Discussion Main / PinBallProtagonist

"In Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Ali Baba is the protagonist at first, but he stops being such after he recovers Kasim's body from the lair of the Forty Thieves; at that point, the role is taken over by Morgiana, with Ali Baba now a supporting character."

I don't think Ali Baba qualifies. The story wouldn't exist without him stumbling on the thieves' cave, and Morgana wouldn't have had to do a thing if Ali had remained a poor relation of her original master.

Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett

A fair few articles in Live Action TV seem to defy the specifications of the trope; of particular note listing specific episodes of Doctor Who where the Doctor and/or his companions fall into this, while the rules explicitly state that having a few episodes (there are 12 currently listed, but out of 300 stories that's still a minority) of this does not qualify.

Other examples, such as Sansa and Arya in the early Books of A Song of Ice and Fire/seasons of Game of Thrones are also questionable by the same logic, since while there is a time that this is the case, eventually they do have an active role in the plot, at least in the show.

I feel like there may need to be more clarification as to what makes someone a Pinball Protagonist. Is it if they don't do anything to further the story and simply walk around and observe things that happen, or is it when they DO advance the story but it is completely outside of their control and they have no personal agency? In one example, the character could be replaced with anyone and it'd go the same, but in the other, they could be REMOVED and it'd go the same.

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I have to ask: is Superman really a Pinball Protagonist in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice? Superman is registered under the context that he rarely does anything active in the movie unless he is manipulated by Lex Luthor and/or provoked by Batman, to the point they actually have more dialogue than him, but a character can only be considered a Pinball Protagonist if and only if the character can be completely removed from the entire story, with little to no impact on the actual events or characters. Since Superman's confrontations with Batman and Doomsday are crucial to the story, does he really qualify as a Pinball Protagonist?

Does this article maybe need some cleanup and clarification along with some example inspection? "They can be lifted right out of the story and have little to no impact on anything that has or will happen," doesn't seem to apply to a lot of the examples given based on the descriptions of them.

A lot of the examples seem more like, "they did something but it had different consequences than what they'd intended," or "they did something small that seemingly has little effect, but what effects are seen eventually lead into larger things happening," or even, "things happen literally because of who they are (i.e. their personality or temperament) even though they are passive."

So those cases, no, taking them out of the picture won't be inconsequential and things happen because they're even there at all in some way.

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• Harry Potter on occasion, particularly the first and third volumes. A key moment in his character development is deciding in his fifth year at Hogwarts that he's not going to rely on the adults -largely because he can't at this point- and is going to start training himself and others so they hopefully won't need rescuing in future.

Removed this because you can't "on occasion" be a Pinball Protagonist. You either are or you aren't one.

Oh, why did someone put Samus on here?

...no, that's a lie, I know WHY she's here, I'm just going to put out that I pulled it because really, no impact on the story whatsoever? Hey, you know what? If you get technical enough about it, she's always this trope because she doesn't do anything on her own initiative. She runs around on other planets and blows them up not because we're given a reason why, but because she's there and there are things to shoot.

I mean, seriously, why would we give two craps about what's happening on that stupid ship if Samus wasn't on it? The whole stupid game and its stupid story is about Samus getting over her stupid trauma and her stupid past with stupid Adam and STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID oh god my needle is stuck

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Why is Harry Potter here? He actively plays a role in every story. Just because he doesn't necessarily know what's going on until the end doesn't make him a pinball protagonist. I'm removing him.

Re: Harem Protagonists -

The first bullet in the Anime section notes how Harem Anime protagonists tend to be Pinballs. While I'm not disputing that a lot of harem-attractors tend to be fairly passive people, in most cases the plot actually turns on them. If they were lifted out of the story, there would be no plot at all; if there was anything left, it would probably just be a Slice of Life story involving all the characters besides the protagonist.

I reject your requirement for a witty statement or fanboyish squealing in my signature.