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Forgot About His Powers
aka: Plot Induced Stupidity
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"I wonder if that silly duck'll remember that he can fly? *THUD!* Guess not." * Later* "I wonder if he remembers he can swim? *Splash* ... Nope!"
When a character has the Idiot Ball slipped into their pocket while they weren't looking, causing them to forget to properly use their abilities or powers to stop a bad guy or get out of a situation, even though they may have used the ability in similar situations before (often many times). This happens often with superheroes and within the filler episode of Shonen anime. It's especially bad when the power being forgotten about is an innate ability that the character was born with, which makes it roughly akin to a Muggle forgetting he can walk.
This is used quite a bit when characters have extremely useful or increasingly powerful abilities or equipment, and some unfortunates tend to have this inflicted on them all the time, turning a Genius Bruiser or Badass Bookworm into a garden-variety Bruiser or Badass. Only some lines of technological jargon or displays of useless gadgetry will remind the reader that they have more brains than they normally use. Some might consider this a form of Informed Ability, with the "ability" being genius-level intelligence.
Amnesia Danger is a variant of this trope, when it's justified using convenient amnesia. The heroic version of Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?, except while at least villains don't have to answer to their actions, heroes should be obligated to stop evil-doers or disasters as quickly and efficiently as possible.
See Fridge Logic for when it occurs to the viewers a little later what the character could've/should've easily done. See Remembered I Could Fly when it occurs to the character Just in Time what he should've done long before.
Plot Sensitive Snooping Skills is a particular variant/sub-trope. If a device is discovered once, never becomes part of a character's standard bag of tricks, and is forgotten that is Forgotten Phlebotinum. Hollywood Tactics are a usual result. Compare Drama-Preserving Handicap.
As mentioned, this is a sister trope to Idiot Ball, the distinction being that Idiot Ball is when a character does something stupid to further the Plot, while with Forgot About His Powers the plot depends on a character failing to take an action they would normally take or that would make the most sense to solve the current crisis.
Compare Reed Richards Is Useless, where a character with superhuman abilities or ridiculously advanced technology reserves it for equally advanced problems and never applies it to mundane difficulties.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
Comics
- Nearly any situation should be easily solvable by The Flash, since he can move hundreds and hundreds of times faster than anything else on earth. Yet he constantly forgets to use the full potential of his superpowers until it's time to end the story. Abilities the Flash consistently forgets he has: running faster than light, speed stealing, infinite mass punch, etc.
- ... and it gets worse. On one occasion the villains have destroyed a bridge. The Flash runs to a university, teaches himself civil engineering, rushes back to the site of the collapsing bridge, scavenges for parts and builds an entire new bridge to replace the old one, all in the blink of an eye. This trope is the only reason anyone is able to beat him.
- Lampshaded in an episode of Justice League Unlimited, since it's revealed that while the Flash can do all these things and more, he doesn't phase through things because it's fairly dangerous, and he can't approach his upper limits because the plot says it would kill him. Luthor, on the other hand, isn't so worried about it when his mind ends up in Flash's body.
- It becomes even more ridiculous given the fact that at one point the Flash was able to (within a small fraction of a second) save a city from nuclear annihilation by carrying its half a million person population to a hill miles away one person at a time. And yet Central City's banks still get robbed on his watch.
- In the 4 issue alternate universe DC tale, Kingdom Come, The Flash does become an unstoppable one man war on crime, where he never slows down and has made Keystone City a crime-less utopia.
- To the point where he moves so fast, not only can he run through the air, he simultaneously exists in the physical and metaphysical planes.
- Most of the above points also apply to other speedsters in The DCU. Heck, to most comic book speedsters, period.
- Obviously, Superman suffers from the same forgetfulness both in the comics and in Smallville.
- Specifically, he frequently forgets to use his super speed while attacking. However, he is in the habit of standing and taking shots to intimidate his opponents so it's not always a case of forgetting. And how anyone ever manages to sneak up on him when he has super hearing is a complete mystery. Except for Batman, because he has active noise cancellation technology built into his costume for just such an occasion.
- Somewhat justified in that while he has super speed, he doesn't have super agility (usually) so, while he can fly fast in a straight line or a curve, it's not that useful to him in combat. As Batman once put it when comparing Superman's speed to Wonder Woman's: "Who's faster, Usain Bolt or Bruce Lee?"
- Realistically speaking, most super-powered opponents facing Batman should always take the majority of victories in any battle, even if Batman "had prep". The Justice League in Tower of Babel provides prominent examples of this trope.
- Marvel's The Vision has occasionally fallen victim to similar attacks (though it's rarer). In one issue of What If, he was killed by a parasitic alien vine that grew into his bodily systems. A fan wrote in to ask what was up; the editors eagerly latched onto his suggestion that "the plant in question isn't entirely tangible itself, and that's why the villain used it".
- The Essential Silver Surfer is full of this. When he meets a scientist who invents a device that might let him leave Earth but needs money to make it, the Surfer decides to get a job. He can't (because he doesn't have a Social Security number, he's not in the union, and he's funny-looking) so almost robs a bank in desperation, forgetting he can manipulate matter and could just make the scientist's gear for him. He spends about eight comics looking for someone who won't hate him for being "a silver-skinned freak" before he remembers that the Fantastic Four were quite friendly... need I go on?
- In Marvel Zombies, the zombies are attacking Doctor Doom's castle and the Scarlet Witch is infected by the Punisher. Gee, Scarlet Witch, did it never occur to you you could just teleport him and the other zombies away like you did with Ash earlier? Or teleport Enchantress away earlier so Dazzler wouldn't be infected? It is also never explained why Doom didn't just kill Enchantress in the beginning like he did later.
- Green Lanterns have been variously shown as being able to warp time, move faster than light, contain supernovas, fight toe to toe with Superman, alter their own DNA, read minds, find subatomic aliens... Scratch that, if it's a superpower of any sort any given GL has used it at least twice. Now here's the thing. There are creatures other than Gods that bother them. Funny huh? It's somewhat justified in their case as their power require willpower and concentration to make anything happen. A GL who is having a bad day, is unfocused or demoralized will be less effective and the GL's are essentially human without their rings (or at least the human ones are.) Plus, their rings require a periodic recharge and anything yellow or anyone whose fast enough or crafty enough to remove a ring is a threat. Still, the idiot plot is somewhat less excusable in the case of veterans like Hal Jordan (or really, any of the Earth based GL's these days) as he is both experienced, and extremely strong willed.
- The chronic and widespread amnesia over the Iron Queen's Magitek is one of the main causes of the Idiot Plot that is The Iron Dominion Saga; the Freedom Fighters are constantly clueless to the fact that their enemy can control machines with her mind, and wind up being shocked each time one of their cyborg or mechanical allies gets turned against them by her. They also keep forgetting that they have a counteragent to her spell right in their own backyard. And in case you're wondering, there's actually a time in the saga where the Iron Queen herself forgets that she has this power, and has to be reminded that the Freedom Fighters are holed up in a Grey Goo city that she can manipulate...after she successfully infiltrated and messed up said city with her powers.
- Speaking of the Sorcerer Supreme, he is repeatedly in situations where his virtually unlimited mystic abilities could resolve the plot, or at least make it much simpler. Alas, the good Doctor's imagination is often limited to that of those who write him.
- The giant mutant cockatrices who attacks Canterlot in the short in Issue #4 of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic IDW doesn't seem to be able to turn anypony to stone.
Fan Works
- In Getting Back On Your Hooves Trixie is feeding animals as part of a job working for Fluttershy, ending up falling down a steep bank and getting the list of animals she needed to feed muddy, resulting in a run in with a skunk. As she's getting cleaned up, this trope is lampshaded;
Spike: Uh, Trixie, one thing.
Trixie: Yes, what?
Spike: Why didn't you just use your magic to float the food down to the animals?
- This is also subverted in other places. Trixie's special talent is stage magic, so she's frequently frustrated when Spike asks her why she didn't do something Twilight (whose talent is magic itself) is capable of, but she's not.
- In Manchester Lost and its sequel, Paradise Thwarted, resident Cloud Cuckoo Lander Uriel tends to forget all sorts of things, including, at times, the fact that he has wings.
- Heavily averted in Mass Foundations: Redemption in the Stars: Courier uses the VATS target assist, the Jury Rigging perk, Pip Boy map and the Geiger counter functions, as well as various stims. Liara frequently employs various biotic talents during combat and Feron can fix equipment with omni-gel, like the ME1 Infiltrator class he belongs to. Even the Blue Suns’ members use the full spectrum of their equipment from ME2, with missile launcher soldiers, flamethrower troops and Legionnaires with anti-shield Disruptor ammo all present and accounted for.
- The key sign of a bad Harry Potter fic: nobody uses magic for anything.
Films
- The Mobile Infantry in Starship Troopers have rifles that come with underbarrel shotguns and nuclear rocket launchers, yet they seem to rely almost entirely on their rifles' regular firing mode — even when faced with instances where such weapons would be most effective, such as close combat with the Bugs or when facing a horde of thousands of bunched-together aliens charging their fixed positions.
- In The Return of the King, Gandalf rescues Faramir and his retreating troops by using his staff to shine a bright light at the Nazgűl, which scares them away. One might wonder how come he doesn't do that every other time the Nazgűl are around...
- Commented by several cast members on the audio commentary. Ian Mc Kellen mentions bringing the trope up to Peter Jackson, who shrugged and told him he used up all the batteries when he saved Faramir, and the shops in Minas Tirith were all out.
- This is probably the reason why, in the extended edition, Peter Jackson had the Witch-king destroy Gandalf's staff shortly afterwards; something that could not have happened in the book.
- In the book, the narrator's explanation implies that this was essentially a battle of wills, and the Nazgűl backed down because it wasn't the time yet to challenge Gandalf in all out battle — their leader wasn't present and they didn't have an army behind them, and their quarry wasn't that significant at this point. Basically, Gandalf intimidated them to leave, but they could have chosen to resist if they had a good enough reason. It's possible to speculate that this beam of light had approximately the same strength as a stream of running water, which the Nazgűl also fear, but can overcome if they really must.
- In The Neverending Story 2 Bastian has to save Fantasia with the help of the Auryn, which can grant him any wish he wants. He never thinks to wish for weapons, or an army, or even that Fantasia just be saved. Instead he wishes for things like a can of spray paint and individual steps to climb a huge cliff. And he only has a limited number of wishes before running out of memories (each wish removes a memory though at the time he gets it he was unaware of this so he had no reason to limit his wishes at the time).
- Star Wars
- The prequels retroactively introduce this trope to the original trilogy by establishing that R2-D2 has the ability to fly and torch his opponents, something he never does in the original trilogy even though it would have been useful to do so. Word Of God has it that R2's rocket boosters broke at some point in the intervening years, and Industrial Automaton (the company that makes R2 units) no longer manufactures that part.
- The Jedi seem to be constantly forgetting what powers they are supposed to have. Of particular note is the whole "Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them." principle, when it generally seems as though Jedi characters can rarely sense impending danger through the Force and are often unaware of it until they can actually see, or hear, it coming. There are innumerable instances of this in the movies. Jedi also seem very inclined to forget that they're telekinetic.
- In The Empire Strikes Back, while hanging upside down on an antenna underneath Cloud City and in danger of falling to his death, Luke calls out telepathically to Leia, who not only hears him but gets an exact sense of where he is. In Return Of The Jedi, when separated from Leia on Endor, it never seems to occur to Luke to try to contact her that way again, or even use the Force to sense her whereabouts at all. Instead he recommends a physical search and the use of Artoo's scanners.
- The Last Airbender: The Fire Nation imprisonment of the Earth-benders. In the cartoon that the film was based upon it was completely justified as they were on a metallic platform in the middle of the ocean. In the movie, they're at a mine. As in, surrounded by dirt and rocks. And they outnumber their Fire Nation guards by a minimum of a dozen to one. The very weak "their spirits are broken" excuse is washed away by a speech that boils down to "You're Earth-benders. You're completely surrounded by dirt and rocks. DO SOMETHING." They effectively imprisoned a bunch of soldiers, made them use their loaded guns to dig holes, and the soldiers never thought to shoot.
- In Iron Man 2 Tony is dying from palladium poisoning from the arc reactor in his chest, and the faster he runs the reactor through heavy use of the energy-hungry Iron Man armour the faster he dies - what, the multidisciplinary genius can't just power his suits with an external reactor, like for the War Machine suit? Or power his pacemaker with an external reactor? Or heck, even plug in some conventional batteries like his original pacemaker in Afghanistan? But that would remove a major part of the plot.
Literature
Live Action TV
- In Smallville, Clark Kent, all the time, period. Like in "Legion" when he basically stands there as the Persuader pummels him. The worst case is probably flight. It is shown in "Crusade" (season 4 premier) that he physically can fly (and he has unconsciously floated before). Thanks to Executive Meddling, lame excuses are made to explain why he is completely incapable of flight until the finale. That is seven. Years. Later.
- Hiro Nakamura of Heroes is one of the most powerful characters in the series with the ability to stop time and teleport; he's just too much of a dork to think of using it when he needs to defend himself. This was even given a nod in the series when his friend, Ando, deliberately antagonized a group of peeved gamblers, assuming Hiro would use his power to put them all down. Hiro, not comprehending the situation, was almost immediately KO'ed by a punch to the face.
- What about the time that Hiro and his friend have to find out what's in a safe, finally get it open, only to have the document stolen by a woman with super-speed powers? Hiro then spends several episodes trying to chase her so they can get the document back and see what it says. It never occurred to Hiro that he could have gone back yesterday and opened the safe and read the document before the thief stole it. He then could have replaced the document if he didn't want to cause a paradox or even replaced the document with a fake if he were really smart. This is also immediately after Hiro spent some time idly making time pass forward and backwards just to see a clock's hands move. So the speedster is so fast that, even when time is "stopped" she moves at normal speed. What about when time is rewinding?
- Peter Petrelli is far worse than Hiro when it comes to being handed the Idiot Ball. But I guess they have to make him stupid to avoid having him fall into A God Am I status. By comparison, at least in the first season, Sylar usually used most of his arsenal to deadly effect.
- Example in case: In the final episode of Season 2, Peter is using up immense amounts of telekinetic energy to break into a vault with a solid 24-inch thick riveted steel door. As impressive as this may have been for the special effects, Fridge Logic would note that he can walk through solid objects and could have saved himself a lot of time and exhaustion.
- The best example comes in season 3. In a Mexican-standoff hostage situation, rather than using telekinesis or time-stopping, he uses newly acquired super-speed to attack one of the enemies. The fact he attacked the most harmless enemy is a whole another Idiot Ball...
- The fact that, because he hadn't viewed the speedster's power yet, he had no idea he had Super Speed and was thus trying to just punch someone merely takes this Up to Eleven
- In contrast, in Season 4 Hiro expends considerable time and effort using his powers to solve a problem that he easily could have solved without them. He meets a distraught cubicle worker on the roof, who wants to jump because he was fired for photocopying his butt. So Hiro travels back in time to sabotage the copier, only for the guy to do it again at the next opportunity. And again. And again. While it was a Crowning Moment of Funny, one wonders if there was another way Hiro could have saved the guy's job at a company of which Hiro was CEO and 51% owner.
- At the end of Season 3, when Nathan is killed, Claire is nearby. Noah, who was brought back to life by Claire's blood after being killed earlier, does not suggest using her blood, but instead goes along with Angela's crazy plan.
- The various Star Trek series regularly did this. It's the 23rd or 24th century, yet the crew is frequently in peril from threats that even 20th century technology could handle. They repeatedly forget that their own warp drive, shields, transporters, phasers, replicators, holodecks, sickbay, etc., etc., can perform miracles.
- This is especially jarring in episodes in which transporter failure ("The Enemy Within") drives the plot. No one seems to recall the shuttles, the shuttles' transporters, or the cargo bay transporter system.
- In any scene where there is a man-to-man on the ship/station, they could put the transporter to work, simply beaming the enemies into the brig or even just erasing their patterns without bothering to reconstitute them.
- Another Deep Space Nine example, in the second season finale (which introduced the Dominion formally, with the Jem'Hadar and the Vorta), a Vorta is able to use a powerful psychic telekinetic attack in combat and to escape from a holding cell. No mention of these abilities are ever made again, let alone actually used by a Vorta, even in situations where it could have been a huge advantage for them.
- The variable effectiveness of phasers is a common plot hole in Star Trek, especially the later series. In the Star Trek: The Original Series a small handheld phaser the size of a smart phone could potentially disintegrate a person or blow the side off a building. In Star Trek: The Next Generation Data once vaporized all the water in an aqueduct system stretching miles up a mountain using one. But in Deep Space Nine Federation troops fighting the Dominion are lugging around these huge phaser rifles that fire little bullet-like pops of energy that can barely put a hole in a wall, leading to many combat scenes distinctly similar to their major competing franchise.
- Kira, when training someone in weapons, does explain in one episode that Federation phaser rifles have multiple firing settings and, in fact, have so many settings that they easily go wrong in the field. It therefore boils down to people using the rifles keep forgetting they can adjust the firing settings for the situation they're in (and, of course, we also never see the rifles ever breaking down or going wrong despite it apparently being such a common problem that Kira would far prefer to recommend people use the much more reliable and sturdy Cardassian rifles in the field than the more fragile, unreliable Federation ones).
- Cloaking technology is a major source of tension, particularly between the Federation and the Romulon and Klingon Empires, who both use it extensively. The fact that the Federation could potentially counter the utility of cloaking devices by simply recruiting more members of telepathic races such as Betazoids into Starfleet seems to have somehow escaped their thought processes entirely.
- In Star Trek Generations, the Enterprise D sustains fatal damage when the Duras sisters manage to get ahold of it's shield frequency, allowing their weapons to pierce the Enterprise's shields. It never occurs to any of the main characters to simply change the shield frequency when this happens, even though it was the first thing they tried during a similar situation in "The Best Of Both Worlds Part 1" (and in that case, Data was able to rotate the shield frequencies so quickly even the Borg couldn't keep up with him, forcing them to drain the shields instead -something the decrepit old Bird of Prey the Duras sisters were using couldn't have managed). The real reason behind this is the producers wanted to destroy the D so that they could build a new Enterprise that would look better in the cinema format for the next film, but they could have come up with a better way to do it.
- Dozens if not hundreds of random technobabble solutions are used only ONCE, and never used again.
- In Fringe an episode pertaining to a flash forward tries to portray Olivia Dunham as having mastered her abilities by showing off her telekinesis. Dunham, a generally already battle hardened cop with lightning reflexes and an inexplicable penchant for headshots (before any brainwashing) is confronted by Walternate, brandishing a gun, and is promptly shot in the face after failing to react.
- In Quantum Leap, there are several episodes in which Sam has to keep someone from being kidnapped, and the obvious solution — have Al stay with the victim at all times until something happens — rarely if ever occurs to them.note In one episode, Al uses his ability to spy on twin ladies in a dressing room. But no actually useful spying. Generally speaking, Al's potential for spying is greatly underused.
- When the Charmed Ones become powerful, they keep on forgetting about their powers. Like when a criminal was holding a gun at Phoebe's head and ordered Paige to cast a spell to disguise him. Rather than just orb the gun, Paige killed him by demon. Piper didn't use her freezing powers several times because she just didn't try. And Phoebe stopped using her premonition powers to help innocents and just focused on herself.
- In No Ordinary Family Stephanie seems to constantly forget that she has superspeed and could solve their problem in a fraction of a second. It doesn't help that when not using her powers she doesn't seem to have any kind of Super Reflexes, and terrible normal reflexes, so she's been hit by attacks that even most non-speedsters could dodge. One particularly notable example comes in the finale, when they're encircled by men with guns and after about 30 seconds of them talking and trying to find another way out, she remembers that she can just punch them out before they do anything, and does.
- In True Blood, Sookie has the ability to read most people's thoughts. There are many times where a character is able to trick her or give her false information, because she doesn't seem to remember this ability. Especially since early episodes imply that she can't turn it off.
- Possibly justified. Season 5 reveals that the overuse of her powers has caused them to weaken, and she mentions that her telepathy has not been as effective recently.
- Warehouse 13 has the Character Jynx who is supposed to be able to detect when people are lying to him. Soon he begins to get lied to as much as the other characters without detecting anything.
- This ends up getting him killed.
- Knight Rider tended to both play to and avert this trope. There were lots of things demonstrated that were used only once or twice and then never used again that would have been very helpful (usually involving scanning something, sensing something, or nearly-telekinetic power). On the other hand, sometimes functions would be brought back after a couple seasons and suddenly used again.
- A few functions were explicitly mentioned as removed, such as the laser and water hydroplaner, but by and large KITT's functions were a fluid thing and you never knew which new thing might pop up.
- In The Twilight Zone episode "Escape Clause", Walter Bedeker is given immortality and is unable to feel pain. Instead of setting out to have a long and happy life, he defrauds several businesses and confesses to killing his wife, which he didn't do. In court, he works to get himself convicted so he could try out the electric chair, but is then given life in prison instead, although it's not explained what he would have done after going to the electric chair. It is at this point that he uses the "Escape Clause" which causes his own death rather than face life in prison. At this point, he has apparently forgotten that in addition to being ageless, he is also invulnerable. How easy would it then be to escape from prison if he doesn't have to fear injury or death? He could wait for an opportunity and make a break for the barbed wire or electrified fence and just climb over it. What are guard dogs or gunshots to someone who is invulnerable? In the very least, he could wait it out.
- In Merlin, Merlin deserves an honorable mention for deciding that POISONING Arthur is necessary to fake his death, when there have to be a million other ways to do it. Arthur gets bonus points for going along with it.
- After the first few episodes, Merlin also completely forgets his original innate power of stopping time and telekinesis with nothing but a glare. As soon as he starts learning some spells that don't even have a fraction of this power, he only uses spells which could have him executed if anyone listens to his muttering.
- Partially lampshaded in "The Darkest Hour", when Merlin uses a spell to light the fire while the other knights are gathered around. Lancelot, the only knight who knows about his magic, glares at him. As we saw in series 2, Merlin can light a fire just by moving his hand and there is no need to risk the knights overhearing him.
- M-16 users in Stargate Atlantis and Stargate SG-1 never once use the M-203 grenade launchers that are usually attached to their M-16s, even when faced with squads of Jaffa. In addition, the standard hand-held grenades are almost never used, despite multiple situations throughout both series where a single M67 grenade would eliminate their opposition. Even the M67 grenades "forget their powers" when the one grenade explosion in SGA Season 3, Phantoms, doesn't even damage Shepard, despite the 6 sticks of dynamite equivalent of the grenade and the blast being less than 15 feet away and nothing between the metal fragments lofted by the blast and Shepard. (At that close range, the effect would be somewhat like a hummingbird being hit by a 12 gauge shotgun blast.)
- In the early Babylon 5 episode, "The War Prayer", the Home Guard members emerge at a meeting with two members of the command staff having been disguised using Black Light Camouflage, which renders them effectively invisible. However, in the ensuing gunfight, they choose to go with "hiding behind the crates" as their method of concealment.
- In an episode of Lois And Clark, Superman tries to stop a martial artist who has super strength and is defeated because of his foe's superior skill. Superman decides his only option is to take a crash course in kung fu, which pays off during the rematch. It never occurs to him to use his super speed, heat vision, or super breath.
- In the failed Wonder Woman TV Pilot, Wonder Woman tortures a patient for information. Couldn't she have just used, oh, I don't know....HER FREAKING MAGIC LASSO THAT MAKES PEOPLE TELL THE TRUTH?! She even throws it on the bed beforehand, and it's outright stated that her lasso can make people tell the truth!
- In the Doctor Who episode "The Snowmen," the Doctor has stopped traveling through time and space after losing Amy and is living on a cloud (literally). He then shows the TARDIS to a new potential companion, Clara. While showing her the new TARDIS console, he turns around, allowing the ice woman to grab Clara from behind and fall with her from the cloud. As the Doctor helplessly watches Clara fall, he forgets that, fairly recently, he had no problems materializing the TARDIS in the path of River Song, falling in a similar manner. Apparently, being a Time Lord doesn't mean you have all the time in the world to solve a problem.
- Justified somewhat however in that he was able to do that by going back in time to catch River, during an event that no-one actually saw her die, not to mention that her survival was guaranteed due to him already witnessing her death further along in her personal timeline. In that case he had time enough to figure out a precision jump that would land him where needed to be, whereas in this case due to witnessing Clara falling to her death and having little time to pre-plan, he was most likely unable to cross the timeline in order to save her.
- Damon Salvatore on The Vampire Diaries uses an ability to create fog in the first few episodes and then never does it again. He also seems to have an ability to compel someone from far away which he also never uses again.
Video Games
- This shows up a lot in Cutscene Incompetence, when they could be a walking arsenal, yet a character insists on using a BB gun; or worse, after a case of Cutscene Power to the Max, when a character inconveniently forgets their cool powers so you don't get to use them.
- The railroad ending options of Fallout 3 have this trope in spades. No matter what, someone has to die from radiation poisoning, either the player or an innocent secondary character. This is despite the fact that the player has three optional companions who are immune to radiation damage — Fawkes (good players only), Charon (any player alignment), and Sergeant RL-3 (Neutral alignment). To add insult to injury, by this point in the game most players will have collected both a very high rad resistance through perks and a huge number of anti-radiation chems, and could probably stay in the chamber for weeks if necessary.
- Broken Steel changes the fate of the both the player character and Sentinel Lyons to being Not Quite Dead (unless you sent Lyons into the control room, in which case she is Killed Off for Real). Also it allows you to send in one of your radiation-immune companions to activate the purifier instead.
- Despite this, the ending cutscene will still call you a coward for not going through the deed yourself, likely because nobody felt like modifying it after the DLC and get Ron Perlman to re-do the voice.
- Though to reiterate, the fact that 4 of your companions should enter for you is explained away by it being "your destiny" or it not "being in their contract".
- A literal case if you ask Fawkes to do it in the new version. His response is basically "oh yeah, that would make sense wouldn't it."
- In Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice both have methods of detecting when someone is lying. Phoenix only ever uses his outside of court, and Apollo only ever uses his inside court. Even then, they only show up in certain circumstances, not every single time someone lies. Put shortly; it'd be a very short game if they DID work in court.
- Phoenix's Magatama lets the holder see "when a person they are talking to is locking something in their heart". Someone can lie, yet said person could not consider the lie to be of emotional value to them, so they don't have said lie in their heart. Thus no locks would appear. Plus it's implied very strongly that in order for the magatama to pick up a lie, Phoenix must directly ask that person the question they are lying to. So someone can lie casually and it won't pick it up. Phoenix has to directly ask that person a question (such as "Are you the person who killed Ms. Victim?") in order for the magatama to pick up if the witness is lying or not. Also Pearls tells Phoenix that his Magatama only works "When he's going up one on one with someone". So it won't work in court because Phoenix is up against the prosecution as well as the witness. In terms of Apollo Bracelet, once again it's NOT a lie detector (I get a little annoyed when people call the magatama and bracelet lie detectors). It's something that lets Apollo know when a witness is acting nervous, so sometimes someone will lie yet they won't cause his bracelet to react because they are not having a habit play up. Plus I'm sure the bracelet, while not used properly outside trials, does react sometimes to witnesses nervousness; such as when Apollo try talking to Machi, a foreigner, only for him to give up when he gets no reaction; His bracelet reacts when he talks to Trucy about how he does not speak English, hinting to Apollo that maybe he does understand what they are saying.
- It also helps that the Magatama has loopholes and can be fooled. One good example for this was the case of Matt Engarde. When Phoenix asked if he killed his television rival and he said no, he wasn't technically lying. He hired someone else to kill him.
- At one point in Chrono Trigger, the characters are disarmed and rendered helpless. Ayla can still fight with her fists, but Robo forgets about his inbuilt lasers, and the rest of the party forgets how to use MAGIC until they're rearmed.
- Lancer in Visual Novel/Fate/stay night. Granted, it's not entirely his fault considering he's actually been ordered not to just kill everyone. But he never actually does net a kill with his Noble Phantasm — the only time he kills someone (Shirou in the intro, himself and Kotomine in UBW) is when he's doing regular stabbing.
- He tried it against Saber at the beginning of the game. It didn't work because her Luck stat was too high. (Considering that, the only ones his skill would work against are Archer, Rider, True Assassin and Dark Saber.) And he clearly beat Archer in UBW with the stronger version of it but didn't finish him.
- Gilgamesh is of course the king of this trope, but it's justified due to his massive pride: He just never considers anyone 'worthy' of going all out on.
- Except Rider in Fate/zero. Considering that the two are the most powerful Servants seen (although Berserker/Hercules from Fate/Stay Night is probably as close as you can get to as strong as either) this is justified, the fact that Rider is Alexander the Great and can summon an army 30,000 strong of servants, not to mention the general awesomeness of Broskander helps along the fact that Gilgamesh considers him worthy. And Alexander took him drinking, probably the first friend Gil had since Endiku.
- How many times can the dragon Spyro forget he can breathe flames at the start of a new game in his series?
- Valkyria Chronicles plays with this one in places throughout the game, but the most glaringly obvious and stupid one is when Alicia comes to Welkin, distraught and nearly in tears over her Valkyria powers and the huge responsibility that's been dumped on her, seeking his help. Welkin, despite being a genius and in love with her, chooses this moment to casually ignore Alicia, and she runs off fighting tears because obviously if Welkin doesn't sympathize with her problems, she's just whining. The only reason he does this is to set the next major scene, when Alicia tries to kill herself because Welkin wouldn't acknowledge her pain and he rushes in for the last-second Cooldown Hug.
- Alicia and Selvaria both. Alicia spends most of the game wibbling about her powers that have no actual downsides, but she's convinced herself they make her inhuman somehow and Selvaria is mindlessly devoted to Maximillian even after he straight-out tells her he doesn't care about her except as a weapon. Thing is, they're the most powerful beings in the known universe, and literally no one is capable of forcing them to do anything they don't want to do. Even when she's not under the player's control and supposedly "berserk", she will never attack anyone who isn't part of an enemy faction in the war she already volunteered to fight (and is already ace-level Bad Ass even without her powers), and Selvaria has been a free agent willfully under Max's control since he picked her up. The entire story depends on both of them never realizing their own agency.
- Silver Surfer in the game of the same name for NES. The guy obviously forgets that he has cosmic powers, and tries to attack the bad guys normally. And is a One Hit Point Wonder. The result is legendary even among the Nintendo Hard games of the era. It's almost Bullet Hell with none of that genre's saving graces.
- Daikatana: "You can't attack me, this is the same sword from two different parts of time and will destroy the universe!" "Damn, if only I had some other weapons on me..."
- During the climax scene of Golden Sun Dark Dawn, Sveta briefly forgets she's an Adept and has to be prompted to use her powers by Tyrell.
- In Max Payne 2's Chapter 2, Max will single-handedly clear out an abandoned office building full of cleaners. Then he's forced to leap out a window to avoid an explosion, and the rest of the chapter is spent playing as Mona providing cover fire for Max. He'll get pinned down behind barriers several times over the next several levels and will be helpless until Mona can take out the lone man firing on him.
- In 3 Max finally tracks down Fabiana as wells as Marcello, both held hostage by multiple gangsters, as he knew they would be throughout his entire investigation. He has the element of surprise, is heavily armed, and he's...well, Max Payne, a dynamite gun fighter who makes Time Itself his bitch when he has to. He walks directly into the room, gets disarmed, captured, and his failure gets both of the siblings murdered in front of him.
- Also in 3, there's a portion where you have to take a sniper rifle and guard Passos as he runs from paramilitary thugs. Somehow, Passos forgets that he's a perfectly capable gunman and doesn't bother picking up any of the guns the dead goons drop.
- At the very end of Dead Space 3 Isaac and Carver meet the crazy fanatic leader of Scientology who is holding Ellie hostage, threatening to kill her. To dissuade him, Carver gives him the MacGuffin, allowing the maniac to free the Eldritch Abomination, potentially dooming the entire humankind. Now, what about using the damn stasis? You know, that power that allows them to almost freeze the target for an easy kill?.
- In Knights Of The Old Republic, this is an actual plot point. Due to being mind-wiped by the Jedi Council, the protagonist cannot recall their time as Darth Revan, meaning they aren't aware of how they are able to understand so many languages, are so good with technology, and have to slowly rediscover their force abilities throughout the game.
Web Comics
Web Original
- In Pooh's Adventures, if Pooh has anyone with superpowers, expect them to forget about those when the time is right.
Western Animation
- When's the last time Daffy Duck flew under his own power?
- This was lampshaded in the short The Million Hare, as Bugs Bunny witnesses Daffy plunging off a cliff, which was recycled so John Madden could make the same observation in Big Game XXIX.
Bugs: I wonder if Daffy will remember that he can fly." (crash) "Nope, I guess not.
Madden: That's a good observation by Bugs. Why isn't Daffy using his God-given abilities?
- Might be a case of All Part of the Show. Daffy never flies unless he's in a cartoon where he's portraying a duck either being hunted or flying south for the winter.
- Similarly, in Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Daffy feels he's helpless and wishes that Duck Dodgers was there to save the day. Then he remembers that he's Duck Dodgers.
- Kim Possible: In the episode Blush the "Wade-bot" launches itself off a cliff in the Amazon with Ron and Rufus, however Wade only remembers after the leap that he forgot to install the parachute. The Plot-Induced Stupidity comes into play when just a few minutes earlier in the same episode the Wade-bot had a hang-glider attachment to save Ron and Rufus from plummeting down a waterfall, and conveniently forgets about this gizmo once its could be useful again.
- To move the Idiot Plot of a typical episode of The Fairly Odd Parents, either Cosmo and Wanda's magical wands are stolen, or more commonly Timmy has to stupidly forget that he is enabled to alter reality on a whim. Naturally this has been lampshaded quite a few times. For example, in the episode "Where's Wanda" Timmy proceeds to turn the world into Film Noir and become a detective in order to track Wanda down... when he could have easily just wished her back. He notes, "All I had was my trenchcoat, hat, and an unlimited supply of magical wishes. The odds were against me."
- Also lampshaded in "Nectar of the Odds": Timmy unsuccessfully tries to make his lemonade taste better using cheese, taco sauce, peas, and chocolate laxatives. While Timmy goes to the bathroom (after trying the laxatives), Wanda wonders why he doesn't just wish for sweeter lemonade.
- Similarly, there are too many times to count in Danny Phantom where Danny seemingly forgets that he has the ability to become invisible or intangible at will. Early on it made sense due to it being clear he was still getting used to his abilities, and sometimes it was played for humor, but it seemed strange he would still sometimes forget this fact even in the later episodes.
- In the first season of Justice League, characters would regularly forget their powers. In the season finale, Brainiac is holding everyone in an iron grip with tentacles. They struggle for an unreasonable time before Martian Manhunter remembers that he can turn intangible at will.
- The Martian Manhunter is the king of this trope. He has the ability to transform into whatever Super Strong forms he can imagine — an ability he uses three times in the entire series. He'll stare at incoming projectiles with a surprised look on his face instead of turning intangible, or super solid or transforming into a form that cannot be so easily hit.
- In the Silver Age comics, he had even more powers, with new ones popping up all the time. Somehow, he just never used them with the slightest tactical sense. As my high school guidance counselor said many times, "You have so much wasted potential!"
- On the other hand, with powers ranging from Super Strength to making ice cream with your mind, it's hard to create conflict.
- Superman never, ever remembers he has super speed, period.
- The many, many instances where Superman would be felled by an electrical field, despite the fact that he is supposed to be invulnerable. This got to be so bad that in the second season the writers actually started to show less of Superman getting taken out by an electrical shock or something along those lines, and more of his invulnerable side.
- There's also the many times when he and Supergirl could easily solve a problem by just using heat vision. Even when their opponent is nonliving they seem to forget that they're capable of this.
- In one episode, Flash has most of his body encased in ice by a villain. Too bad he doesn't remember he could vibrate his limbs at super speed and would be able to melt the ice.
- And if you think the above examples are bad, you should watch the old Superfriends some time. "Gee, Jayna, here we are trapped under the foot of a giant space monster, touching each other. If only we had, I don't know, some kind of superpower that would allow you to turn into a small animal and me into something which could flow through the claws, we could escape!"
- All of Superfriends was made of this trope. It was parodied openly in a sketch on The State, Superman orders the other heroes to basically cleanup duty and then says "I'll stop the missiles... all by myself!" And then grabs his crotch with a smug look on his face.
- In Teen Titans, Raven is easily the most overpowered of the five, which is made glaringly obvious in season 4 (though one could Fan Wank this as her emotional state boosting her powers for the duration, given what was happening). As such, this is the only way to keep the entire team necessary. Raven often conveniently forgets that she can fly, teleport, and become intangible in situations where those powers would be highly useful. She also rarely uses her telekinesis to restrain opponents or hurl them away from the scene of a battle, rather than just tossing debris at them. She's done it before, to both allies and enemies, so it's not an issue of being unable. There's only one episode where she concentrates and simply cuts the baddie's armour with her power. One.
- It's especially jarring in that several times she's proven to be much more powerful than the entire Green Lantern Corp put together. Let's see some one-off-powers: she slices her way though a horde of robots, she can toss bad guys around with dark energy talons (not even directly controlling them; taking the having to put her soul into the object argument out of the equation), can become completely intangible for long periods of time and still use her powers, removed a bad guy from his gear and armor, mentally scarred Dr. Light, and at one point, arguably, becomes a Reality Warper. She essentially spends the entire series forgetting about her powers. After watching the No-Holds-Barred Beatdown she gives Slade in "The Prophesy" it's hard to watch her hold back/forget her powers so much.
- She states she has to "put a bit of herself" in everything she moves or uses her powers on while her powers are active. It's possible it's harder to do this on living things, especially hostile living things in the middle of a battle, than it is to do it to inanimate objects. It's not helped by only one episode explicitly stating that her powers go haywire if her emotions donote suggesting a back-and-forth link, and the completely left out point from the comics that the reason she has to keep such tight control over her emotions isn't just because of her powers, but to keep her father at bay.
- The fun part? The episode she states she has to put a bit of herself in whatever she moves, only moments after saying this, she uses her powers to restrain 2 guys. Even if you say she's only manipulating their clothes, it's clear she's capable of at least doing that to restrain enemies.
- She can stop time! That's listed under Story Breaker Power for a reason.
- No matter how many missions the characters in Code Lyoko go on, they always seem to forget that, first and foremost, while on Lyoko one cannot die from lasers and swords, they can only be devirtualized. They will also forget their most important abilities at the worst times.
- For example, Aelita could use her Creativity power to create terrain barriers around herself, but even in dangerous situations where she has enough time, she quite often forgets that she can do this. She is the most obvious offender, but the others are often guilty as well. Aelita also forgets that XANA will NOT kill her starting with Season 2, despite this being proven in the first third of the season. The "dying" thing is somewhat justified though. While they do just devirtualize, it's implied they can't go right back into Lyoko. It's also implied that Aelita using her powers too often or to make something really big exhausts her. It's not so much that she forgets her power, it's that using Creativity is Cast from Hit Points and each use costs 50 of her 100 points. Though this is more an Informed Flaw than anything else.
- Ulrich is a much worst offender. When he was first introduced, his Triplicata allowed him to summon two illusion of himself to trick the enemy. In season 2, it was upgraded so they could fight and hurt enemies of their own, with Ulrich once defeating an entire army of monsters thanks to it. Comes season 4, he forgets said upgrade when fighting William (who easily devirtualizes the real one) before forgetting the power altogether for the whole season. He doesn't uses it again until Code Lyoko Evolution, and when he does, it's portrayed as just the illusion trick.
- This seems to be a staple of Drawn Together, especially in regards to Captain Hero, who takes this to The Ditz levels. More often than not though, he is just sociopathic.
- In The Mighty Hercules cartoon series of the 1960's, Hercules had a magic ring that would endow him "with the strength of ten ordinary men" (according to his theme song). Along with invulnerability and superhuman reflexes. In each episode, Hercules would go to fight the episode's monster and get the snot beaten out of him. And then he would remember he has the ring.
- Cheetara from The ThunderCats 2011 constantly forgets her Super Speed that can instantly defeat most of their enemies. 1980s Cheetara forgets the same thing. Partially justified in that her Anointment Trial episode shows her having an upper endurance limited. But most of the battles aren't that long.
- Apparently Bloom forgot about her healing powers in the 24th episode of the fourth season of Winx Club, since she didn't do anything to try to save Nabu.
- The Winx get backed off a cliff in the Omega Dimension in season three. No explanation is given for why they don't use their wings.
- There's also an episode in the first season (towards the end) where the girls go to Domino/Sparx. At the end of the first part (it's a two-part episode), Bloom, who's currently powerless, is about to fall into a chasm. Stella was transformed at this time and could've easily flown over and grabbed Bloom, yet she didn't!
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars. All too often the Jedi Knights seem to forget that they have the ability to lift anything as heavy as a spaceship without touching it, jump high distances, and possess lightning quick reflexes. Curiously these bouts of stupidity come up when they're fighting a Badass Normal character such as Cad Bane (who seems to have the unofficial power of handing the Idiot Ball to anybody he's fighting at the moment), whom you think a Jedi could reduce to a pile of disembodied limbs within seconds. And of course it is not a coincidence that this always happens when around the series' original characters. Justified, as the Jedi were deliberately underpowered as a story choice (the Jedi were arguably too badass in Star Wars Clone Wars, though even they had their moments), but this fails to address the fact that even these underpowered Jedi regularly forget to use things like telekinesis, even when others around them don't.
- A glaring example in Para Norman; during the mid point of the film Norman is searching for the unmarked grave of the town's witch. He never once uses his powers to speak with the dead to attempt to talk to the ghost we see him talking with during the first act, one of which may have a lead or know the location. Of course, none of the ghosts were contemporary to the time of the curse and probably wouldn't know of the location anyway. Additionally, deleted material suggests the ghosts went into hiding the moment Aggie started unleashing her wrath upon the town.
- Parodied on The Powerpuff Girls when the townspeople chase Buttercup. She starts running from them before reassessing the situation and flying away.
- In one episode of Spider-Man The Animated Series, Doctor Octopus kidnaps Felicia Hardy and J. Jonah Jameson and holds them for ransom. Despite Super Strength explicitly being one of his powers, Spider-Man tries to untie the ropes instead of just breaking them, giving Doc Ock time to step in and stop him.
- The same thing happens in the "Partners" storyline. Smythe has Black Cat bound and gagged in an electrified bubble, with the gag obviously preventing her from warning Spider-Man about the trap. She doesn't think to use her razor sharp claws to remove the ropes and gag until after the trap has already rendered Spidey unconscious.
- Some of The Land Before Time sequels have this problem, neglecting the fact that Petrie can fly.
- The Fantastic Four 1978 had Magneto unable to use his magnetic powers against a (fake wooden) gun
 . He suddenly concludes that his powers are gone. This is stupid enough itself, but he fails to use them even after being told it was a trick and the cops are arresting him. Cops with real guns, handcuffs and police cars.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- In the episode "Feeling Pinkie Keen". Twilight Sparkle is forced to take a leap of faith off a cliff to escape a Hydra when she mysteriously forgets she can teleport, as has been seen in at least two previous episodes, including the pilot. This happens anytime the plot requires her to be threatened by some impending doom. It is occasionally justified by her being under a great deal or stress at the time, such as a later example where she is blocked by a simple locked gate. While she can still teleport while under stress (indeed, she does it a lot in one case), her ability to make sound judgments has a tendency to nosedive under certain circumstances, usually those that involve her losing control or worrying too much.
- More a case of Forgot About Her Reputation, but in "It's About Time", it never occurred to Twilight that, as the personal student of the ruler of Equestria, that she would have free access to the royal library. Instead, she tries to sneak in. Of course, Twilight is the only one who forgets this, and when she is recognized by a guard, he amiably greets her and unlocks the door to the restricted section of the library for her. As noted above, this one can be excused by the fact that she hasn't slept for several days and is deep into a nervous breakdown at this point. Paranoid delusions would not be surprising in that state.
- In "The Crystal Empire, part 2" Twilight and Spike need to climb an incredibly long stair-case, and was complaining about it. Just as the viewers are wondering why she doesn't teleport, or at least levitate herself upwards, she decides to instead use a new power; gravity reversal!
- The changelings forget that in their own forms they're capable of flight and a powerful magical head-butt that can shatter concrete. Instead they decide to shapeshift into the ponies which not only robs them of said attack, but also gives the ponies a free shots since they can't tell them apart from the other changelings anymore.
- This happens to a number of characters in X-Men: Evolution. The worst offender is Kitty, who seems to forget that she can become intangible with some regularity. Xavier also seems to forget that he has telepathy sometimes. Wolverine is constantly surprised by people sneaking up on him even through he can smell people from a distance.
- Jake the Dog from Adventure Time often forgets that he has the seemingly unlimited ability to grow, shrink, stretch, and otherwise change his shape. Which would solve the central conflict of many episodes very easily. Unlike most examples of this trope, this is justified: he is an idiot.
- Toph in Avatar The Last Airbender. Despite having highly toned senses through Earthbending she can't figure out that the group is walking into a trap at Lake Laogai or that it's actually Azula and not Ozai waiting for them in The Day of Black Sun. This despite both the trap and Azula being in caves made mostly of rock and dirt.
- Could be justified. Her senses work through detecting vibration. She can feel a human shape, but might not recognize it initially as Ozai (who she never met) or Azula. There's also the possibility of them being stationary, which could lessen her sight depending on how far the vibrations travel.
- In Batman Beyond, how many times does Terry forget about his invisibility device while fighting?
- Ben 10 started out with 10 possible alien forms, each one with their own powers, and only got more as the story went on. Sometimes, the trope is justified by the Omnitrix screwing with him by not giving him the right form, but others he just seems to fail to realize one form would be more fitting than another for a specific situation. Ben 10 Omniverse puts it even further, where he seemed to have forgotten he can just watch the dial to see what form he is about to use.
- Humongousaur stands out as a particular offender. When first introduced, he was a Size Shifter capable of growing to incredible sizes. This ability apparently was forgotten after Vengeance of Vilgax.
- Thanks to Fanderson's Chris Bentley for this one - let's take a look at "The Legend" from Gerry Anderson's Lavender Castle, about a spaceship whose crew is searching for the titular pink-ish abode. If you are a spaceship captain and know where the castle can be seen at a specific time, do you a) have your ship fly directly to that location and wait, or b) have them set you down and walk miles to it? If you said a), you are not Captain Thrice. No wonder Anderson didn't care much for the series.
- Dexter often winds up feeling some karmic justice when he involves himself directly in things he could probably just invent his way around (for instance trying to find out what Dee Dee was doing up in the tree; rather than building some kind of spybot that could go up into the tree on his behalf he instead dresses up as a bird and gets himself trapped, giving Dee Dee the pretense necessary to screw around in his lab).
- Aladdin had this problem with Genie, after the first movie this was explained that he only has "semi-cosmic" powers now, but still...
Real Life
- IT administrators tend to accumulate Admin and God-Mode logins and back-end work-arounds. It isn't uncommon for an IT administrator to forget that they have unrestricted access to a certain program or direct access to its database, leading to much wasted time.
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