Breakout Mook Character

Yes, he(?) is a Player Character.

A spin-off game or story (or a side story or special episode) that focuses on a Mascot Mook whose only purpose was to die by the dozen in the original.

Usually will center on an exceptional member of the Henchmen Race. If the events of this story are canon this guy might become the Ascended Extra on par with the original heroes. Some of them will be hunting their own kind on the heroes' side after a Mook–Face Turn, others will be trying to make it through Mook Promotion and become a Big Bad on their own right.

Usually played for comedy (it's funny to see things from the point of view of someone you didn't even consider important enough to be having any sort of private life or backstory).

Can overlap with Mook Horror Show, when a story focuses on the Mooks, but only for long enough for The Hero to dispatch them. Also can overlap with Monster Adventurers.

Compare Lower-Deck Episode, Villain Episode, and A Day in the Limelight, which involve actual characters being given the spotlight, instead of generic NPCs.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Mobile Suit Gundam does this fairly often with the Zaku; the very first series to have a Zaku-using protagonist was Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, followed by Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt and Requiem For Vengeance.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Charlotte was just another Monster of the Week, but with the distinction that she killed one of the five main characters very early on. That action, her cute design and surprise factor made her extremely popular and she received tons of fanarts. She ultimately became a prominent supporting character in Rebellion, where she's given a human form, Nagisa Momoe.

Comic Books

• Doctor Who Magazine: Kroton, the Cyberman with a soul, who appeared in some standalone strips in the early days of the magazine (during the 4th Doctor's tenure), and returned 19 years later to become a companion to the 8th Doctor.

Fan Works

• In the Undertale/Crash Bandicoot Crossover Banditale: Grimlies from Crash: Mind Over Mutant are titans found in certain locations, with some of them being mind-controlled to serve Dr. Neo Cortex. Here, a single Grimly was directly created by Dr. Neo Cortex as part of an experiment as a solution to the Underground's scarcity of animals, and is the one that falls off Banditale's equivalent of Undertale's CORE to it's death, and wiped from existence.

Film — Animation

• The Minions from Despicable Me have starred in their own spinoff movie as well as a number of animated shorts.

Film — Live-Action

• One of the main characters in The Force Awakens is Finn, a Stormtrooper who pulls a Mook–Face Turn at the beginning of the movie.

Literature

• From the Star Wars Legends, the Zahn novels Allegiance and Choices of One, which tell the story of a group of five stormtroopers who become dissatisfied with their role in the Empire.
• The short story "Wait" in the League of Magi series features an Enemy Mine friendship between two cannon fodder characters.

Live-Action TV

• The Shocker Combatmen are nearly as iconic to the Kamen Rider franchise as the Kamen Riders themselves, to the point of making many reappearances and being featured in a lot of merchandise. The 1000th episode special in Kamen Rider OOO had a surviving Shocker Combatman named "In Sendo"^note A pun on "Sento'in", meaning "combatant" in Japanese return to take revenge for his slain brethren.
• Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger has Beautiful Zorima, a normal Zorima whom Candelilla modified. Power Rangers Dino Charge adapts this character as an upgraded Vivix named Beauticruel, who is a female.

Tabletop Games

• Pathfinder's module "We Be Goblins!" is this for their crazy trademark take on the Goblin race.
• In general, most Dungeons & Dragons campaigns with a monster PC would be this, and there are books dedicated to such like 2e's Complete Race Guide and 3.0e's Savage Species. This goes double for Kobolds, who are both one of the more lovably pathetic (Yet deceptively dangerous) monster races, but also the ones who tend to get the most options.

Video Games

• In Enter the Gungeon, we have the unlockable character the Bullet, who is one of the Bullet Kin you've been slaughtering throughout the game.
  • In Indie Pogo, the character representing Enter the Gungeon is a Bullet-Kin, the Mascot Mook. In-game they fight using a combination of the different Bullet-Kin breeds and common gungeoneer abilities.
• Lime, the playable Slime character from Lunia, is based on the Slime enemies. During the entire first chapter, he is technically slaughtering his own kind.
• The Minions in Overlord got their own spin-off on DS.
• Many, many Super Mario World ROM hacks.
  • Rob-ombs Quest has a Bob-omb as the main character.
  • The Ninji Safa has a Ninji as the main character.
  • Pokey's Adventure has a Pokey as the main character.
  • Super Blooper has a Blooper as the main character.
  • There are two Mario Flash games with a Bullet Bill as the main character, and another with a Bandit as the main character. And two where you are a Koopa.
• Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime stars a slime named Rocket who protects his band of expendable Slimes from other expendable minions.
• A lot of the early characters from Puyo Puyo were originally enemies from the RPG series Madou Monogatari, but several of them became popular enough to earn their own spin-off games and frequent appearances. Several examples include Draco, Witch, Suketoudara, Skeleton-T, Serilly, Harpy, and Kikimora. Ironically, the Puyos themselves are a subversion; despite being the namesake of the franchise, they're still treated like fodder.
• Mega Man: Similar to the Super Mario World ROM hacks, there is a Hard Hat series of fan games where the player is a Mettaur.
• Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? It is a Gaiden Game to the Disgaea series starring an armada of the series' easily combustible penguin mooks. This being Prinny, his role is still to die by the dozen: the player's thousand lives are all separate Prinnies, who pass the Scarf Of Concentrated Awesome to the next in line. The sequel also makes Asagi (a recurring character who has a running gag of never being the main character of the game) playable as a Prinny (as she'd died and been reincarnated in the previous game).
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Paper Mario 64 and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door might count, since Goombario/Goombella and other party members are technically main characters that are members of mook races.
  • The Updated Re-release of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga features a seemingly normal Goomba as the protagonist of his own game mode where he leads Bowser's army in his absence. The only thing setting him apart from other Goombas is that he wears a flag on his head.
  • Most of the Mario side games, including Mario Kart, Mario Party, and the various sports games (Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Mario Strikers, Mario Super Sluggers and Mario Sports Mix) include mooks from the main series as playable characters. Super Mario Party in particular fills almost half its roster with them.
  • Accounting for the naming issues surrounding him and other Koopa wizards, Kamek was introduced in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island as Baby Bowser's nanny/right-hand, making him a single character with dialogue rather than just a random mook. He was possibly inspired by Bowser's unnamed magikoopa assistant in the Super Mario Adventures comic. While games prior to the New Super Mario Bros. subseries might have left it debatable which Magikoopas were THE Kamek (not helped by how "Kamek" is actually what the wizard mooks are called in Japanese), the NSMB games with later ones like Mario & Luigi: Dream Team have cemented that there is indeed one single Magikoopa who serves as Bowser's sidekick.
• Overwatch has Roadhog, who was created from concept art of a Mook from another project. Jeff Kaplan noted that in any other game, Roadhog would likely have been an enemy, rather than a playable hero.
• Star Wars:
  • TIE Fighter: Obviously, the titular TIE Fighters and their pilots.
  • Star Wars: Republic Commando: Clone Troopers, though you and your squad are the "deluxe model," and back then the clones were the good guys.
  • Dark Forces Saga has this as well, to an extent: Kyle Katarn started as a Stormtrooper.
• Ghosts 'n Goblins has a three-game subseries, Gargoyle's Quest, based on its iconic Red Arremers. Granted, they don't get picked off by the dozen, so they might not qualify.
• Left 4 Dead: Versus Mode (in all its incarnations) lets you control the Special Infected. Which one you get is determined randomly, but Tanks only appear at predetermined points along the map (and are awarded to the Infected player who's done the most damage) and the Witch isn't on the list at all unless you're using a custom campaign mutation.
• Half of Halo 2 consists of playing as an Elite who had been promoted to Arbiter, while three of the four playable co-op characters in Halo 3 are Elites (including the aforementioned Arbiter). Additionally, Elites have been selectable in the multiplayer for 2, 3, and Halo: Reach.
  • In both the games and expanded universe, the Elites have by far the greatest number of important named characters out of all the Covenant races.
• Abobo from Double Dragon becomes the protagonist of the Flash game Abobo's Big Adventure, where he gets to kick the asses of every other NES character ever.
• Lander/Randar which has made several cameo appearances in Compile games, got an MSX game Randar no Bouken.
• Half-Life:
  • The spin-offs Half-Life: Opposing Force and Half-Life: Blue Shift featured a mook enemy and an interchangeable ally NPC as characters. One personally knows Freeman, while the other meets him during his escape attempt from Black Mesa, but they're no different from the folks he kills by the dozen or completely neglects to rescue.
  • The same for mods like Azure Sheep switching between male and female security guards and Point of View featuring a Vortigaunt as the Player Character.
  • A Half-Life 2 mod known as Human Error puts you in the boots of a Civil Protection officer, while another called Combine Destiny has the player play as a Combine Overwatch soldier. Another popular mod by the name of Entropy : Zero lets you incarnate a snarky Civil Protection officer who goes on to become an Overwatch Elite in the sequel.
  • Other Half-Life 2 mods include Precursor, Riot Act, and Dangerous World, each of which have the player take on the role of a Resistance member operating just beyond Gordon's vantage point - the first being a prequel of sorts, and the other two respectively running parallel with the collapse of Nova Prospekt and the evacuation of City 17 respectively.
• Shin Megami Tensei regular Jack Frost and his friends Pyro Jack and Jack Ripper all star in their own spin-off, Jack Bros..
• One of the characters in Mana-Khemia 2 is Puniyo, a little girl who was raised by three Punis, slime creatures that are common enemies in the Atelier Series. She constantly rides one of them and uses all three of them in battle.
• The somewhat obscure Namco game Grobda puts the player in control of a tank enemy from Xevious.
• Battle for Wesnoth has a lot of these, including "Inky's Quest" — The Cuttlefish Campaign. Inky recruits cuttlefish, tentacles, pearl-shooting giant clams...
• Variation: The "You Are A Creeper" Mod for Minecraft. In which, yes, you are a creeper.
• The sequel to the C64 classic Attack Of The Mutant Camels was called Revenge of the Mutant Camels. Take a guess.
• In the DLC for Dungeons of Dredmor, The Realm Of The Diggle Gods, there is a skill that allows the Player Character to transform into a Diggle, the Mascot Mook of the game. Whether you pick this or not, you can still pray to the eponymous Diggle Gods when you get down to the lowest floors on the dungeon. Apparently the little targets can be pretty powerful when they're not under the control of the AI.
• Quest for Yrolg has a little imp killing off the Fighter, Mage, Thief heroes, in reversal of the Quest for Glory games.
• Gobli's Adventure, the sample game that came with the first PlayStation RPG Maker tool has this as its premise — Gobli was a goblin that dreamed of becoming a main character and not just XP fodder for the heroes (long before the webcomic with the same premise, mind). Joining him on his quest were a literal hole in the wall that wanted to be a character, and an adorable kitten that wanted to become a Final Boss.
• The Nitrome game Enemy 585 is about helping a Koopa analogue work his way backward through an Affectionate Parody of Super Mario World.
• Final Fight's very own Poison is playable in Street Fighter X Tekken and Ultra Street Fighter IV.
  • Ditto for Hugo, a member of the Andore family, playable in Street Fighter III: Second Impact and Third Strike, as well as alongside his manager Poison in SFxT and USFIV. He even got into crossover game SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos ahead of other Street Fighter strongmen like Zangief.
• Gradius Neo Imperial lets you play as a Big Core, a recurring boss in the main series.
• One of the DLC playable characters for Borderlands 2 is Krieg the Psycho. Yes, those Mooks that run up and attack you, throw axes, and blow themselves up. Krieg can do all these things, but he's also like a Playable Elite Mook since, as a Vault Hunter (read: player character) he can get right back up even after doing things like setting himself on fire and going on a killing spree.
  • Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! one-ups this by making Claptrap one of the default playable characters. Yes, the same one from 2, and the same one who started the Robolution in the final DLC of the original game. True to form, his playstyle centers around being unpredictable, with his Action Skill randomly selecting various effects that may or may not be beneficial to his team. Then things get really weird in the Claptastic Voyage DLC, when the Vault Hunters enter Claptrap's code to find some hidden files.
• The original Killing Floor mod had Claire, a playable Stalker who was captured by humans and trained to fight on the side of humanity. She can't turn invisible anymore, but she does still fight butt naked.
• The Rayman series had a pretty major example with the Raving Rabbids. Originally they were the mooks of Rayman: Raving Rabbids, which focused pretty heavily on the Rabbids as Mascot Mook characters, but was still primarily centered around Rayman. However, every following game started to feature Rayman less and less. Raving Rabbids 2 still let you play as Rayman, but it was also possible to go through the whole game only playing as the rabbids. In Raving Rabbids TV Party, Rayman was only featured in the cutscenes. Finally, with Rabbids Go Home and every following Raving Rabbids game Rayman has been completely absent. Now Rayman and the Raving Rabbids are completely different series, with the Raving Rabbids focusing on party games and Rayman focusing on platformers.
• Sonic the Hedgehog has Moto Bug that became playable in this Game Mod.
• Crash Bandicoot: Crash Team Racing makes Penta Penguin, a character based on penguin enemies from the second game, a playable character only accessible through a Cheat Code, and Nitro-Fueled adds the Lab Assistants as winnable characters at the Pit Stop.
• BioShock 2 lets you play as one of the Big Daddies, Bosses In Mook Clothings, that were slaughtered by the dozen in the first game. Here, Subject Delta must retrieve his Little Sister to finally escape Rapture and, because this is BioShock, also deal with a utopian leader.
• Heroes of the Storm includes two of these: A baby murloc who's special ability allows him to die about as often as his brethren for a pittance of experience; and a protoss probe - specifically, from the opening cinematic of Legacy of the Void.
• In certain Kirby games, you can play as a Waddle Dee wearing a bandana, who is simply named "Bandana Waddle Dee", who became sort of a fourth main character to the series.
• Artifact is a Card Battle Game Spin-Off of Dota 2. Several of the Hero Unit cards are "elite" versions of some of Dota 2's neutral jungle creeps. For example, Keefe the Bold is an ogre, Rix is a vhoul, and J'Muy is a troll.
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate:
  • Piranha Plant, which is normally a mook in Super Mario games, is a playable fighter. It is in fact the first fighter in the series who isn't a main protagonist, villain, supporting character, or mascot in their original games.
  • Steve from Minecraft has two alternative costumes that replace him for mooks from his game, namely a zombie and an Enderman.
• Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid has amongst its playable cast, a Mastodon Sentry; a mook exclusive to the comics continuity that use the powers of the original Black Ranger. Amongst his attacks, his Limit Break involves calling fellow Mastodon Sentries to shoot the opponent.
• In the Showdown mode of Shovel Knight, aside from every relevant character being playable, we also have a Goldarmor, one of the most common enemies in any campaign, and a Liquid Samurai, a mook found in the last stage.
• Arknights: The Avenger Elite Mooks, particularly their stronger, redder Hateful Avenger variants, left a huge impact on the playerbase during the beta run of Contingency Contract where they were easily the most dangerous threat the player had to face. Their infamy led to them getting more focus in future events; the later Contingency Contract season Operation Blade not only brought them back, but had the lyrics of its lobby theme sung from their viewpoint, A Light Spark in Darkness introduced the Reunion swordsman Red, a named character inspired by the enemy class, and the final Contingency Contract season, Operation Basepoint, closed things out with a unique boss Avenger that the game describes as the original Hateful Avenger from the beta coming back for a second round.

Webcomics

• The Goblins webcomic has three main groups, two of which are entirely or mostly made up of goblins, very nearly the lowest of the low when it comes to Dungeons & Dragons XP fodder.
• Bogey (a minor Goomba-like plant Mook) got a few in Kid Radd.

Web Animation

• Incident:011A of Madness Combat stars Mag Agent: Torture as the main character, when his only appearance prior was in Madness Combat 7: Consternation.

Western Animation

• Magnificent Muttley, a segment of Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines, starred Dick Dastardly's canine minion daydreaming of being famous or heroic figures.
• The Owl House: Steve the Coven Scout was initially a mere named lackey of Emperor Belos, who was something of a fanboy of the then head of the Emperor's Coven, Lilith Clawthorne back in Season 1. However, he proved to be so popular, that he got some reccuring appearances in later episodes of Season 2, which ultimately led into him turning on the Emperor's Coven in "O Titan, Where Art Thou", after having a lengthy heart to heart with King, complete with a face reveal, and later establishing that Steve was the older brother of the Hexside student, Matt.

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