I Just Want to Be Normal: Difference between revisions
m
clean up
m (update links) |
m (clean up) |
||
Line 23:
* ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]]'' Part 4 [[Big Bad]] Kira Yoshikage's main motivation was to live a normal and uneventful life. When you consider what his [[Serial Killer|main hobby is]] it makes his goal kind of contradictory.
** Yoshikage stated that he has an uncontrollable desire to kill. Even if he wanted to stop, he really couldn't.
* Most [[Magical Girl
{{quote|'''Usagi''': "I wake up in the morning. The white lace curtains sway in the breeze. The cuckoo clock in my room tells me it's seven o'clock. "If you sleep longer, you'll be late!" Mama cries out. I nod off thinking, "Just let me sleep three more minutes." I'm late, just like every other day. Teacher makes me stand in the hall. I fail another test. On the way home from school I eat crepes with my friends. A party dress decorating a show window catches my eye. Such little things delight my heart.. It's that.. that ordinary life I want back.. I want it back.}}
** Eventually she resents her Sailor life so much that her powers give out entirely. It's after encouragement and realizing that being Sailor Moon also brought the benefits of [[True Companions]] and romance that she finally accepts her Destiny as Sailor Moon and Princess Serenity. At this point although she occasionally gripes about how fighting the baddies is irritating and inconvenient she mostly accepts what she is and no longer seeks to be normal.
Line 33:
** Parodied with ''[[Pretty Sammy]]'', whose whole motivation for not wanting to keep her powers is because her outfit is lame and being a skimpily clad superhero is really embarrassing.
* Ichigo of ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]]'' wanted to be normal out of fear that her crush Masaya would reject her if he found out -- [[Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World|fighting aliens is really not a big deal compared to this]].
* ''[[Prétear]]'', on the other hand, is a [[Subverted Trope|strange case]]. By the time Himeno receives the [[Call to Adventure]], she already doesn't consider her life to be "normal", since she is all of a sudden a member of a rich family and feels ridiculously out of place there. Turns out that something even
* Chisame Hasegawa in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' was fed-up with her strange classmates even before she got a [[Adorably Precocious Child]] for a teacher. Naturally, things go downhill from there.
** She eventually just gives up entirely after {{spoiler|traveling to the Magic World with Ala Alba.}}
Line 50:
* We're still not sure what the hell's going on in ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]'', especially in relation to Kyon. He continually mentions how he wishes Haruhi would just settle down and be a normal, well-adjusted schoolgirl (Hell, it's even in his [[Image Song]]), but the fact that he's an [[Unreliable Narrator]] (in regards to his feelings, anyway) and that he was once stuck in a universe where everything ''was'' normal and he ''still'' attempted to revert it to its very Haruhi, abnormal state may prove otherwise...
** And how can we forget {{spoiler|Yuki Nagato}}, starting in ''Disappearance'', which essentially makes her {{spoiler|[[The Woobie]].}}
** Another remarkable fact is that if you look closely, you have to wonder if it's actually {{spoiler|''Haruhi''}} and not {{spoiler|Kyon}} who is really the
** From the most recent novels we have {{spoiler|Sasaki}}, who is essentially a <s> villainous</s> [[Anti-Villain|antagonistic]] version of this trope.
* In ''[[Guyver]]'', Sho doesn't want to have the powers. When he technically has the opportunity to get rid of them (when the {{spoiler|Guyver Remover is found}}), he still keeps them because he needs to protect his friends. The new anime adds a nice twist to this, with Tetsuro picking up the G-Unit first and then passing it to Sho only when it started sprouting tentacles.
Line 59:
** The fact that she cannot die, that she will always be replaced by another clone, really bothers her as well.
* Tsuna Sawada from ''[[Katekyo Hitman Reborn]]''. ''Of course'' he's not a mafia boss, ''really''.
* In ''[[Naruto]]'', unlike virtually everyone else in a [[Loads and Loads of Characters|cast of thousands]] who are either trying to become heads of state, living legends, [[A God Am I|outright immortals]], gain the acceptance of their [[All of the Other Reindeer|persecutors]], [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|avenge horrific wrongs]], or various combinations
** He's not technically even a Bookworm despite being a genius. He's ''that'' damn lazy. He ''really'' doesn't want to fight, [[Brilliant but Lazy|but he]] ''[[Brilliant but Lazy|will]]'' [[Brilliant but Lazy|kick your ass when pressed]].
** Given his [[Character Development]] in ''Shippuden'', it would appear that his goals have become somewhat more lofty.
* Nagisa spends almost all of the two ''[[Iczer|Iczelion]]'' [[OVA
* Simon of ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' is both an example and an aversion. It was a constant of the first few episodes that he would plead with Kamina to return home once the [[Monster of the Week|Ganmen Of The Week]] started pulverising them, but Kamina's [[Hot-Blooded|Manly Spirit]] (TM) forced him to repeatedly change his tune, eventually reaching the point where his obligatory [[Heroic BSOD]] is completely shattered and the trope abandoned in favour of Simon delivering a never-ending stream of awesome wins.
** In the first page of the spin off manga, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann - Guren Gakuenhen, Simon prays to his dead parents "Please, Please! Let me have an extremely normal life". In the second page, Kamina kicks down his window in an attempt to be [[Moe Moe]].
Line 68:
* In ''[[One Piece]]'', at the end of his fight with Zoro, Kaku expressed regret that he never got to lead a normal life, having been raised to be an assassin. In the manga, him and the rest of CP9 take a stab at this with the World Government hot on their tails.
** Earlier there's Captain Kuro, who was genuinely sick of being a pirate and wanted to live a nice, safe civilian life. Unfortunately, he wanted to be normal and ''rich'', and was willing to kill to get that life. He ultimately fails and is forced back to the sea.
* In ''[[Strawberry Panic!|Strawberry Panic]]'', Amane doesn't want to be Etoile and didn't ask for her legions of [[Even the Girls Want Her|fangirls]]
* Sakaki in ''[[Azumanga Daioh]]'' is a [[Shrinking Violet|deeply shy girl]] who's cursed with being [[Tall, Dark and Bishoujo]]. Other girls mistake her silence for coldness, [[Even the Girls Want Her|and this has made her an idol]]
** Arguably, [[Cloudcuckoolander|Osaka]] as well; her [[Image Song]] "Shikkari! Try La Lai" has some shades of this in places.
* Zelgadis in ''[[The Slayers]]'' is a prime example. [[Cursed with Awesome]] in the form of being merged with a stone golem and a demon, in the anime his quest can actually make him seem motivated by vanity, because his warped body isn't unattractive in an exotic sort of way ([[Cute Monster Girl|almost a Cute Monster Guy]]), he doesn't really care about people anyway (which makes their being afraid of him when they see him have less impact), and most importantly his body gives him super powers. It boosts his energy reserves, allowing him to cast more spells than either of his companions, allows him to go for ages without food or water, gives him superhuman strength, speed, hearing and stamina, and makes him [[Nigh Invulnerable]] to all practical purposes (only incredibly powerful attacks can hurt
** In the [[Light Novel]] series, it's a different matter entirely; he isn't completely motivated by vain in regards to his appearance, but rather, it's revealed here that after his [[Magnificent Bastard|great-grandfather Rezo]] [[Cursed with Awesome|cursed]] him, he was forced to serve as his bodyguard and fulfill gruesome and morally questionable tasks (it's implied that one of those tasks involved getting together with a woman and murdering her) for Rezo's sake. So rather than vanity, Zelgadis wants to be normal so that he can [[Clear My Name|eradicate his past]] as "the Evil Swordsman" (his given moniker) and live life the way ''he'' wishes to.
* ''[[Night Wizard]]'''s Renji is one of the most powerful Wizards around and can easily save the world with very little work. Except he wants to stop going on missions and actually get a chance to finish school, which is all but impossible with the number of times Anzelotte keeps calling him away.
Line 85:
* The entire plot of ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]'' was this from [[Reality Warper|Clow]] [[A God Am I|Reed]], even the very ''existence'' of the titular heroine. He was so damn powerful he couldn't control his own powers, mostly seeing the future, which took away all the pleasures of life. So he created a ''more powerful witch'' (Sakura) who could divide his power between his two reincarnation-like versions, one of them being ''Sakura's father'' Fujitaka.
** Only in the manga, though. In the anime, Clow just died so everything else happens equally, except the Sakura's dad being half of Clow and the dividing power thing.
** Sequel series ''[[xxxHolic]]'' and ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'' go into more detail about why he wanted to divide his power so
* ''[[Inuyasha]]'': Kikyou, one of the most powerful miko who had ever lived, just wanted to be a normal girl and live a normal married life with [[Half-Human Hybrid|Inuyasha]]. She and Inuyasha wanted this so much that Inuyasha also agreed to his give up his [[Youkai]] heritage and become a normal human boy to make that dream come true. Their plan was ruined by another which became the entire reason for the plot of the story.
* [[Fullmetal Alchemist|Alphonse]] wants his normal body back, and wants Ed to get his limbs back.
Line 111:
{{quote|'''Beast Boy:''' Why can't [[Reset Button|things just go back to the way they were?]] You were so happy then.<br />
'''"The Schoolgirl":''' [[Misaimed Fandom|Things were never the way you remember.]] Now just leave me alone. }}
** The Titans comic also played it as straight as can be with Beast Boy's best friend Cyborg. Half-human half-machine Vic Stone has struggled with
** Titans supporting character Frances Kane has tried very hard to be normal over the years; unfortunately, a combination of [[Super-Powered Evil Side]] and the writers' desire for a [[Chew Toy]] tends to get in the way.
* And before the Titans, there was [[Doom Patrol]]. Robotman, in particular, was unhappy about his [[Blessed with Suck]] condition (more extreme than Vic Stone's). However, the comic's premise was that, by the time you get to the Patrol, you're too far gone to even come ''near'' normal again. After a few disasterous attempts, he's more or less resigned to his condition.
* Used in a rather awesome way in the third ''[[Blue Beetle]]'' comic series, when the villainous Eclipso grants the Blue Beetle all his deepest, most secret desires. Turns out he wants to be a dentist.
** The awesome thing is, she expected that a mild-mannered teenager would dream of power. She planned to turn him into some kind of monster and use him to get the [[MacGuffin]] back. Unfortunately for her, the only kind of power he dreams of is a high-paying, reliable job... which isn't very useful to get [[MacGuffin
* ''[[Runaways]]'' character Karolina Dean would rather be a normal, Hollywood teenager, rather than the lesbian child of two alien criminals.
** Only when things go awkward, as when she tried to kiss Nico and turned out she wasn't interested. At the end of the first series she was the first one who ran out of her foster house and contacted everyone, as she wanted to "fly again".
Line 124:
* In ''[[Seven Soldiers|The Bulleteer]]'', both Alix and her "archnemesis" Sally Sonic wish they were normal people; It was this intense desire to live a normal life that led Sally to provoke Alix's husband to killing himself, because she so wanted to be in her place and be genuinely loved by a normal man.
** Alix also can't stop meeting up with people who are [[I Just Want to Be Special|the opposite]], especially the uber-pathetic Mind Grabber Man.
* Subverted with [[Man-Thing]]. A scientist who was transformed into a walking, empathic compost heap should be all over this trope, but most of the time he doesn't simply because his transformation cost him his
* In more recent works, [[Superman]] does cherish his Kryptonian heritage but thinks of himself as Clark Kent first. At one point, Mr. Mxyzptlk threatened to turn him into a powerless human who would have to live a normal life, but...
{{quote|'''Mxy:''' But wait. Deep down, that's what you ''really'' want, isn't it?}}
Line 140:
* Kairi Niko in the [[Knights of the Old Republic]] fic ''Destiny's Pawn'' is an amnesiac bookworm with skills she can't explain and really didn't ''want'' to know where she learned them. She flat-out asked the Masters if they could "shut off" her Force sensitivity, and only agreed to her conscription into the Jedi because there wasn't another option. Given her druthers, she's just quit and become a translator, but seeing as she's the ex-Dark Lord...
* ''[[My Immortal]]'' gives us [[Overly Long Name|Ebony]] [[Mary Sue|Dark'ness]] [[So Beautiful It's a Curse|Dementia]] [[Common Mary Sue Traits|Raven]] [[Costume Porn|Way]], who likes to remind us that being such a special snowflake isn't really a good thing
{{quote|''"Yeah but everyone is in love with me! Like Snape and Loopin took a video of me naked. [[Ron the Death Eater|Hargrid]] says he's in love with me. [[Canon Sue|Vampire]] likes me and now even Snaketail is in love with me! [[Wish Fulfillment|I just wanna be with you ok Draco!]] Why couldn't [[God|Satan]] have made me less beautiful?... Im [[Informed Ability|good at too many things]]!
* ''[[My Little Avengers]]'': [[The Hero|Big Macintosh]] spends a good portion of the story regretting ever finding Mjolnir and becoming Thor, but eventually comes to turns with it. {{spoiler|This contributes to his [[Heroic BSOD]] when [[Big Bad|Loki]] steals Thor's powers from him, and after he gets them back, it's shown that he's fully embraced his role.}}
Line 155:
* ''[[Godzilla vs. Destoroyah]]'' includes a scene of two psychic women at the UNGCC base, discussing the fact that their [[Psychic Powers]] are slowly disappearing. One of them says that she wants to live a normal life, [[Stay in the Kitchen|with a husband and kids]], earning her a look of purest bewilderment and contempt from the other.
* This is the premise of ''[[Hancock]]''.
* Bethany in ''[[Dogma]]''. Jesus is said to have also been like this for some
* Which brings us to the film ''[[The Last Temptation of Christ]]''. The entire scenario of the film is that Jesus was tempted with, not power and glory, but a completely normal life. According to the film, if Jesus could have a wish just for himself, it would be his own carpentry shop, a loving wife and some kids. (Yes, and doing all the stuff with his wife that gets all those kids.)
* On the direct flipside, Damien Thorne in ''[[The Omen]]'' series of films has a very brief moment of this when he comes to a full realisation of what he is and why. "Why? Why me?" he screams to empty air, but his [[Wangst]] doesn't last long. If only it had...
Line 191:
** Not only does he want to be normal again, he never wanted to do it in the first place! They bribed him. Not hard to do since [[MI 6]] is his legal guardian, but still...
* Hugo Danner, the world's first superhero, suffered from this. Philip Wylie wrote the novel ''[[Gladiator (novel)|Gladiator]]'' in 1930, featuring Hugo who was super-strong, fast, and with skin too tough to be pierced by a machine gun. Naturally he mopes about it for 332 pages before being struck by lightning and reduced to ash. On the bright side, two Jewish kids from Cleveland read the novel and came up with [[Superman|a more cheerful version]].
* Flinx, the major protagonist of [[Alan Dean Foster]]'s ''[[Humanx Commonwealth]]'' universe, frequently has occasion to wish he did not have [[The Empath|empathic powers]] as the result of a [[Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke|genetics experiment]] by a group of [[Evilutionary Biologist
* Nudge in ''[[Maximum Ride]]''. In fact, in ''Max'', she so desperately wants to go to a "normal" school, that she's willing to cut her own wings off. {{spoiler|She doesn't, though, because Max lets her go. After a while, she comes back, wings and all.}}
** Max herself is pretty desperate, hence why she is so attached to Dr. Martinez and Ella (the only two people besides Jeb and the Flock to act like a actual family to her. She also is desperate enough to move closer to "normal" at one point that she tries to hack a chip in her arm out with a jagged piece of sea shell and nearly bled to death.
* Garion in ''The [[Belgariad]]''. The phrase "Why me?" becomes a running joke over the series.
* Arthur Penhaligon in ''The [[Keys to the Kingdom]]'' spends ''five whole books'' of a seven-book series wishing for a normal life, ultimately making things much harder on himself to avoid becoming immortal. At one point he even ''re-breaks his own leg'' to stay normal. By the sixth book, {{spoiler|he realizes that if he ''hadn't'' become the Rightful Heir, he'd be dead, so best suck it up and get on with things. Of course, by this point he was already irreversibly immortal, so perhaps this was merely his way of dealing with it.}}
* In [[James Swallow]]'s [[Warhammer 40000]] novel ''[[Blood Angels|Deus Encarmine]]'', Arkio says he wishes he
* Eilonwy, in the [[Prydain Chronicles]], spends the entire series being more or less comfortable with the idea that she's "half an enchantress" and has latent magical powers, even though she can't always access them the way she'd like. At the end, however, when she learns that these same powers are the reason she has to leave the man she loves forever, she emphatically wishes that she could be rid of them. {{spoiler|Fortunately, she's been carrying around a little [[Chekhov's Gun]] that can make her wish come true.}}
* Played out strangely in ''[[The Last Unicorn (novel)|The Last Unicorn]]''. After [[Humanity Ensues]], the titular unicorn slowly becomes lost under her new self as a human woman, until at the end the "Lady Amalthea" protests that she Just Wants To Stay Normal, marry the prince, and live happily ever after. Just to twist the knife a bit, it is the [[Genre Savvy|prince]] who tells her the story can't end that way.
* Raamo from the [[Green-Sky Trilogy]] is like this. The high priestess believes he's [[The Chosen One]] foretold in a prophetic dream she had, others look to him with hope in their eyes, and the more he hears things like that the more he backs away and says "I am only a Kindar." The high priestess says that in itself is the example she thinks he will set. He doesn't have to ''do'' anything. Later on in the series his sister and her Erdling friend get tagged as [[Holy Child
* ''[[Codex Alera]]'' has an inversion: it's a world where every single person has [[Elemental Powers]], except for one who's just a normal human. What would normally be [[I Just Want to Be Special]] is this trope for him.
* Shinsou of [[The Longing of Shiina Ryo]] would like nothing more. The universe just does not wish to oblige him.
Line 223:
* Although [[The A-Team]] didn't have any special powers, they sort of fit into this: they became fugitives due to a string of events completely out of their control. All of them have, at some point, expressed a desire to live normal lives, but Face seems the most affected by it. Despite his [[The Barnum|apparent love]] for [[Con Man|conning]] people out of anything and everything he can manage, above all else, he really just seems to want a normal life where he doesn't have to scam people and run from the military police on a daily basis.
* Claire Bennet from ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]''. Conversely, Hiro Nakamura and Peter Petrelli both ''[[Jumped At the Call|desperately want]]'' to have powers, even and especially when there's very little evidence to suggest that they ''do''. ([[Evil Counterpart|As does Sylar.]] Heh, heh.)
** In season two, Claire becomes the classic
*** The thing with Claire is that she constantly has a "grass is always greener on the other side" mentality. Whenever her powers are put at the forefront of her life she wants to be normal, and when placed in a situation where she's basically allowed to live a normal live she complains about hiding "who she really is." She is eventually called out for it in the most recent season, but not long after just says screw it and {{spoiler|reveals her powers in front of several news reporters.}} [[Sarcasm Mode|Surely, nothing bad will come of that.]]
** In Volume Four, former villain Doyle decides that he wants to go back to his old life as a puppeteer. With the government rounding up people with abilities, he is forced to turn to Claire for assistance. This is doubly ironic - not only did Claire use to want a normal life, but the last time they met, Doyle held Claire and both her mothers captive for hours.
Line 237:
* Ditto [[Angel]], who took some comfort in a prophecy that said he would one day become human... though not till after the apocalypse.
** In an early first season episode, Angel actually ''becomes'' human. However, once he realizes that this would mean he couldn't fight the baddies, as his superhuman strength would be gone, he goes to the extreme of undoing the change. He still likes the idea of becoming human, just not while there are bad guys to fight.
** In the series finale, Angel is confronted with a
** In the canon comic follow up, Angel is currently {{spoiler|a human}}. However, the powers responsible for it have less than benevolent reasons for changing him.
* A recurring theme in ''[[Highlander the Series]]'' was main character Duncan MacLeod [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|bemoaning his immortal status]].
Line 276:
** In the series two Christmas Special, they're given an opportunity to get rid of their powers, and they take it immediately. Simon is hesitant, since he [[Genre Savvy|knows this is a bad idea]] because it didn't work out in ''[[Superman (film)|Superman II]]''.
* This is pretty much the entire concept behind ''[[Being Human (UK)]]''. Annie wishes she were still alive and married to Owen, Mitchell hates being a vampire, and George ''desperately'' wants to be rid of his lycanthropy. All three do manage to find comfort in their various states (as well as with each other) by the end of the first season.
* This was the main motivation of Chuck Bartowski in ''[[Chuck]]'' for the first two seasons. His normal life was pretty crappy (or at least, boring and [[Wangst
* Patrick Jane, ''[[The Mentalist]]'', has a lot of fun with his [[Sherlock Scan]] abilities as a police consultant, but...
{{quote|'''Lisbon''': Okay, I am not jealous and resentful. That is nonsense.
Line 319:
== Visual Novels ==
* In ''[[Fate/stay night]]'' this was {{spoiler|[[King Arthur|Saber]]}}'s entire motivation to win the Holy Grail, though with the intent of remaining normal so {{spoiler|the country she led would have a better ruler}}.
** Additionally, Shirou, for a good bit of the initial stages of the war, wanted
*** Shirou did ''not'' wanted to be normal. He'd be a lot cheerier about the whole thing if Kotomine didn't poke a giant hole in his fun by pointing out that superheroes need tragedies to happen in order to fix them.
*** Shirou put himself at great personal risk with his magic training; this doesn't indicate a desire for normalcy. However Sakura, {{spoiler|whose own magical training was mercilessly inflicted on her,}} desperately saw in him the chance for her to have a role in a normal life.
Line 329:
* ''[[Nowhere University]]'': Edward has a brief spell of this after discovering [[Psychic Powers]], but [http://nowhereu.comicgenesis.com/d/20080603.html quickly thinks better].
* In ''[[Arthur, King of Time and Space]]'', Arthur doesn't want to be High King of Britain (or High King of British Space, or C.E.O. of Excallicorp), but his sense of responsibility is too strong to give it up.
* Zoe is like this a bit in ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]''. She just wants to graduate from college and get a good job, while all her friends are more interested in summoning demons, exploring [[Another Dimension|other dimensions]], building giant robots, fighting vampires, or conocting various [[Zany Scheme
** In the Stormbinger arc, she appears to muster up her will in an attempt to avert this trope. Except that amongst her circle of friends, taking a shotgun into a time-travelling go-kart ''is normal''.
* In ''[[Misfile]]'' this is Ash's eternal lament. What with the [[Gender Bender]], the drunken angel posing as her boyfriend, and being treated like the local [[Badass]]'s [[Replacement Goldfish|surrogate little sister]] you can't really blame her.
Line 363:
== Western Animation ==
* Several episodes of ''[[My Life as a Teenage Robot]]'' deal with Jenny's quirky attempts to achieve normality.
* In the ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (TV series)|Legion of Super Heroes]]'' cartoon episode "Legacy," Alexis dismisses her trillionaire heiress [[Lonely Rich Kid]]/[[Rich Bitch]] lifestyle with "
* Aang in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', in regards to being the [[Chosen One]]. Even after being forced to accept the call, he still holds some desire to be a normal kid. In the third season, he goes as far as to take the huge risk of enrolling in a Fire Nation school just to experience what it's like being a normal kid, despite his friends' protests.
{{quote|'''Aang''': You don't know what it's like, Sokka -- you get to be [[Badass Normal|normal all the time]].}}
| |||