Trolley Man, you’re a problem.
Hey it’s Wanheda.
I know it’s a joke. But this could actually be an interesting plot setup, with one modification. I would make it so that Trolley man couldn’t actually save anyone himself. Rather, he has the power to temporarily give anyone powers equivalent to Superman or similar. The only problem is this is so stressful on the person’s body that the power up kills them after it wears off.
Also might be interesting - Trolley Man can grant 1 wish, but the wisher definitely dies. No workarounds, no tricksy moves, 100% guarantee of being dead in the ground. The wish just takes an entire human’s life-force energy.
Maybe rather than giving them powers, it just puts then into the right place, and modifies them slightly to be able to deal with it. Like say, makes them fat and teleports them in front of a runaway vehicle.
One fun version of this. I once read a fanfiction that included a character with an interesting trait. They were cursed to be completely, hopelessly, comically lost. They get lost going to the bathroom in their own home. They end up hundreds or thousands of miles from where they intend to be.
But the tradeoff is, if there is ever somewhere they actually really need to be, they will be there every time. A loved one about to get hit by a bus? By random chance, the character would just happen to be wandering at the right place and time to intervene. Their kid has an important school play they need to attend? They’ll by dumb luck find their way to the auditorium. They live a life completely unable to get to where they want to go, but in turn they will always be where they need to be.
There is an old video game called Lords of Magic in which the Order faction (which is about unified effort towards the greater good) has as its top-level spell “Heroic Demise”. Mechanically the spell gives one unit a big boost to all its stats, but the catch is that at the end of the battle that unit always counts as having been killed.
I was very reluctant to use it when I was a little kid because I didn’t want to kill my own units, but of course the lesson is that units will die anyway and fewer will die in total if you deliberately sacrifice some. Very thematically appropriate…
Trolley man gets his power by making deal with one of the lesser devil, as that devil don’t get souls from people dying to accidents and crime, but does get the one that is sacrificed to the Trolley man, so the pact is made with such absurd condition.
He could give them a concoction of drugs to make them go berserker mode and trigger some limited use hysterical strength from the absolute flood of adrenaline.
The people would absolutely hulk out temporarily before their muscles exploded, and they’d probably shit their guts out from the strain.
How tf did he learn about his power?!
He was holding his baby sister when a dog was about to be run over by a car. He was so shocked when she fell to his feet in ashes that he didn’t even save that dog. In that moment he promised himself that he would always make the numerically superior choice.
I volunteer as tribute! it’d be better than living in this shithole of a world and I get to die knowing I helped save someone
I once watched an anime where the protagonist had powers that could only be activated if he kills one of his friends or so. And they all immediately wanted to be killed by him. It was weird and I didn’t like it (edit: back then).
Wait what? Which anime.
This took me a while to research now. But I found it (thanks, internet archive!): It was called “Chaos Dragon: Sekiryuu Seneki”.
Not the hero we need, but the hero we deserve
Wait until the bpat goes down. Kill the most endangered or damaged or vulnerable person. Save the rest.
