Cowards are heroes who are more prone to run away from a fight or confrontation or even their own problems, or who pick on those who they know are weaker. Sometimes, these heroes try to face their fears in order to protect their allies and families from harm or even certain death, while other times, it serves as comic relief and can be considered weak in people's eyes (and sometimes other heroes as well). These examples include Courage the Cowardly Dog, The Cowardly Lion, SpongeBob SquarePants, Flaky, Chuckie Finster, Scooby-Doo plus Shaggy Rogers, and Gumball Watterson.

Also, they will not hesitate to use cheap or sneaky tactics to escape from their greatest foes. Though this doesn't happen all the time as some may eventually conquer their biggest fears eventually as the story goes (e.g. Boo, Oscar)

Due to the fact most Cowards will try to run away if they are in danger or even surrender entirely, they are rarely the leading protagonist (though exceptions do exist), tending instead to be bumbling henchmen or sidekicks.

Important: Heroes who suffer from natural phobias (i.e. fear of spiders, medical needles, clowns, Snakes, etc.) do NOT count as cowards (Indiana Jones who is scared of snakes while he's brave on the other hand), since such fears are very common which few heroes have little control of, if any, even if they display some of the most childish behavior in the presence of their fears. Note that these heroes CAN be pure good provided they're in 0 way dirty with their cowardice. Good examples include Luigi, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Lucas, DJ, and Melman.