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A plot carefully constructed to use all the character-specific skills or abilities of the ensemble.
For example, if your team plays Elemental Rock Paper Scissors, they're going to have to face a water trap, a fire trap, an air trap, and an earth trap.
As a plot, it's a double-edged sword; don't do it, and someone gets left out. Do it too often, and it looks like the bad guys conspiring with the good guys to tailor their defenses to the heroes' strengths. Also, when one of the heroes has a lame power, there has to be a really bizarre obstacle in there to require his ability.
Frequently comes up in a Tournament Arc, where the heroes will have to pair off against their equal and opposite villains.
Most often occurs in series with heavy Super Hero Speciation. Can be the result of a Thematic Rogues Gallery. A good hypothetical example is if the Justice League had to destroy a nuclear threat. Superman and other flying members would take out the strategic bombers, the un-launched missiles would go to the grounded members, such as Batman, and the sub-launched missiles would go to Aquaman.
As a variation, this may apply to multiple abilities or items which a single character has; each item or ability will always find some contrived use.
Named for a concept in linear algebra. If you speak Math, the people at the Other Wiki will share their thoughts with you on the topic. If you speak less Math, Irregular Webcomic may help more. In English: For each person on the team, there will be one and exactly one problem that calls for that person's specialty.
Compare This Looks Like A Job For Aquaman, which is when the plot improbably makes use of a single character's abilities.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- The manga version of the Mew Aqua arc in Tokyo Mew Mew had the aliens taking a mew aqua into the realm of each of the girls' influences (for example, Mew Mint, whose power is air, had a chapter with a mew aqua floating above Tokyo Tower), as they tried to use it to fuel a Death Trap for both the girls and the rest of the city. It never ended up working. In the anime, though, this was abandoned and Ichigo got every single mew aqua, ignoring the other girls' elemental advantages.
- Digimon is often using it in a not too direct example, but still. In the first series (and second, and pretty much any) the Digimon would only evolve when their DigiDestined proved their specific most remarkable trait like love or honesty.
- The nightmarishly depressing mecha series Bokurano has a few examples. When the kid who's good at solving problems is chosen as the pilot (against his will, mind you), he happens to face a particularly strategically inclined opponent and is perhaps the only one able to unravel its tactics while successfully defending against them. Later, the emo kid chooses not to fight his opponent, which would doom the planet, but his opponent intentionally kills itself.
- One Piece uses a fair number of these to drive home the theme of relying on friends. Every arc will have several fights and situations that will show off the varied skills (combat and otherwise) of the protagonists.
Comics
- Double-subverted in an issue of Fantastic Four - Cosmic beings conduct an experiment on the team, suppressing their primary characteristics (Reed's intellect, Johnny's temper, Ben's courage and Sue's compassion.) Lo and behold, each one is presented with a challenge that is suited to a secondary characteristic - a monster protecting her child stirs Ben's compassion, an illusion suppressing Johnny's powers causes him to demonstrate surprising smarts, a battery of laser cannons forces Sue to summon up her courage, and an airtight cell forces Reed to tap his normally sublimated aggression to break free.
- Subverted again with one of Doctor Doom's death traps for Reed, a simple corridor that keeps getting narrower and narrower, doors progressively sealing the way back. Reed is forced to push his stretching abilities to their limits in order to keep going... only to find a dead end.
Film
- Parodied in Mystery Men and Sky High.
- In the climax of Sky High, a situation arose for each one of "sidekick" characters to show off their fairly useless powers. Zach, whose only ability was to glow in the dark, had his moment when he was used as a human flashlight by the protagonists escaping through a dark tunnel. Ethan used his ability to turn into a puddle to get the drop on a bully through a clever use of misdirection. Magenta, who could shapeshift - but only into a purple guinea pig - used her power to crawl through a small ventilation shaft and and disable a bomb . And finally, the girl who could manipulate plants fought a cheerleader that could make duplicates of herself ineffectually until the windows broke and the plants came in to aid their mistress.
- Zoom: Academy for Superheroes (which regrettably came out about the same time as Sky High) shows the skeleton of its plot a little too often. The worst example of this is in the Climactic Battle, which isn't so much a battle as a recital. The Big Bad talks big for a few minutes, then gets hit by every main character's power exactly once, which puts him exactly where he needs to be so they can Finish Him.
- In the first Harry Potter movie, the sequences of flying keys and life size chessboard, allow Harry, Ron and Hermione to demonstrate their abilities. In the book, there were several other challenges, such as an angry troll that was supposed to be a guard, but was knocked out by the previous entrant, that made this fact less visible.
- Justified in Paycheck the movie, as the main character was part of a team of researchers who reverse engineered a machine for viewing the future he was able to fill his pockets w/ just the right random crap to get himself out of the series of perilous booby traps, assassination attempts, and relationship problems that plagued he the rest of the film. Note that this was the only thing justified about this movie.
- The James Bond movies feature a variant type; whatever inventions Q cooks up for 007, they're always precisely what he needs for the mission. He never finishes the movie with an unused gadget, and he never needs more than one copy of a given device.
- Parodied by Eddie Izzard: "Bond never gets back and goes 'Q, I had a lot of shit I didn't fucking use! The watch that turns into a hamster, what was the point of that?' "
- Perhaps unintentionally (and definitely annoyingly) subverted in Goldeneye, where Q spends some length describing Bond's new ride, a BMW Z3, in which Q proudly proclaims has Stinger missiles behind the headlamps. What pivotal role does this vehicle play? About 30 or so seconds of James Bond driving in it before he exchanges it with Jack Wade for a plane.
- This was unintentionally subverted - the deal with BMW was done late in the film's development, ie, too late to give the car a role in the film but early enough that it had to be included at all.
- The animated series, James Bond Junior, did the above in practically every episode. Though the gadgets were received from IQ, not Q.
- Terry Gilliam's film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
Folk Lore
- The Russian folk tale The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship follows this model perfectly, making this Older Than Print. On his way to win a princess' hand in marriage, the Fool is obligated to pick up anyone who asks to come along with him. Each person he meets has a different bizarre skill, and each one saves his life once when he reaches the Czar and is subjected to various death traps and impossible tests.
- Similar situation: the fairy tale The Seven Simons is about seven brothers named Simon, each of whom has one skill at which he excels — building an unbelievably fast ship, for example, or retrieving a piece of game no matter where it fell. Very specialized brothers, they are, and each skill just happens to be essential to winning the hand of a princess.
- As well, The Seven Chinese Brothers tells about seven brothers who are all identical, and each of whom has a powerful ability (hearing, strength, weeping) or immunity (to fire, to cold, etc.) All of these powers allow them to evade execution and live happily ever after.
- Yet another variation on this theme is the Grimm Brothers' tale The Six Men Who Went Far in the World, where an unemployed soldier teams up with a strong man, a keen-eyed sharpshooter, a super-fast runner, a man who can blow gale-force winds out his nose, and a man who can generate a field of cold by straightening his hat to con a king out of a warehouse full of treasure.
Literature
- Frequently arises in A Series Of Unfortunate Events, most obviously in The Vile Village. Reversed in The Miserable Mill, where the protagonists are each forced into situations best-suited to their siblings' specialties.
- Played with in China Mieville's Un Lun Dun: when the heroine learns that the apparently random and pointless series of quests she was supposed to follow were actually carefully designed so that she would end up with exactly the right set of items to deal with the final challenge. It occurs to her, a little too late, that skipping most of the quests to save time might not have been such a bright idea after all.
- Phèdre nó Delaunay, the main heroine of Jacqueline Carey's {{Kushiel's Legacy}}, is a professional courtesan. Among the challenges she faces, you would be surprised at how many of them she manages to solve by having sex with the right man or woman.
- There's an interesting play on this in the Alex Rider books. Yes, there are some similarities to Bond (by which I mean, it's a blatant homage to Bond at times), but there are a few exceptions; for one thing, a lot of the gadgets are pretty generic, so it's not that difficult to think of somewhere to use them. The biggest subversion, though, is his metal-corroding zit-cream. He got it in the first book, where it was extremely handy- and then continued to use it every so often for the next few books in the series, until it ran out...
Live Action TV
- Mission Impossible, in which the characters tailored their abilities to The Caper at hand
- The A Team (though, to be fair, the entire show was intended to be one giant Eigen Plot-slash-spoof)
- Claire from Heroes can recover from almost any injury, which is good because she's prone to accidents like linebackers running offsides, crashing into her, and breaking her neck.
- In what may be considered an inversion, recent episodes have sent her up against villains who's powers work around her healing abilities, like creating black holes or turning people into puppets.
- Stargate Atlantis usually has pretty blatant examples (a typical episode usually involves McKay having to come up with some insane plan using Hollywood Science which needs a sneaky plan to pull off that only Sheppard can come up with that involves a lot of violence which is of course Ronon's specialty.) The recent episode "Quarantine" subverted it when every one is locked in various rooms and each person has a part of the skills that they need to get out of the situation. Except no one is in a situation where they can use those skills, McKay The Smart Guy doesn't have a computer so Sheppard The Hero has to do all the technical stuff, Ronon The Big Guy is forced to do nothing, and Zelenka, another Smart Guy, has to do the dangerous air vent crawl that is pretty much Sheppard's trademark.
- The Crisis Crossover Doctor Who story "Journey's End" is carefully designed so that the resolution requires the TARDIS to be linked to the Cardiff Rift via Mr Smith. Something similar happens in the previous episode "The Stolen Earth", when Mr Smith, the Rift and the Subwave network are all used to contact The Doctor.
- Played with slightly in the Season Finale of Sanctuary: the characters are faced with a series of Eigen Deathtraps. Unfortunately one of the people they need is slightly... dead. So they find his daughter who has the same power. She suffers from a similar deficiency. Her daughter, however, is just terrible at using the power.
- Parodied on Kablam! in the Show Within A Show, Action League Now! with Meltman - with the power to...melt!
Chief: Okay you guys, listen up. The president's in town next week. Thunder Girl, I'm gonna need your super flying power, Flesh your super strength, Stinky your super sharp shooting, as for Meltman...um...um...well...um...
Stinky, Flesh, Thunder Girl: Donuts, donuts, donuts! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
Table Top Games
- Considered something of the "ideal" adventure plot in a tabletop roleplaying game like Dungeons & Dragons, where each character advances in a class that defines his or her talents. A smart Game Master keeps in mind the characters' capabilities and tries to include something for everyone. Published adventures try for this as well, but not every player group has the standard fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric dynamic these adventures are written for, and so multiple solutions for critical moments are necessary, making it possible for one character to steal the spotlight from the others by solving nearly everything through the solutions meant for his character type (the answer that works no matter what is usually "bash it apart"). That, or every important plot point is decided by either a fight (which all classes are designed to be able to take part in), or a simplistic puzzle (which doesn't rely on class abilities at all, but the players' ability to figure the puzzle out).
Videogames
- In the game Zork Grand Inquisitor, you find three totems, a griff (small, less powerful dragon), a brogmoid (a small, strong creature), and Lucy Flathead (a human woman with telepathy). And where are the Cosmic Keystones located? A sleeping dragon archipelago, a cave behind a strongly boarded door, and a casino. Any of the three creatures can visit any of the locations, but if they're not the right ones, they're next to useless (though Brog can't reach a mailbox in front of the White House, and Lucy or Griff will have to go there to send mail).
- Common in videogames, for example, in the The Legend Of Zelda games, each dungeon in sequential order is tailor-made with obstacles that require the treasures from the previous ones that the hero had access to. Apparently one can only get around dungeon D with a hookshot (or grappling hook, or magnet gloves) that is only found in one chest in dungeon C. You typically also need dungeon D's item to beat dungeon D's boss.
- Ocarina of Time screws this up a bit. The fourth, fifth, and sixth dungeons can be beaten in any order after getting the bow from the fourth, and the seventh and eighth can be beaten in whichever order after that.
- The Dungeons in a Link to the Past were fairly self contained, anyways. After you got the Hammer from the first Dark World Dungeon, you could pretty much then get to any other dungeon and clear them without too much trouble.
- In the Mega Man series, and the following Mega Man X games, all of the end level bosses have specific weakness to weapons that you get from other bosses. This ensures that even the most useless weapons for fighting through the stages have a specific use. However, since bosses in some games are selectable in any order, they CAN be beaten without the specials. It's just a lot harder.
- Playing Megaman 2 for the first time and thinking "I'll try going against Quickman first." is a sobering lesson in Nintendo Hard level design.
- Messed with in Megaman X, wherein the bosses had a particular order of weaknesses, but the special items (boots, armor, etc) had a different optimal order. To get all the armor pieces without backtracking, you had to completely disregard the boss' vulnerabilities.
- The Lost Vikings. The whole game (and its sequel) are based around this trope.
- Many, many, many console RPGs have at least one door that cannot be opened unless a set of switches are pressed simultaneously, where the number of switches is precisely equal to the game's Arbitrary Headcount Limit for no adequately explained reason.
- The entire point of Superhero League of Hoboken, where there's at least one puzzle that requires any given superpower... except for the main character's, which is never of any use at any point in the game.
Western Animation
- Captain Planet is probably the most blatant and obvious one. Each of the Planeteers had a ring for a specific element: earth, fire, wind, water, and heart.
- The Winx Club ep "Truth or Dare" had the Winx Eigen-ing up a simulacrum out of their fundamental powers.
- Aquaman of the Superfriends gave rise to a countably infinite number of such plots.
- Superman is a member of the Superfriends, and arguably pretty much every plot which involves him is an Eigen Plot, as they have to use Kryptonite or otherwise disable him somehow to give everyone else something to do.
- Lampshaded in an episode of Teen Titans. Control Freak, a teenage TV addict super villain comes up with an Eigen Plot featuring a trial for all of the Teen Titans. He is upset to find that they're out of town and a secondary team is in their place. As the challenges were tailored to the exact limits of the main cast, the secondary team easily manages them. He has a temper tantrum and then returns with specific challenges for the substitutes.
- Usually justified in the animated series M.A.S.K.. Each episode began with the leader choosing which team members to bring based on the mission at hand. Therefore all characters in an episode had a legitimate reason to use their specialty. For example, if a mission was in the middle of a desert, they just didn't bring along the underwater specialist. This still resulted in a lot of lucky guesses as to who would just happen to be needed, though.
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