Basic Trope: A character that starts out as nobody special, but years later is one of the most adored people in the world.
- Straight: Bob was originally a poor boy until he grabbed an artifact that would bring peace and harmony to the world.
- Exaggerated
- Bob was once an orphan. Now he's become God's lancer and working on doing the same to Satan.
- Bob used to be a very minor character with nobody having heard of his name. Now he's done so many good deeds right down to trying to save the Expanded Universe while accepting salvation, giving him Incorruptible Pure Pureness.
- Downplayed: Bob was once a middle-class businessman, but has since become the head of law enforcement.
- Justified: Bob needed to get paid so he can pay his family, so he had to do some heroics to get the money for his family.
- Inverted:
- Bob was a special person, but became a less capable hero.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Bob was originally a poor boy, but later becomes the Big Bad, or even The Heavy, or a Complete Monster.
- Brought Down to Normal: Bob used to be special before being hit with a Power Nullifier and/or being stripped of his special abilities.
- Subverted: His backstory isn't as good as it seems, and he's not quite the decent guy.
- Double Subverted: He still has his admirers.
- Parodied: Bob went from a normal businessman to a God of Good...but everyone either doesn't notice or care.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob was originally a poor boy until he grabbed an artifact that would bring peace and harmony to the world. This ploy was thwarted by the villains, who wanted to make sure the world is never safe. Bob is having none of it, so he trains himself in jousting to be a powerful-yet-virtuous knight even without help from the artifact.
- Averted:
- Bob was a generally adored person to start out.
- Bob started out poor and ended it poor, without ever getting rich.
- Enforced: The writers want to make sure that, given enough power, a person can be a hero.
- Lampshaded: "Hey, he's got the artifact and—Good Lord! He really is going to save us!"
- Invoked: Bob's a nobody in a dead-end life, and he's sick of it, but he'd rather find a way to save everyone.
- Exploited: Bob received a Call to Adventure because he's the only one capable of saving the world.
- Defied: Bob would rather remain a nobody than be a hero.
- Discussed: "How can someone poor like Bob became so adored after so many heroic deeds? Must be a tradition or something."
- Conversed: "Of course the poor guy would become an ultimate hero. What are the odds of that happening? Not that this is the first time..."
- Deconstructed: Bob went from a poor boy to a hero, but he eventually grows stressed and decides that Being Good Sucks.
- Reconstructed: Of course, with more good deeds he's done even as a poor boy, he can change his stance and admit that Good Feels Good.
Back to From Zero to Hero.
