Basic Trope: A character who is average in every way.
- Straight:
- Exaggerated:
- Joe is so ridiculously average that he actually stands out for being so ridiculously average.
- Alex is seen around boys and girls alike, but somehow blends in perfectly with both.
- Downplayed: Joe does stand out, but not by much.
- Justified:
- Joe is secretly an AI created as a representation of "the average person". He is used for sociology experiments.
- Joe is a highly competent secret agent, where he knows that standing out in the crowd's a bad idea and uses his "average guy" persona to blend in with the crowd.
- Inverted:
- Jonathan Klaus Divinus Richtfoven Pretentious Ceasar XIV is an improbably smart, incredibly talented, extremely good looking, ridiculously well dressed, so attractive and seductive even all the guys fall head over heels for him Marty Stu.
- Joe has such an bizarre appearance and backstory that he couldn't possibly be mistaken for anyone else in the setting.
- The Ace
- Subverted:
- Joe may look average, but he actually has an Improbably High I.Q., is a superpowered crime fighter and is the owner of a MegaCorp.
- Joe is secretly a supernatural being.
- Characters talk about a guy named "Average Joe" and joke about how plain he is. But when Bob meets Joe for the first time, he is anything but normal.
- Joe has underlying insecurities and puts up a facade of a completely normal guy to cover for them.
- Joe looks average... in a way that breaks the character design rules of the setting (i.e. having a plain, dot-eyed face in an anime.) It's the first hint that he's the weirdest character in the series.
- Double Subverted:
- ...just like everyone else.
- ...just like everyone else.
- He is only special by our own timeline's standard, in Joe's timeline he truly is average.
- Joe likes his facade so much that he becomes the mask.
- Parodied:
- Average Joe is literally the mathematically average man. He has slightly less than 10 fingers, slightly less than two legs, slightly less than two arms, slightly less than two eyes makes the average amount of money (very low considering all the poor countries drag the average down), has an average level of education (very poor for similar reasons), and does not even exist, simply being a huge inside joke among statisticians writing stories about the most average man on Earth...
- Joe is so average that reality warps itself to fit his averageness.
- If you were to look up the word "normal" on the dictionary, you would find as a synonym, the name "Joe".
- Zig Zagged: Joe leads a double life. By day, he is unbelievably average. By night, he's the wildest, most flamboyant presence in the room. Unlike most examples of this situation, Joe feels at home in both of these roles.
- Averted: Joe's appearance and personality keep him from coming across as average.
- Enforced: The show's writer or their higher-ups demand a Lead You Can Relate To.
- Lampshaded: "Your face is so forgettable, you know?"
- Invoked: Joe is dragged into being a spy since no one would suspect such an average guy.
- Exploited: Joe is a great secret agent, because he's so average assassins who are sent after him never are able to find him .
- Defied: Joe laments how no one remembers who he is. So he gets a makeover/hobbies/etc. that decisively fling him out of average territory.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "This character looks... normal. Like, they somehow look more normal than all the other characters."
- Deconstructed:
- Joe is just an average guy who gets put into extraordinary situations, and when they need a hero to save the day, he is unable to do anything to help, and even makes things worse. He is just an average guy after all, with no special abilities, talents, powers, smarts or tricks, and Joe breaks down under the enormous responsibility he shoulders.
- Like with Defied and Played For Drama, Joe's plainness leads to him being ignored and forgotten compared to the more interesting and colorful people around him. He begins to develop self-esteem issues.
- Facial recognition software can't track Bob, so he can't even go to his job.
- Reconstructed: Joe leans into and spoofs his own averageness to ironically create a distinctive identity for himself. He is somehow a Straight Man and a Comically Serious Cloudcuckoolander at the same time because he is "normal" in a way that (deliberately) defies logic. Or the fabric of reality depending on the show.
- Played For Laughs: Joe's friends never recognize him whenever they meet up because his face is so average.
- Played For Drama: Joe despairs about his averageness, since like everyone else, he just wants to be special.
- Played For Horror:
- After showing another Joe completely identical to the first Joe, it is revealed that Joe is part of a Hive Mind that seeks out people and strips them of their individuality, turning them into more Joes.
- Joe, being an average guy with no real outstanding qualities, becomes the Big Bad when given something supernatural to work with.
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