Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
213,906
edits
Self-Made Man: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
m (Mass update links) |
No edit summary |
||
| (7 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 2:
[[File:SelfMadeDuck.jpg|link=Don Rosa|frame|[[The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck|Young Scrooge McDuck]] sets the record straight with Flintheart Glomgold.]]
{{quote|''"A self-made man, who worships his creator."''|'''John Bright''' on '''[[
This person, frequently but not always a business-person, owes no one for what they have save themselves, except for those who created them or gave them birth -- ''usually''. Be it through hard work, keen business acumen, sheer determination and/or a dollop of serendipity, they have gone from unimportant to important. This is who you get at the end of [[Rags to Riches]], but this is not that trope because the Self-Made Man is often there right at the start of the story, whereas [[Rags to Riches]] follows the course that leads a character here.
Line 10:
How others view them varies; typically, in works set further back in history, they are looked down on as upstarts, a reflection of the dislike a lot of the nobility had for the power shift following the Industrial Revolution. In more modern settings they are often the most respected people in business because they had to climb the ladder from the bottom.
Expect them to show fewer social graces but often more political savvy than [[Blue Blood|the more traditionally wealthy]]. Except when he is feverishly trying to imitiate and become socially accepted by the [[Blue Blood
A common variant on this is to have heroes start wealthy, but forsake their wealth (or have it stripped from them) so they can remake themselves from scratch; often this is done with characters that canonically inherited their wealth in order to show that they really 'earned' it. Note that [[Fridge Logic]] reveals that this isn't really the same thing as making yourself up from absolutely
An evil or [[Jerkass]] version of this trope is the [[Nouveau Riche]]. As this character tends to [[Default to Good]], it can be seen as an [[Inverted Trope|inversion]] of [[Ambition Is Evil]].
Line 23:
{{examples}}
== [[Advertising]] ==
* Referenced with an old Tim Horton's commercial. An old man is speaking to his grandson (or perhaps great-grandson), saying that when he came to [[Canada, Eh?|Canada]] he had only two dollars, but by working hard and saving his money, he was able to provide for his family, and now things were good for them. In turn, he gives his descendant two dollars, to use to make his family proud. Subverted when the child promptly buys a 20-pack of Timbits, though of course the grandfather is not disappointed with the gift of pastries.
Line 29 ⟶ 28:
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Seto Kaiba from ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]''. He did inherit the company, but only through his own intelligence and reformed it completely afterwards.
** His ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX|GX]]'' [[Expy]] Jun Manjyome comes from an incredibly rich family but decides he wants to be this character instead and resolves to achieve success via his own merits and [[Break the Haughty|not his brothers' money or fame]].
* Jack Rakan of [[Mahou Sensei Negima]]; the reason that he's a beloved invincible war hero is because he {{spoiler|literally fought his way to the top despite starting out at rock bottom as a gladiatorial slave.}}
** [[Jerk
* As part of his being the poster boy for [[Eagle Land]] (both versions), ''[[G Gundam]]'''s Chibodee Crocket was an orphan who built himself up from street urchin to the Heavyweight Boxing Champ as well as America's representative in the 13th Gundam Fight. This is the reason why he believes so fiercely in the concept of the American Dream - he's living proof that it's possible.
* Marianne from ''[[Code Geass]]'' can be seen as this. In a society where you only matter if you're from a noble lineage, she manages to get into the most elite knight order of the empire and eventually becomes a consort to the Emperor. A position usually reserved for daughters of important noble families.
** Her son Lelouch may also count. He obtained half the world on his own, without relying on his royal lineage.
* In ''[[
* Franky of [[One Piece]] is a
* Fujioka Yukari, the female protagonist of ''[[Billionaire Girl]]'', amassed a fortune of 170 billion yen working as a day trader. And she's just 18.
* Fujitaka Kinomoto from ''[[
== [[Comic Books]] ==
Line 53 ⟶ 51:
* In ''[[Judge Dredd]]'', [[President Evil|Martin]] [[The Starscream|Sinfield]] is proud of the fact that he wasn't cloned or fast-tracked to the top, but instead worked his way up from the bottom. The fraud, bribery, and criminality were completely for the good of the city. Absolutely.
* Though Tony Stark was born into wealth, it's been taken from him multiple times, causing him to build it back up by himself every time, the most notable being when Stane took his entire company from him and Stark built a new one from the ground up.
== [[Film]] ==
Line 60 ⟶ 57:
* George Kittridge in ''[[The Philadelphia Story]]''
* The eponymous serial killer in ''[[Mr. Brooks]]'' founded, owns and runs a successful box-making company.
* Nick Vanderpark, the character portrayed by Jack Black in ''[[Envy (
* Roger Calloway in ''[[It Takes Two]]''.
* Biff Tannen sort of became one in ''[[Back to The Future]] II''. His self from 2015 traveled in time to give his 1955 self an almanac with sports results from 1950 to 2000 so past Biff would become wealthy from gambling. Sure, it ended up being for naught, since Marty and Doc undid the damages to the timeline but, he was quite wealthy in 1985 until then.
* Rudolf Smuntz in [[Mousehunt]].
== [[Literature]] ==
* Perhaps the most famous example in western canon is Jay Gatsby of ''[[The Great Gatsby]]''. Born poor, he falls in love with a girl above his station and dedicates himself to making money to win her back. He's fantastically wealthy by the time the story starts, and is famous for the lavish parties he constantly throws in his opulent mansion. {{spoiler|Alas, his true love still rejects him.}}
* Heathcliff in ''[[Wuthering Heights (
** He then proceeds to {{spoiler|swindle both Hindley and Edgar out of their respective properties.}}
* [[
** Harry King (AKA Piss Harry, The King of the Golden River) went from gutter-born mud lark to one of the richest men in the city by realising there is nothing so foul that someone doesn't want it
** Vimes is a peripheral example, in that the Watch ended up in its modern place of power because of his hard work, but in his personal life he married way, way up.
*** It's worth noting that he's far happier about being married to Sybil Ramkin than he is about the fact that it meant marrying a noble in the bargain. In spite of (or perhaps because of) now being a member of the gentry, his disdain for them is stronger than ever.
** C.M.O.T. Dibbler is not an example, despite all his best efforts.
** Mr Bucket in ''[[
** Willie Hobson, of Hobson's Livery Stable, another businessman in the mold of Harry King who had 'found a niche, occupied it, then forced it open so wide a lot of money dropped in'.
* Sir Willoughby Parfitt in [[Sharpe|''Sharpe's Justice'']].
Line 83 ⟶ 79:
* Hank Rearden and John Galt from ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]''. [[Rich Idiot With No Day Job|Francisco d'Anconia]] managed this despite being the heir to a fortune: He snuck out to work at a copper foundry, and managed to earn enough money on his own to purchase the foundry himself, while learning the family business firsthand.
** Howard Roark from ''The Fountainhead'' also qualifies.
* [[
** Klaus Hauptmann is another, albeit antagonistic, example and bears a hidden distaste for old money.
* The benefactor in [[
* Dr. Bledsoe in [[Invisible Man (
* Well before the time of [[The Thrawn Trilogy]], Thrawn had made Grand Admiral despite literally being an alien who had been picked up off of a distant planet. He'd been a Commander [[Outbound Flight|among his people]], but had been exiled to an unpopulated world. The Empire was quite [[Fantastic Racism|biased against nonhumans]] and he started with no rank among them, but he was a strategic and tactical genius the likes of which the galaxy had rarely if ever seen, so despite his [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|many oddities]] he was able to pull himself up into a position that let him command the Empire itself, in that trilogy.
* Wang Lung, the hard-working Chinese farmer from ''[[The Good Earth]]''.
* Captain Frederick Wentworth of [[
* In [[Robert E. Howard
** Conan is not kidding on that score either; he attained the throne of Aquilonia by leading a rebellion against its last king, a [[The Caligula|Caligula]] by the name of Numedides, who he personally slew by his own hand.
** In "The Shadow Kingdom", [[Kull]].
* Alexandria's [[Character Arc]] in the ''[[Emperor]]'' books consists of becoming one of these; she starts off as a slave, but manages to earn her freedom in the first book and goes on to become a successful jeweller.
* James T. Sedgwick, maternal uncle of the protagonist of ''[[
* Rourke, from the ''[[In Death]]'' series, starts out as a poor Irish street brat and becomes an obscenely wealthy member of the [[Fiction 500]] through a combination of illegal and legal business ventures.
* In [[
* In [[
* During one of [[Isaac Asimov]]'s "Black Widowers" mysteries, some of the characters were discussing this concept. Then one of them raised the possibility that ''[[Celebrity Paradox|Asimov]]'' was a self-made man, and another character who [[Vitriolic Best Buds|knew]] Asimov invoked the "worships his creator" line from the page quote.
** Their dinner guest that night '''was''' a self-made man, who told them how he solved a riddle posed in a would-be benefactor's will. Deducing the answer won him a valuable rare book, which financed the start of what he built into a nationwide bookstore chain.
{{quote|"I couldn't have gotten my start without [the benefactor], so that maybe I'm ''not'' a self-made man. And yet, he didn't ''give'' me anything. I had to work it out for myself, so maybe I ''am'' a self-made man."}}
* ''[[
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
▲* ''[[Black Adder]] the Third'' parodies the rising industrialists in [[Regency England]] with Amy Hardwood's father, a farmer's son who invented the Ravelling Nancy and now owns more mills than the Prince Regent has brain cells (seven). Unfortunately, he seems to have squandered his wealth on god-knows-what and is currently dirt-poor.
* Tony Curtis' character in ''[[The Persuaders]]'' is a self-made millionaire who grew up in the Bronx. The contrast between him and Roger Moore's character, a British aristocrat, is frequently played up for [[Odd Couple|humorous effect]].
* [[Mad Men|Don Draper]], casts off his old life (literally) and rebuilds himself as the best ad-man on Madison Avenue after the Korean War.
* George Jefferson. He's not as rich as the other guys on this list, but he started off as a janitor and with the help of an insurance settlement opened and ran a [[All In The
* Uncle Phil from ''[[Fresh Prince of Bel Air]]'' was originally a farmboy from a small rural town who managed to better himself and eventually became a rich and successful lawyer in California. This meant that he usually displayed more common sense than all his children combined -- [[Rule of Funny|usually]].
* Nikos Karabastos from Brazilian soap opera ''[[Uga Uga]]'' was originally employee of a toy factory who, tired of his employers not seeing the merit of his ideas, [[Start My Own|started his own]] toy factory.
* Lionel Luthor in ''[[Smallville]]'' started his fortune with half the insurance money he collected when he had his parents [[Self
** It comes from the comics where it is sometimes stated to be the way ''Lex'' Luthor got the seed money to start his empire.
* Stymie Bundy in ''[[Married...
* General Martok in [[Deep Space Nine]] clawed and hacked( [[Klingon Promotion|probably literally at times]] ) his way to flag rank in the Klingon forces despite his poor birth and the opposition from aristocracy. He was a [[Badass]] by ''Klingon'' standards.
* Even though [[Gilmore Girls|Lorelai Gilmore]] comes from money, she ran away from home as an unwed mother, got her first job basically because the inn's owner took pity on her, lived in a tool shed and less than twenty years later owned her own house and was part owner of her own inn.
* Yermolai Alekhseevich Lopajin from [[
▲== [[Theater]] ==
▲* Yermolai Alekhseevich Lopajin from [[Anton Chekhov (Creator)|Anton Chekhov]]'s ''The Cherry Orchard'', as a direct contrast with [[Impoverished Patrician|Impoverished Patricians]] like Madame Ranevskaya, Gaiev or Simeonov-Pischik.
== [[Video Games]] ==
Line 125 ⟶ 121:
** Common in community modules, too. The Player Character in Tales of Arterra is an orphan raised by simple farmers, who wins a title of nobility at the end of the first module and goes on to (depending on your choices) head one of the most powerful churches in the world.
** The Player Character in Sanctum of the Archmage was the child of poor foresters, who (as the story stands) is presently set to become a close adviser to the next King/Queen at the very least.
* Robert House of ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]''. While he was born to wealthy parents, he was cheated out of his inheritance upon their death by his half-brother. That didn't stop him from attending MIT, founding RobCo (the company responsible for building most of the robots of the series, including [[Humongous Mecha|Liberty Prime]]) and buying out several companies within Vegas, including his brother's. Using his vast resources, he managed to mostly preserve Vegas from the nuclear war, giving the Mojave Wasteland a possible chance for restoration.
* Fei Long from [[Street Fighter]], according to his backstory. He began training in Kung-Fu as a 6-year-old child, as a teenager he became a stuntman for HK movies ''and'' got into informal streetfighting, and from then on he worked hard in minor roles and training to reach the top. An assistant director asked him to show his skills in a single scene take, and the rest is history.
** All but stated in the case of Sagat, too. The humble Thai village that he visits in [[Street Fighter IV]] is strongly hinted to be the "Emperor of Muay Thai"'s hometown, and the elder of said place is one of his relatives (apparently, his eldest brother).
== [[Web Original]] ==
* [[Homestar Runner|Bubs]] claims to be a self-made man. [[CMOT Dibbler|That's debatable]].
* Phase of the [[Whateley Universe]]. After being thrown out of his wealthy family, he used a payoff from his father and his knowledge of Goodkind enterprises to make money using derivatives in the stock market; then he put together a consortium and bought out a series of corporate units that he realized would work better when consolidated. As of spring of his freshman year in ''high school'' he's a billionaire.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[The Simpsons (
** Parodied with Mr. Burns, who declares himself a
** Of course, since Burns wrote on a medical form that the "Cause of Parents' Deaths" was "Got in my way", he [[Self
** And he apparently had many older siblings who all died under "unfortunate" circumstances, mostly poisoned potatoes, leaving him the sole heir.
** He did, however, gain his entire fortune back in the course of one episode after it was taken away from him. He did this, of course, by recycling, which he still managed to make evil.
** Herb Powell, Homer's illegitimate half-brother, grew up in Shelbyville Orphanage, washed cars for his college classmates to pay for his education and became a car manufacturer, with said classmates being now his board of directors. Homer ruined this, sending Herb to the poorhouse until he invented a device that translated baby talk. Despite the invention being a success back when it was made and the Simpsons having a baby, the device was never seen in any other episode.
* Xanatos in ''[[
** A ''self made'' [[Stable Time Loop|causality loop]]. Anyway, he still turned $20,000 into a multi-billion dollar company all on his own.
*** In retrospect, it would be even better if he sent back future financial information on stock, commodity, real estate, and currency markets, but that would be too easy. Note: Xanatos sent himself a coin ''that he earned for services rendered in the past'', maximizing his bragging rights.
**** Besides, it's ''[[Xanatos Planned This Index|Xanatos]]''. He gets a pass.
** He drags his [["Well Done, Son" Guy|father]] into the loop specifically because he wants to prove to him that he's a Self Made Man. His dad isn't impressed.
* Long Feng from ''[[
** Technically middle-class; it's [[All There in the Manual]] that he's the son of a Middle Ring merchant, but in a city with [[Urban Segregation]] with ''actual giant walls'', that's still pretty impressive.
* Hiroshi Sato from ''[[
* Cornelius Robinson, brilliant inventor and industrialist in ''[[Meet the Robinsons]]'' who is responsible for just about all the amazing futuristic technology found in the year 2037. {{spoiler|He is the future self of Lewis, the main character.}}
* Mr. Ridgemount in [[Stoked]].
* Virginia's father in [[Lola and Virginia]].
== [[Real Life]] ==
* 'Too many examples to list (so please don't bother to try').
* That said, it's worth explaining the page quote a little. [[
** Didn't hurt that he also [[Gold Digger|married a very rich woman]]. ([[Happily Married|Happily, he also loved her as a person.]])
* U.S. patriots owe a lot and pay homage to [[Benjamin Franklin]]. According to [[The Other Wiki]] "he exemplified the emerging American nation. Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical and democratic values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment."
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Stock Characters]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Rich People]]
▲[[Category:Trope]]
| |||