Generic Doomsday Villain seems closest to what you're looking for, though that one's seen a lot of discussion about whether it's too negative.
It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Complaining
, started by Rebochan on Dec 2nd 2013 at 7:32:59 AM
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Complaining, started by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Jun 20th 2018 at 12:38:00 AM
Is Buffy an example? The way the entry is written makes it sound like she's not ordinary enough to be one, but I haven't seen the show, so I can't tell if it's just the way the entry is written or not.
Why is this marked as YMMV? The way it is described, it seems to be about a deliberate choice from the creator's side to make their protagonist this way.
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I am guessing because it attracted trope misuse.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
This might be a Subjective Trope, as not everyone's going to agree with some of the examples.
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Agreed. I've especially never gotten the "Buffy is boring compared to the other characters" thing. Just...no.
Honestly a lot of the examples come off as "Complaining About Protagonists You Don't Like" as it is.
The trope might need some cleanup, but its at least as worthy to keep around as Sidekick Glass Ceiling.
This entire trope is just "Complaining About Protagonists You Don't Like." The opening intro is short and vague and tells you nothing of real use but "Side characters are more interesting than main characters." And you know what? In shows with large casts, this is expected. When the intro even tries to handwave that this character can somehow still qualify despite also being a really popular character, it's just opening the floodgates for "I like this character better, why isn't s/he the protagonist?!" Which is subjective, but not a trope.
Myself
A lot of people would argue seeing as Goku is one of the most popular characters of that show. Gohan was kicked out down from protagonist duty cause they did not like him enough and Vegeta and Piccolo have there own fans yet do not do that much more then Goku. There might be an argument that Goku is a designated protagonist, but that was not it.
It should be noted that antagonist do not count in a trope about protagonists... otherwise who would be the antagonist?
Edited by 69.172.221.4
Should the Community example be there? Jeff really never was the main character (and even less so in later season), the show has been an ensemble cast show. Honestly he's more a Bait And Switch Protagonist since while early promo materials made him out to be the star, it wound up being a true ensemble.
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As I remember they all were shown when mentioned in the Dean's welcome speech. And Jeff has features as The Charmer, Manipulative Bastard and Deadpan Snarker.
Removed the "Game Of Thrones" example.
- On Game Of Thrones, the Starks and Jon Snow are perfectly interesting characters, they just happen to be less interesting than ... virtually everyone they interact with. Daenerys Targaryen suffers from this to a lesser extent as well.
Surfing online, I haven't found this to be the case at all.
A character who is consistently rated as the most popular character in the show doesn't qualify as an example of this trope. Broken Base and Rooting for the Empire (among others) are more appropriate tropes to describe a main character that some of the fandom doesn't like.
"Standardized Leader is a Sub-Trope, and the two often overlap." How could a trope not overlap with its super trope?
There’s vanilla protagonists, but can there be vanilla antagonists?
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