Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Tuesday Tropes: The Load-Bearing Hero


Gravity. The ever-present force that many take for granted (and in some cases, they laugh at it). If ever a mineshaft beam falls or a building collapses, you can bet pancakes are in order, unless someone jumps in.


The Load-Bearing Hero - A moment when a character holds or lifts an otherwise heavy object from falling, to either save it or someone from being smashed.

When a poor guy is run over by a cart in Les Misérables (above), Jean Valjean jumps in with his strength that no one knew he had (thanks to his years in prison).


This trope is all too common in the superhero arena. To shake things up, they can lift heavy things to destroy stuff, as well as save, and anything is up for grabs.

Perhaps The Load-Bearing Hero can be a machine, holding up another machine (or a blast door).


Most importantly, a character doesn't have to have superhuman strength. It could be something as simple as keeping an entertainment center from falling on kids. I remember my father jumping out of bed during an earthquake to keep an armoire from falling on my mother. Massive hero points awarded that day.

Ever used The Load-Bearing Hero in your writing? Just a normal person, or did they have super powers?

I'm David, and this is REALLY heavy ...


Skip to 6:00

21 comments:

  1. Haven't used it literally. Emotionally, yes.

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  2. I second what Alex said exactly.

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  3. Nope, not yet. But I just started a new WIP, so who knows!

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  4. I'm with Alex. I've used it more on an emotional level.

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  5. I don't really have heroes in general in my books. In the traditional sense anyway. I think in my WIP someone does it on an emotional level, but it turns out to have unwanted side effects. Anyway, they meant well!

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  6. Spider-Man 2 was so good. It's hard to believe that they are rebooting already.

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  7. I'm sure at some point in writing my superhero series she had to hold something up. Of course for Superman the solution to every problem is to lift the offending object and chuck it into space. Bomb in the Eiffel Tower? Chuck it into space. Continent made of Kryptonite? Chuck it into space. Then it's someone else's problem.

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  8. I haven't personally used this one, but I've certainly seen it lots. Especially the adrenaline charged mom saves baby from heavy car/boat/train variety :)

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  9. Emotional for me, too. Most of my main characters aren't strong enough to do it physically :D

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  10. I've never used anything remotely close to this. I love your trope post, David! :)

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  11. OK, the thought of a huge armoire falling on someone during an earthquake is scary. I may have to check and make sure there is no big furniture next to our bed.

    Back to the subject matter... I've never used this. Hmmmm, I'll have to think about this for future books.

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  12. 1) Great story about your father!
    2) Excellent clip. :)

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  13. Can't say I have used it, but you've got me thinking about it :-)

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  14. I liked the anti-hero message in the movie Hancock in its use of this trope

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  15. thanks! how do you come up with these? you should collect them in a book!

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    1. I can't take credit. I use TVtropes to make sure I'm defining them correctly, but I go off of memory when I can. :)

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  16. I've never used it, but one of the most memorable load-bearing heroes for me was the Cyclops in the movie Krull -- mostly because he knew he was going to die even before he put himself in the position to be load-bearing. That blew my mind as a young'un.

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  17. I've got a variation of this in my wip. Hero resists magical force long enough to get message across then.... (;

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  18. Props for the Les Mis reference! I haven't done the literal "load bearing hero," though one of my characters tries to keep two ships moored together almost single-handedly. :)

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