Little Hero, Big War: Difference between revisions

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Contrast [[The Chosen One]], who is committed to single-handedly [[Saving the World]].

== Fanfiction ==

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== [[Literature]] ==

* Terry Brooks' ''[[The Elfstones of Shannara]]'' has the hero Wil Ohmsford protecting [[The Chosen One]] while she makes the journey that will ultimately save the world. In the background, [[Badass]] Druid Allanon and Ander Elessedil lead the combined forces of Men, Dwarves, Trolls, and Elves against the Demonic hordes of [[Big Bad|The Dagda Mor]]. To be fair to Wil, his efforts do result in the end of the war and the saving of the world, and he ''does'' kill [[The Dragon]], a [[Nightmare Fuel]] inducing monster called The Reaper.

* ''[[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.

* ''[[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 [[JRR Tolkien (Creator)|JRR Tolkien]]'s work. Part of the subtext of all his Middle-earth stories are that what looks important to mortals is not necessarily what is actually important, and the world is so big and complicated and subtle that really, only God knows (literally!) what is and is not important, and how much so.

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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 I (Video Game)|Assassin's Creed I]]'' is set during the Crusades, with Richard the Lionheart's army of Crusaders fighting the Saracen armies of Saladin. However, with the exception of a scene at the end of the game where Altair [[One Man Army|hacks his way through half of both sides' forces all on his lonesome]] most of the action is relegated to the background, with the Assassins fighting the Templars covertly in the cities supporting the war. These aren't the standard Cruasader Templars either; they basically form a ''fourth'' independent faction (the Assassins are the third).

* ''[[Assassin's Creed I (Video Game)|Assassin's Creed I]]'' is set during the Crusades, with Richard the Lionheart's army of Crusaders fighting the Saracen armies of Saladin. However, with the exception of a scene at the end of the game where Altair [[One-Man Army|hacks his way through half of both sides' forces all on his lonesome]] most of the action is relegated to the background, with the Assassins fighting the Templars covertly in the cities supporting the war. These aren't the standard Cruasader Templars either; they basically form a ''fourth'' independent faction (the Assassins are the third).

** ''[[Assassin's Creed II (Video Game)|Assassin's Creed II]]'', on the other hand, decided to go the other way, with Ezio meddling directly in the affairs of a number of [[In the Past Everyone Will Be Famous|important Renaissance figures]], from Lorenzo di Medici to Niccolo Machiavelli to Leonardo da Vinci to the ENTIRE BORGIA FAMILY.

* 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.