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The average troper, realizing that all of his friends are idiots, psychos, or both. "Good God, I'm smack dab in the middle of crazyland! I can't take two steps without stepping in a pile of wacko!"
"The man has only one look, for Christ's sake! Blue Steel, Ferrari, La Tigre... THEY'RE THE SAME FACE! Doesn't anyone else notice this?! I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here!"
A standard comedy piece: something absolutely insane is going on, but only one person notices. That person attempts to show everyone else that the occurrence is insane.
There are usually three stages: Bewilderment, Trying to Explain, and Violent Sarcasm. In the first, the OSM looks around and realizes that something is wrong. In the second, he tries to explain why it is wrong to those who are accepting it as normal. In the third, he start to yell, groan, cry, howl and berate, in a hope that someone will notice.
Sadly, nobody does, and in the process he may come off as insane himself.
In the more extreme cases, the poor soul may be trapped in a World Gone Mad. Sometimes, though, they are Not So Above It All.
A Too Dumb To Fool character may be the Only Sane Man, although he is likely to be less worked up about the failures of others to see than in most cases.
The Only Sane Man often gets stuck in a Liz Lemon Job. This character often ends up a Knight In Sour Armor. For a more horrific version, see Through The Eyes Of Madness. For the sci-fi version, The Jor El is your go-to guy. The Nietzsche Wannabe is a villain who views himself this way. Occasionally, when the Only Sane Man expresses his creator's opinions, he serves as an Author Avatar. See also Cassandra Truth, contrast with Arthur Dent. May temporarily overlap with What The Hell Hero.
If several characters take turns being the Only Sane Man, they're playing with a Sanity Ball.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- One Piece. When the antics get too crazy, Nami or Zoro will yell at the crew about the absurdity of whatever is happening.
- Robin to a somewhat lighter degree. She usually just smiles and admires their free spirits, but she once outright refused to go with a stupid battle formation because it looked to silly, much to the crew's surprise.
- Virtually every anime or manga that's planning to attempt anything even remotely humorous will need at least one Sane Man (or Woman) but on occasion the Straight Man will suffice.
- In How to Read 13,(the Death Note encyclopedia), after the quiz, it shows that Soichiro Yagami is the only one with common sense.
- Re-l from Ergo Proxy to the point of Unfunny. This is, however, mostly due to her lack of social interaction with regular people, and she eventually comes to realise that everybody has flaws, and sometimes it's best to just accept it and go with the flow.
- Haré often takes this role inHaré+Guu. Sometimes his desire for normalcy makes him abnormal.
- Ikuto of Nagasarete Airantou is convinced (for a while, at least) that he is the Only Sane Man on the Airantou. He is certainly the only man. After a while, he decides that there's little point in taking issue with all the crazy, and just rolls with it. Still doesn't believe in ghosts (despite meeting one or two) and insists on calling the local kappa a turtle.
- In Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Beauty (and occasionally Gasser) seems to be the only one capable of noticing how strange everyone else is acting. Softon applies too, being slightly more serious than everyone else, but when your head is shaped like poop/chocolate ice cream, it's hard to be taken seriously.
- Compared to everyone else in the Ouran High School Host Club, Haruhi's the "normal" one. She learns to adjust, though.
- Princess Tutu has a mild version of this trope: Ahiru, as a duck who used to live outside of the story, is the only one at first to notice the odd things that happen in town, like a cat being a ballet instructor and an anteater being one of the students. She quickly gets used to the oddities of the town, however. Autor might also qualify - he's the only character to realize that he's living inside of a fairytale that isn't a character in the story.
- Chisame from Mahou Sensei Negima. At the beginning of the series, she is apparently the only one to notice, or care, that the students of Class 3A are... a little on the odd side. Not odd as in 'a little eccentric', odd as in 'that girl is obviously a robot!'
- Kyon from The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya is surrounded by time travelers, aliens, espers and, the craziest of them all, Haruhi herself.
- He even comments about it in the fifth novel.
- Depending on whether or not it is the manga or the anime, and how far along the story is, the Only Sane Man in Excel Saga is either/and Watanabe, Sumiyoshi, or Matsuya.
- Shinpachi on Gintama, even though he sometimes get carried away by his friends' weirdness.
- Tsuna from Katekyo Hitman Reborn - though as the series goes on, less so, since the insanity is apparently contagious.
- Until recently, Yukiteru of Mirai Nikki was the Only Sane Man, "sane" being defined as "not a homicidal maniac". He may have a Freudian Excuse, but when you massacre orphans in the name of becoming God, you lose your "sane" title.
- He was a beacon of non-murderous intent until then, at least.
- Sanpeita from Kemeko DX is apparently the only sane man left on the planet. While his classmates have a problem with their short, Gonk-ish, supernaturally powerful and totally insane teacher insisting she's married to him, their problem is generally jealousy. His childhood friend, who is aware that the teacher is a cyborg suit containing a hot girl, tends to ignore this in favour of protesting to the impropriety of the relationship. His sister is in raptures over her cool "onee-sama". His mother is totally oblivious. Meanwhile Sanpeita cries about how his normal life is being totally destroyed...
- Shuichi, Kirie's boyfriend in Junji Ito's horror manga Uzumaki, is often the only person who sees the spiral phenomena happening all over town as bizarre, and who realizes the danger the town's in. He sometimes slips into spouting Cassandra Truths in a "You Have to Believe Me!" voice, though by the manga's start, he's largely given up on trying to convince the public and focuses instead on just protecting Kirie.
- Yuuki in Code: Breakers, almost exclusively around Cloud Cuckoo Lander Toki; apparently Oogami, a Crazy Prepared Implacable Man and Sakura, a Cute Bruiser Determinatrix don't (usually) push the boundaries of Shonen sanity enough to bother him.
- Battler in Umineko No Naku Koro Ni never actually moved away from the second stage of this syndrome and, from the second arc on, makes the purpose of his existence proving that magic had nothing to do with his and everyone else's murders.
- Baccano's Firo Prochainezo acts like this quite a bit in the Light Novels, as sometimes he just can't help but realize that his friends are really, really weird. The saner ones include a 200-year-old man with Dead Little Sister / Big Brother Complex the size of the continential US and the Mad Scientist's Love-Oblivious Lab-Grown Servant With A Troubled Conscience. The loony side of the spectrum includes Claire Stanfield, who is...well, Claire Friggin Stanfield
- Takeshi Kamiyama from Cromartie High School. Though, perhaps, he's best labeled "Only Sane-ish Man."
- Although Maeda seems to get this kind of treatment somewhat too, seeing how he is the only one of the main cast who seems to care about stuff like that you need nine players to play baseball, AND that gorillas and motorcycles don't count as players, something Kamiyama seems to completely ignore at that point.
- The cameraman in Millennium Actress is the only person to notice that they are acting out scenes from old movies.
- Kagami from Lucky Star is probably the only sane person in that entire universe.
- Lucy is pretty much the only sane person in the guild in Fairy Tail. When she points out what's wrong people act like she's a loony.
- Takamine Kiyomaro from GashBell often takes this role, especially when Kanchome, Folgore, or Riddle professor are around. One particularly hilarious occasion was in his dream after which he loses Answer Talker.
- Kaede of Ninin Ga Shinobuden. Also Miyabi, although she contributes to the madness.
- Kitsurabami is easily the most sane person in FLCL...not that that really says much.
- It certainly didn't stop her from falling in love with a flying robot with a TV for a head. Yeah...
Comics
- Subversion in Watchmen Rorschach considers himself the Only Sane Man but is batshit insane. Then in the end it gets double subverted turns out that he was probably right.
- Dr. Manhattan is an inversion because he is omniscient (thus he knows everything and will always be the sane man) but his irregular perception of the timeline causes him to seem insane to people with a regular linear perception of time.
- Both Nite Owls are probably the legitimate examples, especially the first one; they realise how messed all superheroes are, including themselves, but can't do anything about it. They're still the most level-headed capes in the book.
- Ironically the initial characterization of The DCU's Plastic Man, who was a straight man (with somewhat goofy powers) in a world full of total nutbars. Every incarnation of him since has made him a total nutbar instead.
- Basically the entire point of normalman, where norm is the only, um, normal man on a planet full of violent superhumans who quite literally get off on crazy "action scenes". The fact that he's a Deadpan Snarker indicates how well he takes his situation.
- In Twisted Toyfare Theater, Spider-Man is basically the only person in the entire world with a single lick of common sense. However, this has caused him to become so jaded he flat-out refuses to participate in any kind of action if he can avoid it, for example immediately taking the blue pill to go back to sleep when Morpheus offered to take him to the Matrix.
- Well, Spider-Man might have company in the "not completely out of his mind" department in Dr. Doom, the series' other main character. Maybe.
- Sara in Knights Of The Dinner Table.
- In Mortadelo Y Filemon, Filemon is the only main character who occasionally shows a hint of sanity and common sense.
- Nodwick frequently plays the role of Only Sane Man to his party, having by far the greatest amount of common sense of the lot and is less bound by the Contractual Genre Blindness that seems to come naturally to adventurers.
- It might be a scary thought that the Caged Demonwolf, Devourer of Worlds may be the Only Sane Man of Empowered.
- Green Lantern seems to be the only person written as remotely sane in All Star Batman And Robin.
Fan Fiction
- This troper once saw a Sailor Moon fanfic that tries to humorously explain the incompetence, if not outright insanity of both heroes and villains is tied in to their powers. The stronger your powers, the less sane you are.
Film
- Graham Chapman in two Monty Python movies, as King Arthur and Brian. (although Lancelot appears sane for most of the former, turning Ax Crazy later on.) Ironic for the "straight man" to be played by the only gay actor.
- In the Death sketch in The Meaning of Life, the Grim Reaper gets this role. He comes in to claim the souls of a bunch of people in a dinner party but it takes five minutes for them to understand that he's not there to reap the hedge, doesn't want wine and won't discuss philosophical topics with them.
- In Enchanted, when the Refugee From TV Land starts singing in the middle of Central Park, a Crowd Song breaks out around her. Defrosting Ice King Robert, the one being sung to, is the only one who wonders how that is even possible.
- Arsenic And Old Lace (1944), with Cary Grant as Mortimer Brewster, the token Only Sane Man surrounded by his rather... quirky family. Insanity can be contagious, if only because we as humans derive our idea what is sane from the people around us.
- Nicholas Angel in Hot Fuzz, surrounded by a lazy police force who don't take any of his suspicions seriously.
- Semi-Justified. The Chief's part of the conspiracy
"Am I going completely mad?!!" [silence]
- Francis, in The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari, is the only person who realizes that the incredibly sketchy Dr. Caligari and his Brainwashed And Crazy servant Cesare are murderous psychopaths. Subverted when Francis is revealed to be insane and the whole movie was the babbling of a Talkative Loon. It turns out that Dr. Caligari is the only sane man, except his name isn't actually Caligari.
- Shaun Of The Dead: Shaun, the titular slacker protagonist. Everyone else is apparently Too Dumb To Live. Look, people, zombies!
- Yvonne seems sanish too.
- There is a psychological basis for the behavior of the idiots: unable to deal with the fact that the dead are trying to eat them, the logical part of their brain simply refuses to process it, and they fall back on normal, everyday behavior in an attempt to continue with their lives. It's a dissociative disorder.
- In I Robot, when Doctor Calvin calls Detective Spooner insane after he shoots a (blank and mindless) robot in the face, he replies "Does thinking you're the last sane man in the world make you crazy? Because if it does, then maybe I am."
- Mittens the cat, in regards to Bolt and Rhino, in Bolt. "How do you say 'There is no way I'm doing this!' in Crazy?!"
- Gen. Longstreet is portrayed this way among the Confederates in the Ted Turner film Gettysburg. Except for the unfortunate John Bell Hood, no one else seems to be bothered by Lee's suicidal battle plans, or else they're too caught up in redeeming their names to care.
- "If he is there tomorrow, I shall attack him." - Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg.
- "If he is there tomorrow, it is because he wants you to attack him." - Gen. Longstreet's response.
- Sgt. Howie in The Wicker Man:
"Is there anything we can do to help you, Sergeant?"
"I doubt it. Seeing you're all raving mad."
- Parodied/subverted in The Big Lebowski: one scene has Walter shouting "Has the whole world GONE CRAZY?!" while doing probably the craziest thing in the whole movie.
- Group Captain Mandrake in Dr Strangelove.
- In Mystery Men, Roy "Mr. Furious" is often the Only Sane Man. Too bad he lives in a comic book world where the rules are different than Real Life.
Mr. Furious: That's because Lance Hunt is Captain Amazing.
Blue Raja: Oh, here we go.
Shoveler: Oh, don't start that again! Lance Hunt wears glasses. Captain Amazing doesn't wear glasses.
Shoveler: That doesn't make any sense. He wouldn't be able to see!
- Colin Powell, in the movie W.
- Part of Mugatu's Motive Rant / Villainous Breakdown in Zoolander is his claim that all of Derek's looks are identical. (See the page quote.) This is enough to spur Derek into creating a new look that involves turning left instead of turning right, which has the power to stop a shuriken in mid-air and even Mugatu thinks that it's beautiful.
- Truman in The Truman Show plays the role of the Only Sane Man as he slowly figures out that he is living in an artificial world, and even more so when he tries to explain the phenomenon to his "wife" and "best friend". (He lives in what is secretly a giant film set, and everybody in his life is an actor.)
Literature
- Arthur Dent, protagonist of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, is a classic example, although he eventually realizes that trying to be logical in an insane universe is, in fact, illogical and stops.
- Hitchhiker's also featured Wonko the Sane, who lived in a house called The Outside of the Asylum. After realising he lived in a world where toothpicks come with instructions, he decorated his house inside out and declared the whole of the rest of the world to be an insane asylum.
- Ford Prefect also gets one of these moments at the end of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe when he talks to the people of Golgafrinchan, who are unable to invent the wheel because they can't decide on its colour.
- Capt. John Yossarian of Catch-22 is sane for wanting to survive, unlike his fellow airmen. A very dark comedy.
- In fact, most of the characters of Catch-22 feel the same way.
- The Game by Neil Strauss is a work of non-fiction about the author's experiences as part of a "secret society" of pick-up artists. The tale is extremely biased, portraying Neil Strauss as the Only Sane Man and pretty much all the other pick-up artists as hysterical madmen, fanatical fanboys or unscrupulous manipulators.
- ....you're kidding, right? RIGHT?
- Doctor Robinson correctly identifies the King and the Duke as imposters in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. They're pretending to be Peter Wilkes' brothers from England, and everyone else, including his daughters, believes it. In the 1960 movie, youngest daughter Joanna spots them for fakes right off because Huck dresses like a dirt-poor American kid and can't accurately name the ocean they crossed.
- Rincewind, from the Discworld series of novels, is possibly the Only Sane Man in the entire world. The fact he's a particularly Genre Savvy Wizzard [sic] in a world that is ruled by the Theory Of Narrative Causality, means for him life is (for instance) knowing It Was His Sled right from the start, while everyone around him wastes time insisting it was probably in fact a walrus.
- Vimes of the Watch books, likewise, seems to be playing the Straight Man for his entire city.
- Technically most of the main characters of the various novels fit this category (Rincewind, Vimes, Susan Sto-Helit, etc), as well as Lord Vetinari. In fact, you could characterize the plot of most Discworld books by passing around a Sanity Ball.
- Unseen University's Ponder Stibbons refers to himself as "the University's token sane person."
- Which, considering he continually insists that magic works within a series of self-defined rules when, in fact, those rules not only continuously change, but do so randomly, implies he may be the most insane person in the entire University.
- Considering he once found a way to harness the lag time while the rules change in order to do impossible things before the universe notices they are impossible, I'd say his methods work pretty well. On the other hand, he has developed a working knowledge of relativity but can't figure out a magnet.
- The Baudelaires (and the Quagmires) in A Series Of Unfortunate Events collectively fill this role, surrounded as they are by corrupt, foolish, borderline Ax Crazy, and just plain unpleasant people.
- Every other sane person is dead or dies eventually. So Yeah.
- The Horus Heresy novels of the Warhammer 40000 universe play with this trope a lot-the protagonists of many of the books, particularly Garviel Loken, Solomon Demeter, Saul Tarvitz, and Nathaniel Garro find themselves adhering to this trope while their legions are slowly corrupted into the grip of Chaos, supported by a small number of other characters who realize the corruption and stand against it. This being Warhammer 40000, the sane men are almost universally killed by the insane ones.
- One of the most disturbing descriptions I've heard of the 40k universe is "A galaxy where the only person still sane is powerless to do anything but watch the universe die."
- That would be the Emperor, yes?
- In one of the darker examples of this trope, Winston Smith feels like the only sane man in 1984. On the other hand, O'Brien sees him as insane due to his refusal to accept the Party's dominance over the universe (in one of the most infamous examples, 2+2=5, if the Party decrees that that is the case). One of the working titles for 1984 was "The Last Man In Europe".
- The title character of Odd Thomas, but only by a very narrow margin. He sees the spirits of the restless dead. Other people around him have, variously, tried to nuke major cities in the United States, summoned bizarre constructs on his subconscious using quantum physics, and threatened to steal Odd's soul unless he showed her how to see dead people.
- Only slightly sane? In the first book, he knows a massacre is going to occur involving evil killers armed with insane amounts of automatic weaponry. His response is to say "well, guess I'll walk over there unarmed; I'm sure I can fix it somehow."
- In The Emperor's New Clothes, the boy who points out that the Emperor is in fact naked might count, although everyone else can see it's true, they're just afraid to admit it.
- They're only afraid to admit it because they're afraid they're admitting to be too stupid to see the clothes that "only the wise can see".
- A child would be able to point this out because children aren't usually classified as "wise". Too bad the Emperor was too stupid to think of this.
- In the Hoka stories, long-suffering Alexander Jones is the human ambassador to the Hoka, an extremely suggestible race who spend their time gleefully playing out roles from human fiction.
Live Action TV
- Jerry Seinfeld once talked about how the character he played on Seinfeld is actually funnier than the others because he "brings the sanity back". For example: Kramer talked about opening a pizza parlor where people make their own pies. And sane Jerry would shoot back, "You can't have people putting their hands in 800-degree ovens". It's similar to what Bud Abbott did with Costello and Bob Newhart did on Newhart.
- The customer in Monty Pythons Flying Circus "Dead Parrot" sketch is another classic.
- Likewise the customer in the "Cheese Shop" sketch, who finally takes the only "reasonable" way out of the situation and shoots the shopkeeper.
- However, since this is Python and both characters are played by John Cleese, their sanity is relative.
- There's also one in which a shopkeeper alternates between "very well, sir" and "tough titty if it did, you great spotted prancer" for no real reason.
- A Bit Of Fry And Laurie also makes good use of the "sane customer, insane shopkeeper" concept.
- A recurring Saturday Night Live sketch cast Norm Macdonald as a character in a musical, such as Evita or West Side Story, who constantly questioned why everyone was spontaneously breaking into choreographed song and dance.
- The "Saturday Night Live" "Jeopardy" sketches LIVE by this trope.
- Surrounded as he is by idiotic and / or mad superiors and underlings, Edmund Blackadder, for all his faults, is usually the only sane person around on the show at any given time period (and unfortunately for him, if there are any other sane people around, they're usually directly gunning for him). He's also a lot more savvy than most people around him in a historical sense as well, being able to recognise where his contemporaries cannot that the application of leeches to various body parts isn't an effective medical treatment, and that World War I is one long, muddy, blood-soaked and pointless waste of time and lives.
- In the first series, it is Baldrick, of all people, who has this role.
- Dick Loudon on Newhart.
- Oliver Douglas on Green Acres.
- Keep in mind, this is also a man who quit his lucrative career as an attorney and moved out of a luxury New York apartment into a farming community in the middle of nowhere, full of oddballs he can't relate to, to take up a profession he knew very little about. Even his Cloudcuckoolander neighbors think he's a bit of a nut for being so enthusiastic about a line of work that, by their own admission, has never gotten them much of anywhere in life.
- He probably is a nut, but he's a credible nut. The sort of person you could still fathom running into in Real Life. The rest of the cast (with the exception of Mr. Drucker) are totally just out of left field.
- I think Oliver is, in a way, the least sane character on the show. Everyone else accepts the fact the Hooterville is just bizarre, and goes with it. Oliver tries to make it conform to his expectations, and it doesn't work. I think that the only sane response is to go with the insanity. (Kind of like M*A*S*H, where the only way to keep from going completely insane from the horrors of war was to become a little insane.)
- In an episode of 30 Rock, Kenneth's page jacket is ruined by Jenna and the only way he can get a new one is by competing in a "page-off" against the head page Donny - a secret underground NBC trivia contest. Pete catches them doing it as none of the pages are upstairs working, and says "What, are you kidding me? This is a billion dollar company. Donny, give Kenneth a damn jacket!"
- Dave Nelson in News Radio.
- Greg from Dharma And Greg.
- The Daily Show portrays the studio host, Jon Stewart, as the Only Sane Man, with all his reporters being weirdos and lunatics with various obsessions and derangements.
- The Daily Show also significantly revolves around playing clips of journalists and politicians looking foolish, cultivating the impression that Stewart is the only sane man in the entire country.
- Jon Stewart has explicitly described the Daily Show's purpose being to point out the absurdities of government and the world. Since they focus on the crazy stuff (like pirates in the Indian Ocean), it's entirely logical that he looks sane comparatively.
- Sometimes, the roles are reversed. For example, a scene on the aforementioned Indian Ocean pirates has John Olivier trying to talk about it seriously, while Jon Stewart is making a bunch of pirate jokes and puns (an undercurrent in the coverage of the situation).
- On The Muppet Show, Kermit The Frog qualifies, although he cheerfully admits at least once that he's only surrounded by crazies because he hired them.
- Jim and Ryan each take on this role from time to time in the American version of The Office, although they seldom speak up for fear of losing their jobs.
- Similarly Tim in the UK Office. Not surprisingly, the actor went on to play Arthur Dent.
- In recent years, Ryan has completely lost his Only Sane Man status after his short-lived promotion went to his head. As of 2009, the sanest, most level-headed man in Dunder-Mifflin is probably Oscar and he is all too aware of that fact.
- Bobby from Supernatural fits this trope from time to time but the most notable is Tall Tales: Sam and Dean are bickering like an old married couple and are annoying the hell out of each other so Bobby is the only one to see that The Trickster is pranking both of them.
- In Young Dracula, Chloe would often be the only character to notice how bizarre the situation actually was.
- The Twilight Zone TOS loved this one.
- "And When The Sky Was Opened": "My friends are disappearing!" "What friends?"
- "Judgement Night": "This ship is going to be torpedoed!"
- "The Fever": "A slot machine is following me around!"
- "Mirror Image": "My doppelganger is stalking me!"
- "A World Of Difference": "I've become a character in a movie!"
- "Back There": "I tell you, the President is going to be assassinated!"
- "Shadow Play": "This world is just a nightmare I'm having!"
- "Nothing In The Dark": "Death is stalking me and wants to take me!"
- "Person or Persons Unknown": "I am a real person! I exist!"
- "The Thirty-Fathom Grave": "My dead shipmates want me to join them!"
- "The Parallel": "I am not the person you think I am!"
- "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet": "There's a monster on the wing of this plane!"
- Kochanski in the final two seasons of Red Dwarf. Previously, Rimmer had fitted most of the criteria for being an Only Sane Man, except for actually being any more sane than the other characters. They ignored him when he pointed out how ludicrous things were because his own opinions were equally ludicrous in a different way.
- Michael Bluth in Arrested Development.
- Used very creatively to Lampshade a would-be case of The Other Darrin on Due South. After the actor who played Ray Vecchio left the show, the next episode features Benton Fraser completely dumbfounded at another guy that shows up claiming to be him, with everyone else at the station also insisting that this is Vecchio. Eventually it turns out Fraser was left out of the loop for a bit that the real Vecchio is undercover with the mob, and the new guy is an FBI agent who's impersonating him.
- Corner Gas has Lacey, although the title passes to Brent or Karen occasionally.
- This is the schtick of Japanese comedian Jinnai Tomonori. His sketches involve him being placed in the middle of increasingly surreal situations where he's forced to point out just how ridiculous what he's dealing with is, and futilely try to enforce order on the situation. This is a fairly typical example.
- The Big Bang Theory has two Sane people in Penny and Leonard. Penny is there primarily to point out how hopelessly obsessed the geeks are, while Leonard is the only geek that has any understanding of human interaction.
- Dr. Crusher in the Star Trek TNG episode "Remember Me", who is the only one to notice people disappearing. She really is out of touch with reality, but she's perfectly sane: it's the rest of "reality" which isn't.
- In the Deep Space Nine episode The Search Part II, Sisko, O'Brien, Dax, Bashir, and T'Rul are put through a Virtual Reality Mind Screw which posits a treaty between the Federation and the Dominion, an alliance that gives the Dominion the upper hand — and Bajor. These five are the only military officers (four Starfleet, one Romulan) on DS 9 who see the treaty for what it is: a betrayal of Federation ideals, Bajor, and ultimately the Federation itself. Sisko turns down a bribe-promotion and our heroes risk vaporization or court-martial and a trip to Elba II to keep the Dominion away. Odo and Kira get them released and whew, it was All Just A Dream.
- Susan on Coupling is a rare female example of this trope - the only sane voice among oft-ranting, chronically insecure Steve, beauty-obsessed age-fearing Sally, Cloud Cuckoo Lander egomaniac Jane, brain-dead mysoginist Patrick and, well.... Jeff.
- Although Steve often fills this role when he's hanging out with Jeff and Patrick.
- Benjamin Denton on The League Of Gentlemen is the only sane person in his plot thread on The League Of Gentlemen. Similiarly, in every scene set in the Local Shop, whichever character Mark Gatiss is currently playing will be the only sane man. He will probably also be tortured to death.
- Alex Reiger on Taxi.
- On Kyle XY, Josh kept a detailed notebook on all the strange things that happen around Kyle, and concluded he was a space alien, which he constantly mentioned. Kyle (who was actually an escaped lab experiment) later had to admit that Josh was the person who came the closest to figuring it all out.
- Michael in My Family. Technically an Only Sane Boy, at least in the earlier seasons.
- Power Rangers RPM has the villainess Tenaya7, who once spent an entire episode asking the Big Bad if his evil plan had failed enough for her to go take a nap.
- Father Ted is the only more-or-less normal (albeit not particularly nice) person on Craggy Island.
- Let us not forget Deputy Sven Jones and (most of the time) Jim Dangle on Reno 911. They are the only ones who aren't violent, racist idiots, or holier than thou religious zealots.
- In Buffy this happens a few times, generally due to magic addling people's minds. One example is in season 5 where Glory is using magic to obscure the fact that she and Ben share the same body. Only Spike, who's not human, is immune to the magic, and tries to explain to the heroes what's going on: everyone else is unable to understanding what he's saying, bizarrely misinterpreting him or ignoring or forgetting immediately.
- Andy Travis of WKRP In Cincinnati. Created as the show's protagonist — that's him being referred to in the theme song — but the writers soon realized he was too dull to drive many plots and made it into an ensemble series with Andy at the bemused centre of the crazy.
- John Crichton of Farscape usually manages to keep his head while all those around him are losing theirs. Justified by the fact that he is the only human in the main cast and aliens are likely to react to situations much differently, as well as by the fact that most of the rest of the crew are rebellious escaped prisoners who the Peacekeepers locked up for the sake of maintaining strict order.
- On the other hand, Crichton actually shows clear signs of mental instability as a result of his experiences over the show. He does manage to pull himself together and get things done, but his base level is pretty off what would be considered ordinary.
- Saffy in Absolutely Fabulous
Music
Theater
- Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar. Or at least he thinks so.
- Doctor Oternschlag of Grand Hotel.
- Older Than Steam: Hamlet's Horatio is the only person in Elsinore who isn't caught up in the emotional turmoil surrounding Hamlet's supposed madness, as lampshaded by Hamlet himself: "Give me that man that is not passion's slave, and I will wear him in my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart." As a result, he's the only one alive at the end.
- In one parody of Hamlet, Horatio must relate the story of the play to two policemen who are checking to see if they need to press any homicide charges; Horatio himself states that he is now stuck with the exceptionally depressing job of arranging the funerals for and burying all of his friends and their families on his own.
- Leon Tolchinsky from Fools, the only character not to be infected with a curse of stupidity.
- Either Sancho or Dulcinea, depending on how you view [[Don QuixoteMan of La Mancha.]]
Radio
Video Games
- Haskill from Shivering Isles. Ironically, as being insane is "normal" in Sheogorath's realm, being the only sane person there would essentially make him the maddest of all...
- The titular character from Conkers Bad Fur Day
- Banjo from Banjo-Kazooie.
- Phoenix Wright of the Ace Attorney games probably counts as well. He appears to be the only (living) person in the courts able to put two and two together, meaning he often needs to explain in detail why such-and-such new point of evidence is important. While he enjoys this sometimes, he finds it very annoying when the Cloudcuckoolander judge fails to figure out obvious problems. In addition, he seems to be the only one to realize that the court system itself is insane and stacked against him. Similarly, he is often the only person who doesn't get swept away by some of the over-the-top personalities that he deals with, mostly because he's too busy thinking about how ridiculous these people are.
- Apollo Justice counts even moreso.
- This seems to be related to being an attorney, actually—Edgeworth seems quite sane, if you forget the whip thing Franziska's not bad, and Mia is reasonable when you play as her in Trials and Tribulations. The only really nutty one is Godot, who has his reasons for not being all there.
- A lot of the relative insanity of the games, at least in the context of the court scenes, can be HandWaved by simply examining some of the more egregious examples. Typically, when the witness/accused/whoever is at the witness stand is trying to use their personality to sway the court, it works...for about three minutes until Phoenix or Mia or Apollo points out that they are wrong, at which point the judge rightfully asserts that the witness is not being truthful and it's much more difficult to sway him. In the cases where it works and sticks ( Furio Tigre, for example)), it's more because the prosecutor is all for beating up the defense attorney. In fact, despite the odds being stacked against Phoenix in every case he participates in, he always ends up finding the truth and getting his client out of trouble. Every. Single. Time. If the court system is stacked against him, he's certainly making good use of it.
- Common Nippon Ichi trope. Thursday and Etna probably comes closest in Disgaea Hour Of Darkness , Adell plays the role straight in Disgaea 2, as does Almaz in Disgaea 3 and Revya (and to a lesser degree Gig) in Soul Nomad And The World Eaters (Revya does not point it out, though obviously Gig does). Culotte from La Pucelle also qualifies (although Alouette is generally sane, Culotte is the one who usually has to deal with Prier's antics), and Pram is probably the closest you get to this trope in Makai Kingdom (which features an extremely eccentric cast, even by Nippon Ichi standards). This is not to say that Nippon Ichi games only posess insane people apart from these, but the only sane man is usually the one fated with having to present the sensible point of view to the more loonatic members of the cast.
- Will/Ed during the War Room segments of Advance Wars: Day Of Ruin due to being the only one who doesn't readily accept that the room ignores the world outside (thus allowing your current enemy to turn up to give tactical advise, or the War Room to show up in a mission on the wing of a giant plane).
- Yuri Hyuga in Shadow Hearts laments the fact that he only ever seems to attract the strangest weirdos around in both allies and enemies. He overlooks the fact that, being a Harmonixer, he isn't so normal himself.
- Johnny Garland, the protagonist in the third game, has the same problem. Even pointed out in one instance where he meets Mao, the talking cat that runs Al Capone's mob and specializes in druken fist as he realizes that he is the only one out of the party who thinks that a talking cat is strange. This then makes Jonny wonder if he's the strange one.
- Team Fortress 2 may be an example, but it's hard to pinpoint the actual Sane Man. The most probable candidate is the Engineer, although some people say it could be the Medic or even the Pyro.
- The Medic?? The one whose "Hippocratic Oath was downgraded to a mere Hippocratic Suggestion"? The one who carries around a gun that shoots syringes at people and hacks them up with a bonesaw? He is so far from sane that he can't see sanity with a telescope.
- Yeah, I doubt that, too. Seriously, he hacks people apart "for science", and his healing gun... healing is just a side effect of an experiment.
- The Heavy is in love with his gun, the Soldier was killing Nazis after WWII ended, the Demoman is a drunk who lost his eye and parents experimenting with explosives, the Spy is a double-reverse quadruple agent, the Pyro is a pyro, and the Engineer has shades of the Mad Scientist. In all this mess, the sanest man is most likely the Sniper. He is a "professional" with "standards" who is sane enough to know the difference between "Assassin" and "Crazed Gunman" at least. The Scout is also decidedly less crazy then the others.
- Then again, recent updates seem to suggest that the Sniper may not be quite as sane as he says he is. He's a leeetle quick to specifically assure us that he is Most Definitely Not A Crazed Gunman.
- I saw a chart that ranked people by professionalism and sanity. The most sane professional was debated between the Sniper and the Spy. I thought it might have been the Spy until I saw Jarate, now it's tied again. The scout was ranked most sane and unprofessional, because... well, he's not a professional, and he's the only one who knows he's in a game. The engineer was between the Sniper and Scout (Probably because he kills to solve problems, not for sport), and the top row was the Pyro, Heavy, and Soldier. The excuse for the Demoman not to be up there is that he's always drunk.
- Fable 2 has an odd example. Nobody in the entire world seems to notice that you are in possession of the ONLY DOG IN THE WORLD, except for a single demon door, who notes that he has never seen a creature like this in the multiple millennia that he's been alive through.
- Resident Evil has a huge cast of characters across more than a dozen games. Out of all of these, Linda from the second Outbreak game, is the only Umbrella scientist who isn't shown to be corrupt, insane, or a complete Jerkass.
- Vayne from Mana Khemia Alchemists Of Alrevis, aside from being The Hero of the story, has only one other role: to lampshade the weirdness of the fellow members of his workshop. Like the absurd amount of items Jess' bag can hold, or Flay's 'butterfly mask' that can fool anyone, among others...
- Yet it was amusingly subverted where he's not the Only Sane Man (ironically, Nikki played the role) when the party recruited a slug-like alien masquerading as an exchange student...
- And in the sequel, Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy, we have two examples: Raze in his workshop and Enna in Ulrika's workshop. At one point in the game, Lily even commented how staying in Ulrika's workshop for so long had ruined Enna, or something along that line.
- Sarutobi Sasuke from Sengoku Basara. Pity him, for he has to put up with these two on a daily basis.
- In Grand Theft Auto Vice City, the mock-public radio station hosts a debate program moderated by Maurice Chavez. Chavez is an egocentric fool, but he still nonetheless comes across as being reasonable and rational compared to the fanatical, deranged and borderline insane guests he is forced to deal with.
- Mother 3 has its main characters, most especially Lucas. He is the only person in all of Tazmily for the duration of the time skip who doesn't own a Happy Box and, more importantly, knows what kind of person Fassad is. (Of course, Flint doesn't either, but considering that he's been out every day for three years looking for Claus, I don't know if he really qualifies as "sane" at that point.
- Squall Leonhart from Final Fantasy VIII. I mean...if you've played the game think about it. Think about his friends, think about his worlds' "leadership", think about his father and his sister who abandoned him as a child because she had to go transfer memories or...something., and think about the convoluted plot of the game. Squall spends much of the game making straight to the point sardonic commentary (albeit to himself mostly.) about the absurdity of everything and everyone around him as upon closer inspection one will find that Squall really is the only sane man on that planet. Is it any wonder he's so grumpy?
Web Comics
- Thief and Black Mage in 8-bit Theater, who regularly have to deal with the stupidity and crazy "logic" of their companions Fighter and Red Mage. Especially Red Mage, self-professed genius. Considering that characters like Fighter, Red Mage, Black Belt and even Thief have shown the ability to do things that violate the laws of physics simply by ignoring them, one of Black Mage's reactions is a pleading, "How? Seriously, how?" Quite often, Black Mage flies into an impotent rage and stabs the perpetrator in the head if the sheer crazy gets to him; or his mind seeks solace in temporary clinical insanity. Black Mage still hasn't gotten over the pitiful and futile habit of trying to argue sense with the universe. Black Mage has on occasion acknowledged that Thief is the only one beside him who is sane, and vice versa:
Black Mage: So, Red Mage, enlighten us. How can a plan that makes no sense work?
Red Mage: One simple reason: It makes too little sense to fail.
BM: What.
RM: Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped. The success or failure of any given step will have no impact on the macro level.
BM: That's so stupid I can't even see straight anymore.
- The fact that not only are his team-mates insane or Too Dumb To Live but even the world
occasionally usually makes little or no sense certainly doesn't make him feel any better.
- White Mage also applies. As do Drizz'l, Princess Sara, and Left-Hand Man Gary.
- This is the schtick of Atomik Lad in particular in Nuklear Age. While Mighty Mettalic Magno Man and Rachel are also sane, the former is often a witting accomplice to Nuke's insanity, while the latter is generally more interested in watching. Atomik Lad notes in the Court Segment that perhaps he is the insane one, because everything would make more sense that way.
- Ardam in Adventurers! is one of the few characters in the series to question the inexplicable physics and plot-related idiosyncrasies that exists in his world. It doesn't help that his best friend is Karn, the main character around which the entire world seems to revolve. He gets a lot of headaches.
- Near the end, however, he realizes that he's been wrong all the time; they live in a world powered by video game logic, not rational science, and Karn is the one who intuitively understands perfectly how things work, not him. He manages to keep this up for about three minutes.
- Ardam and Karn seem to switch places early on, in that Karn started the sane one and learned the logic of the land, whereas Ardam accepted the madness but went sane later on.
- Cherry from RPG World is another example of a character who doesn't quite grasp the video game logic she is living in.
- Reluctant sidekick Paul in Man-Man is the only one who really sees that an non-powered idiot in a costume doesn't make a superhero, that renting the basement to your cheese-fixated evil-genius nemesis is a strange idea, that ideas have downsides or that in his world "superhero/villain" appears to be a synonym for "nutcase".
- Roy, from the Order of the Stick, typically takes this position at various points throughout the comic with his level-headed views.
- The Sanity Ball often trades hands in OotS, generally to whoever's more experienced, grounded, or alive at the moment. Durkon currently seems to be the sane one of the part of the group with Hinjo, though he passes it to Hinjo himself every so often, and Haley is the sane one in her mini-group. But almost everyone gets their turn at pointing out how crazy everyone else, or the world, is being, so it might be that any adventuring group is only allowed one sane person at a time.
- Celia is even more so, due to basically being a normal person who doesn't really like to fight or kill. No wonder she hooked up with Roy.
- This is the Celia who cheerfully assumed everyone can shoot lightning, yes?
- She's normal for an extraplanar being who spent most of her time on the Material Plane alone in a dungeon.
- In The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob, Bob would fit this trope if not for the fact that he is, totally unintentionally, the cause of most of the insanity around himself; and that he is now getting pretty used to it. His girlfriend Jean epitomizes this trope though, and is always capable of taking a few steps back and recognizing the absurdity of Bob's problems—an acuity which invariably makes her life more difficult, as she must still deal with those problems even while recognizing how nuts they are.
- Zoe used to take on this role during the early years of Sluggy Freelance. She's still usually the most grounded member of the cast, but over time she's gotten used to the bizarre characters and events that fill her life.
Torg: The liquor store was closed.
- Jayden and Crusader's character Crusader started out as strange as the rest of the cast, but slowly has flipped to playing the straight man in a household which involves a particularly violent atheist with no sense of humour at all, a mentally insane former-assassin and a possibly insane, possibly time-travelling scientist who wears a top hat, acts like he's from the 19th century and has been known to breed man-eating anteaters.
- Recently Crusader has been acting a little insane again because, in the words of the creator 'Crusader hasn't been crazy for a while. I decided to rectify that.'
- Team Dad Dwayne in General Protection Fault
- Arguably, Florence (or Winston) in Freefall
- Oh, it's Florence. She's constantly having to fix problems caused by Sam and Helix, and most of the other characters exhibit very odd personality traits (kleptomania, unchecked breaucratism, enslaved to programming...) which she has to deal with.
- Dimo in Girl Genius plays this role to his slightly loopier fellow Jagers, Oggie and Maxim. Consider the following exchange (with heavy Funetik Aksent), on Gil:
Maxim: Hy vill teach him how to impress de goyls!
Oggie: Hy vill teach him about de birds und de veasles!
Dimo: Und hy vill teach him how to avoid those two.
- Central to the premise of Ursula Vernon's Digger, which makes great play of this as a racial characteristic of wombats in a universe where folklore is living history and 'magicked-up' tunnels are occupational hazards. More specifically, it follows the adventures of one young wombat dumped via hazardous tunnel into a world featuring a god in chains, talking statues, living shadows, oracular slugs and homicidal vegetables. Among other things.
- Aeris in VG Cats seems to be the sanest. Mind you, this is by comparison to:
Leo: Look! I typed in "poop" I'm so witty!
Pantsman: Criminals don't catch yourselves, you know. Except Dr. Van Kruglor's self-catching robots. Those were just confusing.
Krug: No, taste of suffering too expensive for Krug.
Dr. Hobo: Ya know I vass normal once. I came to work vith a tie and suit and sometimes panfs.
- The trolls of Errant Story have this as their hat.
- George a lot of the time. Bob as well, but you know, he's evil. Sometimes Proto Man but he's more of a guy made of Meta. Roll doesn't count. She's a woman.
- Casey And Andy: the only sane one usually alternates between Mary and Jenn.
Web Original
- The titular character in Charlie the Unicorn. It doesn't help that the other two unicorns, apart from their blissful acceptance (if not outright knowledge) of all the strange things that occur around them, are really only minor exaggerations.
- Strong Bad, his brother Strong Sad, and Pom Pom on Homestar Runner. Pom Pom is essentially one of the smartest cast members, and often seems to be telling Homestar that everything he's saying is nonsense. Strong Bad, although he causes trouble, is at least smarter than most of his cohorts (and aware that nobody seems to wear pants). As for Strong Sad...
- Church of Red Vs Blue isn't exactly level-headed, but considering the fact that most of the other regular soldiers in Blood Gulch display varying degrees of incompetence or insanity, he's easily the most down-to-earth character present. While this makes him more proactive than much of the cast, it's also the cause of the endlessly irate disposition that tends to overshadow the other aspects of his personality.
- Grif would qualify in the respect that he's at least as sane as Church, were he not utterly apathetic to the crazy goings-on of Blood Gulch. Witness his logic in the Warthog argument, which were of course completely shot down by Sarge as being insane and made up. How much of his resulting personality is Flanderization or him just realizing that he cannot make a difference is debatable.
- Simmons has also shown himself to be fairly rational when he's not being a sycophant. One could make the argument that the position of Sane Man among Team Red depends on whether or not Simmons is sucking up to Sarge.
- Washington from Recovery One ultimately fits this the best. It actually creates a weird dynamic where Church mocks the others for their stupidity and the Washingtom mocks him.
- GBW in AH Dot Com The Series. About half the time this is played straight, while the other half it's subverted as the universe is so chaotic that a rational approach never yields the right answers.
- Welshman in Englishman started out like this (and usually turned out to be wrong) while later on he seems to give up and accept the insanity of the Englishverse.
- While the words "sanity" and "The Nostalgia Critic" don't often go together, he was this in That Guy With The Glasses's April Fool's Day prank, where he got completely freaked out by the questions Ask That Guy gets:
Narrator: How do I know if the KGB is watching me?
The Nostalgia Critic: Are these really the type of questions he gets? I mean, why do you need to know this? If the KGB is watching you, there's something wrong with you! Why is the KGB watching you? I don't know! Answer that!
- Guy of Life In A Game, being the only "real" person in his video game world, is the only one who questions the insane video game logic that everyone else seems to take for granted. It comes and goes, but the best example of it is in Episode 6-2.
- Lita in Sailor Moon Abridged, sometimes... and 'she' is a Jive Turkey somehow dressing as a Japanese schoolgirl. Of course, compared to Serena, Raye or Mina...
- In Dragon Ball Abridged, Vegeta is quite possibly the only sane one around at this point, but it may only appear that way in contrast to some of the idiots (Nappa and Goku specifically) he's put up to.
- In the first act of A Very Potter Musical, Hermione frantically tries to convince the other characters that the House Tournament is dangerous, but their reaction is pretty well summed up by Harry's line: "Duh, Hermione, I'm the Boy Who Lived, not Died". Later on, in the second act (after Hermione has been proved right), Harry gets a turn: Voldemort has returned, but whenever he tries to talk about it with someone, they change the subject to their love lives..
- Dr. Tran fits this trope perfectly, especially when the narrator's around.
Western Animation
- The "Chicken Boo" sketches on Animaniacs had only one person realizing that Chicken Boo was actually a giant chicken in a ludicrously flimsy disguise. Nobody would believe them, and even when Boo's deception was eventually revealed (by some event unrelated to their efforts), they never got any credit for their insight.
- In Invader Zim, Dib is the only one who knows or cares that Zim is an alien, no matter how obvious it becomes. Gaz is a partial subversion; she knows perfectly well that Zim is a would-be alien conqueror, and doesn't care because (in her own words) "he's so bad at it."
- Arguably Gaz is even more so than Dib. While Dib obsesses over Zim's constant plots, Gaz is all too aware that Failure Is The Only Option for the Chaotic Stupid Zim and is content with just letting him screw himself over.
- And then there's Tallest Red, who is probably the most stable and levelheaded Irken in the show.
- The Simpsons episode "Homer's Enemy" featured the character Frank Grimes, who is the only one of Homer's co-workers who recognizes his pathological boobery. He tries to point it out to everyone, but to no avail. He eventually works himself up over it so much that he has a nervous breakdown, during which he accidentally electrocutes himself. After some fans complained his treatment seemed a little mean-spirited, DVD commentary explained Frank was mainly a device to show a normal person couldn't function in the show's universe.
- Lisa Simpson also often finds herself thrust into the role of only sane...girl. Quite often, when her family (or occasionally, the entire town) is caught up in some insane course of action, she's the one who points out how absurd things have become. Her comments are usually ignored.
- The straight man role is usually traded between Lisa and Marge. Sometimes even Lisa's as crazy as the rest, and vise versa.
- In Sealab 2021, Doctor Quentin Q. Quinn is the Only Sane Man. At least in the beginning of each episode. Often the sheer insanity of everyone else becomes contagious.
- Frylock on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. In relative terms, anyway.
- Hank Hill of King Of The Hill is a shining example. In his version of The Rashomon, he sees himself as the only adult among children, and in a hallucination caused by varnish fumes, he imagines the rest of the world as helpless rodents on a Whack-a-Mole board.
- Bob the Tomato, in the Veggie Tales cartoons — in the opening and closing sequences where he plays himself, he consistently provides a voice of reason on the show. During the actual episodes, he is almost invariably cast in the role of a character who is competent and sensible, unlike most of the others.
- Number 5 of Codename Kids Next Door:
Number 1: Abby, we both know you're the only one on this team with any real common sense. When I'm screaming that we're being invaded by tiny, kid-eating leeches falling from the sky, you're the one telling me it's only snowing.
- Rocko from Rockos Modern Life seemed to start out this way, a hapless bystander trying to use logic to navigate a thoroughly insane environment and oftentimes failing. Strangely, he seemed to lose this as the series also took a turn away from being as surreal as it once was.
- Stan from South Park. Kyle has the appearance of being sane as well, but unlike Stan, is unable to understand just how moronic the actions of all the insane people around are.
- Shnitzel from Chowder is usually a good example, though he does a have a few lapses into the weird goings-on in the show.
- On The Fairly Oddparents, Wanda is usually the only one aware of how insane everything is, or knowing of how bad everything is going to end up.
- On the Animated Adaptation of Wayside School, Todd is repainted as the only one using real world logic while everyone else is using Wayside's logic.
- Mac in Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends. Even when Frankie gets into the house's general wackiness, Mac doesn't without getting into Mr. Herriman's extreme. However, being able to manage this at the age of 8 doesn't come without its costs...
- Dukey from Johnny Test. He's the only one aware of the bad side effects of Susan and Mary's experiments (besides Hugh) and he knows when a fun time can get dangerous.
Real Life
- Gideon Wells, Secretary of the Navy in U.S. president Abraham Lincoln's cabinet. Between Lincoln, Secretary of State William Seward, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, sometimes commander of the Army of the Potomac George Meade, Generals Grant, Sherman, Fremont, Custer, etc., there was a lot of insanity to go around.
- Admit it: a lot of us have felt like this at times.
- Comic: "I Luv Halloween" - Finch, a skull-mask wearing little kid who stuffs razor blades into apples as revenge for getting an apple for Halloween and sets a woman's head on fire, is actually the most level-headed and rational (next to Devil-lad) of the amoral cast of trick-or-treaters.
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