The Ditherer

"Sandurz, Sandurz. You got to help me. I don't know what to do. I can't make decisions. I'm a president!"
—President Skroob, Spaceballs

Decisions are odd things—as kids, we long for the freedom to make our own, but when confronted with one, many of us are inclined to panic. All but the most impulsive of us want time to make big decisions, and don't like being forced to make a shotgun choice. That's understandable—especially if the decision in question is life-changing (should I propose? Should I go to college? Should I move to a different country?) or irreversible (Do I sacrifice my life to save this person? Do I tell my child that they are adopted?) and especially if they are both.

But there are also people who struggle with all decisions. Don't ask them what they want for dinner unless you have an entire day free in your calendar. Don't make them pick which film you and your group are going to see, because by the time they've decided (reluctantly) which one to pick, the cinema will have moved on to different movies.

They are hugely frustrating in friendships, and even more so in relationships. Interestingly, in fiction, this characters is more likely to be female in most contexts—but in romance, it's usually the male character who "can't commit." They can also be frustrating to the audience, particularly if they are the main character. Expect to yell at them to get their act together as they start Navel Gazing for the zillionth time.

The Ditherer comes in a variety of types:

  • The Wishy-Washy: The character is basically spineless, and his/her inability to make decisions or take responsibility is a hallmark of their general cowardice. Often selfish to some extent—the basic reason for their indecision is that they want to have their cake and eat it, and choosing one thing may mean rejecting another.
  • The Cloudcuckoolander: Decisions are a bit too reality based and permanent for them, and usually a warning signal of Growing Up Sucks. Thus, they consciously avoid them.
  • The Empathic Fence-Sitter: Decisions might offend or damage someone, and that's not something they want to deal with, so they dodge decisions where possible.
  • Just Plain Lazy: Decisions involve effort, which is to be avoided at all costs. Leave it alone, someone else will deal with it eventually.
  • Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: The character is too easily distracted to focus on any kind of decision.
  • The Insecure/Submissive: They don't trust their own judgement, and/or aren't willing to take responsibility should their decision backfire. They might make a decision under pressure, but have no confidence in it. Will often cling to someone who will make the decisions and take the responsibility from them.
  • I Can't See The Forest, There Are Too Many Trees: They see all sides of the issue, and can't stop weighing up pros and cons. Likely to overlap with the Empathic type.

All except the Wishy-Washy type have a degree of sympathy, but in societies that value self-direction and assertiveness (for example, the USA), the inability to make decisions (or even spending too long on making one, even if you get there eventually) is A Bad Thing, and a hallmark of immaturity or lack of character—especially in a man. Societies that favour thought and reason, however, tend to be more sympathetic, as long as it is clear the The Ditherer is really thinking about it and not dodging the issue.

Ditherers who are men don't get half the sympathy that women do, particularly when female indecision is played for Moe points. The character who plunges headlong into a situation without any thought is more likely to succeed than the character who prepares a dissertation on the issue, unless a "look before you leap" Aesop is being enforced.

A person of one of these types may occupy The Conflicted position in a Four-Philosophy Ensemble.

Note: One highly stressful decision that causes dithering does not make this trope. However, a pattern of indecision, even if they are all arguably important issues (i.e. a character who "coasts" because they can't decide what they want out of life) does.

Examples of The Ditherer include:

Anime and Manga

  • The male lead in pretty much any Harem Anime in general will be a ditherer of some type (usually a wishy-washy variant) to justify why he never makes a choice.
  • Axis Powers Hetalia: Italy (Cloudcuckoolander / Insecure type) doesn't like being in any authoritative or decision making position—he leaves that to Germany. Japan (Empathic / Insecure) prefers just to follow whatever the superpower du jour wants to do.
  • Hidamari Sketch: Yuno (Insecure) doesn't have much faith in her own decisions—she prefers to negotiate with her housemates.
  • In early Gantz, the main characters are forced to make weighty moral decisions. In the anime version, this leads to entire minutes of dithering.
  • In From Eroica with Love, penny-pinching James is a ditherer of the wishy-washy "I want it all!" type, usually when it comes to money.


Film

  • As the page quote above demonstrates, President Skroob from Spaceballs.


Literature

  • Chaim Potok's Asher Lev stories have a more sympathetic ditherer: much of the time, Asher (Empathic/Insecure) seems to let things happen to him rather than making an active choice (the Rebbe is behind most of Asher's "life choices"), but that's because whenever he does make an active choice, he knows people will get hurt. By the second book, he's so browbeaten by his family, his community and life in general that he seems unable to make the decisions that will preserve his own happiness.
  • The villains of Ayn Rand novels tend to be of the Wishy-Washy or Empathic Fence-sitter variety.
  • The second Mrs. de Winter in Rebecca is extremely indecisive - one short scene shows her unable to decide on a menu for that night's meal, after becoming mistress of the whole household. She's an insecure type (or a wishy-washy one, if you're feeling less generous) who generally bows to the wishes of her husband...or, more dangerously, her malevolent housekeeper.
  • This is one interpretation of Shakespeare's Hamlet. "Now might I do it pat," he says, but never does until it's too late. Laurence Olivier even prefaces his film version by saying "This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind."
  • Confessions of Georgia Nicolson—the titular character likes to think she's assertive, but when confronted with any decision more complicated than "which shade of lipstick do I wear," she promptly becomes a wishy-washy / too-many-trees type.
  • Interesting variation in Watership Down: Fiver looks like a ditherer: he's twitchy, he's an oracle who has trouble getting people to believe him, and he knows everything, making him a prime candidate for the too-many-trees version. However, Fiver always knows exactly what they should be doing - it's the other rabbits who dither, until either Hazel or Bigwig bites the bullet and makes the call.
  • Claudius is a bit of a ditherer. In any other situation, he'd be a wishy-washy type...but Claudius has good reason to be wary—one wrong move could get him assassinated in the wasp's nest that is his family. One of the few instances where avoiding decisive action pays off: the more "manly," assertive characters all end up dead. Especially if they were competent or nice in any way.
  • Archie Jones from White Teeth is so indecisive the he often resorts to flipping a coin.
  • There's an Isaac Asimov short story (whose title escapes me) of a General who had to make the best use of "sub-par" individuals. One example is of a chronically indecisive character who is tasked with making the decision on a peace negotiations. He pairs him up with a paranoic who is tasked with pointing out all the possible flaws in the options in front of him. The idea was that only the optimal solution would have no flaws for the paranoic to pick at and so there would be nothing else to choose (apparently the idea that negotiations would never end was ruled out).
  • Extreme Doormat Bertie Wooster is the Insecure/Submissive type with shades of Cloudcuckoolander. He typically lets Jeeves handle his decisions and run his life for him, which leads to a Lampshade Hanging from Aunt Dahlia in one story: "What earthly use do you suppose you are without Jeeves, you poor ditherer?"


Live Action TV

  • Wembley on Fraggle Rock is the Insecure/Submissive version. In fact, his name is used In-Universe as a verb for indecisiveness.
  • There's an episode of House where the patient's first symptom is that she literally loses the ability to decide.
  • Martin in Absolute Power is the lazy version; it's Charles's job to make decisions.
  • One of the band members in Hallo Spencer. Typical quote: "Well, on the one hand... but on the other hand..."


Newspaper Comics

  • Charlie Brown, who is often referred to as wishy-washy.
  • The Pointy-Haired Boss in Dilbert is a perpetual ditherer of the lazy variety, because he knows if he dithers over a decision it will often go away on its own and he won't have do anything.


Theatre

  • In Lady in the Dark, Liza finds herself unable to Make Up Her Mind between the Easter cover and the circus cover, and also between Kendall Nesbitt and Randy Curtis. She is forced to defend her fence-sitting before a circus court in the third Dream Sequence, which she does by means of a song called "The Saga of Jenny."
  • Hamlet is famously a ditherer who is told right at the start of the play that his uncle had killed his father and Hamlet should avenge him. He spends the rest of the play deciding what to do (and gets everyone killed in the process).
  • Val from Babes In Arms is constantly changing his mind and his philosophy.


Video Games

  • Catherine: Victor's (wishy-washy) inability to decide what he wants out of life drives the plot.


Webcomics


Western Animation

  • In one episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog, the Thinker turns out to be one of these.
  • Fluttershy, in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is a sympathetic Empathic/Insecure type, whose rare assertions/decisions are usually followed by an apology. Unless it's one of "her" episodes. Twilight shows occasional symptoms of the too-many-trees type.
  • Believe it or not, Tummi Gummi actually fell into this trope in the Gummi Bears episode, "The Fence Sitter."
  • Gadget of Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers has trouble settling on one decision in "Gadget Goes Hawaiian".
  • Aang spends a lot of time deliberately avoiding how he's going to deal with both the fact that he needs to learn firebending to deal with Ozai, and how he's going to deal with Ozai when his personal philosophy rules out the only apparent option. The firebending thing gets resolved in due time, but the issue of dealing with Ozai without killing him requires a Deus Ex Machina to come along at the last minute to bail him out.
  • Played With in the 2011 Thundercats episode "The Duelist and the Drifter" with Eccentric Mentor the Drifter, who vacillates between wishy-washy, lazy and insecure while constantly appending ambivalent qualifiers to his speech, including "...or don't, I don't care," and "take it or leave it." Peculiarly, whatever advice he offers is always pertinent in spite of his noncommital delivery, and his repeated insistence that he doesn't care are undermined by the aid he gives while saying so.


Other

  • Real Life: The hallmark of "Perceivers" in the Myers-Briggs personality test, as opposed to the decisive "Judgers." Perceivers usually have the too-many-trees version.
  • Western Zodiac: The "dual" signs are usually described as ditherers. Libra is notorious for this, supposedly due to a combo of too-many-trees/empathic traits. Pisces gets it too, but that's usually blamed on wishy-washy/insecure traits. Gemini is usually given the nastier, more calculating side of the ditherer - they're supposed to hold out until someone hands them both options on a plate.
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