History Main / NonProtagonistResolver

* The climax of ''Manga/{{Monster}}'' has [[spoiler:Johan hold a young boy at gunpoint to coerce Tenma into shooting him, thereby completing his "perfect suicide" and invalidating Tenma's belief that all lives are equal. Before Tenma can act, the boy's father shoots Johan in the head, allowing Tenma to TakeAThirdOption and perform a second brain surgery on Johan to save his life.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewScoobyDooMovies'': In [[Recap/TheNewScoobyDooMoviesS1E6AGoodMediumIsRare A Good Medium is Rare]], Ms. Dillard's neighbor loves spying on her house with binoculars in the middle of the night and is quick to call the police when she sees the gang entering through the window. [[RightForTheWrongReasons It turns out that there are real burglars in the house, though]], and the police arrest the thieves before the gang has a chance to trap them.

* Creator/DenisVilleneuve like this trope. Mary, Adam's girlfriend, accidentally getting herself and Anthony killed allowing Adam to take his identity in ''Film/{{Enemy}}'', and Alejandro killing BigBad Alarcon while Kate is sidelined in ''Film/{{Sicario}}''.

** [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable Diamond is Unbreakable]] has this in its climax twice. After [[spoiler: Kira activates [[GroundhogDayLoop Bites the Dust]], [[SnoopingLittleKid Hayato]] alone is left with the ability to stop him. By planning his actions and summoning [[TheHero Josuke]], he is able to initiate a one on one battle.]] Then, [[spoiler: When Kira is once again about to activate Bites The Dust when he is about to lose, it is [[TimeStandsStill Jotaro]] who manages to reach the former's position in time and give him a [[RapidFireFisticuffs huge beating.]] Finally, neither Josuke nor Jotaro actually kill Kira; [[DroppedABridgeOnHim he gets run over by an ambulance.]] And even then, the ''actual'' final time we see him is as a ghost, where he's DraggedOffToHell by the ghost of his first victim.]]
** In the series, most important characters have Stands, which, while having a separate body, share the same consciousness and identity as their User. There are some exceptions, however. At the very end of [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind Part V]], [[spoiler: Giorno stabs his Stand with the Arrow and gains [[EleventhHourSuperpower Gold Experience Requiem,]] who is sentient independent of Giorno. GER [[NoSell completely nullifies]] the villain's Stand ability, gives him a ReasonYouSuckSpeech and turns his [[AndIMustScream death to zero,]] all while Giorno is completely immobilized and unable to think.]]

* ''Anime/DigimonTamers'' has a mild example, with it being the adult scientists and government agents who come up with, build and plan how to defeat the D-Reaper, the kids simply have to bring the resulting device to the D-Reaper's core. It enters this trope by the amount of screen time and plot focus said scientists get, and the last few episodes pointing out that the kids are kinda standing around getting in the way during the periods where they're not actually fighting.
* The Future Trunks Saga of ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' marks the first arc where the villain, aka Zamasu isn't defeated by the Z-Fighters. Instead he is defeated by [[spoiler:Future Zen'O as a last ditch effort after Zamasu turns into a bodiless EldritchAbomination that the heroes seemingly couldn't touch at all]]. The Universe Survival Saga is a second, where [[spoiler: Goku and Frieza sacrifice themselves to ring out Jiren, leaving Android 17 to win the tournament for Universe 7.]]
* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' has some examples including:

* In ''Literature/TheHobbit'', Smaug isn't killed by Bilbo, or Gandalf, or any of the dwarves. It's Bard the Bowman who finishes him off - though Bilbo does manage to give some indirect assistance by finding out Smaug's weak point.

* In ''Film/{{Goldfinger}}'', the role of James Bond in the plot is actually rather limited. He spends most of his time tailing Goldfinger and hanging out in his base as a prisoner, always ''trying'' to get intel outside, but failing. [[spoiler:Sure, he does manage to kill both Goldfinger and Oddjob, but that doesn't affect the plot very much, and the bulk of the work ends up being done by the US Army and the CIA. They even disarm the nuke for Bond. The only vital thing Bond does manage to do is, ironically enough, screwing Pussy Galore (who then performs a HeelFaceTurn and sabotages Goldfinger's 'grand slam')]].

** In the series, most important characters have Stands, which, while having a separate body, share the same consciousness and identity as their User. There are some exceptions, however. At the very end of [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo Part V]], [[spoiler: Giorno stabs his Stand with the Arrow and gains [[EleventhHourSuperpower Gold Experience Requiem,]] who is sentient independent of Giorno. GER [[NoSell completely nullifies]] the villain's Stand ability, gives him a ReasonYouSuckSpeech and turns his [[AndIMustScream death to zero,]] all while Giorno is completely immobilized and unable to think.]]

* ''Film/{{Angel}}'': Despite her vow to avenge the the murders of Crystal and Lana, and his obsession with closing the case, it is neither Angel or Lt. Andrews who stops the SerialKiller. It is aging movie cowboy Kit Carson who arrives with his sixguns blazing like a one man [[TheCavalry cavalry]] to save both of them: emptying twelve shots into The Killer's body.

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' has done this often.
** The biggest offender is the two-part "Red Gyarados" arc. First Ash, Misty, and Brock end up getting captured by Team Rocket, meaning Lance had to save them. Then, Lance was the one to defeat the Team Rocket Trio and destroy the base where the evolution experiment was being conducted. Then, ''Lance'' was the one to defeat and capture the lead grunt, and finally, '''''Lance''''' was the one to capture the red Gyarados after Ash and his friends failed to stop it. [[TheMeddlingKidsAreUseless Why were Ash and the others there again?]]
** The Mega Evolution Specials setup Alain with being the one in the employ of Team Flare and Lysandre [[spoiler: then is outraged at their role in getting Mairin's Chespin ill from the Zygarde core]], implying he will turn against them in the main story. [[spoiler: Instead, it's [[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Steven Stone]] who does the rescue of Chespy from Lysandre Labs while Alain is fighting in Lumiose City; despite having appeared far less than him.]]

* In ''Manga/TsubasaReservoirChronicle'', while the protagonists Syaoran and Sakura do manage to escape from the tube Fei Wang sealed them in, it is Kurogane and Fai who finish the BigBad off while he is distracted by the destruction.
* ''Anime/MacrossDelta'': You’d expect [[TheHero Hayate]] to be the one who kills [[BigBad Roid]]; instead [[AntiVillain Keith]] does the deed while Hayate is busy saving [[DamselInDistress Mikumo]] from the Sigur Valens. Justified because Hayate abhors killing and Keith has a more personal reason to go after Roid.

* ''Fanfic/TheLegendOfTotalDramaIsland'': Dawn, an intern, has ADayInTheLimelight during the [[IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming 17th Night]] chapter. She (presumably) resolves a subplot in the process, and then goes back to being a supporting character.
* ''Fanfic/ADiplomaticVisit'': [[spoiler:In chapter 7 of the sequel ''Diplomat at Large'', Twilight, Pharynx and Tempest Shadow handle most of the job of defeating the Storm King. It's Bon-Bon, however, who actually kills him without realizing it when he gets knocked out a window and lands on the battlefield behind her.]]
* Discussed in ''Fanfic/{{Eleutherophobia}}: Slaughterhouse-Five''. Jake tells his class that contrary to popular belief, it was [[NamedByTheAdaptation Visser Seventeen]][[note]]Tom's second Yeerk[[/note]] who got Visser One (née Three) to surrender, not the Literature/{{Animorphs}}.

* In ''WesternAnimation/Cars3'', [[spoiler: Lightning [=McQueen=] does not finish the Florida 500, but his former trainer Cruz Ramirez does under his number. Because of this, they are both considered winners of the race, meaning Lightning gets to keep his job and has won the bet against Sterling.]]

* In ''Film/IronMan'', since Tony partially disassembled his armor (he attempts a HandBlast before forgetting he removed his glove) and had no power to use his weapons thanks to working with an inferior arc reactor, Pepper is the one who winds up taking out the BigBad via overloading the reactor so he gets electrocuted and suffers a DisneyVillainDeath.
* In ''Film/IronMan3'', Tony realizes the BigBad is still alive but unfortunately, he doesn't have his armor. Fortunately, a newly super-powered Pepper Potts comes in to take care of business.
* ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'': while Cap does eventually incapacitate Iron Man long enough for him and Bucky to escape, it is T'Challa who eventually apprehends [[TheChessmaster Zemo]], the man responsible for most of the action in the film, and brings him to justice. Furthermore, TheStinger shows [[spoiler:T'Challa housing at least Cap, Bucky, Black Widow, and the rest of team Cap somewhere in Wakanda]]. And even despite all that, [[SuperRegistrationAct the Sokovia Accords]] [[PyrrhicVictory pass]], so Cap and Bucky's only victory is that at the end of the day, they are alive - only T'Challa actually resolves the conflict by apprehending Zemo.
* T'Challa only solves one of the three simultaneous climaxes in ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'': Okoye forces W'kabi and the border tribe to surrender to the Dora Milaje [[spoiler:and the mountain tribe]], and it is Agent Ross of all people who shoots down the escaping craft carrying Vibranium weapons.
** Specifically invoked earlier in the film: after T'Challa fails to apprehend Klaue in Korea, [[spoiler:Killmonger shows up in Wakanda with his body]]. It, along with [[spoiler:N'Jobu's ring]], is what helps convince W'Kabi and other Wakandans to back him, or at least hear him out.

* Creator/DenisVilleneuve like this trope. Mary, Adam's girlfriend, accidentally getting herself and Anthony killed allowing Adam to take his identity in ''Film/{{Enemy}}'', and Alejandro killing BigBad Alarcon while Kate is sidelined in ''Film/{{Sicario}}''.

* In ''Film/District13'', the two main leads Damien and Leito spend the whole movie trying to get to the main villain Taha. Rather than having a confrontation with him, the government seizes all of his funds and its Taha's own thugs who gun him down, since he can no longer pay them and [[TheDogBitesBack they were through]] being [[BadBoss abused by him]].
* In ''Film/NewJackCity'', it looks as though Nino, the BigBad drug kingpin, will either go free or at least get a very light sentence. Then an old man, who has railed against Nino’s drug operations throughout the entire movie, shoots and kills him.
* The central plot of ''Film/Shaft2000'' revolves around Shaft's mission to get an extremely wealthy and extremely pampered white supremacist found guilty for killing a black man. Each time Shaft arrests him, [[BailEqualsFreedom a judge sets him free on bail]], much to the dismay of Shaft and the victim's mother. At the very end of the movie, the murderer is once again brought to court, and Shaft assures the mother that they have a new judge and credible eyewitness. The mother tells Shaft she believes there will be justice this time, and a few minutes later she shoots her son's killer herself.

* The ultimate resolution of ''Film/TheClimax'' occurs because of the Vienna police and not the hero Franz. While escaping from the police, Dr. Hohner locks himself in Marcellina's tomb, and sets fire to it. (The film is ambiguous as to whether this act is deliberate or accidental.) Hohner perishes alongside [[TheLostlenore his dead love]] as the police struggle to open the door.
* At the end of ''Film/{{Blackenstein}}'', the police call in the Los Angeles County Canine Corps, and the Dobermans surround Eddie, knock him to the ground and, with a fittingly macabre irony, viciously tear the monster to pieces in the same way he killed his victims: absolutely nothing to with Winifred or Dr. Stein, the movie's primary protagonists.
* ''Film/TheManWhoCouldCheatDeath'' is ultimately resolved when Margo, the MadwomanInTheAttic, hurls a lantern at the [[RapidAging rapidly aging]] Dr. Bonnet: turning him into a ManOnFire and setting the rest of the cellar ablaze. Gerard, Janine and Inspector Legris are forced to flee, leaving Bonnet and Margo to perish in the flames.

* ''Film/TheManFromColorado'': It is outlaw Jericho Howard, and not protagonist Del Stewart, who finishes off HangingJudge Owen Devereaux. After being shot by Owen, Jericho spoils Owen's shot on Del and then drives him back into the burning down, where they both perish beneath a collapsing building.
* ''Film/CurseOfTheHeadlessHorseman'': Insofar as this film even has a protagonist. When [[spoiler:Mark]] suffers his VillainousBreakdown, he grabs a pistol and starts trying to shoot his way out. In doing so, he kills one of the stuntmen who stage the gunfights in the park. After a brief shootout, he is shot and killed by the stuntman's brother.
* Discussed in ''Film/ThePrincessBride'', when Westley - the obvious hero - is found dead, and the Grandson in the FramingStory frantically asks his Grandfather: "Who kills [[EvilPrince Prince Humperdinck]]? I mean, ''some''body's gotta do it! Is it [[TheLancer Inigo]]? Who?" Ultimately, [[spoiler: it ''is'' Westley who resolves the story's main stakes, since he was OnlyMostlyDead, though he makes a point of ''not'' killing Humperdinck.]]
* ''Film/{{Angel}}'': Despite her vow to avenge the the murders of Crystal and Lana, and his obsession with closing the case, it is neither Angel or Lt. Andrews who stops the SerialKiller. It is aging movie cowboy Kit Carson who arrives with his sixguns blazing like a one man [[TheCavalry cavalry]] to save both of them: emptying twelve shots into The Killer's body.

* In the John Boland novel ''White August'', scientist Dr. Garrett has been vital in figuring out what is causing the freak England-wide snowstorm, and develops a device to track down its source. He helps track down several lesser weather control devices that are shielding the main one, but just as he locates the last one, is shot down and is rendered comatose. The United States military resolves the conflict by dropping an atomic bomb near enough to the final device to knock it out.

* Similarly, in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', Frodo becomes corrupted by the One Ring before he's able to destroy it, but Gollum ends up causing it to be destroyed by accident while trying to take it from him. Also, Sam is the one who actually carries the ring into the precipice of Mount Doom, Frodo having collapsed from exhaustion just prior.
** Tolkien would later imply that the lure of the Ring was so powerful that ''no-one'' could intentionally destroy it, and that Eru (God) had ensured Gollum's survival up to that point precisely so he could destroy it by accident.
* In ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'' Polly is the protagonist but it is [[spoiler:the Duchess (channelled by Wazzer)]] who saves Borogravia.

* ''Literature/GhostInTheNoondaySun:'' Oliver is the narrator, but Jack o' Lantern is the one [[spoiler:who figures out a way to trick Captain Scratch into thinking he's died and turned into a ghost so he won't resist being marooned.]] He also saves Oliver's life when the pirate ship sinks soon afterward.
* Literature/HarryPotter only destroys one of Voldemort’s [[SoulJar horcuxes]] himself, the diary. Dumbledore destroys the ring, Ron the locket (although Harry does play a supporting role in that one), and Hermione the goblet. Crabbe uses a powerful fire spell he can’t control in the Room of Requirement and takes the tiara with it. Voldemort [[HoistByHisOwnPetard inadvertently destroys one himself when he “kills” Harry]]. Neville then kills Nagini after Harry’s “death”, making him mortal once and for all. Harry also doesn’t technically kill Voldemort. Voldemort uses the killing curse on him and since Harry is the master of the Elder Wand, it backfires on Voldemort and kills him.

* While ''Literature/Island1962'''s hero Will has the authorization to negotiate on behalf of one of the oil companies that threaten Pala, he never does and his presence on the island doesn't change squat, at least not in terms of international situation. He himself learns a lot, but that's it.

** In ''TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsToAzure'', [[spoiler:while Lloyd and the SSS do save [=KeA=] and return her to normal, ultimately they cannot stop Erebonia occupying Crossbell at the end of the game since [=KeA=] no longer becomes Crossbell's deterrent against both the Erebonian empire and Calvard republic.]]

* ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'', being so fond of an AntiClimax, ends with the Light Warriors not defeating FinalBoss Chaos. Instead, it's White Mage and three other such healers - as payoff to a BrickJoke set up in the first pages of a comic that ran for over 1000!
* ''Webcomic/WildeLife'': The author has noted with some amusement how early on, fans were always wondering "how is [[WeirdnessMagnet Oscar]] going to solve this problem?," when in fact, Oscar pretty much ''never'' solves the main conflict -- usually, it's [[OurMagesAreDifferent Eliza]] or [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Cliff]] who fights off the opponent.

* ''Franchise/TransformersGeneration1'': Near the end of the 3-part "More the Meets the Eye" pilot series, [[TheHero Optimus]] [[TheCaptain Prime]] literally gets shot down while trying to pursue the Decepticon space cruiser. When the other Autobots regroup with him, he notices that [[{{ninja}} Mirage]] [[ChekhovsGun is missing.]] The scene then shifts back to the Decepticons [[spoiler: right as Mirage de-cloaks and guns down the ship's controls. Then bails as the ship plummets into the ocean, taking the Decepticons with it]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E18TheDayTheViolenceDied The Day the Violence Died]]", when Bart and Lisa think of a plan to save Itchy & Scratchy Studios they rush over, only to discover that two previously unseen characters named Lester and Eliza (who look like Bart and Lisa did in ''Series/TheTraceyUllmanShow'' days) have already saved it.
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS13E22PoppasGotABrandNewBadge Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge]]", Homer, who has started a private security company, is being threatened by local mobster Fat Tony and his gang. As they advance menacingly someone starts shooting and the criminals run away. It tuns out it was Maggie.
* In the third season finale of ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003'' which deal with the Turtles' FinalBattle with Ch'rell, the Utrom Shredder (at least until ''WesternAnimation/TurtlesForever''), the Turtles attempted to stop the Shredder from leaving the Earth and continue his attempt to take over the Utrom homeworld. Despite their best efforts, their final encounter with him, following him entering a new, more powerful exosuit, resulted in them being defeated by the Shredder worse than ever before. Feeling there was no alternative, the Turtles chose to [[TakingYouWithMe blow up the Shredder's starship]] rather than let him spread his evil across the universe. However, it is then that the Utroms arrive, and using space-time technology, pull everyone off the ship before it's destroyed, rendering the Turtles HeroicSacrifice unnecessary, [[AllForNothing along with everything they did since the beginning of the two part finale]]. Following that, the Shredder is finally brought to justice, not by the Turtles, but by the Utroms, who send him into permanent exile for his crimes. Leo spent half the next season [[MyGreatestFailure dealing with the failure]] to stop the Shredder by growing angrier and edgier than Raphael.

* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'': It's Ron Stoppable and Drakken who defeat the Lorwardians in the GrandFinale.
* Justified in ''WesternAnimation/GodzillaTheSeries'', where the titular kaiju will be occupied fighting the MonsterOfTheWeek, while his human allies attempt to find a solution to stop the other monster/creature's rampage.