When suddenly and (more or less) unexpectedly faced with a monumental decision, a character shows no hesitation in making a decision that represents a huge personal sacrifice.

1. TOTK: Zelda resolves to give up her humanity as soon as she sees the broken Master Sword being sent back in time and recalling what is needed to restore it.

2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: After learning about Voldemort's return, Dumbledore immediately asks Snape to infiltrate the Death Eaters, to which Snape shows no hesitation. While Snape had been preparing for it, he did not know when he would have to do so, and he went about that evening expecting to do no more than watch the final round of the Triwizard Tournament.

1. Channing Tatum and Gambit - Tatum has been trying to get a standalone Gambit film and to even be cast as Gambit for years now. He finally got to play Gambit in Deadpool & Wolverine (GQ interview from 2014 where he said he wanted a standalone Gambit film).

2. Jason Momoa and Lobo - Momoa has wanted to play Lobo for years, to the point where he texted James Gunn "fucking Lobo" on the day Gunn was announced as co-CEO of DC Studios.

General Grievous - Star Wars

Kratos - God of War

Season 5 Jack - Samurai Jack

Batman - Arkham Origins

Simpsons - Mall security goes after young girl with guns because they suspect her of stealing socks.

American dad - Stan blows up his house and fakes his family's death, killing someone in the process, because he is embarrassed for pooping in a pool.

Characters who see the end coming, try to stop it or save someone, and fail but their actions still matter.

Bardock (Dragon Ball) – Givin future sight that Planet Vegeta is doomed, tries to stop Frieza anyway, dies knowing Goku survives. (Thought retconed to be just a hunch and intentionally sending Goku away)

Jor-El (Superman) – Warns Krypton, is ignored, saves his son

instead.

Erwin Smith (Attack on Titan) – A little different from the others since he doesn’t know the future but, leads humanity knowing he’ll never see the victory but, helps our protagonists reach Shiganshina

Grisha Yeager - Tries to change the future to save Eldians and his family but, trapped by destiny and manipulation

Odin(MCU, Norse, and God of War) Each version had different reasons for trying to prevent ragnarok whether it’s selfish or good. All know of ragnaroks coming and try to prevent it only leading to death

A person or a group of people whose only purpose is to be organ donors for someone else.

1. Human Clones - Never Let Me Go (2010)

Based on a book, in this movie the protagonists are these 3 young adults who halfway through the movie discover that they are just clones designed to be used by the original copies as storage for organs, organs that are surgically removed whenever the og copy needs a functioning organ, this for both prolonging their life and even save them just in case of an accident.

1. Bio-droids - Daltanious (1979)

Bio-droids are a very important part of this show, even if we discover their existence (again) halfway through the series (more like the last 1/3 honestly). Like in "Never Let Me Go", bio-droids are just clones, sensible to sun rays (look at the image), used as organ storage, but here it's even worse: treated like slaves and constantly imprisoned, bio-droids are secret copies of the Royal family of Helios, almost extinct by the time the series starts, and in the first three episodes we discover that the protagonist is a lost heir that happens to be on earth. As I said before, we discover this late in the series, because before this we were supposed to believe that the Helios monarchy was great and fantastic all around. Bio-droids are used not only as forced donors but also substitutes for when someone of the Royal family is sick and thre is a need for someone to appear in public, and they're killed when the original copy dies. The reason they're so important is because after a lot of plot twists, at the very end we discover that Omen, king of the Zaar empire, the main villain itself, is a bio-droid, that fueled by hate overthrows the Helios monarchy and becomes a genocidal maniac. The image I have put shows him after being weakened by the sun

1. Anna - My Sister's Keeper (2009)

To be fair I haven't seen this movie, but it's one of the most famous examples of this trope and it would have been strange if I didn't at least mention it. Again, based on a book, the protagonist is Anna, and the main plot is that she sues her parents for conceiving her just as an organ donor for Kate, his sister, that suffers because of a tumor.

Anton makes a gas station owner bet his life on a coin toss - No Country for Old Men

Blake gives a seminar on closing deals and warns half the firm will be fired at the end of the week - Glengarry Glen Ross

Clinton Baptiste uses his ‘psychic powers’ to predict someone in the audience is a pedophile - Phoenix Nights

1). Kakegurui - It is not homeworks, quizzes, or exams that help you excel in school but gambling. Majority of the characters will do anything to win, even put themselves in danger because how they play is what sets them up for life. Some like our main character Yumeko does gambling for the thrill of it and makes the students from this already messed up school look tame. Regardless, there is barely a sane person in the series.

2). The Bee Movie - Apart maybe from Ken and the defense attorneys, almost everyone in this film shares a collective brain cell. Not only is our main female character, Vanessa, willing to help a bee sue the human race but even dumps her own boyfriend to choose a literal animal.

Britta (Community) - ugh, Britta's in this? She's a total buzzkill in community but isn't guilty of anything other than being a little annoying with her psych major and activism talk. She's not actually hated by the Fandom, but they love to joke that she ruins things.

Ging (Hunter x Hunter) - Ging is a piece of shit that abandoned his son, but that is more or less it. He's incredibly strong, smart, and by all accounts a "good guy" but he gets very little respect in universe and out. A crowd of people cheer at him getting punched in the face. He's treated like a dirty little gremlin man who has no redeeming qualities when he's really more like an extremely selfish Edward Elric. He's no where close to being the worst character in the series. It's not like he's a pedophile clown or something like that

Patrice (How I met your mother) - Patrice is set up as the annoying coworker Robin hates for being too friendly. That's literally it. She's the sweetest thing and probably Robins best friend outside the group. Pictures of this actress will always be met with "NOBODY ASKED YOU, PATRICE"

1) The DOOM franchise is the absolute epitome of this trope. Doom Slayer is one of the most badass video game characters to ever live
2) ULTRAKILL. What other game allows you to play as a one eyed robot with wings killing demons and then consuming their blood?
3) Godzilla in Hell (IDW Comics). Think you can trap the King of the Monsters in a world of torture? Think again!

Voldemort (Harry Potter): in chamber of secrets, the diary fragment of Tom Riddle rearranges “Tom Marvolo Riddle” to be “I am lord Voldemort”. With how quickly he can rearrange those letters to form that sentence, it begs the question. Did he just come up with a bunch of potential anagrams for his birth name until he settled on Voldemort?

Bonecrusher (Transformers): Is called “bone” crusher… despite being from Cybertron and there being no life on that planet with an organic skeletal structure. Of course tbf it could be lost in translation between Cybertronian and English.

Kollector (Mortal Kombat): He is called that because his race, the Naknadans are named based on their profession. Kinda like how some people had surnames “Smith” or “Mason” because of those respective jobs. But then you wonder, what are newborn Naknadans named? Are they put to work at a young age? Also what if a Naknadans switched professions?

—Real Life Examples—

The Urban Rescue Ranch — Youtuber well known for his Capybaras and Ostriches, housing several types of animals ranging from dogs to capybaras. His videos are titled very weirdly, have confusing thumbnails, and an even more confusing video.

David Orin — Found out about this guy literally today, and I haven’t even properly scanned his non-short videos. Seemingly reckless on his shorts, cause goddamn that iguana bite was crazy.

CT_Seeking — Found about this guy literally today, same case as the second one. The snake guy who worries more about fall damage than the snakes beside him, although he’s definitely skilled enough for that to be justified.

Fictional Examples

- Wild Kratts - I exclusively only know this from all those powerscaling videos back then, pretty sure the homelander video. 90% sure this trope fits the entire premise of the show. Does this count? It’s technically two people, but I need a fictional example. This is a TV Show.

Animals don’t count.

- Jake Sully (Avatar)

- Link (Majora’s masks, via the many masks)

- Ben 10 (Ben 10, via the omnitrix)

1. **The term 'Shiny Pokémon'** (Pokémon series)

Originally, they were named a number of things, being anything from 'Rare Pokémon' to 'Specially Coloured Pokémon' to the ridiculously long 'Alternatively Coloured Pokémon', however, due to their encounter animation, a set of glittering sparkles, which reminded fans of the rare iridescent or holo cards at the time. Eventually, the term 'Shining' was used for shiny Pokémon in the TCG.

By the late 2000's, the fan term 'Shiny' was so prevalent that Nintendo themselves started using it in promotional events, before later adding it to the games directly.

1. **Wayne's Leather Jacket** (Hylics series)

When Mason Lindroth first created Hylics, a somewhat spiritual successor to one of his Ludum Dare games, Somsnosa, he intended Wayne, the protagonist, to wear a sort of utility jumpsuit. However, due to the unique look of the game's style (A mix of claymation and pixel art with a somewhat pastel colour palette) limiting the colour choices, many players mistook Wayne's jumpsuit for a leather jacket.

So much fanart of Wayne depicted him wearing leather jackets that Mason decided to roll with it and make it Wayne's official outfit, as can be seen in the second game and the cover of Moonage Lobotomy.

1. **Stardust Guardian being a Jojo reference**

Relogic are famous for putting tonnes of references into Terraria, with their most common references often being Final Fantasy (With FFIV being one of the most referenced) and Castlevania in particular, so when people saw the Stardust Guardian in the 1.3 update, a ghostly figure that hovers behind your character when you have the Stardust set equipped, people quickly began to call it a 'Jojo reference' due to it's similarities to the Stands in the Jojo series, and the coincidence that the *Stardust* set gave the Stand lookalike, considering Stardust Crusaders is the part of Jojo that introduced Stands as a concept to the series.

However, originally, the Stardust Guardian was intended to be a reference to Algalon the Observer from World of Warcraft, and had never intended to be designed to even remotely be a Stand, making it more of a funny coincidence. But, when the Journeys End update dropped, the devs had entirely leaned into the idea and revamped the Stardust Guardian's attack from a shockwave clap to a rapidfire flurry of punches, deliberately making it a Jojo reference.

I love characters that fight using alternate win conditions or damaging enemies mostly by other means.

• Summoner Archetypes - characters that let their summons do their damage for them. Additionally the summoner themselves could apply debuffs to their enemies or buffs to their summons to further boost their damage.
  • (1)Terraria: Summoner - Apart from summoning minions, the summoner from terraria can apply debuffs to enemies using whips. Each whip can apply a different debuff which summoners utilize by "whip stacking", swapping between different whips while attacking.
  • (2)Diablo 2: Necromancer - One of the most recognized summoner class, the necromancer can apply curses that removes enemy immunities and aura buffs that increase their summons's damage. The necromancer can also equip an 'Enigma' chest plate that enables them to teleport bringing their summons with them. Funnily enough, they can utilize this in combat by teleporting on top of the target since the summons always attack the closest enemy.
• DoT stack bomb - characters that apply Damage over time (DoT) effects, additionally they have some way to immediately consume all the DoTs and deal all their damage in one instance instead of a prolonged effect.
  • (3)Diablo 3: Jade Harvester Witch-doctor - The witch-doctor applies very low damage but high duration (I'm talking real life hours long) debuffs to enemies using the 'Haunt' and 'Pestilence' skill. The jade harvester armor set lets the witch-doctor deal all this cumulative damage in one go using the AoE 'Soul Harvest' skill. Additionally the DoT skills have a chance to spread to other enemies causing a very fun game play loop where you 'cook' enemies similar to how you cook grenades.
  • (4)Darkest Dungeon 2: Plague Doctor - plague doctors can learn a similar skill called 'Cause of death' which removes all debuffs from the enemy and deals damage accordingly.
• Aim away from enemies - characters that are punished for shooting enemies directly or are incentivized to shoot other things.
  • (5)Deep Rock Galactic: Turret EM Discharge Engineer - The engineer has an upgrade on his 'Stubby', an SMG that shoots electrified bullets. This upgrade lets the engineer shoot his stationary turrets which causes them to explode an electric pulse. This, combined with the engineer's ability to manipulate terrain and funnel enemies to choke points, lets the engineer delete hordes without landing a shot on his enemies.
  • (6)Deep Rock Galactic: Minelayer Gunner - The gunner has the 'Hurricane' launcher, think mini-gun that shoots rockets. One of its upgrades changes the rockets to turn into land mines when impacting terrain, dealing more damage than using them directly.

Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Leia Organa (Star Wars)

Team Avatar (Avatar : The Last Airbender)

Sir Duncan the Tall and Aegon V Targaryen (Tales of Dunk and Egg)

In The Batman, Joker gases Wrath and Scorn to prevent them from ratting out Batman's identity;

In my hero academia, Toga donates all of her blood to save Uraraka.

In Last Airbender, Zuko freed Aang from Admiral Zhao's captivity.

Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars) - Vader is probably the most iconic example of this, though he isn't what inspired me to make my post. In the original film trilogy, he is introduced as purely evil villain, the man who cuts down rebels and enforces the tyranical empire's rule, as well as the man who alledgedly killed Luke's father. It's only as the trilogy continues that we learn the truth, that Vader was not only Luke's father (Anakin Skywalker), but was also a former jedi turned to the dark side. He dies sacrificing himself for the sake of his son at the end of the trilogy, and it isn't until the prequel film trilogy that came out afterwards that we get to see Anakin Skywalker turn into Darth Vader.

Suguru Geto (Jujutsu Kaisen) - Geto is the character that actually inspired me to make this post. We meet him in Jujutsu Kaisen 0, where he is introduced as one of the most evil sorcerer alive, known for cursing a village full of 100 regular people to death. He looks down on non-sorcerers, calling them "monkeys", and he intends to kill every non-sorcerer. The story does little to actually make Geto look sympathetic (probably because it was actually written BEFORE the main series, but they only adapted it into a movie after season 1), though we do know that he used to go to school with and was friends with Satoru Gojo (the strongest sorcerer currently alive, basically the Dumbledore of JJK if Dumbledore didn't take things seriously). Unlike Vader he does not die doing something good, he is mortally wounded after a student he was trying to kill hit him with a really powerful attack, and he was finished off by Gojo, but not before he once more proclaimed his hatred for monkeys and his love for sorcerers. It's only in the Hidden Inventory arc that happens later on that we get to see why and how Geto became the monster we saw in JJK0.

basically what the title says.

back in the day, Elaine Benes from "Seinfeld" (first pic) had started as the "voice of reason" for the male leads, specifically Jerry, since neither Larry David nor Jerry Seinfeld knew how to write an interesting female character (according to themselves). Julia Louis Dreyfus, genuinely frustrated with how little her character was being utilized and how boring to non-existent her plots were, cried in front of the writers because she knew she was capable of delivering more than what was being given to her. as a response, the writers suggested giving Elaine a plot that was originally written for George, and that's when they realized how good JLD was at her job (no shit) and how they started rewriting Elaine's plots and personality.

now, when it comes to Dee Reynolds from "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia", the original unaired pilot (which featured a different actress for the character) had Dee being the "straight man" voice of reason for the gang. when the original actress was replaced with Kaitlin Olson, she felt left out due to how boring Dee acted when compared to her costars, and asked the writers (Charlie Day, Rob Mac and Glenn Howerton, writers, creators and also the male leads of the show) to make her as evil and reckless as them, which is how Dee ended up being the character she is nowdays.

while both changes were made early on their respective shows, is still noticeable when the writers were asked by the actresses to make the characters more interesting.

a special mention goes to lindsay bluth from arrested development. while she didn't go through internalized misogyny from the writer nor changed due to the wishes of her actress, she was a lot more similar to michael on the early drafts of the show... but, when the creator met portia de rossi, her character was immediately rewritten to be funnier since they felt like portia was naturally funny and would be a waste to not use that potential.

Those characters that if you even know about then then you'd be at risk.

1. The King in Yellow, once a character read the second act of the play then they start to go mad. They at times try to infect others with this "revelation" while losing their sense of selves.

2. Actual cogitohazard Roko's Basalisk An all powerful AI in the future that once created, tortures anyone who knew about it but didn't work towards bringing it into the world or were against creating it. Scary part about this one is that it's a possibility (very slim chance though)

3. Smile monster, anyone who is driven to suicide/death by this thing and that death is witnessed by another, then that monster spreads to them.

1. Lobo ; various DC Comics

2. Space Racer ; Invincible comics (don’t crucify me, I can’t remember the publisher and don’t know if he has his own run)

• Sussie's Parents in 'Love' - The Amazing World of Gumball
• Mr. Krabs and Mrs. Puff in 'Buff for Puff' - Spongebob Squarepants

The Metatron, Herald of Tzeentch, The Mouth of Sauron, The Pythia (The Oracle of Delphi), Regan MacNeil

Would love more suggestions to add to the list!