Right Man in the Wrong Place: Difference between revisions

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== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* Otonashi of ''[[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}}.

* Otonashi of ''[[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}}.

* [[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]].

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* 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 the 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]].

* Stephen Swain in Matthew Reilly's ''Contest''. He is just a radiologist at a hospital before fighting deadly aliens in a life and death contest.

* 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.

* Symbologist Robert Langdon, star of [[Dan Brown]]'s books ''[[Angels & 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.

* The hero of Terry Pratchett's Johnny Maxwell books is constantly described as being nobody special, so ordinary that people don't notice him. ("I was in the shop with my mates." "I remember a black boy and a fat boy, I don't rememember anyone else." "That was me!") He becomes a hero because he does what needs to be done, when other people would walk away and leave someone else to do it.

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* Gordon Freeman from the ''[[Half Life]]'' franchise is the [[Trope Namer]], from the G-Man's quote about him above. Ordinary scientist of theoretical physics, forced to become a [[One-Man Army]] against a horde of alien gribblies. And not only does he kill the aliens, he also kills most of the military force sent to contain the situation. Interestingly enough, in ''[[Half Life]] 2'' Gordon is actually a subversion; the G-Man himself has purposefully left Gordon at a specific place and time, rather than Gordon falling into it by accident or chance. The G-Man's quote is actually a reference to the previous game, where the trope was played straight.

* The origin stories in ''[[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]]'' 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.

* Roger Wilco, from the ''[[Space Quest]]'' series, has saved the day numerous times despite being a simple janitor (and not [[Almighty Janitor|a very good one]] at that.)

* The Cyborg from Bungie's Marathon series would count. He just happened to be the one Durandal roped into his schemes, and as a result saved the human race from alien slavers and a chaos god.

* In the first group of ''[[.hack]]'' video games, the main character Kite only got the power to Data Drain because his friend Orca (who was originally supposed to receive it) fell into a coma as he was about to receive it. Because of that, [[Woman in White|Aura]] had to give Kite the power because he was the only one there.

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

* Despite the baggage on his family name, all [[Tron 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.