The Chosen Many

"In brightest day,
In blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power—
Green Lantern's light!"

"...'Others'? Wait, you're telling me that there are people out there who have supernatural powers just like me?"
"Well... yeah. Are you kiddin me? There's thousands; we're an organization. Did you think you were 'special'?"
"...Yes."

— Exchange from a Leverage RPG session

Being The Chosen One doesn't mean being The Only One.

A hero may find that hero has stumbled on a powerful artifact, or awaken Magic and Powers that set said hero apart from everyone else the hero knows know only to find out that this particular hero is not so exceptional. Not only is there another, but a whole bunch of them. While similar to Send in the Clones, these fellow heroes have been organized and operating long before the hero ever came on the scene. All of them have the same power set and usually more experience using them under their belt. Bonus points if it turn out the hero's stylistic, "unique" costume that might've come with the powers turns out to be nothing more than a standard uniform.

In narrative terms, this discovery can go down in various ways:

• Often the hero's peers are condescending towards the hero due to his inexperience and lack of "proper" training, leading to an episode where their base gets attacked by the corporation's arch nemesis and our hero has to save all of them. At that, those peers slowly realize that this rookie will become the greatest of them all.
• The newbie hero will enter some sort of training period and then have to pass a test in order to become a full-fledged member of the society, probably one that involves Die or Fly, a staged Training "Accident" or a test that goes bad for real...
• The hero will be underwhelmed when the hero’s peers prove to be less than morally upright; either taking advantage of their powers for personal gain, being smug supers or Lawful Stupid. In these cases, they'll have to make an effort to give their group a Conspiracy Redemption "light".
• The world is thrown into peril by a powerful force that can only be stopped by the combined abilities of each and every last member, main character of the story included of course. If the characters come from diverse backgrounds, the special is invariably used to promote teamwork and world unity and good stuff like that.
• The organization is holding an annual tournament/picnic that all members are invited to attend, allowing them all to come together, rub shoulders, and enjoy a nice day to themselves. Inevitably, it's disrupted by one of the previous examples about halfway in.
• In the Super Hero Origin story the hero is recruited in haste and he finds himself struggling to control his weapon/powers, feeling incompetent and having no one to turn to in this strange situation. Finally, he meets a comrade of The Chosen Many who leads him to the headquarters where he learns he is not alone, but part of a larger world with new friends and mentors ready to help him.
• The Protagonist finds an Amulet of Concentrated Awesome only to find out, he's not the only one to have one.
• A character may know of this group, but is The Chosen Wannabe until this person is proven worthy to truly join.

A lesser-used variant is to for the protagonist to be either partially or fully aware that he's part of some large organization or race right from the get-go, but the story is intentionally written in such a way that the hero or those around him never have to bring this up and the audience is led to believe otherwise for a period of time. When its finally revealed, it's usually treated as You Never Asked on the viewers' part.

If a character is in a place where he always knew that getting superpowers was common and expected of everyone, however, then it may be Everyone Is a Super.

Compare There Is Another, Send in the Clones, Legacy Character, Legacy of the Chosen, Heroes Unlimited, and the fan-made member Sailor Earth. Contrast Last of His Kind. Not to be confused with The Chosen People.

noreallife

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Even though Yorichii Tsugikuni is the only one that could deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle to Muzan Kibutsuji, he ultimately couldn't finish him off and dies of old age while the latter is still alive and scheming. However, Kagaya Ubuyashiki, the leader of the Demon Slayers in the Taisho era, has unbelievable faith in the current batch, believing the Hashira he has is the finest that's ever built, Tanjiro Kamado is some sort of The Chosen One who would provide even more hope to the corps, and Tanjiro, Nezuko, Zenitsu, and Inosuke surviving and defeating both the Upper Moon 6 demons being an omen that would inch closer towards Muzan's downfall. And sure enough, the combined efforts of Lady Tamayo injecting him with a rapidly aging drug, followed by Tanjiro, Zenitsu, Inosuke, Kanao, Giyu, Mitsuri, Obanai, Gyomei, Sanemi, the more generic Demon Slayers, and even the Kakushi are the ones who ultimately weaken and stall Muzan respectively just enough for the sun to finish him off.
• In more than one Doraemon film, Doraemon and friends are inevitably the "Chosen Ones" to save whatever world-ending threat they're facing:
  • Doraemon: Nobita and the Haunts of Evil sees the gang travelling to the hidden world of Bauwan, where they discover they're involved in a prophecy where "Ten Foreigners Will Liberate Bauwan From Destruction", although there's only five of them (Doraemon, Nobita, Shizuka, Gian and Suneo). Turns out there's a Prophecy Twist where the other five are the gang's selves from the future, having traveled to the past in the story's Darkest Hour.
  • In Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure into the Underworld the gang meets Miyako, the Magical Girl, who reveals that they're the world's only hopes for defeating Demaon and his Demon army. When Nobita and Doraemon tries protesting, Miyako brings out her clairvoyant Crystal Ball to show them the prophecy, where images of Doraemon, Nobita, Shizuka, Gian and Suneo immediately appears on it.
  • The quintet are Chosen Ones again in Doraemon: Nobita's Chronicles of the Moon Exploration, as the Saviour of the Espals, owing to a child seer named Arun who can see the future.
• Sailor Moon
  • At first, it seems like Sailor Moon is the only magical girl of her kind. It expands to five over the course of the first season. Then four others show up over the next two seasons, rounding out the Solar System, fair enough. This brings us to nine, plus our heroine's Kid from the Future who will grow up to be her successor, so a reasonable ten. In the fifth series, it's revealed that many heavenly bodies has a Sailor Senshi that it powers, and yes, asteroids do count. (On top of that, the villains are evil anti-Sailor Soldiers led by a renegade one, with the monsters of the week taking on parody-Soldier appearances.
  • It started that way in the original story, Codename: Sailor V: while in Sailor Moon you know since the beginning there's Sailor V and thus exists at least another Sailor Senshi. In Codename: Sailor V Minako at first seemed the only one, and she learned about (some of) the others only in the final chapter.
• Dragon Ball Z:
  • Goku learns in the Saiyan Saga that he is one of a few surviving Saiyans and that there are others like him. Piccolo however, is a closer fit, as his planet is still around there's a lot of Namekians still alive.
  • Among the Saiyans, there was the "legendary Super Saiyan", a Saiyan of incredible power, and a modern interpretation was that the next Super Saiyan would be strong enough to overthrow Frieza and liberate the Saiyan race. Vegeta thought he was the Super Saiyan, though it was revealed to be a transformation, first achieved by Goku. Eventually attainable by Vegeta as well as their children. Vegeta himself acknowledges the great myth merely becoming "a child's plaything".
    • The concept of the "Legendary Super Saiyan" was revisited with the recurring Non-Serial Movie villain Broly, who did fulfill the criteria. Broly appeared to have natural access to a unique Super Saiyan form (other Saiyans had to undergo a degree of emotional trauma to achieve it), and while other Super Saiyans got a huge power up, moderate increase in muscle mass, golden hair and Battle Aura, Broly's Legendary Super Saiyan form made him incredibly burly, gave him light green hair and aura, and became absurdly powerful, easily the strongest opponent they fought up to that point.
  • Super Saiyan God can be achieved by any Saiyan with a righteous heart, but there needs to be six of them to perform the ritual. Goku absorbs the power of godhood into his being, keeping the power of Super Saiyan God even after the time limit runs out, and would later use and the Super Saiyan in conjunction to achieve Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan (otherwise called Super Saiyan Blue). Vegeta would achieve this on his own by training with Whis.
• Digimon Adventure 02 expands the Digidestined far beyond the three new guys. Each part of the world has at least one Digidestined team, complete with an Obi-Wan who's identical to our heroes' mysterious sometime-helper Gennai. They eventually come into play by helping out during the World Tour arc and the Finale.
  • Digimon Data Squad goes further with its Digisouls. Originally just the few characters who have their partners express their Digisoul, but during the final confrontation every human on Earth expresses a Digisoul to help avert the Digital World's impact.
• In Isekai Monster Breeder, Goddess Aphrodite is facing the coming of a demon king so powerful, ruthless, and vile, that she needs to summon dozens of "heroes" from Earth to deal with it, two of them, protagonist Souta and one other, are mentioned by name. The rest work in the background until the final battle.
• In the Konosuba universe, we learn that the preferred method of dealing with any threat to the human race is to recruit hero from Japan after hero from Japan and throw them at the problem one at a time until it goes away, and the gods didn't care which hero did it so long as it was done. Kazuma is chagrined to learn that he dealt a blow against the forces of Good by taking Aqua as a cheat item because she was skilled at making life as an Isekai hero/heroine sound more fun than reincarnation or going to Heaven. Without her, the supply of heroes dried up.
• Lyrical Nanoha has the main character turning into a magical girl. Then her rival, another magical girl turns up, which surprises her. Then the Time-Space Administration Bureau, an entire police force of people using magical powers, arrive. Nanoha eventually pursues a career as a part of their numbers, becoming a Captain of their Air Force and the head Tactical Instructor. Nanoha is actually an Unchosen One.
• The first story arc of Fist of the North Star centers around the rivalry between The Hero Kenshiro, the chosen master of Hokuto Shinken, and the Token Motivational Nemesis Shin, a master of the rival Nanto Seiken style. After Shin dies, it is revealed that there are actually over 108 schools of Nanto Seiken in existence, with Shin's style being just one of them. And then, later on in the saga, it's revealed that Kenshiro has brothers who also know Hokuto Shinken...
  • However the introduction of Kenshiro's brothers is also a subversion since the rules of Hokuto Shinken state that only one student may inherit the art's secrets and that those not chosen must renounce their pursuit of the art or risk having their fists crushed or memories erased. Still the introduction of other Hokuto styles in later works, like Hokuto Ryuken, Hokumon no Ken and the Hokuto Sankaken branches from Fist of the Blue Sky (which the Ryuken style is a part of), are more direct examples of this.
• Yumeiro Pâtissière: Vanilla chooses Ichigo as her partner, then she meets the Sweets Prince's partners, Tennouji's partner Honey, and finally Maron partners with the Heiress. Then all of them go to Paris and discover that every team member on the Cake Grand Prix has a spirit partner, even Henri-sensei.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: It's eventually revealed in conversation that the school Shinji, Asuka, and Rei attends is a front organization for the powers that be, and that all of Shinji's classmates (if not the entire student body at the school) are potential Children candidates.
• The Dex Holders of Pokémon Adventures, as every generation adds two to four kids to the roster. As for the team-up aspect, the Emerald chapter had half of the then-active members, including Naïve Newcomer Emerald, go up against a "powerful force" scenario in part to free the other half from being Taken for Granite followed by the tournament/picnic. However, there has been little-to-no significant inter-squad action in the subsequent chapters,^note counting the Diamond and Pearl and Platinum chapters as separate either among the three then-active teams or with the later groups. Blue did show up in Kalos to support the main characters in the XY arc, but that's about it.
• The Pretty Cure franchise adds a new group of chosen ones per continuity, increasing the cast size of the Bat Family Crossover every year. It started with two chosen ones (2004) and now there are 64 + three Eleventh Hour Rangers + one Retired Badass + two movie characters (2020).
• At the beginning of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, it seems as if there's only a small number of Puella Magi. As the series goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that there are potentially thousands of magical girls out there, and there have been for millennia. Counting spinoff characters and witches, and the total number of magical girls seen over the various series could go as high as 64. However, it's also somewhat subverted, since there doesn't seem to be any kind of real organization to them and they're not exactly friendly to one another.
• In a less mystical variant, in the original Mobile Suit Gundam the RX-78-2 Gundam was an extremely powerful, one-off Super Prototype and more or less the most powerful mobile suit in the entire One Year War. Subsequent spinoffs set during the same time period such as Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team and Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket have introduced about a dozen other RX-78 series Gundams, plus the 20-unit limited production RX-79 Ground Gundam line.
• MegaMan NT Warrior (2002): In "Rockman.exe Stream", Duo marks 13 individuals with the "Crest of Duo", enabling them to see his comet, as well as become one with their Net Navis through Cross Fusion, as a test to see if Earth deserves not to be destroyed by him.
• The Rising of the Shield Hero:
  • The four Legendary Weapons which protect the world can only be wielded by individuals selected by a summoning ritual. The Heroes are considered saints or even gods, which causes a lot of early problems for all of them to one degree or another.
    • The current Four Heroes are not the only people to have wielded the Weapons. Naofumi at one point visits the past and works alongside a previous Shield Hero.
  • The Seven Star Heroes wield the seven Vassal Weapons, along with Fitoria who has the Vassal Wagon. Vassal Weapons chose the most compatible wielder from the world rather than via a summoning ritual. While respected, they are not deified like the Four Heroes.
  • The Waves connect the world of Melromarc to another universe where a similar arrangement of four Legendary Weapons and eight Vassal Weapons exists.
• Deconstructed in Serial Killer Reincarnated In Another World. Desperate at the time, The Goddess reincarnated and empowered a total of twelve people from Earth in hopes they will be powerful enough to defeat the Demon Lord and save the world she watches and protects her entire existence. Unfortunately for her and the world, it made the reincarnators think that they are gods themselves who deserved to lord over everyone else once the Demon Lord is killed just because they are "special" with their overpowerfully divine cheats and joined forces to achieve that goal. Shirukyi is the thirteenth reincarnation and newest addition tasked with taking down the other twelve, but without the corrupting influence of power this time,in order to fix The Goddess' mistake.
• In Attack on Titan, Eren is the first known case of a human with the ability to transform and harness the powers of a Titan. This makes him pivotal to humanity's survival....but then it slowly becomes clear that Eren is merely one of several such people, the majority of which are antagonistic. Naturally, Eren is typically left trying to figure out how his powers work while his similarly-powered opponents demonstrate exceptional skill and control. In the past, the Nine Titans were the leaders and protectors of the Eldian people, but in-fighting became an issue over time. This led to the collapse of the kingdom, and seven of the powers being stolen by the Marleyans. Only two remained out of their hands, and are now both possessed by Eren.
• In One Piece, all users of Conquerors Haki are all King candidates chosen by Heaven with such potential, that their fame has earned themselves both numerous allies and enemies.
• Heroes in Yuki Yuna is a Hero and the rest of the Yuusha De Aru franchise are pure girls chosen by the World Tree to protect the world. However, they're also essentially Human Sacrifices in all-but-name.

Comic Books

• 1963: The situation with the original Green Lantern is specifically pastiched, where Hypernaut, during a time travel adventure, meets with a Golden Age counterpart. While the two compare notes, the Golden Age Hypernaut is dumbfounded at the idea that there is an entire cosmic order of others like him.
• Ant-Man: Inverted with Scott Lang, the second Ant-Man. He was killed off in Avengers Disassembled, but almost as soon as he was resurrected in Avengers: The Children's Crusade, Marvel killed off Eric O'Grady, Lang's successor. Now Lang stars in FF while Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, operates without a Code Name or costume.
• Aquaman: Inverted. Similarly to Batman above, Aquaman's supporting cast were killed off one by one to add drama to the book and boost sales.
• Batman: Inverted following Batman: War Games. Batman's True Companions were imploded piece-by-piece, with the exceptions of marketable stalwarts Robin and Nightwing. Orpheus dead, Spoiler dead, long-time confidant Leslie Thompkins implicated in killing the latter "to teach Batman a lesson", current Batgirl Cassandra Cain realizing a Face–Heel Turn, former Batgirl Oracle bombed out of her headquarters and sent away from Gotham City along with her Birds of Prey team, Onyx inexplicably vanished from the books, Commissioner Gordon (who'd already retired by then) moving out of Gotham, the rest of the GCPD pretty much turning against him... Some of these got undone: Steph wasn't really dead, and became the new Batgirl, Cass turned out to be under mind-control and joined Batman Incorporated as Black Bat, Jim Gordon moved back and was reinstated as commissioner, the GCPD resumed relations with Batman, and Babs returned to the Bat-fold as Batman Inc's computer specialist.
• Blue Beetle: Another DC example are the Blue Beetles; besides the ones on Earth there are plenty of other Blue Beetles in the galaxy belonging to different alien species. The catch is they are agents of the Reach, who use the Beetles to infiltrate world to gather information on them, and conquer them when they are ready.
  • Inverted in the New 52, as Jaime Reyes is now the first Blue Beetle. He isn't the first user of the Scarab, but the previous user was a Mayan astronomer, meaning both Dan Garrett and Ted Kord were not his predecessors. Ted Kord is still around running Kord Industries, but he didn't do anything for years until DC Rebirth set him up as Jaime's mentor.
• Captain Britain: The Captain Britain Corps is a multiversal organization, where each different Britain in the Marvel multiverse has a Captain Briatain variant to defend the country. Most of them are different versions of Brian Braddock, but this isn't always the case. Since there's one for almost every reality, not every Captain Britain is Caucasian, male, or even good for that matter. There have been at least two Nazis in the role, since they technically represent the ideals of their Britain. Also Captain Granbretan and Captain Angleterre, who come from Britains that had been conquered by Napoleon. More esoteric Captains Britain have included Captain Airstrip-One, Britanicus Rex, Centurion Britannus, Captain Colonies, Spider-UK, and at least two Skrulls. Oh, and Captain Wales.
• The DCU: Inverted with Blackest Night and Brightest Day. In the former, the number of non-legacy characters who died and stayed dead was exactly one, Tempest, with other casualties including Hawkgirl II, Hawk II, Damage (one of the numerous inheritors of the original Atom's mantle), Gehenna Hewett (half of Firestorm II), and Doctor Polaris II, the last of these only receiving an offhand mention and never actually being shown. Seeing a pattern here? Brightest Day killed off yet another Atom legacy and Miss Martian was presumed dead for a couple issues, too. The fans didn't take any of this particularly well, and it added more fuel to the Epileptic Trees that the DC suits want the Silver Age back.
• The Flash: Inverted in Infinite Crisis, as Bart Allen absorbed the entire Speed Force into himself, and became the only speedster. The ensuing series lasted only 13 issues, and ended in favor of a Flash series by Mark Waid, the guy who pretty much built the previous "Flash Family", focusing on Wally West and his superpowered kids.
• Ghost Rider: Every nation has its own Spirit of Vengeance. Atleast until they were all killed except for Johnny and Dan, but even then a power such as Zadkiel's can't truly erase a Rider from existence, as was seen in the last issue of Heaven's on Fire when every Rider in history showed up to take him down.
  • While Robbie Reyes resembles the classic Spirits (fiery head, fiery vehicle), he has a somewhat different origin and power-set, being bonded to an actual ghost rather than a Spirit of Vengeance.
• Green Lantern: The Green Lantern Corps are made up of members from all over the universe and this trope's original Trope Namer. Being an Earth-based Green Lantern is doubly non-impressive, because there are seven human GLs already, though they tend to be among the best in the Corps. However, this has varied over the years, as the Corps has wavered between a pure police/military outfit and a 3600-member super-hero team where everyone just happens to have the same power. Today, it's somewhere in between: All Green Lanterns have the same power and order is strictly enforced, but individual members can have highly distinctive costumes and styles of using said power. For instance, John Stewart has a fairly standard costume but his ring constructs are highly-detailed pieces of engineering, whereas Guy Gardner has a very unusual costume but just blasts things with his ring, and honorary member Alan Scott's costume is bright red and purple and his ring constructs appear covered in spectral flames^note in the Golden Age, there was no Corps or Guardians, and Scott actually was unique; this has since been retconned all over the place, but in most reimaginings of the character he's only distantly connected to the Guardians and the Corps at best, and his ring is powered by a different source.
  • Ironically, despite there being thousands and thousands of members, the usual standard-operating-procedure for members of the Corps is to act solo or with one partner. Though patrolling the entire universe does tend to spread things a bit thin. (Even downsizing the scale to a galaxy, as is sometimes suggested, would give each GL a little less than a second on average to devote to each star system in his sector in a given year— assuming zero travel time and that he/she/it doesn't need to sleep, eat, or maintain a secret identity. No wonder they aren't supposed to also routinely help with some other sector's problems.)
  • Ever since Crisis on Infinite Earths back in the 1980s, it has been DC canon that most of the universe is lifeless, and those star systems that can and do support sapient life tend to be clustered together. The official number of such planets given at that time (in Marv Wolfman's 1986 History of the Universe) is not so large that 7200 Green Lanterns couldn't handle them. Thus far, no one has provided a different number than that given in 1986, nor has the book been removed from official DC canon. Furthermore, it's also held that most sectors have a lot less going on in them than Sector 2814 (Earth's sector), which is considered the "bad neighborhood" of the universe. This is why it was the first sector to be assigned two Green Lanterns before the expansion from 3600 to 7200 members made that a standard arrangement. Not only isn't Green Lantern unique, but the Green Lantern Corps isn't unique; Sinestro and Star Sapphire have formed parallel Corps (Yellow/Fear and Violet/Love), and there are also the Red, Blue, and Indigo Lanterns for Rage, Hope and Compassion. The exception is the Orange Lantern Corps (of Avarice); it only had one member, Larfleeze, who hogged all the rings for himself. Lex Luthor became member #2, and as expected they had issues with sharing.^note Technically the Orange Lantern Corps has lots of members...it's just that none of them are alive. Whenever Larfleeze kills someone he steals their soul and turns them into a ring construct. Larfleeze's prolonged contact with the orange light has caused him to become one with it, and he has the power to summon thousands of Orange Lantern Constructs at a time.
  • One of the later human Green Lanterns, 11-year-old Keli Quintela, became one in unusual circumstances — while most Green Lanterns were usually chosen by Green Lantern Rings seeking new potential recruits, Keli got her hands on a Green Lantern Power Battery and hacked into it, managing to channel its energy through a gauntlet and becoming an unofficial Green Lantern. Due to her becoming part of Young Justice's adventures while on her way to Metropolis for an internship at the Hall of Justice, the Green Lantern Corps remained completely unaware of the so-called Teen Lantern until John Stewart encountered her by the end of Young Justice (2019). As of DC Infinite Frontier, Keli's in the process of becoming an official Green Lantern, with DC Future State showing a potential future where she is an actual member.
• The Incredible Hulk: Inverted in Hulk (2014), where an intelligent version of the Hulk known as Doc Green ran around the Marvel Universe, depowering all the other gamma-powered characters regardless of alignment, exposure, or popularity. At the end of the storyline, the only remaining gamma mutates were Hulk himself, She-Hulk and the super villain The Leader.
• Iron Fist: In Immortal Iron Fist, Danny Rand discovers not only is K'un Lun not the only capital city of heaven, but each city has its own Immortal Weapon, its own protector and representative like him. Also, he learned that there were lots of other Iron Fists throughout history, including the terminally awesome Wu Ao-Shi, the Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bay. And also when he first met his arch rival, the Steel Serpent, he learned that K'un Lun housed another sacred and ancient power that rivaled the Iron Fist: The Serpent Sting. There are seven main colored Lantern Corps in DC and seven Immortal Weapons, so there's that too.
• Justice Society of America:
  • Inverted with the entire Justice Society in Last Days of the Justice Society, to get rid of the extra Flash, extra Green Lantern, extra Hawkman, etc. They were brought back several years later. And then most of them were killed off in Zero Hour just to crank up the drama, leaving Wildcat, Jay Garrick (the original Flash), Ted Knight (the original Starman), and Alan Scott (the original Green Lantern).
  • Inverted in the New 52. The Justice Society has suffered a major legacy implosion, with the all of the children and grandchildren wiped from existence and the original JSA members becoming young again. The divide between ''Earth 2 and the main DCU also has brought up a kind of One-Steve Limit, in that The Flash and Green Lantern are the only superheroes with ongoing stories to have versions in both universes^note Earth 2 also had versions of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, but they get killed off in the prologue of the series. Every other superhero is editorially confined to either one continuity or the other. So, for example, The Spectre, traditionally a JSA character, is now in the main DC universe instead of Earth 2 with the rest of the rebooted Golden Age characters.
• Nova: The Nova Corps is basically the Marvel counterpart to the Green Lantern Corps, but with helmets that turn its members into flying bricks instead of imagination-based power rings.
• Paperinik New Adventures: The Guardians of the Galaxy in the third series.
• Robin: The third Robin, Tim Drake, was forced out of the role by Damian Wayne, who became the fifth. Tim subsequently became Red Robin, then for a brief period Drake (after the animal) before — in yet another inversion of the trope — becoming Robin again after Damian quit.
• Spider-Man:
  • Spider-Man started out as a guy who got powers from a radioactive spider... until it was revealed he was connected to a supernatural force called the Web of Life, which also empowers every other arachnid-themed hero and villain.
  • Venom was originally a super suit that Spidey himself wore to augment his powers. However, it was later revealed to be a sentient alien symbiote... and even later revealed to be just one member of an entire race. It was also capable of self-replicating, and so far several symbiotes have appeared in the comics canon.
• Superman:
  • In All-Star Superman, Superman is seen teaming up with Supermen and Supergirls from other times (essentially, his descendants) to fight threats against time. The organization is led by Superman himself from a little over a million years in the future.
  • During Final Crisis, Superman teamed up with Supermen from alternate Earths, including his evil opposite Ultraman and a Dr. Manhattan Expy, in Superman Beyond.
  • Inverted with Post-Crisis. The biggest change to Superman was the decision that "last son of Krypton" meant last, as in no other Kryptonians ever, period. General Zod becomes a Russian, Kandor becomes an alien ghetto and thus devoid of actual Kryptonians, Power Girl becomes an Atlantean, and Supergirl dies and becomes replaced by non-Kryptonian Supergirls.
• Swamp Thing: During Alan Moore's tenure as writer, Swampy met the Parliament of Trees, and discovered that not only had plant elementals like him existed through history, but that they had all been created when a man with a name like "Alec Holland" had burned to death in a swamp.
• The Vision:
  • Inverted. The main Vision died during Avengers Disassembled, and was "replaced" by a new model in Young Avengers. As soon as Brian Michael Bendis brought the original Vision back and had him rejoin The Avengers, the teen Vision had a bridge dropped on him in the finale of Avengers: The Children's Crusade.
  • Inverted. The Vision (2015) killed off Victor Mancha, Vision's half-brother, so that Vision himself would be the sole "son" of Ultron. Runaways (Rainbow Rowell) promptly brought Victor back, although he has mixed feelings about this in-story.
• Wonder Woman Vol. 2: Inverted. Themyscira was destroyed, leaving Diana as the last Amazon and stranded in the wider world. The next writer brought Themyscira and the Amazons back by revealing they had been shunted into another dimension by Circe where they had to fight for survival and many died before they made their way back.
• X-Men: Inverted, as after House of M, millions of mutants all over the world were depowered, except for 198, supposedly chosen at random. Very few characters anyone cared about at all lost their powers, and those who did gained them back pretty quickly. The eventual birth of Hope Summers signaled the return of mutants to the wider Marvel Universe.

Fan Works

• Another Way: The PRT is somewhat alarmed by the number of low-level Brute/Mover capes working for Marquis, able to make short work of the mooks from other gangs and get people to sign up in droves for his protection plans. In fact, they're not capes at all, they're just enhanced by Marchioness to be stronger, faster, and tougher, often with subdermal armour and reinforced organs. Her personal bodyguard is her guinea pig, and can bench press half a ton due to the changes she's made, but even the rank and file can easily take down two or three times their number of Empire or ABB hoodlums.
• Takamachi Nanoha of 2814: All the many magical girls of the verse thought they were the only magical girls around until Green Lantern-Chan (i.e. Nanoha) arrived on their doorstep and exchanged cell phone numbers.
• The Mega Crossover Battle Fantasia Project begins with a Magical Girl Original Character attempting suicide on television in order to see if this trope exists — and if it doesn't, to at least escape her suffering. She's rescued by Nanoha and Fate, and magical girls throughout the world realize they aren't alone...
• The Infinite Loops has the Anchors, selected individuals from each loop that remain aware every time their world resets. Unlike most examples of this trope, Anchors don't have any additional special abilities... aside from being much more experienced then other loopers.
• Drakonophobia has two variants, the first variant is a combination of heroes old and new, including Dragonborn, the Mane of the Khajiit, a descendant of Talos and the Nerevarine, as well as the former Champion of Cyrodiil come Daedric Prince Sheogorath. The second variant is when Sotrahkun summons Dragonborn from alternate timelines to fight each alternate Alduin during the great battle in Whiterun Hold.
• Until their disappearance, the Daria Expanded Universe had the Corps of Ringbearers, each of whom had a Defender Ring, a couple of Psychic Powers and Elemental Powers (for the times when or if the ring might somehow get taken away or shut down.
• In My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic, Lightning and Celesto are the only two alicorns that can use the Uniforce... besides Cerise, a one-shot character from My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic II. Oh, and Raven can do it too.
• In To the Stars, (a Puella Magi Madoka Magica fic set in the future) one of the most significant changes is that magical girls are now a united force, and often work in concert. The collective's power extends into various martial, religious, and cultural institutions.
• In The Bridge, a version of Sailor Moon exists in Neighpon, across the ocean from Equestria. The difference is the Senshi Guardians are a generational team of heroes because their aging isn't frozen, and the conflict with Queen Beryl has been ongoing for a thousand years. As the current team ages, the Silver Crystal gradually redirects their power to a worthy successor over some years before they themselves age and retire. This helps the current guardian find their successor and train them. Over 50 generations have passed.
• Deconstructed in Harry and the Shipgirls: The Morrigan has a group around the world known as the Select, non-magical bloodlines that she assigns the task of fighting against the darkness...by finding a heroic member of that bloodline who she feels is heroic and making them a Weirdness Magnet, forcing them to either fight against the supernatural threats that come after them or die. None of them are even remotely sane as a result of this.
• There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton: As revealed in Chapter 34 of The Girl Who Could Knock Out the Hulk, Doctor Doom and the original Reed Richards are explicitly trying to create and subtly "guide" as many heroes as possible in order to minimize the damage Thanos can do to Earth.

Films — Animation

• In Turning Red, every female descendant of Sun Yee can turn into a giant red panda once they come of age and since she lived during the Ming Dynasty there are potentially thousands of them.

Films — Live-Action

• In Jumper, David Rice believes he is the only person in the world capable of teleportation, until he meets Griffin, who signifies this trope with the line "What, did you think you were the only one?"
• The Jedi Knights in the Star Wars prequels. (Although with Luke and Anakin, both were well aware that the order existed before either started their training, and with Luke he was the only active Jedi at the time, considering Yoda and Obi-Wan had effectively retired while the rest of the Order had been murdered by The Empire. Star Wars Legends revealed that various other Jedi survived the purge, but they went into hiding like Yoda and Obi-Wan.
  • Flip-Flop of God has come into play regarding the 'Chosen One' prophecy of the prequels. George Lucas said it was Anakin. Dave Filoni who runs the shows said it was Luke. The general consensus now is that the Skywalkers in general are a chosen bloodline (outside of the Disney Continuity Reboot).
• Played with in Seventh Son. There USED to be a whole order of "spooks," knights who battle the forces of darkness - but all but one of them are dead or have done a Face–Heel Turn before the movie begins.
• Neo in The Matrix film series. Mentioned by Morpheus in the first film and by the Architect in Reloaded , Neo is an "anomaly", the sixth "One" of his kind that appears when the Matrix code must reboot.
• In Bulletproof Monk, Kar is informed of three prophesies that must be fulfilled in order to become the next Bulletproof Monk. After he completes the third prophesy, he discovers that his girlfriend Jade has also completed the three prophesies in a different manner. Kar and Jade end up sharing the power and title of Bulletproof Monk.

Gamebooks

• The Kai Lords of Lone Wolf.

Literature

• In the climax of Constance Verity Destroys the Universe, one of the ways Connie manages to prevent Phlebotinum Overload is by evenly distributing the excess entropy across the multiverse, essentially creating countless new Caretaker Destinies in the process. It's implied that Risky, the girl Connie and Byron consider adopting at the end of the book, is one of them.
• In Dance of the Butterfly, the demon hunters are very rare in comparison to the overall human population on earth, but there are still many of them. They use their special abilities to fight for humanity.
• A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore features the protagonist as the newest Grim Reaper, one among many.
• In Divergent, after Tris finds out she is Divergent, she learns that many others, including her own mother, are as well. Unfortunately, identified Divergents are persecuted by the dystopian government in charge.
• Isaac Asimov's "Dreaming is a Private Thing": Dreamers are rare people with the ability to create stories. They're scouted very young, with an eye to children whose imagination is vivid and detailed.
• The Dresden Files
  • There are the Knights of the Cross, the Chosen Three. Three men or women take up one of three holy swords with a single nail placed into the hilt. (Yes, those nails that pierced Christ to the Cross.) And with these swords, which represent Faith, Hope, and Love respectively, they fight various supernatural evils in the world. While the most prominent Knight is Catholic, it should be noted that this is not a prerequisite for this position. One Knight was a Japanese Baptist, another is an atheist and stubbornly agnostic, and the latest is Jewish, but apparently draws his faith and inspiration from Star Wars. Karen Murphy would briefly serve as a Knight on and off again (it was once mentioned the median service for Knights was three days before death or giving up the sword), she probably drew her faith from her belief in Law.
  • And there are people who are called "starborn." These are mortals who were born under a specific alignment of stars which allows them to be able to actually harm Outsiders, creatures from outside reality. Surprise, Harry's one of them. And his mother probably arranged it herself.
  • The Winter and Summer Knights are mortals who, generally speaking, are selected by one of the Fairy Queens of their respective courts. It sounds like something out of a fairy tale, but it's much less so when you know that the fairies, while they look like regular people, are actually inhuman and capricious. Possessing the Knight's Mantle means there is only one Knight to each Court. They serve as the personal servants of the Queens with the Winter one usually acting as the hitman of the Winter Queens and the Summer Knight would move to defend whomever Winter wants dead.
• Fate/strange Fake has nearly the entirety of Lord El-Melloi II's class. All of them, save for Flat Escardos (who joined as the master of False Berserker) and Yvette Lehrman (who they didn't include because they know she'd betray them), are the collective Master of True Rider. This would be impossible under normal circumstances but Snowfield's war is clearly anything but normal, and Verner Caesarmund used his family magic to split the Command Spell across the students.
• The Great Cities has city avatars, human beings selected as the genii locorum of their cities. There's several dozen such worldwide.
• In the Heralds of Valdemar series, youngsters with potential psychic or magic powers and a dutiful, self-sacrificing temperament are recruited as Heralds by Companions (spirit-beings who know how to look for such things). They usually find their real home and family in the Heraldic Circle, which is useful since too close a tie to home and family can interfere with their duties to the Kingdom as a whole. Although it should be noted that while the work of a Herald may at times be dangerous if they're assigned to the field, most of them don't actually have all that interesting lives or do anything particularly remarkable. How much it's random chance and how much fate if a Herald ends up being interesting or average is unclear. If their Companion is a Grove-Born (magically appeared instead of being born as a result of two Companions having sex), though, you can be sure that the person is destined to be important even among Heralds, at least in-universe.
• In The House of Night, every vampyre is personally chosen by Nyx- and there are a lot of vampyres. Given how involved Nyx gets into the lives of mortals (and that vampyres are her favourite pawns to work through), the Change is basically a sign that She wants or will want you to do Her bidding.
• In In Fury Born, the Imperial Cadre consists of no more than 40,000 individuals, however this is in comparison to a human population of trillions. Each drop commando is such remarkable individual that the absurdly competent Alicia DeVries, considered a Master of All as a regular marine and topping the scales in intelligence, physical ability, leadership, and other measures, is told that that as a new recruit to the Cadre she's, at best, just above average.
• The Last Dragon Chronicles:
  • Liz and Lucy aren't the only descendants of Guinevere running around, and on the flipside, Gwilanna isn't the only nasty sibyl...
  • In Fire World, the Tapestry of Isenfier features David, Rosa, Penny, Angel, Gadzooks, and Mathew.
• The Lensmen in Lensman. The original Trope Namer (Green Lantern Corps) was inspired by Lensman.
• The Messenger Series: For centuries, Favour has been choosing Messengers to ride with him and save people from evil and misery. Rose isn't the first, nor is she the last.
• In Graham Masterton's horror series The Night Warriors, God has chosen 3 special individuals to be his super-powered champions and their first task is to hunt down the sex demon Asmodeus. One battle goes south and so a fourth Night Warrior is recruited to rescue the team. The next book in the series, a new strike force of Night Warriors is recruited and from then on each novel there's a new team added to the roster. It turns out in the past, there's been 85 Night Warriors active at once, before they got slaughtered by Asmodeus.
• Nowhere Stars: Keepers are children chosen by (allegedly) the goddess Claiasya to become Magical Girls (or boys, or occasionally non-binaries) to protect humanity from the Harbingers. Every child on the planet dreams of being chosen to become a Keeper, but very few do; it's also not known exactly what the criteria for being chosen are, and the Messengers (Mentor Mascots that speak for Claiasya) don't even seem to understand the question when asked.
• In Oh. My. Gods. by Tera Lynn Childs, the main character finds out she is a demigod and finds out that there is a whole school of them in Greece.
• In Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the title character finds out that he is the son of the Greek god Poseidon and soon gets taken to Camp Half blood, a camp where other young offspring of Greek gods reside and train. Percy, at first, believes that he is the only current son of Poseidon, but in the second book, he finds out that he has a half-cyclops brother named Tyson. (Although really, anyone with a passing familiarity with Greek mythology should've seen that coming...) It's also implied at the end of the first book that Percy may have more half-brothers and sisters out there, but it's never brought up after that.
• Raybearer: To ensure that Raybearers would become humble rulers willing to truly share their power with others, the Storyteller made two of them. One Raybearer represents courage and compassion, the other represents wisdom and charisma. Both have times when they are right and the other is wrong.
• The protagonist of Poul Anderson novel There Will Be Time is a man who discovers, at an early age, that he somehow has the power to travel through time. Initially he uses this ability to have fun and broaden his mind by studying history and never really thinks too hard about whether anyone else out there is doing the same thing, but after he goes forwards far enough to see a Bad Future coming he starts searching for others, by the simple expedient of going back to one historical event that someone would have to be interested in: The Crucifixion of Jesus. He succeeds, but in doing so discovers that not everyone is using said power in a benign way, setting up the main conflict for the rest of the story.
• A Song of Ice and Fire
  • The Night's Watch, an army set up to protect Westeros from supernatural threats from the high North, was originally this. By the events of the books themselves, however, the Watch has effectively become a Penal Colony, manned almost exclusively by sentenced criminals.
  • The late Prince Rhaegar once said to his sister Daenerys in a vision "The dragon must have three heads". We have seen only Daenerys hatching three dragons and bonding with Drogon, the largest, but she believes she must be meant to find two other riders, possibly from her family. Fandom has many who might be candidates.
  • So far all of the obvious signs of who could be Azhor Ahai aka the Prince Who Was Promised have pointed at either Daenerys Targaryen or Jon Snow. With it being such an obscure and ancient prophecy, it could well be both of them.
• The Stormlight Archive: Surgebinders are all individually chosen by their spren for unknowingly fulfilling certain moral codes; Windrunners, for example, focus on protecting people above all else. In ages past, the Surgebinders banded together into ten Orders, called the Knights Radiant. But after the fall of the Knights thousands of years ago, the spren stopped bonding with humans, and the powers were lost. Now, as the story begins, the powers are returning, but the new Surgebinders have no idea what is happening. Several of the burgeoning Knights accidentally kill their spren due to not understanding how the bond fluctuates with their morality.
• In The Thrawn Trilogy, Mara Jade had been the Emperor's Hand, a personal enforcer to the now-deceased Emperor Palpatine, and believed that she was the sole Emperor's Hand. At one point, Admiral Thrawn informed her that Palpatine had granted the title of "Emperor's Hand" to many people, who each believed they were the only one. This revelation that the Emperor lied to her and regarded her as a tool and not a person was a major step in her slow but sure Heel–Face Turn.
• In Wearing the Cape, Hope Corrigan gains Atlas-type powers, making her one of dozens (although she is A-class—in the top 10% and therefor a hot commodity). After trying to dissuade her from taking up a superhero career, Atlas offers to train her and she joins the Sentinels as a probationary member while working on her certification.
• Deconstructed in Wings of Fire. The Dragonets of Destiny are prophesied to end the War of SandWing Succession. However, that prophecy is thrown off right away by the death of the SkyWing, who is replaced by Glory. Morrowseer reveals at the end of book four that the entire prophecy was made up as part of a huge, elaborate plan to seize more territory for the NightWings. This only makes Sunny more determined to stop the war, and she (along with the other DoD) become The Unchosen One.
• Woof! is a children's book (and TV series) about a boy who turns into a dog. At the end of the book, he meets several other people who are the same, and they suggest that there are others all over the world.
• In Young Wizards, after Nita takes the Oath and gets her power, she gradually learns that there are wizards among every living species on Earth, and every alien race we know of.

Live-Action TV

• Avataro Sentai Donbrothers: Parodied and Lampshaded. The reason the Donbrothers have so many "predecessors" (Almost 5000 to be precise) is that the Donblasters were horrible judges of character that frequently ended up in the hands of sleazeballs that immediately abused their power for personal gain and were promptly fired. #21's citizen of the week is one of these predecessors who spends the episode wondering why the current Saru Brother isn't selfishly using his powers.
• Gary Hobson of Early Edition believed he was the only "man who gets tomorrow's paper today", till he starts meeting others. One of the first being some guy from New York who is the antithesis of everything humble Hobson is: The guy uses the paper to give him an edge in the stock market, owns a chain of fancy restaurants, and even has a hired team of people who carry out the paper's tasks for him.
• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, first there was Buffy the Chosen One, the "one girl in all the world who had the strength and skill to fight the vampires..." However, after a temporary clinical death, it turns out that she isn't the Slayer anymore (first Kendra, then with her death, Faith) and the line no longer goes through her. Then, in the series finale, Buffy has Willow cast a spell that activates the powers of all Potential Slayers, making an army of thousands.
• Angel introduced the concept of "Champions", each selected by the Powers That Be to do acts of good in our world. The main one was the title character, who got his mission postings in the form of psychic visions from his friend Doyle (then Cordelia starting halfway through Season 1), but it was made clear others existed, including the Slayer by definition.
• Doctor Who has gone back and forth on this one a couple of times:
  • It was not until "The Time Meddler" that viewers learned that there were others of the Doctor's race with the ability to time travel.
  • The 2005 revival set up the complete destruction of all Gallifreyans and the Daleks during the Time Skip (for want of a more applicable trope) between his last appearance on screen and the first episode, leaving the Doctor as the last of the Time Lords... until the Master returned at the end of the third season. Naturally he also had a run-in with the last surviving Dalek early on, which died at the end of the episode. That didn't stick either, dumping yet more angst on the Doctor because the Taking You with Me gambit that had been supposed to rid the galaxy of the Dalek scourge forever at the cost of his entire race^note with the possible exception of Faction Paradox, but their canon status is at best questionable and he wouldn't exactly be overjoyed if they had survived was All for Nothing.
  • Gallifrey is saved in the post-Series 7 50th anniversary special, absolving the Doctor the guilt of the genocide. He doesn't return to it until the end of Series 9, and having been betrayed and tortured by the Time Lords and lost his beloved companion Clara to the grave along the way, he tries to save her and becomes a renegade on the run once more. Also, Gallifrey and its people are now deliberately hidden at the end of time so enemies won't find them, meaning the revival proceeds as usual otherwise. The exception so far is, once again, the Master.
  • Come Series 12, the Master kills all Gallifreyans on the planet... but some Time Lords had been exiled or were off-world when he did it, so there're still a few knocking around the place, one of whom, Tecteun, shows up in Series 13. However, while confronting the Master in Series 12, the Doctor discovers that she's not Gallifreyan by birth, she's actually a Single Specimen Species of unknown origin the Gallifreyans took in, which means her current status quo is that her adopted people have been virtually wiped out, and her people of origin are a mystery.
• Power Rangers. At first we are led to believe there's only the Rangers seen on the show. Then it turns out that there's alien Power Ranger teams out there in the galaxy, and various types of Sixth Ranger. Of course this all becomes a total Mind Screw in the episode "Forever Red", which features many past Red Rangers. Given how a new show with a completely new Ranger team is introduced every year, you'd be inclined to believe that within the PR universe, almost any dope with enough resources, spare time and money or ancient wisdom to tap into the Morphing Grid with tech or magic to create morphers, armor, weapons and zords can create his own Power Ranger team. Previously, it seemed that only Zordon had the means of making morphers and creating Rangers. These days, almost anyone from ancient ninja/kung fu masters to modern-day pizza chefs (who are also kung fu masters) can create their own morphers and start up their own Power Ranger team.
  • The comics and Power Rangers Dino Fury elaborated that the Morphing Grid, via the Morphing Masters, reaches out to those that are worthy and need the power to fight evil and enable the connection.
• The Greatest American Hero. When Ralph and Bill finally meet one of the aliens in the ship, he discovers the secret leaders behind his superpowers with the implication that there are more like him elsewhere in the galaxy. Another episode revealed a previous bearer of the suit. He used it to become rich and it was eventually taken away.
• Kamen Riders often cross over with each other, and while they don't all have a unified power source, they do all have similar themes (grasshoppers, riding motorbikes and kicking things until they explode). They all team up quite often in movies, not to mention half the plot of Kamen Rider Decade being Let's You and Him Fight.
• In Supernatural, Sam thinks he is the only one with psychic powers, but soon meets other Special Children and finds out that the Yellow-Eyed Demon has plans for them.
• The final season of Person of Interest reveals that past POIs Joey Durban, Logan Pierce and Harper Rose work as Team Machine's Washington DC branch, and there are probably others like them all over the world.
• The series Warehouse 13 establishes that the titular storage unit is just the latest in a long line of similar warehouses, all built to keep various dangerously empowered objects safe from the world at large. Similarly, the Warehouse is staffed by people who each possess a natural special ability, and while the structure only has one Caretaker, it has a special board of directors, known as Regents, who come from all over the world.
• 4400: Isaiah preaches to the 4400 that they were chosen by God, sent through time by him for some unknown divine purpose.
• Ultra Series: Over the course of nearly 60 years, dozens of humans have been the host of an Ultra to defend the Earth from kaiju and alien invaders (with some exceptions in which the human identity is actually the Ultra in human form). In entries that use this formula, the chosen one is often hand-picked by the individual Ultra after witnessing them sacrifice their lives to save others, leading to the Ultra fusing with the human and kickstarting the show's plot.

Podcasts

• In Pokemon: Adventures in the Millennium, someone can become Chosen simply by interacting with a member of the Creation Trio (Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina). In order to halt one of the villain's plots, one person from each member is needed. The end of Act IV reveals that [[spoiler: there are twelve Chosen in the region at the time, four for each member of the trio, with the main characters included (Belle for Giratina, Julian for Palkia, and Gabriel for Dialga).
• Mission to Zyxx has the Zima Knights, whose sacred scrolls designate who is destined to perform certain tasks. These Chosen eventually make their way to planet Zima Prime to fulfill their destinies such as "Keep the Zima Prime spaceport clean" or similar.

Tabletop Games

• Exalted:
  • This is the game's central premise — your character is empowered by the gods of the setting to become a divinity in their own right. And so are the rest of the seven hundred Celestial Exalted, thousand or so Alchemical Exalted, and roughly twenty thousand and counting Terrestrial Exalted. (And no, Exalted do not necessarily get along.)
  • Some Exigents (the Exalted of the lower-ranking gods, introduced in 3e) are a downplayed aversion, because they're the only one chosen by their divine patron. They may well meet other Exalted, but there won't be any like them, since a god's nature and personality informs the Exaltation, and two gods of similar domains may end up creating very different Exigents.
• In Mage: The Awakening, you are one of the Awakened, a human who has trascended the Lie and become a full-fledged Reality Warper. Thing is, you're not the only one to do this and, indeed, apart from the two villain factions (one of which only wants Awakenings "controlled" — i.e. on their say-so) and paranoid types who believe that more mages equals less magic, pretty much every mage wants more humans to Awaken.
• Princess: The Hopeful: Each Princess was chosen by the Light to be an avatar of hope and an examplar of human virtues, but they are explicitly intended to work together and support each other. Indeed, Princesses actually have a number of special features that enable them to more effectively support other Princesses.
  • Defiance of this trope is called out as the Fatal Flaw of the Court of Mirrors. Each Lightbringer is told by her Queen that she is the True Heir, the one destined to drive back the Darkness and restore the Kingdom. However, a key part of Mirrors philosophy is that the True Heir must stand alone. At best she can have others as lieutenants or followers, but she definitely cannot have equals or permit others to take the spotlight.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • Psykers are supposedly a one-in-a-million occurrence, and blanks as rare among psykers as they are among humans, yet they appear quite frequently in media. It's less of a problem when you consider that the Imperium still holds onto billions of worlds, many of them hive cities with populations in the trillions per hive.
  • Similarly, the very exacting demands Space Marines have of their candidates and their even harsher training (where not all recruits are expected to survive) still allows them to maintain a thousand men across ten companies (not counting the innumerable Mechanicus support staff and Chapter serfs for their vehicles), and those are just the ones who limit themselves to a thousand fighting men because the Codex Astartes says so.

Toys

• In BIONICLE, the six Toa were first thought to be a unique group of heroes, until after three years of storyline Vakama spoke the words: "You are not the first Toa." From then on, more and more Toa were featured and there was even mention of a war in which several hundred Toa fought. Subverted somewhat in that Tahu and his team were indeed chosen among the others to save the Matoran Universe by awakening Mata Nui; they were made to be fail-safes to protect Mata Nui should anything happen to him.

Video Games

• Baldur's Gate gradually escalates this trope (with the major twist that there's nothing inherently heroic about being a Bhaalspawn. In fact, most important ones are evil, though that might be because they are important because they are the most ruthless, villainous Bhaalspawn around) — first you find out you're not alone along with finding out what you are, then the ending to Baldur's Gate reveals to the player the sheer number of Bhaalspawn around, then Shadows of Amn reveals one of your oldest friends is one too, and then Throne of Bhaal has a plot revolving around the (many) surviving Bhaalspawn duking it out or trying to survive.
• Baldur's Gate III takes this trope in a different direction: a small handful of victims of the mind flayers' abductions and subsequent infection are approached by a Mysterious Backer in the Astral Realm that is able to stall the progression of their tadpoles' maturation for the purpose of defeating the Cult of the Absolute. The "Dark Urge" origin character also revisits the idea from previous games of the protagonist being a Bhaalspawn, albeit an amnesiac Bhaalspawn with no memory of their divine link to the God of Murder.
• The Bard's Tale: The protagonist is appointed to The Chosen One whose mission is to free the princess. Later he learns about previous Chosen Ones who died trying to accomplish this and even meets some of them, every one thinking he is the One. Of course, the Chosen Ones are all Unwitting Pawns to Caleigh, who is actually a Demon Queen posing as a princess.
• In BlazBlue: Central Fiction, those who are not reduced to goo because of what Izanami did were called "The Entitled". Summoned to fight and decide the course of the world due to one strong wish that they had. The only exception here is, for some reason, Litchi Faye-Ling. The only reason she was still around was because her pet Panda has an essence of Entitled. Also, deconstructed that while all of them were chosen, they also bear selfish desires about how to change the world, making the world unable to change and forces Ragna the Bloodedge to face on these Chosen Many as the world's enemy, just so they stop sticking with their selfish desires and move on.
• Chicory: A Colorful Tale: Invoked at the end of the game. After learning to make their own brushes, Pizza and Chicory decide to help other people create their own brushes to keep color around but not perpetuate the cycle that created the corruption.
• City of Heroes
  • Incarnates are individuals touched by the Well of the Furies, obtaining the power of the gods as a result. At first, it looks like there are only two incarnates on Primal Earth: Statesman and Lord Recluse. The Alternate Universe version of Statesman not withstanding, those were the only two we knew of. As it turns out, there are far more Incarnates out there than we realized. Half of the enemies on Mercy Island, for instance. Oh, and the Hamidon. Yes the giant amoeba. Really. Not only that, but anyone (I.E. Player Characters) can potentially attract the Well's attention.
  • Prior to recent updates to the game, the Villain side storyline indicated that all Player Characters were all recruited as part of "Project DESTINY", as "Destined Ones" who are foreseen to help lead Lord Recluse and Arachnos to victory over the heroes. The aversion comes in not because the player pretty clearly knows they aren't the only "Destined One", but that your predetermined fate is actually irrelevant, you have to Screw Destiny in order to make sure Lord Recluse doesn't sacrifice your character in service to his plan.
• DC Universe Online
  • All player characters, including some non-player characters, are empowered by Exobytes thanks to Future Lex Luthor spreading them across the planet to create a large enough force to combat Braniac. Those characters are then recruited by either the Justice League or the Secret Society of Villains, and while they never achieve the notoriety of any of the named characters, later episodes imply that they manage to build up at least a small reputation for themselves.
• Dark Souls: Your character isn't the first Chosen Undead. Heck, there's every chance there are multiple Chosen Undead running around simultaneously, even before you consider Lordran's very tenuous grasp of linear time. The title goes to any old human with a darksign who goes chasing after an ancient rumour, and several bosses turn out to be actively filtering or exploiting this endless source of Humanity. The Player Character only starts to really stand out once they acquire the Lordvessel.
• In Deltarune, soon after Kris and Susie end up in the Dark World, they meet Ralsei, who tells them that they are part of the three legendary heroes, which consist of a Human (Kris), a monster (Susie) and a Prince of the Dark (Ralsei).
• Destiny's Guardians, i.e. the player base, all started out as corpses. Each one was resurrected by a Ghost who detected a spark or potential in their remains, signifying their worthiness to live again as one of the Traveler's chosen Light-bearers. The first of these Risen ended up as brutal Warlords duking it out for personal gain and lording over post-apocalyptic humanity, but later generations got their act together, wiping out those Warlords who refused to become nicer people and taking on the mantle of Guardians proper.
• In all the Diablo games, all of the classes are canonically involved in the quest, regardless of which one the player chooses, though the player never meets the others in a single-player campaign.
• You are not the only Arisen in Dragon's Dogma, you are just the latest of many. Through the course of the story, you learn that Duke Edmun and the Dragonforged are both Arisens who were made so by the current dragon, Grigori. Given they're still alive, considering what we see happens to Arisens when the dragon that picked them dies, it's possible that Barroch and Olra are contemporaries of yours as well.
• Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen. Although The Hero / The Heroine is the one who can use the Zenithian Equipments, The team are considered chosens as a whole.
• Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG: Zodiac archdemons can choose their sync partners, which Zazz wants to happen for the sake of fulfilling his deal with Asterisk to revive the humans. They tend to choose partners that exhibit certain traits or have specific elemental alignments.
  • Libra is synced with Akira Sakimoto.
  • Gemini is synced with Runi Jarami.
  • Aries is synced with Barbados Osirus.
  • Capricorn is synced with Akari.
  • Scorpio is synced with Genesis Montanaro.
  • Leo is synced with Morgalia Evers, but can switch to either Chase Evers or Edgar Jarami after Morgalia dies.
  • Taurus is synced with Sho Sharker.
  • Virgo originally wanted to sync with Akira, but Zetacorp forces her to sync with Rosie Jarami after Clyde lobotomizes the latter.
  • Cancer is synced with Kael Osirus.
  • Pisces is synced with Detritus-12.
  • Aquarius is synced with Zazz.
  • Sagittarius is a special case who requires living sacrifices instead of a sync.
  • Ophiuchus is another special case who never syncs with anyone other than the other twelve Zodiacs.
• EarthBound (1994) has Ness, Paula, Jeff and Poo as four chosen teenagers destined to save the universe from Giygas, who returns to seek revenge after his previous encounter with Ninten and friends.
• This trope applies to Elden Ring, in which the player is the latest of many Tarnished to be resurrected by the guidance of grace and commanded to become Elden Lord, repair the shattered Elden Ring, and restore order to the Lands Between. After a certain point, you even gain access to the Roundtable Hold, a gathering place for Tarnished who seek to become Elden Lord. However, when you get there, it turns out most Tarnished don’t really care about any of that, and have actually lost their chosen status as a result — after ignoring (or actively revolting against) the guidance of grace for long enough, they’ve stopped being able to perceive it and no longer gain its benefits. The only Tarnished who are confirmed to still see Grace are yourself, Sir Gideon Ofnir (who's quite frustrated about his fellows getting distracted from their quest), and Goldmask.
• Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem invokes this by name, with Ellia being told she is "One of the Chosen Many, Flesh and blood." The main characters live all around the world in different eras trying to fulfill a common goal: Preventing Pious Augustus from summoning his master. It's all a Batman Gambit by the Great Ancient Mantorok to destroy all of his enemies in one stroke.
• Final Fantasy has a number of these, usually in the form of four "Warriors of Light'' chosen by the world's Power Crystals.
  • Final Fantasy: Four people with different combat specialties find dulled pieces of elemental crystal and set out to restore the bigger versions.
  • Final Fantasy III: The crystals are okay, but they pick four local orphans to restore the balance between light and dark. In an earlier era, there were Warriors of Darkness to stop a flood of Light.
  • Final Fantasy V: The crystals are shattering and grant the powers of ancient warriors to four oddballs to protect them. They more or less fail utterly, but they don't let that stop them.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: Hydaelyn selects and empowers a large number of player characters and even some NPCs, giving them the Power of the Echo, unusually strong aetherial reserves, as well as protecting them from primal tempering. Unusually, she also continues to help after Choosing, up to and including deflecting a magical nuke. Slightly more morbidly, the dialogue implies that there's not much difference between receiving the Echo and being tempered or joining the side of her dark reflection, Zodiark. This last bit is ultimately subverted - while Hydaelyn is indeed a Primal herself, she's also a transformed Ascian whose power predates and dwarfs the corruptive Primals of the present day, so her blessing is just her giving superior power to tempering to those she chooses, this granting them immunity - their wills are still their own.
  • Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light: Four kids from Horne are given powers by the Crystal and told to stop the darkness. They immediately get distracted and bumble around the world not being helpful until halfway through the game.
  • Final Fantasy Dimensions: The Crystal of Lux chooses four people to be Warriors of Light and another four to be Warriors of Darkness.
  • The crossover game Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia has potentially every character in the series be a bearer of Light, although it comes with a side of Light Is Not Good.
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses has an unusual example of villainous origin: Those who slither in the dark had abducted several people and experimented on them with implanting crests into the bodies of those already possessing a crest. Almost everyone they experimented on have died: the only known survivors are Edelgard and Lysithea; and while they have been granted immense power from the experiments, it has ravaged their bodies and vastly diminished their lifespans.
• Guild Wars Prophecies features this. The White Mantle seeks out the Chosen in Kryta to Prevent the Flameseeker prophecies from being filled; as this will result in the death of most of the Mursaat, their unseen gods. The Chosen is not one, but many, and in fact, it's even revealed that all the player characters, Henchmen, Heroes, and all, are in fact, The Chosen Many.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • In the first game, Sora's Keyblade is presented as the only one in existence, and he's the only chosen master (after a brief tug-of-war with Riku). Then, at the very end, King Mickey shows up with another, taken from the Realm of Darkness.
  • The sequels add Roxas and Xion (both of whom are extensions of Sora), Riku (for real this time) and Kairi, while Xigbar claims to have met Keyblade wielders before Sora.
  • The prequel shows he wasn't kidding: there were 7 or possibly 8 (Terra, Aqua, Ven, Master Xehanort, Master Eraqus, Mickey, Vanitas and the retired Yen Sid) before the "new generation". Even this, however, pales next to the army of thousands, possibly millions (there were enough for five Unions) in the distant past. Problem was, they all got distrustful of the others and went to war with each other, plunging the world into the darkness, and leaving behind an enormous Field of Blades, but the hearts of children managed to restore the world but it was splintered to the various different worlds we know of today.
  • Then Played With, as the list of Keyblade wielders grows. As it happens, sometimes previous wielders can specifically bestow Keyblade wielder status on people, but sometimes the hearts of worlds can also do so autonomously. There just turned out to not be any other active ones at the time that Sora got his. By the 'present day' of the series, there are over a dozen.
• The Last Sovereign: The Chosen are young men blessed with great power by the goddess Ivala and sent off to slay evil. Unfortunately, raging libidos and lack of self-preservation lead to high mortality rates. One of them, who ultimately renounced his status, rightfully likens selecting a Chosen to giving incredible power to an impudent child who never got told no.
• The Legend of Zelda has recurring characters in the Sages, a group of seven powerful individuals who are part of the endless cycle in the battle over the Triforce. They usually have some special duty depending on whatever form of evil is threatening Hyrule in that era.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past introduced the Seven Sages (originally translated as "Seven Wise Men") as part of the backstory, where they sealed Ganon away in the Dark World. Their present-day descendants, the Seven Maidens, are kidnapped by Agahnim in order to break the seal, and serve as living items for Link to rescue on his quest.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
    • The game greatly expanded the role of the Sages, explaining that the seven of them were the guardians of the Sacred Realm who could absorb the powers of evil that Ganondorf had unleashed on Hyrule. Whenever a crisis arises, the Sacred Realm sends out a summoning call to those individuals fated to become the new Sages, each Color-Coded for Your Convenience and representing a different element (Light, Forest, Fire, Water, Shadow, and Spirit). In an odd case of Five-Token Band, the first six represent the major races of Hyrule (Hylian, Kokiri, Goron, Zora, Sheikah, and Gerudo), while their leader is Princess Zelda herself.
    • The game also reveals that Link and Zelda themselves are part of such a group. At any given time, there are three individuals destined to receive a piece of the Triforce if it is split by someone with an unbalanced heart. Link is the destined recipient of the Triforce of Courage, and Zelda is the destined recipient of the Triforce of Wisdom. Every split in the series has been caused by Ganon, who receives the Triforce of Power because it is the piece that embodies his desires. As a result, the destined recipient of the Triforce of Power, who would complete the triad along with Link and Zelda, never receives their piece and remains unknown.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker took the "Sage" theme of Ocarina even further by revealing that there was an entirely different pair of Sages in addition to the main Seven. These individuals—the Sages of Earth and Wind—have the job of praying to the gods in their respective temples to keep the power to repel evil active in the Master Sword; without those prayers, the sword can't defeat the forces of darkness.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds offers a new batch of Sages, descended from those from Ocarina; their job is to keep the Triforce of Courage hidden until it is absolutely necessary to retrieve it.
  • Breath of the Wild changes the formula slightly by introducing the Four Champions. Like the sages from Ocarina, they represent four races in Hyrule—in this case, Zora, Goron, Gerudo, and Rito—but unlike that game, they aren't divinely selected (although each does possess a different magical power); rather, they were the best warriors of their respective tribes, and so the Royal Family chose them to help lead the charge against Calamity Ganon.
  • Tears of the Kingdom has its own Sages which predate the Champions in ancient Hyrule and have successors in the present day. Each is bound to a Zonai stone of incredible power, and each has its representation in the six races - Light (Rauru, no successor), Time (Sonia, later Zelda), Spirit (Mineru), Fire (unknown Goron, later Yunobo), Water (unknown Zora, later Sidon), Lightning (unknown Gerudo, later Riju), and Wind (unknown Rito, later Tulin). Unlike Ocarina, there is no Sage of Shadow, because the only time a Zonai stone was attuned to Darkness was when Ganondorf took it literally over Sonia's dead body.
• The Nexus Force from LEGO Universe, split into four factions:
  • Assemblers: The group who builds models out of LEGO bricks. Led by Doc Overbuild.
  • Sentinels: The group specializing in fighting the Maelstrom. Led by Duke Exeter.
  • Venture Force: The exploration-based team. Led by Hael Storm.
  • Paradox: The Dark Is Not Evil group, which uses the dark energies against the enemy. Led by Vanda Darkflame.
• In the Mega Man ZX series, anyone who has the potential to use a Biometal is referred to as a Chosen One, and there are multiple such beings on both sides of the conflict. It's also possible to use more than one Biometal, but not just anyone can use one in the first place. This is because Master Albert designed the system so that only those who had his special blood donation (or are his descendants) could access the Biometal's power, all in the name of finding someone worthy of accessing the true power of Model W and gathering the data to become the Mega Man King.
• Octopath Traveler II: In the original game, the eight travelers aren’t chosen for anything special in the grand scheme of things. They are just eight people pulled in the circumstances and driven by personal motives. Yet they easily derail the Big Bad Lyblac’s master plan to resurrect Galdera. Making them feel more like Spanners In The Works. But here in the sequel, it’s completely different. It's all but stated that the eight travelers are chosen by the eight gods as the inheritors of their wills, as the altars scattered around representing each deity will only bestow their blessings when that character is in the party. In the final chapter, each Sacred Flame and the statues of the divinities protecting them resonate with the travelers, and each one willingly takes the fight against Vide himself to reseal the ancient evil like the gods did once before.
• In Persona, several Ordinary High School Students play the "Persona" game in a classroom, inadvertedly invoking the power to summon their inner selves as deific or demonic guardian entities. Some time later, when the barriers between reality and the collective unconscious begin to fray, this power manifests and helps them fend off a group of zombies, access the Velvet Room where they can be granted new Personas, and most importantly, meet Philemon, their guide and mentor.
• Implicit in Planescape: Torment: the Nameless One had led at least one previous party into the Fortress of Regrets, consisting of Morte, Dak'kon, Deionarra and Xachariah.
• In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity, the player character is not the only one who was summoned from the human world to save the Pokémon world, but is the only one left due to all the others being defeated and banished back.
• In The Secret World, you play one of many agents chosen by Gaia to save her from the Filth. A side character offhandedly remarks that the Filth may be the reason so many Chosen of Gaia have been showing up in recent times: the world is evolving defence systems against it, like an immune system producing antibodies against a virus.
• Tales Series
  • In Tales of Eternia, there are multiple people throughout the world who possess Seyfert's fibril.
  • In Tales of Symphonia the Chosen One is actually part of a large family tree of Chosen Ones that are distributed around the world so they aren't all killed due to a single environmental disaster or other factor. When one fails the Journey of Regeneration, there's always another that will be around to take up the mantle. The current Chosen is the great-niece of her predecessor. In reality, they are selectively bred to retain a genetic compatibility with Martel's spirit. Tethealla also has their own family lineage of Chosen Ones.
  • In Tales of Zestiria, the party discovers that there are supposed to be multiple Shepherds at any one time, but they have been reduced to just one for an unknown reason. When Maotelus became corrupted, he could no longer empower Shepherds. Lailah took an oath to be able to do so in his stead, but she is far less powerful and only able to empower one Shepherd at a time.
• Although the main storyline in Tree of Savior can make you feel as if you are the Revelator (and characters will refer to you as such), it's made clear early on that your character is not the only Revelator in the story — every player character is one, including some non-player characters. One NPC in the starting area of the western Šiauliai Woods even comments on just how many people seem to be Revelators.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has the six main characters, Noah, Mio, Eunie, Taion, Lanz, and Sena, who were all specifically chosen by Guernica Vandham to become the next Ouroburos, the most powerful beings in the world and the ones destined to take down the Moebius. Ultimately subverted, as there's definitely a finite number of chosen ones - "Only so many stones, and so many seats at the table". Guernica was going entirely off-script and furiously improvising during his final moments. The stone just happens to choose the six most viable nearby candidates when activated and Moebius just hates Ouroboros on principle. When they later meet the intended chosen ones, who have been training for years and don't have a two-years-or-less expiration date, there's quite a bit of resentment.

Webcomics

• In El Goonish Shive, one in 7 million humans are Seers. However, since there are over 7 billion humans on Earth, that means there are over a thousand Seers. Aside for three of them though, none of them know of any others and only five of them even know what they themselves are.
• I Log In Alone Players are randomly chosen and granted wings so they could fly to Sky Island.
• Last Res0rt has the Galaxy Girl Scouts, which fluctuate somewhere in-between being a purely female version of The Chosen Many and a Sailor Moon homage. The few scouts we've seen in action seem to be much more in line with being celebrity soldiers more than Magical Girls or superheroes, though.
• Alita in Nexus is told that she isn't the only one chosen by destiny to fight evil. She's only the first of many and at least four others will eventually join her in the battle.
• In Sluggy Freelance, the God of Time created the Fate Web to ensure the world is not destroyed prematurely. There are special people called "potentials" who function as this trope, having the capacity to strengthen strengthen and protect it and are directed by the Web to where they are most needed. Zoe in particular is a potential known as the "Storm Breaker", making her the God of Destruction's greatest weakness.
• In Star Power Danica Maris is chosen by an entity which had been posing as a star (that she had named "Mitch") that she is the latest recruit of the Star Powered Sentinels. Then he attempts to put her in contact with her colleagues across the galaxy...
  Mitch: "Oh dear."
• In Templars of the Shifting Verse, the immortal Augustus is joined by Loria, Dantes, and Urn at various points in history - though none of them know why they were chosen to become eternal.
• In The Witch's Throne, a new girl is randomly chosen to awake as a Witch every ten years.

Web Original

• Fire Emblem on Forums has a few examples:
  • Chains of Horai: The power of a Gnosis, the blessing of the Gods of the Land, is bestowed upon individuals the Gods like enough or embody the God's virtues. All of the player characters are Gnosis wielders, while the Cursed are unnaturally attuned to earning a Gnosis, which is heavily implied to be connected to trying to break the Curse.

Western Animation

• American Dragon: Jake Long. While it is mentioned early on that Jake's the designated dragon of the States, we really don't see this trope in full effect until this global gathering that takes place in one episode, where we meet everyone from the Australian Dragon to the Egyptian dragon. There was also an episode where one of his teachers turned out to be the Korean Dragon.
• Codename: Kids Next Door
  • The show starts out with a classic Five-Man Band who we are led to believe are acting on their own, especially as they have the first 5 numbers. Later, it's revealed that the numbers go much higher than that, and KND has establishments all over the world, and even on the moon. Confusingly, the numbers are chosen by the agents themselves, rather than assigned, and are no indication of rank or seniority. Meaning that the group we follow aren't considered special, they just happened to be the ones to choose 1-5 first and everyone else gets rebuffed by the computer that confirms you can use a number.
  • On the note of KND stuff, however, when Cree was introduced, it also seemed a case of her being the only Teen Ninja, with most other teens being pretty benign, until after Chad got kicked out of the KND.
• Dr. Dimensionpants: although the titular hero is the main character of the series, he is not the only dimensional superhero who received his powers from a Unicorn, as several others are seen over the course of the series.
• The Grand Finale of Gravity Falls reveals that there are ten individuals, each represented by a particular symbol on a zodiac wheel, who, when banded together, have to power to complete a ritual which can banish Bill Cipher. Oddly, while all ten of the Chosen Many have a special connection to Gravity Falls itself and are clearly destined to be part of the Zodiac, the symbols that represent them mostly have less to do with personality and more to do with clothing and other accessories; it's implied that their choice of apparel is something fated to happen. The Zodiac Ten are:
  • Dipper Pines, represented by the Pine Tree (both a Meaningful Name and the symbol on his hat—which he didn't even have until he arrived in town)
  • Mabel Pines, represented by the Shooting Star (the symbol on her favorite sweater)
  • Wendy Corduroy, represented by the Bag of Ice (her ability to stay "cool" under pressure)
  • Robbie Valentino, represented by the Broken Heart (another Meaningful Name and the symbol on his hoodie; when Wendy points out that he's worn the hoodie for years, he lampshades its special status by calling it a "destiny hoodie")
  • Soos Ramirez, represented by the Question Mark (his inquisitive nature and the symbol on his favorite shirt...noticing a pattern here?)
  • Pacifica Northwest, represented by the Llama (easily the shakiest connection, as she just so happens to be wearing a sweater with a llama on it during the ritual—and it's not even her sweater! But who knows why she was compelled to wear it?) Sharp-eyed fans have also noticed that there is a painting of a llama in the secret room in Northwest Mansion.
  • Gideon Gleeful, represented by the Eye Pentagram (the symbol on both Gideon's cape and the tent where he does his Phony Psychic act)
  • Old Man McGucket, represented by the Spectacles (a representation of his scholarly nature before he lost his mind by looking into Bill's world)
  • Grunkle Stan Pines, represented by the Fish (the symbol on his trademark fez and the Mystery Shack)
  • The Author, represented by the Six-Fingered Hand (a reference to his own polydactylism)
• The Green Lantern: First Flight movie used the first version and kind of the second version as its story. Hal being from Earth has to go to great lengths to prove himself to the Corps singlehandedly saving it and the one guy who stands up for him initially is Sinestro who is corrupt.
• Lok from Huntik: Secrets & Seekers finds an Amulet of Concentrated Awesome, only to discover that many people, called seekers, possess them, and have banded together to form the Foundation.
• In Book 3 of The Legend of Korra, Bumi miraculously develops the ability to airbend when previously Aang, Tenzin, and the latter's children were the only airbenders around. However, he and the others quickly find out that many former nonbenders have gained the ability to airbend due to the Harmonic Convergence. Korra, Bumi, Tenzin, Mako, Bolin, and Asami thereafter set out to find more airbenders to train.
• Downplayed a bit in Miraculous Ladybug: Ladybug and Chat Noir know they each have a Miraculous, as does their opponent Hawk Moth (or Papillon in the original French). They presumably suspect there might be others, but so far as they know they're on their own and no more backup is coming... although there are five extra kwamis in the opening titles so the fans almost immediately figured out that this was not true. Nevertheless, it's not until the Season 1 finale that the heroes meet up with the mysterious individual who gave them their Miraculi... And it turns out that there are several times more Miraculi than even the viewers had been led to believe.
• ReBoot does this with the Guardians. At the end of the second season we learn that the Guardian consul has targeted Mainframe for deletion, in the Darker and Edgier third season we learn that The Guardians have all been infected by the "super-virus" Daemon. Which serves as the plot for one of the two movies that make up the fourth season.
• Superman: The Animated Series: Inverted with the series making Supergirl from a nearby planet (thus getting the same powers and suffering the same fate as Krypton). And Krypto is Bizarro's pet... thing. (The actual dog himself did make a few cameos).
• Time Squad "Kublai Khan't" sees Tuddrussel captured and imprisoned by Kublai Khan, and when Larry and Otto can't rescue him, the former drops a Wham Line: "We could call for...backup." It turns out that there are multiple Time Squads monitoring history—with Larry pointing out that a single team of two people couldn't possibly take care of the entire past—but actually summoning help is meant to be an absolute last resort ("Tuddrussel is not going to like this..."). Wouldn't you know it, the unit they call is led by Tuddrussel's ex-wife ("Oh, he's REALLY not going to like this!").

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