Hero-Worshipper

aka: Hero Worship

"Spike's my hero, because he's so big and strong!"

"They'll write legends about you someday. When the world was at its darkest, there you came, fire in your eyes like something out a storybook."

— Shianni, Dragon Age: Origins

The geeky comic relief character who worships the hero and whose primary purpose is to stand around and marvel at every thing the hero does, explaining exactly why it should be so impossible. The Hero Worshipper is usually the one who explains the plot to a less intelligent hero. He rarely has much power of his own, if any, and sometimes is an even bigger This Loser Is You character than the hero.

Often works as a stand-in for the audience, sometimes in the way of a American sidekick - but with a few notable differences. Unfortunately, the hero worshipper's arc on many occasions ends with their hero turning out to not be what they're cracked up to be, leading to a Broken Pedestal.

May also be a Combat Commentator or Mr. Exposition.

Compare Irritation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery (if this character goes too far in an innocent way), Loony Fan (if he goes too far in a less-innocent way), The Knights Who Say "Squee!" (if the worshiper becomes a hero himself). Also see fangirl for a more gender specific variation of the trope. Depending on how worthy the "hero" is, this may result in A True Hero plot.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Everyone that Misaki's ever beaten in Angelic Layer becomes her Combat Commentator and squealing fan, even those who would rather not admit it.
• Kaorin is a bit of this to Sakaki in Azumanga Daioh. Part of it's just Single-Target Sexuality, but she also does a fair bit of expositing on just how cool and athletic Sakaki is.
• Baccano!: Graham is pretty much convinced that Ladd is the second coming of Christ.
• Berserk:
  • Isidro admires Guts to the point of wanting to copy Guts' fighting style, until Guts tells him that things like different height and speed would make BFS-wielding for someone as small as Isidro nearly impossible.
  • Farnese's unrequited crush on Guts usually takes the form of a slavish craving for his approval, and she is often brought to the point of Tears of Joy by any kind word from him.
• Thoroughly subverted in Bleach with Soifon, who was seen to worship Yoruichi way too much before said mentor left without a word, leaving the devastated ninja girl to attempt to kill her during the storyline. Subversion supported by the fact that Soifon holds rank as a Captain in Soul Society, and is thus a very competent combatant.
• Joshua Christopher from Chrono Crusade is an odd twisted example. He's incredibly devoted to Aion and often speaks about him in glowing terms, and is very excited when he gets a chance to watch him fight. The thing that makes this twisted is (a) Aion is the Big Bad; (b) Joshua has been given incredible power by Aion in order to do his bidding, and (c) that power has turned him absolutely bonkers. He would be a Loony Fan if it wasn't for Aion being the one that drove him nuts in the first place and doesn't actively discourage him.
• Misa Amane from Death Note admires the supernatural Vigilante Man Kira because he avenged the murder of her parents. When the power comes to her, she makes it her single-minded goal to find Kira and team up with him. From the audience's point of view, she's more of a Villain Protagonist Worshipper.
• Gabo from Digimon V-Tamer 01 admits he'd be more afraid to travel around the war-torn continent of server if he wasn't with the two protagonists. He nags and frets for a long time before he gets any desire to be like them though.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Out of all the characters, Krillin puts the most faith in Goku to solve any threat the world encounters. He wanted to retreat after Goku fell ill and after everyone was beaten by the androids, Krillin later says things would have been different if Goku was there. It takes Tien pointing out that Goku can't be that much stronger than Trunks and Vegeta for him to see the flaw in his logic. His hope is also completely restored once Goku gets well and is still willing to fight despite the odds.
  • Gohan thinks really highly of his dad. It's to the point that he didn't think it was possible for him to surpass his father, until Goku points out to him how strong he became. Even as an adult he constantly calls Goku the strongest in the universe and the greatest fighter ever, even during times he's stronger. He also adores Piccolo, saying he admires him almost as much as his dad. Until near the end of the Buu Saga, his gi's were based off of Piccolo's clothes. He outright wore a complete copy of Piccolo's gi and cape during the Cell Games.
  • Present Trunks highly admires his dad and believes that he's the strongest in the universe above Goku and Gohan, especially since Vegeta is a prince. He also refused to believe that a giant blob like Majin Buu could kill his father.
• In Fate/Zero, Waver Velvet eventually becomes this to his Servant Rider, saying that he would follow the latter without hesitation and, to Gilgamesh, proudly declared himself to be Rider's follower rather than Master. He even keeps all of his Servant's video games as a memento and wears his colors when he becomes Lord El-Melloi II.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • May Chang is a huge fangirl of Edward Elric... Until she meets him.
  • Selim Bradley also fanboys Ed which turns out to be an excellent cover for being a homunculus.
• Naomichi Yamada from Hajime no Ippo started out as Ippo's biggest fanboy, then joined Kamogawa Gym to improve himself and be closer to his idol.
• Speedwagon from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure gets redeemed out of a slum by Jonathan Joestar and has been worshipping him since. He later becomes a billionaire oil tycoon, and he's even more grateful to the point he devotes the rest of his life (and even after) supporting Jonathan's descendants and all their journeys.
• Sanae from Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! worships "Mori Summer", a self-proclaimed mage who wrote the Mabinogion, a journal of philosophical-sounding rants of the other dimension. This is the basis of her Sitcom Arch-Nemesis relationship with Shinka, the girl behind "Mori Summer", who wants to purge that part of her life seen as her Old Shame.
• Subaru Nakajima from Lyrical Nanoha towards the title character. With the amount of shout-outs the series does, one wonders if her fair resemblance to Street Fighter's Sakura was intentional.
• Mischievous Twins: The Tales of St. Clare's: Like her book counterpart, Allison is an air-headed idiot looking for anyone to lollygag over, in this case Madeleine.
• In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, a large portion of the Minerva's crew look up to Athrun as a legend from the previous war. Meer Campbell does this as well.
• My Hero Academia:
  • Midoriya has All Might posters, All Might action figures, All Might costumes, and, at the start of the story, receives All Might's powers. This is deconstructed later on: While All Might genuinely is a great hero in both his public and private lives, it's noted that Midoriya's attempts to literally be All Might are hampering his potential to be better than All Might. Once he stops trying to mimic All Might in everything, he develops his own fighting style that is far less likely to leave him crippled.
  • Bakugo isn't half as fanboyish, but he also idolizes All Might, but for different reasons. Midoriya thinks of All Might as a hero who saves people in trouble, Bakugo sees All Might as a hero who never, ever loses. A key part of Bakugo's character development is discovering that All Might is Secretly Dying and passed his powers onto Midoriya... but he's still a great hero.
• Catarina in My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! becomes the most admired and beloved student at the Magic Academy. Her social status is the among the highest in the school, but she goes out of her way to make friends with her fellow students regardless of social status. Her kindness, approachability, and lack of pride endears her to the student body so much that they refer to her as "Lady Saint" in complete sincerity.
• Gau from Nabari no Ou's devotion to Raikou is so strong that he's willing to commit suicide if he thinks it'd make Raikou happier.
• One Piece:
  • Captain Bartolomeo worships Monkey D. Luffy to the point of obsession. An example of this is the fact that his ship's figurehead looks like Luffy.
  • Yamato admires Oden to the point of desiring to literally become Oden, which includes wearing similar clothes and "becoming a man".
• Subverted in Reborn! (2004), where Gokudera worships the ground that Tsuna walks on, but is quite capable at fighting himself.
• Time Stop Hero: Princess Alicia Belltree is dazzled by Kuzuno Sekai's feats and greatly admires him, while her brother Will sings his praises ever since Sekai saved his life.
• A minor character in You and Me named Matsushiro feels this way towards Yuuta (despite not being heroic). They're in the same school club, though Yuuta rarely turns up, and Matsuhiro greatly admires him. He even tried to write a self-insert manga of Yuuta and his friends.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, there was a villain called Jin who claimed to be a Numbers Hunter who worked for Kaito. As it turned out, he had never even met Kaito, and simply idolized him. When he finally did meet Kaito, he professed his loyalty, but Kaito was not impressed at all, and treated him like any other Numbers Holder.

Comic Books

• Batman:
  • Bat-Mite worships the ground the Dark Knight stands on, despite (and because of) the fact that he's a god and could obliterate Batman with a thought (while Batman is a mere mortal who isn't intimidated by this for one second).
  • Tim Drake idolized Bruce, Dick, and Jason for years before approaching Dick to try and convince him Batman needed him in the wake of Jason's death and eventually becoming the new Robin himself. He continued seeing Bruce and Dick in this light for some time after meeting them even though they were both rather curt and harsh to him, Jason on the other hand lost Tim's adoration pretty quickly by cutting his throat in their first meeting.
• Blue Devil: Eddie Bloomberg a.k.a. Kid Devil used to worship Blue Devil, even in the earliest days of his hero career.
• Spider-Man: In The Superior Foes of Spider-Man, Boomerang has an obsession with Doctor Strange villain, Dormammu. To the point where an Imagine Spot of Boomerang getting married to a girl he was dating featured Dormammu both as Boomerang's best man and as his baby's real father.
  Speed Demon: It's always Dormammu with you.
• Superman: During the Silver Age, Lex Luthor idolized Albert Einstein, to the point that Einstein's birthday was the one day of the year where Luthor refused to commit any crimes, aside from breaking out of prison to pay his respects. Especially ironic, considering that Einstein would likely have been horrified and disgusted if he'd still been alive to see what Luthor used his genius for.
• Transformers:
  • The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers has two: Ironfist and Pyro. Ironfist is an Ascended Fanboy of the title Wreckers who finds that the reality of war is very different from reading about it. Pyro, on the other hand, has a borderline creepy obsession with Optimus Prime... he looks like Prime, imitates Prime's motto, references Prime's opinions, fantasizes about dying in a blaze of glory while Optimus watches....
  • Apparently, hero-worshiping Optimus is a recognized Cybertronian personality disorder known as "primus apotheosis". There are even Decepticons who suffer from it.

Fan Works

• In The Commission, Nora is this to Yang due to latter leading her mercenary group in a rescue of the former's hometown.
• Digimon Trinity: Takato is this to the Digidestined; it's established from the very first chapter that he admits and respects them and considers it an honor to be Kari's student.
• In If They Haven't Learned Your Name, Sam Wilson is a huge fan of Colonel Rhodes. He practically preens when Rhodey compliments him on his flying during the DC incident, and has to call his mom immediately afterwards to gush about how Colonel Rhodes touched his skin- no, shook his hand. With the War Machine gauntlet on, but still.
• Heroes of the New World; Izuku and Yamato bond over their love for their respective idols, All Might and Kozuki Oden. However, it is Deconstructed in Yamato's case- she was so enamored by Oden and so sheltered and abused by Kaido that she assumed that her love and emulation for him alone would be enough to get in with his former friends and retainers, and that they would welcome her with open arms as they welcomed Oden. While she has some success in the "friends" department with Whitey Bay and the majority of the Whitebeard Pirates, the first retainer that she meets, Izou, has so much Fantastic Racism against oni that he harshly rejects her and even attempts to murder her, shattering Yamato's dreams and leaving her an insecure mess.
• In Jonathan Joestar, The First JoJo, Both versions of Joseph love and worship Jonathan. Young Joseph is obviously more bratty regarding it, wanting his attention, and while Jotaro doesn't fawn over Jonathan, he does respect him a great deal.
• In Juxtapose, Izuku and Sir Nighteye are still All Might's biggest fans. But this takes a darker turn for Sir Nighteye, who is so obsessed with keeping Toshinori alive that he's willing to leave Izuku in the hands of the League of Villains if it means preventing Toshinori's death.
• Kingdom Hearts Familia Myth: After hearing Sora's recounting of how he saved the worlds several times over, Bell quickly grows to admire him greatly, considering him a real life version of the various heroes he read about in stories. Notably, the level of his admiration is sufficient to push his Liaris Freese skill to the same length as his love for Ais in canon.
• In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Izuku is still this, memorizing the backstories of practically every major Hero in the world and rambling on and on about them whenever asked. He's astonished when someone manages to tell him something that he doesn't know. That narration mentions that he has visited Might Tower so many times that he's practically committed the tour guide's script to memory.
  • But this trope also gets played more soberly. Izuku is utterly dependent on Heroes for guidance because of his crippling lack of self-esteem stemming. When All Might gives Izuku a blunt, honest opinion that he isn't sure if Izuku should be a hero, Izuku just breaks down and takes All Might's word as gospel without bothering to refute it. Luckily, he recovers when All Might apologizes and gives Izuku a Dare to Be Badass after the Sludge Villain incident is resolved. He gets another boost in cheer and confidence when he wins the support of Firestorm.
• In Old West, Grace Glossy's son Teddy becomes this regarding Rattlesnake Jake after the outlaw saves their home from rustlers. While Jake couldn't care less about the boy and makes it clear to him in the beginning, later his act of helping Teddy to overcome his sight problems raises the fatherless boy's esteem toward him. The law-abiding Grace is initially much against her son adoring an outlaw, but she gets over this as she lets go of her prejudices toward Jake.
• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines:
  • Misty, as per canon, idolizes Elite Four member Lorelei. To an extent, she also looks up to her late grandmother Ondine, who started the Water-type tradition in the Cerulean Gym.
  • Ash finds himself on the receiving end of this trope during Chapter 30. A group of trainers about to begin their journeys are very excited to meet him after seeing his battles on TV.
• The renegade hero!!!....Invader Zim?: The Galactic Guardians idolize Zim, whom they falsely believe to be a rebel against the Irken Empire because of his accidental heroics, with Betty in particular going into fangirl mode around him.
• Timeless Academia shows that Izuku Midoriya's admiration of heroes extents to ones of the the historical and mythological kinds, to the point where he keeps an autograph book at Chaldea with signatures of the heroic spirits he summons. It's also to the point where from Olga Marie Animusphere's point of view, this trope sets him apart from other Masters, as instead of treating the Spirits as tools, he at worst treats them with immense respect and as equals.
• In Wilhuff Tarkin, Hero of the Rebellion, much of the population of the Greater Seswenna region is this for Tarkin, of all people, due his actions as the Seswenna sector's governor and earlier as an officer in the local paramilitary force, the Outland Regions Security Force. And as the Rebellion's Token Evil Teammate, Tarkin shamelessly take advantage of it to crew his Star Destroyer and the Carrion Spike with Imperial personnel that is loyal to him over than the Empire.

Films — Animation

• Buddy to Mr. Incredible of The Incredibles, initially. Crosses over to Loony Fan territory eventually. Saying he took being rejected by Mr. Incredible poorly would be the understatement of the century.
• Nikki, Kaltag & Star towards the villain Steele from Balto. They're just faking it, however, being fully aware of what an unlikable scumbag Steele is. Later played straight with the titular hero after he saves their lives.
• From Up, Carl with Muntz. As a kid, he adored him; however, as an old man, he lost all respect for him, realizing what kind of man he has become.
• Po to pretty much any famous master in Kung Fu Panda, but mainly the Furious Five. He retains this trait long after he becomes a famous master himself.
• Deconstructed in Surf's Up with protagonist Cody Maverick idolizing surfing legend Big Z for much of the film. Cody later finds out that Z faked his death to avoid facing his fans after losing a surf contest with Tank, believing that he peaked. This disillusions Cody, but he later follows his mentor's advice and goes his own way.

Films — Live-Action

• Mako Mori in Pacific Rim has this to both Raleigh Becket and Stacker Pentecost. Raleigh because she studied everything about his fighting techniques in hopes that she could be his co-pilot. Pentecost because he had saved her as a child from Onibaba and then adopted her.
• Peter Page, especially in his youth, is this to Gary King in The World's End.
• In The Force Awakens, Rey and Finn geek out together over Han Solo— Finn because Han is a famous Rebel Alliance general, Rey because Han is an infamous smuggler and pilot. Rey looks at Han in awe and tries to impress him.
• DC Extended Universe:
  • In SHAZAM!, Freddy Freeman collects memorabilia of the heroes of the Justice League.
  • In Zack Snyder's Justice League, Barry Allen admits that Superman was "his hero" upon unearthing him.

Literature

• Harry Potter:
  • Colin Creevey toward Harry Potter.
  • Wormtail during the Marauders' days.
• Jack from Michael Vey originally starts out as Michael's bully. However, after several adventures were Michael consistently showed his leadership skills, bravery, kindness, and selfless nature, he eventually grows Undying Loyalty towards Michael and is shown on several occasions to look for his approval.
• In poorly written adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson is portrayed in this fashion.
• Twilight: Bella Swan towards Edward Cullen.
• Owen of Jesslaw, in Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small, is an instant groupie of Keladry.
• In Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things, Sammy is somewhat unnerved to learn that her classmate Cassie Kuo has been eagerly watching her exploits all year, rooting for her against her Arch-Enemy Heather, and basically enjoying Sammy's life as a soap opera.
• In Vampire Academy, Jill Mastrano is an admirer of both Rose and Christian, and aspires to be like her "heroes".
• A rare non-comedic literary example occurs in the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Ahlrada Ahn becomes so broken by the atrocities he's commited while in the company of the Tiste Edur he focuses all the good he still manages to see in the world on Trull Sengar, the only Tiste Edur warrior he ever respected and admired and who tried to befriend him but was rejected. Ahlrada Ahn comes to basically worship Trull Sengar, convinced that the latter is dead and he himself will be soon as well. When they unexpectedly meet again, Ahlrada has a mental breakdown in the midst of a battle and becomes utterly focused on getting Trull's attention and begging him for forgiveness. It does not end well.
• The Stormlight Archive: Kaladin Stormblessed gets this and gives it.
  • How his men come to view him. Skar, in particular, seems to believe that Kaladin could somehow protect them from the entire Alethi army.
  • His hero worship for Dalinar grows throughout Words of Radiance, as Dalinar is essentially an embodiment of all the virtues he prizes most—but, being Kaladin, he can't help but believe that Dalinar will fail him as all other lighteyes have, and spends much of the book looking for any reason to mistrust him. He doesn't find one, of course.
• Pride and Prejudice: Georgiana Darcy is excited to meet Elizabeth, and thinks she's awesome long before the two ever even cross paths. Why? Because Georgiana's brother Fitzwilliam has done nothing but praise Elizabeth from the day he met her. Georgiana is clearly a Shipper on Deck for Elizabeth/Mr. Darcy, and Elizabeth takes a liking to her as well, becoming a Cool Big Sis to her.
• Loren D. Estleman's Claudius Lyon is this towards Nero Wolfe, and has tried to mimick his hero's lifestyle in as close a fashion as possible without being sued or tripping over his own limitations.
• In the Raffles stories Bunny, the narrator, acts this way towards Raffles, about whose appearance and talents he tends to wax lyrical.
• Deconstructed in The Creation Alchemist Enjoys Freedom, where the Dolgaria Empire worships the heroes that saved them in the past, wanting to emulate their exploits, to the point that they ignore anything that is not directly related to combat. As a result, their technology is stagnant, the local infrastructure is falling apart, their Holy Weapons are falling apart from lack of maintenance, and the only people that could do anything to fix those problems, the alchemists, lack the means to do so because they either don't have the skill or keep getting shafted by their compatriots (like what happened to Thor).

Live-Action TV

• Despite being an obvious Fangirl of his works, Detective Kate Beckett is not this to Richard Castle, being his equal (and superior) in many ways and more likely to puncture his slightly-too-healthy ego and opinion of himself with snarky quips than anything else. Instead, this trope falls to Detective Kevin Ryan, who seems to have taken Castle on as something of a mentor.
• Game of Thrones:
  • The depth of Alton Lannister's admiration for Jaime is apparent in his every word, which only makes it more shocking and tragic when Jaime kills him in a bid to escape captivity.
  • Jaime himself has nothing but awe and respect for Barristan Selmy, "an artist who only paints with red". This is not reciprocated by Selmy, who despises Jaime.
  • In the Histories and Lore DVD extra about the Red Keep Jack Gleeson narrates (in-character as Joffrey), it's heavily implied that the Targaryen king he admires best is Maegor the Cruel. It's pretty telling that his idea of a good ruler is pretty much the harshest and most brutal of his predecessors.
  • Queen Visenya Targaryen is the idol of every highborn girl feeling oppressed by the institution of arranged marriage, certainly including Arya and probably including Cersei and Brienne of Tarth.
    Lord Tywin: She's a heroine of yours, I take it? Aren't most girls more interested in the pretty maidens from the songs? Jonquil with the flowers in her hair?
    Arya: Most girls are idiots.
    Lord Tywin: Ha! You remind me of my daughter.
• In The InBESTigators, Poppy completely idolizes Maudie, to her big brother Ezra's annoyance.
• Elena from Killing Eve idolizes Carolyn, to the point that Eve jokingly says Elena has a crush on her. Elena doesn't deny it — and, early in the series, Elena gleefully resigns from her job at MI5 for the chance to work for Carolyn.
  Elena: I'd nail a cousin to work with her.
• J.D. from Scrubs somewhat falls into this when it comes to Dr. Cox. He even admits himself that he is "prone to hero-worship". However, he's not incompetent by any means.
• Colonel Mitchell in Stargate SG-1. When he takes over command of SG-1 in season 9 (because Teal'c, Sam, and Daniel have all moved on), his first order of business is Putting the Band Back Together. He apparently finagled his way into Stargate Command explicitly to work with them (it helps that he saved their lives previously; he could basically choose whatever assignement he wanted after that).
• Star Trek: Picard:
  • It's very subdued, but Cristóbal Rios quietly geeks out over having Jean-Luc Picard on his ship, and even looks to him to give the order to "Engage." Enoch, the Emergency Navigational Hologram on La Sirena, reverently lists some of Picard's major accomplishments after he eagerly asks Rios, "So, are we excited? Intimidated? Maybe a teensy bit starstuck?" Enoch also describes Picard as a good man who's on the side of the angels.
  • Elnor idolized Picard when he was a boy, and he was always keen to learn about Terran culture from him (such as literature and fencing) and receive gifts that the Admiral had brought from Earth. Elnor also admires Seven of Nine based on his excited reaction in "The Impossible Box" ("Borg like Seven of Nine?"), which makes perfect sense because she's an Action Girl who's fighting for a "lost cause" of sorts, and he was raised by an Amazon Brigade which does the same thing. Evan Evagora confirms this in this interview:
    Evagora: Elnor gravitates towards strong female figures because he grew up with a bunch of them, so that's the type of people he relates to, people who are strong-willed, and Seven of Nine is not afraid to give her opinion, which is pretty similar to absolute candor.

Podcasts

• Angus of The Adventure Zone: Balance looks up to Tres Horny Boys like a little brother after joining the Bureau, especially Taako.

Theater

• Cyrano de Bergerac: Ragueneau has shades of this to Cyrano at Act II scene III:
  Ragueneau: [following him] Bravo! I saw...
  Cyrano: Well, what saw you, then?
  Ragueneau: Your combat!...
  Cyrano: Which?
  Ragueneau: That in the Burgundy Hotel, 'faith!
  Cyrano: [contemptuously] Ah!... the duel!
  Ragueneau: [admiringly] Ay! the duel in verse!...
  Lise: He can talk of naught else!
  Cyrano: Well! Good! let be!
  Ragueneau: [making passes with a spit that he catches up] "At the envoi's end, I touch!... At the envoi's end, I touch!"... 'Tis
  fine, fine!
  [with increasing enthusiasm] "At the envoi's end—"
  Cyrano: What hour is it now, Ragueneau?
  Ragueneau: [stopping short in the act of thrusting to look at the clock] Five minutes after six!... "I touch!"
  [he straightens himself] ...Oh! to write a ballade!

Video Games

• Advanced V.G. II: Much like the preceding example, Tamao greatly admires Yuka and wants to become just like her by emulating her heroine. Even after defeating Yuka, Tamao continues to look up to her, feeling she has more to learn from her and tests herself by challenging Yuka and her friends.
• Borderlands: Many Hyperion employees revere Handsome Jack as a hero who brought greatness to the company and tried to bring law and order to the Death World of Pandora. This attitude is best seen in Tales from the Borderlands with Rhys, who models his appearance after Jack and looks back fondly on the time Jack spat on him, and Vasquez, who brags about Jack punching him in the face whenever he saw him. Of course, seeing as Jack is the Big Bad of Borderlands 2, this is somewhat of a subversion - his employees may view him as a hero, but the atrocities he commits throughout the game prove otherwise. Indeed, many of his worshippers soon change their mind about him when they find out what he was really like, or, in Rhys' case, having an AI recreation of him implanted into your head.
• The very first few lines of Chicory: A Colorful Tale are Pizza praising Chicory as the best wielder yet, and how proud they are that they can work as her janitor. This leads to eagerly picking up the brush to follow in Chicory's footsteps...and then feeling completely inadequate in comparison.
• The player characters of the Dragon Age series tend to inspire a lot of people:
  • In Dragon Age: Origins both Soris and Shianni have shades of this towards City Elf Warden which will finally made clear if you fight back against the injustices the human nobles inflicted against you and your kind. This can be later subverted if you leave them both on mercy of humans.
  • Dragon Age II:
    • Varric accuses Cassandra of becoming hero-worshipper towards Hawke. She is visibly captivated by the Champion's legend, especially if the Arishok is defeated in a single combat. If Hawke is male, Varric additionally teases her about developing a little crush along the way.
    • If Hawke helps Feynriel and lets him go to Tevinter to learn how to control his abilities, it's hinted he develops a case of hero-worship toward the Champion as well.
    • If Hawke saves the elven girl Lia and kills her kidnapper, her father sends you later a letter thanking for rescuing her and claims she "has found a hero in you". She can reappear in Act 3 in the Alienage and if Aveline is in your party, it's revealed that Lia was inspired to join the City Guard and help protect the innocent the way she had been by you.
    • Many letters Hawke can receive are from people you've helped along the way, who developed similar attitudes.
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition takes this to a practically literal level. Following a number of events over the course of the game, The Inquisitor comes to be seen by a very large part of the population as the Maker's chosen and hailed as "The Herald of Andraste". It's quite telling that they continue to do this, and the number grows, even after the Chantry denounces him/her as a false prophet and heretic, and even if the character is a non-human, considering the amount of Fantastic Racism in the Dragon Age universe. Following the fall of Haven, in their Darkest Hour, the people that s/he saved start kneeling to him/her in absolute reverence, whether the Inquisitor really believes or not.
    • Cassandra continues to hold Hawke in the highest regard in Inquisition. She even goes as far as to say that perhaps the Champion could have saved the Divine and prevented the Breach. The Inquisitor couldn't do that, but Cassandra believes Hawke could.
• Intentionally played for evil laughs with the Adoring Fan in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, who starts following you around doing nothing but babble about your greatness after you become the Grand Champion of the Arena. The guy was apparently so annoying that players compete with each other in brutality of the ways to kill him (and he always respawns, too). Here's an example.
• In Final Fantasy XIV, you meet a number of NPCs who think you're the greatest thing ever, being the Warrior of Light and all. One of those is Hoary Boulder, a Hellsguard Roegadyn Gladiator who thought you were the greatest thing ever and joined up with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn to prove his worth. In turn, he has a bunch of Doman children who look up to him, even after he lost in a friendly spar with the Player Character. This also extends to G'raha Tia, who is a massive fanboy of the Warrior of Light. After their future self (the Exarch) merges with his younger self on the Source, he is absolutely ecstatic to be able to go on an adventure with their hero.
• In Grand Theft Auto V, one of the potential recruits for the heist crew, Norm Richards, is a huge fanboy of Michael Townley. In fact, he became a criminal specifically because he was inspired by Michael's exploits. Unfortunately, Norm is a terrible thief. He almost always dies during his first heist and has a high probability of somehow screwing up even if he lives.
• Alyx Vance, along with being Gordon's sidekick, becomes this during Half-Life 2: Episode One, commenting on Gordon's extraordinary feats.
• Shingo Yabuki in The King of Fighters series is this for Kyo Kusanagi. The parallels between him and Sakura Kasugano (see below), who debuted around the same time, are so strong he might be a Distaff Counterpart. Yes, even the thing about the gloves.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The village children in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess idolize Link even before he becomes a hero, very early in the game being impressed by his skills with the sword and slingshot. Their admiration only grows after Link goes on more adventures and retrieves the Master Sword, and Colin says he wants to be just like Link when he grows up after Link saves him from King Bulbin.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Teba tells his son Tulin about Link's incredible archery skills during their battle against Divine Beast Vah Medoh. As a result, when you meet Tulin again at the Flight Range, where Teba will have him watch Link shoot the targets for pointers, he'll always be in an excited crouched-down pose when talking to Link and similarly admiring Link's coolness. He'll even get mad if Link tries to humbly downplay his skills. This continues in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, where Link became a Big Brother Mentor to Tulin in the subsequent years. Tulin is ecstatic to see him again in the midst of the unending blizzard and is eager to accept Link's help with investigating the storm when he had been refusing help from anyone else.
• Alex from Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete is a worshipper of the Dragonmaster Dyne. However, the trope's completely inverted in that Alex is the main character and actually gains the chance to live out his dream.
• Mass Effect:
  • Conrad Verner worships Shepard to an extreme that in the 2nd game he dresses up as Shepard. The third game reveals those photos and autographs he claimed he wanted in the first game to show his wife? Yeah, she doesn't actually exist. He does have a shrine to Shepard though, but they shouldn't worry, it's all done very tastefully.
  • Invoked in the second game, where Shepard's return has lead to an in-universe Broken Base, with much discussion on the extranet between those who are overjoyed, those who are angry, and those who just wonder what it all means?
  • When Samantha Traynor first meets Shepard, she is quite nervous around him/her, but is quite eager to prove to Shepard that she can do her job well. It's also heavily implied that this is partly gratitude. She tells Shepard that she was on Horizon visiting her family when the Collectors hit, and when Shepard came in and saved the colony.
  • Played with in the case of James Vega. Before meeting Shepard, he had a case of this, even starting a fight with a number of batarians who insulted Shepard following the events of Arrival. After meeting Shepard, he clearly sees him/her on more human terms, as someone who has limits and emotions, and doesn't hold him/her in absolute awe or reverence. With that being said, he still holds Shepard in high regard and respects him/her enough to continue saluting and calling him/her Commander even when s/he's been stripped of rank and placed under house arrest.
• In many instances in Metal Gear Solid, characters like Otacon, Meryl or Mei Ling act like this towards Solid Snake. And most of the time it is used as a deconstruction.
• SPC M. Angseth from Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is the only female on Marine Task Force Herakles, and she is characterized as idolizing Samus Aran after hearing of the latter's destruction of a Space Pirate base in Metroid/Metroid: Zero Mission. She doesn't take too kindly to PFC I. Crany's insistence that Samus is just a "fairy tale."
• Sonic the Hedgehog: Tails greatly respects and admires Sonic for much of the series, and thinks he's the coolest guy around (not that Sonic's about to tell him any differently). Though later installments, such as Sonic Colors, has Tails grow out of it a bit and even has him snark on Sonic now and then.
• In Starfield, choosing the "Hero Worshiped" trait during character creation means that you can run into the Adoring Fan from Oblivion as mentioned above and recruit him as a follower. In this case, Bethesda is well-aware of how annoying he is and thus he can be killed.
• Street Fighter: Alpha 2: Sakura is Ryu's no.1 fangirl and aspires to become his student in hopes of becoming just like him. Since he's refused to train her, she's become a capable martial artist in her own right by emulating his style. The fighting gloves she wears were even Ryu's old training pads, which he gave to her as a parting gift.
• The Suffering:
  • Dallas (a prisoner) to the hero Torque. Yes, admiring the guy who saves you from monsters is natural, but... it's notable in that genuine good emotions, like friendship and loyalty are darned hard to come by in the setting, due to Plot Reasons. Latter partners in the game are notably crazy-pants. Dallas is also notable for being comfortably bisexual.
  • Luther would also count, having regressed to a childlike state in all the panic and chaos of the plot. At one point, he actually decides that Torque must be "an Angel of Vengeance come to save us all." How sweet.
• Suikoden II had that kid in Banner Village, who worshipped not one, but two heroes. Namely, Tir, the hero of Suikoden, and Riou, the hero of Suikoden II. He's instrumental to getting Tir into your entourage.
• Super Robot Wars X: Wataru Ikusabe is a huge fan of Kouji and Mazinger; Might and Gaine; and even the Boss Borot. To show his dedication, Wataru even made the Ryujinmaru clay figure look like Mightgaine.
• Monster Kid from Undertale idolizes Undyne, to the point of sneaking out just to catch a glimpse of her, fantasizing about her showing up at their school to beat up all their teachers, and completely freaking out when Undyne touches them for a second. Their admiration is well-founded, since Undyne is head of the royal guard, and another character's comments imply that Monster Kid is far from the only one that worships her. Oh, and if you try to kill Monster Kid in a Genocide run, Undyne saves them.
  • The True Pacifist ending implies that Monster Kid has moved on to worshiping Papyrus instead.
  • In a heartwarming twist, it turns out Undyne was like this towards the shopkeep Gerston in her youth, as well as towards King Asgore. She still has shades of this when it comes to Asgore, and clearly holds a great amount respect for him. It's mentioned that Asgore was the one that trained her and put her in charge of the Royal Guard in the first place, so her admiration is well-earned.

Web Comics

• In El Goonish Shive, Tedd is briefly this toward Gerald. At least until he actually meets him that is.
• In Jupiter-Men, Quintin is an enormous fanboy for Jupiter-Man and is constantly trying to capture the hero on camera. He spends all of his free time browing the Polaris website for sightings of Jupiter-Man and spent his whole social studies project trying to prove that Jupiter-Man has superpowers. Episode 22 reveals that this is because Jupiter-Man saved his life when Quintin got hit by a car, resulting in Quintin's admiration for him and desire to emulate him.
• Paranatural: PJ the ghostly child that lives in Max's house admires Max like he was a superhero.
• Sonic the Comic – Online! has Silver who hero worships Tails, having grown up hearing about Tails' adventures, however some of what he belives are Tails' adventures are actully Sonic's adventures, this is because in Silver's future Sonic has been Un-Personed.

Web Videos

• I'm a Marvel... And I'm a DC:
  • Spider-Man to Batman in Marvel/DC After Hours and Happy Hour. He was like this to Superman too back in the day.
  • And Goblin has this going for Willem Defoe.
• All three media of the Noob franchise have moments that give the impression that Omega Zell has nothing else going on in his life besides his obsession for Fantöm. He's actually a bigger source of trivia about Fantöm than Arthéon, who used to be Fantöm's guildmate. The fourth novel still has Omega Zell get in "groupie mode" when he unexpectedly runs into Fantöm, despite getting explicitly viewed as a friend by him and becoming his teammate in the later part of the story.

Western Animation

• In DuckTales (1987), Doofus thinks Launchpad is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and he'll tell anyone in the area so.
• Justice League:
  • Deconstructed in "Legends", with Ray Thompson. It turns out that Ray is a horrifically deformed Reality Warper who couldn't cope with the fact that the Justice Guild were killed trying to protect civilians during World War 3 (which is also where Ray got his powers through mutation), and has effectively turned the entire city into his own personal Lotus-Eater Machine.
  • Similarly deconstructed in "Clash" with Captain Marvel who idolizes the titular league and especially Superman. Unfortunately he idolizes them at their best and what he believed them to be, and at this point Superman has gotten a little too close to the ledge for comfort. This culminates in Superman trying to destroy what he believes is a weapon, a brutal fight between the duo, and (with the revelation that it indeed wasn't a weapon^note Part of a Xanatos Gambit on Lex Luthor's part to incriminate and destabilize the Justice League) a fierce "The Reason You Suck" Speech and resignation from Captain Marvel.
• Looney Tunes:
  • Junior, Sylvester's mini-me son. Although his admiration tends to expire fairly rapidly once Dad actually starts to demonstrate his mouse-catching abilities (or lack thereof)...
  • In a pair of cartoons, "Tree for Two" and "Dr. Jerkyl's Hide", Spike/Alfie the Bulldog is hero-worshiped by Chester the Terrier. Their relationship is inverted after a series of humiliating defeats is inflicted on Spike, and he ends up hero-worshiping the smaller dog.
• Transformers:
  • Subverted with Lugnut in Transformers: Animated. He's practically a one-mech Megatron cult to the point where even Megatron gets sick of his constant loud praises, but he's also the largest and strongest member of the Decepticons on Earth and his "Punch of Kill Everything" is not named ironically.
  • Transformers: Rescue Bots depicted Blades as a huge fan of the Autobot Bumblebee. The Sequel Series Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy would later give Bumblebee another overly enthusiastic fan in Wedge.
• Enzo Matrix in ReBoot admired Bob the Guardian when he was a little sprite in the first two seasons. In the fourth season, the grown-up Enzo (Matrix) finds himself the target of admiration from... Enzo Matrix (it's a long story). Younger Enzo eventually learns to stop imitating his grown-up self and become his own Sprite.
• Jackie Chan Adventures:
  • Paco is embodying this trope in regards to El Toro Fuerte. Granted, his worship waned when he found out the secret of his hero's strength, but it was soon revitalized, and he followed El Toro just about everywhere he went.
  • To a similar extent, Jade was often Jackie's loudest cheerleader, and once stated she wanted to be "a female Jackie Chan" (even though, technically, she was saying that after seeing Viper in action).
• Irving from Phineas and Ferb worships the title duo to the point of dressing up like them, sneaking into their mom's car so he can go to the beach with them, and takes pictures of their exploits (one of which was eating some soup). Even Bollywood Nerd Baljeet thinks he's an embarrassment.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Scootaloo idolizes Rainbow Dash. As far as she is concerned, Rainbow Dash is the best pony.
  • Star Tracker similarly idolizes Twilight Sparkle. Unfortunately he's lacking in social skills and catches Twilight at the absolute worst of times, earning him a swift "The Reason You Suck" Speech. She makes up with him later.
• Kim Possible was the object of hero worship from her younger cousin Joss Possible. By the end of the story, she began to see Ron as a hero instead, since Kim shrugs off the dangers she faces easily, while Ron has to conquer his fear to fight alongside Kim.
• Sheldon from My Life as a Teenage Robot. A variant in that he's smitten with The Hero as well as looking up to her in general.
• Butt-Ugly Martians featured a recurring character named Ronald, a nerd working at the Quantum Burger who idolizes alien hunter Stoat Muldoon and frequently bugs him by showering him with praise.
• Dexter's Laboratory: During the early episodes, Dexter was one of Albert Einstein, referring to the long-deceased scientist as his "mentor", and even had a photo of him in his school locker. This was dropped eventually. Dexter also idolizes the action hero Action Hank and the superhero Major Glory.
• Molly of Denali: Tooey idolizes the famous musher, Eugene Pike, and wishes to be like him.

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