No One of Consequence

One of my favorite tropes (at least I think it's a trope. Not sure how common it is) is the "unknown hero".

It's when a character who's known to us, the audience, maybe very well, and is at least somewhat important to us.

The character dies and we see a newscast or interview with police or whatever that calls the character "an unidentified individual".


Again, I'm not sure how common it is - the big example that comes to mind happened in the show SUPERNATURAL -

—————-spoilers for early seasons of Supernatural—————————-

The father of the main characters doesn't appear in the show very often, but looms large in the series, as
an important figure in the brothers' lives.

When he dies early in season 2, the news reports the body as "an unidentified man". Perhaps he's identified later; I don't remember.

What I DO remember is the powerful impact it had on me. I guess it's because he was my favorite character, and was important to the world in ways very few ever knew about. The fact that the general public and the establishment institutions had no idea who he was added to that importance for me. The private funeral the brothers had for him was very powerful as a result.

—————————–End Spoilers!———————————————-





A heroic character need not be famous, or recognized for what they do. I think the elements of 1. A liked character, 2. Being heroic and sacrificing themselves, and 3. Not being recognized my most is an effective combination for me.

I'm blanking on other examples of this. Spmething that's similar but different is in Terminator 2, when the police show Sarah Connor pictures of the Terminator during the police-station attack from the first movie.

This is NOT a heroic example, and the character IS consequential, but the fact that there's cctv footage of this robot from the first movie, and that nobody has any idea who it is – i don't know, it hits a cool tone with me. Gives it a certain realism plus raising the stakes.

Anyway, I'm not sure if it's just me but this is really cool and something I'd like to work into a story sometime when it fits!

See you next time!





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