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Suddenly it dawns on you. The main characters aren't that useful! They did all the cool stuff and got into all the danger, yet someone else ultimately stopped the bad guy and saved the day. What the heck? Why even bother with these "heroes" and their adventures?
Because this is a story where the main attraction, if not the very point, is to watch ordinary people get into all sorts of excitement and danger. Yet they can't ultimately thwart the villain or solve the problem, because, well, that's not their job, nor do they have the actual skills to do it.
This is a way to get kid characters (or average, non-professional adult characters) into an exciting adventure while providing the realism of showing the real police or other professionals doing their jobs and saving the day. Note that despite the title, this doesn't have to be about kid characters specifically; this is about when the ''main'' characters, regardless of who they are, are not the ones who save the day.
See also [[Little Hero, Big War]], which is kind of this on a much larger scale, and with the hero having a larger chance of being the one who actually defeats the villain.
{{examples}}
== [[Film]] ==
* In ''[[The
** Ahmed also figured-out that the Wendol liked to act, and maybe even think of themselves as bears, and this allowed the group to find the Wendol cave to begin with. However, he was mostly an audience identification character and eventual chronicler of Bulliwye/Beowulf, so he still fits the trope well.
== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[
** Of course, {{spoiler|Errol}} was in a position to do so because {{spoiler|the Watch had adopted him and let him eat assorted random stuff for a good chunk of the book.}} In other words, the Meddling Kids weren't ''useless''... it just turned out the useful thing they did was [[Subverted Trope|something else than the snooping and the getting into exciting situations]].
* In the ''[[Left Behind]]'' books, the main characters, calling themselves the Tribulation Force, basically sit around and try to survive the tribulation, but do nothing that actually affects the events of the story in any way. The books could basically be described as a travelog for [[The End of the World
* In the original, 1920s ''[[Hardy Boys]]'' stories, Frank and Joe's "investigation" often ended up with them hiding in a corner or [[Bound and Gagged|tied up by the villains]] until their father and the police force arrived to save the day. This was eventually changed in the later books to make them more useful.
* Similar to the above example, in ''Janie's Private Eyes'', the fourth book in ''[[The Stanley Family]]'' series, while 13-year-old David, 8-year-old Janie and 6-year-old Blair actually do solve the case, they end up in danger and have to be rescued. Fortunately, someone else calls the police and rescues the kids, resulting in the police solving the case without the help of the kids' hard work.
* Despite having the most screen-time in ''[[
* Generally averted in the ''[[
== [[Live Action TV]] ==▼
* Invoked and justified in a few episodes of ''[[
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'', who were based on the ''[[Hardy Boys]]'' and ''[[Jonny Quest]]'' both, really did nothing in the show during the first season, but are the main characters nonetheless. This changed in later seasons.
* In the original 1960s series, ''[[Jonny Quest]]'' basically just hung around while his dad and Race dealt with all the dangerous stuff. Ocassionally, he, Hadji and Bandit would need rescuing, and would even take down a mook or two, but otherwise did little but comment on the action.
** This was realized when ''[[Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures
* [[Scooby Doo|The Scooby Gang]], the [[Trope Namer|meddling kids]] themselves, are an odd case, as they actually ''do'' manage to solve mysteries...or rather, Velma does, with a little help from Freddy and occasionally Daphne. Our main heroes, Scooby and Shaggy, on the other hand, mostly just have exciting [[Chase Scene|chase scenes]] and [[Big Eater|eat lots]], while Daphne is kidnapped by the villain ("[[Damsel in Distress|Danger-prone Daphne]]", indeed) and Freddy makes traps that invariably fail but somehow manage to [[Accidental Hero|accidentally capture the villain anyway]]. In the end, it's Velma who figures out who the villain is and explains the mystery to the others.
** To be fair to Scooby and Shaggy, their chase scenes sometimes involved them being chased by the villain right into Fred's trap, inadvertently capturing the bad guy. Shaggy himself is the [[Trope Namer]] for the [[Shaggy Search Technique]], and is often the one who finds the clues to the cases.
** This is averted hilariously in the movies, in which the cast also realize their shortcomings - Daphne takes down a good number of bad guys after [[I Know Karate|taking martial arts classes]] and Shaggy and Scooby spend the entire second movie performing investigations on their own to prove their worth (of course, the success of said investigations is pretty limited...)
** The third live-action film averts this. Every member of the gang provides something useful, but not at the same degree as the earlier two films (which is correct, as this film is a prequel). Freddy comes up with the plan, Daphne provides the wheels and disguises, Velma provides science and history, Shaggy drives and provides a list of suspects (and the motive), and Scooby actually catches the villain.
** The third episode of the original series is a perfect example of this trope. The police would have caught the criminal even if Mystery Inc. had not ended up in the castle.
** In "A Clue for Scooby Doo", "Bedlam At The Big Top", and "Never Ape an Ape Man", Scooby and Shaggy do have a major role in solving the case.
*** For "A Clue for Scooby-Doo", Scooby-Doo finds the air tanks for the gang while Shaggy sits on the rock that opens up the villian's hideout.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Mystery Tropes]]
[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]
[[Category:Hero Tropes]]
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