Desperately Looking for a Purpose In Life: Difference between revisions

* Hachiken Yugo from ''[[Silver Spoon]]'' has this as one of his major problems.

* In ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', Shinji gets assigned to save the world from aliens starting in the first episode, but he still feels like he doesn't know what his purpose in life is. Pretty much the entire show becomes about this. Midway through the show, he discovers that piloting the Eva gives him purpose, and the [[Gainax Ending|last two episodes]] are all about him now trying to find meaning without it. Other characters have arcs likes this too.

** He is an ''extremely'' happy character. So, yeah. Cruel, psychotic bastard, but quite happy.

* In ''[[To Aru Majutsu no Index]]'', the main character Touma bemoaned his lack of ability, with his [[Anti-Magic|power]] not able to fight thugs, help his test scores, or get him a [[Irony|girlfriend]]. That is until Index falls onto his balcony and he is suddenly thrust into a world were his ability is the only thing keeping him alive as he desperately tries to save people.

* Over the course of Telltale Game's ''[[Sam and Max Freelance Police|Sam and Max]]: Season One'', Sybil Pandemik, the pair's neighbor, has a different business in her former tattoo parlor every episode. She's been a psychotherapist, a tabloid publisher, a professional witness, operator of two different dating services (romantic and radiocarbon), a beta tester, and Queen of Canada. In that order.

* ''[[Dreamfall]]'' is basically all about this, with both Zoe and April being obvious examples {{spoiler|though their respective endings differ}}.

** In fact, it's a theme for the main characters too. Yuna having completed her supposed suicide mission is left with a lifetime of summoner training and no ability to use it. Paine is looking for a purpose, any purpose to distract her from what happened on the Crimson Squad, and Rikku (unbelievably, but accurately the most well adjusted of the three) just wants to have fun.

** All of Spira seems to be have fallen into this after Sin's downfall. It's still an improvement since the only "purpose" they had when Sin was around was simple survival.

* Grunt in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' is simply trying to figure out what he wants out of his own life, since he is supposed to be a strong Krogan but feels nothing for the information imprinted in him by [[Mad Scientist|Okeer]]. Shepard helps Grunt find a purpose by {{spoiler|helping him get accepted into clan Urdnot}}.

* Carver in ''[[Dragon Age II]]'', who feels [[Overshadowed by Awesome|inferior]] to his Mage sister Bethany and more capable older sibling [[Player Character|Hawke]], and [[I Just Want to Be Badass|desperately wants to prove himself to be a skilled fighter]]. Assuming he survives Act I, this can lead to one of two things happening: Either he contracts the Darkspawn taint and is forced to become a Gray Warden to survive, or he chooses to join the Mage-hunting Templars. Ironically, despite having it forced upon him, he finds work as a Gray Warden fulfilling. Templar, on the other hand, he turns out to not quite have the stomach for...

 

 

* Depressingly played with in the animated short "The Monk's Purpose," which aired on ''[[Liquid Television]]''. A pilgrim comes to a stone idol in the desert, and asks it, "What is my purpose?" {{spoiler|the idol comes to life and eats him, then spits out his staff onto a nearby pile of similar staffs.}}

* An episode of ''[[Little Bill]]'' played this lite, with Bill going around trying to "find my thing", the thing he's good at.