• Shiva from Saint Beast. He's got all of the tsun which covers up his fears of inferiority and frustration at not getting what he wants.

• Aquaman (1991): After the death of his son and estrangement from Mera, Aquaman acts cold and angry on the outside but is plagued with sorrow and insecurity on the inside. Battling his Enemy Without, Thanatos, helps him confront his inner demons head-on and admit to feeling sad.
• Paperinik New Adventures: Xadhoom's role in the fall of her planet and her people (as well as the fact that she wasn't there during the event ) caused her to develop an insane amount of rage and guilt that she can only express by taking revenge on the aliens that attacked them. As such, she is very abrupt, callous, and rude toward practically everybody, only allowing herself very brief moments of friendship with Paperinik who, as she admitted, is the only person she can count on in the whole universe.
• Plutona: Ray is an abrasive jerk to everyone he meets because his father is neglectful and abusive. He's given the opportunity to open up over the course of the story.
• Scott Pilgrim: It's strongly implied that part of the reason Kim Pine acts so cold (especially to the protagonist) is due to the lack of closure in their relationship when Scott moved away and had their mutual friend tell Kim about it as opposed to Scott himself. When this topic finally gets brought to the surface, it's the only time in the entire series where Kim looks genuinely hurt.
• Tales of the Jedi: By the time of the Redemption story arc, Ulic Qel-Droma is a bitter, cranky recluse who isolates himself on a frozen world and tries to reject Vima Sunrider's request for mentorship, the girl who probably would have been his steppdaughter if he'd made different choices. It's clear that it's because he has no idea how to atone for the horrible crimes he committed when he fell to the Dark Side and in mourning for his brother, who he killed, and his connection to the Force, which his ex-love Nomi Sunrider ripped from him.
• Wonder Woman (1942): Paula von Gunther seems like a cruel and sadistic Nazi spy until Diana forces her to tell her story with the magic lasso, at which point Paula reveals that she hates the Nazis and is only working for them because they'd murdered her husband right in front of her for her refusal to work for them and then taken her daughter hostage. Her apparent sadism was a result of her feeling she had no other way to help her daughter but no hope of actually rescuing or seeing her little girl again, so she hardened her heart and felt furious with those who seemed to be living happy or meaningful lives.

• Manny from Ice Age is an example of this. In the first film, he's shown to be extremely bitter, careless towards the well-being of others or for that matter himself, and just kind of a jerk overall. However, later in the film, we realize from a cave painting that his reason for this is because he cruelly lost his mate and child to hunters, and was merely grieving.
• Sleeping Beauty (1959): One of the Fairy Godmothers speculates that Maleficent is this.
  Fauna: Maleficent doesn't know anything about love, or kindness, or the joy of helping others. You know, sometimes I don't think she's really very happy.
• In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Miguel O'Hara is a stern and no nonsense man who's suffering from Survivor's Guilt after he took the place of his dead counterpart and accidentally caused the universe where said counterpart and his counterpart's daughter to vanish from existence. Underneath it all, he's just really a heartbroken man who's grieving for a daughter that he grew to love.
• Spirited Away: Haku appears cold and dismissive towards nearly everyone, but it's really only part of his job with Yubaba, and he is trying to remember his stolen name in order to go home. The river he represents is long gone (which he seems to have forgotten as well), meaning he couldn't go home even after quitting his apprenticeship with Yubaba.
• In Turning Red, Tyler seems to like bullying Mei just because he doesn't like her, but secretly he's jealous of her close friend group and just like them, he's obsessed with the boy band 4*Town and hides it throughout the film. Fortunately, Mei and her friends immediately accept him into their friend group after learning about this.
• Carl from Up is bitter, misanthropic, and anti-social, thanks to years of loneliness after being devastated by the death of his beloved wife Ellie. He eventually gets better, though not without fighting it every step of the way, a Heel Realization, and a Big Damn Heroes moment, thanks to Russel, Dug, and Kevin.

• Anne of Windy Poplars: Katherine Brooks, the principal of Queen's Academy. She hates teaching, but as a plain, single woman who is determined to be independent, she has no other options, locking her into a career that is slowly sucking the life from her. Anne's relentless goodwill towards her eventually breaks through the sour shell, and a visit to Green Gables goes a long way towards easing the sad inside.
• Cries and Whispers: Karin is rigid, unfriendly, and looks pissed off most of the time, but she is actually deeply unhappy with her life to the point of feeling suicidal.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): Rocket is a perfect example. In the second movie, Yondu, who knows exactly what he's talking about since he's an example of this too and he knows it, says it best:
    Yondu: You can fool yourself and you can fool everyone else, but you can't fool me. I know who you are... I know you play like you're the meanest and the hardest but actually you're the most scared of all. I know you steal batteries you don't need, and you push away anyone who's willing to put up with you because just a little bit of love reminds you how big and empty that hole inside of you actually is!
  • Nebula is also implied to be one over the course of the movies because Thanos treats her as The Un-Favorite until she finally blows up at her adopted sister Gamora about the latter treating her like this as well.
    Nebula: [to Gamora] You were the one who wanted to win, and I just wanted a sister! [...] You were all I had. But you were the one who needed to win. Thanos pulled my eye from my head, my brain from my skull, and my arm from my body. Because of you.
• Star Wars: Darth Vader. On the outside, a cruel, deceptive, power-hungry monster who would kill his officers for the simple crime of failing him. On the inside? A broken slave to his master and "friend" Emperor Palpatine. In a twisted way, he tried to protect his son Luke, even if it meant cutting his hand off and trying to push him to the Dark Side (rather than have Palpatine kill him). Luke's cries of pain are what let him free himself from Palpatine's control.

Examples by creator:

• Fyodor Dostoevsky:
  • Nastasya Filippovna from The Idiot is an example from classic literature. Her public persona is that of a proud, arrogant Femme Fatale, but in reality, she takes on these characteristics to hide the pain and shame she feels about the abuse she suffered in her past. Interestingly enough, she is in a Love Triangle with the more traditional Tsundere Aglaya Yepanchin for the favor of the saintly Prince Myshkin, and Myshkin's inability to choose between helping to overcome the problems of a 'shun' and returning the love of a 'dere' leads to his tragic downfall.
  • Polina Alexandrovna from Dostoevsky's novella The Gambler has shades of this as well. Given Dostoevsky's interest in psychology and his tragic Real Life affair with the very Sour Outside Sad Inside Apollinaria Suslova, it is entirely possible that there is a reason for his use of this trope.

Examples by work title:

• Accelerator from A Certain Magical Index. Being experimented on, forcing people away and being attacked on a constant basis because of his ability makes him more unbalanced than depressed, but he still uses his abrasive attitude to try to distance himself from others.
• Patience, in Dinoverse. She's deeply, antagonistically cynical, and exaggeratedly tough because she's convinced that if she ever relies on anyone, for so much as a moment, they'll leave.
• The titular wizard/detective of The Dresden Files. Throughout the series, he only has rare moments of happiness, that are usually quickly dashed. He also constantly snarks at both friends and enemies and rarely lets people get close.
• In Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi, although Jiang Cheng can be harsh and short-tempered, deep down, he's just a very sad and traumatized man from a broken home who had to grow up quickly in the middle of a war when he was just a teenager after losing his loved ones to the Wen Sect. On top of that, he had to raise his orphaned nephew all by by himself after his sister and brother-in-law died unexpectedly and had his Childhood Friend and adoptive brother deserting Yunmeng Jiang to protect the remnants of the very sect he'd had a hand in destroying. He's not exactly going to be rainbows and sunshine after going through all in such a short amount of time.
• Victorique from Gosick. At first emotionless due to being locked in a dungeon for several years and being forsaken by her father, she warms up because of Kujo and they become happily married at the end.
• Severus Snape of Harry Potter floats easily between this and Jerk with a Heart of Gold once you learn his backstory of unrequited love, Parental Neglect and near-constant bullying.
• Peturabo, Primarch of the Iron Warriors from the Horus Heresy series. Beneath the sour, rage-filled mask hides a person really wishing for someone to appreciate his work.
• Haymitch Abernathy from The Hunger Games would qualify for this trope; after all, the president had Haymitch's loved ones killed for defying him at the top of being traumatized by his ordeal back in his Games. On top of that, he's the official coach to the tributes from his district. For years he's been responsible for training kids for a fight to the death that, statistically, they have no hope of surviving, and there's not really anything he can do about it. It is heavily implied that he made them fight hard while also sabotaging them to make them lose on purpose, given that the Victors are not doing any better if they end up surviving the titular game. It would only make sense then that he would refuse to take in anymore people to mentor and become an alcoholic after what he's gone through.
• I Am Not a Serial Killer has John, an active loner with anger issues that would impress Bruce Banner. He's a slightly unusual example in that he narrates the series, so his sad inside is apparent much faster. He himself notes that his tendency to self-sabotage relationships might keep him from being hurt, but it also prevents him from having a chance at a positive relationship.
• The title character in A Man Called Ove may be a Scandinavian embodiment of this trope. He's caustic, opinionated, and definitely not a people person. However, as grouchy as Ove is, he's also deeply depressed and struggling with grief after his wife's death, and goes on to attempt suicide to be reunited with his wife.
• Lu, the main protagonist in Murderess, was sent to Earth from Greywall'd in her infancy and grew up repeatedly switching schools and being betrayed by the friends she made, and having all of her questions about her heritage ignored. At the beginning of the book, while she might not be actively mean, she does give people Death Glares to keep them at arm's length and is often fairly snarky.
• My Secret Unicorn: In Flying High, Jessica's older stepsister Samantha acts sullen all the time. She briefly gets excited about meeting the pony Twilight, but quickly goes back to acting totally uninterested. Much to Jessica's frustration, she always gets her way, which is why the family goes to the mall almost every day even though Jessica wants to do other things. It turns out that the reason she acts like that is because she's sad about moving to the countryside and leaving her friends.
• Hachiman Hikigaya of My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, as I Expected is cynical, bitter and utterly loathes anything that involves social interaction. A childhood of bad experiences such as bullying and rejection have led him to believe that youth is nothing but a lie, constantly snarks towards those around him, and resolves social issues by making himself the primary aggressor, much to the discontent of his peers. Despite all of the above issues, Hachiman sincerely wishes to have a genuine relationship with those around him.
• Ryoko Ōkami from Ōkami-san. Underneath the fierce Tsundere wolf act she puts up, there is a sad, lonely, emotionally fragile girl who doesn’t want to be betrayed again.
• Chad from Rogue (2013) acts arrogant and abrasive, but he's actually miserable from being abused and forced to participate in criminal activities by his parents.
• Taiga Aisaka from Toradora!, a deconstructed Tsundere. Also known as the "Palmtop Tiger" because of her fierce Tsun-ness. Moved into an apartment when her parents got divorced because she could not get along with either her mother or her father and stepmother. Her father also makes promises that he has no intention to keep. As the series goes on, she becomes emotionally stronger and Ryuji and others help her stand on her own again, culminating with both a True Love's Kiss with Ryuuji and her decision to come back home, so she can mend her broken family life before marrying him.
• The titular raven for What the Raven Saw. To most people, he's the vicious old bird who won't let anyone else live in his churchyard; inside, he's deeply lonely and bitter with the world.

• The Andy Griffith Show: In the first season episode "Christmas Story," the apparently misanthropic businessman Ben Weaver is an example of this. After Ben makes everyone's lives miserable for the first part of the episode by insisting that the Sheriff enforce the letter of the law (such as by demanding that a moonshiner serve out his jail sentence, rather than getting a temporary leave of absence to spend Christmas with his family), he then embarks on a blatant spree of Christmas Eve misdemeanors. Sheriff Andy realizes that this is a purposeful attempt on Ben's part to get himself arrested so that he can join the jailhouse Christmas party that is underway rather than spending Christmas alone (To ensure that the audience does not miss this trope, in one scene Ben stands on a trash can behind the jail and wistfully watches through a barred window as those present at the Christmas party sing "Away in a Manger," with Andy leading on the guitar). Andy obliges in arresting him, allowing Ben to first go home to get some things that he'll need for his jail stay. Ben returns with an assortment of gifts for those present, which he pretends to have brought by accident.
• Both Buffy and Faith were like this at various points on Buffy the Vampire Slayer; most prominently for Buffy when she returned from LA after Summer vacation at the start of season 2 when she was still coping with her temporary death at the hands of The Master, she was doing everything she could to push her friends away, but as soon as she smashed The Master's bones and ended any possibility of him resurrecting, she broke down in tears. Faith meanwhile spent the latter half of season 3 as the Mayor's vicious enforcer, but underneath was a deeply troubled young woman wracked with guilt over what she was doing.
• Charmed: Piper came off this way for a while after Prue's death, throwing herself into demon-hunting, coldly brushes Paige off (when she's not outright dismissive), and won't let anyone talk to her about it. She eventually mellows out to her old self and comes to accept Prue's death, and Paige's place in the family. This appears in Centennial Charmed when we see an alternate reality where Paige never met her; the Power of Three was never reconstituted, and she becomes a cluster of raw nerves and leather in her Roaring Rampage of Revenge for Prue's death.
• Cobra Kai: Hawk is a particularly sad example. He spent most of his life being bullied for his cleft palate scar. After joining Cobra Kai, his life gets better, but he's still incredibly insecure and hurting due to his past bullying so he responds to anyone who hurts him with Unstoppable Rage which alienates those closest to him and allows him to be manipulated by Kreese.
• Game of Thrones: Sandor "The Hound" Clegane's unpleasant personality is rooted in the traumatic incident from his youth that literally burned all the idealism out of him, as well as the lingering guilt for some of the things he has done in life. Tormund Giantsbane outright calls him this trope.
  Tormund: I don't think you're really mean. You have sad eyes.
  Sandor: You want to suck my dick, is that it?
• Peter Quinn from Homeland is this. He's coolly hostile to his co-workers and was brought in specifically because he's good at not getting emotionally involved. Despite his bluntness, willingness to put people down, and inability to trust or be trusted, by season three it's clear the majority of his issues stem from constantly being on the move due to CIA work and being haunted by the number of people he's killed. Even though he claims and acts as if he dislikes the people he's working with, he finds excuses to be around them and manages a few conversations that are non-work related, during which he's about as nice as any of the main cast.
• House: The good doctor's constant snark and occasional callousness stem from his own deep-seated belief that he is worthless, despite being a genius level diagnostician.
• Kevin Can F**k Himself: Patty is an abrasive snarker and seems to have little regard for anyone else or their feelings, but she starts to to show a softer side to Allison and Tammy. In truth, she's a very lonely individual who feels trapped in her unhappy life, but sees no escape, and embraces cynicism and sarcasm to cope.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Galadriel has a habit of becoming very defensive and lashing out at other people to hide her depression and trauma from seeing her loved ones dying. Despite being told numerous times that her behavior is not doing her any service, Galadriel continues to seek revenge as a way to relieve her trauma.
• Red Dwarf: Arnold Rimmer can best be described as a Dirty Coward, a Jerkass and in general, not a nice person to be around due to him being nasty to everyone else. However, it has also been shown that Rimmer is genuinely lonely and wants to be loved, and thanks to his upbringing, has a very warped sense of other people and believes himself to be worthless. "Better Than Life" (which has him unintentionally destroy everyone's fun) also shows that deep down, he doesn't believe that he deserves to be happy.
• Scrubs: Dr. Cox may have his good moments, but on an average day, he's mostly condescending towards everyone, dealing with a huge superiority complex, and thinking that people are bastard-coated bastards with a bastard filling. However, he's also repeatedly shown to genuinely care for his patients (and co-workers) even though even he isn't willing to admit it, and he absolutely breaks down when he knows he can't be the person some people expect him to be, or worse, when he loses a loved one.
• In Smallville, Oliver may be this, especially in season nine. Chloe might be a mild example on her worst days, but with what she has gone through...
• In Son of a Critch, Fox is mean and abrasive, and constantly pushes away people who try to help her. She's also the only daughter of an alcoholic father and a frequently-absent mother, and has been alternately exploited and bullied by her brothers for as long as she can remember, and on top of that, her teachers have punished her for years simply because they assume that she's as bad as her brothers.
• Captain Liam Shaw from Star Trek: Picard admits that he became a Jerkass to cover his massive Survivor's Guilt after watching 40 of his friends die at the Battle of Wolf 359.
• Derek Hale from Teen Wolf mainly communicates through aloofness and threats of bodily harm. Which makes a lot of sense when you remember he was sexually manipulated as a kid. By a grown woman. Who then burned down his home with most of his family in it.
• The Twilight Zone (1959) had Fitzgerald Fortune in the episode "A Piano in the House", where the titular player-piano could bring out the "true self" of someone whose "true" personality fit the music being played. He delights in using it to humiliate a heavyset, jovial woman named Marge at a dinner party, then wants to play something that would "call forth the devil" - except his wife swaps out the planned song for Brahms' "Lullaby". This song affects Fitzgerald himself, revealing that, at his heart, he's actually a "small frightened boy, that only likes to hurt people", lashing out at anyone he feels envious of.
• Vida: Emma is cold to people most of the time at first, but it turns out this hides deep pain she's carrying from her past.
• Yellowjackets has Natalie Scatorccio. This trope is more evident in the 2021 storyline. Soon after her most recent stint at rehab, she relapses into alcohol and drug use to deal with the trauma from the 1996 plane crash and the things she and her fellow team members did to survive 19 months in the wilderness. Most of the time she is a Perpetual Frowner. By the end of Season 1, the only thing that stops her from taking her life is the people who break into her room and kidnap her.

• The titular character of Electra Heart album by Marina Diamandis definitely qualifies: she's a self-admitted Alpha Bitch, (e.g. "Bubblegum Bitch") who's also a Broken Bird (e.g. "Living Dead")
• Played for Laughs in Denis Leary's "Asshole". The singer has an epiphany that maybe he's just lashing out, and the people he craps on with laughably petty dickishness might be wrong... NAAHHHHHHH...

• ECW's Perpetual Frowner Raven. A man of apparent wealth and intelligence who focuses on many destructive, distracting pursuits that have little to do with winning title belts. He's the old party boy Scotty The Body with a hopeless case of depression, who really can't drive himself to do anything other than hurt people, much as he may try to or claim otherwise.

• In Nomine: While Dominic, the Archangel of Judgement, is every bit the ruthless Knight Templar that he presents himself as, a good chunk of the reason he interprets his Word so harshly is that he never quite recovered from the betrayal of his closest friend or his guilt over nearly Falling. There's a reason his black cloak shields him from all supernatural observation — he can't risk anyone seeing his fear of weakness, nor his grief over what he must do in the name of justice.
  Eli: So many eyes, how can he be so blind? Such shining wings, why doesn't he fly? Such a beautiful voice, why doesn't he sing? Poor Dominic.

• Bug Fables: For the first half of the game, Queen Elizant II is stern, frigid, and harsh, and has alienated a great many of her kingdom's allies and banned ladybugs with very few exceptions. More than a few bugs openly despise her for her attitude, Leif included. But it's revealed in Chapter 5 that under her cold exterior lies a sad bug with an inferiority complex who's trying too hard to be a strong ruler. Once she opens her heart to Team Snakemouth, she truly becomes the kind and fair ruler the Ant Kingdom needs and repairs relations with the people she pushed away.
• Mandy from Bully is the quintessential Alpha Bitch, but it's eventually revealed that she just bullies people to compensate for her own insecurities.
• When Etna of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness interacts with anyone she's normally a huge, unpleasant bitch, but reading her diary reveals she's surprisingly melancholic. Laharl is also a huge jerk (though not to Etna's degree), but losing his mother left a deep scar that shows him as a miserable person whenever he's alone.
• Marcy Long, a survivor of the Quincy Massacre in Fallout 4 is an example. Her surly bitchy demeanor towards everyone is an armor to mask the grief of having lost her son Kyle. And unfortunately, she doesn't exactly get better.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Squall Leonhart of Final Fantasy VIII puts an extraordinary amount of effort into being brusque, unsociable, and unsympathetic to others in order to keep anyone from getting too close to him. As the game progresses, it reveals that he does this because he's actually cripplingly insecure and desperately afraid of coming to care about and rely on others only to lose them, which he believes is inevitable.
  • Lulu from Final Fantasy X is a milder example; she puts up a very cold, alienating front - being outright abrasive to Wakka, Tidus, and (very occasionally) Yuna - but is revealed to just be an exceptionally sad person inside as the game progresses, due to the loss of her fiancé, Chappu, Lady Ginnem, her first Summoner due to her own inability and the fact that Yuna will die too once they finish the pilgrimage.
  • Lightning qualifies as this in Final Fantasy XIII, at least in the first few chapters of the game. She comes across as confrontational, aggressive, and outright cold with people she has just met. In reality, she's deeply concerned about her sister Serah and, considering that she herself was branded a L'Cie, had pretty firm justification for being under some heavy stress. She begins to open up to Hope and show more of her inner fragility as the plot advances.
• The Final Prayer: Kaeros is initially angered that Princess Isolde is seemingly ignoring the fall of the Respene Kingdom and the death of her father in favor of complaining about the lack of luxuries on the journey. He later realizes that she does feel grief and loss, but is lashing out at everyone around her.
• Goddess of Victory: NIKKE: Eunhwa's near constant put downs and harsh Jerkass attitude towards Team Counters are revealed to be her essentially lashing out at Rapi, still hurt and upset at the fact that her ex-teammate simply resigned without word or warning one day.
• Xigbar from Kingdom Hearts. He's a sarcastic, abrasive jerk who condescendingly trolls everyone he meets... and the secret reports in III reveal that underneath all the verbal barbs is a lonely old man who's tired of it all and just wants to see his friends again. Moreso in The Stinger where he's revealed to be Luxu, who had the unenviable position of having an as-of-yet-explained task placed upon him by the Master of Masters.
• Jack, from Mass Effect 2, as a result of her horrific past. She gets better by Mass Effect 3 if she survives.
• Adachi, the Serial Killer in Persona 4 displayed this. A Sour Prude and Straw Nihilist who's shown to have deep-rooted apathy and depression whenever he's alone. For all his claims that he finds fun in the bedlam caused by the murders he had committed, he can't even find satisfaction in his own sadism and depravity.
• In Rakuen, Tony is a Grumpy Old Man who snaps at everyone who enters his room, while his Morizora's Forest counterpart is a cranky old bear who tramples the Leebles' vegetable gardens whenever he goes on a rampage. Both complain that nobody from their family ever visits them. The process of getting his part of the "Mori no Kokoro" reveals that when his son Benny died in an accident while under the watch of his daughter Christina, Tony stopped talking to Christina out of grief. She grew up assuming he hated her, when in reality Tony blamed himself for Benny's death but had no idea how to deal with his emotions.
• Shane from Stardew Valley suffers from chronic depression and a Soul-Sucking Retail Job. His coping mechanisms are alcohol, more alcohol, and lashing out at anyone who so much as speaks to him. The more persistent you are trying to befriend him, the more abrasive he gets trying to push you away... until he snaps completely and tries to throw himself off a cliff.
  Why are you talking to me? Go away.
  You're still trying to be friends with me? How rude do I have to be for you to take a hint?
• This characterization is often given to Waluigi from the Super Mario Bros. franchise. On the outside, the guy is an unrepentant Jerkass who does things just to make people angry or because it's mean. On the inside, he knows he's never going to win, and that he's way out of his league.
• Kazuya from the Tekken series. Once, he was a kind and frail boy that was treated badly by his father, who actually was very, very wary of him having inherited his mother's Devil Gene, culminating in an attempt to kill him, causing Kazuya to turn to help from a demon to achieve revenge. Because of this, Kazuya becomes merciless and cold and after defeating his father, he turned even more evil to rule his company. One day, though, a girl named Jun meets Kazuya and the two are attracted instantly. Jun is able to get close to Kazuya and she realizes that Kazuya isn't actually evil, but has a demon inside him and that his true nature is kind and good, her powers suppress the demonic powers in Kazuya, causing his good side to come out and fight the demon to free him. This causes Kazuya to weaken, which gave his father, Heihachi, the chance to retake his company and throw Kazuya in a volcano. After he gets revived in the events of Tekken 4, he completely abandons the "depression" part and goes full villain in order to get revenge on his father. By the end of Tekken 7's story, he succeeds and becomes the next biggest threat to the world, forcing his half-brother Lars to convince Kazuya's son Jin (Who's currently not any better than his father by any stretch of imagination, mind you) to end this, as seen in the sequel.
• Warframe:
  • Excalibur Umbra, introduced in "The Sacrifice", initially appears to be an autonomous warframe gone berserk and actively fought against Transference before fleeing after being rebuilt. The Operator's multiple attempts at chasing him down revealed that Ballas both mentally and physically tortured Umbra as punishment for attempting to unravel the Orokin executor's defection attempt, with the climax showing a visage of Umbra sobbing underneath a cherry blossom tree before the Operator calms him down enough to accept Transference.
  • "The Hex" introduced Eleanor Nightingale, a former journalist turned Nyx protoframe and older sister to team leader Arthur. Chatting with her via text reveals the weight of her transformation on her psyche and her worries of turning against the team, but acts nonchalant and sarcastic to hide this from the team.
• Jack van Burace from Wild ARMs 1 has shades of this. He's often abrasive and rude, especially to Cecilia. Beneath his exterior is a heavy dose of guilt due to him being the sole survivor of the demon attack on Arctica and being unable to protect those he cares about.
• Sylvanas Windrunner from World of Warcraft, so very much. Beneath all her cruelty, she is mainly just filled with sorrow and loneliness, and always seems on the verge of a Despair Event Horizon.

• Touko Fukawa from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. Due to her traumatic childhood at the hands of her Abusive Parents, bullying by her classmates, and the fact that she's never had any loving relationships, she's developed an acerbic attitude along with strong paranoia that causes her to worry that everyone either hates her or is out to hurt or bully her. To make matters worse, the aforementioned trauma and abuse she endured growing up led her to develop a Split Personality, a Serial Killer named Genocider Syo; being conscious of Syo's crimes deeply distresses Fukawa, so much so that she rarely bathes so she doesn't have to see the Kill Tally that Syo carves into her thigh with each new victim. Thankfully, in Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls she's befriended and treated with genuine kindness and love by Komaru, who she slowly manages to warm up to and trust. She eventually comes to truly care for and trust Komaru in return, and she sports her first genuine smiling sprite in the whole series — by the end, she proudly declares that she's found her "hope" in Komaru.
• Hiyoko Saionji from Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. It's clear behind her sunny yet extremely sour personality that Hiyoko is a deeply sad girl who just wants a friend but can't make any because of her trust issues and tendency to push others away because of her past of being abused and neglected by pretty much everyone, she finally does make a friend in Mahiru Koizumi only for Mahiru to end up dead days later which only adds to Hiyoko's deeply routed sadness and self-hatred. While it doesn't excuse her behavior, it's utterly depressing that Hiyoko never really had a chance to show others that she had a good heart deep down because of how often others hurt her, and that her one chance of happiness was cruelly taken away from her.
• Miu Iruma from Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony is, simply put, a hot mess. She is extremely abrasive and prickly, hurling insults at her classmates, getting angry at them for wasting her time, and generally being a nuisance, making her The Friend Nobody Likes. Underneath all these are a lot of insecurities. She did not have anyone she could call a friend before participating in the Killing Game, something she is embarrassed to admit, and she tries very hard to get people to like her because of her beauty and genius, but she falls apart very quickly whenever these attempts fail (which is more often than not). She does not trust her classmates enough to work with them, and as the Killing Game progresses, she ends up attempting to kill Kokichi so that she can escape. Her Love Suite Event suggests that Miu has severe abandonment issues, making her loneliness worse; in the middle of an otherwise pleasant Childhood Friend Romance, Miu invokes a Baby Trap plan, believing it is the only sure way that her childhood friend would not abandon her. Lastly, taking her friendless background into consideration, she will quickly fall in love with anyone who shows her even a small amount of affection.
• Subaru of Diabolik Lovers has a Hair-Trigger Temper and a curious talent for demolition, which he uses to intimidate people into leaving him alone by smashing walls and breaking furniture. He threatens to hurt the heroine in the same ways that he breaks things, despite never actually striking her. A painful childhood convinced him that he is some sort of monster who will involuntarily harm anyone who tries to get close to him, and he has made it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Aoba from Family Project due to issues with her parents and later her grandfather tends to treat others in an extremely hostile manner. It's quite rare for her not to be either a jerkass or completely disinterested.
• Shizune Hakamichi from Katawa Shoujo turns out to be this, and it's hinted that it's in part to compensate for her deafness and because she's actually extremely lonely and frustrated over her inability to keep friends.

• In The Amazing Digital Circus, Jax may insist that he's nothing more than an unlikable, irredeemable, petty jerk, but that's just an act he puts up to hide that he's mourning the loss of his Only Friend and has resolved to Never Be Hurt Again, even at the cost of a helping hand for when he abstracts.
• Max from Camp Camp is a mouthy, cynical little Jerkass, who often gives others a hard time for little to no reason, but underneath it all, is just a child lashing out, because his uncaring parents dumped him at a run-down summer camp, just so they don't have to deal with him; as often as he tries to escape from Camp Campbell^note  at least early on, he never talks about going home or mentions his family at all. In "Parents' Day", he brags that his parents don't care about showing up to stupid camp events - however, as the episode goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that Max's parents aren't showing up because they really don't care about him, and didn't even bother to write what activity for him participate in on his information form.
• Kiazuki from Hanazuki: Full of Treasures acts like a Tsundere to hide her misery about her failure to protect her moon from the Big Bad.
• Helluva Boss: Main character Blitzo acts like an obnoxious Jerkass who has No Sense of Personal Space and is willing to do just about anything to either get a rise out of someone or get into their pants. However, as the series goes on, it becomes clear that all of this is due to the fact that Blitzo is painfully lonely and desperately wants to be loved, but the pain of losing so many people when he was younger because of his own actions causes him to push others away under the assumption that making them leave that way will hurt less.
• Murder Drones: V, at face value, is an Ax-Crazy psycho who shows no remorse for anything she's done, joins J in bullying N, and openly wants to kill Uzi even when they start working together. However, as the series goes on, it's clear that she's completely traumatized by everything that the Absolute Solver put her through and her behavior is a desperate attempt to protect herself from the Solver hurting her and N more, with her trying to push him away so that he doesn't look harder into things and make himself a target for the Solver.
• RWBY: Whitley Schnee is antagonistic towards his older sister Weiss, and manipulated events to ensure Jacques saw him as the sole heir since he behaves like the perfect son. But Whitley is, in fact, just as much a victim of their father's abuse as Weiss and Winter are. When Weiss complains about her strained relationship with her mother, Willow points out that it was because she left him alone with two terrible parents: an abusive father and a negligent mother. To drive the point home, when Jacques is arrested and taken away by the Atlas police, Whitley is shown sitting by himself on the stairs looking forlorn and confused, a reminder that Whitley is simply just a scared, lonely boy desperate for someone to genuinely love him.

• Check, Please! has Jack Zimmermann, in the beginning, since he was kind of mean to Bittle even after everybody on the team received him with open arms. His story is revealed early on in the comic, as a recovered addict with anxiety and a deep need for his father's approval (no matter the fact that his father is actually very caring and supporting). He gets better after that, especially after he and Bittle take classes together.
• Erma: Rin has a reputation for being prickly and unpleasant, even to other youkai. She calls Erma a "half-breed" and outright tries to kill Sam. But her private conversation with Erma by the river shows clearly that she is seriously depressed by her parents' abusive treatment and the way her life has gone. She has hated humans for so long, she says, that she's forgotten why she hates them. It's clear she would change if she could, but she doesn't think she can anymore.
• Girl Genius: Klaus Wulfenbach is an Emperor Scientist who rules large swathes of Europe with an iron fist (though pretty well), always chooses Lawful over Good and isn't afraid to Pay Evil unto Evil. Beneath is a man who had his idealism shot off in the war in a very spectacular way, who doesn't know if his best friends are alive or dead, who hasn't seen his wife in years, and who constantly worries about his son's safety, and in general just wishes people could be a little better so he didn't have to be an iron-fisted dictator and could spend more time on the scientific pursuits that are his real passion.
• Zimmy in Gunnerkrigg Court: She's a creepy, grimy, nasty teenage ex-street kid Reality Warper with Power Incontinence with only one friend, gentle Power Nullifier Gamma. It's explicitly stated that Zimmy drives people away to protect them from getting trapped in her hell-world and getting their souls stolen.
• Homestuck:
  • Vriska is hiding a lot of angst under that 'Bluh Bluh Huge Bitch' attitude. She only shows this to John.
  • Similarly to Vriska is Karkat, who hides a lot of self-loathing under his angry exterior.
• Long Exposure has Mitch. He is a Smug Smiler Bully and is known around school for his time in a reformatory after stabbing his stepdad, what's hardly any information to many is that said stepdad was abusive towards him and his mother, and the stabbing only happened after he started getting physical and Mitch tried to defend his mother. He also has deep-seated self-loathing issues and an eating disorder, all of that on top of being in love with his favorite victim due to having No Social Skills, and said victim hates him. The latter gets rectified when Mitch tells Jonas why he started bullying him in the first place.
• The Manor's Prize: The Chariot acts harshly towards everyone around her, and states that she doesn't want to make friends. However, after Hanged Man disappears crying, Chariot begins tearing up herself, blaming it on alcohol.
• MegaTokyo has Kimiko (aka Kimi-Zilla). The artist has another character, Kotone, referred to as Tsun-Depressed.
• Sakana: Yuudai is an angry, loud-mouthed jerk who claims to "hate everybody"...except he actually doesn't. Word of God confirms that Yuudai suffered some pretty hardcore abuse not too long ago and, in reality, is so afraid of being hurt again that he pushes everyone away. Due to this, he is very sad and lonely but maintains a sour exterior to hide his feelings— which works remarkably.
• Gordon in The Young Protectors acts overbearing and abrasive towards the Kid Heroes under his supervision. In a candid moment, however, he admits that he is deeply ashamed of things he once did with his superpowers, tries to protect the team from repeating his mistakes, and actually feels jealous of a member who seems to be coping with his own Dark and Troubled Past better than he.

• American High Digital: Affion in "When You're Always The New Kid" acts ornery to avoid making any friends that he's going to end up being split from whenever his family moves again.

• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Prince Zuko is short-tempered, arrogant, demanding, and selfish (though with enough Pet the Dog moments to make it clear he's not all bad), and even after his eventual Heel–Face Turn, he is noticeably more brooding and serious than the others. He is also deeply hurt inside, and once his backstory is revealed in full, it's very easy to see why.
  • Zuko's sister Azula as well. Daddy's favorite little girl is competent, ruthless, savage, and brutal, but then you see some different sides to her at "The Beach" and then repeated "betrayals" and blows to her psyche send her on an epic Villainous Breakdown that can elicit pity and sadness. Unlike Zuko, where it's all spelled out for the viewer, Azula's story requires some homework from the viewer to figure out.
• BoJack Horseman:
  • BoJack is a bitter, sarcastic, heavy-drinking old washout who treats even his best friends like crap, but in reality, is experiencing very deep depression (resulting in substance abuse and anxiety attacks). In the first episode, his roommate Todd points out that BoJack must be a good person inside because he still hasn't kicked Todd out despite him living on his couch and not paying rent. As the series develops, it becomes apparent that just because BoJack is deeply depressed, it doesn't justify or excuse his behavior.
    BoJack: [holding his hand over a lit oven range] Nothing on the outside, nothing on the inside. Nothing on the outside, nothing on the inside.
  • Used for Sarah Lynn in the same show. She's presented as an Attention Whore, Hard-Drinking Party Girl, Addled Addict who has little to no respect for others. However, as more of her character is shown, it's presented as though she's what BoJack would be like if he were a human female, somewhere around two decades younger...who'd actually had further success after ''Horsin' Around'' stopped airing. In her very first appearance, she makes some comments that are very telling.
    BoJack: [in response to her saying she'll just find another place to go on a bender] Well you... should not... do that...
    Sarah Lynn: Oh, I know. I know, but I can, so I will. I'm at a point in my life where I never have to "grow as a person" or "rise to any occasions", so I can just keep surrounding myself with sycophants and enablers until I die tragically young.
    BoJack: Wh-what?
    Sarah Lynn: Yeah, it's pretty much too late for me.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: Numbuh 86 is a Jerkass Straw Feminist who seems to enjoy insulting just about every operative unfortunate enough to deal with her. But "Operation: S.L.U.M.B.E.R." reveals that she's firmly The Friend Nobody Likes because of this, even if she does share common interests with some of the other girls and, even if she denies it, she does really want to be friends with other kids, which is best shown through this exchange between her and Numbuh 3.
  Numbuh 86: I know it's unusual, but my mom is forcing me to throw a slumber party and... I had to invite someone.
  Numbuh Three: Why didn't you invite some of your own friends?
  (Numbuh 86 sadly hangs her head)
  Numbuh Three: Oh.
• In Duckman, it's hinted on many occasions that the reason the titular character lashes out so much is that he never got over the death of his wife which he (accidentally) caused. As revealed in the final episode, she was alive the entire time.
• Eddy from Ed, Edd n Eddy is revealed to be this in The Movie. He acts like a total bastard, treating everyone like crap (even his own friends) and doing everything to get as much money as he can. However, it's all a deliberate act and he only behaves like his older brother (who abused him physically and emotionally) to be popular and hiding his own pain and suffering. Everyone in the show found this in horror, and his admission and regret of all his mistakes led him (and the other Eds) to be accepted by the other kids.
• Gravity Falls: Stan Pines. He acts like a quintessential grumpy old codger who never thinks about anything beyond the next customer he's going to rip off, but his Dark and Troubled Past and Word of God make it clear that underneath it all, he's a very sad, lonely man.
• Angel Dust from Hazbin Hotel is an unabashed prostitute/porn star/gangster who does drugs and insults people on the regular. However, "Addict" reveals that most of it is to escape from the harsh realities inflicted upon him by Valentino. "Masquerade" spells it out even clearer, with him admitting to Husk that he acts the way he does in hopes that if he becomes broken enough, Valentino will finally free him.
• In Hey Arnold!, Helga G. Pataki is portrayed as this. She is as mean as possible to everyone on the outside, bullying, dictatorial, and unsympathetic, but a flashback to when she was three shows that she is simply putting on the act because she is scared that if she isn't a bully, people will bully her. Therefore, although she frequently shows her personality as a hopeless romantic with a lot of creativity when she's alone and does sometimes make sacrifices for those she cares about, she tries her hardest to keep those parts of herself hidden.
• Kaeloo: Mr. Cat. In one episode, he actually admits to Kaeloo that he's actually hiding his vulnerable side by being a jerk to everyone, and after getting shot with Truth Serum in another episode he's actually on the verge of tears.
• William Murderface of Metalocalypse. This is even lampshaded when a psychologist working for the series' Omniscient Council of Vagueness analyses him.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Babs Seed is a particularly nasty example of a bully compared to the show's usual duo of Alpha Bitches. Later, Applejack reveals to the Cutie Mark Crusaders (her victims) that Babs herself was picked on back in her hometown because of her mark-less flank. After things are explained among the five of them, everything goes for the better, and Babs starts appearing in a far more positive light.
  • Of a sorts, Discord is this. Before befriending the ponies, his more jerkass actions are usually because he feels jealous or left out. It has been theorized that this is a side effect of being raised poorly.
• The Owl House:
  • An entry in Amity Blight's diary implies this is the case for her. She doesn't want to be cruel to people like Luz, but she also can't be seen as weak.
  • Hunter acts cocky and sarcastic, but deep down is very insecure about his usefulness to the Emperor, to the point where Luz describes him as "a bad but sad boy". This is further exemplified after he defects from the Emperor's Coven, and hides his terror about being arrested and killed behind snippy comments, Death Glares, and general grumpy demeanor. He becomes significantly nicer after his Heel–Face Turn, but is still prone to picking petty fights when under stress.
• Ready Jet Go!: Mitchell's jerk facade? It's all an act to keep up appearances. Mitchell can be rude, sarcastic, and blunt, not to mention that he constantly pushes others away from him because he "doesn't do friends". But on the inside, he's a lonely kid who has a hard time making friends and fitting in. All he wants is to have friends and to be taken seriously as a detective, but he expresses these desires in rather unhealthy ways. With the help of Jet and his friends, Mitchell slowly but surely breaks out of his shell and becomes a trusted ally and friend of Team Propulsion.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Squidward Tentacles is openly grouchy and cynical, but he's also doomed to work a low-paying minimum wage job, stuck living next-door to two obnoxious Manchild neighbors, and nearly every chance he has at happiness gets unceremoniously yanked away from him.
  • Plankton also turns out to be this in "Sheldon SquarePants". His confession to SpongeBob pretty much sums it up.
    "I put on a gruff exterior because I don't want the world to hurt me. But deep down, I'm afraid I'll push everyone away and end up alone."
• Yellow Diamond in Steven Universe is the most bitter and impatient of the Diamonds, but deep down truly loved Pink in spite of her cold attitude toward her and on the inside is grieving over her just as much as Blue Diamond.
• Thomas & Friends: In "Hector the Horrid", Hector was acting aggressively because he was scared of being filled with coal.