"Do you have the right personality traits to be a pirate?"
When it comes to challenges of a bizarre and possibly supernatural nature, it's not enough to be the smartest, the worthiest, or even the true chosen one. Sometimes, success requires a very specific kind of personality.
Though there are numerous possible permutations of this trope, one of the most popular involves an individual or organization setting some kind of a test to look for a desirable candidate for whatever they need. Many possible contenders are tested, but all of them fail, either leaving with egg on their faces, getting horribly injured, being turned into a monster, or even ending up dead. Sometimes, this is because of Absurdly Exclusive Recruiting Standards, but just as often, it may honestly be due to circumstances entirely beyond the tester's control.
In the end, the one candidate that succeeds — and survives — is one that exhibits exactly the right personality; for added irony, it's very common for the successful personality traits to be those that would normally make them undesirable by the prevailing attitudes of organization or even the setting as a whole - rebelliousness, self-loathing, obsession, cowardice, ruthlessness, counterproductive idealism, or even utter silliness.
Another variant involves puzzles, games, contests, and even treasure hunts that only those of a very specific mindset can hope to overcome, with more traditional approaches like logic or brute force automatically coming up short — either because the personality type has some form of perspective or advantage that others lack, or simply because the test is supernaturally attuned to the personality type.
And then there are some informal challenges with no real testing methodology involved, usually involving some kind of emergency or battle. Here, spur-of-the-moment tactics or survival strategies that more common personality types simply wouldn't consider end up being an unorthodox path to victory for the oddballs. Please note that this specific variant has to be drawn attention to by the narrative, as it would be open to audience interpretation otherwise.
In a few cases, this can be inverted quite dramatically: an unwinnable challenge might be built around a specific kind of personality, so that the only way to win is to change your ways and develop beyond it — or suffer one defeat after another.
One way or the other, it's all down to personality.
May overlap with Only the Pure of Heart, especially if "pure of heart" involves a specific personality rather than general virtuousness.
Compare Secret Test of Character where testers are looking for a specific character trait but aren't looking for an exact personality.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- One Piece: During Thriller Bark, Usopp’s already-rock bottom “negative” personality makes him the only Straw Hat immune to Perona’s ghosts, which can otherwise reduce even the crew’s most Hot-Blooded Fearless Fool badasses into suicidally-depressed wrecks.
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You: There are many instances of the girls completing various tasks using their unique quirks.
- An accidental version in Chapter 83. The girls show up at the ramen shop in just the right order to overcome the owner's new challenge dish. Iku’s masochism makes her enjoy the hot sensation, Mei having her Eyes Always Shut protects her from the steam, Momiji massages the tough steak to make it tender, etc.
- During the sports festival, the girls exploit their quirks to counteract their opponents’ attempts to cheat their way to victory. Uto’s confusing philosophy gets her a pass in the scavenger hunt, Hakari teasing Karane gives the latter the drive to push through a sumo challenge, Kurumi being a Big Eater helps her finish a loaf of bread during an eating race, etc.
Comic Books
- Locke & Key:
- Combined with Only the Pure of Heart. Not only is the magic of the Keys impossible to remember for anyone over the age of eighteen, but the Keys will only reveal themselves to younger children, and usually only those of a sensitive, gentle nature — in other words, someone not likely to exploit their power for selfish ends. As such, Bode is usually the first to find the Keys, with Tyler and Kinsey only finding a few by accident; fortunately, Dodge is so far from being a child or innocent that he can only find Keys by methodically searching Keyhouse for Rendell's old hiding places. And it's proven that it has to be a genuinely innocent and gentle child when Dodge possesses Bode at the end of Book Four, and none of the Keys reveal themselves to him. Only a massive clusterfuck results in Dodge getting his hands on the Omega Key — just prior to the final book.
- Flashbacks to the previous generation reveal that Duncan, the future Sensitive Artist, occupied a very similar role in finding the Keys for his big brother Rendell and his friends. Rendell once considered this unfair, believing that it would have been better for someone more responsible to find them all, like him. He stopped thinking this way after his ambitions got Dodge possessed, Mark and Kim murdered, Erin mind raped, and Ellie and Duncan badly traumatized.
- Watchmen: It's indicated that Jon Osterman surviving his Freak Lab Accident and becoming Dr Manhattan was due entirely to his personality, with his early love of watchmaking, his fascination with particle physics, and his sheer obsessive force of will all combining into exactly the kind of person who could slowly reassemble himself into a godlike superbeing. As such, the Intrinsic Field Subtractor accident has never been replicated, since nobody wants to throw away test subjects that wouldn't have what it takes to ascend the same way as Jon — and considering how badly the balance of power has shifted as a result of Dr Manhattan, nobody really wants any more superbeings anyway.
Fan Works
- Arctique: Chloé decides that Alya is a better wielder of the Bee Miraculous because they "could be headstrong, stubborn and quick to rush in", traits which suit the Bee Miraculous' powers.
Films — Live-Action
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: Played with. According to Dr. Jones Sr.'s research, there are three challenges to reach the Holy Grail. In the first, "Only the penitent man will pass". This is because the "penitent man" humbly kneels before God, which helps the seeker avoid the huge circular blades ready to chop their head off if they don't. Indy manages to do so, armed with his father's research, but the first mook sent is not so lucky.
- RoboCop 2: OCP attempts to produce a successor to Robocop using similar methods and similar "donors" for cyborg conversion, but every single prototype ends up killing itself in one Disastrous Demonstration after another. Eventually, it's determined that Murphy was literally the only candidate that would have worked for the Robocop program, as his strict moral code, Catholic beliefs, and devotion to duty kept him from losing his mind or succumbing to despair.
Literature
- Colony: Eddie is specifically noted to be the only preserved Willflower crewmember to have been successfully resurrected, with all others having died of shock or gone insane after realizing that they've been brought back as a severed head in a jar plugged into an extremely clunky robot. Though the crew can't explain why this happened, it's eventually revealed that this is because Eddie has such low self-esteem and so little hope for the future that he can accept the horror of what had happened to him, albeit with a lot of complaining. It's also why Willflower's time-travelling computer steered Eddie into joining the crew and losing his head in the first place.
- Hagwood: Throughout Thorn Ogres of Hagwood, Gamaliel is an incredible klutz and a Lovable Coward prone to making a fool of himself under pressure, especially in matters of Wergling. During the finale, in his haste to wergle into something that can escape the Thorn Ogres and warn the rest of his people of the imminent attack, Gamaliel gets the samples in his wergle pouch hopelessly muddled up in a panic... so instead of becoming one animal, he becomes a heretofore unseen Shapeshifter Mashup. Not only does this form give him a defensive advantage, but it makes him immune to the Magical Incantation that the Ogres are using to force the other Werlings to revert — meaning that Gamaliel's fearful clumsiness ends up saving his life... and giving the Werlings their first advantage against the invaders.
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: As Dumbledore discusses at the end, he enchanted the Mirror of Erised to hide the Philosopher's Stone so that only someone who wanted to find the stone but not use it for personal gain could recover it. Otherwise, they'd just see themselves making gold or drinking the Elixir of Life. He did not anticipate that Harry was already so selfless and determined that he would be able to do this (especially since Dumbledore knew the last time Harry had looked into the Mirror, he had seen his parents).
- The Magicians: Eliot specifically notes that it's not enough for a prospective magician to be intelligent enough to handle the intricacies of spells; magic also requires a very specific sort of personality, one involving borderline-insane levels of obsession and the capacity to accept the completely ludicrous. This is tested for in Brakebills' Incomprehensible Entrance Exam, and it's continuously demonstrated throughout the novels, with the most obsessive and eccentric magicians of all being the only ones capable of working the most complex magics that can save the day — or doom it — including Quentin Coldwater, Alice Quinn, Julia Wicker, and Professor Mayakovsky.
Live-Action TV
- The Goes Wrong Show: Across season 2, it's revealed that as dysfunctional as the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society is under Chris Bean's leadership, he's literally the only directorial candidate who can grapple the accident-prone theatre company's numerous difficulties enough to complete a production... while also being just incompetent enough to accidentally make the spectacularly dull scripts entertaining. This point is driven home quite forcefully whenever one of the other cast members have a shot at the director's chair, whether permanently or just as part of the drama festival: Vanessa can't improvise to save her soul, Dennis' play only succeeds by virtue of being less than a minute long, Max's overall silliness leaves him wasting his entire play on the setup for a split-second joke at the end, Sandra's vanity turns her show into a Character Shilling ego-stroke, Annie overestimates the competence of the cast and ends up getting sent to A&E with most of her team as a result, and Jonathan puts too much faith in nothing going wrong beforehand and has to do a one-man show once he realizes that all his co-stars are in hospital... but worst of all is Robert, who is such a bullying narcissistic perfectionist that he wastes the budget on a ludicrously detailed tapestry and can't even complete the first scene of his directorial debut, leading to Chris being reinstated as director.
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: The SVU investigates some of the most heinous crimes in New York City, and consequently, any Detective who hopes to last in the unit needs to have a strong stomach and moral compass and a lot of empathy for victims, but also an ability to detach oneself from the investigation so that its horrors don't linger. Brian Cassidy and Dani Beck both washed out because they let their cases get to them, while Monique Jeffries washed out because she refused to take responsibility when she screwed up a case.
- Stargate: Played with; Ascension requires a very specific kind of mindset to achieve, involving a great deal of patience, self-denial, and willingness to be at peace with everything; anyone pursuing it will need to be able to cast off worldly attachments, including the psychological hangups that are holding them back, and find inner peace. People who don't have the necessary psychological traits or can't achieve them simply can't begin the process. However, there are numerous shortcuts available for people who don't have the personality or the time... and naturally, quite a few of them have been abused by villains over the course of the franchise.
Tabletop Games
- Mage: The Awakening: The Guardians of the Veil, being the Pentacle's spy agency-slash-secret police, have a stringent recruiting protocol. It's designed to find people who'd hold an ideal above all else and have lines they won't cross, on one hand, but are willing to commit grave sins solely for others' (and the greater good's) sake; the final test, the Crimson Veil, requires the prospect to kill a person in service of the Guardians. Needless to say, this is one of the reasons the Guardians are often the smallest Order in any given city.
- Vampire: The Masquerade: Though most vampire clans have a preference as to the kinds of people they Embrace, they tend to favour a more diverse spectrum of individuals outside their popular stereotype, sometimes out of practicality or simply for symbolic purposes. However, a few highly exclusive clans insist that only one personality type belongs in their ranks.
- The Lasombra are very particular about the people they Embrace, only making use of the stereotypical Shovelheads in times of direst need. At all other times, they prefer to test their future childer, sometimes for years on end, just to see if they have the necessary anger, ruthlessness, and determination to make it as one of the Sabbat’s aristocracy: one prospective sire went so far as to engineer an accident that left her future childe a paraplegic just so she could determine if he had the strength of will and the sheer force of bitterness to endure adversity. Those who fail to meet the criteria are discarded — or repurposed as dinner.
- The Tzimisce are even more exclusive, and their criteria for possible childer seem even more elusive to outsiders, since their alien natures can make it very difficult to figure out what they want at the best of times. Generally speaking, they look for highly intelligent recruits of an intellectual bent, but only of a very specific kind: common criteria include isolation from the rest of the human race in some way, a willingness to ignore traditional morality, and an unbreakable desire to pursue their own ideas of art and scientific truth to the bitter end — no matter the cost.
- The Cappadocians took this to extremes: their founder, Cappadocius, was so determined to make sure that his descendants matched the popular stereotype of the solemn, ascetic, death-obsessed scholar, that he went so far as to gather the entire Clan at the underground city of Kaymakli so he could grade their personalities and willingness to pursue the clan mission. Anyone who didn't measure up was sent deeper into the city... and then, once Cappadocius was finished, the door was sealed shut behind them.
- Warhammer 40,000: One of the Inquisition's more ambitious projects was an attempt to create a new vessel for the God-Emperor's consciousness with an enhanced variant on polymorphine, using an isolated Callidus Temple outpost as a research laboratory to that end. However, every single test subject the Inquisition brought in over the next few months died horribly from the effects of the hyperpolymorphine. Eventually, a novice Callidus assassin by the name of Ashaid Virenus volunteered as a test subject as an alternative to execution: she was too individualistic and stubborn to be an agent of the Officio Assassinorum, or even a loyal citizen of the Imperium for that matter, so the Temple was glad to get rid of her... but against all expectations, Virenus' personality gave her the strength to not only survive the experiments but even develop permanent shapeshifting powers. Unfortunately, the same determination and selfishness that allowed her to survive also prompted Virenus to escape the Inquisition in the wake of an internal conflict and become a Rogue Agent, renting herself out to unscrupulous figures all over the galaxy as a Shapeshifting Trickster for hire.
Video Games
- Fallout: New Vegas: In the Dead Money DLC, it's specifically noted that all previous treasure-seekers including your teammates were drawn to the Sierra Madre by their greed and hunger — for food, for control, for revenge, for power — and none of them could let go of their obsessions, so were trapped there… and quite a few of them can end up suffering even further in their efforts to get what they want. As such, the only way to achieve ultimate victory over the final traps in the Sierra Madre is to be unlike all the other victims and be satisfied with the lesser prize — to let go. By contrast, players who pursue the treasure hunt all the way to the end by accessing Sinclair's private account will spring the final trap, leaving them sealed inside the vault for eternity.
- Final Fantasy XIV:
- The Rogues' Guild is Limsa Lominsa's Secret Police force. Originally known as the Upright Thieves, the first rogues were the most altruistic, yet ruthless members of the strongest pirate crews willing to do anything it took to enforce the Scoundrel Code that Lominsans live by. As such, they only scout for members who care for their fellow man but are also willing to cull those who hurt others without hesitation.
- Jehantel is a legendary Gridanian archer known as the "Godsbow" for his transcendent skill. But after he retires from the Gods' Quiver, he gains infamy as a Renowned Selective Mentor who turns away every member of the Archers' Guild who sought tutelage under him, as they'd balk when he asks them to pick up the harp instead. But the Warrior of Light wins him over by being genuinely interested in learning song and poetry from him instead of more "tangible" endeavors. In taking up the harp earnestly, the Warrior learns the power of Magic Music on top of furthering their mastery of the bow.
- I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream: Inverted; AM's various games are designed to fit the personalities of his five playthings to a t, exploiting their various emotional weaknesses at every turn to make them suffer: Gorrister is suicidally depressed, so he's given multiple opportunities to reflect on his self-loathing and end his life — though it doesn't stick; Ellen is terrified of the colour yellow and is imprisoned in a scenario composed almost entirely of it along with a recreation of the yellow-jumpsuited maintenance man who raped her; Benny is a ruthless, unempathetic man that's been starved to the point that food is all he can think about, so he's sent to a scenario where food is out of reach and he'll need to sink to new lows to feed his hunger; Nimdok is cold, analytical, and can't remember his past, so AM sets up a scenario that can jog his memory and give him the chance to enact cutting-edge research on innocent people; finally, Ted is a selfish con artist and rake, so AM litters the level with opportunities for casual sex, double-dealing, and even the betrayal of a loved one in exchange for a shot at escaping. As such, the only way to win is to induce Character Development — having Benny accept charity and sacrifice himself to save his new friends, for example — and without anyone occupying the exact personality roles, AM's entire game slowly falls apart...
- Knights of the Old Republic: On Kashyyyk, the ancient Star Map fragment hidden in the depths of the Shadowlands normally refuses anyone trying to access it on the grounds of them not being a "match" for the accepted user — Darth Revan. However, the player is inexplicably accepted but given a test to see if their personality traits match Revan's template, with the Star Map's computer posing several hypothetical scenarios that can only be resolved by you being as ruthless and self-interested as possible. And no, you can't just lie, as the computer will detect it. Being loyal or upstanding will result in you failing the test, whereupon you'll be required to prove yourself in combat. It's not until later that the reason for this is made abundantly clear: You are Darth Revan, the previous user of the Star Map, hence why you were an initial match; the test was to see if you were still as Machiavellian as you were pre-memory loss.
- Soma:
- Most individuals who've been brought back as robots or cyborgs by the WAU tend to be a tad unstable, either going completely Ax-Crazy after realizing what they've become or ending up consumed by the delusion that they're still human. Simon's personality has made him immune to both extremes by accidentally being "a good balance of ignorance and awareness": he's a bit dim and struggles with new concepts, so he's protected from fully understanding just how inhuman he's become even after he realizes he's actually an Artificial Zombie, so he can't Go Mad from the Revelation... but he's not a complete moron, so he's not fully taken in by the illusion of being human and doesn't lose track of reality altogether.
- Catherine Chun is fully aware of her status as a brain scan uploaded to a piece of machinery, but unlike all the others, she's still sane — and even seems happier than she was in life. She later explains that she's coping by virtue of having never been fully comfortable as a human being, making it easier for her to cope with the realization that drove so many other Mockingbirds crazy.
Webcomics
- In The Order of the Stick, Roy, Haley and Elan are put in a shared Lotus-Eater Machine. Elan is the one who eventually realizes what's happening, because all of his greatest wishes are childish (for example, his divorced parents remarrying, despite his dad being a villain), but he's also had enough Character Development to realize that they're things that won't, and probably shouldn't, ever actually happen.
Western Animation
- Amphibia: The trials of the three temples each involve a test based on the core traits of wit, strength, and heart that the Calamity Gems represent. Anne, Sasha, and Marcy are each faced with tests on their core values and overcoming the weaknesses of these attributes. Marcy's involves trying to win a rigged game, and by forfeiting a game she cannot win does she display wisdom. Sasha's involves overcoming the challenge with both physical and mental strength, succeeding by relying on a combination of willpower and her friendship with Anne and Marcy. And Anne's is a confrontation where she's berated for all of her selfish and irresponsible actions, she put her friends and family, and Anne passes the trial by accepting responsibility for all of them.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: Played with in "The Cave of Two Lovers". Team Avatar is told by the nomads that the only way to navigate the Cave of Two Lovers in the Kolau Mountain Range is to "trust in love", based on the legend of the two lovers who created the caves in order to be together. Aang and Katara later discover the reason is more practical than spiritual, though still relies on a kind of trust — because badgermoles are constantly changing the tunnels, the best way to navigate the cave is to extinguish any light source and follow the trail of glowing crystals that only appear in total darkness, because "Love is brightest in the dark". The nomads merely trusting in love and performing love songs, in contrast, only helps in terms of taming the badgermoles to help them, and Sokka brute force their way out.
Aang: We let love lead the way.Sokka: Really? We let huge, ferocious beast lead our way.
- Gravity Falls:
- In "Irrational Treasure," Mabel is trying to prove that she's not "silly," but keeps doing silly things that wind up helping solve the episode's mystery. It turns out the clues were left by a character who's just as much as a Cloud Cuckoo Lander as she is, which explains why nobody else ever managed to solve them.
- In "Weirdmageddon Part 2: Escape from Reality," Bill Cipher says that the Lotus-Eater Machine that he's created would take a "will of titanium" not to give into. While Mabel, Wendy, and Soos all give in, Dipper's innate skepticism and determination, plus his love for his sister, helps him hold out long enough to convince Mabel to leave with him.
- Miraculous Ladybug: All of the Miraculous require holders who are selfless and diligent, but each Miraculous also has other requirements. The Ladybug Miraculous, for instance, requires a user who can improvise with materials on hand, because it generates random objects, while the Cat Miraculous requires someone with a lot of self-control, because almost anything that gets hit by its Cataclysm power gets destroyed.
- Phineas and Ferb: In the fantasy parody episode, Phineas, Ferb, and their friends find a magic bog. The only way to get across is to be in a good mood the whole time. Phineas joyously claims that the bog was made for him and his brother, as the two are perpetual optimists. They then run across the bog with no trouble.
