Part of being a
Hero is taking up arms to fight the wicked and righting wrongs, even (or perhaps
especially) when no one else will. Some even have to fight
the people they want to help, but a rare few can
count on the help of a Good Samaritan.
The Good Samaritan is a character who, despite owing nothing to the hero
helps them when they're at their weakest, often
at risk or cost to themselves. There are many variations, but they generally follow this form: a wounded hero
wanders in, while others pass him by (or even further harm the hero), the Samaritan takes him in, tends his wounds and extends as much hospitality as she's able. This has the bonus of roping the hero into owing her a debt and giving him a reason to stick around the
Adventure Town and fight off the
Corrupt Corporate Executive threatening the Samaritan. Also, in a pinch, she makes an excellent
Love Interest what with having proven she's got a heart of gold. (Good Samaritans who do not complicate the hero's life like that may come across a
Deus ex Machina.)
Not coincidentally, the Samaritan is almost always a part of the blue collar or underclass of society. There's almost no such thing as rich Samaritans in fiction. Interestingly, this is despite a pertinent aspect to the original Biblical story that is often overlooked: "No-one would have remembered the Good Samaritan if he'd had only good intentions.
He had money as well."
If the Samaritan follows the protagonist into the mêlée, expect her to be an
Action Survivor to his
Action Hero. Often overlaps with
The Chick,
Innocent Bystander,
Determined Homesteader, and
Heroic Bystander.
A nasty subversion is that the Samaritan hasn't taken in a Hero, but a
Viper intent on doing him harm. If the villain the Samaritan helps is instead
confused and
curious at their generosity, it may lead to the Samaritan becoming their
Morality Pet prior to a
Heel Face Turn.
Your Mileage May Vary, but a lot of
Superheroes are considered to be
Good Samaritans taken
Up to Eleven.
The
Trope Namer is one of
Jesus' parables from
The Bible, in which an Israelite is mugged and left injured and naked on the side of the road. Several of his own people (including a priest) simply walk past, and the only person who helps him is a Samaritan. However, this parable carried some racial and cultural baggage lost to modern audiences. To Israelites, Samaritans were a hostile if not enemy people
* Samaritanism is an offshoot of Judaism (or the other way around, from the perspective of the Samaritans) so the two cultures might have seen each other they way Catholics and Protestants see each other now — in agreement on the broad strokes, but disagreeing on the details, and having a non-trivial amount of bad blood between them.
. So when the traveler falls on the wayside and the only one to help him is
an enemy of his people, it carried a humanizing message akin to
Dark Is Not Evil; the modern day equivalent to
a Palestinian stopping to help an Israeli, or vice versa. The closest trope to the above
moral is probably
I Was Just Passing Through. To further complicate the story, the Israelites passed by the wounded man because the Sabbath was beginning and
it would be laborious to carry the man to safety. The Samaritan story shows that
goodness is more important than blindly following the law. In many modern uses of this trope, the Samaritan will protect and heal the hero even if the hero is explicitly a hunted fugitive.
Sub Trope of
A Friend in Need. See also
Samaritan Syndrome. Compare with
Bad Samaritan, this character's moral opposite.
Examples
Anime and Manga
- In Fullmetal Alchemist, Winry's parents were doctors who treated people on both sides of the Ishvalan War. This didn't end well for them. They were the first victims of Scar's Roaring Rampage of Revenge after he woke up surrounded by Amestrians and assumed, incorrectly, that he had been taken prisoner.
- Rin stopped to help Sesshoumaru when he was wounded after a fight with Inu Yasha. He later repaid the favor when his sword, Tenseiga, demanded that he bring her back to life. She became his Morality Pet and he went from full-on villain to Aloof Big Brother.
- Rakushun found Yoko almost dead in The Twelve Kingdoms, and after he helped her they ended up hanging together.
Comic Books
- Jaime Reyes encountered one of these just after the events of Infinite Crisis when his Clingy MacGuffin dumped him naked in the desert.
- The origin of the superhero Plastic Man involved a gangster named "Eel" O' Brien who got shot during a robbery and was abandoned by his gang- but was found by a monk who helped him recover in his monastery. By the time he was healthy, O'Brien had changed into a good person who used his newfound powers to fight crime.
Film
- Zeus Carver from Die Hard With A Vengeance doesn't know anything about John McClane other than he's a white man in Harlem wearing nothing but a racist sandwich board sign. Despite being a rather unrepentantly bitter and biased man when it comes to white people, he saves him from a gang. Not that he necessarily wanted him to live, but he was afraid of what would happen if a white guy was killed on his block. Throughout the film, Simon Gruber calls him "The Samaritan".
- Michael in Underworld is a very good samaritan. In the opening firefight he risks leaving safe cover to help a woman who got shot. Later, when Selene basically kidnaps him, holds him at gunpoint, and crashes the car they're in into a river, he pulls her up, swims to shore, gives her CPR and bandages her wound. Is it any wonder they develop an awkward relationship afterwards?
- "Shepherd Book always said, if you can't do something smart, do something right."
- The leading male in Cellular helps the female lead simply because he's the only one who can. She randomly dialed out on a broken phone and the odds of her being able to get an actual number again without being caught are slim to none. He then runs around all day, stealing cars, shooting guns, fighting with the Dirty Cop squad, and generally getting "in deep shit!" And he never quits.
- An interesting use in Training Day: The hero stops to rescue a little girl, and gets a Laser-Guided Karma reward for it later. The twist? The hero is an on-duty police officer, and only in the Crapsack World he's just stumbled into could the rescue be considered a noteworthy act.
- The Blind Side has a rare example of a rich samaritan. Leigh Anne helps Michael Oher, a homeless black student at her children's school, by giving him a home, tutoring, and general emotional and vocational support to enter the football team.
Literature
Live-Action Television
- Subverted in a sketch on That Mitchell and Webb Look, which reenacted Jesus teaching of the parable to his disciples. Suddenly, he's interrupted by his audience, who exclaim that of course a Samaritan stopped to help, they're perfectly lovely people, they'd give you the shirts off their backs. And, hey - what do you have against Samaritans anyway you racist?
- Edith Keeler from the classic Star Trek: The Original Series episode "City on the Edge of Forever" embodies this trope perfectly. She runs a soup kitchen for the homeless and downtrodden in Depression-era New York and truly believes in the inherent goodness of man. So of course, she's fated to die.
- In the Doctor Who serial Frontios, the Doctor is trying to obey the rules about non-intervention when he sees there are wounded.
Real Life
- Two words: Red Cross. If you put your field hospital or even field medics under the protection of the Red Cross sign, you are obliged to do so.
- During the North African Campaign field hospitals on both sides would treat wounded without distinction by uniform.
- That might be considered Worthy Opponent.
- It's also standard now-most Western militaries will treat enemy wounded.
- In Vietnam and a few other conflicts guerrilla forces left their wounded behind as standard policy simply because they had a better chance of surviving in enemy hands.
- Many countries try to encourage this behavior by implementing Good Samaritan Laws
. In the United States and Canada, civilians helping people in need are protected from liability if they acted rationally and with good intentions, while in Europe it is a crime to ignore a person in danger.
Video Games
- In the beginning of Red Dead Redemption, Marston is shot and left for dead in front of a bandit hideout. Bonnie risks her life to rescue him, and then takes him back to her ranch to treat his wounds. Even though she isn't seeking any sort of payment, a grateful Marston spends much of the game repaying her kindness by helping her keep her ranch safe.
Web Comics
Western Animation
- In Family Guy, in a flashback, Peter was driving down the road when he stopped and a stray dog/bum came up and did his windows. Peter wasn't happy. After talking with the dog, Peter offered to take him home for some dinner. And that is how Brian and Peter met.
