Fatal flaw what is

The term always implies failure, because failure is the only evidence that the fatal flaw is there in the first place. One common example of a fatal flaw is hubris, or excessive pride that leads to a person's downfall. The fatal flaw usually gains its dramatic grandeur from the fact that the character is so talented and successful in other ways. For example, Hamlet is clearly brilliant ; and if he were not brilliant, then his fatal flaw would not have been as dramatically moving as it actually was.

The concept of the fatal flaw is closely tied to the literary tradition of Greek tragic drama. In those plays, the main character tends to pursue his own nature and unique destiny to the fullest, only to find out that by doing so, he has played right into the hands of a fate that is going to destroy him.

Oedipus, for example, would be a classic example of this: he thought he was avoiding the prophecy that was made about him, when he was in fact fulfilling it to the letter. The concept of fatal flaw is thus closely tied to the concept of fate, where fate itself is tied to the concept of character. To an extent, the concept of sin in Christian theology can be seen as related to the concept of the fatal flaw in Greek drama.

This is especially the case given that both fatal flaw and sin have sometimes been translated by the phrase "missing the mark". The analogy, however, may be misleading if it is pursued too far, insofar as concepts such as fate and freedom and thus fatal flaw must be interpreted very differently within the Christian paradigm than within the Greek paradigm. Ultius is the trusted provider of content solutions for consumers around the world. Furthermore, what are some examples of character flaws?

How have other filmmakers and show creators used them? Read on to learn more. In more modern uses of the term, this could potentially be extended to include a trait that leads to the downfall of the character or of those around them. All screenplays can benefit from having well-rounded characters with plenty of strengths and flaws alike.

Fatal flaws are just one aspect of this and like any other writing device! Regardless of which category it falls into, a fatal flaw recognises and echoes the complexity found in these circumstances. This shows a lot of character complexity just through one flaw and shows that dark and light can coexist. Something to keep in mind while deciding to include a fatal flaw or not: it can box your narrative opportunities in. A good starting point is to give the protagonist a fatal flaw rather than the antagonist.

This gives the villain the upper hand and effectively flips the script. Choose a fatal flaw that naturally leads to the internal journey you want for your character. Your character arc is naturally connected to where the character begins. Movies and TV shows have endless examples of tragic heroes and fatal flaws. In Inception , Cobb has a fatal flaw that not only harms himself, but those around him.

He might have accepted this but his idealism also led to him becoming a Counter-Guardian, an existence which consisted solely of killing people rather than saving them. Sakura's fatal flaw is her self image, which is horrible enough to become the primary cause for everything going FUBAR in Heaven's Feel.

Kiritsugu wanted to save the world. It cost him his wife , his daughter , and his life. He admitted that he had never done a single act of good, nor saved a single person, until he pulled Shirou from the fire which was caused by his own actions.

Kotomine is unable to find any joy or pleasure in anything good, and can only find satisfaction or happiness in the suffering of others. He struggled for a long time to deny this flaw, to work around it, or to correct it, even going so far as to marry and have a child. His only sadness upon her death was regret that he hadn't killed her himself. With the help of Gilgamesh , he surrendered to his own need for evil.

Saber's selflessness was her downfall in life. As King Arthur , she chose to become her ideal of the perfect regent, ruling without surrendering to her emotions and taking every action possible for the good and safety of her kingdom.

However her perfectly just rule and emotional distance from the people led to many feeling she was in some way inhuman. This in turn led to civil war started by Mordred, the " son " created by Morgan le Fay whose love she rejected and subsequently allowed to turn to hate , and her death.

If Gilgamesh ever ever fought at full power , no one and no Hero in the Holy Grail War would be capable of defeating him. But due to his arrogance he never fights at his full potential and underestimates his opponents, and thus he gives them just enough of an edge in that overconfidence to surprise and finish him before he can correct his mistake.

In The House in Fata Morgana , two of the three people who ended up killing Morgana have serious fatal flaws that result in everything going wrong for all of them. Mell's is cowardice. He imprisons Morgana from his fear of Yukimasa, in spite of his beliefs that he's doing wrong.

He refuses to tell anyone or speak against the lord and Yukimasa because he's afraid. It is noted that while his fear is understandable, it ultimately ended up causing Morgana's death. Jacopo's is pride. In his pride, he refuses to talk to anybody about his problems , which only makes everything worse for everyone and ends up in him killing almost everyone he cared about before he became a lord, and dying by one of the few remaining ones in turn.

Explored with each character on Illusionary Trauma , with each route showing the flaw of the character and how it affects them. Makoto Itou, the protagonist of School Days , is a poor communicator and extremely indecisive, traits that do not serve him well when multiple girls start fighting for his affections.

In the bad endings, these flaws can be literally fatal for either him or one of the girls he's involved with. How it's played depends on the particular adaptation. In the original visual novel this can be played straight or subverted since the player controls Makoto's choices. In the anime he's these with a heaping of Jerkass thrown in for good measure.

In the manga it's played more sympathetically, with Makoto being more genuinely unable to decide on what to do, but because he takes too long to commit to a decision, the situation still ends tragically. Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair Rie's fatal flaw, by her own admission, is her adamant refusal to suspect her friends of any wrongdoing, especially not her best friend Runa, even when faced with the possibility that there's a murderer among them.

This leads to some friction between her and Taiko, the latter of whom's investigating the killings and considers Runa a possible suspect, although Runa is, indeed, innocent.

Taiko's fatal flaw is his tendency to let his friendship with Kotoba cloud his judgment. To his credit, he doesn't hesitate to call Kotoba out when he takes his perverted antics too far, but he's also initially unwilling to believe that Kotoba was stalking Momoko, or that she'd used him in her plan. After Kotoba is badly burned or killed depending on player choices as a result of the killer's plan, Taiko becomes irrational, and insists that Kamen is guilty, even though his theory has more than a few holes in it.

Momoko's fatal flaw is her trust issues. In the past, she was overly trusting, resulting in many people taking advantage of her. As a result, she became unable to trust others, apart from her best friend Kamen and her boyfriend Hiro, and it took two years for her to truly open up to the former. Runa suspects that if Momoko was betrayed by either of the two people closest to her, it would break her, and for good reason.

When Kamen tried to warn Momoko that Hiro tried to cheat on her with Kamen, Momoko refused to believe her, and threatened to end their friendship if Kamen continued trying to get between them.

Momoko then discovered messages from Hiro on Kamen's phone, and concluding that Hiro and Kamen had betrayed her, plotted to murder Hiro, kill herself and frame Kamen. Web Animation. Dreamscape : The Overlord of Evil's god complex makes him believe he is invincible and holds all the cards, which means he is not prepared when the tables get turned on him.

Happy Tree Friends : Almost all the characters have fatal flaws. Lumpy is inept at everything he does, Nutty is constantly hyperactive and addicted to sugar. Flaky has fears and phobias about just about anything and everything. These flaws do indeed prove to be fatal by the end of the episode. Flippy's untreated post-traumatic stress disorder, always proves to be fatal for everyone else around him by the end of the episode. Like in Warhammer 40, the Emperor staunchly refuses to admit that he was wrong but even more than that constantly belittles everyone including his most loyal Custodian "Little Kitten" and thinks he's smarter and greater than everyone else which he is.

By doing this he causes Horus to start the Horus Heresy and put him on the Golden Throne and unable to communicate for ten millennium, Magnus the Red falling to Chaos after he failed to heed his warnings, lose Kitten's faith in him along with the position of Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes , and cause Magnus to try to run the Imperium himself.

Only to be beaten with two cards that exploit the fatal weakness of the Emp's strategy. He doesn't take losing very well. As the Emperor says " Like fucking father, like fucking son ": Magnus the Red has the same problem of arrogance as the Emperor. Possessing great wisdom and knowledge Magnus believes himself to be smarter and better than everyone around him which he is , including his father which he's not , but his arrogance is also very fragile as he complains like a whiny teenager when his father bullies him which is a lot.

In Red vs. Blue : Carolina's Pride and her need to be better than Agent Texas has caused several issues for herself, her teammates and others. By taking the two A. During a training simulation with Tex to capture the flag, Carolina accidentally killed Biff, Temple's friend and callously dismissed the event, having been more focused on defeating Tex. This would lead to Temple's Start of Darkness and years later, hatch a plot to kill all freelancers.

Speaking of South Dakota, her fatal flaw is Jealousy. She can't stand being Always Second Best to her brother, and Washington preventing her from getting an A. Washington's flaw is Revenge. Despite being a generally nice person, when he feels that he's wronged, he'll go to some spectacular lengths to get vengeance. His time with the Blood Gulch Crew has softened him up considerably. Sarge's flaw is his need for war ; he's a Shell-Shocked Veteran who doesn't know what to do with himself if he isn't fighting someone.

This is why he's so adamant on fighting the Blues even when it's fairly obvious that the fight is unnecessary and made-up. It's also why he temporarily joins the Blues and Reds before coming to his senses. Grif's is his Sloth , but not in the normal way; he's prone to being an Achilles in His Tent. Simmons'is need for approval ; he's such a kiss-ass partially because he sees Sarge as a replacement father figure, and he's afraid of standing up for himself.

Tucker's fatal flaw is surprisingly not Lust. It's his tendency to make reckless decisions. It's this flaw that causes Wash to get shot in the battle with the Blues and Reds, taking him and Locus out of the equation and later giving him brain damage.

Felix's fatal flaw is his massive ego. Felix ultimately causes more problems for himself than he can deal with by being as boastful and arrogant as he possibly can to people he should really just shoot dead when he has a chance. Also if he feels even the slightest bit upstaged in any way he will quickly abandon rational thought just to soothe his injured pride. This trait eventually gets him killed. He went after the Reds and Blues because he couldn't stand that they nearly killed him when destroying the Purge Tower and was horribly outmatched.

It also causes Locus to turn against him in the end because Locus realizes that Felix knew he couldn't cope with the trauma of war and went out of his way to keep Locus under his control by not letting him do so. The reason for that? Locus was the better soldier. RWBY : Yang's impulsive personality makes her impatient, quick to anger, and prone to thrill-seeking, obsession and dangerously thoughtless acts.

As a child, her obsession with finding her birth mother meant that, the moment her father's back was turned, she dragged her sister on a quest to locate Raven. All she found was a nest of Grimm. If not for Qrow turning up just in time, both girls would have died.

Although she now controls her obsession with her mother, she revels in thrill-seeking and weaponises her quick temper : combining her wrath, impatience and Semblance allows her to win fights very quickly without bothering with either strategy or temperance. This fighting style makes her quite predictable to the villains, enabling Neo to defeat and almost kill her without receiving a single hit in return and also enabling Emerald and Mercury to disgrace her as a ruthless fighter who will hit an opponent who is already down.

Cinder Fall is an egomaniac , whose flaw is accompanied by sadism , an insatiable hunger for power and a severe case of pettiness. This has led to her losing badly several times. Cinder's driven to uplift herself while bringing everyone else down, even if she has to pause to waste time gloating instead of completing the plan without incident.

If someone she perceives as beneath her gets the better of her, she will pay them back in the worst way possible, even if doing so is either pointless or detrimental to the long-term plan. If she thinks there's a way to fulfill Salem's mission and get what she wants she'll go for it, no matter how risky it is.

Her cruel, arrogant lust for power finally gets the better of her near the end of Volume 5, when she falls for Raven's decoy and exposes herself to defeat by Raven's hand. In Volume 7, her need to gloat to Fria instead of immediately taking Fria's power gives the ailing Winter Maiden time to focus her mind and protect herself just long enough for help to arrive. Cinder then wastes even more time to take revenge on Winter for cutting off her Grimm arm, distracting Cinder from killing Fria and allowing Penny to become the new Winter Maiden instead.

He possesses the charisma to lead Vale's faction of the White Fang in any endeavour he supports; even when many Faunus lose their lives during the Volume 2 finale, he is confident that his followers will continue to do his bidding. Claiming he's inspired by Sienna's strength, he joins forces with Salem to destroy Beacon Academy. Sienna is furious because Adam cannot see that his actions have justified humanity's hatred and fear of the Faunus and that the White Fang is now more of a target than it ever was.

Blake explains to Sun that Adam symbolises the concept of ' spite ' to her; the world hurt him, so he intends to hurt the world right back; he neither cares nor comprehends the wider consequences of his actions. He believes in Faunus superiority and plans for a day when humanity will be forced to serve the Faunus, but he's willing to ruin his own plans for short-term gain, such as the destruction of Beacon Academy or putting a hit out on Blake's family just because they oppose him.

Murdering Sienna to obtain control of the White Fang and trying to assassinate the Belladonnas motivates a previously neutral Menagerie to form an army for the sole purpose of stopping him from doing to Haven Academy what he did to Beacon; his ability to control the White Fang is therefore destroyed by his own weakness almost as soon as he set his plans in motion.

Ozpin's desire to stop Salem is ultimately hampered by his inability to give a straight answer to any question regarding the situation or his past. He implies to the heroes that his behavior stems from a desire to avoid being betrayed, leading him to engage in deflections, half-truths, lying by omission and pure deception. While he wants the heroes to trust that he has good reasons for his decisions, his tactics inadvertently alienate his allies.

Ironwood's frustration with Ozpin's passivity leads him to go behind Ozpin's back and override Ozpin's responsibility for protecting the Vytal Festival while Raven abandoned him and his cause by investigating the truth for herself. Ruby's group learn the truth through the Relic of Knowledge , leading even the loyal Qrow to turn on him ; his response is to lock himself deep inside Oscar's mind where even Oscar can't go. When Ironwood asks Oscar why Ozpin kept secret the truth about Salem, Oscar reveals that Ozpin keeps his secrets because he's terrified people will lose all hope.

General Ironwood is a good man, but his ability to do good is hampered by his paranoia. His default tactic to any threat is overwhelming military force, which puts him at odds with Ozpin, Glynda and Qrow when he arrives in Vale with his army; while he thinks the show of force makes people feel safe, Ozpin points out it'll just make them wonder what the threat level is.

While he expects others to trust him, Glynda points out that he's not willing to trust others in return. The mistrust and paranoia mean that he doesn't follow orders well because he's willing to turn on allies as soon as they do something he doesn't like, such as reporting Ozpin to the Vale Council after the first time the Grimm breach Vale's defenses.

It also makes it easy for Cinder's manipulations to target him when the virus she uploads into Beacon's security network allows the villains to take control of the army he wasn't supposed to bring to Vale. Later, the villains pull similar moves on him in Atlas, ramping up his paranoia until he's willing to put Mantle under curfew, contemplate martial law and circumvent the democratic mandate of the Atlesian council just to get things done without having to share any information. The villains find him easy to manipulate while his allies find him difficult to work with.

When Cinder breaks into his office just to leave a Black Queen chess piece on his desk, Ironwood's paranoia manifests in a panic of second-guessing whether every decision he's made has played right into Salem's hands. Convinced he's now exhausted his troops trying to evacuate Mantle, he dooms the city to death by deciding to fly Atlas higher into the heavens and orders the arrest of everyone who's not on board with that plan to ensure they can't thwart him.

Boopkins is one of the few main characters who is unambiguously nice. It's his biggest strength, as he manages to befriend characters that the others would normally never have a chance of doing so he proves instrumental in recruiting Axol , but it's also his biggest weakness as he's a Horrible Judge of Character , which leads to him being manipulated by people Bob , keeping company that most people would find unsavory Saiko, Bob or straight up repaying his kindness with evil acts Waluigi, the Anime Cartel, Bob.

For better or worse, it's his most prominent character trait aside for his love for anime. Bob's flaw is his desire for fame. Bob desperately craves approval and attention from others, and will do anything to get it, even if it means doing morally dubious actions like betraying his friends or engineering events so he can look good. Even when he does get recognition, his unquenchable thirst for more fame usually leads to him ruining whatever good he has going for him in the first place.

Meggy has several: Her overeagerness has led her to take out a target with brute force and overwhelming firepower. Of course, now she's just revealed herself to the enemies This bites her in "Final Fantasy Mario" when it leads to the alarms being set off and alerting the entire base to her, Mario and SMG4's presence.

Her competitive spirit often causes her to become overzealous when it comes to training, which usually leads to trouble whenever she ropes her friends into joining her. Meggy often pushes her teammates way too hard and is extremely harsh when they fail to meet her personal high standards. She keeps her real emotions hidden behind a confident mask, bottling all of them up.

When her suppressed emotions become too much to handle she lashes out at anyone nearby, which only makes her undergo Heroic Self-Deprecation , which she tries to hide by bottling her emotions up Web Comics. In Anecdote of Error , Atshi absolutely cannot handle failing, or even being perceived as a failure. This causes her to ignore warnings that the school is under attack, and to try to take out the invaders herself , only to fail miserably. In Concerned Gordon Frohman's fatal flaw is his stupidity.

Not only does he frequently put himself into life-threatening situations , but he's also too stupid to realize when people are trying to help him , such as when he gets angry with his brother for "shoving him" when the latter pushed him out of danger many times since they were young.

In the end, he drives away the Vortigaunts that might have saved him after accidentally deactivating the "Buddha" cheat for invincibility, and ends up bleeding to death.

In Golden , a take-off of the standard fairy tale, the hero and his less useful older siblings are all sent off on the Quest because of their father's fatal flaw: GREED. The king wants gold very, very much.

In fact, that whole family loves gold just a little too much to be healthy. The Order of the Stick : Vaarsuvius has the fatal flaw of Pride in their magic power and intellect, which both leaves them wide open for the trauma factor of being completely powerless to stop horrible things from happening to their friends and loved ones and drives them to accept a Deal with the Devil rather than experience that feeling of helplessness again.

Later they start working on that, though, and are limiting themselves to low-level enhancements unless they need them, as opposed to just going all out. Redcloak, whose inability Conviction to back down from the path and plan he's chosen, despite all the senseless sacrifices, really bites him in Start of Darkness. Haley's flaw is greed, although unlike most examples, she's vaguely justified in this: her father is being ransomed for a small fortune and she became an adventurer to get enough money to save him from further imprisonment.

At one point, the gold and treasure she owns is destroyed in a fire, and Haley's shock is so great that it renders her literally unable to speak for the next hundred or so strips. One of the reasons she likes Elan so much is because his presence encourages her away from this. Miko Miyazaki, a massive Knight Templar who refuses to believe that anything she does is wrong.

Instead, she imagines a massive plot brewing behind the scenes just to enable this belief. It's only when she's moments away from death that she starts to question any of her actions, but by then, it's way too late. His massive ego and tendency to slip into Evil Gloating have only hampered his ability to competently execute plans in the past, resulting in numerous defeats and a trail of kobold corpses in his wake.

It's even noted in-universe that if Nale wasn't such an arrogant egomaniac, he would actually be dangerous. He ends up in over his head when he makes a series of incredibly short-sighted choices on account of his pride, which first costs him Girard's gate, then his adventuring party, and finally his life.

Each major character of The Noordegraaf Files has some major flaw that troubles them throught the story. Time will tell if they overcome said flaw, or — tragically — don't. Theo, the protaganist is a Wide-Eyed Idealist , and an extreme Optimist , which, while allowing him to be very charismatic and friendly, also causes him to underestimate the possible danger some situations can hold.

It's hinted that this optimism is a self — made "defense mechanism", as he's horrified of death or anything to do with it , and uses this to try and avoid confronting said fear. Katrina, the main heroine of the comic, comes across as a very friendly and outgoing young girl, but has deep problems with depression due to She's not telling.

Violet, a young and slightly unhinged girl is definitely a Blood Knight , and has serious problems dealing with anger and self — worth. She's been known to go into a sort of martial frenzy, losing complete control of herself and attacking whatever is nearby, friend or foe. Most of the other characters, even her boyfriend , are scared of her. It's been hinted her worst fear is killing her loved ones due to this instability, and shuts herself out from the world because of this. Akila, Katrina's best friend and possible lover is too seductive and flirtatious for her own good, and also has serious issues with self — worth.

She's the only non — human character in the comic, and therefore feels nobody will truly love her for who she is, causing her to overcompensate and flirt with everyone, causing it hard for people she truly does love to notice her affections. Unordinary : Arlo's fixation on keeping to the school's established power hierarchy keeps Arlo stuck from ever trying to improve the bullying problems that go on amongst the school's lower tiers, which he finally becomes aware of after a group of Mid-tier students kidnapped and beat up a depowered Sera.

John eventually calls him out for it in chapter , and threatens to destroy the hierarchy that Arlo is desperately trying to hold on to. Web Original. In the first season of Cobra Kai , this wasn't much of an issue. But the timber gets laid after the tournament, when Daniel introduces Robby Johnny's son to Miyagi-do. Then in the second season, almost everyone's core character defect is revealed: Daniel's pride, Johnny's gullibility, Sam's Never My Fault inclinations, Tory's envy, Demetri's snarky needling, Hawk's insecurity-fueled Hair-Trigger Temper , Moon's ditziness, and Robby and Miguel's respective and collective disregard for reason.

The school brawl on the first day, between the Rival Dojos whose sensei were doing the best they could to move on but still had some unfinished business , took it all Up to Eleven and brought them face to face with their ultimate failures. Web Video. In The Lizzie Bennet Diaries , Lizzie's pride and stubborness has caused misunderstandings and problems between her and others, particular Darcy and Lydia. Fortunately, through Character Development , she starts to work on improving from those flaws.

The Nostalgia Critic is trying to work on his temper and cynicism, but his insecurities about seemingly never being good enough are still getting in the way. The former is particularly notable as Minerelle's strict running policy led her away from Joey and Kod, meaning when she went down there was no one to save her from being Killed Off for Real. Western Animation. Rob from The Amazing World of Gumball has an inability to communicate as his flaw.

He kidnaps Banana Joe's mother so she can paint the future, and attempts to brainwash his former classmates to escape to an unknown place. This gets him beat up by a T.

Ultimately, a tragic flaw is a personality defect that leads to actions considered unworthy of a hero, which brings about their destruction in some way. As the Greek dramatists portray tragic flaw, tragic heroes inflict their own fates upon themselves. Many characters exhibit tragic flaws in both Greek and modern tragedies, including Hubris. Here are some common examples of other tragic flaws that a heroic character may possess, leading to their undoing:.

As a literary device, the modern interpretation of tragic flaw can be traced back to the tragedies of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare did incorporate many of the elements of Hamartia as interpreted by the Greeks. Here are some common examples of Shakespearean characters with tragic flaws:. This appeals widely to audiences who enjoy the complicated situations in which these characters find themselves and their dramatic decisions that are often motivated by a flaw or defect in their character.

Here are some common examples of series characters with tragic flaws:.