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Meet Bob. What a guy! Bob's brave, he's determined, he's good at what he does, he's genuinely nice, and, most importantly, his moral fiber has a higher tensile strength than spider silk. Sure, he's a bit socially awkward and has a few other harmless quirks, but that's all part of his particular charm. The title can be taken as a play on Dark Knight.

In tropese, the Dork Knight is The Ace, The Cape, the Knight in Shining Armor or a similar character type infused with Adorkable, where the endearing awkwardness serves to humanize an otherwise idealized hero. See also Badass Adorable and Socially Awkward Hero. The goofier examples of this trope may overlap with Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass.

Examples of Dork Knight include:


Anime and Manga[]

Comics[]


Literature[]

  • Dave Malkoff from the Troubleshooters series. Mike Muldoon may also qualify.


Film: Animated[]


Film: Live Action[]

Live Action TV[]

  • Chuck: Chuck from season 3 onwards.
  • Due South: Constable Benton Fraser, the quirky, unfailingly polite, straight-arrow Fish Out of Water mountie.
  • Doctor Who: The Doctor in most, if not all incarnations. Special mentions go to the ridiculously awkward Fourth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, who can't seem to get the hang of holding a normal conversations, but have destroyed civilizations. Some might also consider Rory Williams, after he took a level in badass.
  • Spock in Star Trek. Julian Bashir in Deep Space Nine.
  • Simon Tam on Firefly.
  • John Watson in Sherlock has some elements of this, particularly in fandom portrayals. Both his sweater-wearing cuteness and his badassery have become memes.
  • Blaine Anderson from Glee has become known as "Dapper" in the fandom for a reason: he constantly wears bowties, cardigans, polo shirts and sweater vests. He doesn't like to wear socks for some odd reason and has a passion dancing like Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel Air to songs by Katy Perry. He also is willing to take on football players about twice his size if they mess with his boyfriend and probably could have taken him down considering he boxes and started his private school's chapter of Fight Club.


Real Life[]

  • Sir Archibald Wavell. A quiet unassuming man with an eccentric but likable disposition who wrote an anthology of poetry. He was also the British commander in the Mediterranean theater and under his command the Allies won their first victories,and the Italian empire was reduced to a sort of fly paper for the German army. He is a large part of the reason for Italy's persistent reputation for limited prowess in World War II.


Videogames[]

  • Space Ace: Dexter; normally, he's The Ace, but thanks to Borf's Infanto Ray, he spends most of the game as a skinny, awkward teenager.
  • Final Fantasy IX: Steiner is not the main hero, but he is a Dork Knight at times. He leans more towards being more of an Idiot Hero.
  • Alistair from the Dragon Age series. On the one hand, he's brave, noble, and heroic (making him a distinct rarity in the Dragon Age verse) and approves of the player being so as well - on the other, he's a bit of an Adult Child who can barely get through a sentence without slipping into bad humor and/or Buffy-Speak, especially if he's talking to a woman.


Webcomics[]

  • Homestuck: John Egbert starts off as a goofy dork. He quickly grows into a badass and the team's leader, without ever becoming less of a dork.


Western Animation[]

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