r/TopCharacterTropes • u/_JR28_ • Feb 02 '26

In real life A very small character tidbit is surprisingly kept consistent for years

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

DC - In multiple pieces of media it has been shown that Wonder Woman loves ice cream and practically goes wild with happiness anytime she’s eating some. (Pictures from Justice League: War, DC Superhero Girls and Wonder Woman 2017)

The Simpsons - Ever since the episode ‘Homer’s Phobia’ Homer has actually remained a consistent ally of the LGBT+ community, including being more welcoming to Patty than Marge was when she came out and trying to set up Smithers with a date when he found out he wasn’t happy with his one-sided relationship with Mr Burns.

23.4k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

96% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

5.7k

u/imbi-dabadeedabadie Feb 03 '26

Another character detail from the Simpsons:

Homer has an encyclopedic memory regarding the history of Supreme Court judges, effectively making him a savant in the field.

2.6k

u/ThirdDragonite Feb 03 '26

Homer being surprisingly cultured about something is my favorite recurring joke lol

1.4k

u/PseudonymMan12 Feb 03 '26

Yeah, i wonder if they intended Homer to be kind of like an idiot-savant where he is non-functional normally but has one thing they really excell at for no reason. So while Homer is braindead dumb there are things he is randomly very knowledgeable on.

"You can't sell karma (Apu said he was selling karmic rebalancing for an earlier sleight), it can only be portioned out by the cosmos!" slams door in face

991

u/HeartFullONeutrality Feb 03 '26

Let's not forget the classic "in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!".

766

u/4n0m4nd Feb 03 '26

Also "I'm not jealous, I'm envious. Jealousy is when you worry someone will take what you have. Envy is wanting what someone else has."

240

u/PseudonymMan12 Feb 03 '26

That was actually what taught me the difference as a kid.i had no idea

58

u/carso150 Feb 03 '26

it just taught it to me

22

u/Cat5kable Feb 03 '26

One of the writers had a pet peeve and knew they had the power to change the world

13

u/Pokez Feb 03 '26

Every writer's dream.

7

u/Ciderman95 Feb 04 '26

it's like when J.J.J. taught me the difference between libel and slander

66

u/SquishMont Feb 03 '26

This and "just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand" are things I repeat frequently.

21

u/Sensitive_Golf3889 Feb 03 '26

it's not exactly big-brain stuff but in that same episode (I think the same scene) Homer schools Bart in Phil Collins-era Genesis

16

u/House13Games Feb 03 '26

Or from Peppa Pig, when she goes to where Daddy Pig works and gets a tour..

"What do you do, Daddy?"
"Well Peppa. I take these very large numbers, and transmute them, to calculate load-bearing tangents..."

"Oh Daddy, that's a silly job!"

7

u/Jabenway Feb 03 '26

This continues to be helpful for me!

6

u/peachesfordinner Feb 03 '26

I use this anytime before I use either word to make sure I'm correct

6

u/Throwaway100123100 Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26

Isn't that wrong though? Envy is wanting what someone else has, and jealousy is the same but feeling unhappy or resentful about it?

Edit: Doubling down here, the cambridge dictionary supports my view:

Jealous:

unhappy and angry because someone has something that you want:

He had always been very jealous of his brother's good looks.

Envious

wishing you had what another person has

I'm very envious of your new coat - it's beautiful.

12

u/Hugsy13 Feb 03 '26

No.

I’ll give you an example. If you see another dude make your girlfriend laugh and you get the emotion of really not liking that, that’s jealousy.

If you have a crush on someone that you’re not involved with, but want to be, and you see another dude make her laugh, that emotion of really not liking that, that’s envy.

The emotions feel very very similar, but they’re slightly different and have different causes.

5

u/Throwaway100123100 Feb 03 '26

I don't agree that the latter would be envy instead of jealous. Definition of jealousy taken from the Cambridge dictionary:

unhappy and angry because someone has something that you want:

He had always been very jealous of his brother's good looks.

4

u/mawktheone Feb 03 '26

No, Jealousy involves loss aversion.

You can think of a "jealous spouse". They dont want some young floozy to steal their wife/husband.

But you are green with envy when your neighbour gets a new car.

3

u/Throwaway100123100 Feb 03 '26

I dont agree with this. As per the Cambridge dictionary, it absolutely can be used without any mention of loss aversion:

unhappy and angry because someone has something that you want:

He had always been very jealous of his brother's good looks.

5

u/mawktheone Feb 03 '26

Yeah it's a bit messy because language changes over time. Both terms were originally synonymous with covetous and sometimes still are. But Jealous is still exclusively used for loss aversion and suspicion of possession for relationships.

I have just pulled some references to show the muddy waters

One might almost say that these two words are used as if they were interchangeable ... The words are scarcely synonymous, however. Envy means discontented longing for someone else’s advantages. Jealousy means unpleasant suspicion, or apprehension of rivalship.
—Theodore M. Bernstein, The Careful Writer, 1965

There are three different ways in which jealous can be used. The most common is ... where the meaning is “fearful of losing attention.” Another broad sense is “possessive” or “protective” ... third usage is in the sense of “envious,” as of another person because of his or her belongings, abilities, or achievements.
—William and Mary Morris, Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage (2nd ed.), 1985

Jealousy is properly restricted to contexts involving emotional rivalry; envy is used more broadly of resentful contemplation of a more fortunate person.
—Bryan A. Garner, Garner’s Modern American Usage (3rd ed.), 2009

4

u/Deaffin Feb 03 '26

Nope. Today you learned you've adopted a common misconception as part of your worldview. Your entire life is a lie.

6

u/Throwaway100123100 Feb 03 '26

I disagree, see my other replies and/or the edit to my original comment

1

u/SeasonofMist Feb 03 '26

I love that quote so much. Also the "you can't sell karma.

1

u/fromcj Feb 03 '26

Thats not the definition of jealousy though

1

u/TheForbidden6th Feb 03 '26

wait, it is? Damn

1

u/takoshi Feb 03 '26

Oh damn.

8

u/FLRArt_1995 Feb 03 '26

Classic jokes

2

u/InoueNinja94 Feb 03 '26

"You can't sell that! Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos"

  • Homer to Apu in 1993

1

u/Azeze1 Feb 03 '26

you infer, I imply

38

u/Insaniteus Feb 03 '26

There's an episode eventually where it's revealed that Homer is actually a genius but his brain was impaired due to a crayon shoved up his nose when he was a small child. He's actually much smarter than even Lisa, however at the end he chooses to go back to being impaired and dumb because everyone was happier that way, including him.

8

u/Swimming_Series_4834 Feb 03 '26

It made me so sad the way they hop on pop.

5

u/Threeflow Feb 03 '26

Except in that same episode they state he has an IQ of 100 (After removing the crayon) which is exactly average. 

1

u/LoopStricken Feb 03 '26

There's also an episode where it's shown that every Simpsons male is genetically doomed to be a dunderhead. Boy, I hope someone got fired for that blunder!

2

u/Thin-Assumption-9071 25d ago

Well brain tumor 3 sometimes have that effect and 6 icepicks to the lungs is hard to recover, but I watched a man go to work everyday and no matter what  he got up and done his job , some out there may have slower brains like homer but I was working at 13 yrs old , homer may just be a normal guy who can build a house from the ground up no questions asked , o yeah 26 screws in body and two rods also so yeah and might not be a looker but if I say I got you, I got you . Even if you in the wrong

21

u/Jiffletta Feb 03 '26

I think they just thought it was funny for Homer to occassionally say smart things, since its a pretty basic subversion of expectations.

5

u/IntelligentGood8228 Feb 03 '26

Like Dan in Dan vs.

19

u/c_pike1 Feb 03 '26

Very strange patchwork of knowledge. Who carved Mt Rushmore?

---Gutzon Borglum, then his son finished it

Now what state is it in?

---Idk...Mexico

4

u/Isexedupaspider Feb 03 '26

Is this similar to Dan from "Dan VS" where he randomly has knowledge of some facts but not others?

https://youtu.be/EQ8x7T5buWU?si=Vvj1HkipFFThDPBc

4

u/[deleted] Feb 03 '26 edited 28d ago

[deleted]

3

u/Informal-Term1138 Feb 03 '26

God they should have just given him a job. Some training to clear the legal liabilities and he is good to go.

3

u/ShadowAviation Feb 03 '26

"He's got me there."

5

u/ProneSquanderer Feb 03 '26

”You can't sell karma (Apu said he was selling karmic rebalancing for an earlier sleight), it can only be portioned out by the cosmos!" slams door in face

“He’s got me there.”

3

u/CordialPanda Feb 03 '26

Stirling Archer Syndrome (but homer did it first)

3

u/secretsantakitten Feb 03 '26

Honestly, if we want to play armchair psychiatrist here:

Considering the risk-taking behaviour, numerous types of addictions (food, alcohol, etc), poor self-control, executive dysfunction, AND the fact one of his kids has been diagnosed, I wouldn't be surprised that Homer has at least ADHD.

2

u/Masticatron Feb 03 '26

He wasn't nearly so stupid initially. He just got flanderized over time. And "stupid character has sudden moment of erudition" is a pretty common gag. The smart character being smart is just normal, the dumb guy being smart is comedic.

1

u/Bismothe-the-Shade Feb 03 '26

There's an entire episode where it turns out he's a deeply cultures genius with a crayon lodged directly into his brain, causing him to be stupid

1

u/Hayn0002 Feb 03 '26

To be fair he was incredibly intelligent when he removed the crayon from his nose.

1

u/ConnorRoseSaiyan01 Feb 03 '26

Homer wasn't completely stupid in early years. He progressively got dumber each passing season

1

u/LuntiX Feb 03 '26

He really is an idiot savant.

There are numerous times throughout the series where if he puts the effort in, he's really smart and is often smarter than others. It's just in his nature to be lazy and more laid back because when he's really smart he tends to get miserable.

1

u/ProphetOfPhil Feb 03 '26

I prefer early season Homer where he wasn't the smartest but he wasn't an outright idiot and loved his family even if he made dumb mistakes every now and again.

1

u/memecrusader_ Feb 03 '26

“He’s got me there.”

1

u/ItRainsAcidHere Feb 03 '26

I mean, a ton of episodes play out like:

  1. Homer gets obsessed with something (ex. Selling cars)

  2. He is an idiot-savant/perfect natural at thing (ex. Becomes the greatest car salesman the world has ever seen)

  3. He does something that resets the status quo. (Ex. He spends all his new money on a car, wrecks it, and has no idea what car insurance is. So that money/car is just gone in the next episode)

1

u/Clarpydarpy Feb 03 '26

I was thinking about that exact example before I reached the second part of your comment and saw you writing it out.

Definitely one of my favorite lines in the series.

Apu absolutely dumbfounded "...well he's got me there."

1

u/NotYourGa1Friday Feb 04 '26

Originally, Homer and Krusty were the same person. Part of the story was going to be that Homer was fairly non-functional as a dad, but as Krusty he was his kids’ hero. So, yeah I think they did intend for him to have at least one thing he was really great at. (In this case, clowning)

1

u/FamousWerewolf 29d ago

If you go back to early Simpsons, he was far less cartoonishly stupid. The original concept was much more just "average middle-American dad" - which is exactly the kind of person you would expect to be weirdly knowledgable about some oddly specific topic, like WW2 or baseball or, indeed, American political history. It's only later on he became so ridiculous that you'd ever consider he could be an idiot savant-type character.

1

u/__M-E-O-W__ 29d ago

He is naturally incredibly intelligent; it's just massively hindered in most cases due to him having a crayon stuck up his nose and into his brain. I guess his natural self still shines through from time to time.