Only Sane Man/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: The one character who perceives the world to be insane.

  • Straight: Brad Gunther's friends are an ADD-afflicted school girl, a nerd dealing in haphazard experiments, a muscle-bound twit, and a loud, boisterous teenage beauty queen. All the while, he's the only one who seems to notice their antics are a little off-kilter.
  • Exaggerated: The school-girl is a Funny Foreigner Martian, the nerd's trying to summon demons, the twit races cars on foot on a daily basis, and the beauty queen talks to animals. All the while, Brad's the only one who notices that they're off-kilter.
  • Justified: His friends are trying to put on The Masquerade, and don't want him to blow it. Alternatively: they weren't always this nuts; they became close friends when they were more normal, and Brad refused to leave them just because they started acting a bit weird.
  • Inverted: Everyone but Brad notices how off-kilter his friends are.
  • Subverted: Brad's really insane...
  • Double Subverted: ...but he's on to something.
  • Zig Zagged: Brad is the Only Sane Man when the team is fighting crime, keeping his cool while his buddies panic. However, Laura (being the Token Female) is the Only Sane Woman when Ms. Fanservice walks past, sending all the guys, including Brad, into a frenzy. And when the group goes to see The Only Sane Men in concert, the baton is passed to Joe, as he's the only one in the gang who isn't hopelessly obsessed with the band.
  • Parodied: Everyone but Brad has genuine psychiatric disorders; the schoolgirl has dissociative identity disorder, the nerd behaves like a shell shocked Vietnam veteran (complete with references to being in 'nam), the musclebound twit speaks to the voices in his head, and the beauty queen is under the impression that the demons going around stabbing everyone "just need a hug". Brad only stays with them because he's in school to become a psychiatrist and thinks its good practice.
  • Deconstructed: The antics of Brad's friends bring him to a breaking point, and thus drive him to insanity.
    • Alternatively: Brad begins to believe that they´re all retards and fuckheads, and starts to wonder if he should change group.
    • Alternatively: Brad mostly has began to insolate himself from the others, because he can´t stand them anymore.
    • Brad is actually an Evil Overlord, but literally no one else knows it.
    • The same attributes that let Brad percieve how insane the world around him is, are the same attributes that make him a cruel and manipulative nihilist who will happily commit any actrocity upon the messed up reality he despises as absurd.
  • Reconstructed: A new guy joins the gang, and takes Brad's place as the Only Sane Man.
    • Alternatively, after some navel contemplation and Wangst, Brad realizes just how important his group is, as strange as they are. Or a new guy joins, taking Brad's place as the Only Sane Man.
    • Brad's friends realizes what they're getting themselves into and start to appreciate Brad more.
  • Averted: Everyone is portrayed to be relatively normal. Or at least two people.
    • Alternatively: Everyone is completely crazy.
  • Enforced: "We need some sane person in this show; otherwise, no normal person would relate."
    • Alternatively: "We need to throw in a sane guy to highlight and to react to the insanity of the rest of the cast."
  • Lampshaded: "I know you're off-kilter; you don't."
  • Invoked: "Please. If I wasn't around, who'd point out how dumb you were acting?"
  • Defied: Brad finally gives up, lets loose all of his inhibitions and becomes just as bizarre as everybody else.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: "Is it me or is Brad the only normal person there?"

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