History Main / CompetencePorn

* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'': The moment it dawns on Penny that the bunch of nerds across the hall are actually quite effectual and hyper-competent --when they're dealing with their own areas of expertise.

* ''Series/{{Community}}'': {{Inverted}} in [[Recap/CommunityS3E05HorrorFictionInSevenSpookySteps "Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps"]]. Abed's story is an inversion: sure, the heroic characters are (by slasher victim standards) hyper-competent, but the (InUniverse) audience (other than Troy) hates this.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'':
** This is the main draw of the franchise for many. Professional people from a variety of fields act professionally and work together to solve problems by the end of the episode.
** Some newer Trek stuff is controversial with the old fans for the characters acting less professionally and competently and getting by more on luck and {{Indy Ploy}}s.

* ''Film/OceansEleven'' and its sequels each have a team of [[GentlemanThief Gentleman Thieves]] working together to pull off TheHeist. The thrill was seeing how these crooks manipulate and worm their way and use the UnspokenPlanGuarantee to their advantage to pull the rug under the feet of both their mark and the audience, generating suspense and thrill, as opposed to earlier heist films, [[spoiler:in a perfectly executed heist]].

At least one key character, and possibly most of the main cast, will be a ConsummateProfessional.

* ''Manga/DrStone'': The building montages are full of this trope.

* ''Fanfic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality'' is probably the best example of competence porn in fanfic form.

* ''Film/FordVFerarri'' is about expert drivers, designers and mechanics building a top tier race car to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. You see a little bit of everything from the new high power motor to discussions about brake assemblies and the precision driving needed to make it work the way it needs to.

* ''LightNovel/TheIrregularAtMagicHighSchool'': The Yotsuba clan is a rare example of the "shadowy crime family that controls an entire country" trope that is ''just as badass'' as they are said to be if not more. Inter-clan conflict is the only real obstacle any Yotsuba character faces, and even then it doesn't stop them from accomplishing every goal they put their mind to- including enslaving a PhysicalGod.

* ''TabletopGame/BladesInTheDark': The gamebook explicitly instructs players to play out their characters as daring, bold, ambitious, and ready to take big chances to live a bigger life, while literally telling the GameMaster, "Don't make the [=PCs=] look incompetent", and instead to explain their failures with overwhelming odds stacked against them.

* ''Anime/NoGameNoLife'': The series follows "Blank", a brother-sister team of hardcore gamers who are unbeatable as long as they work together. The appeal of the series is watching the various ways they deduce how the rules of their opponents' games work, figuring out if and how said opponent is cheating, and then outwit their opponent to win the game. As a bonus, they ALSO outwit their opponents AFTER the game is over, such as using ExactWords to reinterpret the rewards for winning.

Competence porn is a term invented by ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' writer Creator/JohnRogers (see [[http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/08/leverage-204-fairy-godparents-job-post.html here]]) and used by a lot of [[{{Review}} critics]] since --read [[[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3bj5bk/the-martian-is-pure-pleasurable-competence-porn-1002 here]], [[https://www.wired.com/2009/10/admit-it-you-love-competence-porn-too/ here]], [[https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/02/the-martian-sherlock-holmes-and-why-we-love-competence-porn/ here]], and [[[http://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/schedule-for-wednesday-october-28-2015-1.3291976/competence-porn-why-we-like-to-watch-experts-do-things-we-can-t-1.3291978 here]]. It's the thrill of watching bright, talented people plan, banter, and work together to solve problems. It's not just "characters being good at a thing," particularly if that thing is fighting--otherwise the term would apply to virtually all fiction--but specifically about using cleverness and hard work. Though the term mostly applies to realistic dramas, there's an element of WishFulfillment to it, as characters in a competence porn series rarely have to deal with serious infighting, dead end ideas, VastBureaucracy and the other difficulties that affect real life groups. As a result, competence porn is overwhelmingly featured in works on the idealistic end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism.

Not to be confused with the CompetenceZone or with actual [[UsefulNotes/{{Pornography}} porn]]. Compare ATeamMontage, which is this in montage form, CatharsisFactor, TheBeautifulElite, and AsskickingLeadsToLeadership. Also compare RationalFic, which applies this to an existing work.

Competence porn is a term invented by ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' writer Creator/JohnRogers (see [[http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/08/leverage-204-fairy-godparents-job-post.html here]]) and used by a lot of [[{{Review}} critics]] since --read [[[[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3bj5bk/the-martian-is-pure-pleasurable-competence-porn-1002 here]], [[https://www.wired.com/2009/10/admit-it-you-love-competence-porn-too/ here]], [[https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/02/the-martian-sherlock-holmes-and-why-we-love-competence-porn/ here]], and [[[[http://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/schedule-for-wednesday-october-28-2015-1.3291976/competence-porn-why-we-like-to-watch-experts-do-things-we-can-t-1.3291978 here]]. It's the thrill of watching bright, talented people plan, banter, and work together to solve problems. It's not just "characters being good at a thing," particularly if that thing is fighting--otherwise the term would apply to virtually all fiction--but specifically about using cleverness and hard work. Though the term mostly applies to realistic dramas, there's an element of WishFulfillment to it, as characters in a competence porn series rarely have to deal with serious infighting, dead end ideas, VastBureaucracy and the other difficulties that affect real life groups. As a result, competence porn is overwhelmingly featured in works on the idealistic end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism.

Competence porn is a term [[http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/08/leverage-204-fairy-godparents-job-post.html invented]] by ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' writer Creator/JohnRogers and [[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3bj5bk/the-martian-is-pure-pleasurable-competence-porn-1002 used]] by [[https://www.wired.com/2009/10/admit-it-you-love-competence-porn-too/ a]] lot [[https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/02/the-martian-sherlock-holmes-and-why-we-love-competence-porn/ of]] critics [[http://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/schedule-for-wednesday-october-28-2015-1.3291976/competence-porn-why-we-like-to-watch-experts-do-things-we-can-t-1.3291978 since]]. It's the thrill of watching bright, talented people plan, banter, and work together to solve problems. It's not just "characters being good at a thing," particularly if that thing is fighting--otherwise the term would apply to virtually all fiction--but specifically about using cleverness and hard work. Though the term mostly applies to realistic dramas, there's an element of WishFulfillment to it, as characters in a competence porn series rarely have to deal with serious infighting, dead end ideas, VastBureaucracy and the other difficulties that affect real life groups. As a result, competence porn is overwhelmingly featured in works on the idealistic end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism.

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' was described by Creator/GrantMorrison as hyper-competent in his Justice League phase, and even then a good part of the appeal of the "World's Greatest Detective" and his stories was seeing him use and apply his intelligence, skills, and resources to come out on top against every enemy and challenge no matter how dire and outmatched he is. This also applies to his supporting cast who are all at the top of their game, Commissioner Gordon, Alfred, Lucius Fox, Oracle, with the KidSidekick Robin originally being created as an AudienceSurrogate precisely to provide an emotional center to his stories and an element of vulnerability.

* ''Series/{{Community}}'': {{Inverted}} in [[Recap/CommunityS3E05HorrorFictionInSevenSpookySteps Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps]]. Abed's story is an inversion: sure, the heroic characters are (by slasher victim standards) hyper-competent, but the (InUniverse) audience (other than Troy) hates this.

* ''TabletopGame/BladesInTheDark'' explicitly instructs players to play out their characters as daring, bold, ambitious, and ready to take big chances to live a bigger life, while literally telling the GameMaster, "Don't make the [=PCs=] look incompetent", and instead to explain their failures with overwhelming odds stacked against them.
* The rulebook for ''[[{{UsefulNotes/Fate}} Fate Core]]'' says this regarding player characters: "Characters in a game of ''Fate'' are good at things. They aren't bumbling fools who routinely look ridiculous when they're trying to get things done--they're highly skilled, talented, or trained individuals who are capable of making visible change in the world they inhabit."

* Many ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' games set in modern times, such as the ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' trilogy and later [[VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2019 2019 remake]] usually place the player in the role of military elite, allowing them to fight alongside other competent and professional soldiers armed with high-tech equipment and reams of long-distance support.
* ''VideoGame/GhostReconFutureSoldier'' could essentially be summarized as "stone-cold and extremely put together badasses stop a coup in Russia, and then allow the Russians to take credit for it with nary a flinch".
* ''VideoGame/HomeworldDesertsOfKharak'' has this every time you're on a mission with your allies from Kiith Siidim, whether the Sakala is saving your lives via distractions and timely airstrikes or the Kapisi is being TheCavalry for them, to say nothing of what happens when both forces team up and push back against the Gaalsi.
* ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonorWarfighter'' has a lot of dramatised missions involving "Tier-One Operators" strategically taking out terrorist threats in a no-nonsense manner.

* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'': The moment it dawns on Penny that the bunch of nerds across the hall are actually quite effectual and hyper-competent - when they're dealing with their own areas of expertise.

* The documentary ScienceShow ''Series/HowItsMade'' is nothing but footage of people [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin expertly making things]].

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':

* ''Film/TheBigShort'': The film is about [[TheCassandra various people in the finance industry who saw the 2008 financial crisis coming before anyone else did]] and used this knowledge to become rich while the world entered the worst economic recession in nearly a century. Of course, [[GreyAndGreyMoralitywhether they were right]] to do this is up for debate.

* ''Film/Apollo13''. You already know how it ends. And you probably already know the gist of how three astronauts and their thousands of support staff on the ground cooperated to get a crippled spacecraft back to Earth. What the movie gives you is the chance to watch how they do it.
* In UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood, Creator/HowardHawks was credited with making movies about professionals who approach their work with confidence, spirit, fun, and resourcefulness. Movies like ''Film/OnlyAngelsHaveWings, Film/HisGirlFriday, Film/ToHaveAndHaveNot, Film/RioBravo'' all had hypercompetent professionals and team-mates banter with each other as the plot focused on how they approached a job.

* ''Film/NowYouSeeMe'' operates in a very similar manner to the above example, having hyper-competent [[StageMagician magicians]] known as "The Four Horsemen" robbing and swindling corrupt businesses and [[JustLikeRobinHood giving their money to the everyday-folk of the world.]] Even when it seems like they've completely fallen into the villain's trap, the UnspokenPlanGuarantee swoops in at the last minute to show that everything had always gone according to their plan.
* ''Film/{{Spotlight}}'' is about a team of journalists doing their due diligence to uncover the full extent of the Catholic Church's child sex abuse scandal in Boston.
* ''Film/TheBigShort'' is about [[TheCassandra various people in the finance industry who saw the 2008 financial crisis coming before anyone else did]] and used this knowledge to become rich while the world entered the worst economic recession in nearly a century. [[GreyAndGreyMorality Of course, whether or not they were right to do this is up for debate]].

* ''Literature/{{Gate}}'' focuses on Japan's military and its efforts in exploring a fantasy world on the other side of a portal. The soldiers involved are depicted as an extremely competent, organised and rational fighting force, with half the fun being the sheer catharsis of skewering the cliche of RockBeatsLaser with a hefty helping of combined arms.
* ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell'' focuses on an elite police unit, but this gets emphasized in the ''[[Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex Stand Alone Complex]]'' sub-series, which shows Section 9 at their best, as a cautious and talented team of counter-terrorists who often out-think, out-hack, and out-politic the antagonists. Even at their most dire, the members always make sure they put up a fight to the last.
* ''Manga/Golgo13'' depicts the world's best sniper, and the reason for his success isn't just because of his reflexes. Many of his hits show the slow and methodical process of him researching and preparing for his shot, which makes the payoff all the sweeter when his various targets and rivals, who were so assured of their strategies, realize they've been outplayed.
* ''Manga/{{Jormungand}}'': Many of the show's curbstomps are because Koko's team of bodyguards are mainly composed of ex-military, and thus accomplish their job with a precision and professionalism many of their enemies lack. Koko herself is a shrewd strategist and businesswoman who regularly proves she's a braver and better player in the arms-dealing business than her self-styled rivals.

* ''LightNovel/NoGameNoLife'': The series follows "Blank", a brother-sister team of hardcore gamers who are unbeatable as long as they work together. The appeal of the series is watching the various ways they deduce how the rules of their opponents' games work, figuring out if and how said opponent is cheating, and then outwit their opponent to win the game. As a bonus, they ALSO outwit their opponents AFTER the game is over, such as using ExactWords to reinterpret the rewards for winning.

* ''Series/{{Leverage}}'', the indirect TropeNamer, is about a gang of [[JustLikeRobinHood Robin Hood types]] who use their specialized talents to pull off elaborate con games, outsmarting a new AssholeVictim each week. Complications are cleanly overcome by the end, assuming they weren't [[UnspokenPlanGuarantee actually part of the plan from the beginning]].
* ''Series/MadMen'': Don, and to a lesser extent the other creatives at Sterling Cooper, is an appealing character, despite his many major flaws (that include a propensity for adultery, alcoholism and narcissism), because he's so damn good at his job.

** This is the main draw of the franchise for many. Professional people from a variety of fields acting professionally and working together to solve problems by the end of the episode.

* ''Series/TheWestWing'' is all about White House staffers coping with world-class political, social, even historical crises every week. The main cast is also, to the last person, incredibly intelligent, idealistic, and incorruptible, and their political agendas are almost always to the service of their country, and not for their own profit.

* ''Literature/TheMartian'' and its film version are basically nothing but this--it's two hours of teams of scientists and engineers trying to bring Mark Watney home from Mars after he's stranded there by a freak storm. If anything, the book goes into even more detail about the science and math involved.

* Literature/SherlockHolmes, in almost all his incarnations, has nearly superhuman powers of deduction.
* ''LightNovel/TheIrregularAtMagicHighSchool'' series has the Yotsuba clan, a rare example of the "shadowy crime family that controls an entire country" trope that is ''just as badass'' as they are said to be, if not more. Inter-clan conflict is the only real obstacle any Yotsuba character faces, and even then it doesn't stop them from accomplishing every goal they put their mind to- including enslaving a PhysicalGod.
* The ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' are essentially ideal coworkers. If you've ever wondered what a group could do without pesky real life problems- bureaucracy, laziness, traitors, lack of funding- getting in the way, the series is for you. Also they are adored by all and get to ride cool white horses. Notably, [[AudienceSurrogate Talia]] fantasized about being ''saved'' from her crappy life by Heralds long before she started dreaming of ''becoming'' one.
* Frequently commented on by characters in the Literature/VorkosiganSaga. Competent themselves, all the Vorkosigans are great at recruiting teams of hypercompetent colleagues. Standouts include Elena, Tung and Quinn (military), Illyan (intelligence), Bothari, Drou, Pym and Roic (bodyguards), and Lieutenant Bone and Tsipis (accountants!). Not to mention Cordelia, Alys, Ekaterin and the whole Koudelka clan, none of whom are employees but definitely on Team Vorkosigan. Miles even muses "I adore competent women," and wonders if the diplomat he's thinking of has a sister.

** On the Retributor side, they are LightningBruisers to a marine; quickly and mercilessly killing their way through the ship, sweeping aside fortified resistance while rarely slowing to less than a fast walk.

* ''Fanfic/HeroClassCivilWarfare'' puts Izuku's planning and management skills front and centre, showing how a team filled with a disparate set of powers can be effective, as opposed to a poorly-led team that banks on winning fights with raw brute force.
* In ''Fanfic/HellsisterTrilogy'', Darkseid is an extremely thorough and skillful schemer, manipulator, and war leader who always stresses to his minions the importance of ''never'' underestimating their enemies. During the Apokolips War, he never loses sight of his real goals and proves that he is prepared for anything when [[spoiler:it is revealed that he had spare clone bodies primed just in case he was defeated and his original body destroyed]].

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/TIEFighter'': It shows the Galactic Empire, for once, not suffering from troops dying en masse ineffectively or having terrible aim, and wins a battle as a result, due to being genuinely more dangerous than the Rebellion.
[[/folder]]

* ''Fanfic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality'' is probably the best example of a competence porn in fanfic form.

* In ''Fanfic/HellsisterTrilogy'', Darkseid is an extremely thorough and skillful schemer, manipulator and war leader who always stresses to his minions the importance of ''never'' underestimating their enemies. During the Apokolips War he never loses sight of his real goals and proves that he is prepared for anything when [[spoiler:it is revealed that he had spare clone bodies primed just in case that he was defeated and his original body destroyed]].

* The ''WebAnimation/{{Astartes}}'' videos are a ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bko5GgK5v8 fan series]] that basically shows a bunch of no-nonsense Space Marines deal with the remnants of a uprising without any fuss or drama, exactly as they would normally. Even their ''enemies'' show remarkable tactical acumen, trying to kill the Astartes with more than the usual ZergRush.
** On the Retributor side, they are LightningBruisers to a marine; quickly and mercilessly killing their way through the ship, sweeping aside fortified resistance while rarely slowing to less than a fast walk.
** The ship's armsmen are tenacious and callous in equal regard; rather than continue to blast away with ineffective autoguns and lasguns, the armsmen tactically retreat until they can get behind sandbag walls and bring to bear heavy weapons (including a rocket launcher and a heavy machine gun) and trying to suicide bomb the marines with what look to be anti-tank mines.
** The above efforts turns out to be ploys to buy time for their compatriots to set up ambushes with even more firepower, including crew-served weapons like an autocannon and later a twin-multilaser.
* ''WebAnimation/TIEFighter'' shows the Galactic Empire, for once, not suffering from troops dying en masse ineffectively or having terrible aim, and wins a battle as a result, due to being genuinely more dangerous than the Rebellion.

* Restoration channels, such as WebVideo/BaumgartnerRestoration (art conservation), or those with focuses on cleaning and fixing things in general.

* The earlier seasons of ''WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters'' - every 'buster got a chance to come up with the plan or have the insight to capture the episode's ghost. This faded as SeasonalRot and {{Flanderization}} set in, though there were still flashes of this in specific episodes.

Competence porn is a term [[http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/08/leverage-204-fairy-godparents-job-post.html invented]] by ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' writer Creator/JohnRogers and [[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3bj5bk/the-martian-is-pure-pleasurable-competence-porn-1002 used]] by [[https://www.wired.com/2009/10/admit-it-you-love-competence-porn-too/ a]] lot [[https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/02/the-martian-sherlock-holmes-and-why-we-love-competence-porn/ of]] critics [[http://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/schedule-for-wednesday-october-28-2015-1.3291976/competence-porn-why-we-like-to-watch-experts-do-things-we-can-t-1.3291978 since]]. It's the thrill of watching bright, talented people plan, banter, and work together to solve problems. It's not just "characters being good at a thing," particularly if that thing is fighting--otherwise the term would apply to virtually all fiction--but specifically about using cleverness and hard work. Though the term mostly applies to realistic dramas, there's an element of WishFulfillment to it, as characters in a competence porn series rarely have to deal with serious infighting, dead end ideas, VastBureaucracy and the other difficulties that affect real life groups.

Not to be confused with the CompetenceZone or with actual [[UsefulNotes/{{Pornography}} porn]]. Compare ATeamMontage, which is this in montage form, CatharsisFactor, TheBeautifulElite, and AsskickingEqualsAuthority. Also compare RationalFic, which applies this to an existing work.