Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A teenaged hero has more trouble dealing with social pressures and crushes than with saving the world.

  • Straight: Alice is a 17-year-old hero who's able to rescue people from Emperor Evulz without much thought, but has considerable problems dealing with the Alpha Bitch and her crush on Bob.
  • Exaggerated: Alice can save the world time and again, but the slightest thought of going out on a date with Bob causes her to panic.
  • Downplayed: Alice can stop bullies but is a bit of a wallflower.
  • Justified: Emperor Evulz, for better or worse, is relatively easy to deal with - just beat him up and he's gone. You can't beat up your social problems, though...
    • Alice has numerous psychological conditions that make interacting with people difficult but is very powerful.
  • Inverted: Alice is an incredibly popular girl who struggles with the "hero" portion of her job because she's so busy going to parties.
    • Because of Alice's good publicity makes her social life a breeze. Anyone with a compatible orientation and not already in a committed relationship will date her, she is always welcome at parties, and teachers cut her a lot of slack out of gratitude for defending everyone. She appreciates it greatly because her job is very challenging.
  • Subverted: It seems that Alice is balancing both social life and heroism...
  • Double Subverted: ...but a particularly hellish week in the world of either throws the balance off again.
  • Parodied: "Emperor Evulz has taken over a space station." "No sweat." "Dracone has kidnapped the President and is holding him for ransom." "Piece of cake." "Also, you've got a date tonight with Bob Editor." "...Uh..."
  • Deconstructed: Fighting the forces of sadistic evil turns out to be much worse than dealing with social problems.
    • Alternatively, the forces of evil find out about Alice's social life and seek to go after the ones she loves.
    • Alice's handlers decide that her social life might get in the way of foiling Emperor Evulz, and decide to either leave her or make her hero life a full-time position.
  • Reconstructed: It's difficult, but Alice finds a way to balance both heroism and a social life.
    • Her friends resolve to support Alice any way they can, knowing how much she puts on the line to protect them. They grow even tighter as a result.
  • Zig Zagged: Alice's level of control over her life varies from time to time.
  • Averted: Alice decides to drop out of school or get a GED so she can pursue the hero thing full time.
  • Enforced: "We've got teenage heroes, right? That means we show them struggling with social lives!"
  • Lampshaded: "OK, so saving the world I can do. But don't ask me to go to prom."
  • Invoked: Alice's handlers chose her to play superhero because her social awkwardness would leave her enough free time to fight Emperor Evuls.
  • Exploited: Emperor Evulz studies Alice's high school life and gives her an unusual ultimatum: she has to go on a date with Bob, or the world is destroyed.
  • Defied: Alice blows off the social aspects of high school life as inconsequential and somewhat petty due to her experiences dealing with Saving The World. Indeed, she can barely be troubled with the academics.
    • Or she blows off the hero aspects of her life as such.
  • Discussed: "Seriously, Alice, you just saved the world from alien invasion. This party can't be that big a deal after that."
  • Conversed: "What is with teenage characters who risk their life on a regular basis having so much trouble with social issues?"

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