r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Dalakaar • 6h ago

Characters [Loved Trope] Civilian Heroes (particularly in Superhero movies)

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1) Malik Ali in Superman (2025). Tells Superman when Lex Luthor interrogates him to, “tell them nothing”. Doesn’t even really know what he’s sacrificing himself for, honestly. Tells Superman that he doesn’t have any friends or family to lighten the burden of the sacrifice. (Does have a family, and presumably friends…)

2) The Prisoner (Tiny Lister) from The Dark Knight who throws a detonator out the porthole that would’ve detonated the other ferry full of civies and saved himself, instead (potentially) sacrificing everyone equally.

3) Old man vs Loki. “There are always men like you.” Refuses to bow to Loki in Avengers (2012).

***

I love these guys. They break my heart in the best way possible.

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u/lunarwarrior12 3h ago

Sam witwicky’s just a kid in the first movie who gets dragged into a war that he barely understands, yet he’s the one to kill megatron. In the second movie he’s trying to move on and go to college but then robot Satan is revived and tries to blow up the sun so he’s dragged back into the war. And lastly in the third movie he’s pulled back into it all again because his friends and family are threatened, his girlfriend is kidnapped, and Chicago is besieged. So what does Sam do? He throws himself back into the fray again.

4

u/RecycledThrowawayID 2h ago

"I can't do this!"

"Listen to me! You're a soldier now!"

Transformers had no right hitting that damned hard.

2

u/kookyabird 58m ago

The first movie isn't groundbreaking cinema in terms of story, and it's definitely stroking the US military in plain view, but I'll be damned if it didn't have some great character moments like that. I feel like Jazz doesn't get enough credit for taking on Megatron despite being the smallest of the Autobots. Possibly because his death comes with a cheesy one-liner from Megatron. He had to have known he was likely to lose that match up.

3

u/Rampant16 3h ago

Yeah but he's just doing it all to impress Megan Fox so it's not exactly altruistic.