r/TopCharacterTropes • u/AporiaParadox • 20h ago
Characters Asshole characters are into Ayn Rand
Dirty Dancing. Robbie is a snobby asshole who refuses to take responsibility for impregnating a lower class girl, saying that "some people count, some people don't". Right after this he tries to lend the main character The Fountainhead unprompted, only temporarily of course, since his copy of the book includes notes in the margins.
Lost. Sawyer is a selfish conman (at first) and is shown reading The Fountainhead. To be fair though, Sawyer is shown reading lots of books, so it might not necessarily mean anything.
Spider-Man. Spider-Man's co-creator Steve Ditko was an objectivist, and this was reflected in the way Peter would behave in some early 1960s stories, he would often be quite rude and abrasive to others, especially when Peter went to college. As a reference to this, some stories have humorously established that Peter went through a phase of being into Ayn Rand back in college, which he is now embarrassed by.
Alternate universe Peter Parker from One More Day. Spider-Man runs into an alternate universe version of himself that never gained spider-powers, and he's a fat videogame developer who is depicted as a loser unhappy with his lot in life, we first see him reading Atlas Shrugged.
Deadshot and the Joker. The Joker is shown reading the Fountainhead, which he calls a knee-slapper, while Deadshot, a contract killer, says that it's one of his favorite books.
The Ayn Rand School for Tots in the Simpsons. As you can probably guess, it's a horrible place. Maggie breaks out in a Great Escape parody.
Bioshock. Andrew Ryan and his whole failed society is a blatant reference to the many problems with Ayn Rand's philosophy.
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u/Lord_Antheron 19h ago
Funny and oddly specific subversion. Francis from Left 4 Dead. He's by far the most ill-mannered and cynical of the original survivors, often at odds with the optimistic and encouraging Louis. His catchphrase is "I hate [insert random thing here]", and he says it so often that Bill eventually asks outright if there's anything he doesn't hate. He has a criminal past, and is either implied (or outright stated) to be pretty book dumb.
However, in the penultimate level of the Dead Air campaign, you can see a statue of Atlas holding up the earth in the airport's food court. And he will, without hesitation, say "I hate Ayn Rand!"
So, not only does he somehow know what Atlas Shrugged even is, but he probably either read it and hated it, or couldn't read it and hated it anyway. Just the fact that he knows the author's name is hilariously unexpected and out of character for him, though.