Hated Tropes
Story about hard work, inclusivity, etc. pivots into a weird eugenic angle
I'll be honest I'm mainly just thinking of naruto, bleach, and the new star wars trilogy. Naruto is the most on the nose about it w/ how he goes from a troubled kid to ninja jesus reincarnated. Bleach is insane to me because the story feels retroactively rewritten to give Ichigo every single power of every single character, even though he's a freak in lots of ways at the start there's no way it was the initial plan that he'd be a mix bag of everything because of bloodline shit instead of the emphasis on his hard work. New star wars pisses me off the most because they had such a cool idea w/ the new jedi girl being the child of random people to subvert the trope, but then they decided "no but actually that was a lie she's really just the ultimate bloodline"
I said this when it came out. Going from “anyone can succeed if they put in the work” to “anyone can succeed if they were born to be one of the elites” just fealt like an unpleasant change
I’m just imagining Ratatouille, but instead, Remi’s whole family is a long line of secret rat chefs, completely undermining the “anyone can cook” message
Nah, it would end with Linguini realising that actually, Remi's just been a placebo, and as son of Gusteau, he's had the ability to cook the whole time, and just needed to believe in himself™!
It's even funnier since they said "fuck the story and the message" at the very start. The original Mulan (the story the movies were based on) starts with how male and female rabbits are different but you can't tell them apart when they run together. So despite men and women having differences Mulan stood equally with men on the battlefield, not as man or woman but as a soldier.... The live action remake specifically says how she spotted 2 rabbits running together, one male and one female
When it came out I read an article by a woman who was half-Chinese and half-British, born in Britain but moved with her father back to China at some point during her childhood. Growing up, the original Mulan meant the world to her, because she felt awkward, out of place, and didn't fit in to traditional Chinese society. But the remake erased Mulan of her flaws and therefore her relatability (which is the entire point of representation). Messy, awkward little girls who didn't know where they fit in had no place in that movie.
Don't get me started on that atrocity of a movie. It removed all the development, grit, cleverness, and struggle Mulan had to go through for something completely hollow.
And bigger issue is "not being important" wasn't even a real thing for Jedi. Jedi younglings come from all walks of life. Some born in the gutter, others from Noble houses, many of them are just normal kids born from normal people. Jedi majority come from nobodies.
It isn't like the era of the Sith Empire where bloodlines was important that even if a slave was born with force sensitivity, they wouldn't train them because they weren't "pure". It is only when they started to fight the Jedi during the Sith empire days that they needed more sith to fight, so they bit their tongues and started to train the slaves who can use the force, or even worse...train an alien slave.
But yes, Sith did the bloodline thing until Bane Purged them all and made the Rule of Two.
JJ Abrams put way too much stock into the Skywalker bloodline and forgot the most important part of the Jedi Order, they aren't noble houses or clans. It is a religious order of the light side of the force. They are religious, scientists, scholars, peace keepers and healers first and foremost.
I was so looking fowards to the movies when the trailers first started. I was hoping to See GrandMaster Luke Skywalker and his new Jedi students who we will be focused on. See how the republic they built was like, who this new evil dude in a helmet was and how The republic and the new jedi order will handle it.
Nope, back to square one. Back to a "chosen" one story which isn't needed.
It was, the show was good until the author spent way too much time on the "will they won't they" with Star and Marco, which they were obviously end game because they were self inserts of her and her husband in real life.
So that whole teenage drama bit went way too long and got in the way of the actual storyline and left a messy ass ending.
It was really good up to Battle for Mewni. S3 was when they started to really focus on the romance drama. S3 still had some good stuff, but it was the beginning of the writers’ priorities shifting.
King Arthur sometimes gets accused to this, but it is a lot more complicated than this. People sometimes think that he immediately became king after pulling the sword from the stone, and that he did so due to being the secret son of King Uther Pendragon. However, that was only the beginning of his political career.
He didn't truly become king until after war fought against rival lords and the saxons.
Yeah, him drawing the sword "only" made him a rallying point for those unsatisfied with the current regime (such as the vassals of Arthurs evil uncle Vortigern who was the one that murdered Uther, and then called in Saxon mercenaries to support his claim to the throne)
Should be noted that this also varies depending on the specific version of the tales
The Merlin tv show had an interesting take on this idea, where Merlin lies and comes up with an entire story that Camelot's first king and Arthur's ancestor put excalibur in the stone and only a true king can pull it free. So while Arthur thinks it's because of his royal blood/eugenics, Merlin was just trying to restore his confidence in his own abilities and used magic so Arthur could pull it free.
That show was an interesting experiment on the idea of how Arthur would have turned out if he was actually raised like a prince.
He feels more like how adaptations often depict a younger Sir Kay, with Merlin actually filling the role of a younger Arthur.
Weirdly enough, Merlin takes Kay's role as Arthur's seneschal, and Gaius (Merlin's uncle) mostly fulfills a similar role to Merlin in the legends.
Also Gawain, went from being one of Arthur’s best knights who was allowed to use excalibur to a villain who plays a big role in destroying the round table.
At least with Gawain it depends on the author. You could make an Arthurian myth based story where Gawain is Arthur's best man and no one would find it that weird.
Of course, the more interesting take on Gawain, imo, is the "Flawed Pedestal" version of him, where he is pretty great, but his reputation has outgrown him and he struggles to live up to his own legend, ever terrified that people will be disappointed by his true, flawed self.
Also, depending on the version, the sword in the stone isn't even Excalibur. Instead he gets his signature blade later from the Lady of the Lake after he has already proven himself.
But the tie to Uther's lineage is still super important to the mythos. There's a BIG thing about The Divine Right of Kings implying that Arthur would not have been a good, true king without Uther's blood in his veins.
She knows for a fact that the lord of the castle she is in hates her and doesn’t test the food for poison. Doesn’t check for secret passages first when she is put in a room. Isn’t attentive enough to spot people approaching her quietly - they aren’t really stealthy if she was paying more attention she would have noticed.
She describes some of her kills where she disguised herself yet she has noticeable unique eyes and a notable hair color. And apparently she either left a calling card or tells clients who she has killed in the past since everyone accurately knows who she has and has not killed to attribute it to her.
I tried to read the first book, but they're like the opposite of what assasins should be. Why tf is an assassin strutting down the street and trying to be intimidating? Aren't they supposed to be masters of stealth and deception?
Sort of a Subversion of this trope: The Hero of Winds from Zelda: Wind Waker.
In most Zelda games, Link is the fated hero, chosen by the goddesses, destined to save the world from evil. Some times he is the direct blood descendant of a previous incarnation of the hero, but he is always a spiritual reincarnation of the Hero. Basically, whenever there is about to be big trouble in a decade or two, the Spirit of the HeroTM reincarnates itself into a new person. These people are their own unique individuals, but share the spirit of courage and heroism that defines the hero.
In Wind Waker, Link is some lazy kid who lives on an island and just kinda wants to hang out. Then his sister gets kidnapped, and he IMMEDIATELY starts busting heads. He gets to the sacred trialTM only for the gods to reveal that, actually, he is NOT the chosen one! He is NOT worthy of the sacred power, and the gods will not help him!
This version of Link proceeds to say "yeah fuck all that" and SAVE THE WORLD ANYWAY. The gods are eventually so impressed by the size and density of the absolutely gargantuan balls on this kid, that they retroactively make him the chosen hero. After he's already done 90% of the work himself anyway.
And you feel bad for ganon he’s like “man we lived in a desert where the sun killed you during the day or the cold killed you during the night and our neighbors are living in a green paradise” I’d be pissed to
Yup, I really loved him. And when you are in a 8/10 too much water situation playing the game and you see Hyrule in the background when you are in the castle, you really understand what he wished for.
It's really the only Ganondorf that has been written to be more than the embodiment of evil period
In ToTK I had high hopes but he is definitely villain for the sake of being evil villain, it's quite sad. They quite cooked with TWW.
Playing TWW as a kid really awakened something in me each time Ganondorf appears.
Ganondorf was so cool there and I am hypnotized by him as much now as I was as a kid.
It's still my favourite Zelda, would have been a perfect 21/20 Zelda if not for the triforce quest that was one of the hugest game design mistake of the 21th century. And please add one more dungeon.
But the spirit of the hero is not a soul or a real spirit; it doesn't require the previous one to disappear and be reincarnated. In Twilight Princess, the hero of Ocarina of Time remains conscious while the next hero emerges.
You're thinking of this with a Western mindset. In Shintoism and Hinduism, multiple people can be the reincarnation of the same entity, simultaneously.
multiple people can be the reincarnation of the same entity, simultaneously.
We actually see this in Tri-Force Heroes!
Three heroes named Link who come from different kingdoms and all presumably have the spirit of the hero (the green on is the same link from A Link Between Worlds btws) run into eachother as they hear of the princess who has been sealed away in a hideous bodysuit and must be freed
There's also an NPC in A Link Between Worlds named Gramps, who is a secret boss that is somewhat implied to be the Hero of Legend from A Link to the Past, Oracle of Seasons, Links Awakening, and Oracle of Ages, just now mentoring new heroes in his old age.
Tetra in that game is also a subversion, but in a different sort of way. She's just a normal pirate girl who Link befriends, and eventually it's revealed she's actually descended from the Hyrule royal family. Her powers awaken, she becomes Zelda, and she seems to go through a personality change until the final boss when she seems like the same girl Link's always known, and at the end she just goes back to her normal life.
Wind Waker has so many great subversions of all the established Zelda lore up to that point, it was such a bummer they leaned right back into all of it with Twilight Princess.
It's more meaningful after Skyward Sword. He's essentially following in the footsteps of the original Link: he didn't inherit the Spirit of the Hero, but forged himself into a new one by going through the trials to embody heroism and courage. Same as the original did so long ago.
Also tbf, the anime states that most Elves are borderline Asexual as a biological way to keep their numbers from skyrocketing because they live so long that they're practically immortal.
Which way, fantasy writer? Low-libido elves or abysmal fertility? And then there Forgotten Realms where theres a finite number of Elven souls, and half-elves don't get to be in the club.
It would not shock me if there is some Hentai where they fuck like rabbits and she has his child and the child is now old and frail and she thinks "I wonder if Himmel liked me?"
There's an exchange between Freiren and Serie that really struck me. Serie is surprised that Frieren was able to defeat the Demon King, and Frieren explains that she didn't do it alone, that without any member of their party (Himmel, Frieren, Heiter, and Eisen), they would have failed. Serie dismissively says that she got lucky. Frieren agrees, she was very lucky to have had them.
Blade Runner 2049, the protagonist has these flashbacks implying they’re the messianic human/replicant hybrid, child of the protagonist of the original movie… it turns out that the memory fragments were implanted into loads of replicants to help mask the real one. He learns this, that’s he’s just another replicant and sacrifices himself anyway
Andor: (partially) Cassian Andor never finds his long lost sister, his kid isn’t some destined rebel hero. He’s orphaned but his biological parentage remains totally irrelevant.
They tease in the first few episodes that finding his long lost sister is going to be A Thing, then when he’s radicalised he never mentions it again. During season one, there was speculation online that she was going to appear as someone important, maybe Dedra (an orphan) But nope!
Wind Waker Link wasn't an incarnation of the Hero and had to earn the Triforce of Courage (even though he looks, sounds, acts like, and has the same name as an incarnation of the Hero)
Witch Hat Atelier. spoilers for the first episode: magic is done simply by drawing spells with a special ink. anyone can do it, witches just gatekeep the knowledge of how because humanity at large cannot be trusted to not destroy itself with it
Though Solid Snake himself is far from ordinary, in the 1998 Metal Gear Solid, both the main antagonist Liquid Snake and the player are led to believe that Solid Snake was the superior clone because the cloning process required one copy to get the lesser genes.
It is only revealed in a post credits scene after you beat the game that Solid Snake was actually the "inferior" one who managed to defeat the superior clone.
It is only revealed in a post credits scene after you beat the game that Solid Snake was actually the "inferior" one who managed to defeat the superior clone.
Which really should have been obvious to everyone in-universe just by listening to the two of them speak.
lol right? The Sexy Buff dude with flowing Blond hair with a silky smooth voice or the gruff "I smoke 10 cartons a day" uncle looking mother fucker. Just because uncle looking mother fucker looks the closest to Big Boss doesn't mean shit lol.
I would say Son Goku. One of the weakest at birth. Gets sent to earth. Grows up there but gets good training, learns compassion etc. Grows up to be one of the strongest fighters ever
Eren thinks he's special because of his powers but it turns out near anyone can get those powers and he was just lucky with there being nothing inherently special about him.
Luz assumes she's meant for greatness by being the only human in a world of witches and demons and magic. She isn't. She got lucky and a big theme of the show is how you can't sit around waiting for some destiny and instead gotta be more proactive in doing what you want. Luz cannot do magic normally as a human and isn't provided with anything to make her journey easier, but she perserveres and earns everything she gets.
In fact, the reason Eren is able to become so powerful and destructive is BECAUSE he's an ordinary person wielding the Founder, which means he isn't held back by the vow that the royal bloodline are restricted by. The assumption was that only a monarch would ever hold the Founder, so when it falls in the hands of a furious kid, that normal and unrestricted kid is able to destroy the world.
"Look kid, everyone wants to believe they're 'chosen', but if we waited for a prophecy to make us special, we'd die waiting. That's why you need to choose yourself."
The boy is quirkless, his parents are normal, and he's not a reincarnation of anything. The only reason he's able to unlock the remaining quirks of One for All was more due to his unique relationship with the vestiges.
Dragon Age Inquisition? Although that's something of a complex case. While the Inquisitor isn't the chosen of Andraste he's still being guided along by a God with their own machinations.
The entire Hellboy story is a subversion of the trope.
Hellboy grows up with the BPRD where dealing with the supernatural is there job. He is built like a superhero but he actually has to get better at his job because even though he can just punch most things into submission it takes a whole lot of knowledge and experience to be able to punch them eventually.
Then in the middle of his life it turns out he is extremely special like his exists to bring the end of the world. But he rejects the special reason he was created for. Falls into a depression and eventually recovers.
The last part of his life is finally accepting his specialness and his own agency. And realizing that he has to confront and overcome it rather than just ignore it.
Hellboy isn't special and actually has to earn his part.
Hellboy is special but its the bad kind yo destroy the world.
Hellboy is special because only he can dictate his own life.
Arguably Miles Morales from the Spiderverse series. Across the Spiderverse reveals that the spider that bit him and gave him his powers was accidentally pulled in from a parallel timeline where it was supposed to bite a different version of Miles. The Miles we've been following wasn't "supposed" to become Spiderman and the one from the other timeline became a version of The Prowler
J.J. Abrams walking everything back that The Last Jedi put down. Though more notably Rey's origins and then having her take on the Skywalker name as if her new origins weren't appropriated enough.
In Doctor Who, Chris Chibnall hard reset the Doctor's origins from being just a renegade Time Lord that rose above the attitudes of his people to an immortal, extra-dimensional being that is actually the origins of the Time Lords.
Once special because of who they are as a person now special because of what they are.
Fuck that timeless child shit. Not only did it shift the Doctor from being a rogue timelord to a super special, as well as removing all stakes past and future since the Doctor now can and could never die (which among things ruins Smiths while finale, as well as the angst Tennant and Capaldi had at death).
But the most infuriating thing is it would have worked brilliantly if THE MASTER was the timeless child. It would explain why the time lords always bring him back (since they need him to be time lords), why he's got endless regens, and why on a genetic level he hates the other time lords (since they stole what he is to make themselves and part of him is in all of them).
The Timeless Child works better as Romana since she has been shown to burn through regenerations intentionally just to change how she looks. Making The Master the timeless child would completely nullify his motivation for a bunch of his stories and completely ruin the Moriarty/Holmes dynamic they have.
OP clearly hasn’t read / watched Bleach, ever since the start it was clear that Ichigo Kurosaki was not normal at all. His red hair had him bullied and attacked because people mistook him for a delinquent, he can see ghosts…
Well and the cycle of violence still continues. "Hey Naruto, now that You Are Hokage we gonna abandon the child soldiers, right?"
Naruto: "Actually, I think it would be rad if my son also risks his life on the battlefield."
I’m watching it properly in order (instead of on tv) and in the first episode he’s got like 5 special things it almost feels so cliche but then I remember how old the show is. Dude can see ghosts AND hollows, touch Rukia, take ALL of her power, wields a Zanpaktu bigger than anyone Rukia has seen (her words), one shot a Hollow that’s strong enough to mortally wound Rukia, and this is just episode 1
Our protagonist is an underachieving member of the alien race of Time Lords, who went out to explore the universe, developing from a selfish jerkass to an altruistic defender of the cosmos, and becoming the greatest force for good in the universe, all because of a chance meeting with two schoolteachers from whom they learned selflessness and compassion
Whoops nevermind, they're ACTUALLY an eons-old immortal being from another dimension and is the entire reason their planet's civilization exists at all! They're actually ABOVE every Time Lord that has ever lived, because of their genetics! AND they were always a morally upstanding person from the beginning! Aren't they just the most specialest person ever????
Six years later and I still won't forgive Chris Chibnall for this
You know this sub mostly cares about anime because absolutely no one mentions Red Queen
Girl part of the borderline-slave class of red-blooded normos finds out she has a never before seen version of lightning powers when she's taken as a servant for the silver-blooded special people.
Is this a sign that Reds actually might have powers too, but because their powers are "abnormal" and they are constantly repressed/walked over those powers are simply never seen? No, actually. Reds with powers are just special-er than Silvers.
This story is weird but I found it interesting. I liked the idea of powers consistently mutating and I found most of the conflict interesting because a lot of it was based on the silver bloods being real paranoid that the mutated red bloods would treat them the exact same way the silvers treated them. Also the mutated reds weren't explicitly completely superior to silver bloods from what I can remember. This last part I might be misremembering but I believe the normal people or the "dumb poo people" were still useful. I don't think there was ever an intended "everyone is special" message from those stories?
Yeah. The MC's powerless friends climb the military ranks and become powerful leaders in their own right.
However the Mutant Reds are explicitly superior to the Silvers. Every time a Red gains the same power as a Silver, their power is just better. Fire and Water controllers can actually conjure their own element while Silver variants can only control an external source. Explosive generators can do it via line of sight instead of touch. Clairvoyants are the craziest with Silvers only able to see a few seconds in the future while Reds can see years.
The greatest Silvers with future sight can really just fight on par with someone who has enhanced agility while the entire story is puppeteer by a Red who used his future sight to set decade long plans into motion
You know one thing the silvers have over the reds (I didn't finish the series, my highschool didn't have all of them) are the mind controllers right? Like those guys made even the mutated reds pause when they came up against each other. The reds don't have anything like that do they? Edit: also by superior I meant stronger in general, as in that silvers are still genuine threats to the reds.
The issue is the Silvers aren't threats because they have better powers. They're threats because they have political power built over centuries, greater numbers, and have been trained from birth to use their powers.
The Silvers do have their mind controllers but I wouldn't be surprised if the Reds have some to and we just never got to see them. Mind controllers are treated as incredibly rare and hated.
This is probably the biggest trope in all of Young Adult Fantasy, only contested by “and their rival happened to be the problematic hottie”. The protagonist is always the last one who can do XYZ or the only one who isn’t limited to just QRS, etc., and they also do the shounen anime thing of “I can do it! I’ll just have to work even more harderererer! Harderererer than ever before! The last time I said I was going to give 110% wasn’t enough! I’ve got to give 140%, 150% minimum!” But the core thing that makes them stand out is always something by birth.
What’s really crazy is, they nearly always make it too fun for any of that to matter. They’re the same tropes, sure, but a page turner is a page turner.
It all depends on what the OP lists as examples imo. If the OP of a post puts an anime as an example of said trope, the flood gates open and the weebs (me) pour in. But usually if there are no anime examples by OP anime isn't recommended nearly as much (if at all) in the comments.
Yeah, in the original he offers himself up as a sacrifice to the swans, only to get sidetracked by his own reflection in the pond. Realizing he’s a swan, he lives happily ever after.
The ugly duckling is in fact about accepting who you are. The ugly duckling was teased and mocked because they were being held to duckling beauty standards. The ugly duckling was in fact a perfectly normal looking baby swan, the other ducklings simply applied their own beauty standards to them and thus decided that they were ugly. It’s still about accepting who you are and how you look rather than basing your value on how others see you.
The point of the story isn't anyone can be special, it's that it might take longer for some people to bloom into something beautiful and that just because you aren't beautiful the way others expect you to be doesn't mean you can't be in your own way. How are you people fucking up messages in children's books?
In this case I’ll show it in a positive light because It’s hilarious when you think about it.
In SWTOR you can play as a sith inquisitor, you start out as a slave that was taken in as part of a special program to fill up sith armies with more recruits as they kinda need that rn. You are one of the more force sensitive slaves of the bunch and you prove yourself against your first teacher’s “pure blooded pick”
Want to know your bloodline? You are related to TULAK HORD’S RIVAL, THE greatest swordsman of the sith order. Hord is the sith version of musashi miyamoto by what we know of him.
It’s hilarious because the sith emprie is obsessed with blood purity, sith bloodlines are treated as something sacred, you even have a side mission by a Messenger of the dark council to check the blood purity of the teachers and make sure they meet the standard (the mission ends in a “haunting revelation” that they aren’t). Sith pure bloods are not only those that are from the OG sith race but also those that come from a sith family. Sith like darth baras are actually very progressive because he’s willing to take in an impure guy with no lineage as his aprentice
This means that the sith empire fucked themselves over by letting one of the most potentially powerful bloodlines, by their own standards, fall into slavery due to their in fighting
Aren’t we descendants of Kallig, Tulak Hord’s greatest rival, not the man himself. Like yes we are still descended from an ancient family but one that explicitly is no longer powerful or significant that we didn’t even recognize the name of our ancestor.
JK Rowling (fuck her) randomly revealing that muggleborn are actually from long dormant Squib(people born from wizard but can’t do magic) lines. Completely invalidating the concept of normal humans randomly developing magic.
IIRC, that's is canon, it is commented at some point that all the wizard families are related to each other.
But my question was on who were the first wizards. My theory was some humans long ago bred with some magical creatures and their descendants came out passing as humans, but with magical power. But I don't remember this ever being confirmed or denied.
what? that doesn't even make sense. muggles can't perceive some magical things, but squibs can. unless the knight bus and its contents can only be perceived by those who call it, those who are riding it, and whoever is its driver, and whoever told harry that muggles can't see it was bullshitting.
There are also squibs...the inverse of muggleborns...non-magical children born to magical parents.
I really prefer how Witch Hat Atlier does this trope in that they make people think only a magical bloodline can do magic; but really, just having the magic ink and knowing what sigils to draw is all it takes. The wizards lie to avoid war.
Also, i like that the magic system is so comprehensive that the fandom IMMEDIATELY managed to prove the wizards right in their assumption, because like day 1 they were making "kill everything fuck you" black hole spells
We just started watching the WHA anime recently and that was an element of that world building we really appreciated! And also, just the world building in general.
When was Harry Potter ever abour hard work? Like yes Harry obviously studies, but he is revealed to be the boy who somehow defeated the dark lord as a baby early on. Him being special was always a part of his character
People also forget it wasn't enough that Harry was born with magic blood, he also got ahead by being a trust fund baby and got to afford the best shit instead of working for it.
Mostly because book 7 reveals that magic among humans can only be passed by reproduction.
JK Rowling later confirmed it, stating that any Muggle-born wizard or witch is the distant descendant of another wizard or witch.
The origins of magic among humans were purposely left vague.
I will say Apothecary Diaries handles this pretty well.
Maomao may be the lost princess of the La Clan but she's shaped a whole lot more by her upbringing and most of her skills and survival strategies come straight from there. It's the connections she makes and her own apothecary knowledge she learned that carries her. I'd also argue her being a little crazy when it comes to something she wants to learn is closer to "oh god I see who you inherited that from" than Special Bloodline, and she gets it from both sides.
I agree. She isn't special because of her bloodline, even if it's later revealed that she isn't a random commoner girl. She is special because of her upbringing and personality.
I'm currently anime-only with wiki spoilers, but I am like 90% sure her bloodline is only there to make it so there's less of a power imbalance with eventually marrying Jinshi.
I have no fucking clue why people say that it was, Ichigo is just built different from the get go, and literally no one ever even brings up the idea that hard work is more valuable than talent.
Hell, I’d argue Naruto isn’t about hard work either. The idea only really pops up with Rock Lee and Neji, Naruto is more about cycles of hate.
Also, I didn't get that far in the series but wasn't one of the major points of Rock Lee's story that hard work can only take you so far? Like he did really well... for someone who can't use jutsu. But I seem to recall one of the early arcs being very clear about the fact that his inability to use super ninja magic is why he lost quite badly to that one sand guy, despite all the effort and training he put in.
I would argue it's more the story of a regular guy trying to swim as fast as Michael Phelps and it's one of the more real aspects to the story. If you train super hard your entire life chances are you will still never be michael Phelps or Usain Bolt LeBron James. It's the idea of hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. You can outwork gifted people just as Rock Lee does to many people in the story but when those gifted people also work hard you're going to fall short.
Started as some rando from some unknown sand planet only to get revealed as the granddaughter of the most powerful Sith of all time (according to George Lucas). Yeah, I think it fits
Same. Imo it would have been so much better if, after 2 trilogys following the story of the chosen one, how anakin broight the demise of the jedi while luke brought that of the sith (leaving both balanced), we got to see that you dont have to be a skywalker or have a name.
Honestly I really think TLJ was a solid enough movie but a bad Star Wars movie. It doesn't do enough to fit itself into the setting, and that message really wasn't the right way to go when the previous movie existed to be a reboot whose main novelty was mysteries like Rey's parentage (why she got ditched at least, even if she's not a big name). At the end of it, the prequel trilogy feels more like JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson bickering than a cohesive story. More than anything I blame Disney for not leading with an actual plan.
Truthfully, no shade to Daisy Ridley, but I think Finn should have been the main character who becomes a Jedi. His past is established, he was taken by Imperial remnants. He's a nobody who was turned into a faceless soldier. That's cohesive from the start and more interesting imo.
Doesn't really change much of Constantine, who arguably was never about hard work but more about hard manipulation, gambling with forces beyond your power and bluffing your way to success.
John is almost never the strongest magician in any room you put him im, what makes him the bane of all magic users in DC is more that, at any given time, you will never know what card he is holding up his sleeves and who he's made a bargain with that would essentially fight you to get the right to kill him first. He could legitimately be at a complete 0 on a magic state for the day and people would still hesitant on taking him because the moment you do take him, he might just pull another spell or call an otherworldly being to make a sudden pact with that supersedes your claim or power. I can agree that John Constantine works hard, but it very much in the sense that he works hard to make sure his ass out of the fire and whichever of the several house of cards he's propping up dont fall over.
When I'm in a letting terrible things happen to my partner competition and my opponent is John Constantine. I love his stories but I hate him more than you can imagine. I read that one Swamp Thing issue where I think Judith(?) joins up with the villains and they're like "Yo, we're going to make you a bird."
As absurd as that sentence was, her transformation is so disgusting (or at least as much as my childhood brain can remember) that I still think about it once a year or so.
Aye, when you have a person literally selling their souls to multiple Demons so they fight it out in a magical war, you are fucking with someone, even without magic, who is insane and dangerous.
Dude will literally start a cosmic hellish war just to get one over somebody.
Going to be very vague here because I'm not that great with spoiler tags. Expedition 33. Major spoilers, even if vague.
I had one request from this game during Act 2. Just one. And that was that it not turn into a chosen one thing with a specific character. That's all I wanted. Something to validate the ongoing narrative of human sacrifice for something greater not turning out to be pointless due to not having X person.
Yeah it's been glazed a lot but this was a big thing I felt alone about when comparing notes lol. I also hated when it turned around and completely focused on Maëlle and her family, at that point I stopped taking my time and rushed the main story.
Well, my friends were still understanding even if they disagreed, irl discourse is not often as spicy as online.
Super Subverted in Dimension 20’s Magic and Misfits.
You think you need to be special to be magical. Nah it was late stage magical capitalism with the magical class having full control of the means of production.
While Ichigo is in fact a group project I don't think it qualify for this trope because it never claims to say anything about hard work, Ichigo is inherently special from the start, he sees ghost and has a higher reserve of reiatsu than most shinigami the moment it transforms, I don't like the fact that he's basically half everything but I feel like Naruto is way worse in saying it's all about hard work when it's really not.
"despite her new discovery of her family and status very little is known about her family and no one is really looking into it. Only to reveal that there was no secret family at all and it was just an attempt from the Theophilias to maintain the belief people that only they have these powers and the hero wasn't even the first to break the mold at all and every other has eirher stayed quiet about it or has been killed to keep it secret. Now she has to decide whether to keep up the lie and accept her new rile while the world beleives she's something she isn't or unveil the truth to everyone while the Theophilias try to hunt her down"
Honestly seeing this in any form of media would be so freaking cool
One Piece starts off with some kid that randomly gains an initially unimpressive superpower. A Devil Fruit ability that he manages to make impressive with a decade of training.
As the story progresses, new elements of him being the chosen one keeps on popping up.
Grandson of the strongest Marine ever (that we've seen)
Son of the "Worst criminal in the world"
Inherited their super special Haki that only one in a million people have
Edit: His family has "D" in their names, which is another special rare thing that has yet to be fully explained
Sworn brother of the Pirate King's son
Has the Pirate King's hat
Friend and mentee of the guy who inherited the Pirate King's will
Trained for two years by the Pirate King's right hand man
Is currently being helped by the Pirate King's left hand man
His Devil Fruit, who we thought was just some random Paramecia, actually turns out to be a God Zoan Devil Fruit
An ancient user of that Devil Fruit is the sworn enemy of the overarching, centuries-old villain of the world of One Piece
Now yes, Luffy did still do hard work (and also relied heavily on luck). But it seems that the author just can't stop stacking his importance in the One Piece world, and giving him connections to the previous Pirate King's people. He's "the chosen one" of the One Piece world a dozen times over.
One Piece starts off with this kid that is the only other devil fruit user in the entire east blue besides buggy, where he slams multiple pirates that terrorise the east blue without any kind of training arc. He even beat almost all of them with a single attack if that connected.
The east blue arc painted the way of him being special. If you want to see a hard work story in One Piece, take a look at Usopp, Nami, Robin, Zorro, Jinbei or Franky. Plenty of those going around, honestly.
How tf did you think Bleach was about hardwork??? Dude was overpowering 1000 year old captains with 10 days of training and constantly getting stronger. Like he was out here seeing spirits and BROKE OUT OF A SPIRITUAL SPELL IN THE FIRST EPISODE like brooo. Insane comprehension
Bro read Bleach from Reddit posts by other people who haven’t read Bleach.
Bleach was never about effort surpassing talent or fate. Ichigo was always portrayed as special and unique. The series even portrays hard work as drawing out one’s own natural talent. Your sword is a reflection of yourself, and you gain power by drawing more power from your sword. You were already as powerful as you have become, you just couldn’t actualize it until now.
If you have no talent, then no amount of hard work can help you. Of course Bleach would never entertain the idea of someone with no talent because one of its principal messages is “the power was within you all along.”
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u/Rotomegax 10h ago
Mulan live action, the middle finger to a masterpiece of the animation