History Main / AccidentalHero

** Played much straighter with Anne's other friend Marcy in the episode "The Second Temple" [[spoiler: while they were searching for Anne, Marcy shows the Plantars some cute animal videos on her phone while Anne's gemstone was still charging. Thinking they were in danger, Anne hastly takes back the gemstone just before it finished charging, leaving it only partially charged. This would later prove to be a good thing in "True Colors" when King Andrias drops Sprig to his death causes Anne to activate her Calamity form with Marcy taking advantage of the distracted King Andrias to save Sprig. Anne's connection with the gemstone saved herself and her family on a few occasions and Earth by defeating Andrias in their second duel. And finally, Anne's connection with the gemstone was the key to unlocking Sasha and Marcy's Calamity Powers and save Amphibia. Meaning that Marcy pratically atoned her mistakes and saved Earth, Amphibia, and by extent the entire Multiverse by complete accident]].

** [[LovableSexManiac Quagmire]] undergoes training to put his perversion under control and is put to the test in a mall to see if he can keep it in, but when he realizes ColdTurkeysAreEverywhere, he freaks out and blitzes into a security office, specifically a surveillance room displaying live camera footage of women in changing rooms. He's mortified... but then he notices a woman in one room is passing out from a heart attack, prompting him to run into the store and find her, [[CPRCleanPrettyReliable rapidly giving her chest compressions and mouth to mouth, resuscitating her]]. Fellow patrons praise Quagmire for knowing CPR... [[HowDidYouKnowIDidnt to which he responds "What the hell is CPR?"]]
** Later in the episode, Peter -- having recently become blind from nickel poisoning -- casually strolls into the Drunken Clam, [[BlindMistake completely unaware that it's up in flames]]. [[TheBartender Horace]] happens to be trapped inside from fallen pillar, and his pleas for Peter to grab his hand and pull -- even as Peter doesn't understand why ([[ComicallyMissingThePoint "Jeez, Horace, you been drinking?"]]) -- prove successful, with Peter managing to unknowingly rescue him and get him out to safety.

* This happened to Doofenshmirtz in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' when he accidentally saved a falling kitten when he tripped coming out of the store. As a result, everyone (including his enemies) believes him to be defecting to the good side. He even attempted to get rid of the news footage of the event to save his reputation.

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS3E5HomerDefined Homer Defined]]" had Homer save the town from nuclear doom by using eeny-meeny-miney to find the right button. He is then lauded as a national hero. He later manages to recreate his blunder, but the townsfolk figure out he had no idea what he was doing, and his "reward" this time is inspiring the term "[[PersonAsVerb pulling a Homer]]".
** Similarly, in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS18E12LittleBigGirl Little Big Girl]]" Bart accidentally puts out a fire when using fire extinguishers to propel himself forward along the road... his intention was just a cheap thrill, but the material from said fire extinguishers put out a fire that he encountered along the way.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "[[Recap/SouthParkS2E11RogerEbertShouldLayOffTheFattyFoods Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Fatty Foods]]", Cartman, furious that no-one saw him on TV, knocks over the [[MindControl mind controlling Planetarium projector]] in a fit of rage, inadvertently saving Stan and Kyle and wiping the mind of the Planetarium owner.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTimeDistantLands'': In "Together Again", [[spoiler:Mr. Fox accidentally murdered New Death, who was possessed by The Lich, which ultimately saves all the souls in the Death World and prevents both Finn and Jake from being forced to become the next death. As bonus, he becomes the new, new Death and is shown to be TheGoodKing as he erases all of the monsters in the forest death world and allows everyone trapped there to go free except for Wyatt.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTimeDistantLands'': In "Together Again", Mr. Fox accidentally murdered New Death, who was possessed by The Lich, which ultimately saves all the souls in the Death World and prevents both Finn and Jake from being forced to become the next death. As bonus, he becomes the new, new Death and is shown to be TheGoodKing as he erases all of the monsters in the forest death world and allows everyone trapped there to go free except for Wyatt.

* ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'': Beavis and Butt-Head sometimes manage to save the day, but only unknowingly. They never realize that something is going wrong in the first place; it just so happens that they have found something that brings good luck. Sometimes, they even ''want'' things to go wrong, only for their stupidity to, ironically, make them ''[[SpringtimeForHitler better]]''. Three noteworthy examples are "A Very Special Episode", "Spill", and ''[[WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtheadDoAmerica Do America]]''.

** In ''Manga/DragonBall'', he lets Piccolo live when he has him dead to rights. In ''Anime/DragonBallZ'', he lets Vegeta win when he has ''him'' dead to rights. They both [[DefeatMeansFriendship become two of his greatest allies]].
** He recognizes Gohan's potential and ''very'' stealthily guides him to be the one to defeat Cell. At the moment, it's monumentally stupid to send a ''child'' out to fight the BigBad, no matter how powerful he may be. This leads to him having to conduct a HeroicSacrifice to save anyone, which doesn't even really work because Cell comes back even stronger than before and kills Trunks -- only to spur Vegeta into an unexpected rage that gives Gohan the chance to win the fight for real. Win!

* Subverted in ''Literature/AllAmericanGirl'', where the main character believes she's this but, in fact, she really did do something heroic.

* In ''VideoGame/EiyuuSenkiTheWorldConquest'', the player's army is getting ready to invide the Taika Empire. The empress, Qin Shi Huang, is at the same time suffering from a debilitating disease and taking what she believes to be medicine but is actually liquid mercury. The player's army circulates some false rumors that Qin Shi Huang has taken a turn for the worse, causing her advisor, Sun Tzu, to return to the capital. Sun Tzu arrives and accidentally breaks Qin Shi Huang's medicine bottle just as she was about to take an extra large dose, causing both parties to inadvertently save her life. Since the game is fueled by DefeatMeansFriendship, it averts NiceJobBreakingItHero.

* In the second season of ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'', Grime and his soldiers lead a coup against king Andrias. [[spoiler:Only to discover that Andrias was actually a mad tyrant and conqueror wearing the facade of TheGoodKing]].
-->'''Sasha:''' Is that the king? With the [[MacGuffin music box]]?
-->'''Grime:''' If it is, it's a really good thing we stopped him.
[[spoiler: Though this is massively deconstructed, as Anne and her team stop the toad rebellion, King Andrias regains control of Newtopia, and Anne gives him the music box. Allowing him to finally start his multiversal conquest]].

[[spoiler: Though this is massively deconstructed, as Anne and her team stop the toad rebellion and King Andrias regains control of Newtopia, and Anne gives him the music box. Allowing him to finally start his multiversal conquest]].

[[Deconstructed, as Anne and her team stop the toad rebellion and King Andrias regains control of Newtopia, and Anne gives him the music box. Allowing him to finally start his multiversal conquest]].

* In the second season of ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'', Grime and his soldiers lead a coup against king Andrias. [[spoiler:Only to discover that Andrias was actually a mad tyrant and conqueror wearing the facade of TheGoodKing.]]

-->'''Grime:''' If it is, it's a really good thing we overthrew him.

* In the manga ''Manga/PartTimeOtherworlder'', Tanaka often finds himself in another world, and saves the day entirely by accident. In the first chapter, he distracts a giant cat monster by playing with it. Another time, he went to a hot spring, but it turned out to be one used by ogres, and the sight of another human there convinced the local humans to overcome their fear and make peace. In another chapter, he biked past while carrying fried chicken, distracting a pack of wolves from eating a father and son. His WeirdnessCensor makes him think his strange adventures are AllJustADream.

* Quite often ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk isn't actually ''trying'' to do something heroic, but he often does a lot of good with his powers anyway.

[[folder:Fanfic]]

* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' fanfiction ''Fanfic/NineMenAndALittleLady'' has [[spoiler:Gollum, who inadvertently saves the day by eating Mary Sue, having mistaken her references to her "precious" as meaning the Ring.]]

** [[spoiler:Plus, as revealed in "All In" Marcy's cheerful, bubbly personality and kindness towards Andrias deeply moved him during their first meeting that he convinced the Core to spare her life by sending her and her friends on their temple quest to protect her from being killed. Both effectively saving her and unintentionally setting the prophecy in motion instead of undoing it like they wanted]].

** As Lord Vetinari remarks in ''The Last Hero'', "[T]he thing about saving the world, gentlemen and ladies, is that it inevitably includes whatever you happen to be standing on." One of Rincewind's enduring character traits is his willingness to "heroically" face ''almost'' certain death whenever the alternative is facing ''absolutely'' certain death.

** In ""[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS02E01TheHomecoming The Homecoming]]", the Bajoran resistance fighter Li Nalas was hailed a legendary hero after slaying a famous Cardassian commander/war criminal in single combat. He admits to Sisko that he'd actually just fallen down a hill, saw a Cardassian bathing in the river, and fired in sheer panic, with no idea who it was. Sisko manages to convince Nalas that he can still be of value by inspiring his people, but the [[TheChainsOfCommanding role never sits comfortably]] and he's [[DeathSeeker actually relieved]] to [[TakingTheBullet sacrifice his life for Sisko]] in "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS02E03TheSiege The Siege]]".

May be a consequence of NonProtagonistResolver. Compare AndYouThoughtItWasAGame, BadassOnPaper, CowardlyLion, FramedForHeroism, GodGuise, NominalHero, MistakenForBadass, SpannerInTheWorks, NiceJobFixingItVillain. May result in BrokenPedestal.

* One ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' [[https://reddit.com/r/TheOwlHouse/comments/prwbue/alternate_ending/ fan comic]] has Luz and King participating in a broom race with King getting motion sick. He ends up barfing into the forest, which lands on the neat-freak Darius as he is holding onto Eda and Raine, freaking him out long enough for the two to break free and get away.