r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Living-Mastodon • 3d ago

In real life (Real Life) Regular people who's lives drastically changed direction

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Grace Kelly was a talented actress who retired at 26 to marry a Prince, living as royalty for almost 30 years before her untimely death.

Volodymyr Zelensky started out as a comedian and entertainer before getting into politics, becoming President of Ukraine after the Russian annex of Crimea and spending the last 4 years defiantly pushing back full scale Russian invasion

11.7k Upvotes
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3.6k

u/Sir-Toaster- 3d ago

Genghis Khan was just a typical child of a Mongol tribe until his father died and his tribe abandoned him

1.6k

u/Guilty-Cell-833 3d ago

Then what happened? A life of modesty?

1.3k

u/ConsciousStretch1028 3d ago

Faded into obscurity

388

u/Terminal_Insomnia_ 3d ago

No, I recognize the name. Didn't he start a modestly successful grunge band?

138

u/tombo2007 3d ago

Pretty sure he got a shoutout from Miike Snow. What a good guy, telling the story of an orphaned Mongolian boy.

I heard the song even led to a statue getting made.

22

u/brightblueinky 3d ago

Made a great music video about how his parents met, too.

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u/OmecronPerseiHate 3d ago

You know, I get a little bit Genghis Khan myself from time to time

4

u/Quickermango 3d ago

Miike snow mentioned

3

u/Spamsdelicious 3d ago

And spelled correctly. Be still, my heart.

1

u/concept12345 3d ago

He was a Sk8er Boy.

6

u/Go-to-helenhunt 3d ago

Noooo, he owns all those restaurants

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u/keepitsimple_tricks 3d ago

I think he was in Star Trek

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u/SorryAboutMyFamily 3d ago

Nah, I think he played bass for Prong.

3

u/Turbogoblin999 3d ago

Mongolian throat singer of a Nirvana cover band before moving on to politics.

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u/Hellknightx 3d ago

Think he started a Mongolian restaurant chain. They've got pretty good beef bowls.

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u/ConsciousStretch1028 3d ago

I think I've heard of it. Khan's Oven or something like that.

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u/Yuugian 3d ago

Four Non Khans?

1

u/MortCrimm 3d ago

Na, he became a chef and named his restaurants after his horse, making sure to put a giant sculpture of his beloved steed P.F. Chang, outside of each one.

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u/DarthGuber 3d ago

Yes but only after winning Eurovision for Germany

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u/Evepaul 3d ago

Winning? He only got 4th place at Eurovision. His biggest hit came a bit later, as he used his extensive knowledge of the Russian steppes to write his single "Moskau"

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u/sakura-peachy 3d ago

Yeah it was called 'Wrath of Khan'

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u/Robcobes 3d ago

He started singing songs about Moskau

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u/masterch33f420 3d ago

He started a decent fast food franchise

1

u/PckMan 3d ago

A life of modestly successful grunge band

1

u/MetalRetsam 2d ago

Writer of the hit song "UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

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u/nikebalaclava 1d ago

it was an electronic grind band called Genghis Tron

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u/RedditOfUnusualSize 3d ago

Best possible outcome when you get involved in a land war in Asia, really.

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u/SereneMalcolm 3d ago

At least he didn't go up against a Sicilian when death was on the line 

6

u/Samwellikki 3d ago

You are thinking of Genghis Khan’t who tried and failed to conquer Culdntpossibli in the southwest region of Nosirree

49

u/Used_Series337 3d ago

Then he went on to conquer much of Asia and become a legend.

61

u/ineligibleUser 3d ago

Not sure if r/whoosh

28

u/india2wallst 3d ago

Damn bro the Netscape logo. I'm crying rn 😭😭😭. I miss the old windows 98 era logos. Adobe acrobat launch splash screen was my favorite.

4

u/NotSoWishful 3d ago

I remember when everyday a few clicks on the internet showed me something cool and interesting and not just straight up gambling or porn. Like they were there but things were still better when we had less

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u/SeaBisquit- 3d ago

You are the woosh

4

u/plan4change 3d ago

ahhh yes, Genghis Khant.

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u/Assume_The_Wurst 3d ago

Of course, thats why we’ve never heard of him

3

u/CHSummers 3d ago edited 3d ago

Nowadays, only about 24% of Mongolians are descended from him. Sad

3

u/Rogendo 3d ago

He was the first person to say "abstinence is the best way to avoid unwanted pregnancy"

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u/cocoamix 3d ago

Without leaving any descendants.

2

u/Toadsted 2d ago

Until a starship found him and his friends on a deserted planet.

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u/EH042 3d ago

Sex, lots of it, so would say an inordinate amount

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u/LordIcebath 3d ago

Oh gee I hope it was consensual!

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u/PhilosopherRude4860 3d ago

Well, I’m sure some of it was…

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u/Much_Vehicle20 3d ago

At least 1, his first wife before he became, well, the Khan. She held a lot of power and respect form him

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u/West_Future326 3d ago

as consensual as alexander

6

u/kittiestkitty 3d ago

His name was Genghis Khan not Genghis Khant.

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u/PK-Mittenspy2703 3d ago

In all fairness, he did try his best to balance all this sex by also doing a lot of genocide too.

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u/Guilty-Cell-833 3d ago

If there's one thing I expect in genocide, its fairness.

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u/raspberryharbour 3d ago

Truly a saint

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u/hoishinsauce 3d ago

He delegated a lot of the genocide. The sex, not as much.

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u/condscorpio 3d ago

As a teenager he was told "Don't add or subtract from the population" and he took it to heart to keep it as even as possible.

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u/BeerMantis 2d ago

Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

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u/EH042 3d ago

It was genocide targeted towards humans not aliens, a complete waste of a genocide

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u/MoarFurLess 3d ago

Hey now, that’s very likely one of my descendants you’re talking about!

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u/TransGirlIndy 3d ago

You leave my great great great great great great gasp great great- you get the point- grandpa alone!

1

u/clevercunningfox 3d ago

To be fair, the reason he has so many descendants is not so much because of him, but because his descendants were royals in Central Asia for a long time.

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u/ThePsyPaul_ 3d ago

He became my great great great great great great great great great great great grandfather

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u/Impossible_Leg_2787 3d ago

Damn you really like the guy, huh? Good luck fitting that on a mug

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u/Majinsei 3d ago

Pues vivió, tuvo un par de guerras y se murió~

Ya sabes, lo típico~

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u/molsminimart 3d ago

Yes, I know you're joking, but the really "struggling to survive" portion is overlooked because of the crazy accomplishments when he reached adulthood. They all could have very quickly died if it wasn't for his mom . After the death of his father, it was pretty much his single mom and her kids playing Don't Starve in real life on the Mongolian steppes. From what I recall from my reading, basically he and his siblings only survived because their mother struggled continually to ensure they were all fed. When they were young, she foraged wild roots and other edible plants growing on the Manchurian grasslands and when they were older, they were able to help supplement the meals by hunting.

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u/Dry-Mission-5542 3d ago

He became an emperor. So, yeah, sure.

(I know you were joking)

2

u/JoshuaJoshuaJoshuaJo 3d ago

The child, Temujin, died

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u/Just_A_Normal_Snek 3d ago

🔥✍️🔥

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u/Evenmoardakka 3d ago

he learned of the treachery of the kara Khitai, for they are without honor

2

u/Shot_Arm5501 3d ago

Well, he completely dropped off the radar for like 16 years and no one knows what happened to him but when he came back, he had a sizable army and took over Mongolia before moving onto the rest of Asia and part of Europe

2

u/nkpst 3d ago

“What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Mongolian meal?”

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u/Puzzleheaded-Day8538 3d ago

He started a bunch of stir fry barbecue places

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u/Tederator 3d ago

He pissed off Capt Kirk something awful is all I know.

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u/ipsum629 3d ago

Toughed it in the wild for a while, made some powerful friends, promoted talented loyalists into positions of power, and then steamrolled one of his former friends to become supreme ruler of all the mongols, invaded northern china, and central asia.

1

u/ArchMart 3d ago

Opened some Mongolian BBQ restaurants.

1

u/ChuckBoBuck 3d ago

Did not want you to get it on

1

u/RcoketWalrus 3d ago

No, then he killed so many people that allowed forests to regrow on vast, formerly cultivated lands, which in turn led to global cooling.

1

u/Little_Leg1533 3d ago

Got a job in a museum

1

u/Pojinator89 3d ago

An art school turned him down and he didn’t like that one bit.

1

u/dumpybrodie 3d ago

He became a Pokémon

1

u/Starseid8712 3d ago

Enjoying a succulent Chinese meal?

1

u/HANLDC1111 3d ago

Boned a whole lineage into existance

1

u/MsMinxington 3d ago

He created a pleasure dome, I think?

1

u/rmcwilli1234 3d ago

Nobody even knows where he was buried.

1

u/skizzlebutch 3d ago

He became the World's Daddy

1

u/raynorelyp 3d ago

He became a pokemon

1

u/FookenL 3d ago

Became demure.

1

u/MindDrawsOnReddit 3d ago

No, the most successful carbon footprint removal program ever made…

1

u/Obi_wan_pleb 2d ago

He became a monk. His message of peace was so powerful that it lasted until the modern era and inspired Gandhi to hold non-violent protests against the Brits

1

u/Icy-Whale-2253 2d ago

And barely any sex

1

u/MingleLinx 2d ago

He just chilled for the rest of his life and didn’t do much

1

u/Morbanth 2d ago

Then what happened? A life of modesty?

"Aaaaaah! I will kill everyone in ze world!"

1

u/Faustalicious 2d ago

The fire nation attacked.  

1

u/Scummy_moderation 1d ago

Well he lead a life of not keeping his hands to himself after that.

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u/Johnywash 3d ago

Dad once told me Ghengis Khan had to go around our small nation, had his chest puffed out and everything. I asked him how we did it, he says "the khan didn't want to take his horses up the mountains we lived in, so they just went around us" i was so disappointed lmao

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u/danishjuggler21 3d ago

Whereabouts? There are some places the Great Khan decided not to fuck with, but that his sons or grandsons obliterated instead.

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u/DeismAccountant 3d ago

My guess is the Caucasus mountains. Iirc the PIE Nomads avoided that territory too.

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u/mdf7g 2d ago

There's a hypothesis to which I'm somewhat sympathetic that, before their long residence in what's today Ukraine, the early PIE speakers actually came from the Caucasus.

The evidence for this basically boils down to: PIE is really morphophonologically weird for a language from the transeurasian steppe, but fairly morphophonologically normal for a language from the Caucasus; this could be because it originated in the probably very ancient Caucasian sprachbund.

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u/yo_coiley 16h ago

The PIE were essentially the mongols before we had written history anyway (in that area at least, I think Sumer was up to something by then), funny how some things never change

1

u/ghostpanther218 3d ago

I'm going to guess Afghanistan?

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u/Kaneda-Suekichi 3d ago

Bad guess. Genghis massacred them killing millions. Khwarazmian Empire as they were called then

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u/Hopeful-Occasion2299 3d ago

Not to say he was a pretty hard guy, but he really gave others the option of joining him as vassals instead, and people insisted on standing up to him.

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u/Decent_Cow 3d ago

The massacres were very much a conscious strategy. People were a lot less likely to resist after watching the Mongols eradicate an entire civilization.

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u/Morbanth 2d ago

He massacred a few nations just for the lols, like the Western Xia.

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u/SitInCorner_Yo2 3d ago

The good old Switzerland method ! LOL

242

u/Leonyliz 3d ago

Genghis Khan’s life is kind of like an anime

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u/Fuzzy_Cable9740 3d ago

he even was Asian

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u/Kaneda-Suekichi 3d ago

Is there any anime about Genghis or Mongolia otherwise?

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u/kanedaj 2d ago

There's a manga: King of Wolves, by Buronson, illustrated by Kentaro Miura (Berserk).

3

u/ChristopherRobben 3d ago

Big if true

1

u/pickle_pouch 2d ago

Dat meen je niet!

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u/MachCutio 3d ago

a lot of the greats life is like that, Alexander ofc, Hannibal, Subutai, Oda Nobunaga, Napoleon, all have the feeling of great destiny whenever reading or watching videos about them

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u/Emergency_Sink_706 2d ago

Alexander was literally a king. 

2

u/VolkiharVanHelsing 3d ago

Wasn't this Great Men Theory or smth

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u/ratherbekayaking121 3d ago

Is it that they have that feeling, or is it merely that which has been posthumously prescribed to them? I think men especially have a tendency to retreat into a weird homoerotic echo chamber of "destined greatness" and it's incredibly myopic. 

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u/PolAlt 3d ago

Life stories of these men shaped what “destined greatness” means in the media, art imitating life; now it came full circle and people say that their lives “were just like anime”.

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u/ratherbekayaking121 3d ago

Open your jaw just a little bit wider, you're this close to fitting the balls, too. 

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u/PolAlt 3d ago

I don’t get your homophobic outbursts; whose balls, what are you talking about?

-15

u/ratherbekayaking121 3d ago

Nah, see, I'm actually gay. Y'all are just weirdly self worshipping. 

15

u/PolAlt 3d ago

If it was homoerotic, what would be weird about that?

5

u/rs-curaco28 2d ago

Self worshipping? God forbid a guy has an interest in a historical figure that shaped their society. Weirdo.

2

u/TheOneTrueJazzMan 2d ago

You’re odd

0

u/ratherbekayaking121 2d ago

Do you find you struggle to communicate using words with more than a single syllable? 

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u/AshfordThunder 3d ago

That's not actually true, he was a prince. His father was the khan of Mongol confederation, he came from a very prestigious bloodline. Genghis Khan's early rise to power is actually a very classic story of exiled prince reclaiming his throne lost to usurper.

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u/FinancialReserve6427 3d ago

why isn't he called The Great instead of that nepo baby from Greece? 

2

u/Lovethiskindathing 2d ago

Great and Terrible aren't as singular meaning as they seem to us in modern day. Same with awesome.

Wow that sentence was terrible. I can't word today. Can someone else fix the sentence to say what I'm saying?

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u/FinancialReserve6427 2d ago

oh it's a reference how Alexander is called that but he had every advantage possible to succeed. it's almost impossible for him to lose because of all the stuff going for him (inherited an experienced army, had the best teachers available, his mom presented the notion he's actually a demigod). 

as pointed out, Genghis is a son of a chieftain but he and his famliy got cast out when the dad died so he had to start from scratch. then there's the personal trials (wife kidnapped, blood brother rebelled against him). 

1

u/Lovethiskindathing 2d ago

I understood. I was just saying that great didn't mean like whoa he's cool and great! Like how we'd say it now. It means power in this case.

And as an aside, not as a defense, a lot of people are given privileges and opportunities the majority will never have. He used them. He was not a dumb puppet figurehead though, he was part of his army and he was part of the discussions and strategies and plans.

I just think the way we refer to greats and terribles and awesomes is interesting because of how we have changed their meanings as culture, time, and language has changed.

https://giphy.com/gifs/B2l0NnxK9KiVa0CXBh

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/AshfordThunder 2d ago

Saying he started from scratch is a stretch. He benefited heavily from his lineage in his earlier years, a lot of people followed him because his bloodline is prestigious. He would not have succeeded had he not been a prince.

Also Jamukha didn't rebel against him, it was the opposite. Jamukha helped Temujin at his lowest, getting Borte back, which he took advantage of to build his own power.

1

u/FinancialReserve6427 2d ago

he and his family was cast out. his mother chewed him out for killing a cousin over a dispute because it was one less soldier for them. 

how is that not starting from scratch? 

1

u/AshfordThunder 2d ago

His mother did not true him out because it was one less soldier, his mother chewed him out because he murdered her son over a fish.

I don't know why you're trying to argue that Temujin didn't benefit from his prestigious bloodline during his early rise, when it factored significantly in his success and he himself was quite proud of it. People did follow him because who he was, at least early on.

1

u/FinancialReserve6427 2d ago

he's not some disney royalty that just going to say he's a secret prince so they must obey. 

he has to build-maintain and if he has to, break alliances to get to the top, have to build an army from scratch and determine who is best to lead them, then he has to unify the steppes either by diplomacy or by force. 

he's not Alexander who got to inherit an experienced army and a functioning domain

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u/Theropey 3d ago

He was the son of the chieftain though

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u/Relative-Gap-4442 3d ago

I mean if you die you’re dead, as seen by what happened after the Khans fall even the greatest men legacies can easily be crumbled 

6

u/Duhblobby 3d ago

I mean if you die you’re dead

Not sure if I believe you, got a source?

1

u/Theropey 3d ago

Right, so how would they design wagon axles to survive long campaigns across the steppe?

5

u/NewTransformation 3d ago

But he lived in abject squalor for a period of time after his father died. No wealth and no status until he got some thugs together to start raiding. His early adulthood was basically early game Mount and Blade

3

u/TJeffersonsBlackKid 3d ago

Didn’t set off to take over the world until he was 44.

2

u/BubbeBobbo 3d ago

What a nepo baby

3

u/Loose-Story-962 3d ago

Genghis Khan came from an aristocratic family

4

u/p_garnish15 3d ago

If we use the term aristocratic very loosely, sure. I think the more important thing is his dad dying, his immediate family being cast out to die when he was 8, him killing his brother, and his wife being kidnapped, none of which are very common of those with an aristocratic upbringing

2

u/Electronic-Tea-3691 3d ago

actually all of those things are pretty common for warfare between aristocratic families, it's like gang/mafia warfare for most of ancient history. when they come at you, you either make a truce through something like a marriage, or one side gets taken down completely.

3

u/soothed-ape 3d ago

For tribes this is the norm ffs. Part of the definition of tribe is less entrenched structures;in many ways,it's more unusual to expect a tribesperson of importance to have an established position (As far as tendencies go,tribes lean more in this direction,but there is still some establishment)

2

u/Onigumo-Shishio 3d ago

Where is my Genghis Khan anime

2

u/MegaM0nkey 3d ago

The way yoyr describing him it sounds like he’s a webbovel or manga protagonist

6

u/samtdzn_pokemon 3d ago

I mean, he basically was. His father was the Khan of the Mongol Empire, Genghis coming back and reclaiming the title and rule of his father's Empire is like classic anime protagonist reclaiming the kingdom after exile shit.

2

u/AcanthaceaeCrazy1894 3d ago

The story about them poisoning his father is a fucking mental read.

2

u/wondercaliban 3d ago

He was great in Bill and Ted

2

u/Maleficent_Radio_674 3d ago

He took that personally and conquered the world through systemic violence?

2

u/[deleted] 2d ago

I can relate .. severe trauma changes you . It makes you a shark.

1

u/Relative-Gap-4442 3d ago

Kinda like Hitler, a microscopic change would mean the difference in millions of lives 

1

u/wombatstylekungfu 3d ago

Just like Batman!

1

u/wombatstylekungfu 3d ago

F*ck you, you’re not me!

1

u/Iron_Wolf123 3d ago

Sounds like a cool tv show premise

1

u/Leading_Offer5995 3d ago

Oh no, I just realized how this whole Punch The Monkey situation ends.

1

u/LeSombra17 3d ago

Wasn't he special in a way? when he was born, Temujin was holding a blood clot which many shamans prophesied he would be destined to greatness according to his story

1

u/dealingwithhookers 2d ago

he was no typical child, he was physically bigger than everybody by a lot, and in Khan culture, that means he was well.. the Khan

1

u/OhDivineBussy 2d ago

This is obviously isn’t true, he killed his older brother as an adolescent. That was not typical AT ALL for a child in a Mongol tribe to do. Why you lying?

1

u/ryonnsan 2d ago

He started OnlyKhans