Tropes again: "Badass Normal"
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gramarye1971 suggested the "Badass Normal" trope, where an unenhanced character holds their own against superpowered or supernatural competition.This is another trope that I really don't think about as a thing in itself, but I definitely have a number of canons where it features!
Okay, first: Fullmetal Alchemist is full of these! In a world where alchemists can burn people to death at a hundred yards by snapping their fingers or opening a rift in the ground, and manmade 'people' who can be ripped apart and knit themselves together, we also have a bunch of characters who keep up with them without alchemy. Olivier Armstrong is an incredible swordswoman and commands one of the hardest garrisons in Amestris. Hawkeye is a crack marksman and has saved the life of her alchemist commander multiple times. Prince Ling is possessed by a centuries-old alchemical entity, and repeatedly takes back control from it; not to mention he's a superb martial artist.
Second: Commander Vimes of the Discworld Night Watch has gone up against dragons, mad golems, political conspiracies, a violent rebellion, manhunting fascist werewolves, an entire war, and a millennia-old supernatural entity of vengeance. He's a former alcoholic from a poor family whose preferred weapons are a badge, a truncheon, a pair of cheap boots, and a set of brass knuckles in reserve in a back pocket. Toward the end of the series, we find out that the Assassin's Guild no longer accepts contracts on him, but they send their students out on mock missions against him as a test. So far none have passed.
Third: Homestuck has several of these! Most notable might be Karkat Vantas - he's surrounded on one side by low-caste trolls with phenomenal psychic powers, and on the other with high-caste trolls who have super-strength, psychic invulnerability, and near-immortality. Karkat has none of the advantages of either group, and on top of that he's a mutant in a culture that culls mutants. (Actually, this brings up a question! Does a character like this count toward the Badass Normal trope, or does it fall into a separate category? Being a mutant means Karkat's not just disadvantaged compared to the more powerful characters, he's disadvantaged compared to everyone, which feels like it might disqualify him for the "Normal" part of the trope...?)
Nepeta Leijon is in a similar position, minus the mutant bit; a relatively low-caste troll with no psionic abilities, Nepeta hunts and kills deadly wild animals with clawed gloves. (Okay, her 'mom' is an enormous alien feline, which probably helps with learning great hunting skills, but still. By contrast, highblooded Eridan hunts with an energy rifle.) It takes an actually immortal high-caste troll with psychic fear powers to kill her, and she's distracted by having just watched her friends die. Of Gamzee's six (I think) victims, she's also the only one who manages to land a blow on him; she slashes his face with her claws, which means she was still fighting while in arm's reach of a larger, stronger, fear-projecting murderous highblood.
Oh, and I thought of a fourth example! I ultimately disliked the series and gave up on it after eight books, but Karrin Murphy from the Dresden Files novels by Jim Butcher qualifies. Harry Dresden is a wizard; he tangles with elves, werewolves, vampires, and evil magicians. Karrin's a cop and a martial artist, but she holds her own with Harry and the various entities they encounter.
More arguable examples would include:
* Vladimir Taltos, who has magical talents (common to every citizen of the Empire) but is shorter, weaker, and with a fraction of the lifespan of the Empire's other citizens, not to mention a second-class citizen on account of his race. He powers up over the course of the books, though.
*Mei Changsu, who had incredible martial arts skills and noble status, but after his illness is no longer able to fight and is presumed dead. By dint of persuasion, manipulation, and sheer stubbornness he manages to overthrow two princes and overrule an Emperor.
Since I'm not accustomed to thinking about this trope as a distinct thing, I'm very interested in hearing your thoughts and recs. What characters do you consider prime examples? Where do you draw the line for "normal," especially for characters who have long-running arcs that lead to significant increases in power/skill?
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I wouldn't really count Mei Changsu for this trope... Yes, some people have basically magical martial arts skills, but e.g. the Emperor doesn't, and iirc we don't really see Xia Jiang or Xie Yu display them either; it doesn't really feel like this trope to me.
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And yeah, now that you mention it, I think Mei Changsu is basically... cosplaying... this sort of character, rather than actually exemplifying it. He doesn't have martial arts skills (anymore) or political power (at least of the open or inherited sort), but he does have insider knowledge and is definitely not the commoner he purports to be.
Now I kinda want a fic where still oblivious!Jingyan becomes suspicious in part because Mei Changsu is too unbelievable as a commoner. :D Jingyan's out on battlefields and inspection circuits and such; he probably has far more experience with commoners than anyone in the entire royal family, and he just gets this prickle down his spine sometimes when Mei Changsu is demurring too much or laying on the 'Your Highness'es too thickly... The commoners he knows are individuals, but Mei Changsu strikes him as a noble's idea of a commoner - too deferential, too perfect at remembering honourifics, too ready to bring up his own status in a deprecatory way. :D
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Yes and no, it depends very much on the area the main heroes are visiting at the moment. Katara is the only bender in her tribe, for example. And even if there are many benders around, the expectations of the people are very often that they can't do anything against the enemies, because they are too powerful. Or they think that it isn't their place, the Avatar has to do it. Sokka, Suki, Mai, Ty Lee - they really are pretty special. Not only in their non-bending abilities, but also in their agency.
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For the latter reason I think characters like Vlad and Karkat don't quite hit that particular button for me because part of it is the ordinary-personness, almost self-inserty in that way, although I realize that is a bit of an individual quirk because this is a trope that I really like, so it's something I have specific preferences for. It's really more characters like Pepper in the Iron Man movies, or Peggy & co., who hit that button particularly hard. (I mean, in some sense I guess Iron Man is also a badass normal if you think about it, but doesn't really feel like it; he's not really presented that way.)
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Vlad mostly works for me, I think, because for the first few books he really is relatively low-powered, and then as his power scales up so do his enemies - he's gone from opposing individual Dragaeran Jhereg to whole Jhereg organisations, and frankly seems to be teetering on the line when it comes to going after Verra herself...
Narrative voice might have something to do with it, too. As
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I was about to add Grand Magnificent from Friends at the Table's Twilight Mirage season, but then I remembered he's just the worst and not a badass at all.
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I absolutely think of Vlad as a Badass Normal type, though you are of course right that after Issola he is not exactly underpowered! But, just, like, based on the company he keeps ("Morrolan carried Blackwand, which slew a thousand at the Wall of Barrit’s Tomb. Aliera carried Pathfinder, which they say served a power higher than the Empire. Sethra carried Iceflame, which embodied within it the power of the Dzur Mountain. I carried myself rather well, thank you.”), and the fact that he perceives himself that way, I think, as someone who is always squaring off against more powerful opponents.
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but Vlad doesn't spend the time on this that he does on Valabar. (Which in itself says something about whom Vlad spends time with, and whose opinions he values or considers worth noting!
Very true! This and related Vlad blindspots is one of my favorite things about rereading these books. Oh Vlad, so Easterner with his mustache and his rapier and his witchcraft and his pride in Fenarian cooking, and his one (1) whole Easterner friend he is not related to by blood or marriage. :P
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I generally define Badass Normal characters as those who, in canons with some sort of superpowers (whether inherent, learnable, or creatable), either don't or can't acquire them but still manage to hold their own in a crisis, especially in ways that the powered characters don't expect or can't replicate. Their normalness should be a defining characteristic, often in ways that some (usually the villains) initially regard as a flaw. Some of my most beloved examples of the trope are:
Saten Ruiko (A Certain Scientific Railgun) - In a city literally devoted to making superpowered kids, where the top-ranked Level 5s are effectively one-person armies in terms of raw power, Ruiko is a completely unpowered Level 0. Even though she wishes she could have powers, too, the canon makes her lack of powers both a disadvantage and a saving grace. Specifically, in a situation where the villain has created a sonic weapon that cripples all of the superpowered characters, Ruiko is the only one unaffected by the noise, and so she's the only one who has the ability to destroy the weapon -- by grabbing a baseball bat and beating it to smithereens.
Kajiki Yumi (Saki) - In this mahjong anime, most of the characters have some sort of crazy luck or power that affects the outcome of the games they play. Yumi is one of the handful of normal ones with no power or ability beyond incredibly good mahjong skills, and she holds her own at the table against two characters who are described as demons capable of crushing their opponents single-handed. Even though she doesn't win, the other girls respect her skill, and she shows up later to help the winning team train for the national-level competition.
Kokutou Mikiya (Kara no Kyoukai) - A totally average (but caring and kind) guy who falls in love with Shiki, a superpowered girl who has the ability to see the invisible fault lines that mark everything in existence, and can cut along those lines to kill or destroy anything, from flowers to entire buildings to ghosts to magical spells. Other characters remark on how absurdly normal Mikiya is, but when Shiki's in danger he's willing to face down crazed mages and serial killers in an effort to protect her, and succeeds mostly because he's just that devoted to her.
(That said, I don't know enough about Homestuck to make the call on those characters, but Vimes definitely counts in my book.)
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It reminds me of the bit in Going Postal with the inspector who went in and beat the eldritch Sorter to death:
The machine couldn't be stopped and certainly shouldn't be destroyed, the wizard said. Destroying the machine might well cause this universe to stop existing, instantly.
On the other hand, the Post Office was filling up, so one day Chief Postal Inspector Rumbelow had gone into the room with a crowbar, had ordered all the wizards out, and belted the machine until things stopped whirring.
The letters ceased, at least. This came as a huge relief, but nevertheless, the Post Office had its Regulations, and so the chief postal inspector was brought before Postmaster Cowerby and asked why he had decided to risk destroying the whole universe in one go.
According to Post Office legend, Mr. Rumbelow had replied: 'Firstly, sir, I reasoned that if I destroyed the universe all in one go, no one would know; secondly, when I walloped the thing the first time, the wizards ran away, so I surmised that unless they has another universe to run to they weren't really certain; and lastly, sir, the bloody thing was getting on my nerves. Never could stand machinery, sir.'
Pratchett is good at this kind of character, even as a background detail. <3