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 and Patrick Star, Minoru Mineta, Flaky, Chuckie Finster, Scooby-Doo and Shaggy Rogers, Zenitsu Agatsuma, and Gumball Watterson.

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, and Sonic, who is scared of water since he can't swim and will drown if he tries to), since such fears are very common, even if they display some of the most childish behavior in the presence of their fears. Also, just because a hero is afraid every now and then doesn't automatically make them a coward, (e.g. Izuku Midoriya, Steve Harrington, Bubbles, Dipper Pines, Mario, The Flash (DCEU), Eddie Munson, Bugs Bunny (Space Jam), Spider-Man (MCU), Eijiro Kirishima, Hermione Granger, Artemis Fowl, Soos Ramirez, Miles Morales (Spider-Verse), Tom Wachowski and Puss in Boots) as it may be completely rational for them to display fear under certain circumstances. They may also have moments where they act fairly brave otherwise.

Note that these heroes CAN be pure good provided they're in no way dirty with their cowardice, as well as getting over their fears to an extent they become braver than the average person. Good examples include Luigi, Silverstream, Courage the Cowardly Dog, WALL-E, Argyle, Mugman, Chihiro Ogino, Blu and Lucas.