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"On their own, the giant infant scientists survived another minute, and then crashed."
"I tend to see Elan more as an obstacle that this team overcomes on a regular basis. Traveling with Elan is kind of like, say, adventuring with syphilis. It can be done, for a while, but it's not easy and it's not pretty."
Probably one of the most hated characters in a movie or series fandom, The Load is a liability to the heroes. They are not always the proximate cause of the heroes' failures, but they're weak, they're often Too Dumb To Live, and for some reason they've just got to hang around with the cool heroes and be a part of the action all the time. It doesn't occur to The Load that, being an unathletic Muggle, it really might not be such a good idea for her to rush headlong onto the battlefield along with the heavily armored and super-powered heroes. Said heroes will usually have to spend at least half the battle keeping The Load from coming down with a case of Dead. It's not hard to see why the fans hate them so much.
The Load can sometimes become The Scrappy if they're obnoxious enough — although sometimes they will not be actively annoying, just some weaker character whom the heroes must bring along and protect for some reason.
The Load is the TV/movie equivalent of a powerless NPC in a video game Escort Mission — only, unlike a video game, you don't have the power to press the "B" button and toss The Load to the zombies if you start getting irritated by them.
What makes this trope especially grating is that The Load often actually does have powers or an ability that will come in handy for the heroes, which is, of course, why they must keep dragging The Load around with them. The one instance where The Load uses this power to save the heroes, however, does little to make up for the 99 percent of the time that they have spent being a screeching boat anchor.
Closely related to the Damsel Scrappy, Non Action Guy, The Team Normal (if this character is the load because of a lack of powers). Can lead to a Live Action Escort Mission, Badly Battered Babysitter, or similar.
If a Time Skip occurs in the series, expect The Load to have Taken a Level in Badass. Compare The Millstone, who is much more proactive in making failure the only option.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Sailor Moon, titular heroine notwithstanding, comes off as the load a lot in the anime. Her redeeming grace is that she's almost exclusively the only one who can finish off the Big Bad of the day and she can buckle down and work hard. Despite this, she has almost no combat skill, whines incessantly, is book dumb or chooses not to try, overeats and oversleeps, and mooches off her friends and family for money and emotional support.
- Mia Koji and Yulie from Ronin Warriors are probably the definitive examples of this trope. The fact that Yulie's reckless interference often saved the heroes (instead of leading to his slashing, bloody death) arguably qualifies as a Family Unfriendly Aesop.
- While Yulie was a load because he had the bad luck of being only eight years old back then (and by Message he was seen starting to take a level in badass), Mia was NOT a load. If not for her, the Ronins would've been scattered all around the world, since she risked life and limb Putting The Band Back Together after their first big fight. She also made research, let them use her Big Fancy House as their HQ, etc. Not being an Action Girl does NOT The Load make; overlooking Mia's contributions as a whole because of her lack of fighting skills is damn unfair to her.
- Well, Mia does have some Scrappy-esque qualities (to some fans at least), which may make her seem more like a Load than she really is. Which just goes to show how subjective this trope can be.
- A major theme in One Piece lately has been the more human characters of the crew (mostly Usopp) concerned about becoming The Load, in a Lampshade Hanging of Cant Catch Up.
- Fortunately, Oda lets them keep their dignity by having them take some badass levels. Usopp relies on tools and props to deceive and/or gain an edge, and Nami uses her superior wits to overcome a more powerful opponent. That, and she's got a staff that can control weather... don't forget, also, that they've all gotten a lot tougher in minor ways, through their adventures; at one point, a house collapses on the group, and they knock the rubble away without having sustained any injury at all!
- Sakura Haruno from Naruto often worries that she might be becoming The Load as Naruto and Sasuke both outdistance her (and as she becomes an increasing liability in battle against more powerful enemies). To rectify this, Sakura becomes Tsunade's apprentice, learning an entirely different field of ninja magic which better suits her skills. During the Time Skip, she even Took A Level In Badass and became a full-fledged Action Girl.
- In practice, though, she still sucks. She got knocked out by a poweup sequence!
- Kyousuke Kawachi spends much of his time in Yakitate Japan, playing the role of The Load, since he has less baking talent than the other characters. By the end of the series, Kawachi has realized his "Load-ness" and has largely excused himself from the final tournament arc.
- Christmas from Kurau Phantom Memory forms quite a burden for Kurau, despite being her long-awaited pair — that is, until she finally appears to be able to use Rynax-powers herself.
- Some people think Raki from Claymore is a courageous lad who wishes to accompany and aid the demi-human monster hunter called Clare as best he can, looking on her as the only family he has left. Others consider him a clingy, whiny, brat whose very existence is an affront and wants him staked out for Yoma bait. Everyone admits the best thing he can do when he and Claire stumble across a Yoma or psychotic high-end Claymore is run away QUICKLY. He eventually Took A Level In Badass after the timeskip, though.
- And he did have a Crowning Moment Of Awesome when running away from Ophelia wasn't an option.
- Clair's companions for her first Awakened One hunt actually mock her for keeping him around.
- Rose from the anime Red Garden is usually seen cowering in a corner during a fight, screeching her head off. Occasionally she'll try to join in the group's efforts, but only when the opponent is busy grappling with one of the others. Even the slightly precious fashionista, Rachel, gets better results, and she has no qualms about telling Rose how useless she is in a later episode.
- Azmaria in the anime version of Chrono Crusade starts out as The Chick, but devolves into The Load. She was never a real combatant to begin with, but her Apostle wings and healing powers stop working near the end of the story, and she does absolutely nothing in the final battle against Aion. This is made infinitely worse by the fact that she is the only one of the four main characters who lives.
- Shippo from Inu Yasha is the most useless member of Inu-Yasha and Kagome's group as he has virtually no fighting skills, often has to be rescued, and whines a lot. Occasionally he will try to fight, but the best he has ever done in a battle is using his illusion powers to momentarily distract an enemy.
- Although he did singlehandedly fight a lizard demon to a standstill, twice.
- Initial D has Iketani and Itsuki as "The Load" in the sense they will never beat almost anyone in a race. Ever. Takumi came around to help them out for a bit but after he left, they were back to being a weak team.
- The whole point of the Akina Speed Stars was a springboard for Takumi (who previously didn't give a damn about street racing) to get some battles under his belt and lay the foundation for his destiny in Project D. Nobody with any sense expected the Speed Stars' battles (if there ever were any besides that silly ego clash against the Tokyo duo) to play any meaningful part in the story. As such, I don't really see exactly who Koichiro and co. are holding back.
- Rui from Telepathy Shoujo Ran arguably qualifies. Sure, he is supposed to have the ability to reduce and amplify psychic powers, but that hardly ever comes into play. Most of the time he acts as a male damsel in distress and has to get saved by Ran and Midori numerous times. Worse, he even gets in the way of the romantic two girl friendship dynamic between the two female leads — and his personality is pretty bland to boot. He redeems himself somewhat in later episodes, but not by much.
- In Mahou Sensei Negima, when a small handful of non-magically trained, ordinary students enter the Magic World without main lead and teacher Negi knowing at first — against his will —, he spends most of the Trapped In Another World arc distressed about their safety, seeing as the rest of his students, the Ala Alba were given Training From Hell specifically for the dangers said Magical World offered. Fortunately for the students they — unlike the Ala Alba — weren't on the lam and to their credit, have managed to handle themselves well. Sort of.
- This was subverted in the early Library Island arc, when some of Negi's students dragged him to Library Island to find a magic book to help them pass their finals. Unfortunately, Negi had sealed his magic to avoid the temptation to fix their grades, making him almost totally useless.
- In Dragon Ball Z, Kuririn/Krillin became a horrendous Load, since he, while apocalyptically powerful in his own right, couldn't possibly hope to keep up with the villains and the Saiyans, who kept leveling up to comical extremes every time a new Big Bad showed up. Eventually, it got to the point where Krillin's only purpose was to carry the Senzu beans.
- Krillin performs important actions through AT LEAST the Cell Games arc and provides a lot of catalyst for character development and contrast. Somebody like Yamcha is far closer to The Load status than Krillin.
- Ruby Crescent in 666 Satan apparently was one of these, until that was revealed that she was a Recipe, too.
- Kiddy Grade: Mrs. Padushka. The first time she appears, Éclair and Mrs. Padushka are supposed to escort some classified materials. Mrs. Padushka is probably both clumsy and anxious, and probably has little or no bluffing ability. Éclair even outright states "oh no..." when Mrs. Padushka says something really stupid.
- Yaya Yuiki of Shugo Chara is often this. It could even be argued that it's somewhat intentional on Yaya's part, since her "would-be self" is a baby, who isn't expected to be able to do anything.
- Kyoko from Dennou Coil manages to raise her already very annoying presence by getting herself into danger throughout the series, usually by following her older sister Yasako around.
- Lenalee Lee is this trope for almost 40 straight episodes (out of 103 total at this time) in the second half of the series, barely able to walk under her own power and unable to help in battle.
- Pacifica of Scrapped Princess is frequently afraid of being the load, constantly having to be protected by her adoptive sibling bodyguards, Shannon and Raquel. Fortunately, she does turn out to have special powers.
- Akira Hibiki is always surrounded by children who can be counted upon to put themselves in mortal danger every episode.
- Matsuda sees himself as this in Death Note and endangers himself when he tries to be more of a contributor to the investigation team. Technically, it works. He was able to lead the team to the Yotsuba group. Of course, since this later helped Light...
- While the consensus on who qualifies as The Load in the Pokemon anime is widely mixed, few are willing to argue that Misty's Psyduck doesn't count. While he does occasionally have sudden bursts of competence, in almost all of his appearances he is completely useless and often actually does more harm then good. The fact that he has a bad tendency to eagerly leap from his pokeball when Misty requires another of her Pokemon, effectively ruining whatever strategy she had, does not help.
Comics
- A number of sidekicks from the comics of the Golden and Silver Ages are The Load, such as Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen, the JLA's Snapper Carr, and the JSA's Johnny Thunder. Modern comics have managed to avert this to an extent, such as by making Jimmy a closer friend of Clark Kent's than Superman's, or by making Johnny a hero in his own right.
- Bucky of Captain America seems to be the ultimate (comicbook) example of The Load that Took A Level In Badass. He went from being saved from Hitler twice a month to a Badass Normal Legacy Character.
- And now, they have him as Captain America, after Steve Rogers got killed—Hang on. He's made a badass, kills his second successor, has conflict after conflict with his former mentor... then becomes the next Cap? Don't even get me started on how far into Discontinuity Stark's behavior in this is..
- Aunt May is such a load in sixties Spiderman comics, it's frankly bizarre.
- This isn't helped by her tendency of referring to "that awful Spider-Man," and her belief that Otto Octavius is a polite and charming man - while he's holding her hostage and Peter is trying to rescue her.
- I'm not sure Aunt May quite qualifies as a true instance. She isn't insisting on following Spiderman around, for ex, or trying to hang out with him. In fact, mostly she's just the lady who happens to be Peter's aunt and trying to live her life. The weird fixation with Doc Octopus probably qualifies for some other trope, though.
- Rick Jones from The Incredible Hulk. What could be more useful to some of the most skilled and powerful super heroes in the Marvel Universe than some kid with a motorcycle following them around? Not to mention that he's apparently responsible for Bruce Banner becoming the Hulk. The only reason he's around is because he's one of the only people capable of calming the Hulk down as his friend.
- Peter David eventually subverted this in his Incredible Hulk and Captain Marvel series by showing that Rick had spent so much time hanging around superheroes, he'd actually picked up enough general knowledge, including extensive combat training during the time he insisted on being Captain America's sidekick, Bucky, to be able to handle himself in almost any situation (like, say, carrying around a parachute in case he's suddenly stuck on an exploding spaceship).
- Another instance was when two big strong tough guys tried to mess with Rick, only to discover that hanging out with the people he had, and his genearl experience, made him a very competent hand-to-hand fighter against other normals, he trashed them without much effort. By the standards of 'normals' Rick Jones is not someone you want mad at you.
Films — Animation
Films — Live Action
- In the movie Conan: The Destroyer, the heroes have to spend most of their time babysitting a spoiled virgin princess who's the one key to finding a powerful artifact. She's pretty much useless in battle, gets kidnapped a lot, and the whole job winds up being a lot more trouble than it's worth. (At the end, once she was queen, she did take all those annoying sidekicks off of Conan's hands, so at least she was good for something...)
- Prince Tarn from the film adaptation of Red Sonja, who follows the heroes around, getting into trouble and then screaming for help.
- Kazan in Cube starts out this way. He's an autistic who is somehow able to survive in the Cube long enough to meet the other characters, especially given his knack for springing traps. Near the end it's discovered that he has a very useful skill.
- Honey Rider in Dr. No. Oddly enough, she isn't widely hated among James Bond fans, partly because she was the first main Bond Girl, but she really is the single most superfluous Bond girl in the entire film series. The film makers were usually pretty good in making the Bond girls in the series of at least some nominal importance to the plot of each film (even if, in the case of Mary Goodnight, their only importance is as The Millstone), but Honey is of no importance whatsoever. She shows up late in the film, tags along, and does nothing of any consequence. The film takes the time to give her the same backstory from the novel (Dr. No killed her father, she received all her education by reading the whole encyclopedia, she murdered her rapist, etc.) but again, none of that has any impact on the rest of the film. Of course, the fact she's The Load is also an accurate adaptation of the novel, another reason she isn't widely hated. She exists solely to be the Distressed Damsel (and even that comes across as an afterthought) and for Fanservice. The latter, Ursula Andress does very, very well, which is the third reason she isn't widely hated.
- Bibi Dahl from For Your Eyes Only also qualifies. She's the only Bond Girl who offers herself to Bond, and he refuses it (since sometimes even 007 thinks "that's just wrong").
- The annoying kids in the Gamera. Yeah, he's the friend to all children, but even Gamera should be sick of saving these dim-witted kids constantly.
- In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Willie Scott had almost no purpose except to be distressed, to yell at Indy a lot, and to be sexy. That last one is also dubious.
- Stephen from the original 1978 Dawn of the Dead. He appears all the more useless in contrast to Peter and Roger, the two Bad Ass SWAT operatives who constantly pull his ass out of the fire. Stephen does get a little better by the end of the film.
- How would you translate "The Load" in French? French movie Le Boulet
 (pictured above) gives you a hint.
- In Fargo, the killers are a team of two guys working together. One guy is a cold-blooded psychopath who really knows his stuff, and the other guy is a talkative, sex-obsessed person with a really nasty temper. Pretty much every single lead the cops get comes from the second guy, and he really doesn't contribute anything useful to their plan.
- Both children, Lex and Tim, in the film adaption of Jurassic Park fit into this trope. Throughout the movie The Hero Alan Grant continuously has to save them from danger. Lex agitates a T-Rex by flashing a flashlight in it's eye, and then proceeds to choke Grant when he tries to save her from the dinosaur. Tim has to be guided out of a tree he fell in and later gets electrocuted on an electric fence after failing to climb it in time. Each of them have a shining moment though, with Tim locking a Velociraptor in a freezer and Lex using her 'hacking skills' to bring power back to the park.
- The most noticeable moment of this in the film is when Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler are trying to keep a Velociraptor out of the control room by pushing against the door and the gun is out of reach of them. Ellie tries to reach it with her leg while Lex attempts to get the door locks back on using the computer. And Tim? He's jumping up and down behind Lex, punching the back of the chair and telling her 'hurry, hurry hurry!'.
- Since they are kids though this is probably a more realistic assessment of how they would handle such an unrealistic situation.
- Even more realistically, kids are stupid and don't pay attention to their surroundings. You have to assign some blame to Grant and Sattler, as one of them could have just yelled for Tim to retrieve the gun.
- This is parodied in Hot Shots Part Deux, where Rowan Atkinson plays a hostage who can't walk - because his shoelaces are tied together. He insists that he be carried by Charlie Sheen (the hero), and berates him for jiggling too much - while being shot at!
- In Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Sam himself acts very much as The Load to the rest of the Transformers. His only purpose is to have a head (and later, a sock) full of the [[Macguffin]] and to get it where it needs to go, and since that job requires him to run across a battlefield full of giant robots...
Literature
- Eragon, despite being the main character of The Inheritance Trilogy, seems to suck in all important ways even after training from reputed masters of fighting. Even having a dragon and allegedly being an Instant Expert doesn't rescue him from his liability status.
- Somewhat (key word) rectified in Brisingr. Granted, many of those times, he either had Ayra or his cousin around, but at least his M.O. wasn't always "do something stupid so someone can come save my ass."
- Murtagh actually tells him how useless he is in the first book, and Eragon admits to himself (though not out loud) that this may be somewhat true.
- Journey to the West has The Load as the protagonist! Xuánzàng is a holy buddhist monk, who is protected by four warriors. Not only he is technically unable to defend himself... he is a holy man, and therefore eating his flesh grants immortality. This makes this trope Older Than Steam.
- One can argue that the book is actually not about him, but about Sun Wukung, because it's him who gets most of the spoils from their trip, and it's his antics that make the bulk of the book. Xuánzàng even didn't get to appear until
the second volume! approximately the tenth chapter.
- Ernie from the Grey Griffins book series. He's also kind of The Scrappy as well, with his nerdiness and whininess. But his dumbest move by far was when he just happened to randomly sneeze and blow out the match the heroes were using to light a dark room. Natalia was sufficiently pissed at him for it. Later on, he becomes more of a liability when he happens to end up in a coma caused by an enemy attack. Later, he is revived from the coma with magic powers, making him surprisingly powerful and no longer The Load.
- Glew in book 5 of The Chronicles of Prydain, when he isn't The Millstone. The other characters are very aware of it, but keep him around because they feel sorry for him, have no way of sending him elsewhere, or want to keep an eye on him. To cap off his annoyance factor, he's constantly complaining that he's treated badly and the companions are being selfish in not thinking of his loss.
- The Ciaphas Cain novel Caves of Ice gave us a marvelous acknowledged example in the form of the tech-priest Logash, whose sole contribution is to tell them a little bit about ambulls before just hanging around. Some 70% of Cain's narration about him amounts to "What an annoying man he was" and/or "The mission would have gone smoother if I had thrown him to the orks/ambulls/necrons".
- Eustace in Voyage of the Dawn Treader until the point mid-story when he has his very own Anvilicious adventure in character development. He starts the voyage as a complaining selfish prig. The "Eustace's journal" portion of the book is a scarily effective portrait of self-delusion and self-righteousness.
- Lex in the novel of Jurassic Park. Mostly justified as she is quite young and no matter how annoying she is and how many times she accidentally alerts their position to the T-Rex, there is no way they are going to give up a little girl to vicious dinosaurs.
- Amusingly subverted in John Maddox Roberts' Hannibal's Children and The Seven Hills, an Alternate History in which the Romans circa 100 BCE are even more Badass than in reality. Aulus Flaccus is lazy, hedonistic, and a poor fighter by Roman standards, definitely The Load — to them. By anyone else's standards, he's a terrifying killing machine. Attacked by assassins, he kills all four with six quick swordstrokes ... which his friend Scipio calls two too many.
- Ce'Nedra from The Belgariad. She becomes a liability to the heroes in Queen of Sorcery because after she runs away, everyone is looking for her because one, she's an Imperial Princess, and two, in the current political crisis, she's a very valuable potential hostage. She kicks up a stink about everything, treats Garion like a slave, makes it very clear to him that she thinks of him as a total inferior, and then gets pissed off that he won't totally devote himself to her. They have to leave her behind in Prolgu because she's the only one who can't defend herself at all, she treats everything as a personal insult, and despite her C Mo A in bringing in the Tolnedrans and the Arends to join the army, it's balanced by a Dethroning Moment Of Suck when she almost gets Adara killed by her own stupidity. While reading the Belgariad, this troper kept wishing that she could strangle Ce'Nedra- or at least deliver a The Reason You Suck Speech.
Live Action TV
- Doctor Goodfellow, the resident "scientist" aboard Searcher in the second season of Buck Rogers, whose occasional contributions as Mr Exposition were vastly outweighed by his bumbling mannerisms, inability to control his curiosity, and an utter lack of basic self-preservation instincts. Searcher and its complement could have avoided at least half of their problems if he had been Thrown Out The Airlock and Buck, Wilma, or Hawk had asked for a scientist with a brain, instead of trying to protect someone so self-evidently Too Dumb To Live.
- Oh yes he was so annoying! The whole second season went wrong on many levels, from what I've heard Gil Gerard (who played Buck) wanted to make the show a bit more serious in tone, but it all went horribly wrong and they ended up turning a light-hearted and quirkily fun show into a bad ripoff of Star Trek. Wilma Deering got dumber, there was bad writing, and Dr. Goodfellow topped it off with his irritation factor.
- Plenty of Doctor Who companions qualify for this trope, especially the female ones, with the most well known examples being Tegan, Susan and Peri. The new series has thankfully avoided this, making the companions useful while still being outshone by the Doctor.
- With the possible exception of Adam Mitchell, who borders on The Millstone, especially in The Long Game. Note, however, that for once the Doctor dumps him as soon as his status becomes clear.
- River Tam's "wanted" status on Firefly generates conflict between the crewmembers by forcing them to avoid lucrative jobs that would involve too much oversight and poses a risk of arrest whenever they come into contact with government agents. That is, until she Took A Level In Badass for the movie. Of course, her brother and protector, Simon, acts as The Counterwieght by being a very useful doctor and occasional heist planner for the crew, of a talent the crew would not otherwise have access to, if not for the fact that he and River are on the run.
- Justified in that even without Simon, the crew would never have the heart to dump a cripplingly insane girl with the Alliance, especially since they made her that way. It should also be noted that River's telepathy has saved the crew's ass more than once, both in the series and the movie.
- Luke, Sylar's Kid Sidekick on Heroes. "You almost got us both killed!" "That was so awesome!!"
- Krod Mandoon has an intentional example in Zezelryk. He's a Squishy Wizard, with the caveat that he is so inept that we never have seen him actually performing Functional Magic, despite repeatedly trying. Because of this, he is far from one of the annoying examples of the trope, especially since he actually does come in useful once in a blue moon.
- Loquasto and Bruce are pretty useless too, though Loquasto has some usefulness as the Dumb Muscle. But all three make up for it by having at least one of them be the Only Sane Man when the rest of the group touches the Idiot Ball.
- Loquasto's sense of smell and Zezelryk's potion making also occasionally come in handy Plus Zezelryk now has a nifty magic item. Also in the season finale Bruce shows that he's a pretty competent fighter.
- Charlie on Lost was The Load for for first two seasons, but came through in a big way at the end of season 3. A few characters have occasionally treated Hurley like The Load, but he's likable enough (and also comes through at the end of season 3) that the characterization doesn't stick. Daniel spent some time as The Load when he was first introduced in season 4 before he gained confidence and moved more towards a leadership role amoung the Frieghties, until midway through season 5 where he suffered a Heroic BSOD after Charlotte died.
- The page quote above comes from the end of the MST3K episode, Prince of Space. Most of the movie's action involves a group of hapless, middle-aged scientists having to be constantly rescued from Evil Alien Chicken people by the title character.
- Furthermore, the movie demonstrated a particular peculiarity Japanese children seem to constantly exhibit in movies like this; namely, the need to be within close proximity of the hero at all times, even or especially when he's busy fighting the Monster of the Week, and even or especially when this would put both them and the hero in incredible danger. Maybe it's the Japanese's way of trying to weed out the weak and stupid and keep the population down.
- In MST3K episode 803, The Mole People, the heroes have to drag a middle-aged French scientist with them everywhere they go. He's such a liability, that Mike and the bots quickly nickname him "The Load". He mercifully keels over early in the film, but still manages to cause problems for the heroes later on when his body is discovered by the titular Mole People. (Up to that point, they believed the visiting heroes were immortal gods.)
- "He died as he lived: A total load."
- Is essentially the Trope Namer in that this is likely the most popular and public case of someone specifically naming a character type The Load although I'm sure there are earlier examples?
- Much, the Tagalong Kid from the series Robin of Sherwood, never accomplishes anything, fails as a lookout, and occasionally lets prisoners go. Any fight scene he's in always involves someone rescuing him, even when he gets a Magic Sword. He's quite a liability for a tiny group of constantly hunted outlaws. Of course, he's also the hero's brother...
- The new BBC series of Robin Hood also has one. For mysterious reasons, the outlaws let village girl Kate join the gang instead of shipping her off to Kirkless Abbey like they do to all the other people they rescue. They pay dearly for their foolishness, considering they spend the greater part of the rest of the series rescuing her when she gets kidnapped, caring for her when she gets injured, and having to put up with her endless moaning, nagging, whining, and criticism (all done in a delightful high-pitched screech). At one stage they actually have to spoon-fed her, and throughout the course of the series she never achieves anything important or interesting. She's useless as a fighter, has no helpful skills, lacks the most basic degree of common sense, and isn't even a very nice person.
- The scientists of Stargate Atlantis can't fire a gun to save their lives (literally). While certainly not worthless, McKay pretty much just hides out and shoots blindly around corners in a firefight.
- He redeems himself (sometimes) when something technical has to be done.
- A new Crime Scene Unit guy on the 08-09 season of Law And Order SVU was a load to the detectives, shouting inappropriate things at crime scenes and generally annoying the hell out of the other lab tech and Stabler. All this changed in the season finale when he was revealed to be a complete psychopath who planted evidence and killed a man to "help" the detectives catch a serial killer and when that failed to impress his colleagues he killed his lab partner and almost killed Stabler. Fortunately Olivia was there to put down the deranged Scrappy.
- Gwen from Torchwood starts out this way, not even knowing how to use her sidearm. By the second season she's almost constantly acting as Damsel In Distress. In season three she's alright, but that may be because the main cast got so little screen time.
- From Chuck, there's Chuck. At the start much of the show's humor came from demonstrating someone in so far over his head he's in danger of being crushed by the pressure. He also demonstrates erratic competence, often managing to both save the day an act as The Load in the same episode.
Video Games
- See Escort Mission.
- In The Legend Of Zelda Ocarina Of Time Ruto literally'' acts as a load, forcing Link to carry her around and getting caught by enemies.
- In Perfect Dark there's Doctor Carroll who you must escort; he gets stuck on walls and odd places when following you, and can die easily.
- In Ico there's Yorda. The shadows are constantly after her and you can't let her die because A) You need her to open doors and B) You instantly die if she's captured.
- Any character in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas who is supposed to shoot at the bad guys while you drive. They all have worse aiming than seems humanly possible. To the point where the "let's go do a drive-by" mission is easier (and quicker) if you just run over the targets. At least Woozie is literally blind. What's everyone else's excuse?
- Not to mention he arguably has the best aim out of everyone else.
Web Comics
- Justin of El Goonish Shive feels like this, specifically during the Sister Arc, because he's not strong enough to go and save Elliot from Damien and thus must remain in safety. In fact, his dream that night has him cast as a helpless hobbit who's forced to stay home while the guys who did save Elliot are the Fellowship.
- In Sluggy Freelance, Kiki is by far the most useless character in a fight, and her tendency to play with anything shiny has often put the characters in danger from explosions, dimensional portals, and radiation poisoning. However, because she is The Ditz, the Genki Girl, and the Team Pet, most readers love her anyway.
- Be fair, it's not Kiki's fault that only Bun-Bun has figured out how to utilize (read: weaponize, using a pixie stick and a cardboard tube) her.
- Elan the bard from The Order of the Stick, as noted in the page quote above. Somewhat predictably, once he's separated from the party (and stuck in a prison cell, no less), he literally takes a level in badass.
- In social encounters, Belkar typically takes over the role of The Load from Elan, being much inclined to provoke (or just plain start) fights in mid-negotiation.
Web Original
Western Animation
- Ma-Ti from Captain Planet and the Planeteers often feels this way. After all, What Kind Of Lame Power Is Heart Anyway? And being just 12 years old when the other Planeteers are over the age of 15 doesn't help, either.
- Cheetor in Beast Wars, but on an intermittent basis. Cheetor's relatively small size/firepower, impetuousness, immaturity, and lack of specialized skills can even verge on The Millstone. On the other hand, his speed and enthusiasm commonly enable him to fill a solid supporting role.
- Equally, he starts out as the load (and the resident trouble magnet), but throughout the series get powered up and matures into the Cheetor we see in Beast Machines. He's still fast, he's still impetuous but hell, he's scary good at what he does.
- Almost the exact same thing could be said of Animated Bumblebee. While he is OK at fighting human supervillains he is utterly useless when fighting Decepticons on his own as his one weapon (nodes that shoot out beams of electricity) are to weak to even make any of them flinch.
- In Beast Machines, Rattrap takes over this position at the beginning because he has trouble transforming and, even when he does, doesn't have any actual weapons in robot form. The other characters, who previously viewed Rattrap as mildly annoying but a good guy to have on your side, start treating him increasingly as The Load. When Optimus is temporarily put out of commission and can't head off the other characters, they get downright hostile. Then they're surprised when Rattrap takes drastic measures to get some firepower.
- Certain Transformers series attempt to avert this with their Human Buddies — the location of the Allspark is imprinted on Sam Witwicky's glasses, Coby, Bud and Lori fix things and Sari is somewhat of a liaison between humans and the Autobots. (Kicker has premonition, but that didn't stop him from becoming The Scrappy.)
- Ben 10 Alien Force: Alien X is a reality-bending Super Mode alien, the most powerful being in the universe. The problem is that Ben has to get a majority agreement on the tasks at hand with two other personalities within the alien. But seeing as they can't agree on anything, and are only slighly more likely to agree with Ben, the form is literally dead weight.
- Kind of like Marvel's Living Tribunal.
- Korporal Kretinus/Fugg in Insektors. How he manages to keep his job when he happens to be fairly thick is anyone's guess.
- Nearly everyone in Dragon Booster, thanks in part to how overpowered Artha and Moordryd happen to be.
- Mostly averted with the sidekick Ron Stoppable in Kim Possible. Despite the fact that he sometimes does screw up the missions or needs to be saved, history has shown that he does save the mission more times than he screws them up, has Rufus in his pocket who saves the team every time the writers are too lazy to figure out a more clever way, and the first movie showed that Kim was practically a loser without Ron as her sidekick.
- Aside from the few times late in the series when Ron's intermitten monkey-theme superpowers kick in, his contributions are less than obvious, because they're almost entirely passive, but are actually quite important. Most notably, he does two things: transport rufus (who's nearly as useful as Kim) to where he's needed, and keeps Kim inspired by his presence, and motivated by his being usually in some danger. The latter is usually only very weakly implied, but the aforementioned movie, and similar scenes in a couple serial episodes, made it very explicitly clear: in Ron's significant absence, Kim rapidly becomes Made Of Suck.
- Aelita from Code Lyoko might count in the first two seasons, where her only form of defense, "Creativity", costs half of her life points, and she will die if she runs out of Life Points. She's only useful to stop XANA from attacking by deactivating towers he is using. In the 3rd season, she no longer dies when she loses all her Life Points, and she has an attack that is actually more powerful than those of the rest of the group.
- In the real world, Sissi can become The Load if she gets involved in the action (as well as Hiroki in one episode).
- Played with a lot in Futurama. Examples: The second episode, where they get stuck in a crater's quicksand on the Moon. Fry says "It's no use! Every man for himself!" Jumps out of the cart, gets stuck, then cries "Help me, Leela!"
- Or when Fry's head gets grafted onto Amy's shoulder.
- King of the Hill: Almost all of Hank Hill's friends and family are Loads on one level or another (and sometimes he himself is a Load to them!), but his wife Peggy really takes the cake with her raging ego and uselessness.
- Iron Man Armored Adventures has Pepper Potts. She gets captured and rescued by Tony with surprising regularity, except for those occassions where Gene rescues her. She has an incredible knack for making bad situations worse and does very little to help Tony out, though to her credit she does try. Her efforts usually result in Tony yelling at her.
- Sokka from Avatar The Last Airbender feels this way, at least sometimes, because he's bascially the only one in the team who can't bend any element. Also, Toph remarks it when they are being chased by Azula and her tank.
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