Not lean, but still mean.
"Your sins are exceeded only by your girth!"
— Green Goblin on Wilson Fisk, Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
Also called fatbastarditis. Once a television character reaches a certain level of tubbiness, the show they are in will lose sympathy for them. It is generally assumed that overweight people are either pathetic, obnoxious losers or greedy hedonistic Corrupt Corporate Executives. They also tend to be portrayed as ludicrously obsessive eaters. Furthermore, most are portrayed as lazy, having poor hygiene, bad grooming, and no fashion sense. Glandular conditions, genetic tendencies, a natural endomorph body type, low metabolism, and weight gain as a side effect of prescription drugs are treated as lame excuses alongside the "I'm just big-boned" mold.
This trope is Older Than Steam (when resources are short and the peasants are starving, the rich fat guy who owns their farms will attract considerable resentment), but with the introduction of synthetic, high-fat foods in the early twentieth century, which enabled people from most social classes to gain weight quickly, the kind of immorality it was used to signify changed considerably. Prior to that point, being fat was considered high fashion and a status symbol in an unequal world — examples include Adipose Rex and how having a fat wife proved that the Railroad Baron had enough money to feed her a lot. Nowadays, obesity is more associated with the poor, as processed food is far cheaper than healthier alternatives, and a lower-class Fat Bastard will usually be used to illustrate the physical, intellectual, and moral inferiority of the slobs in a Slobs Versus Snobs conflict that takes the latter's side.
Interestingly, some comedians (usually fat ones) complain about how modern society won't let them tell fat jokes anymore... although the sheer quantity of examples available tends to disagree on this point. Obesity is so universally seen as a negative character trait that it's relatively common for characters to be given some Adaptational Attractiveness to offset this fact.
Compare Big Eater and Villainous Glutton (often with Jabba Table Manners). Fat Bastard and Big Eater are usually (but not always) mutually exclusive. While Fat Bastard is often fairly ugly, the Big Eater usually has a somewhat pleasant appearance. This is because the former is played for villainy and the latter for laughs. Dead Weight is this type... but undead! When a Fat Bastard does their own fighting, they can be a simultaneously humorous and terrifying foe for a hero to face off against — these portrayals often invoke the character's obesity as a Disability Super Power or Power-Upgrading Deformation. Kevlard is a commonly invoked trope, particularly for a Stationary Boss or Mighty Glacier villain. Stout Strength is also a stock trait for these villains, and they will rarely be Acrofatic. When facing a villain with more than one of these traits, crying is an acceptable tactic.
This trope is named after the character from the Austin Powers movies. He epitomises this trope to such an extreme that it qualifies as parody.
God help you if such a character is Large and in Charge — they could very well be a Corrupt Corporate Executive or Morally Bankrupt Banker. Worse yet, they could be an Adipose Rex. (Bear in mind that the latter is not synonymous with this trope, though.)
Fat Idiot and Fat Slob portray similarly negative images of the overweight, though not necessarily unsympathetic ones (there are plenty of dim but good-hearted fat characters) and it's entirely possible to be a Fat Bastard without being either of those other two. Contrast Big Beautiful Man and Big Beautiful Woman (men and women who are attractive because they're chubby), Big Fun (fatness = jolly and great fun to be around) and Lean and Mean (a skinny bastard). Often stems from Evil Is Bigger and Beauty Equals Goodness.
See Also Big, Fat Future and Fat, Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit.
Truth in Television to a degree — obesity affects the limbic system, a group of interconnected structures within the brain that regulates emotions. However, the mood most closely linked to obesity is depression, of which irritability can be a symptom, but is more commonly hopelessness, apathy and loss of confidence.
Example subpages:
open/close all folders
Advertising
- The titular character of the South African Biggie Bear public service announcements warning parents to be responsible on what they let their children watch on television is noticeably portly and in each of the three ads does something despicable. He beats up and shoots Mr. Rabbit in "Biggie Bear says hello", he forcibly injects heroin into Mr. Spotty and leaves him there in "Biggie Bear's surprise" and he rapes Miss Pussycat in "Biggie Bear meets a friend".
- McDonaldland mascot Grimace was originally introduced as the pudgy, four-armed milkshake thief the Evil Grimace, who lost his extra arms and had the "Evil" dropped from his name after he was changed to being a friendlier character.
Comic Books
- A female example is Amanda Waller, who will manipulate and control people, commits crimes, put bombs into super villains, and even scares Batman. All done for the greater good for her country.
- Batman's Starter Villain, Alfred Stryker, was an overweight man willing to kill to take control of a company.
- Often, popular Batman rogue Oswald "the Penguin" Cobblepot is portrayed as overweight.
- Captain America: The Slug; a drug czar who makes the Kingpin look svelte. He is so obese he cannot move without the aide of a motorized wheelchair and can suffocate people in the folds of his flesh. One source says he weighs 1,200 pounds. (Creator Mark Gruenwald remarked when the character debuted, "At the time, I thought a 1,200 pound man was a bit far-fetched, but I've since read about such a guy in People.")
- Doom Patrol: Alien conqueror Garguax is sometimes drawn as overweight, to the extent that the Paul Kupperberg era depicted him as morbidly obese.
- Earth 2: One of the Furies of Apokolips in World's End is a recruit from Warworld named Famine, an enormously corpulent alien woman who likes to eat other sentient beings.
- The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones: In the first story arc, Indy is forced into an uneasy alliance with an African crime lord named Solomon Black. Black makes it quite clear that he is only keeping Indy alive so long as he is useful to him. Noticeably overweight, Solomon Black is written so he comes across as a Race Lifted Sydney Greenstreet (and is drawn so there is a distinct physical resemblance).
- Great Lakes Avengers: This Trope is massively subverted by Big Bertha, a supermodel who has several 'brick' superpowers, including invulnerability and superstrength, and the ability to change shape but only into an obese (if she were not superstrong, she would likely be immobile) version of herself. Since no one recognizes the obese form as the same as her normal form, and in fact she only has the brick powers whilst in her fat form, she only fights crime as an obese person.
- Deadpool asks her out once, admitting to being a Chubby Chaser.
- The 2016 title had a mad scientist named Dr. Nod who wanted to reverse engineer Bertha's powers into a pill...as a weight loss supplement. When Bertha refused, he sics his henchmen, who were given her powers, on her. When they're defeated, he overdoses on the pills and becomes a building sized walking blob, at the apparent expense of his sanity.
- One The Incredible Hulk story had a one-shot villain by the name of Hubert St. Johns
who captured the Hulk to replicate his powers. He was morbidly obese and could only walk with the assistance of crutches and although he succeeded in inducing a gamma mutation, it just made him an even fatter blob.
- Kid Colt: The Fat Man is 300 lb. of bad attitude. A combination if Acrofatic, Stout Strength, and a Battle Boomerang make him far more dangerous than most people assume at first.
- The writers of Marvel Universe never seem to be able to decide just what the deal is with The Kingpin. He's an incredibly huge person, but depending on the writer this is because his muscles are so huge they make him look fat or that he's a greedy slob with no sense of control. Some split the difference and write that he's got incredibly powerful arm and leg muscles but is fat everywhere else because of overeating—ignoring the more medically likely explanation that, like sumo wrestlers, he is well-muscled everywhere, but eats enough to maintain a significant layer of padding on top of it. Whatever the explanation, it doesn't stop Spider-Man from going to town on him for it, at one point responding to being told that Kingpin was planning a huge operation using most of his available mercenaries by commenting, "Oh, he must be getting take-out."
- Lobo:
- A year before the trope namer appeared in theaters, Lobo slaughtered an outlaw gang that called themselves the Fat Bastards. Their hat was, naturally, obesity and gaining weight and they were robbing Al's diner of money while forcing him to feed their immense appetites. One member took up a booth that was occupied, by crushing the previous patrons under his immense bulk.
- The Main Man himself (who is already a ruthless and perverted bounty hunter with very few redeeming qualities to speak of) is shown to put on weight in the future in DC One Million and Kingdom Come.
- Jason in Long Ago And Far Away is a fat Jerkass.
- Millennium (1988) has Janwillem Kroef, a South African white supremacist who happened to be rather paunchy.
- Allfather D'Aronique from Preacher is fat to the point that his personal aircraft inevitably sustains damage landing. On the top of that, he's also bulimic. As such, D'Aronique has no qualms about messily gorging himself with food and then vomiting all over himself in front of his subordinates.
- Suzie Su from Red Hood and the Outlaws, a relatively rare female example, is a very obese woman with a vendetta against Jason Todd who attempts to lure him by holding a children's hospital hostage.
- Sha: The Duke who organized the witch hunt against Lara was obese and a Villainous Glutton.
- Both Roark brothers in the comic version of Sin City are overweight and look unhygienic. Herr Wallenquist also has this look. They are all extremely evil crimebosses.
- A lesser example would be Agamemnon, the sleazy porn-obsessed boss of Dwight and later, Wallace. He was an art dealer that was overweight, ugly, and smelled bad. He didn't pay well, either.
- Subverted with Sam from Spawn. While he caters to every single characteristic of the trope, he's as good a guy as they come who always strives to right wrongs. The bastard tendencies tend to be directed towards bad guys. Clown (aka Violator), Tony Twist and Billy Kincaid, on the other hand, play this trope straight.
- Another example from Spider-Man's corner of the MU would be Nick Katzenberg, a Daily Bugle photographer, paparazzi, and rival to Peter Parker. While not a villain, Katzenberg was sleazy, immoral, and generally unpleasant, as well as a Fat Slob.
- Stabbity Bunny: In the first issue of the series, Grace and Stabbity are kidnapped from the zoo by Larry, a large, red-headed fat man who plans to ransom her back to her mother... and even tries to kill her.
- Superman:
- Superman's archenemy Lex Luthor was depicted as chunky during the Silver Age and was initially depicted as stocky in Post-Crisis continuity in The Man of Steel, the miniseries that served as the start of John Byrne's Superman run.
- Superman: Secret Origin depicts Rudy Jones as overweight, greedy and manipulative. Even after becoming the Parasite, he has a noticeably huge gut.
- Shape from Supreme Power, who is also a Rubber Man.
- X-Men:
- The Blob, member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. His weight and physical appearance are played up for horror and squick whenever he shows interest in a woman. In a bit of a subversion, his weight comes not from overeating but his mutation. When he was depowered, he ended up as his true weight - which was incredibly thin. After plastic surgery to remove his excess skin, he ended up being a pastiche of Jared from the Subway commercials. In the animated series and Depending on the Writer, he's still a greedy, slovenly, unhygienic pig, though. The animated series also tends to imply he is fat because of his eating habits.
- Dialled up with the Ultimate Universe version of the Blob, to the point where he once paused during an attack on the
AvengersUltimates' mansion to raid the fridge. Less funny was the time he was discovered eating the Wasp's corpse. - The Age of Apocalypse version was just as bad, if not worse - there was no indication that Ultimate Blob necessarily killed the Wasp, simply being an Opportunistic Bastard in the most horrifying way possible. Ao A Blob, by contrast, killed and ate Ao A Nightcrawler's wife (possibly alive), then later taunted him about it. Nightcrawler, not having his canon counterpart's scruples, responded by teleporting a shark into his stomach and letting it eat him alive. Yeah, the Age of Apocalypse is a horrifying place all round.
- Dialled up with the Ultimate Universe version of the Blob, to the point where he once paused during an attack on the
- Also from X-Men is the alien Mojo, a sort of fat evil television executive.
- When Shadow King possessed Karma for several months in New Mutants, she became ludicrously bloated through Farouk's gluttony. She got better, thanks to the Desert Starvation Diet.
- The Blob, member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. His weight and physical appearance are played up for horror and squick whenever he shows interest in a woman. In a bit of a subversion, his weight comes not from overeating but his mutation. When he was depowered, he ended up as his true weight - which was incredibly thin. After plastic surgery to remove his excess skin, he ended up being a pastiche of Jared from the Subway commercials. In the animated series and Depending on the Writer, he's still a greedy, slovenly, unhygienic pig, though. The animated series also tends to imply he is fat because of his eating habits.
Comic Strips
- Brewster Rockit: Space Guy—Cliff Clewless. The idea is in his name. He's supposed to be the station's engineer but knows nothing beyond making an idiot of himself (though not the same level as Brewster, whose stupidity is beyond measure), lazing around, and causing trouble to himself and his crewmates.
- Brutal hitman Oodles from Dick Tracy, who weighs 470 lbs.
- 'Hunk' Murphy in Footrot Flats, who gets his nickname from his massive bulk, is the dumbest and cruellest member of the Murphy clan; given to acts like pulling the wings off butterflies. Unfortunately for Wal and co., his bulk belies his Stout Strength.
- The cynical fatty tabby, Garfield. Other than abusing Odie and making his owner's life hell, he does nothing but eat and sleep.
- J. Roaringham Fatback, a recurring villain in Li'l Abner. The self-styled "Pork King", Fatback was a greedy, gluttonous, unscrupulous business tycoon. His grudge against Dogpatch originated when the town cast a shadow over the table where he was having breakfast, causing his desire to demolish the town, rather than simply move his table. The bloated, porcine, hideously ugly Fatback was, quite literally, a corporate swine.
- In Terry and the Pirates, the corpulent Papa Pyzon is a slave-trading criminal when Terry and Pat first encounter him. He later returns as an Axis agent during the war.
Fanfiction
- Batman Beyond Revisited: Chainsaw, though in an unusual example of this trope, his girth is pure muscle.
- The inexplicably demonic Sollux in Homestuck high; at least, Rose accuses him of having "fifteen girths", which presumably means that he's fat.
- Every overweight character in Knowledge is Power but especially Slughorn and pre-redemption Millicent.
- Norg, the demonic viceroy that has usurped rule in Hebi-Na's Soulscape in Shadowchasers: Soulscape. A huge, obese, frog-like demon, he is a Villainous Glutton with no manners. Like every major character that Jalal meets while on his mission in this place, Norg symbolizes part of Hebi-Na's personality. In this case, he represents what Hebi-Na once was, the cruelty that she once showed towards others, and is the cast-off evil that Hebi-Na has been trying to purge from herself.
- Councilmen Arnold of Soulless Shell, a convicted rapist ferret who tries to rape two other girls in-story, is even described as a "fat bastard".
- Mr. Davidson in Tokyo Mew Mew No Hope Left. He "talks about George Bush and shit" and shoots aliens in the leg.
- Commodore Nelson in Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse is even worse than his appearance in One Piece filler. A morbidly obese Marine commander, he uses his position to serve as the personal slaver of the World Nobles. He sells them not only ordinary people abducted off the streets, but also anyone who somehow offends him, up to and including his own Marines. Most of his crew is miserable, but are too afraid of his rank and connection to the Nobles to fight back. When the Nerimans escape their cells, Nelson plans to summon the rest of his fleet to enslave the Nerimans, his Marine crew for letting them escape, and the entire population of the island they happened to be on.
- Watermelon Tourmaline from We Can Be Heroes! (Steven Universe) is an unpleasant, obese Prism Ranger who's more than happy to threaten civilians with jail time at a Hellhole Prison for the smallest offenses, and makes flippant remarks about her own dead war buddies just to set off fellow war veteran Big Biz off, all while casually eating carrot-like vegetables.
Films — Animated
- Alice in Wonderland:
- The Walrus from the Walrus and the Carpenter story.
- The Queen of Hearts is also this.
- The Cheshire Cat who tries to get Alice in trouble with the above mentioned Queen of Hearts purely for the luz.
- An American Tail:
- Cinderella:
- Lucifer the cat.
- Inverted with the stepsisters, who are thinner than Cinderella!
- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: The corrupt Mayor Shelbourne, after eating one too many falling cheeseburgers and hot dogs.
- The Great Mouse Detective: Professor Ratigan is Large and in Charge and is the Big Bad of the movie.
- Hercules: The cyclops titan is very chubby and is repulsive in every way, plus he's sadistic.
- King Malbert from Igor.
- The Little Mermaid (1989): Ursula, who may have been even fatter when she lived in the palace (before she failed to usurp the throne), as her first appearance has her moaning about being emaciated.
- Constance in Monster House, although she's more sympathetic than most because of her Freudian Excuse.
- Monsters vs. Aliens: In the early concept art, the alien villain Gallaxhar was originally designed to be an obese, four-armed alien woman.
- Oogie Boogie from The Nightmare Before Christmas is overweight and is the [1] of the movie.
- Pinocchio:
- Stromboli is very fat and definitely a Jerkass.
- Exaggerated with the Coachman. He's not just fat and mean, he's obese and evil.
- Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: The Tiger Prowess's villain, a fat tiger named Lord Japper, builds an amusement park right over Goat Village and forces the goats to work there. He later has the amusement park drain energy from the ground, turning the surrounding area into an inhabitable desert.
- Governor Ratcliffe from Pocahontas follows this trope to a perfect T. He's a racist, xenophobic, greedy, insecure asshole who completely abuses his power and bullies his underlings, using his friendship with King James to avoid any form of consequence.
- Big Jack Horner from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: a crime boss and wealthy heir to the Horner bakery, he wishes for all the magical abilities so he can take over the world, likely one of the most evil villains in the Shrek franchise, as he cares nothing for others lives including his own henchmen, and doesn’t care if people die so he can fulfill his wish.
- The Sheriff of Nottingham from Robin Hood (1973) is overweight and is a Jerkass.
- Shark Tale: Sykes has a rotund body due to being a puffer fish, and is not only the Mean Boss of the protagonist Oscar, but also has secret dealings with the shark mafia.
- The Trumpet of the Swan: The Big City Agent.
- Tom and Jerry: The Movie:
- Robyn's Aunt Figg, a Rich Bitch who abuses Robyn and wants nothing more than to claim her inheritance. She also likes food as much as she likes money. She's also not really Robyn's aunt.
- Aunt Figg's dog, a dachshund named Ferdinand so fat that he can only get around on a skateboard.
- Toy Story 2:
- Al of Al's Toy Barn. Even though he has no way of knowing his theft of Woody was kidnapping from the toys' perspective, it was still a knowing theft. And overall he's an ill-tempered and greedy man.
- Stinky Pete from the Woody's Roundup gang. While he is the heaviest of the human characters, his toy version is far from his Fat Comic Relief self of the show. He does everything he can to stop Woody from sabotaging his efforts to go to Japan, eventually resorting to force and violence to get what he wants.
- Toy Story 3: Lotso has a round, chubby figure by design and is a sadistic absurdist who regularly tortures and tries to kill his fellow toys. In the climax of the movie, after Woody and Buzz risk their lives to save him, how does Lotso thank them? By leaving them and the rest of the toys to die in the incinerator.
- WALL•E: Played with. After centuries of living in a low-gravity environment, being waited on hand and foot by robots, and near-constant bombardment by Buy n Large's consumer culture run rampant, every human aboard the Axiom is fat, slothful (both physically and mentally), and almost helpless... until the title character shows up and shakes up the status quo. And being fat and almost completely out of shape doesn't stop the Captain from stopping the rogue autopilot from taking over the ship and making sure the Axiom gets back to Earth. Nor does it stop the rest of them from rebuilding civilization on Earth, which, as depicted during the end credits, results in them becoming fitter and stronger.
- The corpulent judge who takes sadistic delight in giving Toad an overly long sentence in The Wind in the Willows (1995).
- Wonder Woman (2009)'s depiction of Hades is extremely overweight.
- Two characters from the animated Korean movie Animation/Outback, Bog the crocodile, and Lug the lizard who manages Johnny’s circus act.
Music
- Faith No More's only Live Album was titled You Fat Bastards: Live at the Brixton Academy.
- Sort of a persona played by Killer Mike, also name-dropped on Run the Jewels' "Job Well Done".
- GWAR give us Beefcake the Mighty, their bassist. Dressed like a goth Roman centurion and hailing from the planet Cholesterol, his weight is matched only by his villainy, being responsible for sinking Atlantis under the weight of his post-binge vomit.
- The Notorious B.I.G., aka Biggie Smalls, could count as this. It's in his name!
- (More precisely, Biggie often plays Fat Bastards in his rap Villain Songs, where he plays the role of a consummate, cold-blooded gangster—see his songs like "Gimme the Loot" or "Who Shot Ya?".)
- He was this to an extent in the South Park episode "Hell on Earth 2006", where Butters and company summon him from the dead, and his first order of business is to shoot up the place in annoyance.
- The Villain Protagonist of the song Sheriff Fatman by Carter U.S.M. is "six foot six and a hundred tons". He's also involved in electoral fraudnote , buying up low-quality housing that isn't fit for human habitation with a view to renting it to the desperate, and when said tenants can't pay up he'll "take your teeth as deposit". He also has "more aliases than Klaus Barbie"note , is giving Nicholas van Hoogstratennote a run for his money, and is described as a "born-again Rachman"note
Other Sites
- In SCP Foundation, SCP-1788 ("The Adults") is a race of human subspecies with lots of extra body parts and bones and muscles enhanced with other materials. They are hostile towards normal humans. In adult form, SCP-1788-1 are all extremely obese, weighing 150-200 kilograms (330-440 lbs.). They kidnap prepubescent children and use an unknown process on them to turn them into more of SCP-1788-1.
Pinball
- Naturally, Austin Powers prominently features the Trope Namer himself on the playfield.
- Crazy Bob from Junk Yard is the main antagonist.
- Eric Cartman from South Park
- WWF Royal Rumble has Yokozuna, the 500-pound former sumo.
Professional Wrestling
- Bastion Booger, who was both a Fat Slob and had Jabba Table Manners to boot.
- Bam Bam Bigelow, till he was fired by Ted Dibiase.
- In 1993, Yokozuna was THE Fat Bastard as well as being a Foreign Wrestling Heel.
- Rikishi, after it was revealed he tried to end the career of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin by running him over. Otherwise, Rikishi is made of Big Fun.
- King Mabel / Viscera / Big Daddy V, for the sheer gall to wrestle with his chest out being enough to qualify.
- Kenny "Starmaker" Bolin from OVW TV.
- Matt Ghaffari during his Pro Wrestling ZERO1 career.
- USA Pro And Jersey All Pro Wrestling had "The Fat Bastard" Mike.
- Smith "Big Game" James got chants of "You Are Fat" in the NWA promotions even when wrestling opponents of similar size.
- Kevin Steen, someone even wrote a song dedicated to this and all his other unflattering traits called "Antichrist2" after he was kicked out of Ring of Honor by El Generico and then returned even fatter.
- Similar to Smith James, Matt Hardy got chants of "You Are Fat" while he was the leader of SCUM(Suffering, Ugliness, Chaos, Mayhem), which was funny because was noticeably slimmer than the previous leader, Steen.
- In Progress Wrestling there's Dave Mastiff, who is a lot more agile than his size would make you think, his finisher is a cannon ball senton
Radio
- Real Life example: Comedian Artie Lange is constantly mocked on The Howard Stern Show, where the Stern sidekick's obsession with junk food caused him to gain more than fifty kilograms in less than a year.
Tabletop Games
- In the Succession Wars era of BattleTech, the Draconis Combine's Dieron Military District Warlord, Vasily Cherenkoff, is notably overweight. Personality-wise, he is described in less than flattering terms as abrasive and barely competent, an intersection of a Glory Seeker Miles Gloriosus, The Neidermeyer, and Colonel Kilgore, feared and despised by his men, such that the leader of the Combine's Secret Police summed him up in disgust as a "fat fool." While he piloted a 100-ton Atlas, even that got him no respect, as his troops quietly joked it was the only 'Mech he fit in, and that the 'Mech's hips were giving out. He even went so far as to go rogue from his own government to pursue a war he thought they wanted but did not sanction. He eventually got what was coming to him.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- Amnizu, a type of powerful devil, are like this. Not only are they are obese and ugly, they act like snobbish arrogant, haughty bureaucrats, even towards devils weaker than themselves, whom they look down upon. The ones under the sway of Levistus, the Lord of the Fifth actually think that the laws of Hell don't apply to them (because Levistus told them that; of course, the same type of thinking got him in trouble).
- Orcus has been depicted and described from his earliest appearances as obese to the point of rotundity. Must be all of that sitting around on his throne. It's such a well-known trait of his that about half his most faithful servants become similarly fat. He is also the Demon Prince of Undeath, and widely regarded as one of the most despicable and irredeemable characters in the entire franchise.
- In 3e there was feat Deformity:Obese that required serving some kind of evil power and made character's weight at least triple of normal for his race.
- Themberchaud from the 5th edition adventure module Out of the Abyss is an enormously fat red dragon. Despite being out of shape from being kept in a Gilded Cage by the duergar of Gracklstugh, he's just as ruthless and dangerous as any other red dragon.
- Subverted and lampshaded in Exalted: Sesus Nagezzer, one of the canonical Dragon-Bloods, deliberately ignores his obesity problem, to the point where he's been nicknamed "the Slug". Before he became so, he was a brilliant officer in the Realm's army, and he's picked up a few tricks since he lost the use of a leg. Did we also mention he's one of the best hopes for the Realm to survive the Time of Troubles? And that his almost-official position in the Scarlet Dynasty is The Pornomancer?
- Iron Kingdoms: Dominar Rasheth from Skorne Empire is one, deliberately going against the Proud Warrior Race code of his people and loving it.
- Old World of Darkness: The Cone of Flesh from Midnight Circus takes the cake by being made of nothing but fat. More specifically, it's made up of all the assorted human and animal fats collecting in the fomorarch pits of the Seventh Generation, having attained sentience and coagulated into a nine-foot-tall pile of foul-smelling blubber. On top of being utterly revolting , the Cone is also a ready supporter of both the Wyrm and the Circus, and currently rules Freak City through brute force and low cunning; for good measure, it's in the habit of eating humans who make the mistake of overstaying their welcome, and might just have extended its appetites to any children trespassing on Freak territory.
- The Macellarius bloodline from Vampire: The Requiem. Their nickname is "Gluttons." Once someone's initiated into the bloodline, they gain up to 150 pounds in the next few nights. Oh, and the bloodline is made up mostly of cultured gourmands with a special taste for long pork.
- The same gameline gives us the Formosae, "cousins" to the Kindred who feed on fat/ugliness and balloon up into horrifically disgusting monsters as their power increases. The general rule is that they are spiteful, disgusting, abusive monsters who love to prey on those who are insecure about their own weight and looks because it makes them feel better about their own morbidly obese frames.
- Servants of Nurgle from Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 are usually depicted as bloated, disease riddled bags of flesh. They see this as a good thing, as it helps them spread the "blessings" of Grandpa Nurgle to other races.
- Warhammer Fantasy specific examples are the unique characters Grom the Paunch for the Greenskins and Greasus Goldtooth for the Ogre Kingdoms, both of whom are vile, corpulent flesh-lumps who serve as generals for two of the more destructive factions. Both Grom and Greasus are too fat (and important) to walk and go into battle riding a custom chariot and a palanquin carried by dozens of slaves, respectively. There is also Throt the Unclean, a Mad Scientist Skaven who experimented on himself, and resulted in him gaining numerous mutations and extra limbs, but his body has become bloated and he needs to constantly eat to maintain his form.
- The Empire gives us the former Emperor Ludwig II Hohenbach, popularly (and unflatteringly) known as "Ludwig the Fat." A dedicated hedonist, Ludwig was infamous for torturing and executing chefs for not living up to his high culinary standards. His Grand Theogonist was almost the exact same, eventually dying in his sleep by suffocating on his own neck fat.
- An impressive example is the Slaaneshi Daemon Princess known as the Mistress of Spite. Her ascension to Daemon Prince came after she achieved grandiose heights of gastronomy on the population of three entire worlds. Definitely fat (requiring thirty six Daemonic monsters to pull her chariot around) and definitely a bastard.
- In the Yu-Gi-Oh!, the Emperor who was first seen on the card "The Emperor's Holiday" (based on the story of The Emperor's New Clothes) is later seen acting like a textbook example of this Trope in a series of Trap Cards including this one, this one, and especially] these two. He does finally get what's coming to him, however.
Theatre
- Cyrano de Bergerac: Cyrano gives us the Flowery Insults version at Act I Scene V, talking about Montfleury:
Cyrano: This Silenus,Big-bellied, coarse...
- William Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff from Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsor. A witty Lovable Rogue whom audience considers the Big Fun, but considering what he does, he is a total Jerkass.
- The title character of Ubu Roi.
Webcomics
- It's not immediately obvious due to it being a Sprite Comic, but Black Mage of 8-Bit Theater - a violently unhinged, Chaotic Evil apocalypse engine whose favourite spell is a Fantastic Nuke - is occasionally stated to be carrying around a few extra pounds; Dragoon, for example, calls him "the little fat guy". That being said, his weight isn't really shown to have anything to do with his unrelenting thirst for death and suffering.
- Rigel from DNA bullies the other X's and is overweight, unlike the other X's who are all very thin.
- In El Goonish Shive, Jerry calls himself this, while he's anything but. The worst thing we've seen him do was the real origin story for the Hammers, which he admits was an adolescent prank that he didn't realize Susan would take so seriously. Otherwise? He really is just a Cool Old Guy.
- The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: Emperor Krelchzeeber, the guy who killed Riboflavin's dad. Nemesites are butterfly people, and therefore normally very skinny with big wings; not so with Krelchzeeber.
- Used straight in this strip of Loserz, in which a fat guy rants to shift the blame of his obesity on restaurants and other sources of high-fat foods (The previous strip which he refers to has Eric mentioning how unhealthy food is cheaper).
- Averted with Sidney Burns of Mob Ties. Enormously fat, but still the most heroic and driven of the psychotic cast.
- MS Paint Adventures has a few characters who are fat. They all use their corpulence as a weapon.
- Problem Sleuth has villains Mobster Kingpin and Madame Murel. It also features Ace Dick, a Nominal Hero who is still kind of a jerk.
- Homestuck has Sawbuck.
- Tharqa from Penny and Aggie practically defines this trope. The only overweight character in the entire strip, and she couldn't be more venial. Karen, while having lost weight and shaped up considerably, is still bigger than every other character except Tharqa, and is well on her way to becoming the Big Bad of the comic with her Machiavellian plans against the eponymous characters.
- Schlock Mercenary: General Hugo Xinchub is one of the Tough's most durable recurring enemies, an utter bastard who's got countless monstrous acts under his belt as a UNS general, and is also a complete asshole who cannot go a scene without either being condescending or smug. Notably, he is one of the few enemies of the Toughs that they actually hate, and Tagon has actually refused huge amounts of money if it would mean having to rescue him from death.
- The Shufflers: Märchen is introduced this way, being on the run from the local authorities. However, it’s Subverted when it’s revealed that he was only on the run due to one of his cartomancy predictions coming true, painting a target on his back.
- Don Caronja, the main baddy from the first chapter of Ten Earth Shattering Blows. He's fat, ruthless, and addicted to bugs.
- Starfish from Unsounded, the pedophilic, Jerkass leader of the Red Berry Boys, he has people kidnapped so their organs can be cut out and the extra space used to smuggle an illegal substance inside their bodies. His weight and appetite is frequently commented on and mocked by other characters.
- Zebra Girl: The overweight vampire lady who attacks Crystal during the Heaven on Earth arc.
Web Original
- ATTACK on MIKA: Marin, Hiroshi's daughter, is heavyset and bullies her father Hiroshi for being a middle-school dropout.
- Bosun's Journal: The brat barons, degenerate post-apocalyptic descendants of posthumans designed to be genius corporate strategists, are typically entitled, arrogant, oafish beings and hugely overweight due to lives spent doing little beyond lying around, eating, and haranguing their servants.
- Darwin's Soldiers: Gustave is somewhat overweight as well as a violent Jerkass.
- DSBT InsaniT: K-Seal is as evil as he is fat. He's a massive walrus-like creature who has a big appetite for humans.
- Every Faggot Ever: The titular faggot is a fat person who isn't very pleasant to interact with.
- GoAnimate:
- In Dora the Explorer-related "Grounded" videos, Abuela is usually obese, and extremely apathetic to everything going on around her until Dora causes trouble. By that point, she becomes just as violent as Papi and Mami.
- On the occasion that Barney makes an appearance, he is generally fat and a troublemaker.
- Gold Tongues has Petrol, a filthy, obese scavenger who spends his time preying on innocents and sadistically killing people at his leisure.
- Partially subverted in The Guild. Clara is overweight, a terrible wife and mother, spends all her time eating, drinking, and abusing her relationships with her friends - but she's also friendliest and probably happiest character, and seems too ditzy to realize that her actions are harmful, even greeting people with hugs and calling Codex her "best friend in the whole wide world".
- Help Not Wanted has Ogrell Syn'Gorrsh, a corpulent ogre who's also a cannibalistic Serial Killer.
- Looming Gaia: The Sovereign of Aquaria is Looming Gaia's fattest High Ruler, and a massive racist who is leading a genocide towards all non-Aquarians, tortured his brother with a biological weapon to keep him off the throne, has human girls kidnapped and brainwashed to be his mermaid soldiers, and has a harem of kidnapped scylla that he forces to have countless children for him, which he then proceeds to neglect and banish if they're "defective".
- Only A Lonely Heart has Y'golonac, a morbidly obese God of Evil who takes pleasure in rape and murder.
- The stories/art/pictures of popular deviantArt fetish artist Saxxon often feature women who are not only cruel and evil, but almost always inhumanly obese. To put it in perspective, characters who end up rivalling the Earth by the end of the story are amongst the smaller women.
- Shed 17 has Sir Topham Hatt, who, in this universe, is a jerk as both to the engines and crew. Keith Hartley says the name of this trope verbatim several times to refer to him.
”Fat bastard. You’ve never met such a cold-hearted cunt as him.”
- James in SMBC Theater is found constantly shirking responsibilities and generally being a pain to everyone. He also provides significant (one could even say *large*) amounts of Fan Disservice.
- Joe from Statless and Tactless is certainly a bastard (it seems to define him), and Soo calls him a 'fatass' implying he's probably overweight.
- Tails Series:
- Tails of Fame has Seamus Osgranov, a disgusting, obese anthro who doesn't care who he has to kill to fuel his greed.
- Tails of the Bounty Hunter has Dr. Vogar Oblingor, a cronok who enjoys kidnapping innocent anthros and torturing and experimenting on them.
- Tails of the Space Gladiators has Unklok Koknarf, one of the more dangerous convicts within the Gladiator Detention Facility, and also one of the most obese ones.
