History Main / SacrificedBasicSkillForAwesomeTraining

* Julius Benedict (Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger) in the movie ''Film/{{Twins}}'' learned to speak 12 languages, and excelled in mathematics, history, science, and literature. Highly intelligent, but extremely naive about the real world which his more worldly brother inhabits.

* Naofumi from ''LightNovel/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'', having been LockedOutOfTheLoop due to his ignorance about MMORPG mechanics and a royal conspiracy to destroy him preventing him from sharing info with the other Four Heroes, went for ages completely in the dark about basic functions of his shield (including the ability to copy pre-existing weapons of the same type just by touching them and his shield's built-in ItemCrafting and [[WarpWhistle fast-travel]] functions,) being forced to do these things the long and hard way like any normal person. However, despite this handicap, he actually ends up ''stronger'' than the other Four Heroes due to his intense bitterness from being the victim of the aforementioned conspiracy causing him to unlock the [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Curse Series]].
** It also inverts in that, due to having to learn and do things like a normal person, Naofumi winds up actually being much better equipped to interact with the world, because he’s spent time learning the ins and outs of it, whereas the other three heroes were basically handed everything they needed on a silver platter, and instead focused on leveling up and powering up their weapons. For example, because he didn’t have access to the tools the other heroes had to learn magic easily, Naofumi had to study magical texts instead, which necessitated that he actually learn to read in the world’s language (the heroes’ weapons’ translation ability only applying to spoken language), which resulted in him being able to learn magic the other three were unable to access.

** Holding a Pokémon back from evolving leaves them with lower base stats (until they evolve, at least), but they learn many attacks sooner, or may even learn moves that their evolutions can't learn at all. This is most prominent for Pokémon which evolve with evolutionary stones; though there are exceptions, either the evolved Pokémon can't learn any more moves by level-up and must rely on TMs and Move Tutors (i.e. Raichu, Ninetales, Poliwrath), or their level-up learnsets are completely different from what the unevolved Pokémon can learn (i.e. Eevee's family).

* Shichika from ''LightNovel/{{Katanagatari}}'' spent his entire life training under his father to master Kyotoryuu on a deserted island. At the start of the series he has absolutely no knowledge of the outside world and can't even pick up the differences between other people. This seems to have been intentional on his father's part; a Kyotoryuu master is supposed to be a sword (not a swordsman) with no will of his own that someone else wields. Most of Shichika's CharacterDevelopment has him realizing that he is still a human and has a will of his own. Another side effect of Shichika's training is that he is completely unable to wield swords. This becomes an issue in episode 9 since the owner of that episode's Deviant blade is a kendo master who refuses to duel Shichika unless he is also armed and armored. At the last episodes, we discover that this trope is exaggerated: Shichika was the last product of an AncientConspiracy, the Kyotouryuu, the No Sword School, that wants to create the perfect swordsman (a man so powerful that he doesn’t need swords anymore), and he is the seventh generation of a school that had made the practicing of this martial art the principal motive of their lives. That means that Shichika is the last in line of five generations, each of them who were educated by a father who SacrificedBasicSkillForAwesomeTraining, meaning each generation had more and more problems with [[NoSocialSkills social skills]].

** Used well with characterization when Ash and Pikachu take on Lt. Surge and Raichu. After losing, Ash gets a Thunder Stone, allowing him to evolve Pikachu at any time with it, but Pikachu vehemently refuses to evolve to match Raichu. Turns out that in Lt. Surge's haste to evolve his Pikachu into a Raichu, it didn't learn basic attacks (especially ones involving speed). Bulbasaur and Squirtle also adopt this philosophy, but contrast Charizard who evolved as quickly as possible because of its low self-esteem. While Charizard goes into the Johto region as Ash's strongest Pokemon, he discovers a entire valley filled with Charizards much stronger than he is. This motivates Charizard and Ash to part ways so that Charizard can train there and realize its full potential.

*** Likewise, Zuko, who grew up in the same circumstances and spent three years at sea. He's a good Firebender and a good martial artist but when he has to help re-shingle a roof, he's awkwardly holding a hammer with two hands and bending all the nails. He also is significantly lacking in social skills. At least he usually has his down-to-earth uncle to help him get along...

[[folder:Radio]]
* On ''Radio/CabinPressure'', Martin knows very little about [[PopCulturalOsmosisFailure literature and pop culture]], has NoSocialSkills and is pitifully hopeless in a fight. He does have encyclopaedic knowledge of aeroplanes. Unfortunately for him, skill at operating an aeroplane was not part of the deal.

* In ''LightNovel/MushokuTensei'' disciples of the Sword God are usually illiterate. Ghyslaine, a MasterSwordsman and skilled adventurer who's a former companion of the main character's parents and even better than Rudeus' father, admits that this, along with her inability to do basic arithmetic, made life as a solo adventurer hard because it was so easy for merchants to trick her.

-->'''Ikaros''': You have three apples and four oranges. How many total pieces of-

-->'''Ikaros''': Okay, let's try again. Seven bananas-

* Threeboot Titanians, such as Threeboot Saturn Girl from the Comicbook/LegionOfSuperHeroes fall into this. Titanias are a highly evolved race of telepaths, highly skilled in mindreading, thoughtcasting, and ESP. However, over generations this faculty caused their offspring to born with underdeveloped, if not nonexistent, voice boxes. If not for telepathic speech, every single Titanian in existence would be a mute.

* ComicBook/{{Taskmaster}}'s ability to memorize fighting techniques simply by seeing them also has the downside of making him forget things unrelated to combat such as his memories or basic information. [[spoiler:This ability and its related downsides are passed onto his alleged daughter [[ComicBook/{{AvengersAcademy}} Finesse]]]].

* The only interest the titular ''Film/MajorPayne'' has that isn't related to the military is dancing, and he can't even tell a bedtime story to a six-year-old without it degenerating into the tale of how 'Bubba' lost his legs.

* Polish trilogy ''Wściekłe Pięści Węża'' features Roman Niemowa - a mad Romanian martial artist. Despite his name, he is not mute; his father instead of teaching him how to speak instead taught him how to fight.

* In the Literature/AlexVerus novels it's revealed that [[spoiler: Alex himself]] suffers from this. When he loses his powers briefly in ''Cursed'' it's revealed that he has serious trouble making logical connections and can barely walk straight without magical guidance.

* ''Literature/CradleSeries'': Yerin was adopted by the Sword Sage when she was a child, becoming his disciple--despite Sages historically ''never'' taking disciples. He raised her to follow his Path in the [[SupernaturalMartialArts sacred arts]], turning her into one of the most powerful sacred artists of her advancement level, and giving her a solid foundation to continue after he's gone. He didn't bother teaching her ''anything'' else, from [[NeverLearnedToRead reading]] to politics to geography. At the start of the story, she doesn't even know the name of the country she's in.

*** Rincewind is an odd example of this trope as applied to ''wizards'': having practically no capacity for magic whatsoever, he's had to become ''much'' more physically capable than your average wizard simply to survive [[EverythingTryingToKillYou in a world that seems to be actively trying to kill him.]] As a result, at the end of ''The Light Fantastic'', [[spoiler:he managed to defeat one of the [[EldritchAbomination Things from the Dungeon Dimensions]] - which was strong enough to ''[[TakenForGranite petrify]]'' several senior wizards - ''[[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu by punching it into submission.]]'']] He also solved the problem of the unstoppable Sourcerer, a fountainhead of magic, with a brick in a sock. He's not tough at all - just compared to most wizards, and has more importantly developed a talent for thinking in straight lines.

** It's also a common criticism of the books that no mention is made of typical school curriculum taught at Hogwarts. Somewhat justified; History and Chemistry seem to be focused exclusively on the History of Magic and Potions, which would be the more important versions of the subject to a wizard, Physics has basically gone out the window, and Biology is split between Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures. However, that also means that any Hogwarts student's Math, (Muggle) History, and Writing/English skills are pretty much capped off at the sixth grade. It's a wonder that any of them can do the complex conversions required for wizarding economics (though that might be covered by Arithmancy - and in any case, goblins run the wizarding economy), or the quite lengthy essays that are demanded of them by the Third year on.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Literature/FoundationSeries'': The Second Foundation abandoned attempts at developing any new advances in mechanical technology or the physical sciences, or even preserving most of the existing ones, instead focusing exclusively on developing psychohistory. As a result, they have PsychicPowers and can [[PrescienceByAnalysis predict the future with mathematics]], but they can't defend themselves against physical attack--which is why they have to stay hidden. And which is why, every hundred years or so, they must scramble to mind-wipe yet another person who threatens to develop an [[PokeInTheThirdEye anti-psychic field]], which, in-universe, is slightly less complicated than [[ScienceMarchesOn a button-and-a-dial remote control]].

* In the first Literature/SherlockHolmes story, ''Literature/AStudyInScarlet'', it's said that Holmes has next to no practical knowledge that isn't related to detective work. He professes surprise when Watson tells him that Earth revolves around the sun (and states his intention to forget about it as best he can, so as not to fill up his mind with irrelevant information- comparing it to a 'brain attic', and information with furniture). This part of his character was quickly dropped by the author, as by ''A Scandal in Bohemia'', Sherlock has quite a great deal of political knowledge (in contradiction to Watson's claim in ''Scarlet'' that Holmes' has a "feeble" grasp of politics), Holmes often peppers his speech with literature references, and, in any case, Holmes' ultimate career as a bee-keeper would suggest he's picked up the practical gardening knowledge that Watson claims he lacks. Then again, it's possible that this is the result of offstage CharacterDevelopment.

** Part of the reason Sherlock can cope on this level is that he's learned he doesn't have to specialise; where ''Sherlock'' seemed to basically keep track of everything he'd need to know for investigations on his own, in ''Elementary'' Sherlock has a group of experts- referred to as his 'Irregulars'- he can consult if a case requires specialised knowledge of particular subjects he wouldn't expect to deal with on a more regular basis (Mathematics, meteorology, computer hacking, etc.)

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In the episode "Mute" we have a young girl, orphaned in a house fire, who apparently cannot speak a word. She turns out to be completely telepathic. Unfortunately, a strictly conformist teacher forces the girl to be BroughtDownToNormal by forcing the girl to speak (which causes her to lose her gift).
* Parker from ''Series/{{Leverage}}''. An incredibly talented thief who plans complicated robberies the same way normal people do crosswords, she nonetheless has serious problems interacting with people on an everyday basis. Because of an abusive childhood ''(during which she may or may not have blown up her foster parents)'' and later being raised/trained by a master thief, she comes across in non-heist situations as awkward, disturbing, or somewhere in between. WordOfGod says that she's high-functioning autistic.
* Barney Stinson from ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' is highly skilled at the performing arts, speaks multiple languages, is a master manipulator and seducer, can write loophole-proof documents that a trained lawyer cannot work around, and his home is full of complex gadgets which he apparently designed himself. However, he is also shown to lack basic high school level knowledge (he conflates Spain with Italy), simple life skills like driving and using tools, and, despite being very socially adept in other areas, is unable to navigate a genuine romantic relationship or a serious dispute with his best friend without help.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Series/MarriedWithChildren''. In one episode Al trains Kelly to learn a bunch of sports trivia for a quiz show, and during the TrainingMontage we see basic life skills (like "Dinner first, then sex") literally exiting her brain.

* ''Series/StargateSG1'' has a version of this with a one-off race of [[HumanAliens aliens]]. The "awesome training" is instant learning from nanobots, which are imprinted with the information by specially selected children who basically act as information harvesters. The children are filled with these nanobots, then tasked with learning everything there is to know about a specific topic. Once the child reaches a certain age, the nanobots are harvested and spread to every member of the society - leaving the child essentially mindless. Learning is painless and thorough, but because the kids their information comes from are treated as pure data-gathering units, they never learn things like play, with the result that no one else on the planet learns it either; the concept of drawing something that isn't an exact diagram is utterly foreign to them.

* Games that use [[http://nc-gamers.com/pointbuy.aspx Point Buy]] for ability scores (such as ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'') can fall into this. A player can maximise their chosen ability score but have so few points left that the rest of their ability scores are average at best.
* Similarly largely averted in Fate-based games like ''TabletopGame/SpiritOfTheCentury'' or ''TabletopGame/TheDresdenFiles'', where a character who invests nothing in a skill generally still gets at least a Mediocre (+0) rank in it -- meaning they can still roll for it, the skill just doesn't add anything to the dice -- and it's not actually possible to lower this any further. In addition, because the skill system is pretty coarsely grained, most "regular" people will be only one or maybe two steps better than that in even their ''trained'' skills and likewise fall back to being Mediocre at everything else; {{player character}}s and major {{NPC}}s are ''already'' awesome just by virtue of being able to have more trained skills including some beyond that cap right from the word go.

* The rules for most TabletopGame/ProseDescriptiveQualities games are explicitly written to avert it - anything you don't have a better rank in, you have automatically at Average [+0], which is general competence that anyone has. You might not be a gourmet chef if you don't take a cooking Quality, but you can at least boil water or cook meat without burning it. Though you can still hyper-specialize to your detriment by overlapping your Qualities as much as possible. In ''Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies'', this may even be a good way to rack up [[ExperiencePoints Training Points]] quickly, by jumping in outside your area of expertise, because you only gain TP for failed rolls. Whether your party will appreciate it, on the other hand...

** A good example of this can be seen in VideoGame/DarkSouls3 when a fairly well-known patch came through and radically changed the Meta, removing many glitches and exploits that many players had been using to dominate player-versus-player combat. Characters built around using those glitches and exploits had to either respec or be completely abandoned. Additionally, characters built solely for PVP combat have a tendency to have difficulty clearing the game, while characters built around clearing the game tend to have issues with PVP combat.

* Most player characters of modern video games that are heavy on scripting, especially the ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' series. For example, Soap, from ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare''. Highly trained SAS operator. [[OneManArmy Can shred through dozens of baddies in a matter of minutes.]] [[InsurmountableWaistHighFence Cannot open a door.]]
* Similarly to Sangaril, Zevran from ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' was raised as an assassin by the Antivan crows. He alludes to not having many skills apart from this. You can suggest (at a different point) that he would make a good prostitute, which makes him laugh.
* Starkiller from ''VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed'' was raised his whole life by Darth Vader as his personal assassin, and as a result is unsure how to act around his lovely pilot, Juno Eclipse. It's also a miracle that he successfully impersonated a Jedi and rallied The Emperor's enemies into The Rebel Alliance.

*** Likewise, Zuko, who grew up in the same circumstances and spent three years at sea. He's a good Firebender and a good martial artist but when he has to help re-shingle a roof, he's awkwardly holding a hammer with two hands and bending all the nails. He also is significantly lacking in social skills. At least he usually has his down-to-earth uncle to help him get along…

* Agram, the BigBad of WesternAnimation/MagiNation long ago traded his sight for power over Void Energy. After [[TheMentor Orwin]] is brainwashed into his service, Agram uses his staff to restore it, but the staff is broken as the episode goes on, [[StatusQuoIsGod rendering him blind once more]].

* An actual gameplay element in ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'': Since your HUD is a DiegeticInterface and all your HUD elements are added by chips, you can sacrifice bits of your HUD to make more room for chips that give combat buffs. The actual gains are quite small, but if you're good enough the HUD isn't that ncessary either.

* Invoked in ''VideoGame/NierAutomata''. Since your HUD is a DiegeticInterface and all your HUD elements are added by chips, you can sacrifice bits of your HUD to make more room for chips that give combat buffs.
* Mitsuru in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' has spent her life learning how to fight shadows and take over the Kirijo group when the time comes. She is absolutely hopeless when it comes to day to day common activities such as normal friendships, dating, small things like fast food or considering her own goals for the future.

* Threeboot Titanians, such as Threeboot Saturn Girl from the Comicbook/{{Legion of Super-Heroes}} fall into this. Titanias are a highly evolved race of telepaths, highly skilled in mindreading, thoughtcasting, and ESP. However, over generations this faculty caused their offspring to born with underdeveloped, if not nonexistent, voice boxes. If not for telepathic speech, every single Titanian in existence would be a mute.

* In ''LightNovel/MushokuTensei'' disciples of the Sword God are usually illiterate. Ghyslaine admits that this, along with her inability to do basic arithmetic, made life as a solo adventurer hard because it was so easy for merchants to trick her.

* This is defied in ''MHAAnAshuraIsBorn''. Izuku's trainer explicitly says he cannot grow up with no education just to focus on his martial arts training.

* Ippo from ''Manga/HajimeNoIppo'' is the best infighter in Japan, and possibly even the world. However, he's accomplished this by all but ignoring the skills that would make him a well-rounded fighter, to focus his training only into increasing his devastating punching power and his inhuman endurance, and almost nothing else. [[JustifiedTrope This isn't a decision that was made lightly,]] as Ippo and his coach knew that wasting precious training time building well-rounded skills that would be wasted on Ippo's unique body and personality would [[MasterOfNone make him a worse fighter overall.]] Instead, spending all their effort building his strengths directly would have the highest chances of success.

* Ippo from ''Manga/HajimeNoIppo'' is the best infighter in Japan, and possibly even the world. However, he's accomplished this by all but ignoring the skills that would make him a well-rounded fighter, to focus his training only into increasing his devastating punching power and his inhuman endurance, and almost nothing else.
** Ippo and his coach had given effort to make Ippo into a well-rounded fighter, but had realized that such a choice would be less effective than just training him into the best pure infighter they could because: A) Ippo has a very small physique and very short reach, making him extremely effective in close range but the exact opposite otherwise. B) Ippo is a "top of the top" tier hard-puncher with "inhuman endurance," thus wild brawling, such as trading hits, will be extremely to his advantage C) Ippo just wasn't born to be an outfighter, unable to match the skills of other top-notch boxers in outfighting D) Ippo and his coach are the type of people who cry 'gutsu gutsu', often, almost to the degree of "Throw in the towel? Better to die!"

* Agra’s, the BigBad of WesternAnimation/MagiNation long ago traded his sight for power over Void Energy. After [[TheMentor Orwin]] is brainwashed into his service, Agram uses his staff to restore it.

[[quoteright:200:[[Webcomic/{{Goblins}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Goblins_Sacrificed_Skill_4904.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:200:Worth it.]]

* Jin from ''Anime/SamuraiChamploo'' fits this to a T. Trained from childhood in a high-level and super purist dojo, by age 20 he's a fearsome, near-unbeatable kenjutsu prodigy who can't cook, catch fish, hold a conversation (especially with women), or drink more than two shots of sake without falling asleep. He does get better once he has to.

** In ''TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil'', this is a frequent issue [[SerialKiller Slashers]] have; many focused so much on learning to kill and murder people they actually lost basic social skills, making them unable to empathize or interact with people in a peaceful way.

If the character has developed awesome abilities and lacks important skills due to a mental difference rather than TrainingFromHell, they may be an IdiotSavant or TheRainman. When what is sacrificed is common sense or social skill, it may lead to the creation of a BunnyEarsLawyer. Compare UnskilledButStrong. See also CripplingOverspecialization.

* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series has the [[OldMaster Greybeards]] of High Hrothgar, a monastery atop the Throat of the World, Tamriel's tallest mountain. The Greybeards are masters of the [[MakeMeWannaShout Thu'um]], the [[OurDragonsAreDifferent draconic]] LanguageOfMagic. The Greybeards have trained their voices to such an incredible extent that even a ''misplaced whisper'' could kill a person, thus they have to live in seclusion and rarely speak (with Arngeir, their human leader, being an exception). They play a major part in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'', where they summon the [[PlayerCharacter Dragonborn]] to High Hrothgar for training in the Thu'um. When they speak in full voice to summon the Dragonborn to High Hrothgar, ''all of Skyrim hears it''. Even when they greet the Dragonborn with a politely whispered "Dovahkiin", ''the whole mountain shakes'' from the force of it. It should be noted that this [[GamePlayAndStoryIntegration isn't just lore fluff]], the four Greybeards are some of the highest level-[=NPCs=] in the game, with Arngeir sitting pretty at level 150.