Holding Out for a Hero: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

I'm [[Trope Namer|holding out for a hero]] till the end of the night<br />

he's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast<br />

 

* Arguably, the [[Aesop]] of ''[[Gundam Wing]] [[The Movie|Endless Waltz]]'' is "Don't wait for the heroes, do it yourself", a point emphasized by [[Rebellious Princess|Relena]] abandoning her stance of [[Actual Pacifist|Total Pacifism]] to encourage the [[Muggles|civilians]] to stand up to the invading army, and by [[Dark Chick|Dorothy Catalonia]]'s rather effective [["The Reason You Suck" Speech|Reason You Suck Speech]] to them when they still don't grasp what Relena was telling them.

'''Dorothy:''' That's funny, I don't see any men around here. The only men I know are either dead and buried, or are up on that screen! ''(points at giant TV showing the Gundam Pilots fighting)'' }}

* Completely averted in ''[[One Piece]]''. Luffy has made it clear several times that if he comes across a place that subscribes to this philosophy, he's perfectly willing to let it rot. Fortunately, most of the places Luffy visits is filled with people perfectly willing to fight for what's important to them. The closest the series comes to this is a good denizens of [[Monster Mash|Thriller Bark]], who are holding out for someone like Luffy to get their shadows back, but justified due to this being because they already ''tried'' on several occasions and utterly failed every time.

** In ''[[Superman Red Son]]'', wherein a communist Superman had no problems with using his abilities to prevent every bad thing possible (from each according to his abilities and all that), people did indeed grow too reliant upon him to solve all their problems. Eventually cars stopped being manufactured with seatbelts -- the citizens expected Superman to save them if they got into a wreck. (Ironically enough, Lex Luthor opposed him on those grounds in that reality, too.)

** Superman's ultimate retort to Lex Luthor comes in ''[[All-Star Superman]]'' at the end:

'''Superman''': You could have saved the world ''years'' ago if you had ''wanted'' to. }}

** This explains Lois Lane's reckless behavior in many of the [[Golden Age]] comics and [[Fleischer Studios]] [[Superman Theatrical Cartoons]]. She gets in trouble so often because she's sure Superman will always come to save her, and in fact she ''wants'' the excuse to see Superman again. Highlighted in [[Elliot S! Maggin]]'s novel ''[[Last Son of Krypton]]'':

'''Lois Lane''': I wish Superman would stop stalling. I've got a deadline to meet. }}

** The whole Superman holding back ordeal started with a well-known Silver Age story written by Danny O'Neil. In it, [[Green Lantern|The Guardians of the Universe]] drag Superman to Oa and (with help from a little mind-control ray) tell him, point-blank, that his superheroics is causing human evolution to stagnate and to cut it out. He's shaken by it and decides to hold back on the superheroics that regular humans would be fine with dealing.

** Furthermore, you wouldn't exactly want the authorities to have the anti-social tendencies of characters like Rorscach or the Comedian.

** At one point, Rorschach, has a bit of internal monologue that sounds like something from John Galt (see Literature, below):

** The US government has stopped finding ways to end the [[Cold War]] through peaceful means because they have Dr. Manhattan on their side.

* Subverted in ''[[The Authority]]'' after [[The Authority]] retake the Carrier from their government-sanctioned replacement and have defeated the ridiculously overpowered hillbilly Seth. Because of the [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|activities of the replacements]], the world faces total obliteration in 48 hours. Jack Hawksmoor not only says they're not going to do anything, he warns every other metahuman hero that he'll kick their asses if the heroes try to help world's leaders from solving the problem they were ultimately responsible for creating. It [[Hand Wave|doesn't actually show]] ''how'' the world is saved, though.

** Averted later in the same film: Spidey is battling Doctor Octopus (read: getting pummeled) when he is knocked into a moving subway. When Doc Ock comes in to finish him off, the citizens aboard the train tell him that he'll have to [[Go Through Me|go through them]], first. [[Foe-Tossing Charge|He obliges]]. This was a callback to a slight aversion near the end of the first film, where the bystanders provide some minor (but useful) assistance by harassing the Green Goblin during his fight with Spidey.

** The first Spider-Man movie featured the song "Hero", by [[Nickelback|Chad Kroeger]], which mentions this trope:

I'm not going to stand here and wait'' }}

* Avoided in the ''[[Transformers]]'' movie series. The Autobots are protecting humans, sure, but the military isn't exactly cowering behind Optimus Prime. In fact, the Autobots might not have won without their assistance and the military did take down a Decepticon on their own. [[Fan Dumb|Some fans raged about this apparent Decepticon depowering...]] but then again, they'll rage about anything.

* In an episode of ''[[My Hero (TV)]]'', Thermoman accidentally erases his own memory, forgetting all about his identity as a superhero and only retaining his George Sunday persona. Janet is reluctant in reminding him who he is partially due to seeing him so happy and partially due to Janet wanting a normal life for once. Of course, this causes crime and other disasters to sky-rocket (in fact, a news report even mentions that many firefighting and police services around the world have been ''shut down'' because Thermoman made them redundant). To make matters worse, a ''meteor'' is suddenly heading towards the Earth...

* Brother Tuck suggests the people of Locksley and surrounding areas are becoming like this in ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]'':

* In the ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]'' finale, we learn that Malcolm's family has been manipulating him and deliberately sabotaging him at every opportunity because they believed that living a hard life would make him honest in the long run and that would galvanize him into becoming the best president ever, because they wanted someone in charge who knew what it was like to be poor, and so that he could fix things in a way to prevent [[The Man]] from screwing people like them over. Because not acting like self-destructive, selfish, irresponsible jackasses was beyond their abilities.

* ''[[LazyTown]]'s'' Sportacus came to the town with the aim of helping the kids live more healthy and active lives, but he seems to be the only form of law enforcement in the town and ends up spending most of his time rescuing the kids from dangerous situations.

* Happens briefly in ''[[Order of the Stick]]''. After the city is overrun by hobgoblins, several of the fleeing soldiers accidentally become aware of the elf wizard who had fought alongside them also fleeing the invading army under a spell of invisibility. These soldiers actually stop their retreat and proceed to bombard the elf with demands to save them, turn them invisible, teleport them out of there, blast the hobgoblins, anything. Unfortunately for them, said wizard is completely out of spells by this point and can only watch as they are slaughtered by the hobgoblins.

* In ''[[Dubious Company]]'', [[Living MacGuffin|Sal]] plays this straight since she has the [[Born Lucky|favor]] of a [[Random Number God|god]] and [[Designated Victim|1,025 kidnappings]] to justify it before meeting the pirates. She and the pirates then become accustomed to [[Ninja|Tiren]] saving them, until they all get captured. Once they realize the severity of [[Human Sacrifice|Kreedor's plan]] for Sal, the rest of the crew are forced to [[Took a Level In Badass|pull their weight]].

Tiren: My nose itches. }}

 

* Penny, from ''[[Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog|Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog]]'' and her attempts to make her homeless shelter a reality is a fairly harsh deconstruction {{spoiler|eventually dying in the crossfire of an ultimately meaningless conflict between a hero and villain who've become almost interchangeable by the end.}}

* Occasionally invoked in Jabootu's ''Challenge of the [[Superfriends]]'' recaps, when making a snarky comment on the (non-super) characters' stupid actions, for example: