History Main / TheNondescript

* In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', Hk-47 gives a short lecture about assassination. He mentions how being a droid makes his job easy since most people tend to treat droids like furniture.

* The Stone Mask in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' has the ability to make the wearer to appear as unnoticeable as a stone. This has a drawback: you get it by using the Lens of Truth to find a soldier who put it on, then suffered an injury. He laid there, hurt and forgotten, for days until you found him. However, particularly disciplined or trained people can see past it, such as the Gerudo Pirate {{Mini Boss}}es and their leader. They even have [[DevelopersForesight have unique dialogue]] if they spot you wearing it, changing from saying "That's as far as you go" and "Everyone!!! A rat has snuck in!" to saying "You think you can trick us with that mask?" and "Everyone!!! A rat ''wearing a strange mask'' has snuck in!"

* ''VideoGame/Hitman2016'' features a group called [[TheIlluminati Providence]], a top-secret conspiracy who have ambitions to TakeOverTheWorld and already exert huge influence on world governments already. In a later mission, one of your targets is interrogating a low-rank courier for Providence for information on his commander. The poor scrub can't give him a description of his boss because he just [[TheyLookLikeEveryoneElse looks like an ordinary guy]]: an accountant who could sit next to you on the bus without you noticing. Apart from a nice suit and a bit of a raspy voice, he does look like a perfectly generic middle-aged guy.

* ''VideoGame/{{Hitman}}'': An InformedAbility of Agent 47, who is said to be deliberately engineered to be multiracial so he could fit in anywhere without drawing attention. He doesn't actually multiracial, and he's also got a barcode tattooed to the back of his shaved head, which are quite distinctive. And it's topped off by a $3,000 suit and custom handguns. In spite of it all, he seems to have no trouble passing himself off as just about anyone.

* The Stone Mask in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' has the ability to make the wearer to appear as unnoticeable as a stone. This has a drawback: you get it by using the Lens of Truth to find a soldier who put it on, then suffered an injury. He laid there, hurt and forgotten, for days until you found him. However, particularly disciplined or trained people can see past it, such as the Gerudo Pirate {{Mini Boss}}es and their leader.

* Invoked in ''Film/MenInBlack'' and then some, though results vary. Their appearance is designed to have no distinguishing mark, to leave no lasting impression, to be easily dismissed. Then they [[{{Unperson}} delete all of your personal records, history, everything]], until what's left is your first initial, and that will be your name from thereon. And for good measure, they bring [[LaserGuidedAmnesia Neuralyzer]] on top of those.

* ''Fanfic/{{Forward}}'' is a ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' fanfic with multiple types of psychics, including one known as "Inducers." Inducers can manipulate emotions in others, including apathy and interest, and one uses this to remain completely unnoticable. She can go as far a making herself and [[spoiler: a mind-controlled River walk right past the rest of the crew while they're distracted by an injured Mal without anyone noticing.]]

-->'''Buffy''': ''(showing a yearbook she found in the vents)'' Have a nice summer, have a nice summer ... every signature.
-->'''Giles''': Once again, I stand on the edge of the generation gap -
-->'''Buffy''': "Have a nice summer" is what you write when you have absolutely nothing else to say.
-->'''Willow''': It's the social kiss of death.

* ''LightNovel/AscendanceOfABookworm'': Justus, Ferdinand's spy, is described as having features that are either extremely common or withing the average, resulting in him being able to disappear in a crowd.

* Ishimaru from ''Manga/{{Eyeshield 21}}'' is frequently described as incredibly plain, often going unnoticed by teammates and even opposing players while on the field. The Devil Bats sometimes use this to their advantage by including him in crucial plays.

* Natsumi in ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'', which naturally causes her a bit of an identity crisis when she realizes that while everyone else she knows is interesting and have made valuable contributions to the group, she's just "that one girl who's there". It doesn't help that when she finally makes a Pactio, it gives her a magic artifact that basically invokes this trope, functioning as an InvisibilityCloak.

* During Creator/MarkMillar's ''Comicbook/SpiderMan'' run, Vulture comes to this conclusion after seeing Peter Parker's face for the first time. He angrily throws the youth to his supposed death, exclaiming that all these years he had thought Spider-Man must be someone famous, only to find out he was just a "nobody" that might as well be working at a gas station.

* ''Comicbook/{{Superman}}'' is, at least during UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age of comic|books}}s. There were SO many people that ''just happened'' to look like him, from his father to a random thug, that he could often take a day off by having someone else replace him in either of his identities. Even in modern stories, while Superman is a well-known icon, Clark Kent is about average height, with a generic haircut and no real identifying marks, making him fairly nondescript--which helps a lot with ClarkKenting.

* Aljabra Gihom in ''Comicbook/GoldDigger'' has a variation of this. She's noticeable enough when she's awake, but she has a habit of falling asleep while sitting in odd places, and being so still and unobtrusive that people casually mistake her for furniture. She's quite used to having people set coffee cups on her head or start to sit down on her.

* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' has Koishi, who's a ''metaphysical'' version of this. By closing her mind off she's closed others' mind to her, meaning that she's hard to notice and harder to remember, despite being a strange girl with an eye/heart/thing hanging around her chest.

** In fact, his face is so generic that it have become something of a sport to find his lookalikes in quite unusual times and circimstances, like in UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar,[[note]]Who ''does'' look eerily similar in ''some'' portraits, but not much so in others[[/note]] or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnolfini_Portrait Renaissance Italian merchant Giovanni Arnolfini.]]

** In fact, his face is so generic that it have become something of a sport to find his lookalikes in quite unusual times and circimstances, like in UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar,[[note]]Who ''does'' look eerily similar in ''some'' portraints, but not much so in others[[/note]] or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnolfini_Portrait Renaissance Italian merchant Giovanni Arnolfini.]]

* Sports writer Jack [=McCallum=], in his book on the Dream Team, pointed out that the only member of the 1992 U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball team who could go outside in Barcelona without getting mobbed by the public was John Stockton, because he was a 6'1" white guy with dark hair (hardly uncommon in the city). The other two white guys on the team were blonde and at least 6'8", and all the black men were at least 6'6". [[https://youtu.be/CEmacNvCj4A This clip]] proves his point.

* The criminal popularly known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper D.B. Cooper]]. It's possible that he didn't survive landing, but looking at [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/DBCooper.jpg his composite sketch]] it seems likely that they didn't catch him because he could be just about any white guy between 25 and 50. One of the more plausible theories on why the police never managed to catch him is that Cooper simply went back to work on Monday as if nothing happened, considering no one was reported missing in the area the week of the hijacking.

* One of the things that allowed Ted Bundy to go on killing for so long was the fact he was so ordinary looking; he was pretty much a natural master of disguise. He was also helped by the fact that he could look reasonably handsome (though not memorably so), which helped him to persuade his female victims to get into vulnerable situations.

* Most [=DJs=], no matter how much they produce SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic, generally seem to be nondescript white guys dressed in generic clothing wearing sunglasses and hats. Music/DJShadow, James Lavelle, [[Music/MassiveAttack 3D]] and Music/RJD2 all look really quite similar. It's unlikely that any DJ out there gets recognised in the street. This is seemingly part of the reason artists like Music/DaftPunk are so noticeable.
* UsefulNotes/GeraldFord had very few distinguishing features, so few that political cartoonists of the time [[http://jjmccullough.com/Ford.html couldn't figure out how to caricature him properly]].

** In fact, his face is so generic that it have become something of a sport to find his lookalikes in quite unusual times and circimstances, like in UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar,[[note]]Who ''does'' look eerily similar in ''some'' portraints, but not much so in others[[/note]] or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnolfini_Portrait Renaissance Italian merchant Giovanni Arnolfini]].
* During the time he was on the run, a common joke in Boston was that they would never find James "Whitey" Bulger even if he had stayed right in Boston because he looks just like every other elderly Irish-American guy in the city. When they [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:James_Bulger_retouched.jpg came up with an age advanced new photo of him]] in 2004 it was really apparent, and even his [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Whitey_Bulger_US_Marshals_Service_Mug1.jpg mugshot]] when finally caught is still pretty unremarkable. The most memorable thing about him was always said to be his [[IcyBlueEyes piercing eyes]] but only when he intended them to be that way, and while in hiding he was known to frequently wear sunglasses in public, which didn't raise any eyebrows since it was California. On at least one occasion he also visited a local bar frequented by Boston transplants, and while a few people claimed after he was caught that they did notice a resemblance, none of them [[RefugeInAudacity believed someone as wanted as Whitey Bulger would actually dare to come out in public like that]].
* Sports writer Jack [=McCallum=], in his book on the Dream Team, pointed out that the only member of the 1992 U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball team who could go outside in Barcelona without getting mobbed by the public was John Stockton, because he was a 6'1" white guy with dark hair (hardly uncommon in the city). The other two white guys on the team were blonde and at least six-eight, and all the black men were at least six-six. [[https://youtu.be/CEmacNvCj4A This clip]] proves his point.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* Mr. Chalk from ''Webcomic/ZebraGirl''. A partial example; he has ''almost'' no defining features, save a jagged cut of a mouth.

* ''Podcast/WelcomeToNightVale'' features The Man In The Tan Jacket, who is is said to be completely unmemorable. Witnesses can't describe him outside of noting that [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin he wears a tan jacket]] and [[BreadEggsMilkSquick carries a briefcase full of flies]].
** Also, our narrator Cecil (and his counter-part Kevin) who described each other as being neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin, having various human features like a nose and a mouth, but with [[TheUnSmile odd smiles]].

* The main character of ''Literature/WorthTheCandle'' was once described by his best friend as what someone would look like if a player chose all of the "default" options on a character creator - blue eyes, brown hair, and average everything with no distinguishing features whatsoever. His tabletop gaming friends even nicknamed him "Default" until he [[NeverHeardThatOneBefore stopped pretending to find it funny]].

* The main character of ''Manga/KurokoNoBasuke'' has this attribute and weaponizes it to relay passes while playing basketball.

* Rob from ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' is this in "[[Recap/TheAmazingWorldOfGumballS2E21ThePony The Pony]]", with his entire existence being treated as a NoodleIncident, with Gumball and Darwin remembering him as much as the audience does. In "[[Recap/TheAmazingWorldOfGumballS3E12TheVoid The Void]]", this is {{deconstructed|Trope}}, as [[spoiler:he is revealed to have been thought of as a mistake by the Void and sucked in, being left unnoticed, even after trying to get saved by visitors there]]. "[[Recap/TheAmazingWorldOfGumballS3E36TheNobody The Nobody]]" also {{deconstruct|edTrope}}s this, as [[spoiler:it is revealed he has escaped and is still alive, but just glitched up and trying to claim and identity that has not already been taken]].

** In ''Moonraker'', as news gets out of a sensational murder-suicide (declared to be) over a girl, interested parties go out of their way to come up with a picture for the press that... doesn't ''not'' look like her.

* Sports writer Jack [=McCallum=], in his book on the Dream Team, pointed out that the only member of the team who could go outside in Barcelona without getting mobbed by the public was John Stockton, because he was a 6'1" white guy with dark hair (hardly uncommon in the city). The other two white guys on the team were blonde and at least six-eight, and all the black men were at least six-six. [[https://youtu.be/CEmacNvCj4A This clip]] proves his point.

* In ''[[Literature/JohnnyMaxwellTrilogy Only You Can Save Mankind]]'', when Johnny contacts Kirsty in gamespace and says he was one of the boys at the computer shop earlier, she tries to work out which one by giving decent descriptions of all his friends, then saying she didn't notice anyone else. Johnny's reply is "Yes, that was me."

* In the shared anthology ''Temps'', about people with superhuman powers being called in to work for the British government, one story tells of a young Pakistani man who is constantly ignored, people don't listen to him, they talk over his head, etc. When called in to do his Temps duty in a hostage crisis the people in charge ignore him, but he goes in, more or less accidentally "talks down" the hostage taker (who thinks he was already in the building) and leaves unthanked and unnoticed. He never shows any signs of the power of a "Temp" until the last line in the story, where we learn his codename is... The Invisible Boy.

* In ''[[Literature/JohnnyMaxwellTrilogy Only You Can Save Mankind]]'', when Johnny contacts Kirsty and says he was one of the boys at the computer shop earlier, she tries to work out which one by giving decent descriptions of all his friends, then saying she didn't notice anyone else. Johnny's reply is "Yes, that was me."