A Question: (Patreon)

Weird question, but can anyone else think of any other ‘adults tm’ in series?

What I mean by this is a character who is the sole and true adult in the room so to speak. Whether they actually are an adult is irrelevant to their meta role as the one who has some degree of medium awareness or maturity that eclipses the rest of the cast.

Now, some might be tempted to say Iroh, or list off a character who is basically game breaking but neither of those are what I mean. Iron is very much 100% all in on his worlds story and narratives, just not the one of the villains and he actively tries to orchestrate it. As to point 2, this character does not exist to break the setting or show everyone else up, but more as a sort of realistic reflextion on it.

Examples:

Mob Psycho’s Reigen
This best exemplified in the season 1 finale where despite being well out of his depth he’s able to peg the grown ups picking fights with middle schoolers to take over the world as being children who never grew up. Despite lacking the power to fight them he did  all he could to try and get the kids out of there and when he had the chance to took charge of the situation himself. He also later lambasts himself for letting Mob try to take on the villain alone in V2 because he was so overwhelmed. He’s flawed and imperfect, but he’s undeniable an adult who doesn’t just accept the usual narrative conventions.

The Venture Bros Rusty Venture
He is a bastard and rife with flaws as a scientist, a person & father. But he’s the only one who sees how ridiculous a world where supervillainy and murderous super spies all basically roleplay out entire wars that impact real people is; but its still the world and he has to live in it. This is why despite being more than capable he doesn’t choose to be a villain even though he’d likely be happier because grown ups don’t put on costumes and terrorize people for fun. Its why he’s able to force a compromise between both sides and why despite his fucked up life and issues managed to be a better father than his own monster of a parent.

Can anyone else think of other examples?