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"Protagonists That Are the Strongest Characters in Their Verse" Tier List

TheAccursedHunter01

TheAccursedHunter01

370
142
As the title suggests, discussion on protagonists that are the strongest characters in their verse. Currently I've thought of three tiers which are based on how much trouble the character has, not necessarily the power level of that character. I'm open to adding a Tier or two for better categorization. Tier 3 is for characters that have a lot of trouble, Tier 2 is for characters that have a little trouble or have a small handful of people that are any sort of threat, and Tier 3 is for characters that have no trouble and will win for sure no matter who they go up against. This tier list isn't limited to certain entertainment mediums like movies or video games, any protagonist is viable. I've basically written an example of a character for each tier on another thread and will put them here if that's alright. My examples are Samus Aran from Metroid, Doomslayer from Doom and Dante from Devil May Cry.

My example for Tier 3 is Samus Aran since despite being the strongest character in her verse and having the best genetics (Chozo DNA Infusion since Chozo are one of the top tier alien races in Metroid)/tech/training/experience/connections etcetera, it's still barely enough sometimes. There are plenty of threats that have given Samus trouble like Ridley, Dark Samus, Mother Brain, Gorea and so on. She's the best and everyone knows it, yet she encounters plenty of threats that can give her grief. The fact that she always triumphs in the end proves she is the best regardless.

My example for Tier 2 is Dante since he knows he's the strongest and only two other groups could possibly give him a hard time. Mundus, one of the strongest demons ever (which Dante can solo pretty handily after DMC5) and immediate family members (Vergil/Nero). Due to this, Dante can flex on everyone and everything without fear.

My example for Tier 1 is Doomslayer since he's the strongest thing ever and nothing ever really gives him trouble. It's lore that he's unstoppable and always wins. At present I haven't played through "The Ancient Gods" DLC for Doom Eternal, but from what I've heard, he didn't lose to anything.



Tier 1


Tier 2


Tier 3

 
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Alright let's get started.

Claire Stanfield is a Tier 1. Two characters have given him (very slight) trouble, but he has also never been shown fighting at full capacity, and these two characters were the pinnacle of the verse's fighters aside from him. And while he himself has stated that a fully equipped Christopher Shaldred would have him nervous, it's unknown how serious of a statement that was considering how effortlessly he defeated Christopher as is, and Word of God states that a serious Claire could solo the entire named cast.

Alucard (Hellsing) is a high Tier 2. The amount of characters in his verse that can threaten him are in the single digits, and he's still solidly the most powerful out of all of them. Even the two that stood the best chance of killing him failed in the end.

Korosensei is definitely a Tier 2, though as a human he was most definitely a Tier 1. The only person who may have been able to threaten his human self would be Craig Houjou, but they never encountered one another and it's unlikely that Houjou would've been able to account for his various trump cards.

John Carter is a Tier 2. There are only 2 or 3 opponents who can take him on in a one-on-one fight, and even when he gets involved in group battles, it takes a lot to even tire him out, and the one time he got seriously injured it was during a battle of him and one other person against thousands and thousands of high-level opponents, whom they still defeated in the end.

Shichika Yasuri, in the anime at least, is also a Type 2, with everyone else only able to fight him due to his restrictions, and only Emonzaemon ever seriously injuring him while unrestricted, though Nanami and Hakuhei are definitely able to give him a run for his money.

Sakamoto is a comedic Type 1, effortlessly outshining the rest of his verse in skill and style. The only character who could potentially end up giving him a run for his money is uninterested in ever doing so, and the one time they competed with one another Sakamoto still came out on top (though he did manage to force Sakamoto to get fully serious against him)
 
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Isn't Nagisa the protagonist of Assassination Classroom?

I'd somewhat say the same for Claire, but Baccano is more of an ensemble cast.
 
I personally would be interested in not limiting it to protagonists anyway but I guess that would clog up the list too much

AC also has a slight ensemble cast. Nagisa on paper is the primary protagonist, but Korosensei, Kaede, and Karma are also officially considered protags alongside him

Baccano is an ensemble cast yes, so I'd include Claire as a protagonist since he gets some focus stories.
 
Creaturemaster971 said:
I personally would be interested in not limiting it to protagonists anyway but I guess that would clog up the list too much

AC also has a slight ensemble cast. Nagisa on paper is the primary protagonist, but Korosensei, Kaede, and Karma are also officially considered protags alongside him

Baccano is an ensemble cast yes, so I'd include Claire as a protagonist since he gets some focus stories.
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I'm pretty sure having the protagonist be the strongest person in the verse isn't too common, so I figured limiting it to protagnoists would prevent unecessary cluter.
 
Would Bayonetta be a Type 2 or a Type 3? I know she's a top tier in her verse, but if I recall correctly she's got a lot of competition to deal with. Jeanne, Rodin, the Lumen Sage, Baldur, Jubileus, Loptr, etc.
 
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I think I'm leaning toward Bayo being Tier 3. I only know the story for Bayonetta 1 where Jeane, Baldur and Jubileus were the only threats, but Bayonetta 2 introduced more. Going off of the small teaser for Bayoneta 3 from several years ago Bayo might have a hard time with another new enemy.
 
Right. I would almost say she's like a border between 2 and 3. Because there's only 4 characters, at most, that can defeat her at full power, but she also spends most of her stories with her power restricted.
 
This might just be because there's only two Bayonetta games. At the moment you can count how many serious threats there are for Bayo on one hand so I might put her in Tier two for now because of it.
 
I wouldn't say Olimar's ever been portrayed as OP or the strongest in his series. If anything I'd say he's quite the underdog at the best of times.
 
Kirby's actually Tier 2 (Me and my double meanings). It may be hard to take seriously with the regular face he makes and even when he uses a serious face to do stuff, and he may get casual and overly happy when victorious, but that's just how he is, Kirby has fainted after defeating the final boss if his games more times than what I can remember, many of them have been recognized for their power, Kirby has panicked of a couple, and, on more punctual examples, Kirby needed to slightly slowly overpower Void Termina on their last stand and some Kirbys from other reality had so much troubles against Galacta Knight that in their battle their tears ran dry and felt near defeat.

Funny enough, the last game makes consistent that Kirby's rivals are at his level but Kirby still always defeats them because reasons.
 
The only CIS Kirby even had related to this was in Squak Squad, where he defeated everyone while pretty much only thinking about some cake. That's not Kirby.
 
I mean, that's seems pretty inapplicable here, and Ghost K.'s ability to not get killed by fellow beings with NPI is a NLF in practice. He does get slower to comparable beings in that form, so it all ends there if it comes down to it.
 
I mean one of those(galactic knight) you tried to separate from main canon the others void and star dream would not do great if kirby had everything like he do on the wiki it would be curtains.
 
It's canon, just in other reality, the same GK was even implied to later fight the main universe Kirby in another world and time. And that all kinda recontextualizes the prior battles GK had, we never got a glimpse of how much effort the characters were putting to defeat him, but considering they're outliers power wise and it took Team Kirby so much difficulties, I would imagine it's always a pretty tough fight, and GK wasn't even the final boss of those games. Considering what Kirby had at the time (no Friend Hearts), how the final bosses can get last inhaling via < LS and what Kirby does in-character, things would go the same. And then again, it would be inapplicable here anyway, this seems to measure "how it went", not "how it should have realistically gone".
 
Olimar's petrification and star-destroyer never play into the plot as a means of making him seem overpowered. The whole point of Pikmin is that he's struggling to survive against the monsters of this planet and has to team up with the natural underdogs to do so. This isn't about how overpowered a character is on the wiki, it's about what kind of protagonist they are. And Olimar is not an overpowered protagonist.
 
John Wick should be a clear-cut Tier 3

How do we deal with the protagonists of Spy X Family? There's two of them, and the only ones that have been shown to be legitimate combat threats to them are each other.
 
Creaturemaster971 said:
You know, one way we could include more characters but keep the list from getting cluttered is by organizing it by tiers
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Organize by tiers? Like what I'm doing right now? lol.

Jokes aside, do you mean separate everything with different tabs? Like have a protagonist tab, villain tab and side character tab? Can you even do those on these forums? I've never been sure how.
 
The "cursed" example: Lucy (Elfen Lied) for tier 1

She in the EOS enraged lorn horn state is the strongest form. Nobody scales from her. Her direct feat involves kicking a big tsunami (tier 7 to tier 6) and her speed involves herself stretching her tentacles to the atmosphere and her three personas struggling over her body to kill a boyfriend of one or two of the personas.

Like Mariko and Nana are only tier 9.
 
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King Ghidorah anime nothing in the Godzillaverse can match him, only few digits crossover monsters can match him.

But nothing in verse can match him.
 
Anime Ghidorah definitely isn't a protagonist by any sense of the word (though like we said earlier we may add a villain category).

But iirc didn't Ghidorah get punked as soon as his vessel was killed? And that was like his only fight so I'm not sure if he would really be presented as that narratively overpowered.

As a sidenote, does Minecraft have a story? And if so, is Steve? portrayed as that overpowered?
 
For Earthbound technically Truth of the Universe is the strongest one but it never fought on its own.
Ness and his friends did all the work.
So idk.
 
And it's less about who's the strongest on the wiki, and more about how the story presents them.

Godzilla Earth is probably a Type 2 yes. The only thing that stood a serious chance of beating him was the nano machines under very specific circumstances and Ghidorah
 
Would Ainz Ool Gown be Tier 2 or 3? The Floor Guardians are able to give him a hard time, but outside of them I don't believe anyone is any sort of a threat.

Also, would Sonic be considered the strongest in his verse or would that only count for a certain incarnation? At the very least Sonic acts like the Dante of his verse toward Eggman.
 
TheAccursedHunter01 said:
Also, would Sonic be considered the strongest in his verse or would that only count for a certain incarnation? At the very least Sonic acts like the Dante of his verse toward Eggman.
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I can see that argument being made for Archie Sonic, given he just straight up has shit like canonical plot armor, but not game Sonic since he consistently needs assistance with universe+ to low multiversal threats like Solaris and the Time Eater.
 
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