History Main / TheLoad

* Wrestling/TheUndertaker saw his long-time friend and manager Wrestling/PaulBearer as that. He had no choice but to get rid of him by burying him in cement. Six years later, this is actually proven true when Wrestling/{{Kane}} lost focus in his matches when Wrestling/{{Edge}} kidnapped Paul.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* After a decade of nigh-bankruptcy, the American Motors Corporation was bought out by Renault. AMC was floundering and Renault had to downsize their own operations in France to keep the company afloat; anger sparked by shutting down French factories caused extreme nationalists to assassinate the CEO of Renault as revenge. Renault then dumped AMC onto Chrysler, who took what they wanted (the Jeep division) and sold everything else. Later, Chrysler itself became the load to Mercedes-Benz after a merger; incompetent management and TwoDecadesBehind design and [[TheAllegedCar reliability]] meant that Chrysler became a sinking ship, and were the laughing stock of the American industry until they were finally bought out by FIAT in 2011, who were actually interested in revitalizing the brand.
* Played ''absolutely'' straight, however, by Charles De Gaulle, an ''unbelievably'' arrogant buffoon who focused more on jockeying for political power than aiding the war effort ''despite France being occupied at the time'', radioed news about D-day to French resistance fighters to bolster morale ''after the Allies spent downright herculean efforts to obfuscate the exact date of the invasion'', and even having the audacity to claim that [[BlatantLies France liberated itself]]. Post-war, De Gaulle set about sabotaging NATO, securing France special treatment, and attacking the Anglophone world however he can, such as rousing separatism in Quebec and repeatedly vetoing Britain's efforts to join the [[UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion European Economic Community]]. Not for nothing did Churchill say "The heaviest cross I have to bear is the Cross of Lorraine".[[note]]The Cross of Lorraine being the French resistance's symbol[[/note]] Also, when one of his cabinet mentioned that De Gaulle seemed to have delusions of being the reincarnation of UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc, Churchill only half-jokingly lamented that he couldn't have De Gaulle burned at the stake.
[[/folder]]

* Omnipresent in armies based on {{conscription}}. Since conscription is forced labour by definition and it is a true cross-section of the whole society, it will bring not only the best and the brightest to the rank and file, but also the worst and the dullest. Since the service motivation of forced labour tends to be ''very'' low, and the drilling and training must be designed by the learning capability of the least capable of the boys, the quality of conscripted soldiers tend to be very low, with the low talented boys being more the load rather than of any asset except ballooning the numbers.

* The American Vice President will more than often be seen as this. Often, if they were seen as competent enough, they would have gotten the nomination for President. It helps that they have very little power. Quite frequently, the Vice President is chosen by his party to [[KickedUpstairs move him out of a more valuable office]] because the VP position is so powerless. In one [[UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt particular case,]] this [[ReassignmentBackfire backfired]] ''spectacularly,'' at least for the party. (It worked out pretty well for the country.) Most of the time, when the VP becomes the UnexpectedSuccessor, [[UsefulNotes/JohnTyler he proves]] [[UsefulNotes/MillardFillmore competent if]] [[UsefulNotes/ChesterAArthur not really]] [[UsefulNotes/GeraldFord noteworthy.]] Of course, there are [[UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson exceptions]] [[UsefulNotes/AndrewJohnson below]] [[UsefulNotes/HarryTruman as well as]] [[UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt above the average.]]
* UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} has been plagued by this in both World Wars. In UsefulNotes/WorldWarI they had to prop up their ally UsefulNotes/{{Austria}} -- UsefulNotes/{{Hungary}}; in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII it was their ally UsefulNotes/{{Italy}}.
* A popular acronym for South East Asia Command in [=WW2=] was Save England's Asian Colonies.
* This is recognized in the world of business by "ThePeterPrinciple", where skilled employees are promoted through the ranks eventually to management -- where they are no longer doing what they are qualified to do and thus no longer competent in their jobs, making them The Load. And expanded upon using "TheDilbertPrinciple" by the cartoonist Scott Adams in his book of the same name. The principle states that incompetent employees are promoted to middle management where they will safely become The Load instead of remaining in their former positions where they could do actual damage to the company as TheMillstone. Another name for this phenomenon is being KickedUpstairs. Expanded further in "The Way of the Weasel" where it's explained that incompetent employees that cannot be fired tend to be moved where they will do the least damage: management.
* As mentioned in the video game section any player who doesn't pull their own weight on a team can easily be the load. Hence the term "carrying." This can easily happen to any team based sport or game of any type when a player isn't performing at their best.
* Easily applicable to those people on group projects for school or work who don't contribute anything. Sometimes, they might not even know a single thing about the task at hand.
* Remoras, a taxon of bony fishes which specialize in adhering to larger sea creatures' bodies, have often been considered the load for the animals they attach themselves to. {{Subverted|Trope}} by some remora species, which pick parasites or dead skin cells from the bigger animals from which they hitch rides.
* On [=P2P=] networks, "leeches", users who download without uploading anything in return, are seen as this, as they slow down everyone else. [=BitTorrent's=] algorithm attempts to get around this by making downloads faster the more a user uploads, and most clients upload as soon as a user starts to download anyway. Some trackers also require users to maintain a certain upload/download ratio.
* The problem of leeching is a specific example of the "free rider" problem in economics, where people use a resource without contributing in turn, leading to overconsumption or underprovision.

* LetsPlay/SimonLane, while hardly useless in the ''Jaffa Factory'' series (part of the ''Machinima/YogscastMinecraftSeries''), does less work than LetsPlay/LewisBrindley or LetsPlay/DuncanJones and spends a lot of his time easily distracted, forcing them to get him back on track.

** Lightning Dawn. Despite his physical strength, most of the villains use magic and his inability to use magic is quite a liability in battle. Anytime he finishes a battle is with his Uniforce.
** Krysta is more of a hindrance to the others than anything.
** Brain also qualifies.

* At one point in ''Fanfic/TheKeysStandAlone: The Soft World'', the narration mentions that outworlders have started to refer to Ringo as "the Load", because he's never seen to do anything except cower next to John. [[HeartIsAnAwesomePower Hoo boy, are they wrong.]]

* In the various ''ComicBook/TheTransformers'' comics, there's Nautilator. In theory, transforming into a lobster monster should make him an oceanborne killing machine, what with the giant claws and a gun that crushes enemies to death. It also means he should be highly efficient in his function of performing undersea excavations. In practice, he's a bungling dolt and career loser who can't even swim properly. Inexplicably for a member of the Decepticons' underwater strike force, he has SuperDrowningSkills and NoSenseOfDirection. He's been defeated by the undertow of all things. He also [[NeverMyFault never owns up to his mistakes]] and his team sorely wishes they could just be rid of him -- a sentiment that is apparently shared by the rest of the Decepticons. He's so bad that when they [[CombiningMecha combine to form Piranacon]], the Seacons discovered that they're much less effective when they let him form a limb rather than force him to transform into the team's gun. If he didn't somehow have a knack for bringing back useful salvage to Decepticon HQ when they have to fish him back from the bottom of the ocean, they probably would have left him to rust ages ago.

** Aunt May is such a load in Sixties comics, it's frankly bizarre. This isn't helped by her tendency of referring to "that awful Spider-Man," and her belief that Otto Octavius is a polite and charming man -- while he's holding her hostage and Peter is trying to rescue her. Aunt May is a bit different from the usual instances. She isn't insisting on following Spider-Man around, for example, or trying to hang out with him. She's a Load, but she's ''Peter's'' Load, not Spider-Man's -- and with the number of times Peter's had move back in with her, he's probably Aunt May's Load too. She's such a Load that everyone worries about her well-being when her nephew is a superhero... but not because she's so ridiculously old. And then... then there was ComicBook/OneMoreDay. Aunt May became such a Load that Peter Parker lost his marriage in a literal DealWithTheDevil just to keep her from dying ([[IdiotHero thanks to circumstances Peter brought upon her himself]]). In a subsequent storyline, she unknowingly dates a supervillain, but [[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt nothing could have ever come out of it]] because we had already seen reality itself get altered for the sake of her not dying.

** Such as Franchise/{{Superman}}'s pal ComicBook/JimmyOlsen, the [[Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica JLA]]'s Snapper Carr, and the [[ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica JSA]]'s Johnny Thunder. [[ComicBook/PostCrisis Modern]] comics have managed to avert this to an extent, such as by making Jimmy a closer friend of Clark Kent's than Superman's, or by making Johnny a hero in his own right.

** Creator/PeterDavid eventually subverted this in his ''Incredible Hulk'' and ''[[ComicBook/CaptainMarVell Captain Marvel]]'' series by showing that Rick had spent [[GenreSavvy so much time hanging around superheroes, he'd actually picked up enough general knowledge]], including extensive combat training during the time he insisted on being ComicBook/CaptainAmerica's sidekick, Bucky, to be able to handle himself in almost any situation (like, say, [[CrazyPrepared carrying around a parachute in case he's suddenly stuck on an exploding spaceship]]).

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* In the various ''ComicBook/TheTransformers'' comics, there's Nautilator. In theory, transforming into a lobster monster should make him an oceanborne killing machine, what with the giant claws and a gun that crushes enemies to death. It also means he should be highly efficient in his function of performing undersea excavations. In practice, he's a bungling dolt and career loser who can't even swim properly. Inexplicably for a member of the Decepticons' underwater strike force, he has SuperDrowningSkills and NoSenseOfDirection. He's been defeated by the undertow of all things. He also [[NeverMyFault never owns up to his mistakes]] and his team sorely wishes they could just be rid of him--a sentiment that is apparently shared by the rest of the Decepticons. He's so bad that when they [[CombiningMecha combine to form Piranacon]], the Seacons discovered that they're much less effective when they let him form a limb rather than force him to transform into the team's gun. If he didn't somehow have a knack for bringing back useful salvage to Decepticon HQ when they have to fish him back from the bottom of the ocean, they probably would have left him to rust ages ago.
* ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke:'' No other companion to a hero holds him back more than Rantanplan the dog. He fancies himself a heroic hound but he never understands what's going on, is too easily distracted and contributes nothing but trouble for Lucky Luke. In more than a few video games during in a fight with dangerous villains, Lucky Luke has to go out of his way to avoid shooting him. It is no surprise that Jolly Jumper [[EnragedByIdiocy dislikes]] his company. A few times however, even a Load can save the day when it falls on an enemy's legs, and even then without realizing it.
* ''ComicBook/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'': As Link is fighting a group of monsters off, The Boy cheers Link on by pounding the head of one the statues that pour into the fountain. This triggers the Swamp Palace in the Dark World to get flooded, washing away the monsters and Link. Subverted in that the flooding water helps him defeat the two enemies he was fighting and get him to a high hole in the wall.

* Po in ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda2'' is a literal example. He is a capable kung fu master and can direct the members of the Furious Five in battle fairly well. However his [[MightyGlacier mobility]] is so poor that he is often literally thrown and carried around by his much quicker comrades.

* What would it be like to assemble a team of so-called heroes where ''every'' member is The Load to everyone else through stupidity, greed and general antisocial behavior? The answer is the Light Warriors of ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater''!

* Bogey in ''Webcomic/KidRadd'', who, being a OneHitPointWonder who can only attack by [[CollisionDamage walking into people]], is outclassed by nearly everyone else. He knows it, too, frequently angsting over his general uselessness, which eventually [[spoiler: causes him to perform a HeroicSacrifice to give Radd his power-up before he gets killed by the FinalBoss.]]
* Reynir from ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'' is a good example of this trope done right. Reynir is pretty useless (at least to begin with), but unlike most Loads he keeps out of harm's way, listens to instructions from people who know better, tries to develop his skills and has a good sense of his own limitations.
* Alex from ''Webcomic/WeakHero'' is in the unfortunate position of being an [[OvershadowedByAwesome "only decent"]] fighter who's best friends with Ben, one of the greatest fighters in the webtoon- this leads to him frequently taking a beating from antagonists who [[AndYourLittleDogToo specifically want to rile up Ben]]. By Season 3 he's really started to beat himself up for how many times Ben has saved him without him able to return the favour, and he starts training harder than ever so that he can stop being a burden to the group.

* UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} has been plagued by this in both World Wars. In UsefulNotes/WorldWarI they had to prop up their ally UsefulNotes/{{Austria}}- UsefulNotes/{{Hungary}}; in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII it was their ally UsefulNotes/{{Italy}}.

[[caption-width-right:300: A [[LiteralMinded literal]] example.]]

[[caption-width-right:300: A [[LiteralMindrd literal]] example.]]

[[caption-width-right:300: A[[LiteralMindrd literal]] example.]]

[[caption-width-right:300:Very [[DoubleEntendre straight]] example.]]

* Russell in ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'' at first seems to fit this category: he loses his Wilderness Explorer GPS, literally acts as a deadweight while Carl is towing the house, cannot put up his tent, and reveals to Muntz that he and Carl have met "the Monster of Paradise Falls" (i.e. Kevin the Bird). Probably meant to be an inversion of how in many films where a crotchety old man is paired up with a spunky kid, it's the adult who's portrayed as inept and in need of rescue. Plus, Russell has the excuse that he has no real way of getting home under his own power. If Carl doesn't do it, the poor kid is toast. However, he eventually [[TookALevelInBadass takes a level in badass]].

** Aunt May is such a load in sixties comics, it's frankly bizarre. This isn't helped by her tendency of referring to "that awful Spider-Man," and her belief that Otto Octavius is a polite and charming man -- while he's holding her hostage and Peter is trying to rescue her. Aunt May is a bit different from the usual instances. She isn't insisting on following Spider-Man around, for example, or trying to hang out with him. She's a Load, but she's ''Peter's'' Load, not Spider-Man's -- and with the number of times Peter's had move back in with her, he's probably Aunt May's Load too. She's such a Load that everyone worries about her well-being when her nephew is a superhero... but not because she's so ridiculously old. And then... then there was ComicBook/OneMoreDay. Aunt May became such a Load that Peter Parker lost his marriage in a literal DealWithTheDevil just to keep her from dying ([[IdiotHero thanks to circumstances Peter brought upon her himself]]). In a subsequent storyline, she unknowingly dates a supervillain, but [[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt nothing could have ever come out of it]] because we had already seen reality itself get altered for the sake of her not dying.

* ComicBook/LuckyLuke: No other companion to a hero holds him back more than Rantanplan the dog. He fancies himself a heroic hound but he never understands what's going on, is too easily distracted and contributes nothing but trouble for Lucky Luke. In more than a few video games during in a fight with dangerous villains, Lucky luke has to go out of his way to avoid shooting him. It is no surprise that Jolly Jumper [[EnragedByIdiocy dislikes]] his company. A few times however, even a Load can save the day when it falls on an enemy's legs, and even then without realizing it.

* Played ''absolutely'' straight, however, by Charles De Gaulle, an ''unbelievably'' arrogant buffoon who focused more on jockeying for political power than aiding the war effort ''despite France being occupied at the time'', radioed news about D-day to French resistance fighters to bolster morale ''after the Allies spent downright herculean efforts to obfuscate the exact date of the invasion'', and even having the audacity to claim that [[BlatantLies France liberated itself]]. Post-war, De Gaulle set about sabotaging NATO, securing France special treatment, and attacking the Anglophone world however he can, such as rousing separatism in Quebec and repeatedly vetoing Britain's efforts to join the [[UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion European Economic Community]]. Not for nothing did Churchill say "The heaviest cross I have to bear is the Cross of Lorraine".[[note]]The Cross of Lorraine being the French resistance's symbol[[/note]] Also, when one of his cabinet mentioned that De Gaulle seemed to have delusions of being the reincarnation of UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc, Churchill only half-jokingly lamented that he couldn't have De Gaulle burned at the stake.

* Played ''absolutely'' straight, however, by [[GeneralFailure Charles]] [[ItsAllAboutMe De]] [[UngratefulBastard Gaulle]], an ''unbelievably'' arrogant buffoon who focused more on jockeying for political power than aiding the war effort ''despite France being occupied at the time'', radioed news about D-day to French resistance fighters to bolster morale ''after the Allies spent downright herculean efforts to obfuscate the exact date of the invasion'', and even having the audacity to claim that [[BlatantLies France liberated itself]]. Post-war, De Gaulle set about sabotaging NATO, securing France special treatment, and attacking the Anglophone world however he can, such as rousing separatism in Quebec and repeatedly vetoing Britain's efforts to join the [[UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion European Economic Community]]. Not for nothing did Churchill say "The heaviest cross I have to bear is the Cross of Lorraine".[[note]]The Cross of Lorraine being the French resistance's symbol[[/note]] Also, when one of his cabinet mentioned that De Gaulle seemed to have delusions of being the reincarnation of UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc, Churchill only half-jokingly lamented that he couldn't have De Gaulle burned at the stake.