10 Hopeless Video Game Protagonists

Tingle’s concept is a tragic one. A 35-year-old man who’s deluded himself into believing he’s a fairy, much to the chagrin of his disappointed father, he doesn’t exactly scream ‘protagonist’.

However, Nintendo being Nintendo, that’s exactly the spotlight he was thrust into in 2006’s Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland, a game with a title as eccentric as its main character.

The game sees Tingle make his transformation into the character audiences know today, as he’s summoned by a mysterious deity known as Uncle Rupee to a nearby spring. Here, he is told that if he throws enough Rupees into the water, he will be granted entry into a haven known as Rupeeland. As the mysterious figure transforms Tingle’s very life source into money, the hapless half-fairy sets off on an adventure to become rich and enter paradise.

Throughout the quest, Tingle has to barter for goods and information (essentially trading his life to progress) as well as pay bodyguards to fight on his behalf. As if all of this wasn’t hopeless enough, it transpires that Uncle Rupee’s been swindling him the whole time and Rupeeland is an evil place where all who enter become slaves. The poor guy can’t catch a break.