Sometimes the gene pool needs a heavy dose of chlorine.
"If excessive ambition was the fault most commonly attributed to the middle class, failure to provide a suitable example and to care properly for their subordinates were the most common complaints against the rich. The aristocracy was widely seen as preoccupied with duels, London, adultery, foreign fashions, fox hunts, and gambling."
— Kirstin Olsen, Daily Life in Eighteenth Century England
The Ditz with a trust fund. The Upper-Class Twit is either an aristocrat or a relative of someone in the upper echelons of society, and is automatically provided with all of his living expenses. In other words, he was a Spoiled Brat as a child, and now he has no reason to contribute to society, which is just as well, since he doesn't have the skills to contribute anyway. More often than not, he leads a hedonistic lifestyle that embarrasses his family. Highly prone to Conspicuous Consumption. Embarrassing the family enough or doing something truly heinous as opposed to just assholish may get them cut off, but this is not exactly common. Instead, they will usually just be leashed to a trust fund and kept out of sight and away from any sort of family assets that they risk gaining control of, as it is simply easier to provide for them and clean up their messes in private than to unleash them on the world and risk them bringing shame to the family or drawing unnecessary attention from shady associates who want their money.
Usually used as a foil for The Jeeves or some other more intelligent but lower-class character. The male Upper-Class Twit is often a prime target for Gold Diggers, while darker examples are typically substance-addled hedonists and likely rapists whose activities are typically covered up by hush money payouts to their victims until they have finally harmed too many people for money alone to be able to keep things out of sight.
A popular subtype and the female counterpart to the usually male Upper-Class Twit is the Airhead Heiress — a young, brainless, fashion slave party girl heiress. Any resemblance to Paris Hilton or one of the Kardashians is purely coincidental. Less wealthy or successful examples are typically small-time would-be influencers living dysfunctional and/or outright pathetic lives (typically sustained by nothing but a trust fund and possibly an OnlyFans account, with a lifestyle that is typically far beyond their means) who are so deep in the depths of narcissistic self-delusion that they cannot see that most of their followers are there out of pity or amusement.
Sometimes they're Obfuscating Stupidity, and they may even be up to something far more interesting after hours. See also Sheltered Aristocrat.
On the off chance that the Upper-Class Twit has a job, it will usually be a sinecure with no apparent duties, though some may get some sort of reasonably prestigious white-collar position handed to them, usually by someone who owes their family a favor. If this does happen, they may sometimes rise to the occasion, get their act together, and become a valued member of the organization, but they are more likely to crash and burn after a few months in and get unceremoniously fired for their incompetence (if their family does not have enough pull) or become a department-ruining scourge and pox on the organization who cannot be touched for fear of losing their family's favor (if they do have that kind of pull). A Twit in a position authority may become a Pointy-Haired Boss, but that is less common than one might expect: a Pointy-Haired Boss has responsibilities which he bungles, while a true Twit has no responsibilities at all. To become a Modern Major General is a more respectable career path for a brainless young aristocrat. An older one, especially in 1920s-1950s settings that involve murders in libraries, may well be a retired Major or Colonel, being referred to by that rank. If this character actually ends up in an active military position they'll often end up as the Ensign Newbie, or worse yet a General Failure.
Compare Valley Girl (who doesn't have to be rich, among other differences), Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense, Nouveau Riche (who starts out poor and strikes it rich, and is crass about it). May overlap with Uncle Pennybags.
The opposite side of the same coin is the Gentleman Snarker, who is very clever but terminally lazy.
Contrast with Rank Scales with Asskicking, Non-Idle Rich, Lower-Class Lout, Working-Class People Are Morons, The Upper Crass (a similar unsympathetic portrayal minus the veneer of sophistication).
The Spear Counterpart of Rich Bitch.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Until advertising of tobacco products was banned in Britain, Lanbert and Butler cigarettes ran a series of posters featuring an Upper-Class Twit called Lambert, and his butler called Butler, (clearly based on Jeeves and Wooster) who was the only one to speak. The last poster, when the ban was imminent, had their faces blurred out and Butler saying "I think we've been outlawed, sir."
Anime & Manga
- Ayakashi Triangle: Lucy has the looks and social standing of an Ojou, but she's only regal to a superficial degree. Her grip on reality is so loose, she's ignorant of the supernatural not just because it's all Invisible to Normals, but because she insists all of it must actually be caused by extraterrestrials.
- Subverted with Marechiyo Omaeda of Bleach. He is part of Soul Society's nobility and he acts like a massive buffoon who overeats, overacts, and gets slapped around a lot, but this is a front he's deliberately putting on. He likes to make people think he got the position of Sui Feng's lieutenant because of family connections, when in reality he's very qualified for the job.
- Downplayed with Ninzaburo Shiratori from Case Closed. Shiratori is by no means an incompetent detective or man in general; this is just the worse he can be in cases when his arrogance gets the best of him.
- In Code Geass, some, if not most, of Britannia's royal family.
- For half of her screen time in the first season, Euphemia is pretty ditzy, but turns that around and then she dies horribly.
- Her eldest brother, Odysseus, is permanently this: every time he's on screen, he's shown as a rather genuine Nice Guy but one with no will of his own, and puppet to his Chessmaster second brother, Schneizel, and their father Charles. The only time he wasn't this was when Lelouch took over and became Emperor, as Odysseus was the only member of the royal family who tried to solve the problem peacefully instead of having him shot. Too bad Lelouch's Thanatos Gambit was in work already, so he only got Geassed for his troubles. Then Schneizel killed him when he nuked the capital.
- The remaining members we see on screen are either the Anti-Hero or have really, really poor decision-making skills leaning towards unnecessary destructive tendencies.
- Also worth mentioning is Gino Weinberg, one of the Knights of the Round, who's somewhat reminiscent of Ouran High School Host Club's Tamaki, both in physical appearance and general cluelessness about the workings of "commoner life". However, unlike his fellow Britannians, he's cheerful about it and eager to learn more.
- The princes Meleagros and Atalantes in Heroic Age are Upper-Class Twits who would have wiped out the entire human armada with their horrendously tenuous grasp of military tactics if it wasn't for the influence of the more intelligent and experienced Nilval Nephew. They almost certainly would never have been allowed anywhere near the bridge of a starship if it wasn't for their royal birth.
- Far too many of the High Nobles in Legend of the Galactic Heroes. To give one example, the three times an Imperial flagship has a pair of shield ships (vessels whose only purpose is to sacrifice themselves in place of their flagship in case the enemy mounts an attack) the admiral is a High Noble... And one actually turned to have multiple sets of shield ships, built to his custom specifications.
- Kojiro Sasahara from Nichijou behaves in a fashion like this. He wears a frilly ascot with his uniform, he always holds out his pinky when he drinks or even laughs. Despite these and a few Cloudcuckoolander traits, he's really more of an Upper-Class Twit wannabe, as he's revealed early to be the eldest son of a family of farmers.
- In One Piece, most of the nobles and every member of the World Nobles. The difference is that the World Nobles really don't have any contribution to society, but no one really cares because, due to their lineage, the World Government makes them completely above the law and lets them do whatever the hell they want. Anyone who opposes them risks either being shot or having an admiral on their ass. The only thing people find them useful for is taking advantage of their influence for noble (and not-so-noble) causes.
- Another Kojiro: the Pokémon: The Series character otherwise known as James was this before running away to escape an Arranged Marriage. Now he's just a twit. The 4Kids dub makes him something of a Southern Gentleman with shades of English aristocracy (he enjoys tea and crumpets).
- Yui Kamio Lets Loose: Kiito starts off as a rich boy who looks down on others except his friends Life Lovers. Him meeting Yui gradually turns his character for the better.
Arts
- Both the old Earl of Squanderfield and his son in William Hogarth's Marriage A-la-Mode embody everything the artist found objectionable about the English aristocracy. The old Earl is proud of his documented descent from William the Conqueror, but he is terrible with money, having built a lavish yet badly-designed house that has emptied the family treasury, requiring his son to be married off to a Nouveau Riche alderman's daughter. The Viscount is no better, being a stupid fop who dresses in the French fashions Hogarth loathed and is more interested in his own reflection than in his fiancée, and whose conspicuous beauty mark and spindly legs imply that his sexual indiscretions will likely speed him to an early grave — if his hotheaded penchant for getting into duels doesn't get him there first.note Small wonder the alderman's daughter looks so unenthusiastic about marrying into the Squanderfield family.
Comic Books
- Batman: Bruce Wayne, in some appearances, pretends to be this to throw off suspicion from his true identity.
- Black Moon Chronicles: After the first defeat of the Black Moon armies, Emperor Haghendorf bestows the apparently vacated title of Baron of Moork unto a foppish aristocrat who thinks his new subjects will just welcome him with open arms. Wismerhill makes a good show of this before capturing the clueless nobleman and seizing his own feudal estates.
Comic Strips
- Angus Og: The character of the Laird, where Ewen Bain ventured most obviously into Author Filibuster territory, a scathing parody of the kind of Upper Class Idiots who claimed Scottish Ancestry but spent most of their time in England and caring little for their Scottish holdings and were completely disconnected from the lives of their tenants. It was during this time that land reform became an issue in Scottish politics, and continues to be so even today.
- Sedgwick, from the Monty comic strip.
- Many characters in Viz, for instance, Raffles the Gentleman Thug.
Fan Works
- Socrates in Calvin & Hobbes: The Series lives in a mansion, and is both The Prankster and a Cloudcuckoolander.
- Code Geass: The Prepared Rebellion: This, combined with Gold Digger and Social Climber, is one of the reasons why Charles zi Britannia views his Royal Harem as an unwanted one, as he tells his brother V.V. that most of them have the collective intelligence of a concussed cow.
- A Diplomatic Visit: As revealed in chapter 9 of the sequel Diplomat at Large, this is actually just Blueblood's public persona, an aristocrat with little to no signs of common sense, basic manners, or consideration for those around him, and a talent in alienating people. What most don't realize is that it is an act.
- The Downton Abbey comedic oneshot Everything is Fine
has Thomas stuck as valet to the visiting Lord Cuttingham, who's actually pretty nice, but won't stop talking, generally about pointless drivel Thomas has zero interest in. The narration describes Cuttingham this way as Thomas gives up and just tunes him out.
Thomas stopped listening. He took a deep breath, barely containing his sigh. This man was a complete and utter twit and the world was cruel. - Joe MacDonald in The Luck Of Dennis St Michel Viscount Stokington is one of these, being the non-working son of the local mayor. Subverted in that as much of a twit as Joe is, he's not nearly as upper-class as his best friend Dennis, who's the son of the local landowner and is far cleverer.
- Jackie in Origins, a Mass Effect/Star Wars/Borderlands/Halo Massive Multiplayer Crossover plays with this (she was born poor but heir to a huge fortune/family name she remained unaware of until her late teens—after which she picks up the trope), while Thalia plays it straight. Literally everything is done for her to the point where her parents create an entire company she can "run" to feel like she's accomplished something while others do all the actual work.
- RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse: Twilight Sparkle comes from old money. She's not remotely malicious, just even more socially clueless than her show counterpart, which is why she decides it's a perfectly sensible idea to mind-control a giant bear cub to "prove" a point about magic.
Films — Animation
- All the White Hats in The Boxtrolls, but especially Lord Portley-Rind; never before has one man so perfectly embodied Hanlon's Razor.
- The Peterson family in Mr. Peabody & Sherman, particularly Penny and her dad Paul, although they tend to avert this as the story progresses.
- While not being a full-fledged thicky, Penny shows some signs of denseness when trying to blow a dog-whistle Peabody gave Sherman, and even though she knew that King Tut died young, but she didn't know that she as his wife, would have to follow him into eternity.
- Paul, on the other hand, acts quite dismissive to the Peabodys at first, but he also is pretty much knowledgeable about musical instruments.
- The Sea Beast: Admiral Hornagold, the crown's designated monster hunter, is an arrogant aristocratic buffoon. Captain Crow points out that he has a grand total of 0 years of experience hunting sea beasts, but he chooses to press on, nonetheless. This gets his ship destroyed and him almost killed.
- Toad from The Wind in the Willows (1995) could be the poster child for this.
Films — Live-Action
- The title character of the 1980s movie Arthur (1981). The main conflict of the movie is that he's going to be cut off from the money if he doesn't marry the rich girl whose father his father has made an arrangement with, and he's fallen in love with a working-class girl. He becomes a Runaway Fiancé, but the family eventually relents and allows him to remain rich. He and his manservant, Hobson are pretty overtly based on Bertie Wooster and Jeeves.
- Billy Madison (Adam Sandler) is essentially a fictional Spear Counterpart to Paris Hilton, being the heir to his dad's massive hotel chain. Though to be fair, he's really just a Book Dumb Lazy Bum Manchild rather than a total ditz.
- In Countess Dracula, Lieutenant Toth appears to have no interests beyond horses and pretty girls.
- Lord Partfine represents the Silly Ass version of this trope in Dark and Stormy Night, while Burling Famish Jr. is more of a Disreputable Cad type. The movie is a parody of Old, Dark House Mystery Fiction.
- Calvin Candie of Django Unchained is stated to be a francophile who prefers to be addressed as Monsieur Candie. He also doesn't speak a word of French and is shown to be fairly dim and repugnant as a person.
- Elmer from Doughboys is so dimwitted that he accidentally enlists in the Army. He thought the recruitment center was an employment agency, and he was looking for a valet.
- Gemma Honeycutt from Fool's Gold is another dimwitted, celebutante heiress.
- In Frankenstein Created Woman, Anton, Johann and karl are a trio of young nobleman who stride the town with a sense of entitlement, demanding whatever they want. They are the ones who commit tt the murder Hans is accused of.
- A lot of the upper-class characters in Gosford Park, particularly Jeremy Northam's character.
- In Heatwave, Houseman and the other developers generally come across this way, being completely uncaring towards the tenants occupying the houses he intends to demolish to make way for his high-end apartments.
- Many of Hugh Grant's roles fall into this trope, particularly in '90s comedies.
- Phoenix Buchanan from Paddington 2 is something of a variation, as he's a vain old luvvy who was once fairly successful on stage and keeps up the appearance of a wealthy toff where lifestyle is concerned, but it's clear the dog food commercials he acts in are now the only thing keeping the lights on.
- In Jungle Cruise, MacGregor Houghton is one, though he's not so much dumb as very foppish and unsure of himself. Unfortunately for him, his sister Lily is stubborn and a natural explorer, so MacGregor follows her on her trips to places like the Amazon Basin to make sure she's alright.
- Played with in Kingsman: The Secret Service:
- Harry points out that there are bad people at both ends of the spectrum, but that there are exceptions to each, Harry himself being one.
- A straight example would be Charlie, who bullies Eggsy throughout training for his upbringing, and is of enough standing for his family to be invited to Valentine's plan.
- The heroines of the Hilary and Haylie Duff comedy Material Girls are classic airhead heiresses. They're actually pretty nice people but are extremely pampered and ditzy (to the extent of accidentally burning down their own mansion).
- Diana's unwanted admirer Jimmy Wells in The Phantom, whose idea of a business trip is coming into town to be measured for a new suit.
- Harvey Baylor in Planet of the Dinosaurs. He seems completely oblivious that he's trapped on a primitive alien world and often tries to use his former position as a company president to get the others to do things for him.
- In the 1934 black and white film of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Sir Percy acts like this once he finds out that his wife is probably spying on him for the French. It's really just a show to fend off suspicion that he's helping French nobles escape to England.
- Jim Montgomery, Linda's Disposable Fiancé in Shall We Dance? (1937) is described as "a Park Avenue cluck with the longest yacht and the shortest chin ever christened."
- Temptation Island has bitchy contestant Suzanne (Serafina in the remake), and the pageant coordinator Joshua.
Jokes
- In Vienna, Graf (=count) Bobby and his friend Baron Mucki are/were recurring characters for many jokes, as a kind of embodiment of the decline of Austrian nobility towards the end of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy, and after. Their characterization oscillates between this trope and Sheltered Aristocrat.
Literature
- Patrick Bateman's social circle in American Psycho. Lots of people probably think he's one too.
- Bazil Broketail:
- Porteous Glaves is a rich man who buys his commission and has no military experience. Imposing uncomfortable collars on the men causes instant loathing from them. After seeing battle, he's horrified and tries to desert immediately afterward.
- Wiliger comes from an aristocratic family and uses the influence he has to take charge of a unit he is ill-prepared to lead. He is also an emotionally unstable Jerkass who likes to throw his weight around.
- Count Trego starts out as this, seeing women and commoners as inferior to him. He mellows out over time.
- In Burn Me Deadly, Prince Frederick is known to only care about "drink, women, and games of chance, in that order" — which makes it surprising that he attends and supports Father Tempcott's dragon cult, and does seem to genuinely want Tempcott's approval. (Not enough to refrain from going into town and getting drunk, but enough to regret it afterwards).
- In the course of his career Ciaphas Cain, THE HERO OF THE IMPERIUM met exactly two planetary governors who were both competent and loyal, both of whom suffered unfortunate fates later. The rest were treacherous and/or blithering idiots due to generations of aristocratic inbreeding.
- Inquisitor Amberley Vail often disguises herself as a minor but rich noblewoman, spending her money on ridiculous whims like making the hotel staff plant a different garden for her penthouse suite. Then some thugs try to kidnap her, not knowing that she's a disguised Inquisitor...
- The standard protagonist of Decadent fiction, as well as the standard author. You have to wonder if they'd be so filled with existentialist ennui if they quit moping around the house all day long and got jobs. The pinnacle of the Decadent novel (and this trope) was A rebours by Joris-Karl Huysmans, so recognized it was alluded to in The Picture of Dorian Gray as simply "the little yellow book". The entire novel is about a rich guy moving to his country house and then thinking of expensive and strange things to put in it, up to and including a tortoise with jewels embedded in its shell. Which dies because it has heavy jewels embedded in its shell.
- Discworld:
- The aristocrats in the novel Jingo!. The city-state of Ankh-Morpork is facing a war with Klatch (Fantasy Counterpart Culture to the Middle East). The Klatchian generals have lots of experience with war, while the Morporkian aristocrats have none, but the aristocrats wave that aside with the claim that the ability to lead war is hereditary, and their ancestors were great generals. The Morporkian soldiers have neither training nor experience, while the Klatchian soldiers have plenty of both (and outnumber the Morporkians to boot), but the aristocrats wave that aside with the claim that the Klatchians are savages and won't stand against the superior Morporkians. Take note, this IS coming from a group of people who believe that the best strategy is a full frontal assault, that if, after the battle, you subtract your fatalities from your enemies and get a positive number it is a great victory, that rudeness is the same as straight-talking (if and only if you're a nob, of course) and that if you talk LOUD AND SLLLOOOWW enough anyone can understand you, even if they don't speak the same language.
- Lord Rust is such a powerful example of this trope that it bends reality. Every military battle he's ever been in has led to the wholesale slaughter of his troops, and yet he himself is never harmed, despite always fighting from the front lines (if nothing else, he is quite brave). As frequently noted, belief is a genuine force in this setting, and Rust is so utterly convinced that he can come to no harm that it becomes true.
- There's Lieutenant Blouse in Monstrous Regiment, initially a hopeless pen-pusher who desperately wants to be Richard Sharpe. He later turns out to be something of a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass; he's not a good field commander or fighter, but he's brilliant as an engineer, realizing how the clacks work and how to improve them.
- Subverted by Raymond Stiched, the museum curator in Thud!. While he is, by a large margin, the snootiest character to appear in the series, and speaks in a language so posh it is nigh-incomprehensible, he is also nothing but friendly and polite to the distinctly working-class Colon and Nobbs. He is also not dismissive of their ignorance about art, but instead takes that as an excuse to give them a personal tour, while gushing about his exhibitions like any nerd introducing a neophyte to their favorite hobby. To top it off, he proves to be quite bright, and while he can't spot any of the clues the art thieves left behind, he is very quick to put together a probable sequence of events when they are pointed out to him.
- In Disenchanted: The Trials of Cinderella, the high society of Quintessential, nicknamed "Quints," is portrayed like this. The way they put money and reputation above all else, as well as working their poor employees to death in sweatshops, is why the heroine Ella hates them. The Jacquards, Mother Lariat and Daughter Lavaliere, outdo them all: Lavaliere is suffering from infected bug bites all over her face, and Lariat will only let fairy godparents give her numbing ointment for the pain and a magic illusion to hide it because sending Lavaliere away to convalesce means losing time to woo Prince Dash.
- In the Dragonlance novels, Laurana starts like one of these — not really stupid, but a spoiled princess who runs off after her boyfriend on a deadly adventure despite having only a theoretical understanding of combat and adventuring. Her Character Development into a heroic leader of the war is one of the most enjoyable parts of the books.
- Forest Kingdom: This and all the other Blue Blood tropes appear in book 1 (Blue Moon Rising), but are zig-zagged all over the place.
- The Gaunt's Ghosts novel His Last Command has Dev Hetra Captain Sire Balthus Vuyder Kronn. Impeccably dressed, sees Ludd as uncivil... is a horribly scared neophyte at war. Although the first impression of the Dev Hetra, in general, is that they're an entire regiment of twits, they perform their jobs admirably enough once Ludd gets over his astonishment and puts the fear of the Emperor in them.
- Gentleman Ranker: Trent and his friends embody this trope; they spend their time drinking, gambling, and making the bearers of their sedan chairs run races. His uncle is disgusted by his behaviour.
- Creepy Twins Cora and Clarice from Gormenghast are described as being "so limp of brain that for them to conceive an idea is to risk a haemorrhage." But even the aristocrats who aren't abject morons are so weird or self-absorbed they still appear that way. Fuchsia isn't really stupid but she's locked in a childish fantasy world most of the time, Gertrude has a sharp mind but hardly ever bothers to use it, and while Sepulchrave used to be clever and studious, his descent into madness culminates in him believing he's an owl. These characters are painted in a much more tragic light than most upper-class twits, however — given how mind-numbing and lonely their lives are, and what a generally awful place Gormenghast is to live in, it's sort of understandable that everyone's opted to disengage from reality.
- Lots of people in The Great Gatsby, but the Buchanans get singled out:
They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made.
- The Han Solo Trilogy: Played straight with Bria's mother and brother. Once Han returns Bria to her family, as soon as they discover he hasn't been entirely honest about his past, they report him to the police. Subverted with Bria's father, who opposes this and actually gives Han a generous loan to help him on his way, and with Bria herself. It's implied that the father being a Self-Made Man who also started out as a lowly pilot has a lot to do with his being sympathetic towards Han, and just generally less of an all-around snob. He also had a somewhat checkered past too, according to Bria, explaining his sympathy for Han.
- Harry Potter: Justin Finch-Fletchley is considered one by several other students and several factors point to it including his double-barreled Preppy Name and the fact that he says he was headed to Eton until his Hogwarts letter arrived, and generally seeming a little hapless and naive. Ernie considers him Too Dumb to Live for running his mouth about his Muggle blood with the Heir of Slytherin making attacks, but of course, Ernie's barking up the wrong tree. Unlike many examples of this trope, he is a sympathetic character; as well as being initially friendly to the Trio, he later apologises to Harry for having ever thought he was the Heir of Slytherin, and in the fifth book, he joins the DA. It's notable that he's one of the few characters to approach the trio and introduce himself to Ron, Hermione, and Harry, rather than just Harry.
Justin: "Justin Finch-Fletchley," he said brightly, shaking Harry by the hand. "Know who you are, of course, the famous Harry Potter... And you're Hermione Granger — always top in everything" (Hermione beamed as she had her hand shaken too) "— and Ron Weasley. Wasn't that your flying car?"
- In The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School, a homage to the girls' boarding school stories of the early 20th century, there's a corresponding boys' school, St Cuthbert's School for the Sons of the Humble and Pious. It's made clear that "Humble and Pious" is a euphemism for Nobbier Than The Queen And/Or Richer Than God, and that most of its graduates are the kind of posh bumbler who never has to exert himself because the Old Boy Network will see to it that he gets a cushy job when he graduates regardless of his actual ability. (The two boys from the school who get any significant amount of page time both turn out to be exceptions to the rule, though.)
- Honor Harrington:
- Pavel Young, de facto Arch-Enemy of one Honor Harrington for about four books. His pathological vindictiveness, cowardice, and utter inability to know when to cut his losses insured he was not around for book five.
- Captain Michael Oversteegen, of the same series, is a subversion. He is deliberately given just about every possible trait of an Upper-Class Twit from his culture (many of them affected, some still genuine) except for actually being a twit. He's as competent as he is irritating and as compassionate as he is both. (Well, to people not currently trying to kill him, anyway.)
- An American example can be found in Emma Lathen's John Putnam Thatcher detective novels. Thatcher's immediate superior, the president of the Sloan Guarantee Trust, is Bradford Withers, and he is perfectly useless as a bank president. Fortunately, he's not particularly interested in banking, being far more concerned with spending money, rather than making it, on upper-class pursuits like yachts, ski-ing, professional sports, long holidays in far-flung resorts and just about anything else that the New England upper crust are into. When he does show up, especially at certain times of the year when he'd normally be far, far away from Wall Street, Thatcher and his subordinates start to worry and prepare for the worst — and they're usually justified. Withers also has at least one nephew who looks to be taking after Uncle Prez...
- Journey to Chaos: Tiza has a special name for these kinds of people, "tent", after the big and flouncy clothes they wear. It means "a dainty and/or weak person, most often wealthy, who never does any sort of work and forces others to wait on them hand and foot".
- This appears to be the default state of being for all Hobbits above a certain wealth bracket in The Lord of the Rings, with rare exceptions (e.g., Bilbo and Frodo).
- Subverted in-universe in the Lord Peter Wimsey stories by Dorothy L. Sayers: Lord Peter pretends to be one of these as a form of Obfuscating Stupidity when dealing with suspects, but also because it amuses him and irritates his relatives.
- Envy from Malazan Book of the Fallen does an amazing impression of a spoilt noble daughter while journeying to Coral; she even brought a full-sized bathtub with her that her Seguleh errant boys have to carry and clean. She is also travelling and fighting in a stark white dress and refuses to wear something more practical. Though, she's actually quite bright, if a little ditzy.
- Mansfield Park: Mr. Rushworth is a fool according to the narrator and every character in the novel. He's uneducated and ill-informed, and oblivious and unaware of it to boot. He only ever thinks of his Big Fancy House and his plans to "improve" it. His estate and lands make 12 000 pounds a year, which makes him the wealthiest single guy in Jane Austen's 'verse. Edmund Bertram's inner snark on Rushworth, his future brother-in-law: "If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow."
- Överenskommelser by Simona Ahrnstedt:
- Edvard Löwenström, one of the villains, is a very creepy example of this trope. It's not bad enough for him to be a grown man still acting like a Spoiled Brat (albeit with a history of being abused by his father, which is the only thing, that can give us a slight sympathy for him), who totally depends on other people's money, because he doesn't have any idea how to earn any on his own. But he also happens to be a a sociopath and a serial abuser of women.
- His sister Sofia is also very close to being a female version of this trope. She's a genuinely good-hearted person, unlike her sociopath brother, and no, she's not quite stupid enough to be an airhead. But she would never have been able to make it on her own in the world because except for that she's good at playing the piano, she doesn't seem to have any other skills at all! She's just a beautiful Proper Lady, who needs her father and then her husband to support her.
- P. G. Wodehouse loved this trope. Anyone with money in his stories is unlikely to be intelligent, especially if they're the main character. Could be the reason that his stories also have an above-average percentage of Servile Snarkers. Namely:
- Jeeves and Wooster: Bertie Wooster — so archetypal that this trope could have been named for him — whose skills are limited to stealing policemen's helmets and claiming to actually have legitimately won the Bible knowledge competition in school. Most of his friends are fellow members of the idle rich and are even less intelligent. Thank goodness for his man Jeeves. To be entirely fair, however, Bertie is at least a sweet twit. He isn't intelligent, not by any means, but he's good-natured, generous and usually kind to the people around him, which makes him a damn sight better than most of the characters on this page. In the Stephen Fry / Hugh Laurie TV adaptation, he's also an excellent piano player (mainly because Hugh Laurie is an excellent piano player). Too bad he's too stupid to make something out of it. There is a catch about Wooster being stupid: He's the narrator of the stories. He is at least an extremely articulate idiot.
- Clarence Threepwood, Earl of Emsworth from the Blandings Castle hbooks is a rather elderly and stupider-than-usual take on this, while his brother Galahad — younger than the Earl, but still a Cool Old Guy — is actually a pretty smart man, though still undeniably a bit of a twit. In his youth he was a notoriously disreputable troublemaker, basically a smarter and more accomplished version of Bertie. He typically becomes a Trickster Mentor to the young couple who will be united by the story's end. The Earl's son Freddie qualifies as well; he's a profoundly useless but good-natured young man who ends up married to an American dog food heiress.
- The Mr. Mulliner and Oldest Member short stories often showcase such characters, young and well-to-do members of the title character's extended family or an unnamed golf club, respectively, who find love in improbably ways.
- Lindsay Howard is one of Phryne Fisher's unending string of lovers. He is extremely rich, well-meaning and not very bright; all of which he cheerfully admits. He is baffled by Phyrne's ongoing refusal to marry him.
- Ruahkini in The Quest of the Unaligned, due to a nasty combination of a naturally abrasive personality and the way wind magic tends to make its users "airheads"
- The Saint: Invoked periodically by Simon Templar when he's baiting scam artists since the ideal quarry of a scammer is a) rich and b) stupid. One such disguise was described as "an asinine young man with a monocle who believed in racing systems".
- Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi in the Sano Ichiro series is the military ruler of Japan. He's also childish, indecisive, and more interested in the pleasures his status grants him than actually running the country with any level of competency. This causes no end of headaches for his more honorable followers like Sano, as his manipulative cronies gleefully use his incompetency and disinterest to carry through their own schemes and revenge plots.
- Sir Percy Blakeney uses this as an Obfuscating Stupidity disguise to hide the fact that he is The Scarlet Pimpernel. That, and it really ticks off his arch enemy, Chauvelin... which he really, really enjoys doing.
- Song at Dawn: Most of Alienor's ladies-in-waiting are spoiled, bitchy and otherwise unpleasant to be around.
- Oliver Rushton in Sorcery and Cecelia. His idea of riveting conversation is to discuss the knotting of a tie.
- In Sorcerer to the Crown, Rollo (actually Robert Henry Algernon) is a perfect example of this trope. When he first appears, he asks Zacharias to hold a speech at a school for young ladies in his stead, as Rollo feels he has absolutely no idea what to say and is too afraid of his aunt Georgiana (who asked him to hold the speech) to refuse, but Zacharias would make such a good replacement that the aunt would have no reason to complain.
- Star Trek: Enterprise Relaunch: One of the First Families of Rigel, who the Malurian infiltrator Garos is forced to work with at the beginning of "Tower of Babel". Garos figures he's been given the job because he's so damn stupid even the other aristos don't want anything to do with him. Certainly, the other member of the First Families Garos has to work with despises him, but she's not exactly better, just smarter.
- Highprince Sebarial in The Stormlight Archive is a subversion. Jasnah, the resident Magnificent Bitch, dismisses him as a twit, and he spends most of his time indulging in his wealth. The ten Alethi Highprinces are camped in the Shattered Plains to hunt chasmfiends for their precious gemhearts (ostensibly to fight a war, but they got sidetracked), and Sebarial hunted the fewest. When Shallan twists his hand into taking her in, she discovers the source of his wealth: setting up a permanent economy on what is now the center of the Alethi court. Sebarial might be rich and too lazy to indulge in politics, but he saw a market and took it.
- Tai Pan: William Longstaff isn't a complete imbecile, but he is kind of dim, very set in his Victorian upper-class mentality and not particularly decisive, which makes him a very bad man to deal with the self-made China traders and Imperial officials his job as Governor of Hong Kong requires him to deal with. Ironically, he's nonetheless able to outmaneuver them and get everything he wants, just by seeming too stupid to be any threat.
- Arthur Huntingdon and his cadre in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Helen muses at one point that her husband might be a better man if he didn't have so much free time.
- Vorkosigan Saga:
- Ivan Vorpatril does such a good impression of this he even fools his immediate family — until he thoroughly blows his cover in A Civil Campaign. The considering look in his Imperial cousin's eye tells Ivan he is going to seriously regret coming out of his closet. Though considering that Miles picks Ivan as an assistant when doing an Imperial Audit on Imp Sec of all places long before that, one would guess that he wasn't really fooled as much as he pretended to be.
- By Vorrutyer is a more extreme version both in the degree to which he takes his "twittiness" (Ivan's image is no worse then a lazy and oversexed but reasonably likeable courtier; By attends orgies well supplied with drugs and drink), and in the goal of his perceived "twittiness" (Ivan just wants to make sure he looks too stupid for someone to tag him as a front for deadly court intrigue, By is an undercover agent purposely trying to smoke out intriguers).
- The Wheel of Time:
- While several members of the nobility are rich idiots, the dumbest has to be Lady Arymilla of House Marne, who plans to take over Andor in a civil war. The only problem is that she's a complete idiot, whose success is largely due to a senile old man, and the fact that members of the Shadow are helping her. She's largely oblivious to the world around her and only cares about herself. Honestly, though, the readers really knew she had absolutely no chance whatsoever when it was revealed that she planned to use the entire nation's coffers just to erase her own debt. Once that was out in the open, it's clear she was gonna suffer from a massively Epic Fail.
- Lord Weiromon. He's the guy who always insists that the correct solution to any and all of life's problems, bar none, is a cavalry charge. Pikemen? Cavalry Charge! Spear-wielding warrior race? Cavalry Charge! Spellcasters mounted on giant pterodactyl things that can explode you from half a league away? Cavalry Charge! One main character, upon hearing one of Weiramon's suggestions in a later book, commented to the effect of "How are you still bloody alive?!?" Between this tendency and his miraculous ability to survive unscathed, it's been speculated that Weiromon is actually a Darkfriend whose purpose is to get as many soldiers as possible killed so that they can't stand against the armies of the Dark One. Confirmed (as of Towers of Midnight).
- From The Parody:
Weiramon: Excellent plan, my liege. Shall I charge at the opposing army?
Rand: No, that's a corn field.
- Ippolit Kuragin in War and Peace. A minor character compared to his siblings Anatole and Helene, whose one moment in the sun is during a soirée in which he has a Cloudcuckoolander moment:
"The road to Warsaw, perhaps," Prince Ippolit said loudly and unexpectedly. Everyone turned to him, not understanding what he meant to say by that. Prince Ippolit also looked around with merry surprise. Like everyone else, he did not understand the meaning of the words he had spoken. In the course of his diplomatic career, he had noticed more than once that words spoken suddenly like that turned out to be very witty, and, just in case, he had spoken these words, the first that came to his tongue.
- Mr. Toad of The Wind in the Willows spends most of his time wasting his esteemed fathers' wealth throwing himself at any and all Fleeting Passionate Hobbies that come along.
- Sergeant Speer in Wise Phuul is a well-meaning aristocrat who struggles to tell the difference between salt and pepper.
- A number of Henry VIII's inner circle is like this in Wolf Hall, causing Thomas Cromwell no small amount of headaches. Of note is Henry's brother-in-law Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Not only is he easily sidetracked into nostalgic rambling, at one point he starts loudly jawing about sensitive matters in front of Ambassador Chapuys and Cromwell has to physically drag him out of the room to keep him from doing even more damage.
Live-Action TV
- Most of the members of the Bluth family in Arrested Development fall into this trope to varying degrees, with Gob and Buster being the strongest examples. The show itself is largely based around exploiting this trope and how wealthy twits deal with being separated from their money (i.e. poorly).
- Arguably the case for Clayton Endicott III, René Auberjonois's snobbish character in Benson, though like Winchester on M*A*S*H he was periodically relieved of Butt-Monkey duties and revealed as a solid friend.
- Hugh Laurie played a female one in an A Bit of Fry and Laurie sketch, opposite Stephen Fry as the Duke of Northampton. And the very dark "Jack and Neddy/Teddy" sketches from the show, in which Fry manipulates him into acts like planting a bomb in a restaurant, have been described as what Jeeves and Wooster would have been like if Jeeves used his powers for evil.
- Blackadder:
- The various incarnations of Percy and George in the series. The latter played by the same actor as Bertie Wooster; Hugh Laurie tended to play characters of this type quite a lot when he was younger, which tends to shock American audiences who only know him in his House incarnation. Those who were more used to his Upper-Class Twit roles from before House often took quite a while to stop expecting House to goggle mindlessly or burst into Upper-Class Twit Speak ("I say, Jeeves, this fellow's looking jolly green about the gills, what?").
- Incidentally, the portrayal of George IV as an Upper-Class Twit (providing the trope image) in Blackadder the Third is more or less spot-on; he was fond of partying, had no idea how to use money (he got into over the equivalent of £5,000,000 in debt before taking the throne two or three different times), and is generally considered to have been a bad king (his brother William, who was almost as dissolute in his youth, is much better-regarded, having taken up a career in the Royal Navy and surprised everybody by being pretty good at it, although he scandalised the upper classes by preferring to walk rather than ride in the royal carriage). Indeed, some historians regard Laurie's portrayal of George as overly kind; the actual prince/monarch was ridiculously obese, and, by the time of the late Regency, rather mean-spirited, while Laurie's Prince is at least reasonably fit and well-meaning (if stupid). Funnily enough, this gets a possible explanation in the season finale, as George was challenged to a duel, so he swapped roles with Blackadder (his butler), only to be shot and killed anyway, allowing Blackadder to assume his identity.
- In the first (medieval) series, Blackadder himself (the Rowan Atkinson character) was an Upper-Class Twit, and his servant Baldrick (better-known as the Bumbling Sidekick he becomes) was a Hypercompetent Sidekick.
- The Black Adder's brother in the first series, Prince Harry, was far and away the more competent of the two, but still had lots of twitty moments. The first and finest may be his attempt at a Rousing Speech before the Battle of Bosworth Field:
Now, I'm afraid there's going to have to be a certain amount of... violence, but at least we know it's all in a good cause, don't we?
- In the special "The Cavalier Years," King Charles I is shown as an excessively friendly, easily-manipulated pollyanna who doesn't seem to get how much trouble he's in after the Royalists have lost.
Charles: Tell me, what exactly does a lord protector do?
Oliver Cromwell: He spells your doom, sir.
Charles: He spells my doom? Wonderful! That's particularly exciting, because so many people these days can't spell at all.
- Ted Beneke of Breaking Bad is a rare non-comedic version. He inherited a successful fabrication business from his father, ran it into the ground, and tried cooking the books to cover up his ineptitude, resulting in a criminal investigation by the IRS (that he thinks is just some kind of silly annoyance). When his lover schemes up a fake Unexpected Inheritance for him to get all the money he'll need to get the IRS off his back, he has no idea it's a scheme and thinks it's amazing good luck and a divine revelation to re-open the business. He buys an expensive car with part of it.
- In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it's revealed that before becoming a vampire, Spike was once known as William Pratt, a meek, effete young Victorian gentleman and Momma's Boy. His sobriquet of "William the Bloody" actually derives from the fact he wrote bloody awful poetry.
- Stephen Colbert described his Stephen Colbert character from The Colbert Report as "a well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot."
- James Gascoigne from Doctor on the Go comes from a wealthy family, and though he is a competent doctor and occasionally willing to join in the schemes of the other doctors, he is more usually portrayed as a pompous buffoon who is more likely to be on the receiving end of pranks.
- Fresh Meat: JP is a sex-obsessed, elitist Jerkass Woobie from a very wealthy family who believes the best way to solve a problem is to throw lots of money at it. He tends to bungle most of his plans through his own stupidity, like when he exposes his attempt to cheat in a charity pub quiz by answering a question with the correct answer for the next question.
- The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: Hillary, particularly early on when she frequently championed environmental conservation while invariably demonstrating in the process that she is neither knowledgeable in nor especially devoted to the subject (fittingly, this character trait is dropped altogether by the end of the first season). The rest of the Banks children could qualify as well, especially Carlton. The same can't be said of their parents Phillip and Vivian though, as both of them came from common origins and achieved success by dint of hard work. Interestingly enough, Will started out as being the streetwise kid who was totally unlike the rest of the family... but the show hinted in at least one episode that Will became more and more like the Banks after having lived with them for a while. Will's reaction when this dawns on him can only be described as hilarious.
- Rachel in Friends is presented this way at the beginning of the series. After running out of her own wedding that was most likely funded by her wealthy parents, Rachel moves into an apartment that her best friend, a working middle-class woman, lives in. Rachel is shown to be completely clueless about the most basic tasks, such as taking out the garbage or knowing who ordered what in the coffee house. Rachel does get better over time and manages to shed most, if not, all of her twittishness.
- Game of Thrones:
- It's clear that Reginald Lannister has spent his life in easy comfort, acting entitled and irritable to the point of bitching to Tywin.
- Mace Tyrell is head of one of the major houses in Westeros yet is a complete simpleton. His mother runs the show while he simply bumbles around.
- Thurston and Lovey Howell from Gilligan's Island are a rare married example.
- Tahani Al-Jamil from The Good Place says things that are completely inappropriate for the moment and is more concerned with planning soirees than anything remotely pragmatic.
- Traci Van Horn from Hannah Montana falls solidly into the airhead heiress variety. Some might put Hannah Montana herself in that category.
- Horatio Hornblower: Major the Earl of Edrington, who shows up in the first season, is a subversion. His first scene shows him up as a twit who sneers at Hornblower and his most excellent seamen who admittedly look a little scruffy, especially if they're compared to Edrington's soldiers in their flawless uniforms. He corrects Hornblower that he should address him not by his rank "Major", but by his title "My Lord" because he's, in fact, the Earl of Edrington. However, he soon turns out to be okay as he's a competent and reasonable officer and a wellspring of good, well-meaning and only slightly patronizing advice.
- Alfie Baron, the false mark Carlton Wood and Harry Fielding use in an attempt to sting the Hustle crew in "The Road Less Travelled".
- As mentioned above under Literature, Bertie Wooster (and most of his friends and relations) in Jeeves and Wooster, the TV adaptations of the P. G. Wodehouse stories. Played admirably by a young Hugh Laurie.
- Jefferson D'Arcy from Married... with Children believes that he should live in a one-income household because he's "too pretty to work", and he rebuffs any and all attempts by his wife Marcy to get a job. Marcy's ex-husband, Steve Rhoades, worked in the banking business along with her...until they divorced and he went crazy.
- Monty Python's Flying Circus:
- Named for the sketch "Upper-Class Twit of the Year," where five Upper-Class Twits compete in events like "Kicking the Beggar" and "Taking the Bras Off the Debutantes," finishing with the winner being the first to shoot himself. Funnily enough, second place is taken by one of the twits who was accidentally shot to death by another one, though the contestant who managed to die long before the others wasn't eligible for the winner's podium and only gets the accolade of the announcer's enthusiasm.
Announcer: And Oliver has run himself over! What a great twit!
- There were many other examples, such as the family in the "Tinny Words" sketch, who have nothing better to do all day than sit around classifying words as either tinny- or woody-sounding. From the other side, in the "Flying Lessons" sketch, the man claiming he's flying and not hanging from a wire avoids arguing the point by turning it into class warfare:
Terry Jones: I came here to learn how to fly an aeroplane!
Graham Chapman: Oh! An aeroplane. Oh I say, we are grand, aren't we? Oh oh, no more butter scones for me, mater, I'm orf to play the grawnd piawno! Pardon me while I fly my aeroplane! Now get on the table!
Terry Jones: No one in the history of the world has ever been able to fly like that!
Graham Chapman: Oh, I suppose mater told you that while you were out ridin'! - Named for the sketch "Upper-Class Twit of the Year,"
- Nathan Barley's eponymous protagonist. The character was created by Charlie Brooker and first appeared in his TV Go Home book, which revealed Barley lived off cheques from his parents and spent his days working out "which job to pretend to do next". In the series, he spends his parents' money on an office full of video editing equipment and gives himself the job title "self-facilitating media node".
- Parks and Recreation:
- Leslie's opponent for city council, Bobby Newport, is the son of the man who employs half the town. He is so used to being given everything in life that he has difficulty comprehending someone competing with him. When she runs a mildly negative ad, he complains that it hurt his feelings and asks her to abandon her campaign so he can win. He doesn't understand why she refuses. That's not him getting mad at her for refusing, mind you. That's him failing to comprehend the concept of someone not wanting to please him.
- Jean-Ralphio and his twin sister Mona Lisa are also portrayed this way. They are both portrayed as obnoxious childish freeloaders who often screw Tom over. It is also revealed that Mona Lisa has convinced her father that she is a complete angel.
- While in London, Ben meets with a British Lord Covington to get a grant. Turns out His Lordship is as big a Manchild as Andy, whom he takes a liking to while playing with remote-control toy helicopters. Unlike most of the examples of this trope, however, Lord Covington is surprisingly aware of this trope and hopes to actually do something good with his family money, though he admits he has no real idea what he's doing. (Out-of-universe this was a particularly elaborate excuse to insert Andy into an episode explaining his temporary disappearance while Chris Pratt was in London for his role in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).)
- In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Dr. Julian Bashir starts as a bit of this. Class is downplayed in the Trekverse, but his manner as a freshly commissioned officer (with significant rank due to his medical field) is contrasted almost immediately against the enlisted-man character of Miles O'Brien. In his second scene he expounds on how he's excited to be doing "frontier medicine" with primitive equipment — in front of his new executive officer for whom the "frontier" is her war-torn homeworld. He undergoes Character Development and puts his foot in his mouth less often as the series goes forward.
- London Tipton from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody is a good example of the heiress subtype (a hotel heiress named after a European capital). If she was bit crueler and considerably smarter she might qualify as the Rich Bitch, but her self-absorption seems to stem more from being one of the stupidest characters on television than any intentional malevolence. Meanwhile, her father, Mr. Tipton, is never shown on screen and will frequently be busy with business dealings instead of spending Christmas or other special occasions with his daughter, and the fact that London also seems to have a Missing Mom does not help matters.
- The "University Challenge" episode of The Young Ones places the four main characters, who attend the lower-class Scumbag College, on a game show against four Upper-Class Twits from Footlights College. Much to the chagrin of the Scumbag students, the Footlights students are able to earn all of the game show's points through bribery and nepotism despite the fact that they respond to questions with moronic non-sequiturs like "I've got a Porsche!"
Music
- Arctic Monkeys debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not is notable given that the band is comprised of middle-class kids from Sheffield, London, and the album deals mostly with clubbing during the weekends, when they would often rub shoulders with upper-class kids. The band mostly mocks the rich kids' materialism and pathetic charm.
- Lead vocalist Alex Turner pokes fun at these guys in "Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured", where he describes a preppy townie chatting up a girl while drinking a Smirnoff, which is a fruity drink light in alcohol content (as opposed to the harder beers that middle-class kids like Turner drink).
- He continues to mock them in "A Certain Romance", citing their Converses and tacky bottoms they wear to appear hip and cool. However, he appears to vindicate them by the end of the song, saying that despite all their show, they're still his friends and he just can't get angry at them.
- The subject of Blur's Charmless Man is described a boorish trust fund baby who tries to get people to respect him, but doesn't extend the same courtesy to those same people.
Educated the expensive way
He knows his claret from his beaujolais
I think he'd like to have been Ronnie Kray
But then nature didn't make him that way
He knows his claret from his beaujolais
I think he'd like to have been Ronnie Kray
But then nature didn't make him that way
- British comedian Munya Chawawa plays his posh rapper character Unknown P as a Spoiled Brat who considers himself as hard as nails despite growing up rich in the countryside, and having his "Daddy's" money pay for everything, as well as having one hell of a superiority complex.
- The Pulp song Common People mocks a fortunate Trustafarian girl with an independent income, who expresses a wish to slum it among the "common people" for a while, as she thinks this is going to be fun. Jarvis Cocker points out that she can go back to her own world at any point when it ceases to be sufficiently fun for her, whereas the rest of us are stuck here for life and don't have that luxury.
- "Loadsamoney" by Harry Enfield is a mix of this and Rich Bitch, playing an obnoxiously boorish millionaire with a thick Cockney accent and casual attire who's constantly waving around thick wads of cash and bragging about how rich he is, when first 30 seconds shows that he can't even spell "loads of money"
L-O-D-S-OF-E-M-O-N-E, what's that spell? LOADSAMONEY, probably.
- Weekend Nachos occasionally targets trust fund punks in their songs, but none are more direct or venomous than "Fashionable Poverty", which savages crust punks with massive trust funds who choose to become vagrants and go out of their way to become as filthy and repulsive as possible while knowing that when they tire of that lifestyle, they can always go back to the cushy upper-class homes that they gave up for the hell of it.
Pro Wrestling
- George Wagner is the trope-namer for Gorgeous George. He played a pompous, flamboyant, stuck-up "glamor boy" famous for spraying perfume and disinfectant over the ring before every match.
- Ring of Honor and Pro Wrestling ZERO1 had Prince Nana, who did have the skills necessary to contribute to society and to make it as a pro wrestler but due to his cowardice was content to pay for a life of luxurious excess off the overtaxed population of Ghana. His funds would be cut off in 2008, forcing him to legitimately acquire wealth, which he eventually did after being escorted out of ROH by security at least three times.
Radio
- Bleak Expectations: Three of the four protagonists begin here, main character Pip Bin, his sister Pippa, and Pip's best friend Harry Biscuit, of the Warwickshire Biscuits, to varying degrees of severity.
- Pip is an utterly oblivious twit, with the self-preservation ability of a dead dodo, easily fooled by the flimsiest of Paper Thin Disguises. Even the Creator of the Earth can only say he's "basically" good.
- Pippa is an animal activist, but her idea of helping is massively off. Even worse is when Pip insists the family start performing charitable deeds. Pippa's initial contribution is to have luncheons with other women, rather than actually do something charitable.
- Harry, meanwhile, is all twit, never on the same page as anyone else, but never malicious (except when he's turned evil). The problem is Harry wishes to be a famous inventor while being utterly terrible at it.
- Giles Wemmbley-Hogg is not actually malicious, just incredibly naive. Most of his attempts to hold a job don't go well, but having wealthy parents means that he's able to go around the world, keeping an audio diary of his travels.
Roleplay
- Mo Xiang is one in The Dao of the Awakened, truly showing it when paired up with Hua Yin as a sparring partner. And later, when he beats up Gao Jin.
- Milo Taylor of Survival of the Fittest. Dear god, Milo. Let's just say that to call him The Ditz would be an understatement.
Tabletop Games
- BattleTech has a fair few, especially in the Lyran Commonwealth. Thanks to the Commonwealth's tradition of "Social Generals"note , the LCAF has a stereotype of being almost entirely generalled by Upper Class Twits.
- Foxbat from the Champions universe was this before the loss of his family fortune turned him into the world's most eccentric supervillain.
- In the Forgotten Realms setting, Giogioni Wyvernspur enters the story like one of these. He proceeds to show unexpected depths and develop into a pretty decent hero. Danilo Thann, however, was faking it from the word go.
- Many, many aristocrats in Warhammer 40,000. When these people are also in charge of the Planetary Defense Forces, there's also Jurisdiction Friction when the Imperial Guard arrives to try and get something done.
Theater
- Sir Evelyn Oakleigh in Anything Goes. (P. G. Wodehouse was one of the authors of this musical.)
- In The Cradle Will Rock, Junior Mister and Sister Mister, the son and daughter of the rich Mr. Mister, lead lives of ease and boredom. To do something about Junior's obvious shiftlessness, he gets sent to Honolulu on a pseudo-journalistic sinecure.
- Der Rosenkavalier has Leopold Anton, Baron Ochs (German for "ox") auf Lerchenau, the Marschallin's Country Cousin. He tends to assume that privilege will protect him from the consequences of his foolishness.
- The entire D'Ysquith clan from A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder with the exceptions of Phoebe (who is implied to have figured out Monty's scheme by the end of the play and uses it to her advantage), Monty (who grew up a bastard of the family and thus had to work his way to the earldom with cleverness), and possibly Monty's mother (who was banished from the family upon marrying a Castilian and dies in poverty). Notably, the show is heavily influenced by Gilbert and Sullivan and music hall productions of Victorian and Edwardian England.
Lord Adalbert D'Ysquith: I don't understand the poor.
I don't understand the poor.
The lives they lead
of want and need,
I should think it would be a bore!
It seems to be nothing but stubbornness.
So what's all the suffering for?
To be so debased
is in terrible taste,
I don't understand the poor! - Gilbert and Sullivan examples:
- The ridiculously incompetent Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B. in H.M.S. Pinafore.
- The Pirates of Penzance reveals in the finale ultimo that the pirates are all noblemen gone wrong.
- The Peers in Iolanthe are proud of their Blue Blood, though they have to admit that it hasn't given them much in the way of brains, which is why the prospect of having to face competitive examination horrifies them so greatly. The generally useless quality of the nobility is celebrated, specifically in Lord Mountararat's solo "When Britain Really Ruled the Waves":
When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte,
As every child can tell,
The House of Peers, throughout the war,
Did nothing in particular,
And did it very well. - The Little Foxes has Leo, a foppish young man who abuses horses and seems to use his job at a Mobile bank mostly as an opportunity for womanizing. His family is really only Nouveau Riche, however.
- In the Mrs. Hawking play series, it is Deconstructed somewhat. Nathaniel often pretends to be this, as in the club scene of the first installment Mrs. Hawking and the conversation with Lord Seacourse in Base Instruments, in order to allay the suspicions of enemies. In reality, he is not only not a twit, but he's also actually a rich middle-class man rather than an upper-class one.
- Anatole from Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 is one in a sea of bored Russian noblemen dwindling the family fortunes away on alcohol and prostitutes.
Anatole: Anatole is hot! He spends his money on women and wine.
- William Shakespeare examples:
- Polonius in Hamlet, a sort of hybridization of this, Old Master, Evil Genius and Knight Templar Parent.
- Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night. Gentleman Snarker Sir Toby Belch spends the entire play mooching off him and otherwise taking advantage of him.
- Prince Hal in Henry IV comes across as this. When you see him later as King Henry in Henry V it's obvious that he was just pretending.
- The "music hall" (popular entertainment, mainly working-class, in the 18-1900s, a collection of songs and comic skits) is a rich mine of these characters: "Gilbert the Filbert", "the Knut with a 'K'", "Burlington Bertie" (the more famous ditto from Bow is a parody) and so on.
Video Games
- The patricians and noblemen in Anno 1404, especially once you have a lot of them (triggering all their "extra" needs).
- In Harebrained Schemes' BattleTech, your company's mercenary liason in The Draconis Combine, shugo Reynald Yamaguchi, is one of these and very self-aware about it. An alcoholic and hedonistic dandy whose presence is offensive to most of the Honor Before Reason Combine, Yamaguchi was given a posting on the far end of the Combine's Arch-Enemy, the Federated Suns, as a way of keeping him out of sight. Unlike his counterparts in the other Successor States, this complete lack of support or oversight delights Yamaguchi, who is all too happy to pay the Player Character's merc company obscene amounts of wealth from the Combine's intelligence budget to wreck FedSun targets while he's busy getting drunk.
- The Preps in Bully are a bunch of snobby rich kids who use their power and influence to lord over the rest of Bullworth Academy.
- In the Darkstalkers series Morrigan Aensland starts out like this causing her guardians constant worry. Its only after her adopted father dies, and she combines with Lilith that she becomes more responsible.
- Dragon Age: Origins features King Cailan Theirin. Upon first introduction at Ostagar, he comes off as a rather likable sort, if incredibly naive. He's outwardly confident that the Fereldan forces gathered at Ostagar will be more than capable of stopping the blight then and there, due in no small part to the presence of the Grey Wardens. (Granted, it is implied in the Return to Ostagar DLC that this was a facade.) His father's long-time friend, Teyrn Loghain Mac Tir, regularly chastises him for it, as well. He also combines this with Prince Charmless in the game's lore, one particular snippet of which states that he was having difficulty producing an heir with Anora, so he was advised to attempt reproduce with other women, which also failed. One would think someone would realize that maybe it was his equipment that was failing.
- Nobles in Dwarf Fortress are mostly useless in gameplay, and make often difficult or impossible demands. Finding ways to kill them off solves many problems. And it's entertaining to boot! Averted for some of the nobles in that while the Chief Medical Dwarf is a position in the nobles screen, the appointment of a dwarf to said position allows access to more comprehensive health information. Additionally the top noble will typically be the dwarf who meets with foreign dignitaries. Finally, some of the nobles have more reasonable tastes, coveting things that are easy to make or you actually do make often. Such nobles are usually kept because a guy that likes iron and shields is incomparably better to yet another one of those twits that demand clear glass when there's no sand anywhere in the goddamn map.
- Dynasty Warriors's Yuan Shao has one constant and defining character trait: his unerring belief that he's the best and most deserving to rule on account of his "noble" lineage (though not mentioned in the games' story, the preceding four generations of his family had served in at least one of the Han Empire's three highest posts), and declares everyone else outside of his army to be lowly peasants.
- Genshin Impact:
- Downplayed with Eula Lawrence. She only acts like one, because due to how she’s from the Lawrence clan, it's how everyone in Mondstadt expects her to act. The only people who have any sort of respect for Eula are the Knights of Favonius and the Adventurer’s Guild, which is why she acts somewhat nicer to them.
- Played Straight with Eula’s uncle Schubert Lawrence. When the Traveler first meets him, he completely blows them off, refusing to speak to them. When the Traveler learns how to "properly" speak to a noble, Schubert trusts them instantly and tells them about how he's plotting with the Fatui to overthrow the current government and restore the aristocracy in Mondstadt. This leads to his downfall, as Eula is able to track him down and bring him to justice.
- The Rich Guy in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
- Due to generations of being cared for by Awakened (Mummy) servants, human nobles of Vabbi in Guild Wars 2 are incapable of almost everything. For one quest in the Domain of Vabbi, you serve as a butler to them and teach them how to do basic household tasks like gardening and cleaning up after themselves, and amusing them by making "art" out of mundane junk. One NPC has no idea how to empty a chamber pot, with unfortunate results.
- The Wrongful Heir to the Throne Duke Dunan von Auslese in the The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky trilogy is a classic example. Ambitous for power, yet delegating everything to others while he indulges in hedonism when he gets it, all while being looked after by his concerned butler Phillip, who must constantly apologize for Dunan's rudeness. Eventually, after being a political pawn for one group after another, he has a Break the Haughty realization and turns a new leaf.
- The titular character of Manual Samuel mooches endlessly off his parents, and is rich enough (and dumb enough) to put numerous cafes out of business by overtipping his servers to the point of them quitting and living off the proceeds. He does have a job at his father's robot factory, but uses the time to merely goof off and play video games instead of working.
- In the Pokémon series, the Rich Boy, Socialite, Gentlemen, and Lady Trainer Classes can either play this straight or avert it. The Battle Chateau in Kalos has a good many straight examples, and indeed straight examples comprise a good percentage (if not the majority) of the populous of Kalos itself.
- Some of the nobles in The Sims Medieval Pirates and Nobles expansion are portrayed like this. Especially one you meet in a Pirate quest, Buzz Killington. Even the most important Noble character declared war on the Pirates for "kidnapping" his son because he failed to notice that his son ran away.
- Alfonso in Skies of Arcadia. It's obvious from the first appearance that he was given his rank as admiral due to his noble stature and not because of any actual leadership skills. Despite this, however, he's very briefly given command of the entire Valuan military after Galcian's treacherous plans are revealed...just in time for him to be killed when Galcian calls the Rains of Destruction on the Valuan capital city.
- Suikoden:
- Oh Sheena, you lazy, lecherous, upper-class bastard.
- Suikoden IV: Snowe Vingerhut actually wants to contribute by joining the Gaian Marine Knights. Sadly, he's made captain by virtue of daddy's money and nothing else, and doesn't deal well with his first major crisis...
- Schtolteheim Reinbach III. Like Snowe, he wants to help people. However, he at first simply asks daddy for help. However, he quickly realizes his father to be useless and leaves him, joining you in your quest. While a bit foppish and narcissistic, he is a truly good character and will fight with you, being skilled in sword fighting and magic.
- And Suikoden V gives us Euram Barows, a textbook Upper-Class Twit who's become the heir after his older brother was tragically assassinated. No, he wasn't actually involved. And to be fair, he can get better... Technically he wasn't always like that. When his brother died he began acting like that to try and cheer up his mother.
- Blutarch and Redmond Mann, of Team Fortress 2, are a pair of Always Identical Twins who convinced their father to buy up large swathes of cheap land without realizing that it consisted mostly of empty deserts and gravel pits. When their father realized this (and was struck with disease along the way), he willed that they both own half of it, while giving his actually valuable possessions to other people. They never realized this, and spent decades fighting each other over worthless gravel, to the point of commissioning life-extender machines just to give the chance of outliving each other. Over a century later, they declare a truce in the name of the family... so they can find a way to make one of them pregnant. And at said meeting, they bought the Alamo fort and had it moved to New Mexico so that they could meet there.
- Several characters in Titanic: Adventure Out of Time are Upper Class Twits, mostly the First Class passengers (as you might expect from a trans-Atlantic liner in the early 20th century). The trope is best exemplified by Daisy Cashmore, whose single-track mind and obsession with being connected with even higher-class passengers leads her to go down with the ship because the wealthy passengers she has her eyes on (J.J. Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim) don't board lifeboats either.
- In Total War: Three Kingdoms, Yuan Shao (again) is a bit of this. He rose to power on family connections rather than personal ability and has an extremely high opinion of himself, and the narration outright says that he "lacks in substance." However, he is still a Legendary Commander like the other main characters, and he is genuinely charismatic and good at making alliances, making him the Big Good in the backstory.
Web Animation
- FreedomToons: The European Union is depicted as an out-of-touch aristocrat who worships St. Merkel of the Migrant and doesn't want the United Kingdom to leave the organization because "it's racist it's racist it's racist it's racist...".
- MoniRobo:
- We went to a luxurious hotel for our wedding anniversary but...: Tanaka was a rich kid who bullied Kei Miyanohara since high school. He still acts all high and mighty years later, even bullying the latter's wife Kyoko when they booked the Italian-inspired hotel he worked at.
- A spoiled brat beat me and my friend up and tried to use money to hide it...: Takakuni Sakamoto was a spoiled college student who liked to flex his wealth to everyone he met, as he was the son of a famous businessman in town.
- On the day of the wedding, everyone ignored the bride and groom: Atsushi came from a wealthy family and gloats about taking over his family's company when Erica calls him out for cheating on her twin sister Yurika with another woman named Mami, who also comes from an affluent family.
- We went to a luxurious hotel for our wedding anniversary but...
- Revenge Films: In this story, Charlotte was marrying the son of an elite family who looked down on her sister Olivia for being a middle school graduate and a garbage collector. However, Charlotte and her fiancé defended her when they tried to humiliate her.
Webcomics
- The Continentals: In The Continental, both Evelynne Poole and her older brother Clifford are prime examples. Evelynne can be described as the Paris Hilton of 19th century England.
- Flork of Cows has Captain Rich, who parodies the Crimefighting with Cash trope by being this. He seems to regard anyone less wealthy that him as being almost a different species (including spraying nearby poor people with water like misbehaving cats) and apparently has no idea how non-billionaires live.
Captain Rich: I don’t understand the poor. Why don’t they just give money to their butlers and have them fetch food? Why are they so helpless?
- Subverted with It's Walky!'s Jason Chesterfield: he has the name, the nationality, the accent (explicitly, despite the comic being written), the costume (bowtie and dinner jacket, at all times), the rich relatives, the lack of a job when we first meet him, and is certainly an embarrassment to his family... and yet is also a competent agent and one of the only main characters whose record contains no severe mental incidents. He's also from a parallel universe where England produces ninjas ("Britjas"). Some slack must be cut.
- Excel Hotel in Muertitos is yet another blatant Paris Hilton parody, right down to the name.
- Sylvester and Mortimer in The Mansion of E are well-meaning variants of this.
- Chase Brenton from Rain (2010) is a charismatic yet slimy serial abuser. He does not have a job and his financial are entirely covered by his rich family. He uses that wealth and power to come across as respectable in order to charm teenage girls into falling for him. However, he often drinks heavily and even when sober, makes plenty of dumb decisions. This constant stupidty ends up being his downfall, as he attacks someone in a drunken rage, resulting in him getting arrested.
Web Original
- They abound in the Elrich setting from The Wanderer's Library. Some of them are cabbages.
- Phase knows plenty of them in the Whateley Universe because he's the Sheltered Aristocrat. He includes his older sister Heather in the category, and his cousin Paris (yes, that Paris). Tansy Walcutt would fall into this category too, but she got superpowers, and now she's busy being the Alpha Bitch.
- In the story "Heart of the Lion" from The Wulf Archives, an Upper-Class Twit by the name of Lord Heatham leads a White Empire company into the Veldt Lands expecting a "quick campaign" against the Sholanti. The expedition fails miserably, due in large part to Heatham's poor tactics and his arrogant underestimation of the people he wanted to conquer and enslave, and he and those of the company who actually make it to the battlefield are slaughtered to a man, with the protagonist being the only survivor.
Web Videos
- Oxventure:
- Mike's character in the Blades in the Dark campaign is Barnaby "The Butcher" Fortescue III, who is either a profoundly stupid and selfish man who stumbled into a life of crime because it sounded fun, constantly brings up how rich he is (while being unable to use any of that wealth to actually make the gang's life easier) and periodically stands on stupid points like refusing to disguise himself as a servant until his other clothes are physically removed while he's unconscious, or a surprisingly cunning manipulator who simply puts on a very good act of being a profoundly stupid and selfish man et cetera.
- Barnaby's perpetually sniffling cousin, Percy Pommeroy, is a less ambiguous example, being possibly the biggest sucker in the world, although at least he's a relatively friendly one.
- The Jimquisition has the recurring character Duke Amiel du H'ardcore, who reads dumb youtube comments as an 18th century French nobleman.
Western Animation
- Lemongrab of Adventure Time. He's an earl, the heir to the Candy Kingdom, and presumably wealthy... but he doesn't even know how to prepare a meal for himself, and has a history of having everything he needed handed to him.
- Alfred J. Kwak: King Franz Ferdinand is at first a totally oblivious ruler who neglects his subjects, though when we first see him as a young man it's clear that he didn't particularly want to be king anyway. He spends most of his time in his lemonade baths and swindles Alfred out of a significant sum of money. When Dolf takes over in a fascist coup Franz Ferdinand demonstrates such a level of ignorance that Dolf and his cronies openly laugh at him before exiling the King. Subverted when this leads Franz Ferdinand to reconsider his own actions and he becomes a better ruler after he returns to Great Waterland.
- From Beetlejuice, Claire Brewster. Upper-Class Twit and Alpha Bitch.
- A large portion of the cast of Beverly Hills Teens could count as this, as they are all so rich and pampered that they have no idea how to perform basic tasks. In practice, though this best applies to Bianca and Pierce, the most commonly antagonistic characters, as in addition to their wealth and privilege, they tend to be snobby, thoughtless, and rude.
- Ed Wuncler III from The Boondocks is an Upper-Class Twit who's also psychotic, and uses his grandfather's connections to keep him out of jail, since all his poorly planned robberies are simply Wuncler establishments. Wuncler Sr. said it best in the episode "The Garden Party": "Someday, that boy will be President of the United States... and he'll still be a fucking moron."
- From The Critic, Jay Sherman's father Franklin can come across as an Upper-Class Twit until he reveals himself as being a Cloudcuckoolander.
- Sam's parents in Danny Phantom seem to be this on the surface, a characteristic Sam herself vigorously averts.
- Kim Possible:
- Villainess Camille Leon is a Paris Hilton Expy who turned to crime to finance her lifestyle when her parents cut her off. She also possesses Voluntary Shapeshifting powers due to an experimental cosmetic surgery procedure. Came complete with an expensive pet, a Sphinx cat named Debutante.
- Señor Senior Junior would rather party and break into show biz rather than learn to be a proper villain as his father wants. Of course, his father counts as well, having been a very successful and financially wealthy individual who took up villainy as a hobby due to being bored.
- Guinevere in King Arthur's Disasters, to the point of being described as "Her generation's Paris Hilton."
- Prince Wu from Season 4 of The Legend of Korra; he focuses more on the perks of being royalty rather than the responsibilities, and until he's deposed by Kuvira his plan for rulership was "party all the time, let the ministers handle the rest". Due to the aforementioned deposition, he realizes that he's a bad fit for king and matures a bit, ultimately dissolving the monarchy peacefully so the Earth Kingdom can govern themselves.
- Chloe from Miraculous Ladybug is actively cruel to anyone she thinks is below her. Which is basically everyone except her classmate Adrien (a fashion model). She leans on her dad (the Mayor of Paris) to get basically whatever she wants, all while actively thinking that everyone loves her.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Prince Blueblood is what happens when you combine this with Prince Charmless. And Jerkass. If he was from "normal" royalty, that'd be bad enough. But Blueblood is the great-great-great-great-great-great (and so forth) nephew of Princess Celestia, Goddess of the Sun, which one suspects lends him the extra room to get away with his abhorrent behavior.
- Between the childhood flashback of Applejack's brief stint in Manehattan in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" and the portrayal of Canterlot society as a whole in episodes like "The Best Night Ever" and "Sweet and Elite" — all of which are filled to the brim with examples of this trope — Friendship Is Magic is surprisingly harsh in its appraisal of high society for such an optimistic show (though the latter episode features a welcome subversion in the form of Fancy Pants).
- Even Twilight Sparkle strays into this trope at times, as she's strongly implied to have come from money and while she's academically brilliant, her social and interpersonal skills left much to be desired. She got better.
- Essentially the entire cast in Neo Yokio, including Kaz and his rival Arcangelo. Kaz's cousin, Jeffery, is one despite dressing and acting like a Lower-Class Lout.
- Princess Morbucks on The Powerpuff Girls, in spades. She wants to be a Powerpuff Girl but only because she sees it as a status symbol. She lives the old adage "money talks, b.s. walks."
- In Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, Daphne's and Shaggy's parents both have shades of this, Daphne's more so than Shaggy's given their vapidness and implied history of hospitalization and psychotherapy.
- Thomas & Friends:
- Gordon the Big Engine has become this from Season 8 onwards due to Flanderization. He's in the higher ranks of the Sodor Railway and granted, he was always rather arrogant, but his pride has gotten him into scrapes in almost every episode he's been in. He is, however, very intelligent when his pride has been brought down a notch or three.
- In a case of Early-Installment Weirdness, The Fat Controller played this in the episodes adapted from Three Railway Engines, shouting orders to the passengers and crew but refusing to take part himself ("My doctor has forbidden me to push.") After those stories, though, he's played as more of a Reasonable Authority Figure.
- Phantom Limb of The Venture Bros. frequently lapses into this. Though he is capable of cold-blooded villainy, he often send more concerned with fashion, etiquette and pretensions at aristocracy. He is trying his hardest to present himself as a Man of Wealth and Taste — and failing.
- Mr. and Mrs. Travers from What About Mimi?. They're both the rich parents of Alpha Bitch Sincerity and behave in a very haughty, condescending manner to the Mortons, and anyone else of a lower class than them.
