Kid Sidekick/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: An adult hero will have an incredibly young sidekick.

  • Straight: Meet Trope Man and his 12 year old sidekick, Wiki Lad.
  • Exaggerated: Meet Trope Man and his 3 month old sidekick, The Troping Toddler.
  • Justified: Despite his age, Wiki Lad is incredibly talented and Trope Man has decided to make himself his mentor.
    • Or Trope Man is his babysitter or other guardian and he can't leave him alone on adventures.
    • Trope Man is fighting villains with standards, and took advantage of that to get a sidekick that's effectively immortal.
    • Wiki Lad would have taken up the fight against crime anyway, and at least as Trope Man's sidekick, he at least has a more experienced vigilante watching his back.
  • Inverted: Older Sidekick
  • Subverted: Trope Man introduces his new sidekick, Wiki Lad, who actually appears to be the same age as Trope Man.
  • Double Subverted: But Wiki Lad is wearing a disguise to make himself appear older so that the foes will take him seriously. He's actually 8.
  • Parodied: Unborn sidekick: Trope Man's daughter is pregnant, the fetus has psychic powers it can already use, so Trope Man brings the daughter along with him.
  • Deconstructed: Despite being skilled, Wiki Lad is still just a kid being forced to act like an adult. This causes him to lose his childhood and he never really grows up. This causes psychological problems down the road.
  • Reconstructed: But who cares? He's young now and kicking butt.
  • Zig Zagged: ???
  • Averted: Kids are not used as sidekicks.
  • Enforced: "We need to introduce a young character to the team to appeal to our younger audiences. Let's give Trope Man a kid sidekick.
  • Lampshaded: "Dude, you just got your ass kicked by a ten-year-old in spandex." "Shut up, Bob..."
  • Invoked: Trope Man specifically looks for a child to become his sidekick because he secretly always wanted to be a father.
  • Defied: Trope Man will not allow a child to fight crime, and hires someone older instead.
  • Discussed: "Is that a kid fighting alongside Trope Man?" "Yep." "Aren't there child labor laws against that sort of thing?" "You want to tell him that?"
  • Conversed: "Why are superheroes always choosing kids to be their sidekicks? That isn't very smart."

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