Little Hero, Big War: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|The Milky Way galaxy is a big place. So big, in fact, that attempting to tell its story would be a job for [[God]], or maybe [[The Wheel of Time|Robert Jordan]]. It's the smaller stories that interest us, the galactic mega-epic is just an out-of-focus backdrop for individual heroes and villains.|''[[
There's a big war going on. Lots of people are going to fight, many will die. It's the setting of a big epic. And in the midst of all this is...?
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== Fanfiction ==
* Even the [[Neon Genesis Evangelion|Evangelions]] are tiny compared to the scale of Aeon War in ''[[Aeon Natum Engel (Fanfic)|Aeon Natum Engel]]''. Most evident in Operation CATO where after the initial beachhead assault they get a little [[Out of Focus]].
** Ditto in its rewrite ''[[
== [[Film]] ==
* [[The Good, the Bad
== [[Literature]] ==
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* ''[[Red Storm Rising]]'' by [[Tom Clancy]] plays on this theme with the subplot of US Air Force Lt. Mike Edwards, a meteorologist who escaped the [[Dirty Communists]] [[Macross Missile Massacre]] of his air base at Keflavik, Iceland. He then leads a [[Five-Man Band]] of Marines across the island, directed by [[Mission Control]] on his handily acquired satellite radio to scout out Russian troop movements and assist in making sure the landing zone for a beachhead is relatively unguarded.
** ''Everyone'' in ''[[Red Storm Rising]]'' has a very small part in much larger events: it is [[World War Three]], after all. Even the Jack Ryan [[Expy]] is mainly limited to passing various insights to his superiors then hearing nothing more about it as they're picked up in other story arcs. The characters with the best claim to being protagonists (as in those who have the most effect on the outcome) are the three ''Russians''.
* This is a theme of much of [[
** Bilbo is the main character of ''[[The Hobbit]]'' but actually spends the entire climactic final battle unconscious, having been accidentally hit in the head with a rock. On a larger scope, while it looks like the most important thing to come out of the war is the reestablishment of Erebor and Dale, the really important thing is eliminating Smaug as a potential ally to Sauron. And of course, Bilbo's discovery of the One Ring and pity on Gollum are both more important than even that.
** Frodo from ''[[Lord of the Rings]]'' is the primary main character, but he does none of the fighting, and does not get involved in the war directly at all. What he gets is the equivalent of a behind the lines assassination attempt. Even he only manages to succeed because his gardener tagged along.
** Even in the First Age, the story ''looks'' at first glance like a war story in which the angry Noldorin Elves march to war against the Dark Power, there are armies and sorceries and great cities and fortresses...but in the end, what really mattered in the Elven war against Morgoth was to bring Men into indirect contact with the influence of the Valar for good and wisdom, and to bring Beren into contact with Luthien, and Tuur with Idril, bringing a strain of each race's inheritance into the other race.
* In the ''[[Grey Griffins]]'' books, the main characters are four kids who mostly snoop around and attempt to solve mysteries and figure things out. Other than a few times they save themselves with their own wits, it's usually adults who save them from danger. When the kids stay in a castle that comes under siege in the second book, adults do all of the fighting, while the kids simply run and try to stay alive.
* [[Tad Williams]] enjoys this trope, a good part of the cast of the ''[[Otherland]]'' novels are little heroes in a big... conspiracy and the main character of ''[[Memory,
* The ''[[Dragaera|Taltos]]'' novels also have a definite aspect of this, where Vlad always seems to run into a small manifestation of some larger conflict between powerful Dragaerans and/or Living Gods. Arguably, this occurs because an audience wouldn't be interested in heroes who would be expected to solve problems easily, not to mention that it wouldn't be a very long book with them as main characters.
* Larger-scale example from ''[[Warhammer 40000]]:'' the [[
** Hell, this happens ''all the time'' in ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'', and particularly with the Guard in general. Acts of heroism will likely go unrecorded and unremembered because they are happening ''all the time''.
* In the ''[[Discworld]]'' book ''[[Discworld
** Arguably ''[[Discworld
* The ''[[Fighting Fantasy]]'' book ''The Crimson Tide'' follows the life of a boy seeking his mother, against the backdrop of the war from ''Black Vein Prophecy''.
* Found in the second trilogy of ''Emberverse'' books, with Rudi Mackenzie and his band trekking across America while the Church Universal and Triumphant is trying to conquer or subjugate everything west of the Rockies.
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** ''[[Scion]] Companion'' provides rules to make running a war scenario a bit easier... largely by turning units of soldiers into "single" characters, system-wise, a little like ''[[Nintendo Wars]]''.
** ''[[Mutants and Masterminds]]'' uses the same system as well, by once again turning a large army into a single character.
** Averted hard in [[Deathwatch (
** Of all [[Dungeons and Dragons]] settings, none played this as straight as [[Planescape]]. The Blood War could involve multiple armies, each of them a variant of [[The Legions of Hell]]. Each side fields millions of assorted demonic or devilish horrors. Allies, mercenaries, and interfering groups could make the battle even bigger. Through all this wandered a small party of 4-6 player characters. When plot lines called for the players to make a big difference in the war, they usually did it by being a [[Spanner in
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* Video games which have a war in the background usually put the player character in this role. By letting the player be the one to take out the crucial target which lets the [[Redshirt Army]] advance, the player feels like they won the battle, the game maintains its large scope, and the story can be made dramatic. In military shooters, this partially explains part of the reason why the player is so often part of a special operations force; those groups usually get those kinds of missions.
* The original ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]''. Aside from gathering the lost Words of Power, the PC is free to indulge in countless crypt ventures, werewolf hunts, and goblin cave raids while the war between Luskan and Neverwinter rages on. This is made even more painful by the fact that in the end, the Ancient Evil baddie still manages to get her hands on the most important Word of Power before you do, thus enabling her to do the very ritual you were trying to stop her from doing by getting the Words of Power first.
* ''[[Assassin's Creed
** ''[[
* Inverted in ''[[Defense of the Ancients]]''. For what is supposedly a large-scale final battle between the Sentinel and the Scourge, each side only fields a maximum of five Heroes and an oddly small number of Mooks.
** Pretty much the way [[
* Played straight with ''[[Wing Commander (
* ''[[
** Likewise is ''[[
* A whole civil war is going on in the background while you fight for the highest bidder in ''[[Mechwarrior 4]]: Mercenaries''. Although towards the end you do start to get missions throwing you into some of the fighting of the Fedcom civil war.
* ''[[The Witcher]]'' remains this through most of the game. The principle of neutrality is often emphasized, up to the point where the player must make a choice that will put Geralt against one or all sides of a war. In the novels, maintaining neutrality becomes a greater and greater dilemma for Geralt of Rivia.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* Bungie's ''[[Myth]]'' series also utilizes this kind of narrative. Gradually inverted as the endgame approaches, since {{spoiler|the good guys suffer such a devastating [[Pyrrhic Victory]] your unit are pretty much all that's left}}.
** There is also compelling evidence that both narrators are also incredible badasses, as they survive every battle of the campaign and are then hand-picked for small elite teams that decide the fate of the world in the finale.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[
{{quote| [[Lampshade Hanging|Of course,]] [[Subverted Trope|there was this one time]] when the fate of the entire Milky Way hung on the actions of a few undercompensated people. . .This was one of those rare cases where a little story had a very, very big ending. Or maybe where the big story has a very, very small beginning.}}
* ''[[Last
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* There is some semblance of truth in this. In the medieval era, it wasn't uncommon for travelers from one nation to interact with citizens from another nation that they're ostensibly warring with. The rise of nationalism and industrialization mostly put an end to this, so it's a strange idea for modern readers.
** As far as specific people go, there's [[The Travels of Marco Polo
{{reflist}}
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