History Main / ChoresWithoutPowers

'''George''': — and if you want people to help you, Ron, I wouldn't chuck knives at them. Just a little hint.[[note]]Earlier in the conversation, Ron threw the sprout knife at Fred for asking if his new girlfriend Lavender had gotten brain damage when she agreed to date him.[[/note]]

*** During Christmas break, Harry and Ron aren't old enough yet to use magic outside of school, so they have to peel a mountain of sprouts for Christmas dinner with a sprout knife. Fred and George are old enough that they could do it with magic, but being the [[{{Troll}} trolls]] they are, they prefer teasing the younger boys.

'''George''': — and if you want people to help you, Ron, I wouldn't chuck knives at them. Just a little hint.[[note]]Earlier in the conversation, Ron throws the sprout knife at Fred for asking if his new girlfriend Lavender had gotten brain damage when she agreed to date him.[[/note]]

** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'': After Harry uses the Sectumsempra curse on Malfoy and ends up hospitalizing him, he is punished by being sent to the school's archive where he has to copy out the records of crimes and punishments from years ago without using magic.

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/Ben10 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2023_02_05_at_53651_pm.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:He's between a rock and a hard place.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty'': When the three good fairies go into hiding to raise Princess Aurora, they put away their wands, turn into humans and do everything the old-fashioned way for the next sixteen years, so Maleficent won't see their magic and find them. For Aurora's 16th birthday, Flora tries sewing a dress and Fauna tries baking a cake (with 15 layers!), but the dress is sized and stitched all wrong, and the cake ends up collapsing and melting. Merryweather finally gets out their wands and they make a beautiful dress and a lovely cake, but she and Flora get into a magic fight over whether Aurora's dress should be pink or blue. The resulting fireworks shoot up through the chimney and are seen by Maleficent's raven from afar, who reports back to his mistress that he's finally found Aurora.

* ''Fanfic/OneDayAtATimeFanfic'': During their visit to the Kent farm, after Jon and Damien end up fighting, Jason punishes them by having them clear all the manure out of the barn without Jon using his powers. However, [[LoopholeAbuse he didn't say no to using the manure vacuum]]...which Jon figures out. Since Jason had been listening in on them and knew they'd learned their lesson and become friends ''before'' Jon came up with this idea, he congratulates them on their clever thinking.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' villains-centric fanfic ''[[https://m.fanfiction.net/s/340327/1/ Back to Basics]]'', after their latest (off-screen) screw-up, Negaduck kicks Quackerjack and Megavolt out of the Fearsome Five. To get back in and stay alive, they have to steal something big worth his notice and deliver it to an old abandoned ammunition factory by midnight the next day without their gimmicks. So they choose to recruit a few non-superpowered criminals to help them pull off the heist, and use the internet to intercept F.O.W.L.'s latest scheme and get there first. And end up hounded by not only Darkwing but eventually others as well.

** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'': When Harry and Ron get detention for crashing the Weasley family's car into the Whomping Willow, Harry has to help Lockhart answer his fan mail, while Ron has to polish the silver in the Hogwarts trophy room using elbow grease. Harry comments that he'd gladly switch, as he's had lots of practice cleaning while living with the Dursleys. [[spoiler: This later gives the Trio a vital clue: Tom Riddle's name is on one of those trophies.]]

* In the ''Literature/FrontierMagic'' books, where magic has many [[MundaneUtility mundane uses]], the protagonist's sister has married a man who belongs to a movement that disapproves of magic. Out of loyalty to him, she does chores manually; as they're living in a prairie settlement, this is very hard work [[spoiler: and she is driven to betray her no-magic principles when it comes to protecting her children from mosquitoes]].

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E11WinterWrapUp Winter Wrap-Up]]", Twilight participates in Ponyville's annual Winter Wrap-Up, where the ponies clear away the snow, awaken the animals, and plant crops [[PaintingTheFrostOnWindows to make way for spring]]. Since Ponyville was founded by earth ponies, it is tradition to do the event without magic. Twilight is a unicorn who relies on magic to do most things, so she struggles to find something she can do without magic. When she sees everyone arguing over the disorganization of the event, it hits her what she can do — coordinate all the tasks and ponies so that everything gets done correctly and on time.

* ''Series/TheFlash'': When Barry is coping with being BroughtDownToNormal after his run in with Zoom in the episode "Recap/TheFlash2014S2E19BackToNormal", he is faced with doing all his lab work at the speed he had before the explosion. When he knocks his coffee cup off the table, all he can do is look at it fall and break, when, had he his power, catching it unbroken would have been a reflex reaction.

* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'': In the short "Survival Skills", Grandpa Max makes Ben start a campfire without using the Omnitrix. After trying unsuccessfully several times, he turns into Heatblast to do it, but Grandpa Max and Gwen come back before he can de-transform. They use him as the campfire and roast marshmallows over his head until he figures it out.

* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'': Students of the [[MagicalSociety Aes Sedai]] contribute to all the White Tower's menial work to [[MiseryBuildsCharacter enforce general discipline]], with extra chores assigned as punishment.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': The second edition had the spell "Protection from Cantrips" which [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin stops any and all cantrips]]. The spell description [[LampshadeHanging even acknowledges]] a primary purpose of the spell is to make wizard apprentices do chores without magic.

* ''WesternAnimation/WinxClub'': In the season 1 episode "Grounded", the main heroes are punished for sneaking into Cloud Tower in the previous episode by having to clean the whole school without their magic. They even have their powers [[BroughtDownToNormal temporarily taken away]] to make sure they stick to the punishment.
** In the same season but later on, headmistress Faragonda orders a librarian in Alfea to fix a mess that took place in the library with no magic, which seems to her like a hard thing to do.

** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with their [[MarsAndVenusGenderContrast male counterparts]], the Asha'man, who are forced to do ''all'' their chores [[MundaneUtility with the One Power]] in the belief that [[TrainingFromHell quick battle-readiness]] is worth the [[With greatPowerComesGreatInsanity attrition rate]]. If an Asha'man trainee can't channel heat to cook his food, he eats it cold.

** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with their [[MarsAndVenusGenderContrast male counterparts]] the Asha'man are forced to do ''all'' their chores [[MundaneUtility with the One Power]] in the belief that [[TrainingFromHell quick battle-readiness]] is worth the [[MagicMisfire attrition rate]]. If an Asha'man trainee can't channel heat to cook his food, he eats it cold.

* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'': Students of the [[MagicalSociety Aes Sedai]] contribute to all the White Tower's menial work to [[MiseryBuildsCharacter enforce general discipline]], with extra chores assigned as punishment. [[MarsAndVenusGenderContrast In contrast]], their male counterparts the Asha'man are forced to do ''all'' their chores [[MundaneUtility with the One Power]] in the belief that [[TrainingFromHell quick battle-readiness]] is worth the [[MagicMisfire attrition rate]].

* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'': In the short "Survival Skills" (which provides the page image), Grandpa Max makes Ben start a campfire without using the Omnitrix. After trying unsuccessfully several times, he turns into Heatblast to do it, but Grandpa Max and Gwen come back before he can de-transform. They use him as the campfire and roast marshmallows over his head until he figures it out.

Overlaps with PunishmentDetail, related to BroughtDownToNormal and MiseryBuildsCharacter, and a subversion of MundaneUtility and UtilityMagic. Compare WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture, where a science fiction setting features manual labor despite the presence of labor-saving devices like robots or {{Matter Replicator}}s. If the KidHero complains about having to do this, it may overlap with KidsHateChores. If these chores are part of physical training, it can overlap with WaxOnWaxOff.

-->-- '''Ima Goodlady''' (actually '''Sedusa''' in disguise), ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998''

-->-- '''Ima Goodlady''' (actually Sedusa in disguise), ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls''

* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'': In the short "Survival Skills" (which provides the page image), Grandpa Max makes Ben start a campfire without using the Omnitrix. After trying unsuccessfully several times, he turns into Heatblast to do it, but Grandpa Max and Gwen come back before he can de-transform. They use him as the campfire and roast marshmallows over his head until he can figure it out.