r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Outrageous_Gene_7652 • 20h ago

Characters A genuinely good hero gets crushed by responsibility and slowly goes insane

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Hal Jordan (Green Lantern): Civilian life in shambles, overworked superhero life, spiralling mental health for years and unable to cope with the fact that he was'nt able to save his city because he was on another mission, Hal loses his mind, literally trying to bring back the dead, killing the entire corp and later literally erasing space and time to rewrite the universe

Zero (To Be Hero X): Being the first hero of the world and being worshipped for being so since he was 10, Zero achieved Godhood as a 15 year old but ultimately the pressure got to him and he went mad at 17 and nearly caused the end of humanity.

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u/BlankHeroineFluff 16h ago

The Plutonian/Dan Hartigan/Tony (Irredeemable) plays this straight while also being a subversion of it. He was once hailed as humanity's greatest hero until he fell from grace after cracking from the responsibility plus several other reasons and became a murderous monster responsible for wiping out tens of thousands of people for petty reasons. You later learn that this guy didn't do all those heroic deeds for altruistic reasons but out of a selfish and pathological need to be loved, which would be sympathetic in most cases, but in his case, it only serves to reinforce just how monstrous and egotistic he is considering the lengths he went to terrorize people because he couldn't handle criticism, big or small.

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u/Malrottian 15h ago

The Plutonian is a good argument for why "fake it until you make it" is an idiotic philosophy. If he'd actually been able to accept his flawed nature instead of constantly trying to put up the perfect facade until he cracked he would have been extremely beloved by the populace. His own self deception is what ultimately lays the seeds for his downfall.

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u/chaotic4059 13h ago

It’s why the moral of the story is thank fuck the Kent’s were good parents. Clark was taught early on that he didn’t owe earth anything and that no-one can be flawless so just do what you can and hope that it’s enough. Like Ma Kent normally says “help if you want to but you don’t owe the planet anything” Clark does it because he wants to.

Tony was taught that you have powers ergo you HAVE to use them to help 24/7. You can never not be helping and if you don’t wanna it means you’re a bad person no matter how tired you are. And anyone who doesn’t see the good you do needs to be corrected