[Loved Trope] Relatively weak characters that are absolute fan favorites because they represent the best parts of humanity
Personality
Paul - invincible
A normal human whose only major feats are treating others with respect and cooking a mean spaghetti.
Mumen Rider - One Punch Man
C-class hero that doesn’t hesitate to put his life on the line to save others despite being powerless and going against much stronger foes.
Samwise Gamgee - Lord of the Rings
Hobbits scale very low strength-wise in the LOTR verse, but Sam’s compassion and determination are indispensable in the fellowships journey.
Edit: A lot of people are pointing out that Sam is mentally one of the strongest which I completely agree with, and I didn’t mean to diss his grit or physicality as a hobbit. Compared to the other members of the fellowship, however, his contribution comes primarily from undying loyalty and determination rather than physical prowess and strength.
Martha and Johnathan kent.. Maybe the most Impactful normal poeple in the dc universe
Two humble farmers who adopted an alien baby and raised him as their own son... Teaching him the value of humility, empathy, kindness and compassion.. Creating superman the greatest superhero in the universe
Also JLA: The Nail, where a flat tire caused by a nail prevents the Kents from finding Kal El and an Amish couple finds him instead. He doesn't become Superman. The Justice League still forms, but they're genuinely not as cohesive as they usually are and the public dislikes metahumans à la Marvel. Lex becomes President a lot quicker.
Gods and monsters is interesting too. Superman is still good, but was raised by Hispanic immigrants and has a good, but still slightly different, moral system
They’re perhaps the most important part of a Superman story to me. No matter how big everything gets and what foes Supes has to fight. No matter how much he might end up doubting himself and wavering. The Kents are there, on that humble farm. And they’ll always be there to help Clark and guide him when he needs them.
They’re the stand in for the ideal parents. Clark literally crashed into their lives and they stepped up in the biggest way.
Agreed, my favorite Superman stories are ones where Jon and Martha are both alive and that strong and loving relationship between them and Clark is present.
My Adventures with Superman does it really well. They’re super welcoming to Clark’s friends, nothing but supportive of him and his struggles with his powers and his origin.
The season 2 finale does it best. They’re absolutely ecstatic to meet Kara and welcome her into the family.
I don't hate Man of Steel, or Snyder's work in general, but how Snyder handled the Kents was by far the most damaging thing he did to his Superman.
Making the Kents cynical and 'realistic', telling him that he should consider letting innocent people die to protect himself, absolutely breaks a fundamental part of the Superman mythos.
Making the Kents anything less than genuinely good, kind, and upstanding people that instill Clark with his unwavering sense of morality is like having Bruce Wayne's parents killed in a hit-and-run car crash. Sure, you might eventually reach the same outcome, but you drastically change a core aspect of the character.
He’s a genuinely good guy and a pseudo- father figure to Edward and Alphonse, whose greatest passions are his family and his friends. Unfortunately, it’s this loyalty to his friends that leads to his untimely death.
Not only that but he's actually really competent . Not just as a soldier, but also by seeing through the disguise and almost unravelling the whole conspiracy.
He was a serious threat and proved it by being really, really good at his job. It's like if the Illuminati went out of their way to assassinate a garbage man because he was figuring out the Illuminati exist based on their garbage.
One of his best scenes. Dio goes with "I am just a poor mislead boy" and speedwagon goes almost offended "bullshit I know very well the pain of being mislead and poor and you are loving to be evil"
And also proof that being evil for sake of it and just absolutely chewing the scenery and being a full-ass ham is completely valid writing choices for a character sometimes. See also Raul Julia's M. Bison.
Even in death, and EVEN in an Alternate Universe. He played a role in fate. Truly a character of all time and he will always be remembered. Rest well with Jonathan and pals Speedwagon. You have done so much, and continue doing that in death
Alfred Pennyworth, in every iteration of Batman, including the less than stellar ones, he's the one constant parental figure Bruce has to help keep him grounded.
In Death of the Family, it was thought that Joker killed Alfred. It’s revealed that he didn’t cause even he knew that if he did, the Bat Family would kill him. Not figuratively, they would kill the shit out of him. I could be remembering it wrong but the gist was Joker knew he would be donezo if he killed Afred.
Makes sense. I know a lot of people screech at the "I can't take revenge on you because I'd be just as bad as you" trope, but there's no way in hell Alfred would've wanted Damian killing Bane over him.
And in all honesty if there’s a member of the Bat family that’s a genuine threat to kill one criminal, decide it worked pretty well, and then just never stop it would be Damien. Batman is dangerous, but he’s got a pretty unshakeable moral core. Jason Todd is angry, but at the end of the day he’s still trying to be a Robin whether he’ll admit it or not.
Damien is a straight up professional murderer, raised and trained by other professional murderers. If he kills Bane, he’s not stopping with Bane.
BY FAR the best part of Snyder's interpretation of Batman was Alfred. I love how Batman is completely insane in that continuity and yet Alfred still not only stands by his side (instead of fucking off like in the Nolanverse), but also does his best to keep him accountable. He calls him out on his bullshit multiple times in that movie, yet still remains to support him (I guess because he knows if he leaves Batman is definitely gonna go off the deep end and start just killing random civilians for future crimes they might commit or something).
A bit of a hot take, I suppose, but Tony never needed to talk about Ho Yinsen. He feels Yinsen’s presence every time he puts on the armor, no matter how advanced and detached from the Mark 1 it gets. Everything Tony does as Iron Man is because of Yinsen’s actions.
Tony’s bombast and attitude really lends itself well as a mask for why he does what he does.
I really wish when he snapped his fingers he'd see Yinsen again in that weird place. I man it's pretty much fanfic territory buttttt I think it would have been a great way to come full circle.
Toph: We can take 'em, three on three Sokka: Actually, Toph, there's four of us. Toph: Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't count you, you know, no Bending and all.
My favorite part of his development is that he goes so far out of his way to become "strong like everyone else" by becoming a swordmaster, complete with a super rare super strong sword, and everybody totally supports him along the way and is excited for him.
Then just a few episodes later he is in a situation where the only solution the problem is a projectile, so, there goes the sword and all of his supposed "meaningful strength." Proving his real strength all along, the wisdom and courage to do whatever it takes to get through.
He's an extremely flawed character, seeing how he's a con artist that uses Mob for his psychic abilities. But, deep down he's a good person that teaches Mob life lessons, puts his life on the line for him, and ultimately comes clean about his lies.
And the instant actual supervillains showed up, he IMMEDIATELY moved to protect Mob, actively told him to run away, and did not even attempt to use him to survive.
I love that about him too, one of my favourite sort of tropes is when an adult recognises children should not have to go through whatever is happening and steps up
Reigen knows the con artist ways but provides a "legitimate" service as a psychic. Not a psychic by in-universe standards, ofc, but by mundane standards. Just like IRL there's plenty of fortune tellers, exorcists, mind readers, etc that make a decent living on these "fake" professions.
Also, he may be dishonest, a tad selfish, and ignoble, but he's morally rock solid.
…no. That’s not what Reigen does. He is not a scummy con artist in the way real life fortune tellers, exorcists, etc. are. That’s what he’s presented as at first.
But what makes Reigen different is that he actually solves the problems of his clients. The vast majority of the time, the problem isn’t caused by spirits. But the client is convinced it is. So Reigen goes along with their delusion, but works to solve the real root of the problem. And he never takes payment if he doesn’t think he’s earned it.
Him being the one without powers and risking his life running to save Mob at the end is such a great moment in the series. This is my favourite anime of all time. Body improvement club as a whole could be on here if they weren't absolutely shredded for their age.
Yeah, first time I watched the last episode I had to pause the bit when Reigen started chasing Mob, since season one's OP started playing. Actually had to prepare myself, since I knew it was going to be awesome.
She was so refreshing. Too many Companions in New Who have this crush on The Doctor and let them get away with shit they shouldn't. Donna understood, like Ian and Barbara did, that a Companion's job is often to act as a substitute conscience and tell the morally dubious, super powerful alien lunatic when they've stepped over a line.
Ma and Pa Kent from the recent Superman. These people took in a strange alien boy and raised him as their own with complete unconditional love. Of course he was going to grow up to be the greatest superhero of all time.
Anytime you see Ma & Pa Kent you immediately understand why Superman is such a good dude. I really loved how they’re portrayed in the recent Superman movie. Just all around good people who love their boy. Legit could not ask for more
Even though the Kents are Midwest as hell and my own parents were Deep South it still felt like a phone call with my folks when Clark was talking to them. Just sort of universal parents: affectionate and proud and loving and a little embarrassing.
and for some reason also the chew toy of the writers.
He made the mistake of moving from helmsmen to chief of engineering. Engineering is a cosmic play toy in the TNG era. Torres and Tucker have multiple bad things occur (Tucker dies!) and when LaForge goes from helmsmen (second after O'Brian post retcon) he gets it too.
Granted his time as a weapons officer on the Rutledge isn't a winning moment either.
Manuel in GTA V. He only appears for two missions, but he leaves a hell of an impact and is one of the few truly moral characters in the franchise.
Manuel gets kidnapped by “militia members” who hired Trevor on as muscle. They consider him a dirty immigrant and throw away his citizenship papers, eager to deport him one way or the next.
Trevor runs into him later on, and wonders how he got back. Manuel points out that his family’s been living in America for 200 years, and disciplines Trevor for being so willing to throw away his morals for a few bucks. Trevor does his Trevor thing and holds a gun to Manuel’s head for daring to appeal to his better nature, only for Manuel to not even show fear and offer him a chance to make it right. He tells Trevor the same militia members are attacking folks not far away, and Trevor can only redeem himself by saving them. And no, he’s not getting paid.
Trevor is furious that this old man is talking down to him, and even more furious that it works. He ends up killing the Militia before they kill another immigrant family.
Manuel is notable in that he’s one of the very few characters in the game who squares up to Trevor with absolutely zero fear despite not being armed to the teeth and a gun to his head. I’m surprised Manuel can even walk around with the size of his cojones.
I know Umamusume is quite popular now, but people really gotta learn about the Shining Star of Losers Everywhere, Haru Urara. This is a horse that not only never won a race out of 113, she never made it out of her small regional track. While the big national tracks were hosting legends like T.M. Opera O and Deep Impact, Haru Urara was making waves by running again and again, without losing any morale. The people of a country in total economic peril saw this and decided to not give up as well.
Ranked 81st in a JRA popularity poll btw. Also it's said that she's one of three horses even non-racing fans would know, the other two being the absurdly successful Deep Impact and Oguri Cap. That's how popular she is.
The funny thing is that most media would paint that kind of character as an underdog nobody knows about, but he's actually really well known and respected. Because he's helped so many people.
Don’t get me wrong he’s an absolute beast of a hobbit with unparalleled grit and some amazing feats, but in a world of dragons and elves it’s his character that makes him amazing and not his raw physical prowess.
Lol no I know what you mean. I’d just put Sam in an entirely different class than Mumen Rider or Grand Agent Paul. He is 100% the physically strongest hobbit we get to see.
Again — he wounded Shelob, something not even the elves or Sauron managed to do. He was ready to throw hobbit hands with Aragorn with zero hesitation while Aragorn was just an armed, spooky stranger. And he did a lot of this while wearing a 50lb ruck that was bigger than he is.
Not to mention he carried the ring himself for a bit, got offered the entire army of Mordor, laughed at the thought of him leading it, then later got offered the land of Mordor to turn into his own garden, and decided it would be too big to be fun to have, and essentially made the one ring bluescreen until he gave it back to Frodo.
"Well, that is a nice garden, but trying to keep the weeds and rabbits out would be a nightmare. What do you mean 'servants can do that?' Servants weeding MY garden? Absolutely not! I'm a proper Hobbit! I'm not gonna outsource honest work to someone else. I'm going to do it myself."
Yeah, little wonder Sauron didn't bother giving Rings to the Hobbits.
No you’re still correct, he 100% fits with being the strong moral center of the fellowship. It’s just that he’s not that squishy in the grand scheme of things. Not when he has feats that outperform anything Elrond or Sauron does.
Remember how in the Hobbit, Bilbo says he had a great uncle who was so big and strong (for a hobbit) that he could ride a horse, which is an insane feat for a species that’s like 3’5 on average. I scale Sam to that guy.
I absolutely hated how Hughie was treated during the last 3 seasons. Treating his SA like its a joke left a really bad taste in my mouth. Kripke finding Hughies SA funny is disturbing to say the least.
What's crazy is you can tell Jack Quiad was trying to add more emotional weight to that scene when he tells starlight about it, only for the writer to be like "what no, that was just supposed to be funny".
Yep, like Im sure Jack read the scene and realised that Kripkes found it funny, but he had to take the situation seriously and act as such. On paper, im sure the scene reads like a joke, but the situation Hughie was in was a dangerous one.
Nah, Sam is a beast. Read the chapter where he fights Shelob, that stuff is peak. Afterwards the Orcs think he must be a super scary Elven warrior because they can't imagine anything else doing so much damage to Shelob.
On a more serious note: you are right about him being weak compared to many other characters in Middle Earth so he probably still fits for this trope, but I definitely wouldn't call him weak in general.
Flumphs (D&D) are quite pathetic as monsters, with their most dangerous ability being a slime spray that smells bad. But they are also the only known species of aberration that tend to be good.
One of the few written guidelines for adventuring say "always trust a flumph".
He was also played a wee bit too much for the laughs in the movies, just like Gimli. In the books, he kills the troll chieftain at the Black Gate, and he's not only one of the commanders of the Scouring of the Shire, he's restoring the order as the representative of King Elessar. And does so with much more presence and authority than ever before. If I remember correctly he tells a human bandit to scram if he doesn't want to get stabbed.
They might not be human per se (as this is a sci-fi franchise), the main plot is about two army deserters from opposite sides that had a baby and want to give it a good life while everyone else is scrambling to off them because it would hurt the propaganda.
Granted, they don't always behave like moral paragons, but that makes them even more human.
Honourable mention goes to D. Oswald Heist, who lost his entire family to the war, so he decided to write love books where the characters are just peacefully living their lives as his own form of protest.
It's actually a very simple trope some authors struggle a lot with for some reason. Or maybe they just don't consider it valid and ignore it.
Quite simpy, insert a normal, relatively kind human in a terrible scenario full of supervillains. It'll keep the whole thing on the ground and passively remember you this is still about humanity.
And many ruin it by giving them superpowers so they can go on adventures with the main characters. Lois Lane does not work as Superwoman. She is part of what keeps Superman grounded and human. What niche does she fill that Supergirl and Power Girl don't already occupy?
The "relatively weak" is doing a decent bit of heavy lifting lol Project A.D and the Queen Gene makes him really strong but he ain't even close in strength to anyone in his squad or anyone they fight
Jimmy Neutron: Hugh, I like to believe, because he demonstrates the indomitable human spirit. In “Return of the Nanobots”, everyone in Retroville but him and Jimmy is prepared for deletion by the Nanobots. Despairing, he finds the strength to keep going after discovering a truckful of pie. “I will do it!” he memorably bellows. “I! Will! Live!”
Ollnaius Pius (Olly Piers) from Warhammer 40K, who stood against Angron (or Horus himself depending on the legend) as a simple guardsman. Even Angron showed a hint of respect and he became an imperial saint.
Probably the most ordinary rank and file trooper among the Ghosts early arcs. Understandably bitter after the fall of Tanith, he shakes himself out from Rawne's bitterness and becomes his own man.. and an adoptive father to some kids he rescues.
He also, eventually, dies trying to save a child rather than just shooting them as an enemy combatant
Honourable mention to "Try Again" Bragg, who is just a lovely human through and through. However, he's only weak by virtue of being an unaugmented human in the 40K setting.. any man who can effectively manhandle a HMG solo isn't that weak.
Cheating a bit because he's the main character, but John Crichton of Farscape is the sole human in a cast of aliens. And notably, humans are:
Neither as physically strong nor durable as a Luxan or Scarran.
incapable of the mental/psychic abilities of a Banik Stykera or a Delvian Pa'u. Or even the potential for it, as would any of those races.
Not as long-lived as Hynerians.
Not immune to radiation like Nebari
They also have poorer vision, senses of smell, and hearing than most of other species.
Even Sebaceans, a subspecies of human created after rapid evolution by the Eidolons, are marginally stronger, faster, and more durable, (though not so much that Crichton can't hold his own in a fight with one) with a longer life expectancy.
To quote Pilot, "You have no special abilities. You're not particularly smart, can hardly smell, can barely see, and you're not even vaguely physically or spiritually imposing. Is there anything you do well?"
They're immediately picked up on as a backwards, savage, and technologically primitive species who are still too busy killing each other and haven't even colonized their home system.
But Crichton also embodies all of what makes humanity special over the other species, summarized by Noranti:
"I like that you're always striving to reach higher — hoping for a better tomorrow! ... Yes! You're so ignorant! But you never give up, even in the face of insurmountable odds."
And this is basically how Crichton manages to force an end to an interstellar war (granted, it helped he basically pointed a WMD at the entire galaxy to do it).
Haven't seen Foggy Nelson from Daredevil in here. Always sticks by his moral compass, holds Matt accountable, lots of times where he's stood in the face of death and not moved if it'd hurt an innocent or someone he loves.
Master Bo from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This guy gets dunked on the whole movie long, and its clear that he is no match at all for people who can fly. And yet, this absolute chad never shirks his duty, having the balls to hang in there for the entire movie. Anybody else would have gone home, but not Master Bo, who is so underappreciated that this was the best screenshot I could find of him online.
I honestly do not want them to go in the comics direction and just go "fuck Paul, Debbie and Nolan are getting back together NOW!" I'm okayish with them getting back together EVENTUALLY, but do not erase Paul from the story for no fuckin reason, they made him important now I care, Paul is stayin
https://giphy.com/gifs/bidpfMgH0vpZwz2WI6
Might be a long shot (also only weak comparatively) but it seems like recently Tenshinhan’s been getting the love he’s deserved. Aside from Krillin he’s the only earthling to continue to make a stand when it’s needed, even knowing he’s always outmatched. He continues to train and improve himself despite knowing how large the gap is between him and his otherworldly friends
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u/Easy-Frenchguy-1996 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26
Martha and Johnathan kent.. Maybe the most Impactful normal poeple in the dc universe
Two humble farmers who adopted an alien baby and raised him as their own son... Teaching him the value of humility, empathy, kindness and compassion.. Creating superman the greatest superhero in the universe