deserve the highest praise and abject loyalty for their heroics, despite how many laws they've broken and the lives lost and property destruction that might have been avoided with better planning.
- Two Spiders on a Web: After Spider-Man and Spider-Gwen start their own version of Heroes for Hire where ordinary civilians can pay them to preform specific jobs such as babysitting and appearing at stores, it was inevitable that they receive such entitled requests. Some examples include people asking them to beat up people they don't like for free and a Pizzeria owner asking Gwen to work for him part time but offering her less than minimum wage (his reasoning being that she doesn't need that much money since she can swing around); but the crowning example has to be the Rich Bitch who orders Gwen to hand over her powers, and not being able to understand that doing so is physically impossible.
- In Chloe's Lament, this proves to be one of her Fatal Flaws several times over:
- Firstly, her sense of entitlement is so bloated that she sincerely doesn't see anything wrong with the concept of turning everyone into her mindless thralls as Miracle Queen. When Adrien tries calling her out on it, she retorts that their lives are worthless unless they're personally catering to her every whim. This utter Lack of Empathy and selfishness spur Adrien to finally stand up to her, inciting her to make the reality-altering Wish in order to reject the Awful Truths he's telling her.
- Her Wish revolves around swapping places with Marinette, expecting to become Ladybug in her place and have everybody's admiration and respect. But while Marinette earned her friendships and good reputation through compassion and hard work — and the Earrings by passing a Secret Test of Character — Chloé simply expects them to be delivered to her.
- Chloé is also so used to abusing her status as the Mayor's daughter that she doesn't know how to work for anything. It takes a long time for it to start sinking in that she's no longer got any servants to boss around, including her former Beta Bitch Sabrina.
- Everything You Deserve: Adrien is so self-absorbed that he reacts to the prospect of the kwami being able to choose their own partners with horror, because Plagg might not be willing to work with him if he wasn't forced to by the Ring. So he betrays Ladybug's trust to make a series of selfish Wishes, trying to warp the whole world into being his idealized playground. Unfortunately for him, all his Wishes are granted in ways that don't quite fit his intentions, resulting in a lot of Laser-Guided Karma.
- Gabriel's Lament:
- When Plagg first appears before him, Gabriel assumes that means he's been chosen to bear the Black Cat Ring. This is despite the fact that he previously terrorized all of Paris as Hawk Moth, stole the Earrings and Ring and used them to make a reality-altering Wish. Plagg finds his presumption hilarious.
- Gabriel also intends to track down the original world's Ladybug in order to have them 'fix' the new reality... while preserving all the aspects he approves of. In other words, he wants to erase the consequences of his actions — and if he can't do that himself, he expects somebody else to do it for him.
- In Unmasked's Miraculous Salt Fic Happy Birthday, Miss Bustier, Marinette gets her teacher a gift basket full of bath products, which Miss Bustier sees as the most impressive present she was given by any of her students that year. However, she also sees it as less impressive than the gifts Marinette had gotten for her before. She deems this important enough to ask Marinette to stay after class and discuss matters with her. Much more important than addressing any of the bullying she had seen certain other students subjecting Marinette to. She then has the gall to try lecturing Marinette about how she should be helping those very same students after all the abuse they've heaped upon her, and is honestly shocked when she refuses.
- He Can Only Blame Himself revolves around Adrien cheating on Marinette with Lila, ending a three-year relationship when Marinette catches them fooling around in her apartment. Lila smugly expects Adrien to kick Marinette out, gloating about how she intends to move in herself; hearing that it doesn't belong to him doesn't stop her. Only the revelation that the place is haunted and being attacked by the resident ghost changes her mind.
- The Karma of Lies:
- Adrien takes his status as a rich kid completely for granted, having absolutely no ability to empathize with how his classmates don't have access to the same kind of resources. He firmly believes that the world runs on Protagonist-Centered Morality and that he's The Chosen One, meaning everything will ultimately turn out exactly the way he wants and he can do whatever he pleases.
- This includes feeling entitled to Ladybug's love, glossing over her repeatedly rejecting him, and treating his superhero duties as just a game. He even decides that Paris owes him money for his 'services' as Chat Noir despite failing to show up for the Final Battle AND trying to claim that Hawkmoth shouldn't be charged for all his crimes since the Miraculous Cure 'erased' all the effects. While his desire for financial compensation is fueled by how he can't access any of the family funds after Lila cleaned out the emergency account, and his father is the only family he has left, these factors are undercut by how Adrien repeatedly insists that the world is meant to twist itself to his whims, dismissing every warning he receives about how reality doesn't work like that.
- Marinette's classmates exploit her generosity. Instead of appreciating everything she's done to help them out as their 'everyday Ladybug', they simply assume that they're lucky to get all the opportunities she's made for them. After she's unmasked during the decisive battle with Hawkmoth, only one of them has a Jerkass Realization; the rest expect to continue benefitting from being her 'friends', only to find that she's Stopped Caring about them after how they turned their collective backs on her.
- The same applies to Miss Bustier and Principal Damocles, who expect Marinette to help them promote their school even after they wrongfully expelled her.
- Adrien takes his status as a rich kid completely for granted, having absolutely no ability to empathize with how his classmates don't have access to the same kind of resources. He firmly believes that the world runs on Protagonist-Centered Morality and that he's The Chosen One, meaning everything will ultimately turn out exactly the way he wants and he can do whatever he pleases.
- LadyBugOut:
- The whole reason Marinette decides that Ladybug needs to start her own blog is thanks to Alya claiming that there's nothing wrong with her deliberately misrepresenting what happened with Oblivio for the sake of pushing her ship and getting attention for her Ladyblog. According to her, that's just the price Ladybug has to pay for being a public figure.
- Adrien defends how Alya presented the picture of Ladybug and Chat Noir Kissing Under the Influence of Oblivio's power by declaring that Chat Noir deserved that kiss, regardless of the circumstances. He continues pressing his unwanted advances onto Ladybug until her yo-yo films him ranting at her, ruining his reputation and spurring Fu to confiscate the Ring.
- Nadja shows this as well. When Marinette reveals that she helped Ladybug create the new blog, she gets ambushed outside the school by a Media Scrum. Nadja shoves her way through the crowd insisting that her connections to the Dupain-Cheng family give her 'dibs' on their daughter, clearly expecting special treatment from her.
- Leave for Mendeleiev shows that Mme Bustier's class is filled with these:
- Chloé is used to always getting her way, thanks to exploiting her father's connections and her favorite teacher expecting her better-behaved students to serve as 'good role models' by constantly forgiving all her bullying. Since Marinette is her favorite victim, she honestly believes she should still get free access to her after she transfers to another class, actively seeking her out and getting pissed off whenever anyone else steps in.
- In a Mythology Gag, she casually demands the Bee Miraculous in exchange for providing information about an akuma she helped create, insisting that she deserves to become a heroine since she's the mayor's daughter. She's completely aghast at being shut down. This amps up to the point that she's akumatized out of sheer spite over being denied.
- Adrien feels that because he's Chat Noir, Ladybug is destined to be his, whether she wants to be or not. He sees nothing wrong with pursuing both her and her Secret Identity against her wishes and gets annoyed whenever he's reminded that she has a life outside of him and doesn't return his interest.
- Adrien is also shaken to learn that Marinette isn't one of his doting fangirls, as he's used to being admired by everyone, and tries guilt-tripping her into taking it back by exaggerating how much his precious feelings were hurt by her disinterest.
- There's also his reaction when Ladybug gains a new power in Lucky Break, as he immediately starts grilling Plagg about why he hasn't developed new powers. Never mind that he constantly slacks off during fights and cares more about cracking puns and flirting; he wants shiny new powers to play with too!
- Alya feels entitled to Ladybug's Secret Identity, believing that because there are American superheroes who have publicly revealed who they are, Ladybug should do the same. Note that by her own words, most American heroes have unmasked — most, but not all. She also doesn't target Chat Noir with the same level of harassment.
- Mme Bustier herself sees nothing wrong with asking Marinette to transfer back into her class. Why? Because Chloe is claiming she can't focus on her schoolwork without her favorite target around to torment. Bustier's convinced that, as one of her 'model students', Marinette will be more than happy to help the girl who's been bullying her unchecked for years, and is sincerely surprised when she balks at the notion.
- Chloé is used to always getting her way, thanks to exploiting her father's connections and her favorite teacher expecting her better-behaved students to serve as 'good role models' by constantly forgiving all her bullying. Since Marinette is her favorite victim, she honestly believes she should still get free access to her after she transfers to another class, actively seeking her out and getting pissed off whenever anyone else steps in.
- Memory Serves has Su-Han follow through with his intent to strip Marinette of her Guardianship and memories. He then turns around and wants to reinstall her as Ladybug after realizing she'd done a far better job than he'd given her credit for, all while refusing to admit he'd wronged her in the first place.
- Of Patience and Pettiness:
- Adrien feels entitled to Ladybug's love despite her clear disinterest. When it finally sinks in that she's never going to give him what he wants, he turns bitter towards her, shifting his attention towards pursuing Marinette instead... and proceeding to show the exact same sense of entitlement towards them.
- After Lila's exposure, Alya expects to go right back to being 'besties' with Marinette as if nothing happened, despite publically renouncing their friendship and insisting that Lila was her best friend. She's deeply resentful over Marinette's refusal to easily forgive her, and regards Kagami jealously, seeing her as her 'replacement'.
- In the Salt-Shot A Price to Pay, Adrien betrays Ladybug, believing that he'll get everything he wants in the new reality created by his father's Wish: not only will he get his mother back, Marinette will have to love him, right? After they learn the hard way that Reality Warping Is Not a Toy and that the Wish didn't turn out how they expected, Adrien expects Marinette to help him "fix everything" to his liking, even after learning that she remembers the original reality and that her father was the one who got killed as the Wish's Equivalent Exchange.
- Scarlet Lady: Chloé demonstrates her entitlement several times over:
- The only reason she's willing to do anything as Scarlet Lady at all is out of the belief that she deserves the attention and adulation of all of Paris. That doesn't mean she's willing to put in any effort. She much prefers for Chat Noir to do all the work so she can step in with her Miraculous Cure and soak up all the glory afterwards.
- She believes that 'Adrikins' belongs to her, ignoring his increasingly aggravated rejections of her unwanted advances.
- Her All Take and No Give attitude wears on Sabrina to the point that she finally breaks things off, spurring Chloé to hold some 'Best Friend Auditions'. She's deeply offended to learn that nobody's interested in becoming her new lackey.
- Chloé crashes the concert on the Liberty after hearing that Adrien plans to attend, and complains about not getting the red carpet rolled out for her despite showing up unannounced and uninvited. When she's booted off the ship, she promptly goes and files a false noise complaint before the concert even begins.
- Two Letters:
- The people of Paris grew so accustomed to Ladybug's presence that they started taking her completely for granted, complaining about the slightest slip-up while still expecting her to be constantly on guard and saving the day. This caused her to grow resentful, especially towards everyone who was getting akumatized — particularly those who got akumatized for petty, trivial reasons, or repeat offenders like Xavier Ramier. In her eyes, they were treating Hawkmoth as little more as a way to vent their frustrations rather than a dangerous terrorist, while expecting her to clean up after them and ensure there wouldn't be any long-term consequences for their actions.
- Chat Noir decided he wanted a romantic relationship with his 'partner', and refused to take no for an answer. He also exploited the way Hawkmoth worked to goof off and do as he pleased; he knew that Ladybug was trying to avoid expressing too much negative emotion, for fear of getting akumatized herself, meaning that she couldn't call him out for being The Load or The Millstone.
- What Goes Around Comes Around:
- As a Recursive Fanfiction of The Karma of Lies, Adrien naturally shares this trait with his counterpart in that fic. Here, it's primarily centered around his expectations from Marinette; upon learning that she's Ladybug, he fully expects her to leap into his arms and become his girlfriend, despite the fact that she's happily dating Luka. To his mind, Luka is nothing more than a clear Romantic Runner-Up, while their Miraculouses mark them as 'soulmates' by virtue of being a matched set.
- Adrien's thoughts also make clear that as his girlfriend, he expects Marinette to fully devote herself to ensuring his happiness above all else, moving heaven and earth to ensure things go exactly the way he wants them to. Not that he has any intention of returning the favor, as his refusal to help her deal with Lila proves.
- This sense of entitlement runs in the family, as both Gabriel and Emilie prove to be even worse about this. Not only do they regard Adrien's desire for freedom to be little more than a passing flight of fancy on his part, they show the same sick sense of entitlement towards his cousin, Felix. To Adrien's utter horror, they reveal that part of their Evil Plan involves granting a twisted version of his desires by Wishing for him to get married to Marinette... or rather, for her to marry their 'ideal son', the result of forcibly merging him with Felix to cherry-pick what they consider to be the best traits of both.
- Alya also displays this. After Marinette's exposure, Alya complains about how she didn't share her Secret Identity with her or make her a permanent hero, insisting that she needs to 'make it up' to her with extra exclusive interviews and content. She also expects her to hand over the Fox and Turtle Miraculous so that she and Nino can out themselves in a special video on her Ladyblog. And for Marinette to dump Luka so she can hook up with Adrien, validating her ship.
- Chloé, meanwhile, confronts Marinette and her parents on their way out of the hospital and demands that she hand over the Miraculous Box, threatening to have her father close down the Dupain-Cheng bakery if she doesn't comply. She's honestly astounded when Marinette rebuffs her.
- As a Recursive Fanfiction of The Karma of Lies, Adrien naturally shares this trait with his counterpart in that fic. Here, it's primarily centered around his expectations from Marinette; upon learning that she's Ladybug, he fully expects her to leap into his arms and become his girlfriend, despite the fact that she's happily dating Luka. To his mind, Luka is nothing more than a clear Romantic Runner-Up, while their Miraculouses mark them as 'soulmates' by virtue of being a matched set.
- The Wolves in the Woods:
- Aside from Juleka and Nathaniel, the majority of Marinette's former classmates and 'friends' are portrayed this way, with the twist that Lila never actually promised them anything. During a Villainous Breakdown, Lila admits to Ms. Mendeleiev and several other students that she told several Celebrity Lies in order to impress them, only for everyone to assume that she would use her connections to get them free stuff.
Lila: I told them I knew Clara Nightingale. I told them I knew Jagged Stone and Prince Ali. Please tell me what part of that means 'I'll do you these favors for free'?! Are they going to turn on me too?! Just like Marinette?! Am I just their wish-granter? Do they even see anyone as a friend?!
- Ms. Bustier encouraged her class to take advantage of Marinette's generosity, and continues regarding her as 'her' student even after she transfers to St. Catherine's. She even leads her students to march on the bakery with the intent of pressuring and guilt-tripping Marinette into doing what she wants.
- After everything that happened in Ms. Bustier's class is exposed in a trial, many of Marinette's former classmates scream at her to 'save them' from being punished for what they did to her.
- Chat Noir feels entitled to Ladybug's 'love', and repeatedly berates her for 'denying their love'.
- Even after spearheading the campaign of systematic bullying and abuse that led to Marinette's transfer, Alya continues to insist that she wants her 'bestie' back, attempting to play the victim for her unimpressed parents:
Alya: I just want my best friend back... Is that really too much to ask?
Marlena: Considering you've disowned her, called her a bully, sent nasty messages to her phone, slandered her in court, and are alright with someone killing another in a twisted sense of 'justice'... Then yes. It is too much to ask.
- Aside from Juleka and Nathaniel, the majority of Marinette's former classmates and 'friends' are portrayed this way, with the twist that Lila never actually promised them anything. During a Villainous Breakdown, Lila admits to Ms. Mendeleiev and several other students that she told several Celebrity Lies in order to impress them, only for everyone to assume that she would use her connections to get them free stuff.
- Off To The Races: Fukuda treats everybody around him horribly, with the sole exception of Sho. At the same time, he still expects to be respected and given the regard he refuses to afford anyone else. It doesn't go well.
- In Angel's Egg, there are several civilians that believe All Might should focus on finding a family purely for the sake of passing on his Quirk to a successor. They also decry him for taking care of the titular egg, believing it's distracting him from finding a 'real' family.
- Cain: The moment he overhears All Might telling Izuku that he can help him become a Hero, Katsuki immediately decides that HE deserves to become his successor instead. Thanks to years of preferential treatment at Aldera, Katsuki is such a Spoiled Brat that he can't grasp the concept of not getting his way, and all his efforts to convince Toshinori that he's the better choice wind up having the opposite effect.
- Crimson and Emerald: Even after being told outright why the Aery and Warren don't want anything to do with him, Bakugou marches to the Aery to demand that Hawks give him an internship.
- Erased Potential: After learning that Izuku has been training with Eraserhead to learn how to fight despite being Quirkless, Bakugou immediately decides that he wants in, and goes to meet Aizawa fully expecting that the pro will agree to teach him as well. Though he does get a lesson out of it, it's far from what he was expecting, as Aizawa instead takes him to task for his attitude problems.
- Midoriya, Plus Three-Sixty-Five:
- After the one year older Izuku makes it into U.A., Katsuki ambushes him on one of his jogs, demanding to know where he got his Quirk from and insisting that "You OWE me!" that information. Izuku is so disgusted by his long-time bully's sense of entitlement that he lets him have it with both barrels.
- This also applies to the majority of his classmates, who are used to being given special treatment due to their Quirks being seen as powerful and impressive. U.A. provides a massive reality check, as unlike before, the staff there aren't so willing to overlook 'minor indiscretions' and brush their rule-bending — and breaking — under the rug.
- The Sleeper Hit AU has Bakugou, whose Establishing Character Moment is pitching a fit when he places #38 in the first Hero Rankings held since his graduation from U.A. When Jirou questions whether he honestly expected to immediately hit #1, he claims that no, he didn't... but he expected Top 20 at the very least. The sheer depths of his entitlement only become clearer as the story continues, especially after he realizes that the Quirkless Pro Hero Sleeper Hit (who is seven ranks above him) is none other than his former friend Midoriya.
- Sekai of Perfection Is Overrated thinks of her minions as expendable, in large part the result of her impatient and self-centered personality, which is enabled by her ability to steal the powers of her enemies with her Element. The Usurper also has elements of this, as he fully expects all the SUEs, who have their own self-centered agendas that are generally exclusive from each other's and his, to fall in line with his plan to destroy the Himes and reshape the world as he sees fit.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- A Moon and World Apart:
- Discussed in Chapter 15, when Director Honey Spice dismisses the idea of entitlement based on bloodlines or social position with disgust.
- Blueblood is a full-on example, declaring in Chapter 27 that as Nobles, he and his allies deserve to be the ones controlling the "traitors" and their advances, simply because of their ranks as nobles. Celestia disagrees though.
- Blaze and Shadow from Precure Meet The Dream Traveler bully Yuko for her love of food/cooking; calling her a "glutton," rolling their eyes and scoffing when she talks about food being love, call her "please be delicious" wish 'voodoo crap', and hit Megumi when she mimics this. And despite this, both of them demand that she cooks for them.
- Rosario Vampire: Brightest Darkness Act VI: From chapter 27 onwards, when she accepts her role as Dark's guardian angel/mother figure and nothing more after spending most of her screentime being an Ax-Crazy Yandere over him, she becomes this to Mizore, demanding that Mizore actually shows her respect before she even considers giving her her blessing to marry Dark; considering the fact that Arial had previously savagely clawed Mizore into Ludicrous Gibs in a jealous ragenote , stole her engagement ring right off of her hand while issuing death threats in the middle of the night, and is continuing to be nothing but a Jerkass to her despite all of Mizore's attempts to bond with her, and even after Mizore saved her ungrateful life, it's been pointed out at least once that Arial has done nothing to deserve respect from Mizore.
- In Fall With the Petals, Kamoshida feels that his fame gives him free reign on the school grounds, letting him do whatever he pleases to whoever he wants. During his boss fight, he insists that his victims want attention from somebody of his stature.
- A Game of Vengeance and Justice: In the sequel, After Vengeance and Justice, this is the motive behind Durran's rebellion. While their leader is a Wide-Eyed Idealist, his supporters are nothing more than a bunch of petty, self-absorbed aristocrats who hate the fact that Jasper's ironclad, autocratic rule prevents them from playing the game of thrones. They also hate how he keeps empowering Justicars to overrule them and assume their usual duties... despite how most neglected those same duties, which is why he's reassigning them in the first place.
- Kuzco in The Emperor's New Groove is this in spades at the beginning. After being turned into a llama, he demands that Pacha escort him back to the palace while still openly intending to raze Pacha's village to build his summer home. He gets better...unless you count The Emperor's New School as canon, since Kuzco suffers Aesop Amnesia there and returns to his egotistical ways.
- The Duke of Weselton in Frozen. From the very beginning, he makes it clear that he intends to take advantage of Arendelle's riches, and when Elsa's powers are exposed, he brands her a monster and tries to have her killed. In spite of all that, when all is resolved, he still demands an audience with Elsa... only to be shocked when Elsa not only refuses to meet with him but permanently severs all business ties between Arendelle and Weselton.
- The Incredibles: Young Buddy Pine believed that being able to invent jet-boots and claiming to know Mr. Incredible's moves, fighting style and catchphrases automatically entitled him to become Mr. Incredible's ward. Even when he recalls the hurt he felt at Mr. Incredible rebuking him for his foolish decision to interrupt the confrontation between Mr. Incredible and Bomb Voyage, the audience sees the flashback is actually a Self-Serving Memory; Bomb Voyage is completely missing in Syndrome's version.
- Aquaman (2018): David Kane demands Arthur to rescue his father from drowning, completely ignoring that his father had performed a Backstab Backfire on Arthur after the latter tried to spare him. Arthur shuts him up for this, saying that they deserve no mercy after they massacred a bunch of innocent Russian sailors.
- The Banana Splits Movie: Mitch had been unfaithful to Beth by cheating on her with his co-workers and neglecting her two sons. He later begs for Beth to take him back because he still loves her, genuinely expecting Beth to return the favor. She then decks him and claims she wants a divorce.
- Batman Begins: Inverted when Ra's Al Ghul is trapped on a train bound to crash, but rather than expect to be saved he taunts Batman on whether he's learned the necessity of killing for the greater good. Since his mercy earlier at the monastery allowed Ra's to torment him, he was implying that Batman's lack of desire to kill is self-invalidating and even in that case (where Ra believes he is on the right and Bruce is on the wrong) he won't be able to stop him because his thinking is inherently flawed. Batman notes (pretty much shirking the issue and glossing over that he set up with Gordon's help the train to crash):
Batman: I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you.
- Batman Forever: During a meeting with Bruce Wayne, Edward Nygma revealed his invention, "the Box", which manipulates brainwaves to beam television signals directly into a person's brain. Bruce is initially willing to look into the technical schematics and set up a meeting through his assistant, but Nygma refuses to wait and demands a direct answer from Bruce himself, insisting he deserves it; he's subsequently crushed when Bruce turns the idea down and devotes the rest of his life to humiliating and killing him, becoming the Riddler.
Nygma: You were supposed to understand. I'll make you understand!
- Descendants 3: Audrey is revealed to be this, though in all fairness, it’s not all her fault. Being the daughter of Sleeping Beauty, she was constantly encouraged to win over Prince Ben, who was the heir to the supreme throne of Auradon, and become his Queen, by her well-intentioned by entitled family. They raised Audrey from a young age to believe that she was the best candidate for Queen, and no one else deserved the title more than her, coming from an elite royal family on both sides, and the daughter of a famous Princess Classic. This, Audrey grew up believing that she was destined to marry Ben and become Queen of Auradon. When she fails to achieve such, her grandmother breathes her in public for not being able to hold onto Ben, saying that she has shamed her family by failing to become Queen. Egged on by her grandmother’s harsh words and a lifetime of expectations wasted, Audrey snaps and steals the throne of Auradon for herself, plotting to overthrow Ben.
- Exam: White genuinely believes that he is better than everyone and should be the one to get the job. Dark mentions that this is one of the symptoms of his Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Even though Umbridge sadistically tortured Harry and many other students by making them carve words into their own skin (in Harry's case, "I must not tell lies"), took over Hogwarts, and forced students to follow increasingly inane rules, she is genuinely shocked when Harry refuses to save her from a herd of centaurs that she pissed off. Harry even gets to use an Ironic Echo for her which he didn't use in the book ("Sorry, Professor, I must not tell lies").
- Harry gets to use it again in Deathly Hallows ("You're lying, Dolores, and one must not tell lies").
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park: Gives us Peter Ludlow, a fairly stock Corrupt Corporate Executive who views all the dinosaurs on Isla Sorna as his company's personal property and disregards the wishes of his uncle John Hammond to go after them.
- Spaceballs: Princess Vespa starts out this way, but gets over it pretty quickly (she kinda lost the attitude along with the matching luggage).
- Spider-Man Trilogy:
- The wrestling arena manager from the first film spitefully scams Peter out of his $3,000, yet once he himself gets robbed, he is genuinely surprised that Peter never helped him out.
- As a whole, Harry Osborn is basically a rich kid, spoiled by his parents, and neglected by his father and he still expects stuff to come his way because of his upbringing and Dad's name. He expects Peter to be an Extreme Doormat, MJ to regard him as the best thing that happened to her, and the fact that his father was a terrorist is a minor detail compared to his issues with him. Even before that, Peter and MJ reflect on Harry's utter ignorance about life for poor people and his subtle classism:
MJ: I think he'd hate the idea of my waiting tables. He'd think it was low or something.
Peter: It's not low. You have a job. You know, Harry doesn't live on a little place I like to call Earth.
- Titanic (1997): The fiancé actually uses a small child (just grabs her off the deck, and given that the boat tipped over and dumps most of its passengers, chances are good that said girl got dumped too) to get a seat on a lifeboat, seeming like a Karma Houdini, but then we learn he kills himself because of the 1929 Wall Street crash.
- Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen: Obstructive Bureaucrat Galloway, after repeatedly insulting Lennox, Epps, his troops and the Autobots (even calling the dead Optimus Prime a pile of junk), expected that Lennox would help him get to safety when there was a problem (actually rigged by the heroes to go help Sam) with the airplane. Of course, Lennox does us all a favor and shoves Galloway off the plane with only his parachute.
- Bazil Broketail: As an aristocrat, Glaves is certainly used to ordinary people being just there to cater to his whims — and his position of regiment's commander (which he bought instead of actually earning) only further inflates his ego. He calls on his rank whenever he tries to get his way, like demanding the best cabin on a ship (never mind they're all occupied by passengers who paid for the trip) in order to get to Fort Dalhousie or trying to weasel out of a duel a Teetol he insulted challenged him to.
- Beast Tamer: This is a hallmark of many of the antagonists Rein has to face.
- The hero's party unilaterally kick him out and call him a useless burden to his face at the start of the series. The moment they realize they actually need him for a quest, they go back with a Backhanded Apology, every intention of kicking him out yet again after the job is done, and the expectation that he should be grateful for the opportunity. It takes a Curb-Stomp Battle by Rein and his new allies to make them properly apologize, however insincerely.
- Edgar Fromage was raised to believe he should get what he wants, when he wants, and is entitled to deliver violence to whoever he has to until he gets it, especially if that involves women who catch his eye. Naturally, he goes after Rein's True Companions, and for the first time in his life, the violence fails. Rein retaliates with extreme prejudice since the guy states that he's not going to stop coming until he's in jail, or dead.
- Dead Silence has Jr. Mega-Corp executive Reed. He spends the first half of the book fully convinced the protagonist Claire has murdered her entire ship's crew and is trying to take the entire reward for finding a Ghost Ship, alternating between bullying, gaslighting, and pretend empathy. When it's ultimately shown she was being honest and some of her crew survived, he's more disappointed than apologetic. When both are betrayed and left to die aboard the Ghost Ship, he fully expects to be able to boss her around and use his father's status as a powerful executive to get off, even immediately trying to betray her after she helps him escape.
- Discworld:
- Feet of Clay features a wealthy man who keeps writing to Commander Vimes to complain about all the minorities allowed in the Watch, even trying to gain some pull by claiming to be a friend of the Patrician. Later in the story, he shows up and pulls Vimes (thinking he's a normal Watchman) aside to deal with a golem (non-violently) obstructing his business. He fully expects Vimes to drop everything and help, even claiming he's a friend of the Watch Commander.
- The Rust family are typical of Ankh-Morpork's nobility, in that if the glass-half-full test were applied to them (do you see it as half-full [optimist] or as half-empty [pessimist?]), they'd add a third option: loudly and indignantly demanding to know why it was half-empty and insisting somebody made it their business to keep it full, right now! Indeed, the Right Honourable Gravid Rust — who later distinguished himself for selling goblins as slaves — first came to Watch attention for whipping a servant who laid out his shoes the wrong way round.
- The Dresden Files: Rudolph is both this and one hell of an Obstructive Bureaucrat. Despite the fact that he would have died long ago if not for Harry and Murphy, Rudolph takes every opportunity to give Internal Affairs information on Murphy and try to get Harry arrested. In Changes, he is at his worst. Rudolph gets the FBI to bring Harry in for questioning after his office is blown up, and has the FBI break down Harry's door. Oh, and he gets Murphy fired... after she helped to save him from Red Court Vampires. Rudolph is saved from imminent death at least twice in the book, in fact, which only seems to make him more rabid in his hatred for the heroes.
- It's implied that there was probably some mind control or other manipulation applied to him in order to make life hell for our heroes in a subtle way.
- Everworld: The witch Senna Wales believes that the other four main characters are magicless fools who should shut up and do exactly as she says and be grateful for it, and is herself totally ungrateful to anything that they do for her. She's a bit different in that she isn't an antagonist originally and even helps the main four characters as often as she troubles them, at least until the very end. It helps that she's a well-documented hypocrite, with a huge helping of Moral Myopia.
- Free to Be You and Me: One story on the record called "Ladies First" involved a girl who felt that she was entitled to anything she demanded just because she was a "real little lady." When she went on a jungle expedition with some other kids and they were captured by talking tigers, she demanded to be released immediately, shrilling "Ladies first! Ladies first!"
And so she was. And rather tasty, too.
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:
- Say hello to Marvolo Gaunt, who abuses his daughter, Merope, regularly while forcing her to do all the menial housework without showing her any appreciation. According to Dumbledore, Marvolo, after a stint in Azkaban, expects his abused daughter to dutifully await his return with a hot meal ready on the table and is genuinely shocked upon finding out she had run away from him instead.
- In addition, this is how Harry comes to view the Ministry of Magic when Rufus Scrimgeour asks for his support after the Ministry did nothing while Cornelius Fudge put him and Dumbledore through a smear campaign. Harry coldly tells Scrimgeour to shove it.
- Honor Harrington:
- Manticore's High Ridge Government could be the collective poster children for this trope (not least because they're all highborn idiots. They put the Haven-Manticore War on pause just when their side has the decisive upper hand, spend years chopping their political opponents (who happen to be the statesmen and military officers who made that war winnable) off at the knees out of spite, antagonize their allies to the point where some start siding with Haven, and drag out peace negotiations for no reason other than rubbing Haven's nose in it (said treatment eventually pushes the Havenites to reignite the war). Sure, at the end of War of Honor they're given the boot and made political persona non grata, but considering the mess they've created (or made worse), it still feels like they're getting off light. Captain (later Rear Admiral) Michael Oversteegen is related to seemingly half of these idiots and pulls no punches when informing those relatives how much he detests them.
- Reginald Houseman from The Honor of the Queen is another one — demanding that Honor sacrifice the planet they're trying to open up diplomatic relations with to save his own ass. She reacted rather strongly to the suggestion... they don't get along so well these days.
- The Horse and His Boy: The empire of Calormen - located far to the south of Narnia - has a very rigid social hierarchy, and some members of the nobility display this attitude.
- Anraddin, upon arriving at a poor fisherman’s hut, demands hospitality for the night, and is not particularly impressed by the meal placed before him. He also attempts to purchase the fisherman’s adopted son as a slave (setting off the entire plot).
- Rabadash, son and heir of the empire’s ruler, throws a hissy fit when he’s unable to force Queen Susan of Narnia to become his wife. Furious at her for slipping away, he attempts to invade her kingdom and kidnap her as revenge (to hilariously karmic results).
- Aravis initially displays some haughtiness towards the lower classes, but is a genuinely good person with strong morals and values. Her whole arc is kicked off by escaping an arranged marriage and she refuses to be kept down by an oppressive patriarchy.
- I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire!: Liam's parents decide to "gift" their title and lands to their five-year-old son in exchange of a hefty allowance, so they can go live the easy life in the Empire's capital. As Liam later discovers, the family is heavily indebted and their lands underdeveloped, but (with the aid of a few decent advisors) he manages to turn things around and make his territory prosperous and strong, and he himself has become famous after defeating a dreaded pirate. When he meets his parents again, nearly fifty years later (humanity has changed so much that fifty-year-old Liam is just on the edge of puberty), Liam's parents and grandparents demand an increased allowance, since Liam's now rich and they are indebted. When Liam cuts them off, his father demands the Prime Minister to restore the title to him (with the implication that he will have Liam killed once that happens, for the slight), only to be surprised when the Prime Minister denies his request on account that Liam is actually doing his job.
- The Outlaw Knight: Upon their first meeting, Robert le Vavasour is described by the protagonist as having "too high an opinion of himself and too vociferous an opinion on everything else." Family-wise, he mentally abused his wife and kept her almost constantly pregnant in hopes for a son. When his only surviving child - a daughter whom he considers more of a tool to advance himself than anything else - is married for the first time, Robert tries to claim control of the sources of income her husband has given her as a wedding gift, insisting that she is too young and warns the man to keep her disciplined. Even years later, when his daughter has married the protagonist and given her father several grandchildren, his judgmental attitude and sexism remain (he apparently even holds King John in low regard for bathing every fortnight, and before his daughter’s second marriage briefly considered pimping her out to the king to get ahead).
- A Song of Ice and Fire: King Aerys II Targaryen. As explained in the backstory, after losing his mind and becoming The Caligula, Aerys went out of his way to repeatedly insult and humiliate his Number Two, Tywin Lannister, through a string of petty slights, which eventually pushed Tywin to resign his position as Hand of the King. Despite this, Aerys still expected Tywin to come to his aid during Robert's Rebellion. He was disappointed, to say the least, as Tywin instead sided with the rebels and conquered King's Landing in Robert Baratheon's name.
- Speak: Melinda befriends the new girl at school, Heather, only for Heather to ditch her as soon as she's able to get in with the popular Martha clique, because of Melinda's unpopularity with the rest of the school. Several months later, the Marthas' sky-high expectations have become too much for Heather, and she resorts to begging Melinda for help on a massive school project the Marthas expect her to complete. She's genuinely shocked when Melinda refuses.
Melinda's thoughts: She completely ignores the fact that I was never in, and that she dumped me, banished me from even the shadows of Martha glory. I feel like any minute a guy in a lavender suit will burst into the room with a microphone and bellow, “Another alternate-reality moment brought to you by Adolescence!”
- Star Wars Legends: Borsk Fey'lya and much of his administration, particularly during the Yuuzhan Vong war. Even worse, since it's generally the military he's talking to, they actually are required to save him, no matter how much he's damaged the situation.
- This Immortal: Everyone assumes Cort Myshtigo to be one. He's from an influential family, acts rudely, ignores whoever he wants, disregards Conrad's instructions, and still expects the latter to save him and guard his life. It is later revealed that Myshtigo was a superb actor and considered this assignment his last great role, all while he was dying of some incurable disease.
- The Whipping Boy: Deconstructed over the course of the story. Sheltered and privileged Prince Horace starts out as very much the embodiment of this trope, but as he endures life on the run and a greater level of discomfort than he’s ever experienced, all his haughtiness gradually fades away (at one point he even calls the experience the best time he’s ever had).
- It’s also hinted early on that part of the reason for Horace’s constant pranks and misbehavior is to get attention from his father: While said father is not intentionally neglectful, his political duties lead him to constantly place time with his son at the bottom of the priority list. The disconnect is so extreme he never realized that his adolescent son was not able to write, and thought that he had been abducted rather than run away in a fit of pique.
- Bar Rescue: Several owners or workers have such delusions of grandiosity it's a miracle Jon got through them.
- The son and minority owner in Villagio Cinema was caught embezzling money from his father's business on frivolous expenses and still insisted he had value in the business even when Jon showed him the evidence to his and his father's face.
- The owner of Caribe slacked off at the business that his wife gave up a career in medicine for, and flat out told him she was going to divorce him to his face and even gave him the papers. He still believes the next day after he sobers up that she wouldn't think of leaving him and Jon is of no service to him.
- The owner of Galloping Goose cheated on his wife, had a baby while his wife was already pregnant and his wife actually wanted to give him a chance, and he had the gall to put in no effort and be mad at Jon for telling him the truth.
- The Big Bang Theory:
- Leonard's mother Beverly has treated Leonard like dirt ever since the day he was born — to such an extent that she wouldn't even let him have a birthday party on the grounds that giving birth to him was her accomplishment and not his (so every year Leonard sends her a card with money in it). Every single book she's ever written (such as "Needy Baby, Greedy Baby") is essentially a character assassination on Leonard, just for wanting normal motherly love. She couldn't be bothered to tell Leonard that she and his father were getting a divorce, and yet she feels it unfair that the son she spent over thirty years emasculating and his wife Penny, whom she has done nothing but talk down to, didn't invite her to their wedding.
- Leonard's roommate, Sheldon Cooper, is basically Leonard's mother's Spear Counterpart. He makes ridiculous demands that have to be followed to the letter, such as making Leonard drive him wherever and whenever he wants, and participate in activities that only Sheldon finds appealing. If he gets called out on his selfish behavior, Sheldon will have a fit where he will explain why everyone else has to cater to his genius intellect, and why he has no such responsibility to care about anyone else.
- Penny herself behaves like this sometimes. There are a number of instances where she doesn't realise that after she dumps Leonard, he is no longer obligated to pay for her food...or gas...or rent...but he does it anyway. Most evidently in "The Panty Piñata Polarization", where the Escalating War the episode revolves around is arguably caused more by her sense of entitlement than Sheldon's. She helps herself to one of Sheldon's onion rings and refuses to get out of Sheldon's seat, so he kicks her out of the apartment. She then refuses to serve Sheldon at The Cheesecake Factory, so Sheldon complains to the manager, which he does have the right to do, because of Penny's bad customer service. Penny then tampers with Sheldon's food again and later throws a tantrum because Sheldon cut off her access to his Wifi.
- Big Brother:
- In the US show, Rachel and Brendon (but mostly Rachel) are almost like Russell Hantz in terms of this trope. They are good at winning competitions but have a poor social game and come off as this, but Rachel especially. Both of them, but mostly Rachel push their way through the game without regards for how everyone else thinks of them, hurls insults and Disproportionate Retribution around like balls at a baseball game and are somehow surprised that people can't stand them and hate their guts and that there are targets on their backs. And despite all that, she won, thanks in part to the most blatant Executive Meddling to date and other players picking up an Idiot Ball.
- Averted in the 2012 season — Dan may have acted like he deserved to win, and showed traces of this, but wasn't sour about losing in a six to one vote.
- Dawson's Creek: Abby Morgan, particularly in the episode Full Moon Rising from Season 2. In a fit of jealousy, she calls Jen a bitch, a slut, and all other unpleasant things and she's actually surprised when Jen smacks her one. Afterwards, she breaks into Dawson's house to spy on Jen. To get back at Jen, she tries to seduce Dawson, who was dating Joey at the time. When Dawson refuses her advances and kicks her out, Abby takes it to the point of absurdity by asking him to tell Jen that they had made out.
- Doctor Who:
- The Weeping Angels. They spent two episodes chasing the Doctor and his friends, killing everyone in their way. At the end of the two-parter, the Angels discover that one of the cracks in the universe is threatening to absorb them and wipe them from existence — so they have the nerve to tell the Doctor to sacrifice himself to save them. True, they say they'll spare River and Amy, but considering who we're talking about, they were probably lying about that.
- Then there's Madam Kovarian who had the nerve to ask Amy to save her — the very person whose child she kidnapped and raised into a psychotic Laser Guided Tyke Bomb to have the Doctor (who happens to be Amy's best friend) assassinated, while outright taunting her about how she'll still save her since that's what the Doctor (whom Kovarian was, as stated before, trying to kill) would do. Amy "kindly" reminds her that he isn't present and gives her exactly what she deserves.
- Frasier: Unseen character Maris is basically the queen of entitlement as she has lived a huge wealthy life with little to no restrictions and this has given her a spoiled personality. She once parked in a handicapped zone using her chocolate allergy as an excuse, cheats on Niles and soon wants him to take her back despite this. Whenever she is refused, she reacts how you would think a ritch bitch should.
- Fresh Meat: J.P. attacks Kingsley for texting "his woman", Sam. Even though he didn't exactly respect Kingsley and Josie's relationship. He also seems infuriated that Kingsley stands up for himself.
- Game of Thrones: Given the cutthroat nature and rigid social hierarchy of their world, Westeros has this in spades.
- Viserys Targaryen, as the son of a deposed monarch and not used to roughing it, shows no gratitude to his benefactors and looks down his nose at almost everyone he encounters. In the end, he seems legitimately surprised that his sister Daenerys is unwilling to save him after he threatens her life and the life of her unborn child, and this is after a lifetime of other abuse.
- Cersei Lannister is the epitome of this trope. Born to the wealthiest family in Westeros but constantly ignored by her domineering father, she developed an ego rivaled by few other characters. For most of the series she lacks any real political power, and although she certainly believes herself capable of wielding it, her short-sightedness and tendency to become embroiled in pretty squabbles ultimately prevents her from doing so successfully in the long term.
- Her son Joffrey takes this to an even more cartoonish extreme, believing his status as king grants him carte blanche to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants. Even after his actions incite a multi-front civil war, he refuses to take any responsibility and continually demands blind obedience from his subjects (it does not end well).
- While not "entitled" in the same way as most of his contemporaries, Walder Frey is no less of a bastard for it. As the in-universe equivalent of Nouveau Riche and not usually taken seriously by the established nobility, his insecurity manifests as both extreme bitterness and a tendency to treat everyone - from his social superiors to his own family - as if they’re not worth the dirt on his boots. Also takes personal slights WAY out of proportion and has no qualms about openly breaking promises he’s made to others, while hypocritically calling others out for doing the same thing to him.
- Partially inverted with Stannis Baratheon. While he’s perfectly willing to sacrifice others (sometimes many and/or important others) in pursuit of the throne he believes is rightfully his, he’s also self-aware enough to recognize his own mistakes and know when the odds are stacked against him. As such, there are certain lines that he’s unwilling - or at least extremely hesitant - to cross, and he occasionally compromises his principles or even advocates for the causes of others, if it means increased support for himself. Principled even in his final moments, he accepted his fate and openly encouraged his killer to fulfill their duty.
- Daenerys Targaryen starts out as quite the opposite of this, being an exiled orphan with no real understanding of power or politics. As she gains more followers and influence, however, her entitlement begins to manifest in increasingly less subtle ways. While definitely savier, more sympathetic and more compassionate than her rival Cersei - plus having much greater military clout - Daenerys ultimately falls prey to her ego and believes that the only way to successfully rule is through fear.
- Girl Meets World: Riley Matthews, an incredibly naive girl, seems to think that just because she's such a nice person that she should always get her way.
- Married... with Children: Peg is this trope in spades. She freely spends more money than Al makes on frivolous items and blames him for not making enough money even though she contributes less than nothing to the household. This even goes to their sex life where she expects sex despite showing no respect towards Al and doing nothing to deserve it. Even when they do have sex, she emasculates Al for not being good enough despite the fact it's her personality that makes him not want to put in any effort.
- Misfits:
Nathan: Come on, use your power, save us!
Simon: After everything you've done to me, you want me to save you?
Nathan: Yes! Get on with it you little freak!
Simon: (turns invisible)
Nathan: You're gonna save yourself? You selfish bastard! I'll remember this! I thought we were friends! - My Super Sweet Sixteen: The 16-year-olds (usually girls) that appear are usually the spoiled poster children for this trope. Their parents are usually incompetent, indulging wimps (the main reason kids turn out like this in the first place) and spend incredible amounts of money (over $50k!) on parties and cars, and the kids STILL have the audacity to throw temper tantrums, bicker and hate on their parents if even the smallest thing they don't like happens!
- Robin Hood: Kate and her mother Rebecca, two peasants in Locksley, were this. The worst moment is when Rebecca blames Robin for her son's death and angrily asks him where he was when he died. You can almost see Robin thinking: "I was right next to him, watching as your stupid daughter kept messing up my plans to save him."
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: In the episode "Déjà Q", Q is stripped of his powers by the Continuum. Given a choice of what mortal form to take and where to be dumped, he chose to be placed in a human form onboard the Enterprise with the expectation that Picard & crew would protect him from all the beings he's pissed off with his Jerkass God behavior (despite the fact that Picard and crew have repeatedly been on the receiving end of said behavior). He's promptly disabused from the notion by Guinan spearing his hand with a fork to verify that yes, he's been stripped of his powers.
- Supergirl (2015):
- In episode six, Gen. Lane all but demands Supergirl's help testing out the Red Tornado android, blames her when things go pear-shaped, and doesn't thank her when she saves his life (along with Jimmy's and his daughter Lucy's). It's discovered later in the episode that Red Tornado was developed to deal with Kryptonians like Kara and her cousin, and that the general was actually field-testing it against her with the intention of deploying it against Superman. What really sets him up for this is when he gets told by his daughter that he is wrong about her relationship with Jimmy holding her back, he has no Heel Realization, no Villainous Breakdown, no My God, What Have I Done? moment. He just says he hopes she realizes her mistake before her entire life has passed her by. A bastard par excellence.
- Cat's mother also counts for a pure Muggle example. She has no interaction with any super or metahuman, but she does put Cat down from the moment she enters to the moment she leaves and expects Cat to take it. Cat doesn't, tells her mother off, and defends Kara's on-the-job skill, if for no other reason than she feels she is the only one entitled to talk down to Kara.
- Survivor:
- Russell Hantz considers himself among the ranks of the game's Magnificent Bastards, like Richard Hatch and "Boston" Rob Mariano. But what they understand and he doesn't is that evicted players on the jury have to like you or at least respect you enough to vote for you to win. Russell just wantonly lied and bullied his way through the game — twice — and ended by asking "Who's the man?", to which both juries shouted "NOT YOU!" And then he had the gall, after his second loss, to argue that the rules were flawed because he didn't win, or because someone who had a drastically different playstyle (Sandra) could win twice. Russell also cried and said that he respected the game too much to lose in Redemption Island, saying it was how a professional NFL player feels about playing with a bunch of "Peewee leaders" who "lost the challenge on purpose to get him out", and claimed that nobody else was there to play the game and was only there for fame. Never mind that he was doing the exact same things he did during the previous two times he played. Asking people to flip and be a third wheel, assembling the usual (Laker Girl) harem, searching for the idol recklessly (if you're idol hunting, MAKE SURE NOBODY IS WATCHING YOU first!!), even dumping out the tribe's rice while they were out fishing, without even considering that this time, he was playing with people who had the chance to see him in action. (And if you've seen those seasons, there's absolutely zero excuse for not knowing his game inside and out.)
- Jeff Kent a few seasons later was voted out and became the second member of the jury. While he was given a nice edit, in his Elimination Statement, he tears into everyone else and acts like he deserved to win when he already had made over $60 million playing baseball. According to the MLB, however, he's certainly a Nice Character, Mean Actor.
- Victorious: Jade has this dynamic with Tori. Despite treating her horribly, she often expects Tori to help her out, such as when she wants to get back together with Beck or when she needs to find funding for her play. Tori even points this out to her. Jade responds by promising to treat her better in the future, which never happens.
- The White Queen: George of Clarence, to the point that he winds up getting executed for treason. He continually whinges that he isn't being given enough power, land or money compared to his brothers, even after twice having been forgiven for rising up against King Edward IV. The latter occasion triggered another brief but bloody civil war that saw tens of thousands killed (including the kingmaker Warwick), his brothers forced into exile, and Queen Elizabeth stuck in sanctuary while bringing up a new baby.
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The other reindeer who verbally abused and socially isolated Rudolph for his entire life expect him to use his glowing nose as a foglight for them. He does it, the poor sap, and everyone acts like the resulting fame makes up for how poorly treated he was.
- Prince Nana, a Rich Bastard Evil Prince who didn't have to work for anything of necessity, eventually got tired of spending time in Ring of Honor and left. Given he had all but retired from the ring in favor of leading a Power Stable, his Embassy, whose sole two purposes seemed to be ruining the days of wrestler not a member and acting as a vehicle for Nana to flaunt his wealth, no one who wasn't an Embassy member was sad to see Nana go. But Nana came crawling back, disrupting shows with pleas to be rehired after he was cut off from Ghana's tax revenue. He was dragged off by security each time, so when he regained his wealth by way of a stimulus package technically not meant for him, he took revenge by hiring people to attack wrestlers who retained their ROH jobs by virtue of not quitting them.
- Andrea's reasoning for joining C4 and ambushing Shine Wrestling's top baby faces was that the promotion did not reward her for her loyalty. Given she was hired specifically by SoCal Val to wreak havoc, you'd think she'd be thankful to have any employment from Shine, much less a continual spot after Val was disposed of. Incidentally, she does get banished from Shine, but only after four-fifths of Las Sicarias beat her down at the conclusion of a loser loses a member match C4 foolishly agreed to. After that, she does show some gratitude to one staff member she had habitually harassed, for about fifteen seconds.
- Old Harry's Game: Thomas Crimp, who in life committed every possible crime it's possible to commit, with the after-effects continuing after his death, and is so disgusting even Satan himself is appalled, never gets why he's in Hell being tortured, and genuinely expects he should be exempt from it.
- At the end of Annie, Miss Hannigan expects Annie to vouch for how well she's always treated the orphans. Too bad she taught Annie to never tell a lie.
- ANNO: Mutationem: In the Mysterious Console DLC, the Firmware AI begins its introduction by attacking Noni to prevent her from escaping, then after being beaten asks Noni to stop before getting hit with Bullet Dancing.
- Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII: After starting a rebellion and hurting a lot of people, then revealing to Sephiroth the horrific truth of his origins and repeatedly calling him a monster, Genesis fully expects Sephiroth to save him from his cellular degradation by giving him some of his cells. Sephiroth understandably tells him to rot and leaves him.
- Prince Charmles of Dragon Quest VIII. Not only do the heroes have to drag this lazy lout along on what's supposed to be his Rite of Passage, he expects them to do all the fighting and slay an Argon Lizard for its heart... and after they kill one, he immediately decides "Oh, I should have an even bigger and better Argon heart — You guys work on that!" He doesn't treat them with even the slightest shred of respect or dignity, expecting them to do everything for him because he's royalty — the only physical exertion he puts himself through during the entire trip is whipping Medea, then Trode, and after THAT stunt the player will likely join the heroes in cursing the fact they can't just leave him in the reserve. To top it all off, after you finally secure a heart he deems acceptable and return to Argonia, he finds a way to even more flagrantly flout the rules by buying a heart in the Marketplace and expects you to keep this action a secret from his father! Towards the end of the game, he reasserts his bastardry by barring you and your party from the wedding. Yet, even after all of that, he's absolutely shocked when this comes back to bite him squarely on his big fat butt.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim contains a similar example in the form of Delphine and Esbern. Despite being Blades, whose role is to serve the Dragonborn (i.e. you), they are perfectly happy to give you orders, disbelieve your findings, and expect you to be obedient to their every whim. They go so far as to demand that you kill Paarthurnax for them, the dragon Master of the Greybeards who has spent the last three thousand years waiting for you, teaching the Way of the Voice, suppressing his nature to help overcome his inborn urge to dominate. The dragon who was instrumental in your defeat of Alduin the World-Eater, who willingly helps you learn a Shout that was specifically meant to take down dragons (the Dragonrend), and who has been protected from harm by the Greybeards and by the Emperors that the Blades served for the last few thousand years. And they refuse to help you until you do what they tell you to do. Many players seem to enjoy making Delphine and Esbern suffer a humiliating death for such an affront. Delphine and Esbern justify this by claiming that Paarthurnax's draconic instinct to dominate (which even Paarthurnax will admit are as strong as ever) makes him too dangerous to be allowed to live. Esbern also states that justice demands that Paarthurnax answer for the crimes he committed as Alduin's former right-hand. Even Paarthurnax himself will acknowledge that they are right not to trust him.
- It says something about how reviled their "request" killing Paarthurnax is among the fanbase that one of the most popular mods for the PC version is one that allows you to tell Delphine and Esbern to piss off and allow Paarthurnax to live, and the Dragonborn demonstrates via his/her Thuum via nifty shaking/sfx so that they drop the subject, thus allowing you to rebuild the Blades without them bitching about their original "request" from before.
- Ethan Seed of Far Cry: New Dawn. He's the son of Joseph Seed, the Big Bad of the previous game, and the de facto leader of Joseph's cult village of New Eden in his father's absence. He believes that due to being Joseph's son, he deserves to be the true heir of New Eden, and to have the power of Joseph's tree of Eden, which Joseph gave to the Captain instead of him. Ethan is also a literal bastard, due to his father never marrying his mother Megan. Such is his feeling entitlement, Ethan betrays New Eden to the Highwaymen purely for personal gain. In his defense, he does seem to regret his actions and apologizes to his father right before he dies.
- Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War: Bloom, the head of House Friege in the second generation, is one of the more entitled characters in the entire game. He abducts his sister and niece and imprisons them in the family home because it's his right as the head of the house. He seizes the Manster District from Travant, the man who actually disposed of its royal family, to rule as overlord. He boots his unwilling niece onto the battlefield with a line about how she owes it to him for his kindness after her mother's death (caused by his wife's abuse, which he never intervened in). When the battle turns against him, he demands troops from Travant and fails to understand why Travant ignores his letters. He demands his daughter and heir Ishtar save him from the rebels, even though he's just lost his other child, while he remains holed up in his castle. And if his niece confronts him there, he calls her ungrateful again.
- God of War III: Despite having abandoned Kratos to fall into the River Styx after their initial attack on Zeus went badly, along with the fact that she flat-out told Kratos to his face that he was nothing more than a pawn of hers and the Titans and she had no more use for him, Gaia genuinely expects Kratos to help her up when she's later having trouble reclimbing Mount Olympus... only to be shocked when Kratos basically tells her to screw off before cutting off her hand, sending her falling to her doom.
- Harvest Moon: Hero Of Leaf Valley gives an unintentional example. If the player's horse gets sick twice, Gwen will punch the player character in the face and accuse him of neglecting the horse, even if the player checks on the horse every day and it just randomly happens the next morning. It is possible for this to happen shortly before one of Gwen's story events, in which she asks for the player's help in protecting Snowball, so she can accidentally come across as one of these.
- Kingdom Hearts: This is one of Riku's character flaws in the first game; he's aware that he was meant to have the Keyblade, and became insanely jealous when it went to Sora instead, ultimately leading to a Deal with the Devil. It didn't go so well for him, and his sense of entitlement is naturally absent afterward.
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: At the beginning of the game, Tatl genuinely expects Link to help her track down the Skull Kid, despite the fact that not only did she help the Skull Kid mug Link and steal his horse and ocarina, but also personally interfered with Link's attempt to pursue them after he was turned into a Deku Scrub (which is how they got separated in the first place).
- Mass Effect:
- Ambassador Udina takes every opportunity to badmouth, second-guess, and otherwise undermine you that he can get, culminating in ordering the Normandy grounded simply because it's politically expedient. When you come in and save the Citadel anyway from a massive Geth attack, the Systems Alliance either gets offered a seat on the Citadel Council or takes over the council, depending on how exactly you dealt with Sovereign and the Destiny Ascension. Either way, you're told that your recommendation will carry the most weight, and Udina seems to honestly expect you to recommend him over Captain Anderson, even after the shit he's piled on you. Of course, nothing's stopping you from doing just that, if you're the forgiving type. If.
- Happens again in the sequel if you saved the Council. Depending on your choice of Anderson or Udina, you may get to meet them (two guesses which one will get you the audience?). But if you were hoping that proving them wrong and saving their asses the last time they ignored your warnings would get them to believe anything you say now, much less help... forget about it.
- Administrator Anoleis on Noveria is obstructive and rude toward Shepard from the get-go, because he assumes (wrongly) that they're there to investigate his dirty laundry. If Shepard helps the internal affairs agent sent to actually bust his ass for corruption, he honestly still expects and demands Shepard help him.
- The Krogan Rebellions started in part due to this, due to the krogan riding high on the wave of saving the entire galaxy during the Rachni Wars, feeling that they had earned the right to ask for anything as their boon. After their nature as Explosive Breeders caused them to overpopulate the worlds they were given after the Rachni Wars, only to be denied more worlds to settle on, they decided to seize those worlds by force and take the rest of the galaxy while they were at it. Ultimately, this led the unleashing of the genophage upon their species by the salarians and turians, leading to only 1 in 1000 births being successful. Wrex and Eve suggest that the salarians uplifting their species before they were ready was part of the problem, but admits that in retrospect, they did bring a lot of their misfortunes on themselves.
- The asari in Mass Effect 3 refuse to aid Earth (or any other race) during the Reaper invasion, only to ask Shepard to drop everything and head to Thessia when the Reapers are kicking down their door. The entire asari race also becomes this after the reveal that the Protheans had interfered in their development with the intention that they would lead the fight against the Reapers in the next Cycle, even leaving them a fully-intact beacon to aid their development. However, the Protheans didn't count on the asari keeping their own beacon hidden (despite writing the laws that all races must share any knowledge gathered from other beacons) and became culturally and technologically stagnant, due to their long life-spans and reliance on using the knowledge data-mined from the beacon to maintain their technological supremacy over the other races in the galaxy.
- Humanity is frequently accused of this by their detractors (especially turians), due to having entered galactic politics thirty years ago and thrown aside centuries of tradition to try and push and shove their way to the head of the table. Humanity counters that they simply want to get involved and protect the galaxy, having demonstrated their considerable military strength during the First Contact War and pointing out that Asskicking Leads to Leadership was precisely how the turians themselves got onto the Council in the first place.
- Mortal Kombat 11: While Frost was already egotistical, willingly becoming a Cyborg has put her arrogance over the top to the point of demanding others (Raiden, Sub-Zero, Kano, Shao Kahn, etc.) give her control of their respective organizations, insists Shang Tsung give her his soul powers, and even has the gall to ask Cetrion, an Elder God, to be made ruler of the realms. All of the other kombatants scoff at her demands and see her as nothing but a bratty womanchild.
- Nintendo Wars: The mayor from Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, who constantly wants the main characters to save him and his town, only to kick them out after the danger is gone, constantly selling them out to save his own skin in dangerous situations. Thankfully, Laser-Guided Karma catches up to him when the Big Bad gives him a supposed "cure" to a disease that was ravaging the town, which the mayor greedily drinks rather than waiting to share it with the rest of the town. The villain proceeds to give him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech as he chokes to death on the ground.
- Persona 4: Tohru Adachi thinks that his hard work in his youth means that the world owes him success and an intimate relationship. Because he has neither, he feels it's the fault of life, society, and the women around him. He also talks about his power to throw people into TV sets as if it was given to him to make up for his unsuccessful lot in life.
- In one of the middle chapters of Phantom Brave, a village chieftain hires Marona to deal with Raphael, leader of the White Wolf Army, who is causing trouble on the island. You eventually find out that the troublemaker is an imposter who has taken advantage of Raphael's name repeatedly, and the real Raphael (who, unlike nearly everyone else in the setting, actually likes and respects Marona) shows up to help you take the imposter down. When you return, the chieftain stiffs you on the payment because the job instructions was, explicitly, to defeat Raphael, not an imposter (regardless of who was causing the problem). Marona is forced to accept... when the REAL Raphael, having overheard the exchange, starts up a ruckus in the village. The chieftain immediately requests Marona's aid and is genuinely surprised when she declines and wanders off instead.
- World of Warcraft:
- The Horde under Garrosh. They believe its perfectly fine to invade anyone they choose for resources for themselves. They try to claim they need lumber for housing and... build a city out of a metal they seem to have imported from another continent and they seem to be building everything out of metal nowadays. They claim to be starving and yet they pollute their major hunting grounds that were right next to their one major population center just so they can strip mine the place for ...war. And no, they don't farm, they raise pigs and hunt. Their invasion of Ashenvale, a somewhat hilly forest really comes across as extremely selfish. And the justification for the invasion? The Night elves won't trade with them AS MUCH as before.
- In the weekly Crumbled Chamberlain quest, you are tasked with reassembling the statue that houses the soul of a Mogu chamberlain, who proceeds to talk down to you, giving you patronizing praise at best while arrogantly insisting that you stop dallying at worst as you kill monsters on the island. Upon completion, he hands you your reward, a single Shan'ze Ritual Stone (which can more easily be found through other methods, and you need three for each of the three bosses in the weekly quest) and tells you not to tell his master Lei Shen what he did, lest you end up like him. The chamberlain's attitude is unsurprising, however, when you consider that he's a high-ranking member of a species that sees all others as lesser beings.
- Revenge Films:
- A woman's sister-in-law looked down on her for living in the countryside and her brother did nothing to stop it. When the brother's house collapsed due to an earthquake, the sister-in-law demands the woman to pay to repair the house, but she refused.
- In one story, the protagonist's brother-in-law demanded her inheritance after her parents died even going as far as to threaten her. His wife has had enough and she divorced him.
- RWBY:
- As a Rich Bitch, Weiss Schnee acts as such early on. Best shown in "The Badge and the Burden," where she vocally complains about how she wasn't made leader of Team RWBY and tells Professor Port that Ozpin made a mistake making Ruby the leader. Port even sums her up as "a girl who spent her entire life getting exactly what she wanted", which Weiss admits isn't entirely wrong.
- Everything Cinder Fall does is built on entitlement; she pursues the powers of the Maidens relentlessly, and openly states that she's the only one worthy of them. Volume 8 reveals this is a product of a horrifically abusive childhood, and she feels she's entitled to power and justified in taking whatever she wants because of her past suffering. Dr. Watts tears this apart, telling Cinder straight to her face that the world doesn't owe her a thing and if she wants power, she needs to actually earn it.
- As revealed in Volume 7, a significant portion of Dr. Watts' motives are because he felt General Ironwood took his genius for granted and denied him the respect and credit he felt was rightfully owed to him, despite the fact that he was a privileged elite Atlesian scientist who basically had everything he could have ever wanted. The final straw was when Pietro Polendina's project was chosen over his own; Watts, out of jealousy and spite, joined up with Salem and devoted himself to getting revenge on Ironwood by any means necessary.
Watts: You never appreciated my genius, James. You just stood atop it and called yourself a giant!
Ironwood: I gave you everything you could have wanted!
Watts: You chose that fat imbecile over ME!!
- RWBY Chibi: In "Happy BirthdayWeen", Ruby acts like everything should go her way and everyone should do what she wants because it's her birthday, up to and including forcing Team JNPR to give her their Halloween candy as a present and stealing an entire bowl of candy left out by Dr. Oobleck. By the end of the skit, the rest of Team RWBY has gotten sick of it; when Ruby tries to convince them to buy a Halloween costume for her, they dress her up as a trash can complete with a sign saying "TRASH".
- In the Team Service Announcement Metal and Dispensers, the RED Soldier causes a ton of trouble for his team's Engineer by wasting the ammo crate during the setup period. Later he dashes to him demanding a dispenser... but the Engineer doesn't feel all that obliged.
- In 8-Bit Theater Thief goes on a rant about this to a random villager who wants a new shovel handle about how he can't be bothered to do the most trivial tasks because they might interfere with his "schedule of vigorous masturbation" while expecting them to interrupt their work of saving the world to help him out. Except that the guy wasn't asking them to do it for him, and is rather confused at having his shopping interrupted.
- Girl Genius: Duke Strinbeck on the Pink Airship. While the ship is under attack, he still demands the captain obey his orders — at gunpoint — rather than evade the assault. Then a most satisfying order comes to throw useless objects overboard... the novels go one further, by revealing he was such an arse that when his cause of death was given as "Too Dumb to Live", his family didn't question it.
- Grand Ma: The businessman that barges into Minh's shop in Episode 1. He scolds them for asking him to use his indoor voice, demands them to ignore the other customer's orders, and accosts them until their other costumer - a many-eyed monster - scares him off.
- Paracule from Tower of God. Plots to overthrow you and cries for your help the next day.
- The bread and butter of most customers in Not Always Right. They deserve absurd discounts and assorted goodies when employees make inconsequential errors, get disgruntled from all the verbal abuse, or can't do what they asked because said action is literally impossible. They're the owner's friend/relative/whatever who can have you fired with a single phone call, or the Queen of England, or totally a real lawyer who will totally sue you, or whatever obvious lie they think will intimidate you into giving them what they want. Some of them don't even bother making up crazy lies and simply declare that "the customer is always right", and they are a customer, therefore they are entitled to get exactly what they want no matter how impossible it is, and any worker (or anyone they think is a worker) that fails to comply must therefore be either incompetent, lying because they're lazy and trying to avoid doing any work, or both.
- Likewise, the Reddit Subreddits like r/Entitled Parents and r/Choosing Beggars are full of these.
- In Noob, Bartémulius and Nostariat, the recurring Insufferable Genius Quest Giver pair. Their dialogue when they run into the protagonists can be summed up as: "You're a bunch of ignorant lowlife idiots. You'd better not be asking for our help. But since you're here, would you mind killing that monster that's after us / being our escort / running an errand or two?" To top it off, they can also be found under Ungrateful Bastard.
- Adventure Time:
- Earl of Lemongrab acts like this towards Peppermint Butler.
Peppermint Butler: Thank you for releasing me from the dungeon early, Master Lemongrab.
Lemongrab: I determine what is early, and what is late, Mister Peppermint!
Peppermint Butler: Yes, your Earlness.
Lemongrab: Also... I don't know where food comes from!
Peppermint Butler: My Lord, food comes from Ma—
Lemongrab: AAAAAAAH- DADADADADA, NOOOOOO! That is why I am royal, and YEEEEEEOU are SERVILE! - Deconstructed with Lumpy Space Princess as the show goes on. Yes, she's your Bratty Teenage Daughter par extraordinaire, but no one likes her much (except maybe Finn) and she often suffers for her selfishness and frequent Aesop Amnesia. Season 7 episode Be Sweet reveals that, deep down, she's aware of just how selfish she is, hates herself, is terrified that she cannot ever change (which is not an unwarranted concern) and even as she keeps demanding love and luxury, feels she doesn't deserve it.
- Earl of Lemongrab acts like this towards Peppermint Butler.
- American Dad!:
- No matter what he does to them, Roger Smith always expects the Smiths to have his back. Whenever they push him aside for his deeds, he treats it like a great betrayal.
- In the episode "LGBSteve," Hayley is genuinely shocked and driven to tears when the lesbian roller derby team she and Steve joined kicks her off the team, despite the fact that mere minutes before they do so, she exposed Steve as a boy to the others by pulling his pants down to expose his genitals right in front of them; as it turns out, the other girls had known all along that Steve was a boy and didn't care. Or rather, they assume he's actually a transgender girl stuck in a biologically male body. But either way the team thought Hayley violated Steve's boundaries and was borderline transphobic because she was jealous of Steve.
- Hayley also seems to have this with her family, especially Stan. It's reached the point where a lot of the things she claims as excuses for her behavior like Stan never saying he loved her or was proud of her were stuff she completely made up. She basically feels she has the right to do whatever she wants and her parents have no right to stop her. This is probably best exemplified in "Standard Deviation" where she calls Stan out for not accepting her for who she is which essentially involves mooching off of her parents and repeatedly dropping out of and re-entering college to the point where she’s trying to register using a fast-food menu.
- Batman Beyond: In the episode "Sneak Peek", sleazy reporter Ian Peek, using a special intangibility belt, discovers Batman's Secret Identity and plans to expose it on national television, but is forced to postpone it when he begins to suffer Power Incontinence, upon which he calls Bruce for medical help. During the discussion, Peek reveals that he actually stole the belt from Dr. Taka, one of Bruce's associates at Wayne-Powers, and burned his lab down to cover his tracks, upon which a disgusted Bruce refuses to aid him and walks away. Even after all this, Peek still expects Bruce to help him, and only thinks of offering to give up the footage of Bruce and Terry in the Batcave when Bruce brushes him off again and he's getting desperate.
- Bob's Burgers: Teddy, Gayle, and Gloria each share this trope by being totally demanding of Bob and Linda's attention and help. Teddy and Gayle do have some shred of humanity and demonstrate they genuinely care about the Belchers even though they're so selfish and obsessive, while Gloria is objectively the worse to the point she's totally incapable of showing any gratitude towards her oldest daughter or her son-in-law when they drop everything to do what she wants. Linda is used to their behavior and more willing to coddle them, while Bob has expressed at different points that they should maybe stop associating with all three.
- Brickleberry: Malloy continually calls Ethel a slut and generally treats her like shit. He still expects her to let him live with her in the governor's mansion if she is elected governor despite putting on a clear Bitch in Sheep's Clothing act. Even worse, he had the audacity to become upset when she politely declined his advances.
- Danny Phantom: Vlad Masters/Plasmius, hands down. In the Grand Finale, after revealing his true nature and that he doesn't consider Jack a friend, he still genuinely expects Jack to help him after his plan to phase the Ectoranium asteroid through the Earth backfires, only for Jack to leave him stranded in space.
Vlad: Jack, you've got to help me! You wouldn't turn your back on an old friend, would you?
Jack: An old friend? No. You? YES! - Dexter's Laboratory: In Mandark's debut episode, he genuinely expects Dexter to help set him up on a date with Dee Dee, despite the fact that he had spent the entire episode one-upping Dexter and forced him to shut down his lab; Dexter only goes along with it because he realizes he can exploit Dee Dee's destructive tendencies to get back at Mandark and have his lab shut down.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy: Eddy. One episode had him get clothes as Christmas presents, yet he believes he deserves more "good" stuff in spite of being a Jerkass all year round.
Eddy: Christmas is the one time of year your parents are supposed to buy you everything you want!
- Family Guy: Connie D'Amico falls into this in the episode "Stew-Roids." She makes Chris popular, only for Chris to cheat on her and ruin her reputation. She asks Meg for help in knocking Chris down a peg, despite the fact that she has ruthlessly bullied Meg for years both on and off-screen; Meg points out that she has no reason to help Connie after everything she's done and tells her to screw off... but changes her mind after Chris throws a javelin into her shoulder for laughs.
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: The Duchess, an imaginary friend, is this. Every morning, she wants someone to open her eyes for her, carry her to her own personal bathroom, and pre-gargle her mouthwash for her, all while she openly and relentlessly insults everyone around her. And if she doesn't get her way, she is capable of producing a high pitched, shrill scream for an indefinite amount of time.
- A recurring gag in Metalocalypse is William Murderface's attempt to get songwriting residuals for the albums, which would give him a bigger cut of the profits. This is despite the fact that Murderface does not, in fact, write songs for the albums—in fact, an equally common recurring gag is that Murderface's contributions to the albums are low even by the standards of a bassist (his bass parts are usually rerecorded by Skwissgar or tuned down to inaudibility). What's more, Murderface happens to be the bassist for the most popular band in history, which means that while he doesn't get songwriting residuals, the cut of the profit he does get still handily makes him one of the richest men on the planet.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Prince Blueblood pulls some of this with Rarity, expecting her to cover a puddle for him and using her as a pony-shield from flying cake. He spits Applejack's strudel out in disgust after learning it wasn't made by Canterlot's top chefs, calling it "common carnival fare".
- The Owl House: In her first few appearances, Amity Blight was completely occupied with her own issues and had little to no regard for the problems or feelings of others, like when she was obsessed with getting her top student title from Willow for cheating even though the latter was struggling in class and Amity nearly got Luz killed over it. She also didn't care about making Luz give up her dream of becoming a witch and possibly mauled her and was more concerned with her own embarrassment at the Covention and how it might ruin her chance of getting into the Emperor's Coven and despite everything she's done, calls Luz a bully over a misunderstanding without [[One Side of the Story even trying to talk or listen to Luz's perspective of those events. Fortunately, she grows out of this.
- On a grander scale, there's also Amity's mother Odalia and Emperor Belos who engage in an All Take and No Give relation to others and are so narcissistic that despite promising to keep their word and is pleased when people fulfill their agreement, they absolutely lose it when others want them to uphold their word or in Belos' case if someone merely questions him.
- The Simpsons:
- Comic Book Guy acts like this. For example, in "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show":
Bart: What right do you have to complain [about an episode of Itchy and Scratchy]?
Comic Book Guy: As a loyal fan, I feel they owe me.
Bart: What do they owe you? They provide you hours of entertainment for free. I mean, if anything, you owe them.
(Beat)
Comic Book Guy: Worst. Episode. Ever.- Doctor Hibbert in "My Sister, My Sitter". Towards the end of the episode, when Bart is injured, Hibbert declares to the whole town that Bart's injuries were caused by bad babysitting, ruining Lisa's babysitting business. The next day, he calls Lisa up and asks her to look after his kids while he has Judo.
- Lisa herself often falls into this with her need to be better than everyone she meets to the point of outright sabotaging her betters either directly or indirectly. She is at her worst in "Bart vs. Lisa vs. the Third Grade". After spending the entire episode resenting Bart for getting higher grades, disregarding his advice, and demeaning him behind his back, she had the gall to say that it was Bart’s job to protect her.
- Frank Grimes of "Homer's Enemy" has shades of this during his worst moments; adopting a self-righteous, borderline narcissistic attitude born out of resentment and petty jealousy. This ultimately overshadows his merit as a Determinator and makes the audience turn against him in favor of Homer, who despite his stupidity and irresponsibility, comes off as being the better person.
- South Park: Due to the growing number of people moving to South Park in "City People", the rent on Cartman's house goes up, so in order to keep paying it, his mom Liane gets a job as a realtor. Cartman being Cartman, however, means he's not thrilled about this, only caring that it means she won't be around to take care of him 24/7. Indeed, the very first thing out of his mouth after she tells him she got a job is "I'M your job". He spends the entire episode undermining Liane's real estate efforts, perfectly willing to get her fired if it means he'll have his mother's attention all to himself and refusing to listen when she says she needs the job to keep a roof over their heads. It's only after he forces her to quit and they have to move into a cramped hot dog stand that it finally dawns on Cartman that Liane wasn't kidding and that he majorly screwed himself this time.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "The Sponge Who Could Fly", when SpongeBob runs away from the Bikini Bottom citizens after having enough of being taken advantage of by doing unnecessary chores for them, the citizens still demand SpongeBob to do more stuff for them.
Kid fish: He's flying away!Male fish: No! He owes us favors!
- Transformers: Animated: Sentinel Prime is always rude and condescending to non-Cybertronians and Cybertronians below him in rank. When he gets into trouble, he becomes slightly less insulting, but still feels the need to talk down to his rescuers and any gratitude he expresses is gone by the end of the episode.
- Velma: Despite criticizing all white men (especially rich ones) as being like this, it's a perfect description of Velma herself since she treats the only friends she's got as her property and hates anyone drawing their attention away from her. She also blames society for supposedly mistreating her due to being a woman of color when she doesn't get her way.
- Young Justice (2010): The episode "Targets" did a great job with this. Red Arrow is going to protect the US ambassador at peace talks, and saves him from an assassin... and the man turns out to be Lex Luthor. Lex generously gets him out of trouble with the authorities (people thought he was with the assassin at first) and then makes comments throughout the whole episode about how glad he is that he has a superhero protecting him while Red Arrow can only grind his teeth. To Luthor's credit, he actually does offer to pay Roy handsomely for his efforts...
Red Arrow: Your money has blood on it, and I'm not here to make a buck.
Luthor: So, you'll provide your service, but for free? I can live with that.