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The Meddling Kids Are Useless: Difference between revisions
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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.
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== [[Literature]] ==
* [[Discworld/Guards! Guards!|Guards! Guards!]] has the Watch figure out who the Supreme Grand Master is, but it is implied that [[The Chessmaster|Vetinari]] was already aware of what was going on, and the Watch are ultimately useless in getting rid of the Dragon - {{spoiler|Errol ends up defeating it by creating a sonic boom, which was part of his mating dance to the female dragon}}.
** 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 as We Know It]].
* 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.
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* Invoked and justified in a few episodes of ''[[Doctor Who]]''. Certain event, especially those based on [[Real Life]] history, require the Doctor and his companions to be this trope while otherwise solving the problems connected to what the show calls "fixed points in time" (the event must take place with a rigid set of circumstances defining the end result or reality will collaspe). A good example is the Tenth Doctor episode "The Fires of Pompeii", where the Doctor and his companion discover alien beings called the Pyroviles are using Mount Vesuvius to stay alive, and to prevent the danger they pose humanity, Vesusvius must erupt as history dictates, leaving the protagonists unable to stop the historical event. They are, however, allowed to save at least one family of people from the event, since history doesn't have anything that would contradict their survival.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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** 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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[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]
[[Category:Hero Tropes]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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