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Focal Character: Difference between revisions
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{{examples}}
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* [[Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam]] pulls a bit of zigzagging with this trope. While Tobia Arronax is the POV character, it is [[The Ace|Kincaido Nau]] (alias [[Mobile Suit Gundam F91|Seabook Arno]]) who is the main pilot of the titular [[Humongous Mecha]] and is responsible for most of the victories of the [[Space Pirate|Crossbone Vanguard]]. However, during the final parts of the story, Tobia comes into his own following a string of moments of [[badass]]ery, finally gets his own [[Super Prototype|Gundam]], and winds up saving the world; while Kincaido is put into the role of the [[Supporting Leader]]. In the end, Kincaido retires, [[Passing the Torch]] to Tobia, who goes on to become a fully-fledged main character in ''all'' of the sequels.
* Athrun Zala fills this role in ''[[Gundam Seed Destiny]]'', being [[The Mentor]] to [[Decoy Protagonist]] Shinn, and following the midseason perspective switch, [[The Lancer]] to [[The Hero|Kira]]. The story's told from his point of view for most of the series—and even more so in the compilation movies—and its his interactions with the other two that define the show.
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* [[Spice and Wolf]] is a story about Holo as experienced by Lawrence. She provides the [[Deadpan Snarker|comedy]] and [[Please Don't Leave Me|drama]], and Lawrence provides the [[I Watch It for The Economics|economics]] and [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|hugs.]]
* Koyomi Araragi from ''[[Bakemonogatari]]'' is the main character and plays a key role in the arcs, but it's often the girls themselves who are the focus and have to solve the problems themselves in the end.
* ''[[Code Geass]]'' tends to follow this trope more often than not. Lelouch, who the show focuses on, is really more of a [[Utopia Justifies the Means|well-]][[Visionary Villain|meaning]] [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Anti]][[Anti-Hero|-Hero]] at his best and a [[Villain Protagonist]] at his absolute worst. However, the character you would have expected to be the "[[The Hero|standard hero]]" was Suzaku, the
** More importantly, the story is narrated by C.C..
* Zenkichi from ''[[Medaka Box]]''. He's the primary viewpoint character and male lead, but it's Medaka who acts as [[The Hero]], and converts previous antagonists to allies. He becomes more and more important to the plot, and is also her [[Morality Chain]].
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** The [[Big Bad]] specifically notes early on, though, that it's Kagome, not Inuyasha, that he has reason to fear.
== [[Comic Books]] ==▼
▲== Comic Books ==
* ''Tag and Bink are Dead'' and ''Tag and Bink Live'', short comics that follow the adventures of two bumbling rebels during the events of ''[[Star Wars|A New Hope]]'' and ''[[Star Wars|The Empire Strikes Back]]''. They also turn out to be Jedi Padawans during the events of the prequels.
* Jed from the ''[[Star Raiders (comics)|Star Raiders]]'' graphic novel. He starts off as one of the three main characters, but halfway through the story he's sidelined into irrelevancy.
* Art Spiegelman (or at least his [[Author Avatar]]) in ''[[Maus]]'' as the story follows him and his attempt to record his father's experience throughout [[World War II|the Holocaust]]. However, the story is clearly about his father Vladek and his Holocaust experience.
== [[Film]] ==▼
▲== Film ==
* ''[[The Hidden Fortress]]'' focused on [[Those Two Guys]].
** And they were given a big [[Shout-Out]] with [[Star Wars|R2-D2 and C-3PO]], although the story just centered on them for the first third of ''[[A New Hope]]''.
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* While Holly Golightly is definitely the main character of ''[[Breakfast at Tiffany's]]'', her love interest Paul Varjak is the protagonist.
== [[Literature]] ==
* The eponymous [[The 13th Warrior|13th Warrior]].{{context}}
* ''[[Sherlock Holmes]]'''s: Watson may be the most famous case of this in history.{{context}}
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* ''[[Sherlock]]'' is told from the point of view of John Watson, at least in the beginning.
* ''[[Merlin]]'' plays with this trope, as it is Merlin's story, and he really does seem to be the [[Chosen One]], but once you step back and look at what he's been chosen ''for''... His entire purpose in life, his reason for existing at all in the threads of Destiny is to protect Arthur. Arthur's destiny is to be the greatest king Albion has ever known. Who's the [[Chosen One]] now?
* The finale of ''[[Ashes to Ashes]]'' reveals that {{spoiler|both Sam Tyler and Alex Drake are
* While ''[[Power Rangers]]'' always has the Red Ranger be [[The Hero]], sometimes they're not the one with the biggest connection to the overall plot:
** In ''[[Power Rangers SPD]]'', Jack is the Red Ranger, but the story is more about the blue ranger, Sky, dealing with his issues and evolving into a worthy team leader.
** Dillon is one of the main focuses of ''[[Power Rangers RPM]]'', even though he's the Black Ranger, as he's an amnesiac searching for his identity and his missing sister ({{spoiler|now [[The Dragon]]}}). A case can also be made that [[Mission Control]] Dr. K is the actual main character, as she created the [[Big Bad]] and gets the most [[Character Development]] throughout the season.
* Despite being the title character of ''[[Castle]]'', Richard Castle is the
* ''[[Ultraman Nexus]]'' focuses on the life of Komon Kazuki, a member of the Night Raider team. However, he does not transform into the eponymous hero, making him this trope.
== [[Theatre]] ==
* Judas in ''[[Jesus Christ Superstar]]''.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* In [[Dragon Quest]] V, unlike in IV and VI, the protagonist cannot equip the Zenithian Equipment; it's actually {{spoiler|his son}}.
* Monkey in ''[[Enslaved: Odyssey to the West]]''. The narrative actually revolves around Trip as Monkey supports Trip on her journey home and her quest for revenge of the one responsible for the annihilation of her village. {{spoiler|It's Trip that kills the main antagonist, Pyramid}}.
** Enslaved is loosely based on the Chinese novel [[Journey to the West]], in which this still holds true; ostensibly, it's about a priest named Tripitaka who is transporting religious writings [[Captain Obvious|westward]]. In practice, it's about Sun Wukong the Monkey King and all the awesome shit he does while he's forced to help Tripitaka on his journey.
* Locke for most of the World of Balance in ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'', while the story revolves around Terra, Locke is in the hero role. This changes when Celes becomes the acting protagonist in the World of Ruin. She is less of a
* Allegretto of [[Eternal Sonata]], in the same vein as Vaan of ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'', is most definitely this to not one, but two possible protagonists - Polka, a girl from a remote village who is actually the {{spoiler|[[Messianic Archetype]] catalyst for the [[Groundhog Day Loop]] that the world is trapped in}}, and Chopin, who claims that everything and everyone around him is merely one of his dreams. The latter's appearance in their world {{spoiler|is actually destined to end the loop of Polka repeatedly dying/reliving the same seven years over and over}}. Other than being the player avatar (and even then, that role is switched between him, Polka, and Beat) and acting as Polka's love interest, Allegretto doesn't even do much in the main story itself.
* Tidus in ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' is an interesting case. The whole point of the game, initially, is that the characters are playing supporting roles in Yuna's quest. They, including Tidus, are merely her guardians to protect her, while ''she'' is destined to actually defeat the [[Big Bad]]. However, Tidus is the game's narrator, and often points out how, "This is my story." Indeed, the very first line of the game is, "Listen to my story." We eventually learn that {{spoiler|Yuna defeating the [[Big Bad]] would get her killed while it would just come back later, and it's Tidus's destiny to truly kill the thing}}. Thus, Tidus and Yuna ''swap'' being [[The Hero]] and
** In [[Final Fantasy X-2|the sequel]], Yuna gets full control of the protagonist role. Even when other characters look like they're going to usurp her role as [[The Hero]], Yuna slaps them back down and says "No. [[Meaningful Echo|This is my story]]."
* ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'' has the player character often playing second fiddle to a (usually female) hero NPC in most of its storylines, doing the heavy lifting while the heroines magically appear wherever you go and have most of the interactions with other characters that the player character would have in most single player games.
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* The Rookie in ''[[Halo 3: ODST]]'' only begins to affect the story in the last two levels: the rest of the game is spent reliving the experiences of the rest of the squad in the six hours the Rookie was unconscious.
* Lars in ''[[Tekken]]'' 6. He may command an entire army, fight waves of soldiers bare-handed and [[Cutscene Power to the Max|deflect missiles with his wrists]], but the Mishima family are the ones doing all the important stuff while Lars runs around punching folks.
* The [[Featureless Protagonist]] of ''[[The PK Girl]]'' is a
* Ryu of the ''[[Street Fighter]]'' series. While he is the main character, aside from the original and the ''Street Fighter Alpha'' series, his role to the [[All in The Manual|story]] tends to be minimal as he is often a [[Living MacGuffin]] at most. [[All-American Face|Guile]] was the focus of ''[[Street Fighter II]]'' due to his motives against Bison, while [[Gentle Giant|Abel]]'s mysterious origins serve to be the focal point of ''[[Street Fighter IV]]''. ''[[Street Fighter III]]'' even takes Ryu out of the protagonist role entirely replacing him with [[Wrestler in All of Us|Alex]]. Even within the series as a whole, most of the heroics come from [[Supporting Leader|Chun-Li]] while Ryu is [[To Be a Master|focused on finding strong opponents]].
* Tact Mayers of ''[[Galaxy Angel (video game)|Galaxy Angel]]''. Although he's the captain of the Elsior which is a capital ship all the work is done by the angels.
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* In ''[[Gundam Breaker]] 3'' has the [[Featureless Protagonist]] do nothing but pilot Gunpla in fights and follow around Misa, the girl who recruited them as a team member, and look at the back of her head as she talks. The previous games in the series only avoided this by ''[[Excuse Plot|not having]]'' a real plot.
=== [[Visual Novels]] ===
* Most romantic [[Visual Novel]]s are more about the romanceable characters (and one 'true path' character in particular) than they are about the player character. In the Bishoujo setup, the male lead is often either a nonentity, a [[This Loser Is You|loser]], or a jerk, and one of the female leads is the real hero. This tends to carry over into their anime adaptations. ''[[Fate/stay night]]'' is both a literal and figurative example: in the Fate route, Shirou is no match for Saber in combat, and instead supports her with projection and, later, mana. Emotionally, it's his job to break through her stoic exterior and make her happy. Either way, Saber ends up the primary focus, and the driving force of that route.
* ''[[Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors]]'': {{spoiler|The point of view that the player takes is actually June/Akane of 9 years ago, seeing things through Junpei's eyes. This is a very important plot device and technically makes her the protagonist. Junpei still fills the conventional role of the hero though and once their connection is split at the very end, the perspective of the remaining story alternates between the both of them.}}
* In ''[[Loren the Amazon Princess]]'', Soren or Eleanor (whichever character you pick) fills this role. The titular Princess is [[The Chosen One]] and the game is about ''her'' quest, while [[The Hero]] is along as Loren's personal slave and sidekick.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
*
▲* The webcomic ''[[Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name]]'' is ostensibly about the unnamed zombie narrator, but the real hero figure is Hanna.
* The Exiles of ''[[Homestuck]]'' have this going for them in their [[Five-Man Band]]. WV, the first Exile seen, is the protagonist of the Exiles and gets the most screentime, but in terms of role in the story, he is surpassed by PM, the one who did more things that were directly relevant to the story.
== [[Western Animation]] ==▼
▲== Western Animation ==
* Jackknife from ''[[Superjail]]'' definitely qualifies-he's one of 4 inmates that are seen from one episode to the next. (the other 2 being the gay couple and Gary and Bird).
* The original premise for ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' had Sokka playing this role towards Aang. This did not make the final cut though.
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{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Characters As Device]]
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