Holding Out for a Hero: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''Where have all the good men gone<br />

''and where are all the gods?<br />

''Where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds? (...)<br />

''And he's gotta be strongfresh andfrom hethe fight''s gotta be fast<br />

and he's gotta be fresh from the fight''|'''Bonnie Tyler''', [[Jim Steinman|"Holding Out for a Hero"]]}}

[['''Holding Out for a Hero]]''' is the deconstruction to the notion of a [[Superhero]] and a subversion of [[Big Damn Heroes]]. They've stopped becoming inspirations; and instead [[Somebody Else's Problem|enable helplessness]] and [[Going for the Big Scoop|recklessness]]. [[Muggles]] should stay out of things and let the special people do it. In fact, whenever the little people ''do'' try and change their own world, then they're either [[Redshirt Army|cannon fodder]] or else [[Super Registration Act|engaging in fascism]] [[What Measure Is a Non Super|out of fear]]. The [[Masquerade]] is often used by the ''good guys'' to prevent humanity from learning about the forces of the ''bad guys'' (even ones that are constantly killing them), because there's nothing they can do but [[Dying Like Animals|get in the way]] anyways.

{{quote| '''Man:''' Shut your mouth, lady! You're looking at a man who shot down five mobile suits in the war a year ago!<br />

** In ''[[Superman: Red Son]]'', wherein a communist Superman had no problems with using his abilities to prevent every bad thing possible (from each according to his abilities and all that), people did indeed grow too reliant upon him to solve all their problems. Eventually cars stopped being manufactured with seatbelts -- theseatbelts—the citizens expected Superman to save them if they got into a wreck. (Ironically enough, Lex Luthor opposed him on those grounds in that reality, too.)

{{quote| '''Luthor''': ''I could have saved the world!''<br />

{{quote| '''Professor Gordon''': Say you were somewhere really out of the way, Miss Lane. In Zaire. In the abandoned shaft of a diamond mine. The mine caved in. You had about an hour's supply of air. Absolutely no one knew where you were, and even if they did there would be no chance of getting you out in time. What goes through your mind?<br />

{{quote| '''Rorschach''': The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll look down and whisper "No."}}

* Averted in [[Garth Ennis]]' ''[[The Boys]]'', where a team of superheroes known as the Seven, try to prevent the comics version of September 11th11. The Seven fail miserably, with the moral of the story being that the military and trained rescue personnel are the true heroes.

** That theme was also explored in Rick Veitch's ''[[Brat Pack (actors)|Brat Pack]]'' where the presence of the Maxi-Mortal encouraged humans to have lesser safety standards for nuclear power plants. This wouldn't present a problem, however... if Maxi-Mortal hadn't been MIA for years.

{{quote| ''And they say that a hero can save us<br />

* Like many tropes related to [[The Chosen One]], this is deconstructed in ''The Annals of the Chosen'' by [[Lawrence Watt -Evans]]. {{spoiler|Ultimately, it's why most of the heroes stop trying to save people, leaving them to save themselves.}}

{{quote| '''Tuck''': The Lord helps those who helps themselves, Robin. Your protection weakens them. We're failing in our mission. We're supposed to be inspiring these men to stand up and fight for themselves, giving them ''real'' hope.}}

** On one hand, the presence of superpowered beings in Primal Earth doesn't stop the world's militaries and police forces from trying their best to handle things on their own. Until the [[Alien Invasion|Rikti War]], for example, [[City of Adventure|Paragon City]]'s police department was confident in its ability to "serve and protect" without relying on heroes to do all the work. Even when the war's aftermath left the PPD barely able to function, Chief Conrad Bochco vowed to protect the city without seeking alliances or help from the numerous hero organizations--butorganizations—but the PPD is not above letting superpowered beings join the police force, as Blue Steel shows. (This is why the PPD's Awakened Division, comprised of officers who [[Fusion Dance|fused]] with [[Energy Beings|Kheldians]], is so controversial within the police force; some argue it's a form of relying on outside help.)

** And the trope is turned upside-down in the City of Villains expansion. There, the global criminal organization [[EverythingsSpiders WorseAre With SpidersScary|Arachnos]] has somehow legally become the government of what's now known as the Rogue Isles. The police basically exist to minimize the threat to the government rather than serve and protect the common people, and Lord Recluse has reduced the laws to "[[Social Darwinism|Do what you have the power to get away with]]". Crime is so rampant that, for the first 30 or so levels, a villain character ''only fights other villains to come out on top''. The trope comes into play because most citizens have completely given up hope of proper law and order being reinstated, and rather than hold out for a hero usually just live constantly looking over their shoulder and ready to duck for cover.

* Averted in ''[[Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan]]'' and its American counterpart, ''[[Elite Beat Agents]]''. "Ouendan" can be roughly translated as "cheer squad"... and that's your job, my friend. The duty of the Ouendan and the Agents is to provide encouragement through song and dance - the person being aided does the actual work. The only exception in either series is {{spoiler|the last level of either game, where the Ouendan/Agents act as the focus for the [[Combined Energy Attack]].}}

* ''[[Dragon Quest VII]]'' [[Deconstructed Trope|picks this apart]] in small-scale with the [[Love Dodecahedron]] in Verdham. If Linda simply talked to [[Reasonable Authority Figure|Borlock]] and explained she loved Pepe and not his son [[UpperclassUpper Class Twit|Iwan]], she could easily get him to abandon the [[Arranged Marriage]] and find some other way of repaying her late parents' debt. Instead, Linda expects Pepe to sweep in and fix everything, despite knowing that Pepe is an [[Extreme Doormat]] whom she's forcing to choose between [[Moral Dilemma|her love and his family's welfare]]. Ultimately, this [[Fatal Flaw]] costs her everything.

* This trope gets discussed in ''[[Wild ArmsARMs 2]]''. In fact the whole question of what it really means to be a hero is a major theme of the game.

* ''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|8-Bit Theater]]'' evoked this trope and named it [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2007/05/08/episode-843-the-superman-complex/ "The Superman Complex"], and then showed the problems of relying on it in this [[Crapsack World]].

* Happens briefly in ''[[The Order of the Stick]]''. After the city is overrun by hobgoblins, several of the fleeing soldiers accidentally become aware of the elf wizard who had fought alongside them also fleeing the invading army under a spell of invisibility. These soldiers actually stop their retreat and proceed to bombard the elf with demands to save them, turn them invisible, teleport them out of there, blast the hobgoblins, anything. Unfortunately for them, said wizard is completely out of spells by this point and can only watch as they are slaughtered by the hobgoblins.

* In ''[[Dubious Company]]'', [[Living MacGuffin|Sal]] plays this straight since she has the [[Born Lucky|favor]] of a [[Random Number God|god]] and [[Designated Victim|1,025 kidnappings]] to justify it before meeting the pirates. She and the pirates then become accustomed to [[Ninja|Tiren]] saving them, until they all get captured. Once they realize the severity of [[Human Sacrifice|Kreedor's plan]] for Sal, the rest of the crew are forced to [[Took a Level Inin Badass|pull their weight]].

{{quote| Walter: We've still got Tiren! (Cut to Tiren [[Properly Paranoid|chained up, in stocks, from a suspended metal box in a separate cell]].)<br />

{{quote| Here, a passenger dirigible impales itself (!!) on what looks suspiciously like the Chrysler Building. You know, I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to be flying that low. On the other hand, if the entire human race is getting lazy and stupid because of superheroes always saving them, then [[Superman|Metropolis]] must be that phenomenon’s epicenter.}}

*** On the other hand, that [[Fridge Logic|begs the question]] on ''how exactly'' he managed to overpower the girls and place them in indestructible action figure packages-- maybepackages—maybe he [[Standard Female Grab Area|got them by the arm]].

* Averted in the animated film, ''[[Justice League: Crisis Onon Two Earths]]'', where initially President Slade Wilson (one of the few heroes left on the parallel Earth) refuses to use nuclear weapons against the Crime Syndicate. {{spoiler|At the end of the film, President Wilson leads an army of space marines to assist the Justice League in apprehending the Crime Syndicate.}}

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