http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DeconstructedCharacterArchetype/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero
Jesus, where do we begin?
- The Stock Light-Novel Hero trope is deconstructed by showing what really happens when someone is charged with saving the world wholeheartedly and expects the common tropes associated with it. The three other Heroes who ascribe to it in their own way wind up collectively falling short due to their preconceived notions and each end up coming off as a wholly entitled Miles Gloriosus expecting to coast through their adventure even when things go horribly wrong. Ironically, one particular hero was setting up to be the straightest example of this before something terrible caused him to learn the hard way that he couldn't afford to have this kind of mindset if he was going to survive.
- Naofumi Iwatani deconstructs the Loser Protagonist. As the Shield Hero, he is heavily mistreated by pretty much everyone around him to the point of being falsely accused of a crime he didn't commit just after arriving. By being labeled a Loser Protagonist and never being given a reason why, he ends up becoming an Anti-Hero who embraces the negative attitude thrust onto him and turns to only finding trust in people who are similarly mistreated by society. Fitoria later calls him out on this by pointing out that regardless of how justified he was, he's basically giving people ammo for treating him like crap since his approach has let his accusers get away with their lies and if he wants to stop being seen as a Loser Protagonist he needs to prove he isn't.
- The Seven Star Heroes as a whole deconstruct The Chosen One. The Legendary Weapons' method of choosing their owners basically boils down to finding a group of people with sufficient gaming experience, tossing them into a world similar to the MMOs and similar games they've played and expecting them to get the hang of it. This proves to be a tremendously terrible idea as three of the four Heroes in one world end up treating it like it's all a video game, thus leaving no small amount of misery in their wake and turning themselves into underpowered liabilities while the one Hero who learned to take it seriously (in truly awful fashion by the way) has to clean up their messes.
- Meanwhile it seems the Vassal Weapons only naturally choose those native to worlds responsible for summoning; their knowledge always ends up clashing with the beliefs of summoned Heroes.
- The Sociopathic Hero gets a work-over; the other Heroes act like sociopaths since for the most part they're idiots who think they're in a game world filled with inconsequential NPCs while Naofumi (who only acts like one because he's been Maddened Into Misanthropy) still can't bring himself to be one of these all the way, at least not to innocent bystanders and when he finally gets the horrifying revenge he's been fantasizing about it eventually comes to a point that it's just too horrible for him to actually behold and savor like he wanted.
- Malty S. Meltromarc has quite a few deconstructions to her name:
- Princess Melty Q. Melromarc deconstructs Sibling Yin-Yang and Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling. She is more responsible, capable and levelheaded to the point of officially becoming crown princess despite being the youngest. Bearing such heavy expectations led her to try and suppress the childish aspects of her personality and she feels nobody takes her seriously despite her position because she's still a child. The fact she has to essentially clean up her sister's vindictive actions means the two have no love for each other and Malty has no qualms trying to kill Melty.
- Melty and Malty both deconstruct Disappointing Older Sibling and Annoying Younger Sibling. Malty is disappointing for her terrible actions and inability to learn from her mistakes while Melty is annoying because she gets in the way of repeating said mistakes.
- Motoyasu Kitamura takes a straight-up sledgehammer to the Idiot Hero trope. He's a man with childish ideals and heroic aspirations who claims to be running on The Power of Trust when it comes to his party. The end result? An easily manipulated dumbass whose ideals prevent him from recognizing his moments of hypocrisy and only lead to him refusing to believe he's in the wrong no matter how bad things get.
- Motoyasu also shows just how much of a liability a Harem Seeker can be when they prioritize scoring with girls over doing their job and training to get stronger. Not only does he stock his team with girls all based solely on their looks so they barely even classify as a Battle Harem, but when things get dire they proceed to bail and leave him for dead.
- Wife-Basher Basher: Motoyasu sees himself as this regarding Naofumi's party members and it would even seem that way outside of proper context. However, it's been spelled out to the Dumb Blonde repeatedly that no, Raphtalia and Filo are not in any danger as Naofumi's slaves and he treats them like family. Motoyasu's blatant refusal to listen to what any of them have to say and constant antagonizing not only causes more problems but actively puts them in danger in the process. This ends up being one of the reasons Naofumi can't stand being around him as all he does is assume the worst and refuse to listen until it's almost too late (or it already is).
- Itsuki Kawasumi deconstructs the Humble Hero and (to and extent) For Great Justice. Itsuki is portrayed as an overall humble guy who wants to help those in need from those who abuse their authority. Like Ren, he tends to be pretty heroic and tries his hardest to protect his party. It's revealed, however, that he's a raging narcissist and Glory Hound to the point he deliberately holds back in a fight so that when he goes for the finisher it looks more heroic. His ego also renders him incapable of admitting his mistakes or apologizing for them and completely unable to consider anyone else's thoughts and opinions about himself, which only causes the people around him to detest these traits. As a result everybody ends up keeping their distance from him and him from anyone else in return. Pretty fitting for the Hero of The Bow.
- Additionally, Itsuki fancies himself as a Robin Hood-esque hero who "assists" people from the shadows despite only just doing so for the attention. However, Naofumi points out that if nobody knows what he did, others might wind up getting credit instead because of how he does heroic things without anyone's notice. This renders his heroic actions to be seen as moot much to his chagrin.
- Ren Amaki deconstructs The Stoic, the Ineffectual Loner and the Heroic Wannabe. Ren is a heroic but overall stoic badass who prefers to let his actions speak over words and does what he thinks is right because he is a Hero. However, his inability to express his emotions clearly means he leads by simply charging ahead of his allies and fighting so they don't have to. While he is in a team Ren prefers to order his teammates to fight by themselves while he trains solo. Naofumi compares him to the guys who play MMO games alone and have high pride in their abilities, which also makes them unable to work well with others, especially because of his tendency to expect his teammates to know what he's planning instead of telling them outright. Also, while he does try to live up to his title he's too short-sighted and stubborn in his adherence to RPG tropes, preventing him from becoming the heroic figure he strives to be.
- Ren further deconstructs The Stoic on a personal level. While he tries to put up the loner front and seems nonchalant to his mistakes besides the dragon fiasco that killed Gaelion and left Wyndia orphaned it's because enforcing this act and being a sixteen-year-old boy means he doesn't actually know how to handle excessive emotion. When his whole party dies because of his impulsive and reckless decisions he's in complete denial when confronted about it because he can't process the trauma of losing them and the guilt he feels as the one responsible for their demise. He turns to Malty of all people in a last-ditch effort to save his mentality and when she inevitably robs and betrays him the next day he completely loses his composure and is the first Hero since Naofumi to unlock and give in to his curse weapon.
- Ren may be the Token Good Teammate of the "Three Cardinal Heroes", being the most heroic and repentant over his mistakes as well as the one to consistently give Naofumi the benefit of the doubt but that doesn't mean it overlooks his own personal flaws as mentioned above and how he's still causing problems like the other two. He's only good in comparison to Motoyasu and Itsuki's glaringly obvious issues (causing less trouble isn't the same as causing no trouble), alongside the combination of the two's Toxic Friend Influence and Lethally Stupid mistakes bringing out the worst in him and making him as bad as them.
- The three other Cardinal Heroes together also deconstruct the Experienced Protagonist in Isekais that put protagonists in game-like worlds. The three already have backgrounds playing role playing games which they base their actions and thought processes around because they assume that the new world they find themselves in must have similar rules to the games they played due to their resemblance. As a result, the three wind up being Wrong Genre Savvy and are unable to adapt to the reality of the situation at hand since their "gamer knowledge" made the three other heroes unwilling to accept that they are wrong about how the world and its mechanics work. Turns out that previous "experience" playing games doesn't help when you're actually thrust into a world that behaves differently than what you're used to. Furthermore, the three other Cardinal Heroes also ignore that role playing games even in the same series can be wildly different in game mechanics, which can make experience in a previous game worth less than what it would be at first glance. This is in contrast to Naofumi who isn't as experienced of a gamer as the other three and had to learn everything about his shield and the world from the ground up. This ends up with Naofumi not suffering from Crippling Over Specialization or the Creative Sterility the other 3 have and actually being successful as a hero.
- King Aultcray Melromarc XXXII deconstructs the Tragic Bigot and (to a small degree) Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. Aultcray has a deep-seated Irrational Hatred towards demihumans and by extension the Shield Hero they worship. Why is this? Because his sister was kidnapped by demihumans and he believed they murdered her. That in itself is sympathetic... however, he takes out all his anger on Naofumi, who never heard of what happened and wasn't even born at the time and has done very despicable things to him from trying to deny him party members to keeping his level capped, being willing to start wars with other countries and conspire with the Church of Three Heroes, a cultish religion. All because he wanted revenge against someone barely connected to him, making everything he does petty in hindsight. Because of his actions he lost any sympathy he may or would have gained. It takes meeting his sister's children and the death of his wife for him to finally realize how much of an idiot he was.
- Both King Aultcray and Malty deconstruct the kind of person who would pull Screw the Rules, I Have Connections! and Screw the Rules, I Make Them! for personal gain: They end up as massive burdens on the Queen who has actual power. Nearly all of her actions are cleaning up after her husband and elder daughter such as traveling to negotiate with other nations to avoid war or having to grovel to Naofumi to get him to help after the abuse he's been put through; she doesn't hesitate to strip them of power when she returns. She never really stops even after Naofumi agrees to help such as trying to set him up with her other daughter Melty to get on the good side of different nations.
- Speaking of which, Melty and Malty's mother and Aultcray's wife Queen Mirellia Q. Melromarc deconstructs Royals Who Actually Do Something and Women Are Wiser. Due to being the real authority of the kingdom she's left thoroughly exasperated by the Lethally Stupid actions and Insane Troll Logic of her upper-class subordinates and subjects to the point of nipping it in the bud by eliminating the closest thing to the source of those problems: her own husband and oldest daughter. While not to the same degree and extent as Naofumi this also leaves her more than willing to ultimately deliver the dues to Asshole Victims whenever possible.
- The Army and Vanguards of the Waves deconstruct the entire basic concept of the Stock Light-Novel Hero (specifically the Isekai variant). These people are reincarnators from a variety of alternate Earths chosen by a being claiming to be God and given "cheat" powers that put them ahead of others in their new worlds. However, the result is that these people feel they are actually chosen by God, everyone else is beneath them thanks to their powers, that they'll just get another "redo" if they fail and become egotistical, self-entitled hedonistic Jerkasses who wreck everything around them in order to sate their desires. When Naofumi manages to piece the facts together he hypothesizes they're pretty much easily manipulable and disposable pawns who were sent by "God" to sabotage worlds targeted by the Waves of Calamity with their Lethally Stupid actions.
- The web novel's Big Bad Medea Pideth Machina deconstructs the concept of a
God-Mode Sue alongside a Satanic Archetype, a God of Evil, a God of Chaos, a Destroyer Deity and Jerkass Gods: a being of pure cruelty, malice and sadism (basically Malty herself as a deity-level threat) with the power to destroy every last world she comes across as she endlessly craves; instead of doing that however, she uses "fragments" (mortal clones inserted into worlds with Reality Warping so no one questions anything) to take her sweet time in killing off worlds she comes in contact with for her own sick amusement. Her broken and overpowered abilities also mean she's so arrogant that when confronted by someone capable of actually fighting her she's easily beaten due to being so self-centered to the point of having never even considered the possibility of someone genuinely inflicting harm on her at all; Naofumi defeats her by simply redirecting one of her own attacks, weaponizing both his newly godlike defensive abilities and her complete erasure attack for himself.
