Stories where the MC is weak

[Ibrinar]

Tavi, from Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series, probably counts. In a world where anyone of higher rank than a slave can command one or more elemental spirits called furies, Tavi can't call any. So he has to rely on his wits and his allies to survive.

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He does gain massive power later though, not sure whether that fits.

[Berserk Mecha]

Hell, just look up half of the Harem manga / anime that is available. Most of the main characters are useless dweebs with the haremettes around them having more personality and capabilities. Love Hina is a good example where the main character, Keitaro, is a loser who fails his college entrance exams and has to real goals in life other than to get into Tokyo U. The manga begins with him taking over the duties of the landlord of a girls dormitory whose tenants are all quirky eccentrics and are generally more capable than him. Over the course of the series, Keitaro gradually gains confidence and becomes a more reliable person and (in the manga at least) he gains an interest in archaeology, which gives him more aim in life.

[Themrys]

The Goblin Emperor. A half-elf, half-goblin exiled prince of barely eighteen years suddenly finds himself in the unenviable position of succeeding to the throne of the elvish Empire after the previous emperor and the rest of the line of succession are extinguished in a mysterious airship explosion. He has neither fighting skills nor any practical experience at the court, and barely anyone takes him seriously. Can he hold on to the throne and his life, not necessarily in that order?

Seconding this.



You might also want to try Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, which is story with multiple protagonists, one of which is the son of a rich merchant who only recently joined a band of hardened criminals. The new guy isn't the main protagonist but he does get a romance arc and all.

[Silfir]

You might also want to try Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, which is story with multiple protagonists, one of which is the son of a rich merchant who only recently joined a band of hardened criminals. The new guy isn't the main protagonist but he does get a romance arc and all.

He's the only arguably normal guy in that group of six and he's not even particularly weak; the others are either magical or just abnormally competent. I don't think it's the type of narrative OP is looking for.

I really liked that book though. Our tastes seem to align in general.

[understatement]

Brandon Sanderson's Rithmatist is this. It's been years since I read it, but I think the main character is basically (to borrow the Harry Potter term) a scrub, incapable of using magic. Or just bad at it, despite really wanting to use the mathemacy of the books. (Rithmatist is based on the word arithmetic.)

His hero trilogy is also this, insofar as it's a mundane taking out evil superheroes. Steelheart is the first book in the series.

I second this! I am still waiting for the former's sequel.

Also, (if it hasn't been mentioned previously), I'd like to throw in Maus, which really isn't a fictional story so much as a biography. It focuses on how a man survives the Holocaust and can be very distressing to read, but it's an excellent work.

I'd also pitch in Revival by Stephen King. A lot of the pivotal moments from the book result from the MC catching onto the antagonist's plans despite odds. Also, Stephen King.

[Themrys]

He's the only arguably normal guy in that group of six and he's not even particularly weak; the others are either magical or just abnormally competent. I don't think it's the type of narrative OP is looking for.

I really liked that book though. Our tastes seem to align in general.

Not particularly weak, but he does have this "trying to prove himself a valuable team member" thing going that I figured OP might be looking for.

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(That scene where he saves the day by being able to sing the national anthem of a foreign country without a trace of accent is awesome.)

True, the others are abnormally competent, but arguably, that might also apply to The Goblin Emperor. It's just that the mazei rarely comment on their powers as lengthy as Vaarsuvius is prone to do, or really, at all, and we do not see any duels fought.

[TeChameleon]

They're all good books, but the one you're describing is The Warrior's Apprentice. Shards of Honor is the one set decades before that which introduces his parents.

Whoop, sorry- it's been a long while since I read them and I'm having a hard time keeping the titles straight. Good books, though, and rather fun.

[Vinyadan]

I think a lot of the XIX century great novels would qualify. Dickens is all about downtrodden children. Manzoni is all about a couple of villagers persecuted by criminal nobles. Dostoevsky has a mentally challenged outsider in Idiot and a young, inexperienced outsider in The Raw Youth. More a-dime-a-dozen novels like Sue's Les Mystères de Paris also are about weak characters (a pure young girl) surrounded by dangerous and more powerful (and murderous) people.

[Wraith]

Neil Gaiman does this in a number of his novels - "fish out of water" normal guy having to deal with a secret fantasy world or otherwise magical antagonists.

Stardust is about a young man who sets out to find a gift for his crush. He finds a sentient star, who is being pursued by a powerful shape-shifting witch and an obnoxious-but-deadly Heir Apparent to a magical empire, and along the way has to take lessons in swashbuckling from a notorious Sky-Pirate to even begin to measure up. The movie version is a particularly excellent adaptation.

Neverwhere is about a normal office worker from London, England who accidentally becomes embroiled with a secret underworld of magical homeless people, monstrous labyrinths, homicidal Amazonian bounty hunters, sociopathic homicidal bounty hunters, and a literal Angel.

American Gods is about an ex-con who, finding himself widowed and adrift, signs up as butler/bodyguard to a man who identifies himself as the Alfather, Odin. He and a bunch of older Gods - Anansi, Oestre, Kali and the others - intend to wage war against the New Gods of Media, Internet, Money and a mysterious figure known only as Mr. World, and he needs someone to hold his bags and drive the car along the way; enter our protagonist. Also a TV show, which is fun but.... abstract, to say the least.

All of the characters in these stories are 'normal' - just every day guys who were in the wrong place at the wrong time - but they're clearly out of their element compared to everyone around them who are invariably dangerous and powerful even within their own context.

[Rodin]

I think a lot of the XIX century great novels would qualify. Dickens is all about downtrodden children. Manzoni is all about a couple of villagers persecuted by criminal nobles. Dostoevsky has a mentally challenged outsider in Idiot and a young, inexperienced outsider in The Raw Youth. More a-dime-a-dozen novels like Sue's Les Mystères de Paris also are about weak characters (a pure young girl) surrounded by dangerous and more powerful (and murderous) people.

A more modern take can be found in Dodger, by the late great Sir Terry Pratchett. It's a riff on Dickensian/Victorian novels that follows a street urchin whose adventures "inspire" Charles Dickens to later write stories based on them.

It's one of Pratchett's final novels (only Raising Steam, Sheperd's Crown, and some collaborations come later) and I consider it by far the best of his later work. Especially if you're well versed in Dickens and Victorian tales.

[Prime32]

Re:Zero is about a shut-in who wakes up one day transported to a fantasy world. He's read enough stories along those lines that his first thought is "Awesome! Time for me to kick ass and become a legendary hero!". Except this world is just as complex as the old one that that he had so much trouble handling, and now he has zero money, documentation or knowledge of his surroundings. Despite his lifestyle back on Earth he at least managed to stay in good physical shape... but this new world is filled with people who could snap him like a twig. At one point he tries to learn magic himself, but his mana is pitiful and it requires years of training before you can cast spells without hurting yourself.

Long story short, he gets himself killed. But then he senses a strange presence, and wakes up transported back to the start of the day. Something is intervening with his life to provide him with what amounts to an Autosave system, but it is not his ally and each time he respawns it sinks its claws deeper and deeper into his soul (to the point where spiritually sensitive people start noticing after a while and instinctively distrusting him). He ends up repeating the same events over and over, with he and his friends dying in often traumatic ways, all while trying to figure out the source of the problem and maneuver more capable people into helping him.

tl;dr - "I thought we were playing Exalted, but it was Dark Souls + Call of Cthulhu at the same time"

[Anteros]

Lies of Locke Lamora sounds like exactly what you're looking for. Locke is regularly outclassed by both friends and enemies and is usually the weakest person in the room. He gets by on wit and charm.

[Peelee]

Stardust is about a young man who sets out to find a gift for his crush. He finds a sentient star, who is being pursued by a powerful shape-shifting witch and an obnoxious-but-deadly Heir Apparent to a magical empire, and along the way has to take lessons in swashbuckling from a notorious Sky-Pirate to even begin to measure up. The movie version is a particularly excellent adaptation.

Seconding Stardust, especially the movie version (solely because I haven't read the book). Captain Shakespeare steals the whole show, which is no easy feat given how good Septimus is.

[Telwar]

Michael Moorcock's The Dreamthief's Daughter, the narrator is fairly powerless and prone to hysteria.

On the other hand, he's related to Elric, who shows up. So... maybe not?

Also, I was terribly disappointed in this when I read it back in the day (that whole "prone to hysteria" thing really irritated me), and I haven't touched anything of Moorcock's since.

[Peelee]

I can't believe I didn't think of it before, but Stranger Than Fiction fits this to a T.

[dancrilis]

It might depend on what you mean by weak because it could be expanded depending on what people are up against:

For instance:
Terminator(1984) - Sarah Conner is just a normal person targeted for death by a machine from the future and her only ally is a guy who while trained is no match for the machine, she does pretty well for herself.
Alien(1979) - Ripley is also fairly average, still manages to take down a seemingly invincible alien (after everyone else was killed off).
Predator(1987) - Alan "Dutch" Schaefer is by no means weak by normal standards (a military veteran and mercenary leader) but is completely outclassed by the predator at virtually everything - still with ingenuity he manages to survive when everyone else dies.

All worth a watch if you haven't seen them (in my opinion anyway) - including the years above as there are a few sequels for them (which in most cases are not worth a watch).

[tiornys]

Tad Williams seems to like this theme. In addition to the aforementioned Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn I can think of at least two of his other works that fit. In The War of the Flowers the main character is an aging would-be rockstar who gets sucked into a rather hostile fairyland. His Otherland series features a group of relatively ordinary people who stumble into a secret project run by men and women who number among the richest and most powerful people in the world.

[Silfir]

Oh, I've just thought of another one. Ascendance of a Bookworm is a novel series with a currently running anime adaptation. The main character is a young woman from Japan who became a librarian because she loves books and is killed by the very thing she loves - an earthquake topples a bookshelf and crushes her. She then wakes up as a five-year-old in the midst of a fever attack. She's also daughter to simple common folk in a medieval fantasy setting - so not only is it doubtful that she lives for much longer because of her sickly constitution, there are also no books. In this world, they're prohibitively expensive to make and the prerogative of the nobility and the rich. To her, who was a book-loving hermit in a previous life, this is even worse than the fevers!

Probably the physically weakest protagonist I know of. "Knowledge is power" is a big theme of the work, of course.

[Seppl]

tl;dr - "I thought we were playing Exalted, but it was Dark Souls + Call of Cthulhu at the same time"

Speaking of which: Dark Souls (and its spiritual siblings) is an excellent example of interactive storytelling where your main character is weak. In a lot of games you are only weak storywise but in game you are pretty strong. Dark Souls goes a long way to make clear, both in story AND gameplay, that your character is weak. A gnat poking giants with a toothpick. The third rate hero, picked as a last resort after all the strong ones are long gone. And if you (the player) do not understand this fact and adjust your playstyle accordingly, you will die, die, and die again. To the point that the whole series is rather infamous for being too hard and impenetrable. Even though it is quite manageable once you get that you are not supposed to play like the great knight in shining armor. If OP has the stomach for that kind of learning curve, I highly recommend the experience for its interactivity. It is exactly the kind of story and character that was asked for.

[monomer]

For movies, there is the eponymous Willow, who is just a farmer with a knack for prestidigitation. I guess he was also in the sequel novels by George Lucas and Chris Claremont starting with Shadow Moon, though having not read them, I don't know if he continues as the underdog, and can't comment on the quality.

[Zalabim]

For movies, there is the eponymous Willow, who is just a farmer with a knack for prestidigitation. I guess he was also in the sequel novels by George Lucas and Chris Claremont starting with Shadow Moon, though having not read them, I don't know if he continues as the underdog, and can't comment on the quality.

I have read the novels and while he is in them, they're mostly not about him. They're about the child from the movie losing her family, growing up isolated, and eventually striking out on her own to evade powerful magical foes and fulfill her destiny as representing, understanding, uniting, and balancing all the magical species of the world. Her super power is friendship. The quality is fine once you get past the prologue killing every character you loved from the movie, and set your expectations in line with the movie protagonist's name having seriously been Will Of Good (Willow Ufgood).

[razorback]

Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China. The MC is the bumbling sidekick.

[NulliusinVerba]

Tavi, from Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series, probably counts. In a world where anyone of higher rank than a slave can command one or more elemental spirits called furies, Tavi can't call any. So he has to rely on his wits and his allies to survive.

This is a great example. Tavi doesn't have any powers, in a world where pretty much everyone else can call up elemental spirits ala Avatar's bending. So he actually has to use his brain!

I think that's on one of the covers or something?

[Clertar]

Reynevan is weaker than most other relevant characters in Andrzej Sapkowski's Hitite Trilogy. He grows into more of a badass in the later books, but in Narrenturm he's definitely that.

[Starla]

Everyone has come up with some great examples.

Sokka from ATLA comes to my mind as a great example even though he is not the "main character" he is part of the MC group and constantly trying to prove he deserves to be there. The whole team does level up over time which does make it less of an outclassed situation.

I have been reading Half Upon A Time series by James Riley. This describes his main characters perfectly. They survive their adventures despite their inexperience and lack of any skill except sarcasm. It gets pretty funny. Sometimes it is dumb luck that saves them, sometimes it is because they are just in the middle of the real OP characters fighting against each other and they happen to be on the side that is currently staying alive.

[moonfly7]

Everyone has come up with some great examples.

Sokka from ATLA comes to my mind as a great example even though he is not the "main character" he is part of the MC group and constantly trying to prove he deserves to be there. The whole team does level up over time which does make it less of an outclassed situation.

I have been reading Half Upon A Time series by James Riley. This describes his main characters perfectly. They survive their adventures despite their inexperience and lack of any skill except sarcasm. It gets pretty funny. Sometimes it is dumb luck that saves them, sometimes it is because they are just in the middle of the real OP characters fighting against each other and they happen to be on the side that is currently staying alive.

I absolutely love half upon a time. Jack's character progression in that story was something that moved me to tears with its execution.

[paddyfool]

Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time has characters frequently thrust into situations that they aren't equipped for. (Especially the human characters). With predictable yet somehow satisfying consequences.

[Psyren]

Re:Zero is this, though I don't think it stays there permanently. Natsuki Subaru's superpower is reloading his save game, so as you can imagine he dies quite a lot, and overcomes most obstacles through (extremely painful/traumatic) trial and error.

And yes, every other character including his love interest(s) are much stronger than he is.

[KatsOfLoathing]

I'll nominate the Bone comics. The main characters are a trio of cartoon humanoids named the Bone cousins, a human farm girl, and her grandmother. The last of those is the only one who can fight to any credible degree. Over the course of the series they face off against a race of homicidal rat creatures the size of humans, multiple evil cults, a mountain lion the size of a building, and a literal god of evil. They mostly survive by smarts, trickery, and a healthy dose of running away.

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He does gain massive power later though, not sure whether that fits.

Spoiler: Codex Alera Spoilers

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Tavi only starts to gain powers at the very end of the third book (out of six). For most of Captain's Fury and Princep's Fury he does have the powers, but they're completely untrained, so he's basically a baseline Aleran human (whereas before that he was under even that line). It's not until the very last book that he starts pulling off the army-destroying, demigod-class stunts that his father and grandfather could do. Even then, he has to rely on outside sources for help quite a bit.

[Telonius]

Skeeve, from Robert Aspirin's "Myth" series.

Apropos, from Peter David's series.