< Jeeves and Wooster (TV series)

Jeeves and Wooster (TV series)/Characters


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Some or all of these characters need descriptions. A list of tropes is not a description.

Bertram Wilberforce "Bertie" Wooster

  • A Friend in Need: He never lets down a pal in distress, to the point where he can be quite the Determinator.
  • Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Pretty much any time he gets a little sozzled.
  • Altum Videtur: He sometimes quotes Latin tags, usually of the schoolboy variety, quite unnecessarily.
  • Badly-Battered Babysitter: Any time he has to look after some irresponsible young chump (or, in one case, dog).
  • Big Brother Instinct: Tends to develop it easily, perhaps as a side effect of Chronic Hero Syndrome.
  • Black Sheep: Extremely out-of-place in his Big Screwed-Up Family, he hardly gets along with any of his relatives. His Aunt Agatha disapproves of his lifestyle and spends a lot of time trying to turn him into a credit to the name of Wooster, to no avail.
  • Buffy-Speak: Well, the Genteel Interbellum Setting version.
  • Butt Monkey
  • Cannot Spit It Out
  • Catch Phrase:
    • "This is a bit thick."
    • "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party."
    • (in the narration) "… And I meant it to sting."
    • "… if that's the word I want." / "What's the word I want?" / "That's the word I want."
    • "The Code of the Woosters". (In the same vein, beginning sentences with "We Woosters..." or "We Woosters know when...")
  • Child-Hater: Justified due to the series' constant use of the Bratty Half-Pint trope. He does have a fondness for little girls, although even that tendency seems to have vanished as of "Bertie Changes His Mind".
  • Chick Magnet: Although he claims to have bad luck with women in general, even he's noticed that he has a remarkable tendency to attract exactly the kind of girl he most fears.

"I mean to say, I know perfectly well that I've got, roughly speaking, half the amount of brain a normal bloke ought to possess. And when a girl comes along who has about twice the regular allowance, she too often makes a bee line for me with the love light in her eyes. I don't know how to account for it, but it is so."

  • Chronic Hero Syndrome
  • Cloudcuckoolander
  • Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: In a serious case of The Blind Leading the Blind, he sometimes has to play this role for his crazier friends, Bingo Little in particular.
  • The Dandy
  • Deadpan Snarker: Believe it or not. Not to the same extent as Jeeves, of course, but he certainly has his moments.
  • The Ditherer: Due to letting Jeeves run his life. Aunt Dahlia actually calls him "poor ditherer" in one story.
  • Drama Queen: Everything he does is Serious Business, to the point where retaliation in a prank war is a heroic defense of the Wooster name likened to participation in the Crusades. After being forced to sing at a "clean, bright entertainment", he goes into Shell-Shocked Veteran mode, insisting that the pain he went through was "unparalleled since the days of the early Martyrs."
  • Dreadful Musician: Not as a general rule--even if you don't count his excellent piano playing in the TV series, he's said to be a good singer with a "light, pleasant baritone". Though his playing of the banjolele in Thank You, Jeeves isn't terrible, his sheer devotion to it causes his neighbors in the flat collectively give him the ultimatum to give it up or clear out, and even Jeeves deserts him rather than put up with it in isolated quarters. (When the TV series adapted the plot, the banjolele was replaced with a trombone.)
  • Et Tu, Brute?: His reaction upon being betrayed or let down by Jeeves.
  • Expy: Of Wodehouse's earlier character Reggie Pepper. A few of Reggie's stories were even rewritten to star Bertie (with Jeeves in tow) instead.
  • Extreme Doormat: He can be talked into pretty much anything. He suffers the worst of one Zany Scheme after another because he's simply unable to say "no" to a friend. Besides that, he's afraid to stand up to his aunt, and he lets Jeeves dictate every facet of his existence, even down to the details of his wardrobe. Attempts to assert his rights by keeping an article of clothing Jeeves disapproves of invariably give out by the end of the story.
  • Fatal Attractor
  • Family Honor: "We Woosters have our code." (It's "never let a pal down".)
  • Fleeting Passionate Hobbies: Such as his banjolele kick in Thank You, Jeeves.
  • The Fool:

Providence looks after all the chumps of this world, and personally, I'm all for it.

"You would see him face a furious head master with a sort of dauntless look in those big blue eyes of his..."

Most fellows, no doubt, are all for having their valets confine their activities to creasing trousers and what not without trying to run the home; but it's different with Jeeves. Right from the first day he came to me, I have looked on him as a sort of guide, philosopher, and friend.

...my ideal wife was something quite different, something a lot more clinging and drooping and prattling, and what not.

    • However, these ideal traits do need to be moderated; Madeline Basset fits this description to a tee, and he is equally terrified by the prospect of marrying her.
  • Not a Morning Person: Does not take kindly to being awoken before noon.
  • Obfuscating Insanity: More than one scheme has been pulled off only because Jeeves told everyone involved that Bertie was insane. This doesn't make him happy in The Inimitable Jeeves, but by Very Good, Jeeves! he's gotten used to it and even goes along with it if necessary.
  • Odd Couple: With Jeeves.
  • Parental Abandonment: His parents presumably died when he was little, and he was raised by his aunts and uncles.
  • Ping-Pong Naivete: His level of stupidity is entirely dependent on the Rule of Funny.
  • Pity the Kidnapper: In "Helping Freddie".
  • Rich Boredom: Develops it briefly in "Bertie Changes His Mind", though it doesn't last.
  • Seemingly-Profound Fool: Occasionally ends up in this position.
  • Self-Deprecation: The narration is full of it.
  • Shout-Out/To Shakespeare: Frequently indulges in these, though he doesn't always get the quote right. Fortunately, Jeeves always knows the real one.
  • The So-Called Coward: He cheerfully acknowledges his cowardice in the television series, along with his quite rational fear of the latest spurned fiance out for his blood, but nonetheless always ends up facing them.
  • Sophisticated As Hell
  • Spoiled Sweet: It's noted that the richest member of the Drones is the meanest. Bertie is the second richest, and the nicest chap in the club.
  • Spot of Tea: Has been known to rhapsodize about the glories of the sacred British beverage. Additionally, he can't wake up without it.
  • Talks Like a Simile
  • Temporary Love Interest: Subverted: Bertie generally falls out of love with the girl by the end of the book (if he's in love with her at all). In later books where it looks like he's safe, previous fiancées display an alarming tendency to get engaged with Bertie again, inevitably breaking it off by the end of story,
  • Third Person Person: In the narration, he references himself as "Bertram" on a semi-frequent basis.
  • Translator Buddy: Often has to translate Jeeves' Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness for the benefit of those present.
  • Upper Class Twit
  • Verbal Tic: And plenty of them, what?
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Jeeves, Bingo Little and Aunt Dahlia.
  • The White Prince: Bertie is a type one "innocent and childlike". He's especially prone to this when he and Jeeves are separated

Reginald Jeeves

All the while I supposed he had been landing me in the soup, he had really been steering me clear away from it.

Jeeves came in looking as fresh as a dewy violet. It's a mystery to me how he does it.

  • I Want My Beloved to Be Fashionable: Non-romantic example. To him, the valet's task of managing the employer's wardrobe is Serious Business, and he gives away, sends back, and/or utterly destroys anything he doesn't approve of, with or without Bertie's permission.
  • The Jeeves: Trope Namer.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Particularly evident in the Jeeves-narrated "Bertie Changes His Mind", where his resolve almost falters upon seeing how distraught Bertie is due to his scheming.
  • The Lancer
  • Last-Name Basis: Bertie was surprised to learn that Jeeves even has a first name.
  • Living Emotional Crutch: To Bertie, although this lessens somewhat as the series continues.
  • Living MacGuffin: Most of Bertie's friends want him to work for them, and at least one offered him twice the amount Bertie was paying him. When he gives notice in Thank You, Jeeves, he goes into what Bertie refers to as "circulation". Bertie's friend Chuffy snatches him up almost instantly, and he proceeds to quit Chuffy's service when American millionaire J. Washburn Stoker offers him a position. Then he goes back to Chuffy and finally returns to Bertie, who is less than eager to let him go again.
  • My Brain Is Big: His head bulges out slightly at the back.
  • Nerves of Steel: "You can't rattle Jeeves."
  • The Not Love Interest
  • Not So Above It All: Let's face it, he's never really above it all. He just gives everyone that impression.
  • Odd Couple: With Bertie.
  • Parental Substitute: Bertie seems to see him as such--and indeed, he often looks upon the young master in a manner described as "paternal".
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Seems to have a soft spot for romance novels.

Bertie: Mr. Little tells me that when he came to the big scene in 'Only a Factory Girl,' his uncle gulped like a stricken bull-pup.
Jeeves: Indeed, sir?
Bertie: Where Lord Claude takes the girl in his arms, you know, and says----
Jeeves: I am familiar with the passage, sir. It is distinctly moving.

Aunt Agatha

Aunt Dahlia

Charles Edward "Biffy" Biffen

Augustus "Gussie" Fink-Nottle

Cyril "Barmy" Fotheringay-Phipps

Hildebrand "Tuppy" Glossop

  • Big Eater
  • Embarrassing First Name
  • Get Rich Quick Scheme: Plumbo Jumbo, his idea about importing American cars and trying to sell his cockaleeky soup just to name a few.
  • Hidden Depths: In one story, he ends up on a football field full of local toughs who resent his participation and beat him black and blue--until he decides enough is enough and proceeds to pummel them. Bertie is naturally shocked.
  • It's All About Me

Richard "Bingo" Little

You know, with the most charitable feelings towards him, there are moments when you can't help thinking that young Bingo ought to be in some sort of a home.

Rev. Harold "Stinker" Pinker

Roberta "Bobbie" Wickham

"I would always hesitate to recommend as a life's companion a young lady with quite such a vivid shade of red hair. Red hair, sir, in my opinion, is dangerous."

  • Fiery Redhead
  • Girl of the Week
  • The Prankster: Bertie admires her "espiglerie"--French for "impish or playful behavior". He's a bit less amused when she gives him an idea for a prank against Tuppy and then turns out to have fed Tuppy the same idea.
  • The Vamp

Madeline Bassett

Stephanie "Stiffy" Byng

Florence Craye

Honoria Glossop

Sir Roderick Glossop

  • Breakout Character: Shows up in the Blandings Castle novels
  • Heel Face Turn: Though he starts out as an antagonist he mellows out considerably by the end of the series.
  • Overprotective Dad
  • Not So Different: Though at first he and Bertie couldn't appear more different it turns out that they both stole biscuts from their headmasters when they were kids and that Sir Roderick used to help his buddies with their hairbrained schemes.
  • Psycho Psychologist: Though a mild example of this trope a lot of his ideas are extremely misguided not the mention the fact that he seems more neurotic than some of the people he believes to be mentally ill (i.e. Bertie)
  • The Shrink

Sir Watkyn Bassett

Roderick Spode

Claude and Eustace Wooster

  • Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: In their very first appearance, they're arrested for trying to pinch a motor-lorry while drunk.
  • Put on a Bus: In "The Delayed Exit of Claude and Eustace", they're sent to South Africa after being expelled from Oxford, and, although they resist at first, they end up going willingly thanks to Jeeves.
  • Single-Minded Twins
  • The Thing That Would Not Leave: In "The Delayed Exit of Claude and Eustace".
  • Trickster Twins
  • Wacky Fratboy Hijinx: The reason that Bertie wound up with Sir Roderick Glossop's hat and cats and fish in his bedroom, also why they got kicked out of Oxford.

Rosie M. Banks

Marmaduke "Chuffy" Chuffnel

Pauline Stoker

  • Brainless Beauty: It doesn't seem to have occurred to her that hanging out in Bertie's bed and wearing his pyjamas might give people the wrong idea.
  • Genki Girl
  • Like Brother and Sister: With Bertie, although considerable awkwardness is added by the fact that they used to be engaged and everybody assumes they still like each other.
  • Upper Class Twit: Of the female variety.
  • Weakness Turns Her On: The reason she accepted Bertie's proposal. Subverted when she goes for Chuffy instead.

Anatole

Oliver "Sippy" Sipperly

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