Right Man in the Wrong Place: Difference between revisions

Hell, no! You're a man, not a mouse! (<ref>Unless your name is Mickey, and if it is you're unlikely to be in that situation in the first place - but [[Kingdom Hearts|we've got]] [[Epic Mickey|sources]] that say you'd kick ass if found in it anyway.)</ref>

A type of [[Action Survivor]]. On the [[Super Weight|TV Tropestropes power scale]], these usually rate as Muggle Weight or Iron Weight. Compare [[Falling Into the Cockpit]], and compare/contrast [[Unlikely Hero]] and [[Heroic Bystander]].

* Otonashi of ''[[Angel Beats (Anime)|Angel Beats!]]''. The circumstances of his death involve {{spoiler|an underground train accident that left only a handful of badly wounded survivors in a blocked subway tunnel. Otonashi just so happened to be a med student, and was able to keep most of the survivors alive for an entire week; he himself died just minutes before rescue crews finally arrived}}. This also counts for the main story, in a way; {{spoiler|ordinarily Otonashi would never have made it to Purgatory, as he died fulfilled. His amnesia got him in, and only someone who knew what fulfillment felt like would be able to help the SSS accept their former lives and move on to new ones}}.

* Negi Springfield of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' started off like this, who was tasked with teaching an [[Unwanted Harem]] after he graduated from magical school. [[Trope Overdosed|Now look where it led us]].

* [[Harrison Ford|President James Marshall]], from the movie ''[[Air Force One (Filmfilm)|Air Force One]]'' (like Jack Ryan, below, he's long-retired military, in this case Vietnam experience courtesy of the Army)

* [[Sigourney Weaver|Ellen Ripley]] from the ''[[Alien (Filmfranchise)|Alien]]'' franchise, particularly the second movie (the closest to the classic action format). A cargo officer on an interstellar tug with no previous martial experience, she nonetheless manages to destroy alien menaces that claim the lives of fellow crewmen, superhuman cyborgs, and heavily armed [[Space Marine|space marines]] alike. Seems like the only ones she can't defeat are the [[Executive Meddling|producers]].

* The essential premise behind [[Bruce Willis (Creator)|John McClane]] of ''[[Die Hard (Film)|Die Hard]]''. Except for the third movie, he always stumbled into a position to not only kick ass but save the day, but if not he would be okay with someone else doing it. He says so repeatedly. ''Die Hard 2'' had the tag line, "John McClane is back in the wrong place at the wrong time!" He is a policeman (though always off-duty when the actual excitement happens), but not a trained counter-terror expert or anything.

* [[Older Than They Think]] ; [[GKG. K. Chesterton]]'s ''[[Father Brown]]'' says the [[Trope Namer|trope name]] in the story The Sins of Prince Saradine.

{{quote| '''Father Brown''': One can sometimes do good by being the right person in the wrong place.}}

* The titular protagonist of [[Tom Clancy]]'s [[Jack Ryan (Literature)|Jack Ryan]] novels and [[The Movie of the Book|related movies]]. At one time he was a US Marine, but that's years behind him, and at the beginning of his debut, in the novel ''The Hunt for Red October'', he's a historian and an intelligence analyst for the CIA. From there, he gets shoved into the role of Hero because he's the only one on the scene with all the information needed to complete the mission.

* The titular Midshipman of the ''[[Seafort Saga]]'' is on a routine space flight when disaster removes the entire chain of command down to him, leaving him in charge. He has no leadership or officer skills and gets by on the fact that he ''must'' be the [[Right Man in Thethe Wrong Place]] and that he is willing to take responsibility for making horrible choices for the right reasons. He does what it takes first to keep order on his ship, and eventually to save the human species from being wiped out by [[Starfish Aliens]].

* Symbologist Robert Langdon, star of [[Dan Brown]]'s books ''[[Angels and& Demons]]'', ''[[The Da Vinci Code]]'' and ''[[The Lost Symbol]]'', is a life-long tweed-wearing academic and Harvard professor who has claustrophobia. He is thrown into larger-than-life and often very dangerous situations where a lot is at stake, and only he has the expertise to get to the bottom of many a [[Conspiracy Kitchen Sink]]. Langdon has survived shootouts, car chases, pursuit by the police, attempted drownings and much more.

* ''[[Twenty Four24]]'': Jack Bauer keeps trying to get away from CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit), yet at the beginning of every season, he always somehow ends up being the one person in place to stop a major terrorist attack. For example:

** At the beginning of season 4, he's an assistant to the Secretary of Defense in Washington, DC, in a desk job. He has to go to the CTU office in Los Angeles to do a review of their work--onwork—on the same day that a major terrorist attack in Los Angeles launches.

* ''[[Firefly]]'s'' Malcolm Reynolds was very much the right man to take on a very wrong pair of passengers, which ultimately ended in the events of ''[[Serenity (Film)|Serenity]]''.

* The Everyman Hero archetype from ''[[Feng Shui (Tabletop Game)|Feng Shui]]'' was built with this kind of character in mind.

* The origin stories in ''[[Dragon Age (Video Game)|Dragon Age]]'' all have the right person in the wrong place at the wrong time, although for [[Rule of Fun|gameplay reasons]] every character has at least some training in combat.

* Hawke of ''[[Dragon Age II (Video Game)|Dragon Age II]]'' rose to prominence and lead to one of the most important events in Thedas's history almost totally unintentionally. The plot of the game explains how s/he managed to find themselves in these situations.

* Isaac Clarke of ''[[Dead Space (Videovideo Gamegame)|Dead Space]]'' and ''[[Dead Space 2 (Video Game)|Dead Space 2]]'', an engineer who survives two necromorph outbreaks and beats insanity.

* Despite the baggage on his family name, all [[Tron Two Point Oh (Video Game)2.0|Jet Bradley]] wanted to do was program video games and stay the hell out of corporate intrigue. But when a phone conversation with his father is interrupted by intruders in the laser lab, he runs in to see what's going on and ends up zapped to cyberspace to fight a computer virus and a ''very'' hostile corporate takeover.

* ''[[Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic)|Schlock Mercenary]]'': [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-12-18 This Qlaviql ore freighter captain.]

[[Category:Right Man Inin Thethe Wrong Place]]