Basic Trope: The hero wants to have a normal life instead of being granted with responsibility.
- Straight: Hiro uses his superpowers to save lives, but longs to have a normal life.
- Exaggerated: Hiro uses his superpowers to save lives and destroy ultra-powerful beings, but wishes he was anything but a superhero.
- Downplayed: Hiro is usually happy with his powers, but when being a hero is at its hardest, he dreams of a normal life.
- Justified:
- Hiro hasn't been able to function his life as a human being for quite a while.
- Being a hero takes a heavy toll on Hiro (i.e., he had to lose some of his friends along the way as well as do things that the citizens will hate him for).
- Hiro is used to being an ordinary person.
- Hiro isn't used to social situations.
- Hiro was given superpowers against his will by a secret organization or the Powers That Be who forced him into heroism.
- Hiro's superpowers have turned out to be a case of Blessed with Suck.
- Inverted: Hiro is a normal human being and wants to be a superhero.
- Subverted: Hiro actually gets to be normal...and finds that he'd rather be special.
- Double Subverted: Can't Stay Normal
- Parodied: Hiro is very obviously Cursed with Awesome, and absolutely everyone gives him crap for wanting to be normal.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Hiro longs for normality, but soon finds himself becoming restless and becomes a superhero again, only to angst over all the responsibility it entails, etc. A never ending cycle.
- Hiro claims he wants to be normal, though gladly exclaims joy in being a hero when he helps people in non-dangerous events. When his life is endangered, his claims of wanting to be normal intensify, yet whenever he does lose his powers he quickly wants them back to help people. However after a particularly bad day he decides being a hero at all is too much, though is convinced the world still needs heroes by a child he once rescued.
- Hiro wants to be normal, sure, but normal for his species is superpowered by anyone else's standards.
- Averted:
- Hiro doesn't wish that his life was normal.
- Hiro already has a normal life.
- Enforced: The writer wants to make a point on how the life of a superhero isn't fun.
- Lampshaded: "You wish you were a human being instead of a hero, don't you?"
- Invoked: Hiro deliberately focuses on the downsides of his power, wanting to avoid becoming Drunk with Power.
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz picks up on Hiro's desire to be normal, and ends up convincing him to quit being a superhero. Cue world domination.
- Defied:
- Hiro doesn't long for normality and proudly continues serving for the greater good.
- Hiro tries to look on the bright side of his job as a hero.
- Hiro decides that being a hero is his "normal".
- Discussed: "Oh, don't give me that 'self-loathing-for-not-being-a-weakling-human' crap."
- Conversed: "A lot of heros these days want to be anything but. And with writers these days, who can blame them?"
- Deconstructed:
- Hiro desperately wishes to be normal... and so he does just that, abandoning all the people who depended on him for safety.
- Alternatively, Hiro does become normal and finds that he has trouble adjusting to civilian life, leading to a lot of angst.
- Hiro is chewed out for being unappreciative of how special he is and for taking his superpowers for granted.
- Hiro eventually finds himself in a situation where his superpowers would've came in handy if he had them, but since he is now a normal human, he fails to save himself and ends up dying, in obscurity, like another civilian casualty.
- By "being normal", Hiro means freeing himself from a disability, to which he ascribes most or even all of the things he regrets doing or that he regrets having been done to him. Being normal would be a step forward.
- Reconstructed:
- However, Hiro never wanted to be a hero in the first place due to being forced into the role, and after the initial abandonment nobody really blames him due to realizing it was very stressful for him.
- Noticing that Hiro's performance is going down, they realize he is a person and thus support him if he wants to take a break. Alternately, Hiro learns to appreciate his superpowers while trying to have a sense of normality in his life.
- Hiro snaps back and tells them WHY he's so unappreciative of how special he is.Hiro: Well, why the fuck pick someone like ME to do all the work for you!? I'm just some jackass from Wakayama! Where the fuck is that!? The middle of assfuck nowhere, because the only place in Japan that everyone knows and cares about is just fucking Tokyo! And yet YOU call me unappreciative of my own goddamn powers!? I NEVER EVEN ASKED FOR THEM! ALL I EVER WANTED TO DO WAS JUST DO THE THINGS I WANNA DO, AND SAVING THIS GODDAMN PLANET AIN'T ONE OF THEM! I'D GLADLY PASS THESE HORRIBLE POWERS TO YOU! ANY OF YOU! I'D RATHER BE A HAPPY FUCKING NOBODY THAN A DEPRESSED FUCKING CELEBRITY! LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE, GOD DAMN IT! I DON'T WANT THESE FUCKING POWERS!!![Hiro snaps and goes on a murderous rampage.]
- Hiro did not give up his powers just for his own sake. He explained to everybody that Holding Out for a Hero like him is no way to live, which inspired everybody to undergo enough individual and collective improvement to become the hero of their own story.
- Played for Laughs: Once per Episode, Hiro tries to quit being a superhero, only to become bored not even a few hours later and pick the mask back up again. Imagine everyone else's shock if he sticks with it...
- Played for Drama: A guardian angel arrives to show Hiro what he would be like living as a normal person: he gets up every day, works a job he hates, comes home to a family who does nothing but complain, constantly worries about bills, rinse and repeat. The guardian angel then asks Hiro if this is the life he wants to lead.
I Just Want to Be Normal! I don't wanna keep wasting my life away as a moderator on TV Tropes!
