Everydude Narrator

MEDIA EXAMPLES

Everyman leads occur more than you'd think in romantic/ecchi anime and/or arcs, letting the audience project themselves upon them. In hentai, they're legion. Sasahara from Genshiken is a general otaku who falls for Ogiue. His (unintentional?) expy Kosuda in B Gata H Kei is an ordinary schoolboy trying to make sense of Yamada's WANT/DO NOT WANT/WANT/DO NOT WANT behaviour. Code Geass: Kaname Ougi is the very example of what an Everyman would most likely do when things go horrendously wrong. Diethard points out how this makes Ougi important to the Black Knights because they can't live on "stars alone" and need an average person for the common people to relate with. Krillin from Dragon Ball. Unlike the Saiyans and Piccolo, Krillin has a life outside of martial arts training. We see him fall in love, get married and have a daughter. His extremely nondescript appearance also adds to his accessibility as a character. The Producer in the anime version of The Idolmaster. Even his description is nondescript. Minako from Sailor Moon in the first series, prior to taking a level in dumbass. She was more of "the everygirl" compared to Usagi, Ami, Rei, and Makato. She had a few odd character quirks like messing up her proverbs but it wasn't until Sailor Moon S when she was flanderized into being just as dumb as Usagi. Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Apart from his optimism, there's not much to say about Weslie compared to his quirky friends (Paddi likes eating food, Tibbie likes fashion, Sparky likes sports, Jonie is famous for every bad thing coming out of her mouth coming true, and Mr. Slowy is a Gadgeteer Genius). Captain America, in his Steve Rogers not-so Secret Identity anyway. Interestingly, he was originally a washed-up art student, to deliberately draw parallels to Adolf Hitler. Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Barry Allen The Flash are often thought of as these. Both were normal people who were great at their jobs with relatively normal lives. Until a magic super-advanced alien ring summoned Hal and Barry was struck by a lightning bolt while working in his lab. It helps that they're best friends. Hawkeye has been portrayed this way relative to the rest of the Marvel Universe, given that he has no powers and no super-genius/super-heart to make him special. A lot of his conflicts deal more with relationships, disability, and personal/financial issues than with supervillains. Still, the comics reestablish his uniqueness from time to time. Penny: Imagine you want to kill the Avengers... Who do you target first? The normal guy. Natasha: There is nothing normal about Clint Barton. Kamala Khan a.k.a. Ms Marvel has been repeatedly described as the true successor to Spider-Man for the millennial age. She's dorky, connected to the internet, constantly being underestimated by her conservative family for being unruly, ultimately wants to do some good in the world, and is a fan of all the heroes who have come before her. A huge part of her appeal also comes from the fact that she is a Pakistani-Muslim girl, reflecting the broader inclusion of different races, religions, and genders in the modern world. Her immediate group of non-superhero friends are also from a diverse range of races and religions, and one of them is even a lesbian. While he is incredibly smart and comes from a well off family note Tim Drake takes this position in the Batfamily by being comparatively average when compared to Bruce, the other four Bat-kids and even his own girlfriend, who is the daughter of a villain. He also dealt with a lot of regular family and school drama in his ongoing. Tim was also the everyman of Young Justice, where his teammates included a demi-god, a telekinetic half-Kryptonian, a speedster from the future, a second generation hero trained by her mother, and a teleporting psychopomp with precognition. The original Freedom Fighters seemed to have evolved this way in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), likely to act as foils to Sonic and the more abrasive additions from the games. A lot of their shortcomings are rather subdued or down more to circumstance than having prominent personality defects, and while a lot have unique abilities, they are played in a more realistic manner than their super powered comrades. This is less prominent in earlier issues and the coinciding TV show, where they have goofier, more prominant personality defects, but they still had visible shades of this at times. Peter Parker/Spider-Man is often held up as the epitome of this within superhero comics, and possibly the key to the franchise success. Admittedly, he's not a strict example, as he's consistently portrayed as responsible, hardworking, highly intelligent, and when the going gets tough, a wiseass. However, compare him to his contemporaries: he's the average working stiff where the others include super-scientists, a millionaire playboy, an idolized war hero, and a god. Some writers (Joe Quesada especially) tend to turn this into This Loser Is You. He fills the role so perfectly, many other attempts to make an Everyman superhero wind up compared to him. Clark Kent is just a guy from the mid-west, raised on a farm, got a job in the big city, crushes on his co-worker, likes cheeseburgers, classic movies, and books like To Kill a Mockingbird. Being Superman is just another job for him. Tintin was intentionally written as a blank slate onto whom readers could project. His name literally means "nothing". In Conchy, Conchy is by far the most normal inhabitant of the island. His main function is to ask the other inhabitants to explain their bizarre behaviour. Charlie Brown. You can't help but identify with him. Charles Schulz relates a letter he got from a fan, who said, "My son came home from school one day with a sad frown, slammed his bookbag to the floor, and said, 'Mom, I feel just like Charlie Brown.' He didn't have to say another word. I knew exactly how he felt." Goat in Pearls Before Swine. He's the only character who reacts to (or even notices) the weirdness that surrounds them in the same way the audience would. Ernie from Piranha Club started as something of a loser but through reverse Flanderization, he eventually become one. Always Visible: It plays out curiously with Delia’s family. Just as the girl herself is essentially an ordinary child, so her father, instead of a congressman, is reduced to a simple medicine seller. Sergeant Eversmann from Black Hawk Down. He lacks many of the various character-building details that less important characters get, is somewhat more thoughtful about the war than many of his comrades, and has never been in combat before. He is primarily an Audience Surrogate who interacts with most of the other important characters in the film. The quintessential example, from Die Hard, is Lieutenant John McClane. He's just an average New York police officer, who flew into Los Angeles to see his estranged wife Holly. Then Hans and his gang attack, leaving John the only one in a position to stop them. Wikus, the "protagonist" of District 9 is a deconstruction of this trope. Whether he's a Punch-Clock Villain, Idiot Hero, or Jerkass Woobie is entirely up to interpretation. Ultimately, he reacts to extreme circumstances (that demand heroism) just as you'd expect an average nerdy professional bureaucrat thrust into a dangerous and unpredictable environment: poorly. Joe, the main character of Idiocracy is described as the most average man in existence. The speaker then shows a series of graphs, all of which have Joe at the exact middle of the bell curve, a trend which he describes as "remarkable." It is unclear if he sees the irony. Tom Hanks in Joe Versus the Volcano. His name is actually Joe. Max Rockatansky is the closest to a 'basic' human being in the Mad Max series. He has no weird costumes, no deformities, no tattoos, no fancy hairstyle or color, no gimmick, even his car is pretty basic compared to the crazy roadsters or giant flamethrowing trucks that the series is famous for. He is also a bit of a Decoy Protagonist, as the other characters are the ones who contribute more to the resolution of the plots, and he often has to be dragged along. The Mask: Stanley Ipkiss is like everyday person which he has a normal job, a normal life and living in an apartment and like some people has bad luck on his side but his life changes one night as he finds an ancient mask which he takes back with him to the apartment, he notices it glows so he puts it up to his face and it turns him into a green-headed man named The Mask. Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, whose sympathetic human characterization is said by O'Brien to be "the last man." The title character of Alice in Wonderland is a fairly unremarkable Victorian child, in order to better contrast with the insanity of Wonderland. Bazil Broketail: Despite his impressive war record, Relkin's consistently portrayed as an ordinary young man and professional soldier just doing his job, with no particular skills in any area. That is, until his dormant magic abilities are unlocked. Lampshaded in the final book when a fellow dragonboy shows surprise after Relkin introduces himself. Apparently, he thought that a famous war hero would look more imposing. Orson Gregory in The Dreamside Road claims to have been an everyman before his first run-in with the IHSA led him into becoming an adventurer, over a decade before the story begins. Isaac Asimov's Franchise: Every year, Multivac chooses someone to ask apparently random opinion questions. These opinions (and their intensity) are missing data points that Multivac uses to extrapolate the entire election process. The person chosen is the most average example of America that the Multivac can identify for that year. Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter series is an odd example of this: While Harry is the viewpoint character discovering the magical world, he hardly qualifies as ordinary, whereas Ron is ordinary for the magical world and would be unremarkable if he wasn't Harry's best friend. Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; he considers himself more differed-from than differing. Discussed and Played With in The Mark and the Void with Claude, the protagonist. Paul, a novelist who is trying to write a book based on Claude's life, explains that Claude will be the Everyman protagonist, because banking symbolizes and typifies the modern world. When Paul tries to ditch the novel idea, he argues disparagingly that Claude's abstract and affluent life has nothing to do with the ordinary man, something that Claude also realizes when he travels into the countryside and interacts with regular Ireland. However, Claude does fit the role. He comes from a modest background, and is generally a passive player to the wackier characters around him. When confronted with moral quandaries at work, he feels uncomfortable but usually does not take an active stance, as most probably would. Of Mice and Men has George, largely made distinctive by his relation to Lenny. The Night Room has an Ensemble Cast, but the most prominent of these is Ira, who has a much more "average" relationship to school and parents who are remarkable in the series for only being a little kooky instead of abusive, dead, geniuses, or generally absent. Robinson Crusoe: Robinson himself is supposed to be an average Englishman from late 17th century stranded on an uninhabited island. He has no particular set of skills nor character traits (at least for his epoche), yet is able to hold on his own for two decades. Not to mention his adventures before he got shipwrecked. Dr. Watson fills this role in the Sherlock Holmes stories. He does have certain distinct personality traits, such as his eye for attractive women (how unusual), but in many other ways he reflects the typical Victorian citizen who read Arthur Conan Doyle's stories when they were first published, bridging the gap between the readers and the otherwise eccentric Holmes. Leonard Hofstadter is the nerd variation. Penny is more of a straight example, being an ordinary Girl Next Door who's well-rounded in her knowledge and hobbies. Earl Sinclair from Dinosaurs is an every-dinosaur. Many of the Doctor's companions from Doctor Who. Mickey Smith and Rory Williams are both very deliberately ordinary people whose girlfriends become the Doctor's companions and end up crushing on him. A great deal is made of the contrast between the ordinary, happy life they could offer, and the adventurous, extraordinary one the Doctor provides. In Mickey's case, he is somewhat unceremoniously dumped in favour of the Doctor, with Rory, the episode "Amy's Choice" makes it clear that, despite her zigzagging feelings for both of them, if it came down to a choice between the two she'd choose an ordinary life with Rory. Chris Rock from Everybody Hates Chris is an average boy from the 1980's. Game of Thrones: Ned Stark might be a Lord, but he's a hard-working man who is unfamiliar with the twisted inner workings of King's Landing. Before taking a level in jerkass, Will Schuester from Glee was this. Shinji Kido of Kamen Rider Ryuki is clearly the most ordinary protagonist of the entire Kamen Rider franchise; to a point, it can be said that his most remarkable trait is how very average he is. Unlike other protagonist who were either very skillful or intelligent men, had special abilities, a tragic past that define them, a (personal) connection to their enemies or some other quirks that made them abnormal. Shinji is a completely ordinary journalist who just happened to find an Advent Deck during an investigation, and as a result became Kamen Rider Ryuki and fights against the Mirror Monsters threatening people's lives, while trying to find out the truth of the Rider War. His lack of special skills is even reflected in his rider form which is a Jack of All Stats and has little to no true advantages against other riders. This was also his only form during the first half of the series which contradicts him with every other Heisei Kamen Rider, who usually have another one or several forms accessible during a fightnote . Joe Miller of The Lost Room. Denzil from Only Fools and Horses. Oliver's Travels: Diane's nice but ordinary son Michael. Jerry Seinfeld has strikingly average interests such as cereal, sneakers, and Superman comics, but ends up a subversion, becoming one of the most Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists of all time. Chief O'Brien from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He's the only Starfleet non-com who gets to be a main character, his main desire is to get through his workday and go home to his wife and children, and the writers enjoy making him suffer every so often (in what they call "O'Brien Must Suffer" episodes) because audiences will sympathize with him. Most of the perspective characters from Stranger Things are Everymen. What is interesting is that many of them are based on the Everymen from other famous genre films, books, or TV series. Mike Wheeler is based on protagonists like Elliot, Billy Peltzer, and Mikey Walsh. His sister Nancy is based on Nancy Thompson from A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Jim Hopper the police chief is based on Chief Brody Joyce Byers is based on the likes of Diane Freeling, Wendy Torrance, and Roy Neary. The Wire: The cast is chock full of these, to the point where it would be safe to say that 75% of the show's characters are everymen/women. One of the main attractions of the show was that every viewer had at least one (but probably more than that) character they could easily identify with. Kevin Arnold from The Wonder Years is supposed to represent the life of an average teenage boy growing up in the 1960's. Jimmy Hopkins of Bully was intended to be this, says the Word of God. Even though he does have incredible strength, he is easily relatable. Isaac Clark from Dead Space is just a ship systems engineer. Not a badass security officer or soldier, just a regular guy doing his job and trying to see his girlfriend who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. In Final Fantasy XII, Basch was originally intended to be the main character, but it was later switched to Idiot Hero Vaan because the creators thought that he would have more of an Everyman appeal. Several of the survivor characters in the Left 4 Dead series fall into the everyman trope: Louis works at the IT department of an electronics store and plays video games. Other than going to a gun rage on his lunch breaks, Louis doesn't do anything else out of the ordinary. Zoey is a college student whose parents are separated. She's a huge fan of zombie films as well, but nothing else stands out about her. Coach is a high school health teacher whose knees were injured from college football in his younger days. Ellis is a mechanic who occasionally plays in a band with his buddies during his downtime. Rochelle is an assistant for the local news and that's all that stands out about her. Kazuma Kiryu, despite all appearances, is the most 'normal' person in most of the Like a Dragon games, reacting to every bonkers scenario with utter seriousness, and offering to help out (and start sidequests) every time. This allows him to fight Yakuza, manage hostesses, buy real estate, buy porn for children, defend a Michael Hackson's music video shoot, sing karaoke, or train a woman to be a dominatrix. Dave in Maniac Mansion. He's Sandy's boyfriend, but other than that, he's pretty much just an Everyman. And while the other six characters can play an instrument (Syd/Razor), fix radios and/or telephones (Bernard/Jeff, although Jeff can only fix telephones), develop rolls of film (Michael), and proofread manuscripts (Wendy), Dave has no abilities or talents at all. Sadly, since he's the also the lead character, he's also the only one you can't NOT choose. Kaiden from Mass Effect and Jacob from Mass Effect 2 both stand out as ordinary in their Dysfunction Junction crews. They still have somewhat tragic personal backstories like most teammates, but are too emotionally well-adjusted for it to produce any meaningful conflict. Unfortunately, they both failed at being The Everyman; fans already had Commander Shepard with which to identify, and compared to the rest of the cast, Kaiden and Jacob were seen as too boring to be likable. Both of them having extremely bland power sets didn't help either. Kaiden would be Rescued from the Scrappy Heap in Mass Effect 3 thanks to having some rewrites to his character and a much better power set, but Jacob became even less likable, especially if he'd been romanced in 2. Pretty much every protagonist except Alex Shepherd in the Silent Hill series could count. The protagonist of The Silent Age is this so much he's even named Joe, as well as given the lowly position of a janitor and a string of the most unfortunate preceding jobs you can think of. Big the Cat plays this role for the Sonic the Hedgehog series. In contrast to how the series' universe is usually a fast-paced Fantasy Kitchen Sink, and how most of its cast are particularly action-oriented or goal-driven, Big stands out as just a simple guy who takes it easy, likes to fish, and gives a helping hand when he can, without any real concern about the crazier stuff going on in his world so long as the people he cares about are okay. Claude of Star Ocean: The Second Story, who is even easier to identify with because the game's Private Action system allows you to choose many actions that show what kind of a person he is. Main characters of Nintendo games are often this, usually with Heroic Mime for good measure: Mario. Keeping his characterization minimal is something the producers have done intentionally, so he can be put in to any given situation. Link. This is the reason why he is named that. Ness Captain Olimar Chibi-Robo Mr. Game and Watch is probably Nintendo's first everyman. Lee Everett, the player character of The Walking Dead: Season One. Having grown up in Atlanta Georgia and helped run his parents store alongside his brother, he's more or less just a guy from a poor neighborhood. His normal life gets turned on its head after accidentally killing of a State Senator whom his wife cheated with. This results in him sent to prison with a life sentence, but the police car taking him there gets interrupted by a Zombie Apocalypse.