Surprisingly Normal Backstory

Ethical Bug: You know, Jack, maybe we need to dig a little deeper. T-tell me about your childhood.
Jack Horner: Ugh... you know, I never had much as a kid. Just loving parents, and stability, and a mansion, and a thriving baked goods enterprise for me to inherit. Useless crap like that.

— Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Backstory, of course, is basically self-explanatory. It's the story that goes in back of the real story. The story before the story. The unseen history that informs all of your characters' decisions and actions. As such, it's understandably vital to the progression and consistency of your tale. It is often regarded as the most fundamental of aspects for a character and perhaps a fictional universe.

One's backstory could be full of tragedy and molded them to who they are now. One could be a simple origin story. It could be something triumphant or uplifting like a sports hero rising up or showing how pleasant the maniac used to be. It also could be a total mystery or riddled with different leads that makes the moment when the full backstory is revealed all the more satisfying. Whatever the case, a larger cast theoretically means an infinite number of possible backstories to create a whole fleshed-out cast.

Then, there's this one. In a crowd filled with people who turned tragedy into triumph, went through some exceptional event, or have some abnormal linage, this person is normal. Completely normal. They weren't a go-getter as a child, they just went to school and took everything in stride. They didn't pick up the mysterious MacGuffin that led to many adventures, they put it back down and never cared to think more about it. They don't have a past full of tragedies because they and their folks were smart enough to make sure it never happened. The most you'll get is that they had a loving family with maybe a couple of siblings and relatives and a cool pet. Members of the cast will be surprised to hear, in a world where something extra-ordinary happened to them in the past, only the ordinary happened to this character. This person has what's called a "Surprisingly Normal Backstory".

Done right, this character becomes a shining example of a relatable Audience Surrogate or Escapist Character.

People with this backstory are won't jump at the call. The Generic Guy, The Nondescript, the Ridiculously Average Guy, and a Vanilla Protagonist may have this kind of backstory. Those who Can't Stay Normal would love to have this happen to them. In cases of a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, you may have that one member who somehow doesn't display any trauma, drama, and/or alienation that seems mandatory with the membership.

More unusually, villains may occasionally exhibit this trope. Most often this will be to show that they're a Punch-Clock Villain or Obliviously Evil, but sometimes it's to subvert the expectation that every Complete Monster needs a Freudian Excuse; some of them Look Just Like Everyone Else in terms of history as well as appearance.

An important note, because of the work-dependent nature of this trope, the person in question must have their Surprisingly Normal Backstory discussed, conversed, lampshaded, or at the very least be blatantly obvious to count as an example. Slight or borderline "examples" do not count.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: A good majority of the heroes, and even the villains have a Dark and Troubled Past from losing loved ones in brutal fashions to dealing with physically and mentally abusive people. Then there's the Love Hashira, Mitsuri Kanroji. The only trauma she sustained was personal insecurity, as the rejections she received from potential suitors resulted in her dying her hair and looking weak just to appeal to men in hopes of marriage. However, she was uplifted not only by the kind leader of the Demon Slayer Corps, Kagaya Ubuyashkii but her loving and supportive parents, who didn't have to die for her to take on her very dangerous career.
• In Fruits Basket, where most characters suffered through bullying, Parental Abuse, and loss, Kagura's main source of pain is guilt over being mean to Kyo as children.
• Outside of being shorter than most of his same-age peers and being born premature, Koichi Hirose from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable has a pretty normal background of being the youngest child in a nuclear family. This is especially in contrast to his friends ^note Josuke is the Heroic Bastard of the Joestar family, Okuyasu got involved because his father worked for Dio and his brother Keicho was trying to make a Stand user to Mercy Kill him, and Rohan is a famous mangaka that was traumatized by the murder of his beloved babysitter as a child.
• Nanoha from Lyrical Nanoha. Considering her Master Swordsmen older siblings, super rich childhood friends, Super Prototype "best friend", Clone Jesus adopted daughter, her other friend who is The Chosen One, and all the other various Living Weapons, Super Soldiers, and Cyborgs she interacts with on a regular basis, the fact that her backstory can be summed up as "youngest daughter of two cafe owners who just happened to be born with a massive potential for magic and her father spent several months in the hospital" comes off as downright mundane by comparison.
• Naruto: Sakura Haruno. Her teammates have went through some sort of traumatic or extra-ordinary experience ^note Naruto's parents died moments after he was born and he's the carrier of the Nine-Tailed Fox, Sasuke is the sole survivor of a class massacre, and Kakashi saw his dad commit suicide, best friend sacrifice himself, had to kill another best friend... yeah, it's a mess. Meanwhile, the worst Sakura goes through is having other girls tease her for her forehead. She has loving parents and a good home. Plus, unlike ninjas of her generation, she is generic in terms of skill, not excelling in an expertise (Tenten at least mastered ninja tools to make up her also generic backstory), and also didn't inherit a familial trait as her parents are also ordinary. She does admit this in Part 1, which is why she decides to undergo Training from Hell and become a Super-Strength-powered medic nin in Part 2.
• One-Punch Man: Other heroes and villains got their abilities from weird and wondrous sources. Saitama, who has the most amazing powers of all, got his powers from "100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and a 10-kilometer run, every single day". This is a feat some people can actually do, so it clearly doesn't make sense. Some characters theorize there was another influence at work, and Saitama just doesn't know what it is.
• Pokémon: The Series: Ash Ketchum is pretty much defined by his relationships with other people and Pokémon after he started his Pokémon journey. He sticks out because, until Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon, all of his traveling companions were either Gym Leaders or related to Gym Leaders or famous celebrities. He has a Disappeared Dad, but that's never been expounded upon, and seems to have a great relationship with his mother, who is never hinted to be a Pokémon trainer (let alone a famous celebrity) herself. Then again, being a Vanilla Protagonist was the original head writer's initial intention.

Comic Books

• The most famous version of Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, compared to the rest of the Bat-Family. In short, she basically became a superheroine because she wanted to, motivated by wanting to follow in her father and Batman's footsteps. The only interesting part about her backstory is that her father is Commissioner Gordon, whose personal experience with Gotham City's crime has him against her becoming a cop: hence why she's a vigilante instead. Even in continuities where her mother left or she was adopted, it doesn't really affect her eventual decision to fight crime.

Fan Work

• In chapter 15 of Fairytale of Doom, Levy confines to Jellal that compared to the other members of Fairy Tail, her life before joining was completely normal. She grew up with ordinary loving parents in a small town, and when she suddenly developed her magic they help her get into a school of magic so she can learn properly. Even when she joined her guild, it was because she wanted to keep working with her Childhood Friends Jet and Droy, who she met at the school.
• Mission To Silas: Besides Brigitte, most characters here have some sort of Dark and Troubled Past, or trauma that shaped them — from Lucy Diamond losing her family to a Mob War; Amy's father being a cop who was murdered on the job; even Bobby Matthews has a troubled history in his early career, having unchecked issues explaining (but not excusing) his behavior. On the other hand, Miss Petrie repeatedly dismisses and belittles Brigitte's trauma by citing her own struggles she overcame...that being attending boarding and military school, and being at the top of her class. Petrie apparently considers having to climb a rope equal to or greater than Brigitte's trauma and losses.
• Unlife Is Strange: As part of the Adaptation Expansion, Mark Jefferson's past before his career and growing up in Arcadia Bay is discussed. One would think that a possible Freudian Excuse would be brought up, maybe something comparing and contrasting him with the troubled history of his victims, and shed light on why Jefferson was so twisted. However, just it turns out his father left his family when Jefferson was a kid, and Jefferson was raised by a single but supportive mother. He repaid her by exploiting her condition when she was dying of cancer for his first "project", and used her death to milk sympathy from the community.

Films — Animated

• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: Played for Laughs when the Ethical Bug, trying to find any spark of good in "Big"/"Little" Jack Horner, asks him what his childhood was like, perhaps hoping he has some sympathetic Freudian Excuse or Dark and Troubled Past that turned him rotten. Unfortunately, those hopes turn out to be misplaced because Jack makes it clear he grew up with loving parents in a big house with complete financial stability, he's selfish and cruel totally by his own choice.
• Trolls Band Together: When Veneer starts feeling guilty about him and his sister Velvet siphoning the life energy of an innocent troll in order to be successful pop-stars, Velvet tries to convince him to stay the course by reminding him of the "dark place where they had nothing" before they were famous. It cuts to them as small, dirty orphans begging for gruel in a scene out of Oliver Twist. Veneer reminds her that there was no "dark place", they had normal childhoods growing up in the suburbs and their parents were well-off.

Films — Live-Action

• Played for Horror in 8mm: Machine, the Psycho for Hire that slaughtered some poor woman to create a real In-Universe Snuff Film, explains to Tom (The Hero) that he has no Freudian Excuse: "My mother didn't beat me, my father didn't rape me". He is just a sick son-of-a-bitch for the sheer hell of it. The disgust that this speech makes Tom feel is so massive that he pistol-whips Machine to death in response.

Literature

• Many of the young mages in the Circle of Magic series had unhappy childhoods before being recruited by their mentors (imprisoned for theft, thought insane and sent to an Orphanage of Fear, orphaned in a shipwreck or plague)— so in the first book of the sequel series it's somewhat of a surprise that Sandry's future student is a relatively well-adjusted son of a police family whose greatest conflict is that he would rather become a dancer than join the police.
• Harry Potter:
  • Hermione Jean Granger has a very simple background compared to other main characters of the series to reflect her Muggle-born status. She grew up with two alive and well-off parents who work as dentists. That's it.
  • Ron Bilius Weasley's isn't much more dramatic—his family are magic, but they're fairly normal by wizard standards, at least if you compare him to Harry or Neville. His main hangups are that they're kind of poor and he has six talented siblings to stand out from.
• In The Heroes of Olympus, Piper's angsty backstory is that her famous father didn't pay enough attention to her, causing her to act out. This is in contrast to the rest of the main characters, all of whom have lived through war or lost loved ones because of their demigod status.
• The opening paragraph of Northanger Abbey points out all the ways that Catherine doesn't match the template for the typical heroine of a (gothic) novel: her father wasn't abusive, her mother didn't die in childbirth, and so on, and she had a completely normal upbringing.
• The Amazing Adventures Of Nate Banks Lampshades this—Ultraviolet's backstory basically comes down to "randomly developed superpowers over the course of her childhood," and she admits that it's neither flashy nor exciting. It might explain why she's not particularly passionate about her heroics, seeing them more like volunteer work.
• Six-Claws from Wings of Fire, in a series where just about everyone has some kind of messed up family life, had perfectly fine parents, and the narration of his short story lampshades this fact. The rest of his backstory described in that book is quite dramatic, though.

Live-Action TV

• In an episode of Frasier, he confronts a Con Man who stole his identity and expects the guy to spin a sob story about his Freudian Excuse. The guy casually denies it, saying he had a great relationship with his parents — if anything, they spoiled him — and claims he fell into petty crime out of sheer laziness. Frasier is skeptical but we never find out the truth because the guy keeps him talking just long enough to escape.

Video Games

• Non Player Companions in the Dragon Age series generally come pre-loaded with lots of personal trauma and suffering in the backstory, even though some, like Bethany from Dragon Age II, seem to be naturally better at dealing with it than others. Nevertheless, there is one companion who seems to break the mold: Finn from The Witch Hunt DLC is a mage from a noble family and a prime example of the Circle of Magi system working out right, for once. Unlike most mages in the series, he is on good terms with his family (who had to disown him due to the Circle of Magi's rules but are close to him otherwise), content with spending most of his life in the Tower, and only goes adventuring out of personal interest.
• From Fate/Grand Order: The backstory conceived by Nasu for Ritsuka Fujimaru in the Babylonia anime and released with the Solomon film keeps to how he is the most normal out of all of Type-Moon's protagonists. He grew up in a middle class family with no significant strife or events and came out of it well-natured and happy. The only event that really impacted him before Chaldea was right before high school when he was taking care of his elderly neighbor the last week before the old man's passing since all the man's family is gone and the helper wasn't available. Fujimaru feels angry that the old man has no one else to be with him before his death besides his neighbor, but the old man rejects that as he's happy that he has no regrets and can simply spend time talking with someone before he dies. Fujimaru internalizes this after his neighbor's death to mean that he should celebrate good events when they happen and try to live a contented life even with no reward given to him before death. This is significantly much more mundane and less traumatic than any other of the franchise's protagonists who determine their philosophy in life during their harrowing backstories. Even the female Ritsuka has more or less the same story, with the added detail of having been part of her school's volleyball team.
• Though Silent Hill is frequently touted to have everyman protagonists, Henry Townshend is the only one to have a truly everyman backstory. He didn't lose his wife, didn't struggle to treat his ailing wife and eventually murder her, didn't have a batshit insane mother and see his father committed suicide, didn't tragically lose his son, and he wasn't born from an accursed woman or treated second class by his family. He's just a photographer who just so happens to rent an apartment connected to Silent Hill.
• Faction leaders in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri are each provided with a backstory. While not all of them involve a missing father or childhood on the street in a warzone, they do give off the impression that each leader bears a weight of life experience that significantly impacts their worldview. When Alien Crossfire introduced Sinder Roze, the leader of the Data Angels, she was stated to be... a child of affluent, loving upper-middle class parents who became a black-hat hacker out of teenage boredom.

Web Media

• In Homestuck, of the main human characters John's life was the most normal and angst-free compared to Rose's passive-aggressive issues with her mother, Jade and Jake both living alone on deserted islands, Jane experiencing frequent assassination attempts as a company heiress, Dave being put through Training from Hell by his abusive Bro, and Dirk and Roxy growing up in a post-apocalyptic world.
• Pirates SMP: Many, if not most, of the main cast with known backstories have ones that typically fall somewhere between abandonment, dead family members and/or friends, fleeing from restrictive social/political environments, memory loss, surviving horrific tragedies, or any combination or variation of the above. That being said, there are a few exceptions:
  • From what we know about Aimsey on Day 1, they grew up wishing to be a pirate, was family friends with Michela, and later formed a relationship with Guqqie.
  • Similarly, from what little we know about her, Guqqie lived a very luxurious life, albeit very sheltered from the other factions because they were "dirty", and her parents seemed concerned about her appearing to be "ladylike" and proper. She did also form a relationship with Aimsey, despite the fact they were from the Kites. Played for Horror when the "Final Wishes" event implies it's because of her normal upbringing that the Hooded Figures choose her to be a Human Sacrifice on Day 1.
  • Jojo had a relatively happy upbringing, living quietly on an island village with her mothers and only sailing out to sea because of Small Town Boredom.
  • Michela has had a fairly average upbringing — her mother's a teacher, Aimsey was a family friend and her best friend growing up, and she was supposed to follow in her mother's footsteps to work in education. It's only after being sent to the Faction Isles to join Aimsey there that causes the dominoes to start falling in her life.
  • Olive is a scientist raised into the field who got curious about the pirate life, and they never tried alcohol before coming to the Isles at age 22, as their parents had told them not to drink. That being said, Olive has been Put on a Bus since the start of the series.

Western Animation

• HouseBroken: In the episode, “Who's Obsessed (A Lifetime Original)”, Ruby/Cherry tells Honey that she wants to kill her and take Chief on account of all the 'suffering' she went through, like being taken from her mother and siblings and taken in by owners who made her sleep in a cage and having to beg for food. Honey lampshades that all of that is just a typical dog life.
• In Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension, Doofenshmirtz's more evil and more competent 2nd Dimension counterpart reveals that his Freudian Excuse for being an Evil Overlord is... he lost his toy train when he was a kid. Given what the 1st Dimension Doofenshmirtz put up with as a kid, he's naturally very underwhelmed.
• The titular heroine of Miraculous Ladybug: Marinette's parents are both alive, Happily Married and love her deeply and care about her wellbeing, and so far as we know neither of them have any kind of secret legacy of heroism. Compare and contrast with her partner Chat Noir, aka internationally famous teenage fashion model and Lonely Rich Kid with a Missing Mom which is eventually revealed became a missing mom creating him in the Frankenstein way of the term Adrien Agreste.
• Ultimate Spider-Man: This series gave this trope to Deadpool of all people. He has a fairly standard hero origin story: he was a mutant born with one of the fastest healing factors in the Marvel Universe, his life "was a toilet", and Fury recruited him to teach him to use his powers for good. But Wade (being Wade) eventually got fed up with SHIELD's rules and decided to strike it out on his own as the "Merc with a Mouth".
• Young Justice (2010): Unlike the rest of the original Team, Kid Flash has a relatively mundane backstory. He doesn't have dead or missing parents like Robin and Zatanna, he's not an alien from another planet like Miss Martian, he doesn't come from a family of criminals like Artemis, he wasn't raised under the sea like Aqualad, and he certainly isn't a clone made by a group of supervillains like Superboy and Red Arrow. Granted, purposefully giving himself superpowers with a high school chemistry set is an impressive feat for an origin, but it's not an especially dramatic or traumatizing one. ^note  Rocket may or may not count for this trope. The show never goes into her origin as she only joins the Team in the last two episodes of Season One before she becomes a supporting background character for the rest of the series until Season Four. And even in Season Four the show still never really goes into her backstory.

---